Philosophy Commons^™

The I Think, Self-Awareness And Reflexivity : A Reconstructed Kantian Model Of Self-Awareness, Jie Yin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

I aim to explore, in this dissertation, whether Kant has a plausible view on self-awareness in his Critique of Pure Reason, and that if the answer is positive, then in what way one could best appreciate his insight; and besides that, I also want to explore how Kant's view sheds light on contemporary debate on self-awareness. I aim to consider two questions addressed by Howell (2006) as below: (A) how exactly the I think functions, designatively, to represent the self and bring it to our thought-awareness, and (B) how, theI thinK orI, a simple representation and a mere designation of …

Phronesis After Situationism, Edward C. Dubois

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Situationism, as put forward by John Doris' Lack of Character (2002) and several short articles by Gilbert Harman (2003, 2000, 1999), is the philosophical position that is skeptical of the existence of robust character traits of the kind that Aristotle described. Situationism posits that human beings lack robust character traits and are too easily made overconfident in their own behavioral abilities. Reams of social psychological data suggest that such 'thick' character traits do not exist. Doris and Harman suggest that subtle and potentially irrelevant situational cues may easily influence behavior. Moreover, situational pressures may cause people to deviate from expected …

The Structure Of Narratives In Political Theories, Wesley Dan Nishiyama

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I use the ideas of Kenneth Burke and Wolfgang Iser to understand how narrative types, including: novelistic, historical, biographical, and hypothetical, are used as rhetorical devices to persuade the reader of the theory at hand. I will begin by

Eudaimonia And Virtù : Excellence And Conflict In Democratic Politics, Christine M.K. Dow

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite renewed interest in republicanism as a political and theoretical alternative to liberalism, much of contemporary republican scholarship emphasizes the ways that republican principles - liberty, rule of law, political participation - fit within a liberal framework, sharing its institutions and commitment to individual liberty. This project, in contrast, extracts a radically democratic republican theory of politics from two founding republican thinkers - Aristotle and Machiavelli. Using an analytical approach, I argue that a concept of human excellence or flourishing is central to a democratic interpretation of these texts. I show, in an analysis of the Ethics and Politics, that …

The Case For Character : A Reply To Situationism, Brandon Lee

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The notion of character is a familiar and prominent part of ethical theorizing, and of our everyday discourse. Character is used to explain how people act, to predict what they will do, to judge whether they ought to be trusted, and utilized in a multitude of other ways. A camp of philosophers dubbed the "Situationists", however, argue that research in social psychology shows the notion of character as we traditionally understand it is empirically unsupported, and consequently that all our discourse and ethical thought involving character is gravely mistaken. Instead, these philosophers contend that what influences and informs our perception …

Reconsidering The Theoretical/Practical Divide: The Philosophy Of Nishida Kitarō, Lockland Vance Tyler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the years professional philosophy has undergone a number of significant changes. One of these changes corresponds to an increased emphasis on objectivity among philosophers. In light of new discoveries in logic and science, contemporary analytic philosophy seeks to establish the most objective methods and answers possible to advance philosophical progress in an unambiguous way. By doing so, we are able to more precisely analyze concepts, but the increased emphasis on precision has also been accompanied by some negative consequences. These consequences, unfortunately, are much larger and problematic than many may even realize. What we have eventually arrived in at …

An Examination Of Wanting In Anscombe's Intention, Mallory Dianne Kunz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In intention, G.E.M. Anscombe sets out to examine the standard ways in which we use the word "intention". To this end, she also examines desire and how desires play a role in our intentions. In the process, she divides desire into two distinct categories, those of weak and strong wanting. This distinction is quite different from ancient and modern views of desire, which are briefly discussed as a means of comparing Anscombe's view to her predecessors. After she has made this distinction, Anscombe tries to establish what is required of this new category of strong wanting. These requirements include knowledge …

Harmful Beneficence, Lisa Rivera

Philosophy Faculty Publication Series

Beneficence can be significant to moral action but criteria for good beneficence is rarely discussed. Much work has focused on how extensive the demands are on agents to be beneficent and on agents’ motivations for beneficence.

There has been little direct attention to the relationship between benefactor and beneficiary. The argument here is that serious deficiencies exist in the view that benefactors should focus primarily on satisfying another’s self-chosen ends. A narrow focus on the attempt to help someone satisfy her ends misses the harmful effects that benefactors can have on a dependent beneficiary's ability to choose freely from her …

The Desert Of The Ethical, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

 As far as I can tell, the concept of “desert” in Levinas’s thought seems to retain itsfamiliar associations, namely, as an environment that can be empirically characterizedas inhospitable, barren, and destitute of the kinds of material resources necessary forthe growth of the autonomous and autochthonous subjective self. It also seems plausiblethat a relevant extension of desert conditions to human community in Levinas’stopography would be the “cities” of concentration camps of the Holocaust. In otherwords, there is a correlative interior type of desert that, with Levinas, can be intuitedas what I am calling a desert of the ethical . In what …

Constructing The Absent — Preservation And Restoration Of Architecture, Remei Capdevila-Werning

