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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Contra Mothersill Contra Kant: The Imperative Judgment Of Taste In Beauty Restored And The Critique Of Judgment, Christopher Douglas Jul 2017

Contra Mothersill Contra Kant: The Imperative Judgment Of Taste In Beauty Restored And The Critique Of Judgment, Christopher Douglas

Episteme

This article defends Kant’s aesthetics, drawn mainly from the Critique of Judgment. The author discusses the intricacies of Kant’s argument by exposing the errors in Mary Mothersill’s interpretations of Kant in her book Beauty Restored. One by one, the author supports his four theses. 1) Kant uses imperative language to surpass the counter intuitive deduction of aesthetic judgments, but those judgments are not any more or less normative compared to empirical judgments. 2) Kant does not demand for a principle to ground the judgment of taste: logic does. 3) Kant cannot be called conceptually biased because judgments of taste do …

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A Critique Of Ricœur's Call For Faith From The Atheism Of Nietzsche: God Is Still Dead, James K. Kijowski Jul 2017

A Critique Of Ricœur's Call For Faith From The Atheism Of Nietzsche: God Is Still Dead, James K. Kijowski

Episteme

Ricœur offers an interesting hermeneutical interpretation of Nietzsche’s “God is dead” concept, but this author believes Ricœur ultimately suggests the impossible. Following an interpretation of Nietzsche’s atheism, Ricœur’s hermeneutics of religion, atheism, and faith deem atheism a faith for a postreligious age. Using the Madman in The Gay Science and key ideas from the Genealogy, the author analyzes then critiques Ricœur’s belief that Nietzsche leaves room for non-ethical obedience via the phenomenon of la parole (word) that comes to us from the ultimate word of Being: God. The author, being more convinced by Kofman’s analysis of Nietzsche’s take on God, …

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Kant's Ostensible Anti-Thesis Of "Public" And "Private" And The Subversion Of The Language Of Authority In 'An Answer To The Question: "What Is Enlightenment?", Michael D. Royal Jul 2017

Kant's Ostensible Anti-Thesis Of "Public" And "Private" And The Subversion Of The Language Of Authority In 'An Answer To The Question: "What Is Enlightenment?", Michael D. Royal

Episteme

In “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” Kant provides a political argument built around his philosophical manipulation of the grammatical relationship between “public” and “private”. The author here elucidates the grammatical mechanism which, as John Christian Laursen argues, allows Kant to subvert concepts. A Wittgensteinian lens shows how Kant’s purportedly antonymic terms are drawn from different lines of opposition. He stealthily uses two meanings of the word “public.” Hamann’s influential critique, which establishes that Kant’s private use of reason amounts to a prescription of mere submission to authority, is deemed incorrect, if, in Kant’s address to the mind …

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Aristotle's Theory Of Genius Examined Through Reid's Theory Of Natural Signs, Andrew M. Stewart Jul 2017

Aristotle's Theory Of Genius Examined Through Reid's Theory Of Natural Signs, Andrew M. Stewart

Episteme

This paper explains how we might comprehend Aristotle’s paradoxical theory of metaphor via Thomas Reid’s theory of natural signs. A realist, Aristotle believes that metaphor, as a stretching of the structure of language, relies on a fundamental relationship between things in the world. Metaphors are better or worse depending on the selection of fitting terms, and good metaphors are said to be the sign of genius. Metaphor mastery cannot be taught, but rather is an “intuitive perception”. Since what cannot be learned cannot be predicated on concepts, Reid’s account of the second type of natural signs helps clarify how Aristotle’s …

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A Letter From The Editors, James L. Kijowski, Philip D. Miller Jul 2017

A Letter From The Editors, James L. Kijowski, Philip D. Miller

Episteme

No abstract provided.

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The Buddhist Problem Of Emptiness, Ian Varley Jul 2017

The Buddhist Problem Of Emptiness, Ian Varley

Episteme

Isn’t there is logical disagreement in Buddhism’s dual theses: 1) humans tend toward incorrectly imputing permanence and a positive essence to the world, and 2) humans have no innate qualities at all—they are empty? In this article, the author presents the scope of this problem and then tries to defend Buddhism. Could it be that our physical survival depends on our substantialization? Can we re-work the theories of Gesha Rabten and Keiji Nishitani to support this? Or could it be that our language unfairly makes a word (such as “destiny”) into an object? No; none of these attempted solutions would …

