Keith Peterson

Education

• Ph.D. in Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago

Areas of Expertise

• Continental philosophy
• Philosophies of nature and environment
• Philosophical anthropology
• Value theory

Personal Information

Please refer to Professor Peterson’s personal webpage for the most current information.

Professor Peterson has been at Colby since 2008. His intellectual training was primarily in the civilized edifices of European (“Continental”) philosophy from Kant to the present, though since about 2004 he has been trudging around the rural swamps, meadows, and farms of environmental philosophy. His primary areas of interest include philosophies of nature and environment, value theory, and philosophical anthropology, and he regularly offers introductory and advanced courses in environmental philosophy and ethics, philosophy of nature, feminist science studies, and contemporary Continental philosophy. Some of these courses are cross-listed with Environmental Studies; Science, Technology, and Society; and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs. Others are included in the College-wide writing across the curriculum and civic engagement initiatives at Colby. Since 2017 he has been involved in developing the Environmental Humanities at Colby, by facilitating a faculty seminar in environmental humanities (2017-2020), being part of the organizing committee of the Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities, and on the EH subcommittee of the Center for the Arts and Humanities. 

Publications

Please refer to Professor Peterson’s personal webpage for the most current information.

 

BOOKS

(2020) A World not Made for Us: Topics in Critical Environmental Philosophy. SUNY Press Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics, J. Baird Callicott and John Van Buren, Eds. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-7959-0

(2019) Ontology: Laying the Foundations. Translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie, 4^th Ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965), with Introduction and Notes. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-062735-0

(2016) New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Editor, with Roberto Poli. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-043437-8

(2004) First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature, by F. W. J. Schelling. Translation with Introduction and Notes. SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6003-0

ARTICLES

(2022) “Nicolai Hartmann.” (with contributions by Roberto Poli) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/nicolai-hartmann/>.

(2021) “Nicolai Hartmann’s Contribution to an Ecological Materialist Anthropology.” In Erik N. Dzwiza & Andreas Speer, Eds. Philosophische Anthropologie als Interdisziplinäre Praxis. Brill | Mentis Verlag, 385–402.

(2021) “The Very Idea of an Ecological Worldview.” Ethics & The Environment 26, 1: 21–55.

(Forthcoming) “The Place of Humankind in Nature: Max Scheler and Environmental Philosophy.” In Eric Mohr & J. Edward Hackett, Eds. The Legacy of Max Scheler. Marquette University Press.

(Forthcoming) “Value Ethics and Liberation Ethics: Notes on Convergence and Divergence.” In Frederic Tremblay & Alicja Pietras, Eds. Hartmanniana, De Gruyter.

(2019) “Introduction: Hartmann’s Realist Ontology” in Ontology: Laying the Foundations, trans. K. Peterson. Berlin: De Gruyter, xv-xxxix.

(2019) “Phenomenology and Being-in-Itself in Hartmann’s Ontology: Laying the Foundations.” Horizon: Studies in Phenomenology, Special Issue on Nicolai Hartmann, Vol. 8, Number 1: 33-51.

(2017) “Stratification, Dependence, and Nonanthropocentrism: Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology,” in Ontology of Nature: Continental Perspectives and Environmental Reorientations. Gerard Kuperus and Marjolein Oele, Eds., Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 159-180. (Orig. 2012)

(2017) a. “Nicolai Hartmann and Recent Realisms,” Axiomathes Special Issue: Nicolai Hartmann: Reality, Modality, and Value, K. Peterson, Ed. Volume 27, Issue 2: 161-174. b.“Editor’s Introduction,” 129-131.

(2016) “Flat, Hierarchical, and Stratified: Determination and Dependence in Social-Natural Ontology,” in New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Keith Peterson and Roberto Poli, Eds. Berlin: De Gruyter, 109-131.

(2016) “Scenes of Disagreement: Nicolai Hartmann between Phenomenological Ontology and Speculative Realism,” in Early Phenomenology: Metaphysics, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Religion, Eds. Brian Harding and Michael Kelly. 125-140. London: Bloomsbury

(2012) “Nicolai Hartmann’s Philosophy of Nature: Realist Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology” Scripta Philosophiae Naturalis 2: 143-179. [ISSN 2258-3335]

(2012) “Ecosystem Services, Nonhuman Agencies, and Diffuse Dependence,” in Environmental Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 2: 1-19.

(2012) “An Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology,” Axiomathes 22: 291-314.

(2011) “Bringing Values Down to Earth: Max Scheler and Environmental Philosophy,” Appraisal: The Journal of the Society for Post-Critical and Personalist Studies, Re-Appraisal: Max Scheler (Pt 2), Vol. 8, No. 4: 3-12.

