Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Dark And Middle Ages, Edward Jayne

English Faculty Publications

For the most part only Plato's teachings supported by a limited version of Aristotelian cosmology supportive of Platonism survived the decline of ancient Greek philosophy during the Roman Empire. Christianity later prevailed, and toward the end of the Middle Ages Aristotle’s secular perspective was only taken into account by Arab philosophers such as Averroes and Avicenna. After the collapse of Arab civilization during the twelfth century, the secular concept of a double truth between belief and reason put philosophy on equal footing with religion in such universities as Cordoba and the University of Paris. After a large assortment of ancient …

Ludwig Büchner: Nineteenth Century Atheist, Edward Jayne

English Faculty Publications

Mostly forgotten today, the German physician and philosopher, Ludwig Büchner (1824-99), made a significant contribution to the theory of materialism in the mid- nineteenth century from an atheistic perspective. Described by Engels and others as a “vulgar” materialist, he was nevertheless unsurpassed in having linked science and atheism unfettered by irrelevant considerations. The son of a doctor who served as president of the local medical college, Büchner studied at four universities culminating with the University of Vienna. In 1852 he became a lecturer in medicine at the University of Tübingen with every expectation of pursuing an academic career. However, he …

Leadership Through Self Transformation, David Paul

Academic Leadership Academy

In the Spring of 2006 I taught PHIL 3150: Race and Gender Issues for the first time. In my preparation for the course I was overwhelmed by my own lack of education. I was humbled by the experience and motivated to inform all of my teaching by what I came to understand through teaching the course.

Years later, in the Spring of 2013, I was again asked to teach the course and felt more prepared. Though I introduced substantial changes to the course, I was again overwhelmed by my own ignorance as I pushed deeper into studies of exploitation, oppression …

Why Don’T We Have A Peace Memorial? The Vietnam War And The Distorted Memory Of Dissent, Christian G. Appy

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

First paragraph:

Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York’s Riverside Church on April 4,1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counter-revolutionary foreign policy. The United States had not supported Vietnamese independence and democracy, King argued, but had repeatedly opposed it; the United States had not defended the people of South Vietnam from external Communist …

The Effect Of Maternal Employment On Family Well-Being, Bezawit Teshome Agiro

Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of three essays on the effect of maternal employment on family well-being using data from Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2011). In general, the findings from this study suggest that the effect of maternal employment on children’s weight status and cognitive development is not significant, but it is significant on mothers’ overall health and psychological well-being.

The first essay re-examines the effect of maternal employment on child obesity by taking a sample of grade 2 children who had at least one younger sibling from the spring 2013 cohort. The study makes use …

Bruno: Modern Europe's First Free Thinker, Edward Jayne

English Faculty Publications

First paragraph: By most accounts Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was by far the most controversial Renaissance philosopher. He published at least sixty texts upon a large variety of topics including mnemonics, hermetic religion, Copernican astronomy, and the renewed possibility of materialism as suggested by this major breakthrough in astronomy. For the most part his notoriety resulted from his defense of heliocentric theory, but also from his pursuit of its theoretical implications toward a modern renewal of ancient secular philosophy. Just as Bacon bridged the gap between Aristotelian philosophy and modern science, Bruno no less effectively served the same purpose between ancient …