Philosophy Commons^™

Inhabiting The Discourses Of Belonging; Franz Kafka And Yoko Tawada, Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Inhabiting the Discourses of Belonging; Franz Kafka and Yoko Tawada examines the role of language in creating the identity of the foreigner in German prose. Writing at opposite ends of the 20^th century, Kafka and Tawada serve as harbingers for a broader sense of alienation that comes with writing as an Other. Using lenses provided by Spivak, Butler, Said and Deluze, this essay surveys the broader cultural concepts and theoretical implications of the notion of the metaphorical subaltern that can be created in prose, and the particularities presented by the German language in creating and articulating this identity. This …

Procedural Delaying Maneuvers

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Effort And Ethics, Edward J. Lee

Philosophy Honors Papers

In this paper, I start by describing two categories into which effort can be divided. The first category I call objective effort, which refers to the external factors associated with an action; the second I call subjective effort, which deals with the internal psychological or mental effort required to bring oneself to perform an action. I then track my intuitions about how objective effort and subjective effort are relevant to the moral evaluations of actions and agents, and further develop this descriptive account by explaining these intuitions normatively through the lenses of contractualism and virtue ethics. Having given my account …

Redefining Medicine: The Epistemology, Political Theory, And Phenomenology Of Health And Disease, Jacqline J. Murillo

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

This thesis argues that health needs to be redefined in a more comprehensive fashion, namely as a physiological/biological state, with social, environmental, and individual determinants always related to one’s personal needs to achieve one’s life plan. The benefits of this new definition include more emphasis on the distribution of health as a social good.

Additionally, redefining health puts the value of the individual’s life rather than the strict monetary value of their needed treatment as a focal point. It also draws more attention to medicine as a practice of care, rather than viewing it simply as a technology or science, …

Sexual Morality And Owning Our Own Bodies, Sarah E. Foreman

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

In our current age of “hook-up cultures” and premarital sex, the issue of sexual morality in our society is one that must be addressed. As the younger generations become sexually active at earlier times in their lives, we need to discuss appropriate views of sexual activity and the moral limitations of sexual acts. Conventional sexual morality will tell us that sex outside of marriage is immoral. Another sexual ethic might claim that sex without love is not morally permissible. However, in today’s changing and ever more liberal society, it is important for us to come to terms with a new …

Theories Of Properties And Ontological Theory-Choice: An Essay In Metaontology, Christopher Gibilisco

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that we have no good reason to accept any one theory of properties as correct. To show this, I present three possible bases for theory-choice in the properties debate: coherence, explanatory adequacy, and explanatory value. Then I argue that none of these bases resolve the underdetermination of our choice between theories of properties.

First, I argue considerations about coherence cannot resolve the underdetermination, because no traditional theory of properties is obviously incoherent. Second, I argue considerations of explanatory adequacy cannot resolve the underdetermination, because every traditional theory of properties lacks the theoretical resources to adequately explain resemblance, …

Opium Eaters: Buddhism As Revolutionary Politics, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

There is no one, single answer to the question: What is or are ‘Buddhist politics’? Rather than seek general historical trends or broad tendencies, in this chapter I explore the meaning and implications of the modern, Western conception of ‘politics’ as understood in relation to key features of Buddhist doctrine. In particular, I pose the question of whether we might fruitfully conceive at least certain interpretations of Buddhism—or perhaps, of Dharma—as politics, rather than ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy.’ I argue that twentieth century progressive Buddhists Seno’o Girō (1889–1961) and B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) were not so much in conflict with …

Centralization And Its Discontents: Exploring The Relationship Between Measures Of Moral Development, Happiness And Technology Driven, Centralized Ways Of Being, Kirsti Svendsen

Ph.D. Dissertations (Open Access)

This interdisciplinary, qualitative dissertation offers an exploration into possible intimate relationships between recently expanding, technology driven forms of centralization of our social institutions and a supposed decline in moral development and happiness among Americans today.

