Continental Philosophy Commons^™

Speak Now To Forever Hold Your Piece: On Aesthetic Ownership And Interpretation, Spencer Heitman

Honors Theses

The primary objectives of this research are to describe ways in the interpretation of art-objects is shaped by their ownership and to endorse fan culture participation as a mechanism through which people might be led to aesthetic value. This analysis shall be grounded in an understanding of trust and shall point the reader toward care, noting that these phenomena positively correlate and help interpreters to receive meaning of more abundance and depth. It will be initially claimed that art interpretation is itself contribution to aesthetic dialogue with artists. This claim is grounded in an understanding of art’s communicative capacities and …

Social Pathologies As Educational Injustices, Esther Neuhann

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

For Axel Honneth, not all social problems can be understood as injustices. Therefore, he introduces the additional diagnostic concept of social pathology. In his book Freedom’s Right (FR), it is defined as an accumulation of persons’ inability to adequately participate in social institutions due to misunderstanding them. In contrast, injustices consist in the denial of access to social institutions for certain groups. According to the aim of presenting an ‘extended’ theory of justice in FR, Honneth intends to reconstruct all institutions necessary for realizing individual freedom in a liberal-democratic society. Like in the historical model of his project (Hegel’s Elements …

"Foul Death, Bitter Death": On Ivan Illich's Amicus Mortis, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

An Emergentist Critique Of The Contract Theory Of The State Of Nature, With A Consideration On Two Types Of Polity And Their Origins., Ryan A. Apperson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

The theories of the state of nature provided by the political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have made a significant impact in the general conceptions of the origin of states. Though there are many critical differences in the conceptions of the state of nature between each in their seminal works, they both possess of a view of states that is rational and constructivist.

In this paper, I use the game theory concepts of the coordination game, collective action problem, and focal point to illustrate a lacuna in this rational and constructivist conception of the origin of states, as their …

Reflections On The Heuristic Power Of Contemplative Art In Teaching And Research, Patricia Morgan

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

In this article I discuss the heuristic power of combining contemplative and creative practices using different stages of my research into learning through contemplation. This began with a realisation I had, in my first meditation retreat, about the similarities between creative and contemplative consciousness. It initiated twenty-three years of applied and theoretical research that started with contemplative art workshops I ran in rehabilitation centres. In PhD research that followed I tested a hypothesis of learning through contemplation founded on the concept of an elemental ground of learning that contained an integrating force I termed the feeling nexus. In later …

Menetekel: Ishmael's Black Whale And The Semiotics Of Doom, Todd Tyner Cronkhite

English Language and Literature ETDs

This study employs the narrator of Moby Dick, Ishmael, as a focal critic to interpret several potential examples of ominous writing on the wall, or menetekel. It concludes that the message of such writing, owing primarily to its irrevocably deictic relationship with the surface it is written on, is fundamentally apocalyptic in nature, regardless of its explicit content. The physical walls of the “kingdom” are incorporated into the grammar of the menetekel as object, so that its elemental message, “I was here,” becomes not only an admission of criminal trespass, but also a direct threat to the current order and …

Beyond Compulsion: Félix Ravaisson's Conception Of Habit, Christopher Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

In opposition to a tendency present within the history of Western philosophy to regard ‘habit’ as a conservative force (represented by figures including Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant), contemporary philosophers working on habit (including Clare Carlisle and Catherine Malabou) have marshaled the thought of nineteenth century French philosopher Félix Ravaisson. With recourse to the ‘double law of habit,’ Ravaisson, in his 1838 doctoral thesis, depicts habit as both resistance and receptivity to change. I begin, in Chapter One, with a brief overview of the aforementioned negative evaluations of habit, as surveyed separately by Carlisle and Malabou. As these contemporary philosophers observe, …

The Possibility Of Relationships With Others, Joshua Severud

LSU Master's Theses

Levinas offers a rich philosophical insight into the kind of responsibility and ethics that we must have for the Other. This involves a certain conception of what it means to be hospitable which turns out to be impossible. In order to talk about how this impossible relationship can occur, I use Heidegger’s description of the existential Being-with structure and Derrida’s conception of the event in order to make sense of how this Levinasian relationship can possibly exist in spite of—or thanks to—its impossibility.

The Nature And Role Of Phenomenology In Hegel And Heidegger, Gabriel W. Connor

LSU Master's Theses

In this work I compare Hegel and Heidegger’s conception of phenomenology and its role in their thinking. Though these two thinkers are not often examined from this angle, and though there is controversy surrounding just how phenomenological each thinker might actually be, an examination of the two thinkers in this regard serves to identify interesting connections between Hegel and Heidegger while also raising questions about phenomenology in general. In short, I seek to establish that phenomenology in both Hegel and Heidegger is not adequately understood unless it is placed in the context of each thinker’s conception of human freedom along …

Bergson On Poetics: Philosophy, Literature And Science, Michel Dalissier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this paper, I analyze Henri Bergson’s insightful and contrasted vision of poetry. First, I show in what sense Bergson sympathizes with the idea that the poet must be credited to surpass the novelist in offering to us an unparalleled emotional apprehension of the world. Second, I nonetheless underline how Bergson grants the product of the poet, i.e., the poem itself, a problematic linguistic status, inasmuch as the focus of his analysis shifts from an intersubjective poetical apprehension of feelings to their individual poetic appreciation, or from the spiritual dimension of poetry to its material dimension. Third, I further suggest …

Filling The Vacant Space: A Close Reading Of Kant’S Dialectic Of Pure Practical Reason, Mae Ashraf Ali Saafan

Theses and Dissertations

The main aim of this thesis is to explore Kant’s central notion of rational belief. Kant’s account of rational belief could be viewed as the ground on which rational moral agents assent to propositions that enable them to avoid any practical incoherence as they engage in their moral duty.

