Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Judgment, Philippe Nonet

Philippe Nonet

No abstract provided.

The Structure Of Atkins’ New Diet Revolution: Proposing A Paradigm Shift In Fighting Obesity, Catherine Womack

Catherine A. Womack

No abstract provided.

Categories Of Constraint And Avenues Of Freedom: Proposing Collective Agency For Addressing Problems Of Obesity, Catherine Womack

Catherine A. Womack

No abstract provided.

Do You Sincerely Want To Be Radical, Phillip Johnson

Phillip Johnson

No abstract provided.

What Is Positive Law, Philippe Nonet

Philippe Nonet

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Representation: The Role Of The Gaze In Pornography, Jennifer Jeffers

Jennifer M. Jeffers

An accessible reader/text for beginning students of philosophy, this volume offers a broad scope of diverse classic and contemporary selections – with a narrative and format that presents difficult issues and readings in a simplified but not condescending manner. The readings are grouped around major philosophic themes: logic, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, and social and political philosophy. It also offers a selection of readings from Eastern philosophy.

Reasoning Across Differences: A Modest Proposal For Expanding Experimental Philosophy, Catherine Womack

Catherine A. Womack

This presentation is part of the Facts in Feminist Philosophy track. Experimental philosophy, (henceforth called X-Phi), represents a departure from traditional philosophy; instead of privileging intuitions of professional philosophers to analyze concepts like moral responsibility, knowledge, intentional action, etc., X-phi catalogs and analyzes the intuitions of ordinary people (that is, non-philosophers) about scenarios designed to uncover the concepts found in standard usage. It formulates explanations of those intuitions that may reveal more complex and nuanced philosophical concepts. X-philosophers create variations of standard philosophical thought-experiments (like that old chestnut, the trolley case) in order to test out their own hypotheses about …

Riding Like A Girl: Feminine Virtues And Women’S Identity, Catherine Womack, Pata Suyemoto

Catherine A. Womack

No abstract provided.

Conflicting Reasons, Unconflicting ‘Ought’S, Gopal Shyam Nair

Prof. NAIR Gopal Shyam

One of the popular albeit controversial ideas in the last century of moral philosophy is that what we ought to do is explained by our reasons. And one of the central features of reasons that accounts for their popularity among normative theorists is that they can conflict. But I argue that the fact that reasons conflict actually also poses two closely related problems for this popular idea in moral philosophy. The first problem is a generalization of a problem in deontic logic concerning the existence of conflicting obligations. The second problem arises from a tension between the fact that reasons …

Conflicting Reasons, Unconflicting ‘Ought’S, Gopal Shyam Nair

Prof. NAIR Gopal Shyam

One of the popular albeit controversial ideas in the last century of moral philosophy is that what we ought to do is explained by our reasons. And one of the central features of reasons that accounts for their popularity among normative theorists is that they can conflict. But I argue that the fact that reasons conflict actually also poses two closely related problems for this popular idea in moral philosophy. The first problem is a generalization of a problem in deontic logic concerning the existence of conflicting obligations. The second problem arises from a tension between the fact that reasons …

The Essential Functions Of A Plotinian Soul, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

In reading Plotinus one might get the impression that the essential functions of a Plotinian soul are very similar to those of an Aristotelian soul. Plotinus talks of such vegetative functions as growth, nurture and reproduction. He discusses such animal functions as sense perception, imagination and memory. And he attributes such functions as reasoning, judging and having opinions to the soul. In Plotinus' Psychology, Blumenthal bases his whole discussion of the soul on an analysis of these functions. He concludes that Plotinus 'saw the soul's activities as the functions of a series of faculties which were basically those of Aristotle' …

Rhetoric And Platonism In Fifth-Century Athens, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

There are reasons to believe that relations between Platonism and rhetoric in Athens during the fifth century CE were rather close. Both were major pillars of pagan culture, or paideia, and thus essential elements in the defense of paganism against increasingly powerful and repressive Christian opponents. It is easy to imagine that, under these circumstances, paganism was closing ranks and that philosophers and orators united in their efforts to save traditional ways and values. Although there is no doubt some truth to this view, a closer look reveals that the relations between philosophy and rhetoric were rather more complicated. In …

Une Vie De Platon Du Vie Siècle (Olympiodore) Traduction Et Notes, Nicolas D'Andres, Damian Caluori, Davide Del Forno, Luca Pitteloud, Dominic O'Meara, Jacques Schamp, Euree Song, Carolle Tresson, Martine Vonlanthen, Sebastian Weiner

Damian Caluori

No abstract provided.