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Lost In The Horizon: Irigaray's Heidegger, Joanne Molina Jul 2017

Lost In The Horizon: Irigaray's Heidegger, Joanne Molina

Episteme

Heidegger’s ontology reminds us of our primordial task: to access the question of Being. But, according to Luce Irigaray’s commentary and reaction to Being and Time and Heidegger’s later writings, Heidegger is not able to escape the economy of presence and masculinity that emerges in his discourse. The author here looks closely at Iragaray’s interpretation and counter-arguments before coming to some conclusions about her deconstructive analysis. No doubt, Irigaray offers an interesting analysis of Heidegger using her air metaphor to represent the feminine. But it is odd that she commits herself to there being something essential to air. She ought …

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Spelunking With Socrates: A Study Of Socratic Pedagogy In Plato's Republic, Victor Isaac Boutros Jul 2017

Spelunking With Socrates: A Study Of Socratic Pedagogy In Plato's Republic, Victor Isaac Boutros

Episteme

The author investigates the two most explicit educational methods and lessons found within Plato’s Republic. One, the allegory of the cave, represents Plato’s genuine thoughts; the other, the remarks on the education of the guardian class, ought to be read ironically. Early on, the paper includes an introduction to irony (conventional and mimetic) and how it relates to the dramatic context of Plato’s intertextuality. Following that, the author provides an analysis of Glaucon’s luxury suggestion, Socrates’ asceticism, and the dog analogy—how they all contribute to the education of the guardians. Later, it is argued that the preface to the allegory …

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Is A Subjective Theory Of Moral Language Possible?, Ali R. Shahrukhi Jul 2017

Is A Subjective Theory Of Moral Language Possible?, Ali R. Shahrukhi

Episteme

In this paper, the author goes through considerations that come up when analyzing the prospect of a truly subjective theory of moral language. Certain forms of subjectivism are found to be either less than viable, similar to moral realism, or dependent upon psychological matters of debate. Support for this conclusion comes from Hume’s analysis of beliefs and desires; Wittgenstein’s private language argument; the fact that moral discussion is required; Smith’s theory of converging desires and beliefs within his moral realism; and the influence of community and environment. The discussion advocates a union of desires, moral beliefs, and actions, if subjectivism …

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Freud On Writing: Some Historicist Perspectives, Sanja Perovic Jul 2017

Freud On Writing: Some Historicist Perspectives, Sanja Perovic

Episteme

The author looks at three readings of Freud by Derrida, Michel de Certeau, and Deleuze/Guattari, trying to answer the question: For Freud, how does writing produce meaning and what does this historicizing function imply about the psyche in general? The author inspects two of Freud’s analogies that are to explain and justify psychoanalysis: books avoiding political censorship and the mystic writing pad. These become doorways to the ensuing criticisms. The three commentaries trace sections of Freud’s thought as they relate to his fundamental concepts and to the work those concepts are supposed to do. Read together, the readings each supply …

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The Value Of Natural Kinds From A Kripkean Perspective: A Critique Of Eric Katz's 'Organism, Community And The "Substitution Problem", Jessica H. Mitchell Jul 2017

The Value Of Natural Kinds From A Kripkean Perspective: A Critique Of Eric Katz's 'Organism, Community And The "Substitution Problem", Jessica H. Mitchell

Episteme

The author endeavors to extend the Kripke/Putnam theory of reference in order to improve Eric Katz’s argument in “Organism, Community, and the ‘Substitution Problem.” Katz criticizes the organism model for species and supports the community model, which supposedly strikes a balance with a species’ intrinsic value and functional purpose within a natural ecosystem. But since it can be shown that the so-called organism model includes intrinsic value, too, the substitution problem (which had plagued it for Katz) is unfounded. Because Katz’s real goal is to differentiate between the intrinsic and instrumental value of a given species, Kripke’s theory of natural …

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Persons, Materialism And Consciousness, Brendan Neufeld Jul 2017

Persons, Materialism And Consciousness, Brendan Neufeld

Episteme

In this article, the author criticizes the materialist theory of mind but salvages the causal insights put forth by neurophysiology’s linkage of the mind and the brain. P. M. S. Hacker’s exegesis of Wittgenstein argues that materialist philosophers and neuroscientists make grammatical contradictions when accounting for the mental. To begin to pinpoint the error of physicalism, the author provides examples that elaborate on Norman Malcolm’s two distinct senses of the term “consciousness.” Materialism’s (and neurophysiology’s) causal nature accounts for intransitive consciousness, but neither are especially promising when it comes to transitive consciousness. In the background, there is a major problem: …

