Patrick Suppes Interview

Patrick Suppes was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1922, receiving all his pre-college education in the public schools of that city. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1943, and serving in World War II, Suppes received a Ph.D. in philosophy of science at Columbia University, under Ernest Nagel. He has continued to publish in the philosophy of science, especially in the foundations of physics, throughout his career, but after joining the Stanford faculty in 1950 he became increasingly interested in applying statistical models in the social sciences. In particular, Dr. Suppes began studying the psychology of mathematical learning, emphasizing rigorous collection and analysis of data. From the late 1950’s he pioneered efforts to improve the teaching of mathematics to young children, notably intuitive geometry, set theory, and logic. Beginning in the early 1960’s he increasingly utilized computers in these efforts. Dr. Suppes has long promoted the importance of acknowledging and exploiting the large range of individual differences in student learning in all subjects. He has continued active in studying learning in mathematics, even after his formal retirement from Stanford in 1992.