History of Philosophy Commons^™

Origins Of Great Traditions, Joseph J. Reidy

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

This course is a systematic examination of five centers of civilization in Afro-Eurasia during their defining moments. The course focuses on the historical contexts that gave rise to China’s classical philosophies, India’s transcendental world-view, the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic synthesis, African mythoreligious systems of thought, and Latin-European culture in the West. The course’s content emphasizes cross-cultural influences and connections.

The Forgetting Of Fire: An Archaeology Of Technics, Thomas A. Doerksen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation applies the methods of Bachelard and Foucault to key moments in the development of science. By analyzing the attitudes of four figures from four different centuries, it shows how epistemic attitudes have shifted from a participation in non-human, natural realities to a construction of human-centred technologies. The idea of an epistemic attitude is situated in reference to Foucault’s concept of the episteme and his method of archaeology; an attitude is the institutionally-situated and personally-enacted comportment of an epistemic agent toward an object of knowledge. This line of thought is pursued under the theme of elemental fire, which begins …

The History Of Apologetics: A Collaborative Article Review, Isaiah B. Parker

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

In The History of Apologetics, the authors examine a variety of noteworthy Western apologists throughout seven distinct historical eras: Patristic, Medieval, Early Modern, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century (American), Twentieth Century (European), and Contemporary. Each chapter presents four essential elements relating to the life and work of one apologist: historical background, theological context, apologetic methodology and response, and critical contribution(s) to apologetics. They aim to provide an overview of influential apologists within their unique cultural contexts. This review structures its content in the same manner, albeit with some necessary minor changes to the elements for ease of reading. The historical …

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …

​​​​From Repression To Appropriation: Soviet Religious Policy And Reform, 1917-1943, Andriy Dyachenko

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyses the dynamics of religious reform in the USSR from 1917 to 1943. It argues that the early Bolshevik policy of persecution was increasingly substituted by state co-optation. This dynamic was shaped primarily by Stalinist concerns with state security and problems of ideology.

Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff

Journal of Religion & Film

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …

Developmental Comparative Philosophy: Identifying Common Trends Between American Libertarian And Chinese Thoughts, Jacob Rich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

East/west comparative philosophy often focuses on the differences between philosophies as finished states which, though effective at showing differences in thought, emphasizes the otherness of foreign traditions. In order to establish meaningful similarities between the development on eastern and western traditions, I compared the development of American liberalism (1651-1776 CE) and Chinese Confucianism and Daoism (772-221 BCE), focusing on the similarities between social contract to enlightenment philosophers and the early to late Hundred Schools of Thought Confucian and Daoist philosophers. Three principals were derived from this process: a shift from external to internal justifications for the state causes increased secularism …

The Barmen Declaration And The American Church: A Warning And Guidance From History, Johnny Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The Barmen Declaration serves as a great example that the American Church should heed.[1] The American Church faces a hostile secular culture and a government that is increasingly statist and anti-Christian. The state has become an idol in an American culture that rejects truth and righteousness. A bold stance for truth and Christ is required by scripture and is the key to transforming the culture and saving the American Republic.

The Interconnectedness Of Jonathan Edwards's Ontology And Trinitarianism, Holly Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Jonathan Edwards scholarship has been divided in recent years on the correct interpretation of his work. Scholars like Sang Hyun Lee and Amy Plantinga Pauw maintain that Edwards used a radically new dispositional ontology to understand the fundamental realities of nature. Oliver Crisp, Kyle Strobel, and Steve Studebaker have argued that Edwards used an essentialist ontology. I will defend the latter position and explain how it is tied to Edwards’s Trinitarianism. I argue for an interpretation of Edwards that situates him in his historical and theological context. The early modern philosophy of his day was marked by essentialist ontology. The …

Digital Occult Library, Alexis Brandkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is a website, titled Digital Occult Library, hosted by the CUNY Commons and built with WordPress. The site address is:

digitaloccultlibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu

It features (in this iteration) twenty-five unique pages with information on and discussion of occult and esoteric topics. It also hosts a forum that can be accessed and utilized by anyone, not just those registered on the Commons. The purpose of the site is to inform three types of interested parties on the highlighted topics: a general audience with no current knowledge of the occult, practitioners of esoteric traditions, and academics. Not only is the …

