Philosophy Commons^™

The Other China Model: Daoism, Pluralism, And Political Liberalism, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While scholars often portray Chinese political thought and tradition as standing in opposition to Western notions of political liberalism, little consideration has been given to compatibility between liberalism and Daoism, a prominent religion and long-standing alternative school of thought among Chinese peoples. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study in comparative political thought compares Laozi’s Dao De Jing with John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty to illustrate certain core political ideas in the Dao De Jing and their treatment in Mill’s landmark text on political liberalism. Although the two texts diverge in terms of advocacy of popular representation, public contestation, …

A Dilemma For Buddhist Reductionsim, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This article develops a dilemma for Buddhist Reductionism that centers on the nature of normative reasons. This dilemma suggests that Buddhist Reductionism lacks the resources to make sense of normative reasons and, furthermore, that this failure may cast doubt on the plausibility of Buddhist Reductionism as a whole...Can Buddhist philosophy make sense of reasons? In this article, I have examined whether one important Buddhist view—Buddhist Reductionism— has the resources to justify the existence of reasons. My diagnosis is pessimistic. I have argued that Buddhist Reductionism lacks the resources to make sense of reasons and, furthermore, that this failure casts doubt …

The Health Care Commons: A Philosophical Approach, Roel Feys

Theses and Dissertations

This project is the first large-scale and systematic effort to bridge the fields of commons research and biomedical ethics, with the aim of furthering key debates in both areas of inquiry. The aims and contributions of the project are twofold.

First, I argue that commons research is valuable to bioethics, because it provides a language to talk about health care institutions. I critically discuss commons research’s main conceptual tools in the context of health care: the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, the design principles of successful commons, parallel experimentation, and polycentric governance regimes. This conceptual apparatus can help to …

Skeptical Buddhism As Provenance And Project, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

The past century and a half has seen various attempts in both Asia and the West to reform or re-conceptualize Buddhism by adding a simple, often provocative, qualifier. This paper examines some of the links between “secular,” “critical,” “sceptical,” and “radical” Buddhism in order to ascertain possibilities in thinking Buddhism anew as a 21st-century “project” with philosophical, ethical, and political resonance. In particular, I am motivated by the question of whether “sceptical” Buddhism can coexist with Buddhist praxis, conceived as an engaged response to the suffering of sentient beings in a globalized and neoliberal industrial capitalist world order. Let …

Why There Is No Ethical Reason Not To Vote (Unless You Come Down With Covid-19 On Election Day), Scott Davidson

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

'I don't like the candidates,' 'I don't know enough to make a decision,' 'I don't want to give this election legitimacy' – an ethicist takes on nonvoters.

Ethics From A Feminist Perspective, Jean Emily P. Tan

Magisterial Lectures

In this two-part lecture, Doc Jean discusses Philosophy from the lens of a meta-ethical feminist critique.

Speaker: Jean P. Tan is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ateneo de Manila University. She received her doctorate from Loyola University Chicago, where she wrote her dissertation on Sarah Kofman. She has served as the Editor of Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture. She teaches a variety of philosophy courses, among which is a course on feminist thought.

Ancient And Medieval Political Philosophy, Various, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Anicient and Medieval Political Philosophy. Contains Plays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone by Sophocles; The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides; The Republic by Plato Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato; Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle; The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Titus Livius; Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius by Niccolò Machiavelli

Modern Political Philosophy, Various, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Modern Political Philosophy. Contains Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes; The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli; The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx; The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx ; On the Jewish Question by Karl Marx Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx; The German Ideology by Karl Marx; Capital by Karl Marx ; Second Treatise of Government by John Locke; The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

A Naturalistic Ethic Supporting A Vegan Diet, Michael Morris

Between the Species

Nutritional evidence suggests that a vegan diet is the most adaptive one for humans. An ethical principle based on following our biological nature (naturalistic ethic) could therefore provide additional support for a vegan diet. However, some argue that humans in the natural world could not eat a vegan diet, since it relies on supplements, particularly vitamin B12. This leads to the conclusion that humans are naturally omnivores, and therefore our natural diet should include small amounts of animal products.

