Philosophy Commons^™

Letter From A War Zone: Some Thoughts On Setting An Activist Agenda, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Essay is from a conference sponsored by Captive Daughters and DePaul University in Chicago.

Global Feminist Ethics: Feminist Ethics And Social Theory, Rebecca Whisnant, Peggy Desautels

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This volume contains four sections, the first of which examines some of the special moral concerns that arise from assigning distinct activities and responsibilities to women and men respectively. It is difficult to argue against the view that women and not men are the birth-givers. But it is also true that death rates tied to pregnancy and birth-giving are unacceptably high in developing countries. Are women better off giving birth in hospitals with attending physicians (often male) or in homes with attending midwives (usually female)? Which approach should be "exported" to the developing world?

In the first chapter, "Exporting Childbirth," …

A Novel Category Of Vague Abstracta, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

Much attention has been given to the question of ontic vagueness, and the issues usually center around whether certain paradigmatically concrete entities – cats, clouds, mountains, etc. – are vague in the sense of having indeterminate spatial boundaries.  In this paper, however, I wish to focus on a way in which some abstracta seem to be locationally vague.  To begin, I will briefly cover some territory already covered regarding certain types of “traditional” abstracta and the ways they are currently alleged to be vague.  I then wish to discuss two types of “nontraditional” abstracta and the sense in which I …

A Critical Discussion Of Talking Past One Another, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

One sort of usage of the phrase ‘talking past one another’ that is quite prevalent in the philosophical literature suggests the following account of a particular phenomenon of miscommunication: Agent A and agent B talk past one another during a philosophical discussion if and only if A has in mind one meaning or conception of a crucial expression P that is distinct from some meaning or conception of P had in mind by B.  In this paper, however, I argue that this account – given the sort of phenomenon it is intended to be an account of – misses the …

Moral Responsibility -- What Is All The Fuss About?, Kenton Machina

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

Examination of several accounts regarding the nature of moral responsibility allows the extraction of a conceptual core common to all of them. Relying on that core conception of moral responsibility, the paper explores what human life without moral responsibility would be like. That exploration establishes that many robust forms of human relationship and nonmoral normativity could continue, absent moral responsibility, even if moral responsibility were abandoned on incompatibilist grounds. Much more importantly, it also establishes, contra Waller and Pereboom, that only some forms of morality – so-called “behavioral” forms – remain possible without moral responsibility. The paper argues that normative …

[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren

Bookshelf

The tension between ruler and ruled in democratic societies has never been satisfactorily resolved, and the competing interpretations of this relationship lie at the bottom of much modern political discourse. In this fascinating book, Thomas Wren clarifies and elevates the debates over leadership by identifying the fundamental premises and assumptions that underlie past and present understandings.

[Introduction To] Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight, John S. Morton

Bookshelf

Teaching the Ethical Foundations of Economics contains 10 lessons that reintroduce an ethical dimension to economics in the tradition of Adam Smith, who believed ethical considerations were central to life. Utilizing these innovative instructional materials your students will learn about the important role ethics and character play in a market economy and how, in turn, markets influence ethical behavior.

The lessons do more than illustrate how ethical conduct improves an economy. They actively involve the students through simulations, group decision making, problem solving, classroom demonstrations and role playing. The lessons encourage students to think critically about ethical dilemmas.

Moore's Paradoxes And Iterated Belief, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

I give an account of the absurdity of Moorean beliefs of the omissive form (om) p and I don’t believe that p, and the commissive form (com) p and I believe that not-p, from which I extract a definition of Moorean absurdity. I then argue for an account of the absurdity of Moorean assertion. After neutralizing two objections to my whole account, I show that Roy Sorensen’s own account of the absurdity of his ‘iterated cases’ (om1) p and I don’t believe that I believe that p, and (com1) p and I believe that I believe that not-p, is unsatisfactory. …

Complex Thinking: The Emergence Of Everything?, Alan Richard Baker

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

From Epistemology To Aesthetics, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Science And Human Well-Being: Toward A New Way Of Structuring Scientific Activity, Hugh Lacey

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy Of Religion, Hugh Lacey, D. V. Porpora

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Towards A Diagnostic Framework For Understanding Complex Situations, José J. Padilla, Andres Sousa-Poza, Arturo Tejada, Samuel Kovacic

VMASC Publications

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the concept of understanding and how it can be used for assessing complex situations. Understanding is presented as a cognitive process on how an individual perceives and represents a complex domain based on his/her own predispositions, and how he/she selects knowledge or what may not be knowledge based on the same predispositions towards finding a set of solutions for the situation. Predispositions, in this case, are based on his/her epistemological, ontological and teleological biases while the domain is represented by irreducible and transient conditions. The final outcome is the match or mismatch of …

Aesthetics Into The Twenty-First Century, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

The new concerns facing aestheticians in the twenty-first century require serious attention if the discipline is to maintain continued viability as an intellectual discipline. Just as art changes as cultures develop, so must aesthetics. In support of this view is a personal account of evolving engagement with aesthetics and the factors that led to embracing change and a plurality of practices as essential to the health of aesthetic today. A brief examination of the state of aesthetics as it has evolved in the American Society for Aesthetics since its inception in the 1940s will follow. These two lines of development, …

Keith Haring. Artre Per Tutti, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Invented Worlds: India Through The Camera Lens Of Waswo X. Waswo, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Germany's Metaphysical War. Reflections On War By Two Representatives Of German Philosophy: Max Scheler And Paul Natorp, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Desde El Ser A Lo Dado Y Desde Lo Dado Al Ser: Algunos Comentarios Sobre El Significado Del Trascendentalismo Ideal En Kant Y Husserl, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant's and Husserl's versions thereof. I present Kant's transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl's transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: Through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant's transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. He thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the 'quid iuris?,' and provides a new conception of the …

