 To learn more about Professor Goodman , read his interview: Philosophy, Creativity, and Tradition |
Lenn E. Goodman
Professor of Philosophy
Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities
Contact Information
Email: lenn.e.goodman@vanderbilt.edu
Office: 117 Furman Hall
Phone: (615) 343-3158
Fax: (615) 343-7259
Degrees
D.Phil. Oxford University
Research Area
His philosophical interests center on metaphysics and ethics, and he has paid special attention over the years to Islamic and Jewish philosophical thought and their creative interactions. Goodman was a winner of the American Philosophical Association Baumgardt Memorial Prize and was a rare Humanities Recipient of Vanderbilt University's top research award, the Earl Sutherland prize.
Publications
His books include:
- Creation and Evolution (Routledge, 2010)
- The Case of the Animals vs Man before the King of the Jinn, with Richard McGregor, critical edition and new translation from the Arabic of the 10th century ecological fable of the Ikwan al-Safa or Brethren of Purity (London: Oxford University Press, 2009)
- Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, updated edition (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
- Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself (Oxford University Press, 2008)
- Islamic Humanism (Oxford University Press, 2003)
- In Defense of Truth: A Pluralistic Approach (Humanity Press, 2001)
- Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age (Edinburgh University Press and Rutgers University Press, 1999)
- Judaism, Human Rights and Human Values (Oxford University Press, 1998)
- God of Abraham (Oxford University Press, 1996) (winner of the Gratz Centennial Prize, 1997)
- Avicenna (Updated edition, Cornell University Press, 2005)
- On Justice (Yale University Press, 1991), updated paperback edition (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008)
- Saadiah's Book of Theodicy (commentary on the book of Job (Yale University Press, 1988).
- Rambam: The Philosophical Writings of Maimonides (Viking, 1976).
He is editor of:
- Maimonides and His Heritage (co-edited with Idit Dobbs-Weinstein and James A. Grady, SUNY Press, 2009)
- Aristotle's Politics Today (co-edited with Robert Talisse, SUNY Press, 2007)
- Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy (co-edited with Heidi Ravven, SUNY Press, 2002)
- Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought (SUNY Press, 1992)
He has written philosophical essays on most of the major figures of Islamic and Jewish philosophy and on a variety of topics in political philosophy, biophilosophy, and the theory of knowledge and culture. He serves on the editorial boards of History of Philosophy Quarterly and Medieval Philosophy and Theology. He is an associate editor of Asian Philosophy. He has served as Vice President and Program Chair of the Institute for Islamic/Judaic Studies. He has also served as program chair for the APA panels of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy. He was Jewish Philosophy subject editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and is a fellow of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy.
Professor Goodman has also contributed to the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, the Blackwell's Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, the Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, as well as other works of reference. In 2008 Oxford University Press published Goodman's Gifford lectures under the title Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.
Multimedia
Maimonides Mini-Course (mp3)A Conversation on Creation and Evolution with Philip Kitcher at the Jewish Theological Seminary 11/17/09 (video)
