author
Edgar A. (Edgar Arthur) Singer
1873–1955
A leading American philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania, he helped shape pragmatic and experimental approaches to philosophy and went on to influence later thinkers including W. V. O. Quine. Trained first in engineering, he brought an unusually sharp, scientific cast of mind to questions about knowledge, mind, and experience.
1 Audiobook
Modern thinkers and present problems : an approach to modern philosophy through its history
by Edgar A. (Edgar Arthur) Singer
About the author
Born in Philadelphia on November 13, 1873, Edgar Arthur Singer Jr. was an American philosopher who spent most of his academic career at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a BS in engineering there in 1892 and completed a PhD in philosophy in 1894, a background that helps explain the precise, analytical style of his later work.
Singer became known as a proponent of experimentalism and taught at Penn from 1909 until 1943. His work connected philosophy with science and inquiry rather than abstract system-building alone, and he is often remembered as an important teacher as well as a writer.
University of Pennsylvania archival records also show that he married Helen Bunker in 1905 and that his papers document a long scholarly career centered in Philadelphia. Some sources disagree on whether he died in 1954 or 1955, so it is safest to say that he died in the mid-1950s.