Robert Merrihew Adams (September 8, 1937 – April 16, 2024) was an American

analytic philosopher Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...

. He specialized in

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 ...

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 Text (literary theo ...

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

, and the

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, before moving to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

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 The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, 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 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

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

philosopher 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 ...

, working on medieval philosophy and the

and was the Regius Professor of Divinity at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

. In 2013 both became visiting research professors at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

, in conjunction with the founding of the Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion. Adams was 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 for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies 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 sa ...

in 2006 and was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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, and other ...

in 1991. Adams died in Montgomery, New Jersey, on April 16, 2024, at the age of 86.

Philosophical work

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

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

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 philosophical question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an Omnipotence, omnipotent, Omnibenevolence, omnibenevolent, and Omniscience, omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ...

and the relation between theism and

. In

, Adams defended 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 doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

about the nature of so-called

possible worlds Possible Worlds may refer to: * Possible worlds, concept in philosophy * ''Possible Worlds'' (play), 1990 play by John Mighton ** ''Possible Worlds'' (film), 2000 film by Robert Lepage, based on the play * Possible Worlds (studio) * ''Possible ...

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 2024 deaths 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century American essayists American ethicists American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American metaphysics writers American philosophy academics Presbyterians from Pennsylvania Analytic philosophers Christian philosophers Consequentialists American epistemologists Fellows of Mansfield College, Oxford Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the British Academy American historians of philosophy Ontologists Philosophers from North Carolina Philosophers from Pennsylvania Philosophers of history American philosophers of logic American philosophers of religion 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