Richard Popkin

Richard Popkin

Born	December 27, 1923 Manhattan
Died	April 14, 2005 Los Angeles
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
Influenced by Baruch Spinoza, René Descartes, Pierre Bayle
Influenced Luciano Floridi

Richard H. Popkin (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 introduced previously unrecognised 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, 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 and the first editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

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 His papers have been archived at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA.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, 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

Richard H. 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.

A Festschrift volume of essays in his honor, The Legacies of Richard H. Popkin, also edited by his son Jeremy Popkin, was published in 2009 (Springer, New York).

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.

Selected bibliography

• The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle. Third, enlarged, edition, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-510768-3. (Earlier editions published as The History of Scepticism From Erasmus to Descartes, Assen: Van Gorcum, 1960 and The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, University of California Press, 1979. ISBN 0-520-03876-2).
• The High Road to Pyrrhonism, edited by Richard A. Watson and James E. Force, Austin Hill Press, 1980 (reprint: Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993).
• The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought, Leiden: Brill, 1992. Collection of essays.
  • Incl.: Hume's Racism Reconsidered, pp. 64–75.
• Isaac La Peyrère (1596-1676): His Life, Work, and Influence, Leiden: Brill, 1987.
• with David S. Katz: Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium, Hill & Wang, 2000.
• with Avrum Stroll: Philosophy Made Simple, Doubleday (Made Simple Books), New York, 1956. ISBN 0-385-42533-3
• as editor: The Columbia History of Western Philosophy, Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-231-10128-7
• The Second Oswald Avon Books, 1966. Commercial ebook has ISBN 1-886420-27-0.
• Spinoza (Oneworld Philosophers), 2004. ISBN 1-85168-339-9
• Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern Culture (4 voll.), Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• Vol. 1: Goldish, Matt and Popkin, Richard H. (eds.). Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World, 2001
• Vol. 2: Kottmnan, Karl (eds.). Catholic Milleniarism: From Savonarola to th Abbè Grégoire, 2001
• Vol. 3: Force, James E. and Popkin, Richard H. (eds.). The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science, Politics and Everyday Anglo-American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 2001
• Vol. 4: Laursen, John Christian and Popkin, Richard H. (eds.). Continental Millenarians: Protestants, Catholics, Heretics, 2001

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

• Popkin, R. The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford, University Press: 2003).

External links

• The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) at Project Gutenberg, with an introduction by Richard H. Popkin