Introduction: Envisioning The Good Life In The 21st Century And Beyond, 2016 Santa Clara University
Introduction: Envisioning The Good Life In The 21st Century And Beyond, Shannon Vallor
Philosophy
In May 2014 cosmologist Stephen Hawking, computer scientist Stuart Russell, and physicists Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek published an open letter in the UK news outlet The Independent, sounding the alarm about the grave risks to humanity posed by emerging technologies of artificial intelligence. They invited readers to imagine these technologies "outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand." The authors note that while the successful creation of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to bring "huge benefits" to our world, and would undoubtedly be "the biggest event in human history ... …
Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, 2016 Wesleyan University
Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Tantric Alchemy Of The Soul: A Philosophical Analysis And Synthesis Of Jung And Kashmir Shaivism, 2016 Oglethorpe University
Tantric Alchemy Of The Soul: A Philosophical Analysis And Synthesis Of Jung And Kashmir Shaivism, Derek C. Wolter
Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research
One of the most fascinating parts of intellectual globalization is the dialogue that occurs between two vastly removed systems of thought. One particular area of interdisciplinary dialogue that has emerged in the last century is between Western psychology and traditional Eastern religious and philosophical thought. Two particular disciplines that bear a striking resemblance ripe for comparative study are Jung’s psychology and Indian Tantrism. Some of this dialogue has already taken place, to a limited extent by Jung himself, but more so by modern pundits of Tantrism, particular Buddhist Tantrism. While some truly important work has been done in the comparative …
Amazon Book Review Of David Ray Griffin's God Exists But Gawd Does Not (2016), 2016 Southern Methodist University
Amazon Book Review Of David Ray Griffin's God Exists But Gawd Does Not (2016), Theodore Walker
Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events
David Ray Griffin employs the term “anatheism” (ana-theism) for describing a natural scientific return to theism, by moving logically from traditional theism to atheism to panentheism. Griffin shows how natural scientific reasoning leads from commitment to traditional theism (“Gawd” exists) to modern atheism (“Gawd” does not exist), then from modern atheism to [constructive postmodern] Whiteheadian panentheism (“God” does exist).
Learning From Bad Teachers: Leibniz As A Propaedeutic For Chinese Philosophy, 2016 Converse College
Learning From Bad Teachers: Leibniz As A Propaedeutic For Chinese Philosophy, Kevin Delapp
Comparative Philosophy
One of the challenges facing instructors of Chinese philosophy courses at many Western universities is the fact that students can often bring orientalizing assumptions and expectations to their encounters with primary sources. This paper examines the nature of this student bias and surveys four pedagogical approaches to confronting it in the context of undergraduate Chinese philosophy curricula. After showcasing some of the inadequacies of these approaches, I argue in favor of a fifth approach that deploys sources from the “pre-history” of comparative philosophy, viz. documents by some of the first Western interpreters of Chinese thought. Such sources give students an …
Nāgārjuna’S Pañcakoṭi, Agrippa’S Trilemma, And The Uses Of Skepticism, 2016 University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Nāgārjuna’S Pañcakoṭi, Agrippa’S Trilemma, And The Uses Of Skepticism, Ethan A. Mills
Comparative Philosophy
While the contemporary problem of the criterion raises similar epistemological issues as Agrippa’s Trilemma in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism, the consideration of such epistemological questions has served two different purposes. On one hand, there is the purely practical purpose of Pyrrhonism, in which such questions are a means to reach suspension of judgment, and on the other hand, there is the theoretical purpose of contemporary epistemologists, in which these issues raise theoretical problems that drive the search for theoretical resolution. In classical India, similar issues arise in Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartanī, but it is not entirely clear what Nāgārjuna’s purpose is. Contrary …
Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, 2016 Leiden University
Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, Stephen E. Harris
Comparative Philosophy
This article explores the role of weakness of will (akrasia) in the Indian Buddhist tradition, and in particular within Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practice of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra). In agreement with Jay Garfield, I argue that there are important differences between Aristotle’s account of akrasia and Buddhist moral psychology. Nevertheless, taking a more expanded conception of weakness of will, as is frequently done in contemporary work, allows us to draw significant connections with the pluralistic account of psychological conflict found in Buddhist texts. I demonstrate this by showing how Amélie Rorty’s expanded treatment of akrasia as including …
From Political Liberalism To Para-Liberalism: Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice, 2016 Columbia University
From Political Liberalism To Para-Liberalism: Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice, Musa Al-Gharbi
Comparative Philosophy
Advocates of political liberalism hold it as a superior alternative to perfectionism on the grounds that it avoids superfluous and/or controversial claims in favor of a maximally-inclusive approach undergirded by a "free-standing" justification for the ideology. These assertions prove difficult to defend: political interpretations of liberalism tend to be implicitly ethnocentric; they often rely upon a number of controversial, and even empirically falsified, assumptions about rationality--and in many ways prove more parochial than their perfectionist cousins. It is possible to reform political liberalism to address these challenges, but generally at the expense of the supposed normative force and universality of …
Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page, 2016 San Jose State University
Vol 7 No 2 Information Page, 2016 San Jose State University
Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page, 2016 San Jose State University
The Challenge Of Teaching Chinese Philosophy: Some Thoughts On Method, 2016 CUNY College of Staten Island
The Challenge Of Teaching Chinese Philosophy: Some Thoughts On Method, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
In this essay I offer an alternative perspective on how to organize class material for courses in Chinese philosophy for predominately American students. Instead of selecting topics taken from common themes in Western discourses, I suggest a variety of organizational strategies based on themes from the Chinese texts themselves, such as tradition, ritual, family, and guanxi (關係), which are rooted in the Chinese tradition but flexible enough to organize a broad range of philosophical material.
