Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Ethics Of Apology And The Role Of An Ombuds From The Perspective Of A Lawyer, Sharan Lee Levine, Paula A. Aylward

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Papers presented for the Center of the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University, March 20, 2003.

Something To Talk About: Interactions As Descriptive Schema, Isaac Lawrence Record

Honors College

A “conceptual schema” is a model or pattern of ideas imposed on reality or experience. A “descriptive schema” is a conceptual schema used to communicate. Because we use these schemas very frequently, a large amount of our knowledge comes to resemble the patterns implicit in them. Because the received descriptive schema is a linear reductionist model of the world, it is unreflective of the emergent features of interaction. I will introduce and develop a new descriptive schema based on these emergent properties of interaction rather than on the reductive properties of individual entities. I will show how this new schema …

Moral Visions And The New American Politics, J. Matthew Wilson

Occasional Papers

No abstract provided.

The First Honors Philosophy Colloquium, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

A Letter To My Faculty Advisor, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

On The Death Of Reading, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

Material Persons, Immaterial Souls And An Ethic Of Life, Kevin Corcoran

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Among objections to naturalist views of human persons like Animalism and the Constitution View are two that concern alleged ethical implications. One criticism is that such views are defective because they lack the metaphysical resources to generate moral obligations or moral expectations to protect life, in either its early or late stages. Another objection relies on the claim that any metaphysical view of human persons according to which some human organisms lack the property of personhood has horrendous moral implications. With respect to the first objection I argue that resources metaphysically neutral with respect to dualism and naturalism about persons …

Transactional Education And Transactional Educators: Fostering The Habit Of “Using Intelligence Fully”, Barbara J. Lowe

Philosophy and Classical Studies Faculty/Staff Publications

This paper calls into question the assumptions implicit in many traditional theories of moral agency; namely, the assumption that moral agency requires the agent to be disinterested, disengaged, and psychically distant in order to be a good moral agent, an agent worthy of moral praise. I explore the nature of what it means to be a moral agent and, more broadly, what it means to live well as a human being and apply this analysis to education. The arguments made are grounded in a naturalistic-transactional understanding of how the human being comes to be and continues to be in this …

The Headaches And Pleasures Of General Education, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

General education is one of the glories of American higher education; it is one of its major headaches as well. The concern for general education highlights some of the distinctive virtues of American universities and colleges. First it illustrates the ability to be open to different traditions and to forge them into something new. Liberal education, the older and still widely used term for general education, is the bequest of British higher education where it was taught to an elite of young gentlemen, destined for careers in politics and the professions. The notion of the well‐rounded gentleman in turn goes …

The Person As Signatory: Contractarian Social Theory At Work In Suburbia, Michael Monahan

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Saying, Meaning And Signifying: Aristotle's Λέγεται Πολλαχῶς, Jurgis (George) Brakas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The purpose of this essay is to identify the precise meaning of λέγεται as it appears in constructions such as those considered, as well as the meaning of those constructions themselves. My thesis is that λέγεται means “is uttered signifying something.” If we take this to be correct for the moment, then a construction as τἀγαθόν ἰσαχώς λέγεται τῶ ὄντι, γάρ εν πάσαις ταῖς κατηγορίαις λέγεται means “ ‘the good’ is uttered signifying as many things as ‘being’ is, for it is uttered signifying something in all the categories”-- for example: god in the category of substance, the virtues in …

Plato's Geometrical Logic, Mark Faller

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Socrates’ brief mention of a complex problem in geometrical analysis at Meno (86d-87c) remains today a persistent mystery. The ostensible reason for the reference is to provide an analogy for the method of hypothesis from the use of hypotheses in analytic geometry. Both methods begin by assuming what is to be demonstrated and then show that the assumption leads to a well-founded truth father than something known to be false.

But why did Plato pick this particular problem in analysis and why at this particular place in the inquiry? For those of us who view the dialogues as pedagogical puzzles …

Form And Flux In The Theaetetus And Timaeus, David P. Hunt

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The subject of this essay is the "Heraclitean" flux in the Theaetetus and its role in the discussion of the first definition of knowledge, particularly in light of the flux doctrine that Plato propounds in the Timaeus. There are two principal interpretive approaches to the argument in this part of the Theaetetus, and the question whether its theory of flux is, to any appreciable degree, Plato's own view is perhaps the central issue dividing the two camps. Though the Timaeus has been cursorily cited by the one camp, and as cursorily dismissed by the other, I believe that a closer …

Developing Into Series And Returning From Series: A Note On The Foundations Of Eighteenth-Century Analysis, Giovanni Ferraro, Marco Panza

