Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Philosophy And Theology: The Egg And I: Conception And Identity, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Flannery O’Connor And Religious Epistemology, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

What are the demands of religious inquiry? It can be tempting to think of these demands in strictly epistemic terms, e.g. as a function of the inquirer's background beliefs, cognitive faculties, natural cognitive ability, intellectual skills, and intellectual character. In this article, I extrapolate an alternative model of religious inquiry from three stories by the Southern Gothic writer Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964). According to the model, a person's fitness for religious inquiry also depends on whether she possesses a certain moral posture. In particular, I argue that something like moral humility functions as an epistemic virtue in the theistic domain.

Philosophy And Theology: The Ethics Of Circumcision, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Sex Reassignment Surgery, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Chemerinski And Goodwin On Abortion, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Creativity, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Virtues And Truth, Understanding, And Wisdom, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

This chapter addresses the proper end or aim of intellectual virtues. After distinguishing between two fundamentally different conceptions of intellectual virtue, the author considers the plausibility, with respect to each conception, of the “binary thesis,” according to which the proper aim of intellectual virtues is true belief and the avoidance of cognitive error. The author goes on to argue that if one understands intellectual virtues (as many virtue epistemologists do) as admirable traits of personal character—for example, as traits like curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility—then sophia or theoretical wisdom presents itself as a plausible way of understanding their …

How To Think Actuality? Schelling, Aristotle And The Problem Of The Pure Daß, Marcela Garcia Romero

Philosophy Faculty Works

In this paper, I address a problem of Schelling’s late philosophy: the relation between negative and positive philosophy, and the role of the “pure Daß” in the transition from one to the other. While the so-called transition is a well-known and much discussed issue, recent Schelling scholarship has underlined the difficulties involved in the mere notion of pure Daß. I propose that we can avoid some of these difficulties by taking into account Schelling’s particular and original interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of actuality (energeia) and the way he applies this notion in his late negative philosophy.I would like to begin …

Assessing Asthma-Specific Health-Related Quality Of Life In Children With An Ecological Systems Approach, Jamyia Clark

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite initiatives and management efforts to minimize exacerbation and adverse outcomes, asthma remains a leading cause of childhood chronic disease in the United States. Environmental, personal, and social factors have been associated with an increase of asthma morbidity. However, little is known about how they cumulatively affect children's quality of life. This study applied a multifactorial conceptual model grounded by the ecological systems theory framework to ascertain which environmental, personal, and social factors were cumulatively associated with adverse health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with asthma ages 5-17 years. A national, cross-sectional survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System …

Marsilio Ficino’S Neo-Platonist Concepts Of Power As Represented In Selected Paintings By Sandro Botticelli: A Study In Representation, Iconography, Iconology And Reasoning, Frank C. Martin, Ii

Theses and Dissertations

arsilio Ficino's Neo-Platonist assessments of differing aspects of powers or capacities associated with the human soul (spiritual, conceptual, influential, and the capacity to engender effects upon material reality), as represented within selected religious and secular paintings by Sandro Botticelli, are discussed in this study for an analysis of the innovative, syncretic conceptual unity of ancient North-African, MiddleEastern, Greco-Roman and early Christian and Medieval philosophical and theological traditions which are advocated by Ficino’s theoretical formulations. Botticelli's paintings are considered for the manner in which they may be understood, within the context of Ficino's conceptual systems, as externalizing, serving as a catalyst …

Real Potential, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

There's a student in my philosophy class who has "real potential." I might express this thought in any of the following ways: "She is potentially a philosopher"; "She is a potential philosopher"; "She has the potential to be a philosopher." The first way uses a cognate of "potential" as an adverb to modify "is." The second ways uses "potential" as an adjective to modify "philosopher." However, the third way uses "potential" as a noun to refer to something that the student has. What kind of thing is this potential? One worry about even asking this question is that this nominalization …

Feminist Metaphysics: Can This Marriage Be Saved?, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Feminist metaphysics is simultaneously feminist theorizing and metaphysics. Part of feminist metaphysics concerns social ontology and considers such questions as, What is the nature of social kinds, such as genders? Feminist metaphysicians also consider whether gendered perspectives influence metaphysical theorizing; for example, have approaches to the nature of the self or free will been conducted from a masculinist perspective, and would a feminist perspective yield different theories? Some feminist metaphysicians develop metaphysical theories with the aim of furthering certain social goals, such as gender equality.

