Lieb, Irwin Chester 1925-1992

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LIEB, Irwin Chester 1925-1992

PERSONAL: Born November 9, 1925, in Newark, NJ; died May 23, 1992 in Pasadena, CA; son of Moses Lewis and Gussie (Krytzer) Lieb; married Martha Isabel Simonson, August 23, 1960 (divorced); children: Michael Adam, Gordon Nichols. Education: Attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Princeton University, A.B., 1947; Cornell University, A.M., 1949; Yale University, Ph.D., 1953.

CAREER: Yale University, New Haven, CT, instructor, then assistant professor of philosophy, 1953-59; Connecticut College, New London, professor of philosophy, 1959-63; University of Texas at Austin, professor of philosophy, 1963-81, vice president and graduate dean, 1975-79; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, professor of philosophy, 1981-92, vice president and dean of College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, 1981-86; University of Judaism, past member of board of governors; past member of executive committee, Council on Graduate Schools and National Commission on Research. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1943-45.

MEMBER: American Philosophy Association, Metaphysical Society (councillor, 1968-70), Philosophy Education Society (director), Southwestern Philosophical Society (president, 1971).

AWARDS, HONORS: Morse fellowship, Yale University, 1956; American Council of Learned Societies, fellow, 1964; McCosh Prize for philosophy, Princeton University.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Letters to Lady Welby, Whitlock (New Haven, CT), 1953.

(Editor and contributor) Experience, Existence, and the Good: Essays in Honor of Paul Weiss, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1961.

The Four Faces of Man: A Philosophical Study of Practice, Reason, Art, and Religion, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1971.

Past, Present, and Future: A Philosophical Essay about Time, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1991.

Author of monographs. Contributor to various periodical publications.

SIDELIGHTS: Irwin Chester Lieb oversaw twenty-one Ph.D. dissertations during his eighteen years at the University of Texas at Austin. While at Texas he rose to chairman of the philosophy department, dean of the graduate school and a vice president.

Lieb, who left Texas to become a professor and vice president at the University of Southern California, took special interest in Charles Peirce, whose system of philosophy became known as pragmatism. Lieb wrote two books and edited two others, including a compilation of Peirce's letters to Lady Welby.

Lieb was working on two other books when he died in 1992.