Philosophy Commons^™

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 …

Merleau-Ponty On Human Motility And Libet's Paradox, T. Brian Mooney, Damien Norris

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 1979, neuroscientists Libet, Wright, Feinstein and Pearl introduced the delay-and-antedating hypothesis/paradox based on the results of an on-going series of experiments dating back to 1964 that measured the neural adequacy [brain wave activity] of conscious sensory experience. What is fascinating about the results of this experiment is the implication, especially when considered in the light of Merleau-Ponty’s notions of intentionality and the pre-reflective life of human motility, that the body, and hence not solely the mind, is a thinking thing. The experiments and conclusions of Libet et al. have attracted considerable academic attention and have been used in the …

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 …

Evaluating Transformative Spirituality In An Organizational Leadership Program At A Christian University, Elizabeth D. Rios

Theses and Dissertations

In the field of Christian higher education, some educators are more concerned with marketing their programs to nontraditional students, the fastest growing segment of new enrollments. Although many view that as a blessing, the issues of mission and specifically spirituality are of concern to educators and administrators who want to avoid the secularization already impacting many fine schools in the country. At satellite locations, some educators perceive that the lack of structured practices and intentional procedures and the marketing of convenience-based structural models have watered down the offerings of Christian higher education. This applied dissertation evaluated whether spiritual development and …

Everyday Philosophy, Andrea Monteath

Theses : Honours

My thesis is a work of creative non-fiction, in the form of an introductory, philosophy workbook. The workbook, tentatively named Everyday Philosophy, is intended to appeal to upper secondary students aged sixteen to seventeen, and contains a broad cross-section of information about the philosophy tradition. The workbook is loosely constructed around the new Western Australian Certificate of Education 'Philosophy and Ethics' curriculum, due to be launched in 2008. The aim of my thesis is to provide an introduction to Philosophy and Ethics that is thought-provoking yet easy to understand, employing examples, analogies and illustrations that are relevant and current …

[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.

[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.

Identidad Y Entendimiento. Schelling O Una Instancia Intermedia Entre Kant Y Hegel, Adriana Renero

Publications and Research

Resumen:

Existe una tendencia a estudiar los puntos de encuentro o desencuentro entre Kant y Hegel pero se olvida la reflexión de Schelling, crucial para comprender el diálogo entre estos sistemas de pensamiento. Un caso en que se patentiza este olvido se advierte en Sublime Understanding, Aesthetic Reflection in Kant and Hegel (2005) de Kirk Pillow, quien desarrolla un modelo estético para ensanchar la noción de entendimiento humano. Partiendo de la Crítica del juicio de Kant y las Lecciones de estética de Hegel, Pillow encuentra una instancia intermedia entre el valor cognoscitivo de la determinación conceptual hegeliana y la indeterminación …

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 …

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

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Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

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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.

Art, Perception And Indeterminacy, Robert Pepperell

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article considers the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy, which occurs when the sensory data gathered from the visual system cannot be integrated with semantic knowledge. A number of examples are given, including from the author's own art work, and some results presented from a scientific study based on them. The implications for the operation of the mind and, in particular, the nature of aesthetic experience are addressed, and the distinction between the perception of visual forms and their cognitive interpretation is discussed. Arguments about the nature of aesthetic experience are then considered from some historical sources and interpreted in light …

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 …

Artist's Labor, Derek Whitehead

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This essay explores the relations between perception, phenomenology and art practice. The object of my inquiry is the kind of perceptual repertoire available to the artist in relation to his art, which extends beyond the technical means available to art making in its varying forms. I invoke an artist's innate perception as the source and locus of art's creation. This creation of art also has an outward or phenomenological dimension. In this respect, I investigate the ways in which phenomenological perception, via Maurice Merleau-Ponty's hermeneutic insights into artistic activity, might offer to contemporary arts practice a means of reappraising its …

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 Surprise Exam Paradox: Disentangling Two Reductios, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surprise epistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore's paradoxical 'p and I don't believe that p.' Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin's. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work in the student's paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the …

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. …

Adolf Reinach’S Contribution To The Early Phenomenological Movement, Kimberly Jaray

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Adolf Reinach made significant contributions to the early phenomenological movement with his work on states of affairs, the ontological categorization of the a priori, and a realist interpretation of essences, yet today his name and contributions go largely unrecognized. To make matters worse, the few who have contributed to Reinach scholarship have seriously misinterpreted central features of his thought. This thesis seeks to rectify this situation by offering an historical account of the origin and development of some of Reinach’s key notions and of their significance to the development of phenomenology in the early twentieth century. This thesis is …

Descartes’ Concept Of Will, Andreea Mihali

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation focuses on Descartes’ concept of will. Following the Scholastics Descartes takes the will, alongside intellect, to be the main faculty of the mind. The essence of the Cartesian mind is thinking. Most Cartesian scholars take this to mean that for Descartes the essence of the mind consists of thoughts as objects of awareness. I argue that willing is not just another type of thought on a par with conceiving, imaginging, and having sensory perceptions but that willing is as much an essential feature of the Cartesian mind as awareness. Without willing there would be no thinking; willing pertains …

On The Intellectual Sources Of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, And The Debates About A National Religion, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

That French Protestants gave strong support to laïcité is by now well established. In recent work, Patrick Cabanel has even made a compelling case for the Protestant sources of laïcité, placing particular emphasis on the Protestant entourage of Jules Ferry (1832-1893) and stressing the inspiration provided by the pro-Protestant intellectual, Edgar Quinet (1803-1875.)

This article suggests that we look even earlier in time for the intellectual sources of laïcité. Seminal ideas can be found in the writings of two liberal Protestants, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Benjamin Constant (1767-1830.) Rousseau is usually counted among the opponents, and not the …

Abstraction, Technology, And Power, John Wilkinson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The work's central question is how technological designs affect the political power of individuals. This discussion supplements claims that more democratic control over the design and deployment of technology is necessary; it does so by showing how the general tendency toward parametric designs creates technological delegates: artifacts to which we inadvertently delegate our political powers. "Delegation" in this sense is the central theme. It is developed in the context of recent philosophy and sociology of technology, as well as ecofeminism and the existentialism of Gabriel Marcel and Martin Heidegger. A distinction is made between live and dead abstractions (chapter two); …