Patrick G. Riley is Michael Oakeshott Professor-emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin. He is notable for his translations of the political writings of Gottfried Leibniz and his research on social contract theory and the history of universal jurisprudence. His book, Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence details the social, moral, and political philosophy of Leibniz and introduced Leibniz to the English-speaking world as the most important German philosopher before Kant. He has also written extensively on the general will of Rousseau and Kant's political philosophy. He is the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Rousseau.
Riley received his M.Phil at The London School of Economics under the supervision of Michael Oakeshott, and he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University where he studied under John Rawls and Judith Shklar. He retired from the University Wisconsin in 2007 after over 25 years of teaching, and has served as visiting lecturer at Harvard near his home in Cambridge, MA.