Philosophy Commons^™

How U.S. Legal Stagnation Can Be Aided By Decolonization, Marquel Gardner

McNair Summer Research Program

Decolonization is a term often used to present a simple shift from colonial thinking, heavily maintaining the establishment of colonial systems today. However, this usage oversimplifies and overshadows the word’s key purpose. Common proclamations of the term forgo the fundamental indigenous essence behind the word. Doing so, we not only strip the word of its inherent power, but obstruct further possibilities for actual decolonization to appear in our world. Many argue that the U.S. legal system, a product of colonial factors, has reached an alarming state. Our current legal, political atmosphere gears not towards justice or morality, but fascism and …

Truly Blown Away — Humanistic Lens Looking At Glassblowers’ Creative Thinking: A Qualitative Case Study, Yugant Patra

The Qualitative Report

This study examines how emotional and cognitive engagement shape glassblowing artists’ decision-making and artistic outcomes throughout the creative process. Using a qualitative case study methodology, the study examines how glassblowing artists conceptualize, execute, and refine their work by balancing their artistic vision with the medium's technical demands through a humanistic lens. Five themes emerge, which are discussed: the identification with self – confronting the demons, I belong here, claiming the molten as my own, the reign of glass and from it fractures rising anew, and having a conversation with glass. The study closes with the need for continued research on …

Pendidikan Sebagai Pengasingan: Politik Kolonial Terhadap Keluarga Singamangaraja Pasca-1907, Uli Kozok

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article examines the post-1907 trajectories of the family of Singamangaraja following the death of Ompu Pulo Batu and the final military campaign of the Dutch colonial state in the Batak lands. It traces how the colonial government integrated his widows and children into the colonial order through internment, Christianisation, exile, and education in Java. Drawing on colonial archives, contemporary newspapers, and mission reports, the article reconstructs the life trajectories of the five surviving sons of Singamangaraja and situates them within the framework of colonial strategies of conquest and stabilisation. The study shows that these policies combined elements of protection, …

Shaping Disease: Colonial Stigma And The Politics Of Health In Banyuwangi, The Early Twentieth Century, Rifa'i Shodiq Fathoni, Skriptyan Noor Hidayatullah Syuhri, Vini’Matu Hikmah, Ardhita Zahra Namira

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article examines the colonial stigma attached to Banyuwangi as an “unhealthy region” in the early 20th century, a label used to justify massive exploitation of its natural resources. Using a historical method, this research analyzes how this stigma not only served as a tool for colonial legitimation but also causatively created conditions that triggered ecological disasters and a public health crisis in a previously isolated area. Through an analysis of primary sources such as colonial reports, health journals, and newspapers, this article traces how large-scale plantation exploitation, enabled by the stigma, led to deforestation, uncontrolled labor migration, and poor …

Universalism And Exclusion: Immigrants Through The Lens Of French Law And Media, George Mikhael Taliak, Abellia Anggi Wardani

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This research examines France’s Immigration Law LOI n°2024-42 du 26 janvier 2024 and its representation in three mainstream media outlets across the ideological spectrum: Le Figaro (right), CCFD-Terre Solidaire (left), and France Info (center). Using Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory, the study explores how legal and media discourses construct symbolic and administrative boundaries of national citizenship. Findings reveal that integration is framed not as civic inclusion, but as the internalization of a singular national identity and memory. Media reinforce this framework through divergent but convergent discursive strategies. At the macro level, the law …

Transmutation Of Psychological Phenomena (Academic Burnout And Fomo) Into Cyanotype Art Creation, Zulfan Ali Mujtaba, Adi Kuntoro

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The pressure of hustle culture and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) in the digital era have triggered an escalation of academic burnout among students, demanding alternative psychological recovery interventions beyond verbal clinical approaches. This research aims to explore the creation of alternative Cyanotype photography as a medium for catharsis and resistance against toxic productivity. Utilizing a Practice-Based Research methodology with an autoethnographic approach, data were extracted from the researcher's subjective experiences and transmuted into a visual artifact titled "Metamorfosis yang Lelah". The cultural studies approach and wabi-sabi aesthetics are specifically applied to analyze visual elements in the Prussian Blue …

From Mandala To Palace: The Transformation Of Kidung Artati Into Ranggasutrasna Version Of Serat Kidungan From The Surakarta, Agung Kriswanto, I Made Suparta

