Christopher S. Morrissey, PhD

Sessional Assistant Professor of Philosophy
To speak openly and honestly and accurately carries great weight, and a reputation for integrity is priceless. How do we attain such integrity? I urge my students towards a love of liberating arts — a liberal arts education. We say what we honestly think and at the same time honor the truth-seeking ways of other people.

Studied Ancient Greek and Latin at the University of British Columbia and also taught classical mythology, ancient history, and ancient languages at Simon Fraser University. Wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on hominization and the mimetic theory of René Girard: “Mirror of Princes: René Girard, Aristotle, and the Rebirth of Tragedy”. At the University of British Columbia, an M.A. thesis “Studies in Aristotle’s Physics” began philosophical inquiries into the philosophy of nature. Other teaching has included Greek and Latin language courses for the Faculty of Philosophy at the Seminary of Christ the King located at the Benedictine monastery of Westminster Abbey in Mission, British Columbia. Major publications include the books Hesiod: Theogony / Works and Days (Talonbooks, 2012) and The Way of Logic (Nanjing Normal University Press, 2018).

ORCID Profile

https://bccatholic.ca/authors/c-s-morrissey

  • PhD (Simon Fraser University; 2005)
  • MA (University of British Columbia; 1999)
  • BA (University of British Columbia; 1995)
  • BSc (University of Manitoba; 1988)

Expertise

Term Logic, Mimetic Theory and Semiotics, Ancient Greek and Latin, Philosophy of Nature, Psychology and Biblical Studies

  • Editorial Team, The American Journal of Semiotics: Managing Editor from issue 28.3–4 (2012) to 35.1–2 (2019); Associate Editor (2020–2021).

Awards & Honors

My poem “One Great City” won the Second Award in the Poetry Institute of China’s Shangyin Li Poetry Contest. At the award ceremony in Zhengzhou, China, on August 17th, 2018, my poem was performed with a full translation of it into Chinese (whereas the original text uses three languages: English, ancient Greek, and Laozi’s ancient Chinese): https://youtu.be/6ljIVjBnCqo

Recent Publications

  • The Way of Logic: 逻辑之道 (Nanjing Normal University Press, 2018), Select Works of Eminent Contemporary Semioticians (Jie Zhang and Hongbing Yu, Series Editors); ISBN 7-5651-3577-1. Reviewed in The American Journal of Semiotics at: https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs2019353/460
  • “‘The Cloven Hoof under the Cassock’: Sacrifice Hidden in the Hebrew Bible and Roger Scruton”, Perspectives on Political Science 52.2 (2023): 66–74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2023.2183023
  • “Marshall McLuhan: Canadian Political Philosophy for the Digital Age”, in Lee Trepanier and Richard Avramenko (eds.), Canadian Conservative Political Thought (New York, NY: Routledge, 2023), 189–204.
  • “Subversions of Exclusions: A Commentary on Esther”, in Semiotics 2019: New Frontiers of Semiotics (Semiotic Society of America, 2021), 67–78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/cpsem201910
  • “The Logic of Relativism”, Philosophical News: Official Publication of the European Society for Moral Philosophy 16 (2018): 145–159. Special Issue on Dietrich von Hildebrand (printed July 2020): https://www.philosophicalnews.com/issues/issue-...
  • “Benedict Ashley's Reappraisal of Marxism”, in Grant Havers and Lee Trepanier (eds.), Walk Away: When the Political Left Turns Right (Lexington Books, 2019), 101–119; ISBN 978-1498595193 (published Aug 15, 2019): https://twu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://sear...
  • “The Five Ways of World-Empire”, in Eric Voegelin Today: Voegelin’s Political Thought in the 21st Century, edited by Scott Robinson, et al. (Lexington Books, 2019), 173–190; ISBN 978-1498596633 (published July 15, 2019): https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/twu/reade...
  • “The Five Ways of the Cosmos: Stoicism and Eco-Spirituality in the Perennial Tradition”, in Gabriel Ricci (ed.), Natural Communions, Volume 40 of Religion & Public Life (Routledge, 2019), 1–13. ISBN 978-0367231811
  • “The Analogy of Marshall McLuhan”, in Rajesh Heynickx and Stéphane Symons (eds.), So What's New about Scholasticism? How Neo-Thomism Helped Shape the Twentieth Century (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2018), 231–253. ISBN 978-3110586282
  • “On Finding Beauty and Truth in René Girard”, in James Bryson (ed.), The Religious Philosophy of Roger Scruton (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 99–110.
  • “A Logic Without Nominalism: Existential Assumptions on the Aristotelian Square of Opposition Revisited”, The American Journal of Semiotics, 31.3–4 (2015), 183–202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs201621011
  • Hesiod: Theogony / Works and Days (Vancouver, British Columbia: Talonbooks, 2012).

Affiliations & Memberships

  • Society of Biblical Literature
  • American Academy of Religion
  • Colloquium on Violence and Religion
  • North American Schelling Society
  • Certified Member, The Institute for Advanced Physics, Baton Rouge, LA

  • PHIL 100 Philosophy for Life
  • PHIL 103 Introduction to Logic
  • PHIL 105 Introduction to Philosophy
  • PHIL 109 Critical Thinking: Informal Logic
  • PHIL 210 Contemporary Ethical Issues
  • PHIL 350 Symbolic Logic