Roberto Torretti

Roberto Torretti (February 15, 1930 – November 12, 2022) was a Chilean philosopher, author, and academic internationally renowned for his contributions to the history of philosophy, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of mathematics. He received a doctorate from the University of Freiburg in 1954 under the supervision of Wilhelm Szilasi. Torretti began his academic career lecturing in philosophy and psychology at the Institute of Education of the University of Chile in Valparaíso. He also worked for the United Nations before commencing a career spanning over forty years, during which he taught philosophy at the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Chile. He was a professor emeritus of the University of Puerto Rico and a member of the Institut International de Philosophie. In April 2005, Torretti was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He resided in Santiago, Chile, and was married to the academic and philosopher Carla Cordua. In September 2011, Cordua and Torretti were jointly awarded the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences by the Republic of Chile. Torretti died on November 12, 2022, at the age of 92. His philosophical work was greatly influenced by Immanuel Kant, and he dedicated significant works to Kant's thought. His publications such as 'Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincaré' (1978), 'Relativity and Geometry' (1983), and 'El paraíso de Cantor' (1998) established him as a leading authority in the philosophy of science, with a focus on relativity theory and 19th-century geometry. He also co-authored a dictionary of logic and philosophy of science with Jesús Mosterín.