History of Philosophy Commons^™

The Cosmological Significance Of Animal Generation, Devin Henry

Devin Henry

This paper explores the relation between Aristotle’s mature theory of animal generation and his broader cosmology.

Unity And Logos: A Reading Of Theaetetus 201c-210a, Mitchell Miller

Mitchell Miller

Abstract for “Unity and Logos” (Anc Phil 12.1:87-111):

A close reading of Socrates' refutation of the final proposed definition of knowledge, "true opinion with an account." I examine the provocations to further thinking Socrates poses with his dilemma of simplicity and complexity and then by his rejections of the three senses of "account," and I argue that these provocations guide the responsive reader to that rich and determinate understanding of the sort of 'object' which knowledge requires that the Parmenides and the Eleatic dialogues will go on to explicate.

This paper is available at http://pages.vassar.edu/mitchellmiller/.

Pyrrhonism Or Academic Skepticism? Friedrich Wilhelm Bierling’S ‘Reasonable Doubt’ In The Commentatio De Pyrrhonismo Historico (1724), Anton Matytsin

Anton Matytsin

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

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

Re-Reading Anscombe On 'I', Robert J. Stainton

Robert J. Stainton

An Anscombean Reference For I?, Andrew Botterell, Robert J. Stainton

Robert J. Stainton

No abstract provided.

Buddhism And Zhu Xi’S Epistemology, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Tian As Cosmos In Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, And Their Aftermath, David Ingram

David Ingram

Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20th Century closely tracked developments that were occurring in continental philosophy during this period. This should not surprise us. Aside from the fertile communication between these ostensibly separate traditions, both were responding to problems associated with the rise of mass society. Rabid nationalism, corporate statism, and totalitarianism (Left and Right) posed a profound challenge to the idealistic rationalism of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies. The decline of the individual – classically conceived by the 18th-century Enlightenment as a self-determining agent – provoked strong reactions. While some philosophical tendencies sought to re-conceive …

Epicurus, Sententia Vaticana Xxiii, Eric A. Brown

Eric A. Brown

Sententia Vaticana 23, as usually emended, says that every friendship is choiceworthy for its own sake. I argue that this sentence should not be attributed to Epicurus. No other evidence supports the attribution of this view to Epicurus, and much other evidence counts strongly against it. It would be better to reject the emendation, so that the sentence says, in somewhat awkward but not entirely unprecedented Greek, that every friendship is by itself a virtue, or to attribute the emended sentence not to Epicurus but to the later, more timid Epicureans who, according to Cicero, conceded more value to friendship …

Advising The Cosmopolis, Eric A. Brown

Eric A. Brown

Plutarch charges that Stoic theory is inconsistent with Stoic political engagement no matter what they decide to do, because the Stoics' endorsement of the political life is inconsistent with their cosmopolitan rejection of ordinary politics (Stoic.rep., ab init.). Drawing on evidence from Chrysippus and Seneca, I develop an argument that answers this charge, and I draw out two interesting implications of the argument. The first implication is for scholars of ancient Stoicism who like to say that Stoicism is apolitical. The argument I reconstruct turns on the political importance of the practice of giving and taking advice, and in this …

Dancing Philosophy: What Happens To Philosophy When Considered From The Point Of View Of A Dancer, Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

Western philosophical aesthetics tends to answer the question, “What is art?” by starting with the perspective of the art appreciator. What does the spectator perceive in the artistic entity at issue? For example, are these properties formal and tangible, an arrangement of lines and colors as provided by Clive Bell’s theory of significant form? Are they contextual—are they, for example, the expression of the experience of a particular culture? Or are these properties relational in the sense of being a comment on or response to another art-historical movement, such as Cubism?

Starting from this perspective, the methodology tends to begin …

Review: 'Immovable Laws, Irresistible Rights: Natural Law, Moral Rights, And Feminist Ethics', Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

This collection of Pierce's essays traces the evolution of her thinking about natural law theory--and, more broadly, about talk of "natures" as normatively significant--over a period of 30 years. We see her move from a wholesale rejection of such talk, in her influential 1971 piece "Natural Law Language and Women," to a qualified admission that it can have its liberatory uses. Yet she maintains throughout that, progressive potential or no, natural law is far inferior to Kantian notions of rights and autonomy as a foundation for ethical thought.

