I recently interviewed Brian Leftow and I'll be posting that interview in parts this week. Below in this post I'll paste a brief introduction and then I'll publish two questions in individual posts. As the week goes on I'll post the rest of the questions each in its own post. Enjoy!
Brian Leftow was one of the first analytic philosophers I ever read. I got into philosophy primarily through philosophical theology and I was a Thomist (though not yet a Catholic) so I was interested in defenses of divine timelessness. I found Time and Eternity a tour de force. The way it combined logical acumen with thorough knowledge of the history of philosophy (and not a little modern science) was an exemplar to me of what good philosophy should look like. That book is still a modern classic on the subject. Since then I have read everything he's published and continue to be impressed.
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I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance about the time he was offered the Nolloth Chair at Oxford--the Chair Richard Swinburne was about to retire from. It was interesting to speculate about who else was in the running and to share his thoughts on the pros and cons of living in England. As you'll see, he's quite happy with his decision.
One of my old students is currently on exchange at Oxford and taking a class with Brian. I asked him to provide a brief summary of what he is like in class.
Leftow is a good lecturer; he has detailed but not over complicated handouts. He carefully chooses his statements and qualifiers in a way that you don't realize how particular his word choice has been until later on his is questioned on something and then he goes back and restates his position in the same words he used earlier, words which it is now obvious that do matter a good deal. He goes slowly and makes sure that concepts are clear. He examines both sides of the evidence, makes his case for why it is x instead of y, but still admits puzzles or questions that can be posed about x.
Brian is a graduate of Grove City College and earned his PhD from Yale. He taught at Fordham for 17 years before taking up the Nolloth Chair in the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College Oxford in 2002.
Representative Publications
- Divine Ideas, Cornell University Press, (forthcoming)
- Matter, Parts and Number: Aquinas' Philosophy of Mathematics (Oxford, forthcoming).
- "Anti Social Trinitarianism," in Steven Davis and Daniel Kendall, eds.,
The Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). - "The Eternal Now," in Gregory Ganssle and David Woodruff, eds.,
God and Time (Oxford University Press, 2002). - "Necessary Being", and "Concepts of God," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge Press (1998).
- "Anselm on the Cost of Salvation," Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 1997.
- "Eternity," in The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaffero (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 1997.
- "Divine Action and Embodiment," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1997.
- "Can Philosophy Argue God's Existence?" in The Rationality of Belief and The Plurality of Faith, Tom Senor (ed.), (Cornell University Press, 1995).
- Time and Eternity, (Cornell University Press, 1991).
Summa Theologiae, Questions on God (Cambridge Texts in the History of
Philosophy).
