Robert Nozick, R.I.P.
Feb. 7th, 2002 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eubNozick died in January, on the 23rd. (I just heard, from At The Margin.)
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/01.17/99-nozick.html
I first encountered him because of his writings about Newcomb's paradox; I think a Martin Gardner collection included his guest "Mathematical Games" column on the paradox. His book The Examined Life I remember fondly for his light touch and wide range. All of the obituaries lean heavily on Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I haven't read that one, because I suspect I'll find it irrelevant; from his and others' discussion it sounds heavily "ought", more like the classic philosophical castles-on-castles-on-castles-on-air style of work than his later epistemologically humbler style. (I don't have much interest, beyond debate for fun, in whether government is a good idea in the abstract; I just think in practice it's a crude and risky way to organize a society.) Maybe I'll read it (I do have this questionable habit of being reminded that an author exists by their death) but probably I'll get to his last book first.
I think I'd have liked him if I'd met him.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/01.17/99-nozick.html
I first encountered him because of his writings about Newcomb's paradox; I think a Martin Gardner collection included his guest "Mathematical Games" column on the paradox. His book The Examined Life I remember fondly for his light touch and wide range. All of the obituaries lean heavily on Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I haven't read that one, because I suspect I'll find it irrelevant; from his and others' discussion it sounds heavily "ought", more like the classic philosophical castles-on-castles-on-castles-on-air style of work than his later epistemologically humbler style. (I don't have much interest, beyond debate for fun, in whether government is a good idea in the abstract; I just think in practice it's a crude and risky way to organize a society.) Maybe I'll read it (I do have this questionable habit of being reminded that an author exists by their death) but probably I'll get to his last book first.
I think I'd have liked him if I'd met him.
