Philosophy Commons^™

Giving Foot The Boot: Right Or Wrong?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The article examines philosopher Philippa Foot’s famous conundrum – The Trolley Problem.

Protecting Indigenous Identity And Culture In The Modern Nation-State: A Case Study Of The Sami In Norway, Claire Lockerby

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The plight of indigenous peoples around the world is a serious one, and without significant international action, many valuable cultural and linguistic traditions are in grave danger of disappearing altogether. Many of these indigenous groups have experienced detrimental consequences from the history of slavery, colonialism and imperialism, and the emergence of nation-states that stripped them of their autonomy and greatly threatened their way of life. Today, there are some positive examples of international and national efforts to protect indigenous peoples, but unfortunately, most indigenous populations remain dispossessed and underrepresented. Although the international community has established principles of unalienable human rights, …

Silent Music, Andrew Kania

Philosophy Faculty Research

In this essay, I investigate musical silence. I first discuss how to integrate the concept of silence into a general theory or definition of music. I then consider the possibility of an entirely silent musical piece. I begin with John Cage’s 4′33″, since it is the most notorious candidate for a silent piece of music, even though it is not, in fact, silent. I conclude that it is not music either, but I argue that it is a piece of non-musical sound art, rather than simply a piece of theatre, as Stephen Davies has argued. I end with consideration …

Keywords: What's An Advocate To Do With The Words She's Given?, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I was ecstatic when i read Donna Gabaccia's discussion of "keywords." There is a name for this? People really write books about it? I was thrilled to learn that people do systematically what I, in a bumbling sort of way, dabble with. For the past few years, I have kept a "phrase file," entering what Gabaccia calls "central and evocative terms," along with instances of their use that I happen upon while doing other things (Gabaccia, "Nations of Immigrants" 6). Every once in a while, I check in with JSTOR, Reader's Guide Retrospective, and Google Books. I am …

Setting The Word Into Motion: Textual Visuality In The Bible Moralisée, Vienna Codex 2554, Eva Maria Raepple

Philosophy Scholarship

This article examines the relation between the biblical Word and visuality in one of the surviving early thirteenth century manuscripts of the Bible moraliseé, the codex Vindobonensis 2554 today housed in Vienna. The analysis focuses specifically on the relations between word and visuality. The goal is to investigate the vitality that may set the Word into motion. It is argued that the matrix of textual visuality in the Vienna codex 2554 is used as an effective tool that adds vitality to the biblical passages while simultaneously creating a firm hierarchy of representation and resemblances that enforces not only certain …

Early Continental Philosophy Of Science, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Ruddick And The Ethnocentrism Critique Of Maternal Thinking, Jean Keller

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the early 1990s, Sara Ruddick's Maternal Thinking was criticized for harboring a latent ethnocentrism. Ruddick responded to these critiques in the 1995 edition of her book, but her response has not yet been addressed in the feminist philosophical literature. This essay addresses this lacuna in the scholarship on Ruddick. In the last installment of this critique, Alison Bailey and Patrice DiQuinzio suggested that the only way for Ruddick to avoid the ethnocentrism charge would require her near-universalistic claims about mothering to be rejected in favor of 'particularized, localized accounts of mothering.' In this essay I'll show that this claim …

Thinking On The Edge: Heidegger, Derrida, And The Daoist Gateway (Men), Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Steven Bunk Many philosophical interpretations of the Daoist classics have proceeded, or continue to proceed, to read into these works the quest for a transcendental, foundational principle, a permanent moment of rest beyond the turmoil of everchanging things. The metaphysics that may be understood to be at work in such interpretations is what Heidegger and Derrida have called philosophy as ontotheology. It is argued here that Heidegger, Derrida, and the classical Daoists are better understood not so much as metaphysical and essentialist thinkers but as advocates of a profoundly inner-worldly way of thinking. In arguing for such a different approach, …

On The Ethical Possibility Of Sustainability: A Challenge For Higher Education, Eric Bain-Selbo

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

I Miss The Hungry Years: Coping With Abundance, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Information technology is a marvel of ingenuity and engineering. Itʹs been widely admired and used; itʹs being advanced by inventiveness and competition; and itʹs being promoted by politicians and education experts. But there has also been research and discussion of the liabilities of information technology. The abundance of information has not, as one might have expected, made people generally more attentive and knowledgeable. On the contrary, distraction and ignorance are spreading. That has to worry people in higher education.

