Faculty

Profile

Dr. Michael Wenisch, visiting assistant professor of philosophy, was born in Salzburg, Austria, but grew up mainly in Rhode Island.  He has a PhD in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., as well as a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island.  Prior to joining the faculty at Barry in August 2008, he held faculty positions at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, and at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Current Research Interests

Immanuel Kant. One set of Dr. Wenisch’s current research interests centers around the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and his Early Modern predecessors.  In this vein, Dr. Wenisch recently published an article in History of Philosophy Quarterly critiquing the transcendental idealism of Kant and some of his contemporary interpreters.  He also has a forthcoming article that critically analyzes the debate over the concept of freedom between Gottfried Leibniz and Samuel Clarke in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence.  His longstanding interest in the philosophy of time will be reflected in a soon-to-be-published  article soon dealing with the issue of whether the finitude of the past can be proven to be necessarily true.

Depletion of world oil resources. Dr. Wenisch’s other major research interest centers around the ongoing depletion of energy resources, especially the all-time peaking of world oil production rates.  His technical background in electrical engineering has been of considerable assistance in this area.  A great deal of evidence indicates that worldwide rates of oil production reached their maximum limits over the timespan extending from 2005 to 2008, and that these rates of production are now entering a phase of permanent decline, contributing to the current worldwide economic crisis.

The ethical and socio-political implications of the ongoing geological process of depletion are a continuing interest for Wenisch.  He has authored a book chapter that discusses the global geopolitical implications of peaking world oil production, as well as an article analyzing the long-term implications of energy resource limits on the built space of industrial civilization.  In future publications, Dr. Wenisch hopes to address associated matters of particular urgency, including the ethical ramifications of displacing the production of food with biofuels. Given the growing scarcity of agricultural capacity, Dr. Wenisch argues this displacement cannot be morally justified.  A second critical issue concerns the obfuscation of the peaking of world oil production in government, business, and the news media, a practice that Dr. Wenisch argues is both immoral and imprudent. 

Advisor to the Student Philosophy Association. Dr. Wenisch also serves as the faculty advisor for Barry’s Student Philosophy Association. The Association’s recent meetings have focused on gaining an understanding of the current world economic crisis in the context of Peak Oil.  The Association has also featured debates involving the Barry University Ethics Bowl team.

Selected Publications

“The Epistemological Roots of the Dispute over Time and Freedom in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence.”  Accepted for publication in International Philosophical Quarterly, June 2010.
 

1. “An Inquiry into the Logical Compatibility of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism with Objective Forms of Empirical Realism.”   History of Philosophy Quarterly (Oct. 2008), Vol. 25, No. 4.

 “The Impending Peak of World Oil Production and the Macro-Transformation of Industrial Infrastructure.”  Environment, Space, and Place. Anticipated release: Early 2009

 “The Impending Peak of World Oil Production and the Reconfiguration of Global Geopolitics.”
       Gary Backhaus and John Murungi, Eds., Dangers in the Incommensurability of Globalization: Socio-Political Volatilities (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008).

Selected Conference Presentations

• “The Moral Imperative for Veracity Regarding Peak Oil in Public Discourse.”  August 4, 2008, 48th Annual Summer Conference of REALIA, The Institute for Advanced Philosophical Research (conference topical theme: “Philosophy and Global Crises), South Portland, Maine.  Jointly sponsored by REALIA and the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
• “The Socio-Economic and Ethical Implications of Crop Diversion to Biofuel Production in the Face of Peak Oil.”  April 11, 2008, International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Rights, Individualism, and Globalization.  Jointly sponsored by the Center for Spirituality, Ethics, and Global Awareness and the Bethany College School of Arts and Sciences, Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia.
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• “Peak Oil and its Relations to Global Warming.”  Oct. 28, 2008, “Global Warming, What Can Be Done?” An interdisciplinary conference, Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida.  Jointly sponsored by Barry University and the Center for Earth Jurisprudence.