Harold F. Cherniss

Harold Fredrik Cherniss (March 11, 1904 – June 18, 1987) was an expert on the philosophy of Ancient Greece. He wrote several books in the field, and edited and translated works by Plutarch.

Life

Cherniss was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and received his doctorate at University of California, Berkeley in 1930. He then taught the Greek language at Cornell University, followed by stints at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California.

He worked in military intelligence for the United States Army during World War II, then was a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton Township, New Jersey from 1948 until his death in 1987.

Publications

Books

• The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930).
• Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935; reprint: New York: Octagon Books, 1964).
• Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1944).
• The Riddle of the Early Academy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945).
• Selected Papers (Leiden: Brill, 1977).

Articles

• "The Philosophical Economy of the Theory of Ideas", American Journal of Philology 57 (1936): 445–456.
• "Plato as Mathematician", Review of Metaphysics, 4 (1951): 395-425.
• "The Characteristics and Effects of Presocratic Philosophy", Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951): 319-345.

Translations

• Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. 12. (with W. C. Helmbold) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957).
• Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. 13 Part 2. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976).

References

• New York Times obituary: Harold F. Cherniss