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Review Article: Quidditas And Medieval Studies Today, Erin Felicia Labbie

Quidditas

Medieval studies today may be precisely characterized by quidditas. The Aristotelian term quidditas became central to the development of medieval scholastic inquiry in the West when, in 1066 Anselm of Canterbury wrote the Monologion. This eleventh-century foray into the revival of Aristotelian thought is also seen in Porphyry’s third-century translations of Aristotle and in Boethius’ sixth-century concern with universals elaborated in his commentaries on universals and categories. For Anselm and the developing model of medieval scholastic thought, the Monologion and its immediate successor, the Proslogian, assert a double discourse of the difference between quidditas and haeccitas, …

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

On The Guise Of The Good, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis of intentional actions, and of action for a (normative) reason, followed by a consideration of a number of objections to the thesis of the Guise of the Good force various revisions and refinements of the thesis yielding a defensible version of it. It is argued that the revised thesis is supported by the same argument that inspired the Guise of the Good from the beginning and …

Embodied Cognition As Refutation To Langer's "Illusory Powers": "I Move, Therefore, I Know", Ruby Amanda Montana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thesis Objective: To refute Susanne Langer's notion within her philosophy of dance which holds that emotional forces in dance are solely "virtual" and thus illusory. I plan to do so by means of the growing research in the branch of cognitive science known as Embodied Cognition.

In Brief: Susanne Langer, one of the most prominent philosophers of Aesthetics, contends that dance is able to express emotions as an external force, while creating what she calls a "primary illusion". Langer attributes gesture as the basic abstraction whereby the dance illusion is made and organized. Furthermore, she contends that dance is not …

Interpretive Teleology Without Eschatology: A Study Of The Hermeneutic Strategies Of Nietzsche's Genealogical Project, Darin Sean Mcginnis

Dissertations

In contemporary philosophy, there exists a vigorous debate between those thinkers who advocate the need for a truth that exists outside of historical forces and those who hold that all understanding must be historical in its basis. My research is focused on deciphering this problem by providing a description of how understanding and interpretation occur. More specifically, I have proposed a project that explores how the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche can give some insight into this problem of understanding truth. I argue that Nietzsche develops a method of interpretation - a hermeneutics - that focuses on the manner in …

On Constructive-Engagement Strategy Of Comparative Philosophy, Bo Mou

Faculty Publications

In this journal theme introduction, first, I explain how comparative philosophy as explored in the journal Comparative Philosophy is understood and how it is intrinsically related to the constructive engagement strategy. Second, to characterize more clearly and accurately some related methodological points of the constructive-engagement strategy, and also to explain how constructive engagement is possible, I introduce some needed conceptual and explanatory resources and a meta-methodological framework and endeavor to identify adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles in comparative studies. Third, as a case analysis, I show how the constructive-engagement reflective practice bears on recent studies of Chinese and comparative …

Law And Its Order, Daniele Manni

Master's Theses

Daniele Manni

Loyola University Chicago

LAW AND ITS ORDER: THE PRIORITY OF ETHICS OVER LEGISLATION

IN PLATO'S LAWS.

Despite the fact that the Laws are almost twenty four hundred years old, their reserve of philosophically and politically interesting points is still copious and relevant for the contemporary reader. The present work is an initial attempt to analyze the nature of law as treated in the Laws and to highlight especially the reliance of the legislative sphere on the ethical sphere.

In spite of the many, and often painfully detailed, laws posited by the Athenian in the course of books VIII-XII, …

Reorientation Through Interruption: On The Relation Of Immanuel Kant's Modes Of Egoism To His Critical Philosophy, Giancarlo Tarantino

Master's Theses

The relationship between Immanuel Kant's anthropology, and his Critical philosophy has proven to be a notoriously difficult problem, both for specifically Kantian scholarship as well as for philosophy in general. This thesis attempts to investigate this relationship by showing the importance of Kant's modes of egoism at work in his three Critiques. In doing so this thesis will highlight the phenomena of interruption, and orientation as playing crucial interpretive roles for parsing out the aforementioned relationship. I will try to show that anthropology and Critique mutually interrupt, and re-orient one another's specific contributions to the major themes of Kant's thinking.

The Chinese Classic Of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation Of The Xiaojing. By Henry Rosemont, Jr., And Roger T. Ames, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The fruitful partnership between Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Roger T. Ames which earlier yielded The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation1 has delivered another fine translation and study of a major Confucian classic—namely, the Xiaojing 孝經, rendered here as the “Classic of Family Reverence” but perhaps more commonly known to English readers as the “Classic of Filial Piety.” The translation will be welcomed by students of Chinese literature. The study of xiao that accompanies it should provoke much discussion and debate.