According to Jacques Ellul, technology in itself is not the problem. Instead, he believes the tragedy is that the new idea or spirit of technique , technical efficiency and economic progress, which may have started with the Industrial revolution, and has become the western world s new "religion", the new salvation for humanity. Ellul and other thinkers suggest that the single-minded focus on material progress …

Gronwall’S Inequality And Systems Of Integral Equations, Bradford Garcia

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Police, Technique, And Ellulian Critique: Evaluating Just Policing, Andy R. Alexis-Baker

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A chapter by Andy Alexis Baker called "Police, technique, and Ellulian critique : evaluating just policing" from the book Jacques Ellul on Violence, Resistance, and War edited by Jeffrey M. Shaw and Timothy J. Demy.

Indefinite Life Extensions, Jackson L. Slechta

UCARE: Research Products

The Simple Argument 1. It Is good to save someone’s life, if and only if it is a life worth living. 2. When we save someone’s life we are merely extending their life. 3. If saving a life is good, and saving a life is identical in all relevant characteristics to extending a life, then extending a life must be good. 4. Surely, if extending a life by a limited period is good, then extending a life for an indefinite period would create a vast amount of good. 5. Therefore, extending a life worth living indefinitely is good.

The Life …

Feral And Isolated Children From Herodotus To Akbar To Hesse: Heroes, Thinkers, And Friends Of Wolves, Karl Steel

Publications and Research

"In 1304, a small child of Hesse was taken by wolves, and lived with them for a while, eating well, learning to run on all fours, perhaps joining them in their raids on sheep and humans, until he was taken by hunters and forced to live, unhappily, in human society, compelled to learn to walk upright, and exhibited as a spectacle. This account, almost certainly legendary, belongs to a small set of similar stories of feral children from roughly the same time, which, unlike so many modern accounts of wild children, are not about isolation, deprivation, or a catastrophic separation …

Stoicism In Descartes, Pascal, And Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism’S Influence In The Seventeenth Century, Daniel Collette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation focuses on the moral philosophy of Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza in the context of the revival of Stoicism within the seventeenth century. There are many misinterpretations about early modern ethical theories due to a lack of proper awareness of Stoicism in the early modern period. My project rectifies this by highlighting understated Stoic themes in these early modern texts that offer new clarity to their morality. Although these three philosophers hold very different metaphysical commitments, each embraces a different aspect of Stoicism, letting it influence but not define his work. By addressing the Stoic themes on the morality …

Writing/Trauma, Natasha Noel Liebig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In writing/trauma, I address the association of trauma with knowledge, language, and writing. My discussion first works to establish the relationship between trauma and knowledge. I argue that trauma does not fit into the traditional Enlightenment model of scientific knowledge or the ontological model of what Michele Foucault calls the ‘truth-event.’ Rather, I contend that trauma is unique embodied knowledge, different from that of praxis and normal memory. In general, embodied knowledge is a matter of prenoetic and intentional operations. The body schema and body image maintain a power of plasticity and adjust to new motilities in …

Kant's Just War Theory, Steven Charles Starke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main thesis of my dissertation is that Kant has a just war theory, and it is universal just war theory, not a traditional just war theory.

This is supported by first establishing the history of secular just war theory, specifically through a consideration of the work of Hugo Grotius, Rights of War and Peace. I take his approach, from a natural law perspective, as indicative of the just war theory tradition. I also offer a brief critique of this tradition, suggesting some issues that are endemic to these kinds of theories.

From this general understanding, the version of …

Leibniz's More Fundamental Ontology: From Overshadowed Individuals To Metaphysical Atoms, Marin Lucio Mare

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I aim to offer an innovative interpretation of Leibniz’s philosophy, first by examining how the various views that make up his ontology of individual substance involve a persistent rejection of atomism in natural philosophy and secondly, by exploring the significance of this rejection in the larger context of Seventeenth-century physics. My thesis is structured as a developmental story, each chapter analyzing the discontinuities or changes Leibniz makes to his views on individuation and atomism from his early to late years. The goal is to illuminate underrepresented views on individuals and atoms throughout Leibniz’s works and thus bring a clearer understanding …

