Philosophy Commons^™

Nepantla And Mestizaje: A Phenomenological Analysis Of The Mestizx Historical Consciousness, Jorge Alfredo Montiel

Dissertations (1934 -)

My dissertation consists of two main Parts. Part I draws from Edmund Husserl’s notion of the “historical a priori” and from seminal decolonial thinker Anibal Quijano’s formulation of “coloniality” to offer a framework for what I call the “coloniality of history.” Chapter 1 draws from Husserl’s and from contemporary analyses of the “historical a priori” as a historical horizon of conceivability for subject and truth formation. Chapter 2 brings this phenomenological analysis to interpret Quijano’s formulation of “coloniality” as a historical horizon of conceivability and to offer a framework for what I call the “coloniality of history.” This framework shows …

The Categories Argument For The Real Distinction Between Being And Essence: Avicenna, Aquinas, And Their Greek Sources, Nathaniel Taylor

Dissertations (1934 -)

There is a distinctively Avicennian way of understanding the categories to be found in the works of Thomas Aquinas that vindicates Aquinas’s early argument for the distinction between being and essence. Two of the most important and influential Aquinas scholars in the twentieth century recognized the roots of this Avicennian way in Aquinas, but neither Etienne Gilson and Cornelio Fabro made good on their insights. In this dissertation, I trace this Avicennian way through its sources in the Greek commentators and demonstrate how it provides the necessary insight into the structure and nature of the categories that render Aquinas’s Genus …

Schelling's Clara: Romantic Psychotherapy, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Schelling’s unfinished novella/dialog from the early years of his turn to philosophy of spirit presents arguments for personal immortality, but in a narrative form. Characters that represent nature and mind try to rescue the usually equanimous Clara from psychological crisis occasioned by her husband’s death and consequent intellectual perplexities about personal survival. Their arguments illustrate Schelling’s reformulated Spinozistic metaphysics: expressivism. On this theory, a Wesenheit or creative essence manifests in both physical and psychic dimensions but is itself nothing other than the connection between the two. Clara, doctor, and pastor symbolize these three functions while their personae fashion arguments that …

Emmanuel Levinas And Jacques Maritain On The Student-Teacher Relationship In Catholic Higher Education, Timothy Rothhaar

Dissertations (1934 -)

The purpose of this dissertation is to serve as a stepping stone to a larger philosophy of the Catholic university. Its thesis argues that Catholic universities have lost their way by means of faith, identity, and ethical crises, and in order to recover these we must return to the primordial student-teacher relationship embedded in a Catholic philosophical anthropology. Beginning in the mid-20th century, with roots at the turn of the century, Catholic universities took a decided secular move away from their theological roots beginning with Fr. Theodore Hesburgh’s reimagining of the Catholic university as a corporate entity. As a result, …

Review Of The Enthymeme. Syllogism, Reasoning, And Narrative In Ancient Greek Rhetoric, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Looking Through Whiteness: Objectivity, Racism, Method, And Responsibility, Philip Mack

Dissertations (1934 -)

Does a white philosopher have anything of value to offer to the philosophy of race and racism? If this philosophical subfield must embrace subjective experience, why should we value the perspective of white philosophers whose racial identity is often occluded by racial normativity and who lack substantive experiences of being on the receiving end of racism? Further, if we should be committed to experience, in what sense can the philosophy of race and racism be “objective”? What should that word mean?Tackling this question first, “objective” should at least mean general, that the ideas of the literature can be coherently integrated. …

Racialized Disablement And The Need For Conceptual Analysis Of “Racial Health Disparities”, Desiree Valentine

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

It is well established that racial health disparities are impacted by structural racism, but the imbrication of racialization processes with processes of disablement remains underdeveloped. This essay advocates for a conceptual lens that looks historically and politically at the co-constitution of “race” and “disability.” Racism and ableism intersect in ways that manifest what I call racialized disablement, a key heuristic for building a fuller understanding of “race” and “racial health disparities.” This terminology, I propose, helps illuminate the following about race and racism in healthcare: first, racialized disablement seeks to denaturalize both race and disability to focus on their political …

Believing On Eggshells: Epistemic Injustice Through Pragmatic Encroachment, Julius Schonherr, Javiera Perez Gomez

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper defends the claim that pragmatic encroachment—the idea that knowledge is sensitive to the practical stakes of believing—can explain a distinctive kind of epistemic injustice: the injustice that occurs when prejudice causes someone to know less than they otherwise would. This encroachment injustice, as we call it, occurs when the threat of being met with prejudice raises the stakes for someone to rely on her belief when acting, by raising the level of evidential support required for knowledge. We explain this notion of encroachment injustice, connect it to the empirical literature on implicit bias, and defend it against …

Moral Encroachment And The Epistemic Impermissibility Of (Some) Microaggressions, Javiera Perez Gomez

