Ruth Barcan Marcus

Ruth Barcan (as she was known before marrying the physicist Jules Alexander Marcus in 1942) graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 1941, majoring in mathematics and philosophy. She then went to graduate school at Yale, obtaining her M.A. in 1942 and her PhD in 1946.

Marcus was a visiting professor at Northwestern University from 1950 until 1953 and, again, in 1959. She served as assistant, and then as associate, professor at the newly founded Roosevelt University, Chicago, between 1956 and 1963. From 1964 to 1970, she was a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois Chicago (originally serving as a head of department). She was professor of philosophy at Northwestern University from 1970 until 1973, when she was appointed as the Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Philosophy at Yale University until retiring, as a professor emerita, in 1992. She continued to teach, during winter semesters, at the University of California, Irvine until 1997.

Amongst other professional offices held during her career, Marcus served as chair of the board of officers for the American Philosophical Association (1976–83) and as president of both the Association for Symbolic Logic (1983–86) and then of the Institut International de Philosophie (1989–92).