Philosophy Commons^™

The Violinist And Double Effect Reasoning, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Review Of Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, Morality And The Human Goods: An Introduction To Natural Law Ethics, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Togetherness Of Thought And Being: A Phenomenological Reading Of Plotinus’ Doctrine ‘That The Intelligibles Are Not Outside The Intellect, Eric Perl

Philosophy Faculty Works

Plotinus’ doctrine that intelligible reality is in and thus one with intellect bears close affinities to certain features of Husserlian phenomenology. For Husserl, consciousness is the immediate apprehension of being, and being is immediately given to consciousness. Within this unity, we find a “seeing” and a “seen,” an intentional grasp and that which is grasped. Thus there is neither mere identity nor extrinsic duality, but an irreducible polarity or togetherness of consciousness and being. For Plotinus, intellect, as the thinking of being, possesses being, and being is in intellect, as that of which it is the thinking. Therefore, intellect and …

Can There Be A Nonconsequentialist Rights-Based Moral Justification Of Terrorism?, Timothy Shanahan

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Metaphysics Of Religion: Lucian Blaga And Contemporary Philosophy, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and ContemporaryPhilosophy is an exposition of the philosophical system of the 20th century Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga, followed by an attempt to apply his system to issues in contemporary philosophy of religion. It is in English, but it has also been published in Romanian under the title Metafizica Religiei: Lucian Blaga si filosofia contemporana. The Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and ContemporaryPhilosophy. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 2006. Translated into Romanian by Geo Savulescu and Dominic Georgescu, Metafizica Religiei: Lucian Blaga si filosofia contemporana. Bucharest, RO: Self-Publishing, 2014.  

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

The Perceptual Constraints On Pictorial Realism, Jennifer Mcmahon

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche, Truth, And The Horror Of Existence, Philip J. Kain

Philosophy

This article¹ will argue that at the center of Nietzsche's vision lies his concept of the "terror and horror of existence."² As he puts it in The Birth of Tragedy: King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus .... When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: "Oh, wretched ephemeral race, …

孟子道德思想的哲學重構, Chun Cheong, Albertini Lo

Lingnan Theses

在過去的一個世紀，採用康德底道德哲學為概念框架的新儒家主導了《孟子》的研究方向。無可否認，他們的工作給先秦儒學的教條重新注入活力，不 過卻忽略了孟子哲學的一些重要的面向。其中一個是“用” - 實踐面向。 “用”與兩個課題有關：首先，“用”是關於孟子所致力處理的問題；其次，它指涉孟子思想的應用問題，也就是從他的思想所推導出行為的具體指引。

本文討論孟子的道德思想這兩個意義的實踐面向。更明確來說，本文嘗試 通過探究先秦時代的社會危機，及孟子企圖回應的其他敵對學術流派為背景， 來重構孟子的道德思想，同時聚焦在其思想於現今世界的可應用性。在本文 中，孟子的道德思考被表述為旨在陳構一個道德基礎的哲學說明，以圖為原始 儒家辯護。這表述論證孟子的進路，是建立在一個相對地沒有形上證明負擔的 人性觀之上；由此孟子的道德建構與洛爾斯式的交疊共識相容。與傳統的、形 上的孟子人性觀詮釋對比，本文援引了一種以 "人類能力" 理解人性的詮釋進 路。通過這種詮釋，孟子式的生活方式可以被理解為一個藉著交疊共識所達成 的結果，指出現今彼此抱持不可共容的整全價值概念的人們，最終也將會同意 這種孟子式的生活方式。

Character Education, Kim Slater

Graduate Research Papers

Character education has been a topic that has been heavily talked about in many schools across the United States. This article presents the purpose and goals of character education in our school systems. Many issues and concerns are brought to educators' attentions when discussing the role character education plays. Issues and concerns such as teacher time and responsibility, proper way to teach Character Education, parents as partners, and religion and cultural differences are discussed in this article as well as the importance Character Education has on the lives of all students.

