Robert Nozick (Nozick Robert)

(p. 1938)
Born November 16, 1938 in New York. He studied at Columbia and Princeton universities. Since 1969 he taught at Harvard University.
Nozick - a highly multi-philosopher. His publications involve a variety of topics - from political philosophy and ethics to the theory of rationality and decision theory, the theory of knowledge to metaphysics and the philosophy of language.

Glory of the largest representative of the philosophy of liberalism has brought the book Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974). The starting point of his argument - the sacred rights of the individual. In contrast to the classical anarchists who reject the state, he recognizes the need for 'minimum' state, took away the right of individuals to use violence, but at the same time providing them with protection from arbitrary. Transfer of ownership, according to Nozick, is valid only when there is goodwill on. Any attempt to regulate the process of this transfer is doomed to failure. Any redistribution of benefits, imposed on the state (for example, in the form of tax collection), Nozick considers unfair restriction of the rights of individuals. Hence his categorical rejection of the idea of 'welfare state'.

In the field of epistemology Nozick made his name a new approach to the definition of knowledge and refutation of skepticism.

Nozick's views on the nature of knowledge (including philosophy) are presented in the books of philosophical explanation (Philosophical Explanations, 1981) and the Nature of Rationality (The Nature of Rationality, 1993).