Willard, Dallas (Albert) 1935-

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WILLARD, Dallas (Albert) 1935-

PERSONAL:

Born September 4, 1935, in Buffalo, MO; son of Albert Alexander (a politician) and Mamie (a teacher; maiden name, Lindesmith) Willard; married L. Jane Lakes (a marriage and family counselor), August 25, 1955; children: John Samuel, Rebecca. Education: Attended William Jewell College; Tennessee Temple College, B.A., 1956; Baylor University, B.A., 1957, and graduate study; University of Wisconsin—Madison, Ph.D., 1964. Religion: Baptist. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, carpentry, keeping bees, vocal music, gardening.

ADDRESSES:

Home—23535 Lake Manor Dr., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Office—School of Philosophy, MHP 107, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0451.

CAREER:

Ordained Southern Baptist minister; University of Wisconsin—Madison, instructor in philosophy, 1964-65; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, assistant professor, 1965-69, associate professor, 1969-84, professor of philosophy, 1984—, director of School of Philosophy, 1982-85; writer. Visiting associate professor at University of California—Los Angeles, summer, 1969, and University of Colorado, autumn, 1984; adjunct professor of spirituality, Fuller Theological Seminary.

MEMBER:

American Philosophical Association, Association for Symbolic Logic, Southwestern Philosophical Society, Alpha Lambda Delta, Phi Kappa Phi.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Danforth associate, 1967-75; award for outstanding faculty, University of Southern California Blue Key Fraternity, 1976; Associates Award, University of Southern California, 1976-77; faculty participant in the Collegium Phaenomenologicum (Perugia, Italy), 1977; award for outstanding faculty, University of Southern California Student Senate, 1984; Phi Kappa Phi, 1990; Corsi Estivi Internazionali di Filosofia lecturer (Bozen, Italy), 1990, 1998; Alpha Lambda Delta, 1991; Book of the Year, Christianity Today, 1998, for The Divine Conspiracy; winner, category of spirituality, Book of the Year Awards, Christianity Today, 2003, for Renovation of the Heart.

WRITINGS:

Meanind and Universals in Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen, University Microfilms (Ann Arbor, MI), 1964.

Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge: A Study in Husserl's Early Philosophy, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1984.

In Search of Guidance, Regal Books (Ventura, CA), 1984, revised edition published as In Search of Guidance: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1994.

(Translator) Edmund Husserl, The Early Writings of Edmund Husserl, Nijhoff, 1986.

The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, Harper & Row (San Francisco, CA), 1988.

(Translator) Edmund Husserl, Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, Kluwer (Boston, MA), 1993.

(Editor) John Porter Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, NavPress (Colorado Springs, CO), 1997.

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1998.

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, IL), 1999.

(With Jan Johnson and Keith J. Matthews) Dallas Willard's Study Guide to the Divine Conspiracy, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 2001.

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, NavPress (Colorado Springs, CO), 2002.

(Translator) Edmund Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmatic, Kluwer Academic Publishers (Dordrecht, Netherlands), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Perspectives in Philosophy, edited by R. N. Beck, 2nd edition, Holt (New York, NY), 1969; Phenomenology and Existentialism, edited by R. C. Solomon, Harper (New York, NY), 1972; J. N. Mohanty, editor, Readings on Husserl's Logical Investigations, edited by J. N. Mohanty, Nijhoff, 1977; Husserl: Shorter Works, edited by Frederick Elliston and Peter M. McCormick, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1981; and Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, edited by Barry Smith, Philosophia Verlag, 1982.

Contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica and to periodicals. General editor of Navpress's "Spiritual Formation" series.

ADAPTATIONS:

Renovations of the Heart has been adapted into a video curriculum by LifeSprings Resources (Franklin Springs, GA), 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Renovaré Study Bible, for HarperSanFrancisco; The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge: The Outcome of Moral Theorizing in the Twentieth Century; A History of Ethical Theory from Plato to Rawls; The Rage against Identity: Philosophical Roots of Deconstructionism.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dallas Willard is a philosophy professor and writer who has spoke at conferences around the world. His philosophical publications are mainly in the areas of epistemology, the study of mind and of logic, and on the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, including extensive translations of Husserl's early writings from German into English. His English translation of Philosophy of Arithmetic was released in 2003, while his translation of Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics appeared in 1993, making much of Husserl's shorter philosophical works available to the English reader. Further books about Husserl by Willard include Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge: A Study in Husserl's Early Philosophy, a study of Husserl's early thought.

Willard's publications also include volumes examining various aspects of Christianity. In 1984, for example, he published In Search of Guidance, which examines the nature of relationships involving Christians and their spiritual deity. John Ortberg, reviewing a revision of In Search of Guidance that appeared in 1994, praised Willard's book, in a Christianity Today appraisal, as "a thoughtful exploration of the relationship between God and human beings as a relationship between persons." Ortberg declared that "this book is really about… learning to live in the kingdom of God." In another Christianity Today piece, Ortberg noted that Willard "has been addressing the subject of the spiritual disciplines throughout his adult life," and he affirmed that Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives "generated fresh thinking on spirituality among evangelicals."

Willard's other writings include The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, which a Sojurners reviewer credited with arguing "compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our daily life." Another reviewer, Steven J. Van Der Weele, wrote in Christian Century that The Divine Conspiracy constitutes "a comprehensive account of how Christians must and can make biblical wisdom operative," and he contended that "its fervor, its freshness of phrasing and its command of scripture should prompt Christians to give this book serious attention." John Wilson, meanwhile, wrote in Christianity Today, "For Christians in need of renewal, for seekers who want to know why we worship the one who was crucified, The Divine Conspiracy will be invaluable." The Divine Conspiracy was selected as Christianity Today 's Book of the Year for 1998.

Willard is also the author of Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, wherein he examines what a Publishers Weekly critic called "the central Christian question of how to be more like Christ." The Publishers Weekly reviewer, while claiming that the book lacks "power," nonetheless summarized Renovation of the Heart as a "fresh… approach to Christian spiritual growth." Christianity Today identified Renovation of the Heart as "reading for people ready to make spiritual discipline a regular practice in their lives," and awarded the volume the top prize in the category of spirituality in their 2003 book awards.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Christian Century, July 14, 1999, Steven J. Van Der Weele, review of The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, p. 719.

Christianity Today, April 25, 1994, John Ortberg, "In Search of Guidance," p. 53; March 6, 1995, John Ortberg, "What Makes Spirituality Christian?"; January 11, 1999, John Wilson, review of The Divine Conspiracy, p. 86; June, 2003, " Christianity Today Book Awards 2003," p. 42.

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, May, 1989, Dieter Muench, review of Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge, pp. 70-74.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, June, 1987, Henry Pietersma, review of Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge, p. 688.

Publishers Weekly, April 15, 2002, review of Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ.

Review of Metaphysics, 1985-1986, Volume 39, Claire Hill, review of Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge, pp. 790-792.

Sojurners, November, 1999, review of The Divine Conspiracy of the Heart, p. 51.