Joseph Koterski


Joseph Koterski, S.J. is an American Jesuit priest, philosopher, author, and currently associate professor at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York.

Academic career

In 1976, Koterski graduated with a H.A.B. degree in Classics from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1980, he earned a M.A. from Saint Louis University with a thesis titled Aristotle's Ethics and Reflective Equilibrium, and then two years later a Ph.D. from the same school, while there on a Danforth Fellowship. His dissertation, mentored by James Collins, was titled Truth and Freedom in Karl Jasper’s Philosophy of Science.
Immediately, after obtaining his degree in 1982, Koterski taught at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. At the time, he was also discerning a vocation to the religious life. After two years of teaching, he applied to the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. His studies continued and as a Jesuit Koterski earned his Masters of Divinity and License in Sacred Theology from Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a thesis titled Natural Law and the Book of Wisdom. From 1986 to 1988, he was Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland.
He was ordained a priest in 1992. Soon afterwards, he was assigned as a professor at Fordham. In the late 1990s he also began teaching philosophical courses at the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of New York. From 1996 to 2001, he was director of the MA program in philosophical resources at Fordham. From 1994, he has served as chaplain for Queens Court Residential College Freshmen. In 2008, Koterski was elected president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Publications

Koterski is the editor or author of numerous articles and reviews.
Since 1994, he has served as editor-in-chief of International Philosophical Quarterly. He is editor of the annual proceedings of the University for Life organization, Life and Learning. Since 1999, he is co-editor of the Fordham University Press Series in Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology.

Books

has employed Koterski for several lectures in its Great Courses series, namely: