Joseph A. Novak
Professor Emeritus Joseph Anthony Novak died on August 10, 2025.
Raised in Chicago, Joe earned his PhD at the University of Notre Dame in 1977, writing a dissertation entitledAristotle on Method: Definitions and Demonstrations.He earned tenure at St Thomas Moore College at the University of Saskatchewan before he joined the Philosophy Department at the University of ݮƵ in 1984, where he taught until his retirement in 2013.
Joe’s research was primarily in ancient philosophy. Colleagues described him as a “walking library catalogue” on Aristotle—a valuable resource indeed in the days before Google!—and much of his early work involved investigating the ways in which the philosophical views of Plato and Aristotle depended on the developments in the mathematics of their day. His philosophical interests were wide-ranging and covered philosophers from the medieval and modern periods. He was a popular graduate supervisor for projects in the history of philosophy, and for much of his career, he carried the bulk of the undergraduate teaching in ancient philosophy. But perhaps Joe’s best loved course was Phil 208: Philosophy Through Science Fiction.It introduces perennial philosophical questions to do with the nature of knowledge, mind and body, ethics, logic and language as they arise in classic works of science fiction. The course was Joe’s own creation, first offered three decades ago and still popular with students today.
Joe served as Associate Chair of Graduate Studies for several years in the 1990s, and as Acting Chair in 2009-10. He had an astonishing and enviable range of interests, from science fiction to ballet to riding motorcycles. He was admired by colleagues and students alike for his remarkable erudition, his kindness, hiskeen sense of humour—always delivered with a gentle smile—and his love of excellent chocolate, which he always brought to share with colleagues during talks and meetings.