Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lines Of Flight, Tamsin E. Lorraine

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Phenomenology, Tamsin E. Lorraine

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Morally Justifying Oncofertility Science, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

Is research aimed at preserving the fertility of cancer patients morally justified? A satisfying answer to this question is missing from the literature on oncofertility. Rather than provide an answer, which is impossible to do in a short space, this paper explains what it would take to provide such justification.

Identity Through Change And Substitutivity Salva Veritate, Ray Elugardo, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

This paper has three modest aims: to present a puzzle, to show why some obvious solutions aren’t really “easy outs”, and to introduce our own solution. The puzzle is this. When it was small and had waterlogged streets, Toronto carried the moniker ‘Muddy York’. Later, the streets were drained, it grew, and Muddy York officially changed its name to ‘Toronto’. Given this, each premise in the following argument seems true. Yet the conclusion is a contraction. P1: Muddy York = Toronto P2: Muddy York evolved into Toronto P3: The context “__ evolved into Toronto” is transparent, i.e., it allows substitution …

Philosophy Of Language, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of Domain Specificity In The Highly Modular Mind, Axel Barcelo Aspeitia, Angeles Erana, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central ‘conceptual’ modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information …

Harm Or Mere Inconvenience? Denying Women Emergency Contraception, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

This paper addresses the likely impact on women of being denied emergency contraception (EC) by pharmacists who conscientiously refuse to provide it. A common view—defended by Elizabeth Fenton and Loren Lomasky, among others—is that these refusals inconvenience rather than harm women so long as the women can easily get EC somewhere else nearby. I argue from a feminist perspective that the refusals harm women even when they can easily get EC somewhere else nearby.

Morally Justifying Oncofertility Research, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

Is research aimed at preserving the fertility of cancer patients morally justified? A satisfying answer to this question is missing from the literature on oncofertility. Rather than providing an answer, which is impossible to do in a short space, this chapter explains what it would take to provide such justification.

Differential Pragmatic Abilities And Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Case Of Pragmatic Determinants Of Literal Content, Jessica De Villiers, Brooke Myers, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Contextualism In Epistemology And The Context Sensitivity Of 'Knows', Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

The central issue of this paper is whether contextualism in epistemology is genuinely in conflict with recent claims that ‘know’ is not in fact a context sensitive word. To address this question, I’ll first rehearse three key aims of contextualists and the broad strategy they adopt for achieving them. I then introduce two linguistic arguments to the effect that the lexical item ‘know’ is not context sensitive: one from Herman Cappelen & Ernie Lepore, one from Jason Stanley. I find these and related arguments quite compelling. In particular, I think Cappelen & Lepore (2003, 2005a) show pretty definitively that ‘know’ …

Clinical Pragmatics, By Louise Cummings, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Simulation-Based Definitions Of Emergence, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

One approach to characterizing the elusive notion of emergence is to define that a property is emergent if and only if its presence can be derived but only by simulation. In this paper I investigate the pros and cons of this approach, focusing in particular on whether an appropriately distinct boundary can be drawn between simulation-based and non-simulation-based methods. I also examine the implications of this definition for the epistemological role of emergent properties in prediction and in explanation.

Complexity, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Ockham, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Politics And Play: The National Stage And The Player King In Shakespeare’S Henry V And Macbeth, Kristin M.S. Bezio

Quidditas

This article examines the intersection between theatrical and political discourse in early modern England. It argues that that the dialog surrounding early modern discourses of monarchy intersects specifically with theatrical notions of performance by means of the social contract implicit in English Common Law. The link between the political stage and the theater is perhaps most transparent in the metaphor of the theatrum mundi. Because the theatrum mundi requires the active participation of the audience, they must always be included in the theatrum mundi as participatory citizens in its illusory world. They are drawn into the conversation between stage …

Putting On The Garment Of Widowhood: Medieval Widows, Monastic Memory, And Historical Writing, Katherine Clark

Quidditas

The idea of the widow in communal memory and historical writing was a resonant and multi-faceted concept for monastic writers of the Middle Ages. This essay focuses on the function and meaning of widowhood in two examples of early medieval historical writing, by one male and one female author, to illustrate how monastic authors engaged significant and enduring aspects of widowhood during the Western European Middle Ages to construct institutional histories. Images of female memory and widowed piety (especially because the widow represented the Church who awaited her spouse, Christ) were useful in describing the experiences of women who held …

Cognition And Recognition In King Lear, Act Iv. Scene Vii, Jenny Rebecca Rytting

Quidditas

Although King Lear’s half-line “You are a spirit I know” (IV.vii.49) has no internal punctuation in the Folio or Quarto versions of Shakespeare’s play, most modern editors add a comma between the words “spirit” and “I.” This spurious comma forces the line to be interpreted to mean “I know that you are a spirit” rather than “You are a spirit that I know,” whereas, without punctuation, both interpretations are viable. I argue that the latter reading is not only possible, based on Shakespeare’s syntactical practices, but also preferable, based on both the immediate context of the line and the theme …

Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, And Their Aftermath, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20^th Century closely tracked developments that were occurring in continental philosophy during this period. This should not surprise us. Aside from the fertile communication between these ostensibly separate traditions, both were responding to problems associated with the rise of mass society. Rabid nationalism, corporate statism, and totalitarianism (Left and Right) posed a profound challenge to the idealistic rationalism of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies. The decline of the individual – classically conceived by the 18th-century Enlightenment as a self-determining agent – provoked strong reactions. While some philosophical tendencies sought to …

Knowledge And Skepticism In Descartes’ Meditations, Scott Campbell

Undergraduate Review

My research is centered on the arguments of Rene Descartes, a 17th Century philosopher, in his work The Meditations. The Meditations is composed of six entries, which are six meditations, written in form of narration. His narrative takes form in an intricately composed piece of writing, a clever argument presented through a precise and fascinating procedure. However, the artful fashion in which he conveys his method is far from an immaculately composed calculation which Descartes leads one to believe. In this paper I will present Descartes’ procedural destruction and following reassembly of the external world and his proposed discovery of …

Naturalism And Is Opponents, Joseph Spencer

Undergraduate Review

Ever since Descartes began his search for certainty in philosophy, many of the great philosophers have taken up this quest. One solution, proposed by W.V.O. Quine in his 1969 essay, Naturalized Epistemology, claims that we must refrain from studying epistemology in philosophy. Quine claims that our study of knowledge must only occur in the field of psychology and that we should refrain from talking about these issues in philosophy. As one can imagine, Quine’s essay was met with much criticism and anger among philosophers. Most notably, Hilary Putnam provides a devastating critique of naturalized epistemology in his essay, Why …

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.

Is Justification Knowledge?, Brent J C Madison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Analytic epistemologists agree that, whatever else is true of epistemic justification, it is distinct from knowledge. However, if recent work by Jonathan Sutton is correct, this view is deeply mistaken, for according to Sutton justification is knowledge. That is, a subject is justified in believing that ρ iff he knows that ρ. Sutton further claims that there is no concept of epistemic justification distinct from knowledge. Since knowledge is factive, a consequence of Sutton’s view is that there are no false justified beliefs.

Following Sutton, I will begin by outlining kinds of beliefs that do not constitute knowledge but that …

Epistemic Internalism, Brent J C Madison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

The internalism/externalism debate is of interest in epistemology since it addresses one of the most fundamental questions in the discipline: what is the basic nature of knowledge and epistemic justification? It is generally held that if a positive epistemic status obtains, this is not a brute fact. Rather if a belief is, for example, justified, it is justified in virtue of some further condition(s) obtaining. What has been called epistemic internalism holds, as the label suggests, is that all the relevant factors that determine justification must be “internal” (in a sense that needs to be specified). Epistemic externalism is the …

Heidegger’S Notion Of Religion: The Limits Of Being-Understanding, Angus Brook

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

In the last two decades, the question of religion has become a central concern of many philosophers belonging to the Continental philosophical tradition. As the interest in religion has grown within Continental philosophy, so also has the question of Martin Heidegger’s relationship with religion. This paper poses the question of what religion meant to Martin Heidegger in the development of phenomenology as ontology; how he preconceived the notion of religion and why he eventually denied any authenticity to religion. In engaging with this question, the paper will also attempt to disclose some delimitations of Heidegger’s approach to religion.

Shame And Philosophy, Richard P. Hamilton

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Shame is a ubiquitous and highly intriguing feature of human experience. It can motivate but it can also paralyse. It is something which one can legitimately demand of another, but is not usually experienced as a choice. Perpetrators of atrocities can remain defiantly immune to shame while their victims are racked by it. It would be hard to understand any society or culture without understanding the characteristic occasions upon which shame is expected and where it is mitigated. Yet, one can survey much of the literature in social and political theory over the last century and find barely a footnote …

What About The Children? Benjamin And Arendt: On Education, Work, And The Political, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

This article is a rough draft of an article that I contributed to an edited volume of articles dealing with progressive education theory. I reflect on articles that Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin wrote that deal with educational reform and innovation, both political in nature.

The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Ferret

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

No abstract provided.

Incorporeal, Tamsin E. Lorraine

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Satire In Boaistuau’S Théâtre Du Monde, Alison Baird Lovell

Quidditas

Le Théâtre du monde [Theater of the World] (1558) of Pierre Boaistuau was an encyclopedic compilation in three books presenting a litany of vices and miseries in human life; the book proved to be an early modern “bestseller” and was reproduced in many editions and translations across Europe. Boaistuau, the first editor of the tales of Marguerite de Navarre, also edited other story collections, besides investigating religious matters, early modern science and medicine including prodigies and monsters, and other developing forms of knowledge. The Théâtre du monde manifested topoi including the theatrum mundi with its vast spectacle displayed …