Name Alan Olson Role Philosopher | Region Western philosophy | |
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Born January 7, 1939 ( 1939-01-07 ) Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Main interests Philosophy of Religion, German Idealism, Philosophical Theology, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics Notable ideas Jaspers and Cross-cultural Hermeneutics, Hegel and Pneumatology Areas of interest German idealism, Existentialism, Philosophical theology, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Philosophy of religion Philosophical era Contemporary philosophy, 20th-century philosophy Books Hegel and the spirit, Quadrilogy: Intergalactic Detox/Blo, Transcendence and Hermene, Transcendence and the Sacred, The Seven Matrices | ||
Schools of thought Continental philosophy | ||
Alan M. Olson is a Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Boston University. He received his degrees from Saint Olaf College (BA, History and Philosophy), Luther Theological Seminary (MDiv, Theology), Nashotah House, where he studied with Arthur Anton Vogel, and Boston University (PhD) where he studied with Peter A. Bertocci, Erazim Kohak, Harold H. Oliver and John N. Findlay. He served as Chairman of the Religion Department at Boston University, 1980–1987, and Chairman of the Philosophy Department, ad interim, 1987-1989. During the 1970s he was Program Coordinator of the Boston University Institute for Philosophy and Religion; and was Executive Director of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy in Boston, 1998. He was a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow at Karls-Eberhart Universität, Tübingen, Germany, in 1986, where he studied with Klaus Hartmann; and a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and Visiting Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna, Austria, in 1995, where he worked with Krzysztof Michalski. He served on the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association, 2000–2003; and is past president of the Karl Jaspers Society of North America. He delivered the Jaspers Lectures at Oxford in 1989; and is currently co-editor, with Helmut Wautischer, of the philosophical journal, Existenz. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife, Janet L. Olson, Professor Emerita, College of Fine Arts, Boston University. They have two daughters, Maren Kirsten, Sonja Astrid, and one grandson, Søren.