From Jekyll To Hyde: The Grooming Of Male Pornography Consumers, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

Robert Jensen has observed that "the danger of pornography is heightened exactly because it is only one part of a sexist system and because the message it carries about sexuality is reinforced elsewhere" (2007a: 103). In a culture that normalizes male sexual aggression against females in a variety of contexts, the typical consumer is pre-groomed to accept such aggression before he ever begins using pornography. In this article, I argue that many pornography consumers undergo further and more specific grooming as they acclimate to rougher and more openly sadistic materials. This grooming is a co-operative effort involving both the industry …

Pornography, Contemporary-Mainstream, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

Once a relatively small‐niche market, pornography in recent years has become a mainstream, technologically sophisticated multi‐billion‐dollar industry, one that plays a significant role in shaping our ideas about gender and sexuality. Like many complex and politically contested concepts, pornography can be defined in a number of different ways. While some defined pornography simply as any sexually explicit written or graphic material, others include additional criteria, such as that the material be produced for the purpose of sexually arousing its audience or that the material convey certain (typically sexist and degrading) ideas and attitudes about women, men, and sexuality. While these …

Global Feminist Ethics: Feminist Ethics And Social Theory, Rebecca Whisnant, Peggy Desautels

Rebecca Whisnant

This volume contains four sections, the first of which examines some of the special moral concerns that arise from assigning distinct activities and responsibilities to women and men respectively. It is difficult to argue against the view that women and not men are the birth-givers. But it is also true that death rates tied to pregnancy and birth-giving are unacceptably high in developing countries. Are women better off giving birth in hospitals with attending physicians (often male) or in homes with attending midwives (usually female)? Which approach should be "exported" to the developing world?

In the first chapter, "Exporting Childbirth," …

Review: 'Challenging Liberalism: Feminism As Political Critique', Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

In Challenging Liberalism: Feminism as Political Critique, Lisa Schwartzman brings her sharp interpretive and critical perspective to bear on the vexed relationship between feminism and liberal political philosophy. Noting (as have others before her) that the latter's central values -- such as autonomy, individual rights, and equality -- are both indispensable to and sometimes problematic for feminism, Schwartzman argues that these values must be reinterpreted in light of the insights gained from an alternative, non-liberal, and specifically feminist philosophical methodology. In this book, she explains why such an alternative methodology is needed, outlines some of its distinctive features, and …

'But What About Feminist Porn?' Examining The Work Of Tristan Taormino, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

This article examines the work of Tristan Taormino, a prominent self-described feminist pornographer, in order to illustrate themes and commitments common among those who produce, perform in, and/or support feminist pornography. I argue that her work is burdened by thin and limited conceptions of feminism, authenticity, and sexual ethics, as well as by the profit-based exigencies of producing “feminist porn” within the mainstream pornography industry. I conclude that, if indeed feminist pornography is possible, Taormino’s work falls far short of the mark. Public Health Significance Statement: This study suggests that Taormino’s pornographic films are unlikely to have salutary effects on …

Feminist Perspectives On Rape, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

Although the proper definition of rape is itself a matter of some dispute, rape is generally understood to involve sexual penetration of a person by force and/or without that person's consent. Rape is committed overwhelmingly by men and boys, usually against women and girls, and sometimes against other men and boys. (For the most part, this entry will assume male perpetrators and female victims.)

Virtually all feminists agree that rape is a grave wrong, one too often ignored, mischaracterized, and legitimized. Feminists differ, however, about how the crime of rape is best understood, and about how rape should be combated …

Philosophers On Prostitution’S Decriminalization, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

The decriminalization of sex work is currently being discussed around the world. Daily Nous invited a number of philosophers to join this public discussion here, with brief contributions that clarify some of its central issues and disputes. The idea of the “Philosophers On” series is to prompt further discussion among philosophers about issues and events of current public interest, and also to explore the ways in which philosophers can add, with their characteristically insightful and careful modes of thinking, to the public conversation.

Pornography And Humiliation, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

In discussions about pornography, the boundary of the harmful and unacceptable is, for many, the lack of consent. But my brief analysis here shows that this is a dangerous simplification. Images of women who accept and even welcome their own humiliation and degradation are deeply destructive, not only for the women portrayed, but for women in general.

