Continental Philosophy Commons^™

"A Self-Propelling Wheel": Prefigured Recurrence In Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy, Jared R. Mcswain

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

One of Friedrich Nietzsche’s central doctrines, the doctrine of eternal recurrence, asks us to consider how we would feel if we had to repeat our lives exactly as we have lived them. Rather than despair at this possibility, Nietzsche describes the kind of attitude we would adopt if we desired nothing more. He labels such an attitude as “Dionysian”: we rejoice in every pain and every joy that has colored our lives and use them as creative fodder for the future. This identification links the doctrine to Nietzsche’s earlier work on aesthetics, The Birth of Tragedy, where he describes the …

Interpreting Contemporary Pilgrimage As Spiritual Journey Or Aesthetic Tourism Along The Appalachian Trail, Kip Redick

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage and tourism can be interpreted as overlapping travel experiences. Given all the changes mass transportation and communication technologies have brought, understanding the phenomenon of pilgrimage becomes fraught with ambiguity. Is pilgrimage better understood as a tourist excursion that affords instances of religious devotion? Pilgrimage routes and long distance scenic trails have their aesthetic appeal, which pilgrims and tourists enjoy. Is there a difference in the way these two groups walk these trails that become manifest through aesthetic experiences and encounters? Looking at long distance hiking on the Appalachian Trail as spiritual journey opens up a reinterpretation of both pilgrimage …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Semantic Realism And Historicity: Brandom, Habermas And Hegel, Norman Schultz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis of this dissertation is that Habermas’ universal pragmatic and the recent neo-pragmatist semantic realism of Brandom, aimed at bridging the divide, are both based on misinterpretations of Hegel. Both approaches misunderstand the central Hegelian idea of historicity, and thus fail to establish a correct connection to Hegel. The aim of the dissertation is to point to and sketch Hegel’s idea of historicity. As part of the discussion, I will defend the controversial thesis that Hegel did not have a system, but rather a historical account of how we develop knowledge under the historical conditions of society. Hegel, unlike …

On Hypothetical Contracts, Karim Barakat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation develops a critique of Rawlsian social contract theory by arguing that the normative component of democratic practices must be grounded in nonpolitical reasons. With John Rawls’s rights-based approach, social contract theory has strongly resurfaced by focusing on consent as the basic condition for the formation of a just state. The emphasis on agreement leads Rawls to exclude historical, religious, or philosophical reasons from justifying the ideal conception of justice. Consequently, Rawls completely separates politics from any nonpolitical grounding. I argue, however that Rawls’s project cannot account for its normative commitments unless it makes use of a nonpolitical ground. …

The Logic Of Sexuation In Deleuze And Lacan, Matthew Lovett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In The Logic of Sexuation in Deleuze and Lacan, I argue for an account of sexual difference that responds to a tension in feminist philosophy, namely, the problem of the ontological status of the sexed body. In so doing, I turn to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Lacan. I argue that, rather than being antithetical, the two can be productively read together, in particular with regard to this very question. Ultimately basing my reading in the Deleuzian passive syntheses and dynamic geneses of Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense as well as in Lacan’s twentieth …

C.S. Lewis And Christian Postmodernism: Word, Image, And Beyond. Kyoko Yuasa, Peter G. Epps

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In C. S. Lewis and Christian Postmodernism, Kyoko Yuasa has managed to advance the cause of careful reading and discussion of Lewis’s novels as contemporary cultural artifacts, rather than mere ciphers for apologetics or mere fluff for children, for both Japanese and American audiences. This is no mean feat, not only in terms of translation but also in terms of trans-Pacific discourse, and Yuasa deserves great credit for the accomplishment. Her close reading of several of Lewis’s major fiction works in a comparative frame she derives from works by Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing, and John Fowles yields …

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.

Inventing An Ethics: Existentialism And Engagement Through Literature, Michael Foster Wickham

LSU Master's Theses

The existentialist ethics of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir offers a unique perspective that challenges a traditional, normative picture that has been dominant throughout the history of ethical thinking and continues to dominate in contemporary discourse. The perspective in question refuses to rely on essence to ground its positions, opting instead to focus on the contingency of the subject and the interpersonal as being fundamental in the invention of moral values and ethical practices. This thesis looks to – in the first chapter – explore the relationship between the subjective and the interpersonal through a discussion of Heidegger’s Mitsein …

Emmanuel Levinas And The Meaning Of Ecological Responsibility, Joe Matthew Larios

LSU Master's Theses

Recent work in eco-phenomenology has often tried to find a way to situate Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy in a way that would be productive for environmental ethical concerns. This has often proved difficult due to the anthropocentrism of Levinas’s philosophy and the sometimes inconsistent interpretations of what the face of the Other signifies and whether it should be understood as perceptually present to the one who “sees” it in any way. This, combined with a general lack of engagement with Levinas’s writings on politics, has often made an ecological interpretation of Levinas difficult or awkward.

