Richard Watson

Richard Allan Watson (February 23, 1931 – September 18, 2019) was an American philosopher, speleologist and author.

Biography

Watson taught philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis for forty years. He was considered one of the foremost living authorities on Descartes. He was an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy for Washington University.

Watson earned a degree in geology specializing in "paleoclimatology of 10,000 years ago." This involved the development of agrarian societies in the Fertile Crescent. From July 1965 to July 1967, he was president of the Cave Research Foundation.

His book, Cogito, Ergo Sum: a life of René Descartes is a travelogue in the form of following Descartes's travels around Europe. It was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of its "25 Books to Remember from 2002." According to Watson, an animal deserving of rights must have a well developed brain to discern "right from wrong". Has been translated into Italian Has been translated into nine languages. . The biography of the first person to cross the Falls on a wire, and the first person(a woman) to go over the Falls in a barrel. The French translation has featured at the Saint-Malo Ettonants voyageurs Festival International du Lirre in 1997, where it won a translation award.

Watson, Richard A. The Downfall of Cartesianism. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966. Watson, R.A. The breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics. - Atlantic Highlands (N.J.) : Humanities press intern., 1987. - XII, 240 p. Bibliogr.: p. 223-235. Name ind.: p. 237-240. RICHARD A. WATSON. The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics. Hackett Publishing Company, 1998. Representational Ideas from Plato to Patricia Churchland (Kluwer Academic Publishers) Under Plowman's Floor The Runner The Longest Cave (with Roger W. Brucker) (hb Alfred A. Knopf, pb Southern Illinois University Press) The high road to Pyrrhonism / Ed. by Watson R.A., Force J.E. - San Diego: Hill, 1980. - XIV, 385 p. - (Studies in Hume a. Scott. philosophy; 2) Indices.: p. 369-385.

Articles Watson is the author of the Encyclopædia Britannica article on Descartes. "Berkeley in the Cartesian Tradition." Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 48 (1963):587-97. "The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics." Journal of the History of Philosophy 1 (1963):177-97. "Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature". Environmental Ethics (1979) Vol. 1, N 2. pp. 99-129. "What moves the mind: An excursion in Cartesian dualism". Amer. philos. quart. - Oxford, 1982. - vol. 19, N 1. - p. 73-81. "Shadow History". Journal of the History of Philosophy (1993) Vol. 31, N 1. - pp. 95-109. "Having ideas". Amer. philos. quart. - Oxford, 1994. - Vol. 31, N 3. - P. 185–198. "Malebranche and Arnauld on ideas" // Mod. schoolman. - Saint Louis, 1994. - Vol. 71, N 4. - P. 259–270.