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

A recent flurry of philosophical research on microaggression suggests that there are various practical and moral reasons why microaggression may be objectionable, including that it can be offensive, cause epistemic harms, express demeaning messages about certain members of our society, and help to reproduce an oppressive social order. Yet little attention has been given to the question of whether microaggression is also epistemically objectionable. This paper aims to further our understanding of microaggression by appealing to recent work on moral encroachment—the idea that knowledge is sensitive to the moral stakes of believing—to argue that microaggression can be irrational in a …

The Empathetic Autistic: A Phenomenological Look At The Feminine Experience, Dana Fritz

Dissertations (1934 -)

Western philosophy has asserted that in order to be a person, one must be rational. This idea was not challenged until the nineteenth century. One school to challenge this notion was phenomenology, which asserted that what made one a person was their ability to empathize. While the founder of the school, Edmund Husserl, did not assert that the ability to decipher nonverbal cues was necessary in order to empathize, several of his followers did. This emphasis on deciphering nonverbal cues proved problematic for some populations, especially the Autistic. Autism is a neurological condition which makes it difficult to decipher nonverbal …

Against The Philosophical Project Of “Biologizing” Race, Anthony F. Peressini

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper critiques philosophical efforts to biologize race as racial projects (Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States). The paper argues that the deeply social phenomenon of race defies the analytic schema employed by biologizing philosophers. The very (social) act of theorizing race is already in an involuted relationship with its target concept: analyzing race must be seen as a racial project, in that it simultaneously helps to manage how race is represented in society and helps organize society’s resources along particular racial lines. Such biologizing projects are rife with moral and political dimensions and have …

Feminisms Of The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean, Stephanie Rivera-Berruz

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This essay explores the philosophical productions of women from the Spanish speaking Caribbean. Here the Caribbean is understood as a multiplicitous and polyphonic space that exists amidst modernities engendered by colonization. I present the intellectual contributions of Luisa Capetillo, Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, Petronila Angélica Gómez, Ochy Curiel, Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso, and Yomaira Figueroa as fertile philosophical starting points from which to frame a feminist tradition of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean that appreciates the multiple and often conflicting body of ideas that emerge from within a sea of islands.

On The State Of Dance Philosophy, Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

What are Eric Mullis’s contributions to a pragmatist philosophy of dance? First, the work brings attention to aspects of dance in regional and religious contexts and to a selection of religious dance practices (Pentecostal and Quaker) not typically addressed in the literature of dance philosophy, thus adding to the current scope of dance studies. This book’s main strength with respect to pragmatist philosophies is its efforts to apply existing theories of pragmatism (James and Dewey, with commentary on Shusterman’s neopragmatist somaesthetics) to aspects of dance in a particular regional setting. This task is accomplished with three aspects of the research: …

When To Trust Authoritative Testimony: Generation And Transmission Of Knowledge In Saadya Gaon, Al-Ghazālī And Thomas Aquinas, Brett A. Yardley

Dissertations (1934 -)

People have become suspicious of authority, including epistemic authorities, i.e., knowledge experts, even on matters individuals are unqualified to adjudicate (e.g., climate change, vaccines, or the shape and age of the earth). This is problematic since most of our knowledge comes from trusting a speaker—whether scholars reading experts, students listening to teachers, children obeying their parents, or pedestrians inquiring of strangers—such that the knowledge transmitted is rarely personally verified. Despite the recent development of social epistemology and theories of testimony, this is not a new problem. Ancient and Medieval philosophers largely took it for granted that most human knowledge primarily …

Concerning Aristotelian Animal Essences, Damon Andrew Watson

Dissertations (1934 -)

In this dissertation I attempt to clarify Aristotle’s notion of essence. In particular, I focus on the essence of animal substances. When looking at Aristotle’s biological works and works like the Metaphysics it becomes perplexing how the accounts of animal essences in both are to constitute a unified view. In Parts of Animals the emphasis seems to be on definitions of animals that are rich enough to further explanatory aims. It is hard to see how such rich but messy definitions will be amenable to the strategies for a definition’s unity as are given in the Metaphysics. I argue that …

Metaphysics Supervenes On Logic: The Role Of The Logical Forms In Hegel's "Replacement" Of Metaphysics, W. Clark Wolf

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, I seek to explain Hegel’s view that his “logic” replaces metaphysics. I argue that Hegel’s discussion of logical forms of judgment and syllogism in book III of The Science of Logic is meant to be the foundation of his reformation of metaphysics. Implicit in Hegel’s discussion of the logical forms is the view that the metaphysical concepts discussed in books I and II of the Logic supervene on the role of subject and predicate terms in the logical forms discussed in book III. Hegel thus has an explanation for the nature and signifcance of metaphysical concepts that …

Should Biomedical Research With Great Apes Be Restricted? A Systematic Review Of Reasons, Bernardo Aguilera, Javiera Perez Gomez, David Degrazia

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Background

The use of great apes (GA) in invasive biomedical research is one of the most debated topics in animal ethics. GA are, thus far, the only animal group that has frequently been banned from invasive research; yet some believe that these bans could inaugurate a broader trend towards greater restrictions on the use of primates and other animals in research. Despite ongoing academic and policy debate on this issue, there is no comprehensive overview of the reasons advanced for or against restricting invasive research with GA. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of the reasons reported …

