Philosophy Commons^™

Making Ethical Sense Of Useless Suffering With Levinas, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

The Ethical Phenomenon Of Gm-Corn: Anger, Anxiety, And Arrogance In Crossing American Borders, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

In terms of phenomenology, I often wonder about the relevance of what I do as a philosopher for the life of those with whom I come into contact. This ‘coming into contact’ happens for me on several levels: as one human among many, as a husband and father and son and brother, as a teacher, as a neighbor, and as country or city dweller. I remember with fondness those times in the late sultry summer months when, as a youth, I would drive with my father to this or that local farm-stand on some remote back road in the hills …

At The Intersection Of Philosophy, Literature, And Ethics: Axiology Through The Genre Of Literary Fiction, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

This paper focuses on three interrelated topics: (1) Literature as an art form that is philosophical by nature; (2) Literature as an art form that reveals truth in the form of perceptual knowledge, which is autonomous (sensuous) knowledge, likened to “cognitive emotionality,”and (3) Literature as philosophically inspiring our effective and legitimate thinking on moral issues. I attempt to show that engaging literature as a philosophical endeavor can prove more rewarding from the perspective of moral discourse than the traditional modes of philosophical speculation found in formal treatises on morals. These forms of discourse, functioning deductively (e.g., the moral philosophy of …

Addams And Dewey: Pragmatism, Expression, And Community, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Chicago in the 1890s was home to two remarkable institutions, started by two remarkable activist-philosophers, experimenting with ideas and with social change. The first was Hull House, a social settlement, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. The second was the Laboratory School, an experimental school opened in 1896 by John Dewey, along with teachers Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards. Interaction was constant between the residents of Hull House and the teachers of the Laboratory School, as the participants learned from and taught each other. Through Hull House and the Laboratory School, Addams and Dewey …

The Oxford Handbook Of Philosophy And Literature, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

This introductory article explains the coverage of this book, which is about the relations of complementarity and opposition between philosophy and literature. This book explores the interests for human life of specific genres of literature, considers broad modes of attention that have marked off certain large cultural periods from one another, traces workings of certain central literary devices for achieving attention and evaluates the use of literature as a practice in relation to the practices of inquiry, morality and politics. It also discusses the significance of the works of some philosophers in analyzing literary practice.

Popular Culture And The Denigration Of The Self, Eric Bain-Selbo

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Intertextuality In Early Chinese Masters-Texts: Shared Narratives In Shi Zi, Paul Fischer

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

(Introduction) Prior to Chinese unification in 221 bc and the beginning of imperial history, there was a “golden age” of philosophical debate among various scholars about the best way to live life, construct a social contract, and act in harmony with heaven and earth. The most influential of these scholars, collectively called the “various masters,” or zhu zi 諸子, attracted disciples who recorded the teachings of their “masters” and passed these teachings on. These texts, collectively called “masters- texts” (zi shu 子書), became the bedrock of Chinese intellectual history.

Sacrifice In A Post-Moral Society, Eric Bain-Selbo

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Popular Culture And The Denigration Of The Self, Eric Bain-Selbo

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of The New York Times [U.S.A.] And The Nation Media Group [Kenya] Presidential Opinion Polls Coverage 90 Days Prior To Election Day, David Okoth

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study seeks to find out whether there exists a relationship between the New York Times (U.S.) and the Nation Media Group (Kenya) coverage of presidential opinion poll results 90 days prior to Election Day. One research hypothesis was identified; (_H1) that there is a relationship – of difference – in how the two publications cover presidential opinion poll stories. The study identified 440 presidential opinion poll stories over a 90- day period prior to Election Day. It analyzed election coverage from October-December 2007 for the Nation and August-November 2008 for the Times. The study established that …

Meeting Need, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the question ‘How should institutions enable people to meet their needs in situations where there is no guarantee that all needs can be met?’ After considering and rejecting several simple principles for meeting needs, it suggests a new effectiveness principle that (1) gives greater weight to the needs of the less well off and (2) gives weight to enabling a greater number of people to meet their needs. The effectiveness principle has some advantage over the main competitors including a principle suggested by David Miller in Principles of Social Justice. Miller argues that his principle accounts …

'Wars The Like Of Which One Has Never Seen', Tracy B. Strong

Research Resources

'WARS THE LIKE OF WHICH ONE HAS NEVER SEEN': READING NIETZSCHE AND POLITICS

Tracy B. Strong

Paradigm Shift, Then And Now: The Shakespearean Winter’S Tale And Renewal Through The Feminine, Judy Schavrien

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper explores postmodern and Shakespearean-baroque parallels in asking, “Can we

make a New World?” In Shakespeare’s case, paradigm shift was occurring willy-nilly—a New

World hoving into view, geographically, socio-politically, spiritually, and through a science

that shifted views of earth and heaven. This inquiry into The Winter’s Tale, in search of a

new coherence then and now, discovers that Shakespeare envisioned a rebalancing of hypermasculine

internal and external life by way of the Feminine, both youthful and mature.

