Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff
Born (1932-01-21) January 21, 1932
Bigelow, Minnesota
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Analytic
Academic advisors Donald Cary Williams[1]
Main interests
 Epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, political philosophy
Notable ideas
 Reformed epistemology

Nicholas Wolterstorff (born January 21, 1932) is an American philosopher. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theological interests, he has written books on aesthetics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and philosophy of education. In Faith and Rationality, Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, and William Alston developed and expanded upon a view of religious epistemology that has come to be known as Reformed epistemology[2]. He also helped to establish the journal Faith and Philosophy and the Society of Christian Philosophers.

Wolterstorff speaking in a conference in South Korea, May 24, 2014

Education and academic career

Degrees

University positions

Visiting professorships

Professional distinctions

  • Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1953
  • Harvard Foundation Fellowship, 1954
  • Josiah Royce Memorial Fellowship, Harvard University, 1954
  • Fulbright Scholarship, 1957
  • President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division)
  • President of the Society of Christian Philosophers
  • Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in Culture, University of Virginia, 2005

Endowed lectureships

Personal life

Nicholas Wolterstorff lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife Claire. He has 4 grown children and 1 that died at age 25 while mountain climbing in Austria. He has seven grandchildren.

Thought

While an undergraduate at Calvin College, Wolterstorff was greatly influenced by professors William Harry Jellema, Henry Stob and Henry Zylstra, who introduced him to schools of thought that have dominated his mature thinking: Reformed theology and common sense philosophy (these have also influenced the thinking of Wolterstorff's friend and colleague Alvin Plantinga, another alumnus of Calvin College).

Wolterstorff builds upon the ideas of the Scottish common sense philosopher Thomas Reid, who approached knowledge "from the bottom-up". Instead of reasoning about transcendental conditions of knowledge, Wolterstorff suggests that knowledge and our knowing faculties are not the subject of our research but have to be seen as its starting point. Wolterstorff rejects classical foundationalism and instead sees knowledge as based upon insights in reality which are direct and indubitable.

Bibliography

Selected writings

  • On Universals: An Essay in Ontology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1970.
  • Reason within the Bounds of Religion. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1976. 2nd ed. 1984
  • Works and Worlds of Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1980.
  • Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1980. 2nd ed. 1995
  • Educating for Responsible Action. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1980.
  • Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1983. 2nd ed. 1994.
  • Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (ed. with Alvin Plantinga). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1984.
  • Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1987.
  • "Suffering Love" in Philosophy and the Christian Faith (ed.Thomas V. Morris). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1988.
  • Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1995.
  • John Locke and the Ethics of Belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996.
  • Religion in the Public Square (with Robert Audi). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 1997.
  • Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001.
  • Educating for Life: Reflections on Christian Teaching and Learning. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. 2002.
  • "An Engagement with Rorty" in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 129–139.
  • Educating for Shalom: Essays on Christian Higher Education. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004.
  • Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2008.
  • Inquiring about God: Selected Essays, Volume I (ed. Terence Cuneo). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009.
  • Practices of Belief: Selected Essays, Volume II (ed. Terence Cuneo). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009.
  • Justice in Love. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2011.
  • The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012.
  • Understanding Liberal Democracy: Essays in Political Philosophy (ed. Terence Cuneo). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012.
  • Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015.

Secondary

  • Sloane, Andrew, On Being A Christian in the Academy: Nicholas Wolterstorff and the Practice of Christian Scholarship, Paternoster, Carlisle UK, 2003.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wolterstorff, Nicholas (November 2007). "A Life in Philosophy". Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 81 (2). JSTOR 27653995.
  2. ↑ Forrest, Peter (2017). Zalta, Edward N., ed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
  3. ↑ "Honorary doctorates", Top researchers, NL: VU .


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