Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What Are Good Stories? Literary Understanding And Moral Imagination, Stephen Chamberlain

Conference on Philosophy and Theology

The author argues for the formative character of literary fiction insofar as stories are able to reveal a kind of ethical knowledge. In making this argument, the author examines Aristotle’s notion of understanding, along with some contemporary developments of Aristotle’s ideas, such as those presented by Martha Nussbaum.

Plato, Socrates And The Removal Of Confederate Monuments, Scott Berman

Conference on Philosophy and Theology

Both Plato and Socrates would support the removal of confederate monuments because they thought that it was bad for communities to endorse harmful ideas. However, their explanations as to how harmful ideas such as white supremacy and slavery are bad for the communities are different. I shall be arguing that Socrates, not Plato, got it right and why that makes a difference.

The Psychology Of Confederate Symbols, Mara Aruguete

Conference on Philosophy and Theology

I will start by discussing why and when confederate symbols were erected. Then I will review experimental studies on how exposure to confederate symbols affects our attitudes and behavior. Finally, I will question the audience about opinions and applications.

Reconciliation And Preconditions Of Existence: Normative Mythological Foundations In The Poetry Of Robert Frost, Bryan Salmons

Conference on Philosophy and Theology

Using several of Frost’s better-known works—“Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” “To Earthward,” and “Desert Places”

--as a lens, as it were, I consider the issue of moral formation in the arts as it pertains to this highly-influential poet’s motifs. My paper suggests that, while he remained throughout his career an attendant oeuvre, in effect, both sardonic skeptic and therapeutic nihilist, Frost’s poetry nonetheless frequently conforms to Joseph Campbell’s well-known dictum that the primary function of mythology—and thereby all narrative art—is the inculcation from one generation to the next of the ineradicable and immutable, i.e. the reconciliation with limitations, most …