The Philosophy Family Tree

Back to Work!

2006-12-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

I've slacked off badly on the maintenance of the family tree of late, but I'm back to work on it now. There are now over 7000 people on the tree. I'm going to get back to putting up a daily orphan to be hunted down, and to responding to additions and corrections on the blog. Thanks to everyone for their ongoing input.

Additions and Corrections II

2006-12-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

This thread is a collecting point for any new information for the philosophy family tree, or for any corrections to the tree. If you know any advisors or advisees of people currently on the tree, post here and I'll add them in. If nothing else, if you aren't already on the tree, give me your advisor's name, and I'll add you.

Departmental Timelines

2006-07-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to adding the "Departmental Histories" section to the Family Tree page, and I'd like also to include timelines for departments, showing who was teaching at a department at any given time. To the right is my first draft attempt at a timeline for my own department (no doubt full of errors and omissions). If you've got dates for people in your department, post them or send them to me and I'll add a timeline for it as well.

Orphan of the Week: David Bidney

2006-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

David Bidney received a doctorate from Yale in 1932, and taught at Indiana from 1950 through his retirement in the 1970's.

Orphan of the Week: Maurice Mandelbaum

2006-06-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Maurice Mandelbaum was born in 1908, and his earliest publications are from 1938. I've seen it asserted that he was mentored by Wolfgang Koehler, but I haven't been able to verify that or determine if the mentoring was a genuine dissertation advising. If he was, that would place him in the Christian Weisse family.

Departmental Histories

2006-04-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

I'd like to start adding to the philosophical genealogy a collection of departmental histories. Minimally, these will be lists of faculty together with the years they spent at the department; more expansively, they mighbt include some narrative description of the significant points in the history of the department.

If anyone wants to write a history of their own department, I can link to it or host it. Otherwise, if you feel like contributing, just add any relevant information to the comments and I'll start compiling it.

Australasian Tree

2006-02-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

David Chalmers has posted the Australasian philosophical family tree.. The contents of Chalmers' tree are also included in the main tree.

Is your preferred nationality/geographical region/philosophical subfield/time period/letter of the alphabet/etc. under-represented on the tree? Create a speciality tree to rectify the problem, and I'll fold it into the main results.

Additions and Corrections

2005-12-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

Myles Burnyeat

2005-11-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

The comment here indicates that Burnyeat did his graduate work at London in the early 1960's. Bernard Williams was at London from 1959 to 1964, so he would seem like a reasonable possibility.

Romane Clark

2005-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

The comments here suggest that Clark may have been a Bergmann student, although I'm not sure how reliable the source is.

Update: Clark has now been listed in the tree under Everett Hall.

Marvin Farber

2005-10-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

Farber received his doctorate from Harvard in 1925. Whitehead didn't start at Harvard until 1924, so he's unlikely to be Farber's director.

Oets Kolk Bouwsma

2005-08-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

Bouwsma was born in 1898, and began teaching at the University of Nebraska in 1928, remaining there until 1968. He was then at the University of Texas until his death in 1978.

Richard Brandt

2005-08-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Brandt received his doctorate from Yale in 1936.

Warner Wick

2005-08-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

Wick received the Quantrell award for excellence in undergraduate teaching from the University of Chicago in 1949, so he was presumably finished with his graduate education by then. I don't know where he did his graduate work, though.

George Schrader

2005-08-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Schrader received his doctorate from Yale in 1945. His dissertation was probably on Kant, but I don't have a title for it.

Rogers Albritton

2005-08-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Albritton received his doctorate from Princeton in 1955. Putnam is a possibility, since he was at Princeton from 1953 to 1961, but it's a bit of a tight fit.

Update: Albritton has now been listed under Robert Scoon in the tree.

Zeno Vendler

2005-08-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

Vendler received his doctorate from Harvard in 1959, with a dissertation titled "Facts and Laws". The most plausible candidates for his advisor look to me to be Dreben, Firth, Albritton, and Scheffler, but I don't have any direct evidence for any of them, and none is a perfect fit.

