Philosophy Commons^™

Trauma, Oppression, And Identity: A Philosophical Approach To Justice In Catholic Communities, Dominic Sanfilippo

Honors Theses

Many disciplines have contributed to the evolving understanding of trauma and oppression. The discipline of philosophy offers us the opportunity to ask the question: what should we be doing to create conditions of justice in communities where people have experienced trauma or oppression in relation to their identity? In this thesis, I will use philosophy to propose ways that we can ameliorate injustice in social and religious settings, particularly Catholicism. By examining historical and contemporary questions around identity and the self, I hope to begin to articulate both a specific problem in the Church and identify possible paths toward creating …

Stigmatized Words: A Defense Of Political Correctness, Peter W. Rosenberger

Student Publications

The debate over political correctness and the repression of speech has experienced a resurgence in the 2016 election season. “Political correctness is killing people,” Senator Ted Cruz remarked in December 2015. This thesis explores the liberal justification for the repressing politically incorrect speech and challenges the association of expressive freedom with truth, a position linked to John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of liberty and George Orwell’s denunciation of political speech. Reflecting contemporary postmodern views on language and liberation, I ultimately defend political correctness as a way to reflect social stigmatization, render stigmatized words more visible, and enhance linguistic agency.

Inclusive Pedagogy: Beyond Simple Content, Sheila Lintott, Lissa Skitolsky

Faculty Journal Articles

We have learned from feminist philosophy and critical theory that neutrality is a myth; this applies also to the seemingly neutral ways we structure our courses, design our assignments, and assess student achievement and mastery of material. Despite efforts to diversify the content of philosophy classes by ensuring that philosophy written by a diverse and representative selection of philosophers is studied, students still may be alienated when required to participate in a discourse that is not their own. We explore and argue the need for decentering playfulness in philosophy classrooms.

'But What About Feminist Porn?' Examining The Work Of Tristan Taormino, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This article examines the work of Tristan Taormino, a prominent self-described feminist pornographer, in order to illustrate themes and commitments common among those who produce, perform in, and/or support feminist pornography. I argue that her work is burdened by thin and limited conceptions of feminism, authenticity, and sexual ethics, as well as by the profit-based exigencies of producing “feminist porn” within the mainstream pornography industry. I conclude that, if indeed feminist pornography is possible, Taormino’s work falls far short of the mark. Public Health Significance Statement: This study suggests that Taormino’s pornographic films are unlikely to have salutary effects on …

A Pluralistic Universe In Twenty Years, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Placed side by side, James' A Pluralistic Universe and Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-House seem to have little in common. James’s critique of absolute idealism is written for intellectuals comfortable with philosophical abstractions. Twenty Years is full of stories about the lives of poor people and immigrants. Yet, sometime after April 1909, when A Pluralistic Universe appeared, and before November 1910, when Twenty Years was published, Addams inserted a few telling quotations into her manuscript. I will give a reading of Twenty Years as a presentation in real time of James’s pluralistic universe, with both form and contents conveying the …

Power, Virtue, And Vice, Peggy Desautels

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I approach virtue theory in a way that avoids idealized social ontologies and instead focuses on social hierarchies that include relations of power. I focus on the virtues tied to improving social environments—what I refer to as social-ethic virtues—and examine how the development of social-ethic virtues is influenced by motivations for and situations involving power. I draw on research in social and personality psychology to show that persons motivated by power and persons holding powerful social positions tend to behave in ways that correlate with certain virtuous and vicious patterns of behavior. I maintain that patterns of moral or vicious …

Balance In Tristram Shandy: Laurence Sterne Through Friedrich Schiller’S Eyes, Peter W. Rosenberger

Student Publications

Many critics of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy see the novel’s narrative elements and structure as a form of narrative play, which reject Enlightenment systems of understanding. In this paper, through the philosophy of Friedrich Schiller, I will argue that the novel’s narrative structure is best understood as a balance of aesthetic impulses. For most scholars, to understand the narrative form, digressions, philosophy of knowledge, and/or history in Tristram Shandy, one must understand how the novel subverts the categorization and systematization of Enlightenment thinking. The patterns of subversion in the text lend themselves to arguments that characterize the novel as one …

The Hyperintellectual In The Balkans, Rory J. Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Although hypointellectuals have long been a part of our cultural landscape, it is in post-conflict societies, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo, that there has arisen a strong need for a different breed of intellectual, one who is more than simply a social critic, an educator, a person of action, and a compassionate individual. Enter the non-partisan intellectual—the hyperintellectual. It is the hyperintellectual, whose non-partisanship is manifested through a reciprocating critique and defense of both the nationalist enterprise and strong interventionism of the International Community, who strives to create a climate of understanding and to enlarge the moral space …

Considering Decision-Making And Sexuality In Menstrual Suppression Of Teens And Young Adults With Intellectual Disabilities., Kruti Acharya, John D. Lantos

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

No abstract provided.

