James
H. Fetzer was born in Pasadena, California, on 6 December 1940. At
graduation from South Pasadena High School in 1958, he was presented
The Carver Award for leadership. He was magna cum laude in philosophy at Princeton
University in 1962, where his senior thesis for Carl G. Hempel on
the logical structure of explanations of human behavior won The Dickinson
Prize. After being commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps,
he became an artillery officer and served in the Far East. After a
tour supervising recruit training in San Diego, he resigned his commission
as a Captain to begin graduate work in the history and philosophy
of science at Indiana in 1966. He completed his Ph.D. with a dissertation
on probability and explanation for Wesley C. Salmon in 1970.
His initial
faculty appointment was at the University of Kentucky, where he received
the first Distinguished Teaching Award presented by the Student Government
to 1 of 135 assistant professors. Since 1977, he has taught at a wide
range of institutions of higher learning, including the Universities
of Virginia (twice), Cincinnati, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, New
College of the University of South Florida, and now the Duluth campus
of the University of Minnesota, where he served from 1987 until his retirement in 2006. His
honors include a research fellowship from the National Science Foundation
and The Medal of the University of Helsinki. In 1996, he became one
of the first ten faculty at the University of Minnesota to be appointed
a Distinguished McKnight University Professor.
He has
published more than 100 articles and reviews and 20 books in the philosophy
of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science,
artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. On this web page,
his publications have been divided by area, including special vitae
for computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science,
evolution and cognition, and his applied philosophical research on
the death of JFK. His biographical sketch has appeared in many reference
works, including the DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS, WHO'S WHO IN
THE MIDWEST, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD. It
may be found, for example, in the DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS,
10th edition, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, 55th edition (2001), and WHO'S
WHO IN THE WORLD, 18th edition (2001).