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Architectural conservation aims to preserve, restore, and reconstruct damaged, decayed, and no longer extant buildings. This purpose entails that architectural conservation is constantly facing absence: a physical absence, when material parts are missing from a building, and an intangible one, when the physical absence stands for a missing people or culture. The role of preservationist interventions is to make all these absences present. This paper deals with the relationship of absence and presence in preservation practices. By examining several preservation processes, it aims to show the implicit and explicit ways in which absences are made present and also how the …

Politics And Philosophy In Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Laws, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

Whether on matters of politics or physics, Aristotle's criticism of his predecessors is not generally considered a model of charitable interpretation. He seems to prefer, as Christopher Rowe puts it, "polemic over accuracy" (2003, 90). His criticism of the Laws is particularly puzzling: It is much shorter than his discussion of the Republic and raises primarily technical objections of questionable validity. Indeed, some well-known commentators have concluded the criticisms, as we have them in the Politics, were made of an earlier draft of the Laws and that Plato, in light of these criticisms, revised the final version. I hope …

Physis And Ktsis: Two Different Ways Of Thinking Of The World, John Panteleimon Manoussakis

Philosophy Department Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on a statement by Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, a pioneer in environmental theology.

Primacy And Ecclesiology: The State Of The Question, John Panteleimon Manoussakis

Philosophy Department Faculty Scholarship

This paper addresses the question of whether the Orthodox Church needs a primus, especially at the universal level.

A Problem For Fine Individuation And Artist Essentialism, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

Fine Individuation says it’s impossible for distinct people who are not collaborating on a work of art to produce one and same artwork.  This is an intra-world thesis, but is necessarily true, if true at all.  Author-Essentialism says it’s impossible for someone else to produce one and the same work of art produced by some actual artist.  This is an alleged necessary truth regarding cross-world relations.  Both theses have been vigorously defended.  I here argue that both are false, but for reasons that are entirely novel.

Review Of Peter Alward's "Empty Revelations", Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

I here review Peter Alward's monograph Empty Revelations

A Critique Of Charles Peirce's Account Of The Necessary Conditions For The Possibility Of Experience, Daniel Edward Kruidenier

Theses and Dissertations

Herein is investigated the effort to establish the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience begun by Immanuel Kant and carried further by Charles Peirce. I focus my attention on Peirce's development of a Kantian strategy for discovering and proving such conditions. The conclusion that I argue for is that such an effort requires the use of a rational intuitive faculty. Both Kant and even more vociferously Peirce overtly reject the existence of such a faculty, yet, I argue, it is difficult to make sense of certain crucial discoveries in its absence.

Nous And Aisthēsis: Two Cognitive Faculties In Aristotle, Adriana Renero

Publications and Research

In disagreement with Claudia Baracchi's controversial thesis that there is a 'simultaneity and indissolubility' if not an 'identity' of intelligence (nous) and perception (aisthēsis) at the core of Aristotle's philosophy, I will argue that Aristotle maintains a fundamental distinction between these cognitive faculties. My goal in this paper is to examine specific parts of two central and complex passages, VI.8, 1142al2-30 and VI. 11, 1143a33-bl5, from the Nicomachean Ethics to show that Baracchi's view is unpersuasive. I will show that Aristotle considers nous to be a different capacity than mere perception and one through which particulars …

Editor's Introduction, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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Implications And Consequences Of Post-Modern Philosophy For Contemporary Perspectives On Transpersonal And Spiritual Experience I. The Later Foucault And Pierre Hadot On A Post-Socratic This-Worldly Mysticism, Harry Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

While Michel Foucault is chiefly known for his historical relativism and his critique of modern institutional power over the individual, his late writings, as further extended by Pierre Hadot, centered on the post-Socratic spiritual practices of the experience of here and now presence or Being in the Stoics, Epicureans, and Cynics. For Foucault the positive, expansive self-actualization common to these traditions, and contrasting with Christian self-renunciation, offers a guidance for a contemporary spiritual crisis in valuation of the person. For Hadot each of the post-Socratic traditions was based on the imitation and further development of key characteristics of Socrates, much …

“Say From Whence You Owe This Strange Intelligence”: Investigating Explanatory Systems Of Spiritualist Mental Mediumship Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Elizabeth C. Roxburgh, Chris A. Roe

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Walsh and Vaughan (1993) defined transpersonal experiences as those “in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos” (p. 203). One population who regularly report such experiences are mediums. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten spiritualist mediums to explore their lived experience, such as how they communicate with the deceased, the meaning of spirit guide phenomena, and the role of mediumship, regardless of the actual ontology of mediumship. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) identified three themes: explanatory systems of mediumship, spirit guides as transcendental …

The Ethno-Epistemology Of Transpersonal Experience: The View From Transpersonal Anthropology, Charles D. Laughlin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper introduces the topic of ethno-epistemology with regards to transpersonal experiences. The distinction between polyphasic and monophasic cultures is introduced and the interaction between a society’s world view and individual transpersonal experience is explained using the cycle of meaning model. A link to philosophical work on “natural epistemology” is made and the importance of the “projectability” of cultural theories of experience is discussed. The individual contributions to this special section of the journal are introduced.

