Gabriel Nuchelmans was a Dutch philosopher, focusing on the history of philosophy

History of philosophy

The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...

, especially philosophy of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, as well as logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

 and philosophy of language

Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

.

After completing high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 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

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

 / Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 with Olof Gigon and Joseph Maria Bocheński. In 1947/48 he attended courses by Alfred Ayer

Alfred Ayer

Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....

 and Stuart Hampshire

Stuart Hampshire

Sir Stuart Newton Hampshire was an Oxford University philosopher, literary critic and university administrator. He was one of the antirationalist Oxford thinkers who gave a new direction to moral and political thought in the post-World War II era.Hampshire was educated at Repton School and at...

, at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

. He also heard, at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

, Karl Popper

Karl Popper

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...

 and O.J. Wisdom. After admission to the Ph.D Nuchelmans taught for fourteen years Latin and Greek in Velsen

Velsen

Velsen is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal.On the north side of the North Sea Canal, in IJmuiden, there is a major steel plant, Corus Strip Products IJmuiden, formerly known as Koninklijke Hoogovens...

. 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 (Logos and Pragma) 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 (1973, 1980, 1983) will remain for a long time the standard work on the subject.

Selected publications

• Theories of the proposition : ancient and medieval conceptions of the bearers of truth and falsity, North-Holland, Amsterdan/London 1973, ISBN 0-7204-6188-X
• Late-Scholastic and Humanist Theories of the Proposition North-Holland, Amsterdam/London 1980, ISBN 978-0720484687
• Judgement and proposition. From Descartes to Kant, North-Holland, Amsterdam/London 1983, ISBN 0-4448-5571-8
• Geulincx Containment Theory of Logic (Mededelingen Der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences 1988, ISBN 978-0444856982
• Dilemmatic arguments: towards a history of their logic and rhetorics, North-Holland, Amsterdam/London 1991, ISBN 0-444-85730-3
• Secundum/Tertium Adiacens Vicissitudes of a Logical Distinction (Mededelingen Der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences 1992, ISBN 978-0444857620
• Studies in the History of Logic and Semantics, 12th – 17th Century, edited durch E.P.Bos, Variorum, Aldershot 1996 (reprint of 17 essays) (online)
• Logic in the Seventeenth century: preliminary remarks and the constituents of the proposition, The Cambridge history of Seventeenth-century philosophy. Edited by Garber Daniel and Ayers Michael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998. pp. 103–117
• Proposition and Judgement, The Cambridge history of Seventeenth-century philosophy. Edited by Garber Daniel and Ayers Michael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998. pp. 118–131
• Deductive reasoning, The Cambridge history of Seventeenth-century philosophy. Edited by Garber Daniel and Ayers Michael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998. pp. 132–146

Other works

• L. M. de Rijk, A. G. Braakhuis (eds.): Logos and Pragma. Essays on the Philosophy of Language in Honour of Professor Gabriel Nuchelmans Nijmegen, Ingenium Publishers, 1987 (with a bibliography of his works (1950–1987)