Theodore R. Vitali, C.P. (Ph.D., Saint Louis, 1976) is the Chairperson of the Philosophy Department at Saint Louis University. His interests are philosophical theology and environmental philosophy. Recently, Fr. Vitali gave two papers at the Institute for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Frankfurt, Germany: ÒThe Spirit of American Philosophy: the Land and the Experience of WildnessÓ and ÒWhiteheadÕs Philosophy of Emergent Possibility and its Problems.Ó Currently he is exploring the historical and cultural antecedents to classical American philosophy. He is concerned with identifying and tracking the religious antecedents from 1750 to 1850, their political, cultural and geographical counterparts, and the synthesis that formed between 1850 and 1940, the period of philosophical writing beginning with James and Peirce and culminating in A. N. Whitehead. He also serves as the professional ethicist for the Boone and Crockett Club. ?

His significant publications include:

• "The Peircean Influence on Hartshorne's Subjectivism," Process Studies, Vol. 7, No.4. Winter 1977
• "The Problem of Unity in Weiss' Philosophy: A Critique of Beyond All Appearances and First Considerations," The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XXXIII, No.2, December 1979
• "Creativity, God, and Creation" Modern Schoolman 62.2 (1985)
• "The Importance of the A Priori in Whiteheadian Theodicy" Modern Schoolman 62.4 (1985)
• "The Ethics of Hunting: Killing as Life-Sustaining" Reason Papers, No. 12 (1987)
• "Jorge Luis Nobo's Whitehead's Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity," Process Studies, Vol. 16, No.1 Spring 1987
• "Norris Clarke and the Problem of Divine Relativity" Faith and Creativity, (ed.) Nordgulen and Shields (CBP Press, 1987)
• "Organicism, Evil, and Divine Redemption" Archivio di Filiosofia, Anno 61 (1988)
• "Sport Hunting: Moral or Immoral?" Environmental Ethics 12 (1990); and "The Dialectical Foundation of the Land Ethic" Governor's Symposium on North America's Hunting Heritage