Dallas Willard served as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in the University of Southern California’s Dornsife School of Philosophy, where he taught for 47 years from 1965 to 2012. He received his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Tennessee Temple College in 1956, a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from Baylor University in 1957, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, with a minor in the history of science, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1964. Before joining USC, Willard taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1960 to 1965 as an instructor and assistant professor. At USC, he served as director of the School of Philosophy from 1982 to 1985, chaired 31 doctoral dissertations—the most recent in 2007—and held visiting appointments at UCLA in 1969 and the University of Colorado in 1984. Willard taught a wide range of courses, including logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, history of ethics, philosophy of religion, and history of philosophy from the 17th to 20th centuries. He introduced innovative courses such as “Reasoning and Logic” and “The Professions and the Public Interest in American Life.”

Willard specialized in systematic metaphysics, the ontology of concepts, language, and thought, phenomenology—with particular expertise on Edmund Husserl—history of ethics, philosophy of religion, and the status of moral knowledge in contemporary society. His scholarly publications include Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge (1984), Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics (1993, ed.), and the English translation of Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic (2003). Willard also authored bestselling books on Christian spiritual formation, such as The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (1988), The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (1998), Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (2002), and co-edited The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Study Bible (2005). In addition to over 200 articles, 23 critical reviews, and 22 forewords, he was working on The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge at the time of his death. Among his honors are the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching (1976), the Blue Key National Honor Fraternity’s Outstanding Faculty Member award (1976), the USC Student Senate Award for Outstanding Faculty of the Year (1984), and Baylor University’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2007). Renowned as a mentor and bridge between philosophy and theology, Willard lectured widely and was active in the Renovaré movement. He passed away on May 8, 2013.