Arts and Humanities Commons^™

To Trump’S Chagrin, Non-Nationals Are Still In, Eric S. Godoy

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

No abstract provided.

On Belief : Aims, Norms, And Functions, Christopher John Atkinson

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

In this thesis, I explore answers to three central questions: (i) what are beliefs, (ii) why do we have them, and (iii) how should we interpret doxastic correctness, the principle that it is correct to believe that p if and only if p? The first question has a long history in philosophy of mind, and in various forms can be dated at least as far back as David Hume. For that reason, I refer to the problem as Hume’s Problem. As I interpret the question, the main difficulty with accounting for what beliefs are, is in distinguishing them from forms …

Review Of G. Israel, Meccanicismo. Trionfi E Miserie Della Visione Meccanica Del Mondo, Marco Panza

MPP Published Research

"This is Giorgio's Israel last book, which appeared only a few weeks after his untimely death, in September 2015. For many reasons, it can be considered as his intellectual legacy, since it comes back, in a new and organic way, to many of the research topics to which he devoted his life and his many publications, which include several papers in Historia Mathematica. One of these papers, co-authored with M. Menghini, appeared in vol. 25/4, 1998 and was devoted to Poincaré's and Enriques's opposite views on qualitative analysis, which is a theme also dealt with in this book (pp. 117–122)."

The Raise Act: Protecting First-World Privilege Via Strategic Racism, Grant J. Silva

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Functional Specialties: A Workshop On Applying Lonergan, Praxis Program Of The Advanced Seminar On Mission, Seton Hall University

Praxis Conference and Workshop Proceedings

These are the proceedings of the Praxis Program of the Advanced Seminar on Mission’s third annual summer workshop which was held in Trieste, Italy in July 2017. It focused on the application of Bernard Lonergan’s Functional Specialties to the work of the Seton Hall University faculty participants. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership and the Center for Catholic Studies, and co-sponsored by Boston College, the Jacques Maritain Institute and the University of Trieste.

Biophilia: Alienation And Solidarity, Ralph Acampora

Between the Species

Biophilia, theorized by Fromm, Wilson, and Kellert, is examined as a potential support for a pro-animal ethos. First, I look at the idea and its definitions at the hands of its chief theorizers. Then I investigate how different stages of human cultural development (foraging, pastoralism, industrial agriculture) have influenced different aspects of biophilia—especially as this bears on animal alienation. Finally, I consider possible remedies in the form of renewed patterns of solidarity with other species, one of which transforms Marx’ concept of species-being. The article has ethical implications, but it is essentially a work in philosophical anthropology.

Classical Logic, Stewart Shapiro, Teresa Kouri Kissel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

[From introductory section]

Typically, a logic consists of a formal or informal language together with a deductive system and/or a model-theoretic semantics. The language has components that correspond to a part of a natural language like English or Greek. The deductive system is to capture, codify, or simply record arguments that are valid for the given language, and the semantics is to capture, codify, or record the meanings, or truth-conditions for at least part of the language.

The following sections provide the basics of a typical logic, sometimes called “classical elementary logic” or “classical first-order logic”....

A Series Of Footnotes To Plato's Philosophers, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

In her magisterial Plato's Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert presents a radically new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. In doing so, she insists we must overcome reading them through the lens of Aristotle, whose influence has obscured the true nature of Plato's philosophy. However, in her works dealing with Aristotle's political science, Zuckert indicates several advantages of his approach to understanding politics. In this article, I explore the reasons why Zuckert finds Aristotle a problematic guide to Plato's philosophy as well as what she sees as the character and benefits of Aristotle's political theory. I conclude by suggesting a possible reconciliation between …

Wanted: Vegetarian Kuyperians With Artistic Underwear, Calvin Seerveld

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Failures Of Ethics: Confronting The Holocaust, Genocide, And Other Mass Atrocities, James J. Snow 4995784

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Review: John K. Roth, The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

Therapeutic Approach In Moral Education: A Critical Assessment, Jan Habl

Pro Rege

This study aims to critically assess the so-called therapeutic approach in moral education, which emerged in the postwar twentieth century, in the western part of the world. The proponents of the approach used different terms to express its essence: value clarification method, or sometimes the decision-making method or the critical thinking method. These philosophies of education have the common feature of a personalistic, non-directive, or client-oriented approach to the individual. Therefore, I will refer to them here as therapeutic. There are many advocates, but some of the most notable should be named: Carl Rodgers, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Sidney B. …

