American philosopher (born 1973)
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
in
Waco, Texas
.
His best known book is
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment
(2006).
[1]
[2]
[3]
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.
[4]
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)
.
[5]
Biography
[
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]
Pruss graduated from the
University of Western Ontario
in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics. After earning a Ph.D. in mathematics at the
University of British Columbia
with a dissertation on
Symmetrization, Green’s Functions, Harmonic Measures and Difference Equations
, under John J. F. Fournier in 1996, and publishing several papers in
Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society
and other mathematical journals,
[4]
he began graduate work in philosophy at the
University of Pittsburgh
. He completed his dissertation,
Possible Worlds: What They Are and What They Are Good For
, under
Nicholas Rescher
in 2001.
Pruss began teaching philosophy at
Georgetown University
in 2001, earning tenure in 2006. In 2007, he moved to
Waco, Texas
to teach philosophy at
Baylor University
. 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
,
metaphysics
, the
cosmological
and
ontological arguments
for the
existence of God
,
modality
,
free will
, and
history of philosophy
.
[6]
Work
[
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]
Pruss's philosophical thought reflects Christian
orthodoxy
. He is a
Roman Catholic
and a member of the
Society of Christian Philosophers
.
Pruss defends the
principle of sufficient reason
(PSR), claiming that it is self-evident, and arguing that the rejection of PSR creates problems in epistemology, modality, ethics, and even evolutionary theory.
[7]
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 worlds
as thoughts in the mind of God.
[8]
Bibliography
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See also
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Notes
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]
- ^
Review by Joshua C Thurow,
Religious Studies Review
, 33, no. 3 (2007): 222-223
- ^
Review, by D Rickles
Philosophy In Review
, 27, no. 5, (2007): 370-372
- ^
Review by D Werther,
Faith and philosophy : journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers.
27, no. 1, (2010): 94-97
- ^
a
b
WorldCat author listing
- ^
"Greatest vertical distance climbed on a climbing wall in one hour (individual)"
.
Guinness World Records
. Retrieved
2023-04-17
.
- ^
Pruss,
Curriculum Vitae
- ^
Pruss, "Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments"
- ^
Pruss, "The Actual and the Possible"
References
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]
- 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
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