History of Philosophy Commons^™

Plato's Republics: A Dramatic Interpretation Of The Early Cities In Plato's "Republic", Simeon Burns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation will demonstrate a new methodological approach to reading Plato’s Republic. I develop and apply a dramatic, dynamic hermeneutic to Book II and part of Book III in the text. This method holds that each speech is the product of a preceding agreement or disagreement between two speakers. Agreements lead to the argument’s advancement and disagreements result in a regression to a previous agreement from which to restart the exchange. The focus section is largely on the early exchange Socrates has with Adeimantus. I argue that Socrates is an unwilling participant in the famous discussion on the meaning …

Taking Down Descartes Trademark: An Objection To Descartes Ontological Argument, Nathaniel Lannen

Global Tides

Descartes attempts to prove God's existence by arguing we have an innate idea of perfection that could have only been created by an infinite source. In this paper, I object to Descartes by arguing our idea of perfection is not equatable to God. This is because our innate idea of perfection does not have enough representational content necessary to exceed our formal reality, meaning it is self-caused. In that way, our idea of perfection is less significant than Descartes would like to admit.

You Unseen Cathedrals: A Study Of The Conceptual Conditions Of Negativity, Anda Pleniceanu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation addresses a gap in contemporary negativity studies by examining twentieth-century texts that engage with negativity beyond the subject. Starting with the premise that the concepts of negativity and subjectivity are intertwined, I argue that the predominant tendency in scholarship has been to conceptualize subjectivity as a circular structure that incorporates negativity as its dynamic foundation. However, when negativity is defined in subordination to the subjective circle, its radical features are diminished, resulting in “weak negativity.” In Chapter 1, I exemplify my arguments using the works of Alexandre Kojève, Jean Hyppolite, and Judith Butler. In contrast to weak negativity, …

The Nature And Role Of Phenomenology In Hegel And Heidegger, Gabriel W. Connor

LSU Master's Theses

In this work I compare Hegel and Heidegger’s conception of phenomenology and its role in their thinking. Though these two thinkers are not often examined from this angle, and though there is controversy surrounding just how phenomenological each thinker might actually be, an examination of the two thinkers in this regard serves to identify interesting connections between Hegel and Heidegger while also raising questions about phenomenology in general. In short, I seek to establish that phenomenology in both Hegel and Heidegger is not adequately understood unless it is placed in the context of each thinker’s conception of human freedom along …

Japanese-English Translation: Thinking With Master Nishida, By Miki Kiyoshi, Parts 1 & 2 Of 4 (First Published In Fujin Kōron, August 1941) 日英翻訳：「西田先生のことども」、三木清著、総四章の第一章と第二章（初発婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty Scholarship

日英翻訳文：「西田先生のことども」、総四章の第一章と第二章、三木清著

[Miki Kiyoshi--Thinking with Master Nishida, Parts 1 & 2 of 4]. Translated, revised, formatted, and edited by Christopher Southward, 2022-2023. All rights reserved

Miki Kiyoshi's account of his apprenticeship under Nishida Kitarō at Kyoto University with considerations of his mentor's unique contributions to Japanese philosophy through critical engagements with the West.

Illuminating Chinese Aesthetics With Kant’S Account Of Genius? Possibility And Difficulty, Kefu Zhu

Comparative Philosophy

Many scholars interpret Chinese Aesthetics with the Kantian theory of genius because they seem to form a parallel: similar innate and spontaneous mental talents that exceed normal cognition and imagination generates beautiful arts with similar extraordinary qualities. I argue that projecting Kant’s genius to illuminate the creative power analogically, i.e., the carefree-wandering mind, is infeasible. The theory of genius assumes a critical project that stipulates a valuable way to exercise the power of judgment. Genius is only a postulated idea for successfully making aesthetic judgments on artworks. In contrast, the carefree-wandering mind assumes a Daoist metaphysical-ethical theory centering on the …

How Al-Farabi’S Interpretative Method Can Engage With Aristotle’S Method In Cognition And Practical Philosophy, Meysam Shirvani

Comparative Philosophy

Following Aristotle, al-Farabi divides philosophy into theoretical and practical each of which requires some specific methodology both in interpretation and cognition. Based on this division, there may arguably be four methodologies for four parts: 1) cognition of theoretical philosophy 2) interpretation of practical philosophy 3) cognition of practical philosophy 4) interpretation of practical philosophy. This paper focuses on the last one: the methodology of interpreting practical philosophy. Al-Farabi has an undeniably significant contribution to practical philosophy as a commentator on Greek philosophy and as a founder. In this paper, I investigate how al-Farabi (870-950 AD) read classical practical philosophy to …

The History Of Apologetics: A Collaborative Article Review, Isaiah B. Parker

Eleutheria

In The History of Apologetics, the authors examine a variety of noteworthy Western apologists throughout seven distinct historical eras: Patristic, Medieval, Early Modern, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century (American), Twentieth Century (European), and Contemporary. Each chapter presents four essential elements relating to the life and work of one apologist: historical background, theological context, apologetic methodology and response, and critical contribution(s) to apologetics. They aim to provide an overview of influential apologists within their unique cultural contexts. This review structures its content in the same manner, albeit with some necessary minor changes to the elements for ease of reading. The historical …

Craft And Virtue In Plato's Early Dialogues, Cecilia Z. Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Ancient philosophers are preoccupied with the idea of craft (technê)—art, expertise, skill, and not infrequently translated as knowledge or science. The idea is often seen by ancient thinkers as the pinnacle of rational agency and offers them a vital paradigm for thinking about the world and our place within it. One longstanding tradition is the view that virtue shares important features with the sort of expertise involved in practicing a craft. In this thesis, I investigate the relationship between craft and virtue in Plato, focusing especially on the early dialogues. The overarching aim of this thesis is to …

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …

Collation Model For Ljs 56: [Logica Parva]., Dot Porter

Collation Models

Compendium by the author of his own Logica magna, a presentation of terminist logic, including consideration of propositions and relationships between propositions and meaning. This early copy of this text was completed by the German Carmelite Johannes de Beylario, who was from Cologne and studied philosophy and theology in Padua, during the author's tenure in Padua. Later in the century the Logica parva became a required element of the curriculum at Padua, Venice, and Ferrara.

