Scheffler held B.A. and M.A. degrees in psychology from Brooklyn College, an M.H.L. and a D.H.L.(hon.) from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.^[2] He defended his doctoral thesis, On Quotation, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, where he studied with Nelson Goodman^[3] and began teaching that year at Harvard University, where he spent his career. He retired in 1992.^[4] His main interests lay in the philosophical interpretation of language, symbolism, science and education. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a founding member of the National Academy of Education and a past president of both the Philosophy of Science Association and the Charles S. Peirce Society.^[2]

His works have been translated from English into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Persian.^[5]

Books edit

• Scheffler, Israel. The Anatomy of Inquiry; Philosophical Studies in the Theory of Science. New York: Knopf, 1963. OCLC 526705
• Scheffler, Israel. Philosophy and Education: Modern Readings. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1966. OCLC 397699249
• Scheffler, Israel. Science and Subjectivity. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967. OCLC 374512
• Scheffler, Israel. Conditions of Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology and Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978., ISBN 978-0-226-73668-6
• Scheffler, Israel. The Language of Education. Springfield: Ill, 1983. ISBN 978-0-398-01656-2
• Scheffler, Israel. Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey. New York: Humanities Press, 1971. ISBN 978-0-391-00351-4
• Scheffler, Israel, Nelson Goodman, and Richard Rudner. Logic & Art. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1972.
• Scheffler, Israel. Reason and Teaching. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973. ISBN 978-0-672-61253-4
• Scheffler, Israel. Conditions of Knowledge. 1978. OCLC 464010934
• Scheffler, Israel. Beyond the Letter: A Philosophical Inquiry into Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Metaphor in Language. International library of philosophy and scientific method. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. ISBN 978-0-7100-0315-7
• Scheffler, Israel. Of Human Potential: An Essay in the Philosophy of Education. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. ISBN 978-0-7102-0571-1
• Scheffler, Israel. Inquiries: Philosophical Studies of Language, Science, & Learning. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1986. ISBN 978-0-87220-013-5
• Scheffler, Israel. In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Education. New York: Routledge, 1991. 9780415903646 (a Collection of articles spanning 1974 to 1990.)
• Scheffler, Israel. Symbolic Worlds: Art, Science, Language, Ritual. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-521-56425-0
• Scheffler, Israel. Worlds of Truth: A Philosophy of Knowledge. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4051-9170-8

• Scheffler, Israel. Teachers of My Youth: An American Jewish Experience. Philosophy and education, v. 5. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. ISBN 978-0-7923-3232-9
• Scheffler, Israel. Gallery of Scholars: A Philosopher's Recollections. Philosophy and education, v. 13. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. ISBN 978-1-4020-2710-9