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article examines the transformation of Kidung Artati from the Merapi–Merbabu milieu into the version preserved in Serat Kidungan compiled by Ranggasutrasna in the Surakarta court. The study aims to trace the process of textual transmission and ideological transformation that occurred when a kidung originating in an ascetic milieu was incorporated into a later courtly literary context. The sources used in this research consist of Kidung Artati and Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi from the Merapi–Merbabu manuscripts, as well as the Ranggasutrasna version of Serat Kidungan. The method applied is textual criticism and comparative textual analysis in order to identify …

Fashion, Lifestyle, And Symbolic Capital: Identity And Resistance In Eka Kurniawan’S Beauty Is A Wound, Dewi Meyrasyawati, Cysakaren Diva Pratiwi, Nisar Ul-Haq

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This study examines how fashion culture and lifestyle, understood as modes of self presentation, social performance, and everyday practice, operate as tools of identity construction and resistance in Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound. The objective is to reveal how beauty, personal choices, and public perception function as symbolic capital in negotiating gendered power relations, class hierarchies, and political constraints. Using close textual analysis, the research explores how female characters, particularly Dewi Ayu, mobilize appearance, behavior, and life decisions to challenge dominant ideologies and redefine their roles in society. The findings show that fashion culture in the novel extends beyond …

Pengantar Dari Editor Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya Vol. 16 No. 2 (2026), Rahayu Surtiati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

No abstract provided.

Metaphors And Socio-Cultural Values In China's Press Statement Translation, Adinda Natassa Valentine Hutabarat

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

In real practice, political text translations are in line with a country’s main foreign policies. Thus, an in-depth understanding on communicative strategies employed in translating political texts, e.g. press statements, is essential. The paper analyses the translation of press statements from the Source Text (Mandarin Chinese) into the Target Texts (English and Indonesian). To elaborate, this study uses van Dijk’s Political Discourse Analysis at the macro (contexts) and micro (texts) levels. By considering Newmark’s equivalent translation concept, as well as metaphor and annotated translations, the analysis reveals that the translation from China’s perspective uses metaphors and China’s socio-cultural values within …

Navigating The Edge Of Sentience Without A Scientific Meta-Consensus, Daniel West

Animal Sentience

In The Edge of Sentience (2024, 2025), Birch develops a precautionary framework for crafting public policies about potentially sentient systems. Underlying this framework is a commitment to the democratic principle that the public should authorize all significant moral judgments that arise during the policymaking process. In this commentary, I suggest that Birch’s framework fails to live up to this commitment by requiring scientists without public accountability to make consequential moral judgments. I suggest a friendly amendment to Birch’s framework by replacing the idea of a scientific meta-consensus with the method of formal expert elicitation, a well-tested method of gathering expert …

The Thousand Mysteries That Bind Us: The Multiverse As Spiritualverse And The Holism Of Mystery, Giovanni Rossini

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

While we exist historically within evolving worldviews, we live amid the paradoxical necessity of mystery; one shared by scientists and non-scientists, theologians and atheists, and artists and philosophers alike. A thousand mysteries bind us with their imperative presence. While pre modern astronomers pondered the mysterious randomness of the night sky, today our sense of cosmological awe is fuelled not only by its randomness, but by a new scientific theory that says multiple skies inhabit the creation. The multiverse — a thesis emerging from cosmological science, wherein parallel worlds are posited to coexist — augments mystery. In this paper, I explore …

Moral Issues In Business, Andre Dobronic Parola

Open Educational Resources

In this course students will initially be introduced to different ethical theories as well as two different theories of justice. Subsequently—following an introduction to basic economical ideas concerning the place of businesses and corporations in modern capitalistic society—various questions specific to business ethics will be taken up. Topics will include: arguments for and against the stakeholder theory of business ethics; corporate social responsibility; the problem of sex-based discrimination in the workplace-setting; business and the environment; globalisation; and lying in business negotiations.

From Insect Cognition To Sentience: Exploring The Edge, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa

Animal Sentience

What does The Edge of Sentience tell us about insect sentience and consciousness? In this commentary, we reflect on Jonathan Birch’s framework for defining and scientifically investigating sentience in animals. We discuss the methodological challenges of studying subjective experience in evolutionary distant species, and consider trace conditioning, affective states, and neural architectures as potential windows into consciousness in insects. We argue that uncertainty, whether concerning definitions or methodology, should not prevent experimental investigation; rather it should motivate new approaches and experimental designs for exploring the diversity of conscious experience.

