John Silber

John Silber
Office of President Emeritus Silber
73 Bay State Road
Boston, Massachusetts 02215
(617) 353-4300
(617) 353-9674 fax

President Emeritus; Professor of International Relations, Law, and Philosophy. (BA, Trinity University; MA, PhD, Yale University)

Specialization: Philosophy, Immanuel Kant, Social and Foreign Policy, Education.

John Silber is an internationally recognized authority on ethics, on the philosophy of law, and on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. His works include: The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion, Being and Doing: A Study of Status Responsibility and Voluntary Responsibility, Human Action and the Language of Volition, Procedural Formalism in Kant’s Ethics, The Natural Good and the Moral Good in Kant’s Ethics, Obedience to the Unenforceable. His book Straight Shooting: What’s Wrong with America and How to Fix It, was published in 1989. A German edition, Ist Amerika zu retten?, was published in 1992 and a Japanese edition was published in 1993. In 2007 his book Architecture of the Absurd: How Genius Disfigured a Practical Art was published. Silber is a leading spokesman for the maintenance of high academic standards and has gained national attention for his advocacy of a rational, comprehensive system for financing higher education. In January 1996, Governor William Weld chose Professor Silber to head the Massachusetts Board of Education, the state’s policy-making board for public education at the elementary, middle and high school levels.