Philosophy Commons^™

God And Gratuitous Evil, Michael Schrynemakers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

William Rowe has argued for atheism as follows: (1) There seem to be evils God could have prevented without losing a greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse, and (2) God would not allow such evils. This dissertation examines (2), the "No Gratuitous Evil Thesis," and its role in Rowe's argument. In Part One I argue that there are crucial ambiguities in the notion of a greater good this thesis appeals to and that these present dilemmas for Rowe's argument, as well as for defining gratuitous evil. This leads to my approximation of the notion of gratuitous …

A Critique Of Immaterial Labour: Dublin's Independent Music Scene As A Strategic Site Of Investigation, Susan Gill

Doctoral

This study critiques the autonomist concept of immaterial labour. Both diagnostic and prescriptive, the term immaterial labour was coined by Lazzarato (1997), but became synonymous with Hardt and Negri’s (2001a; 2004; 2010) ‘Empire’ trilogy. They describe post-industrial labour as characterised by the production of immaterial commodities such as culture, creativity and information. Seeing it as a hegemonic form of production, accelerationist Marxists Hardt and Negri (ibid.) suggest that immaterial labour has the radical potential to restructure socio-economic life, resulting in spontaneous communism. However, their thesis has been subject to critique as it homogenises post-industrial production and lacks empirical engagement. This …

Exploring The Philosophical Character Of Contemporary Art Through A Post-Conceptual Practice, Clodagh Emoe

Doctoral

This enquiry seeks to explore what philosopher and critic Peter Osborne identifies as the philosophical character of contemporary art. The purpose of this enquiry is not to resolve the ambiguous relationship between art and philosophy that he observes in contemporary art, but to address the complex engagement between them in a focused manner by examining how philosophy comes into play in my post-conceptual practice. This enquiry emerges from and is orientated by an ongoing post-conceptual practice. The central questions of the enquiry ask: What is the relationship between art and philosophy in my post-conceptual practice? How might my artworks raise …

Faut-Il Obéir À La Loi ? – Les Pensées Politiques Des Femmes Dans La Littérature Épistolaire Et Les Mémoires Choisis À L’Époque De La Révolution Française, Justyna Czader

Open Access Theses

L'écriture est un témoin qui est difficilement corrompu-Montesquieu, L'esprit des lois. Mémoires and lettres de prisons take us to places we haven't been: prisons in bloody revolutionary Paris and the deadly Place de la Concorde. Women with different social backgrounds fought for their rights denied officially by the revolutionary authorities. They fought back was through plays, mémoires or letters. According to Philippe Lejeune, since the 18th century autobiography has become a phenomenon of civilization. I argue that the lettres de prison present not only a form of epistolary communication, but also as many personal testimonies, recollections of events and emotions …

Symbolic Misery And Aesthetics- Bernard Stiegler, Noel Fitzpatrick

Articles

In this article I will deal with the development of a theory of aesthetics within the work of the French contemporary philosopher Bernard Stiegler with particular reference to his concept of symbolic misery. Rather than give an extensive account of Bernard Stiegler’s aesthetics this article will focus on some key concepts mobilized in the definition and analysis of symbolic misery. Firstly, I will argue that Stiegler’s understanding of the aesthetic comes from an expanded notion of aesthesis, where the political and the aesthetic are mobilized together. In this regard I will interrogate some key concepts in his work Symbolic Misery …

Philosophy And Theology: Is Giving Birth More Dangerous Than Aborting?, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Voice Full Of Money: Metaphor And The Art Of Meaning, Kathryn V. Mccracken

Senior Honors Theses

The common definition of metaphor as a “comparison between two things that does not include the words ‘like’ or ‘as’” has, in the recent decades, lost the respect of serious students of language. Originating in Aristotelian thought, this “Comparison Theory” of metaphor is oversimplifying and therefore inadequate. By using examples to outline these inadequacies, a more accurate, more robust view of metaphor emerges. Far from being a mere literary flourish, the concept of metaphor—especially as metaphor is identified as the means through which symbols function—is at the very base of the general process of meaning conveyance through language.

