Alexander Robert Pruss (; born January 5, 1973) is a Canadian philosopher and mathematician. He is currently a professor of philosophy and the co-director of graduate studies in philosophy at

Baylor University Baylor University is a Private university, private Baptist research university in Waco, Texas, United States. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Te ...

Waco, Texas Waco ( ) is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and Interstate 35, I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin, Texas, Austin. The city had a U.S. census estimated 2024 popul ...

. His best known book is ''The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment'' (2006). He is also the author of the books, ''Actuality, Possibility and Worlds'' (2011), and ''One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics'' (2012), and a number of academic papers on religion and theology.WorldCat author listing
/ref> He maintains his own philosophy blog and contributed to the Prosblogion philosophy of religion blog. He is currently the Guinness World Record Holder for ''greatest vertical distance climbed on a climbing wall in one hour (individual)'' and ''fastest mile on climbing wall (male).''

Biography

Until age 9, Alexander Pruss lived in Poland. At the height of martial law, he emigrated to Canada with his dissident parents. He never finished high school, but instead went to the University of Western Ontario after completing grade 10, studying physics and mathematics, never writing a single paper over the three years of his undergraduate career. Pruss graduated from the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...

in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics. While trying to figure out exactly what to do with the rest of his life, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

with a dissertation on ''Symmetrization, Green’s Functions, Harmonic Measures and Difference Equations'', under John J. F. Fournier in 1996, and published several papers in ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'' and other mathematical journals,. Afterwards, realizing that philosophy is the handmaiden of his true love, theology, he began graduate work in philosophy at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

. He completed his dissertation, ''Possible Worlds: What They Are and What They Are Good For'', under

Nicholas Rescher Nicholas Rescher (; ; 15 July 1928 – 5 January 2024) was a German-born American philosopher, polymath, and author, who was a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh from 1961. He was chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Sc ...

in 2001. Pruss began teaching philosophy at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

in 2001, earning tenure in 2006. In 2007, he moved to

to teach philosophy at

. He is now the director of graduate studies for the Baylor Philosophy Department. He has taught various courses, including graduate seminars on the

philosophy of time Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

, the

cosmological Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

and

ontological argument In the philosophy of religion, an ontological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. ...

s for the

existence of God The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the exis ...

modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modalit ...

free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...

, and

history of philosophy The history of philosophy is the systematic study of the development of philosophical thought. It focuses on philosophy as rational inquiry based on argumentation, but some theorists also include myth, religious traditions, and proverbial lor ...

Work

Pruss's philosophical thought reflects Christian

orthodoxy Orthodoxy () is adherence to a purported "correct" or otherwise mainstream- or classically-accepted creed, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical co ...

. He is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and a member of the

Society of Christian Philosophers The Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP) was founded in 1978. The society is open to anyone interested in philosophy who considers himself or herself a Christian. Membership is not restricted to any particular "school" of philosophy or to any b ...

. Pruss defends the

principle of sufficient reason The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a Reason (argument), reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by ...

(PSR), claiming that it is self-evident, and arguing that the rejection of PSR creates problems in epistemology, modality, ethics, and even evolutionary theory. Pruss is a critic of David Lewis's "extreme modal realism," and instead gives "a combined account" of Leibnizian and Aristotelian modality, which integrates the "this-worldly capacities" of the Aristotelian view and Leibniz's account of

possible world A possible world is a complete and consistent way the world is or could have been. Possible worlds are widely used as a formal device in logic, philosophy, and linguistics in order to provide a semantics for intensional and modal logic. Their met ...

s as thoughts in the mind of God.Pruss, "The Actual and the Possible"

Bibliography

* ''The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment'' (

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 2006) * ''Actuality, Possibility and Worlds'' (

Bloomsbury Academic Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...

, 2011) * ''One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics'' (

University of Notre Dame Press The University of Notre Dame Press is a university press that is part of the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The press was founded in 1949, and claims to be the largest Catholic university press in the world. The ...

, 2012) * ''Necessary Existence'' with Joshua L. Rasmussen (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2018) * ''Infinity, Causation, and Paradox'' (

, 2018)

Notes

References

*Pruss, Alexander. ''Curriculum Vitae'' Accessed March 2013. *Pruss, Alexander. "Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments" in ''Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology'', Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 *Pruss, Alexander. "The Actual and the Possible" In Richard M. Gale (ed.), ''Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics'', Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.

External links