Craig Nichols

  • Teaching Professor
  • Philosophy: Swan 146
  • Phone: 401.874.2422
  • Email: nichols@uri.edu
  • Office Location: Dept of Philosophy
    Swan Hall
    Kingston, RI 02881

Biography

Dr. Nichols has taught in the URI Philosophy Department since 2002. As a Lecturer, his chief focus has been on classroom teaching, with particular concern for the philosophical development of undergraduate students. Outside of the university, Dr. Nichols and his wife enjoy homeschooling their three children in a classical curriculum, centered on oft-neglected disciplines of our Western intellectual tradition, including Greek, Latin, music, art, and, of course, philosophy. Dr. Nichols and his family are active in the communities of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation of Cranston, RI, and the Music School of the Rhode Island Philharmonic of East Providence, RI. In his spare time, Dr. Nichols especially enjoys playing classical guitar, studying Shakespeare, and Italian opera.

Research

Dr. Nichols’ research interests are focused on the areas of philosophy of religion, philosophical hermeneutics, phenomenology, philosophy of human nature, metaphysics, and the history of Western philosophy generally. Since coming to URI in 2002, he has taught Introduction to Philosophy, Theories of Human Nature, Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, Introduction to Asian Philosophies and Religions, and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Education

  • Ph.D., Boston University, Philosophy of Religion, 2001
    Dissertation: The Context of Being: Heidegger’s Critique of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel
  • M.T.S. (summa cum laude), Boston University, Philosophical Theology, 1995
    (includes coursework in the Boston Theological Institute Consortium Schools of Harvard University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
  • B.A. (summa cum laude), North Central University, Biblical Languages/Literature, 1992
  • B.A. (summa cum laude), North Central University, Theology, 1992

Selected Publications

“Christian Orthodoxy, Fundamentalism, and Violence.” In Religion, Fundamentalism and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2010), 211-38.

“Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Freedom, Transcendence, and the Human Condition in Arendt, Jaspers, and Niebuhr.” Yearbook of the Austrian Karl Jaspers Society 21 (2008): 119-50. (Originally published in Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 1:1-2 (Fall, 2006): 16-30. Available online at: http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.1Nichols.pdf)

“The God Who May Be and the God Who Was.” In After God , ed. John. P. Manoussakis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 111-26.

“The Eschatological Theogony of the God Who May Be: Exploring the Concept of Divine Presence in Kearney, Hegel, and Heidegger.” Metaphilosophy 36:5 (October, 2005), 750-61.