Faculty Profiles

Ryan Kemp

Ryan Kemp, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Philosophy

On Faculty since 2015
630.752.5817
Blanchard 107

ryan.kemp@wheaton.edu

I work primarily in 18th- and 19th-Century European Philosophy, with particular interest in Kant, German Idealism, and Kierkegaard. I have additional research and teaching interests in early modern philosophy and ethics.

University of Notre Dame
Ph. D., Philosophy, 2015

University of Copenhagen Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre
Visiting Researcher, 2013

Fordham University
M. A., Philosophy, 2010

Texas A&M University
B. A., Philosophy, 2007

Kierkegaard's Either/Or: A Critical Guide
ed. Ryan S. Kemp and Walter Wietzke
Cambridge University Press, 2023

Marilynne Robinson's Worldly Gospel: A Philosophical Account of Her Christian Vision
Ryan S. Kemp and Jordan Rodgers
Bloomsbury Academic, 2022

Reason and Conversion in Kierkegaard and the German Idealists
Ryan S. Kemp and Christopher Iacovetti
Routledge, 2020

 

 

Kierkegaard's Strong Anti-Rationalism: Offense as a Propaedeutic to Faith
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2022

Kierkegaard on the Transformative Significance of Depression
The Review of Metaphysics, 2021

Lessons in Self-Betrayal: On the Pitfalls of Transformative Education
Educational Theory, 2021

Rethinking the Highest Good: Kierkegaard on God, Virtue, and (This-Worldly) Happiness
In Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, ed. Paul Wilford, Samuel Stoner
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021

Kierkegaard on Assistant Professors: My Life as an Obsequious Pencil Pusher
In Taking Kierkegaard Personally: First Person Responses, ed. Jamie Lorentzen, Gordon Marino
Mercer University Press, 2020

Did Napoleon Teleologically Suspend the Ethical? A Dilemma for Some 'Hegelian' Readings of Fear and Trembling
In The Kierkegaardian Mind, ed. Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms, Patrick Stokes
Routledge, 2019

Kant on the Bounds of Promise Making: A Mendelssohnian Account
European Journal of Philosophy (27:2)
June 2019

Reviving the No-Bad-Action Problem in Kant's Ethics
European Journal of Philosophy (27:2)
June 2019

Kant’s Subjective Deduction: A Reappraisal
European Journal of Philosophy (26:3)
September 2018

The Role of Imagination in Kierkegaard's Account of Ethical Transformation
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (100:2)
June 2018

Kierkegaard on the (Un)happiness of Faith
British Journal for the History of Philosophy (26:3)
with M. Mullaney, 2018

Revisiting Kant's Deduction of Taste
History of Philosophy Quarterly (34:2)
April 2017

How to Become an Idealist: Fichte on the Transition from Dogmatism to Idealism
British Journal for the History of Philosophy (25:6)
March 2017

A, the Aesthete: Aestheticism and the Limits of Philosophy
In Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms, ed. Jon Stewart
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015

Johannes de silentio: Religious Poet or Faithless Aesthete?
In Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms, ed. Jon Stewart
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015

Repetition
In Kierkegaard's Concepts, ed. William McDonald and Jon Stewart
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015

The Self-Transformation Puzzle: On the Possibility of Radical Self-Transformation
Res Philosophica (92:2)
April 2015

Desiderata for a Viable Secular Humanism
Journal of Applied Philosophy (30:2)
May 2013

The Contingency of Evil: Rethinking the Problem of Universal Evil in Kant's Religion
In Rethinking Kant: Volume Three, ed. Oliver Thorndike
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011 (Awarded Herz Prize by the North American Kant Society)

Making Sense of the Ethical Stage: Revisiting Kierkegaard's Aesthetic to Ethical Transition
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (2011:1)
November 2011

Dostoevsky's Dangerous Gambit
The Hedgehog Review, web feature, December 2023
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AI and the Struggle to Think Humanly
Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts, vol. 2 no. 1, 2023
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Teaching Towards Love: The Manifesto of a Recovering Pedant
Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts, vol. 1 no. 2, 2023
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What the Light Says We Are
The Hedgehog Review, web feature, February 2023
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Dear Thomas - Take Heart, the World Is a Mysterious and Lovely Place
Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts, vol. 1 no. 1, 2022
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The Dream of Electric Sheep
The Hedgehog Review, vol. 24, no. 2, Summer 2022
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An Unlikely Meditation on Modern Happiness
The Hedgehog Review, web feature, February 2022
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Life After Death
3:16 AM, February 2021
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Is My Neighbor Dispensable? Kierkegaard and the Call to Neighbor Love
Plough, January 2021
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  • Existentialism
  • Kierkegaard's Either/Or
  • Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
  • Philosophy of Art
  • Epic and Philosophy
  • Tragedy and Philosophy
  • Philosophical Hermeneutics
  • Christianity & Postmodernity
  • Introduction to Philosophy