Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Resilience Of Computationalism, Gualtiero Piccinini

Philosophy Faculty Works

Computationalism—the view that cognition is computation—has always been controversial. It faces two types of objection. According to insufficiency objections, computation is insufficient for some cognitive phenomenon X. According to objections from neural realization, cognitive processes are realized by neural processes, but neural processes have feature Y, and having Y is incompatible with being (or realizing) computations. In this article, I explain why computationalism has survived these objections. To adjudicate the dispute between computationalism and its foes, I will conclude that we need a better account of computation.

Is Philosophy Dead? Far From It, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Rotman Institute Opening, Joseph Rotman, Janice Deakin, Jane Maienschein, Charles Weijer, Philip Kitcher

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

An Imagined Dialog on Eastern and Western Philosophy and the Nature of Knowledge

Honor Code Ethics 101, Simon Feldman

Convocation Addresses

Simon Feldman, assistant professor of philosophy, addresses the college community at Convocation, the first day of classes: "My plan is to try to provoke you into doing some thinking of your own about the Honor Code and the point of a liberal arts education. If I fail, I hope at least you’ll be very confused. And because being confused is the starting point of all philosophy, I’ll be pretty happy with that."

Foucauldian Genealogy As Situated Critique Or Why Is Sexuality So Dangerous?, Ian Douglas Dunkle

Philosophy Theses

This thesis argues for a new understanding of criticism in Foucauldian genealogy based on the role played by the values of Michel Foucault’s audience in motivating suspicion. Secondary literature on Foucault has been concerned with understanding how Foucault’s works can be critical of cultural practices in the contemporary West when his accounts take the form of descriptive history. Commentaries offered heretofore have been insufficient for explaining the basis of Foucault’s criticism of cultural practices because they have failed to articulate the relation of the genealogist to her present normative context—the social and political values and goals that, in part, define …

Immigration, Association, And The Family, Matthew J. Lister

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper I provide a philosophical analysis of family-based immigration. This type of immigration is of great importance, yet has received relatively little attention from philosophers and others doing normative work on immigration. As family-based immigration poses significant challenges for those seeking a comprehensive normative account of the limits of discretion that states should have in setting their own immigration policies, it is a topic that must be dealt with if we are to have a comprehensive account. In what follows I use the idea of freedom of association to show what is distinctive about family-based immigration and why …

Against The Conventionalist Turn In Legal Theory: Dickson On Hart On The Rule Of Recognition, Michael S. Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

M. Fethullah Gülen's Blueprint For World Peace, Richard Penaskovic

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This article attempts to sift through the writings of Fethullah Gülen) a Turkish intellectual) in order to make explicit his blueprint for world peace. Gülen argues that today)s world has succumbed to materialism and hedonism. The antidote consists in the development of one)s interior or spiritual life) adorning oneself with such virtues as humility) love) and self-sacrifice. He also calls for an education that involves the whole person: body) mind) and spirit. Acceptance of others and dialogue between East and West) Muslims and Christians is essential if there is to be peace on earth.

Hannah Arendt And Augustine Of Hippo: On The Pleasure Of And Desire For Evil, Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

Hannah Arendt wrote two volumes on thinking and willing in The Life of the Mind, but due to her untimely death her work devoted to judgement, especially political judgement, was never completed. We do, however, have a significant amount of writings on this theme as evidenced by her lectures on Kant’s Third Critique. Judgement and thinking are critical in order to prevent what Arendt calls the “banality of evil”. Drawing on Augustine and Arendt’s work on Augustine, this paper seeks to argue that another form of serious evil has its root in what Augustine calls the libido habendi and the …

What We Talk About When We Talk About The Soul, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

The author discusses the popularity among college students of the concept of the soul, and attempts to place it in its proper context. He dispenses with orthodox theological arguments and New Age arguments as scientifically untenable. He takes a so-called Wittgensteinian approach, noting soul's linguistic significance. He analyzes expressions which use the concept of soul and concludes that they are qualitatively different from testable factual expressions. He notes that soul talk is about hopes and aspirations, inspiration, or feelings deeper than friendship. He assigns it meaning outside of scientific concepts. He likens expressions of soul to creative and ethical acts, …