In this thesis, I try …

The Human 'As-If'-Function And Its Loss In Schizophrenia, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Thinking Too Much. The Psychopathy Of Hyperreflexivity, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Body Memory And The Unconscious, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Liberal Cynicism, Its Dangers, And A Cure, William H. Barnes

Philosophy ETDs

Extreme Liberal Cynicism is a product of mourning, guilt, and the experience of powerlessness stemming from the trauma of holding liberal investments in a world in which they rarely flourish, in which they are perceived to have failed, and in which they are vulnerable to ideology critique. Consequently, the cynic is torn between liberal ideals and the obstacles to their success. This can compel the Liberal Cynic to extremes, fantasizing invulnerability through disavowing the efficacy of its constitutive ideals. This is achieved via a reified hopelessness which eclipses trauma, guilt, and disempowerment. Despite serving an immediately ameliorative purpose this leaves …

Heidegger And Hölderlin On Aether And Life, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

"Betwixt The World Destroyed And World Restored": Subjectivity And Paradisal Recovery In John Milton's Late Poems, Chihping Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study focuses on the discovery of subjectivity through the recovery of lost paradise in Milton’s late poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This theme revolves around the tension between the affective and the empirical, which also configure the spheres of the sacred and the profane. I explore how the irresistibly emancipatory impulse of recovering lost paradise compels Miltonic subjects to seek ways to return to their originary state or the divine ensemble. During this process, the subject is engaged with his own incapacity or privation while reaching into the sphere of unknown potentiality. In …

Rescinding Rancière: An Investigation Into The Conservative Tendencies Of A Leading Proponent Of Radical Democracy, And A Reconstruction Of The Participatory Democracy Of Ancient Athens, Tyler J. Olsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis advances a critique of the political theory of Jacques Rancière, focusing on the problems that arise as a result of its rigid form combined with its narrow content. I argue that Rancière gets caught in a practice of immanent critique that merely presupposes bourgeois abstract right; and that his ontological and pragmatic commitments prohibit him from projecting a norm that would transcend the liberal order. I trace these ontological and pragmatic commitments in detail by examining the intellectual milieu from which Rancière’s project emerged, the post-foundational political philosophy of the 1980s, with particular attention given to Claude Lefort. …

Francis Wolff’S Flawed Philosophical Defense Of Bullfighting, Gabriel Andrade

Between the Species

As a result of Catalonia’s ban of bullfighting in 2011, in Spain there has been a renowned interest in the ethical debate about bullfighting. Most defenders of bullfighting are Spaniards, but the most systematic is French philosopher Francis Wolff. In this article, I review Wolff’s most persistent arguments in favor of bullfighting, and I offer my own refutations. Wolff argues bullfighting is not torture, bulls do not suffer, bulls must die, and bullfighting tradition must be preserved. All of these claims are dubious, as they are based on shaky assumptions and fallacious reasoning.

On Guenther Anders, Political Media Theory, And Nuclear Violence, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

• Guenther Anders was a philosopher concerned with the political and social implications of power, both as expressed in the media and its tendency to elide the citizenry and thus the very possibility of democracy and the political implications of our participation in our own subjugation in the image of modern social media beginning with radio and television. Anders was particularly concerned with two bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, and he was just as concerned with the so-called ‘peaceful’ uses of nuclear power, i.e., what he named our apocalypse-blindness and the urgency of violence. To …

Continuum And Temporality, Gerard Kuperus

Animal Sentience

I fully support the continuum proposed in the target article and argue along the same lines that we should be suspicious of drawing any strict borders between human and non-human animals. Since we can say very little with absolute certainty about human intentions regarding suicide, we have no certainty about the intentions of non-human animals. Although I am very sympathetic to Peña-Guzmán’s overall argument, I suggest that time could be taken into consideration as well.