Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Millsaps College
smithsg@millsaps.edu | Box 150390, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS 39210 USA

Featured Links

HOOKS: a site for closer looks at great components of popular music. See also AD HOOKS on ads in mass media and The Millsaps Hooks Project


Areas of Research Interest

Philosophy of religion, philosophical anthropology, ethics and political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, metaphysics, philosophy of language


Currently Working On

The metaphysical structure of life formation tracked by practical wisdom

Sex and gender realism in light of trans experience

Forms of moral and religious cogency


Selected Publications

BOOKS

The Meaning of Height in Aspiration, Responsibility, and Higher Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

The Special Liveliness of Hooks in Popular Music and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Full Responsibility. On Pragmatic, Political, and Other Modes of Action Sharing (State University of New York Press, 2022)

Scriptures and the Guidance of Language. Evaluating a Religious Authority in Communicative Action (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Centering and Extending. An Essay on Metaphysical Sense (State University of New York Press, 2017)

Full History. On the Meaningfulness of Shared Action (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)

Appeal and Attitude. Prospects for Ultimate Meaning (Indiana University Press, 2005)

Worth Doing (State University of New York Press, 2004)

Gender Thinking (Temple University Press, 1992)

The Concept of the Spiritual. An Essay in First Philosophy (Temple University Press, 1988)

The Argument to the Other. Reason Beyond Reason in the Thought of Karl Barth and Emmanuel Levinas (Scholars Press, 1983)

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SOME RECENT ARTICLES

“Fraught Encounters on the Focus Plane: On What We Are Looking At in Show Musicals.” Film and Philosophy, 29 (January 2025), 93-105.

“Facing Toward Past and Future: A Historical Form of Moral Responsibility.” Ethical Perspectives, 31/4 (2024), 225-246.

“Volitional Imagining and Religious Dramatizing.” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, advance publication online (October 2024).

“The Filter and the Viewer: On Audience Discretion in Film Noir.” Film-Philosophy, 28/2 (June 2024), 375-394.

“The Meeting: Ideas for an Architecture of Interreligious Civic Collaboration.” Religions, 15/3 (March 2024), 360.

“The Dramatism of Realism.” Southwest Philosophy Review, 40/1 (January 2024), 255-263.

“Moral Sense in Different Senses.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 37 (4) (2023), 545-563.

“Benevolence Toward Efforts.” Journal of Value Inquiry 59 (2025) 41-55, advance publication online (April 2023).

“The Moral Proximity of Rooting.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 49 (3) (2022), 351-365.

“Responsibility in Religiosity.” Religious Studies, 57 (2) (June 2021), 249-265.

“What Is Merit, That It Can Be Transferred?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 90 (April 2021), 191-207.