Obituary: Louis Merrill Ring

Devoted husband, father, professor of philosophy, advocate for a just society

Louis Merrill Ring, 88, died in Ontario on June 6 from complications of interstitial lung disease. Born on October 20, 1936 in Peoria, Illinois to Marion and Mary Ellen (Falloon) Ring, over his life he’d be a husband, father, professor of philosophy, public intellectual, organizer for political and social justice, youth soccer coach, and active member of every community in which he lived. He took exuberant joy in rigorous philosophical debate, puns of questionable quality, singing boisterously, playing and watching sports, walking the family dog, travel, and doing his part to create a more democratic society rooted in justice and equality.

 

When he was six, Merrill’s family moved to Greeley, Colorado, before settling in Wayne, Nebraska for his high school years. From an early age, he was a voracious reader, twice reading “The World Book Encyclopedia” from cover to cover. He was also an avid athlete, playing basketball and serving as the quarterback on his high school football team. In 1948 he developed an early and lasting commitment to progressive politics after hearing Harry S. Truman speak during a whistle stop campaign tour.

 

Tragically, his mother died when he was 15, and this had a profound effect on the family. After graduating from high school in 1954, he immediately joined the Navy in order to get the GI Bill, and made calls in destinations across the Pacific during and after the Korean War. He then enrolled in the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he became deeply invested in the study of philosophy, and in particular in an approach to the philosophy of language influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein and other ordinary language philosophers. He subsequently earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Washington in 1965, and returned to UC Santa Barbara as a professor of philosophy that same year.

In 1962, he married Carol Cole in San Luis Obispo, California, and in 1966 they had a son, Collin. Profoundly outraged by the violence inflicted by the U.S. on Vietnam, he devoted himself in the 1960s to organizing against the war as chair of the Santa Barbara Community Council to End the War in Vietnam, and co-chair of the Santa Barbara Vietnam Moratorium Days Committee. In 1971 he and Carol separated and subsequently divorced.

In 1973 he accepted a position as tenured professor of philosophy at Cal State University, Fullerton. He moved to Carbon Canyon in Chino Hills, where he married Jenifer Onstott in 1975. In 1979, their son Quentin was born. A Fulbright Exchange awarded in 1980 allowed the family to live for a time in Brighton, England, where he taught at the University of Sussex. Subsequent academic appointments and sabbaticals would allow the family to return over the years to Britain and the close friends they made there.

In 1982 the family moved to Claremont, and eventually settled in a house on Indian Hill Boulevard. He enthusiastically coached his children’s soccer teams, and influenced many young players’ development as manager of a team within the Claremont Stars soccer club. Once he stopped coaching, he launched a side career as a soccer journalist, with a particular dedication to covering women’s soccer.

His fierce opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq pushed him back into sustained political activity. He became heavily involved with the Claremont Democratic Club. With other members of the club, he formed The American Institute for Progressive Democracy, and through it organized numerous conferences, published a variety of political treatises, and actively organized on behalf of a progressive vision of American society.

In 2005 he retired from CSU Fullerton, but continued to devote himself to intellectual work, publishing in 2020 “On Being True Or False,” his long-germinating analysis of the relation of language to questions of truth, and a book of essays on historical and contemporary problems in philosophy in 2022. He and Jenifer continued to travel widely, and spent long happy months at their house in Nambe, New Mexico that they purchased in 2004. In 2020 they moved into Pilgrim Place in Claremont, where they found many new friends and an engaged progressive community.

“In his last weeks in the hospital, Merrill retained the same exuberance with which he lived his life,” his family shared. “He dictated the outline of a book-length inquiry into the philosophical nature of truth. He talked politics with his many visitors. He watched soccer. He cracked jokes. And, though struggling to breathe, he burst joyfully into song.”

He is survived by his wife Jenifer Onstott of Claremont; sons Collin, also of Claremont, and Quentin of Venice; siblings Richard (Gloria) of La Habra, Robert (Jennene) of Wenatchee, Washington, and Nancy McFarland of Las Vegas. Another sibling, Roger, died in 1989.

A celebration of life is planned for 3 p.m. Sunday, September 7 at Pilgrim Place.

Should you wish to make a memorial contribution, kindly consider the philosophy department at California State University, Fullerton at giving.fullerton.edu; The Prison Library Project at the Claremont Forum at claremontforum.org/prisonlibraryproject; or The Orangutan Project in Sumatra, Indonesia, at theorangutanproject.org/donate.

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