The Possibility Of Pilgrimage In A Scientific World, Stephen F. Haller

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The paper is a philosophical argument about whether a pilgrimage can be meaningful in a scientific age. Since a scientific world-view rules out many ideas which are traditionally associated with pilgrimage, such as miracles and the effectiveness of prayer, it seems that pilgrimage might be a practice inconsistent with the modern scientific age. Attempts have been made to reconcile this conflict by arguing that science and religion do not conflict, but are non-overlapping spheres of inquiry. Thus, it is possible to make sense of pilgrimage in a scientific age, if one strips their pilgrimage of all aspects to which science …

Property And Business, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter gives an overview of the main foundational theories of property. As I will show, there are two major families of justification for property (with each family, of course, having many different members). After laying out those two families and their potential problems, I will then consider some of the issues that reside in intellectual property, turning subsequently to explore one way in which a theory of business ethics may either be in tension or fit with such a justification of property. In particular, I will look at the tensions that stakeholder theory, on at least one version of …

Nl Central 2018, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Locke On Individuation And Kinds, Joseph Stenberg

Faculty Publications

Locke has been accused of endorsing a theory of kinds that is inconsistent with his theory of individuation. This purported inconsistency comes to the fore in Locke’s treatment of cases involving organisms and the masses of matter that constitute them, for example, the case of a mass constituting an oak tree. In this essay, I argue that this purported problem, known as ‘The Kinds Problem’, can be solved. The Kinds Problem depends on the faulty assumption that nominal essences include only features observable at a time t. Once this assumption is rejected, new candidates open up for the relevant difference …

Interspecies Political Agency In The Total Liberation Movement, Michael P. Allen, Erica Von Essen

Between the Species

In this paper, we examine the possibility of interspecies political agency at the level of social movements. We ask to what extent animals and humans can be co-participants in one another’s liberation from oppression. To do so, we assess arguments for and against including animals in the ‘total liberation package’, taken as the liberation from oppressive societal structures. These are not pragmatic-political arguments, but conceptual-philosophical arguments that have been put before animal liberationists attempting to ‘piggy-back’ on human liberation movements. In discrediting these philosophical arguments, we argue that animals have capacities for self-liberation that humans can facilitate and that animals, …

On Relationships: Between Love, Justice, Religion & Philosophy, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

A Practical Understanding: Time Traveling Paradoxes, Zan Bhullar

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

The possibility for time travel inadvertently brings forth several paradoxes. Yet, despite this fact there are still those who defend its plausibility and claim that time travel remains possible. I, however, stand firm that time travel could not be possible due to the absurdities it would allow. Of the many paradoxes time travel permits, the ones I shall be demonstrating, are the causal-loop paradox, auto-infanticide or grandfather paradox, and the multiverse theory. I will begin with the causal-loop paradox, which insists that my older-self could time travel to my present and teach me how to build a time machine, dismissing …

Self-Understanding Revealed Through Contemporary Architecture, Dylan Delikta

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

For Hegel, architectural structures reveal cultural understandings about how we as human beings understand the self and the world around us at any given point in history. What I seek to do in this paper is to identify what sort of cultural understanding is revealed through contemporary architecture such as the skyscraper, the symbol of modern capitalism. To do this, I present Hegel’s analysis on the cultural meanings that are revealed in Classical and Romantic architecture, using the Temple of Athena and the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp as examples. Next, I draw on Heidegger’s (1993) discussion in “The …

Subjectivity And Mutuality: Feminist Theology In Film, C. Áine Keefer

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

One of the central concepts in feminist film criticism is that of gaze, also called male gaze: the objectifying lens, both literal and metaphorical, that an assumed default male viewer has through media that depicts women from a masculine point of view. This gaze is constructed as necessarily objectifying; when scholars posit a female gaze, it is sometimes also cast as objectifying, simply swapping the genders of the seer and the seen. I argue that gaze can also be subjectifying through the process of relation between people who hold each other in equal regard and do not assert power one …

On The Liberation Of All Women: Socialist Feminism And Materialist Ecofeminism, Gina Gaebl

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

Feminists of the Western world claim to be striving for the liberation of all women, yet face a number of challenges in the pursuit of truly acting upon this objective. One of these challenges is the way in which western structures, such as capitalism, thrive off of the exploitation of women in developing countries. Other related challenges include the unintentional belittling of the cultures and feminist movements of developing countries through cultural imperialism and culture-blaming. In this paper, I argue that the only version of feminism that truly works for the liberation of all women is socialist feminism. Furthermore, this …

