Philosophy Commons^™

Themistius As A Commentator On Aristotle: Understanding And Appreciating His Conception Of 'Nous Pathetikos' And 'Phantasia', Myrna Gabbe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Themistius is not only a commentator on Aristotle; he is also one of our main sources of Theophrastus on the intellect. Hence, it is important to understand how he approaches and reads texts. It is my view that care and rigor are reflected in his treatment of nous pathêtikos. In this paper, I argue that Themistius postulates a third intellect whose job is to discern enmattered forms-i.e., sensible particulars-on the reasonable assumption that the productive and potential intellects are responsible solely for our contemplation of un-enmattered forms. As such, the passive intellect is responsible for what Aristotle calls incidental …

On The Concept Of A Morally Relevant Harm, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this paper I explicate and defend the concept of a morally relevant harm. This concept figures prominently in common-sense and contractualist moral reasoning concerning cases where an agent can prevent harm to members of a large group or a small one, but not both. When the two harms to which members of these groups are exposed are morally relevant to one another, an agent is permitted (or perhaps required) to take into account the number of people he can save. When the harms are irrelevant, an agent should not even consider preventing the lesser harm, regardless of how many …

Traditional Culture And Global Commodification, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

We can think of technology and Christianity as competing forms of life. Technology promises a life of ever greater liberty and prosperity where liberty is the liberation from the limits and burdens of the human condition and prosperity is the variety and refinement of pleasures. Christianity bears the good news of salvation, the assurance that the coming of Christ has enabled us to live a life of grace and love that is affirmed by eternal life in the presence of God.

Mead And The International Mind, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this paper I analyze the conceptions of internationalism and the international mind that Mead uses in "The Psychological Bases of Internationalism" (1915); in his 1917 Chicago Herald columns defending U.S. entry into the war; in Mind, Self, and Society (1934); and in "National- Mindedness and International Mindedness" (1929). I show how the terms "internationalism" and "the international mind" arose within conversations among some Anglo-American thinkers. While Mead employs these terms in his own philosophical and sociological theorizing, he draws their meaning from these conversations and does not generate their meaning from within his own theorizing. This places Mead among …

Simone Weil's Spiritual Critique Of Modern Science: An Historical-Critical Assessment, Joseph K. Cosgrove

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper evaluates Simone Weil's philosophy and theology of science from the perspective of an historical phenomenology of science.

The Responsibility Of Thinking In Dark Times: Hannah Arendt Versus Hans Jonas, Lawrence A. Vogel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Digital Law Vs. Analog Lawyers, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Lawyers are conflicted and confused about the role technology plays in their lives, and their attempts at clarification that I’m familiar with have been thoughtful for the most part, but not successful. Most lawyers do understand that technology can be a problem either as the subject or as the background of their practice. It’s their subject when they litigate issues of electronic surveillance or copyright infringements on the Internet. It’s the background of their practice when they use a computer, a cell phone, or PowerPoint.

Emmanuel Levinas And The Judaism Of The Good Samaritan, Lawrence A. Vogel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pornography, Contemporary-Mainstream, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Once a relatively small‐niche market, pornography in recent years has become a mainstream, technologically sophisticated multi‐billion‐dollar industry, one that plays a significant role in shaping our ideas about gender and sexuality. Like many complex and politically contested concepts, pornography can be defined in a number of different ways. While some defined pornography simply as any sexually explicit written or graphic material, others include additional criteria, such as that the material be produced for the purpose of sexually arousing its audience or that the material convey certain (typically sexist and degrading) ideas and attitudes about women, men, and sexuality. While these …

Husserl, Jacob Klein, And Symbolic Nature, Joseph K. Cosgrove

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper examines Husserl's later philosophy of science in light of Jacob Klein's work in the history of mathematics and in the context of 20th-century "spacetime" physics.

Business Ethics: An Overview, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay provides an overview of business ethics. I describe important issues, identify some of the normative considerations animating them, and offer a roadmap of references for those wishing to learn more. I focus on issues in normative business ethics, but discuss briefly the growing body of work in descriptive business ethics. I conclude with a comment on the changing nature of the field.

Adam Smith And The Stages Of Moral Development, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The writer explores Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, where Smith presents a rich and provocative account of morality. The writer offers an explication of Smith's moral psychology as a stage theory of moral development, with the intention of generating critical points on both mattes of detail and larger implications.

