Isaac Levi | |
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Born | June 30, 1930 |
Died | December 25, 2018 | (aged 88)
Era | Contemporary philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Neopragmatism |
Main interests | Pragmatism, epistemology, decision theory, philosophy of science |
Notable ideas | Commitment/performance distinction, corrigibilism/fallibilism distinction, indeterminate probability, Levi identity, unity of reason thesis |
Isaac Levi (June 30, 1930 – December 25, 2018) was an American philosopher who served as the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is noted for his work in epistemology and decision theory.[1][2][3][4]
Levi was one of several doctoral students of Ernest Nagel at Columbia University who were influential in American post-war philosophy; others were Morton White, Patrick Suppes, and Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. Levi taught at Case Western Reserve University before joining the Columbia faculty in 1970.[5] He was elected in 1986 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Levi also served as doctoral advisor to prominent formal philosophers, including Horacio Arló-Costa and Teddy Seidenfeld, and acted as a mentor to Cheryl Misak during her year at Columbia.[6] There was a debate between Kyburg and Levi on topics in what has come to be known as formal epistemology.
Levi first made a name for himself with his first book, Gambling with Truth. In the text Levi offered a decision theoretic reconstruction of epistemology with a close-eye towards the classical pragmatist philosophers like William James and Charles Sanders Peirce. Levi was known for his work in belief revision and imprecise probability.