Paul Fairfield

Education

• PhD, McMaster University

Specializations / Research Interests

Continental Philosophy

Personal Website

About

My writings fall broadly within the traditions of philosophical hermeneutics, phenomenology, and pragmatism, and major influences on my work to date include Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gabriel Marcel, John Dewey, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Augustine.

My new book is titled The Void: An Existential-Political Analysis and will be published later this year by State University of New York Press. Current projects include a book titled An Aesthetics of the Sacred.

Whatever free time I have is largely spent with my wife, Gwyneth, and our daughter, Evangeline, or in my home gym. I am an eleventh-generation Canadian and a practicing Roman Catholic.  

Monographs

• The Void: An Existential-Political Analysis. State University of New York Press, 2026.
• History and Hermeneutics. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
• Introducing Dewey. Bloomsbury, 2024.
• Historical Imagination: Hermeneutics and Cultural Narrative. Bloomsbury, 2022.
• Essays: The Philosophy Crush Podcast. Outskirts Press, 2021.
• Philosophical Reflections on Antiquity: Historical Change. Bloomsbury, 2020.
• Artistic Creation: A Phenomenological Account. Co-authored with Jeff Mitscherling. Bloomsbury, 2019.
• Teachability and Learnability: Can Thinking Be Taught? Routledge, 2016.
• Death: A Philosophical Inquiry. Routledge, 2014.
• Philosophical Hermeneutics Reinterpreted: Dialogues with Existentialism, Pragmatism, Critical Theory, and Postmodernism. Bloomsbury, 2011.
• Education After Dewey. Bloomsbury, 2009.
• Why Democracy? State University of New York Press, 2008.
• Public/Private. Bloomsbury, 2005.
• The Ways of Power: Hermeneutics, Ethics, and Social Criticism. Duquesne University Press, 2002.
• Moral Selfhood in the Liberal Tradition: The Politics of Individuality. University of Toronto Press, 2000.
• Theorizing Praxis: Studies in Hermeneutical Pragmatism. Peter Lang, 2000.
• Is There a Canadian Philosophy? Reflections on the Canadian Identity. Co-authored with Gary B. Madison and Ingrid Harris. University of Ottawa Press, 2000.

Edited Books

• Relational Hermeneutics: Essays in Comparative Philosophy. Co-edited with Saulius Geniusas. Bloomsbury, 2018.
• Hermeneutics and Phenomenology. Co-edited with Saulius Geniusas. Bloomsbury, 2018.
• Education and Conversation: Exploring Oakeshott’s Legacy. Co-edited with David Bakhurst. Bloomsbury, 2016.
• Education, Dialogue and Hermeneutics. Bloomsbury, 2010.
• John Dewey and Continental Philosophy. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.