Despite these and other intriguing research projects, feminist metaphysics faces challenges from two flanks: one …

On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, Mark D. White

Publications and Research

Economics and ethics have been linked since the days of Adam Smith, but this connection became tenuous after the formalization of economic theory in the twentieth century, the success of which in academia, government, and business serves to insulate it from ethical critique. Nonetheless, a field of “economics and ethics” has developed to restore this connection, albeit in two directions with disparate methodological approaches: one applying mainstream economic theory, primarily based in utilitarian ethics, to topics of ethical concern, and the other incorporating alternate forms of ethics, such as deontology and virtue ethics, to enrich economic analysis.

Determinism And The Problem Of Individual Freedom In Li Zehou’S Thought, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

Li Zehou’s work can be understood as an account of a Chinese modernity, a vision for Chinese society that seeks to integrate three distinct philosophical approaches. These are Chinese history and culture, which Li understands as largely Confucian; Marxism, which has exerted such influence on a modernizing China; and Western learning more generally, as expressed by figures such as Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. Li also frequently expresses the hope that a Chinese modernity will be one in which the importance of the individual is recognized, and rights and freedoms upheld (e.g., 2006, p. 182). But this stance raises an …

Against The Intentional Definition Of Argument, G. C. Goddu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Intentional definitions of argument, i.e. the conclusion being intended to follow from the premises, abound. Yet, there are numerous problem cases in which we appear to have arguments, but no intention. One way to try to avoid these problem cases is to appeal to acts, in which case one has to give up on the repeatability of arguments. One can keep repeatability and intentions if one resorts to act types, but then it appears that the problem cases re-emerge.

From Justice To Fairness: Does Kant's Doctrine Of Right Imply A Theory Of Distributive Justice?, Michael Nance, Jeppe Von Platz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The fact that Kant does not articulate a theory of distributive justice has not kept political philosophers from citing Kant as inspiration and support for whatever theory of distributive justice they favor - including those who argue that the notion of distributive justice is itself mistaken. This widespread reliance on Kant invites the question, "Does the Doctrine of Right imply a theory of distributive justice?"

To address this question, we discuss Paul Guyer's argument that Kant's Doctrine of Right implies, roughly, the principles of distributive justice as found in Rawls's justice as fairness. Guyer's argument is that Kant's theory of …

In Defense Of Penalizing (But Not Punishing) Civil Disobedience, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

While many contemporary political philosophers agree that citizens of a legitimate state enjoy a moral right to civil disobedience, they differ over both the grounds of that right and its content. This essay defends the view that the moral right to civil disobedience derives from (or is a facet of) a general right to political participation, and the characterization of that right as precluding the state from punishing, but not from penalizing, those who exercise it. The argument proceeds by way of rebuttals to criticisms of both claims recently advanced by Kimberley Brownlee. While in some cases those criticisms fail …

แนวคิดเรื่องความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาของมิแรนด้า ฟริกเกอร์, ภคมน สุภัคคุณธรรม