The Postsecret Phenomenon: A Contemporary Application Of Existential Psychotherapy, Dan Martin

Senior Honors Projects

In November 2004, as a whimsical break from his monotonous job, Frank Warren decided he would start a small art project in his community. This idea, which he entitled “PostSecret,” involved leaving blank post cards in various public locations that simply asked to “Share a Secret” and listed a few guidelines. Frank’s goal was to “create this non-judgmental, safe place where people could feel comfortable sharing parts of their lives that they've never told a soul.” What he expected to be a small result became a weekly blog, five published books, a traveling art gallery, and a lecture series given …

Grand Challenges In Theoretical And Philosophical Psychology: After Psychology, Dan Lloyd

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Kant's Use Of Transcendental Arguments, Thomas Wayne Cudney

Philosophy Theses

Kant is famous for his use of transcendental arguments in the transcendental deduction. This thesis examines how such a transcendental argument is used within Kant’s methodological framework. Following the work of Henrich and Walker, the paper asks whether transcendental arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason are compatible with Kant’s methodology in general. We find that these arguments and Kant’s methodology are compatible, and that transcendental arguments are indeed very weak arguments by Walker’s standards. However, the entire transcendental deduction should be understood as a deduction writing that uses transcendental arguments particularly effectively according to Kant’s own methodological standards.

Unamuno's Concept Of The Tragic, Ernesto O. Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses in presenting Miguel de Unamuno’s concept of the tragic. Historically this concept has suffered various changes of meaning and application. If successful the project shall provide the distinct connotation, features, and characteristics that Unamuno attributes to the tragic. His special treatment of the tragic harnesses a way for the will to become aware of its existential condition. This awakening of consciousness evokes an arousal of dichotomies that the will must confront. Faith against reason, religion against science, heart against intellect, are amongst these conflicting predicaments. The will’s constant struggle between these opposing forces constitutes for Unamuno the …

Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan

Stuart Glennan

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.

Attending To Presence: A Study Of John Duns Scotus' Account Of Sense Cognition, Amy F. Whitworth

Dissertations (1934 -)

This project is guided and motivated by the question concerning the nature of the phantasm as that which mediates between sensation and intellection in John Duns Scotus' account of cognition. Scotus embraces Aristotle's claim that the intellect cannot think without the phantasm. The phantasm is in a corporeal organ, yet the immaterial intellect must act with it to produce an intelligible species. In this project I examine the critical elements of Scotus' cognitive theory in order to understand the nature of the phantasm.

In the first chapter I discuss key elements of Aristotle's metaphysics and give a close, textual reading …

Introducing… Vittorio Hösle, Pamela Reeve, Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

An interview conducted by Pamela J. Reeve (St. Augustine’s Seminary, Toronto School of Theology) and Antonio Calcagno (King’s University College at UWO, Editor of Symposium)

Why I Am A Buddhist, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism.

There have been a lot of books that have made the case for Buddhism. What makes this book fresh and exciting is Asma's iconoclasm, irreverence, and hardheaded approach to the subject. He is distressed that much of what passes for Buddhism is really little more than "New Age mush." He loudly asserts that it is time to "take the California out of …

Terminological Reflections Of An Enlightened Contextualist, Robert J. Stainton

Robert J. Stainton

No abstract provided.

Just Military Preparedness And Irregular Warfare, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This presentation explores the significance of just military preparedness (JMP), or jus ante bellum as a new category of just war theory, for just war thinking, especially with regard to irregular warfare. It articulates six just military preparedness (JMP) principles. It further discusses how America’s military preparation fails the JMP principles and how this negatively impacts its capability to justly initiate, execute, and conclude (irregular) war. This critical analysis takes as its point of departure (former) Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s view that the Pentagon needs to be “reprogrammed” toward a “balanced strategy” of preparing for both conventional and irregular warfare.

