Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Emergence And Reduction In Science. A Case Study, Alexandru Manafu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The past decade or so has witnessed an increase in the number of philosophical discussions about emergence and reduction in science. However, many of these discussions (though not all) remain too abstract and theoretical, and are wanting with respect to concrete examples taken from the sciences. This dissertation studies the topics of reduction and emergence in the context of a case study. I focus on the case of chemistry and investigate how emergentism can help us secure the autonomy of this discipline in relation to the underlying microphysics. I develop an account of emergence (called functional emergence) that is, …

A Rawlsian Idea Of Deliberative Democracy, Angela D. White

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In my thesis, I develop a framework based on John Rawls's Political Liberalism that addresses the question: how is it possible for democratic institutions and their decisions to be legitimate, given that (i) they are supposed to be governed by the "will of the people", but (ii) the people will disagree with each other about what political institutions ought to do about any given issue? Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson advance a deliberative democratic response to this question, which has served as the basis of governments' attempts to "strengthen democracy". They argue that political decisions are justified insofar as they …

Aristotle's Concept Of Nature: Three Tensions, W.W. Nicholas Fawcett

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The concept of nature (phusis) is ubiquitous in Aristotleʼs work, informing his thinking in physics, metaphysics, biology, ethics, politics, and rhetoric. Much of scholarly attention has focussed on his philosophical analysis of the concept wherein he defines phusis as “a principle or cause of being changed and of remaining the same in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not accidentally” (Phys. 192b21-23) and the implications this has in various parts of his philosophy. It has largely gone unnoticed, or unremarked, that this is not the only understanding of phusis present in his thinking. This thesis …

Meta-Heuristic Strategies In Scientific Judgment, Spencer P. Hey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the first half of this dissertation, I develop a heuristic methodology for analyzing scientific solutions to the problem of underdetermination. Heuristics are rough-and-ready procedures used by scientists to construct models, design experiments, interpret evidence, etc. But as powerful as they are, heuristics are also error-prone. Therefore, I argue that they key to prudently using a heuristic is the articulation of meta-heuristics---guidelines to the kinds of problems for which a heuristic is well- or ill-suited.

Given that heuristics will introduce certain errors into our scientific investigations, I emphasize the importance of a particular category of meta-heuristics involving the search for …

Romantic Anarche: The Philosophical And Literary Anarchism Of William Godwin, Jared M. Mcgeough

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examines the philosophical and literary anarchism of William Godwin. Through an analysis of several of Godwin’s major texts, including Political Justice (1793, 1796, 1798), “Of History and Romance” (1798), and his novels Caleb Williams (1794), St. Leon (1799) and Mandeville (1817), I argue that Godwin’s relationship both to the intellectual history of anarchism and its literary expression in the form of the historical romance is more complex than has been recognized. In order to tease out this complexity, I approach Godwin from the perspective of recent critics who reread the ideals of classical anarchism through post-structuralist theory. Rather …

Heuristics, Concepts, And Cognitive Architecture: Toward Understanding How The Mind Works, Sheldon J. Chow

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Heuristics are often invoked in the philosophical, psychological, and cognitive science literatures to describe or explain methodological techniques or "shortcut" mental operations that help in inference, decision-making, and problem-solving. Yet there has been surprisingly little philosophical work done on the nature of heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and a close inspection of the way(s) in which "heuristic" is used throughout the literature reveals a vagueness and uncertainty with respect to what heuristics are and their role in cognition. This dissertation seeks to remedy this situation by motivating philosophical inquiry into heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and then advancing a theory of how …

Aristotle’S Naïve Somatism, Alain E. Ducharme

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Aristotle’s Naïve Somatism is a re-interpretation of Aristotle’s cognitive psychology in light of certain presuppositions he holds about the living animal body. The living animal body is presumed to be sensitive, and Aristotle grounds his account of cognition in a rudimentary proprioceptive awareness one has of her body. With that presupposed metaphysics under our belts, we are in a position to see that Aristotle in de Anima (cognition chapters at least) has a di erent explanatory aim in view than that which the literature generally imputes to him. He is not explicating what we would call the “mental”—the private, inner …

Aristotle On The Foundations Of Science: A Postmodern Moment, John Thorp

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

No abstract provided.

The Mechanization Of Philosophy Between 1300-1700, Henrik Lagerlund, Benjamin Hill, Helen Hattab, Dennis Des Chene, Calvin Normore

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

Standard histories of the development of modern science and philosophy has it that the mechanical philosophy was driven by changes in physics that then required a re-conceptualization of the metaphysics of substance. We contest that this view is backwards. The revisions of the metaphysics of substance occurred in the 14th century and it underlined the well-known changes in physics in the 15th and 16th centuries, which gave rise to mechanical philosophy in the 17th century.

