Faculty Profile
Chris W. Surprenant received his B.A. from Colby College and his Ph.D. from Boston University. His areas of specialization are History of Philosophy (Ancient and Early Modern, especially Kant), Moral Philosophy, and Political Philosophy.
He is the author of Kant and the Cultivation of Virtue (Routledge 2014); the co-editor of Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary (Routledge 2011); and his recent articles have appeared in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Topoi, and edited volumes.
Dr. Surprenant is the director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Project on Law, Liberty, and Morality, which examines enduring questions in Western moral and political thought. The project sponsors public lectures, academic seminars, debates, and reading groups; faculty and undergraduate scholarship; a summer seminar in philosophy and political economy; and for college credit high school courses in philosophy.
In 2012, he was recognized by The Princeton Review as one of the "Top 300 Professors" in the United States, and, in 2014, was selected by Questia (a division of Cengage Learning) as one of their "Most Valuable Professors," awarded to three professors in the country who "have made lasting impressions the education and lives of their students."