Seth Vannatta
Assistant Professor; Pre-law Advisor
Ph.D., Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2010
M.L.A, Philosophy, Oklahoma City University, 2002
B.A., History, Colorado College, 1995
Seth is a native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Seth came to Morgan State in 2010 after spending four years in graduate school in Illinois and after teaching and coaching in middle and high school for ten years in Oklahoma City. Seth studies the history of philosophy and American philosophy, and is interested in philosophy's relationship to other dimensions of culture including law, politics, education, and sport. Authors of particular interest to him at present include Charles Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., John Dewey, Michael Oakeshott, and Edmund Burke. In addition to philosophy, Seth enjoys sports and fitness. He is an enthusiastic Oklahoma Sooners football fan, a runner, and a golfer. Seth and his wife Rachel enjoy their new home in Baltimore very much.
Sample Publications:
Vannatta, Seth. “A Defense of Pragmatic Conservatism,” Humanitas, Vol. XXV, No. 1 & 2, (2012); “Between Science and Fiction: Pragmatism and Conservatism in History and Law,“ European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 4, I, June, (2012); Chuck Klosterman and Philosophy: The Real and the Cereal, Ed. Seth Vannatta, (Chicago: Open Court, 2012); "Phenomenology and the Question of Instant Replay: A Crisis of the Sciences?" Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 5, 3, (2011);"A Phenomenology of Sport: Playing and Passive Synthesis," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, (May, 2008); "Radical Empiricism and Husserlian Metaphysics." The Pluralist. University of Illinois Press. (2007).
Courses Taught: PHIL 438: Kant, PHIL 432: Ethics and the Law, PHIL 343: Philosophy of Law, PHIL 337 Early Modern Philosophy, PHIL 310: Philosophy of Education, PHIL 223: Introduction to the Philosophy of Politics, PHIL 109: Introduction to Logic
