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Stephen Palmquist was born in Nome, Alaska, on August 21, 1957. In order to arrange proper medical attention for their new son's congenital heart defect, his parents moved the family to California when he was two months old. He grew up in California as a product of the critical 70's: too young to be relieved by the cathartic pessimism of the '60s, but too old to be duped by the soporific optimism of the '80s. After graduating from Westmont College with a B.A. in Religious Studies, he worked for a year in Santa Barbara, running a 25-foot continuous printing press in a business forms factory.

In October of 1980, Palmquist left the sunny shores of California to begin doctoral studies in theology at Oxford University (St. Peter's College). He started out with the intention to write a thesis on the nature of love, but was drawn almost immediately into a study of human nature instead. After three years of intense research, he became convinced that his thesis on the philosophy of human nature (then more than half written) would have to be put aside in order to focus attention on the great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. In the end, Palmquist took the maximum time allowable (seven years) to complete his doctorate on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. For more details on the Oxford experience, see the autobiographical sketch included as Appendix I to the published version of his thesis.

After several years of additional editing, Palmquist published a significantly revised version of his doctoral thesis as Kant's System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of the Critical Philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993). The most significant revision was the decision to split this study of Kant into four separate volumes, with the first focusing on the Critical philosophy and the other three looking, in turn, at the metaphysical implications of the three ideas of reason (God, freedom, and immortality). The second volume in this study appeared seven years later, published as: Kant's Critical Religion: Volume Two of Kant's System of Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). Volume Three, Kant's Critical Science, is currently in progress and is unlikely to appear before the middle of this decade. Volume Four is tentatively entitled Kant's Critical Anthropology.

Palmquist took up a teaching position in September of 1987, at Hong Kong Baptsit University, where he now holds the post of Professor and is the longest-serving member of the Department of Religion and Philosophy. He lectures in English, supplemented with Cantonese as needed, on a wide variety of subjects in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. Currently his main teaching responsibilities are: Introduction to Philosophy; Religion, Psychology and Personal Growth; Philosophy of Love; and Hermeneutics.

Meanwhile, Palmquist has written numerous scholarly articles, mostly on various aspects of Kant's philosophy, published mostly in international journals of philosophy and/or religion. Aside from Kant, his research interests include depth psychology (especially Jung), philosophy of love, philosophical anthropology, mysticism, logic, theology of politics, and philosophy of religion.

Through the years Palmquist has come to see his scholarly work in terms of "philopsychy", or "soul-loving". The inspiration for this neologism originally came from the examples set by Kant (whose self-confessed love of the metaphysical ideas of God, human freedom, and the soul's immortality, informed everything he wrote) and by the psychologist Carl Jung (who once called himself "a lover of the soul").

In September of 1992, after a series of frustrating experiences dealing with commercial publishers, Palmquist started a small publishing company, called Philopsychy Press. The purpose of this company is to promote a respectable "middle path "between the extremes of royalty and subsidy (so-called "vanity")publishing: namely, "author-publishing". So, in addition to publishing Palmquist's own books, Philopsychy Press offers to provide advice and assistance to others who wish to publish and distribute their own works, without having to go through the formalities of starting their own company. So far, the Press has published five of Palmquist's books (called The Waters of Love, The Tree of Philosophy [four editions], Dreams of Wholeness, Four Neglected Essays by Immanuel Kant, and Biblical Theocracy) and one book by Keith Palmer, (called A Somewhat Skeptical Philosophy).

Since attending the Third International Conference on Philosophical Practice (New York, July 1997), where he read a paper on philosophical counseling, Palmquist has become very interested in the movement known as "Philosophical Practice". In this connection, he founded the Hong Kong Philosophy Cafe in July of 1999, which has now become a thriving organisation with five branches. Having founded the Center for Insight into Philosophic Health, Education and Renewal (CIPHER) in late 1997, he began organising philosophical retreats on a ten acre parcel of forest near Mendocino California, with the first retreat taking place in January of 2001.

Steve travels frequently to California, where his family lives.