The paper will offer a close reading of the dialectic of pure practical reason, particularly the doctrine of the postulates of practical reason. In this doctrine, Kant argues that although there is no theoretical proof for or against freedom, God, and the immortality of the soul, rational moral agents ought to …

Everybody Wants To Be A Fascist Online: Psychoanalysis And The Digital Architecture Of Fascism, Anthony Faramelli, Imogen Piper

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Félix Guattari and Franco Berardi have both argued that media ecologies and psychic ecologies are intimately intertwined and as such, any exploration of the collective unconscious must engage with how the mind is formed with and through media. This understanding of networks of interdependence necessitates an exploration of how platformization has impacted users” collective psyche. Drawing from psychosocial theory, psychoanalysis and the work of Félix Guattari, this article analizes the micropolitics of desire of digital platforms, with an explicit focus on how algorithmic structures amplify extreme Right content, allowing fascisms to metastasis throughout digital spaces. It will first examine the …

Retranslation And Interpellation, Andrew Brooks

Living in Languages

No abstract provided.

Gnosticism, Political Theory And Apocalypse: Jacob Taubes And Günther Anders, Tracy Strong And Carl Schmitt, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Beginning with Jacob Taubes and Günther Anders on eschatology, apocalypse and political theology, including Saint Paul and Frankfurt School critical theory along with bombs and power plants (energy/climate), this essay parallels a re-reading of Tracy B. Strong’s political reading of Nietzsche on Jesus (and love) with Taubes, Anders and Carl Schmitt on politics (and technology). Highlighted throughout is the politically charged (and inherently esoteric) context of Gnosticism for philosophy and theory for Taubes but also for Anders.

The Flaneur In The Borsig Locomotive Works: Walter Benjamin, The Berlin Radio Youth Hour, And Sound As Pedagogy, Kevin S. Amidon

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

Walter Benjamin’s radio addresses for young people remain a comparatively neglected part of his work. New scholarship and translations have begun to address this, however. This arti- cle argues that the radio addresses, and particularly the address on the Borsig locomotive and machine works, deserve a prominent place within the critical and intellectual trajectory of Ben- jamin’s career. A close reading of “Borsig” demonstrates how the addresses model the modes of experience mediated by and through Benjamin’s master figure of the flaneur and generate the possibility for a historical pedagogy adequate to modernity. In the radio addresses, in general, and …

The Gay Science: Power On The Body, Population, And Psyche, Nicola Augustyn

CMC Senior Theses

Michel Foucault is a philosopher of power who left behind a legacy of ideas that continue to inspire scholars today. His conceptualization of power is not limited to the figures of kings, monarchs, or the sovereign state. Rather, he regards power as a productive force that shapes subjectivity, manufactures knowledge, and engenders the truth in a particular historical context. In this thesis, I aim to provide a comprehensive account of Foucault’s analysis of power, starting with his refutation of the “repressive hypothesis” that challenges the predominant view of centralized top-down power. Then, I present Foucault’s proposal for redefining power as …

Pluralistic Ethical Personalism, Qifan Hu

Honors Theses

In the thesis, I sketch out a general outline for a pluralistic, personalist theory of ethics. This theory intends to capture the phenomenon that our life experience is saturated with ethical and other kinds of values; and it also emphasizes the idea that each ethical agent, or human being, has a unique ethical project that is understandable in light of various ethical values.

From Building To Dwelling: Unfolding Infinity Through Bioregional Fulfillment, Sanjana Bhatnagar

Pitzer Senior Theses

The causes of anthropogenic climate change touch every feature of our modern-day existences. Approaches to sustainability tend to focus on material actions, but unsustainable practices are guided by an ontological orientation of individuality and human exceptionalism. This thesis provides an alternate account of being that decenters individuality through weaving the metaphysics of Fazang of the Huayan School of Mahayana Buddhism with the metaphysics of Martin Heidegger. To encompass the whole of the relational network that constitutes and conditionally defines our existence, I expand Heidegger’s account of locales as relational sites which are put forth solely by humans to an account …

What Difference Does It Make? Early Reception Stories About Luce Irigaray's Writing On Divine Women, Elsa Kunz

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This paper examines numerous pre-texts in Anglo-American feminist theology and critical theory seminal to the establishment of feminist philosophy of religion as a distinct academic discipline. Specifically, I trace early reception of philosopher Luce Irigaray’s writing on becoming divine women in Anglo-American feminist circles, arguing that critical attention to the “horizons of expectations” around Irigaray’s person is a necessary step to the myriad readings of her work. I begin by situating my own initial expectations and encounters with Irigaray’s writing on divine women as a graduate student in theological studies cross-registered in a course on ‘French Feminism’ in the neighboring …

From Nihilation To Redemption: Profanations And Overlaps In Claudio Magris’ Danube, Nicola Mazzotti

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay analyzes the novel Danube by the Italian writer and scholar Claudio Magris and focuses on its depiction of the political potential inscribed in the Danubian territory. With his journey along the river, the narrator of the novel attempts to unveil the materiality of this territory and the agency of the river, thus deconstructing cultural and political claims aimed at their appropriation. First, the essay investigates the use and representation of 'sources' made by the narrator, both as origin of the river and cultural artifacts. It is shown how the narrator performatively traces the origin of the river back …