Leonard "Len" Lawlor (/ˈlɔːlər/; born November 2, 1954)[1] is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University.

[2] Lawlor received his doctorate from SUNY Stony Brook in 1988 and taught at the University of Memphis from 1989–2008, where he held the position of Faudree-Hardin University Professor of Philosophy from 2004 to 2008 before joining the faculty at Penn State, as Sparks Professor of Philosophy.

[3] He is known for his writings on phenomenology and on the figures Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Henri Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, and Jean Hippolyte.

Lawlor's most recent work concerns transcendental violence and possible responses to it.

Somewhat disguised by the expositions, From Violence to Speaking Out is primarily a work in ethics.