Charles W. Morris
From Philosopedia
Morris, Charles W. (23 May 1903 – 15 January 1979)
Charles William Morris was born in Denver, Colorado. After receiving his B.S. from Northwestern University, he studied with George H. Mead at Chicago University, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1925.
His academic appointments were: 1925-1931, Instructor at Rice Institute; 1931-1947, Associate Professor at the University of Chicago; 1948-1958, Lecturer at the University of Chicago; 1958-1971, Research Professor at the University of Florida.
Morris developed an original form of pragmatism that flowered from his seminal work on semiotics. Morris became deeply involved with the Vienna Circle of logical positivism in the 1930s and participated in the Unity of Science Movement. He organized the Fifth and Sixth International Congresses for the Unity of Science, and his relationships with its German philosophers was essential to bringing many of them to America on outbreak of World War II.
Morris was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as President of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1936-37.
During the 1930s, he and Rudolf Carnap were colleagues until 1952. Morris was an associate editor of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science.
Morris in Foundations of the Theory of Signs described semiotics as being a study of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Some followers of Charles Peirce have complained that Morris had only a superficial understanding of Peirce's semiotic philosophy.
When he signed Humanist Manifesto II, Morris was professor emeritus of the University of Florida. He also taught in the philosophy department at the University of Chicago and the University of Denver.
Morris died in Gainesville, Florida on 15 January 1979.
Morris, who wrote on a variety of topics, was asked to review for The Humanist and responded:
Morris died in Gainesville, Florida.