Update: It looks like Vendler's advisor was probably Paul Ziff. If you know of any reason to doubt this, please let me know, but for now I'm listing it that way in the tree.

Gottlob Frege

2005-08-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

Frege's advisors were mathematicians Ernst Schering and Rudolf Clebsch, but does he have any descendants? I know of a biological descendant (thanks to Catherine Manoukian, via Philip Kremer), but no philosophical ones. Wittgenstein and Carnap are the two closest cases, but for each of them there are more official parents. Is there anyone I'm missing?

Robert Cumming

2005-08-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

Cumming received a doctorate from Chicago in 1950. Nothing else to go on.

Harry Frankfurt

2005-08-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

Frankfurt received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins in 1954. I know that as of the early 1960's, the Johns Hopkins faculty included Ludwig Edelstein, Albert Hammond, Maurice Mandelbaum, George Owen, and Joseph Ullian.

Update: Harry Frankfurt has been placed under Albert Hammond in the tree.

Robert Adams

2005-08-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Adams was born in 1937, so was probably doing his graduate work in the early 1960s. I don't, however, find him listed anywhere on the Review of Metaphysics lists of doctorates granted. I know he was teaching at Michigan by 1970.

Update: Adams has now been placed under Nelson Pike in the tree.

Nelson Goodman

2005-07-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Goodman received his doctorate from Harvard in 1941. He's not listed among the Quine students, so his advisor must have been someone else. His book A Study of Qualities came out in 1941, so I'm assuming it was his dissertation.

Update: I've now put Goodman under C.I. Lewis in the tree.

Gwil Owen

2005-07-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Owen's students at Harvard in the 1960's and 1970's have included Martha Nussbaum, Gail Fine, John Cooper, and Julia Annas. Other than Nussbaum's comments, I don't really know much more about him, including where and when his education was received.

Update: Owen has been placed under Gilbert Ryle in the tree.

Benson Mates

2005-07-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

Mates was teaching at Berkeley at least as far back as 1960. He was born in 1919, so the likely date of his graduate education is around 1944-1950. Nothing else to go on, I'm afraid.

Ledger Wood

2005-07-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to go on here. Some remarks in Rescher's autobiography suggest that Wood might have been his dissertation advisor, and Rescher wrote a dissertation on Leibniz in the 1940s at Princeton. I checked a book of Wood's (The Analysis of Knowledge), and it lists some colleagues in the acknowledgements, but no genealogical influences

Frederic Fitch

2005-07-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Fitch received a doctorate from Yale in 1934. I've no idea who was at Yale in that period doing logic, so I can't even make an educated guess on his teacher. I see that Alan Ross Anderson lists Fitch and von Wright as his principal teachers in the introduction to Entailment -- any information on which of the two was primary, or more official?

Update: I've placed Fitch under Filmer Northrop in the tree, and Anderson under Fitch.

Max Black

2005-07-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

Black was influenced by Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, and Ramsey while an undergraduate at Cambridge, but he received a doctorate from the University of London in 1939, so I'd like to find his advisor for that degree to use for his parentage. Anyone know anything useful?

Update: I've placed Black under Susan Stebbing in the tree.

Herbert Heidelberger

2005-07-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

Heidelberger taught at UMass [thanks to Ben for the correction] from 1967 until his death at 1982. I don't know how far prior to 1967 he received his doctorate (there are publications going back at least to 1963), or where he received it. Anyone know anything more?

Gregory Vlastos

2005-07-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

I know Vlastos received a doctorate from Harvard in 1931, but I have no further information. Does anyone know, or care to speculate on, who his advisor was?

Update: Vlastos refers to Whitehead as his supervisor in the introduction to Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, so I'm going with that.

The Ancients

2005-06-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just for fun, I've added a branch of ancient philosophers to the tree, tracing some (at times rather dubious) lines down from Socrates. If all goes well, perhaps we can eventually hope to link this up with lines working backward. Any ancient specialists who know more details, feel free to chime in.