C. I. Lewis
American philosopher (1883–1964)
Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964) was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logician, he later branched into epistemology, and during the last 20 years of his life, he wrote much on ethics. The New York Times memorialized him as "a leading authority on symbolic logic and on the philosophic concepts of knowledge and value." He coined the term "Qualia" as used in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive sciences.
Biography
Lewis was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. His father was a skilled worker in a shoe factory, and Lewis grew up in relatively humble circumstances. He discovered philosophy at age 13, when reading about the Greek pre-Socratics, Anaxagoras and Heraclitus in particular. The first work of philosophy Lewis recalled studying was A Short History of Greek Philosophy by John Marshall (1891). Immanuel Kant proved a major lifelong influence on Lewis's thinking. In his article "Logic and Pragmatism", Lewis wrote: "Nothing comparable in importance happened [in my life] until I became acquainted with Kant...
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q725642. VIAF identifies the subject as 101021. The Library of Congress control number is n81066133. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1964 and 1891.
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This entry incorporates text from “C. I. Lewis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.