Plotin: Was Fühlt Der Leib? Was Empfindet Die Seele?, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

Thema dieses Aufsatzes ist Plotins Theorie der Emotionen, eines Themas, das in der antiken Philosophie in der Regel im Rahmen einer Handlungstheorie diskutiert wurde. So auch bei Plotin. In meinem Aufsatz wird gezeigt, wie der plotinische Leib-Seele-Dualismus im Hintergrund von Plotins Emotionstheorie steht: Leibliche Affekte werden von seelischen Emotionen unterschieden und es wird deutlich gemacht, dass das Haben einer Emotion im eigentlichen Sinn sowohl Rationalität als auch einen Leib voraussetzt. Zwei Aspekte werden besonders hervorgehoben: 1. Plotin gehört zu den Vertretern einer kognitivistischen Emotionstheorie. 2. Im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Kognitivisten (z.B. der Stoa) macht er aber auch in einer …

Plotinus On Primary Being, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

No abstract provided.

The Scepticism Of Francisco Sanchez, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

The Renaissance sceptic and medical doctor Francisco Sanchez has been rather unduly neglected in scholarly work on Renaissance scepticism. In this paper I discuss his scepticism against the background of the ancient distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism. I argue that Sanchez was a Pyrrhonist rather than, as has been claimed in recent years, a mitigated Academic sceptic. In keeping with this I shall also try to show that Sanchez was crucially influenced by the ancient medical school of empiricism, a school closely allied with Pyrrhonism.

Divine Practical Thought In Plotinus, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

Plotinus follows the Timaeus and the Platonist tradition before him in postulating the existence of a World Soul whose function it is to care for the sensible world as a whole. It is argued that, since the sensible world is providentially arranged, the World Soul’s care presupposes a sort of practical thinking that is as timeless as intellectual contemplation. To explain why this thinking is practical, the paper discusses Plotinus’ view on Aristotle’s distinction between praxis and poiêsis. To explain why it is timeless, it studies Plotinus’ view on Aristotle’s distinction between complete and incomplete actuality. The focus is on …

Reason And Necessity: The Descent Of The Philosopher Kings, Damian Caluori

Damian Caluori

One of the reasons why one might find it worthwhile to study philosophers of late antiquity is the fact that they often have illuminating things to say about Plato and Aristotle. Plotinus, in particular, was a diligent and insightful reader of those great masters. Michael Frede was certainly of that view, and when he wrote that '[o]ne can learn much more from Plotinus about Aristotle than from most modern accounts of the Stagirite', he would not have objected, I presume, to the claim that Plotinus is also extremely helpful for the study of Plato. In this spirit I wish to …

The Mechanistic Approach Of 'The Theory Of Island Biogeography' And Its Current Relevance, Viorel Pâslaru

Viorel Pâslaru

Philosophers of science have examined The Theory of Island Biogeography by Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson (1967) mainly due to its important contribution to modeling in ecology, but they have not examined it as a representative case of ecological explanation. In this paper, I scrutinize the type of explanation used in this paradigmatic work of ecology. I describe the philosophy of science of MacArthur and Wilson and show that it is mechanistic. Based on this account and in light of contributions to the mechanistic conception of explanation due to Craver (2007), and Bechtel and Richardson (1993), I argue that …

Causal And Mechanistic Explanations, And A Lesson From Ecology, Viorel Pâslaru

Viorel Pâslaru

Jani Raerinne and Lindley Darden argue that causal claims are not sufficiently explanatory, and causal talk should be replaced with mechanistic talk. I examine several examples from ecological research, two of which rely on causal models and structural equation modeling, to show that the assertions of Raerinne and of Darden have to be reconsidered.

Conceptions Of Mechanisms And Insensitivity Of Causation, Viorel Pâslaru

Viorel Pâslaru

Conceptions of mechanisms due to Glennan (1996; 2002), Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000), Bechtel and Abrahamsen (2005) have developed in opposition to the nomological approach to explanation. It is less emphasized, however, that these conceptions have also developed as alternatives to the causal perspective on explanation. In this paper, I argue that despite their distancing from the topic of causation, the mechanistic conceptions need to incorporate in their definitions of mechanisms the notion of insensitivity of causal relations that was examined by Woodward (2006).

