Alice Ambrose (1906–2001)

Alice Ambrose was born in Lexington, Illinois and was orphaned at age 13. She went to Millikin University in 1924–1928 to study philosophy and mathematics. After completing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in 1932, she traveled to the University of Cambridge in England to do post-doctoral research with Ludwig Wittgenstein. She and a select group of students helped put together The Blue Book (1933-1934) and The Brown Book (1934-1935), two central texts in the Wittgenstein canon that were essentially transcripts of his lectures and dictations. Ambrose earned a second PhD at Cambridge and returned to the USA. She began her academic career at the University of Michigan, then in 1937 took a position in the Philosophy Department at Smith College, where she remained for the rest of her career. In 1938, she married fellow philosopher and faculty member Morris Lazerowitz. Ambrose became a full professor in 1951, and was named the Austin and Sophia Smith Professor of Philosophy in 1964. Between 1953 and 1968, she was the editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic. She published Essays in Analysis in 1966, and with her husband co-authored six more books, including Fundamentals of Symbolic Logic (1962), Essays in the Unknown Wittgenstein (1984), and Necessity and Language (1985). The couple also co-edited G.E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect (1970) and Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language (1972). Ambrose held a respected place in 20th-century philosophy, working chiefly in logic and mathematical philosophy. Even after her retirement, as professor emerita, she continued to teach and give guest lectures at Smith, Hampshire College, the University of Delaware, and other universities around the country. She served as president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA) and chaired the APA Committee on Freedom for Latin American Philosophers.