Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Digital Disruptions: An Interview With D. E. Wittkower, D. E. Wittkower, The Editors Of Interstitial Journal

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Earth’S Garden-Happiness: Nietzsche’S Geoaesthetics Of The Anthropocene, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay proposes a reading of the concept and metaphor of the garden in Nietzsche’s philosophy as a contribution to exploring his aesthetics of the human earth and, accordingly, of his idea of the Sinn der Erde. Following Zarathustra’s agreement with his animals’ repeated declaration that „the world awaits you as a garden,” after his ordeal in struggling with the thought of eternal recurrence, the essay draws on Z and other writings to explore the senses of cultivation, design, and perspective which the garden embodies. Nietzsche recognizes and endorses another dimension of the garden in his discussions of Epicurus’ …

Reading Addams’S 'Democracy And Social Ethics' As A Social Gospel, Evolutionary Idealist Text, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is a Disciplinary divide between philosophers and historians in how they read Addams’s first book, Democracy and Social Ethics. Philosophers identify Addams primarily as a pragmatist. They often compare and contrast her thinking with that of James and Dewey, and find her a fruitful resource for contemporary discussions about gender, social justice, and peace. Much of this scholarship gives central place to Addams’s Democracy and Social Ethics. Except for nods to her 1892 essay “The Subjective Necessity of Settlements,” philosophers rarely discuss whether her religious sensibilities influenced her theorizing.¹ While historians debate Addams’s religious identity, many …

Preserving Moral Recognition In The Face Of Aggression: Aikido As A Practice Of Physical Intersubjectivity, Charles W. Wright

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Practitioners of Aikido advance the claim, peculiar to many, that martial training can support moral action. This essay examines the claim by exploring communicative structures implicit in the response to attack made possible by this art's techniques. This exploration reveals three dimensions of intersubjectivity embedded in the practice of Aikido, dimensions that explicate the ethical imperative of the art.

Review: 'The Philosophical Aesthetics Of Dance: Identity, Performance, And Understanding', Aili W. Bresnahan

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Graham McFee is one of the few philosophers who can be credited with helping to pioneer and forge a path for dance as a fine art in the field of analytic aesthetics. His 1992 book, Understanding Dance, following Francis Sparshott’s 1988 book Off the Ground: First Steps to a Philosophical Consideration of the Dance, was a significant introductory step toward situating dance in a field that has traditionally focused primarily and nearly exclusively on painting, sculpture, literature, and (more recently) music.

In general dance has not been taken seriously as a legitimate art form by the philosophic academy; indeed, it …

The Concept Of Tradition: A Problem Out Of Macintyre, Philip E. Devine

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cognitive Approach To Teaching Strategies, Emily Esch

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Our knowledge of how the mind works is growing rapidly. One area of particular interest to philosophy teachers is research on reasoning and decision making processes. I explore one model of human cognition that offers new ways of thinking about how to teach philosophical skills. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to exposition of the model and the evidence that supports it; at the end of the paper, I suggest ways these findings might be incorporated into the classroom.

Mobile Knowledge, Karma Points, And Digital Peers: The Tacit Epistemology And Linguistic Representation Of Moocs, Lisa Portmess

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual representations that reflect the strange lifeworld of global online courses and the pressing need for promising innovation that seeks to serve the restless global desire for knowledge. This perspective piece critically appraises the linguistic laboratory of thought such representation reveals and its …

Reading Dewey’S Political Philosophy Through Addams’S Political Compromises, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Both John Dewey and Jane Addams believed that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. While their vision of democracy is rightly called radical, the processes through which they proposed to cure the ills of democracy are in large measure conservative, in the classical, Burkean sense of the term. To show this, I first explain how well their political philosophies line up, particularly their proposals for political reconstruction. I then use Addams’s experiences as a delegate to the 1912 Progressive Party Convention as a test case in real time for Dewey’s proposals for political reconstruction. The compromises …

