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Alexander Pruss | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1973-01-05)January 5, 1973 (age 52) |
| Education | |
| Education | University of Western Ontario (BSc, 1991) University of British Columbia (PhD, 1996) University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 2001) |
| Theses | |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Institutions | Baylor University |
| Main interests | Metaphysics,philosophy of religion,applied ethics |
| Notable ideas | Gale–Prusscosmological argument |
Alexander Robert Pruss (/prʌs/; 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 atBaylor University inWaco, Texas.
His best known book isThe Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (2006).[1][2][3] He is also the author of the books,Actuality, Possibility and Worlds (2011), andOne 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 forgreatest vertical distance climbed on a climbing wall in one hour (individual)[5] andfastest mile on climbing wall (male).[6]
Until age 9, Alexander Pruss lived in Poland. At the height of martial law, he emigrated to Canada with his dissident parents. He never finished high school, but instead went to the University of Western Ontario after completing grade 10, studying physics and mathematics, never writing a single paper over the three years of his undergraduate career.[7]
Pruss graduated from theUniversity of Western Ontario in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics. While trying to figure out exactly what to do with the rest of his life,[7] he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at theUniversity of British Columbia with a dissertation onSymmetrization, Green’s Functions, Harmonic Measures and Difference Equations, under John J. F. Fournier in 1996, and published several papers inProceedings of the American Mathematical Society and other mathematical journals,.[4] Afterwards, realizing that philosophy is the handmaiden of his true love, theology,[7] he began graduate work in philosophy at theUniversity of Pittsburgh. He completed his dissertation,Possible Worlds: What They Are and What They Are Good For, underNicholas Rescher in 2001.
Pruss began teaching philosophy atGeorgetown University in 2001, earning tenure in 2006. In 2007, he moved toWaco, Texas to teach philosophy atBaylor University. He is now the director of graduate studies for the Baylor Philosophy Department. He has taught various courses, including graduate seminars on thephilosophy of time,metaphysics, thecosmological andontological arguments for theexistence of God,modality,free will, andhistory of philosophy.[8]
Pruss's philosophical thought reflects Christianorthodoxy. He is aRoman Catholic and a member of theSociety of Christian Philosophers.
Pruss defends theprinciple 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.[9]
Pruss is a critic ofDavid 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 ofpossible worlds as thoughts in the mind of God.[10]