MPP Published Research

In this paper we investigate two problems concerning the theory of power series in 18th-century mathematics: the development of a given function into a power series and the inverse problem, the return from a given power series to the function of which this power series is the development. The way of conceiving and solving these problems closely depended on the notion of function and in particular on the conception of a series as the result of a formal transformation of a function. After describing the procedures considered acceptable by 18th-century mathematicians, we examine in detail the different strategies—both direct and …

Underdetermination And The Claims Of Science, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The underdetermination of theory by evidence is supposed to be a reason to rethink science. It is not. Many authors claim that underdetermination has momentous consequences for the status of scientific claims, but such claims are hidden in an umbra of obscurity and a penumbra of equivocation. So many various phenomena pass for `underdetermination' that it's tempting to think that it is no unified phenomenon at all, so I begin by providing a framework within which all these worries can be seen as species of one genus: A claim of underdetermination involves (at least implicitly) a set of rival theories, …

The Justice Of War On Iraq, Brian Stiltner

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The author argues that the U.S. and its partners have rightly arrived at war on Iraq as a just and necessary last resort. The potential problems with the just-war case are notable, particularly concerning the after-effects of the war, but they do not incurably undermine the case for going to war. Instead, both supporters and critics of the war around the world should strive to keep their governments committed to post-war reconstruction and a transition to a free and stable government in Iraq. Several just war criteria, particularly as these are articulated in the Catholic tradition, are used to assess …

Reports Relating To The Fifty-Fourth Annual Meeting Of The Society, James A. Borland

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Epistemological Egg, Or The Metaphysical Chicken?, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

Review Of "The Elusiveness Of The Ordinary: Studies In The Possibility Of Philosophy" By S. Rosen, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Evolutionary Indeterminism Thesis, Timothy Shanahan

Philosophy Faculty Works

Evolutionary indeterminists argue that, in addition to any indeterminism introduced by quantum events, at least some evolutionary processes are themselves fundamentally indeterministic. That is, they maintain that the chance element in evolutionary processes results from indeterminism in the processes themselves, rather than simply from our cognitive limitations. Not everyone has been persuaded. A number of philosophers have argued that claims for evolutionary indeterminism are premature at best and deeply confused at worst. They maintain that evolutionary processes can and should be understood as deterministic processes. According to them, "chance" is merely a word denoting our ignorance of causes. This controversy …

Introduction To Peter Sehringer: Kanon, Curtis Carter

Catalogues and Gallery Guides

No abstract provided.

A Future Foretold: Neo-Aristotelian Praise Of Postmodern Legal Theory, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Postmodern thinking puts severe stress on the project of legal theory. The philosophical critique of grand narratives, coupled with the radically pragmatic return to localized practices, has rendered theorizing suspect. Theory appears to be a quaint vestige of previous "bad faith" refusals to accept the finitude of human existence. But the postmodern position is even more complex, because postmodern anti-theorists tend to employ perplexing jargon and wield sophisticated and obscure concepts in their work. The postmodern puzzle is whether one can challenge theory without theorizing. Is theory defined by its practical effects, or by its refusal to become complicit in …

Demos Agonistes Redux: Reflections On The Streit Of Political Agonism, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Nietzschean Critique And Philosophical Hermeneutics, Francis J. Mootz Iii

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Despair, Liberation, And Everyday Life: Two Bundle Views Of Personal Identity, Kathy Behrendt

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper, intended for general readership, discusses the real-life effects that personal identity theory either has had or has apparently failed to have upon two philosophers: David Hume and Derek Parfit. Both arrive at similar and quite radical beliefs about personal identity. And both have documented the difficulty of sustaining these beliefs in their day-to-day lives. For those considering embarking upon philosophical study – whether formally or not – this last point may seem discouraging, reinforcing a picture of a discipline that even on the admission of its own practitioners has little impact on everyday life or concerns. I explore …

Explaining, Assessing, And Changing High Consumption, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

These writings reflect the renewed interest in the 1990s of scholars and the public in questioning the consumer society, an interest that the political crises engendered by 9/11 have overshadowed but not eliminated. In The Overspent American, Schor explains the emergence of strong doubts about high consumption by arguing that a “new consumerism” of escalating desires has evolved that is increasingly costly to the American high consumers themselves.

Blaga’S Philosophy Of Culture: More Than A Spenglerian Adaptation, Michael S. Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Blaga, John Hick, Şi Problema Diversităţii Religioase, Michael S. Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Art Of Deception, Edward N. Martin

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Mere And Partial Means: The Full Range Of The Objectification Of Women, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.