Philosophy Commons^™

Sugar For Sale: Constructions Of Intimacy In The Sugar Bowl, Emily Zimmermann

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Thinking Nature, "Pierre Maupertuis And The Charge Of Error Against Fermat And Leibniz", Richard Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend Pierre Fermat and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz against the charge of error made against them by Pierre Maupertuis that they errantly applied final causes to physics. This charge came in Maupertuis’ 1744 speech to the Paris Academy of Sciences, later published in different versions, entitled Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible. It is in this speech that Maupertuis lays claim to one of the most important discoveries in the history of physics and science, The Principle of Least Action. From the date of this speech up until the end …

Ethics And Business, Patrick Mc Garty

The ITB Journal

To many, the old adage that business and ethics never mix, has been reinforced by the constant revelations of the various tribunals set up since the early 1990’s. Laura Nash, Associate Professor at Boston University Graduate School of Management has stated “Many an executive today voices cynicism at the relevance of moral inquiry to managerial practice. For many reasons from the external fact of greed to the very different ways in which we tend to think about managing and morality, ethics and business have often seemed if not downright contradictory, at least several worlds apart” Commentators on Irish business practice …

John Duns Scotus’S Metaphysics Of Goodness: Adventures In 13th-Century Metaethics, Jeffrey W. Steele

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At the center of all medieval Christian accounts of both metaphysics and ethics stands the claim that being and goodness are necessarily connected, and that grasping the nature of this connection is fundamental to explaining the nature of goodness itself. In that vein, medievals offered two distinct ways of conceiving this necessary connection: the nature approach and the creation approach. The nature approach explains the goodness of an entity by an appeal to the entity’s nature as the type of thing it is, and the extent to which it fulfills or perfects the potentialities in its nature. In contrast, the …

Classical Liberalism, John P. Heaphy

The Kabod

Classical Liberalism is a political philosophy that has stood the test of time. Developed by the English philosopher John Locke, classical liberalism is rooted in the ideals of individual rights and social contract. It is ultimately a Christian philosophy, as it admits the inherent sinfulness of man and the sovereignty of God. The United States of America is the greatest application of this philosophy as it prioritizes the protection of individual liberties and derives its power from the consent of the governed.

Issues In Modern Genomics, Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll

Considerations in Ethics

Breaking News or Science Fiction?

• CRISPR technology, a way to use bacterial proteins to make precise, targeted changes to the DNA of living cells, is under development by multiple scientists.
• The subsequent release of the process and data surrounding it has scientists around the world proclaim that a “new era” of in Molecular Biology has begun.

Enacting Social Justice Ethically: Individual And Communal Habits. A Response To "Ethics In Teaching For Democracy And Social Justice", Michael G. Gunzenhauser

Democracy & Education

In response to Hytten’s provocative opening of a conversation about an ethics for activist teaching, in this essay I address three interesting contributions that Hytten made. First, I explore the significance of the imagined ethical subject in Hytten’s example and in many prior authors’ work on ethics in social justice teaching. Expanding the imagined ethical subject (beyond the resistant student with limited experience of difference), which Hytten began to do, is fruitful for additional contexts. Second, I attend to the philosophical basis upon which Hytten rested her ethical theory and suggest some ways that philosophers might follow her critical and …

At The Intersection Of Human Agency And Technology: Genetically Modified Organisms, James Libengood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the Neolithic period and the rise of agriculture along Mesopotamia’s “Fertile Crescent,” greater societies have formed thus requiring laws and governance to ensure their continued preservation. The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi is one such example of how agricultural technologies directly created new social and institutional structures in codifying slavery into law, or how mercantile transactions are to be conducted. Similarly, GMOs are the result of modern agricultural technologies that are altering laws and society as a result of their implementation. This transformation informs the central inquiries of my research question: Why are GMOs necessary, and what influences do they …

Factors Associated With Treatment Seeking In Automotive Manufacturing, Khin Thingyan Chit

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Introduction

The prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders is very common. The main objective of the study was to identify any association between the severity of musculoskeletal symptoms and treatment choice by workers in automobile manufacturing plants.

Methods

A cross-sectional study of 1017 production workers in six automobile manufacturing plants was performed. The study included the structured interviews to determine symptoms, preexisting personal risk factors, treatment choices (health care provider or no treatment sought), job strain, and job satisfaction. Nordic style questionnaire for symptoms, Karasek’s Demand Control Model and three job satisfaction questions were used to assign symptom severity, job strain, …

Do Predictive Brain Implants Threaten Patient Autonomy Or Authenticity?, Eldar Sarajlic

Publications and Research

In this commentary, I discuss this Frederic Gilbert's claim that predictive brain implants (PBIs) threaten persons’ autonomy by diminishing their postoperative experience of self-control. Contrary to Gilbert, I suggest that PBIs do not pose a significant threat to patient’s autonomy, as self-control, but rather to his or her sense of authenticity. My claim is that the language of authenticity, already introduced in the recent bioethical literature, may offer a better way to voice some of the concerns with PBIs that Gilbert recognized.