Similarity Reimagined (With Implications For A Theory Of Concepts), Corinne L. Bloch-Mullins

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Similarity‐based theories of concepts have a broad intuitive appeal and have been successful in accounting for various phenomena related to the formation and application of concepts. Their adequacy as theories of concepts has been questioned, however, as similarity is often taken as too flexible, too unconstrained, to be explanatory of categorization. In this article, I propose an account of similarity that takes the "foil" against which the target items are measured as integral to the process of comparison, making the similarity relation a fundamentally triadic one. I argue that this account delivers more internal constraints on the process of comparison …

Power Freedom And Relational Autonomy, Ericka Tucker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Theatre X, Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Being In Centro: The Anthropology Of Schelling's Human Freedom, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Schelling presents the 1809 freedom essay as the idealistic flowering of a vision of system he always held. He is not disingenuous but somewhat perplexing in claiming that the system always was complete in nuce, even though not expounded completely. Tilliette captured the ambiguity nicely in designating Schelling’s oeuvre «une philosophie en devenir». This mid-career essay must be read backwards to the earliest essays republished with it—especially to their views of willing, freedom, and moral responsibility—and simultaneously forward to the late philosophy’s analysis of God’s freedom as freedom from being, even necessary being. I locate Freedom’s …

Restorative Justice And The Challenge Of Perpetrator Accountability, Margaret Walker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

On “Ur-Contempt” And The Maintenance Of Racial Injustice: A Response To Monahan's “Racism And ‘Self-Love’: The Case Of White Nationalism”, Grant J. Silva

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This article offers a response to Michael J. Monahan’s engagement with and criticism of Grant Silva’s article “Racism as Self-Love.” So as to demonstrate how Monahan’s idea of “ur-contempt” fits alongside the author’s project and supplements his attempt to challenge the variety of forms of moral obfuscation employed by white nationalists and other racists today, this response begins with an overview of the central critique of moral responsibility for racism that Silva’s work offers. At stake is the attempt, by unabashed white supremacist and others, to bank on historical acts of racial oppression and reap the benefits of elevated social …

Cosmic City - Cosmic Teleology: A Reading Of Metaphysics Λ 10 And Politics I 2, Brandon Henrigillis

Dissertations (1934 -)

The goal of my project is to provide a reading of Metaphysics Λ 10. Λ 10 states that there is an order in the cosmos, or a cosmic nature. The problem for the interpreter of Aristotle is how to make sense of this claim given Aristotle’s arguments elsewhere regarding nature/substance and the priority of substances over the parts of a substance. To explain what Aristotle means when he states that there is a cosmic nature and arrangement, I first examine the army and household analogies offered by Aristotle in Λ 10. I contend that the household analogy in particular provides …

Al-Fārābī Metaphysics, And The Construction Of Social Knowledge: Is Deception Warranted If It Leads To Happiness?, Nicholas Andrew Oschman

Dissertations (1934 -)

When questioning whether political deception can be ethically warranted, two competing intuitions jump to the fore. First, political deception is a fact of human life, used in the realpolitik of governance. Second, the ethical warrant of truth asserts itself as inexorably and indefatigably preferable to falsehood. Unfortunately, a cursory examination of the history of philosophy reveals a paucity of models to marry these basic intuitions. Some thinkers (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Kant, Mill, and Rawls) privilege the truth by neglecting the realpolitik, i.e., the truth is inviolate. Others (e.g., Machiavelli, Bentham, and the often infamous caché of 20th century dictators) …

The Epistemology Of Disagreement: Hume, Kant, And The Current Debate, Robert Kyle Whitaker

Dissertations (1934 -)

The epistemological issue of disagreement comprises several related problems which arise in relation to disagreeing with another person. The central questions at issue are: (1) Can a body of evidence confer rationality on opposed propositions? (2) What is the relevance of unshareable evidence to disagreement? (3) What are one’s epistemic responsibilities in the context of disagreement? I consider several arguments from the recent disagreement literature which suggest that reasonable disagreements between people who have shared their evidence and are epistemic peers--i.e., they are equally informed about the disputed issue, and are roughly equal with respect to intelligence, thoughtfulness, carefulness, alertness, …

Fichte And Schelling, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Contextualizing The Kalām Fī Maḥḍ Al-Khair / Liber De Causis, Richard C. Taylor

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Pistis, Persuasion, And Logos In Aristotle, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

The core sense of pistis as understood in Posterior Analytics, De Anima, and the Rhetoric is not that of a logical relation in which cognitively grasped propositions stand in respect to one another, but the result of an act of socially embedded interpersonal communication, a willing acceptance of guidance offered in respect to action. Even when pistis seems to have an exclusively epistemological sense, this focal meaning of pistis is implicit; to have pistis in a proposition is to willingly accept that proposition as a basis for some kind of activity (albeit possibly theoretical) as a result of some kind …

Remembering Sally Banes, Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.