The Soul Of Classical American Philosophy: The Ethical And Spiritual Insights Of William James, Josiah Royce, And Charles Sanders Peirce By: Richard P. Mullin (Review), Alexander Stehn

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Sharing William James’ conviction that “no one of us can get along without the far-reaching beams of light [philosophy] sends over the world’s perspectives” (qtd. on xi), Richard Mullin’s new book seeks to communicate the ethical and spiritual insights of William James, Josiah Royce, and Charles Sanders Peirce to a non-specialist audience. Mullin follows the pragmatists he studies by dropping the traditional, dualistic notion of “soul” while insisting upon the importance of carefully attending to the following issues classically treated as pertaining thereto: the self, free will, moral values, community, and our relationship with the Transcendent (xi). With the pragmatic …

Montesquieu And Locke On Democratic Power And The Justification Of The “War On Terror”, Cory Wimberly

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on a comparative analysis of the legitimate exercise of democratic power in the philosophies of Montesquieu and Locke. This analysis not only highlights a strong bifurcation in liberal thought, it also sheds light on the contemporary practice of liberalism through the example of the United States’ ‘War on Terror.’ I argue that although it is Locke who at first blush gives an account of the exercise of democratic power that is more opposed to tyranny, it is Montesquieu’s broader conception that is in many ways more effective at tracking and combating tyranny.

Theophrastus And The Intellect As Mixture, Myrna Gabbe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

De Anima III 5 introduces one of Aristotle’s most perplexing doctrines. In this short and obscure chapter, Aristotle distinguishes between an intellect that becomes all things, the so-called potential intellect, and an intellect that makes all things, the so-called productive intellect (430a14-15). It is generally held that the intellect that becomes all things is described in De Anima III 4, since Aristotle there tells us that the intellect knows by becoming its objects (429a15-18). This intellect has acquired the title “potential intellect” since it must be potentially the objects of thought in order to become and think the objects of …

Radicalism And Cultural Dislocation In Ethiopia, 1960-1974, Messay Kebede

Philosophy Faculty Publications

During the 1960s and early 1970s, a majority of Ethiopian students and intellectuals adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology with fanatic fervor. The leading force in an uprising against the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Selassie, they played a decisive role in the rise of a Leninist military regime. In this original study, Messay Kebede examines the sociopolitical and cultural factors that contributed to the radicalization of the educated elite in Ethiopia, and how this phenomenon contributed to the country's uninterrupted political crises and economic setbacks since the Revolution of 1974.

Offering a perspective garnered from his direct participation in the student …

Necessity And Possibility: The Logical Strategy Of Kant's 'Critique Of Pure Reason', Kurt Mosser

Philosophy Faculty Publications

If logic provides rules for thought, can there be similar rules for human experience? Kurt Mosser argues that reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as an argument for such a logic of experience makes more defensible many of Kant's most controversial claims, and makes more accessible Kant's notoriously difficult text. By pursuing this strategic hint, Kant's philosophical claims about human experience are seen as extraordinarily strong―as universal and necessary―but only as providing the conditions for experience to be possible. Thus, just as logic does not determine what thoughts are about, logic of experience does not determine the content of experience. …

Cover Songs: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy, Kurt Mosser

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The notion of a “cover song” is central to an understanding of contemporary popular music, and has certainly received its share of attention in writing about contemporary music, from the mainstream press to slightly more technical ethnomusicological studies such as “Cross-Cultural ‘Countries’: Covers, Conjuncture, and the Whiff of Nashville in Música Sertaneja (Brazilian Commercial Country Music)” (Dent, 2005). In many major U.S. cities, musicians make a living in “cover” bands, recreating the music of well-known groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, U 2, the Who, ABBA, the Dave Matthews Band, the Grateful Dead, and others. Consumers …

Collateral Damage, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The phrase "collateral damage" refers to harm done to persons, animals, or things that agents are not morally permitted to target in the conduct of war, as a side effect of attacks on persons, animals, or things that agents are morally permitted to target in the conduct of war. Call the first category that is, those persons, animals, or things that agents are not morally permitted to target - illegitimate targets of war, and the second category legitimate targets of war. Collateral damage, then, refers to harm done to illegitimate targets of war as a side effect of attacks on …

Assassins And Crusaders: Nietzsche After 9/11, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Nietzsche describes his four Unzeitgemiisse Betrachtungen as Attentate, assassination attempts. The first of these, his self-described "duel" with David Friedrich Strauss, published in 1873, begins with the question of war and time. It is untimely or out of season insofar as it challenges the smugness of the cultural philistines who take Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War to be a testament to the superiority of German culture. As those in the United States might have learned after the end of the Cold War and after the first Gulf War, "a great victory is a great danger," and we might …

(Dis)Solving The Chronological Paradox In Customary International Law: A Hartian Approach, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As traditionally conceived, the creation of a new rule of customary international law requires that states believe the law to already require the conduct specified in the rule. Distinguishing the process whereby a customary rule comes to exist from the process whereby that customary rule becomes law dissolves this chronological paradox. Creation of a customary rule requires only that states come to believe that there exists a normative standard to which they ought to adhere, not that this standard is law. What makes the customary rule law is adherence by officials in the international legal system to a rule of …

On The Foundation Of Rights To Political Self-Determination: Secession, Non-Intervention, And Democratic Governance, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

From a justificatory standpoint, perhaps the most basic question with respect to secession is what, if anything, provides the moral foundation for a group’s right to secede. My aim here is to make a start to answering this question. I do so, however, by considering a different, albeit closely related, question, namely what is the nature of the wrong done to members of a qualified group denied secession by the state that currently rules them? A compelling answer to this latter question, I suggest, will contribute significantly to a satisfactory answer of the former one.

