12 Facts About Morris Weitz

Morris Weitz "was an American philosopher of aesthetics who focused primarily on ontology, interpretation, and literary criticism".

Morris Weitz was born on July 24, 1916, in Detroit, his parents having emigrated from Europe.

Morris Weitz was husband to Margaret Collins ("an author and renowned scholar of French women, French culture and the French Resistance") and the father of three children, Richard, David, and Catherine (the former being a director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute).

Morris Weitz died on February 1, 1981, in hospital in Roxbury after a long illness aged 64, having lived latterly in Newton, Massachusetts.

Morris Weitz obtained his BA in 1938 from Wayne State University.

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Morris Weitz received his Masters and, in 1943, his PhD in philosophy from the University of Michigan with a dissertation titled The Method of Analysis in the Philosophy of Bertrand Russell.

In 1969 Morris Weitz moved to Brandeis University where, in 1972, he was named Richard Koret Professor of Philosophy in 1972, a position he retained until his death.

Morris Weitz was a visiting professor at Columbia, Cornell, and Harvard.

Morris Weitz was recognised with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959, and was honored as a Fulbright Senior Scholar.

Morris Weitz is perhaps best known for his "influential and frequently anthologized" 1956 paper The Role of Theory in Aesthetics which was to win him a 1955 Matchette Prize.

Mandelbaum in his 1965 paper Family Resemblances and Generalizations Concerning the Arts refers to Morris Weitz's paper and includes its author amongst those who, in support of the contention "that it is a mistake to attempt to discuss what art, or beauty, or the aesthetic, or a poem, essentially is" have made "explicit use of Wittgenstein's doctrine of family resemblances".

Professor Morris Weitz [has] made no attempt to analyze, clarify, or defend the doctrine itself".