History of Philosophy Commons^™

Towards A Critical Philosophy Of Science: Continental Beginnings And Bugbears, Whigs, And Waterbears, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not – excluding not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger but also Husserl just to the extent that continental philosophy of science tends to depart from a …

Ceaselessly Testing The Good Of Death, Danielle A. Layne

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The hope Socrates invokes during his defence becomes a statement to be tested and corroborated, and thus a catalyst for discovery rather than a valueless rejection of all arguments, beliefs or in Socratic terms “hopes.” In his prison cell Socrates tests the propositions in the Apology that death may be a good and in the Phaedo these arguments affirm Socrates’ hope, making it the more valuable belief. Thus since no man willing chooses evil, a valueless not knowing, over the good, the value-laden hope regardless of not-knowing, Socrates commits himself to the “great perhaps” of the immortality of the soul. …

A Religious Revolution? How Socrates' Theology Undermined The Practice Of Sacrifice, Anna Lannstrom

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Mark McPherran and Gregory Vlastos argue that Socrates’ theology threatened Athenian sacrificial practices because it rejected the do ut des principle (aka the principle of reciprocity). I argue that their arguments are flawed because they assume that the Athenians understood sacrifice as something like a commercial transaction. Drawing upon scholarship in anthropology and religious studies, I argue that we need to revise that understanding of sacrifice and that, once we do, McPherran’s and Vlastos’ arguments no longer show that Socrates would have been a significant threat to the practice of sacrifice. Finally, I argue that McPherran’s Socrates does undermine sacrifice, …

Sagp Newsletter 2010/11.1 East Philol, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sagp/Ssips 2010 Program, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Critique Of The Historiographical Construal Of America As A Christian Nation, John David Wilsey

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Christian America thesis has grown in popularity over the past thirty years. This essay will critique the Christian America thesis, and instead offer the assertion that America was founded as a nation with religious liberty. Six lines of critique of the Christian America thesis will be presented, and the essay will attempt to show the significance of religious freedom in the founding. America‘s history points to a mixture of sacred and secular ideas. The nation is defined more realistically by religious freedom rather than a Christian identity. Evangelicals can approach those who do not share their faith commitment in …

Teaching The Bill Of Rights In China, Kurt Mosser

Philosophy Faculty Publications

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, …

Ex Aliquo Nihil: Nietzsche On Science And Modern Nihilism. Acpq, 84-2 (Spring 2010): 231-256., Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

This essay explores the nihilistic coincidence of the ascetic ideal and Nietzsche’s localization of science in the conceptual world of anarchic socialism as Nietzsche indicts the uncritical convictions of modern science by way of a critique of the causa sui, questioning both religion and the enlightenment as well as both free and unfree will and condemning the “poor philology” enshrined in the language of the “laws” of nature. Reviewing the history of philosophical nihilism in the context of Nietzsche’s “tragic knowledge” along with political readings of nihilism, willing nothing rather than not willing at all, today’s this-worldly and very planetary …

Aristotle On Learning In De Anima Ii.5, John F. Bowin

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Just as the coming to be of a substance may be described as either an extended process or the completion of an extended process depending on whether it is described as the coming to be of the composite or of the individual form, so the process of learning may be described as either an extended process or the completion of an extended process depending on whether it is described as the oscillation between states of truth and error or as the ‘settling down’ or cessation of this oscillation at the stage where knowledge has become a stable disposition (hexis). And …

Intelligible Matter In Aristotle, John Thorp

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The oxymoronic phrase ‘intelligible matter’ occurs three times in Aristotle. In two passages it has the same meaning; in the third the meaning seems radically different. This gives the impression that the Aristotelian language of metaphysics is distressingly slack. This paper argues, against the nearly unanimous voice of two millennia of commentaries, that ‘intelligible matter’ has the same meaning in all three loci. In doing so it develops a capital distinction that tightens up the apparatus of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Causation, Agency, And Law In Antiphon: On Some Subtleties In The Second Tetralogy, Joel Mann

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

That no one can or should be convicted in a law court on pollution charges is, I suggest, the implicit message of Antiphon’s second Tetralogy. More than a mere rhetorical exercise, Antiphon offers us a rational and compelling critique of religious law and of legal responsibility generally. In so doing, he anticipates modern puzzles in the philosophy of law as well as some of their more sophisticated solutions. A work not only of ingenious skepticism but also of considerable subtlety, the second Tetralogy should be considered the product of a philosopher who made perhaps the most substantial extant contribution to …

Sagp Newsletter 2009/10.4 Pac, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

What Aristotle Should Have Said About Megalopsychia, May Sim

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Megalopsychia (the greatness of soul) also translated as pride, or magnanimity, is a virtue Aristotle attributes to the good person regarding his claim to be worthy of great things, namely, honor. Despite this definition, commentators like C. Rowe, H. Curzer, R. Polansky and J. Stover, all chose to de-emphasize the centrality of honor in Aristotle’s definition of megalopsychia. Aristotle’s assertion that honor is the greatest external good also seems to be in tension with megalopsychia as a virtue that is to be pursued for its own sake, not to mention its tension with his remark that friendship is the greatest …