The Varieties Of Precaution: Which Risks, Whose Attitudes?, Tomasz Żuradzki

Animal Sentience

The Edge of Sentience offers an ambitious and timely institutional framework for proportionate precaution under uncertainty about sentience. Its systematic treatment of empirical and theoretical uncertainty across diverse cases is a major contribution. Focusing on the problem of identifying and weighing different risks when designing proportionate precautions, this commentary suggests three areas in which Birch’s framework could be developed further: a more domain-sensitive justification of the priority given to avoiding under-attribution; a clearer distinction among competing forms of risk aversion and their divergent policy implications; and a fuller explanation of how the framework generates different recommendations across cases.

Beyond Better Conditions: Seaweed Farming And The Number Of Sentient Animals In Aquaculture, Shrilaxmi Patil, Matthew Unerman, Wasseem Emam

Animal Sentience

Oldfield & Bonano (2024) (O&B) document how far  fish welfare research lags behind welfare research in other animals. We share O&B’s feelings-based concept of welfare and agree that aquaculture seeded this field; but research volume has not scaled with animal numbers: Welfare attention per farmed fish or decapod remains negligible. Along the lines of preceding commentaries (Maia 2024, Mather 2024), we treat farmed aquatic animals as individuals rather than tonnage. We then raise a point so far absent from the commentary on O&B so far: reducing the number of sentient animals entering intensive systems. Coastal seaweed farming, which cultivates non-sentient …

Exploring Active Shooter Patterns In Schools: Baseline Typologies For Strategic Preparedness Using A Qualitative Lens, Francis Miskelly

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative study investigatesd the temporal patterns of active shooter incidents on elementary and middle school campuses across urban, suburban, and rural areas in the southeastern United States, specifically in North Carolina. It examined how the timing of these incidents varies across school settings and how law enforcement and School Resource Officers (SROs) perceive the impact of timing on the nature and response to such events. While existing literature largely focuses on psychological profiles, sociocultural factors, and immediate response strategies, few studies address how timing affects the occurrence, characteristics, and outcomes of incidents across school levels. Current research often generalizes …

Sovereign Borders: John’S Deuteronomic Framework For Israel And The Nations In The Apokalypsis, Kevin W. Mullen

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation concludes that John’s imagery of Israel and the nations in the Apokalypsis is distinctly shaped by his interpretation and incorporation of Deuteronomic theology. It employs a canonical and intertextual approach to inductively argue that Deuteronomy presents three pillars, or roles, for biblical nationhood: (1) objects of and instruments for divine judgment, (2) custodians to restrain evil, and (3) revelations of God’s sovereignty. These three Deuteronomic pillars establish the foundation for biblical nationhood and are expressed by John throughout his Apokalypsis. Moreover, this dissertation concludes that John’s imagery for the nations is due to his reliance upon the Deuteronomic …

Wille Zum Wald: Nietzsche’S Discovery Of Forest Bathing, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the fourth part of our “The Forest as a Living Foundation” series, the distinguished American Nietzsche scholar Gary Shapiro investigates new angles on Nietzsche’s bonds to the woods: the philosopher’s personal enthusiasm for what is increasingly called “forest bathing,” the science behind how this practice benefits body, mind, and spirit, and the sheer pleasure of breathing fresh air, in woodland and wherever else we can find it. Shapiro’s essay showcases why this particular Lebensraum matters, not just for our individual well-being, but for the health of the entire planet.

[Introduction To] The Philosophy Of Taylor Swift, Lindsay Brainard, Ryan W. Davis, Jess Flanigan

Bookshelf

Edited by Lindsay Brainard, Ryan W. Davis, and Jessica Flanigan

• Offers the first book-length philosophical analysis focused exclusively on Taylor Swift's songwriting
• Demonstrates innovative methodologies for treating popular music as a site of rigorous philosophical inquiry
• Features essays by a diverse group of leading philosophers across multiple subfields
• Reveals new interpretive insights for both scholars and Swifties, deepening understanding of themes such as love, morality, and meaning