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Department of Philosophy

Lawrence Pasternack, Professor & Director of Religious Studies

  LPasternak  

Office: 267 Social Sciences & Humanities

Telephone: 405-744-9237

Email: l.pasternack@okstate.edu

On sabbatical.

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

  • BA York University
  • MA Yale University
  • Ph.D. Boston University

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Kant
  • Ethical Theory
  • Philosophy of Religion  

 BOOKS (MONOGRAPHS AND COLLECTIONS)

  • Immanuel Kant’s Sources in Translation. Volume IV: Gottfried Achenwall’s Jus Naturae, Lawrence Pasternack and Pablo Muchnik, eds., London: Bloomsbury Press (2020).
  • Immanuel Kant’s Sources in Translation. Volume III: Alexander Baumgarten’s Initia Philosophiae Practicae, Lawrence Pasternack and Pablo Muchnik, eds., London: Bloomsbury Press (2020).
  • Pascal's Wager (Classic Philosophical Arguments Series). Lawrence Pasternack and Paul Bartha, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 
  • Immanuel Kant’s Sources in Translation. Volume II: Johann August Eberhard’s Vorbereitung zur natürlichen Theologie zum Gebrauch akademischer Vorlesungen, Lawrence Pasternack and Pablo Muchnik, eds. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2016.
  • Immanuel Kant’s Sources in Translation. Volume I: Georg Friedrich Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, Lawrence Pasternack and Pablo Muchnik, eds., London: Bloomsbury Press, 2016.
  • Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: an Interpretation and Defense (Routledge Philosophy Guidebook Series) London: Routledge, 2014 (272p).
  • Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: In Focus, London: Routledge, 2002. (280p).

RECENT ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

  • “What’s Wrong with the Semiological Interpretation of Kant’s Religion” Kantian Review, forthcoming (invited).
  • “Circulus Volitionis: The Hope for Divine Aid in Kant's Religion” Hope and the Kantian Legacy, Katerina Mihaylova, ed. (Bloomsbury 2022), in press (invited).
  • “A Contested Legacy: Kant and the Principles of Existentialism” (co-authored with Pablo Muchnik) for Routledge Handbook of Existential Human Science,  Routledge, forthcoming, (invited).
  • “Immediate Experience, Mystical ‘Encounters,’ and the ‘Voice’ of God: Palmquist’s Critical Mysticism and Kant’s Theory of Experience” Kantian Review 26:1 (2021), 129-147 (invited),
  • “The Ethical Community in Kant’s Pure Rational System of Religion” Philosophia: Special Issue on Kant’s Ethical Community 49:5 (2021), 1901-1916 (invited). 
  • “Kant’s Moral Argument and the Problem of Evil: Authentic Theodicy and the Sincerity of Faith” in Kant on the Proofs for God, Ina Goy, ed. (DeGruyter, 2021), in press (invited).
  • "On the Alleged Augustinianism in Kant's Religion," Kantian Review 25:1 (2020), 103-124.
  • "Kant's Religion and Perpetual Peace: Radical Evil, Divine Aid and the Antinomy Between Politics and Morals," In Christianity and Global Law: An Introduction, Rafael Domingo and John Witte, eds. (Routledge, 2020), 143-157 (invited).
  • "Pascal's Wager: An Argument with Many Audiences" (co-authored with Paul Bartha) in Pascal's Wager (Classic Philosophical Arguments Series) Lawrence Pasternack and Paul Bartha, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge  University Press, 2018), 1-24. 
  • "Predication and Modality in Kant's Critique of the Ontological Argument" The Kant Yearbook 10: Kant's Philosophy of Religion (2018), 149-170.
  • “Baumgarten and Kant on Rational Theology: Deism, Theism and the role of Analogy” in Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics: Critical Essays, Courtney Fugate, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 214-232 (invited).
  • “The Wager as Decision under Ignorance: Decision-Theoretic Responses to the Many Gods Objection” in Pascal's Wager (Classic Philosophical Arguments Series) Lawrence Pasternack and Paul Bartha, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 168-186.
  • “Kant’s Fourfold Critique of the Ontological Argument: Containment, Predication, and the Wisdom of Free Logic” in Ontological Arguments (Classic Philosophical Arguments Series) Graham Oppy, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 99-120 (invited).
  • “Rational Faith and the Pantheism Controversy: Kant's "Orientation" Essay and the Evolution of his Moral Argument” (co-authored with Brian Chance) in Essays on Kant and his German Contemporaries, Daniel Dahlstrom, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 195-214 (invited).
  • “Kant on Faith: Religious Assent and the Limits to Knowledge” in The Palgrave Kant Handbook, Matthew Altman, ed. (London: Palgrave, 2017), 962-986.
  • Hume's Principle and Kant's Pure Rational System of Religion: Divine Aid, Moral Hope, and the Highest Good” in Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment, Chris Surprenant, ed. (London: Routledge, 2017), 159-180.
  • “Religious Assent and the Question of Theology: Making Room for Historical Faith” in Kant and the Question of Theology, Chris Firestone and Nathan Jacobs, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2017), 99-118.
  • “Restoring Kant's Conception of the Highest Good” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 55:3 (2017), 435-468.
  • “The ‘Two Experiments’ of Kant’s Religion: Dismantling the Conundrum” Kantian Review, 22:1 (2017), 107-131.
  • “Kant’s ‘Appraisal’ of Christianity: Biblical Interpretation and the Pure Rational System of Religion” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53:3 (2015), 485-506.

RECENT AND UPCOMING TALKS

  • Symposium on Divine Freedom, NAKS-Eastern APA, January 2023. 
  • “Moralizing the Wager: Pascal, Kant, and Cliffordian Evidentialism” Blackwell Pascal Conference, Claremont McKenna Graduate School, March 2023.
  • Keynote Address, Kant’s Affirmative Philosophy of Religion, Notre Dame Center for the Philosophy of Religion, March 2023.
  • Master Class on Kant’s Philosophy of Religion, Munich School of Philosophy and Catholic Academy of Bavaria, February 2024.
  • Practical Cognition and Apophatic Analogy, North American Kant Society (Eastern APA), January 2022 (invited).
  • Kant’s Philosophy of Religion, University of Tehran, September 2021 (via Zoom, invited).
  • Symposium on Allen Wood’s Kant on Religion, Central APA, February 2021 (via Zoom, invited).
  • Kant’s Philosophy of Religion, Dare to Know Podcast, July 2020 (via Zoom, invited).

SPRING 2023 CLASS SCHEDULE

  • PHIL1313.22340 Logic & Critical Thinking (A) WEB