Rolf Schock (; 5 April 1933 – 5 December 1986) was a Swedish–American philosopher and artist, born in

Cap-d'Ail Cap-d'Ail (; ; or ''Capo d'Aglio'') is a seaside Communes of France, commune in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region in Southeastern France. Geography Cap-d'Ail bor ...

, France of German parents.

Biography

Schock was born at

on the French Riviera. His parents, who had left Germany, would eventually settle in the United States, where Schock would go on to obtain a bachelor's degree in geology at the University of New Mexico."Rolf Schock"
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. After completing a

bachelor of arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in 1955, he pursued studies in

philosophy 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

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

from 1956 to 1960 at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

, first in Berkeley and then in Los Angeles (UCLA), and in 1960 moved to

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, to specialize in theoretical philosophy at

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

with a particular interest in free logic. He was awarded an intermediate post-graduate degree in 1964 and a Ph.D. During the period 1964–1969 he also studied at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in

and he dedicated a lot of his time to painting and photography in addition to conducting research. He led a simple life as an independent scholar who was devoted to researching the field of

and related areas in philosophy, and never held a permanent position, earning a living by temporary teaching assignments at universities and night-schools. For some years he was affiliated with the Royal Institute of Technology in

, where he taught a series of courses. In 1986 Schock was killed in an accident in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. To much surprise he left a large estate. Schock bequeathed half of the funds for prizes in the arts and sciences, and beginning in 1993, Schock Prizes () instituted by his will are awarded every two or three years. In his later life Schock criticized Albert Einstein's

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical ph ...

Selected publications

*''Logics Without Existence Assumptions'' (1968) *''New Foundations for Concept Theory'' (1969)
''The Inconsistency of the Theory of Relativity''
(1981) *''On the Nature of Time'' (1983)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schock, Rolf 1933 births 1986 deaths 20th-century Swedish philosophers Relativity critics Swedish logicians Swedish philosophers Stockholm University alumni University of New Mexico alumni