Die Phantasie Gottes: An Analysis Of The Divine Ideas In Deity Theories And Brian Leftow, With A Proposed Synthesis, 2016 Liberty University
Die Phantasie Gottes: An Analysis Of The Divine Ideas In Deity Theories And Brian Leftow, With A Proposed Synthesis, Nathaniel Dowell
Masters Theses
This thesis was on how God is related to the truth-values of propositions on possible worlds - specifically, those propositions that do not seem to be about Him and constitute His ideas for what to create. It opened with a survey of some historical positions with special emphasis on Aquinas, Leibniz, Spinoza and Kant. Next, some criticisms were given for these so-called deity theories (i.e., the belief that possibilities are dependent on God and God must, by nature, recognize the necessary truths He does) with the most space given to Brian Leftow’s critiques. The second chapter detailed Brian Leftow’s theological …
Provocations In Consideration Of Thomas Nail's The Figure Of The Migrant, 2016 Gettysburg College
Provocations In Consideration Of Thomas Nail's The Figure Of The Migrant, Vernon W. Cisney
Philosophy Faculty Publications
I am delighted to be part of the conversation surrounding this important work. Thomas Nail’s The Figure of the Migrant is one of those rare works that is at once timely and timeless. It is timely in the sense that the figure of the migrant has become a ubiquitous and undeniable reality of our time. As I write this at the end of spring 2016, the number of Syrian citizens displaced by civil war since 2011 has climbed to roughly 13.5 million; the United States is in the middle of its most racially charged presidential election of my lifetime (with …
Classical-Christian Friendship Operating In Western Literature: Oral Traditions To The Apex Of Print Culture, 2016 Salve Regina University
Classical-Christian Friendship Operating In Western Literature: Oral Traditions To The Apex Of Print Culture, Marc G. Levasseur
Ph.D. Dissertations (Open Access)
The classical-Christian model of friendship has operated for many centuries from oral traditions and through the age of print. However, technological developments in communication and media rearrange mindscapes. Consequently, values, or, those things that give meaning, can change, such as perceptions of friendship. If one accepts that communication is vital to human relationships, the paradigm for the classical-Christian friendship should operate according to the new vocabulary of expanding communication and media possibilities. This work examines literature and philosophical thought within their historical contexts in order to gauge the operation of the classical-Christian friendship model from the beginning of Western literature …
A Case For A Husserlian Willardarian Approach To Knowledge, 2016 Liberty University
A Case For A Husserlian Willardarian Approach To Knowledge, Joseph Gibson
Masters Theses
This thesis introduces certain aspects in the thought of Dallas Willard and Edmund Husserl as a new way forward in the internalism externalism debate. Husserl’s detailed analysis of cognition has application to epistemology and addresses in great depth an area which in the current discussion is often tertiary and shallow at best. It is argued that in both internalist and externalist camps there is a common assumption about cognition which Husserl argues forcibly against. This assumption is that thought, or cognition, is essentially linguistic. (The notion that ‘thought is essentially linguistic’ means that thought requires the use of language.) Whatever …
Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, 2016 jbmolinarijr@liberty.edu
Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari
Masters Theses
How should one's beliefs be affected by one's knowing that other people, who are equally well-informed, rational, and intelligent – in other words, persons who are epistemic, or intellectual, peers – believe differently? In this thesis I look at a certain answer to this question. Richard Feldman argues that when two persons who have (roughly) the same level of intelligence and who are (roughly) equally well-informed disagree, the only rational response is for both persons to give up their disputed beliefs and suspend judgment. I look at two objections to Feldman’s view, one from Ernest Sosa and the other from …
Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, 2016 jbmolinarijr@liberty.edu
Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari
Masters Theses
How should one's beliefs be affected by one's knowing that other people, who are equally well-informed, rational, and intelligent – in other words, persons who are epistemic, or intellectual, peers – believe differently? In this thesis I look at a certain answer to this question. Richard Feldman argues that when two persons who have (roughly) the same level of intelligence and who are (roughly) equally well-informed disagree, the only rational response is for both persons to give up their disputed beliefs and suspend judgment. I look at two objections to Feldman’s view, one from Ernest Sosa and the other from …
The Problem Of Evil And The Probity Of Theodicy From William Rowe's Evidential Evidential Of Evil, 2016 aolaoluwa2@liberty.edu
The Problem Of Evil And The Probity Of Theodicy From William Rowe's Evidential Evidential Of Evil, Olaoluwa Apata
Masters Theses
In this research, we discussed the types of evil: moral and natural, which are cited by atheistic philosophers as evidence against the existence of God. The so-called evidence from evil has been used by the atheistic and other non-theistic scholars to raise hypothesis on evaluating the possibility or likelihood that an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God exists in a world that is littered with evil. Moral evil is evil that arise from the misuse of free will by moral agents, while natural evils are natural disasters such as: earthquakes, famine, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. We discussed moral evil and …
Intellectual Property, Asian Philosophy And The Yin-Yang School, 2016 Texas A&M University School of Law
Intellectual Property, Asian Philosophy And The Yin-Yang School, Peter K. Yu
Peter K. Yu
As an introduction to a special issue on intellectual property philosophy, this article focuses on insights from Asian thought. Such a focus is needed not only to provide balance within this special issue, which includes articles focusing primarily on Western philosophy, but also to highlight the compatibility between Asian philosophy and the notion of intellectual property rights. More importantly, this article aims to demonstrate that Asian philosophy may suggest new ways to address the ongoing and highly complex intellectual property challenges confronting emerging economies and the digital environment.
This article begins by providing a brief discussion of the many different …