Abraham Edel (6 December 1908 – 22 June 2007) was a North American

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and ethicist. He was the younger brother of the North American

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

Leon Edel Joseph Leon Edel (1907 – 1997) was an American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls Edel "the foremost 20th-century authority ...

, and the uncle of the composer Joel Mandelbaum. He was married three times; his first two wives were fellow academics and co-authors, the anthropologist May Mandelbaum Edel, the philosopher Elizabeth Flower, and Sima Szaluta respectively. He had two children Deborah Edel, a founder of the

Lesbian Herstory Archives The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) is a New York City-based archive, community center, and museum dedicated to preserving history of lesbianism, lesbian history, located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Archives contain the world's largest collection ...

, and Matthew Edel, an Economist. Born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, he grew up in

Yorkton, Saskatchewan Yorkton is a city located in south-eastern Saskatchewan, Canada. It is about north-west of Winnipeg and south-east of Saskatoon and is the sixth largest city in the province. Yorkton was founded in 1882 and incorporated as a city in 1928. ...

. Edel attended

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He taught at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

for more than 40 years, and then held a research appointment at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

until his death. He was the recipient of numerous academic honors.

Selected bibliography

* ''Ethical Judgment: The Use of Science in Ethics'' (1955) * ''Method in Ethical Theory'' (1963) * ''Anthropology and Ethics'' (1959) (with May Mandelbaum Edel) * ''Exploring Fact and Value'' (1980) * ''Analyzing Concepts in Social Science'' (1979) * ''The Struggle for Academic Democracy: Lessons from the 1938 "Revolution" in New York's City Colleges'' (1990) * ''Critique of Applied Ethics: Reflections and Recommendations'' (1994) (with Elizabeth Flower and Finbarr W. O'Connor) * ''Ethical Theory and Social Change'' (2001)

References

External links

Obituary at the CUNY Graduate Center
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070828114521/http://www.phil.upenn.edu/faculty/edel/ University of Pennsylvania faculty listingbr>Abraham Edel Papers, 1925-1974
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center 1908 births 2007 deaths {{US-philosopher-stub