Nozick, Robert 1938-2002

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NOZICK, Robert 1938-2002

PERSONAL: Born November 16, 1938, in Brooklyn, NY; died of stomach cancer, January 23, 2002, in Cambridge, MA; son of Max (a manufacturer) and Sophie (Cohen) Nozick; married Barbara Claire Fiere (a teacher), August 15, 1959; children: Emily Sarah, David Joshua. Education: Columbia University, A.B., 1959; Princeton University, A.M., 1961, Ph.D., 1963. Politics: Libertarian. Religion: Jewish.

CAREER: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, assistant professor of philosophy, 1962-63, 1964-65; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor of philosophy, 1965-67; Rockefeller University, New York, NY, associate professor of philosophy, 1967-69; Harvard University, professor of philosophy, beginning 1969, named University Professor, 1998. Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1971-72.

MEMBER: American Association of University Professors, American Civil Liberties Union, American Philosophical Association, Society for Ethical and Legal Philosophy, Jewish Vegetarian Society, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Book Award, 1975, for Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, Phi Beta Kappa, 1982, for Philosophical Explanations.

WRITINGS:

Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1974.

Philosophical Explanations, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1981.

The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

The Normative History of Individual Choice, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

The Nature of Rationality, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1993.

Socratic Puzzles, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World, Belknap Press (Cambridge, MA), 2001.

The 2001 Annotated Competition Act, Carswell (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

Contributor to professional journals. Member of editorial board, Philosophy and Public Affairs, beginning 1971.

SIDELIGHTS: Robert Nozick established his reputation as an advocate of radical libertarianism—the political tenet that argues for maximum individual rights and minimal government involvement. Nozick's death in early 2002 silenced the voice of "one of the great philosophers of our day," in the words of New Statesman contributor Nicholas Fearn.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Nozick was the son of Jewish immigrants, and he often described himself as just one generation from the shtetl (the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe). Nozick's penchant for philosophy emerged at an early age. "When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's Republic, front cover facing outward," he was once quoted in the Harvard Gazette. "I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful." As a Princeton graduate student in the 1960s, Nozick had already formed his personality and his philosophy; he was "known as the visiting professor's ordeal," noted an Economist writer. "However deeply the eminent guest had thought through the counterarguments and rejoinders, young Mr. Nozick could be relied on to spot a hole in the [defenses] and work away at it until the structure of argument lay in ruins."

After serving an instructor's post at Princeton University, Nozick began his Harvard University career, beginning as an assistant professor and eventually being named University Professor, an honorary post awarded to faculty members whose work crosses the boundaries of different disciplines. As the author of several philosophical books, Nozick is best remembered for Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which won the National Book Award in 1975. This work, said Alasdair Palmer of Spectator, was "a revelation. Here was a work that uses all the latest gadgetry of analytical philosophy, yet, unlike all the other books of analytical philosophy, is not just intelligible, but is actually readable, even enjoyable." This is not to say that the book wasn't controversial. Anarchy, State, and Utopia argued for a kind of absolute right of the individual, the right "to use whatever powers he has for whatever purposes he chooses," as Palmer described it. "The subtext is over-whelming: morals are only for suckers, for those too stupid to have 'seen through' them."

Critics would point to the contradictions of such complete freedom. "Do employers' rights to hire and fire nullify totally workers' rights to jobs?" asked a contributor to Encyclopedia of World Biography. "Are rights to food, housing, health care, and protection from poverty in old age as important as the right to amass a fortune?" Noting that Nozick was a vegetarian, the essayist also wondered, "what human rights should be restricted for the sake of animal rights?" Nozick, the essayist added, admitted that his thesis was "unfinished," but "he was clear on the main point: it is no more the business of the state to distribute wealth than to distribute mates for marriage."