Theory At Yale: The Strange Case Of Deconstruction In America [Table Of Contents], Marc Redfield

Literature

This book examines the affinity between “theory” and “deconstruction” that developed in the American academy in the 1970s by way of the “Yale Critics”: Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, and J. Hillis Miller, sometimes joined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

With this semi-fictional collective, theory became a media event, first in the academy and then in the wider print media, in and through its phantasmatic link with deconstruction and with “Yale.” The important role played by aesthetic humanism in American pedagogical discourse provides a context for understanding theory as an aesthetic scandal, and an examination of the …

Rewiring The Brain For Happiness: The Neuroscience Of Happiness, Part 2, Kevin Corcoran

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Review Of Jean-Christophe Bailly, The Animal Side, Chandler D. Rogers

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

Darwin’S Dice: The Idea Of Chance In The Thought Of Charles Darwin, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces for Volume 5.

The Battle For Jerusalem: Marcel Dubois' Challenge To Roman Catholics, Israeli Jews, And Christian Zionists, Curtis Hutt

International Dialogue

For several decades, the face of Christian Zionism in Jerusalem was not the International Christian Embassy or John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel but a French/Israeli Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University—the Dominican priest, Fr. Marcel-Jacques Dubois. In this paper, Dubois’ once influential form of Christian Zionism is discussed. While few today outside of Israel and Rome are familiar with his brand of non-premillenial dispensationalist Christian Zionism, I will lay out the persuasive relevance and challenge of his work for those making claims on Jerusalem today.

Sloterdijk: You Must Change Your Life. On Anthropotechnics; In The World Interior Of Capital. For A Philosophical Theory Of Globalization; Globes: Spheres Ii: Macrospherology, Pieter Lemmens

International Dialogue

Although the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (1947) is certainly still not a well-known, let alone “settled” author within the Anglophone philosophical community that leans toward what is still frequently called “continental philosophy,” unlike similarly important figures such as Jean-Luc Nancy, Bruno Latour, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Niklas Luhmann and Axel Honneth, his star is nevertheless slowly rising and many of his books have been translated in English in recent years. One of the reasons for this delayed reception in Anglophone academia might be Sloterdijk’s highly idiosyncratic approach to philosophy, his even more idiosyncratic, lavishly exuberant, intensely literary and (in my …

Wittgenstein: The Fate Of Wonder Wittgenstein’S Critique Of Metaphysics And Modernity, David A. White

International Dialogue

That Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers is hardly a controversial claim. However, Wittgenstein’s own works, principally the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) and Philosophical Investigations (1953; second edition 1997), have engendered a considerable range of widely diverse—and divisive—commentary. In The Fate of Wonder Wittgenstein’s Critique of Metaphysics and Modernity, Kevin M. Cahill has produced a useful and at times provocative addition to this literature.

Rawls And Religion, Pietro Maffettone

International Dialogue

John Rawls was the most important political philosopher in the twentieth century. His work has been immensely influential within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition and beyond. As one of his staunchest critics and colleague famously said (as far back as 1973), one has to either work within the Rawlsian paradigm or explain why not. Political philosophers have, to the regret of some, clearly followed Nozick’s suggestion, and scholarship on Rawls’ work has basically become a sub-discipline in U.S. and UK universities. Any addition to this ample and well-developed literature will thus have to meet a relatively high threshold of quality to …

Deliberative Democracy: Issues And Cases, Clodagh Harris

International Dialogue

Deliberative democracy, a theory of political legitimacy, argues citizens should be given a more central role in political processes, contending that collective decisions are legitimate to the extent that those subject to them have the right, opportunity and capacity to contribute to deliberations on them. It has been at the forefront of political theory in recent decades and has evolved theoretically, empirically and in praxis overtime.

Dictablanda: Politics, Work And Culture In Mexico, 1938–1968, Maria S. Arbeláez

International Dialogue

Dictablanda is a volume of essays examining three main forms of power in post-revolutionary Mexico: political, cultural, and material power. That is, the scope of powers that rose-up and matured between 1938 and 1968. The study is located at mid-twentieth century when the revolutionary effervescence fizzled out and conservative-reactionary politics matured. These thirty years are considered the heyday of the authoritarian rule of the one party regime led by the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI). In the following review, I only cover some of the chapters of the compilation. An all-inclusive assessment would have been too extensive and would have left …

The Question Of Intervention: John Stuart Mill & The Responsibility To Protect, Timothy Mawe

International Dialogue

John Stuart Mill’s “A Few Words on Non-Intervention” (1859) considers both the “sacred duties” owed to the independence and nationality of states and the possible exceptions to the general rule of non-intervention. In The Question of Intervention, Michael Doyle proposes to “comment on Mill’s arguments, defend some, condemn some, and refine others” (10). What emerges is a clear and well-structured overview of the ethics and legitimacy of intervention.