(2010) “All That We Are: Philosophical Anthropology and Ecophilosophy,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 1: 60-82.

(2010) “From Ecological Politics to Intrinsic Value: An Examination of Kovel’s Value Theory,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 21, 3: 81-101.

(1997) “Derrida’s Responsibility,” Journal for the British Society of Phenomenology (JBSP), Vol. 28, No. 3: 287-303.

SHORTER TRANSLATIONS

(2017) “Translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s ‘The Megarian and Aristotelian Concept of Possibility’,” with Frederic Tremblay, Axiomathes Special Issue: Nicolai Hartmann: Reality, Modality, and Value, K. Peterson, Ed. Volume 27, Issue 2: 209-223.

(2016) Translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s “Review” of the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, M. Geiger, A. Pfänder, A. Reinach, M. Scheler, Edited by Edmund Husserl. Vol. I. Halle: Max Niemeyer 1913 (Die Geisteswissenschaften, 35 (1914): 971-972). (Self-published at http://web.colby.edu/krpeters/translations/)

(2012) “Translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s ‘How is Critical Ontology Possible?'” Axiomathes 22: 315-354.

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS (To 2010)

“Hartmann on Causality: A Response to Bergson” The North American Society for Early Phenomenology	June 2023 San Diego, CA
“Solidarity and Care as Values for Political Ecology” The Deep Commons (https://www.deepcommons.net/conference)	October 2022 (online)
“Revisiting the Metaphysics of Cognition” (Invited) Nicolai Hartmann’s Philosophy Today, Institute of Philosophy Maria Curie-Skłodowska University	(Zoom) December, 2020 Lublin, Poland
“Hartmann’s Contribution to an Ecological Materialist Anthropology” (Invited) Philosophical Anthropology as Interdisciplinary Praxis	November 2019 Köln, Germany
“Value Ethics and Liberation Ethics: Convergence and Divergence” Nicolai Hartmann Society	June 2019 Katowice, Poland
“The Transcendental and Transcendent in Nicolai Hartmann” The Transcendental Turn in Contemporary Philosophy (via Video) [with Russian translation]	April 2019 Moscow, Russia
“Environmental Humanities, Metascientific Stances, and Political Ecology” International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	October 2018 State College, Pennsylvania
“Political Ecology and Metascientific Stances” Dimensions of Political Ecology (DOPE)	February 2018 Lexington, KY
“The Priority of the Lower: Axiological and Ontological Relations in Nicolai Hartmann’s Value Theory” Conference on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann	(Zoom) December 2017 Saint-Petersburg, Russia
“Moral Realism in Political Ecology” International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	October 2017 Memphis, TN
“Do Environmentalists have to be Realists?” International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	October 2016 Salt Lake City, Utah
“The Priority of the Lower: Axiological and Ontological Relations in Nicolai Hartmann’s Value Theory” North American Society for Early Phenomenology (NASEP) Conference	May 2016 NY, NY
“Critical Ontology and Recent Continental Realisms” Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), Nicolai Hartmann Society	October 2015 Atlanta, GA
“Social Ethos and Value Theory in John Clark’s Ecocommunitarian Anarchism”       International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	October 2015 Atlanta, GA
“The Very Idea of an Ecological Worldview”   Maine Philosophical Institute	April 2015 Farmington, Maine
“The Very Idea of an Ecological Worldview”   International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	October 2014 New Orleans, Louisiana
“Flat, Hierarchical, and Stratified: Determination and Dependence in Social-Natural Ontology” Nicolai Hartmann Society International Conference	August 2014 Trento, Italy
“What’s Blocking Environmental Culture?” International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	November 2013 Eugene, Oregon
“What’s Blocking Environmental Culture?”                             International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE)	June 2013 East Anglia, United Kingdom
“Structure and Genesis in Ontology: Hartmann on Stratification, Causality, and Emergence”                                                                    American Philosophical Association, Nicolai Hartmann Society	February 2013 New Orleans, Louisiana
“Scenes of Disagreement: Nicolai Hartmann between Phenomenological Ontology and Speculative Realism”                                        Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP)	November 2012 Rochester, New York
“Bringing Values Down to Earth: Max Scheler and Environmental Philosophy”              American Philosophical Association, Max Scheler Society of North America	February 2012 Chicago, Illinois
“Ecosystem Services, Nonhuman Agencies, and Diffuse Dependence”International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE)            (read by a colleague)	June 2011 Nijmegen, Netherlands
“Framework, Prioritization, and Value Ethics: Two Dimensions of Value Discourse in Environmental Ethics and the Question of Agency” American Philosophical Association, ISEE Group Meeting	December 2010 Boston, Massachusetts
“Sustainability, Usufruct, and Environmental Value Ethics”     International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)	November 2010 Montreal, Quebec