Simmons’ Critique Of Natural Duty Approaches To The Duty To Obey The Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In his most recent book on the moral duty to obey the law, A. John Simmons considers and rejects a number of natural duty approaches to justifying political authority. Among the targets of Simmons’ criticism is the account defended by the book’s co-author, Christopher Heath Wellman. In this essay, I evaluate the force of Simmons’ objections to Wellman’s account of political obligation. As will become clear below, I think Wellman’s defense of the duty to obey the law defective in certain ways—but not in all of the ways that Simmons argues it is. By rebutting some of Simmons’ criticisms and …

A Theory Of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, And The Bonds Of Society By Margaret Gilbert (Book Review), David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Does membership in a political society, in and of itself, involve obligations to uphold that society’s political institutions? Margaret Gilbert offers a novel argument in defense of an affirmative answer to this question, which she labels the membership problem. Given a plausible construal of the concepts obligation, political society, and membership in a political society, Gilbert argues that it follows analytically that to be a member of a political society just is to have an obligation to uphold and support that society’s political institutions. The key to Gilbert’s argument is the idea of a joint commitment; those …

Review: 'Challenging Liberalism: Feminism As Political Critique', Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In Challenging Liberalism: Feminism as Political Critique, Lisa Schwartzman brings her sharp interpretive and critical perspective to bear on the vexed relationship between feminism and liberal political philosophy. Noting (as have others before her) that the latter's central values -- such as autonomy, individual rights, and equality -- are both indispensable to and sometimes problematic for feminism, Schwartzman argues that these values must be reinterpreted in light of the insights gained from an alternative, non-liberal, and specifically feminist philosophical methodology. In this book, she explains why such an alternative methodology is needed, outlines some of its distinctive features, and …

Cultivating Virtue: Moral Progress And The Kantian State, Chris W. Surprenant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

After examining the ethical and political writings of Immanuel Kant, one finds an apparent paradox in his philosophy as his perfectionist moral teachings appear to be linked to his anti-perfectionist political theory. Specifically, he writes that the perfection of moral character can only take place for an individual who is inside of civil society, a condition where no laws may legitimately be implemented expressly for the purpose of trying to make individuals moral. Kant believes that living in civil society is a necessary condition for an individual to refine his talents and reason completely, a process required by morality. I …

Cyberspace, Cosmology, And The Meaning Of Life, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

When on the Tuesdays before Thanksgiving only about half of my students in the large introductory ethics class show up, I reward the faithful with the promise to reveal the meaning of life. The announcement is always met with a ripple of laughter-a mixture of incredulity, curiosity, and good humor. The meaning of life, I say, cannot be borrowed, bought, or manufactured. It has to be discovered. And how do you discover it? Why, you use the meaning-of-life-locator. And what is that?

Compresence Of Opposites In Nehamas, Irwin, And Fine, Timothy A. Robinson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Caring Globally: Jane Addams, World War One, And International Hunger, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Several feminist philosophers, including Virginia Held, Joan Tronto, and Fiona Robinson, see the need for, and the potential of, care ethics for achieving far-reaching political and even global transformation. Tronto recommends that care be used as "a basis for political change" and a "strategy for organizing" (Tronto 1993, 175). Held advocates that "the ethics of care should transform international politics and relations between states as well as within them" (Held 2006, 161).

During and immediately after World War One, Jane Addams attempted to do just that. She sought to bring perspectives and moral sensibilities that have since been theorized in …

A Pragmatist Cosmopolitan Moment: Reconfiguring Nussbaum's Cosmopolitan Concentric Circles, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Robert Fine and Robin Cohen conclude their essay “Four Cosmopolitan Moments” by stating that developing cosmopolitanism “has become an urgent moral necessity” (2002, 162). As resources for this task they offer the Stoics, Kant, Arendt, and Nussbaum as particularly important “moments” in the history of cosmopolitanism. David Held (2002, 57) shares their sense of urgency but worries that a Kantian understanding of political communities gives an inadequate basis for this task. David Hollinger identifies as “new cosmopolitans” an array of scholars who articulate alternatives to Nussbaum's universalism and Kymlicka's pluralism, in attempting “to connect the notion of a species-wide community …