John Silver

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John Silver

John Robert Silber (born August 15, 1926 in San Antonio , Texas , † September 27, 2012 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American philosopher , university professor and educator who was president of Boston University between 1971 and 1996 .

Life

Studied and professor at the University of Texas

Silber, the son of an architect , began studying at Trinity University in San Antonio after school in 1947 and attended the divinity school of Yale University for a year . He also studied for a semester Law at the Law School of the University of Texas System , before he graduated in philosophy from Yale University with a Doctor of Philosophy ( Ph.D. ) graduated.

Silver then worked as a lecturer in philosophy at Yale University between 1952 and 1955 , before accepting a professorship in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1955, where he taught until 1970. During his teaching he received from 1959 to 1960 a scholarship of the Fulbright Program and 1963 Guggenheim Fellowship .

President and Chancellor of Boston University and unsuccessful candidacy for governor

In 1971 he succeeded Arland F. Christ-Janer and a one-year acting presidency from Calvin BT Lee as the eighth President of Boston University and held this position for 25 years until he was replaced by Jon Westling in 1996. He then held between 1996 and 2003 the newly created and subsequently not reoccupied office of Chancellor of Boston University.

He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Humanities Institute between 1975 and 1978 and served as a trustee of the University of Denver (DU) between 1985 and 1989 and then of Adelphi University from 1989 to 1997 .

In 1990, Silver ran for the Democratic Party for governor of Massachusetts , but was narrowly defeated by the Republican Party candidate , Bill Weld .

In addition to his work as President of Boston University, he was director of the Americans for Medical Progress (AMP) organization from 1992 , and was chairman between 1994 and 1995. After 1996 he became a member of the inspectorate of Massachusetts ( Massachusetts Board of Education ) .

family

His marriage in 1947 resulted in six daughters and one son. Silber died as a result of kidney failure .

Publications

  • The ethical significance of Kant's religion , Boston 1960
  • Democracy. Its counterfeits and its promise , Boston 1976
  • Higher education in America. Its problems and its promise , 1989, ISBN 0-858-16708-5
  • Education at the antipodes. Problems of the American university , 1989, ISBN 0-858-16716-6
  • Straight shooting. What's wrong with America and how to fix , 1989, ISBN 0-060-16184-1
  • Architecture of the Absurd. How "Genius" Disfigured a Practical Art , 2007, ISBN 978-1-59372-027-8
  • Kant's ethics: the good, freedom, and the wil , Boston 2012, ISBN 978-1-61451-071-0
in German language
  • Can America Be Saved? Ethics and Morals of a Great Power , Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-548-35334-7
  • The crisis of the world order. How can we use the resistances? Hamburg 1993

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Silver, john
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silver, John Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher, professor and university president
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH San Antonio , Texas
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 2012
Place of death Boston , Massachusetts