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Articles 31 - 60 of 225

Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Naked: The Dark Side Of Shame And Moral Life, Krista Karbowski Thomason Jan 2018

Naked: The Dark Side Of Shame And Moral Life, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

We know shame can be a morally valuable emotion that helps us to realize when we fail to be the kinds of people we aspire to be. We feel shame when we fail to live up to the norms, standards, and ideals that we value as part of a virtuous life. But the lived reality of shame is far more complex and far darker than this -- the gut-level experience of shame that has little to do with failing to reach our ideals. We feel shame viscerally about nudity, sex, our bodies, and weaknesses or flaws that we can't control. …


Review Of "The Illusion Of Doubt" By G. Schönbaumsfeld, Peter Baumann Sep 2017

Review Of "The Illusion Of Doubt" By G. Schönbaumsfeld, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


A Good Enough Heart: Kant And The Cultivation Of Emotions, Krista Karbowski Thomason Sep 2017

A Good Enough Heart: Kant And The Cultivation Of Emotions, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

One way of understanding Kant’s views about moral emotions is the cultivation view. On this view, emotions play a role in Kantian morality provided they are properly cultivated. I evince a sceptical position about the cultivation view. First, I show that the textual evidence in support of cultivation is ambiguous. I then provide an account of emotions in Kant’s theory that explains both his positive and negative views about them. Emotions capture our attention such that they both disrupt the mind’s composure and serve as a surrogate for reason. As such, Kant cannot recommend that we cultivate our emotions.


Review Of "Aesthetic Disinterestedness: Art, Experience, And The Self" By T. Hilgers, Richard Thomas Eldridge Aug 2017

Review Of "Aesthetic Disinterestedness: Art, Experience, And The Self" By T. Hilgers, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


The Philosophies Of Mathematics, Alan Richard Baker Feb 2017

The Philosophies Of Mathematics, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


If You Believe, You Believe: A Constitutive Account Of Knowledge Of One’S Own Beliefs, Peter Baumann Jan 2017

If You Believe, You Believe: A Constitutive Account Of Knowledge Of One’S Own Beliefs, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

Can I be wrong about my own beliefs? More precisely: Can I falsely believe that I believe that p? I argue that the answer is negative. This runs against what many philosophers and psychologists have traditionally thought and still think. I use a rather new kind of argument, – one that is based on considerations about Moore's paradox. It shows that if one believes that one believes that p then one believes that p – even though one can believe that p without believing that one believes that p.


Power, Soft Or Deep? An Attempt At Constructive Criticism, Peter Baumann Jan 2017

Power, Soft Or Deep? An Attempt At Constructive Criticism, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

This paper discusses and criticizes Joseph Nye’s account of soft power. First, we set the stage and make some general remarks about the notion of social power. In the main part of this paper we offer a detailed critical discussion of Nye’s conception of soft power. We conclude that it is too unclear and confused to be of much analytical use. However, despite this failure, Nye is aiming at explaining an important but also neglected form of social power: the power to influence the will and not just the behavior of other agents. In the last part of this paper …


Review Of "Anger And Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice" By M. C. Nussbaum, Krista Karbowski Thomason Jan 2017

Review Of "Anger And Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice" By M. C. Nussbaum, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


“This Most Human Predicament”: Cavell On Language, Intention, And Desire In Shakespeare, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2017

“This Most Human Predicament”: Cavell On Language, Intention, And Desire In Shakespeare, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

In the second paragraph of “The Avoidance of Love,” the earliest of his essays on Shakespeare, Cavell asks, “What has discouraged attention from investigations of character?” in Shakespeare criticism of the mid-twentieth century. “What […] has [instead] specifically motivated an absorbing attention to words?”, as in the criticism of William Empson and G. Wilson Knight. The answer that Cavell offers is that it is “the merest assumption,” foisted off on us “by some philosophy or other, that [literary] characters are not people, [and] that what can be known about people cannot be known about characters” (DK, 40). Cavell then goes …


Distinguishing Between Cognitive And Social Values, Hugh Lacey Jan 2017

Distinguishing Between Cognitive And Social Values, Hugh Lacey

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Essays In Philosophy: Moral Psychology And War, Krista Karbowski Thomason Jan 2017