In order …

In What Senses Are Free Spirits Free?, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

My broadest claim in this article is, unsurprisingly, that there are multiple senses of freedom associated with the freedom of the free spirit. These include both positive and negative senses – that is, when describing how free spirits are free, Nietzsche sometimes characterizes this as freedom to do something, and sometimes as freedom from certain kinds of constraints. In this article, I do not aim to provide an exhaustive catalogue of the different senses invoked in Nietzsche’s ‘free spirit’ texts. Instead, I wish to highlight some particular senses, including some that are less frequently discussed in the scholarly literature and …

Book Review: Niederberger, Andreas, And Schink, Philipp, Eds. Republican Democracy: Liberty, Law And Politics., Jeremy Waldron, Christopher Mccammon

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Jeremy Waldron

This is a poorly organized book, and it does not really present any well- structured arguments. In a blurb on the back of the book, Christopher Eisgruber says that “every serious scholar of religious toleration will have to contend with Leiter’s bold claims.” That would have been so if Leiter had proceeded less precipitously to the question that interests him and then focused on it more steadily— if, for example, he had first identified the classic arguments for toleration and criticized them and had then gone on to argue that neither the classic tolerationist arguments ðsuch as they …

Self-Referentiality In Constructive Semantics Of Intuitionistic And Modal Logics, Junhua Yu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores self-referentiality in the framework of justification logic. In this framework initialed by Artemov, the language has formulas of the form t:F, which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F." Moreover, terms can occur inside formulas and hence it is legal to have t:F(t), which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F about t itself." Expressions like this is not only interesting in the semantics of justification logic, but also, as we will see, necessary in applications of justification logic in formalizing constructive contents implicitly carried by modal and intuitionistic …

The Radical Possibilities Of Being Human: Exploring The Risk, Violence, And Rewards Of Knowing And Being Known (A Survival Guide For Liminal Feminists), Parvoneh Shirgir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Within this liminal feminist survival guide I present a collection of personal experiences and analysis of these moments in order to elucidate how and when violence occurs. I foreground my thought process and the ideas and figures that keep me hopeful, help remind me that our world is not concrete but instead changing, shifting, and malleable. What follows is a necessarily partial (and somewhat useless, somewhat useful) survival guide for liminal feminists, those who exist on the edges of boundaries and encounter all of the possibilities and fears that come with such a position. I present not so much a …

Reconfiguring Identity In Schelling’S Würzburg System, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

I consider the identity-theory of the Würzburg System as part of Schelling's five-year project to provide a metaphysical foundation for Naturphilosophie that is free of Kantian/Fichtean subjectivism and obeys the key constraint formulated by the German appropriation of Spinoza's: there can be no "egress from the absolute," i.e., no deduction of the limitations of finitude such as the Wissenschaftslehre provided. The demands of epistemic security (the identity of that which knows and what is known) and ontological simplicity (the impossibility of ontological commitment both to an absolute and to individuals) are met by reworking the theory of the absolute's 'cognition' …

All At One Point: The New Physics Of Italo Calvino And Jorge Luis Borges, Mark Thomas Rinaldi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work of comparative literary criticism focuses on the presence of mathematical and scientific concepts and imagery in the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, beginning with an historical overview of scientific philosophy and an introduction to the most significant scientific concepts of the last several centuries, before shifting to deep, scientifically-driven analyses of numerous individual fictions, and finally concluding with a meditation on the unexpectedly fictive aspects of science and mathematics. The close readings of these authors' fictions are contextualized with thorough explanations of the potential literary implications of theories from physics, mathematics, neuroscience and chaos theory. …

Dionysian Biopolitics: Karl Kerényi’S Concept Of Indestructible Life, Kristóf Fenyvesi

Comparative Philosophy

Scholar of religion Karl Kerényi’s last book, Dionysos, is a grand attempt at reinterpreting ζωη (zoe), the Greek concept of indestructible life, which he distinguishes from βίος (bios), finite life. In Kerényi’s view, the meaning and sensual experience of zoe was expressed in its richest form in the Cretan beginnings of the cult of Dionysos. The major characteristics of this cult, as Kerényi describes, were beyond the cultural, political, and sexual limits of the Christian interpretations of life and nature. Searching for modern analogies to zoe, Kerényi explains the idea in relation to molecular biology’s minimum definition of life. Despite …

Ecological Tension: Between Minimum And Maximum Changes, Changfu Xu

Comparative Philosophy

This article elaborates the conditions as well as four potential modes of the ecological problem: (1) The mode of the absolute minimization of the ecological problem: minimum population plus minimum Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is characterized by the quantity of destruction being less than the quantity of natural rehabilitation of an ecosystem. This mode is the poorest mode with minimum change. (2) The mode of the relative minimization of the ecological problem: minimum population plus maximization of GDP, which is characterized by the quantity of destruction being less than the quantity of both natural rehabilitation and human rehabilitation of …