Space, Time And The Constitution Of Subjectivity: Comparing Elias And Foucault, Paddy Dolan

Articles

The work of Foucault and Elias has been compared before in the social sciences and humanities, but here I argue that the main distinction between their approaches to the construction of subjectivity is the relative importance of space and time in their accounts. This is not just a matter of the “history of ideas,” as providing for the temporal dimension more fully in theories of subjectivity and the habitus allows for a greater understanding of how ways of being, acting and feeling in different spaces are related but largely unintended. Here I argue that discursive practices, governmental operations and technologies …

Hegelian Priorities In Christendom: A Reconsideration, Howard P. Kainz

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Arguments from the nineteenth century concerning whether Hegel was an atheist or a theist are still ongoing. This paper examines Hegel’s philosophical and theological milieu, his influence on the history of philosophy and on politics, his unique interpretation of the unity of theology and philosophy, and his unusually sanguine interpretation of the relationship between church and state, along with special problems he discerned in the emergence of democracies.

Interpretations: Deep, Reasonable, And Free, Paul Guyer

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Musical Presence: Towards A New Philosophy Of Music, Charles Ford

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Most recent writings about the philosophy of music have taken an analytic or linguistic approach, focusing on terms such as meaning, metaphor, emotions and expression, invariably from the perspective of the individual listener or composer. This essay seeks to develop an alternative, phenomenological framework for thinking about music by avoiding these terms, and by extrapolating from the writings of Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger. On the basis of discussions of musical time, its multiple levels of matter, and its internal dialectics, the essay presents a particular understanding of “style” as the primary basis for mediation between production and reception. It concludes …

Neo-Kantianism In Germany And France, Sebastian Luft, Fabien Capeillères

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Theoria, Theos, And Therapeia In Aristotle's Ethical Endings, Lawrence Jost

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My basic complaint is that it’s not at all obvious that maximizing the theoretical activity of our most divine element does full justice to the richly textured environment provided by the first 9 1/2 books of the NE, which seemed to call for focused development of the full range of our human potential, combining moral and intellectual virtues along with provision for adequate supplies of external goods. The older language of the seemingly endless debate about whether or not the NE settles for an inclusive or dominant-end conception of eudaimonia has been redescribed - in Michael Pakaluk’s new terminology - …

How The Conception Of Knowledge Influences Our Educational Practices: Toward A Philosophical Understanding Of Epistemology In Education, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

This paper explores how the conception and valuation of the knowledge within our educational practices determines the planning, writing, and implementation of the curriculum. There is a pressing need for educators to philosophically and systematically understand the relationship between the foundational epistemological beliefs that ground a curriculum and its relationship to forming the notions of competency, pedagogy, and the methods for evaluating and assessing student progress. These issues are not only relevant, but crucial when attempting to justify a particular conception of education, which relates directly to the student's potential for intellectual growth and social development. It may be argued …

The Art Of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, And The Quest For An Ontology Of Social Existence In Watsuji Tetsurō’S Rinrigaku, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by …

Surrealism's Revisionist Reading Of Freudian Psychology: Surreal Film And The Dream, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Knowing With Images: Medium And Message*, John Kulvicki

Dartmouth Scholarship

Problems concerning scientists’ uses of representations have received quite a bit of attention recently. The focus has been on how such representations get their contents and on just what those contents are. Less attention has been paid to what makes certain kinds of scientific representations different from one another and thus well suited to this or that epistemic end. This article considers the latter question with particular focus on the distinction between images and graphs on the one hand and descriptions and related representations on the other.

The Epistemic Irresponsibility Of The Subjects-Of-A-Life Account, Julia Tanner

Between the Species

In this paper I will argue that Regan’s subjects-of-a-life account is epistemically irresponsible. Firstly, in making so many epistemic claims. Secondly in making the claims themselves.

Review Of Matthew C. Halteman’S Compassionate Eating As Care Of Creation (Humane Society Of The United States, 2008), John Mcateer

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

Review Of Matthew Calarco's Zoographies: The Question Of The Animal From Heidegger To Derrida, Donald L. Turner

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

Opening Philosophy To The World: Derrida And Education In Philosophy, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this essay, Steven Burik discusses Jacques Derrida's position with regard to the place of education in philosophy within the university system, and then relates these thoughts to comparative philosophy. Philosophers find themselves constantly having to defend philosophy and the importance of teaching philosophy against pressure from the powers that be. Burik contends that the argument Derrida set forth to "protect" philosophy entails a double bind: Derrida emphasized the value and importance of philosophical thinking while at the same time criticizing the limits of philosophy, both self-mandated and externally imposed. Derrida's defense of philosophy was anything but a protection of …

Business, Science And Ethics: A Case Study In The Necessary Evolution Of Methodology, Thomas I. White

Between the Species

Alasdair MacIntyre and David DeGrazia have explored the question of how sophisticated dolphins’ cognitive abilities are, and these thinkers have taken positions based on a flawed methodology that either assert or imply that dolphins fall below humans when it comes to cognitive sophistication and moral consideration. Timothy Fort uses MacIntyre’s characterization of dolphins in his discussion of the value of biology to business ethics. He thereby makes inaccurate and unsupportable claims, and perpetuates a stereotype about dolphins grounded in unintentional speciesism—a stereotype that makes certain unethical treatment of dolphins appear defensible. There is currently little discussion about the appropriate methodology …

The Work Of Art And Truth Of Being As "Historical": Reading Being And Time, "The Origin Of The Work Of Art," And The "Turn" (Kehre) In Heidegger’S Philosophy Of The 1930s, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

Reading Heidegger’s Being and Time, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and the 1934-35 lecture courses Hölderlin’s Hymns“Germania” and “The Rhine,” the aim of this essay is twofold. First, the essay attempts to elucidate the manner in which the work of art functions as a superlative event of “truth-happening” (aletheia), which facilitates the movement of Dasein into the truth of Being as a legitimate member of a community, serving as, “the origin of a people’s authentic historical existence.”1 Second, it explains why this notion of art as the historical manifestation of Being is crucial to understanding the shift, or …

Greek Bronze: Holding A Mirror To Life, Expanded Reprint From The Irish Philosophical Yearbook 2006: In Memoriam John J. Cleary 1949-2009, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

To explore the ethical and political role of life-sized bronzes in ancient Greece, as Pliny and others report between 3,000 and 73,000 such statues in a city like Rhodes, this article asks what these bronzes looked like. Using the resources of hermeneutic phenomenological reflection, as well as a review of the nature of bronze and casting techniques, it is argued that the ancient Greeks encountered such statues as images of themselves in agonistic tension in dynamic and political fashion. The Greek saw, and at the same time felt himself regarded by, the statue not as he believed the statue divine …

Truth, Art, And The "New Sensuousness": Understanding Heidegger's Metaphysical Reading Of Nietzsche, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

This article takes a critical look into Heidegger’s reading of Nietzschean metaphysics in the context of art and finds certain discrepancies in Heidegger’s texts. Heidegger’s claim is that Nietzsche has had some difficulty in discussing the problem of truth, being, and becoming in terms of how the Western tradition of philosophy has understood it. In the context of art, Magrini traces the path that Heidegger took in understanding Nietzsche’s notion of nihilism and finds that Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche is actually an attempt to elevate the latter as a timely philosophical force whose thought moves away from the rote and …

“The Negro Speaks Of Rivers” An African Centered Historical Study Of The Selfethnic Liberatory Education Nature And Goals Of The Poetry Of Langston Hughes: The Impact On Adult Education, Sarah E. Howard

Dissertations

The purposes of this historical study were to 1) document the Selfethnic Liberatory adult education nature and goals of the poetry of Langston Hughes (from 1921 to 1933); and 2) to document the impact this poetry had on members of the African Diaspora. In addition, the goal of this research was to expand the historical knowledge base of the adult education field, so that it is more inclusive of the contributions of African Americans.

This study addressed the problem that the historical and philosophical literature of the field does not to any significant degree include the intellectual and adult education …

Revisionism About Free Will: A Statement And Defense, Manuel R. Vargas

Philosophy

This article summarizes and extends the moderate revisionist position I put forth in Four Views on Free Will and responds to objections to it from Robert Kane, John Martin Fischer, Derk Pereboom, and Michael McKenna. Among the principle topics of the article are (1) motivations for revisionism, what it is, and how it is different from compatibilism and hard incompatibilism, (2) an objection to libertarianism based on the moral costs of its current epistemic status, (3) an objection to the distinctiveness of semicompatibilism against conventional forms of compatibilism and (4) whether moderate revisionism is committed to realism about moral responsibility.

Disarming Affirmative Action: Why The Concept As We Know It, Cannot Solve The Racial Issue, Daniel J. Cianchetta

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The following is a study on the use of affirmative action in higher education, particularly with respect to race. Because admission into institutions of higher education has traditionally been perceived as a reflection on one’s merit, the application of race-conscious affirmative action programs has undermined the meritorious prestige of a college education for graduates of all races alike. The use of an uncontrollable trait determined at birth as a factor in gaining admission to one of these institutions raised questions of fairness, legality, and purpose. The consequences of such a policy’s application raised further questions regarding fairness, its success, and …