Robert Paul Wolff is an American political philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He graduated from Harvard University with a BA, MA, and PhD in philosophy in 1953, 1954, and 1957, respectively. Wolff taught philosophy and later Afro-American studies at a number of colleges. In 1965 he collaborated with Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore Jr. on A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Wolff's books include The Poverty of Liberalism, The Ideal of the University, In Defense of Anarchism, The Autonomy of Reason, and others.