Erik W. Schmidt, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy

Professor Schmidt’s work focuses on the intersection of philosophy and art. His recent research uses Shakespeare to explore the philosophical value of paying attention to medium, genre, and form in the world of art and literature. His work in the...

Dr. Erik W. Schmidt

Contact Information

  • Office Hours Spring 2024

    Tuesdays:  11:00 - 12:00pm

    Wednesdays: 1 - 2:30pm & 3:30 - 4:00pm

    Thursdays: 11:00 - 12:00pm

  • (509) 313-5975

Education & Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., Philosophy, Syracuse University

B.A., Philosophy, Wheaton College

Courses Taught

PHIL 193: FYS Thinking through Beauty

PHIL 301: Ethics

PHIL 408: Theories of Solidarity and Social Justice

PHIL 450: Happiness

PHIL 475: Philosophy of the Visual Arts

PHIL 487: Doubt


Professor Schmidt’s work focuses on the intersection of philosophy and art. His recent research uses Shakespeare to explore the philosophical value of paying attention to medium, genre, and form in the world of art and literature. His work in the classroom is similarly interdisciplinary, using a wide range of disciplines, from economics and biology to literary theory and art history, to explore the topics of ethics, beauty, social justice, and happiness.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

(w/ Danielle Layne) “Viewing Films as Eikos or Kalos Mythos,” Plato and the Moving Image, Ed. Weinman and Bildermans. Cambridge: Brill. (Forthcoming)

“Pleading the Case: Learning from works of fiction as well as fictional worlds,” Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 11:1 (2017).

“Troubled Trades: Normative incomparability and the challenge of universal markets,” Southwest Philosophy Review 33:1 (2017), 195-203.

“Knowing Fictions: Metalepsis and the Cognitive Value of Fiction,” Res Philosophica 93:2 (2016), pp. 483-506.

“Crossing Over: Rauschenberg, Kafka, and the Boundaries of Imagination,” Aesthetic Investigations 1:2 (2015), pp 214-226.

“Sucking the Sweets of Sweet Philosophy: Shakespeare’s dramatic use of philosophy,” Memoria Di Shakespeare: Journal of Shakespeare Studies (2014), pp. 299-326.

(w/ Michael Pringle) “Re-Thinking Education: Philosophy and Literature in an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Ethics and Shakespeare,” Voyages Journal of Contemporary Humanism 2 (2013).

“A Virtue Ethics Response to Henley on Hume, Aristotle and the Situationist Challenge,” Southwest Philosophy Review 27:2 (2011), pp. 27-32.

“How to Value the Liberal Arts for Their Own Sake without Intrinsic Values,” Journal of Philosophy in the Contemporary World 17:2 (2010), pp. 37-47.

“Thresholds, Vagueness, and the Argument from Small Improvements,” Philosophical Studies: Values, Rational Choice, and Agency: New Essays in Moral Psychology 110:1 (2008), pp. 193-206.

Book Reviews

Review of Alexander Nehemas, Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art, Bryn Mawr Classic Review (2008). [http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2008/2008-03-24.html]

  • Philosophy of Art and Literature
  • Ethics
  • Moral Psychology