Philosophy Commons^™

Worrying The Line: Blues As Story, Song, And Prayer, Kimberly R. Connor

Public and Nonprofit Administration

No abstract provided.

Who Killed Lycidas?: Lycidas And The Spanish Tragedy, Clay Daniel

Quidditas

In Lycidas, the protagonist searches for an explanation for why his virtuous friend has mysteriously died in a cultural-political landscape of unpunished, thriving, official corruption. Though Renaissance pastoral sometimes inveighed against corrupt authorities, pastoral elegy did not. What models, then, other than the Bible, would Milton have had for the swain’s search? Milton’s headnote calls his poem a monody, which within a literary context primarily is a speech in Greek tragedy. Milton then invites us to read the poem within a dramatic context. But which dramatic context? The Book of Revelation of course is one these contexts. But contemporary …

Libertas Philosophandi And Freedom Of Mind In Spinoza’S Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, J. Thomas Cook

Faculty Publications

Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between “negative” and “positive” liberty, arguing that in practice the two are often in tension with each other. This paper uses Berlin’s distinction to analyze Spinoza’s discussion of freedom in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Libertas philosophandi is Spinoza’s shorthand for freedom of thought and expression – an important element in traditional liberal (“negative”) freedom. The TTP (as its subtitle announces) is devoted in great part to defending the value and importance of permitting such freedom in the state. But as commentators have often noted, Spinoza is reluctant to extend this liberty to the clerics of his …

The Parapraxis Of Translation, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Within the context of politics and culture, provides a theoretic framework for the analysis of modern translation. Includes section titles, "The paradoxa of translation," "The pragmatics of translation," and "The truth of translation."

Sharp, Striano, And Oliverio (2012) Philosophy For Children: An Educational Path To Philosophy, Ann Margaret Sharp, Maura Striano, Stefano Oliverio

IAPC Written Histories

In this interview, Ann Margaret Sharp recounts her childhood, her love of reading, and her first teaching experience tutoring neighborhood children. She describes her college and university education and her teaching experience at Historically Black Colleges. She relates her career at Montclair State College / University and her co-founding of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children with Matthew Lipman. She discusses the need to translate academic philosophy for people outside the discipline, especially children.

Inexpressibility In Augustine’S Just War Theory: Lessons For Modern Warfare, Matt Beard

Philosophy Conference Papers

St. Augustine's Just War Theory is relatively unique in the history of just war in that he relies heavily on Divine involvement in his doctrine of just war. God is the ultimate source of the justice of all wars, and his command is the source of justice for some wars. Furthermore, the authority of political leaders is also derived from God. This is problematic for Augustine's theory because it renders the causa justa of wars inexpressible to the subjects of the sovereign, who are forced to rely on the sovereign's (divinely originated) authority. Although these ideas may seem a long …

The Hyperspatial Self: Henry James And Posthuman Modalities, Christina Patsiokas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the era of computing and ubiquitous media, scholars across disciplines have been developing new models for how humans operate in complex environments. This line of inquiry can be bracketed under the larger term of posthuman thought. This thesis attempts to engage the critical and fictional work of Henry James with several posthumanist texts to challenge the temporal limitations of both. Against the backdrop of posthuman discourse, James emerges not as the cherished father of modernism but rather as a pioneer of distant territories far beyond the ways in which the modernist novel conceptualized the self and its consciousness. James …

Donald Davidson's Semantics: Radical Interpretation, Triangulation, And The Ambiguity Problem, Karen Duffy

Philosophy Student Work

Donald Davidson was one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century. His work is extensive, dense, and controversial. This paper seeks to look at one part of Davidson’s philosophy: his philosophy of language, and in particular, his ideas about meaning. My first aim in this project is to present Davidson’s proposals about meaning as a unified meaning theory – a theory that can specify the meaning of any expression in a language. This theory contains two major parts: the proposal that a properly constrained truth theory can serve as a meaning theory, and the process of radical interpretation, …

