April - May 1981
Max Black is a Russian-born American analytic and linguist philosopher, Black was Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Human Letters, emeritus, at Cornell University, and President of the International Institute of Philosophy. After studying and teaching in England, he came (1940) to the United States. He taught first at the University of Illinois (1940-46) and then at Cornell. Black's wide-ranging philosophical writings, including Language and Philosophy (1949) and The Labyrinth of Language (1968), reveal a commitment to the clarification of meaning. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein, Black urges close attention to the multiplicity of ordinary uses of words and denies that language is a mirror of reality.
Last Updated: 9/3/09