Kant And The Logic Of Aristotle, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

In the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant offers his best-known—indeed, notorious—remark about Aristotle's logic:

• Since Aristotle . . . logic has not been able to advance a single step, and is thus to all appearance a closed and completed doctrine (Bviii).1

I wish to explore here the following question: is Kant in fact saying that since Aristotle, there need be no more concern about logic as a discipline or a field of study, that Aristotle (with some minor embellishments, in terms of presentation) is the last word in logic? Certainly that is how …

Kant And The Logic Of Aristotle, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

Kant’s famous remark that Aristotle’s logic presents a “closed and completed doctine” has been traditionally interpreted, both by philosophers and historians of logic, as claiming that Aristotle provides the last word in logic. Given the later developments of Leibniz, Frege, Peirce, and others, such an interpretation paints Kant’s conception of logic as remarkably naive and historically uninformed. I argue here that Kant’s understanding of logic, and its history, is considerably more sophisticated than he has traditionally been given credit for, and that his remark tells us much more about Kant’s conception of logic, as a set of rules that are …

Teaching The Bill Of Rights In China, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

Recently, I was asked if I was interested in teaching a relatively short course on a topic of my choosing at Nanjing University in Nanjing, People's Republic of China. I agreed, and designed a course called "American Political Theory" to be taught three days a week for five weeks. Each class session would meet for two hours. China has changed a great deal over the last few decades, of course. That change continues, and the pace of that change continues to accelerate. While I was in Nanjing, the government announced China's seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit GDP growth; soon after, …

Kant And Feminism, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

The juxtaposition of Kant's name with "feminism" seems almost designed to invite scorn and indignation. As we will soon see, throughout his career Kant made a variety of noxious and distasteful comments about women. As we will also see, Kant has been regarded, with Descartes, as the philosopher chiefly responsible for providing modern Western philosophy with a picture of reason that has been employed in a variety of ways oppressive to women. Yet the reader of Kant's works in practical philosophy, specifically the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, could very well harbor a …

Cover Songs: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

The notion of a “cover song” is central to an understanding of contemporary popular music, and has certainly received its share of attention in writing about contemporary music, from the mainstream press to slightly more technical ethnomusicological studies such as “Cross-Cultural ‘Countries’: Covers, Conjuncture, and the Whiff of Nashville in Música Sertaneja (Brazilian Commercial Country Music)” (Dent, 2005). In many major U.S. cities, musicians make a living in “cover” bands, recreating the music of well-known groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, U 2, the Who, ABBA, the Dave Matthews Band, the Grateful Dead, and others. Consumers …

Bonjour, Kant, And The 'A Priori', Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

In his 1985 The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Laurence BonJour presented a compelling and articulate defense of a coherence theory of knowledge. Following what he called a “dialectical” strategy, he began by indicating the central issue at stake: the justification of empirical knowledge claims. He then argued that no available foundationalist or coherentist account could provide that justification, and that all such attempts either end in sheer dogmatism, or succumb to skepticism. After a lengthy critical discussion, he turned to developing a argument for his own view, combining a correspondence theory of truth with a coherence theory of justification. He …

Fred Bartenstein: The Right Place At The Right Time, Kurt Mosser

Kurt Mosser

Fred Bartenstein has always seemed to find himself perfectly situated to pursue his life-long interest in bluegrass music – as he puts it, “I’ve always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.” This luck has allowed him to find bluegrass in the most surprising places, whether at a private day school in New Jersey, or at Harvard University in the late 1960s. It has also meant that, among other things, he found himself attending the first bluegrass festival in Fincastle, Va., becoming a bluegrass DJ at the age of 16, starting Muleskinner News magazine, and playing …

The Ethiopian Student Movement: A Rejoinder To Bahru Zewde’S The Quest For Socialist Utopia, Messay Kebede

Messay Kebede

My intention is not to defend the right of philosophers to theorize on social movements and changes; nor is it to defend the value of my work against Bahru’s attacks. Rather, I want to show that his criticisms of my book are either contradictory or express an inability to analyze from a level surpassing mere narration. In thus exposing the theoretical poverty of Bahru’s book, as well as the inconsistency of his project of shielding the student movement from criticism, I will explicate how and why Bahru intentionally misreads my book. I add that what Bahru calls “dismissive” is actually …