Paul Ott, PhD

About

I am a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. My areas of research are American pragmatism (esp. Dewey), environmental philosophy and ethics, ethical theory, and social and political philosophy. While my primary methodological approach is pragmatism, I also incorporate analytic and continental traditions in my work. I am currently working on papers in environmental philosophy on the relation between Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and Native American land ethics and a functionalist interpretation of the concept of nature as a middle position between post-naturalism and nature/culture dualism. In ethical theory, I am developing papers on a fully relational view of value and a pragmatic and pluralistic metaethics.

Degrees

PhD, 2010, SUNY Buffalo

MA, 2002, San Francisco State University

BA, 1997, UC San Diego

Research Interests

American pragmatism, environmental philosophy and ethics, ethical theory, social-political philosophy, Foucault

Selected Publications

Ecological Freedom: Aldo Leopold and the Human Ecological Relation. Environmental Philosophy (2019) 16(2): 245-273.

“Aesthetic Experience and Experiential Unity in Leopold’s Conservation Philosophy: A Deweyan Interpretation.” Environmental Philosophy (2013) 10(2): 23-52.

Moral Pluralism, Moral Motivation, and Democracy: A Critique of Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy. Contemporary Pragmatism (2011) 8(2): 145-162.

“Value as Practice and the Practice of Value: Dewey’s Value Theory for Environmental Ethics.” Environmental Ethics (2010) 32(3): 285-304.

“World and Earth: Hannah Arendt and the Human Relationship to Nature.” Ethics Place and Environment (2009) 12(1): 1-16.