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Robert Nozick Robert Nozick's philosophical career spanned many subjects - from an exploration of the good life (play, friendship, love, sex) to the nature of truth and objectivity. He is, however, best known for Anarchy, State and Utopia (Buy It: UK and Europe / US and Canada). It is a work of political philosophy which sets out a case for why only a minimal state can be justified, and which tackles head on John Rawls' Theory of Justice (Buy it: US and Canada / UK and Europe). Obituary Robert Nozick died on January 23, 2002 at the age of 63. Below are extracts from his Harvard obituary: "University Professor Robert Nozick, one of the late 20th century's most influential thinkers, died on the morning of Jan. 23 at the age of 63. He had been diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1994. Nozick, known for his wide-ranging intellect and engaging style as both writer and teacher, had taught a course on the Russian Revolution during the fall semester and was planning to teach again in the spring. His last major book, "Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World," was published by Harvard University Press in October 2001... Nozick's controversial and challenging views gained him considerable attention and influence in the world beyond the academy. His first book, "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (1974), transformed him from a young philosophy professor known only within his profession to the reluctant theoretician of a national political movement. He wrote the book as a critique of "Theory of Justice" (1971), by his Harvard colleague John Rawls, the James Bryant Conant University Professor Emeritus. Rawls' book provided a philosophical underpinning for the bureaucratic welfare state, a methodically reasoned argument for why it was right for the state to redistribute wealth in order to help the poor and disadvantaged. Nozick's book argued that the rights of the individual are primary and that nothing more than a minimal state - sufficient to protect against violence and theft, and to ensure the enforcement of contracts - is justified. "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" won the National Book Award and was named by The Times Literary Supplement as one of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the War." A former member of the radical left who was converted to a libertarian perspective as a graduate student, largely through his reading of conservative economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Nozick was never comfortable with his putative status as an ideologue of the right. In a 1978 article in The New York Times Magazine he said that "right-wing people like the pro-free-market argument, but don't like the arguments for individual liberty in cases like gay rights - although I view them as an interconnecting whole. ..." Whether they agreed or disagreed with the political implication of the book, critics were nearly unanimous in their appreciation for Nozick's lively, accessible writing style. In a discipline known for arduous writing, Nozick's approach was hailed as a breath of fresh air. He explained his approach in the article cited above: "It is as though what philosophers want is a way of saying something that will leave the person they're talking to no escape. Well, why should they be bludgeoning people like that? It's not a nice way to behave." Despite the notoriety and influence that his first book brought him, Nozick moved on to explore very different territory in his second book, "Philosophical Explanations" (1981). This need to be intellectually on the move at all times characterized his career. He once told an interviewer, "I didn't want to spend my life writing 'The Son of Anarchy, State, and Utopia.'" In "Philosophical Explanations," Nozick took on subjects that many academic philosophers had dismissed as irrelevant or meaningless, such as free will versus determinism and the nature of subjective experience, and why there is something rather than nothing. In dealing with these questions, he rejected the idea of strict philosophical proof, adopting instead a notion of philosophical pluralism. "There are various philosophical views, mutually incompatible, which cannot be dismissed or simply rejected," he wrote in "Philosophical Explanations." "Philosophy's output is the basketful of these admissible views, all together." Nozick suggested that this basketful of views could be ordered according to criteria of coherence and adequacy and that even second- and third-ranked views might offer valuable truths and insights. Nozick continued to develop his theory of philosophical pluralism in his next book, "The Examined Life" (1989), an exploration of the individual's relation to reality that, once again, emphasized explanation rather than proof. In his book, "The Nature of Rationality" (1995), Nozick asked what function principles serve in our daily life and why we don't simply act on whim or out of self-interest. "Socratic Puzzles" (1997) was a collection of essays, articles, and reviews, plus several examples of Nozick's philosophical short fiction. His next work, "Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World," (2001) looks at the nature of truth and objectivity and examines the function of subjective consciousness in an objective world. It also scrutinizes truth in ethics and discusses whether truth in general is relative to culture and social factors. Nozick's teaching followed the same lively, unorthodox, heterogeneous pattern as his writing. With one exception, he never taught the same course twice. The exception was "The Best Things in Life," which he presented in 1982 and '83, attempting to derive from the class discussion a general theory of values. The course description called it an exploration of "the nature and value of those things deemed best, such as friendship, love, intellectual understanding, sexual pleasure, achievement, adventure, play, luxury, fame, power, enlightenment, and ice cream." ...Nozick, who grew up in Brooklyn and attended public school there, came to philosophy via a paperback version of Plato's "Republic," which he found intellectually thrilling. Nozick described the experience in his 1989 book, "The Examined Life" - "When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's ?Republic'; front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful." ...He is survived by his wife, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, and his two children, Emily Sarah Nozick and David Joshua Nozick. Nozick will be buried in a private ceremony. A memorial service is being planned for sometime in February." Other obituaries can be found by following these links: Telegraph Robert Nozick in his own words: Interview with Laissez-Faire Books Why do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? (A Cato Institute Online report in which Nozick has fun explaining why so many of the chattering classes oppose capitalism)
Buy It: UK and Europe / US and Canada Articles and resources on Nozick Libertarianism - A summary of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick by RN Johnson Short article on Nozick By the same author there is also a good account of Nozick's transition from the State of Nature to Civil Society. This conception of the transition is criticised heavily in Murray N. Rothbard's Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State. Why Libertarianism Is Mistaken by Hugh LaFollette. Robert Nozick: Against Distributive Justive Robert Nozick - from Libertyguide.com Robert Nozick, Libertarianism, And Utopia
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