Hirsch, Sebald, And The Uses And Limits Of Postmemory, Kathy Behrendt

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Marianne Hirsch’s influential concept of postmemory articulates the ethical significance of representing trauma in art and literature. Postmemory, for Hirsch, “describes the relationship of children of survivors of cultural or collective trauma to the experiences of their parents, experiences that they ‘remember’ only as the narratives and images with which they grew up, but that are so powerful, so monumental, as to constitute memories in their own right”. Through appeal to philosophical work on memory, the ethics of remembering, and Peter Goldie’s discussion of empathy, I explore the virtues and limitations of Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, and the risks involved …

Self And Others: The Work Of 'Care' In Foucault's Care Of The Self, James Wong

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Recent discussions on Foucault's work on the care of the self have centred on its apparent excessive individualist focus. Ella Myers for example argues that the practices of the care of the self do not correct the depoliticizing effects of disciplinary power and biopower. Amy Allen takes Foucault to task for his account of the care of the self because the relations with others in Foucault's account are inadequate for the formation of an ethical subject. In this paper I offer an alternative interpretation of Foucault account of the care of the self. I argue that the social and reciprocal …

Systematizing Nyāya, Matthew R. Dasti

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Review of: Epistemology in Classical India: The Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School. By Stephen Phillips. New York and London: Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0415895545.

A Reflection On Thomas Mann's Joseph Tetralogy -- From Schopenhauer's World Will To Divine Providence, Gerard C. Farley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Logic, Truth And Inquiry (Book Review), G. C. Goddu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Mark Weinstein’s, Logic, Truth and Inquiry is an ambitious and provocative case for a theory of truth and warrant strength that will undergird an “account of argument in the broad sense of current argumentation theory” (p. 12). I begin with a very schematic synopsis of Weinstein’s rich discussion through his six chapters. Weinstein himself notes that his arguments are “frequently presented in broad outline” (p. 1), so my quick sketch will be even broader. I conclude with some brief observations about both what the book leaves unresolved and the merits of Weinstein’s intriguing book.

Speaking A Word For Nature: Thoreau's Philosophical Saunter, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Thoreau's extraordinary essay "Walking" is obviously an encomium on what the author calls "the art of Walking" and an exhortation to readers to understand and practice that art. Yes, but we must realize that he speaks of the art of walking in no "pedestrian" sense (if this expression may be excused). Thoreau not only wants us to think the unthought in ordinary walking but to participate in the essay's performance of an allegory or analogue of the practice that he calls sauntering to the Holy Land; it becomes an itinerary through the fields of language that reveals unsuspected sights and …

Mothering Against Norms: Diane Wilson And Environmental Activism, Danielle Poe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Diane Wilson is a mother and an environmental activist, two roles that challenge:

• Common perceptions about what a mother is and what her obligations to her children are.
• Common stereotypes about environmental activists and the focus of their acts.

Her story reveals the ways in which mothering is always practiced in a context, and sometimes in order to work toward a society in which her children can thrive, a mother may have to challenge the context itself and take time away from her children.

When Wilson engages in questioning, challenging, and changing the world, she faces pressure from local and …

'Abdolkarim Soroush, Sayeh Meisami

Philosophy Faculty Publications

‘Abdolkarim Soroush is the penname for Hossein Haj Faraj Dabbᾱgh (1945–). He is one of the most controversial figures in the religious and political polemics of postrevolutionary Iran. This is owing to his early adherence to the Islamic revolutionary values, his polemics against Marxism, later departure from the conservative Islam toward a reformist stand based on the philosophy of science and modern hermeneutics, and his current role as an uncompromising and outspoken opposition voice, as well as a fervent supporter of the Green Movement. Soroush’s ideas should be categorized under religious reformism in general, which goes beyond Iranian politics. Due …

The Ethiopian Conception Of Time And Modernity, Messay Kebede

Philosophy Faculty Publications

If there is one thing that philosophers agree upon, it is that the meaning of time is a central philosophical question. If we take the Western world as an example, there is no famous philosopher who has not investigated time. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger, to indicate the centrality of time, writes: “all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time correctly viewed and correctly explained.”

