About Charles West Churchman

Charles West Churchman (29 August 1913 – 21 March 2004) was an American philosopher and systems scientist, who was Professor at the School of Business Administration and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was internationally known for his pioneering work in operations research, system analysis and ethics.

Churchman was born in 1913 in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, to Clark Wharton Churchman and Helen Norah Fassitt, descendants of Philadelphia Main Line families.His first intellectual love was for philosophy and this far-ranging love for wisdom captivated him to the end of his life.[3] He studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1935, a master's in 1936, and a PhD in 1938, all in philosophy. One of his teachers was Edgar A. Singer, who had been a student at Harvard of the philosopher and psychologist William James.