Jeffrey Lee Stout (born September 11, 1950) is an American

religious studies Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and definition of religion, its definition is h ...

scholar who is Professor Emeritus of Religion at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. He is a member of the Department of Religion, and is associated with the departments of Philosophy and Politics, the Center for the Study of Religion, and the Center for Human Values. His works focus on the possibility of ethical discourse in a religiously pluralistic society. He served as president of the

American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profess ...

in 2007.

Life and career

Stout was born on September 11, 1950, in Trenton,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. He graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1972. Since obtaining his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in 1976 from

, Stout has remained there as Professor of Religion. He is former chair of the Committee for Film Studies at Princeton. He was also president of the

in 2007. His two best-known books, for both of which he won the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence, are ''Ethics After Babel'' (1989) and ''Democracy and Tradition'' (2003). His most recent book, ''Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America'' (2010), takes an

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

turn, investigating the engaged democratic practices that he has endorsed in his previous work. He has received Princeton University’s Graduate Mentoring Award (2009) and the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching (2010). He plans to retire in July 2018. He has also delivered

Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford at the four ancient universities of Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Their purpose is to "pro ...

in May 2017, with the title "Religion Unbound: Ideals and Powers from Cicero to King", and plans to expand the materials into a book.

Theory

He has championed what he calls "the moral tradition of

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

" as a "background of agreement" shared by participants in the political/social debates taking place in America today. This is his answer to such thinkers as

Alasdair MacIntyre Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (12 January 1929 – 21 May 2025) was a Scottish-American philosopher who contributed to moral and political philosophy as well as history of philosophy and theology. MacIntyre's '' After Virtue'' (1981) is one of ...

and

Stanley Hauerwas Stanley Martin Hauerwas (; born July 24, 1940) is an American Protestant theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Hauerwas originally taught at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Duke University. Hauerwas was a longtime professo ...

who believe that participants in such debates do not share enough common ground to prevent their arguments from being intractable. Stout has been influenced by

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher, historian of ideas, and public intellectual. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, Rorty's academic career included appointments as the Stu ...

and more recently

Robert Brandom Robert Boyce Brandom (; born March 13, 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both s ...

and, albeit with qualifications, aligns himself with the school of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

known as

American pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics� ...

References

External links

An Interview with Jeffrey Stout Part I
an
Part II
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stout, Jeffrey 1950 births 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century atheists American atheists American male non-fiction writers American religion academics Brown University alumni Living people Pragmatists Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty 21st-century American male writers