Jon Stewart (philosopher)

Jon Stewart is an American philosopher and historian of philosophy.

Stewart earned his BA in Philosophy in 1984 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studied with David Hoy.

He received his MA in 1986 and his PhD in 1992 from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied with Robert B. Pippin, Frederick A. Olafson and Henry Allison.

After his dissertation he worked at a post-doctoral scholar at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (where he worked with Ludwig Siep), the Université Libre in Brussels (where he worked with Marc Richir), and the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin (where he worked with Volker Gerhardt).

Starting in 1996 Stewart worked for several years at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen.

In 2003 he defended his Habilitation thesis at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen.

Stewart's second book, Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (New York: Cambridge University Press 2003) marked a major shift in Kierkegaard studies.

It was widely reviewed in academic journals, as well as by a Danish newspaper.

It is generally agreed that Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered impacted research in many ways.

He has held guest professorships the University of Iceland (2005), the Universidad de los Andes, Santiago de Chile (2010), the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City (2014), the Charles University, Prague (2019), University of Szeged, Hungary (2019, 2021), and the Universidad Panamericana, Aguascalientes, Mexico (2021-2023).

In 2007 he completed a second Habilitation thesis, this time in Philosophy.

In the same year he was elected into the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

From 2007-2017 he was the editor-in-chief of the now completed series, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources (Aldershot: Ashgate 2007-2015; New York: Routledge 2016-2017).

In continuing to show the relevance of culture and history to understanding the intellectual and philosophical debates of the Danish Golden Age, in 2007 Stewart published A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, Tome I, The Heiberg Period: 1824-1836 (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007) and A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, Tome II, The Martensen Period: 1837-1842 (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007).

These studies constituted the most detailed investigations into the influence of Hegel's philosophy on Danish Golden Age culture.

He worked at Harvard University from 2016 to 2017.

He specializes in 19th century Continental philosophy with an emphasis on the thought of Kierkegaard and Hegel.

He has also worked in the field of Scandinavian Studies and has made the culture of the Danish Golden Age better known internationally.

Stewart currently works as a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

He has won the Book Prize of the Slovak Academy of Science in the years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023.

In the year 2022 he was awarded the Slovak Academy of Sciences Prize for Scholarly Work for previous year.

In 2020 he was awarded the title Professor h.c. by the University of Szeged, Hungary.

In 2021 he was the recipient of The Slovak Academy of Sciences’ Honorary Plaque of Ľudovít Štúr for Services to the Humanities and Social Sciences.

His book Hegel’s Century: Alienation and Recognition in a Time of Revolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021) won the Prose Award for 2022 for the category “Philosophy,” awarded by The Association of American Publishers.

He is currently the editor-in-chief of the journal, and the co-editor of the Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook and Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series (De Gruyter).

He is the series editor of Research in the History of Western Philosophy, Texts from Golden Age Denmark, and 'Danish Golden Age Studies'' (Brill).