Panayot Butchvarov

Butchvarov may be said to have been influenced by philosophers as varied as Plato, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein. The latter's influence can perhaps best be seen in Butchvarov's metaphilosophical Method of Analogy for which he argued in "The Limits of Ontological Analysis" (in M. S. Gram and E. D. Klemke (eds.), The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann (University of Iowa Press, 1974)). He claims that understanding is most often a matter of coming to see what something is like, seeing what it literally is being a limiting case, and that it is the noticing, discovery, and grasping of similarities and differences that is the core intellectual achievement in our understanding of the world.

Butchvarov left Syracuse University in 1968 as a full professor to move to the University of Iowa, where he was at the time of his retirement in 2005 the University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. He was President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division) in 1992–93, and has served as editor of the Journal of Philosophical Research.

Butchvarov has made major, systematic contributions to contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. His books include Resemblance and Identity: An Examination of the Problem of Universals (Indiana University Press, 1966), The Concept of Knowledge (Northwestern University Press, 1970), Being Qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence and Predication (Indiana University Press, 1979), Skepticism in Ethics (Indiana University Press, 1989), Skepticism about the External World (Oxford University Press, 1998), and Anthropocentrism in Philosophy (de Gruyter, 2015). Some of his writings can be found on http://myweb.uiowa.edu/butchvar/ and, more reliably, http://butchvarov.yolasite.com/.

Panayot Butchvarov (Bulgarian: Панайот Бъчваров; born April 2, 1933, in Sofia, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian-born American philosopher who is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Iowa.