Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Definition Of Everyday Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article responds to recent controversy in the aesthetics of everyday life with a succinct definition designed to clarify the domain of study. The article is intentionally designed for brevity and accessibility in order to facilitate usage.

Cornelius Aurelius: The Upcycling Humanist - A Study Of The Libellus De Patientia, Samantha James

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Cornelius Aurelius’ Libellus de Patientia (MS Leiden, UB, Vulcanius 66 f.45r-f.57v. [1524]), in terms of the author’s reception of the Manipulus florum, reveals much about the development of Northern Humanism, in the context of late medieval scholasticism and the Reformation. By thoroughly examining Libellus de Patientia, this paper will discuss Aurelius’ use of numerous quotations derived from the Manipulus florum as evidence of how this text should be situated in terms of intellectual continuity vs. change during this turbulent period with regards to the intellectual context of medieval scholasticism and renaissance humanism.

Post-Liberation Feminism And Practices Of Freedom, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Most feminist theorists over the last forty years have held that a basic tenet of feminism is that women as a group are oppressed. The concept of oppression has never had a very broad meaning in liberal discourse, however, and with the rise of neo-liberalism since 1980 it has even less currency in public debate. This article argues that, while we may still believe women are oppressed, for pragmatic purposes Michel Foucault’s concept of practices of freedom is a more effective way to characterize feminist theory and politics.

Logic, Truth And Inquiry (Book Review), G. C. Goddu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Mark Weinstein’s, Logic, Truth and Inquiry is an ambitious and provocative case for a theory of truth and warrant strength that will undergird an “account of argument in the broad sense of current argumentation theory” (p. 12). I begin with a very schematic synopsis of Weinstein’s rich discussion through his six chapters. Weinstein himself notes that his arguments are “frequently presented in broad outline” (p. 1), so my quick sketch will be even broader. I conclude with some brief observations about both what the book leaves unresolved and the merits of Weinstein’s intriguing book.

Socratic Metaphysics, William J. Prior

Philosophy

Did Socrates have a metaphysics? The question is complex. We might begin by asking, what is a metaphysics? We might also ask, who we mean by Socrates? Let me deal with these questions in order. Metaphysics is concerned with what lies at the foundation of things, the principles underlying reality. ln this essay, that will mean primarily an ontology, a theory of 'what there is'. Now one point on which the authors discussed in this article agree, a 'point of departure' that anchors their various views about Socratic metaphysics, is that Plato had a metaphysics: as Gregory Vlastos puts it, …

Ecofeminism And Religion: Christianity And The Ethical Approach To The Environment, Olga Joann Provencher

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I attempt to formulate the Christianity-based ecocentric ethics, to answer the ecofeminists' quest to spiritually ground such ethics; I use the living example of the practices of the Catholic ''green sisters''.

Do Employers Have Obligations To Pay Their Workers A Living Wage?, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Jeremy Snyder argues that employers have obligations to pay their workers a living wage if workers stand in relationships of dependence with their employers. I argue that Snyder’s argument for this conclusion faces a dilemma. Snyder can adopt either a descriptive or a moralized account of dependence. If Snyder adopts a descriptive account, then it is false that dependence activates obligations to pay a living wage. If Snyder endorses a moralized account of dependence, then Snyder’s argument is circular. So, Snyder’s argument fails to establish that employers have obligations to pay their workers a living wage.

Between Law And Markets: Is There A Role For Culture And Ethics In Financial Regulation?, Dan Awrey, William Blair, David Kershaw

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The limits of markets as mechanisms for constraining socially suboptimal behavior are well documented. Simultaneously, conventional approaches toward the law and regulation are often crude and ineffective mechanisms for containing the social costs of market failure. So where do we turn when both law and markets fail to live up to their social promise? Two possible answers are culture and ethics. In theory, both can help constrain socially undesirable behavior in the vacuum between law and markets. In practice, however, both exhibit manifest shortcomings.

To many, this analysis may portend the end of the story. From our perspective, however, it …

Inverse Intuition: Repurposing As A Method To Create New Artifacts, To Invent New Practices, And To Produce New Knowledge, Warren Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that Digital Natives, rather than employing novel ways of thinking (such as those suggested by Walter Ong's concept of Second Orality), are in fact employing a way of thinking that has always existed: repurposing. Ruth Oldenziel discusses how, historically, women used "a kind of mental quality" enabling them to re-use objects in novel ways to accomplish more of life's tasks. My research led me to investigate how a wide variety of people, especially historically marginalized people, used this kind of mental quality. This dissertation explores repurposing's real world uses as well as its uses in narratives, specifically …

Shylock And Joachim Gaunse: And A Real Jew, Michael T. Walton

Quidditas

Joachim Gaunse, a Bohemian metallurgist, was brought to England to help evaluate the resources of the New World. During a visit to Bristol in 1589, he defended his Jewish rejection of Jesus. The reaction of those who heard this real Jew gives some indication of how theater audiences may have responded to Shakespeare’s Shylock.

