Merold Westphal

Merold Westphal
Born	1940 (age 85–86)
Academic background
Education	Yale University (PhD)
Thesis	The Unity of Reason in Hegel's 'Phanomenologie' (1967)
Doctoral advisor	John E. Smith
Other advisor	Paul Weiss
Academic work
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Sub-discipline	Philosophy of religion
Region	Western philosophy
School or tradition	German Idealism, Marxism
Institutions	Fordham University Australian Catholic University

Merold Westphal (born 1940) is a distinguished emeritus professor of philosophy at Fordham University, and an Honorary Professor at Australian Catholic University. Westphal is one of the preeminent thinkers in the field of continental philosophy of religion.

Life and work

Westphal is a distinguished philosopher who graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College, Illinois and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Yale University in 1967. He began teaching at Wheaton before joining the Yale philosophy faculty, where he became a fellow of Jonathan Edwards College and was promoted to associate professor in 1972. In 1987, he joined Fordham University as Professor of Philosophy, later serving as director of Graduate Studies and being named Distinguished Professor in 1997. Westphal has also taught at Juniata College, Loyola College in Maryland, Villanova University, Harvard Divinity School, and Fuller Theological Seminary.

Westphal has also held leadership roles in several philosophical organizations, serving as president of the Hegel Society of America and the Søren Kierkegaard Society, executive co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and as a board member of the American Philosophical Association.