Philosophy

Faculty and Staff Directory

Nathan Colaner

Instructor
Philosophy

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Information

Phone

(206) 398-4607

Email

colanern@seattleu.edu

Office

RINA 104

Teaching and Research Interests

Primary Research Areas  

Ancient Philosophy, Epistemology, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics, Modern Philosophy

Selected Recent Research  

  • Aristotle on Knowledge of Nature and Modern Skepticism, Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Lexington Books imprint, forthcoming 2013.
  • “The Role of Universals in the First Stage of Epagogē,” at the Northwest Ancient Philosophy Society Workshop, September 2012.
  • “Aristotle on Human Lives and Human Natures,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2,July 2012.
  • “What is ‘Thought that Thinks Itself’?,” Colloquium Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, December 2011.

Biography

Nathan entered the University of Kansas in 2004 after being offered a full time fellowship for graduate study. In early 2011, Nathan defended his dissertation with honors, entitled “Other Than Omniscient: An Interpretation and Defense of Kant’s Rejection of Aristotle’s Notion of Finite Reasoning.” 

Nathan was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Kansas for five years, and then the Visiting Assistant Professor of philosophy at Rockhurst University in Kansas City from 2010-2011, before taking an Instructor position at Seattle University in 2011.

All of Nathan’s research has two ultimate goals: to understand the nature of the limits of (and prospects for) human reason, and to provide a theoretical basis for social justice. He is currently working more on the former objective with a book on Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, arguing that such a theory anticipates and responds to many cases of modern and contemporary skepticism.

Nathan lives in North Seattle with his wife and three children.