Ever since completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1993, the Israeli philosopher Irad Kimhi has been building the résumé of an academic failure. After a six-year stint at Yale in the '90s that did not lead to a permanent job, he has bounced around from school to school, stringing together a series of short-term lectureships and temporary teaching positions in the United States, Europe and Israel. As of June, his curriculum vitae listed no publications to date — not even a journal article. At 60, he remains unknown to most scholars in his field.
Among a circle of philosophers who have worked or interacted with Kimhi, however, he has a towering reputation. His dissertation adviser, Robert Brandom, describes him as “truly brilliant, a deep and original philosopher.” Jonathan Lear, who helped hire Kimhi at Yale, says that to hear Kimhi talk is to experience “living philosophy, the real thing.”
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