Portraying the tragic ruler at the center of his tale as part puer and part jealous tyrant, Shakespeare

established what is almost …

Reflections On Transpersonal Psychology’S 40th Anniversary, Ecopsychology, Transpersonal Science, And Psychedelics: A Conversation Forum, Mark A. Schroll, Stanley Krippner, Miles A. Vich, James Fadiman, Valerie Mojeiko

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Recollections of humanistic and transpersonal psychology’s origin’s morph into the

pros and cons of humanistic/transpersonal oriented schools developing APA accredited

clinical programs. This discussion dovetails with the question will ATP ever become an

APA division, raising an interesting alternative for those of us considering a career in

counseling: becoming a spiritual coach. Enter the issue of psychedelic therapy and the

Supreme Courts decision to allow ayahuasca as a sacrament by the Uniao Do Vegetal

Church, and the importance of why humanistic and transpersonal psychology need to

clearly map out the territories and sub-divisions of science and religion. Finally this

conversation …

Reflections On A Silent Meditation Retreat: A Beginner’S Perspective, Chad V. Johnson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper explores the experience of a silent meditation retreat from the perspective of

a novice practitioner. The 7-day Scientist Meditation Retreat was held at the Spirit Rock

Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. It was intended to provide meditation researchers

an intensive silent retreat experience. The author shares his reflections throughout the retreat

and concludes with some of the personal insights he gained.

Xenophilia As A Cultural Trap: Bridging The Gap Between Transpersonal Psychology And Religious/Spiritual Traditions, Harris Friedman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Xenophilia, seen as a type of romanticism, is proposed as an explanation for the tendency

within transpersonal psychology to privilege so-called exotic religious and spiritual traditions,

as opposed to the xenophobic tendency within mainstream Western psychology of

religion and spirituality to privilege the Judeo-Christian tradition. Claims made in a recent

article published in a major psychology journal that Buddhism does not rest on supernatural

faith and is the most psychological spiritual tradition are challenged as examples of this type

of romanticism. Demographic trends showing conversion rates to Buddhism in the US

are contrasted with conversion rates to Christianity in South …

The Plurality Of Religions And The Spirit Of Pluralism: A Participatory Vision Of The Future Of Religion, Jorge N. Ferrer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper first uncovers the subtle spiritual narcissism that has characterized historical approaches

to religious diversity and discusses the shortcomings of the main forms of religious pluralism that

have been proposed as its antidote: ecumenical, soteriological, postmodern, and metaphysical. It

then argues that a participatory pluralism paves the way for an appreciation of religious diversity that

eschews the dogmatism and competitiveness involved in privileging any particular tradition over the

rest without falling into cultural-linguistic or naturalistic reductionisms. Discussion includes the

question of the validity of spiritual truths and the development of a participatory critical theory of

religion. The essay concludes …

Editors’ Introduction, Harris Friedman, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

NA

Review Of Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, And Normalized Bodies And The Body Problematic: Political Imagination In Kant And Foucault, Dianna Taylor

Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Towards A Transpersonal Psychology Of Daoism: Definitions, Past Research, And Future Directions, Christopher Cott, Adam Rock

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper is aimed at facilitating the study of Daoism, a collection of Chinese philosophical

beliefs and psychospiritual practices with a history of thousands of years and a living

community that stretches throughout East Asia, from a transpersonal psychology perspective.

Transpersonal psychologists who wish to embark upon a study of Daoist phenomena

must first be cognizant of the often nebulous parameters of the Daoist field of inquiry.

