Professor

Philosophy

John Riker has taught philosophy at Colorado College since 1968. He chaired the department for 15 years and has been named the Judson Bemis Professor of the Humanities. He was also the Kohut Professor at the University of Chicago (fall, 2003). He has been named teacher of the year four times, advisor of the year three times, has received the Riley Award for distinguished service to CC and was the initial recipient of the Victor Nelson-Cisneros Award for the person most involved with aiding diversity on campus. His areas of interest in philosophy are ethics, history of philosophy, Greek philosophy, psychoanalysis, American philosophy, and metaphysics. His research interests center on the intersection of a psychoanalytic understanding of human nature with ethics.

He was recently appointed co-editor-in-chief of Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context.

 

Publications

Books:

Kohut’s Self Psychology for a Fractured World: New Understandings of the Self and Human Community (2024)

Why It Is Good to Be Good: Ethics, Kohut's Self Psychology, and Modern Society (Jason Aronson, 2010)

Ethics and the Discovery of the Unconscious (SUNY Press, 1997)

Human Excellence and an Ecological Conception of the Psyche (SUNY Press, 1991)

The Art of Ethical Thinking (University Press of America, 1968)

Exploring the Life of the Soul: Philosophical Reflections on Psychoanalysis and Self Psychology (Lexington Books, 2017)

 

Recent Papers and Addresses:

“The Self as Erotic Striving, Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context, vol. 19 #1, winter 2024, pp. 338-351.

“Kohut’s Self Psychology, Ethics, and Modern Society, in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. Chapter 13. New York: Routledge. 2023.

“The Self and the Other: Hegel, Kohut, and the Psychology of Othering,” Psychoanalytic Enquiry, vol. 42 #2. Winter, 2022, Pp. 1-12.

“The Philosophical Significance of Kohut’s Theory of the Self,” Psychoanalytic Review,  vol. 108, no. 2, June, 2021.

“Empathy, Compassion, and Meditation: A Vision for a Buddhist Self Psychology,” Psychoanalytic Enquiry, vol. 40 #5, spring 2021, pp. 327-339.

“Cushman and Kohut: Constructing Identities vs. Developing Selves in the Context of Modern American Life,” Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context, vol. 15 #3, spring 2020, pp. 230-236.

“Psychoanalysis and Undergraduate Education,” co-authored with Marcia Dobson and Alexandra Wong-Appel, The American Psychoanalyst, vol. 52, #3, Fall 2018, pp. 27-8.

"Self Psychology and the Problem of the Other," International Conference on the Psychology of the Self, Antalya, Turkey

"Actualizing the Self in the Age of Desire," Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, June 2010

"What Do Humans Need to Be Human? Self Psychology and the Problem of Social Justice," The International Journal of Pscyhoanalytic Self Psychology, vol. 10, #3, 2015, pp. 192-204.

"Economics, Self Psychology, and Ethics: Why Modern Economic Persons Cheat and How Self Psychology Can Provide the Basis for a Trustworthy Economic World" in The Financial Crisis: Neglected Ideas in Economics, Psychology, and Values, Oxford University Press, 2016.

"Jonathan Lear's Psychoanalytic Ontology," co-authored with student Tom Roberts, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, fall 2016

Link to CV

Regular Courses Taught

PH101 Greek Philosophy

PH116 Greek History and Philosophy: Origins of Western Culture

PH140 Ethics

PH201 History of Modern Philosophy

PH204 American Philosophy

PH260 Existential Philosophy

PH263 Contemporary Psychoanalysis
(co-taught with Marcia Dobson, crosslisted as CO200)

PH321 Metaphysics

PH340 Ethics and Contemporary Life

PH360 Philosophy and Psychoanalysis