Anfinn Stigen
Anfinn Emil Stigen (1923–1994) was a Norwegian philosopher and, for more than thirty years, a teacher of philosophy at the University of Oslo. He was Lise Stigen's philosophy professor, and later her husband; they had two children together.
A life in philosophy
Born in Ålesund in 1923, Anfinn Stigen studied in Chicago, Oxford, Paris and Oslo. He began his research on Aristotle, taking his doctorate in 1966 with a dissertation on the structure of Aristotle's thought, and turned in the 1960s and 1970s to questions of meaning, action and imagination.
He taught at the University of Oslo for over three decades, becoming dosent in 1964 and professor in 1974, with a period in between as head of the philosophy department at Aarhus University. He was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1987.
His lasting contribution was as much to the reading public as to the discipline. The two-volume Tenkningens historie (1983) became the standard history of philosophy for generations of Norwegian students, and he translated Plato and Aristotle into Norwegian, including into Nynorsk.
Among his students was Lise Stigen, whom he later married; they had two children.
Selected works
- Dissertation, 1966The Structure of Aristotle's Thought
- 1967Betydning og meining, handling og ytring
- Two volumes, 1983Tenkningens historie
- Into Norwegian, including NynorskTranslations of Plato and Aristotle
Biographical details from Store norske leksikon.