Kai Nielsen (May 15, 1926 – April 7, 2021) was an American professor of philosophy at the University of Calgary. He specialized in naturalism, metaphilosophy, ethics, analytic philosophy, social and political philosophy. Nielsen also wrote about philosophy of religion, and was an advocate of contemporary atheism. He was also known for his defense of utilitarianism, writing in response to Bernard Williams's criticism of it.

Biography

Born on May 15, 1926, in Marshall, Michigan, near Battle Creek, Michigan, Kai Edward Nielsen was raised in Moline, Illinois.

His father was from Copenhagen, Denmark, and spoke Danish and Swedish. As he said about his father later, "My father was a Danish immigrant who came to New York City when he was fifteen. He didn’t know a word of English then. They put him into the first grade in school and he hated it. What could he do? He couldn’t speak any English and here he was with these little English-speaking kids. He was fifteen and they were five or six. He left school and just sort of made it on his own, as you could still do then."

His mother was American but according to Nielsen she "was Métis. Her mother came from Lac St. Jean, though she herself never spoke French. Her mother immigrated early to the United States before she could speak." During his time at Chapel Hill, Nielsen became radicalized: "The University of North Carolina was not only segregated by race but by gender as well. There were only male students at UNC initially (except for graduate school). This was also the case when I taught at Hamilton College and Amherst College. I guess there are only two all-male schools left in the United States now [2012], but back then there were a lot of them. But there was also racial segregation in North Carolina, including at the liberal University of North Carolina. The University of North Carolina and Duke University had no black students at all. That was called “separate but equal.” But that, of course, was not true. By that time, I was sensitized to this, so I joined various challenging movements, particularly radical ones, though in the eyes of the establishment, they were all radical movements. It was a period during which I quickly became very radical." During those years at university he also published a novel.

Nielsen was also one of the founding members of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.

In 1973 Nielsen was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.

He wrote or edited over 40 books on topics such as Marxism, metaphilosophy and ethical and political theory.

Publications

Books

  • Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will: The Political Philosophy of Kai Nielsen, Edited by David Rondel and Alex Sager, 2012.
  • Wittgensteinian Fideism? (with D. Z. Philips), 2006.
  • Atheism And Philosophy, 2005.
  • Globalization And Justice, 2002.
  • Naturalism and Religion, 200.,
  • Exploitation, 2001.
  • Why Be Moral?, 1997.
  • Naturalism Without Foundations, 1996. 4
  • On Transforming Philosophy: A Metaphilosophical Inquiry. 1995,
  • Does God Exist?: The Debate Between Theists and Atheists (with J. P. Moreland), 1993.
  • God and the Grounding Of Morality, 1991.
  • After the Demise of the Tradition: Rorty, Critical Theory, and the Fate of Philosophy, 1991.
  • Ethics without God, 1990.
  • God, Skepticism and Modernity, 1989.
  • Marxism and the Moral Point of View: Morality, Ideology, and Historical Materialism, 1989.
  • Equality and Liberty: A Defense of Radical Egalitarianism, 1986.
  • Philosophy and Atheism, 1985.
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 1983.
  • Marx and Morality, 1981.
  • Scepticism, 1973.
  • Ethics Without God, 1973, revised edition 1990.
  • Reason and Practice: A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, 1971.
  • Contemporary Critiques of Religion, 1971.
  • Ethics Without God, 1971.

See also

  • Existence of God
  • New York University Department of Philosophy

References

Sources

  • Pojman, L. The Moral Life, OUP, 2001.

Further reading

  • Reason and Emancipation: Essays on the Philosophy of Kai Nielsen, edited by Michel Seymour and Matthias Fritsch, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59102-418-7
  • Kai Nielsen's bibliography and archives
  • Transcript of debate with theist William Lane Craig
  • Nielsen page at Calgary