Gabriel Nuchelmans

Who was Gabriel Nuchelmans?

Gabriel Nuchelmans was a Dutch philosopher, focusing on the history of philosophy, especially philosophy of the Middle Ages, as well as logic and philosophy of language.

After completing high school at the Episcopal School of Roermond, Nuchelmans studied at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, where he made his PhD in 1947. During the PhD he spent a year in Freiburg / Switzerland with Olof Gigon and Joseph Maria Bocheński. In 1947/48 he attended courses by Alfred Ayer and Stuart Hampshire, at University College London. He also heard, at the London School of Economics, Karl Popper and O.J. Wisdom. After admission to the Ph.D Nuchelmans taught for fourteen years Latin and Greek in Velsen. From 1964 he taught Ancient Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy and its History at the Philosophical Institute of the University of Leiden until his retirement on 10 September 1987. In this occasion a volume of essays was dedicated to him to celebrate his scholarly achievements. Nuchelmans had since 1975 a member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. His great work in three volumes on the history of the theories of proposition will remain for a long time the standard work on the subject.