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์นี้มีจุดมุ่งหมายเพื่อวิเคราะห์มโนทัศน์เรื่องความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาของมิแรนด้า ฟริกเกอร์ (Miranda Fricker) ฟริกเกอร์แบ่งความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาเป็นสองแบบ ได้แก่ความอยุติธรรมในการรับฟังคำบอกเล่าของผู้อื่น (Testimonial Injustice) หมายถึงการที่ผู้พูดถูกผู้ฟังตัดสินด้วยอคติที่มีต่อตัวผู้พูด และความอยุติธรรมในการตีความ (Hermeneutical Injustice) หมายถึงการที่บริบทของสังคมไม่เอื้อต่อการทำความเข้าใจประสบการณ์ของคนบางกลุ่ม โดยมีสาเหตุมาจากการที่ความรู้ของคนชายขอบไม่ถูกนำมารวมเป็นองค์ความรู้ของสังคม เธอเห็นว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยามาจากอคติ โดยแสดงออกมาในรูปของสามัญทัศน์ที่มีอคติแฝงอยู่ (Prejudicial Stereotype) ซึ่งสามารถแก้ไขได้โดยการใช้ความอ่อนไหวต่ออคติเพื่อจะไม่ตัดสินผู้พูดจากอคติที่แฝงอยู่ในสามัญทัศน์ วิทยานิพนธ์นี้จะอภิปรายข้อวิพากษ์ของนักญาณวิทยาต่างๆที่มีต่อข้อเสนอของฟริกเกอร์ ได้แก่ ลอร่า บีบี้ (Laura Beeby) ที่โต้แย้งว่าความอยุติธรรมในการตีความนั้นไม่ได้เป็นเรื่องเชิงญาณวิทยาแต่เป็นปัญหาจากสภาพสังคม และเจมส์ โบแมน (James Bohman) ที่แย้งว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมคือการครอบงำและจะแก้ปัญหานี้ได้ด้วยการสร้างพื้นที่ที่ปราศจากการครอบงำ ทั้งนี้ผู้วิจัยได้นำแนวคิดที่สนับสนุนฟริกเกอร์มาร่วมอภิปรายด้วย ได้แก่ ไซมอน เม (Simon May) ซึ่งเสนอตัวอย่างแย้งให้เห็นว่าความอยุติธรรมที่ไม่ได้เกิดจากการครอบงำนั้นมีอยู่ และแซลลี่ ฮาสแลนเจอร์ (Sally Haslanger) ที่อธิบายถึงจุดเริ่มต้นของอคติและเป็นการสร้างความชอบธรรมให้กับการจัดการสิ่งผิดปกติ วิทยานิพนธ์นี้ต้องการเสนอว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยานั้นเกิดได้ทั้งจากอคติและการครอบงำ โดยอคตินั้นเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของสภาพสังคมที่มีการกดทับ ในขณะที่การครอบงำนั้นเป็นการทำให้สภาพสังคมดังกล่าวคงอยู่และสืบทอดอำนาจต่อไป ดังนั้นการแก้ไขปัญหานี้จึงต้องทำควบคู่กันไป ด้วยการส่งเสริมให้คนมีความตระหนักรู้ต่อความอยุติธรรมพร้อมกับการที่สถาบันเข้ามาสร้างให้คนรู้สิทธิของตนเองและไม่ปล่อยให้ถูกครอบงำโดยอคติ

Helene Stöcker, Weimar Germany And Prophylactics: An Investigation Into The Context And Effects Of The Reichsgesestz Zur Bekämpfung Geschlechtskrankheiten, Joshua Stern

Dissertations and Theses

This paper investigates German gender studies in the Weimar Era. It looks at a specific law, passed regarding contraceptive devices. It seeks to show how women were presented with a guise of freedom, while living in a truly paternalistic society.

Sentience In Fishes: More On The Evidence, Michael L. Woodruff

Animal Sentience

In my target article, I argued that the brains of ray-finned fishes of the teleost subclass (Actinopterygii) are sufficiently complex to support sentience — that these fishes have subjective awareness of interoceptive and exteroceptive sense experience. Extending previous theories centered on the tectum, I focused on the organization of the fish pallium. In this Response to the commentaries, I clarify that I do not propose that the fish pallium is, or must be, homologous to the mammalian neocortex to play a role in sentience. Some form of a functionalist approach to explaining the neural basis of sentience across taxa is …

Fish Consciousness, David Gamez

Animal Sentience

Woodruff makes two arguments to support his claim that ray-finned fish are conscious: (1) Fish neuroanatomy has similarities with the structures in the human brain that support consciousness. (2) The complexity and flexibility of fish behaviour suggest that they are conscious. This commentary will argue that neither the neuroanatomical nor the behavioural argument can provide conclusive evidence for consciousness in fish. We should suspend judgement until we have discovered mathematical theories of consciousness that can reliably map between states of consciousness and states of the physical world.

What Can The Social Emotions Of Dogs Teach Us About Human Emotions?, Dean Mobbs

Animal Sentience

It has long been believed that social emotions such as guilt and jealousy are only expressed in humans. In the case of jealousy, its adaptive value has been linked to the prevention of sexual infidelity or fairness. So why would dogs feel jealousy? I suggest that understanding how social emotions have been bred into dogs can help us understand our own emotions, including their functionality — and potentially their mechanisms.

Can Neuroimaging In Dogs Have Practical Implications?, Tiffani J. Howell

Animal Sentience

Jealousy, or at least aggression, can be observed in dogs using neuroimaging techniques, but this response attenuates quickly following repeated exposure to the aggression-inducing stimulus. This may have a practical application. Early socialisation as a puppy, and habituation as an adult dog, could help prevent undesirable behaviours such as predatory behaviour. It is unclear whether these processes are the same, and affected only by the dog’s age. Neuroimaging could help us understand whether the same neurological processes underlie socialisation and habituation, and whether self-rewarding behaviours such as predatory behaviour could be stopped using socialisation/habituation techniques.

Lessons From Behaviour For Brain Imaging, Carolyn J. Walsh

Animal Sentience

Integrating physiological and behavioural arousal with social context is fundamental to understanding affect in dogs. Cook et al. (2018) have made a worthy start towards illuminating the neural basis of dog affect underlying resource loss. However, their study depends on retrospective behaviour reports versus direct testing, and an interpretation of differential neural activation that is based on too few dogs. Research groups conducting canine brain-imaging work might: (1) consider collaborative approaches to augment sample sizes and replicability, and (2) take a recent lesson from dog behavioural research regarding a more cautious approach to applying functional labels to physiological and/or behavioural …

Inferring Emotion From Amygdala Activation Alone Is Problematic, Thomas F. Denson

Animal Sentience

Cook et al. investigated neural responses in domestic dogs in an experiment designed to elicit jealousy. Relative to a control condition, watching the dogs’ caregivers feed a fake dog activated the amygdala bilaterally. Dogs rated higher in dog-directed aggressiveness showed larger initial amygdala activation. Amygdala activity in this context is insufficient evidence to infer that the dogs experienced jealousy or even negative affect. The experimental design does not provide an adequate level of control to infer the presence of jealousy.

Limits Of Neuroscience, Paul Morris

Animal Sentience

Examining the relationship between jealous behaviour and the amygdala may be quite informative about the function of the amygdala, but the amygdala may be less helpful in informing us about jealous behaviour. Claims about the potential practical relevance of the results also require that the magnitude of the effects inform the relevant discussion. The dogs used in the study probably share some very important personality characteristics; this too limits the practical implications of Cook et al.’s findings for dogs in general. It is nevertheless a testament to the skill of the experimenters, and the amazing bond between dogs and humans, …

What Would We Like To Know By Imaging The Brains Of Dogs?, Ralph Adolphs

Animal Sentience

Using fMRI to study emotions in animals is important, fascinating, and fraught with methodological and conceptual problems. Cook et al. are doing it, and there is no question that they and others will be doing it better and better as time goes on. Where will this lead us? What could fMRI in principle tell us about the minds of nonhuman animals?

Only The Human Brain Has The Cognitive Capacity For Jealousy, Donatella Marazziti

Animal Sentience

Jealousy is exclusively a human phenomenon because nonhuman animals lack the brain structures regulating the higher processes underlying jealousy.

What Is It Like To Be A Jealous Dog?, Emanuela Prato Previde, Paola Valsecchi

Animal Sentience

Jealousy is a good candidate for comparative studies due to its clear adaptive value in protecting social bonds and affective relationships. Dogs are suitable subjects for investigating the evolution of jealousy, thanks to their rather sophisticated socio-cognitive abilities — which in some cases parallel those reported for human infants — and thanks to their long-lasting relationship with humans. The work of Cook and colleagues (2018) addresses the issue of jealousy in dogs through the lens of neuroscience, examining the relationship between the amygdala and jealousy. Their experiment has a number of methodological flaws that prevent distinguishing jealousy from other internal …

Pain In Fish: Evidence From Peripheral Nociceptors To Pallial Processing, Michael L. Woodruff

Animal Sentience

The target article by Sneddon et al. (2018) presents convincing behavioral and pharmacological evidence that ray-finned fish consciously perceive noxious stimuli as painful. One objection to this interpretation of the evidence is that the fish nervous system is not complex enough to support the conscious experience of pain. Data that contradict this objection are presented in this commentary. The neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the fish nervous system from the peripheral nerves to the pallium is able to support the sentient appreciation of pain.