The Statue That Houses The Temple: A Phenomenological Investigation Of Western Embodiment Towards The Making Of Heidegger's Missing Connection With The Greeks, Michael Arvanitopoulos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Much of the criticism Heidegger has drawn from realism, from postmodernism and even existentialism, as well from the anti-Nazi protests on his philosophy, could be diluted if a defaulted connection was made between Heidegger's metaphysics and the Greeks. Being and Time drafted the blueprint of the origin of predication and world-disclosure from the primordial intuition of the limitations of action in the face of human finitude. This existential reprioritization forced a radical reversal of primacy from nature to culture, having assumed the absolute objectivity of some original world determinacy, the phenomenological structure of which, nevertheless, was never produced in Heidegger’s …

Divine Temporality: Bonhoeffer's Theological Appropriation Of Heidegger's Existential Analytic Of Dasein, Nicholas Byle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation’s guiding question is: What was the impact of Martin Heidegger’s early philosophy on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology? I argue that Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, his technical term for human existence, provides Bonhoeffer with important conceptual tools for developing his Christology, from which the rest of his theology follows.

Part of recognizing Heidegger’s importance to Bonhoeffer involves understanding the latter’s critiques of previous notable philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Scheler. As Bonhoeffer evaluates these philosophers, they lead to theologically unacceptable positions. Heidegger, in contrast, has come to a theologically profitable understanding of human existence and epistemology. Though there …

Registered Savings Plans And The Making Of Middle Class Canada: Toward A Performative Theory Of Tax Policy, Lisa Philipps

Articles & Book Chapters

Politicians across Canada’s political spectrum strive to position themselves as defenders of the middle class, and tax policy is a prime vehicle for making this pitch. Any tax reform proposal can be examined critically to evaluate its likely distributional impacts and how well these map onto specific definitions of the middle class. This article attempts, however, a different project. Drawing on the ideas of Judith Butler, it analyzes instead how tax policy produces middle-class identity through the very process of claiming to advance middle-class interests. The case study for this purpose is the rise of tax incentives for saving as …

A Critique Of Charitable Consciousness, Chioke Ianson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite a legion of criticisms from frustrated and reflective practitioners of humanitarian aid working in Africa and elsewhere, the fundamental problems surrounding NGO aid work persist; a critical mass of westerners are insufficiently receptive to these voices. I will demonstrate that this lack of receptivity is due to a set of implicit and explicit ideological commitments that comprise what I call ‘Charitable Consciousness.’ In this project I will describe the history of humanitarianism in the west, the Hegelian perspective with which to understand this history, and nature and structure of Charitable Consciousness. I will uncover the consequences of inhabiting this …

Suffering And Soul-Making In Disney/Pixar’S Inside Out, Bertha A. Manninen Ph.D.

Journal of Religion & Film

John Hick (1922-2012) was an extremely influential philosopher of religion who wrote ground-breaking essays in the areas of religious epistemology, religious pluralism, and the problem of evil. With specific reference to the latter, in his book Evil and the God of Love(1966), Hick devised what has come to be known as the “soul-making theodicy” – in essence, Hick argues that one of the reasons God allows so much apparently pointless suffering in the world is because it is an essential aspect of advancing our moral and spiritual education.

Although perhaps an unlikely venue, I will argue that Disney/Pixar’s 2015 …

Developing Ethical Leadership: An Analysis Of Business Ethics Education In National Liberal Arts Colleges In The United States, James Stewart Welch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to survey and compare current undergraduate business ethics curricular strategies and preferences among national liberal arts colleges in the United States. There are 180 national liberal arts colleges as classified by the U.S. News and World Report Rankings with a significant percentage of these liberal arts colleges offering economics and/or business administration majors. The primary purpose of the study was to examine the survey responses of business school administrators (and/or professors) who work with undergraduate business education in national liberal arts colleges regarding undergraduate business ethics education.

The three research questions address curriculum approaches for undergraduate …

Life At The Meridian: The Subjectivity Of Ethics In The Works Of Albert Camus And Friedrich Nietzsche, Clancy E. Robledo

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This paper endeavors to respond to the questions: can ethics can be unbound from its traditional rootedness in religious systems? If so, what contributions did Nietzsche make to liberate value from the shackles of Western morality? To what degree is Camus one of the “new philosophers” Nietzsche calls for in On the Genealogy of Morals?

