Professor, Interim Dean of the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Philip J. Rossi, S.J. (Ph.D., University of Texas [1975]), specializes in the philosophy of religion and Christian ethics; he has published extensively on the theological import of the work of Immanuel Kant. He has been visiting professor at Sogang University, Seoul, Korea (1985) and the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines (1998), a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh (1992, 1999), and visiting scholar (1979-80) and visiting fellow (2004-05) at the Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, DC. He served ten years as Theology Department Chair and was Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs in the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences from 2005-2008. He is author of The Social Authority of Reason: Kant’s Critique, Radical Evil and the Destiny of Humankind, (State University of New York Press, 2005), Together Toward Hope: A Journey to Moral Theology (University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), editor of God, Grace, and Creation (Orbis, 2010), co-editor (with Michael J. Wreen) of Kant’s Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Indiana University Press, 1992) and co-editor (with Paul Soukup, S. J.) of Mass Media and the Moral Imagination (Sheed and Ward, 1994). He has presented papers at meetings of the American Philosophical Association, the American Academy of Religion, the Catholic Theological Society of America, the College Theology Society, the Society of Christian Ethics, the Russian Kant Society, six International Kant Congresses, and The Parliament of the Worlds’ Religions in Barcelona (2004) and Melbourne (2009). He has published more than forty articles in books and professional journals, was editor of Philosophy & Theology (1993-2000) and served on the board of editorial consultants for Theological Studies (1991-98). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Creighton University (Omaha) and of the Global Ethics and Religion Forum (California). He was the Executive Director of National Conventions for the College Theology Society (2005-09) and served two terms as a member of its Board of Directors. His current research focuses on Kant’s anthropology as a resource for a post-modern theology of grace, the theological appropriation of the work of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and the theological warrants for human rights discourse and for just war theory in a globalized, post-modern culture.
Recent publications: “Reading Kant from a Catholic Horizon: Ethics and the Anthropology of Grace,” Theological Studies 71, 2010: 79-100; “Radical Evil and Kant’s ‘Metaphysics of Permanent Rupture,’” Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, ed. Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010: 13-32; “Historical and Cultural Contexts for Just War Doctrine,” Educational Challenges Regarding Military Action, Studies for Military Pedagogy, Military Science & Security Policy Vol. 11, ed. Hubert Annen and Wolfgang Royl, Bern: Peter Lang, 2010: 17-24; “Sojourners, Guests, and Strangers: The Church as Enactment of the Hospitality of God,” Questions liturgiques – Liturgical Questions 90, 2009: 121-131; “Cosmopolitanism and the Interests of Reason: A Social Framework for Human Action in History,” Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Vol. 4, ed. Valerio Rohden, et.al., Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008: 65-75; “Finite Freedom, Fractured and Fragile: Kant’s Anthropology as Resource for a Postmodern Theology of Grace,” Philosophie et théologie: Festschrift Emilio Brito, SJ, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 206, ed. Éric Gaziaux, Leuven: Peeters Press, 2007: 47-60; “Theology from a Fractured Vista: Susan Neiman’s Evil in Modern Thought,” Modern Theology 23, 2007: 47-61.
Recent Conference Papers and Lectures: “Cosmopolitanism: Kant’s Social Anthropology of Hope,” XI International Kant Congress, Pisa, Italy, May 2010; “Contingency as Gift: Kant, Creation, and the Discourse of Grace in a Secular Age,” Faculty of Protestant Theology, Goethe University, Frankfurt, June 2010; “Radical Evil and Kant’s Metaphysics of Permanent Rupture: A Grammar of Hope in a Fractured World,” Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt, Germany, June 2010; “Christian Just War Theories: Peace as the Possible Dream,” Conference on “The Ethics of War and Just Peace,” Chapman University, Orange California, April 2010; “Contingency and the Giftedness of Creation: Enacting Grace in a Fractured World,” Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology VII, “To Discern Creation in a Scattering World,” Leuven, Belgium, October 2009; “Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: Resource for Shaping a “Just Peace,” Conference on “The History and Hermeneutics of the Just War Tradition,” Institute for Theology and Peace, Hamburg, Germany, January 2009.
Teaching Fields
- Philosophical Theology
- Christian Ethics
- Immanuel Kant
- Professional Vision
Office Location & Contact
- Marquette Hall 208
(414) 288-3738
philip.rossi@marquette.edu
Theology Department Mission Statement
Marquette University defines itself as Christian, Catholic, Jesuit, urban, and independent. The Department of Theology functions within the university to investigate and understand the Catholic tradition, its relation to other Christian communions, and to other religions of the world. Read more of our mission statement.
