Essential Nozick: Who was Robert Nozick?
Welcome to the essential ideas of Robert Nozick.
Robert Nozick was a Harvard philosophy professor best known for his contributions to political
philosophy.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1938, Nozick was educated at Columbia University, and Princeton,
where in 1963, he completed his PhD in Philosophy.
As a student, Nozick was active in socialist politics, but after learning about classical
liberalism, he began supporting individual rights, the
need for limits on government, and the benefits of
markets.
In 1975, Nozick wrote his most famous work - Anarchy, State, and Utopia - which won the
National Book Award.
In it, Nozick argues for the supremacy of individual rights and a minimal role for government
designed exclusively to protect rights.
Eventually, Nozick's work would lead him to Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar,
and he was honoured as the President of the American
Philosophical Association, and the Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard, the university's
highest honour.
Nozick would go on to write five more books on political philosophy before dying of cancer
at the age of 63 in 2002.
Throughout his career, Robert Nozick was influential and, through his works, rejuvenated
classical liberalism as a serious philosophical idea.
For more information on Robert Nozick, visit EssentialNozick.org, and to learn about
more essential scholars, visit Essen,alScholars.org