Nature, Feminism, And Flourishing: Human Nature And The Feminist Ethics Of Flourishing, Celeste D. Harvey

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation examines the viability of a feminist ethic of flourishing. The possibility of a eudaimonist, or flourishing-based, ethic adapted for the needs of feminist ethics and politics has recently been raised by a number of feminist moral philosophers. However, in these discussions, the degree to which an ethic of flourishing requires a substantive conception of human nature has not been adequately addressed. Flourishing-based ethical theories appear to require a substantive account of the kind of thing whose flourishing is to be promoted, while contemporary academic feminism is characterized by a strong suspicion toward claims about human nature. Chapter one …

Philosophy And Theology: Reflections On A Future-Like-Ours And The Substance View, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Robert Brandom, From Empiricism To Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars, Colin Mclear

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

One of the better known of the many bons mots of the Sellarsian corpus concerns his definition of philosophy: it is the attempt to understand “how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” When applied to Sellars’s philosophy in particular, one might be forgiven for doubting the possible success of such an endeavor. Richard Rorty once quipped of Sellars’s followers that they were either “left-wing” or “right-wing,” emphasizing one line of thought in Sellars’s work to the exclusion of the other. The two lines of thought to which …

Service And Learning For Whom? Toward A Critical Decolonizing Bicultural Service Learning Pedagogy, Kortney Hernandez

LMU Theses and Dissertations

The notion of service has enjoyed historical longevity—rooted deeply within our institutions (i.e., churches, schools, government, military, etc.), reminiscent of indentured servitude, and rarely questioned as a colonizing practice that upholds oppression. Given the relentless insertion of service learning programs into working class communities, the sacrosanctity awarded and commonsensically given to service is challenged and understood within its colonial, historical, philosophical, economic, and ideological machinations. This political confrontation of service learning practices serves to: (a) critique the dominant epistemologies that reproduce social inequalities within the context of service learning theory and practice; and (b) move toward the formulation of a …

Volume 08, Meghan Enzinna, Casey Dawn Gailey, Raven Collins, Chiara Enriquez, Amelia Mcconnell, Alexander Morton, Emma Beckett, Leah G. Parr, Briana Adhikusuma, Taylor Embrey, Rowan Davis, Danielle Sisson, Bianca Cherry, Melissa Cacho, Chloe Woodward, Catherine Rollins, Carson Reeher, Landon Cooper, Haley Vasquez, Marlisha Stewart, Eric Whitehead, Sabrina Walker, James Bates

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction from Interim Dean Dr. Jennifer Apperson

Indigenous Peoples and the Modern Era by Meghan Enzinna

"Who Says": How Selena Gomez and the Scene Attempt to Subvert the Popular Standards of Beauty by Casey Dawn Gailey

Art by Raven Collins

Meltdown on Social Media: Amy's Baking Company Meets Kitchen Nightmares by Nathena Haddrill

Art by Chiara Enriquez

Design by Amelia Mcconnell

Worth More Than a Thousand Words: A Visual Rhetorical Discussion of Virtual Reality by Examining "Clouds Over Sidra" by Alexander Morton

Design by Emma Beckett

The Sonata: An Analysis of Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Minor, K. …

Why Equality? Which Inequalities?, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article challenges the conventional view that Confucianism has no place for the value of equality by shifting the focus from direct justification of equality (Why equality?) to concerns about actual social and political problems (Which inequalities are objectionable?). From this perspective, early Confucian texts endorse some inequalities, in particular those based on virtue, while objecting to others, especially socioeconomic inequalities. Confucians do not consider equality or inequality as inherently valuable, but evaluate them in relation to issues of good government.

A Racism Without Race: A Moroccan Case Study Of Race Denial, Leila Chreiteh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This article aims to articulate the ways in which race and race relations are conceptualized in Morocco. Using the concept of racialized discourse as the preconceptual theoretical field for race and racist expressions, the author analyzes the different converging factors which influence the performance of “Moroccan-ness” and how subjectivity can be influenced by a State-driven communal linguistic episteme. Through its insistent hyper-nationalist campaigns, the Moroccan State has deployed racist expressions as a means of face-keeping and sociopolitical management, which have become naturalized through its reproduction in individual subjectivity and interpellation. However, from the independent research conducted by the author, the …

Tibetan Football:Perspectives From The 2016 Gyalyum Chenmo Memorial Gold Cup, James Karsten

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project uses a narrative account of the 2016 Gyalyum Chenmo Memorial Gold Cup,as a springboard into the multifaceted world of Tibetan sports in exile society, both past and present. As Tibetan exile society started to grow, the combination of growing settlement football clubs and a desire to honor the passing of HH the Dalai Lama’s mother, led to the founding of this club tournament. As football became more popular, the creation of an international Tibetan team came to be an important expression of national identity, and a useful method of raising awareness for the Tibetan cause. Despite this proliferation, …

Dark Liturgy, Bloody Praxis: The 1916 Rising, James G. Murphy Sj

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Flourishing Of The Dao In Confucian And Daoist Learning: Introduction, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Central to both the Confucian and Daoist imagination, the concept of the Daocuts across partisan or sectarian divides. While open to diverse interpretations, itfurnishes a focus in the unfolding of Chinese thought. Extending beyond China,the concept has made its presence felt in Korea and Japan. Put another w 呵， thedevelopment of Confucianism and Daoism attests to the flourishing of the Dao inEast Asian culture.

The Essential Meaning Of The Way And Virtue: Yan Zun And “Laozi Learning” In Early Han China, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In a short essay written in 1924, Yang Shuda 楊樹達 called attention to the sig-nificant growth of “Laozi learning" (Laoxue 老學) during the Han period (206B.C. - A.D. 220).1 On the basis of biographical and bibliographical references inthe early dynastic histories especially, Yang identified some fi 仿 Han figures ashaving contributed to this development. The Laozi itself, according to one tradi-tion, was accorded the status of a “classic" (Jing經) during the reign of emperorJing 景(1 56-141 B.C.).2 While this claim is still open to debate , there is littledisagreement 血 at the title Daojng gained currency by the end of …