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Selected Works

2018

Philosophy

Articles 1 - 30 of 49

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Pariah And The Poet: Hannah Arendt’S Alternative Reading Of Goethe’S «Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre» As A Critique Of Enlightenment «Bildung», John Macready Dec 2018

The Pariah And The Poet: Hannah Arendt’S Alternative Reading Of Goethe’S «Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre» As A Critique Of Enlightenment «Bildung», John Macready

John Macready

The German ideal of Bildung—the process of self-development through culture that Goethe dramatized in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre—and its connection to the crises of Jewish emancipation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been the topic of intense scholarly discussion. At issue is whether Bildung compromised Jewish identity. One of the earliest and strongest critics of Bildung was Hannah Arendt. Although Bildung was seen by many Jewish intellectuals, like Moses Mendelssohn, to be an answer to widespread anti-Judaism in European society, Arendt saw it as an apolitical concept that jeopardized Jewish emancipation in Europe. Arendt was skeptical of the …

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The 200,000 Cards Of Dimitri Yurasov: Further Reflections On Scholarship And Truth, Daniel A. Farber, Suzanna Sherry Oct 2018

The 200,000 Cards Of Dimitri Yurasov: Further Reflections On Scholarship And Truth, Daniel A. Farber, Suzanna Sherry

Suzanna Sherry

No abstract provided.

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Review: 'Improvising Improvisation: From Out Of Philosophy, Music, Dance, And Literature', Aili W. Bresnahan Oct 2018

Review: 'Improvising Improvisation: From Out Of Philosophy, Music, Dance, And Literature', Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

This book review attempts to interpret the meaning and value of Gary Peters’ book in a way that is true to the kind of book, an experimental improvisation, that it purports to be. As such, it grapples with the difficulties of evaluating the merits of a philosophical discussion within a book that claims not to be philosophy and case studies in performance that beg the question of whether they accurately exemplify the (non-)philosophy they are meant to support. Despite these difficulties, this review ends with the conclusion that this book does, in fact, convey something essential about the nature of …

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Mikhail Bakhtin’S Heritage In Literature, Arts, And Psychology. Introduction, Slav N. Gratchev, Howard Mancing Sep 2018

Mikhail Bakhtin’S Heritage In Literature, Arts, And Psychology. Introduction, Slav N. Gratchev, Howard Mancing

Dr. Slav N. Gratchev

This volume celebrates hundred years of Bakhtin’s heritage: in September 13 of 1919 in the literary journal Den Iskusstva (The Day of the Art) was published the first work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Art and Answerability, the work that became his literary manifesto.

This book aims to examine the heritage of Mikhail Bakhtin in a variety of disciplines. To achieve this end, we drew upon colleagues from eight different countries across the world--United States, Canada, Spain, Great Britain, France, Russia, Chile, and Japan--in order to bring the widest variety of points of view on the subject. But we also wanted …

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The Significance Of John S. Mbiti's Works In The Study Of Pan-African Literature, Babacar Mbaye Sep 2018

The Significance Of John S. Mbiti's Works In The Study Of Pan-African Literature, Babacar Mbaye

Babacar Mbaye

No abstract provided.

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London (Ontario) Area Treaties: An Introductory Guide, Stephen D'Arcy Sep 2018

London (Ontario) Area Treaties: An Introductory Guide, Stephen D'Arcy

Stephen D'Arcy

A guide to the treaties between the 'Crown' and Indigenous nations in the London (Ontario) area, in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Special emphasis is placed on treaties related to the Deshkan Ziibiing Anishinaabeg, including London Township Treaty No. 6 (1796) and McKee Treaty No. 2 (1790).

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Queer Terror: Life, Death, And Desire In The Settler Colony, C. Heike Schotten Aug 2018

Queer Terror: Life, Death, And Desire In The Settler Colony, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

Order direct from the publisher and get 30% off with code CUP30:

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/queer-terror/9780231187473

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Hate Speech As Theater, Adam White Jul 2018

Hate Speech As Theater, Adam White

Adam White

More public and philosophical attention has recently been given to hate speech.  Hate speech does not merely hurt feelings; it is public communication that implies that the targeted group does not merit the constitutional protections assured the speaker.  Hate speech poses a riddle given the liberal commitment to freedom of speech independent of content. 

