Mark Steiner

For the Norwegian-American rock musician, see Mark Steiner (musician).

Mark Steiner (Hebrew: מארק שטיינר; May 6, 1942 – April 6, 2020) was an American-born Israeli professor of philosophy. He taught philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Steiner died after contracting COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mark Steiner
מארק שטיינר
Born	(1942-05-06)May 6, 1942 The Bronx, New York, US
Died	April 6, 2020(2020-04-06) (aged 77) Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel
Education	Columbia University (1965), Ph.D. from Princeton University (1972)
Occupation	Professor of philosophy
Employer	Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Known for	Writing The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem

Biography

Mark Steiner was born in the Bronx, New York.^[1] He graduated from Columbia University in 1965 and studied at the University of Oxford as a Fulbright Fellow. He then received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in 1972 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "On mathematical knowledge."^[2][3] Steiner taught at Columbia from 1970 to 1977.^[3]

Steiner died on April 6, 2020, in Shaare Zedek Medical Center, after contracting the COVID-19 virus during the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel.^[4][5]

Academic career

Steiner is best known for his book The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem, in which he attempted to explain the historical utility of mathematics in physics. The book may be considered an extended meditation on the issues raised by Eugene Wigner's article "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences".^[6] Steiner is also the author of the book Mathematical Knowledge.

Steiner also translated Reuven Agushewitz's philosophical work Emune un Apikorses from Yiddish.^[7]