The Three-Fold Significance Of The Blaming Emotions, Zac Cogley

Publication

Much of the philosophical work on moral responsibility assumes that we should understand people’s moral responsibility for the actions they take in terms of the appropriateness of the blaming emotions—resentment, anger, and indignation. However, current theorizing about the blaming emotions is often psychologically uninformed. Drawing on work in empirical psychology, I have recently argued that anger serves three functions in human psychology: appraisal, motivation, and communication. In this project, I propose to extend that analysis to the entire class of blaming emotions. I will show that theorizing about moral responsibility is myopic if it focuses on one of the functions …

Nozick’S Defense Of Closure, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Knowledge, Practical Reasoning And Action, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

Is knowledge necessary or sufficient or both necessary and sufficient for acceptable practical reasoning and rational action? Several authors (e.g., Williamson, Hawthorne, and Stanley) have recently argued that the answer to these questions is positive. In this paper I present several objections against this view (both in its basic form as well in more developed forms). I also offer a sketch of an alternative view: What matters for the acceptability of practical reasoning in at least many cases (and in all the cases discussed by the defenders of a strong link between knowledge and practical reasoning) is not so much …

On The Supposed Societies Of Chemicals, Atoms And Stars In Gabriel Tarde, Graham Harman

Faculty Book Chapters

It is commonly believed that the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde allows even for inanimate objects such as chemicals, atoms, and stars to be topics of sociology. This article claims otherwise. Tarde is an arch-reductionist for whom nothing exists below the tiniest micro-level of the cosmos. His theory of monads is by no means an adequate sociology of medium- or large-sized things.

Crane Studies, Teaches The Philosophy Of Life, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Semantics-Pragmatics Boundary In Philosophy, Maite Ezdurdia, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

An introductory survey of the nature and importance of the semantics-pragmatics boundary.

In Defense Of Public Languages, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

My modest aim in this note is to sketch three interrelated critiques of public languages, and to respond to them. All allegedly support the same conclusion: that, insofar as they even exist, the study of public languages is not a viable scientific project. (Related critiques of semantics, understood as involving word-world relations, will be touched on as well.)

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Delno C. West Award (2012)

Quidditas

Jessica Winston

The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

Hyperreal Blessings: Simulated Relics In The Pardoner’S Tale, Chelsea Henson

Quidditas

This article argues that reading the relics Chaucer’s Pardoner carries through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s definition of simulacra illustrates the potential existence – and subsequent dangers – of a simulated hyperreality to the spirituality of the fourteenth century. Juxtaposing “The Pardoner’s Prologue” from The Canterbury Tales and Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation lends meaning to both the machinations of Chaucer’s (arguably) most corrupt pilgrim, and to the postmodern idea of simulated realities. Rather than doubles or imitations of an original image or conception of reality, Baudrillard’s simulacra are indistinguishable replacements for the real, as the Pardoner would have us believe …

“A Neighbour, Hedges Haue Eyes, And High-Wayes Haue Eares” Traveling Players, Traveling Spies In 1 Henry Iv And The True Tragedie Of Richard The Third, Robert D. Stefanek

Quidditas

The Elizabethan government used companies of travelling players to serve a number of intelligence functions, which extended to the surveillance of audiences during performances. This surveillance was facilitated by the discursive instabilities of their plays and the architecture of the spaces in which they were performed. Surveillance by travelling players was part of an essentially colonial project in which the crown sought to extend its power and increase its visibility while attempting to fashion a nationalist, pro-Protestant, pro-Tudor identity in the provinces. To consider these dynamics, this article considers two conjectured performances. First, Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV performed by the …

A Fascinating But Frustrating Study Of Marlowe’S Drama And Its Historical Context, Jefferey H. Taylor

Quidditas

Clayton MacKenzie’s Deathly Experiments; A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe’s Plays is a fascinating, but equally frustrating, study of Marlowe’s drama and its historical context. The basic premise, to enrich our reading of Marlowe’s plays through resonance with widely available printed emblems and similar iconic art, is a worthy endeavor, one that follows the impulse to illuminate drama by examining contemporary visual art, and foregrounding the presence of theater as visual communications and enriching sensitivity to the communicative power of image and icon.