Richard Popkin

Richard Popkin
Born December 27, 1923
Manhattan, New York
Died April 14, 2005(2005-04-14) (aged 81)
Los Angeles, California
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Scepticism, Pyrrhonian skepticism
Main interests
 History of philosophy, Seventeenth century, Eighteenth century, Jewish philosophers, Jewish philosophy, millenarianism and messianism
Notable ideas
 Influence of Pyrrhonian skepticism on Western thought

Richard Henry Popkin (/ˈpɑːpkɪn/; December 27, 1923 – April 14, 2005) was an academic philosopher who specialized in the history of enlightenment philosophy and early modern anti-dogmatism. His 1960 work The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes [1] introduced one previously unrecognized influence on Western thought in the seventeenth century, the Pyrrhonian Scepticism of Sextus Empiricus. Popkin also was an internationally acclaimed scholar on Jewish and Christian millenarianism and messianism.

Life

Richard Popkin was born in Manhattan to Louis and author Zelda Popkin, who jointly ran a small public relations firm. He earned his Bachelor's degree and, in 1950, his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at American universities, including the University of Connecticut, The University of Iowa, Harvey Mudd College, the University of California, San Diego, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of California Los Angeles. He was visiting professor at University of California Berkeley, Brandeis University, Duke University, Emory University, Tel Aviv University, and was Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York. Popkin was the founding director of the International Archives of the History of Ideas.

Among his honors, Popkin was awarded the Nicholas Murray Butler Medal by Columbia University and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was president emeritus and founding editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Richard Popkin spent his later years living in Pacific Palisades, California. He died of emphysema in Los Angeles in April 2005. His papers have been archived at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA.

Family

Professor Popkin is survived by Juliet (née Greenstone), whom he married in 1944, and two of their three children, the historian Jeremy Popkin (b. 1948) and his younger daughter, Susan Popkin (b. 1961). Margaret Popkin (1950–2005) was a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist, known particularly for her work in El Salvador during the civil war of the 1980s.

Works

Popkin published many textbooks on philosophy, some with Avrum Stroll. He was editor and translator of selections from Pierre Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary (1965). His last book, Disputing Christianity (2007) was completed posthumously by his son Jeremy.

Popkin published two autobiographical writings: Intellectual Autobiography: Warts and All in The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy. Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin, 1988, pp. 103–149, and a continuation: Introduction: Warts and All Part 2, in Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in His Honor, 1999, pp. XI-LXXVI.

Beyond his philosophical works, he is noted for writing The Second Oswald (1966), questioning the Warren Report lone gunman explanation of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Popkin's theory was that a look-alike of Lee Harvey Oswald was the actual assassin of Kennedy.[2]

Selected bibliography

Works authored
Works edited
Non-academic works
Essays in honor of R. H. Popkin

See also

References

  1. ↑ Later editions are enlarged and so have slightly different titles
  2. ↑ "'Oswald was not alone'". The Age. Melbourne. July 18, 1966. p. 4. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
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