Publications

Patrick R. Frierson
Paul Pigott and William M. Allen Professor of Ethics and Philosophy
Whitman College
  • Note: At present, this webpage is being updated and many of the links are not operative. Please email me for copies of any papers that have broken links.

    • Single-Authored Books

    1. Maria Montessori's Philosophy: Following the Child (Oxford University Press, 2025)
    2. The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori: Agency and the Structure of Ethical Life (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022)
    3. Intellectual Agency and Virtue Epistemology: A Montessori Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020)
    4. Kant's Empirical Psychology (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
    5. Kant's Questions: What is the Human Being? (Routledge, 2013)
    6. Freedom and Anthropology in Kant's Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

    Edited Book

    1. Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and other Writings (edited with Paul Guyer, Cambridge University Press, 2011)

    Published and Forthcoming Articles

    1. "Montessori, Math, and Materials: A Case of Extended Cognition" (with Laura Di Paolo), Synthese, 2025.
    2. "Maria Montessori," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).
    3. "Montessori, Technology, and the Purpose of Education," Montessori Life 35 (2023): 18-21.
    4. "What is the Idea of the Soul? Comments on Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation," Kantian Review, 27 (2022), 475-481.
    5. "Discipline and the Cultivation of Autonomy in Immanuel Kant and Maria Montessori," Journal of the Philosophy of Education 55 (2021): 1097-1111
    6. "The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori," Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (2021): 1-22.
    7. "Situationism and Intellectual Virtue: A Montessori Perspective," Synthese 198 (2021): 4123-44
    8. "Maria Montessori's Moral Epistemology: Solving the Problem of Moral Relativism," The AMI Journal 2020: 204-217. (This is a modified version of the 2015 HPQ article below.)
    9. "Character in Kant's Moral Psychology: Responding to the Situationist Challenge," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 101 (2019): 508-34.
    10. "Towards a Research Program in Kantian Positive Psychology," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 71 (2018): 89-98.
    11. "Maria Montessori's Metaphysics of Life," European Journal of Philosophy 26 (2018): 991-1011.
    12. "Making Room for Children: Maria Montessori's Argument that Children's Incapacity for Autonomy is an External Failing," Journal of the Philosophy of Education 50 (2016): 332-50.
    13. "Kantian Feeling: Empirical Psychology, Transcendental Critique, and Phenomenology," Con-Textos Kantianos, 3 (2016):353-71.
    14. "Towards a Transcendental Critique of Feeling (A Response to Grenberg)," Con-Textos Kantianos, 3 (2016):381-90.
    15. "The Virtue Epistemology of Maria Montessori," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 94 (2016): 79-98.
    16. "Maria Montessori's Philosophy of Empirical Psychology," HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2015), pp. 240-268.
    17. "Maria Montessori's Moral Sense Theory," History of Philosophy Quarterly 32 (2015): 271-292.
    18. "Maria Montessori's Epistemology," British Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (2014): 767-91.
    19. "Kant, Individual Responsibility, and Climate Change," (Peer Commentary), Ethics, Policy, and Environment 17 (2014): 35-8.
    20. "Kant on Mental Disorder 1: An Overview," History of Psychiatry 20 (2009): 267-289
    21. "Kant on Mental Disorder 2: Philosophical Implications," History of Psychiatry 20 (2009): 290-310
    22. "Empirical Psychology, Common Sense, and Kant's Empirical Markers for Moral Responsibility," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 39 (2008):473-82.
    23. "Kant on the Causes of Human Action: A Brief Sketch," Proceedings of the Tenth World Kant Congress (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008)
    24. "Corruption, Non-ideal Theory, and Grace: A response to Kant and the Ethics of Humility" (for Book Symposium), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2007): 624-31.
    25. "Providence and Divine Mercy in Kant's Ethical Cosmopolitanism," Faith and Philosophy 24 (2007): 143-63.
    26. "Ethical Meta-standards in Adam Smith and Aldo Leopold," Environmental Ethics 29 (2007): 173-93.
    27. "Adam Smith and the Possibility of Sympathy with Nature," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2006): 442-80.
    28. "Character and Evil in Kant's Moral Anthropology," Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (2006): 623-34.
    29. "Kant's Empirical Account of Human Action," Philosopher's Imprint 5.7 (December 2005): 1-32
    30. "The Moral Importance of Politeness in Kant's Anthropology," Kantian Review 9 (2005): 105-27
    31. "Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes," Journal of the History of Philosophy 40 (2002): 313-38.

