Charles Parsons

Charles Dacre Parsons (1933--) is a distinguished figure in the philosophy of mathematics. He is a son of social scientist Talcott Parsons. A specialist in the philosophy of mathematics and logic, Parsons earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1961, under the direction of Burton Dreben and Willard Van Orman Quine. He taught for many years at Columbia University before moving to Harvard University in 1989. He retired in 2005 as the Edgar Pierce professor of philosophy, a position formerly held by Quine. In addition to his work in logic and the philosophy of mathematics, Parsons was an editor, with Solomon Feferman and others, of the posthumous works of Kurt Gödel. He has also written on historical figures, especially Immanuel Kant,...