Background
Black, Max was born on February 24, 1909 in Baku, Russia. Came to United States, 1940, naturalized, 1948. Son of Lionel and Sophia (Divinska) Black.
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(Book by Black, Max)
Book by Black, Max
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( Over the course of more than six decades as an author, ...)
Over the course of more than six decades as an author, journalist, and professor, Max Lerner studied and assessed many presidents, yet Thomas Jefferson received his most sustained attention. To Lerner, Jefferson came closest in the American context to Plato’s "philosopher-king," the ideal thinker and leader. Because of his keen sense of Jefferson’s virtues and his unique place in United States history, Lerner began work on a book about Jefferson in 1957, rewriting it several times throughout his life, always with the intention of introducing general readers to "a thinker and public figure of enduring pertinence." In this volume, Lerner uses the facts of Jefferson’s life and work as the springboard to insightful analysis and informed assessment. In considering Jefferson, Lerner combines biographical information, historical background, and analytical commentary. The result is a biographical-interpretive volume, a primer about Jefferson that not only describes his accomplishments, but discusses his problems and failures. As political figures have declined in esteem in recent decades, the media has probed deeper into previously private lives. Historians, biographers, and others have revealed personal details about deceased prominent figures. Two centuries after he helped create America, Jefferson remains a figure of enduring fascination within academic circles and beyond. Max Lerner helps explain and clarify not only this unending fascination, but the timeless relevance of the nation’s devoutly democratic yet singularly authentic "philosopher-king."
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(First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylo...)
First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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(First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylo...)
First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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Black, Max was born on February 24, 1909 in Baku, Russia. Came to United States, 1940, naturalized, 1948. Son of Lionel and Sophia (Divinska) Black.
Bachelor, Queens College, University Cambridge, 1930. Student, University Göttingen, 1931. Doctor of Philosophy, University London, 1939.
D.Lit., University London, 1955.
Lecturer, tutor University London Institute Education, 1936-1940. Professor philosophy University Illinois, 1940-1946, Cornell University, 1946, Susan Linn Sage professor philosophy and humane letters, 1954-1977. Professor emeritus Cornell, 1977-1988.
Chairman program for Andrew D. White profs.-at-large, 1965-1978. Director Society for Humanities, 1965-1970. Senior member program Science Technology and Society, since 1971.
Visiting professor University Washington, 1951-1952. Visiting member Princeton Institute Advanced Study, 1970-1971. Visiting fellow St. John's College, Oxford and Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1978.
Tarner lecturer Trinity College, Cambridge, England, 1978.
( Over the course of more than six decades as an author, ...)
(First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylo...)
(First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylo...)
(Book by Black, Max)
(Book by Black, Max)
(Book by MAX BLACK)
(1974 Cornell. Proceedings of a colloquium held in Aspen, ...)
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Author: (with others) Philosophical Studies, 1948, Science and Civilization, 1949, Language and Philosophy, 1949, The Nature of Mathematics, 1950, Critical Thinking, review edition, 1952, Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, (with P. T. Geach), 1952, Problems of Analysis, 1954, Models and Metaphors, 1962, A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, 1964, The Labyrinth of Language, 1968, Margins of Precision, 1970, Caveats and Critiques, 1975, The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays, 1983. Editor: Philosophical Rev, since 1946, Philosophical Analysis, 1950, The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons, 1961, The Importance of Language, 1962, Philosophy in America, 1965, The Morality of Scholarship, 1967, Problems of Choice and Decision, 1975.
Black’s forte was the essay, and most of his published books are collections of his essays. He was fascinated by puzzles of all kinds, and had a special talent for thinking up imaginative examples. He made contributions of importance to a wide range of subjects.
These include his work on vagueness. On metaphor, which took him into literary criticism and the understanding of poetry. His contributions to the understanding of scientific method and of the nature of a definition of scientific method.
The validation of inductive inference. Zeno’s and other paradoxes. The justification of logical axioms and the concept of justification itself.
Black conceived of his work early in his career as linguistic analysis.
Forty years later he was speaking of conceptual clarification, which he dubbed "the articulation of concepts’. There was a change in name, but not much in style or method.
and there was also a shift in interest to questions °f rationality and reasonableness, conjoined with an attempt to work out the rudiments of a theory of practical reasoning and of the concept of humaneness. Throughout his career he provided jncisive critical comment on the work of his bestknown contemporaries.
On his own interests he said: ‘There is work aplenty for semantic hygiene 0r the clarification of concepts.’
Although he ‘never.. belonged to any Philosophical school’. Black none the less conessed an affinity for the philosophy of common sense of Reid and Moore, if with certain demurrers and provisos. He confessed ‘to a strong belief that common-sense convictions.. are more likely to be nght than the skeptical objections of even the greatest philosophers’.
He once said, The task of he moral philosopher is to solve the moral Problems of his society’, and in the latter part of Is career he was beginning to turn in this ■rection. One reviewer characterized him in this Way: ‘a trenchant intellect and a flawless exposilory style’. All his life he was in search of clarity and more than once contemplated using that expression as the title of one of his collections.
He >d not, in the end, do so, but the phrase marks the aracter of the philosophical enterprise as he cngaged in it. Another reviewer said: ‘Keen and sound criticism employing arguments which jt"ght be used by a philosopher of any school—if e had the acumen to marshal them and the ■terary skill thus to present them.’ This was said a out his first collection of essays. It could be said ahout all of them.
°urces: Obituary notice.
Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 64, 1991, pp. 61-2; "WtAni) 1984-1985. Who Was Who in America 1985-1989.
Biographical pala and bibliography supplied by Black in 1963-1964;
r°fs W. H. Hay and F. L. Will. Personal communication.
Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member American Philosophical Association (president 1958), Aristotelian Society, International Institute Philosophy (vice president 1970, president 1981-1984).
Philosophy of language. Philosophy of science. Philosophy of mathematics.
Personal influences include Ramsey, Moore, Wittgenstein, Hilbert, Bemays, W. Empson, J. Bronowski, C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards, L. S. Stebbing and A. E. Murphy. Literary influences include Peirce, James, Russell. Frege, Carnap, Keynes, Ryle and Brentano.
Married Michal Landsberg, August 21, 1933. Children: Susan Naomi, Jonathan.
