Early Modern Christian Platonism, 2021 University of Maine
Early Modern Christian Platonism, Derek A. Michaud
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
An Existential Philosophy Of History, 2021 Portland State University
An Existential Philosophy Of History, Bennett Gilbert, Natan Elgabsi
University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations
In this paper we delineate the conditions and features of what we call an existential philosophy of history in relation to customary trends in the field of the philosophy of history. We do this by circumscribing what a transgenerational temporality and what our entanglement in ethical relations with temporal others ask of us as existential and responsive selves and by explicating what attitude we need to have when trying to responsibly respond to other vulnerable beings in our historical world of life.
A Re-Examination Of The Problem Of Universals, 2021 Bard College
A Re-Examination Of The Problem Of Universals, Jimmy Berger
Senior Projects Spring 2021
My aims in this project are to address what the problem of universals is, to provide a comprehensive account of its major solutions, to evaluate those solutions, and to provide my own conclusions about the problem. My primary thesis is that philosophers have been wrong to look for a universally applicable theory to account for the problem of universals, and instead should accept the profound complexity of reality and develop more modest theories that are applicable in limited domains.
The Transcendental Foundation Of Kant's Cosmopolitanism, 2021 Colby College
The Transcendental Foundation Of Kant's Cosmopolitanism, Daniel J. Ellison
Honors Theses
Scholarship on Kant’s philosophy of history has insufficiently considered its place in the larger system of transcendental idealism. In this project, I argue that Kant’s guarantee of progress in history is grounded in his universal characterizations of human nature, which he makes both explicitly, as with the notion of “unsociable sociability” put forth in “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective,” and implicitly, as with what I term a responsiveness to reasons. These characterizations are grounded, I claim, in an attribution of reason which is always already achieved to the constitution of human beings, which emerges out of …
Beast Or God: Philosophical Exclusion Of Disability And Disabled Voices, 2021 Regis University
Beast Or God: Philosophical Exclusion Of Disability And Disabled Voices, Ellie Alsup
Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)
In philosophy, our goal is to ultimately discover what it is to be human. How do we exist in our world, and how should we exist? Throughout history, philosophers have been attempting to answer these questions in any way possible. Well, almost. Unfortunately, marginalized voices -- such as those with disabilities -- have been excluded from the conversation in a way that minimizes and undermines any answers provided. Philosophers such as Descartes make the argument that human existence is purely in the mind, and that we can separate ourselves from our bodies; many disabled philosophers would disagree. Disability studies finds …
Murderer At The Switch: Thomson, Kant, And The Trolley Problem, 2021 CUNY Lehman College
Murderer At The Switch: Thomson, Kant, And The Trolley Problem, James E. Mahon
Publications and Research
In this book chapter I argue that contrary to what is said by Paul Guyer in Kant (Routledge, 2006) Kant's moral philosophy prohibits the bystander from throwing the switch to divert the runaway trolley to a side track with an innocent person on it in order to save more people who are in the path of the trolley in the "Trolley Problem" case made famous by Judith Jarvis Thomson (1976; 1985). Furthermore, Thomson herself (2008) came to agree that it would be wrong to throw the switch, just as it is wrong to push the person off the bridge to …
“I Said, You Are Gods”: Pastoral Motives Manifest In Patristic Citations Of Psalm 82:6, 2020 Concordia Seminary - Saint Louis
“I Said, You Are Gods”: Pastoral Motives Manifest In Patristic Citations Of Psalm 82:6, Charles Schulz
Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation
The early church fathers frequently cited Ps. 82:6 (LXX 81:6), “I said, You are gods and all sons of the Most High,” a passage Jesus himself quoted (John 10:34) to defend his own title as the Son of God. Scholars agree that the patristic use of verse underwrote the developing doctrine of deification, which promised that Christians would become “gods” in some sense by bearing God’s image and likeness and participating in Christ and his saving work. In order to deepen and focus our understanding of the significance and role of this passage for patristic theology—and particularly for pastoral practice—this …
Concerning Mostly Nonacademic Aspects Of My July 2006 Visit To Salzburg, Austria For The 6th International Whitehead Conference At Salzburg University, 2020 Southern Methodist University
Concerning Mostly Nonacademic Aspects Of My July 2006 Visit To Salzburg, Austria For The 6th International Whitehead Conference At Salzburg University, Theodore Walker
Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events
Here are travel notes concerning mostly nonacademic aspects of my July 2006 visit to Salzburg, Austria for the 6th International Whitehead Conference at Salzburg University. These travel notes supplement the book Whiteheadian Ethics: Abstracts and Papers from the Ethics Section of the Philosophy Group at the 6th International Whitehead Conference at the University of Salzburg, July 2006 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008) edited by Theodore Walker Jr. and Mihály Toth.
