Michael L. Friedman *73

Michael died March 24, 2025, in Palo Alto, Calif., after a long illness.  

Born April 2, 1947, in Brookline, Mass., Michael completed undergraduate work at Queens College CUNY in 1969 and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton in 1973. 

At the time of his death, Michael was the Suppes Professor of Philosophy of Science at Stanford, where he taught from 2000 to 2024. He taught previously at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Indiana University.  

Michael’s scholarship focused on the philosophy of science, Kant studies, and on philosophy more broadly. His early work was on space-time theories and on unification-based theories of scientific explanation. He was awarded the 1985 Matchette Prize and the 1987 Lakatos Prize for Foundations of Space-Time Theories. He received the 2015 Fernando Gil International Prize in Philosophy of Science for Kant’s Construction of Nature. 

Michael’s visiting positions included Harvard, UC Berkeley, Western Ontario, Konstanz, Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was president of the Philosophy of Science Association in 2000.  

Predeceased by his wife, Graciela de Pierris, Michael is survived by his mother, his sister, and her two children. 

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.