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Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Fitting Attitude Theory And The Normativity Of Jokes, Stephanie Patridge Nov 2017

Fitting Attitude Theory And The Normativity Of Jokes, Stephanie Patridge

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

We defend a fitting-attitude (FA) theory of the funny against a set of potential objections. Ultimately, we endorse a version of FA theory that treats reasons for amusement as non-compelling, metaphysically non-conditional, and alterable by social features of the joke telling context. We find that this version of FA theory is well-suited to accommodate our ordinary practices of telling and being amused by jokes, and helpfully bears on the related faultless disagreement dispute.


Is Having Children An Essential Part Of A Good Human Life?, Bethany Blinsky Apr 2017

Is Having Children An Essential Part Of A Good Human Life?, Bethany Blinsky

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Is being a parent part of living a good human life? In this paper I argue, contra Rosalind Hursthouse, that the answer is no. However, I make the case that something very much like this is essential to living a good human life. I get at this by borrowing Claudia Mills’ account of the value of unchosen relationships. I argue that unconditional and unchosen love is an essential component of a good human life, and while we can get this by having children, we can also get it in other ways.


The Eternal Hero: A Study Of The Evolution Of The Literary Character Throughout History, James Simms Apr 2017

The Eternal Hero: A Study Of The Evolution Of The Literary Character Throughout History, James Simms

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

The Literary character has always existed, and I intend to show how he or she has changed the times, and, in turn, been changed by the times. Literature is a powerful force of culture and morality, liberalism and conservatism, engines of fate, and forces of chaos. As each era has its own values, so each character reflects those values (and might even go against some in order to convey the authors’ understanding of them). The characters, if powerful enough, often cause social change, defining major thoughts of various eras. Literature can both define a period, but can also be the …


Ayn Rand’S Rejection Of Environmentalism: Toward Challenging Right-Wing Inaction On Environmental Issues In The United States, Taylor M. Bailey Jan 2015

Ayn Rand’S Rejection Of Environmentalism: Toward Challenging Right-Wing Inaction On Environmental Issues In The United States, Taylor M. Bailey

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Environmental protection has become a volatile political issue in the United States, especially within the past decade. This toxicity must be remedied to facilitate substantive reform. Anti-environmentalism on the part of the American Right can be partially traced back to the writings of the conservative philosopher Ayn Rand. In this paper, I aim to show that Rand fundamentally misunderstood the mainstream environmental movement in the U.S., and similarly her environmental philosophy, as well as her answers to solving environmental damages, are inadequate in providing answers to collective environmental problems (i.e. climate change). I argue that even in a framework as …


Michel Henry’S Phenomenological Christology: From Transcendentalism To The Gospel Of John, Jeremy H. Smith Jan 2015

Michel Henry’S Phenomenological Christology: From Transcendentalism To The Gospel Of John, Jeremy H. Smith

English Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Pornography, Ethics, And Video Games, Stephanie Patridge Mar 2013

Pornography, Ethics, And Video Games, Stephanie Patridge

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

In a recent and provocative essay, Christopher Bartel attempts to resolve the gamer's dilemma. The dilemma, formulated by Morgan Luck, goes as follows: there is no principled distinction between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia. So, we'll have to give up either our intuition that virtual murder is morally permissible-seemingly leaving us over-moralizing our gameplay-or our intuition that acts of virtual pedophilia are morally troubling-seemingly leaving us under-moralizing our game play. Bartel's attempted resolution relies on establishing the following three theses: (1) virtual pedophilia is child pornography, (2) the consumption of child pornography is morally wrong, and (3) virtual murder is …


The Self, Its Ideal, And God: The Implications Of Non-Objective Self-Experience, Jeremy H. Smith Jan 2012

The Self, Its Ideal, And God: The Implications Of Non-Objective Self-Experience, Jeremy H. Smith

English Faculty Scholarship

This article explicates the unified argument of James G. Hart's 1200 page work Who One Is. Hart begins with an exploration of the non-objective self as propertyless ipseity; then relates that sheer ipseity to the concrete development a self; and then, that self to the ideal self which guides its development; and finally, the ideal self to God as its origin. Hart also shows the relevance of Jaspers' notion of Existenz at each of these stages. The uniqueness and “mineness” of any “I” cannot be a matter of properties. Each “I” is a unique “haecceity” for which multiple instantiation …


The Incorrigible Social Meaning Of Video Game Imagery, Stephanie Patridge Dec 2011