Essays In Philosophy: Moral Psychology And War, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


The Life And Times Of Transgenics, Hugh Lacey Jan 2017

The Life And Times Of Transgenics, Hugh Lacey

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Is Everything Revisable?, Peter Baumann Jan 2017

Is Everything Revisable?, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

Over the decades, the claim that everything is revisable (defended by Quine and others) has played an important role in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Some time ago, Katz (1988) argued that this claim is paradoxical. This paper does not discuss this objection but rather argues that the claim of universal revisability allows for two different readings but in each case leads to a contradiction and is false.


Review Of "Reckoning With The Imagination: Wittgenstein And The Aesthetics Of Literary Experience" By C. Altieri, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jul 2016

Review Of "Reckoning With The Imagination: Wittgenstein And The Aesthetics Of Literary Experience" By C. Altieri, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Review Of "The Philosophy Of Tragedy" By C. Hamilton, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jun 2016

Review Of "The Philosophy Of Tragedy" By C. Hamilton, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Knowledge Across Contexts. A Problem For Subject-Sensitive Invariantism, Peter Baumann Jun 2016

Knowledge Across Contexts. A Problem For Subject-Sensitive Invariantism, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

The possibility of knowledge attributions across contexts (where attributor and subject find themselves in different epistemic contexts) can create serious problems for certain views of knowledge. Amongst such views is subject-sensitive invariantism—the view that knowledge is determined not only by epistemic factors (belief, truth, evidence, etc.), but also by non-epistemic factors (practical interests, etc.). I argue that subject-sensitive invariantism either runs into a contradiction or has to make very implausible assumptions. The problem has been very much neglected but is so serious that one should look for alternative accounts of knowledge.


Philosophy, Literature, Death, And Wisdom: On Philip Kitcher's "Deaths In Venice", Richard Thomas Eldridge Apr 2016

Philosophy, Literature, Death, And Wisdom: On Philip Kitcher's "Deaths In Venice", Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Epistemic Contrastivism, Knowledge And Practical Reasoning, Peter Baumann Feb 2016

Epistemic Contrastivism, Knowledge And Practical Reasoning, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

Epistemic contrastivism is the view that knowledge is a ternary relation between a person, a proposition and a set of contrast propositions. This view is in tension with widely shared accounts of practical reasoning: be it the claim that knowledge of the premises is necessary for acceptable practical reasoning based on them or sufficient for the acceptability of the use of the premises in practical reasoning, or be it the claim that there is a looser connection between knowledge and practical reasoning. Given plausible assumptions, epistemic contrastivism implies that we should cut all links between knowledge and practical reasoning. However, …


Images Of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom, And The Human Subject, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2016

Images Of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom, And The Human Subject, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

Developing work in the theories of action and explanation, Eldridge argues that moral and political philosophers require accounts of what is historically possible, while historians require rough philosophical understandings of ideals that merit reasonable endorsement. Both Immanuel Kant and Walter Benjamin recognize this fact. Each sees a special place for religious consciousness and critical practice in the articulation and revision of ideals that are to have cultural effect, but they differ sharply in the forms of religious-philosophical understanding, cultural criticism, and political practice that they favor. Kant defends a liberal, reformist, Protestant stance, emphasizing the importance of liberty, individual rights, …


Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense, Peter Baumann Jan 2016

Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

This book develops and defends a version of epistemic contextualism, that is, of the view that the truth conditions or the meaning of knowledge attributions of the form “S knows that p” can vary with the context of the attributor. The first part of the book is about arguments for contextualism and develops a particular version of it. The first chapter deals with the argument from cases and ordinary usage. More weight, however, is put on more “theoretical” arguments: arguments from reliability (Chapter 2) and from luck (Chapter 3). The second part of the book discusses problems contextualism faces and …


Non-Optional Projects: Mathematical And Ethical, Alan Richard Baker Jan 2016

Non-Optional Projects: Mathematical And Ethical, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