Dreamscapes: Topography, Mind, And The Power Of Simulacra In Ancient And Traditional Societies, Paul Devereux

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Dream content can be influenced by external sounds, smells, touch, objects glimpsed with half-open eyes during REM sleep, and somatic signals. This paper suggests that this individual, neurologically-driven process parallels that experienced collectively by pre-industrial tribal and traditional peoples in which the land itself entered into the mental lives of whole societies, forming mythic geographies—dreamscapes. This dreamtime perception was particularly evident in the use of simulacra, in which the shapes of certain topographical features allowed them to be presented in anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or iconic guise to both the individual and the culturally-reinforced gaze of society members. This paper further indicates …

Dreaming And Reality: A Neuroanthropological Account, Charles D. Laughlin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

In what sense is dreaming real to people of different cultures? How do they come to conclude that dreaming is real, and how do they use dreams to expand their knowledge and control of real events? The reader is introduced to dream anthropology and shown that there are universal patterns to how dreams are experienced, expressed, and used by societies. The distinction between monophasic and polyphasic cultures is described, the latter being the majority of societies that consider dreaming as being in some sense real. Neuroscience supports the notion that there is a natural realism behind the experience of reality …

The Self: A Transpersonal Neuroanthropological Account, Charles D. Laughlin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The anthropology of the self has gained momentum recently and has produced a significant body of research relevant to interdisciplinary transpersonal studies. The notion of self has broadened from the narrow focus on cultural and linguistic labels for self-related terms, such as person, ego, identity, soul, and so forth, to a realization that the self is a vast system that mediates all the aspects of personality. This shift in emphasis has brought anthropological notions of the self into closer accord with what is known about how the brain mediates self-as-psyche. Numerous examples from the ethnography of the self are given, …

Searching For Wild Elephants In The North Georgia Forests: The Saga Of Writing A Transpersonal Dissertation At A Mainstream University, Harris L. Friedman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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Dream-Spirits And Innovation In Aboriginal Australia’S Western Desert, Robert Tonkinson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Among the Mardu Aborigines, dreams (kapukurri; jukurrpa) may carry at least the same weight as the events of waking life. ‘Travelling’ in dream-spirit form enhances the possibility of revelations both dangerous and enlightening. In the Australian case, a major cultural dilemma is to accommodate and rationalize an inevitable dynamism when the dominant ideology is one of timelessness and stasis. Two key cultural symbols, the Dreaming and the Law, still substantially shape worldviews and behaviour of the Martu people, who live in the remote Western Desert region. Much of my focus is on a category of popular, largely public contemporary ritual …

Understanding Bohm’S Holoflux: Clearing Up A Conceptual Misunderstanding Of The Holographic Paradigm And Clarifying Its Signifigance To Transpersonal Studies Of Consciousness, Mark A. Schroll

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Throughout the past 31 years transpersonal anthropologists and transpersonal psychologists seeking a scientific language to discuss anomalous phenomena and the farther reaches of human nature (or to invoke a discussion of ultimate reality, universal mind or cosmic consciousness) have referred to the holographic paradigm, the conceptual origin of which is directly related to David Bohm’s implicate order theory. In 1982 and 1984 Bohm discussed the holographic paradigm’s limitations (and more specifically his concept of holomovement) to accurately represent his implicate order theory, suggesting instead the more precise conceptual reference holoflux; yet the limited publication of this correction has not been …

Contemplative Inquiry In Movement: Managing Writer´S Block In Academic Writing, Eva Bojner Horwitz, Cecilia Stenfors, Walter Osika

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This exploratory study stems from a meditation exercise in contemplative inquiry with transdisciplinary researchers. A master’s student with writers block was asked to perform body movements reflecting a thesis writing process over time. An interview with a phenomenological hermeneutic method was used to uncover the significance of the student’s experience during the exercise, including bodily sensations, feelings, and thoughts. New embodied knowledge helped the student to enable identification and acceptance of both adverse and blocking information. By systematically using a “thinking in movement” approach after applying body movements, new self-confidence was generated in the writing process. The interpretation of the …

Shamanic Cosmology As An Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Michael Winkelman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The biological foundation for a shamanic epistemology is indicated by the cross-cultural distribution of a shamanic cosmology derived from knowledge obtained during altered consciousness. These special forms of consciousness involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, expressive systems which have evolutionary roots in the communicative and social processes involved in animal displays or rituals. These were augmented over the course of hominid evolution into expressive and mimetic activities that provided a basis for significant epistemological expansions of consciousness exemplified in shamanic out-of-body (OBE) experiences. These manifestations of consciousness involved new modes of self and processes of knowing, …

Belief Is Not Experience: Transformation As A Tool For Bridging The Ontological Divide In Anthropological Research And Reporting, Bonnie Glass-Coffin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

For more than a hundred years, anthropologists have recorded stories of beliefs in other-than-human sentience and consciousness, yet we have most frequently insisted on contextualizing these stories in terms of cultural, epistemological, or ontological relativism. In this paper, I ask why we have had such a hard time taking reports of unseen realms seriously and describe the transformative role of personal experience as a catalyst for change in anthropological research and reporting.