Robert J. Dostal

Provost
Bryn Mawr College

Robert J. Dostal has been serving as Provost of Bryn Mawr College since July 1994. He has been a member of the Bryn Mawr Department of Philosophy since 1980, as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor and Chairman. He was appointed the Rufus M. Jones Professor of Philosophy and Religion in 1990. He specializes in Kant and the post-Kantian German tradition. His greatest interest is in phenomenology and hermeneutics. His work is concerned, in part, with questions concerning interpretation in the social sciences, literary criticism and philosophy. He is also concerned with the history and philosophy of science and technology, especially as science and technology relate to ethics and politics. Among Dostal's published works are articles on the subjects of Kant, the theory of interpretation, the political theory of Hannah Arendt, Heidegger's interpretation of Plato, and Heidegger's politics. His course offerings include the History of Philosophy; Plato; Kant; Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy; Ethics; Science, Technology and the Good Life; The Play of Interpretation. He has a B.A. and M.A. from The Catholic University of America and a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. He has been a Humboldt Fellow at the Universities of Cologne and Freiburg. He is a member of a number of professional philosophical societies and has recently served on the executive board of the Metaphysical Society of America.