Education
Mates studied philosophy and mathematics at the University of Oregon, Cornell University, and the University of California at Berkeley.
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Benson Mates
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From 1948 until his retirement in 1989, he was a professor of philosophy at Berkeley. He remained Professor Emeritus of philosophy at University of California at Berkeley until his death. Mates"s 1948 dissertation, "On the Logic of the Old Stoa", formed the basis for his 1953 book Stoic Logic, of which Peter Geach wrote, "Stoic logic is a difficult subject Doctor Mates"s monograph is a strenuous and successful effort to overcome these difficulties." Mates"s 1965 book, Elementary Logic, remains a widely used introductory textbook in symbolic logic.
His 1986 study of Leibniz is also highly regarded.
He argues that the major problems of philosophy (such as the liar paradox, the existence of an external world, and free will) are intelligible and non-trivial yet utterly defy solution. Unlike the classical Pyrrhonists, however, Mates finds that skeptical arguments lead to unsatisfactory perplexity rather than ataraxia.
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In his own philosophical work, Mates defends a stance akin to Pyrrhonian skepticism.
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Born
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Died
March 14, 2009 (aged 89) -
Nationality
United States