Nicholas Wolterstorff

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Nicholas Wolterstorff (born January 21, 1932 in Bigelow, Minnesota) is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, and Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theological interests, he has written books on metaphysics, aesthetics, political philosophy, epistemology and theology and philosophy of religion. Together with other philosophers -- (Alvin Plantinga, William Alston and Richard Mouw) -- Wolterstorff was involved in setting up the journal, Faith and Philosophy and the Society of Christian Philosophers. He has often collaborated with Alvin Plantinga.

1 Education and academic career
2 Professional distinctions
3 Endowed lectureships
4 Thought
5 Bibliography
- 5.1 Selected writings
- 5.2 Assessment
6 External links

[edit] Education and academic career

Degrees

- Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan (BA) in philosophy 1953

- Harvard University, (PhD) in philosophy 1956

University Positions

- Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College (1959-1989)

- Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale University (1989-2001) and, concurrently, Adjunct Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Religious Studies Department

Visiting Professorships

- Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Oxford University and the Free University of Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit).

[edit] Professional distinctions

President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division)

President of the Society of Christian Philosophers

[edit] Endowed lectureships

Wilde Lectures, Oxford University

Gifford Lectures, St Andrews University

Stone Lectures, Princeton Theological Seminary

[edit] Thought

While an undergraduate, Wolterstorff was greatly influenced by Calvin College professors Harry Jellema, Henry Stob and Henry Zylstra, who introduced him to themes that have dominated his mature thinking: Reformed theology and Common Sense philosophy (these twin themes also shaped 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. As there is no foundation of certainties, one is left with the question on how to interpret reality and what leads into the domain of hermeneutics.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Selected writings

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. On Universals: an Essay in Ontology. Hardcover ed. Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1970.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Reason Within the Bounds of Religion. 2nd ed. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Educating for Responsible Action. Paperback ed. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (CSI Publications), 1980.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic. Paperback ed. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980).

Worlds and works of art (Oxford: Clarendon Series of Oxford Univ. Press, 1980).

Plantinga, Alvin, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, eds. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Univ. of Notre Dame Pr., 1984.

Rationality in the calvinian tradition [ed. with H. Hart & J. van der Hoeven] (Lanham: Univ. of America Press, 1983).

Until justice and peace embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983).

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Lament for a Son. Paperback ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks. Paperback ed. New York: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1995.

John Locke and the ethics of belief (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996).

Religion in the Public Square [with R. Audi] (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997)

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Paperback New ed. New York: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2004.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Education for Shalom: Essays on Christian Higher Education. Ed. Clarence W. Joldersma and Gloria G. Stronks. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004.

"Resuscitating the Author" in Hermeneutics at the Crossroads (Indiana University, 2006), ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James K.A. Smith, and Bruce Ellis Benson.

[edit] Assessment

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