Brown, Robert F. 1941- (R.F. Brown, Robert Fath Brown)

PERSONAL:

Born June 6, 1941, in St. Louis, MO; son of John P. (in business) and Georgia (a secretary) Brown; married Ann Lee Werthmuller (a teacher), 1963 (marriage ended); married Mary Ann Harkins (a secretary), 1997; children: (first marriage) Nathan, Kristy, Grace. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Attended Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY, 1963-70; DePauw University, B.A., 1963; Columbia University, M.A., 1967, Ph.D., 1971.

ADDRESSES:

Office—c/o Department of Philosophy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716. E-mail—rfbrown@udel.edu.

CAREER:

University of Delaware, Newark, instructor, 1970-71, assistant professor, 1971-75, associate professor, 1975-86, professor of philosophy, 1986-2007, professor emeritus, 2007—, director of university honors program, 1989-98. University of Hull, visiting lecturer, 1980-81. Delaware Humanities Council, member, 1976-79, 1983-87, chair, 1977-79.

MEMBER:

American Academy of Religion, American Philosophical Association, Society of Christian Philosophers, Hegel Society of America, Society for Philosophy of Religion.

WRITINGS:

The Later Philosophy of Schelling: The Influence of Boehme on the Works of 1809-1815, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), 1977.

Schelling's Treatise on "The Deities of Samothrace": A Translation and an Interpretation, Scholars Press (Missoula, MT), 1977.

(Under name R.F. Brown; translator, with Peter Hodgson and J.M. Stewart) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1925-1926, edited by Peter Hodgson, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), Volume 1, 1984, Volume 3, 1985, Volume 2, 1987, abridged edition in one volume, 1988.

(Under name R.F. Brown; translator, with J.M. Stewart, and editor) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825-1826, Volume 3: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1990, Volume 2: Greek Philosophy, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 2006, and Volume 1: Introduction and Oriental Philosophy.

Contributor to reference books. Contributor to philosophy and theology journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert F. Brown once told CA: "I pursue the problems of philosophy of religion in a historical way; that is, mainly by grappling with the views of great thinkers of the past rather than trying to start from scratch. The period of German idealism is the high point of creativity in Western religious thought, not so much because of the way its great philosophers and theologians solved problems, but because of the enduring interest and value of the way they posed them. I came to be fascinated with Schelling through studying the writings of the theologian Paul Tillich. Schelling remains a central concern, though recently I have worked more on Hegel. I particularly enjoy translating because it has taught me much about the nature and use of language, particularly about how to write and speak with greater precision and less ambiguity.

"I am convinced that we humans have free will, and that it is our most important feature, the very center of what we are (though we are ingenious at trying to evade facing that fact). The centrality of human free will in the Christian theological tradition is a particular interest of mine, especially in relation to doctrines that have the (sometimes unwitting) effect of undercutting it, such as original sin, predestination, and divine omnipotence. I explore such issues with a strong commitment to their importance, though not necessarily to the correctness of traditional Christian solutions. A collateral interest is in conceptions of divine will that treat it as genuinely free (indeed, capable of evil), rather than, as in so much classical theism, a meaningless appendage to a divine nature that is of necessity good. To me, these are the great issues that make philosophy and theology of perennial interest and importance."