Arnold I. Davidson

Arnold I. Davidson is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Philosophy, the Divinity School, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and the Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago. He is also Professor of the Philosophy of Cultures at the Università Ca’Foscari in Venice, Italy.

His main publications are in French and Italian as well as in English. His book of conversations with Pierre Hadot, "La philosophie comme manière de vivre” has been translated into Greek. His most recent essay on improvisation is entitled “Exercices spirituels, improvisation et perfectionnisme moral: à propos de Sonny Rollins” and is forthcoming in the collective volume, “Le travail de la littérature. Usages du littéraire en philosophie”.

He is currently engaged in a long-term collaborative project with George Lewis on Improvisation As a Way of Life. He has also performed as the narrator in Miya Masaoka’s LED Kimono Project.