Daniel A. Dombrowski (born 1953) is an American

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and professor emeritus of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...

. He was the president of the

Metaphysical Society of America The Metaphysical Society of America (MSA) is a philosophical organization founded by Paul Weiss in 1950. As stated in its constitution, "The purpose of the Metaphysical Society of America is the study of reality." The society is a member of the ...

(2018–19).

Career

Dombrowski has authored twenty books and over 170 articles in scholarly journals in philosophy, theology, classics, and literature. Among his books are ''Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Perspective'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) and ''Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). His main areas of intellectual interest are

history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...

(from a neoclassical or

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

perspective),

political philosopher Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1 ...

Christian ethics Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system: it is a virtue ethic which focuses on building moral character, and a deontological ethic which emphasizes duty. It also incorporates natural law ethics, whic ...

and

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

. He is the editor of the journal
Process Studies
'. Dombrowski is considered an expert on the philosophy of

Charles Hartshorne Charles Hartshorne (; June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and ...

. In 2016, he was described as "the most important and prolific Hartshornean today".

Animal rights and vegetarianism

Dombrowski has authored several books dealing with the topics of

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

and

vegetarianism Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism may ...

, including ''The Philosophy of Vegetarianism'', published in 1984. It documents the arguments for vegetarianism from

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samos, Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionians, Ionian Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher and the eponymou ...

through the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

to the modern debates on vegetarianism. It was positively reviewed as an "extremely well documented work". Dombrowski's ''Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases'', published in 1997 is the first book-length examination of the range of views relating to the

argument from marginal cases The argument from marginal cases (also known as the argument from species overlap) is a philosophical argument within animal rights theory regarding the moral status of non-human animals. Its proponents hold that if human infants, senile people, th ...

. The book cites the arguments of

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...

Tom Regan Tom Regan (; November 28, 1938 – February 17, 2017) was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his reti ...

, H. J. McCloskey,

Jan Narveson Jan Narveson (; born 1936) is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. An anarcho-capitalist and contractarian, Narveson's ideology is deeply influenced by the thought of Robert Nozick and Da ...

, R. G. Frey, Peter Carruthers, Michael P. T. Leahy,

Robert Nozick Robert Nozick (; November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard University,

, and

James Rachels James Webster Rachels (May 30, 1941 – September 5, 2003) was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights. Biography Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph ...

."Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases"
Hive.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October, 2021.

Selected publications

*''Plato's Philosophy of History'' (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981), 217 pp.
''The Philosophy of Vegetarianism''
(Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

, 1984), 188 pp. Also ''Vegetarianism: The Philosophy Behind the Ethical Diet'' (London: Thorsons, 1985), 188 pp. Foreword by

. *''Thoreau the Platonist'' (NY, Berne, and Frankfurt: Verlag Peter Lang, 1986), 219 pp.
''Hartshorne and the Metaphysics of Animal Rights''
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 159 pp. *''Christian Pacifism'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 181 pp. *''St. John of the Cross: An Appreciation'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 219 pp. *''Analytic Theism, Hartshorne, and the Concept of God'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 247 pp. *''Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases'' (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 221 pp. *''Kazantzakis and God'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 193 pp. *''A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion'', with Robert Deltete (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 158 pp. *''Not Even a Sparrow Falls: The Philosophy of Stephen R. L. Clark'' (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000), 366 pp. *''Rawls and Religion: The Case for Political Liberalism'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 192 pp. *''Divine Beauty: The Aesthetics of Charles Hartshorne'' (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), 230 pp. *''A Platonic Philosophy of Religion: A Process Perspective'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 152 pp. *''Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Perspective'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 172 pp. *''Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 167 pp. *''Rawlsian Explorations in Religion and Applied Philosophy'' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 138 pp. *''A History of the Concept of God: A Process Approach'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016), 273 pp. *''Whitehead's Religious Thought: From Mechanism to Organism, From Force to Persuasion'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017), 184 pp. *''Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism: Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 214 pp.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dombrowski, Daniel 1953 births 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers American animal rights scholars American Christian pacifists American ethicists American philosophy academics American Roman Catholic religious writers American vegetarianism activists Christian ethicists Historians of vegetarianism Living people Philosophers of religion Presidents of the Metaphysical Society of America Process theologians Seattle University faculty