Taking A Feminist Relational Perspective On Conscience, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

A Sharp Eye For Kinds: Collection And Division In Plato's Late Dialogues, Devin Henry

Devin Henry

This paper focuses on two methodological questions that arise from Plato’s account of collection and division. First, what place does the method of collection and division occupy in Plato’s account of philosophical inquiry? Second, do collection and division in fact constitute a formal “method” (as most scholars assume) or are they simply informal techniques that the philosopher has in her toolkit for accomplishing different philosophical tasks? I argue that Plato sees collection and division as useful tools for achieving two distinct goals – generating real definitions and discovering the basic natural kinds of a given domain of knowledge – both …

The Ethics Of Humanitarian Intervention, Amanda J. Porter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis investigates ethical debates that surround the definition, the conduct, and the occasions for humanitarian military intervention. I argue that properly-called humanitarian interventions must be directed by partly-altruistic intentions, and just war theorists should resist the emerging trend that discards right intention as a central requirement in favour of a more consequentialist analysis. I argue that interventions must be conducted in a manner that is consistent with the humanitarian purpose and would be accepted by the innocent non-combatants who are themselves risked by the rescue effort. This morally requires that interveners weigh harm to non-combatants particularly heavily in their …

Feeling, Impulse And Changeability: The Role Of Emotion In Hume's Theory Of The Passions, Katharina A. Paxman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Hume’s “impressions of reflection” is a category made up of all our non-sensory feelings, including “the passions and other emotions.” These two terms for affective mental states, ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’, are both used frequently in Hume’s work, and often treated by scholars as synonymous. I argue that Hume’s use of both ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’ in his discussions of affectivity reflects a conceptual distinction implicit in his work between what I label ‘attending emotions’ and ‘fully established passions.’ The former are the transient, changeable, valenced feelings that flow between perceptions and constitute their felt nature and impulse. The latter are the …

Kant And The Fact Of Reason, Kenneth Kh Chung

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It is often thought that Kant abandoned his argument for the justification of morality in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals for a radically different argument in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the Groundwork, Kant appears to try to justify our commitment to the moral law on the basis of our freedom, but in the Critique, he tries to justify that commitment on the basis of what he calls the fact of reason. I assess and reject influential interpretations of both arguments as being philosophically unsound, and I propose, what I take to be, a …

Women's Perception Of Science: Theory And Practice, Rashida A. Khanum

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Science and Values: Global Perspectives track.

Science is very much recognized as giving new life to mankind and this new life means advancement or progress. Science is utilitarian because its discoveries and inventions satisfy human needs. Feminists perceive these impacts of science and technology though there exists a negative side of science and technology about which feminists are critical. Sal Restivo blames science as responsible for generating new social problems, which Sandra Harding accounted positively. Harding evaluates science and technology as both progressive and regressive.1 I shall analyze Harding’s feminist views of science and …

The Looping Effects Of Objectivity, Jill Fellows

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Objectivity and Impartiality track.

“We Are Not Disposable“: “Psychiatric”/Psycho-Social Disabilities, Survivor Knowledge, And Audre Lorde’S Critique Of Market Fundamentalism, Carol J. Moeller

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Disability and Dependence track.

Audre Lorde: “In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the position of the dehumanized inferior.”

People with disabilities, including “psychiatric”/psycho-social diversities, may live in ways that reject hegemonic standards of personhood, societal membership, and contribution. Such dominant norms tend to value people for how “productive” they are, framing disabled and other marginalized people as a drain on public …

Knowledge, Value Neutrality And Impartiality, Alessandra Tanesini

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Objectivity and Impartiality track.

Feminist epistemologists have long been concerned with clarifying the legitimate roles that social and ethical values might play in the acceptance or justification of empirical theories and beliefs. Their concern stems, at least in part, from what Louise Antony has defined as the ‘bias paradox’ (1993). Since to be a feminist is, at least, to be committed to a cluster of political and ethical values about the injustice of discrimination against women, feminists cannot claim value neutrality for their inquiries. But, if knowledge requires value-neutrality, then feminist values cannot play …

El Sexismo En La Ética De Emmanuel Levinas. Perpetuación Filosófica De Una Dialéctica Ininterrumpida, Marta Palacio

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Sexism, Eroticism, and Gender Identity in the Continental Tradition track.

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) es considerado uno de los filósofos más importantes de nuestra época. Su «ética de la alteridad» tiene la capacidad de generar diversas búsquedas intelectuales.

En sus planteos de una alteridad absoluta, es llamativo que el joven Levinas defina en las obras de 1947-1948 a lo femenino o la mujer como “el otro por excelencia” desde una posición discursiva sexuada. Es un varón que escribe y habla del otro desde la diferencia sexual. Lo radicalmente otro(a) del sujeto es la mujer quien …

Erotismo E Identidad De Género En G. Bataille, Paloma Nunez Tomás

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Sexism, Eroticism, and Gender Identity in the Continental Tradition track.