Aristotle's Account Of Time: A Moderate Realism, 2020 The University of Western Ontario
Aristotle's Account Of Time: A Moderate Realism, Pierre-Luc Boudreault
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This dissertation proposes an interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of time as a whole from a study of Physics IV. 10-14. It addresses interpretive issues and objections pertaining to Aristotle’s view about the nature of time, its existence, as well as its unity and universality. In response to these problems, the interpretation of some ancient and medieval commentators – Themistius, Simplicius, Philoponus, Albert the Great and in particular, Thomas Aquinas – is by and large defended against recent interpretations. It is argued that by defining time as “the number of movement with respect to the “before” and “after” (Phys. IV. …
An Archaeology Of Contemporary Speculative Knowledge, 2020 The University of Western Ontario
An Archaeology Of Contemporary Speculative Knowledge, Justas Patkauskas
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This dissertation investigates contemporary speculative knowledge grounded in the immanence episteme, which is struggling to emerge as a foundation for a new kind of absolute knowledge. Regarding method, I use Michel Foucault’s concept of archaeology, situating archaeology in the context of deconstruction. In general, by delineating the various differences and genealogies within immanence theory, I show that immanence is neither a monolithic homogeneity nor a schizophrenic multiplicity but a coherent, if troubled, ground for speculative thought.
In Chapter 1, I define deconstruction as a broad philosophical project concerned with the order of knowledge and the University and its disciplines. I …
Damnatio Memoriae: On Deleting The East From Western History, 2020 Oxford University
Damnatio Memoriae: On Deleting The East From Western History, Koert Debeuf
New England Journal of Public Policy
The story we read in books about the Renaissance tells us that Petrarch and Poggio rediscovered the books of antiquity that had been copied for centuries in medieval abbeys. The re-introduction of Greek science and philosophy, however, began in the twelfth century but occurred mainly in the thirteenth century. These works were first translated into Syriac and Arabic in the eighth and ninth centuries and stored in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. There they were read, used, and commented on by Arab philosophers, of whom the most famous was Averroes (1126–1198), who lived in Cordoba. The translation of his …
Medieval Thinking In The 21st Century: Crystal Balls, Black Swans, And Darwin's Finches In The Time Of Corona, 2020 Cal Poly Humboldt
Medieval Thinking In The 21st Century: Crystal Balls, Black Swans, And Darwin's Finches In The Time Of Corona, George Conesa
The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)
Twenty years into the 21st Century, a sizable swath of the world populace thinks, makes decisions, and defines itself in a conflicted and contradictory chimera. Millions of individuals make use of cutting-edge technologies while simultaneously throwing salt over their shoulders and consulting with the local ‘healer’ about any number of illnesses--to caricaturize, a sort of medieval-thinker-tech-savvy orientation. It is here affirmed that the practical consequences of this agentic amalgamation, modes of thinking, and “being in the world” are counterproductive at best and self-defeating at worst, resulting in much uncertainty and leading to, for example, mixed messages in public health …
National Education System In The Educational Ideas Of Jadidism, 2020 National university of Uzbekistan
National Education System In The Educational Ideas Of Jadidism, Yulduz Namazova
The Light of Islam
The philosophy of education, which was formed in Turkestan in the late 19th - early 20 th centuries, is interpreted as an area of research that analyzes the national pedagogical activity and educational foundations of these modern educators, its goals and ideals, the methodology of pedagogical knowledge, methods of creating a new Russian school system. Thus, it can be said with confidence that the philosophy of education, as an area that has a socio-institutional form during this period, reflected the goals and objectives of the educational program of the Jadids. We know that during the formation of the Jadid Enlightenment, …
Mahmudkhuja Behbudiy As A Leader Of Jadid Reforms, 2020 INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC ACADEMY OF UZBEKISTAN
Mahmudkhuja Behbudiy As A Leader Of Jadid Reforms, Muminjon Xujaev
The Light of Islam