Likewise, according to the French philosopher Henri Bergson, the main reason that philosophical questions are difficult is because “we do not think about real time.” The fact that the question of time is very …

The Ethiopian Conception Of Time And Modernity: Amharic Version, Messay Kebede

Philosophy Faculty Publications

If there is one thing that philosophers agree upon, it is that the meaning of time is a central philosophical question. If we take the Western world as an example, there is no famous philosopher who has not investigated time. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger, to indicate the centrality of time, writes: “all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time correctly viewed and correctly explained.”

Likewise, according to the French philosopher Henri Bergson, the main reason that philosophical questions are difficult is because “we do not think about real time.” The fact that the question of time is very …

Review Of The Cyrenaics By Ugo Zilioli, Acumen, Tim S. O'Keefe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Rebecca Comay, Mourning Sickness: Hegel And The French Revolution, Sebastian Rand

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Epicurus And Democritean Ethics: An Archaeology Of Ataraxia, By James Warren, Cambridge University Press., Tim S. O'Keefe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethics And Geoengineering: Reviewing The Moral Issues Raised By Solar Radiation Management And Carbon Dioxide Removal, Christopher J. Preston

Philosophy Faculty Publications

After two decades of failure by the international community to respond adequately to the threat of global climate change, discussions of the possibility of geoengineering a cooler climate have recently proliferated. Alongside the considerable optimism that these technologies have generated, there has also been wide acknowledgement of significant ethical concerns. Ethicists, social scientists, and experts in governance have begun the work of addressing these concerns. The plethora of ethical issues raised by geoengineering creates challenges for those who wish to survey them. The issues are here separated out according to the temporal spaces in which they first arise. Some crop …

The Young Shils, Stephen Turner

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Edward Shils began as a sociologist under the close mentorship of Louis Wirth, with whom he collaborated on the translation of Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia. After 1940, however, Shils’ career, which had been focused on topics in sociology, notably the class and occupational structure of cities and on German Sociological Theory, took an apparent turn, which in 1946 led him into a relationship with Michael Polanyi, a half-time appointment at the London School of Economics, and a new intellectual direction. Part of the biographical background to this was personal: his relationship with Wirth ended, and with it his expectation …

Public Philosophy Of Technology, Dylan E. Wittkower, Evan Selinger, Lucinda Rush

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Philosophers of technology are not playing the public role which our own theoretical perspectives motivate us to take. A great variety of theories and perspectives within philosophy of technology, including those of Marcuse, Feenberg, Borgmann, Ihde, Michelfelder, Bush, Winner, Latour, and Verbeek, either support or directly call for various sorts of intervention—a call that we have failed to adequately heed. Barriers to such intervention are discussed, and three proposals for reform are advanced: (1) post-publication peer-reviewed reprinting of public philosophy, (2) increased emphasis on true open access publication, and (3) increased efforts to publicize and adapt traditional academic research.

Liberal Education And Moral Education, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, "The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless." Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter sameness in far too many of them. The oddity is that U.S. colleges have long touted their "diversity" while largely holding fast to rather traditional pathways. This illuminating volume goes beyond formulaic nuts-and-bolts recipes for constructing curriculum: it seeks to interpret and analyze the contemporary landscape of …

Bokrecension, Rory J. Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Like so many who have survived American post-graduate education in philosophy, I entered the academy having neither formal training in teaching nor writing. (Oh, as I see it, taking a few college courses on composition and literature does not count as a means to avoiding dull prose.) I became a teacher by imitating my professors and through trial and error; I developed as a scholar, and only secondarily as a writer, through countless comments given to me during seminars and office visits, as well as in the margins of my papers. Yes, marginalia, the holy grail of insight!

Post-Liberation Feminism And Practices Of Freedom, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Most feminist theorists over the last forty years have held that a basic tenet of feminism is that women as a group are oppressed. The concept of oppression has never had a very broad meaning in liberal discourse, however, and with the rise of neo-liberalism since 1980 it has even less currency in public debate. This article argues that, while we may still believe women are oppressed, for pragmatic purposes Michel Foucault’s concept of practices of freedom is a more effective way to characterize feminist theory and politics.