The North Texas Philosophical Association is renowned for its decades-long commitment to philosophical scholarship and education. Our annual spring conference attracts regional, national and international participants, from graduate students to emerging and well-established professionals. Previous Keynote Speakers include Simon Critchley, John Caputo, John Sallis, Sandra Harding, Alfonso Lingis, Mariana Ortega, Babette Babich, Steven Crowell, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Chaone Mallory, and Santiago Zabala.

The NTPA welcomes submissions from all philosophical orientations, including (but not limited to) the history of philosophy (ancient, medieval, modern, late modern), phenomenology, philosophical hermeneutics, environmental philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, critical race theory, feminist philosophy, aesthetics, post-colonialism, and post-structuralism. We especially encourage submissions from historically overlooked or marginalized perspectives.

An open call for papers is distributed every fall. 

Dr. Robert E. Wood was a dear friend and prominent voice within the NTPA community, having served as president for many years. His academic and scholarly pedigree speaks for itself: In addition to publishing countless articles and several monographs, he also served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, was a recipient of the Aquinas Medal, and a Fulbright Scholar. Perhaps most impressive of all, he taught as a professor of philosophy for nearly six decades, before retiring from the University of Dallas where he taught for 39 years.

Dr. Wood understood contemporary philosophy to be inescapably indebted to its tradition. His own philosophical thought, therefore, sought to blend classical Greek sources, especially Plato, with more recent philosophical orientations like Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others. The fundamental themes that guided his philosophy were, in his own words, “thinking, Being, and the heart,” which he hoped to understand by way of a “descriptive phenomenology.” He attended to the perennial questions of philosophy concerning metaphysics, language, and aesthetics, while often returning to the basic question of the human being, which he saw as “the thinking being who thinks with both intellect and heart… the zone of radical subjectivity.”

Dr. Wood’s influence extends beyond the academy, in large part, thanks to his understanding of philosophy itself—as more than merely a mode of intellectual inquiry but as an entire way of life. The Robert E. Wood Memorial Address was inaugurated in 2024 to honor his legacy as both philosopher and friend.