Paradoxes And Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens And Urban Nature, Stephanie Ross

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

To explore our appreciation of gardens and urban nature, I propose a recursive definition of original or wild nature together with guidelines for discerning degrees of naturalness. Arguing (contra Robert Elliott) that nature can be restored as well as degraded, I characterize four varieties of urban nature - interrupted, altered, constructed, and virtual. I build on Stan Godlovitch's comments about scale to suggest two modes of appreciation - macroscopic and fine-focused. I close by discussing some particular examples - parks, environmental art, gardens - and drawing some conclusions for the appreciation of vernacular gardens.[1]

Commitment And Communication: The Aesthetics Of Receptivity And Historicity, Todd Mei

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A general tension in contemporary aesthetics can be described as existing between objective truth claims and historical relativity. The former is generally represented by the Enlightenment approaches and its descendants that ground aesthetic judgment in rationality. The latter characterizes the postmodern appeal to historicity and the exposure of historical prejudice. Following mostly the hermeneutical philosophy of Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Dupré, this paper argues how aesthetic theory, defined by either pole, inadequately accounts for historicity. In response to this critique, this paper attempts to navigate between these two poles in returning to an analysis of the nature of history and …

Musical Experience As Aesthetic: What Cost The Label?, Wayne Bowman

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This brief essay draws upon a number of themes introduced in Carolyn Korsmeyer's recent book Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2004; ISBN: 0415266599). It does not attempt a comprehensive or critical review of her book; instead it focuses selectively on certain of her points in order to raise concerns of some significance to the music education discipline and, perhaps, to philosophical aesthetics. [1]

The Varieties Of Aesthetic Disinterestedness, Norman Kreitman

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Disinterestedness, a comparatively recent concept in aesthetics, is commonly held to be one of the characteristics of an appropriate response to art, but can be understood in a number of senses. Three varieties are distinguished: a strong form which confines attention exclusively to the internal relations of the work of art; a moderate variety which links internal and external features of the work but solely within the cognitive domain; and a weak form which permits the appreciator to draw on a wide range of external referents but proscribes purely idiosyncratic responses. An illustration is given of the confusion which can …

Depiction And The Sense Of Reality, John Armstrong

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Toward A Genealogy Of Aryan Morality: Nietzsche And Jacolloit, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

While Nietzsche’s writings of the late 1880s reveal waxing interests in Hinduism, Sanskrit philology, Aryan culture, and the related Indo-European hypothesis, these interests have been remarkably understudied by Nietzsche scholarship, with the exception of a scant few articles that have recently appeared. The presence of the aforementioned topics was crucial for the configuration of the works written in 1887 and 1888: On the Genealogy of Morality, The Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist, as well as for some of the notions at hand in Nietzsche’s correspondence with Heinrich Köselitz, but the provenance of the ideas that …

Review Of Scott Cook, Ed., Hiding The World In The World: Uneven Discourses On The Zhuangzi, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The ten essays collected in this volume offer different perspectives on key issues in the Zhuangzi and should be warmly welcomed as a helpful addition to the field. The authors disagree on many things about the Zhuangzi; but there is certainly nothing "uneven" about the quality of their "discourses," which is uniformly high.

Guo Xiang, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

A champion of the Learning of the Mysterious (Xuanxue) or neo-Daoism that gained prominence in third-century China, Guo Xiang (c. 252–312 CE) is best known for his commentary to the Zhuangzi, which offers to reconcile orthodox teachings (mingjiao) with Daoist naturalness (ziran).

Wang Bi, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Third-century Chinese philosopher Wang Bi (226–249CE) achieved fame as an interpreter of the Laozi and the Yijing (Classic of changes), whose radical reformulation of the concept of Dao as nonbeing (wu) helped spark a new current of thought called Xuanxue (Learning of the mysterious), sometimes translated as “neo-Daoism.” To Wang, Confucius, Laozi, and the other sages of old had discerned the true meaning of Dao as the root of all beings. This was misunderstood, which necessitated a reinterpretation of the classical heritage.