Against Hedonist Interpretations Of Plato's Protagoras, J. Clerk Shaw

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper, I adapt one of the pro-hedonist strategies to anti-hedonist ends. Just as some prohedonists insist that Plato’s arguments against hedonism elsewhere do not touch the actual theory found in the Protagoras (again, PH), I argue that the most natural reading of PH is inconsistent with views found in purportedly earlier dialogues (especially the Apology and Crito) as well as in purportedly later dialogues (such as the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic). In section 1, I argue that PH focuses entirely on bodily goods and bads.11 Then, in section 2, I argue that this makes the relationship between virtue …

Sagp Newsletter 2009/10.3 (Central Division), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Empirical And Dialogical Proofs Of God's Existence In Laws 10, Lewis Trelawny-Cassity

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Book 10 of the Laws is intended to prove that the gods exist, care for us, and are not persuaded by bribes (885b7-9). The arguments put forward concerning the gods in Book 10 are described as “our noblest and best prelude (kalliston te kai ariston prooimion) on behalf of the laws” (887c1). In this paper I want to investigate how Plato establishes the fact that nous, “god, in the correct sense, for the gods” (897b2), exists. Some scholars have noted the “empirical” character of Plato’s arguments for the existence of god in Laws 10. While empirical facts do provide an …

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

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20^th 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 …

Kierkegaard On Indirect Communication, The Crowd, And A Monstrous Illusion, Antony Aumann

Faculty Works

Following the pattern set by the early German Romantics, Kierkegaard conveys many of his insights through literature rather than academic prose. What makes him a valuable member of this tradition is the theory he develops to support it, his so-called “theory of indirect communication.” The most exciting aspect of this theory concerns the alleged importance of indirect communication: Kierkegaard claims that there are some projects only it can accomplish. This paper provides a critical account of two arguments Kierkegaard offers in defense of this claim. The first argument is that he needs to use indirect communication in order to discourage …

Aesthetics And The Philosophy Of Art, 1840-1900, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The question can be raised whether the category or discipline of philosophical aesthetics existed before the eighteenth century. Unlike "logic:' "ethics:' and "physics:' a traditional Stoic division of philosophy with great staying power, "aesthetics" is clearly a product of modernity. As Paul O. Kristeller demonstrated in "The Modern System of the Arts:' it was in the eighteenth century that the idea of the aesthetic as a distinctive human capacity and the parallel consolidation of the notion of the fine arts crystallized in the writings of (mostly) French, German, and English philosophers and critics. The modern concepts of art and aesthetics …

Antinuclear Power Protests In The United States, Danielle Poe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The history of nuclear power in the United States began with the top-secret Manhattan Project (1942-1946), in which the first atomic bomb was produced and used in 1945 against Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to the American Nuclear Society, a nuclear power industry association, the first U.S. city to use nuclear power for electricity was Arco, Idaho, in 1955. As of 2007, the United States had 104 operational nuclear power reactors, one nuclear power reactor under construction, and twenty-eight closed nuclear power reactors.

Between 1945, when the world became aware of the destructive power of atomic energy, and today, …

Feminism, Cultural Violence Of, Danielle Poe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

For most, if not all, self-defined feminists, feminism means support for equality between women and men. The difficulty with this definition, though, is determining what one means by "equality," by "women and men," and by "sex" and "gender." For some feminists, equality requires that differences between women and men be acknowledged and valued. For other feminists, equality means that the category "human" encompasses women and men and that the differences within a sex are greater than differences between the sexes.

Feminists also differ on what they mean by "women" and "men"; these terms can be defined biologically, genetically, culturally, religiously, …

A Problem For The Political Reading Of Plato's Republic, Mason Marshall

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

On one of the most common readings of the Republic, Plato means for us to agree with Socrates and his interlocutors that their aristocratic city is the just polis. For convenience, I call this the political reading. It is no wonder, of course, that this interpretation is as common as it is, since it might be one of the most natural interpretations of the Republic. I argue, though, that it faces a serious problem: Socrates and his interlocutors’ argument for the justice of the aristocratic city has certain deficits, and—more important—there is considerable evidence that Plato was aware of at …

Review: God's Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? Insights From The Bible And The Early Church, Michael S. Jones

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Rekindling Ashes Of The Dharma And The Formation Of Modern Tibetan Studies: The Busy Life Of Alak Tseten Zhabdrung, Nicole Willock

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Considered one of the three great scholars¹ of twentieth century Tibet,² Alak Tseten Zhabdrung Jigmé Rigpé Lodrö (A lags Tshe tan Zhabs drung 'Jigs med rig pa'i blo gros 1910-1985) is credited with regenerating many aspects of Tibetan culture at a time of unprecedented socio-political change. Despite enduring twelve years in prison, Alak Tseten Zhabdrung energetically reclaimed his classical education to further transmit nearly all the traditional fields of knowledge including language, poetry, history, astronomy, calligraphy, and Buddhist philosophy.

Lucian Blaga On The Nature Of God, Michael S. Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Enlightenment And The Authority Of Scripture, Kevin Twain Lowery

Faculty Scholarship – Theology

Provides an historical overview of the concept of the authority of Scripture, emphasizing the impact of developments since the Enlightenment. Recommends an approach to Scripture that: allows scholarship to inform us about context and the complexities of authorship, recognizes that everything is judged by reason, bases belief on truth, and integrates scripture with other sources of knowledge.