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Explanatory Pervasion And The Unity Of Science, Andrew Miller Jul 2017

Explanatory Pervasion And The Unity Of Science, Andrew Miller

Episteme

The philosophy of science has seen a range of theories since the radical introduction of reductionism as an offshoot of the logical positivists. This author argues that while the various sciences may not be unified by law, there is every reason to believe that they are unified by explanation. In essence, Alan Garfinkel and David Owens are judged to be less convincing that the arguments given by Karen Neander and Peter Menzies. The author shows the insufficiency of Garfinkel’s attempt to illustrate the missing link between macro and micro explanation in the theory of explanatory pervasion. The author then supports …

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General Rules And The Normativity Of Causal Inferences In The First Book Of Hume's Treatise, Joshua Derman Jul 2017

General Rules And The Normativity Of Causal Inferences In The First Book Of Hume's Treatise, Joshua Derman

Episteme

In the paper, the author has undertaken the task of illuminating the meanings and connections that constitute Hume’s account of causality. The author’s method is critical, questioning the logical consistency and explanatory power of Hume’s skeptical causality and inference, only to eventually reveal the validity of Hume’s argument. Much of the analysis is spent making sense of the seemingly contradictory or confusing statements Hume makes in his Treatise; lots of examples help this process. The paper includes addressing the paradoxical connection between our internal/subjective general rules and our customs. It also examines the interesting question of how to judge the …

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Thomistic Metaphysics And The Synthetic A Priori, Brent D. Timmons Jul 2017

Thomistic Metaphysics And The Synthetic A Priori, Brent D. Timmons

Episteme

Aquinas’ metaphysics is a powerful, comprehensive system, but one that is subtle and demands careful attention. The author here argues that Henry B. Veatch’s paper, which attempts to reconcile Aquinas with Kant’s metaphysics, mistakenly turns Aquinas’ thought into a mere empirical science. The article begins with an overview of Kant’s two types of judgments and Aquinas’ notion of principia per se nota, or first principles. Aquinas’ first principles are analytic on Kant’s analysis yet are also said to give information about the world, according to Thomist thought. But “how are the principia per se nota informative about the world?”—Kant would …

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Inchoate Feminism In Plato's Republic V, Amy Coplan Jul 2017

Inchoate Feminism In Plato's Republic V, Amy Coplan

Episteme

Is Plato a feminist from the classical era? No, but he comes closer than any other man from that time. Although by no means reducible to modern feminist arguments about equality, Book V of the Republic espouses some important ideas about women, nature, and society. There is no doubt that Plato challenged the prevailing wisdom in Athens and sought a utopia that produced the best possible men and women—at least for the guardian class. We should understand that it is Plato’s elitism, not his misogyny, which influences his handling of the lower social strata. And furthermore, his sexist remarks are …

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A Question Of Ethics, Joseph Landau Jul 2017

A Question Of Ethics, Joseph Landau

Episteme

“If we look around us, there is no doubt that the question of ethics is currently more complex than it has ever been,” writes the author of this paper, who examines the existential importance that the question of ethics carries in modern times. The author believes that out of this age of confusion and difference, what is needed is an ethic that emphasizes community and mutual understanding. We cannot rely on capital T truth or the ethicists that came before us. Instead, once we realize our dialectical, interdependent identity, we will be able to increase our mutual conversation and acceptance. …

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And Levinas Created A Controversy About Women, Shulamit M. Shapiro Jul 2017

And Levinas Created A Controversy About Women, Shulamit M. Shapiro

Episteme

Feminist critiques railed against Levinas are not convincing. The “politically correct” feminist critics miss the Biblical and Talmudic application in Levinas’ philosophy. In this paper, the author rejects Luce Irigaray’s argument about the importance of sexual pleasure. Neither does Catherine Chalier succeed with her argument that Levinas essentializes the feminine in a way that keeps women from “the highest destiny of human beings.” In point of fact, Levinas believes in the interdependence of men and women. He finds that the human psyche is better probed through the notion of ethical responsibility than sexual liberation. There’s not anything immoral about this …

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Kant And The Noumenal Agent, Heather M. Kendrick Jul 2017

Kant And The Noumenal Agent, Heather M. Kendrick

Episteme

This paper’s goal is to defend Kant’s version of freedom, in spite of the confusing metaphysical issues that surround Kant’s rational being (who belongs both to the world of phenomena and the world of noumena). Contrary to a certain line of criticism, the author argues for how Kant’s agent manages to be free—how the noumenal agent can affect action in the sensible world. Kant does not believe that our noumenal selves cause the world our phenomenal selves act in. Some readers misunderstand him. And while sure, Kant’s theory gives rise to questions about how our noumenal self can account for …

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You Just Can't Crispin Brains In A Vat, David Miguel Gray Jul 2017

You Just Can't Crispin Brains In A Vat, David Miguel Gray

Episteme

In this article, the author lays out a defense of Putnam’s controversial “Brains in a Vat” paper, and it’s famous refutation of the Cartesian brain-in-a-vat skeptic. The author looks closely at the paper, its argument, and its relation to skepticism. In addition to properly understanding the thought experiments and logical argument put forth by Putnam, one must also understand that his refutation is not aimed at the infinitely regressive skeptic, but rather the internal skeptic. The author shows this fact by inventing his own brain-in-a-vat scenario. So, although it remains a possibility that we are brains in a vat, we …

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Subjectivity Vs. Use: A Heideggerian Critique Of Sartrean Values, Laura M. Bruce Jul 2017

Subjectivity Vs. Use: A Heideggerian Critique Of Sartrean Values, Laura M. Bruce

Episteme

Dostoevsky laments: is everything truly permitted? This article illustrates how Heidegger avoids the phenomenological and ethical deficiencies found in Sartre’s philosophy. The author argues that a rejection of ethical absolutes does not inevitably lead to Sartrean relativism, because Heidegger’s account of Being critiques Sartre and considers shared practices of ordinary experience, which is necessary for values and ethics. Sartre’s phenomenology is characterized by Husserl’s influence and the subject/object distinction that finds values to arise necessarily from Nothingness. The author exposes why Sartre believes what he does and why Heidegger provides a substantially different ontology. Contrary to Sartre’s problematic phenomenology, Heidegger …

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Nietzsche's Final Thoughts On Art And Existence: A Reply To Julian Young, David Evenhuis Jul 2017

Nietzsche's Final Thoughts On Art And Existence: A Reply To Julian Young, David Evenhuis

Episteme

Everyone knows that Nietzsche’s thoughts on art do not remain static throughout the course of his writings. The author of this paper responds to Julian Young’s assessment of the ultimate progression of those thoughts. Is it true, as Young suggests, that Nietzsche, in 1888, returns to the pessimism that characterizes his first two works, his period of Wagner and Schopenhauer? No. Although Young picks up on the Apollonian strand of 1888 Nietzsche, the author argues that Young misses or ignores the positive, powerful Dionysian element that keeps Nietzsche’s final thoughts on art from sinking into nihilism. The artistic mood of …

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A Modern Composition Of Hegel In Blue, Yellow, And Black: A Study Of Hegel's Aesthetics, Thomas J. Sullivan Jul 2017

A Modern Composition Of Hegel In Blue, Yellow, And Black: A Study Of Hegel's Aesthetics, Thomas J. Sullivan

Episteme

The paper investigates Hegel’s claim: “art is dead”. What does this phrase mean? What must we know about Hegel’s systematic thought before we can understand this question? Has Hegel claimed rightly? The author answers all of these questions in this study of Hegel, the qualities of Greek and Medieval art, and the meaning and purpose of modern art. The purpose of art, as with religion and philosophy, is to reveal the Absolute, the content of which is freedom. Hegel believes that because the modern human now asks the philosophical “Why?” art no longer can serve the highest function in culture. …

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The Reconstruction Of Human Finitude: A 'Retrieval' Of Kierkegaard's Proto-Hermeneutics, Ernesto V. Garcia Jul 2017

The Reconstruction Of Human Finitude: A 'Retrieval' Of Kierkegaard's Proto-Hermeneutics, Ernesto V. Garcia

Episteme

According to Kierkegaard, each person faces the knotty subject, the necessity of the subjective relationship of the existing individual to her eternal happiness: the God-relationship. In this article, the author focuses on what he finds to be Kierkegaard’s essentially negative reply to the question: “Can the truth be learned?” A study of the dialectical thinking of Johannes Climacus reveals that any positive knowledge, no matter its degree of theory or skepticism, is disingenuous—a position antithetical to philosophers like Hegel and Descartes. Kierkegaard’s thought, which anticipates deconstruction and hermeneutics, shows us that certainty is deceptive and impossible. Rather, we must recognize …

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Some Thoughts On The Epicurean Critique Of Mathematics, Michael Aristidou Jul 2017

Some Thoughts On The Epicurean Critique Of Mathematics, Michael Aristidou

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper, we give a comprehensive summary of the discussion on the Epicurean critique of mathematics and in particular of Euclid's geometry. We examine the methodological critique of the Epicureans on mathematics and we assess whether a 'mathematical atomism' was proposed, and its implications. Finally, we examine the Epicurean philosophical stance on mathematics and evaluate whether it was on target or not.

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Hartmann, Kolb, Pippin And The Unhappy Consciousness, Kevin Thomson Jul 2017

Hartmann, Kolb, Pippin And The Unhappy Consciousness, Kevin Thomson

Episteme

The author of this article critiques the exegesis offered in Neo-Kantian interpretations of Hegel coming from Klaus Hartmann, David Kolb, and Robert Pippin. They all suppose a thought/object dualism that Hegel rejects, and they all-too-easily “forgive” Hegel of philosophizing outside the bounds of the interpretation they use to describe his general thought. They offer interpretations of Hegel that answer Kantian transcendentalist questions, not ontological questions, which is in part due to their fixation on rigor, which binds them and limits their understanding. Even though the Logic is the most susceptible to a Kantian reading, the author argues for how such …

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Revisioning Heidegger: Existentiell Crises And The Question Of The Meaning Of Being, Paul Rector Jul 2017

Revisioning Heidegger: Existentiell Crises And The Question Of The Meaning Of Being, Paul Rector

Episteme

Being and Time may be read as calling the reader to overcome her tendency to avoid recognizing nothingness and our pending death. Most commentators believe that Heidegger prevents an existential crisis from being a possible impetus to the essential confrontation. Contrary to that understanding, the author here posits that it is possible and consistent with Heidegger’s thought to hold that certain existential crises are happenings to our world, not just within our world. Falling in love pulls the ground out from under us and is really something that alters the axis of meaning for our world. The same goes for …

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The Origin Of An Inquiry: Evolutionary Epistemology In James' Pragmatism, J. Ellis Perry Jul 2017

The Origin Of An Inquiry: Evolutionary Epistemology In James' Pragmatism, J. Ellis Perry

Episteme

Have scholars collectively failed to recognize the important role Darwin plays in James’s 1906-1907 Lowell Institute lectures on pragmatism? The goal of the paper is to elicit a “yes” verdict from the reader, although the author believes his study is insufficient for proving his intuition that Darwin played a central role in James’s thought in these lectures. The contention is that, given the importance of Pragmatism and the continued relevance of Darwinian science, it is worth the effort to read this classic James work in light of Darwin’s influence, in spite of Philip Weiner’s (and practically everyone else’s) lack of …

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Arendt And Macintyre On The Enlightenment's Failure, Andrew Janiak Jul 2017

Arendt And Macintyre On The Enlightenment's Failure, Andrew Janiak

Episteme

Arendt and MacIntyre, who come from two competing branches of contemporary philosophy, surprisingly both believe that the Enlightenment failed in large part due to the emptiness of the so-called “Rights of Man” and that this failure led the late-20th century to be a “post” era. But their critiques are distinct and beg comparison. The author endeavors to show that Arendt is better able to respond to MacIntyre than he to her, given the political—not philosophical—argument put forth by Arendt. The paper divides into four sections: the two overviews of each’s arguments concerning the Enlightenment, and each of their separate, imagined …

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Hobbes, Locke, And The State Of Nature Theories: A Reassessment, Michael P. Greeson Jul 2017

Hobbes, Locke, And The State Of Nature Theories: A Reassessment, Michael P. Greeson

Episteme

The classic story told about modern political philosophy paints Hobbes and Locke as contrasting figures who have differing opinions about human psychology. The author of this article rejects such a picture and instead argues that Locke’s state of nature contains features that are strikingly similar to Hobbes’. The author reassesses the supposedly “egoist” Hobbes and the “civil” Locke. It becomes clear that Hobbes’ mechanism and rhetorical bent influence his description of the state of nature—the world without social arrangement. Locke, who is more direct and practical, depicts a state of nature that is actually pre-political and normative. Such differences mask …

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