Philosophy Commons^™

Mephistopheles' Atopy, Allotry, Lottery. On Textual Proliferations In Goethe's Faust I And Ii, Pasqual Solass

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Combining a careful reading of selected passages from Goethe’s Faust I and II and of marginal but nevertheless revealing lines on maybe the actual protagonist of the “Tragödie”, Mephistopheles, this paper aims to present aspects of what one could call Goethe’s vision of a modern devil. Taking departure from etymological considerations on the root of “diabolus”, i.e. diabállein, meaning to cast apart, to scatter, but also to accuse, as well as from different beliefs of German “Aberglaube” (superstition), it will become clear that one if not the major feature of Goethe’s Mephistopheles-figure is movement, not just …

La Locura De Don Quijote. Un Análisis Filosófico Desde La Teoría De Los Cuatro Humores., Alberto Fernández-Diego

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

El Quijote representa la cumbre de la literatura hispánica y su historia es la historia de una transformación. Este artículo se centra en el primer capítulo del libro primero de El Quijote, con el fin de ofrecer un análisis e interpretación de las causas que llevaron a Alonso Quijano a la locura y, con ella, a la transformación en Don Quijote de la Mancha. Para ello, se ofrecerá un análisis del estatus social del hidalgo empobrecido de la época, así como un análisis del temperamento y carácter que Cervantes ofreció en su obra.

Simbolismo Y Metáfora: Paralelismos Filosóficos En “La Biblioteca De Babel” De Jorge Luis Borges, Alberto Fernández-Diego

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

El relato titulado “La Biblioteca de Babel” de Jorge Luis Borges nos cuenta la historia de un hombre cuya vida ha transcurrido en “la Biblioteca” (sinónimo de “universo”) y que ha pasado sus años buscando algo que ni él ni ningún otro morador de la misma ha podido encontrar: su razón de ser, sus límites, el contenido de sus obras, etc. El texto está narrado en primera persona por el protagonista, que nos hace partícipes de la frustración que se ha apoderado de él en sus últimos años de su vida, después de dedicar toda su biografía a intentar, sin …

Vulgar Love: The Sicilian School And The New Aesthetic, Jason Collins

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Much consideration has been given in the last century to the Scuola Siciliana, or the Sicilian School, the first coterie of poets in an already developed but still emergent Italian vernacular, and this in spite of an almost complete lack of autograph copies of poetic works in the original language. A great deal of this scholarship or research has a taxonomic and theoretical approach to the works, their composition, and the atmosphere that fostered them, and oftentimes attempts to position the Sicilian School within the historiography of Italian literature (particularly as progenitors to the Tuscan poets and thus Dante, Petrarch, …

Echoes Of Leibniz In Pope’S Essay On Man: Criticism And Cultural Shift In The Eighteenth Century, Sierra Billingslea

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This paper is an examination of the intellectual relationship between Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man and the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This relationship was accentuated by Crousaz, a Swiss critic, who accused Pope of plagiarizing Leibniz’s misguided philosophy due to the evidence of Leibniz’s Principle of the Best, Principle of Sufficient Reason, and Principle of Continuity found within An Essay on Man. This paper argues that both Leibniz and Popes’ philosophies do not reflect a direct relationship but instead share the spirit of Augustan thought as well as a similar classical upbringing. Crousaz and other critics who criticized …

The Liberal As An Enemy Of Queer Justice, Craig Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Abstract

Liberalism as a historical mode of the political is the context in which the movement and ensuing struggle for queer justice emerged in most Western countries. The terminology, practices, tendencies, beliefs, ethics, laws, and patterns of political and social life which have been determined by this mode of the political, it is argued, are inimical to queer justice and render its achievement impossible. Liberalism as a mode of the political is approached from below, from knowledge gained in practical experience in queer groups which considered themselves revolutionary at least to some degree, and from the effects on such groups …

Indeterminism In Kane’S Event-Causal Libertarianism, Robert J. Nowell

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

In this paper, I examine the plausibility of event-causal libertarianism, a prominent view on free will which regards indeterminism in the causal history of a decision as necessary for an agent’s moral responsibility for a subsequent action. Specifically, I investigate how Robert Kane’s event-causal libertarian account fares in light of Derk Pereboom’s powerful “disappearing agent” objection, in addition to criticisms of my own. Kane concludes that Pereboom’s objection is ineffective against his account. I argue against Kane’s conclusion by highlighting a dilemma which results from Kane's response to the disappearing agent objection; either way Kane’s position is interpreted, his account …

The Fair And Laissez-Faire Markets: From A Neoliberal Laissez-Faire Baseline To A Fair Market, Eric L. Dixon

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The essay begins with a brief overview of the role of the neoliberal conception of the laissez-faire market in modern political economy. The essay then goes on to defend three claims: 1) the laissez-faire version of a market should not be considered the economic ideal or baseline version of a market because often the fundamental conditions required to reach a genuine equilibrium are unfulfilled under a laissez-faire environment, 2) a distribution resultant from a laissez-faire market should not be considered the ultima facie just distributive baseline because an unregulated market may allocate commodities according to morally arbitrary factors and requires …

Polishing Treadmills At Midnight: Is Refugee Integration An Elusive Goal?, Woods Nash

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

It is often said that justice requires us to treat like cases alike. Accordingly, the U.S. refugee resettlement program provides all refugees—no matter where they are from, no matter their pasts—with very similar funding and services. Refugees, however, are far from alike. In this essay, I invoke Borgmann’s distinction between a “thing” and a “device” and draw on stories from my work with a resettlement agency to argue that our current, employment-driven system is in need of reform. Instead of being restricted to generic programs, refugee resettlement agencies should be funded to help each family achieve social integration in ways …

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum, Volume One, Issue One, Shane Willson, Landon S. Bevier, Rachael E. Gabriel, Taylor Krcek, Alaina Elizabeth Smith

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

It is with great pride that we present to you the inaugural issue of Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum. Here we have attempted to create an innovative, peer-reviewed space in which people from numerous disciplines, or even those claiming no discipline, can present research, multimedia, and art aimed at furthering the ideals of social justice, broadly defined. Social justice is not a concept owned by the academy, for attempts to create a more just world can come from many professions, or even from no profession at all. By applying the traditionally academic peer-review process to work done by activists, artists, …