Philosophy Commons^™

Intellectual Virtues And Educational Practice, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Physicians, Not Conscripts: Conscientious Objection In Health Care, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Better Never To Have Been Born, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Pregnancy, Abortion, And Childbirth: Exploring Moral Choices In Childbearing, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Pre-Birth And Post-Birth Abortion, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Objection To Conscience: An Argument Against Conscience Exemptions In Healthcare, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Selfish Genes And Lucky Breaks: Richard Dawkins' And Stephen Jay Gould's Divergent Darwinian Research Agendas, Timothy Shanahan

Philosophy Faculty Works

Darwin expressed alternative theoretical perspectives on a range of issues fundamental to our understanding of evolution, thereby making it possible for his intellectual descendants to develop his ideas in markedly different and even incompatible directions while still promoting their views as authentically “Darwinian.” The long-running and well-publicized scientific rivalry between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould is a striking case in point. In elegantly written books and essays spanning the last quarter of the twentieth century, they developed and defended diametrically opposed views on the units of selection, the scope and depth of adaptation, the significance of chance events, and …

Honesty's Threshold, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Virtue, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

Intellectual virtues are character traits that facilitate the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and related epistemic goods. This chapter takes up the question of which traits are intellectual virtues in relation to a particular variety of knowledge; namely, knowledge of God. It is argued that moral humility (as distinct from intellectual humility) is an intellectual virtue in this context. This account of moral humility and its epistemically salutary effects is sketched against the backdrop of an account of human pride and the obstacles such pride poses to the acquisition of theistic knowledge. Finally, an objection is considered according to which, …

The Situationist Challenge To Educating For Intellectual Virtues, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Varieties Of Character And Some Implications For Character Education, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

The moral and civic dimensions of personal character have been widely recognized and explored. Recent work by philosophers, psychologists, and education theorists has drawn attention to two additional dimensions of character: intellectual character and “performance” character. This article sketches a “four-dimensional” conceptual model of personal character and some of the character strengths or “virtues” proper to each dimension. In addition to exploring how the dimensions of character are related to each other, the article also examines the implications of this account for character education undertaken in a youth or adolescent context. It is argued that “intellectual character education,” which emphasizes …

Moral Reasoning: An Intentional Approach To Distinguishing Right From Wrong, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This book represents a unique contribution to the study of ethics: an introductory textbook that is designed to be very readable while at the same time being deeply philosophical. It leads the reader on an exploration of the major approaches to ethics that have developed in the Western philosophical tradition: Ethical Relativism, Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Ethics, Ethical Egoism, Utilitarianism, Duty Ethics, Social Contract Theory, and Divine Command Theory. It discusses the chief strengths and weaknesses of each and opts for a modified Divine Command Theory while retaining the useful elements of each of the other theories. Written in a …

Recent Publications, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Socio-Musical Performing Artistry, Aron Edidin

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Philosophical discussion of artistry in performance has focused on the relation of performers to musical works and to their instruments. But an important domain of musical artistry is social, relating musicians to their fellows in performing groups. This “socio-musical” artistry contributes to the artistic accomplishments of performing groups as a whole. I identify two distinct kinds of socio-musical artistry, and discuss some of the ways in which different forms of group organization articulate different possibilities for their exercise. Finally, I discuss at some length the extreme case of a performing role that is purely socio-musical, that of the orchestral conductor. …

Painting, Mindfulness And Crowther's Aesthetics, Colleen Fitzpatrick

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper addresses the notion of painting as a mindfulness-based intervention. This premise is justified as it relates to Crowther’s phenomenological aesthetics. Crowther’s theory of painting makes use of a number of features that characterize mindfulness practice and reflect the mindful attitude. These include attention, self-consciousness, universality, otherness, empathy and temporality. Painting and mindfulness practice are seen as interventions upon experience that expand being through greater engagement. Heightened perceptual awareness and embodiment are central to this discussion as they are at the root of aesthetic experience and mindfulness practice. The development of self-consciousness is a key consideration in this context. …

The Aesthetic Appreciation Of Animals In Zoological Parks, Marta Tafalla

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Can we appreciate in a serious and deep way the aesthetic qualities of wild species in exemplars held captive for exhibition in the artificial installations of a zoo? To answer this question I invoke theories concerning the aesthetic appreciation of nature propounded by Yuriko Saito and Allen Carlson. I then argue that zoos impose their story on animals, thereby preventing us from appreciating the animals on their own terms. I claim that captivity and its effects on the health, behavior, and appearance of animals make serious and deep appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of wild species impossible.

Impartiality, Close Friendship And The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

This paper explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented.

In an attempt to resolve this tension, and understand the assumptions that give rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, moral conduct is that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship, ‘event friendship’, …

Recovery From Design, Cassandra J. Ellison

Theses and Dissertations

Through research, inquiry, and an evaluation of Recovery By Design, a ‘design therapy’ program that serves people with mental illness, substance use disorders, and developmental disabilities, it is my assertion that the practice of design has therapeutic potential and can aid in the process of recovery. To the novice, the practices of conception, shaping form, and praxis have empowering benefit especially when guided by Conditional and Transformation Design methods together with an emphasis on materiality and vernacular form.

