Books by John Nolt
Incomparable Values: Analysis, Axiomatics and Applications, Routledge, 2022.
Incomparable Values: Analysis, Axiomatics and Applications - 1st Edition (routledge.com)
Description: This is a book on axiology (value theory), with implications for rational decision theory and consequentialist ethics. It argues that degrees of value—that is, of “better” or “worse”—are not in general linearly ordered, but rather merely partially ordered. Some people fear that, if true, this would cripple consequentialist ethics and rational decision theory. I maintain, to the contrary, that its truth enriches consequentialist ethics and can be encompassed within objective, practical, and ethical forms of rational decision theory. The argument for these claims spans the book. It is presented as a formal axiomatic theory because nothing else could have provided the rigor and conceptual clarity needed to make the case.
Environmental Ethics for the Long Term: An Introduction, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2014.
Environmental Ethics for the Long Term | An Introduction | John Nolt | (taylorfrancis.com)
Description: Most accounts of environmental ethics examine the ethical implications of our actions at most a few generations into the future. This one looks as far ahead as contemporary science can reliably see. It covers the gamut of environmental ethical theories, from the anthropocentric to the biocentric and traces their implications for both for personal life and public policy. (Cover photo depicts the dark side of the earth.)
John Nolt, ed., A Land Imperiled: The Declining Health of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion, (editor) University of Tennessee Press, 2005.
A Land Imperiled | University of Tennessee Press (utpress.org)
Description: A symptom-by-symptom look at myriad ecological issues threatening the health of the southern high country. Sections on air, water, plants and animals, food, energy, waste, transportation, and population and urbanization
Logics, Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1997.
(No longer in print)
Description: An advanced textbook covering the syntax, semantics, and metatheory of classical propositional and predicate logic; certain metatheoretic results; modal, deontic, tense, and higher-order logics; and alternative approaches, including free logics, multivalued logics, supervaluations, infinite-valued and fuzzy logics, intuitionistic logics, relevance logics, and non-monotonic logics.
Free revised and updated pdf version of this book is available here: https://web.utk.edu/~nolt/logics2-2.pdf
What Have We Done?
John Nolt (editor), Athena Lee Bradley, Mike Knapp, Donald Earl Lampard, and Jonathan Scherch, What Have We Done? The Foundation for Global Sustainability's State of the Bioregion Report for the Upper Tennessee Valley and Southern Appalachian Mountains, Earth Knows Publications, 1997.
(No longer in print)
Description: A report by the Foundation for Global Sustainability on environmental conditions in this region. A much revised and augmented update of this report was published in 2005 as A Land Imperiled. Earth Knows Publications was the publishing arm of Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center (https://narrowridge.org).
Down To Earth: Toward a Philosophy of Nonviolent Living, Earth Knows Publications, 1995.
(No longer in print)
Description: A collection of short essays on various aspects of sustainable living. Many of these were originated as segments of my radio commentary, Thoughts on Philosophy and the Environment, broadcast on NPR-affiliated WUOT FM from November 1989 to June 1992. Earth Knows Publications was the publishing arm of Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center (https://narrowridge.org).
Schaum's Outline of Logic
John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Logic, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Schaum's Outline Series, New York, 1988; second edition revised by Achille Varzi, 1999. (Portuguese translation as Lógica, São Paulo, McGraw-Hill, 1991; Japanese translation in two volumes by Daisuke Kachi, Tokyo, Omsha, Ltd.: vol. 1, 1995; vol. 2, 1996; Italian translation 2004, second Italian edition 2007.) Abridged and reissued under the title Logic: Crash Course, The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2006Description: An introduction to the fundamentals of formal logic.
Informal Logic: Possible Worlds and Imagination, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1984.
(No longer in print)Description: An introduction to informal logic in which the validity of all kinds of arguments is evaluated by the method of trying to imagine possible worlds in which the premises are true and the conclusion is untrue.