The Subjectivity Of Effective History And The Suppressed Husserlian Elements In Gadamer’S Philosophical Hermeneutics, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This essay makes two claims. The first, exegetical, point shows that there are Husserlian elements in Gadamer’s hermeneutics that are usually overlooked. The second, systematic, claim takes issue with the fact that Gadamer saw himself in alliance with the project of the later Heidegger. It would have been more fruitful had Gadamer aligned himself with Husserl and the enlightenment tradition. following Heidegger in his concept of “effective history,” Gadamer risks betraying the main tenets of the enlightenment by shifting the weight from subjectivity to effective history as the “agent” in history. This is not a wholesale dismissal of Gadamer’s project, …

Acquired Taste, Kevin Melchionne

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Acquired taste is an integral part of the cultivation of taste. In this essay, I identify acquired taste as a form of intentional belief acquisition or adaptive preference formation, distinguishing it from ordinary or discovered taste. This account of acquired taste allows for the role of self-deception in the development of taste. I discuss the value of acquired taste in the overall development of taste as well as the ways that an over-reliance on acquired taste can distort overall taste.

Film And The Public Memory: The Phenomena Of Nonfiction Film Fragments, James F. Moyer

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Film theory and philosophy have in recent decades rightly critiqued earlier theorists' claims for the fundamentally realist nature of the cinema, and of photography generally. While cognizant of the problematic status of "realist" representation-of photography being somehow purely or naively representative-this essay nevertheless deliberately recuperates a realist discourse with which to value some forms of nonfiction film. The essay sees "nonfiction film fragments" as a form of witnessing, and tries to articulate our experience of such film in terms of memorializing the people and events it bears witness to. The essay goes even further in its claims on behalf of …

Implied World Views In Pictures: Reflections From A Cognitive Psychological And Anthropological Point Of View, Michael Ranta

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In traditional art history, iconological attempts to analyze visual works of art by treating their formal and semantic features as symptoms of more general, implied world views or cultures have occurred rather frequently. Still, such attempts have been criticized for permitting subjective and non-verifiable interpretations. In this paper, however, I will argue that (i) pictorial works of art indeed imply wider world views or schemata, and (ii) that our comprehension of these schemata can be explained by taking into account recent research within cognitive psychology. More specifically, I will argue that intelligence partly consists of the storage and retrieval of …

Poetics And Maieutics: Literature And Tacit Knowledge Of Emotions, Stefán Snaevarr

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The theme of this paper is the idea that imaginative literature can disclose our tacit knowledge of emotions. It this does with the aid of such devices as metaphors and similes. The kind of insight we get thanks to the disclosive power of literature is akin to that which Kjell S. Johannessen has called 'knowledge by familiarity,' Frank Palmer 'knowing what' and Charles Taylor implicitly 'the result of articulation.' I defend the theory that at least some important emotions cannot be understood (or even exist) outside of behavioral contexts and that this understanding is mainly tacit. I try to show …

Madame De Staël, The Protestant Reformation And The History Of ‘Private Judgement’, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

It is a well-known fact that Madame de Staël held the Protestant Reformation in high regard and preferred Protestantism to all other religions. To her, Protestantism was the most moral and the most enlightened religion available; it was the the religion most compatible with, and even conductive to, progress.

But why was this so, and what exactly did Madame de Staël mean by Protestantism? It is an important question, because answering it will shed light on the nature of her liberalism and, more particularly, on the interconnectedness of her religious and her political views.

Eliminative Materialism And The Distinction Between Common Sense And Science, Nada Gligorov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is one of the premises of eliminative materialism that commonsense psychology constitutes a theory. There is agreement that mental states can be construed as posited entities for the explanation and prediction of behavior, and that the nature of those states is dependent on the theory that features them. Disputes arise when it comes to the range of the commonsense theory of mental states. In chapter one, I review major arguments concerning the span and nature of folk psychology. In chapter two, relying on arguments by Quine and Sellars, I argue that the precise scope of commonsense psychology cannot be …

The Qualitative Character Of Spatial Perception, Douglas Meehan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ordinary perceiving relies heavily on our sensing the spatial properties of objects, e.g., their shapes, sizes, and locations. Such spatial perception is central in everyday life. We safely cross a street by seeing and hearing the locations of oncoming vehicles. And we often identify objects by seeing and feeling their distinctive shapes.

To understand how we perceive spatial properties, we must explain the nature of the mental states figuring in spatial perception. The experience one has when seeing a cube, e.g., differs from the experiences one has when seeing other shapes, e.g., spheres and pyramids. We must explain how such …

Review Of "Representative Democracy: Principles And Genealogy", Brian G. Henning

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

A review of Nadia Urbinati's Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy, published by University of Chicago Press in 2006.

The New York Police Officer: Democratic And Moral Accountability In Conflict, Sarah Ryan, Dan Williams

Publications and Research

The following case draws upon two views of accountability. One is democratic accountability the other is accountability to one's own moral conscience. As the story unfolds, other facts may get in the way but these central views should not be forgotten. The focus of this case is on the individual. However, the material also covers institutional decisions and policies that deserve considering. The institutional story is the background, not the foreground, of this case. Yet, when the institutional features are considered, they may give new insight to the individuals' decisions.

Leibniz And China: A Commerce Of Light By Franklin Perkins (Review), Robin R. Wang

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

On The Reliability Of Moral And Intellectual Virtues, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.