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Raymond Geuss

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Raymond Geuss
Born (1946-12-10) December 10, 1946 (age 79)
Evansville, Indiana, U.S.
Education
EducationColumbia University (BA, PhD)
ThesisPersons and Selves (1971)
Robert Denoon Cumming
Philosophical work
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
Continental, critical theory
InstitutionsPrinceton University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Heidelberg, University of Freiburg, Cambridge University
Doctoral students
Cornel West, Katherine Harloe,[1] Michael Forster
Notable students
Michael N. Forster
Main interests
Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of history, intellectual history

Raymond Geuss, FBA (/ɡɔɪs/; born 1946) is an American political philosopher and scholar of 19th and 20th century European philosophy. He is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Geuss is primarily known for his early account of ideology critique in The Idea of a Critical Theory; his works instrumental to the emergence of political realism in Anglophone political philosophy, including Philosophy and Real Politics; and his essays on topics including aesthetics, Nietzsche, contextualism, phenomenology, intellectual history, and ancient philosophy.

Life

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Geuss was educated at Columbia University, receiving a B.A. in 1966 and a Ph.D. in 1971.[2] His Ph.D. thesis was written under the direction of Robert Denoon Cumming.[3] Geuss also work with Sidney Morgenbesser and Robert Paul Wolff during this time.[4]

Geuss taught at Princeton University,[5] Columbia University, and the University of Chicago in the United States, and at Heidelberg University and the University of Freiburg in Germany before taking up a lecturing post at the University of Cambridge in 1993.[6] In 2000 he became a naturalised British citizen.[7] He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2011.[8]

Geuss has supervised the graduate work of several prominent scholars of philosophy. His students also include lawyer J. Richard Cohen,[2] filmmaker Ethan Coen,[9] and philosopher Cornel West.[10]

Work

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Geuss has published 16 books of philosophy, including Philosophy and Real Politics (2008),[11] A World Without Why (2014),[12] and Not Thinking Like a Liberal (2022).[13] He has co-edited two critical editions of works of Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Writings from the Early Notebooks.[14][15] Geuss has also published two collections of translation-adaptations of poetry from Ancient Greek, Latin and Old High German texts.[6]

Reception

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Alasdair MacIntyre writes about Geuss:[16]

No one among contemporary moral and political philosophers writes better essays than Raymond Geuss. His prose is crisp, elegant, and lucid. His arguments are to the point. And, by inviting us to reconsider what we have hitherto taken for granted, he puts in question not just this or that particular philosophical thesis, but some of the larger projects in which we are engaged. Often enough Geuss does this with remarkable economy, provoking us into first making his questions our own and then discovering how difficult it is to answer them.

Books

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  • The Idea of a Critical Theory. Cambridge University Press. 1981. ISBN 978-0521284226.
  • Morality, Culture, and History. Cambridge University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0521632027.
  • Parrots, Poets, Philosophers, & Good Advice. London: Hearing Eye. 1999. ISBN 978-1870841634.
  • History and Illusion in Politics. Cambridge University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0521805964.
  • Public Goods, Private Goods. Princeton University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0691089034.
  • Glück und Politik [Happiness and Politics]. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag. 2004. ISBN 978-3830509448.
  • Outside Ethics. Princeton University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0691123417.
  • Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0691137889.
  • Politics and the Imagination. Princeton University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0691155883.
  • A World Without Why. Princeton University Press. 2014. ISBN 978-0691155883.
  • Reality and its Dreams. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2016. ISBN 978-0674504950.
  • Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0674545724.
  • Who Needs a World View?. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2020. ISBN 978-0674245938.
  • A Philosopher Looks at Work. Cambridge University Press. 2021. ISBN 978-1108930611.
  • Not Thinking Like a Liberal. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0674270343.
  • Seeing Double. Cambridge: Polity. 2024. ISBN 978-1509560882.

References

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  1. ^ Harloe, Katherine (23 August 2004). Franz Neumann, the rule of law and the unfulfilled promise of classical liberal thought (phd). University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 15 January 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  2. ^ a b Katz, Jamie; Jealous, Ben; Cohen, Richard (9 April 2019). "'You Never Retire from the Fight'". Columbia College Today. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  3. ^ Piercey, Robert (13 June 2023). "Raymond Geuss, 'Not Thinking like a Liberal'". Philosophy in Review. 43 (2): 22–24. doi:10.7202/1100431ar. ISSN 1920-8936.
  4. ^ Eldridge, Richard (11 December 2022). "Beyond Liberalism?: On Raymond Geuss's 'Not Thinking Like a Liberal'". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  5. ^ Geuss, Raymond (2008). "Richard Rorty at Princeton: Personal Recollections" (PDF). Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 15 (3): 85–100. ISSN 0095-5809.
  6. ^ a b "Geuss Raymond". INSTITUTE FOR PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL THEORY. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  7. ^ "Raymond Geuss CV" (PDF). University of Cambridge Faculty of Philosophy. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 February 2013.
  8. ^ "Professor Raymond Geuss FBA". The British Academy. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  9. ^ Bernstein, Mark F. (14 April 2016). "Ethan Coen '79: O Ethan, Where Art Thou?". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  10. ^ "Cornel R. West". Princeton Graduate School. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  11. ^ Geuss, Raymond (19 October 2008). Raymond Geuss on Real Politics. PhilosophyBites.com (podcast). 80. Interviewed by Warburton, Nigel. Retrieved 27 February 2026.
  12. ^ "A World Without Why". IIIIXIII. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  13. ^ "Raymond Geuss". University of Cambridge Faculty of Philosophy. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  14. ^ Horstmann, Rolf-Peter (1 December 2009). "Writings from the Early Notebooks". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Archived from the original on 9 December 2025. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  15. ^ "Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings". Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  16. ^ MacIntyre, Alasdair (5 March 2006). "Outside Ethics". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Archived from the original on 8 September 2014. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
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