THE WORLD-renowned philosopher Dr Richard Rorty, emeritus professor of comparative literature at Stanford University, who was due to receive an honorary doctorate at St Andrews this week, has died suddenly at his US home.

Dr Rorty, who was 75, had been due to be conferred with an honorary degree of doctor of letters on Wednesday.

Well-known for revitalising the philosophical school of American pragmatism, he was one of the most famous, widely-read philosophers of the late 20th century.

Earlier this year he was awarded the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences from the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, of which he was a member.

He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur Fellowship and he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

*Hundreds of students are set to graduate in a series of ceremonies this week when the Fife university will also hand out honorary doctorates to figures from the worlds of medicine, broadcasting, business and science.

More than a dozen honorary degrees will be presented in the Younger Hall in ceremonies presided over by chancellor Sir Menzies Campbell.

They include BBC broadcaster Jenni Murray, chairman of Cadbury Schweppes Sir John Sunderland, and Professor Sir Kenneth Murray, emeritus professor of molecular biology at Edinburgh University and one of the most eminent scientists in Scotland.

The full line-up is: tomorrow at 2.30pm—Professor Lisa Jardine (Dlitt, doctor of letters), professor of renaissance studies, London University, and director of AHRC Centre for Editing and Lives and Letters.

Wednesday 2.30pm— Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (Dlitt, doctor of letters), president of the British Academy and eminent moral philosopher; Sir Brian Heap (DSc, doctor of science), Master of St Edmunds College, Cambridge, and special professor in animal physiology at Nottingham University; and Professor Sir Kenneth Murray (DSc, doctor of science), emeritus professor of molecular biology, school of biological sciences, Edinburgh University.

Thursday 10.30am—Dr Richard Fortey (DSc, doctor of science), merit researcher in the Natural History Museum.

Thursday 2.30pm—Professor Dame Janet Nelson (Dlitt, doctor of letters) professor of mediaeval history, Kings College, London.

Friday 10.30am—Professor Janet Thornton (DSc, doctor of science), director of European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge; and Professor Neil Douglas (MD, doctor of medicine), professor of respiratory and sleep medicine, Edinburgh University, and president of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.

Friday 2.30pm—The Rev Joel Edwards, general director, Evangelical Alliance, London (DD, doctor of divinity); Jenni Murray (Dlitt, doctor of letters), journalist, broadcaster, writer; and Sir John Sunderland (LLD, doctor of laws), chairman of Cadbury Schweppes.