We are witnessing that the ideas of our Jadids, who tried to raise Turkestan through enlightenment to the level of world civilization at the beginning of the 20th century, and who showed modern education as a solution to the problems of that period, have not lost their signifcance today. In this sense, the study of the works of the famous orientalist Mahmudkhodja Behbudi based on new scientifc criteria plays an important role in the study of issues of interethnic communication, peaceful coexistence, education, culture, and religious tolerance. M. Behbudi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began a systematic …
"Second Sight": Acknowledging W.E.B. Du Bois's "Double Consciousness" As A Step Towards Dissolution, 2020 The Univesity of Western Ontario
"Second Sight": Acknowledging W.E.B. Du Bois's "Double Consciousness" As A Step Towards Dissolution, Alexandra M. Hudecki
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This project examines American scholar W.E.B.’s DuBois’ idea of “double consciousness”, from his book The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The idea of “double consciousness” has and continues to be utilized by Black scholars and artists in literary, theoretical, and psychological contexts, some of which I hope my paper will adequately survey. I begin by examining “double consciousness” from the perspective of particulars by understanding Du Bois’s original idea and the specificities of the American context he himself was a part, considering the legacy of slavery. Then, by focusing primarily on writers such as Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright and Paul …
Marin Mersenne And Pierre Gassendi As Descartes’ Questioners, 2020 UNAM
Marin Mersenne And Pierre Gassendi As Descartes’ Questioners, Alejandra Velázquez Zaragoza, Leonel Toledo Marín
Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events
In the following pages, we will explore the proximity of Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi’s arguments against Descartes’ "Meditations." We will study how, in some of their objections, both Mersenne and Gassendi adopted a nominalist and an empiricist view regarding central topics in Cartesian epistemology, such as the idea of God, and the origin and classification of ideas in the mind. We propose that the assessment of the confrontation between the two objectors and Descartes may provide us a better picture of the complex intellectual debates that took place at the very beginnings of modern philosophy.
Dreams And Ideas: Baxter On Berkeley, 2020 Carleton
Dreams And Ideas: Baxter On Berkeley, Melissa Frankel
Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events
In this paper I look at a particular narrative, famously articulated by Reid, that holds that Descartes’s ‘Way of Ideas’ leads inevitably to Berkeley’s immaterialism. In the service of examining this narrative more closely, I consider Andrew Baxter’s early 18th century criticisms of Berkeley, and especially Baxter’s view that immaterialism begins with a dream hypothesis and is therefore self-undermining. I suggest that a careful consideration of Baxter’s criticism(s) is illuminating in a number of ways: in so far as it anticipates future criticisms of and engagements with Berkeleyan immaterialism, in so far as it helps to reveal the actual …
Lunch Break!, 2020 Western University
Lunch Break!, Bon Appetit
Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events
No abstract provided.
Are Animal Machines? Gómez Pereira And Descartes On Animal Minds, 2020 CUNY
Are Animal Machines? Gómez Pereira And Descartes On Animal Minds, Enrique Chávez-Arvizo
Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events
Forty two years before Descartes’ birth, in his Antoniana Margarita (Medina del Campo, 1554), Spanish physician and philosopher Gómez Pereira explicitly argues the following assertions:
(1) Animals lack reason
(2) Animals lack understanding
(3) Animals do not think
(4) Animals cannot feel (Bruta non sentire)
(5) Animals cannot see as we do
(6) Animals are machines
(7) Animals have no rational soul
(8) Animals have no indivisible soul
(9) Animals have no language
The above claims on animal automatism are commonly thought to have originated with Descartes. In this paper I will expound Gómez Pereira’s arguments, contra the School and …
Kant, Cicero, And The Stoic Doctrine Of The Highest Good, 2020 Western
Kant, Cicero, And The Stoic Doctrine Of The Highest Good, Corey Dyck
Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events
In this presentation I consider the context for Kant's discussion of the highest good in the Dialectic of the second Critique. I begin by showing how his original account of the highest good in the Canon of the first Critique addresses deficiencies in ancient accounts, particularly in the Stoic identification of virtue and happiness. I then consider the defense of the Stoic conception in Christian Garve's influential translation and commentary on Cicero's De officiis in 1783. It is, I contend, this account, which engages with Kant's discussion in the Canon at a number of junctures, that spurs Kant's decision …