Etienne Vermeersch

Etienne Vermeersch had an MA in classical philology and in philosophy. In 1965 he obtained his PhD on the philosophical implications of information theory and cybernetics at Ghent University, Belgium. He became a professor at Ghent University in 1967. For decades he taught Philosophy of science, History of philosophy, 20th-century philosophy, Philosophical anthropology and History of christianity.

He worked on the foundations of the social sciences, on the philosophical aspects of research into informatics, on Artificial Intelligence, and on general social and ethical problems, mainly with regard to Bioethics, Environmental philosophy, and Cultural philosophy.

He was a Vice-Rector at Ghent University from 1993 until 1997. He was, among others, a member of the Flemish Board for Scientific Policy, of the governmental board of the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology, member of the Environmental Board of Flanders, and member of the Federal Board for Science Policy. He was also President of the Advisory Committee of Bioethics. The Medical Assisted Reproduction Act, the Scientific Research Act, even the Transgender Act would not be what they are today in Belgium without Vermeersch's input. The legalization of therapeutic cloning, which sparked heated debate in the Senate, overcame it thanks to its ethical considerations.^[4]

Etienne Vermeersch published:^[5]

• 80 Bio-ethical, philosophical, socio-cultural and scientific articles
• 10 lemmas in the Encyclopaedia of World Literature
• Many (opinion) articles in newspapers, magazines and journals
• 3 syllabi of his colleges
• 15 books (a selection):
  • An Epistemological Introduction to the Science of Man, Pub. De Tempel, 1967 (401 pp.)
  • Current Philosophy, Pub. Gakko, 1970 (151 pp.)
  • An Analysis of the Concept of Culture, Bernardi/Bernardo, ed. – The Concept and Dynamics of Culture, World Anthropology, The Hague, Mouton, 1977 (9–73 pp.)
  • The Panda's Eyes: An Environmentally Philosophical Essay, Pub. Van de Wiele, 1988 (72 pp.) – a new version published at Pub. Houtekiet, 2010 (160 pp.)
  • Environment, Ethics and Cultures, Biosphere and Economy, Brussels, C.E.C., 1990, (1–40 pp.).
  • Provençaalse gesprekken – Etienne Vermeersch and Willy Weyns – Academic & Scientific publishers, 2013 (pp. 384). Nieuwe druk: Houtekiet, 2020, (208 pp.)
  • From Antigone to Dolly (1997) – an edited volume containing articles spanning his entire career was re-published, Pub. Houtekiet, 2019 (295 pp.)
  • Atheïsm, Pub. Luster, 2010 (72 pp.)
  • The Multicultural Society, Pub. Luster, 2011 (70 pp.)
  • De ketter en de kerkvorst – Etienne Vermeersch and André Léonard, Pub. De Bezige Bij, 2014 (240 pp.)
  • On God, Pub. Vrijdag, 2016 (140 pp.).
  • De rivier van Herakleitos – Etienne Vermeersch and Johan Braeckman, Pub. Houtekiet, 2019.
  • Nagelaten Geschriften – Etienne Vermeersch (red. Johan Braeckman & Dirk Verhofstadt, 2019. (476 pp.) – posthume

Professor Vermeersch was also a major Belgian skeptic. He was a founding member of SKEPP ('Research Society for Critical Evaluation of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal'). He lectured and published on this topic for more than 40 years.^[6]

In the 1990s there was some commotion in the Belgian media when Vermeersch wrote an article on rational and ethical grounds entitled Why the Christian God cannot exist.^[7]

Vermeersch considered the overpopulation of the earth as the most profound problem in the world and related it to the problem of overconsumption. He supported the human birth control of Taiwan since 1967 and later Thailand.^[8]

In the beginning of January 2005 he survived a second heart attack. He remained active as a prominent intellectual in Belgium and the Netherlands.

When he died he was widely seen as one of Belgium's most influential philosophers.