Love's Lack: The Relationship Between Poverty And Eros In Plato's Symposium, Lorelle D. Lamascus

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation responds to a long-standing debate among scholars regarding the nature of Platonic Eros and its relation to lack. The more prominent account of Platonic Eros presents the lack of Eros as a deficiency or need experienced by the lover with respect to the object needed, lacked, or desired, so that the nature of Eros is construed as self-interested or acquisitive, subsisting only so long as the lover lacks the beloved object. This dissertation argues that such an interpretation neglects the different senses of lack present in the Symposium and presents an alternative interpretation of Eros based on the …

Table Of Contents

Liberty Theological Review

Table of Contents for Volume 1 Issue 1

Recognition Within The Limits Of Reason: Remarks On Pippin’S Hegel’S Practical Philosophy, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the publication of Charles Taylor’s Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition in 1989,[1] the concept of recognition has re-emerged as a central if not dominant category of moral and political philosophy.

[1] C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 25-73.

Why Has Aesthetic Formalism Fallen On Hard Times?, David E.W. Fenner

Philosophy and Religious Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

Nick Zangwill has done more than any person recently to resuscitate aesthetic formalism. I say "resuscitate" because formalism has not been in favor for several decades. Zangwill writes that "Aesthetic Formalism has fallen on hard times. At best it receives unsympathetic discussion and swift rejection. At worse it is the object of abuse and derision." The reasons many today believe aesthetic formalism is not viable have been the subject of discussion since the pendulum swing away from New Criticism, via the work of William Wimsatt, Cleanth Brooks, Clement Greenberg, André Levinson, and Heinrich Wolfflin. Most of these reasons have been …

Book Review: Moses Mendelssohn - Begründer Des Modernen Judentums, By Dominique Bourel, Anne Pollok

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mentalist Evidentialism Vindicated (And A Super-Blooper Epistemic Design Problem For Proper Function Justification), Todd R. Long

Philosophy

Michael Bergmann seeks to motivate his externalist, proper function theory of epistemic justification by providing three objections to the mentalism and mentalist evidentialism characteristic of nonexternalists such as Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. Bergmann argues that (i) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that justification depends on mental states; (ii) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of an epistemic input to a belief-forming process must be due to an essential feature of that input, and, relatedly, that mentalist evidentialism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of doxastic response B to …

Hegel's Phenomenology: Reverberations In His Later System, Howard P. Kainz

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Hegel indicates toward the end of his Phenomenology of Spirit that there would be a parallelism in the categories of his later system to the various configurations of consciousness in the Phenomenology. Some general correspondences have been indicated by Otto Pöggeler and suggested by Robert Grant McRae, but I argue in this paper that there are at least four important and more specific parallels, bringing out simultaneously a similarity of content and a difference of approach and methodology in the two works: 1) in the philosophical construal of “categories”; 2) in the conceptualization of a “phenomenology”; 3) in the analysis …

Philosophy And Theology: Notes On Access To Fertility Treatments, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics related to philosophy and theology including the risks of In Vitro Fertilization, the importance of marriage in raising children, and the impact of homosexual parenting in children.

Moore’S Paradox, Truth And Accuracy, Mitchell S. Green, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I do not believe that I did’ would be ‘absurd’. Moore calls it a ‘paradox’ that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Krista Lawlor and John Perry have proposed an explanation of the absurdity that confines itself to semantic notions while eschewing pragmatic ones. We argue that this explanation faces four objections. We give a better explanation of the absurdity both in assertion and in belief that avoids our four objections.

On The Scope Of A Professional’S Right Of Conscience, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Under what conditions, if any, do medical professionals enjoy a right of conscience? That is, when must a just state accommodate a physician’s, pharmacist’s, or other medical professional’s refusal to provide legally and professionally sanctioned services to which she morally objects; for example, by enacting laws that enable her to do so without fear of losing her job or her professional privileges? Recent assertions by several pharmacists of a right to conscientiously refuse to fill prescriptions for the so-called morning-after pill, and by a California fertility doctor of a right to conscientiously refuse to provide fertility treatment to a lesbian, …

The Paradox Of Nature: Merleau-Ponty's Semi-Naturalistic Critique Of Husserlian Phenomenology, Shazad Akhtar

