Philosophy

Professor and Dean of College of Arts & Sciences, Ph.D., New School of Social Research
Ethics, Aesthetics, Pragmatism, Professional Ethics, Environmental Ethics


James Liszka is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he has worked for over 25 years. Prior to this position he was Interim Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies, and Interim Director of Graduate Programs. He is past Chair of the Department of Philosophy, and former President of the Faculty Senate. In 1999 he was given the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Research, and in 1998 the University's Excellence in Teaching Award. He received his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in 1978, where his dissertation on observation in the social and natural sciences won the Alfred Schütz Award. He has also taught at City University of New York, Baruch College, St. Francis College in Brooklyn, and College at Old Westbury on Long Island. He was a Humanities Fellow at the University of Toronto, Scarborough College in 1985-86. He was editor of The Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, and The Alaska Quarterly Review, which he co-founded with Ron Spatz at the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1980. The journal has gone on to become one of the most prestigious journals for the publication of fiction and poetry. In 1989 he published The Semiotic of Myth with Indiana University Press-a study of narratives and values; in 1996 he published A General Introduction to the Semeiotic of Charles S. Peirce (Indiana University Press)-a study of the great American philosopher's theory of signs and symbols. In 1999, he published Moral Competence with Prentice Hall-the culmination of his many years of teaching ethics to undergraduates, which is now in its second edition. He has published numerous articles in his areas of expertise. He has given many presentations and workshops on professional and business ethics, and he is an internationally recognized scholar in the area of semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, and pragmatism.

Recent Publications:

James Liszka. (2005). "Why Happiness is of Marginal Value in Ethical Decision-Making." Journal of Value Inquiry. Forthcoming.

James Liszka. (2005). “Secondness.” Entry in the Encyclopedia of American Philosophy. Routledge Press. To appear in 2006.

James Liszka. (2004).  with Edwin Battistella and Michael Haley, “Semiotics and Linguistics II: The Influence of Peirce on 20 th Century Linguistics. Chapter 39, Section 290. History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present. Vol. 3. Edited by S. Auroux, K. Koerner, H. Niederehe, and K. Versteegh. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Forthcoming.

James Liszka. (2003). The Narrative Ethics of Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. Ethics and the Environment 8(2): 42-70, 2003.

James Liszka. (2003). Another Look at Morris’s Semiotic. Semiotica 145 (1):217-233.

James Liszka. (2002). Moral Competence:An Integrated Approach to the Study of Ethics. Second edition. Prentice Hall. 2002.