Life and work

Arda Denkel (1949–2000) was a Turkish philosopher. He studied at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

  and, under Peter Strawson, wrote his D. Phil. dissertation which he later developed into a more expansive study with his book The Natural Background of Meaning in 1999.

Upon his return to Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 he became an important promoter of analytical philosophy in Turkey, a country traditionally almost entirely cultivated within a continental atmosphere, and became a faculty member in the philosophy department at the Bogazici University

Bogaziçi University

Boğaziçi University is a public university located on the European side of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, Turkey. It has five faculties and two schools offering undergraduate degrees, and six institutes offering graduate degrees...

 in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 for the rest of his life.

He was twice a visiting professor in the University of Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

 between 1985 and 1989, and served as a member of the steering committee of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy

European Society for Analytic Philosophy

The European Society for Analytic Philosophy is a philosophical organization founded by Kevin Mulligan Barry Smith, Peter Simons, Pierre Jacob, Marco Santambrogio, Andreas Kemmerling, and Pascal Engel in 1991. The official journal of the society is Dialectica....

 (ESAP) between 1996 and 1999.

He also authored several other books and articles in both Turkish and English, including his critically acclaimed Object and Property in 1996. He died suddenly suffering a stroke in 2000.

Books

• Object and Property, 1996
• The Natural Background of Meaning, 1999