Alan White is the Mark Hopkins Professor of Philosophy at Williams College, where he teaches courses on truth, goodness, beauty, violence, the philosophy of sport, among other topics. Prior to 2003, White’s work focused on so-called continental philosophy, and he published (among other things) Absolute Knowledge. Hegel and the Problem of Metaphysics (1983), Schelling. An Introduction to the System of Freedom (1983), and Within Nietzsche’s Labyrinth (1990). Since Fall 2003, I’ve been collaborating with Lorenz B. Puntel (Professor Emeritus, Munich) on a systematic philosophy he had been working on since the late 1970s. To date, the project has resulted in the publication of two books whose English versions are Structure and Being (2008) and Being and God (2011), both by Lorenz B. Puntel, both translated by and in collaboration with me. A third book, my Toward a Philosophical Theory of Everything. Contributions to the Structural-Systematic Philosophy , was published in 2014 (thanks to the title, it’s easy to refer to the book as TAPTOE). A review published in Choice in August 2014 describes it as “a critically important work for all those deeply interested in philosophical issues and their significance for basic human concerns,” notes that it includes an “incisive critique of theories of truth currently favored in analytic philosophy,” and adds that its “critiques of philosophical views on truth, knowledge, freedom, beauty, being, and God are carefully argued, and the discussions engage with current literature.”
Kalology
Mini course | Professor of Philosophy Alan White unpacks the meaning and many definitions of beauty.