Therefore, an overview is offered of the two primary Daoist informational sources: the living

Daoist tradition as represented predominantly by the Quanzhen and Tianshi traditions,

and textual sources in collections such as the …

Holarchical Development: Discovering And Applying Missing Drives From Ken Wilber’S Twenty Tenets, Kevin J. Bowman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Ken Wilber’s AQAL model offers a way to synthesize the partial truths of many theories

across various fields of knowledge such as evolutionary biology and sociology, developmental

psychology, and perennial and contemporary philosophy to name only a few. Despite its

reconciling power and influence, the model has been validly criticized for its static nature

and its overemphasis on the ascendant, versus descendant, path of development. This

paper points out areas of Wilber’s writing that suggest a way to overcome these criticisms.

Doing so allows for the refinement of AQAL’s Twenty Tenets for an extension of its formal,

dynamic features. This …

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

Philosophy

Robert Solomon argues that Nietzsche is committed to a virtue ethic like Aristotle's. Solomon’s approach seems unaware of Nietzsche’s belief in the horror of existence. A life that contains as much suffering as Nietzsche expects a life to contain, could not be considered a good life by Aristotle. To go further, as Nietzsche does in his doctrines of eternal recurrence and amor fati, to advocate loving such a fate, to refuse to change the slightest detail, Aristotle would find debased. Nietzsche is committed to a virtue ethic, but not an Aristotelian one.

Identity And Spirituality: Conventional And Transpersonal Perspectives, Douglas A. Macdonald

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Though the relation of spirituality to self has long been recognized in established spiritual

and religious systems, serious scientific interest in spirituality and its relation to identity has

only started to grow in the past 20 years. This paper overviews the literature on spirituality

and identity. Particular attention is given to describing and critiquing conventional and

transpersonal perspectives with emphasis given to empirically testable theories. Using

MacDonald’s (1997, 2000) five dimensional model of spirituality, a structural model of

spirituality is proposed as is a model of spiritual identity formation.

Is Prospero Just? Platonic Virtue In William Shakespeare’S The Tempest, Anthony Jannotta

Undergraduate Review

The Tempest is often regarded, and rightly so, as Shakespeare’s last great play. Many scholars argue that Prospero is an analogue for Shakespeare himself, noting the similarities between Prospero’s illusory magic and Shakespeare’s poetic genius. The themes of imagination, illusion, and, indeed, theatre itself play an integral role. The line that is perhaps most often cited as evidence for this argument is Prospero’s speech directly after he breaks up the wedding masque in which he refers to “the great globe itself” (IV.i.153). There is a danger, however, in appealing to the author’s biography or treating the biography as paramount, namely …

Perspectives In Spirituality: Introduction To Special Topic Section, Glenn Hartelius, Harris Friedman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

NA

Kierkegaard's Case For The Irrelevance Of Philosophy, Antony Aumann

Faculty Works

This paper provides an account of Kierkegaard’s central criticism of the Danish Hegelians. Contrary to recent scholarship, it is argued that this criticism has a substantive theoretical basis and is not merely personal or ad hominem in nature. In particular, Kierkegaard is seen as criticizing the Hegelians for endorsing an unacceptable form of intellectual elitism, one that gives them pride of place in the realm of religion by dint of their philosophical knowledge. A problem arises, however, because this criticism threatens to apply to Kierkegaard himself. It is shown that Kierkegaard manages to escape this problem by virtue of the …

Method In History, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Preface, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Reliabilism—Modal, Probabilistic Or Contextualist, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

This paper discusses two versions of reliabilism: modal and probabilistic reliabilism. Modal reliabilism faces the problem of the missing closeness metric for possible worlds while probalistic reliabilism faces the problem of the relevant reference class. Despite the severity of these problems, reliabilism is still very plausible (also for independent reasons). I propose to stick with reliabilism, propose a contextualist (or, alternatively, harmlessly relativist) solution to the above problems and suggest that probabilistic reliabilism has the advantage over modal reliabilism.

Who Owns This Text?: Plagiarism, Authorship, And Disciplinary Cultures, Carol Petersen Haviland, Joan A. Mullin

All USU Press Publications

Carol Haviland, Joan Mullin, and their collaborators report on a three-year interdisciplinary interview project on the subject of plagiarism, authorship, and "property," and how these are conceived across different fields. The study investigated seven different academic fields to discover disciplinary conceptions of what types of scholarly production count as "owned." Less a research report than a conversation, the book offers a wide range of ideas, and the chapters here will provoke discussion on scholarly practice relating to intellectual property, plagiarism, and authorship---and to how these matters are conveyed to students. Although these authors find a good deal of consensus in …