Jorge J. E. Gracia

Jorge J. E. Gracia (July 18, 1942 – July 13, 2021) was a Cuban-born American philosopher who was the Samuel P. Capen Chair, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Department of Comparative Literature in the State University of New York at Buffalo. Gracia was educated in Cuba, the United States, Canada, and Spain, and received his Ph.D. in Medieval Philosophy from the University of Toronto.

Gracia authored or edited over forty books. His areas of specialization included Metaphysics/Ontology, Philosophical Historiography, Philosophy of Language/Hermeneutics, Ethnicity/Race/Nationality Issues, Hispanic/Latino Issues, Medieval/Scholastic Philosophy and Hispanic/Latino/Latin-AmericanPhilosophy. While Gracia's earlier work was primarily in the areas of Medieval Philosophy and Metaphysics, much of his recent work has focused on issues of race, ethnicity and identity. His contributions to the philosophical study of race and ethnicity have been groundbreaking. It is within this area that Gracia proposed his familial-historical view of ethnicity and his genetic common-bundle view of race. These views of race and ethnicity have helped to shape the field and addressed many issues that previous theories had left unanswered.

Gracia was the founding chair of the APA Committee for Hispanics in Philosophy, past president of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, past president of the Society for Iberian and Latin American Thought, past president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and past president of the Metaphysical Society of America.

Gracia had a number of Ph.D. students, such as Peter Redpath, William Irwin, Robert Delfino, Jonathan Sanford, Daniel Novotný, etc. who have become professors at academic institutions.

Education Gracia studied architecture at Universidad de La Habana and also took classes at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, both in Havana, Cuba, for a year before coming to United States and earning a B.A. in philosophy at Wheaton College (Ill.) in 1965. In his book Painting Borges, he narrates how he changed his field of study from architecture to mathematics to English literature to philosophy because he became "enthralled by language" and "craved ... to know [its] secret." He received his M.A. in philosophy from University of Chicago in 1966, M.S.L. (Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies) in philosophy from Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in 1970, and Ph.D. in Medieval philosophy from University of Toronto in 1971. During his graduate studies he spent a year (1969–1970) at Institut d'Estudis Catalans for study and research. University at Buffalo Teaching and Learning Award, 2003 67th Aquinas Lecture at Marquette University, 2003 Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, Oct. 1 2004-Sept. 31, 2005 Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Oct. 1, 2005-Sept. 31, 2006, "We the People Project"