De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

One fateful day on March 26, 1521, a lowly Augustinian monk was cited to appear before the Diet of Worms.[1] His habit trailed behind him as he braced for the questioning. He was firm, yet troubled. He boldly proclaimed: “If I am not convinced by proofs from Scripture, or clear theological reasons, I remain convinced by the passages which I have quoted from Scripture, and my conscience is held captive by the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract, for it is neither prudent nor right to go against one’s conscience. So help me God, …

David Hume, "The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion," And Religious Tolerance, Jarrett Delozier

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

La Princesse Adrosis Fille De L'Empereur Hadrien: Sainte Et Martyre, Laila Fares

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Le présent ouvrage est l’ensemble de leçons hebdomadaires que j’enseignai il y a quatorze ans. Le vif intérêt que témoignèrent mes étudiants à la princesse Adrosis m’avait encouragé à poursuivre l’histoire en prose, au-delà du petit poème que j’avais composé en 2003 au jour de sa fête célébrée au synexaire copte le 18 Hathor. Les questions de compréhension et de réflexion qui suivent chaque leçon peuvent servir dans un but didactique ou ludique. Vous pouvez en faire une activité de loisir ou d’enseignement pour l’édification et le développement spirituel de vos étudiants. L’histoire de la princesse Adrosis relève de l’histoire …

Duration And Depravity: Religious And Secular Temporality In Puritanism And The American Gothic, Taylor Kraayenbrink

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Duration and Depravity identifies a temporality of “sinful feeling” operating in the archive of Puritan writings of personal piety, such as diaries, autobiographies, conversion narratives, and sermons, and persisting into early American gothic literature. This temporality of sinful feeling is an attempt to discipline the self through temporal projection oriented towards the theological fact and religiously experienced feeling of sinfulness. Duration and Depravity engages with the proliferation of postsecular criticism in American literature studies generally, and Puritan studies more specifically. Postsecular criticism in literary studies is a style of historicism that reconsiders its primary archive’s position in newly complicated narratives …

Martin Luther King Jr. And Ernest Everett Just - On Evolution Of Ethical Behavior, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. prescribed an evolutionary advance in ethical behavior: the total “abolition of poverty” and the abolition of war throughout “the world house.” Cell biologist Ernest Everett Just advanced the idea that human ethical behavior evolved from cellular origins.

Also, astrobiologists Chandra Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle advanced the idea of cosmic biology, including stellar evolution and cosmic evolution. From cells to humans to stars and cosmology, evolutionary natural science converges with natural theology.

St. Augustine And St. Thomas Aquinas On The Mind, Body, And Life After Death, Christopher Choma

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Historical and philosophical investigation of the thoughts of two of philosophy's most innovative Christian thinkers. The thesis primarily deals with the relationship between the mind and the body through the lenses of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas. Thesis also includes theological discussions of life after death, and how one can be certain that the soul survives the corruption of the body.

The Dark And Middle Ages, Edward Jayne

English Faculty Publications

For the most part only Plato's teachings supported by a limited version of Aristotelian cosmology supportive of Platonism survived the decline of ancient Greek philosophy during the Roman Empire. Christianity later prevailed, and toward the end of the Middle Ages Aristotle’s secular perspective was only taken into account by Arab philosophers such as Averroes and Avicenna. After the collapse of Arab civilization during the twelfth century, the secular concept of a double truth between belief and reason put philosophy on equal footing with religion in such universities as Cordoba and the University of Paris. After a large assortment of ancient …

Another Scientific Revolution: Now Yielding A 'Cosmic Biology' Consistent With Natural Theology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Beyond the Copernican revolution, another scientific revolution is now in process. Inspired by Sir Fred Hoyle and others, this contemporary extension of the Copernican revolution is replacing biology conceived as exclusively Earth science with biology conceived as including study of stellar evolution and cosmic evolution. Furthermore, astrobiology, panspermia, and cosmic biology (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe) are advancing in ways consistent with natural theology, especially with panentheism. Some of this was anticipated and advocated by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and other philosophers of nature.

