Darrel E. Christensen
Darrel Elvyn Christensen was an American philosopher. He was the founder of Hegel Society of America and its first president. His interest lied particularly in the connection between Hegel and Whitehead.
Life and works
Christensen was born Nebraska. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Hastings College in 1945. He went on to earn a Master of Theology from the Southern California School of Theology in 1957, followed by a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago in 1959. After spending a year at the Claremont Schools, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 1965, writing a dissertation on "Some Implications for the Doctrine of God of Hegel's Concept of Thought as Mediation" under the supervision of William H. Werkmeister. He began his academic career teaching at Wofford College for several years before relocating in the early 1970s to Salzburg, Austria, where he lived for the rest of his life.In 1968, he organized a symposium on Hegel and the philosophy of religion at Wofford College. During this event, he convened a small group of scholars and proposed the establishment of a learned society in the United States dedicated exclusively to the study of Hegel. The scholars—Christensen himself, Otho N. Adkins, George L. Kline, Robert L. Perkins, Warren E. Steinkraus, Donald P. Verene, and Frederick G. Weiss—constituted the original Executive Council of the Hegel Society of America. All participants in the symposium were designated as charter members of the society.