This chapter examines how the general framework for indispensability arguments developed by Enoch in the metaethical context plays out in its ancestral home, the philosophy of mathematics. Enoch’s framework is inspired by the Quine–Putnam type of indispensability argument in mathematics and is liable to inherit the latter’s holism. But once this holism is expunged from Enoch’s framework it turns out that Enoch’s indispensability argument is stronger in the moral than in the mathematical case, since it is more plausible that normative entities are indispensible to all projects of practical deliberation than it is that mathematical entities are indispensible to all …


The Question Of Truth In Literature: Die Poetische Auffassung Der Welt, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2016

The Question Of Truth In Literature: Die Poetische Auffassung Der Welt, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

This chapter starts with the question of truth in literature, noting that this question has several interrelated senses: can literature present (significant) truths at all?; what does its presentation of truths (if it exists) have to do with its manner of presentation (with literary language)?; and is the presentation of truth a central aim of literary art? The chapter surveys a variety of neo-Fregean (Lamarque and Olsen, Walton) views that reject the very possibility of literary truth as well as a variety of anti-Fregean views (Goodman, Heidegger) that endorse it. But those endorsements often do not say enough about literary …


On Alan Goldman’S "Philosophy And The Novel", Richard Thomas Eldridge Oct 2015

On Alan Goldman’S "Philosophy And The Novel", Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Meaningful And More Meaningful: A Modest Measure, Peter Baumann Oct 2015

Meaningful And More Meaningful: A Modest Measure, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


The Moral Value Of Envy, Krista Karbowski Thomason Mar 2015

The Moral Value Of Envy, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

It is common to think that we would be morally better people if we never felt envy. Recently, some philosophers have rejected this conclusion by arguing that envy can often be directed toward unfairness or inequality. As such, they conclude that we should not suppress our feelings of envy. I argue, however, that these defenses only show that envy is sometimes morally permissible. In order to show that we would not be better off without envy, we must show how envy is not merely morally permissible, but morally valuable. Here I provide a defense of envy's moral value. I argue …


Transitional Justice As Structural Justice, Krista Karbowski Thomason Jan 2015

Transitional Justice As Structural Justice, Krista Karbowski Thomason

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


“To Think Exactly And Courageously”: Poetry, Ingeborg Bachmann’S Poetics, And Her Bohemia Poem, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2015

“To Think Exactly And Courageously”: Poetry, Ingeborg Bachmann’S Poetics, And Her Bohemia Poem, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

This chapter demonstrates the importance of close reading and criticism to the philosophy of poetry. Its reading of Ingeborg Bachman’s ‘Böhmen liegt am Meer’ explores the extent to which the poem is exemplary of the distinctive achievements of lyric poetry. The poem provides an object study in how the lyric allows the human voice to pursue, and at times acquire, expressive freedom. The various sonic, affective, rhythmic, figurative, and expressive devices of poetry account for why its products are not merely lovely aesthetic objects but exemplary of the ‘imaginative economy of human life’. What lyric that aspires to this status …


Review Of "After The Beautiful: Hegel And The Philosophy Of Pictorial Modernism" By R. B. Pippin, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2015

Review Of "After The Beautiful: Hegel And The Philosophy Of Pictorial Modernism" By R. B. Pippin, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


A Agroecologia: Uma Ilustração Da Fecundidade Da Pesquisa Multiestratégica, Hugh Lacey Jan 2015

A Agroecologia: Uma Ilustração Da Fecundidade Da Pesquisa Multiestratégica, Hugh Lacey

Philosophy Faculty Works

The aims of the article are (1) to highlight the fact that research conducted under agroecological strategies serves to illustrate the fruitfulness of multi-strategic research, and (2) to point to the relevance of agroecology in Brazil, as well as to its growing importance in the production of foodstuffs throughout the world.


Poetry And Emphatic Truth: Walter Benjamin’S Reading Of Hölderlin, Richard Thomas Eldridge Jan 2015

Poetry And Emphatic Truth: Walter Benjamin’S Reading Of Hölderlin, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

Benjamin’s poetic theory is commented. It is noted that Benjamin follows Hölderlin in regarding a successful poem as a particular configuration that joins the intellectual and perceptual orders. Such a successful poem aims at and can possess not truth as correspondence to a given object, but rather what in the text is described as “emphatic truth”.