The Several Faces Of Late-Gothic Eve: Gender And Marriage In The Mystery Creation And Fall Plays, Thomas Flanigan

Quidditas

The critical drive to make fundamental, substantive distinctions between Catholic and Protestant dogma and culture has always been central to early modern English studies, but over the past fifty years a prominent contingent of literary and historical scholars has endeavored more specifically to identify and articulate significant differences between Catholic and Protestant perceptions of women and marriage. According to one familiar, now widely accepted theory advanced primarily by Miltonists, a relatively feminist and pro-marriage Protestant ethic emerged in response to the extreme, aggressively misogynistic attitudes attributed to late-medieval Catholic thought. This paper will seek to demonstrate, through a close comparative …

Imagining Pregnancy: The Fünfbilderserie And Images Of “Pregnant Disease Woman” In Medieval Medical Manuscripts, Ginger L. Smoak

Quidditas

The Fünfbilderserie consists of anatomic schematics utilized in medical school dissections beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Anatomists would create these mnemonics to help students envision the internal systems of the body. Besides the standard five male pictures, an additional image, the “Pregnant Disease Woman” acted as a means to understand the reproductive system and organs of the pregnant woman. This paper argues, however, that despite the empirical observation of the anatomy of the gravid woman, they continued to visualize and “imagine” it, largely due to the existing classical ideas these anatomist retained about women, their natures, and their …

Holy Places & Imagined Hellscapes: Qualifying Comments On Loca Sancta Sermon Studies—Christian Conversion In Northern Europe & Scandinavia, C. 500-1300, Todd P. Upton

Quidditas

The paper uses methods from medieval sermon studies to argue that an insularity in “monastic consciousness” can be traced to earlier centuries than the more generally discussed (and better documented) scholastic environments of 13th century monastic and cathedral schools. It assesses how a monastic discourse reliant on Biblical typologies informed the Christian conversion of northern Germanic and Scandinavian peoples (c. 500-1300, including the British Isles and Iceland). Moments of encounter between Christian missionaries and pagan cultures helped delineate this discourse, most apparent in extant records that reveal Christian and Norse perceptions of geography, holy places, deity worship, and eschatological expectations. …

Classifying Early Modern Sexuality: Christopher Marlowe, Edward Ii, And The Politics Of Sexuality, Michael John Lee

Quidditas

This paper argues that Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1594) questions gender expectations and sexuality. The analysis finds that the same-sex attraction and affective relationship that develops between King Edward and Gaveston can be seen as neither simply sodomy nor exclusively as male friendship. Instead, the emotional bonds and marriage-like relationship between the king and his minion suggest that their identities are, in part, formed by their same-sex attraction.

Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, And The Unity Of Form And Content, Antony Aumann

Journal Articles

On one standard view, paraphrasing Kierkegaard requires no special literary talent. It demands no particular flair for the poetic. However, Kierkegaard himself rejects this view. He says we cannot paraphrase in a straightforward fashion some of the ideas he expresses in a literary format. To use the words of Johannes Climacus, these ideas defy direct communication. In this paper, I piece together and defend the justification Kierkegaard offers for this position. I trace its origins to concerns raised by Lessing and Mendelssohn about the relationship between form and content in works of art. I maintain that Kierkegaard follows early German …

Carruthers And Constitutive Self-Knowledge, John C. Hill

Student Publications

In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science. In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results.

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Report On The Xixth International Congress Of Aesthetics, Michael Ranta, Jale N. Erzen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Perspectives East And West, Ken-Ichi Sasaki

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

In Praise Of Ambiguity: Musical Subtlety And Merleau-Ponty, Tiger C. Roholt

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

When a jazz, rock, or hip-hop drummer strikes certain notes in each measure slightly late, instead of hearing the degree to which those notes are late, we typically hear the effects of those variations; namely, a groove, the "feel" of a rhythm. Slight variations of pitch function similarly. In this essay, I argue that certain analytic theorists go astray due to their preoccupation with the variations themselves. By invoking Maurice Merleau-Ponty's insights into subtle visual perceptions, and his notion of perceptual indeterminacy, I avoid an account of musical subtlety suggested by Daniel Dennett that is too coarse-grained, as well as …