The Incorrigible Social Meaning Of Video Game Imagery, Stephanie Patridge

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, I consider a particular amoralist challenge against those who would morally criticize our single-player video play, viz., 'come on, it's only a game!' The amoralist challenge with which I engage gains strength from two facts: the activities to which the amoralist lays claim are only those that do not involve interactions with other rational or sentient creatures, and the amoralist concedes that there may be extrinsic, consequentialist considerations that support legitimate moral criticisms. I argue that the amoralist is mistaken and that there are non-consequentialist resources for morally evaluating our single-player game play. On my view, some …


Propaganda And The 21st Century Student, Miguel Martinez-Saenz , Provost, Academic Affairs, Tammy M. Proctor Oct 2011

Propaganda And The 21st Century Student, Miguel Martinez-Saenz , Provost, Academic Affairs, Tammy M. Proctor

Administrators/Executives/Staff Scholarship

This short piece provides a way of thinking about the Enlightenment’s legacy and the strength of modern propaganda in order to enable world history teachers to use these themes in their classes, both for teaching history and for helping students to reflect on their own lives. The authors provide background on the ideas of 1930s critical theorists and their impact on the interwar period, then suggest practical ways that world history instructors (in high schools and universities) can use these insights in developing lectures, lesson plans, and assignments for their classrooms.


Seeing The World Through The Eyes Of Andries Van Aarde : Radical Inclusivity : Original Research, Glenna S. Jackson Jan 2011

Seeing The World Through The Eyes Of Andries Van Aarde : Radical Inclusivity : Original Research, Glenna S. Jackson

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

In the article the author reflected on her personal and existential experience of a journey to Egypt, and how this highlights radical inclusivity. The article focused on the issues of the violence of poverty, the history of Coptic Christianity and the role of women within this tradition. The article touched on aspects such as 'women monks', ecclesiastical hierarchy in modern Coptic Christianity, and the ordination of clergy. It also considered the perspective of 'social hierarchy' and 'spiritual or divine hierarchy'.


Moral Vices As Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin And Alice, Stephanie Patridge Jun 2008

Moral Vices As Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin And Alice, Stephanie Patridge

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Moralists hold that art criticism can and should take stock of moral considerations. Though moralists disagree over the proper scope of ethical art criticism, they are unified in their acceptance of the consistency of valence thesis: when an artwork fares poorly from the moral point of view, and this fact is art critically relevant, then it is thereby worse qua artwork. In this paper, I argue that a commitment to moralism, however strong, is unattractive because it requires that we radically revise our art critical practices in contexts where revision seems ill advised. I will consider two such cases, Pushkin's …


Monstrous Thoughts And The Moral Identity Thesis, Stephanie Patridge Jan 2008

Monstrous Thoughts And The Moral Identity Thesis, Stephanie Patridge

Religion & Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The responses are not simply imagined: we are prescribed by Justine actually to find erotically attractive the fictional events, to be amused by them, to enjoy them, to admire this kind of activity. So the novel does not just present imagined events, it also presents a point of view on them, a perspective constituted in part by actual feelings, emotions, and desires that the reader is prescribed to have toward the merely imagined events. Given that the notion of response covers such things as enjoyment and amusement, it is evident that some kinds of responses are actual, and not just …


Michel Henry's Phenomenology Of Aesthetic Experience, Jeremy H. Smith Jun 2006

Michel Henry's Phenomenology Of Aesthetic Experience, Jeremy H. Smith

English Faculty Scholarship

In 'Voir l'invisible' Michel Henry applies his philosophy of autoaffection to the realm of aesthetics. Henry claims that autoaffection, as nonobjective experience, is essential not only to self-experience, but also to the experience of objects and their qualities. On the basis of an examination of Henry's aesthetic theory in the light of Husserl's analysis of our experience of visible objects, I conclude that revisions are required in both Husserl's and Henry's approaches: Husserl's noema must be considered to be a lived-through experience, and nonobjective lived-through experience must be recognized as primordial evidence; Henry's claim that …


The Deconstruction Of Mathematics: A Criticism Of Reuben Hersh's What Is Mathematics, Really? And The Humanist Philosophy Of Mathematics, David J. Stucki Jan 1999

The Deconstruction Of Mathematics: A Criticism Of Reuben Hersh's What Is Mathematics, Really? And The Humanist Philosophy Of Mathematics, David J. Stucki

Mathematics Faculty Scholarship

Mathematics, as an academic discipline, has stood for many years as the last bastion against a growing tide of intellectual relativism that has become all but ubiquitous. More recently, however, efforts have been made to "humanize" mathematics by advocating a social-constructivist approach to the philosophy of mathematics, both in practice and education. This paper is intended to serve as a critical response to one advocate of this approach, Reuben Hersh (What Is Mathematics, Really?, 1997), and in the process a defense of Platonism.