# Dallas Willard's Last Book



## bookslover (Jun 19, 2019)

It's _The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge_ (Routledge Press, 2018), about 500 pages.

This book was left unfinished when Willard died in 2013 at 77, and the manuscript was edited and completed by Steven L. Porter, Gregg A. Ten Elshof, and Aaron Preston, all three of whom were Willard's graduate students in philosophy at one time or another. With his permission, given literally just a day or two before he died, they completed his book.

It is not a popular book, but a book of technical philosophy whose target audience is ethical theorists and historians of ethics.

I haven't read a line of it, and so can't comment on it, but I saw an article about the book by Porter which was published in an in-house publication by Talbot School of Theology (Biola University).

So, if you haven't heard of it or seen it, this is just a heads-up for those who may be interested. (It's also expensive!)


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## RamistThomist (Jun 19, 2019)

It will be good. While he's known more for pop stuff, his skill as an ethical philosopher is staggering.


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## bookslover (Jun 19, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It will be good. While he's known more for pop stuff, his skill as an ethical philosopher is staggering.



The list price is something like $115, which is pretty staggering, too.


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## jwright82 (Jun 19, 2019)

What were some of his key ideas?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 19, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> What were some of his key ideas?



Violent anti-Kantian skepticism. He does away with the mental wall Kant placed between us and the object of thought. 

Here is his syllabi
http://www.dwillard.org/resources/syllabi

http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/dwillard/Phil540_Seminar_in_Ethics_1999.pdf?mtime=1535247705


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## RamistThomist (Jun 19, 2019)

His stuff on ontology is probably his best work. I learned more about philosophy reading this 28 page syllabus than I did in my entire college life.
http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/dwillard/Phil460_2010.pdf?mtime=1456458023

Reactions: Like 1


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## jwright82 (Jun 19, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Violent anti-Kantian skepticism. He does away with the mental wall Kant placed between us and the object of thought.
> 
> Here is his syllabi
> http://www.dwillard.org/resources/syllabi
> ...


Thanks. I'm guessing he's anti-idealist as well? I'll read syllabi tonight.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 19, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> Thanks. I'm guessing he's anti-idealist as well? I'll read syllabi tonight.



If by Idealist you mean Berkeley, yes. Willard posited a real mind-independent world.


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## jwright82 (Jun 20, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> If by Idealist you mean Berkeley, yes. Willard posited a real mind-independent world.


Ok. Yeah I read one of his syllabi, ontology of knowledge I think, that was real good.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 20, 2019)

What many don't realize is that Willard translated a bunch of Edmund Husserl's stuff from German. That puts him a strange place, as Husserl was neither analytic nor really continental.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 21, 2019)

JP Moreland, that princely hero of the faith, describes what it was like to be in one of Dallas's classes.

Reactions: Like 1


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