Foreign thinker
Peter A. Angeles
Peter A. AngelesPhilosophy and Philosophical LexicographyAmerican
Life and Thought
Peter Adam Angeles (1931–2004) was an American philosopher and atheist writer, best known for his philosophical dictionary. His book The HarperCollins Dictionary of Philosophy is considered one of the most widely used resources for defining philosophical terms. He taught philosophy for many years at various universities in the United States and Canada.
Peter Adam Angeles was born on February 21, 1931, in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. Angeles first taught for 14 years at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, then moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1970, continuing his teaching career at Santa Barbara City College.
His most important work is Dictionary of Philosophy (1981), later reprinted as The HarperCollins Dictionary of Philosophy. This book covers over three thousand entries with clear, example-driven explanations and has become one of the standard reference dictionaries for philosophy students. Angeles also wrote works on propositional logic, the Black American experience, and critiques of religion, and was considered an atheist writer.
He died on March 2, 2004, after a long battle with cancer. His primary legacy remains in the field of philosophy education and in providing precise terminological tools for understanding philosophical concepts.