Anti-Nature In Nature Itself, Ryōsuke Ōhashi

Comparative Philosophy

Nature and civilization are often regarded in opposition to each other. However, civilization employs technologies and is based on laws of nature. Also, the historical world is a result of the development of the natural world. An “anti-nature” must thus be contained somewhere within nature. The idea of “anti-nature” is neither alien to the Eastern nor to the Western traditional concepts of nature. The philosophy of Lao Zi never embraces mere naturalism. Lao Zi has observed that things in the world are not always “so on their own” but rather in the mode of anti-nature. Anti-nature in nature itself does …

All Or Nothing? Nature In Chinese Thought And The Apophatic Occident, William Franke

Comparative Philosophy

This paper develops an interpretation of nature in classical Chinese culture through dialogue with the work of François Jullien. I understand nature negatively as precisely what never appears as such nor ever can be exactly apprehended and defined. For perception and expression entail inevitably human mediation and cultural transmission by semiotic and hermeneutic means that distort and occult the natural in the full depth of its alterity. My claim is that the largely negative approach to nature that Jullien finds in sources of Chinese tradition can also be found in the West, particularly in its apophatic currents or countercurrents that …

Introduction, Mario Wenning

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 5 No 2 Content Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 5 No 2 Information Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 5 No 2 Cover Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description, Rachel Bradshaw

Democracy & Education

The importance of public education in democratic states is almost beyond dispute. Too often, though, discussions of democratic education focus solely on policies and systems, forgetting the individual teachers who are ultimately responsible for educating future citizens. This paper attempts to illustrate just how complex and significant the role of teachers in a democratic republic can be.

Language, Truth, And Rhetoric, Collin Pointon

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

The words of Martin Heidegger are no example of the lowest form of wit. His sentence is meant to be interpreted in two important ways that utilize different meanings of the word "truth." Our common understanding of the word truth is not something innate but a product of history and culture that stretches back through the Romans to the ancient Greeks. Alētheia in ancient Greek was translated to veritas in Latin. The translation included an interpretation--as all translations do (which is why translation is rhetorical in nature)--of alētheia as a Platonic entity. Alētheia was interpreted as something transcendent; something that …

Investigating The Anthropocene: A Critical Look At A New Geological Epoch, Christopher J. Preston

University Grant Program Reports

No abstract provided.

Reliability For Degrees Of Belief, Jeffrey Dunn

Philosophy Faculty publications

We often evaluate belief-forming processes, agents, or entire belief states for reliability. This is normally done with the assumption that beliefs are all-or-nothing. How does such evaluation go when we’re considering beliefs that come in degrees? I consider a natural answer to this question that focuses on the degree of truth-possession had by a set of beliefs. I argue that this natural proposal is inadequate, but for an interesting reason. When we are dealing with all-or-nothing belief, high reliability leads to high levels of truth-possession. However, when it comes to degrees of belief, reliability and truth-possession part ways. The natural …

Philosophy Of Time Eternalism Vs. Presentism, Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

The Philosopher's Stone

No abstract provided.

Can Culture Justify Infant Circumcision?, Eldar Sarajlic

Publications and Research

The paper addresses arguments in the recent philosophical and bioethical literature claiming that social and cultural benefits can justify non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. It rejects these claims by referring to the open future argument, according to which infant circumcision is morally unjustifiable because it violates the child’s right to an open future. The paper also addresses an important objection to the open future argument and examines the strength of the objection to refute the application of the argument to the circumcision case.

Engaging The Mental Wars Of Our Times, Jan Van Vliet

Pro Rege

Dr. Jan van Vliet’s paper is an edited version of a talk delivered at the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society, in Washington, D. C., November 15, 2006.

The Unlevel Knowing Field: An Engagement With Dotson’S Third-Order Epistemic Oppression, Alison Bailey

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

Social justice demands that we think carefully about the epistemic terrain upon which we stand and the epistemic resources each of relies upon to move across that ground safely. Epistemic cartographies are politically saturated. Broadly speaking these terrains are unlevel playing fields—I think of them as unlevel knowing fields— that offer members of socially dominant groups an epistemic home turf advantage. Members of marginalized groups must learn to navigate this field creatively.

The Lord Is There: Christian Views Of The Temple In The First Century Ad, Jonathan Wells

Masters Theses

During the first century, Yeshua (Jesus) and the original Christians viewed the temple as God's dwelling place on earth. Informed by the Hebrew Bible, which they saw as the Holy Scriptures, they continued to hold the temple in high regard. The writings of the New Testament display the thoughts of the first Christians and the teachings of Yeshua concerning their understanding of the Jerusalem temple. This study explores the views of the temple in the New Testament and other Christian writings from the first century to demonstrate that most Christians and especially the writings of the New Testament continue to …