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Sites Of Passage: Art As Action In Egypt And The Us-- Creating An Autoethnography Through Performance Writing, Revolution, And Social Practice, Tavia La Follette

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

As a performance artist and arts activist I present my research project to the audience in performative writing, a postmodern research style that advocates the integration of the artist/researcher identity. In the summer of 2010, I left for Egypt to teach a performance and installation art workshop at Artist Residency Egypt, the first step of the Firefly Tunnels Project, a virtual and tangible exchange between artists in the United States and Egypt. This venture began with the awareness that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was approaching. What I could not have foreseen were the other world events that would have …

Phenomenology Of Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury In Military Personnel, Roxana Enid Delgado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI) in military personnel may have long-lasting physical, emotional and sociocultural effects. The experiences of living with TBI as a military Service Member wounded during combat operations is not well understood. In this article, we intend to describe the lived experiences of sustaining a TBI and the impact of the injury. The method of inquiry that we selected was transcendental phenomenology, applying Edmund Husserl's principles for the data analysis. The participants were all active duty military personnel, between the ages of 18-45 years old, that were wounded during combat. The findings demonstrated that sustaining a TBI …

Prolegomena To Kant's Theory Of The Derangement Of The Cognitive Faculties, Gisele Velarde La Rosa

Dissertations

In the literature on Immanuel Kant there is no systematic account of the derangement of the constitutive cognitive faculties from an exclusively philosophical point of view. This dissertation opens the path for the development of such an account. It does so by presenting Kant's positive account of the proper functioning of the constitutive cognitive faculties, namely, sensibility, imagination, and understanding. As such, the dissertation offers a series of "prolegomena" to a Kantian theory of the derangement of the cognitive faculties. At the foundation of Kant's theory of cognition is the transcendental unity of apperception, the original ground of cognition. Through …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

You, Your Neurons, And Free Will: Concerns About Reductionism And The Popularization Of Cognitive Science, Karl G. D. Bailey

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Embodying Social Practice: Dynamically Co-Constituting Social Agency, Brian W. Dunst

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Theories of cognition and theories of social practices and institutions have often each separately acknowledged the relevance of the other; but seldom have there been consistent and sustained attempts to synthesize these two areas within one explanatory framework. This is precisely what my dissertation aims to remedy. I propose that certain recent developments and themes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, when understood in the right way, can explain the emergence and dynamics of social practices and institutions. Likewise, the view I construct explains how social practices and institutions shape the character of cognition of their constituent agents. Moreover, …

The Terror Of Possibility: A Re-Evaluation And Reconception Of The Sublime Aesthetic, Kurt Fawver

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While the sublime aesthetic has a long and complex critical history, it is nonetheless a schizophrenic concept. Indeed, in the over two thousand years since the sublime became a subject of learned inquiry, it has not been resolved into any one concrete idea, but has become, rather, an expansive tapestry of disparate if interconnected theoretical threads from which aestheticians may pick and choose to define what they mean by the term "sublime." Kant postulates one sort of sublime, Burke another, and Lyotard, Zizek, and the Romantics still others. In this way, the contemporary sublime aesthetic is, in essence, an ever-extending …

Eschatology In A Secular Age: An Examination Of The Use Of Eschatology In The Philosophies Of Heidegger, Berdyaev And Blumenberg, John R. Lup, Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The topic of eschatology is generally confined to the field of theology. However, the subject has influenced many other fields, such as politics and history. This dissertation examines the question why eschatology remained a topic of discussion within twentieth century philosophy. Concepts associated with eschatology, such as the end of time and the hope of a utopian age to come, remained largely background assumptions among intellectuals in the modern age. Martin Heidegger, Nicolai Berdyaev, and Hans Blumenberg, however, explicitly addressed the subject in their philosophies. The impetus of this study is Heidegger's statement, "Being itself is inherently eschatological," which indicates …

Critiquing Cultural Relativism, Jaret Kanarek

The Intellectual Standard

Cultural relativism is the ever-popular theory claiming that, “any set of customs and institutions, or way of life, is as valid as any other” (Hartung,1954). In its appeal to tolerance—the seemingly incontrovertible “virtue” of the modern era—it has gained wide appeal amongst myriad disciplines, most notably in the social sciences (UNESCO, 1995). However, the theory is destructive in both theory and practice. In theory, cultural relativism emphatically denies reason and objective reality (Zechenter, 1997). In practice, it sanctions the worst manifestations of violence and oppression.