Max Black

For other people named Max Black, see Max Black (disambiguation).

Max Black
Born	(1909-02-24)February 24, 1909 Baku, Russian Empire
Died	August 27, 1988(1988-08-27) (aged 79) Ithaca, New York, U.S.
Nationality	British American
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge
Notable work	The Identity of Indiscernibles
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy
Institutions	Institute of Education University of Illinois Cornell University
Main interests	Philosophy of language Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of science Philosophy of art
Notable ideas	Criticism of Leibniz' law

Max Black (February 24, 1909 – August 27, 1988) was an Azerbaijan-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mathematics and science, and the philosophy of art, also publishing studies of the work of philosophers such as Frege. His translation (with Peter Geach) of Frege's published philosophical writing is a classic text.

Early life and education

Black was born on February 24, 1909, in Baku, in present-day Azerbaijan. He is of Jewish descent. In 1912, he moved with his family to London, where he grew up.

He studied mathematics at Queens' College at the University of Cambridge, where he developed an interest in the philosophy of mathematics. Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, and Frank P. Ramsey were all at Cambridge at that time, and their influence on Black may have been considerable. He graduated in 1930, and was awarded a fellowship to study at Göttingen for a year.

Career

From 1931 to 1936, he was mathematics master at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle.

His first book was The Nature of Mathematics (1933), an exposition of Principia Mathematica and of current developments in the philosophy of mathematics.

Black made notable contributions to the metaphysics of identity. In his "The Identity of Indiscernibles", Black presents an objection to Leibniz' Law by means of a hypothetical scenario in which he conceives two distinct spheres having exactly the same properties, thereby contradicting Leibniz' second principle in his formulation of "The Identity of Indiscernibles". By virtue of there being two objects, albeit with identical properties, the existence of two objects, even in a void, denies their identicality.

He lectured in mathematics at the Institute of Education in London from 1936 to 1940. In 1940 he moved to the United States and joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In 1946, he accepted a professorship in philosophy at Cornell University. In 1948, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Black advised the philosophy dissertation of American novelist William H. Gass. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.

Death

Black died in Ithaca, New York age 79. His younger brother was the architect Misha Black.

Selected bibliography

• Max Black, (1933) The Nature of Mathematics: A Critical Survey
• Black, Max (1937). "Vagueness: An exercise in logical analysis". Philosophy of Science 4: 427–55. Reprinted in R. Keefe, P. Smith (eds.): Vagueness: A Reader, MIT Press 1997, ISBN 978-0262611459
• Black, Max (1938). "The Evolution of Positivism" Modern Quarterly, Vol. 1. No. 1.
• Black, Max (1946). Critical Thinking, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, Prentice-Hall Inc. Publishers, Prentice-Hall Philosophy Series, New York
• Black, Max (1949). Language and philosophy: Studies in method, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Black, Max (1954). "Metaphor", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55, pp. 273–94.
• Black, Max (1954). Problems of Analysis: Philosophical Essays, Cornell University Press
• Black, Max. "Linguistic relativity: The views of benjamin lee whorf", The Philosophical Review. Vol. 68, No. 2, (April 1959). pp. 228–38.
• Black, Max (1962). Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Black, Max (1964). A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Cornell University Press
• Black, Max (1968). The Labyrinth of Language, Praeger
• Black, Max (1970). Margins of Precision: Essays in Logic and Language, Cornell University Press
• Black, Max (1975). Caveats and Critiques: Philosophical Essays in Language, Logic, and Art, Cornell University Press
• Black, Max (1979). "More about Metaphor", in A. Ortony (ed): Metaphor & Thought.
• Black, Max (1981). Language and Philosophy: Studies in Method, Praeger
• Black, Max (1985). The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays, Cornell University Press
• Black, Max (1990). Perplexities: Rational Choice, the Prisoner's Dilemma, Metaphor, Poetic Ambiguity, and Other Puzzles, Cornell University Press

External links

• M.H. Abrams, Sydney S. Shoemaker, Benjamin M. Siegel, Milton E. Konvitz, "Max Black" Cornell University Memorial Statement (1998)
• O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E.F., "Max Black: Biography", School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland.
• Biography at the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
• Guide to the Max Black Papers, Cornell University Library
• The Prevalence of Humbug, The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays (Cornell University Press, 1983).