Paul Weiss (philosopher)
| Paul Weiss | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 19, 1901 New York City |
| Died | July 5, 2002 (aged 101) Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
City College of New York Harvard University |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Process philosophy |
| Institutions |
Yale University Catholic University of America |
|
Main interests
|
Metaphysics |
|
Notable ideas
|
Being consists of a plurality of individuals that are unified by universality, which gives a structure to all there is |
Paul Weiss (May 19, 1901 – July 5, 2002) was an American philosopher. He was the founder of The Review of Metaphysics and the Metaphysical Society of America.
Paul Weiss grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City. His father, Samuel Weiss (d. 1917), was a Hungarian emigrant who moved from Europe in the 1890s. He worked as a tinsmith, a coppersmith, and a boilermaker. Paul Weiss's mother, Emma Rothschild (Weiss) (d. 1915), was a German emigrant who worked as a servant until she married Samuel. Born into a Jewish family, Paul lived among other Jewish families in a working-class neighborhood in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Originally given the Hebrew name "Peretz," Weiss says in his autobiography that the name "Paul" was his "registered name" and "part of his mother's attempt to move upward in the American world." He had three brothers, two older and one younger.
Weiss graduated from Public School #77. He later enrolled at the High School of Commerce where he learned shorthand and how to type; however, he felt that he did not benefit much from the available courses. His grades began to fall, and with a little encouragement from his mother, he eventually dropped out of high school. After working many odd jobs, Weiss enrolled at the College of the City of New York in 1924. He took free night classes in philosophy, graduating cum laude in 1927. At the College of the City of New York, he studied with Morris R. Cohen, who awakened in him an interest in the American pragmatist and logician Charles Sanders Peirce. During this period he also met Victoria Brodkin (d. 1953), whom he later married on October 27, 1928. They had two children: Judith, who was born in 1935, and Jonathan, who was born in 1939.
Upon receiving his B.A. from the City College of New York, Weiss immediately enrolled at Harvard where he studied philosophy under Étienne Gilson, William Ernest Hocking, C. I. Lewis, Ralph Barton Perry, and Alfred North Whitehead. Under the direction of Whitehead, Weiss received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1929. Weiss's first semester at Harvard proved to be a busy one. He volunteered to help Charles Hartshorne in the monumental task of editing the thousands of scattered pages Charles S. Peirce had left behind for publication by Harvard University Press. C. I. Lewis, who was at the time the department chair of philosophy at Harvard, eventually approved Weiss to work alongside Hartshorne for the remainder of the project. The first six volumes of Peirce's work were published between 1931 and 1935. Weiss was mainly responsible for the second, third, and fourth volumes. Two more volumes edited by Arthur Burks appeared in the 1950s. Weiss later founded the scholarly journal The Review of Metaphysics in 1947 and the Metaphysical Society of America in 1950.
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