The Desert Of The Real: Christianity, Buddhism & Baudrillard In The Matrix Films And Popular Culture, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The movie The Matrix and its sequels draw explicitly on imagery from a number of sources, including in particular Buddhism, Christianity, and the writings of Jean Baudrillard. A perspective is offered on the perennial philosophical question ‘What is real?’, using language and symbols drawn from three seemingly incompatible world views. In doing so, these movies provide us with an insight into the way popular culture makes eclectic use of various streams of thought to fashion a new reality that is not unrelated to, and yet is nonetheless distinct from, its religious and philosophical undercurrents and underpinnings.

Rightly Or For Ill: The Ethics Of Remembering And Forgetting, Alison Nicole Reiheld '93

Doctoral Dissertations

Forgetting a birthday, a wedding anniversary, a beloved child's school play or a dear colleague's important accomplishments is often met with blame, whereas remembering them can engender praise. Are we in fact blameworthy or praiseworthy for such remembering and forgetting? When ought we to remember, in the ethical sense of 'ought'? And ought we in some cases to allow ourselves to forget?

These are the questions that ground this philosophical work. In fact, we so often unreflectively assign moral blame and praise to ourselves and others for memory behaviors that this faculty, and moral responsibility for it, deserve careful philosophical …

Mechanisms, Causes, And The Layered Model Of The World, Stuart Glennan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Most philosophical accounts of causation take causal relations to obtain between individuals and events in virtue of nomological relations between properties of these individuals and events. Such views fail to take into account the consequences of the fact that in general the properties of individuals and events will depend upon mechanisms that realize those properties. In this paper I attempt to rectify this failure, and in so doing to provide an account of the causal relevance of higher-level properties. I do this by critiquing one prominent model of higher-level properties – Kim’s functional model of reduction – and contrasting it …

Pain And Human Dependence (Dolor Y Dependencia Humana), Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This paper is a study of medical philosophy. The subject is studied from the author's own experience. On the basic sources of inspiration the works of Fernando Pessoa, Karl Kraus and Friedrich Nietzsche, raise the limits and scope of medical knowledge and experience of pain and disease.

[Introduction To] When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence In Western Thought, Terryl Givens

Bookshelf

The idea of the pre-existence of the soul has been extremely important, widespread, and persistent throughout Western history--from even before the philosophy of Plato to the poetry of Robert Frost. When Souls Had Wings offers the first systematic history of this little explored feature of Western culture.

Terryl Givens describes the tradition of pre-existence as "pre-heaven"--the place where unborn souls wait until they descend to earth to be born. And typically it is seen as a descent--a falling away from a happier and untroubled state into the turbulent and sinful world we know. The title of the book refers to …

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 …

Indivisibility And Linkage Arguments: A Reply To Gilabert, James W. Nickel

Articles

This reply discusses Pablo Gilabert's response to my article, "Rethinking Indivisibility." It welcomes his distinction between conceptual, normative, epistemic, and causal forms of support from one right to another. It denies, however, that "Rethinking Indivisibility" downplayed linkage arguments for human rights (although it did call for careful evaluation of such arguments), and rejects Gilabert's suggestion that we understand the indivisibility of two rights as two rights being highly useful to each other (interdependence) rather than as mutual indispensability. In the final section, I offer two new worries about the system-wide indivisibility of human rights.

Book Panel Response: Symposium On Ladelle Mcwhorter's Racism And Sexual Oppression In Anglo-America: A Genealogy, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Unfortunately I do not have space to address individually each issue these four papers raise. Instead, I will first situate my work in relation to identity politics and address fears that my approach is reductive. Then, building on comments from Professors Wilkerson and Al-Saji, I will offer some remarks about aims, methods, and shortcomings.

Mental Disorders And The "System Of Judgmental Responsibility", Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.