Rev. Philip J. Rossi, S.J., Ph.D.

Philip J. Rossi, S.J., Ph.D. 
Professor Emeritus

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), the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines (1998), and Arrupe College, Harare Zimbabwe (2014), a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh (1992, 1999), visiting scholar (1979-80) and visiting fellow (2004-05) at the Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, DC, and Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium (2013). He served as Interim Dean of the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences from 2010-2013, Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs from 2005-2008, and ten years as Chair of the Theology Department.

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 Seekers and Dwellers: Plurality and Wholeness in a Time of Secularity(Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2016) and 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, seven International Kant Congresses, and The Parliament of the Worlds’ Religions in Barcelona (2004) and Melbourne (2009). He has published more than fifty 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 a member Executive Committee of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (Washington, DC) and was a member of of the Board of Trustees of Creighton University (Omaha) from 1985-2013. 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, the theological warrants for an ethics of peacemaking in a globalized, post-modern culture, and the current and future state of interaction between philosophical and theological inquiry.

Research Fields

  • Philosophical Theology
  • Ethics
  • Immanuel Kant

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