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John Nolt

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My Ph.D. is from Ohio State University and I joined the department in 1978.

Research Interests

Environmental ethics, logic, contemporary metaphysics

Recent, representative publications



  • Edited Book
    • A Land Imperiled: The Declining Health of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion, (editor) University of Tennessee Press, 2005

  • Recent Journal Articles and Chapters
    • “Greenhouse Gas Emission and the Domination of Posterity” in Denis Arnold, ed., The Ethics of Global Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

    • “Sustainability and Hope,” in Sustainability Ethics: 5 Questions, Evan Selinger, Ryan Raffelle and Wade Robison, eds., Automatic/VIP Press, 2010, pp. 139-65.

    • “Hope, Self-Transcendence and Environmental Ethics,” Inquiry 53, 2 (April 2010), pp. 162-182.

    • “The Move from Is to Good in Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics, 31, 2 (Summer 2009), pp. 135-154.

    • Why Nietzsche Embraced Eternal Recurrence,” History of European Ideas, 34, 3 (September 2008), pp. 310-323.

    • “Truth as an Epistemic Ideal,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 37, 3 (June 2008), pp. 203-237.

    • “Reference and Perspective in Intuitionistic Logic,” Journal of Logic, Language and Information 16, 1 (January 2007), 91-115.

    • “The Move from Good to Ought in Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 28, 4 (Winter 2006), 355-374.

    • "Free Logics," in Philosophy of Logic, ed., Dale Jacquette, (Volume 5 of the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science under the general editorship of Dov Gabbay, Paul Thagard, and John Woods), Elsevier, 2006, pp. 793 - 830.

  • Encyclopedia Article

    • "Free Logics," in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Recent Presentations


  • "The Ethics of Global Climate Change," Baker Center for Public Policy, University of Tennessee.
  • “Casting the Ring into the Fire:  Our Obligation to Relinquish Greenhouse Powers,” Ethics, Energy and the Futureconference at Delft University of Technology, June 24-26, 2010.

  • “Athropocentrism and Egoism,” 7th annual meeting of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, Allenspark, Colorado, June 8-11, 2010; also presented at University of North Carolina, Asheville, March 31, 2010.

  • “A Utilitarian Calculation Regarding the Human Consequences of Personal Greenhouse Gas Emissions” conference on Human Flourishing and Restoration in an Age of Global Warming, Clemson University, September 2008.

  • “The Role of Self-Transcendence in the Justification of Environmental Ethics,” fifth annual joint meeting of the International Society for Environmental Ethics and the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, Estes Park, Colorado, May 27th-30th 2008.

  • “Greenhouse Gas Emission and the Domination of Posterity,” UT Energy and Responsibility Conference, April 2008.  Also presented at Nanjing Forestry University May 25, 2009, and at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanjing University, May 26, 2009.

  • “Problems with the Move from Is to Good for Nonsentient Organisms,” Annual Joint meeting of the International Society for Environmental Ethics and the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, Estes Park, Colorado May 29 -June 1, 2007.

  • “Ethics of Global Climate Change,” keynote address at Missouri Western State University's Galileo's Legacy conference on Global Warming, 4/16/07.  (Presentation included a panel discussion with Willie Soon, Harvard physicist and global warming skeptic, and Clair Parkinson, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).

Grant


  • 2006 Rebuild America Grant (U.S. Department of Energy), $25,000, for DOE assistance in creating UTK’s 25-year Energy Plan.

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate courses include introductory philosophy, logic, 19th and 20th century philosophy, and enviromental ethics.

Graduate courses include environmental ethics, animal ethics, intergenerational ethics, logic, and Nietzsche.

Professional/Community Interests

  • President, UTK Faculty Senate, 2008-9
  • President, Tennessee University Faculty Senates, 2009-10
  • Chair, Committee on the Campus  Environment
John Nolt

Contact Information

John Nolt
Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies
818 McClung Tower
Knoxville, TN 37996-0480

Phone: 865-974-7218
Fax: 865-974-3509

Email: nolt@utk.edu