The [E]Motionless Body No Longer: Tracing The Historical Intersections Of Mental Illness And Movement In The American Asylum, Holly Adele Herzfeld

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Pharaonic Occultism: The Relationship Of Esotericism And Egyptology, 1875–1930, Kevin Todd Mclaren

Master's Theses

The purpose of this work is to explore the interactions between occultism and scholarly Egyptology from 1875 to 1930. Within this timeframe, numerous esoteric groups formed that centered their ideologies on conceptions of ancient Egyptian knowledge. In order to legitimize their belief systems based on ancient Egyptian wisdom, esotericists attempted to become authoritative figures on Egypt. This process heavily impacted Western intellectualism not only because occult conceptions of Egypt became increasingly popular, but also because esotericists intruded into academia or attempted to overshadow it. In turn, esotericists and Egyptologists both utilized the influx of new information from Egyptological studies to …

Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities [Table Of Contents], Carlin A. Barton, Daniel Boyarin

Religion

“A timely contribution to a growing and important conversation about the inadequacy of our common category ‘religion’ for the understanding of many practices, attitudes, emotions, and beliefs—especially of peoples in other times and contexts—that we usually classify as ‘religion.’” —Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University

The Catholic Enlightenment. The Forgotten History Of A Global Movement, Ulrich Lehner

Ulrich L. Lehner

No abstract provided.

Merging The Principles Of Occultism And Anarchism, Kevin Todd Mclaren

History

"Merging the Principles of Occultism and Anarchism" is an attempt to pinpoint the correlations between occult and/or esoteric belief systems and political anarchist philosophy. The paper analyzes the works, belief systems and philosophies of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Aleister Crowley and extracts the underlying anarchist principles that are embedded within them. This established connection to anarchism through occultism is reinforced by referencing various anarchist works, particularly the works of William Godwin.

Augustine, Wannabe Philosopher: The Search For Otium Honestum, Allen G. Wilson

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Enlightenment And Catholicism In Europe. A Transnational History, Ulrich Lehner, Jeffrey Burson

Ulrich L. Lehner

No abstract provided.

The Politics Media Equation:Exposing Two Faces Of Old Nexus Through Study Of General Elections,Wikileaks And Radia Tapes, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The important identity of a responsible media is playing an unbiased role in reporting a matter without giving unnecessary hype to attract the attention of the gullible public with the object of making money and money only.After reporting properly the media can educate the public to form their own opinion in the matters of public interest. Throughout the centuries, the world has never existed without information and communication, hence the inexhaustible essence of mass media. The government has the power to either make or reject whatever that will exist within its environment. It also determines how free the mass media …

To The Jew First: A Socio-Historical And Biblical-Theological Analysis Of The Pauline Teaching Of `Election' In Light Of Second Temple Jewish Patterns Of Thought, Anthony Thornhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paul's "doctrine" of election has remained a controversial and enigmatic topic for centuries. Few studies, however, have approached Paul's doctrine through the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study examines Paul's view of election through the lens of Second Temple Jewish texts written prior to 70 CE. In doing so, it is argued that the best framework through which to view Paul's discussion of election is through a primarily corporate model of election. While such a model is rooted in Judaism, Paul departs from his Jewish contemporaries in arguing that the locus of election is in God's Messiah, Jesus.

Story Of An Intern, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

“Story Of an Intern” tells you the story of an young boy who manages to get an internship in a global media giant. His struggles and amazements begins when he finds himself out of internship and struggles to get a foothold in media. In the way he analyzes the odds and evens of Indian media industry and media tycoons while most of the time finding himself rejected. His experiences while in search of a job carries him to different places and allows him to meet some interesting people who makes an imprint on his life and he finds himself falling …

Mass Media And Communication In Global Scenario, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The idea behind putting these research papers and research articles in this book is to give various aspects of communication, a platform where from readers may go through them at one go. The book deals with the research articles and papers dedicated to core areas of Journalism and Mass Communication. The papers and articles compiled in this book touches the need of students,academicians and researchers on most challenging areas and topics.In the collection of these papers author has discussed about Community Radio,FM Radio,Communication Science, Organizational Communication,Media Accounatbility,Language Discourse,Higher Education,Tevision Studies,Traditional and Digital Media,Disaster Management and Media,Wikileaks and Social Media,Terrorism and …

“Human Relations Movement In View Of Interpersonal Relations With Emphasis On Mayo’S Work”, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Human relations movement refers to the researchers of organizational development who study the behavior of people in groups, in particular workplace groups. It originated in the 1930s' Hawthorne studies, which examined the effects of social relations, motivation and employee satisfaction on factory productivity. The movement viewed workers in terms of their psychology and fit with companies, rather than as interchangeable parts, and it resulted in the creation of the discipline of human resource management. An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range in duration from brief to enduring. This association may be based on …