Charles William Hendel

Dr. Charles William Hendel Jr., born in Reading, PA, was retired chairman of Yale University's department of philosophy. He graduated from Princeton at the head of his class in 1913. After study at the University of Marburg in Germany and the University of France in Paris, he was awarded a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1917. He taught philosophy at Williams College in 1919 and 1920, and then at Princeton until 1929. From 1929-40, Dr. Hendel was professor of moral philosophy and later was dean of the faculty of arts and science at McGill University in Montreal. In 1940, he joined Yale as Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics and chairman of the philosophy department. Dr. Hendel was credited by associates with blending philosophy with the social sciences and liberal arts to create what was considered one of the outstanding programs of its time.

Among Dr. Hendel's books were The Philosophy of David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau: Moralist, and Civilization and Religion: An Argument About Values in Human Life, and was co-author of Philosophy in American Education. In 1950, Dr. Hendel was elected president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association. He was president of the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy from 1959-61, and delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow in 1962-63.

Source: New York Times