Three approaches to this conclusion are discussed. The first rejects a naturalistic ethic in favour of normative principles based on animal …

On Japanese Minimalism, Paul Haimes

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Shibumi, a Japanese term referring to a subtle elegance, but at times suggestive of austerity or even bitterness, captures a certain sense of restraint that is reflected in much traditional Japanese design. Although concepts derived from Japanese Zen Buddhism, such as ma, wabi-sabi, and iki, may be more commonly known to English-speaking audiences, this article proposes that shibumi is the more appropriate concept to apply when considering the minimalist nature inherent in much Japanese design. Moreover, this article suggests that shibumi and modernist design tastes may be compatible, despite past suggestions to the contrary. To support …

Floating Gardens In The Urban Landscape, Victor Rivera-Diaz

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Verification And Utility In The Arabic Commentaries On The Canon Of Medicine: Examples From The Works Of Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī (D. 1210) And Ibn Al-Nafīs (D. 1288), Nahyan Fancy

History Faculty publications

Although over two dozen Arabic commentaries on the Canon of Medicine were composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, historians of medicine have paid scant attention to them. Instead, these commentaries have often been dismissed as being uncritical expositions that further entrenched the dogma of Galenic/Avicennan medical theory. In this article, I shall show that in fact the opposite was the case for at least a subset of the Canon commentaries from this period. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī developed a new style of verification commentary across his philosophical corpus that he also deployed in his Canon commentary. Even though Fakhr al-Dīn …

Gestation As Mothering, Timothy F. Murphy, Jennifer Parks

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Some commentators maintain that gestational surrogates are not ‘mothers’ in a way capable of grounding a claim to motherhood. These commentators find that the practices that constitute motherhood do not extend to gestational surrogates. We argue that gestational surrogates should be construed as mothers of the children they bear, even if they fully intend to surrender those children at birth to the care of others. These women stand in a certain relationship to the expected children: They live in changed moral circumstances by reason of their pregnancy, and they engage in the practices said to define motherhood in the post-birth …

Nonculpably Ignorant Meat Eaters & Epistemically Unjust Meat Producers, C.E. Abbate Dr.

Philosophy Faculty Research

In the United States (U.S.) alone, nearly 10 billion farmed animals are raised and killed for food each year, and approximately 99% of these animals are raised in factory farms, where they are mutilated without anesthetic, confined to cramped and overcrowded cages and sheds, forcibly separated at birth from their mothers, deprived of the opportunity to move freely and engage in species-specific behavior, and killed violently (Sentience Institute 2019). Given the terrible harms that billions of animals endure on U.S. factory farms each year, we must ask: why do so many people repeatedly partake in and support such a morally …

Vegan Parents And Children: Zero Parental Compromise, Carlo Alvaro

Publications and Research

Marcus William Hunt argues that, when co-parents disagree over whether to raise their child (or children) as a vegan, they should reach a compromise as a gift given by one parent to the other out of respect for his or her authority. Josh Millburn contends that Hunt’s proposal of parental compromise over veganism is unacceptable on the ground that it overlooks respect for animal rights, which bars compromising. However, he contemplates the possibility of parental compromise over “unusual eating,” of animal-based foods obtained without the violation of animal rights. I argue for zero parental compromise, rejecting a rights-oriented approach, and …

The Hospitality Of The Abyssal Ground Or Perceptual Architectures Of Indeterminacy, Natasha Lushetich

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

There never has been such a thing as solid ground. As profoundly transient beings, all we can hope for is the hospitality of the abyssal ground.[1] Perhaps that is why our everyday aesthetic appreciation of our natural environment is inseparable from indeterminacy, as change and ambiguity but also potentiality; think of the immensely pleasurable journeys through the rapidly changing shapes in fire- or cloud-gazing. But can the same be said of our machinic environment? In this article, I discuss indeterminacy as a generative principle in four realms: elemental, evental, linguistic, and machinic. Anchoring the transubstantiating potential of the four …

The Choice Of Parenthood: Abortion And Protecting Autonomy, Nimmi M. Mathews

Mako: NSU Undergraduate Student Journal

This paper attempts to address the morality of abortion using a Kantian perspective on the significance of autonomy, a property that all rational beings subscribe to. I reject the oft argued notion that the ethicality of abortion is contingent on the ability to determine whether the fetus possesses the right to life. Instead, I claim that denying women the choice to obtain an abortion disrespects their autonomy, hence requiring them to take up motherhood against their will. I then discuss how Kant’s framework for morality is demonstrated heavily in the legal concept of ‘human rights', and yet this is not …

Science And Religion With Jovino G Miroy Phd, Jovino G. Miroy

Magisterial Lectures

In this lecture, Dr. Miroy talks about the relationship of science and religion.

Speaker: Dr. Jovino "Jovi" G. Miroy is a playwright and a teacher of Philosophy at the Ateneo School of Humanities for 26 years. He earned his B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in Philosophy at the Ateneo De Manila University. He received his Ph.D from the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium). He co-hosts the radio program "Lundagin mo, Beybeh" and "RK Asks" at Radyo Katipunan 87.9FM. The former is a Philosophy show, the latter a Science, Technology, and Society program.

The New Philosophy And Its Style, Dwight Van De Vate Jr.

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Hume’S “Umbrage To The Godly” In His History Of England, Charles E. Noyes

Studies in English

No abstract provided.