Steven M. Cahn (born 1942) is an American philosopher and academic administrator who served as Provost and Acting President of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
He stepped down as Provost in 1992 and returned to his teaching post, serving as a professor of philosophy and urban education.
Cahn is known for his work on fatalism, religious belief, happiness, and academic ethics, as well as his interest in the teaching of philosophy.
Among his major works are Fate, Logic and Time; Religion Within Reason; Saints and Scamps: Ethics in Academia; From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor: 25th Anniversary Edition, (with Christine Vitrano) Happiness and Goodness: Philosophical Reflections on Living Well; Philosophical Adventures; Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies; Navigating Academic Life; and Professors as Teachers.
A collection of essays written in his honor, edited by two of his former doctoral students, Robert B. Talisse of Vanderbilt University and Maureen Eckert of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, is titled A Teacher's Life: Essays for Steven M. Cahn.