John Madison Cooper (November 29, 1939 – August 8, 2022) was an American philosopher who was the Emeritus Henry Putnam University Professor of Philosophy at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

and an expert on

ancient philosophy This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history (). Overview Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures ro ...

Education and career

Cooper earned his Ph.D. at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1967 and taught there until 1971, when he accepted a tenured position in philosophy at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

, where he taught until he moved to Princeton in 1981. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other F ...

in 2001. In 2011, Cooper delivered the

John Locke Lectures The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. Named for British philosopher John Locke, the Locke Lectures are the world's most prestigious lectures in philosophy, and are among the world' ...

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 in 2012, he delivered the

Tanner Lectures on Human Values The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is a multi-university lecture series in the humanities, founded in 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, by the American scholar Obert Clark Tanner. In founding the lecture, he define ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Philosophical work

He is the editor of the Hackett edition of the complete works of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, as well as author of ''Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus'' and a number of other books on ancient Greek philosophy. WorldCat
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Selected books

* ''Reason and Human Good in Aristotle'' (Hackett, 1975) * ''Reason and Emotion'' (1999) * ''Knowledge, Nature, and the Good'' (2004) * ''Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus'' (2012)

Honors

Marshall Scholarship The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarsh ...

References

External links

Princeton University faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, John M. 1939 births 2022 deaths 21st-century American philosophers Princeton University faculty American scholars of ancient Greek philosophy Plato scholars Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard College alumni Presidents of the American Philosophical Association Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Writers from Memphis, Tennessee