Distinguished Professor Emeritus Robert Wood, Ph.D., passed away peacefully on Friday, February 10, 2023.
A university institution, Dr. Wood had taught at UD for nearly four decades before retiring. During his tenure, Wood gained a reputation as a foremost thinker in the scholarly community and a beloved teacher here on campus.
Dr. Wood maintained a steady devotion to his discipline throughout his career, regularly publishing scholarly articles and books through his retirement. In 2018, his exemplary research and teaching earned him the Aquinas Medal, the most prestigious award of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. His final book, Being Human: Philosophical Anthropology through Phenomenology, was published last month.
Respected among scholars, loved by students and devoted to his family, Wood will be deeply missed.
Aesthetics
Anthropology
History of Philosophy
Metaphysics
Hegel
Heidegger
Plato
Ph.D., (Philosophy), Marquette University, 1967
Dissertation: Martin Buber's Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou
M.A., (Philosophy), Marquette University, 1963
Thesis: Intuition in Bergson
B.A., (History and Philosophy), Marquette University, 1958
a. Graduate:
- Kant’s Ethics (Spring 2013)
- Merleau-Ponty (Spring 2014)
- Environmental Ethics and Aesthetics (Summer 2014)
- Philosophy of Right: Hegel, Marx, Heidegger (Spring 2016)
b. Undergraduate:
- Phi 2323: The Human Person (Fall 2013, Spring 2014)
- Phi 3332: Aesthetics (Spring 2014)
- Phi 4341-42: Senior Seminar and Thesis: The Heart (Fall 2015/Spring 2016)
Books
Ratio et Fides: An Intro-duction to Philosophy for Theology. Wipf and Stock (Pickwick Series), 2019.
Being and the Cosmos: From Seeing to Indwelling. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018.
Nature, Artforms, and the World Around Us: An Introduction to the Regions of Aesthetic Experience. Gewerbestrasse: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017.
The Beautiful, the True, and the Good: Studies in the History of Thought. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016.
W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Introduction to the System: Encyclopaedia, Phenomenology, and Psychology. Introduction, Translation, and Commentary by Robert E. Wood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Placing Aesthetics: Studies in the Philosophic Tradition. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1999.
A Path Into Metaphysics: Phenomenological, Hermeneutical, and Dialogical Studies. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1990.
Martin Buber's Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1969.
Books Translated
Gabriel Marcel, Music and Philosophy (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2005), translated with Steven Maddux, introduction by R. E. Wood.
Stephen Strasser, Phenomenology of Feeling: An Essay on the Phenomena of the Heart (New York: Humanities Press, 1977). Introduction by R. E. Wood.
Articles
“First Things First: On the Primacy of the Notion of Being,” The Review of Metaphysics 67:4 (June, 2014): 719-41.
“Nature, Culture, and the Dialogical Imperative,” in Person, Being and History: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Schmitz, ed. Michael Baur and Robert E. Wood (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 325-39.
“Rationality and Actuality: Hegel and the Prussian Reform Movement” (with Charles Sullivan), Existentia 21:1-2 (2011): 57-78.
“The Catholic Philosopher and Metaphysics,” American Theological Inquiry 3:1 (2010): 76-80.
“Freedom and Rights in Hegel,” Existentia 17:3–4 (2007): 233-46.
“Reflections on Heraclitus,” Existentia 14:3–4 (2004): 177-85.
“Phenomenology of the Mailbox,” Philosophy Today 47:2 (Summer 2003): 147-59.
“Phenomenology and the Perennial Task of Philosophy: A Study of Plato and Aristotle,” Existentia 12:3-4 (2002): 253-63.
“Monasticism, Eternity, and the Heart: Hegel, Nietzsche, Dostoievski,” Philosophy and Theology 13:2 (2001): 193-211.
“Individuals, Universals, and Capacity,” Review of Metaphysics 54:3 (March, 2001): 507-28.
“Recovery of the Aesthetic Center” (Presidential Address), Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 69 (1995): 1-25.
“Silence, Being, and the Between: Picard, Heidegger, and Buber," Man and World 27 (1994): 121-34.
“Image, Structure and Content: A Remark on a Passage in Plato’s Republic,” The Review of Metaphysics 40:3 (March 1987): 495-514.