Paul Weiss, 101; Author, Metaphysician Fought Age Discrimination

Paul Weiss, 101, a metaphysician and university professor who fought several age discrimination battles, died July 5 at his home in Washington, D.C. He had a heart ailment.

Weiss founded the Metaphysical Society of America in 1947, as well as its academic journal, Review of Metaphysics.

Born in Manhattan, Weiss received his doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University in 1929. He taught at Bryn Mawr College and then at Yale from 1946 until 1969, when he was forced to retire as Sterling Professor of Philosophy because of his age, 68.

After unsuccessfully fighting that rule, he lost a $1-million age discrimination suit against Fordham University, which had rescinded its offer of a prestigious chairmanship.

He taught at Catholic University from 1969 until 1992, when the university announced it would not renew its annual contract with the then-91-year-old Weiss. He challenged the firing and was reinstated after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that he was a victim of age discrimination.

After retiring from the university two years later, he continued to write books until his death. The most recent of his more than 30 books, “Emphatics,” dealt with the use of language and was published in 2000.