The books following Anarchy, State, and Utopia leaned more toward pure philosophy than politics; the author would joke "that he did not want to write 'Anarchy, State and Utopia II,'" said the Economist writer. In 1981 Nozick produced Philosophical Explanations, "best remembered for an ingenious argument against scepticism, and for a dispositional account of knowledge as true belief that would reliably stick with the truth (or self-correct) as relevant circumstances changed." Nozick's last major book before his death, 2001's Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World, is "an ambitious, stimulating effort to revitalize the notions of truth and objectivity in a way that takes account of contemporary physics and biology," according to a Publishers Weekly critic. Robert Hoffman of Library Journal had a more reserved view, saying that Invariances's reliance on "unanswered questions, numerous parenthetical hints, and frequent indefinite suggestions" made the author's conclusions a challenge to uncover.

"Philosophy," Nozick wrote in Invariances, "begins in wonder"; to the Economist writer, the author "had a Romantic streak, both in his Utopian vision of society and in his conduct of philosophy. But this Byronic restlessness was the fault of his virtues: rare fluency and audacity—a fearless readiness to follow an idea where it led. Like any endeavor, philosophy needs explorers as well as mapmakers. As [Nozick] liked to say, there is room for words that are not last words."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, September, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 428.

American Political Science Review, December, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 1289; September, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 745.

American Scholar, winter, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 816; summer, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 426; summer, 1990, review of The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations, p. 458.

American Spectator, January, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 11; December, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 30.

Antioch Review, summer, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 377.

Booklist, December 1, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 708.

Canadian Philosophical Reviews, February, 1993, review of The Examined Life, p. 47; June, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 195.

Choice, January, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 638; January, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 803.

Christian Century, June 13, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 608.

Commentary, September, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 55; April, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 68.

Commonweal, January 15, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 24; November 30, 1984, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 663.

Dialogue, fall, 1999, John Skorupski, "In a Socratic Way," p. 871.

Economist, April 26, 1986, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 98.

Esquire, May, 1994, review of The Examined Life, p. 138.

Ethics, April, 1995, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 659.

Harvard Educational Review, February, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 82.

International Philosophical Quarterly, December, 1995, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 491; September, 1998, review of Socratic Puzzles, p. 340.

Journal of Economic Literature, March, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 195.

Journal of Philosophy, December, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 819.

Journal of Political Economy, June, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 574.

Journal of Politics, August, 1985, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 996.

Journal of Religion, January, 1985, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 133.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 857; October 1, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 1454.

Library Journal, November 1, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 142; December, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 127; May 15, 1993, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 71; September 1, 2001, Robert Hoffman, review of Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World, p. 183.

London Review of Books, May 20, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 4; January 27, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 17.

Mind, July, 2001, Hallvard Lillehammer, review of Socratic Puzzles, p. 802.

National Review, December 31, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 38.

New Boston Review, February, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 9.

New Republic, October 7, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 32; November 6, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 122.

New Yorker, January 29, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 96.

New York Review of Books, February 18, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 32.

New York Times Book Review, September 20, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 7; April 24, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 31; October 29, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 15; December 9, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 38; August 22, 1993, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 11; October 22, 1995, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 44.

Observer (London, England), April 18, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 31.

Partisan Review, fall, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 609.

Philosophical Review, January, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 81; April, 1995, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 324.

Publishers Weekly, July 31, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 53; October 13, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 34; November 2, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 71; May 31, 1993, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 34; August 6, 2001, review of Invariances, p. 72.

Reason, June, 1994, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 61.

Reference and Research Book News, November, 1997, review of Socratic Puzzles, p. 4.

Review of Metaphysics, September, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 134; June, 1999, review of Socratic Puzzles, p. 966.

Sewanee Review, spring, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 309.

Social Research, spring, 1976, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 169.

Theology Today, October, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 327.

Times Literary Supplement, October 15, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 1136; June 18, 1993, review of The Nature of Rationality, p. 7.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), December 10, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 3.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, October, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 13, and Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 22; June, 1988, review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 20.

Washington Post Book World, October 18, 1981, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 10; June 26, 1983, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 12; November 19, 1989, review of The Examined Life, p. 4.

Wilson Quarterly, February, 1990, review of The Examined Life, p. 92.

Yale Review, spring, 1982, review of Philosophical Explanations, p. 404.