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation deals with Merleau-Ponty's critical transformation of Husserl's phenomenology through a rethinking of the concept of "nature," which Husserl, Merleau-Ponty argues, fails to integrate or explain successfully in his philosophical system. The first chapter reconstructs Husserl's "transcendental-phenomenological" project in Ideas I, while the second widens the investigation to cover the ontologically-centered Ideas II and III. In my third chapter, I chart what I call Merleau-Ponty's "organic appropriation" of Husserl and the unique hermeneutical challenges it poses. Here the ambiguity of Ideas II, which both grounds subjectivity in the lived body and separates nature from "spirit" (Geist), plays …

Letter From The Managing Editor

Liberty Theological Review

This is a letter from Managing Editor Joshua C. Stone.

Wilderness Beauty: A Means To Resolve Volitional Doubt, Brian T. Scalise

Liberty Theological Review

Doubt is often part of Christian spiritual life. Matured doubt will influence the will (the volition) so as to keep the Christian doubter from acting like a Christian or even desiring the Christian life. This essay seeks to construct a theory designed to engage and help resolve volitional doubt by use of wilderness beauty. This theory incorporates three areas of study—Land and Leisure Management, Abraham Maslow’s metamotivation theory, and Jonathan Edwards' aesthetic theology—to demonstrate the uniqueness and usefulness of wilderness beauty for resolving volitional doubt. Subsequent to the construction of the theory, practical suggestions for its application are given.

Alessandro Valignano And The Restructuring Of The Jesuit Mission In Japan, 1579-1582, Jack B. Hoey Iii

Liberty Theological Review

When Alessandro Valignano arrived in Japan in 1579, the Society of Jesus had been working in the country for thirty years. However, despite impressive numbers and considerable influence with the feudal lords, the mission was struggling. The few Jesuit workers were exhausted and growing increasingly frustrated by the leadership of Francisco Cabral, who refused to cater to Japanese sensibilities or respect the Japanese people. When Valignano arrived, he saw the harm Cabral was doing and forcibly changed the direction of the mission, pursuing policies of Jesuit accommodation to Japanese culture and respect for the Japanese converts who were training to …

Toward A Mediating Understanding Of Tongues: A Historical And Exegetical Examination Of Early Literature, Shane M. Kraeger

Liberty Theological Review

Studies regarding pneumatology and charismata have maintained distinctions largely due to previously held presuppositions. Christians have debated Luke’s and Paul’s usage of specific words and have taken diametrically opposite positions on this issue. This study will not attempt to answer the question of the legitimacy of spiritual gifts; we must, rather, begin from a proper understanding of words and concepts, thus allowing God’s Word to change us if we are to be mindful of our obedience toward Him. This study will examine the historic meaning of the word and concept of tongues in order to better gauge Luke’s and Paul’s—and …

Triadic To Trinitarian: Kevin J. Vanhoozer’S Application Of J.L. Austin’S Speech Act Theory, Joshua C. Stone

Liberty Theological Review

The basis for Christian theology, the Bible, has come under considerable attack by decontructionalists in their attempt to disregard authorial intent and to prove that understanding the meaning of an author's words is an impossible task. Kevin J. Vanhoozer is an evangelical scholar who has done much in defense of authorial intent and has found fertile philosophical ground in Speech Act theory. This essay looks at Vanhoozer’s use of J.L. Austin’s variety of Speech Act theory to determine if Vanhoozer uses Austin correctly, then turns to Vanhoozer’s bibliological use of Austin whereby he analogically applies Austin’s Triadic formula of a …

Review Of El Pensamiento Filosófico Latinoamericano, Del Caribe Y “Latino” [1300-2000]: Historia, Corrientes, Temas, Filósofos, Grant J. Silva

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Feminist Interpretations Of Benedict Spinoza By Moira Gatens, Ericka Tucker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Venus In Furs: Why False Confessions Are True, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the nature of truth and false confessions in the context of confession and interrogation.

Just Military Preparedness (Jus Ante Bellum): A New Category Of Just War Theory, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This presentation discusses why just war theory is in need of just military preparedness (jus ante bellum) as a new category of just war thinking and it articulates six principles of just military preparedness. The paper concludes that the United States fails to satisfy any of these principles and addresses how this bears on the application of jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum norms to possible future American military interventions.