Clarence Irving Lewis

Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 - February 3, 1964), usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logician, he later branched into epistemology, and during the last 20 years of his life, he wrote much on ethics. Lewis was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. His father was a skilled worker in a shoe factory, and Lewis grew up in relatively humble circumstances. He discovered philosophy at age 13, when reading about the Greek pre-Socratics, Anaxagoras and Heraclitus in particular. The first work of philosophy Lewis recalled studying was a short history of Greek philosophy by Marshall. Immanuel Kant proved a major lifelong influence on Lewis's thinking. In his...