This paper argues that philosophers misdiagnose hate speech.  The novel claim is that hate speech is a tactic in a game being played by the speakers.  The game’s prize is the same kind of personal buzz felt by effective theater actors.  Winning requires manipulating the audience’s …

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The Difference Principle: Rawls’S Two Oversights, Adam White Jul 2018

The Difference Principle: Rawls’S Two Oversights, Adam White

Adam White

John Rawls’s Difference Principle demands that basic social institutions be ordered such that the prospects of the worst off office are maximized, even if it constrains the prospects of all the better off offices.  This is a conservative demand, at odds with an obligation to maximize total welfare.  Rawls defends against this concern by arguing that as cooperative schemes evolve the worst off office should not make concessions before the better off offices do.  Or, this is my reading of Rawls’s schematic illustrations of the difference principle. 

The aim of this paper is to point out two important oversights in …

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Crime Futures Market, Adam White Jul 2018

Crime Futures Market, Adam White

Adam White

Responding to the legally guilty is typically presented as a choice between incarceration and rehabilitation.  This paper suggests a third option: preemptive rehabilitation.  The argument presents an innovative institutional approach and a unique moral justification.  The vision is a crime futures market that transfers the risk of potential crime away from undeserving victims and into the portfolios of willing investors.  Instead of taxpayers paying exclusively for prisons, the proposal would allow young adults to sign contracts to not get involved in crime, but pay the award only upon their future success.  Because the contracts represent a future payment they are …

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Flag-Waving: Visual Arguments, Verbal Reconstruction, And Speaker Intentions, Brian Larson Jul 2018

Flag-Waving: Visual Arguments, Verbal Reconstruction, And Speaker Intentions, Brian Larson

Brian Larson

This study extends previous work in visual argumentation by studying speakers’ own verbal reconstructions of their visual communicative acts. The researcher interviewed 70 persons wearing or carrying American flags at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia in July 2016, to determine whether “speakers” make arguments by wearing or carrying it. For more than 20 years, theorists have debated whether it is meaningful to speak of "visual arguments," whether they can be purely visual, non-verbal communication, and whether and how they can be reconstructed in the form of the conclusion-support structure of an argument. This analysis provides …

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Term Accountability, Adam White Jun 2018

Term Accountability, Adam White

Adam White

Democratic constitutions allow citizens to hold officeholders accountable via election. Legislative elections are typically held either by the calendar or at the legislature’s own discretion, i.e., “no confidence”. But both are inferior to a third option: having citizens decide when the next election will be. This procedure, “Term Accountability”, optimally aligns policymaker motivations with citizen interests. Ideally, pathological legislatures would serve short terms while productive legislatures would serve long terms.

Our generation is familiar with contesting and perfecting constitutional practices as they pertain to citizen rights. But there is an apparent intellectual bias against institutional revision. This supports a presumption …

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Corruption Cop, Adam White Jun 2018

Corruption Cop, Adam White

Adam White

Corruption is a primary descriptor of politics, and of course corruption is bad on its merits. But what is wrong about the practice it is the lack of an adequate response. Assume then that corruption persists, not primarily because of bad moral character on the part of officers, but because of poor constitutional design.

It is curious however that contemporary constitutional theory resists innovation. This paper takes up the challenge by proposing a new, fourth constitutional branch and office: a “corruption cop”. A corruption cop possesses the exclusive authority to remove corrupt officers from public office.

The authority to remove …

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Support For The Precautionary Principle, Jennifer Mather Jun 2018

Support For The Precautionary Principle, Jennifer Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

The precautionary principle gives the animal the benefit of the doubt when its sentient status is not known. This is necessary for advanced invertebrates such as cephalopods because research and evidence concerning the criteria for sentience are scattered and often insufficient to give us the background for the decision.

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Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere Jun 2018

Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Insects might have been the first invertebrates to evolve sentience, but cephalopods were the first invertebrates to gain scientific recognition for it.

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An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather Jun 2018

An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Although Key (2016) argues that mammals feel pain and fish do not, from an invertebrate perspective, it is obvious that the pain experience is shared by animals from a number of different animal groups.

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The Architecture Of Law: Building Law In The Classical Tradition, Brian M. Mccall May 2018

The Architecture Of Law: Building Law In The Classical Tradition, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

The Architecture of Law explores the metaphor of law as an architectural building project, with eternal law as the foundation, natural law as the frame, divine law as the guidance provided by the architect, and human law as the provider of the defining details and ornamentation. Classical jurisprudence is presented as a synthesis of the work of the greatest minds of antiquity and the medieval period, including Cicero, Artistotle, Gratian, Augustine, and Aquinas; the significant texts of each receive detailed exposition in these pages.
Along with McCall’s development of the architectural image, he raises a question that becomes a running …

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Addams And Dewey: Pragmatism, Expression, And Community, Marilyn Fischer May 2018

