Arthur Ripstein is a leading philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of renewed scholarly interest in the legal and political philosophy of the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant. Ripstein’s interdisciplinary scholarship has spanned a breadth of areas, including the history of philosophy, theories of justice, tort law, and the law of war.
A Professor of Law and Philosophy and University Professor at the University of Toronto, Ripstein has written four monographs (with a fifth currently in press) and more than 75 essays in peer-reviewed academic journals and edited collections. He has also edited or co-edited four books and two special issues of academic journals. He is a two-time recipient of the Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize for his works Equality, Responsibility and the Law (1998) and Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy (2009). Ripstein’s work has been supported continuously by SSHRC since 1995, and he received a Killam Research Fellowship for 2016-18. A book of essays about his work appeared in 2017 and another is forthcoming in 2021.
Throughout his career, Ripstein has shared his research widely with the public. Between 1996 and 2015, he was a frequent contributor to the CBC radio series Ideas, where he presented specials on the topics of coercion, authority, paternalism, freedom of expression, and the public good. He has also lectured at many prestigious universities and conferences, including a Keynote Lecture at the World Kant Congress and the 2019 Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley— the preeminent lecture series in moral and political philosophy. The breadth and impact of Arthur Ripstein’s scholarship is evident from the impressive extent to which other scholars have directly engaged his work in academic journals in both philosophy and law, as well as the numerous global symposia and events that have taken his work as their primary focus. Ripstein has contributed to some of the most pressing conversations of our time, including those around the connections between individual responsibility and social equality, the legitimate use of public power, and the morality and legality of war.
photo credit: Karyn Gorra
On October 25, 2021, CBC IDEAS’ host Nahlah Ayed interviewed Professor Ripstein. Have a listen (at 23:49).
TheFutureEconomy.ca also had the opportunity to speak with Professor Ripstein – video with interview below. You can also listen to the podcast here.
