Robert Nola (25 June 1940 - 23 October 2022) was a New Zealand philosophy academic, and was an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

. His work focussed on the philosophy and history of science, on epistemology and on metaphysics.

Early life

Nola's mother was New Zealand-born and his father was an immigrant from Dalmatia in

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

. His family were nominally Catholic, his mother becoming a Catholic to marry his father. Nola attended a state school, rather than a Catholic school. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Auckland.

Academic career

After a 1968 PhD titled ''Theoretical change in the physical sciences: a study of theory reduction and theory replacement in science'' at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

, Nola moved to the

, rising to full professor. Nola was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

in 2009 and was a Fellow of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities. In July 2021, in the context of a review of the NCEA (New Zealand's National Curriculum), Nola, along with six other University of Auckland Professors and Emeritus Professors published a controversial letter "In Defence of Science" in the ''New Zealand Listener''. Along with Professor Garth Cooper, Nola resigned from the Royal Society Te Āparangi in March 2022 regarding the controversy.

Selected works

* Nola, Robert (1988). ''Relativism and Realism in Science''. Springer. * Nola, Robert (1998). ''Foucault''. F. Cass. * Nola, Robert, and Howard Sankey (2000). ''After Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method''. Springer. * Nola, Robert (2003). ''Rescuing Reason: A Critique of Anti-rationalist Views of Science and Knowledge''. Kluwer. * Nola, Robert, and Gürol Irzik (2006). ''Philosophy, Science, Education and Culture''. Vol. 28. Springer Science & Business Media. * David Braddon-Mitchell, Robert Nola (2008). "Introducing the Canberra Plan". In ''Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism''. MIT Press. * Irzik, Gürol, and Robert Nola (2011). "A family resemblance approach to the nature of science for science education". ''Science & Education'' 20, no. 7: 591-607. * Nola, Robert, and Howard Sankey (2014). ''Theories of Scientific Method: An Introduction''. Routledge. * Irzik, Gürol, and Robert Nola (2014). "New directions for nature of science research". In ''International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching'', pp. 999–1021. Dordrecht: Springer. * Nola, R. (2018). Demystifying Religious Belief. In H. van Eyghen, R. Peels, G. van den Brink (Eds.) ''New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion: The Rationality of Religious Belief'' (pp. 71-92). Heidelberg: Springer. * Nola, R. (2019). Definition: Atheism. In J. Koterski, G. Oppy (Eds.) ''Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy'' (pp. 19-34). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nola, Robert Living people New Zealand philosophers 1940 births Australian National University alumni University of Auckland faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand