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Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Science is distinguished as an element of our total contemporary culture, or “historical science,” from science as the professional business of natural scientists, or “experimental science.” Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biases -- objectivism, scientism, technicism -- it has found in historical science. It is my purpose to show that these defects and biases, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science. The notion of dialectic is given …

Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Research Resources

Science is distinguished as an element of our total contemporary culture, or “historical science,” from science as the professional business of natural scientists, or “experimental science.” Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biases -- objectivism, scientism, technicism -- it has found in historical science. It is my purpose to show that these defects and biases, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science. The notion of dialectic is given …

Moral Perfection: An Interpretation Of The Nicomachean Ethics, Stephen Foster

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Dance Literacy: Intelligence And Sensibility In The Dance, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Painting And Language: A Pictoral Syntax Of Shapes, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

In previous articles, the author proposed that paintings can have syntactic rules. In this article he develops his proposal further and shows that shapes act as syntactic elements in the languages of painting styles. He meets Nelson Goodman's objections to his proposal by showing that shapes meet the criterion of syntactic discreteness proposed by the latter to separate linguistic from other symbolic systems. His approach is to specify style as the domain of a language of painting, to show that style is syntactical and to argue that shapes are the primitive syntactic elements of style. His essay relates current research …

The Author As Advocatus Dei In Heinrich Böll’S Group Portrait With Lady, Theodore Ziolkowski

University of Dayton Review

In the lectures on aesthetics that he delivered in 1963-64 at the University of Frankfurt, Heinrich Böll enunciated a precept that is too often forgotten, or at least ignored, by literary scholars and critics. “The content of a prose work, after all, is its presupposition, a gift; and you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.” Böll does not mean, of course, that content is irrelevant; but he suggests that criticism often neglects to concern itself with that aspect of the literary work that is specifically aesthetic: its form. “Recapitulation of plot without analysis of form makes possible all …

Truth, Belief, And Vagueness, Kenton Machina

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

Formal mathematical logic is designed to capture the logical form of mathematical statements, all of which employ precisely defined concepts, unlike the concepts found in natural languages, almost all of which are vague. In this paper I argue that in order to more accurately represent the logical form of vague natural language statements, formal logic should employ degrees of truth and falsehood, rather than assuming just the two truth “values” T and F. I explore in detail the most reasonable definitions for basic logical operations in a system that allows for degrees of truth, concluding that one of the multi-valued …

Intelligence And Sensibility In The Dance, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Anaxagoras And Epicurus, Margaret Reesor

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It is, I believe, clear that Epicurus adopted an interpretation of the impression which was alien to Democritus’ atomic theory and closer to that of Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras may have believed that the qualities of the impression accurately reproduced the attributes of the objects; and he certainly regarded the objects of sense perception as true. He held that that from which an entity emerges had predominant parts which were the same as the predominant parts of the entity. Anaxagoras' experiments suggest that he was aware in some degree of the principle of confirmatory evidence and evidence to the contrary. His form …

Xenophanes' Skepticism, James H. Lesher

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The character of Xenophanes’ skepticism was the subject of dispute as early as the 4th century BC and the central statement of his position, fragment 34, has been variously interpreted ever since. In this paper I argue that Xenophanes’ remarks about knowledge are best understood in connection with his distinctive, austere conception of the divine (B 23-26) and related rejection of the claims of seers and diviners to gain access to divine matters (A 52). When Xenophanes denies that there ever was or will be anyone who “knows about the gods and such things as I say about all things,” …

Ua68/1 Forum, Wku Potter College Of Arts & Letters

WKU Administration Documents

WKU Potter College of Arts & Letters faculty newsletter regarding faculty research and publications. This issue includes:

• Clarke, Kenneth. Snake Handling & Plato: Identifying Academic Folklore
• Mayhew, Larry. John T. Stahl, obituary

St. Thomas And The Natural Order Of Things, Henry B. Veatch

University of Dayton Review

Surely, it must stand to reason that whatever our respect and even our reverence may be on the occasion of commemorating the 700th anniversary of a particular man's death, the very fact that it is a 700th anniversary must somehow betoken that the man himself is, to say the least, somewhat out of date! And so it is with St. Thomas. Let's face it: In the language of today's slang, he just doesn't seem to be "with it" any more. True, this does not mean that it is not at least conceivable that he might be more "with it" than …

St. Thomas And The Preambles Of Faith, Ralph Mcinerny

University of Dayton Review

On several occasions St. Thomas makes use of the phrase praeambula fidei in speaking of those truths about God which are accessible to unaided human reason. It is well known that Thomas thought that pagan philosophers, notably Aristotle, had succeeded in proving that God exists and had come to knowledge of many of His attributes. These are the matters the phrase “preambles of faith” is meant to cover, and that is why discussion of it can aspire to cast some light on the notion of Natural Theology, the culminating concern of metaphysics and thus of philosophy.

The Good Society And The Complexity Of The Structure Of Morality, Hector-Neri Castaneda

IUSTITIA

In this paper I have two main purposes: (i) to outline the most general structure of morality, which is the fundamental schema of a good society, and (ii) to indict most of the mainstream views in the history of moral philosophy for their unchecked tendency toward reductionism and oversimplification. The tendency to oversimplification appears both in the gathering of the data for philosophical theorizing and in the theorizing itself. I will also point out another major recurring error in moral philosophy. I envision the day when moral philosophers, after examining their ontological and their methodological assumptions, rally to the banner …

Hegel On The Meanings Of Poetry, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Since Socrates' attack on poetry, philosophers and critics have been faced with the problem of reconciling two convictions which seem equally pressing. While poetry (or imaginative literature) is and has been valued as a source of insight and knowledge, it also seems clear that poetic meaning is of a rather different sort than that found in science, ordinary language, or (to introduce the classical contrast) prose. Philosophical theories of poetry, then, take one of two forms: either they deny one of these two beliefs, implying perhaps that poetry has only nonsensical or literal meaning, or they provide a cognitive analysis …

Immediate Experience And The Problem Of Expression: A Study In The Philosophy Of Bergson, Jeanne Priley Mclean

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche's Philosophy Of Play, Lawrence M. Hinman

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Transcendental Method And The Crisis Of Historicism, William Joseph Zanardi

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Searle And The Nonderivability Thesis, Rick Harrison

Honors Projects

This paper contributes to the defense of the nonderivability thesis; that is, the thesis that no set of purely descriptive statements can entail an evaluative statement. Thus, it is impossible to give objective justification of any value judgment.

Confessional Scholarship?, Nick Van Til

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Philosophical Commitment As Artistic Expression, Robert K. Mcmaster

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the fourth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1974.

In this paper I will deal with and try to give acceptable answers to three basic questions that deal with the topic of philosophical commitment. The questions and the order in which they will be dealt with are:

• What is philosophical commitment?
• How does philosophical commitment develop?
• What is the best way to describe, talk about, or understand this commitment?

Ought Cats Be Tuesday? Reflections On The Neutrality Of Philosophers, Xavier Monasterio

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the fourth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1974.

Should walls be brown. or white? The question is ridiculous because, as it stands, it is unanswerable. Why should walls be brown rather than white, or white rather than brown? On what basis can we decide that one color is more fitted than another for walls? In order for the question to become truly intelligible and answerable, its context needs to be specified. Tell me whether you are talking about the walls of a house or the walls of an industrial plant, …

The Philosopher's Character And Praxis, Martin A. Bertman

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the fourth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1974.

Not inappropriately, as an invitation to conversation, the title of this colloquium — “The Philosopher: Neutral or Committed?" — is ambiguous and provocative. For one, the word “neutral” opposes “committed,” thereby suggesting the conflation of the meanings of “neutral” and “uncommitted,” as  the latter is the formal opposite of committed.

To understand the meaning of “uncommitted” as positive hostility and abnegation of political action, however, would bring forward few advocates: Diogenes or Sinope, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche come to mind.

The Transcendental Phenomenologist: Neutral Or Committed?, Raymond J. Devettere

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the fourth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1974.

From the very beginning Western philosophy has been marked by an almost constant longing for radical knowledge, indubitable truth, apodictic evidence, the ultimate ground. Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology continues this philosophical passion and advances it along the lines first opened up by Descartes. The Cartesian doubt was a philosophical method designed to achieve an absolutely certain point of departure for philosophy by applying a merciless skepticism to all our experiences which could in any way be questioned. Two important insights emerge here: …

Intention And Interpretation In Art: A Semiotic Analysis, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Kant was perhaps the first philosopher to note the distinctive puzzle, verging on paradox, which marks our dealings with art. Works of art seem to place us under an obligation to interpret them and yet we are convinced that our interpretations will never be exhaustive. Kant attempts to account for this peculiar phenomenon by talking of "purposiveness without purpose" or of the aesthetic idea as "a representation of the imagination to which no concept is adequate." We are constrained to see some pattern or organization in a work of art and this is typically understood as a teleological or purposive …

Langer And Hofstadter On Painting And Language: A Critique, Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Respect, Richard Stith

Law Faculty Publications

To understand and to describe the feeling we call "respect" is the purpose of this thesis. Relying primarily upon the method of phenomenology, the contours of this often. invoked moral feeling are developed and a pattern and structure are therein discerned.

General issues of methodology as well as specific problems of access to the phenomenon of respect are first considered. Respect for persons qua persons is eschewed as a focus~ in order that our analysis not become excessively entangled in the nature of personhood. Rather, we turn to those particular individuals for whom we each have at some time felt …

Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Research Resources

As an element of our total contemporary culture, "historical science" may be distinguished from "experimental" science as the professional business of natural scientists. Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biasses -- objectivism, scientism, techicism -- it has found in historical science. I show that these defects and biasses, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science.

Forms And Explanation In The Phaedo, Charlotte Stough

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In coming to grips with what are essentially logical and conceptual problems Plato doubtless had in mind and followed the example set by the natural philosophers. It seems very likely, therefore, that he thought of his Forms as causes of certain puzzling facts in a manner initially not wholly unlike that in which others had believed air or fire to be causes of various physical phenomena. Plato's language suggests that his own explanatory formula, though strikingly different in function from any other, was fashioned after those of his precursors.

Jean-Paul Sartre’S Theory Of Literature, Timothy Jobe

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The thesis of this paper is twofold. First, there is the general concern to investigate and demonstrate clearly that there are relationships between certain superficially unrelated disciplines, namely philosophy, aesthetics and literary criticism. Second, by way of accomplishing the first aim, there is an attempt made to synthesize and explicate the contributions of a significant twentieth century intellectual. The particular procedure employed to attain these ends is the consideration of an academic field which is continually being reshaped by other separate but related disciplines. For my purposes the figure of Jean Paul Sartre and the field of literary criticism are …