Sad News: Robert Greenberg
April 15, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
I write to share the sad news of the passing of Robert Greenberg, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, who died peacefully in his sleep on March 21, 2024 at the age of 89.
A graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Bob, as he was usually called, was a Fulbright Scholar at St. Andrews University and at Oxford, and a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at the University of Chicago where he earned his PhD. In a career that spanned some sixty years, he taught philosophy at Roosevelt University, Chicago, and at the University of Washington in Seattle. He joined the Brandeis faculty in 1966 and was known for his courses on Kant, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. As Jeremy Fantl shared (former student and now himself a philosophy professor), “I took courses from Bob Greenberg throughout my tenure at Brandeis. I probably took too many since a student shouldn’t concentrate their learning from too few sources. But at the time he was the go-to professor in the Philosophy Department. He had a way, even when he was lecturing, of locking eyes with you, as if he was speaking just to you, in a way that said, ‘You see what Kant was getting at here, right? That’s right. I knew you did.’ And then he’d smile and have a twinkle in his eye as he moved to the next point.”
“I cherish the time that he was my teacher and PhD thesis committee member at Brandeis,” said another student, Shalom Lappin, also now a philosophy professor. “My extensive conversations with him greatly enriched my educational experience during those years. He was a friend and a supportive mentor when I was very young, and in need of encouragement. Seeing him when I returned to Boston on academic visits was always a special pleasure.”
A noted scholar of Immanuel Kant, Bob engaged in research that spanned the philosophy of Kant, the philosophy of logic and language, the philosophy of perception, and the philosophy of action. His scholarly writings included numerous articles as well as three well-received books: Kant’s Theory of A Priori Knowledge (2001), Real Existence, Ideal Necessity: Kant’s Compromise, and the Modalities without the Compromise (2008), and The Bounds of Freedom: Kant’s Causal Theory of Action (2016). Bob retired from Brandeis in 2020 after 54 years of service.
Bob was an engaged and loving father, concerned to provide all he had missed following the untimely death of his own father when he was only six. A star quarterback at high school, he was a lifelong swimmer and cyclist, a passionate Little League coach, and a devoted track meet, swim meet, and rugby match attendee. A devoted husband to his wife Maida of sixty years, a psychoanalyst by profession, he was a progressive partner, prioritizing family, cooking family dinners, and taking care of the children. He will be remembered with love for his rigorous intellect, his enthusiasm for life, and for his broad smile and twinkling eyes.
Bob is survived by his wife Maida Jablon Greenberg, his children, Judith (Ira Joseph), David (Suzanne Nossel) and Jonathan (Megan Blumenreich), and his grandchildren, Claire, Hank, Sasha, Maggie, Leo and Liza.
I am grateful to Kate Moran of the Department of Philosophy and to David Greenberg for their contributions to this memoriam.
Sincerely,
Carol A. Fierke
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
I write to share the sad news of the passing of Robert Greenberg, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, who died peacefully in his sleep on March 21, 2024 at the age of 89.
A graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Bob, as he was usually called, was a Fulbright Scholar at St. Andrews University and at Oxford, and a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at the University of Chicago where he earned his PhD. In a career that spanned some sixty years, he taught philosophy at Roosevelt University, Chicago, and at the University of Washington in Seattle. He joined the Brandeis faculty in 1966 and was known for his courses on Kant, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. As Jeremy Fantl shared (former student and now himself a philosophy professor), “I took courses from Bob Greenberg throughout my tenure at Brandeis. I probably took too many since a student shouldn’t concentrate their learning from too few sources. But at the time he was the go-to professor in the Philosophy Department. He had a way, even when he was lecturing, of locking eyes with you, as if he was speaking just to you, in a way that said, ‘You see what Kant was getting at here, right? That’s right. I knew you did.’ And then he’d smile and have a twinkle in his eye as he moved to the next point.”
“I cherish the time that he was my teacher and PhD thesis committee member at Brandeis,” said another student, Shalom Lappin, also now a philosophy professor. “My extensive conversations with him greatly enriched my educational experience during those years. He was a friend and a supportive mentor when I was very young, and in need of encouragement. Seeing him when I returned to Boston on academic visits was always a special pleasure.”
A noted scholar of Immanuel Kant, Bob engaged in research that spanned the philosophy of Kant, the philosophy of logic and language, the philosophy of perception, and the philosophy of action. His scholarly writings included numerous articles as well as three well-received books: Kant’s Theory of A Priori Knowledge (2001), Real Existence, Ideal Necessity: Kant’s Compromise, and the Modalities without the Compromise (2008), and The Bounds of Freedom: Kant’s Causal Theory of Action (2016). Bob retired from Brandeis in 2020 after 54 years of service.
Bob was an engaged and loving father, concerned to provide all he had missed following the untimely death of his own father when he was only six. A star quarterback at high school, he was a lifelong swimmer and cyclist, a passionate Little League coach, and a devoted track meet, swim meet, and rugby match attendee. A devoted husband to his wife Maida of sixty years, a psychoanalyst by profession, he was a progressive partner, prioritizing family, cooking family dinners, and taking care of the children. He will be remembered with love for his rigorous intellect, his enthusiasm for life, and for his broad smile and twinkling eyes.
Bob is survived by his wife Maida Jablon Greenberg, his children, Judith (Ira Joseph), David (Suzanne Nossel) and Jonathan (Megan Blumenreich), and his grandchildren, Claire, Hank, Sasha, Maggie, Leo and Liza.
I am grateful to Kate Moran of the Department of Philosophy and to David Greenberg for their contributions to this memoriam.
Sincerely,
Carol A. Fierke
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