In an attempt to demonstrate that ethics can and do exist vividly in the realm of the non-religious, this paper will begin by illustrating the metaphysical door Nietzsche opens through his use of aphorisms in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and his investigation of the history …

Lovecidal: Walking With The Disappeared [Table Of Contents], Trinh T. Minh-Ha

Cinema & Media Studies

“Lovecidal: Walking with the Disappeared is filled with provocation and guided by evocation. Encompassing various forms (poetry, treatise, memoir, and historiography) and capaciously conceived, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s contemplation of war, state-authorized violence, state-sanctioned ‘security,’ and international amnesia is skillfully tempered by observations of beauty, humanity, and resistance. To say that this is an important book is in many ways an understatement; rather, Lovecidal is transformative.” —Cathy Schlund-Vials, author of War, Genocide, and Justice: Cambodian American Memory Work

Announcings, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

The Annunciation is often thematized in the critical literature and foremost among these thematizations, recently to be sure, are feminist readings, which matter for this essay although this essay can only refer to these in passing.

The focal concern is personal correspondence and intimate address or intrigue. This essay thus offers a hermeneutic reading less of the presumptive purity of our perception of this painting, as indeed of its reception, involving a distinction to be noted between male and female subjects than it reviews a recollection of the divine inclination to beauty in both pagan, Greek, and Judaeo- Christian traditions. …

The Ama On Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide, Steven Luper

Philosophy Faculty Research

The American Medical Association (AMA) opposes physician-assisted suicide (PAS) on the grounds that it “would ultimately cause more harm than good,” because it is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,” and because it “would be difficult or impossible to control and would pose serious societal risks” (AMA 2016, Opinion 5.7). It condemns the practice of euthanasia as conducted by physicians (PE) for these reasons as well, and adds, by way of clarifying the serious risks at hand, that “euthanasia could readily be extended to incompetent patients and other vulnerable populations” (Opinion 5.8). In this essay I will attempt …

Shakespeare's Blush, Or "The Animal" In Othello, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

This essay examines how the rhetoric of animalization in Shakespeare’s Othello compels us to think early modern categories of race in connection with early modern discourses of “human” versus “animal.” Beginning with Shakespeare’s representation of Iago, I suggest that it is the potential for sameness conditioned by Iago’s counterfactual statement (“Were I the Moor, I would not by Iago”) that is most significant about his relation to Othello. From there I consider the overlap between the play’s representations of animality and black skin. Read in the context of Jacques Derrida’s reflections on animals, I consider the deconstructive value of linking …

Kant’S Theory Of The Sublime In Nature And His Concept Of Nature, Young Lee

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

When we reflect on how man relates himself to Nature, we see that there arise two different positions. One is to set man against Nature, i.e., the dualistic concept of Nature; the other is to conceive man as a part of Nature, i.e., the non-dualistic concept of Nature. Of these two, Kant takes a dualistic position. In this essay, I shall discuss Kant’s aesthetic theory, especially his theory of the sublimity of Nature, in conjunction with his dualistic concept of Nature. I’ll show that Kant’s sublimity theory has several problems and that those problems are closely connected with his dualistic …

Catholic Social Teaching As An Explanation Of Firm’S Environmental Impact: Evidence From Heavy Manufacturing Sector, Anne Hetson

Senior Honors Projects

Catholic Social Teaching theory is examined to identify business variables consistent with Papal Encyclicals. We identified top compensation (pay disparity), stock options (employee autonomy), and number of employees (primacy of labor over capital) as factors that are consistent with Catholic Social Teaching. We then used the “CSR Hub” environmental scores of manufacturing firms. We chose to look at manufacturing companies because of their potential for environmental impact. We find that firms that are consistent with Catholic Social Teaching have stronger environmental practices. Specifically, our research suggests that the greater the investment in labor, measured by cost of goods sold per …

Is Proxy Consent For An Invasive Procedure On A Patient With Intellectual Disabilities Ethically Sufficient?, Sonya Charles, Stephen Corey, Peter Bulova

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.