Editorial

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Beautiful Noise, Will Swanson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article aims to explore the nature of discordant sound, such as guitar feedback, in several respects: its status as music, its status as art and the extremely interesting aesthetic responses it evokes. I will argue for its value as an art form on the grounds that: (1) it is a neglected and overlooked area of music in terms of philosophical aesthetics; (2) it raises some interesting ontological questions about the nature of artworks; and (3) it highlights some key aspects of aesthetic responses, e.g., emotions and the body. Examining the works of such music artists as The Jesus and …

Gesture, Pulsion, Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology, Michael Szekely

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Although Barthes is perhaps best known as a semiotician, he is paradoxically always in search of precisely that which defies the constraints of language, whether art, signs or, in fact, language itself. Enter the relevance of music for Barthesian aesthetics. Barthes called for a "second semiology," in contrast to the classical semiology, which would explore "the body in a state of music." In this essay, I explore Barthes' musical semiology in terms of key concepts, including gesture, pulsion, grain, and jouissance. I extend the relevancy of Barthes' concepts, often articulated within the context of the Western classical musical tradition, to …

Fact And Fiction: Writing The Difference Between Suicide And Death, John Carvalho

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Did Michel Foucault die of AIDS or did he kill himself? Did he knowingly infect others in the bath houses in San Francisco or was he unaware that he was ill and of how less-than-safe sex could spread the same virus that infected him? What did he know about AIDS/HIV and what do we know about what he knew? Answers to these questions are ambiguous. This is due, in part, to the culture of homosexuality and the cultural response to AIDS/HIV at the time. It is also due to the conflicting reports about what Foucault knew, and when, in the …

Reflections On An Aesthetics Of Touch, Smell And Taste, Mădălina Diaconu

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Modern aesthetics regards sight and hearing as the only senses which were able to produce art. Touch, smell and taste might offer pleasant stimuli, but can never achieve the status of art objects. What are the arguments for this rejection, and are they still sustainable? This paper focuses on the general and specific difficulties of forming an aesthetics of touch, smell and taste; some can be overcome, while others are still waiting for a proper answer. At the same time, artistic movements, as well as changes in recent discussions of the aesthetics of everyday life prove the necessity of extending …

Interrupting Danto's Farewell Party Arrangements: Comments For Grigoriev, Kalle Puolakka

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper is a response to Serge Grigoriev's article "Living Art, Defining Value: Artworks and Mere Real Things" (Contemporary Aesthetics Volume 3, 2005) in which he develops Joseph Margolis' provocative Danto-criticism. He especially criticizes Danto's art-philosophical starting point, the problem of indiscernibles, claiming that it presupposes an objective value judgment that cannot be maintained and that it misrepresents the way in which people interact with art. In this article, Grigoriev's argument is found lacking mainly on two grounds. First, it overlooks where the source of Danto's starting point lies; and second, I argue that it does not lead to the …

A Reply To Puolakka, Serge Grigoriev

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

From Aesthetics To Politics: Rancière, Kant And Deleuze, Katharine Wolfe

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

What does politics have to do with aesthetics? Surely, both politics and aesthetics are concerned with imagining, envisioning, and even creating, yet aren't the kinds of things these fields of inquiry imagine, envision and create greatly disparate? Jacques Rancière argues that what is at stake in politics, just as it is in aesthetics, is the distribution of the sensible, and that politics happens not only through the disruption of a certain aesthetic organization of sense experience but through the eruption of a distinct aesthetics. Here I elaborate the Kantian foundation for Rancière's conception of the kind of aesthetics that politics …

A Plea For A Cognitive Iconology Within Visual Culture, Ian Verstegen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A place is needed for a 'cognitive iconology' within "visual culture." Like Logical Positivism before it, visual culture must reexamine its tacit assumption that conflation of psycho-sociological contributions to visual meaning is an adequate methodology, and that sociologism is a worthwhile overriding philosophy. Cognitive iconology isolates the psychological contribution to the study of images and does not monopolize it but isolates the foundational basis for it on which narrower interpretations must be built. With examples from the work of Titian, it is shown how the cognitive and 'cultural' contributions must work together to make meaning. Using the philosophy of Maurice …

Wittgenstein And Haydn On Understanding Music, Yael Kaduri

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Wittgenstein's remarks about music have motivated philosophers to build a comprehensive picture of his philosophy of music, concentrating on the central issues of musical meaning. It is often claimed that, according to Wittgenstein, understanding music consist in grasping the internal relationships between musical events. Musical practice, however, is naturally saturated with what philosophers often call extra-musical meanings. The present study, by considering a musical issue in Haydn's instrumental music, attempts to show that musical language games in the Wittgensteinian sense involve explanations of music that enhance the listener's ability to understand music by broadening his musical competence. Nevertheless, constituting understanding …