Addams And Dewey: Pragmatism, Expression, And Community, Marilyn Fischer

Marilyn Fischer

Chicago in the 1890s was home to two remarkable institutions, started by two remarkable activist-philosophers, experimenting with ideas and with social change. The first was Hull House, a social settlement, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. The second was the Laboratory School, an experimental school opened in 1896 by John Dewey, along with teachers Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards. Interaction was constant between the residents of Hull House and the teachers of the Laboratory School, as the participants learned from and taught each other. Through Hull House and the Laboratory School, Addams and Dewey …

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Book Review: Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Liturgy And Personality, Thomas V. Gourlay Apr 2018

Book Review: Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Liturgy And Personality, Thomas V. Gourlay

Thomas V. Gourlay

Book Review: Liturgy and Personality. By Dietrich von Hildebrand. Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press, 2016. Pp. 160. US$17.99. ISBN 9781939773005.

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The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson Apr 2018

The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

The “property question” is the constitutional question whether a society’s basic resources are to be publicly or privately owned; that is, whether these basic resources are to be available to private owners, perhaps subject to tax and regulation, or whether instead they are to be retained in joint public ownership, and managed by democratic processes.  James Madison’s approach represents a case in which prior holdings are taken for granted, and the property question itself is kept off of the political agenda.  By contrast, John Rawls approach abstracts from any actual pattern of holdings, while putting the property question on the …

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Avoiding The Asymmetry Problem, Travis Timmerman Feb 2018

Avoiding The Asymmetry Problem, Travis Timmerman

Travis Timmerman

If earlier-than-necessary death is bad because it deprives individuals of additional good life, then why isn't later-than-necessary conception bad for the same reason? Deprivationists have argued that prenatal non-existence is not bad because it is impossible to be conceived earlier, but postmortem non-existence is bad because it is possible to live longer. Call this the Impossibility Solution. In this paper, I demonstrate that the Impossibility Solution does not work by showing how it is possible to be conceived earlier in the same senses it is possible to live longer. I then offer a solution to the Asymmetry Problem by …

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Raising Revenue For Persons With Disabilities, Joel P. Dittmer Feb 2018

Raising Revenue For Persons With Disabilities, Joel P. Dittmer

Joel P. Dittmer

Whereas right-libertarians do not think that it is a requirement of justice that we raise revenues for persons with disabilities, both left-libertarians and liberal egalitarians think that there is such a requirement. An issue remains for the latter two theorists—how ought we to raise this revenue? Liberal egalitarians typically endorse either universal taxation or taxation of the wealthy. Left-libertarians, on the other hand, cannot so easily appeal to the methods of universal taxation and taxation of the wealthy, as they are illegitimately coercive. One such method left open to the left-libertarian is one proposed by Michael Otsuka. He argues that …

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Western Dance Aesthetics, Curtis Carter Feb 2018

Western Dance Aesthetics, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

No abstract provided.

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Romanticism And Cynicism In Contemporary Art, Curtis Carter Feb 2018

Romanticism And Cynicism In Contemporary Art, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

No abstract provided.

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City From Within: A Perspective On African-American Life In Milwaukee, Curtis Carter Feb 2018

City From Within: A Perspective On African-American Life In Milwaukee, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

No abstract provided.

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Barbara Morgan: Philosopher/Poet Of Visual Motion, Curtis Carter Feb 2018

Barbara Morgan: Philosopher/Poet Of Visual Motion, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

No abstract provided.

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Art Photography And Everyday Life, Curtis Carter Feb 2018

Art Photography And Everyday Life, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

No abstract provided.

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Intellectual Knowledge Of Material Particulars In Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction, James B. South Feb 2018

Intellectual Knowledge Of Material Particulars In Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction, James B. South

James South

No abstract provided.

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The Problem Of Evil And The Grammar Of Goodness, Eric Wiland Jan 2018

The Problem Of Evil And The Grammar Of Goodness, Eric Wiland

Eric Wiland

I consider the two venerated arguments about the existence of God: the Ontological Argument and the Argument from Evil. The Ontological Argument purports to show that God’s nature guarantees that God exists. The Argument from Evil purports to show that God’s nature, combined with some plausible facts about the way the world is, guarantees (or is very compelling grounds for thinking) that God does not exist. Both presume that it is coherent to predicate goodness (or greatness) of God. But if Peter Geach’s claim that goodness is logically attributive is cogent, then both arguments fall to the ground.

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Diversified Philosophy, Aili W. Bresnahan Jan 2018

Diversified Philosophy, Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

In this essay, Aili Bresnahan notes that institutions and many others are working to diversify the field of philosophy, in terms of the persons who count as philosophers, what counts as a legitimate philosophical methodology, and which phenomena and entities it handles. She writes that this is a positive development that will enrich and enliven the field so that, ultimately, philosophy survives.

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