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George Pitcher (philosopher)

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George Willard Pitcher (May 19, 1925 - January 12, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was a professor of philosophy at Princeton University from 1956 to 1982.[1][2]

He was an expert on George Berkeley and Ludwig Wittgenstein.[3]

Early life and education

George Willard Pitcher was born in West Orange, New Jersey.[4]

He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1947. After graduating, he served for three years on ships in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. While a graduate student at Harvard University, Pitcher was recalled to active naval duty during the Korean War. He returned to Harvard after his service, earning his PhD in 1957.[4] His PhD thesis was titled Illocutionary acts: an analysis of language in terms of human acts.[5]

Career

Pitcher joined the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University in 1956 as a faculty member. He served as acting chair and associate chair of the philosophy department for a number of years. He taught there until his retirement in 1982. While an emeritus professor, Pitcher continued to publish papers for several years.[4]

Personal life

Composer and fellow Princeton professor Edward T. Cone was Pitcher’s companion for almost 50 years, until Cone's death in 2004.[6]

Pitcher and Cone adopted a stray pregnant dog that they found in their garden shed which they later named Lupa. They kept one of the puppies from Lupa’s litter, which they named Remus, and gave the other puppies away. The two dogs were taken by Pitcher and Cone everywhere, including on a trip to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2. Pitcher wrote a book about his and Cone’s life with the dogs titled The Dogs Who Came to Stay.[4]

From 1992 until his death, Pitcher was a trustee of the Edward T. Cone Foundation, which supports classical music education.[4][7]

To celebrate the 88th birthday of Pitcher, the composer John Supko was commissioned to compose a musical work. He produced Free Invitation, a piece of generative software that creates a musical work by interweaving 1973 recordings of Cone teaching a counterpoint class at Princeton with sampled acoustic instruments, electronic tones, and the sound of the wind. Each time it is activated, it performs a new version of itself.[4][8]

Awards and honors

Pitcher received a 1965-66 Guggenheim fellowship and was a member of the American Philosophical Association.[4]

Publications

Books

  • The Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Prentice-Hall, 1964)[9]
  • Theory of Perception (Princeton University Press, 1971)[10]
  • A Life of Grace: The Biography of Grace Lansing Lambert (Princeton University Press, 1987)
  • The Dogs Who Came to Stay (Penguin Publishing Group, 1996)[11][12]

Journal articles

  • The Misfortunes of the Dead, American Philosophical Quarterly 21/2 (1984): 183-188. [13]

Editor

  • Truth (Contemporary Perspectives in Philosophy Series (Prentice Hall, 1964)
  • Ryle; a Collection of Critical Essays with Oscar P. Wood (Macmillan, 1970)
  • Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations (University of Notre Dame Press, 1974)
  • Berkeley: The Arguments of the Philosophers (Berkeley, 1977)

References

  1. ^ "George W. Pitcher Obituary (1925 - 2018) New York Times". Legacy.com.
  2. ^ "George Willard Pitcher".
  3. ^ "In Memoriam: George Pitcher, Kenneth Deffeyes *59". 16 February 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "George Pitcher, scholar of contemporary philosophy beloved for his 'sheer humanity,' dies at 92". Princeton University.
  5. ^ Pitcher, George Willard (September 8, 1957). Illocutionary acts: an analysis of language in terms of human acts. OCLC 76994603 – via Open WorldCat.
  6. ^ Fox, Margalit (2004-10-30). "Edward T. Cone, 87, Music Professor, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
  7. ^ "NJSO Announces NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute Composers".
  8. ^ "A FREE INVENTION FOR GEORGE PITCHER - John Supko". www.johnsupko.com.
  9. ^ Narveson, Anne (1967). "The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. George Pitcher". Philosophy of Science. 34: 80–83. doi:10.1086/288131.
  10. ^ Meudell, Peter (1973). "A Theory of Perception.By George Pitcher". Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. 4 (2): 184–185. doi:10.1080/00071773.1973.11006321.
  11. ^ Gary Dorsey (Oct 8, 1995). "George Pitcher's 'Dogs': Joy and devotion". THE BALTIMORE SUN.
  12. ^ "The dogs who came to stay / George Pitcher ; with drawings by Tom George" – via Trove.
  13. ^ "Musing: George Pitcher on the Misfortunes of the Dead". 28 June 2019.
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