Irving Singer (December 24, 1925 – February 1, 2015) was an American professor of philosophy who was on the faculty of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

for 55 years and wrote over 20 books. He was the author of books on various topics, including cinema, love, sexuality, and the philosophy of

George Santayana Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (; December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a Spanish and US-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised ...

. He also wrote on the subject of film, including writings about the work of film directors Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock.

Biography

Singer was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York City, on December 24, 1925; his parents were Isadore and Nettie Stromer Singer, Jewish immigrants from

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, who owned a grocery store in Coney Island. Singer skipped three

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also ref ...

s in school, graduating from Manhattan's

Townsend Harris High School Townsend Harris High School at Queens College (THHS) is a public magnet high school for the humanities in the borough of Queens in New York City. Students and alumni often refer to themselves as "Harrisites." Townsend Harris consistently ranks a ...

at age 15. He entered the U.S. Army, serving in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, writing ''History of the 210th Field Artillery Group'', which was published by the Army in 1945. After studying for a short time at Brooklyn College before the war and attending

Biarritz American University In May 1945, the U.S. Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilized American service men and women in Florence, Italy. Two further campuses were later established, in August 194 ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

just after the war, Singer went to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

on the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, was elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

, and graduated summa cum laude with an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in 1948. He did his graduate studies at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

and Harvard, receiving his PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 1952. Singer taught briefly at Harvard,

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 ...

, the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. He joined the

in 1958, first as a lecturer, but then promoted to associate professor in 1959, and full professor at 1967. Among the many subjects Singer taught at

were: Philosophy of Love in the Western World, Film as Visual and Literary Philosophy, and The Nature of Creativity. He died in 2015, aged 89.

Awards

* Four prize essays and other student awards, Harvard University * ACLS Research Scholar, 1949–1950 * Post-doctoral Fulbright Research Scholar, 1955–1956 * Bollingen Grant-in-aid, 1958, 1959, 1965 * The Hudson Review Fellow in Criticism, 1958–1959 * Guggenheim Fellowship, 1965–1966 * ACLS Grant-in-aid, 1966 * Fellow of the Villa I Tatti, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy, 1965–1967 * Bollingen Fellowship, 1966–1967 * Rockefeller Foundation Grant, 1970 * Balliol College/MIT Exchange, Oxford University, 1999 * Fellow, European Humanities Research Centre, Oxford University, 1999–2004

Published works

By Singer

* ''Santayana's Aesthetics: A Critical Analysis'' (1957) * ''The Goals of Human Sexuality'' (1973) * ''Mozart and Beethoven: The Concept of Love in Their Operas'' (1977) * ''The Nature of Love Volume 1: Plato to Luther'' (1984) * ''The Nature of Love Volume 2: Courtly and Romantic'' (1984) * ''The Nature of Love Volume 3: The Modern World'' (1987) * ''Meaning in Life: The Creation of Value'' (1992, 1996) * ''Meaning in Life Volume 2: The Pursuit of Love'' (1994) * ''Meaning in Life Volume 3: The Harmony of Nature and Spirit'' (1996) * ''Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning and Technique'' (1998) * ''George Santayana, Literary Philosopher'' (2000) * ''Feeling and Imagination: The Vibrant Flux of Our Existence'' (2001) * ''Explorations in Love and Sex'' (2001) * ''Sex: A Philosophical Primer'' (2001, expanded edition: 2004) * ''Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir'' (2004) * ''Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on his Creativity'' (2007) * ''Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film'' (2008) * '' Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-Up'' (2009) * ''Modes of Creativity: Philosophical Perspectives'' (2011)

About Singer

* ''The Nature and Pursuit of Love: The Philosophy of Irving Singer'' (Prometheus Books, 1995) — based on academic papers presented at a three-day conference about Singer at

Brock University Brock University is a public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada's Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The university bears t ...

in 1991

References

External links

MIT philosophy: faculty: Irving Singer
— main faculty biography

on the M.I.T. Faculty Bibliographies site
Curriculum vitae
on the MIT website
The Irving Singer Library
at

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

; Reviews
Reviews by Singer and replies by Singer
in the ''

New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

''
Review of Singer, ''Three Philosophical Filmmakers''
by

Daniel Ross Daniel Ross may refer to: * Daniel Ross (actor) (born 1980), American actor, voice actor, and producer * Daniel Ross (philosopher) (born 1970), Australian philosopher and filmmaker * Daniel Ross (marine surveyor) (1780–1849), president of the Bom ...

Review of Singer, ''Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher'' and ''Cinematic Mythmaking''
by Daniel Ross

by Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith ; Video * — Irving Singer course lecture, derived from the

MIT OpenCourseWare MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anyw ...

project {{DEFAULTSORT:Singer, Irving American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent 1925 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Jewish American writers Jewish philosophers Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty Rockefeller Fellows Writers from Brooklyn Townsend Harris High School alumni Brooklyn College alumni Fulbright alumni