Bataille es un autor poco conocido, heterodoxo y plural, cuya lectura al tiempo que despierta un gran interés, produce una profunda inquietud. En opinión de alguno de sus analistas la novedad del pensamiento de G. Bataille reside en haber introducido el erotismo en la reflexión filosófica. En efecto, el erotismo constituye una de las nociones claves en la obra de G. Bataille, que lo describe como “experiencia interior”, como el lugar donde el ser humano vive la experiencia del límite y del exceso, como …

Bodily Experience And Suppressed Female Values: A Pathway Through Works Of Literature, Art And The Labyrinth, Bettina Schmitz

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Value and the Body track.

In my paper I will question the relation between bodily experience and female values. The debate on gender and gender equality has made it quite difficult to use the word ‘female’ or to refer to the female body. Is it possible to presuppose an analogy of body and values similar to the one Immanuel Kant probably had in mind, when in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) he admired “the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”? Even if my paper will not primarily be about …

Crítica Feminista Del Sujeto Autónomo Desde La Conciencia Condicionada De José Ortega Y Gasset Y John Dewey, Marta Vaamonde Gamo

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Conceptions of Autonomy track.

1. Introducción

En su artículo “Kant y el método filosófico” John Dewey realiza una crítica de la consideración kantiana de la conciencia que se sitúa en la línea de la crítica a la razón idealista que presenta José Ortega y Gasset en ¿Qué es filosofía? Ambos manifiestan la contradicción que entraña definir la conciencia como una identidad desde la que determinar al sujeto moral. El dualismo entre el método experimental de la ciencia y la consideración formal de la ética, sería consecuencia de esa visión reducida del sujeto que Kohlberg …

Pragmatic Epistemology And The Importance Of Descriptive Representation, Mallorie Malone

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Communities and Institutions: Negotiating Differences track.

Martha Nussbaum: Feminism Between Universalism And Pluralism, Louise Derksen

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Communities and Institutions: Negotiating Differences track.

Martha Nussbaum describes the project of her book Women and Human Development as the ‘practical pursuit of gender justice’. Despite the emphasis on the practical, she believes that the feminist theory which underlies emancipation in the practical sense must have a firm philosophical basis. Philosophy, according to Nussbaum, is the best possible area in which to develop theories to think through issues having to do with gender justice. In sciences such as political science, legal theory or economics, theories are developed which have an impact on the lives …

Normative Approaches To Values In Science, Kristina Rolin

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Reconsidering Values in Feminist Philosophy of Science track.

During the last three decades feminist philosophers of science have argued that the traditional ideal of value-free science should be replaced because either it is not feasible – or even if it is feasible, it is not a desirable epistemic goal. The traditional ideal of value-free science is the normative claim that social and moral values are not allowed to play a role in the reasoning and decision-making processes that scientists are engaged in when they decide to accept something as scientific knowledge, either individually or …

Commonness Happens In Differentiating: A Small Topology Of Being And Appearance – Or: Vive La Difference, Beatrice Nunold

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Unity and Difference track.

Our brain is an informational closed system. What we perceive is not a more or less exact image of a reality independent of us. Our brain actively produces it. Reality constitutes itself as being-in-picture. We have already been in the picture, immersed in a virtual reality of the 1st order (VR 1), which we call reality, world. According to Merleau-Ponty, this is the “primordial presentation of the non-presentable, “original presentation of the non-presentable” (Merleau-Ponty, 1986: 277, 261). Reality is a relational structure with individual topologies.

There is no emergency exit …

Women’S Reproductive Autonomy: Cesareans, Technological Interventions, And Loss Of Choice, Sylvia Burrow

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Technology and Intervention in Pregnancy and Childbirth track.

Situating Knowledge Through The Mothers Committee Of Bayview Hunters Point, Nancy Mchugh

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Social Values in Medical Research track.

Due to higher than national average breast cancer rates and deaths on Long Island the U.S. Congress in 1993 ordered a study of breast cancer on the island. The Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project (LIBCSP), federally funded under Public Law 103-43, conducted by the National Cancer Institute in collaboration with the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, is aimed at investigating environmental causes of breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute states “[t]he LIBCSP consists of more than 10 studies that include human population (epidemiologic) studies, the establishment …

Contradictory Values And Rules: The Case Of Olympic Sports, Sarah Teetzel

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Gender and Sport track.

This paper examines the concepts of sex/gender, rules, and values using a case study of the eligibility requirements for participating in the Olympic Games. As a global event that attracts more than one billion viewers, the impact of the Olympic Games is substantial. Stemming from a larger project that questions whether rules governing participation in the Olympics function to facilitate the attainment of the values and ideals associated with the Olympic Games, this paper focuses on the tension between the Olympic Charter’s mandate of non-discrimination and specific rules found within …

Calypso’S Recipe: On Biased Traditions In Philosophy, Maja Pellikaan-Engel

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Feminist Discourse and Philosophical Traditions track.

In this lecture, I would like to give an overview of the ideas presented in my study Calypso’s Recipe: On Biased Traditions in Philosophy. The book presents my view of a number of famous classical texts, a view that evolved over the decades between my student days and my position as a lecturer of classical languages. Reading as a woman, I have developed a perception of some classical texts that is fundamentally different from the standard.

Homer is a good illustration in point. He is the first author …