Morris Weitz (; July 24, 1916 – February 1, 1981) "was an American philosopher of aesthetics who focused primarily on ontology, interpretation, and literary criticism". From 1972 until his death he was Richard Koret Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University. Biography Personal life Morris Weitz was born on July 24, 1916, in Detroit, his parents having emigrated from Europe (and his father having worked as a painting contractor). He was husband to Margaret (née) Collins ("an author and renowned scholar of French women, French culture and the French Resistance") and the father of three children, Richard, David, and Catherine (the former being a director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute). Morris Weitz died on February 1, 1981, in hospital in Roxbury after a long illness aged 64, having lived latterly in Newton, Massachusetts. Tertiary education and academic career Weitz obtained his BA in 1938 from Wayne State University. While doing graduate work in French history at the University of Chicago he met Bertrand Russell, which directed Weitz's interests towards philosophy. He received his Masters and, in 1943, his PhD in philosophy from the University of Michigan with a dissertation titled The Method of Analysis in the Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. During the course of his career he taught philosophy at the University of Washington (1944–45), Vassar College (1945–48), and Ohio State University (1954–69). In 1969 Weitz moved to Brandeis University where, in 1972, he was named Richard Koret Professor of Philosophy in 1972, a position he retained until his death. He was also a visiting professor at Columbia, Cornell, and Harvard. He was recognised with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959, and was also honored as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. Philosophical thought, influence, and criticisms Weitz spent a year in Oxford which led to lifelong friendships with Oxford philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle, H.L.A. Hart, and Isaiah Berlin and, in 1953, the publication in The Philosophical Review of Oxford Philosophy (1953). In the same, according to Aaron W. Meskin writing in The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers,"Weitz argued that postwar Oxford philosophy was not unified by any general meta-philosophical position but rather by a commitment to investigating the logic of concepts". Meskin notes that this "was a significant publication in the United States as it served for many as an introduction to postwar Oxford philosophy". Meskin suggests the work also "illuminates the course