Michael Frede

{{Short description|German scholar of ancient philosophy (1940–2007)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}

{{Infobox philosopher

|region = Western philosophy

|era = Contemporary philosophy

|image =

|caption =

|name = Michael Frede

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1940|5|31|df=y}}

| birth_place = Berlin, Germany

| death_date = {{death date and age|2007|8|11|1940|5|31|df=y}}

| death_place = Agios Minas, Greece

|school_tradition =

|main_interests = Ancient philosophy

|notable_ideas =

|influences = {{ill|Günther Patzig|de||et||}}

|influenced = Michael Forster

|signature =

}}

Michael Frede ({{IPA|de|ˈfʁeːdə|lang}}; 31 May 1940 – 11 August 2007) was a prominent scholar of ancient philosophy, described by The Telegraph as "one of the most important and adventurous scholars of ancient philosophy of recent times."{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1566166/Professor-Michael-Frede.html |title=Professor Michael Frede |website=The Daily Telegraph |date=15 October 2007 |accessdate=8 August 2017}}

Education and career

Frede earned his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen in 1966 and worked there as an assistant ({{lang|de|Wissenschaftlicher Assistent}}) from 1966 to 1971.

He joined the faculty of the philosophy department at University of California, Berkeley{{Cite web |url=http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/ |title=UC Berkeley - Department of Philosophy |access-date=2 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218133210/http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/ |archive-date=18 December 2008 |url-status=dead }} as an assistant professor (1971) and quickly rose to the status of full professor. From 1976 to 1991, he was a professor at the Princeton University Philosophy Department.[http://philosophy.princeton.edu Princeton University Department of Philosophy - Home]

He returned to Europe in 1991 and took the chair in the history of philosophy at the University of Oxford.[http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/faculty/directory/buscard.asp?IDno=276 Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford] In 1997-8 he returned to Berkeley to lecture on free will as the 84th visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature; the resulting book was published posthumously.{{cite web|url=http://classics.berkeley.edu/news/articles/story.php?id=18 |title=Death of Former Sather Professor Michael Frede - UC Berkeley Department of Classics |accessdate=1 September 2007 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070826080521/http://classics.berkeley.edu/news/articles/story.php?id=18 |archivedate=26 August 2007 }} He retired from Oxford in 2005 and lived in Athens, Greece, until his death in a drowning accident in 2007.

He was a Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of both the British Academy (elected 1994){{cite web |url=http://www.britac.ac.uk/fellowship/directory/dec.cfm?member=2920 |title=Deceased Fellows - British Academy |website=www.britac.ac.uk |access-date=17 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150716005709/http://www.britac.ac.uk/fellowship/directory/dec.cfm?member=2920 |archive-date=16 July 2015 |url-status=dead}} and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Selected works

  • Pradikation und Existenzaussage: Platons Gebrauch von "...ist..." und "...ist nicht..." im Sophistes, 1967
  • Die Stoische Logik, 1974
  • Galen. Three Treatises on the Nature of Science (co-edited with Richard Walzer), 1985
  • Essays in Ancient Philosophy, 1987
  • Aristoteles 'Metaphysik Z': Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar, 2 vols (with Günther Patzig), 1988
  • The Original Sceptics: A Controversy (co-edited with Myles Burnyeat), 1997
  • Rationality in Greek Thought (co-edited with Gisela Striker), 1999
  • Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (co-edited with Polymnia Athanassiadi), 2001
  • Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Lambda (co-edited with David Charles), 2001{{Cite journal |last=Shields |first=Christopher |date=2002-05-11 |title=Review of Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Lambda |url=https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/aristotle-s-metaphysics-book-lambda/ |language=en |issn=1538-1617}}
  • A Free Will: origins of the notion in ancient thought (edited by A. A. Long with a foreword by David Sedley), 2011
  • The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter (Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics), (co-author with Myles Burnyeat) Oxford University Press 2015{{Cite journal |last=Price |first=A. W. |date=July 2016 |title=The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter By Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede (ed. Dominic Scott) Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. xv + 224, £30 ISBN 978-0-19-873365-2 |url=https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/14579/3/14579.pdf |journal=Philosophy |language=en |volume=91 |issue=3 |pages=450–453 |doi=10.1017/S0031819116000188 |s2cid=171010874 |issn=0031-8191}}

References

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