For Robert Hahn, professor of philosophy, emeritus, in the College of Liberal Arts, his innovative and creative 42-year career at Southern Illinois University Carbondale has been a “teacher’s dream come true.”
The numbers alone speak volumes — during that time Hahn, the university’s 2025 Excellence Award recipient for tenured and tenure-track faculty, taught more than 40,000 undergraduate and graduate students over more than 300 courses, supervised more than 450 teaching assistants and taught 15 years in the University Honors program. Hahn, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, also had more than 1,200 students enrolled in his 67 different one-half month Ancient Legacies study abroad trips to Greece, Egypt and the west coast of Turkey, which also served as a research engine and catalyst for his five single-authored research books — his sixth is due out later this year. He is also author of two course texts, in ethics and in logic, which have made it through 10 or more editions.
Numbers, however, don’t tell the complete story.
In nominating Hahn, Thomas Price, a chief academic adviser in COLA and one of Hahn’s former students and teaching assistants, noted that much like Hahn’s standing-room only classes on ethics and logic in Lawson Hall, Hahn’s own enthusiasm for teaching his Ancient Legacies courses greatly impacted his students
“These programs are unlike any others I have ever known, custom-made, involving multiple faculty members, and archaeologists and classicists working in Greece, Turkey, and Egypt,” Price wrote. “For example, on the Greece program, to explore the inventions of democracy and the jury system, Western philosophy and science, historical writing, public literacy, the Olympic Games, and the theater, Professor Hahn re-creates with the students the trial of Socrates in an ancient council chamber, guides them to make sundials and star-maps, organizes the students to run the shortest footrace in a Panhellenic stadium, and directs the students in a performance of an ancient play in an ancient theater with costumes and masks they make themselves.”
George Schedler, a professor emeritus of philosophy who retired in 2014, worked with Hahn as a colleague for more than 30 years, including the last 10 as department chair. Schedler, who wrote one of six letters supporting Hahn’s nomination, said that in his 40 years at SIU, the department “never had a teacher more popular and successful for all the right reasons at all levels of undergraduate and graduate level teaching as Professor Hahn.”
Hahn is the only philosophy professor honored with the award for Outstanding Teacher of the College and Outstanding Educator of the University. In 2024, Hahn also received the college’s Scholar Excellence Award. The university-level Teaching Excellence Award for tenured and tenure-track faculty is “given only to those who have demonstrated outstanding teaching” in their discipline.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian of the College of Liberal Arts from Union College, Hahn earned three advanced degrees, including his doctorate in philosophy, all from Yale University by the time he was 23 years old. Prior to coming to SIU in 1982, Hahn’s professional experience began in fall 1976 and includes work at Yale University, The University of Texas, Arlington; Harvard University, Brandeis University and Denison University. It was while teaching jointly at Brandeis and Harvard that he was selected as visiting professor at the American College of Greece, where Hahn said he had a “tremendous career transformation,” creating his unique study abroad program to Greece that expanded to Turkey and then Egypt as his research expanded.
Hahn, who retired Jan. 1, 2025, notes he spent more than half of his life serving the university, “and the wonderful career that made it possible for me to fulfill my purpose in life as a teacher.”
Hahn said he advises students that when choosing a career:
- Carefully reflect to discover what you love to do.
- Among those things, choose those at which you excel.
- Among those alternatives, chose the things “that when you do them, it fills you with self-respect and a deep sense of worthiness.”
“We spend most of our lives working, and if you do not love your job, you will have difficulty loving your life,” Hahn said. “By some great good luck, I chose a career path that I still love half-a-century later.”
Get to know ROBERT HAHN
Name: Robert Hahn
Department and job title: professor of philosophy, emeritus, College of Liberal Arts
Years at SIU Carbondale: 42, retired after the fall 2024 semester.
What is the importance of philosophy that people don’t understand and how do you see it relating to today’s society?
In my estimation – given the proliferation of misinformation – we need more than ever to provide training for our students in “critical thinking,” and this is a fundamental part of all of my courses, introductory through Ph.D., and should be part of all philosophy courses as I see it. This is not an attempt to persuade students of some position or other, but rather to develop a critical acumen at evaluating information, looking for “evidence” and “supporting reasons.” What I have tried to do is to train my students in philosophical rationality. By this, I mean I direct my students to assemble the best arguments they know in support of any positions that persuade them and then assemble all the best arguments that challenge and seek to refute those positions and then wrestle with this debate to reach a reasoned conclusion.
What kept you teaching for 42 years at SIU?
Some people “teach” because it’s their job. Others teach because it’s their dharma, their very nature. This is particularly, and peculiarly, true of being a “philosopher,” certainly for me. I would be doing the kinds of things I am doing even if I did not have this extraordinary appointment as professor. I believe a beautiful dream of every teacher is to have students who want to attend your classes, are visibly satisfied by their experience of learning with you and recommend your courses with great enthusiasm to future students. It was the appreciation I felt from my students that kept me going all these years. Having taught more than 40,000 students in 42 years is as amazing as it is gratifying — that I could be part of so many students’ education. A teacher’s dream come true, thanks to SIU Carbondale!
What did you enjoy about the Ancient Legacies study abroad trips?
Every year, some students came along with their parents and even grandparents. Blending young students with their more mature elders made for an exceptional learning experience for a program designed by a philosopher– rather than a classicist or an archaeologist, though they were always part of my courses. I wanted to have the groups consider “Ancient Legacies” – what could we still learn from these great peoples from long ago, and focused on perennial questions: What is the meaning of life? What makes a good life? What happens when we die, and what difference do our answers make to how we live our lives? Each year for decades, I led them into the Great Pyramids, into King Tut’s tomb, and as we cruised the Nile, we discussed the meaning of life, death and the possibility of an afterlife. Here was this philosopher’s dream come true.
What is key to being an effective teacher?
You’ve got to love your work and be inspired and excited by it. If you do not appear to be thrilled to be engaging in your subject, your students may well conclude: “Well, if it doesn’t wind up your clock, and you are the expert, then it’s not likely to wind up mine either!”
What do you hope readers take from your sixth book, “Materia Philosophiae: Material Dimensions of Ancient Greek Philosophy,” due out this summer?
My research is unlike most scholars working in ancient Greek philosophy, and specifically trying to account for its beginnings, and for me, especially, answering the question: What caused the early philosophers to rationalize the cosmos? My work has shown that an important contributing factor was monumental stone temple technologies, especially because of its modular techniques. Among my earlier books in my research series is “Anaximander and the Architects: The Contributions of Egypt and Greek Architectural Technologies to the Origins of Greek Philosophy.” Another is “Archaeology and the Origins of Philosophy.” My contributing argument is that something important has been missed: It is not by rejecting the body and senses, but by means of them – hands-on technologies – that abstract and speculative thought had its springboard. In another book, I extend my research from ancient philosophy architecture, engineering, and archaeology to include ancient mathematics: “The Metaphysics of the Pythagorean Theorem: Thales, Pythagoras, Engineering, Diagrams, and the Construction of the Cosmos out of Right Triangles.”
My seventh book, “Knowledge in Archaic Greece: What Counted as ‘Knowledge’ Both Before and During the Origins of Philosophy in 6th century BCE Ionia?” is under review. I am also working on my eighth and likely final book, “Ancient Technologies and the Origins of Greek Philosophy.” My goal is resituating the early philosophers in their technological contexts to produce new light on understanding the origins of philosophy in Greece.
