Robert Nozick
From Philosopedia
Nozick, Robert (16 November 1938 - 23 January 2002)
Nozick, a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, has been described as being one of the most important of the contemporary secular philosophers. The Brooklyn-born scholar was educated at Columbia, Princeton, and Oxford
An unbeliever, he wrote Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974); Philosophical Explanations (1981); The Nature of Rationality (1993), called by Prof. Russell Hardin of the University of Chicago, “an articulate defence of a barebones libertarianism”; and Socratic Puzzles (1997). Hardin has written that Nozick is notable for his cogent work on decision theory, epistemology, theory of value, and the good life. The state cannot have a very large role in the economy and society if the libertarian rights of individuals are to prevail, he holds. His defense of libertarianism was major.
Nozick was President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophic Association 1997-1998.
He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1994. In the spring of 1997, he delivered the six John Locke Lectures at Oxford University. He held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He was survived by his wife, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, and his two children, Emily Sarah Nozick and David Joshua Nozick.
Nozick was buried in a private ceremony.
