Benson Mates (May 19, 1919 in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

– May 14, 2009 in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

) was an

American philosopher This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States. {, border="0" style="margin:auto;" class="toccolours" , - ! {{MediaWiki:Toc , - , style="text-al ...

, noted for his work in

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...

, the

history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, and

skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...

. Mates studied philosophy and mathematics at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc Nike, Inc. ( or ) is a ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, and the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. Some of his teachers included J. Barkley Rosser, Harold Cherniss, and

Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...

. From 1948 until his retirement in 1989, he was a professor of philosophy at Berkeley. He remained Professor Emeritus of philosophy at University of California at Berkeley until his death. Mates's 1948 dissertation, "On the Logic of the Old Stoa", formed the basis for his 1953 book ''Stoic Logic'', of which

Peter Geach Peter Thomas Geach (29 March 1916 – 21 December 2013) was a British philosopher who was Professor of Logic at the University of Leeds. His areas of interest were philosophical logic, ethics, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion and ...

wrote, "Stoic logic is a difficult subject ..Dr. Mates's monograph is a strenuous and successful effort to overcome these difficulties." Mates's 1965 book, ''Elementary Logic'', remains a widely used introductory textbook in

symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...

. His 1986 study of

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...

is also highly regarded. In his own philosophical work, Mates defends a stance akin to Pyrrhonian skepticism. He argues that the major problems of philosophy (such as the

liar paradox In philosophy and logic, the classical liar paradox or liar's paradox or antinomy of the liar is the statement of a liar that they are lying: for instance, declaring that "I am lying". If the liar is indeed lying, then the liar is telling the truth ...

, the existence of an external world, and

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

) are intelligible and non-trivial yet utterly defy solution. Unlike the classical Pyrrhonists, however, Mates finds that skeptical arguments lead to unsatisfactory perplexity rather than

ataraxia ''Ataraxia'' (Greek: ἀταραξία, from ("a-", negation) and ''tarachē'' "disturbance, trouble"; hence, "unperturbedness", generally translated as "imperturbability", " equanimity", or "tranquility") is a Greek term first used in Ancient ...

.''Ibid''., p. 158.

Works

* ''Stoic Logic'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953 (second revised edition 1961). * ''Elementary Logic'', 1965, second edition New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. * ''Skeptical Essays'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. * ''The Philosophy of Leibniz. Metaphysics and Language'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. * ''The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mates, Benson 1919 births 2009 deaths University of Oregon alumni Cornell University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Philosophers from California Philosophers from Oregon American logicians

Works

See also

References