Saturday, August 15, 2009

My Philosophical Family Tree

I recently discovered The Philosophy Family Tree on the web, put together by Professor Josh Dever of the University of Texas, and was pleased to find my own family tree there. I have some distinguished ancestors. But first, perhaps, some explanation is in order. The tree charts intellectual ancestry--my `father' is my Ph.D. dissertation adviser, the distinguished philosopher of science Paul Humphreys of the University of Virginia, and my `grandfather' is his dissertation adviser at Stanford, Patrick Suppes. The tree traces my line all the way back to someone by the name of Gottfried Leibniz, my `great-to-the-tenth-power-grandfather'. A later ancestor was Immanuel Kant as well as the American philosopher Josiah Royce and the Czech-born American philosopher of science Ernest Nagel.