ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 30–UPDATED AGAIN
Well-known for his work in philosophy of language and metaphysics, Professor Parsons was emeritus at UCLA, where he spent the last twelve years of his career. He taught before that at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of California at Irvine. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.
(Thanks to Dom Lopes for the information.)
UPDATE (8/2/22): Ed Zalta (Stanford) kindly shared this remembrance:
I was extremely saddened to hear that Terry Parsons passed away. Though I hadn't been in regular contact with Terry for some time, he had a significant impact on my philosophical development. I took three classes from him while I was a graduate student at U. Massachusetts/Amherst (1976-1980): one on Frege, a graduate seminar on Tense and Aspect (co-taught with Barbara Partee), and a graduate seminar in which we read through the manuscript of his then forthcoming book Nonexistent Objects. His classes were always insightful and helped me to get a sense of what was really going on in the texts we were studying. But it was his seminar on nonexistent objects that changed my thinking in radical ways. I learned how to do axiomatic metaphysics in that class and though I started to work on an alternative to his theory of nonexistents, Terry agreed to supervise my thesis when I approached him about a dissertation.
Terry took at job a U. California/Irvine soon thereafter, and I'm thankful that he was willing to carry on as my thesis advisor. I would send him a (revised) chapter once a month and we would then schedule a phone call so that he could offer comments. Terry was always helpful and constructive, notwithstanding the fact that I was working on an alternative view. He would routinely point out issues that had to be tackled and solved, and suggest improvements and ways of proceeding that would help me better develop my ideas. I learned an incredible amount from those one-hour phone calls and am indebted to him for instructing me in philosophical methodologies and standards that have served me well over the years.
Terry's work, including 4 books, offers a significant body of philosophical ideas; it is well worth the study. He was never satisfied with just a purely formal solution to a philosophical problem. A brief look at a list of his most important publications (still available at https://philosophy.ucla.edu/person/terence-parsons/) shows the wide range of his views, with a focus primarily on logic, language, metaphysics and modality but also including a significant study of medieval logic. Though I only had a limited number of chances to talk (philosophy) with Terry, those occasions were memorable. He had a great sense of humor and was always cheerful and friendly. I'll miss him.
I've opened comments for others who would like to share memories of Professor Parsons.
UPDATE (8/22/22): The UCLA memorial notice is here.
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