Research

Main research interests: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, European Philosophy of the 19th and 20th Century, Political Philosophy

Robert B. Pippin is an American philosopher. He is particularly known for his work on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He has also researched the works of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss and Henry James as well as film philosophy in general.

Robert Pippin is one of the best-known scholars in the field of German Idealism, especially in Kant and Hegel. His research interests lie in the history of philosophy, epistemology, and ethics. In recent years, he also gives intensive attention to exploring the theories of modernity.

Pippin has a number of interdisciplinary interests. In particular he deals with the relationship between philosophy and literature. He has written a book on Henry James and articles about Proust, modern art and contemporary film. For example, he discussed the fatalism in American Film Noir and the significance of the work of Western movie directors Howard Hawks and John Ford on political philosophy.

With Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness, published in 1989, he made a major contribution to contemporary Hegel research and opened a new perspective on the work of this thinker. Pippin's latest major work deals with Hegel's art theory and its importance for modern visual arts.

In his work The Actuality of German Idealism, Pippin shows that the conceptual innovations developed by the great figures of the German philosophical tradition, above all Kant and Hegel – concepts such as self-consciousness, freedom, subjectivity, logic, spirit and philosophical method – are still of outstanding philosophical interest, so they are by no means to be regarded as mere historical holdings. According to Pippin, a series of classical interpretations of these concepts takes into account neither their radicalism nor their philosophical potential.

Career

• since 1992 Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College, University of Chicago, USA
• 1989-1992 Full Professor, University of California, San Diego, USA
• 1981-1989 Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego
• 1975-1981 Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego
• 1974-1975 Assistant Professor, New College, Sarasota, Florida, USA
• 1974 PhD in Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, USA
• 1970-1974 Teaching Assistant, Instructor, Pennsylvania State University
• 1972 M.A. in Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University
• 1970 B.A. in English, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA

Functions

• 2009-2012 Member of the Advisory Committee, APA Programs
• 2008-2015 Member, Board of Directors, National Humanities Center
• since 2005 Chair, Committee on Social Thought (also 1994 - 1997, 1998 - 2003)
• 2004-2010 Member, scientific advisory council of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• since 2000 Board member of the International Hegel Society
• 1997-1999 Member of the Advisory Committee, APA Programs

Honours and Memberships

• since 2016 Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• 2014 Honorary doctorate, Uppsala University, Sweden
• 2012-2013 Fellow of the Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich
• 2011 Schiller Professorship, University of Jena
• 2009 Spinoza Chair and Lecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• since 2008 Member of the American Philosophical Society
• 2007 Honorary degree, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• since 2007 Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2003 Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 2001 The Andrew M. Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award
• 1997-1998 Senior Research Grant of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
• 1977-1978 Research Grant of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for research in Cologne and Mainz