DILLON, M(artin) C(onboy) 1938–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 7, 1938, in Los Angeles, CA; died of heart failure March 10, 2005, in Verbier, Switzerland. Educator and author. Dillon was a former professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1960, an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, and an M.Phil. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1970 from Yale University. He also served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, where he achieved the rank of captain in 1960. Dillon spent the majority of his career at Binghamton, joining the faculty in 1968 and becoming a tenured professor in 1988. He also directed the undergraduate philosophy program from 1978 to 1990, was acting chair of the department in 1982, and was acting director of the law and society program from 1987 to 1988. In addition, he taught at IBM from 1986 until 1993, the same year he retired from the university. As a philosopher, Dillon was interested in existentialism and the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Honored with a State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1974, he wrote or edited several texts, including Merleau-Ponty's Ontology (1988), Semiological Reductionism: A Critique of the Deconstructionist Movement in Postmodern Thought (1995), and Beyond Romance (2001).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

ONLINE

Binghamton University Department of Philosophy Web site, http://philosophy.binghamton.edu/ (May 9, 2005).

Inside Binghamton University Online, http://inside.binghamton.edu/ (March 17, 2005).