Aloysius Martinich


Aloysius Patrick Martinich, usually cited as A. P. Martinich, is an American analytic philosopher. He is the Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Professor of History at University of Texas at Austin. His area of interest is the nature and practice of interpretation; history of modern philosophy; the philosophy of language and religion; the history of political thinking and Thomas Hobbes.

Biography

Aloysius P. Martinich was born June 28, 1946, in Euclid, Ohio. He attended Catholic schools in the Cleveland area and graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1964. He graduated from the University of Windsor, Ontario, in 1969 with a B.A., with a major in Honours Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. in December, 1972, with a dissertation, Reference and the Axiom of Existence, under the direction of Avrum Stroll. Later, he and Stroll co-authored the major article, “Epistemology,” in the Encyclopædia Britannica and the book, Much Ado about Non-Existence.
He became assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1973, and eventually became Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor in Philosophy. He is also professor of History and Professor of Government, through courtesy appointments. He has lectured at many universities in the United States, Europe, and China.
He has specialized in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. His book The Two Gods of Leviathan argued for two main theses: that Hobbes was trying to reconcile traditional Christian doctrine with the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and that properly understood Christianity is not politically destabilizing. His biography Hobbes, which won the Robert W. Hamilton Book Award in 2000 is currently the standard one.

Publications

Books