Former Prof. In Philosophy Dead at 80

Clarence I. Lewis '06, one of the fore-most American philosophers of the twentieth century, died early yesterday at his home in Menlo Park, California. Lewis, 80 years old at his death, was Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy until his retirement from the Harvard faculty in 1953.

"There is no question about his greatness," according to Roderick Firth, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity. In a history of philosophy in the twentieth century, Firth says, Lewis will be ranked along with John Dewey, George Santayana, and Alfred Noyes Whitehead, even though he was a "philosopher's philosopher" unknown to the layman.

Developed Theory of Knowledge

Lewis made significant contributions in the realms of symbolic logic and ethics, but his major importance continues to stem from his work in the theory of knowledge. He referred to himself as a "pragmatic conceptualist," and had much in common with Dewey. One of the few recent philosophers to develop a complete theory of knowledge and meaning, his books are still the major texts in Firth's course on "Meaning and Perception."

Lewis was also a pioneer in the field of symbolic logic, where he laid the foundations for "modal logic," a branch of logic which has become increasingly important in recent years.

At Harvard, Lewis is perhaps best remembered for his course on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." The course was considered a "classic," according to Firth, and anybody who took the course was "never quite the same when he finished."

Joined Faculty in 1920

Lewis received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1910, but did not join the faculty until 1920. He spent the intervening years teaching at the Universities of Colorado and California, and as an artilleryman in World War I. He was a visiting professor at Princeton for a year following his retirement from Harvard, and then moved to Menlo Park, where he lived until his death.

Born in Stoneham, Lewis lived in Lexington throughout his years at Harvard. When he first moved there, he told a friend that he felt "he had finally discovered America." He had his own dark room in Lexington, and was well-known for his work in photography during his few spare moments.

His photographic self-portrait still hangs in the office of the chairman of the Philosophy Department, but his work, soon to be discussed in a volume of "The Library of Living Philosophers," will continue to influence many more than the habitues of Emerson Hall