Ecological Explanation Between Manipulation And Mechanism Description, Viorel Pâslaru

Viorel Pâslaru

James Woodward offers a conception of explanation and mechanism in terms of interventionist counterfactuals. Based on a case from ecology, I show that ecologists’ approach to that case satisfiesWoodward’s conditions for explanation and mechanism, but his conception does not fully capture what ecologists view as explanatory. The new mechanistic philosophy likewise aims to describe central aspects of mechanisms, but I show that it is not sufficient to account for ecological mechanisms. I argue that in ecology explanation involves identification of invariant and insensitive causal relationships and descriptions of the mechanistic characteristics that make these relations possible.

Psychology's Use Of Animals: Current Practices And Attitudes, Kenneth J. Shapiro

Kenneth J. Shapiro, PhD

In this chapter, I present a psychology primer for the uninitiated, with special emphasis on psychology's uses of animals. After sketching the scope of the field generally, I review available data on present numbers and species of animals used in psychological research, level of suffering induced and current trends. I also provide several concrete examples of psychological research involving animals. Finally, the chapter concludes with a presentation of attitudes of psychologists toward animals and these practices.

Americanized Catholicism? A Response To Thomas Schärtl, Dennis M. Doyle

Dennis M. Doyle

I stand in fundamental agreement with what Thomas Schärtl has said in his article describing recent trends in US Catholicism. I am a lifelong Catholic and a lifelong Democrat. I felt personally distressed and discouraged by the support given to Mitt Romney and the Republicans by some leading US Catholic bishops. Most of this support may have technically passed the legal test of being nonpartisan, but undeniably it functioned in a partisan manner, as did the attacks launched on President Obama in the midst of a campaign to defend religious liberty. Schärtl’s analysis of these trends as reflecting marketing strategies …

Extraordinary Love In The Lives Of Lay People, Dennis M. Doyle

Dennis M. Doyle

The College Theology Society (CTS), initially called the Society of Catholic College Teachers of Sacred Doctrine, was founded mainly by religious and clergy in the early 1950s to support those who taught college-level theology to Catholics in non-seminary settings. Sometimes CTS, in comparison with another group, is said to be relatively more lay-oriented. What this actually means, I think, is that for the CTS, the college classroom, populated mainly by lay people, was the primary locus for carrying out the task of teaching theology. The main goal was to promote the religious formation of Catholic lay people. Given some of …

Against Totalitarianism: Agamben, Foucault, And The Politics Of Critique, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

How Artistic Creativity Is Possible For Cultural Agents, Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

Joseph Margolis holds that both artworks and selves are ”culturally emergent entities." Culturally emergent entities are distinct from and not reducible to natural or physical entities. Artworks are thus not reducible to their physical media; a painting is thus not paint on canvas and music is not sound.

In a similar vein, selves or persons are not reducible to biology, and thought is not reducible to the physical brain. Both artworks and selves thus have two ongoing and inseparable ”evolutions”—one cultural and one physical. Rather than having fixed ”natures” that remain stable for any purpose other than numerical identity, artworks …

Articulating The World: Conceptual Understanding And The Scientific Image, Joseph Rouse

Joseph Rouse

The most difficult challenge for naturalists in philosophy is accounting for scientific understanding of nature as itself a scientifically intelligible natural phenomenon. This book advances naturalism with a novel response to this challenge, drawing upon the philosophy of scientific practice and interdisciplinary science studies, philosophical work on the normativity of conceptual understanding, and new developments in evolutionary biology. The book’s two parts develop complementary, mutually supporting revisions to familiar accounts of conceptual understanding and of Sellars’s “scientific image” of ourselves-in-the-world. The first part shows how language and scientific practices exemplify the evolutionary process of niche construction. Conceptual capacities arise from …

De-Colonizar A Platón: Una Relectura De La Alegoría De La Cueva En El Contexto De La Toma, Cauca (De-Colonizing Plato: Reinterpreting The Allegory Of The Cave In The Context Of La Toma, Cauca), Andrés Henao Castro

Andrés Fabián Henao-Castro

En este texto defiendo una interpretación política de la famosa alegoría de la cueva de Platón a partir de las experiencias de lucha de las comunidades negras contra la explotación minera en sus territorios ancestrales en La Toma, Cauca; interpretación que considero más adecuada a la hora de contemporaneizar la obra del filósofo griego para los proyectos emancipadores radicales de hoy, que aquella que defiende la filosofía política radical francesa.

Aristotle's Realism And The Correspondence Theory Of Truth, Charlene Elsby

Charlene Elsby

No abstract provided.