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Robert Merrihew Adams RIP


 A philosopher and theologian of some importance passed away on April 17. 

I refer to Robert M. Adams, long affiliated with the UNC Chapel Hill and with Rutgers.

Adams gave the Gifford lectures at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1998-99.  This alone makes him worthy of note. The Gifford lectures have become legendary as a regular contribution by one or another significant scholar, each presented originally as a lecture series over the course of an academic year though put eventually into book form. 

The mandate from the will of the late Lord Gifford is that the lectures should "promote the knowledge of God" in "the widest sense." This leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The philosophers and philosophy-adjacent scholars who have been honored with a Gifford invitation have included Josiah Royce, William James, Henri Bergson, Etienne Gilson, Samuel Alexander, Arthur Eddington, Alfred North Whitehead, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Eccles, Simon Blackburn, Werner Heisenberg, Frederick Copleston, Hannah Arendt and many others.

And to that formidable list we may add Robert Adams, whose lectures became the basis for his book GOD AND BEING. 

Here is a link to an article he wrote that summarizes some of the themes of his Gifford lectures/book. 

God, Possibility, and Kant - CORE Reader

What I find especially of interest about it is a history-of-philosophy point.  There is a widespread impression that (a) Immanuel Kant is an extraordinarily important philosopher and (b) that the period of his importance begins when his "critical" period began -- when he read Hume's skeptical treatment of causation, was shocked out of what he himself called his "dogmatic slumber" and devoted himself to a detailed reply to Hume, which became in time is Critique of Pure Reason.  

Adams questioned that conventional wisdom. He believed, it appears, that the early Kant, the "pre-critical Kant," was important and valuable.  Adams believed, furthermore, that the pre-critical Kant offered an argument for the existence of God that might well be built upon and made tenable. The implication is that the critical turn in Kant's work was a backwards turn, not one to be celebrated. 

I find this fascinating.  

Rest in peace, Professor Adams.  

Postscript: In other decedent-philosopher news: Robert Kane has passed. I have quoted him frequently in this blog, whenever I discuss free will and incompatibilism. I will give him a proper farewell next week. 

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