Justin Donhauser

• Metaphysics and Applied Ontology.

Growing up playing in the forests, swamps, and rivers of the Adirondacks of Central New York, Justin has carried a respect for nature and the ways in which it confines human endeavors throughout his life.  Against this background, his training as an analytic philosopher allows him to bring a unique perspective and skill-set to the many theoretical and methodological issues surrounding ecological restoration efforts.

Justin began studying metaphysics and the philosophy of science at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta in 2002.  He transferred to SUNY at Buffalo State College (BSC) in 2003 to pursue study in the philosophy of the meaning of life and writing in the field of popular culture and philosophy—areas in which he has continued to present and publish work in professionally since 2004.  He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) in Philosophy and the Deans Medal for Excellence in Philosophy from BSC in 2006.  Since that time he has been doing research in metaphysics at the University at Buffalo (UB), specializing in issues in the philosophy of time and temporal ontology [which lends itself to his research as an ERIE trainee, as ecosystems are temporally extended entities].  Justin was awarded a Master of Arts in philosophy from UB in 2008; he was subsequently accepted to the PhD program and is currently working on his dissertation prospectus.  Prior to accepting a position as an ERIE trainee, he also worked as a lecturer in the philosophy departments at both Niagara University and BSC.

Justin’s career objective—broadly characterized—is simply to apply metaphysics quite literally to those problems that are apparently the most detrimental to life in general.  Thus, his contributing to the field of ecological restoration is motivated pragmatically, by his finding that it is reasonable to think that reforming our ecologically impactful actions, in even very small ways, should have the most ubiquitously impactful positive consequences [much more so than reforming many other sorts of actions might].  As such, his projects are intended to transcend disciplines, scientific and religious preferences, and aim at laying a robust metaphysical foundation for reforming our ecologically impactful actions.  More specifically, he is concerned with informing pragmatic policy formation by analyzing the place and necessary dependence relations between human beings and ecosystems.  

• BA, Summa Cum Laude, in Philosophy and Humanities (SUNY at Buffalo State College)

• MA in Philosophy (University at Buffalo)