Roberto Torretti

Torretti has been greatly influenced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and has dedicated many of his works to Kant's thought. His work Manuel Kant: estudio sobre los fundamentos de la filosofia critica is considered one of the most important literary works on the thoughts of the 18th century German philosopher. Publications such as Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincaré (1978), Relativity and Geometry (1983) and El paraíso de Cantor (1998) have made Torretti a leading authority on the philosophy of science. Much of Torretti's work has dealt with physics and mathematics, with a major focus on relativity theory and 19th-century geometry. He has devoted the book El Paraíso de Cantor to the set-theoretical tradition in logic and philosophy of mathematics. Together with Jesús Mosterín, he has written an original and comprehensive dictionary of logic and philosophy of science.

Torretti received a doctorate from the University of Freiburg under the supervision of Wilhelm Szilasi in 1954. Shortly after he began lecturing in philosophy and psychology at the Institute of Education of the University of Chile in Valparaíso. He also worked for the United Nations before commencing an academic career that lasted for more than forty years, during which he taught philosophy in the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Chile. Torretti was professor emeritus of the University of Puerto Rico, and a member of the Institut International de Philosophie. In April 2005 Torretti was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain. Torretti resided in Santiago, Chile and was married to the academic and philosopher Carla Cordua. In September 2011 Cordua and Torretti were jointly awarded the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences by the Republic of Chile.

Roberto Torretti (born February 15, 1930) is a Chilean philosopher, author and academic who is internationally renowned for his contributions to the history of philosophy, philosophy of physics and philosophy of mathematics.