DEATH: Rudi Ziedins - obituary

[Clark, Stephen]

________________________________________
From: aphil-l...@anu.edu.au [aphil-l...@anu.edu.au] on behalf of David Lumsden [phil...@waikato.ac.nz]
Sent: 27 March 2012 02:15


It is with great sadness that I need to report the death, on Sunday March 18
th, of Rudi Ziedins, an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of the University
of Waikato. He was 87 and had been ill for some time. Rudi was a native
of Latvia and emigrated to Australia in 1947. He studied Philosophy at the
University of Melbourne, from where he received his PhD. He taught at the
University of Otago from 1956 to 1957 and at the University of Canterbury
from 1958 to 1969. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Waikato from 1969 to 1990. While not Philosophy’s first professor at
Waikato, he played an important developmental role for the subject, setting
its direction at this University and fostering a spirit of collegial and
reasoned debate. He also played a very significant role in University
affairs, including serving as Dean of the School of Humanities. His time
at the University was a time of huge growth and the institution was in need
of dedication and good counsel. Thus, Rudi’s hard work, quiet and reasoned
manner and generous spirit were much appreciated not only within Philosophy
but across the University at large. Rudi’s philosophical interests were
wide-ranging, and included topics in the Philosophy of Mind and in
Epistemology and Metaphysics, with a focus on the later works of
Wittgenstein, amongst other philosophers. He is survived by his wife, Vija
and their three children, Ilze, Laima and Imants, and four grandchildren.
The thoughts of many across the Australasian philosophical community are
with them.





David Lumsden

Acting Dean

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

phone: +64 7 838 4526
_______________________________________________


Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html.

Discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.

Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.