Broken Loose: Knowledge And Ideology In John Milton's Paradise Lost And Ursula K. Le Guduin's The Dispossessed, Lydia Roy

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

The world we live in, as well as the literature we consume, is dominated by ideology. The philosophical question of whether or not ‘knowledge’ is simply a facet of our ideological constraints is important to how we engage with art, whether in the form of literature or otherwise. This paper examines the relationship of knowledge to ideology, both in a literary and a philosophical sense, by reading John Milton’s Paradise Lost in conversation with Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and dissecting the ideological settings of each text, how knowledge is symbolized, and how the two concepts govern one another. …

Heganism, Thomas E. Randall

Between the Species

An emblematic association exists between meat consumption and the gender identity hegemonic masculinity. This association is so strong that men who pursue meatless diets (especially vegans) are likely to be socially ostracized. Heganism is a diet/gender identity that aims to reconstruct hegemonic masculinity with the goal of removing these stigmas attached to male veganism. Yet heganism fails to do this, and, in fact, worsens the marginalization of male vegans. Therefore, heganism ought to be rejected. Instead, an alternative option for reducing the marginalization of male vegans could be found in the emergent literature on non-hegemonic masculinities. By rejecting hegemonic …

Heidegger And Hölderlin On Aether And Life, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Scanlon's Contractualism And Its Critics, Kenneth R. Weisshaar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines whether Thomas Scanlon’s contractualism satisfactorily explains its intended domain of morality which he terms “what we owe to each other.” Scanlon proposes that such interpersonal morality is based on justifying one’s actions to others by behaving according to principles that could not be reasonably rejected. This idea accounts for two key functions of a moral theory: explaining how moral judgments are made and why agents generally act according to these judgments. After reviewing the nature of constructivist moral theories to show why I chose to focus on Scanlon’s theory, I assess how effectively it fulfills these two …

"Betwixt The World Destroyed And World Restored": Subjectivity And Paradisal Recovery In John Milton's Late Poems, Chihping Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study focuses on the discovery of subjectivity through the recovery of lost paradise in Milton’s late poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This theme revolves around the tension between the affective and the empirical, which also configure the spheres of the sacred and the profane. I explore how the irresistibly emancipatory impulse of recovering lost paradise compels Miltonic subjects to seek ways to return to their originary state or the divine ensemble. During this process, the subject is engaged with his own incapacity or privation while reaching into the sphere of unknown potentiality. In …

Brexit And The Future Of Liberal Democracy, Larry Alexander

Cardozo Law Review

I write this short Essay as one who is not an expert on the causes of Brexit or of its American near-equivalent, the election of Donald Trump. My piece is purely an exercise in armchair speculation, quite possibly wrong, but also quite possibly correct. And if it is correct, I leave it to others to answer Lenin's famous question: "What is to be done?"

Footnotes To Footnotes: Whitehead's Plato, Nathan Oglesby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the presence of Plato in the philosophical expressions of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). It was Whitehead who issued the well-known remark that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists in a series of footnotes to Plato" -- the purpose of this project is to examine the manner in which Whitehead positioned himself as one such footnote, with respect to his thought itself, and its origins, presentation and reception.

This examination involves: first, an explication of Whitehead’s cosmology and metaphysics and their ostensibly Platonic elements (consisting chiefly in the Timaeus); second, investigation …

Conditions Of Personhood And Property, Zachary James Acree

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to demonstrate that a more robust understanding of personhood both reveals flaws in the underlying assumptions of modern property law, and orients that law to a more just application. To do this, the law needs not only a better definition of what persons are, but also a better understanding of how persons function in their society. First, in order to provide some context to the issues at stake, there is a brief historical introduction to some of the problems that personhood inquiries have faced. After the introduction, this paper is divided into four sections. Part I summarizes …

Rescinding Rancière: An Investigation Into The Conservative Tendencies Of A Leading Proponent Of Radical Democracy, And A Reconstruction Of The Participatory Democracy Of Ancient Athens, Tyler J. Olsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis advances a critique of the political theory of Jacques Rancière, focusing on the problems that arise as a result of its rigid form combined with its narrow content. I argue that Rancière gets caught in a practice of immanent critique that merely presupposes bourgeois abstract right; and that his ontological and pragmatic commitments prohibit him from projecting a norm that would transcend the liberal order. I trace these ontological and pragmatic commitments in detail by examining the intellectual milieu from which Rancière’s project emerged, the post-foundational political philosophy of the 1980s, with particular attention given to Claude Lefort. …