Morris Lazerowitz

Morris Lazerowitz (October 22, 1907 – February 25, 1987) was a Polish-born American analytic philosopher and author. Born in Łódź, Congress Poland, his family emigrated to the United States in 1915, settling in Omaha, Nebraska. Lazerowitz initially excelled in music, becoming proficient enough to substitute in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by age nineteen, but a back injury forced him to abandon this path. He pursued philosophy at the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan, later undertaking postdoctorate work at Cambridge and Harvard, where he studied under G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein. From 1938, he taught at Smith College for 35 years, also serving as a Fulbright professor in London. He married fellow philosopher Alice Ambrose in 1938. After retiring in 1973, he was named professor emeritus and continued to teach as a visiting professor at other institutions. Lazerowitz's significant contribution was the development of metaphilosophy, which he defined as an investigation into the nature of philosophical theories and their arguments to explain their persistent irresolvability. He co-authored several books with Ambrose, including 'Fundamentals of Symbolic Logic' and 'Logic: The Theory of Formal Inference'. His major works include 'The Structure of Metaphysics' (1955), 'Studies in Metaphilosophy' (1964), 'Philosophy and Illusion' (1968), 'The Language of Philosophy: Freud and Wittgenstein' (1977), and 'Cassandra in Philosophy' (1983). He died in Northampton, Massachusetts.