Marjorie Grene

American philosopher (1910–2009)

Marjorie Glicksman Grene (December 13, 1910 – March 16, 2009) was an American philosopher. She wrote on existentialism and the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology. She taught at the University of California at Davis from 1965 to 1978. From 1988 until her death, she was Honorary University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech.

Grene obtained her first degree, in zoology, from Wellesley College in 1931. She then obtained (from 1933–1935) an M. A. and then a doctorate in philosophy from Radcliffe College. This was, she said, "as close as females in those days got to Harvard". Grene studied with Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, leaving Germany in 1933. She was in Denmark in 1935, and then at the University of Chicago. After losing her position there during World War II, she spent 15 years as a mother and farmer. Her New York Times obituary said Grene was "one of the first philosophers to raise questions about the synthetic theory of evolution, which combines Darwin's theory of evolution, Mendel's understanding of genetic inheritance and more recent discoveries by molecular biologists". Along with David Depew, she wrote the first history of the philosophy of biology. In 2002, she was the first female philosopher to have a volume of the Library of Living Philosophers devoted to her.

From 1938 to 1961, Grene was married to David Grene, a classicist who farmed in Illinois and in his native Ireland. They had two children, Ruth Grene, a professor of plant physiology at Virginia Tech, and Nicholas Grene, a professor of English literature at Trinity College, Dublin.