Chad Engelland Ph.D.
Professor, Philosophy
About
Chad Engelland approaches questions concerning the human person, language, and God by engaging the history of philosophy using the contemporary methods of phenomenology and logical analysis.
At the center of his research are two concepts.
The first is 'ostension,' which names the act of showing something to others in order to give them the opportunity to learn the meaning of the word in question. The concept brings out the interpersonal character of our bodies, speech, and experience.
The second is 'transcendence,' which names the peculiar human openness to the truth of things, an openness that allows us to go beyond our environmental niche in order to countenance and to speak about the very essences of all the things of the world. The concept makes manifest our human difference and our wonderment that reaches out to comprehend the whole.
Among his books are Ostension: Word Learning and the Embodied Mind (MIT) and Heidegger's Shadow: Husserl, Kant, and the Transcendental Turn (Routledge).
He has also published columns in the Dallas Morning News, The National Catholic Register, America Magazine, and Philosophy Now. He has appeared on Australian public radio, Alabama Catholic radio, New Books in Philosophy, and Matt Fradd's Pints with Aquinas.
Before joining UD in 2014, he had a nine-year joint appointment in philosophy at John Carroll University and Borromeo College Seminary in Cleveland.
He has served the department as a graduate director (2016-2020), chair (2019-2021), and Rome professor (2021-2023).
He is the recipient of two university teaching awards, the 2019 Michael A. Haggar Fellow and a 2018 Haggerty Teaching Excellence Award. Something of his joy for teaching comes across in his writings for a more popular audience, which include The Way of Philosophy (Cascade) and Phenomenology (MIT), which has been translated into Chinese.
Undergraduate
- Philosophy and the Ethical Life
- Philosophy of the Human Person
- Philosophy of Being
- Philosophy of Language
- Philosophy of God
- Continental Tradition
- Thought of Thomas Aquinas
- Augustine’s Confessions
Graduate
- Phenomenological Tradition
- Phenomenological Thomism
- Phenomenology of Language
- Heidegger’s Being and Time
- Christianity & Postmodernism
- Philosophy of God
Books
Phenomenology of ‘God’, under review.
Heidegger on Transcendence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract.
Phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020.
Language and Phenomenology, editor. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Heidegger's Shadow: Kant, Husserl, and the Transcendental Turn. New York: Routledge, 2017.
The Way of Philosophy: An Introduction. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016.
Ostension: Word Learning and the Embodied Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2014.
Articles
“The Paradox of the Person as a Way to God.” Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, forthcoming.
“A percepção de outras mentes animadas segundo Agostinho.” (Portuguese translation by Frederico Bonaldo). Atlantika: Revista de Filosofia do Centro Atlântico de Pesquisa em Humanidades 2 (2024): 72-95.
(with Jonathan J. Sanford) “Phenomenological Thomism: A Prooemium.” New Blackfriars 105 (2024): 180-199.
“Anselm and the Problem of Ostending God.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 61 (2023): 373-396.
“Deferred Ostension of Extinct and Fictive Kinds.” Review of Metaphysics 87 (2023): 507-540.
“Deus Absconditus: A Dialogue.” New Blackfriars 103, issue 1108 (2022): 795-808.
“Amo, Ergo Cogito: Phenomenology’s Non-Cartesian Augustinianism.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 95 (2021): 481-503.
“Three Versions of the Question, ‘Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?’” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 94 (2020): 73-89.
“Inflecting ‘Presence’ and ‘Absence’: On Sharing the Phenomenological Conversation.” In Language and Phenomenology, ed. Chad Engelland, 273-295. London: Routledge Press, 2020.
“Grice and Heidegger on the Logic of Conversation.” In Transcending Reason: Heidegger’s Transformation of Phenomenology, ed. Matt Burch and Irene McMullin, 171-186. New Heidegger Research. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2020.
"Three Problems of Other Minds." Think 51 (Spring 2019): 63-75.
"'Rational Animal' in Heidegger and Aquinas." The Review of Metaphysics 71 (2018): 723-53.
“Dispositive Causality and the Art of Medicine.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 91 (2017): 159-170.
“Perceiving Other Animate Minds in Augustine.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2016): 25-48.
“Heidegger and the Human Difference.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2015): 175-193.
“On the Personal Significance of Sexual Reproduction.” The Thomist 79 (2015): 615-639.
“How Must We Be for the Resurrection to Be Good News?” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 89 (2015):245-261.
“Absent to Those Present: Social Technology and Bodily Communion.” In Social Epistemology and Technology, ed. Frank Scalambrino, 167-176. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015.
“Disentangling Heidegger’s Transcendental Questions.” Continental Philosophy Review 45 (2012): 77-100.
“The Phenomenological Kant: Heidegger’s Interest in Transcendental Philosophy.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 41 (2010): 150-169.
“Unmasking the Person.” International Philosophical Quarterly 50 (2010): 447-460.
“Augustinian Elements in Heidegger’s Philosophical Anthropology: A Study of the Early Lecture Course on Augustine.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 78 (2004): 263-275.
Popular
“Hybrid humans: The relevance of Thomas Aquinas today.” The Dallas Morning News, Sunday edition, March 10, 2024.
“The mystery of Thomas Aquinas: Why did he leave his ‘Summa’ unfinished?” America Magazine, the national Jesuit monthly, December, 2023, issue.
“Benedict XVI and Nietzsche: A Pope’s Unlikely Dialogue with an Atheist Philosophy,” America Magazine, the national Jesuit monthly, March 6, 2023.
“Pope Benedict XVI Wrote about the Death of God,” The Dallas Morning News, January 15, 2023.
“Unlike AI Chatbots, Students Are Insatiably Hungry to Learn,” The Dallas Morning News, December 21, 2022.
“Alexa, Make Me Happy,” The Dallas Morning News, June 13, 2021.
“Phenomenology at the Beach,” Philosophy Now, June/July 2021.
“Amo, Ergo Cogito: A Philosopher on Love as a Way of Seeing,” The MIT Press Reader, May 2021.
“Colleges are vulnerable to COVID-19 spread because they are set up to spread something else — knowledge,” The Dallas Morning News, July 24, 2020.
“Social Distancing and the Reality of Bodily Presence,” National Catholic Register, April 15, 2020.
“The Distinctive Look of UD,” University of Dallas website, July 2, 2019.
“The Church Must Reclaim the Cardinal Virtues,” National Catholic Register, September 13, 2018.
(with Chris Mirus) “The Power of Perceptive Thinking,” The Dallas Morning News, June 19, 2018.
“What Jesus gets—and scientists might miss—about the meaning of the mouth,” America Magazine, the national Jesuit monthly, January 25, 2018.
“Reclaiming the Truth that God Is Spirit,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, January 23, 2018.
“The Ultimate Jeopardy Question,” Strange Notions: The Digital Areopagus—Reason. Faith. Dialogue., June 21, 2016. http://www.strangenotions.com/
(with Dr. Brian Engelland), “How Can Virtue Combat Consumerism?” Business@CUA: The Catholic University of America School of Business Blog, December 7, 2015. http://blog.business.cua.edu/2015/12/how-can-virtue-combat-consumerism.html