Dagfinn Føllesdal (born 22 June 1932) is a

Norwegian-American Norwegian Americans ( nb, Norskamerikanere, nn, Norskamerikanarar) are Americans with ancestral roots in Norway. Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the latter half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He is the

Clarence Irving Lewis Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964), usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logic ...

Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and professor emeritus at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

Biography and career

Føllesdal was born in

Askim Askim () is a town and a former municipality in (from January 1, 2020) Indre Østfold Kommune in the former county of Østfold county (from January 1, 2020 a part of Viken county), Norway. The administrative centre of the Askim municipality wa ...

. After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees at the

, he attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and earned his Ph.D. in 1961 under

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". ...

. He taught at

from 1961 to 1964, and began teaching at

in 1968. Føllesdal is a member of the

Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature The Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature ( no, Det Norske Akademi for Språk og Litteratur), commonly known as the Norwegian Academy, is a Norwegian learned body on matters pertaining to the modern Norwegian language in its Dano-Norwegian ...

, the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Univer ...

, the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

, and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. He resides at Tanum. He is a practicing

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

. He regularly participates in the sport of

Orienteering Orienteering is a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a s ...

Philosophical work

Føllesdal has written extensively on topics relating to the

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

, and

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...

. He was a pupil of Quine and is among the leading experts on the

indeterminacy of translation The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th-century American analytic philosopher W. V. Quine. The classic statement of this thesis can be found in his 1960 book ''Word and Object'', which gathered together and refined much of Qu ...

Bibliography

*''Referential Opacity and Modal logic.'' Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1966 *"Quine on Modality." ''Synthese'' (December 1968), 19(1-2):147-157. *"Husserl's Notion of Noema." ''Journal of Philosophy'' (October 1969), 66(20):680-687. *"Indeterminacy of Translation and Under-Determination of the Theory of Nature." ''Dialectica'' (1973), 27:289-301. *"Essentialism and Reference." In Lewis Hahn, ed., ''The Philosophy of W. V. Quine'', pp. 97–115. La Salle: Open Court, 1986. *"Indeterminacy and Mental States." In ''Perspectives on Quine.'' Oxford & Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1990. *"In What Sense Is Language Public?" In Paolo Leonardi, ed., ''On Quine: New Essays.'' New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. *"Absorbed Coping, Husserl and Heidegger." In Mark A. Wrathall and Jeff Malpas, eds., ''Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus'', Volume 1, pp. 251–257. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2000.

References

External links

Stanford faculty profile

Interview with Dagfinn Føllesdal
by Øystein Linnebo and Einar Duenger Bøhn in ''Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift'' (01/2020; Vol. 55). (als
here

Interview with Dagfinn Føllesdal on some topics related to linguistics and communication
. The interview belongs to the series Multi-Media Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences. *
An Interview with Dagfinn Føllesdal
' by Carl Korsnes for '' Filosofisk supplement'' 2/2015. (als
here

1932 births 20th-century essayists 20th-century Norwegian non-fiction writers 20th-century Norwegian philosophers 21st-century essayists 21st-century Norwegian philosophers Analytic philosophers Catholic philosophers Continental philosophers Existentialists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Hermeneutists Living people Members of the Norwegian Academy Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Norwegian essayists Norwegian expatriates in the United States Norwegian logicians Phenomenologists Philosophers of language Philosophers of logic Philosophy writers University of Oslo alumni People from Askim {{Norway-philosopher-stub