Stanley Rosen (July 29, 1929 – May 4, 2014) was Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy and Professor Emeritus at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
. His research and teaching focused on the fundamental questions of philosophy and on the most important figures of its history, from
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
to
Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
.
Biography
Rosen was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His family was of Jewish heritage. He studied under
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...
and, under Strauss's auspices, with
Alexandre Kojève
Alexandre Kojève ( , ; 28 April 1902 – 4 June 1968) was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on 20th-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian conce ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. He did his postdoctoral work at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, and became Evan Pugh Professor of philosophy at
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...
and then Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. He has held the Companys Lectureship at the
University of Barcelona
The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...
, the Cardinal Mercier Lectureship at
University of Leuven, the Priestley Lectureship at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
, and the Gilson Lectureship at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He served as president of the
Metaphysical Society of America
The Metaphysical Society of America (MSA) is a philosophical organization founded by Paul Weiss in 1950. As stated in its constitution, "The purpose of the Metaphysical Society of America is the study of reality." The society is a member of the ...
in 1991.
Rosen's first two books, a study of
Plato's ''Symposium'' and ''Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay'', represent his abiding concerns. On the one hand he continuously returned to the roots of the philosophical tradition, in particular to Plato, and, on the other, he thought through modern and postmodern philosophy by confronting their most powerful representatives. The most notable feature of this engagement was the justice done to the two main strands of contemporary philosophy, the continental and analytic movements, represented by their most influential members, Heidegger and
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
, as preparation for Rosen's criticism and positive proposals.
One of the central themes of Rosen's work is the claim that the extraordinary discourses of philosophy have no other basis than the intelligent understanding of the features of ordinary life or human existence. This theme was given an in-depth treatment in his 2002 work, ''The Elusiveness of the Ordinary''.
Rosen married his wife, Francoise, in 1955; they had three children and four grandchildren.
Bibliography
*''The Idea of Hegel's "Science of Logic"'' (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
*''Essays in Philosophy. Ancient'' (St. Augustine's Press, 2013)
*''Essays in Philosophy. Modern'' (St. Augustine's Press, 2013)
*''Plato's Republic: A Study'' (
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
, 2005)
*''
The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra'', 2nd edition (Yale University Press, 2004)
*''Hermeneutics as Politics'', 2nd edition (Yale University Press, 2003)
*''The Elusiveness of the Ordinary'' (Yale University Press, 2002)
*''Metaphysics in Ordinary Language'' (Yale University Press, 1999)
*''The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
*''Plato's Statesman: The Web of Politics'' (Yale University Press, 1995)
*''The Question of Being: A Reversal of Heidegger'' (Yale University Press, 1993)
*''The Ancients and the Moderns'' (Yale University Press, 1989)
*''The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry'' (Routledge, 1988)
*''Hermeneutics as Politics'' (Oxford University Press, 1987)
*''Plato's Sophist'' (Yale University Press, 1983)
*''The Limits of Analysis'' (Basic Books, 1980)
*''G. W. F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science of Wisdom'' (Yale University Press, 1974)
*''Nihilism: a Philosophical Essay'' (Yale University Press, 1969)
*''Plato's Symposium'' (Yale University Press, 1967)
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
*
List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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References
The Limits of Analysis
Further reading
*''Logos and Eros: Essays Honoring Stanley Rosen'' (St. Augustine's Press, 2006)
External links
Boston University University program page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosen, Stanley
20th-century American philosophers
Jewish philosophers
Jewish American writers
University of Chicago alumni
Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Presidents of the Metaphysical Society of America
Boston University faculty
Pennsylvania State University faculty
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
1929 births
2014 deaths
Philosophers of nihilism
Heidegger scholars
Philosophers from Ohio