Truth And Democracy, Yann Allard-Tremblay

International Dialogue

It is no secret that politicians lie. Yet, most of us feel queasy faced with the level of mendacity and deceptiveness, and with the lack of concern for facts associated with the Bush administration. This unease is certainly due in part to the disastrous consequences this administration had for the lives of thousands and thousands of people in Iraq and the U.S., among other places, and for the stability of the whole Middle-East. Yet, there is more to this unease. We expect dictators and despots to lie and deceive. In contrast, democratic politics should be more concerned with the truth. …

The Crisis Of The European Union: A Response, Barry Stocker

International Dialogue

A Crisis of the European Union contains the essay “The Crisis of the European Union in Light of a Constitutionalisation of International Law—An Essay on the Constitution for Europe,” the second essay “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights,” and an appendix “The Europe of the Federal Republic.” The first essay is itself divided into three sections: “Why Europe is Now More than Ever a Constitutional Project”; “The European Union Must Decide between Transnational Democracy and Post-Democratic Executive Federalism,” and “From the International to the Cosmopolitan Community.” The second of these sections is itself divided …

The Heart Of Human Rights, Brian Kin Ting Ho

International Dialogue

Allen Buchanan’s book is an impressive addition to the contemporary philosophical discussions about human rights. It covers a wide range of topics, including the nature of justifications in human rights (chapters 2 and 3), the problems existing accounts face (chapter 2), a justificatory account of human rights as a system of international law (chapters 3 and 4), the nature of legitimacy-judgments in political philosophy (chapter 5), the supposed “supremacy” of international legal human rights (chapter 6), and ethical relativism and pluralism (chapter 7).

The Effects Of Globalization In Latin America, Africa, And Asia: A Global South Perspective, Clark Capshaw

International Dialogue

Kema Irogbe’s study of the effects of globalization on Latin America, Africa, and Asia, is an informative and interesting read, but, unfortunately, it also suffers from many flaws, most of which derive from information and arguments outside the scope of the subject of globalization and its effects.

Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters Of Nadya And Slavoj, David S. Moon

International Dialogue

In October 2012, Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, both members of the punk-protest group Pussy Riot, were sent to separate Russian penal colonies, charged in relation to an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour the previous February. During her time in the Mordovian Penal Colony No. 14— and briefly afterwards—Tolokonnikova engaged in the exchange of letters with philosopher Slavoj Žižek collected in Comradely Greetings, alongside Tolokonnikova’s open letter that details her harrowing experience in the camp and announced her hunger strike, just under a year into her sentence. The richness of Žižek and Tolokonnikova’s correspondences—and the …

Living In Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, And Everyday Life, Eloise Harding

International Dialogue

The “denial” which is Norgaard’s focus is not the climate change denial (which may be more accurately described as scepticism) which we hear from right-wing politicians: in particular, her participants have no interest in deceiving others, but many motivations to deceive themselves. The residents of “Bygdaby,” a pseudonym for a real Norwegian community, are at the front line of climate change—many of their local industries depend on snow and ice, of which the supply has steadily declined—and they are aware of its impact. However, while registering the effect on activities such as skiing and ice fishing, these residents effect not …

Democratic Statecraft: Political Realism And Popular Power, John R. Wallach

International Dialogue

This book presents itself as a critique of the idealist strand of democratic theory, via a theory of “democratic statecraft” that relies on “realism,” “pragmatism,” and “skepticism,” rather than “idealism, “moralism,” or “utopianism” for first principles. In order to make his case, the author generates a “composite portrait” of this concept, drawing interesting and idiosyncratically on relatively unknown political thinkers, movies, and selective readings of major figures in the history of Western political thought, theory, and events—for example, Athenian democracy and Aristotle, Bartholomew’s Day, Machiavelli, Traiano Boccalini, Herbert Traubeneck, James Weaver, and The Mission.

Jewsandwords, Leonard J. Greenspoon

International Dialogue

Can you tell much about a book from its cover? The design of the cover to this volume would lead any attentive reader to an affirmative response. Look at the title, JewsandWords. These letters, without any space separating them into words, recall ancient manuscripts, where the niceties of word division were often sacrificed to allow more writing per (expensive) page. Admittedly, ancient Hebrew manuscripts also dismissed with written vowels, but there’s only so much we modern readers can do without. And then there’s “Jews,” not “Judaism.” For the authors, Jews, flesh-and-blood people, preceded Judaism as a concept and remain the …