Professor Kane, emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin (where he spent almost his entire career), died this past weekend. He was internationally known for his revival of the libertarian position on free will in the 1990s, although he had wide-ranging philosophical interests in value theory and philosophy of religion. He was one of my favorite colleagues when I was at UT Austin, a lovely human being as well as talented philosopher. Professor David Sosa, Chair of the Texas Department, kindly shared this memorial announcement:
The Department of Philosophy at UT Austin mourns the passing of its longtime member Robert Kane, who was University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus).
The author of seven books and more than eighty articles on the philosophy of mind, free will and action, ethics, value theory, political philosophy and philosophy of religion, including Free Will and Values, Through the Moral Maze, The Significance of Free Will (inaugural winner of the Hamilton Faculty Book Award), A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, and Ethics and the Quest for Wisdom, Kane was also editor of The Oxford Handbook of Free Will.
Kane was the recipient of seventeen major teaching awards at the University of Texas, including the “President’s Excellence Award,” and was in 1995 named one of the initial members of the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Long a leading defender of a traditional “libertarian” view of free will, Kane was known for his attempts to reconcile such a view with modern science, and to articulate its implications for ethics, politics, and law.
Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Kane or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.