The Music Of Sylvano Bussotti And Its Interpretation: Biopolitics, Intersubjectivity, And Modernist Canon Formation, Charles A. Rudig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti (1931–2021) presents intentional challenges to interpretation and canonization. These particular challenges and Bussotti’s reasoning for implementing them are interrogated in this dissertation by reading the score to Bussotti’s La Passion selon Sade (1966) through contemporaneous European social theory, philosophy, and political developments. La Passion selon Sade is a theatre piece for a chamber ensemble, with a primary vocal and dramatic role written for mezzo-soprano Catherine Berberian, with whom Bussotti frequently collaborated. Like much of Bussotti’s music from the 1950s and 1960s, the discourse surrounding the piece and its reception largely relates to its …

Desire Informing Philosophy In Plato: The Lover, The Tyrant, And The Citizen, Christian P. Bagrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Desire informs the good and examined life by giving meaning to and requiring training for human drives. In investigating Plato’s dialogues for how desire informs philosophy, comparison gives way to a genealogical hermeneutic; the obvious want to find changes or discrepancies in Plato’s texts, and Socrates’ words, gives way to interpreting congruent transformations of thought throughout his corpus. Specifically, this thesis evaluates desire’s multitude of signification and significance through the following the chronology: Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic, Statesman, and Laws. That human failing and ambition equally find desire couched between lack and satiation is radically reconsidered in the course of …

Civil War And Power: A Theoretical Inquiry, Can Guven

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is a theoretical project that explores the conceptual nexus between civil war and power. It maps out a lineage of thought which posits civil war as a framework for explicating politics, not as a pre-political stage of savagery or a deteriorated condition of the socio-political order. Starting with Michel Foucault’s radical yet short-lived civil war thesis, which situates civil war as the matrix of relations of power, this investigation traverses the work of several theorists and philosophers who have drawn on, or departed from, this line of thought. It critically evaluates Giorgio Agamben’s use of the concept …

Inner Song Phenomenological Description Of A Musical Object Of Phantasy, Ellen Moysan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is the phenomenological description of a musical object of phantasy I call “inner song,” i.e., the music that the musician “sings in his or her head” while practicing his or her instrument. It describes the specific inner song of a single musician playing a melodic instrument, and rehearsing in a solipsistic situation. The description is based on three resources: my personal experience as a cellist; the third person experiences of other musicians I have interviewed on that topic since 2010; and the Husserlian corpus. Each chapter starts with excerpts of interviews focusing on specific aspects the inner song. …

Ethics And Mathematics – Some Observations Fifty Years Later, Gregor Nickel

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Almost exactly fifty years ago, Friedrich Kambartel, in his classic essay “Ethics and Mathematics,” did pioneering work in an intellectual environment that almost self-evidently assumed a strict separation of the two fields. In our first section we summarize and discuss that classical paper. The following two sections are devoted to complement and contrast Kambartel’s picture. In particular, the second section is devoted to ethical aspects of the indirect and direct mathematization of modern societies. The final section gives a short categorization of various philosophical positions with respect to the rationality of ethics and the mutual relation between ethics and mathematics.

Harmony And Complementarity: A Discussion With Bo Mou, Chenyang Li

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

An Overall-Complementarity-Seeking Account That Includes And Transcends Harmonious-Complementarity-Seeking Perspective: A Commentary On Chenyang Li’S Confucian Harmony-Seeking Account / Postscript, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

The Malagasy Ideal Of Fihavanana And Western Ethics, Casey Woodling

Comparative Philosophy

This essay explores various ethical dimensions of the important concept of fihavanana and its role in Malagasy ethics. As a first pass, we can say that fihavanana is a state of peace or harmony that people can achieve with others within their communities; it is modeled on the peace, harmony, solidarity, love, and closeness that is often seen in family ties. Understanding the role that fihavanana plays in the traditional ethics of the people of Madagascar does not come close to providing a complete picture of Malagasy ethics, but fihavanana is arguably the most crucial ethical concept for Malagasy. After …

Comparative What? Latin American Challenges To Philosophy-As-Worldview, Manuel Vargas

Comparative Philosophy

Attention to the details of putatively obvious examples of philosophy-as-worldview within Latin America give us reasons to be skeptical about the taxonomy that gives us the category of philosophy-as-worldview. Among the examples that suggest difficulties for this way of thinking about the philosophical enterprise are 19^th century Mexican ethnolinguistics, contemporary efforts to reconstruct historical and contemporary Indigenous thought, and 20^th century efforts to articulate regional ontologies within Latin America. However, reflection on these cases also point to a different project worth considering, namely, a taxonomy of wisdom- and knowledge-focused practices that might allow a different way of drawing …