    Selected Book Chapters

    1. "The Extraordinary Unity of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment," for the Cambridge Critical Guide on the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
    2. "Descartes's Moral Theory," in The Cartesian Mind, ed. C. Wee and J. Secada, Routledge, 2025.
    3. "A Metaphysical Basis for Love: Descartes and Spinoza on the Metaphysics of Love," for Love: The History of a Concept (ed. R. Hanley) Oxford University Press, 2024.
    4. "Philosophy of Education," for the Oxford Handbook of Kant, ed. A. Stephenson and A. Gomes, Oxford University Press, 2024.
    5. "The Philosophy of Maria Montessori" in Bloomsbury Handbook of Montessori Research (ed. M. McKenna, E. Ahlquist, A. Murray, and M. Debs), Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.
    6. "Montessori," in Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (T. Shackelford and V. Weekes-Shackelford, eds.), Springer (2018) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2440-1
    7. Entries for Cambridge Kant Lexicon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021): Anthropology, propensity, evil, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Remarks in the Observations.
    8. "'A New Sort of A Priori Principles': Psychological Taxonomies and the Origin of the Third Critique," in Kant on the Faculty of Feeling (ed. K. Sorenson, D. Williamson), Cambridge, 2018.
    9. "Kant, Immanuel," for International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Wiley-Blackwell, 2018, DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.
    10. "Denkungsart in Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View," Palgrave Kant Handbook (ed. Matthew Altman), Palgrave-MacMillan, 2017, pp. 643-64.
    11. Entries for Kant-Lexikon (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016): "Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht" (6000 words), Rousseau (4500 words), Enthusiasm, "Über Schwärmerei und die Mittel dagegen," and other small entries.
    12. "The Role of Religion in Kant's Early Ethics Lectures," in Kant's Lectures on Ethics: A Critical Guide, ed. Lara Denis and Oliver Sensen, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 34-50.
    13. "Affective Normativity," in Kant on Emotion and Value (ed. Alix Cohen), Palgrave, 2014.
    14. "Affects and Passions in Kant's Lectures on Anthropology" in Kant's Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide, ed. Alix Cohen, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 94-113.
    15. "Two Concepts of Universality in Kant's Early Ethics" in Kant's Observations and Remarks: A Critical Guide, ed. Susan Shell and Richard Velkley, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 57-76.
    16. "Rational Faith: God, Immortality, and Grace" in Immanuel Kant: Key Concepts, ed. Will Dudley and Kristina Engelhardt, Acumen Press, 2011, pp. 200-215.
    17. "Introduction" to Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and other Writings, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. vii-xlv.
    18. "Two Standpoints and the Problem of Moral Anthropology," in Kant's Moral Metaphysics (ed. James Krueger and Benjamin Lipscomb), Berlin: Walter deGruyter Press, 2010, pp. 83-110.
    19. "Smithian Intrinsic Value" in The Philosophy of Adam Smith, ed. Vivienne Brown and Samuel Fleischacker, London: Routledge, 2010, pp. 231-249.
    20. "Kant and the End of Wonder," in Philosophy Begins in Wonder, ed. Michael Deckard and Peter Losonczi, Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010, pp. 285-309.
    21. "Kantian Moral Pessimism" in Kant's Anatomy of Evil, ed. Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 33-56.
    22. "Applying Adam Smith: A Step Toward Smithian Environmental Virtue Ethics," in New Voices on Adam Smith (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 140-67.

    Selected Book Reviews

    1. "Krista Thomason, Naked: The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life," in Review of Metaphysics
    2. "Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform, by Laura Papish," Mind 128 (2019):1344-55.
    3. "Frederick Beiser. Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy 1860-1900," Review, Journal of the History of Philosophy 56 (2017): 180-1.
    4. "Patrick Stokes. The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity," Review, JHP, 2016.
    5. "Allen Wood. The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right, and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy," Review, Kantian Review, 20 (2015): 506-512.
    6. "Chad Wellmon. Becoming Human: Romantic Anthropology and the Embodiment of Freedom," Review, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2011.
    7. "Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro (eds), Environmental Virtue Ethics," Review, Environmental Values 15 (2006): 258-260
    Last updated: March 2025