Robert Merrihew Adams (born September 8, 1937) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

analytic philosopher Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...

, specializing in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning p ...

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

, and the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

early modern philosophy Early modern philosophy (also classical modern philosophy)Richard Schacht, ''Classical Modern Philosophers: Descartes to Kant'', Routledge, 2013, p. 1: "Seven men have come to stand out from all of their counterparts in what has come to be known ...

Life and career

Adams was born on September 8, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He taught for many years at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

, before moving to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in the early 1990s as the Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics. As chairman, he helped revive the philosophy department after its near-collapse due to personal and scholarly conflicts between analytical and Continental philosophers. Adams retired from Yale in 2004 and taught part-time at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, where he was a senior research fellow of Mansfield College. In 2009 he became a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...

. Adams's late wife, Marilyn McCord Adams, was also a

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

, working on

medieval philosophy Medieval philosophy is the philosophy that existed through the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century until after the Renaissance in the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval philosophy, ...

and the

and was the Regius Professor of Divinity at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniq ...

. In 2013 both became visiting research professors at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

, in conjunction with the founding of the Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion. He is a past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers. In 1999, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on "God and Being". He was elected a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...

in 2006 and was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1991.

Philosophical work

As a historical scholar, Adams has published on the work of the philosophers

Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , , ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on ...

and G.W. Leibniz. His work in the philosophy of religion includes influential essays on the

problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyc ...

and the relation between

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referr ...

and

. In

, Adams defends actualism in metaphysics of modality and

Platonism Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at l ...

about the nature of so-called possible worlds.

Selected works

* . Reprinted in ''The Virtue of Faith and Other Essay in Philosophical Theology'' below. * "A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness" in ''Religion and Morality: A Collection of Essays''. eds. Gene Outka and John P. Reeder. New York: Doubleday. Reprinted in ''The Virtue of Faith''. * * * * "Actualism and Thisness", ''Synthèse'', XLIX 3–41. 1981. * * ''The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology''. New York: Oxford University Press. 1987. * * "Divine Commands and the Social Nature of Obligation" ''Faith and Philosophy'', 1987. * "The Knight of Faith", ''Faith and Philosophy'', 1990. * "Moral Faith", ''Journal of Philosophy'', 1995. * ''Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist''. New York: Oxford. 1994. * "Things in Themselves", ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', 1997. * ''Finite and Infinite Goods''. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. * ''A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2006. * ''What Is, and What Is In Itself: A Systematic Ontology''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.

References

External links

Gifford Lecture Series

"Philosophy Takes Steps to Rebuild"
''Yale Daily News'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Robert Merrihew 1937 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century essayists American ethicists American logicians American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American metaphysics writers American philosophy academics American Presbyterians Analytic philosophers Christian philosophers Consequentialists Epistemologists Fellows of Mansfield College, Oxford Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the British Academy Historians of philosophy Living people Metaphysicians Moral philosophers Ontologists Philosophers from North Carolina Philosophers from Pennsylvania Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of history Philosophers of logic Philosophers of religion Philosophy writers Presidents of the Society of Christian Philosophers University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Writers from Philadelphia Yale University faculty 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers