Philosophy Commons^™

Costa Rican Culture Of Love, Melissa Johnson

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This collection of photographs explores how the collectivist and vibrant culture of Costa Rica manifests as a profound sense of love, shared among humans, animals, and the land. This project celebrates the spirit of Costa Rica as a whole, where human connection, respect for the environment, and a genuine sense of community intertwine.

A Story To Tell: My Unforgettable Experience, Isabela Jimenez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

A personal reflection about an unforgettable, eye-opening experience in Costa Rica. Meeting locals in different destinations, learning new lessons.

Global Parallels: A Reflection On Civil Rights And Ethical Consumerism In Costa Rica, Anonymous

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This reflection on the First to Go trip to Costa Rica examines the civil rights issues faced in the country. In particular, it highlights the significant parallels with the United States, especially concerning immigrant communities. During our time there we specifically talked about the exploitation of immigrant labor on pineapple plantations by corporations like Del Monte. This trip underscored my understanding of ethical consumerism and a new approach to mindful purchasing.

What Is A "Pure Life"?, Ailani Anglin

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

A personal reflection about encountering new experiences in Costa Rica. The comparision between living in Costa Rica and the U.S, how fortunate we are to have many opportunities in this country.

Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Natalia Zevallos

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

Short poem about the unique experiences while in Costa Rica.

Esa Mariposa, Carolina Hernandez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This free-write poem was written with a purpose of making meaning of the Blue Morpho butterfly I continuously saw abroad in Costa Rica. Being able to have captivating conversations with locals all while being comforted by the country’s blanket of communal love was an unforgettable experience. As a metaphor for change, growth, and transformation, I found this remarkable butterfly to be a highlight of my time in Costa Rica. As a symbol of my late father, it called for reflection and sitting with suppressed emotions. For that reason, I wanted to depict how its reappearing presence became a hopeful reminder …

Radical Love: Embracing Connection And Dismantleing Shame, Lisette Gonzalez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

It is essential to maintain love, care, and connection in the face of oppressive systems. There needs to be a call for bravery to get through the challenges that many face, Costa Rica being one of them.

Introduction

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

Inside the introduction of "Pure Vida: Reflections from Costa Rica", readers will find an illustration by Leyna Tran, “Meet the Team” section and a detailed table of contents, guiding readers through this edition.

The (Anarchic) Gift Of Gelassenheit: On An Undeveloped Motif In Derrida's Donner Le Temps Ii, Ian Alexander Moore

Philosophy Faculty Works

In his recently published Donner le temps II, Derrida raises, but does not develop, the possibility that Heidegger's notion of Gelassenheit (‘releasement’, ‘letting-be’) might escape the economic confines of exchange, debt, and repayment and therefore qualify as a pure gift. In this paper, I explore this possibility, explaining that Gelassenheit would have to be understood, first, not primarily as a human comportment but at the level of being itself, second, beyond appropriation, and third, as ‘without why’. If Heidegger's focus on appropriation in ‘Time and Being’ remains entangled in the economy of exchange (as Derrida insinuates in the final …

The Divine Stakes Of Human Freedom: Jonas In Dialogue With Schelling, Ian Alexander Moore

Philosophy Faculty Works

In a recent article, Lore Hühn calls for a comprehensive study of the parallels between Schelling’s critique of the will, on the one hand, and the philosophies of nature and technology developed in the twentieth century by students of Heidegger such as Hannah Arendt, Günther Anders, and Hans Jonas, on the other. Hühn notes, in particular, that:

essential moments of Jonas’s ethics of responsibility, with its critique of classical metaphysics’ neglect of the body and nature, cannot be understood without the background of Schelling; this holds as well for Jonas’s speculative figure of the self-retraction of God and for his …

Articuli Temporis: St. Augustine And Phenomenology On The Temporal Syntax Of God’S Self-Disclosure, Scott Roniger

Philosophy Faculty Works

In this essay, I articulate an Augustinian “philosophy of history” by highlighting some important texts sprinkled throughout St. Augustine’s writings, especially his City of God. I concentrate on Augustine’s claim that there are “joints of time” that structure God’s self-disclosure to us through sacred history, and I develop these Augustinian insights with the help of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. While Augustine enables us to see that God’s revelation is achieved in a sacred history that illuminates the deepest structure and order of the temporal flow of human events, Husserl’s phenomenology can be used to show that the structure and order of …

Thomas Aquinas On Non-Theological Faith, Catherine Peters

Philosophy Faculty Works

The majority of studies on ‘faith’ (fides) in the thought of Thomas Aquinas consider it in a religious or theological context: fides as the theological virtue by which one assents to the truths of divine revelation. The focus on theological faith is appropriate, given its central importance as a theological virtue, but this is not the only sense of fides that Thomas identifies. The present study investigates two non-theological senses formulated in his commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius: first, fides as the proximate cause of assenting to principles within a given science (‘epistemic faith’) and, second, fides as …

Faith, Free Will Skepticism, And Fischer's Tao, Daniel Speak

Philosophy Faculty Works

Skepticism about moral freedom appears to be on the rise. This essay attempts to blunt the force of the recent growth of free will skepticism by appealing to a form of rational faith in free will. With a compelling account of the nature of faith (borrowed from Lara Buchak), we can see that even someone convinced by Pereboom-style skeptical arguments could nevertheless rationally accept and act on the claim that we enjoy moral freedom. Given an underappreciated aspect of P. F. Strawson’s famous paper “Freedom and Resentment,” this result should be less surprising than we might have thought. Further, this …

Crisis In Schelling’S Late System: Comments On Peter Dews’S Schelling’S Late Philosophy In Confrontation With Hegel, Marcela García Romero

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Augustinian Composition Pedagogy And The Catholic Liberal Arts In The Time Of Generative Ai, Gavin F. Hurley

Journal of Catholic Education

This article proposes a theoretical basis of Augustinian composition pedagogy by tracing the symbiotic relationship between writing and knowing found within St. Augustine’s Letters, The Trinity, Soliloquies, and Confessions and connecting them to modern writing-to-learn composition pedagogies. Given today’s trying times of generative AI, this article argues that Catholic schools revitalize the writing arts in a manner proposed by Augustine—that is, to enrich inward contemplation and outward love for others. In embracing such philosophy of writing and applying it across the disciplines, Catholic schools can enrich their distinctively Catholic liberal arts mission—and ward off dangers found in …

Spoiling The Party? Heidegger’S Lectures On Trakl At Spa Bühlerhöhe, Tobias Keiling, Ian Alexander Moore

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Imagination Grasping Reality: An Ignatian Foundation For Critical Hope In Jesuit Education, Susan Haarman

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

As public faith in higher education faces an all time low, the need for hope to both infuse and be a product of our institutions of higher learning is paramount. Rather than a simple hopeful optimism, Henry Giroux conceptualized critical hope - an educated hope that will form students capable and willing to view themselves and the world through a critical lens and then imagine new ways of proceeding that serve the public good and honor human dignity. Jesuit education, at its best, is rooted in expressions of critical hope with a world-affirming commitment to depth of thought and imagination …

The Call Of The Origin: On Christology, Conversion, And Peregrine Identity In Reiner Schürmann’S Early Work On Meister Eckhart, Francesco Guercio, Ian Alexander Moore

Philosophy Faculty Works

In 1969, Reiner Schürmann submitted a thesis to the Dominican school of theology Le Saulchoir. It was titled Peregrine Identity: The Concept of Detachment in Meister Eckhart’s German Sermons. Three years later, Schürmann published Wandering Joy, his celebrated book on Eckhart. In this article, we examine four aspects of the earlier study that cannot, as such, be found in the later one: (1) the specifically Christological dimension of Eckhart’s teaching of detachment; (2) a logic of conversion at work in Eckhart and St. Francis; (3) Schürmann’s hermeneutics of the symbol; and (4) the practical outcomes of Heidegger’s ontological …

Educating For Good Thinking: Virtues, Skills, Or Both?, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

This paper explores the relationship between intellectual virtues and critical thinking, both as such and as educational ends worth pursuing. The first half of the paper examines the intersection of intellectual virtue and critical thinking. The second half addresses a recent argument to the effect that educating for intellectual virtues (in contrast to educating for critical thinking) is insufficiently action-guiding and therefore lacks a suitable pedagogy.

The Declaration Of Independence: Inalienable Rights, The Creator, And The Political Order., Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Heidegger’S Legacy And The Need/Use Of Being, Christopher D. Merwin, Ian Alexander Moore

Philosophy Faculty Works

This article first retraces the history of Heidegger’s “The Argument against Need” and situates it in the context of extant notes from his never-completed introduction to the Gesamtausgabe titled “The Legacy of the Question of Being.” It then argues that, for the later Heidegger, Brauch (“need,” “use”) becomes another name – indeed one of the most important, albeit neglected, names – for being in its deepest sense. To appreciate Heidegger’s legacy and that of the question of being, it is crucial that we (1) critically assess the argument against Brauch qua “need” – i.e., the argument according to which the …

On The Integration Of Positive Psychology And The Psychology/Spirituality: Logical, Normative, And Methodological Questions, S.L. Porter, Jason Baehr, T. Porter, R. C. Roberts

Philosophy Faculty Works

When it comes to the integration of positive psychology and the psychology of religion/spirituality (R/S), there are three second-order, philosophical questions that need answering: Can these two fields be integrated? Should these two fields be integrated? And, if so, how is it best to integrate these two fields? Although this chapter touches on the logical and normative questions, it is the third, methodological question that receives the greatest attention. We argue that although, from a philosophical perspective, there are no methodological barriers to integrating these two subfields, there is a methodological bonanza in their integration. The golden opportunity is for …

Editor’S Note, Deepak Shimkhada

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This special issue of Monsoon is dedicated to the studies honoring the goddess traditions in South Asia. The onset of the Monsoon Season in South Asia typically commences in June and continues until late August and early September. The publication of this issue, therefore, has been strategically timed to coincide with that season, which is a vital source of sustenance for millions of individuals in this part of the world. This anthology consisting of five papers—written by scholars with expertise in the field of goddess and women studies—speak unequivocally about the goddesses or women for their strength, beauty, wisdom, and …

Constructing Jain Goddess Padmavātī In Gujarati Literature, Venu Mehta

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Worship of the goddess Padmāvatī emerged more than a thousand years ago. This article explores three songs about her in Gujarati by Paṇḍit Vīrvijayajī (1773-1852). By analyzing the style and form of his work, one learns a great deal about devotional liturgies that commemorate goddess Padmāvatī’s protection of the Jina Pārśvanātha and, in turn, his protection of her.

Women’S Voices From History: Gond Rani Durgawati And Rani Lakshmibhai, Nandini Sengupta, Moupia Basu

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Two strong women are compared and contrasted in this article. Gond Rani Durgawati (1524-1564) led a resistance movement in Jabalpur against the Mughal rule of Akbar. Rani Lakshmibai (1828-1858) organized the people of Jhansi against Sir Hugh Rose, an officer defending the interests of the British East India Company. Both women continue to be remembered for their bravery and their loyalty to the people they ruled.

Mai Bhago And Amrita Devi Bishnoi: Women Of Strength, Sowmya Ayyar

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mai Bhago (1670-1720), also known as Bhag Kaur, distinguished herself on the battlefield to defend the Sikh faith. Amrita Devi Bishnoi (d. 1730) is said to have sacrificed her life with 362 others to protect the Khejari trees in the Rajasthan desert. Both women continue to inspire social justice and ecological activism.

An Examination Of Gandhian Economic And Political Thought And Its Relevance To The Empowerment Of Women, Purnima Mehta Bhatt

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) sought to alleviate poverty and empower women. His commitment to nonviolence and the economic ideal of “small is beautiful” continue to inspire grassroots movements around the globe. This article discusses the Chipko movement of northern India, the protection of rain forests in Kerala’s Silent Valley, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Medha Patkar’s valiant though ultimately futile attempt to save the Narmada River from a massive government damming project. The ongoing legacy of these movements can be found in AWAG, the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group and Women’s Shanti Sena (Peace Force).

Indigenous Stitch-Arts Of India: Tradition And Revival In A Global Age, Punam Madhok

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Stitch art allows for the creative expression and economic support of countless women throughout India. This article examines four notable styles: chikankari, flora and fauna stitched in white thread on fine white cotton, rabari, the stitching of mirrors into colorful cloth, phulkari, resplendent flowery motifs sewn into shawls in Punjab, and kantha, Bengali patch work yielding quilts and seating mats. In addition to describing each technique, this article discusses how women have been economically empowered through this art by such organizations as Self-Help Enterprise (SHE) in Kolkata and Adithi, a women’s cooperative, in Bihar.

Identities Of Women In Indian Art And History, Nalini Rao

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The stereotypical image of Indian women portrayed in the art of stone sculpture is often interpreted as images of beauty that are sensuous, religious as well depict social life. There are historical reasons for depicting her as such. This paper inquires into the changing depiction and social forces that influenced feminine imagery. This paper examines the portrayal of beauty through idealization of female body which has evolved over the centuries in India. It also aims to understand their changing status and explores issues of feminine identity, status, and empowerment largely in ancient and medieval India. It also provides a brief …

Limitations-Owning And Interpersonal Dimension Of Intellectual Humility, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

According to one prominent account of intellectual humility, it consists primarily of a disposition to “own” one’s intellectual limitations. This account has been criticized for neglecting the interpersonal dimensions of intellectual humility. We expect intellectually humble persons to be respectful and generous with their interlocutors and to avoid being haughty or domineering. I defend the limitations-owning account against this objection. I do so in two ways: first, by arguing that some of the interpersonal qualities associated with intellectual humility are qualities expressive of virtues other than intellectual humility; and second, by arguing that, when properly described, the kind of limitations-owning …