A Concise Introduction To Logic, Craig Delancey

Milne Open Textbooks

A Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles. The text also includes a basic introduction to findings of advanced logic. As indicators of where the student could go next with logic, the book closes with an overview of advanced topics, such as …

The Veil Of Ignorance In Rawlsian Theory, Jeppe Von Platz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As part of his effort to answer the question "What is the best conception of justice for a democratic society?" philosopher John Rawls constructed a thought experience called the original position. In the original position, representativs of members of society choose principles of justice for society in light of limited interests and with limited information. Situated behind the veil of ignorance, the parties in the original position have no knowledge about particular facts that could lead them to prefer principles of justice partial to those they represent. The veil of ignorance is thus an important part of Rawls's argument …

Beasts, Sovereigns, Pirates: Melville's "Enchanted Isles" Beyond The Picturesque, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Herman Melville's "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles," included in his signature set of shorter narratives The Piazza Tales, remains relatively unvisited by readers and critics. So too was the archipelago generally known as the Galapagos, before becoming a chic destination for natural history excursions and eco-tourism. These ten "sketches" relate a narrator's experiences on the Pacific islands, adding a number of travelers' stories, some extrapolated (more or less accurately) from known records, some creatively transformed. One informative, comprehensive handbook suggests that Melville's description of this volcanic archipelago as Encantadas or "enchanted" in the sense of bewitched-uncanny, weird, their very …

Sources In Legal Positivist Theories, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The debate about positivism in general legal theory or in the international legal scholarship manifests so many different, if not conflicting, meanings of positivism—even among legal positivists themselves—that the debate about legal positivism has proved almost unfathomable and unintelligible.

No other approach to theorizing international law is more closely associated with and dependent upon the development of an account of its sources than is positivism. The explanation for this is a simple and familiar one: if there is any thesis regarding (p. 324) law that we can uncontroversially associate with the label ‘legal positivism’, it is the view that a …

What Makes A Social Order Primitive? In Defense Of Hart’S Take On International Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The widespread antipathy to Hart's description of international law as a simple or primitive social order, one that lacks a rule of recognition and therefore does not qualify as a legal system, rests on two misunderstandings. First, the absence of a division of labor in identifying, altering, applying, and enforcing law is as much, if not more, central to Hart's understanding of what makes a society primitive as is the absence of any secondary rules at all. Second, it is primarily in terms of the presence of such a division of labor and the implications it has for the ontology …

ประเด็นทางญาณวิทยาในแนวคิดเรื่องชุมชนแห่งการสืบเสาะของแมทธิว ลิปแมน, ณฐิกา ครองยุทธ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

เป้าหมายของวิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ต้องการสนับสนุนแนวคิดชุมชนแห่งการสืบเสาะ(Community of inquiry/ COI) ของแมทธิว ลิปแมน (Matthew Lipman) ในประเด็นทางญาณวิทยา แนวคิดดังกล่าวลิปแมนรับอิทธิพลมาจากปรัชญาการศึกษาของจอห์น ดิวอี้ (John Dewey) ในเรื่องแนวคิดปฏิบัตินิยมและการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเป็นกลุ่ม ประเด็นทางญาณวิทยาที่จะศึกษาได้แก่ 1) ปัญหาความสามารถในการใช้เหตุผลของเด็กในทฤษฎีพัฒนาการทางการรู้คิด (Theory of Cognitive Development) ของ ฌอง เพียเชต์ (Jean Piaget) และ 2) ข้อถกเถียงในญาณวิทยาสังคมได้แก่ ปัญหาในเรื่องการไตร่ตรองร่วมกันเป็นกลุ่ม(Group deliberation) และ การเรียนร่วมกันเป็นกลุ่ม (Collaborative Learning) ผู้เขียนได้แสดงให้เห็นว่าวิธีชุมชนแห่งการสืบเสาะสามารถหลีกเลี่ยงปัญหาดังกล่าว และผู้เขียนแสดงให้เห็นว่าวิธีชุมชนแห่งการสืบเสาะมีข้อได้เปรียบทางญาณวิทยา ผู้เขียนยังได้เสนอแนวทางใหม่ที่จะช่วยให้วิธีชุมชนแห่งการสืบเสาะมีประสิทธิภาพเพิ่มขึ้นสำหรับการเรียนในชั้นเรียนโดยประยุกต์จากข้อเสนอของแบร์ด เรย์ (Brad Wray) ในเรื่องการค้นคว้าร่วมกันเป็นกลุ่ม

The Monstrous Self: Negotiating The Boundary Of The Abject, Katya Yakubov

Theses and Dissertations

Through the lens of the horror film and the fairy tale, this thesis explores the notion of the grotesque as a boundary phenomenon—a negotiation of what is self and what is other. As such, it locates the function that the monstrous and the grotesque have in the formation of a personal and social identity. In asking why we take pleasure in the perverse, I explore how permutations of guilt, victimhood, and desire can be actively rewritten, in order to construct a stable sense of self.

"Novel" Biopolitics: Reading Defoe And Coetzee Through Foucault, Derrida, And Esposito, Ben Cravens

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Allen D. Breck Award

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Breck Award for 2017

Steven Hrdlicka

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

“Me Thinks If I Were A Man”: An Analysis Of Dorothy Leigh’S Mother’S Blessing As A Response To Joseph Swetnam, Julia Combs

Quidditas

As one of the first and most popular female-male authored conduct manuals of the seventeenth century, Dorothy Leigh’s The Mother’s Blessing is usually placed in the company of private, domestic literature. However, it does not sit comfortably there. Leigh claims to forget herself, as she rhetorically navigates her way through the constraining but enabling genre of the conduct manual. In this paper, I position Leigh as one of the initial respondents to Joseph Swetnam’s pamphlet The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, froward and unconstant women . Swetnam also claimed forget himself, as he stirred up the ire of writers in …

Labouring For The Lost Love, Christine S. Williams

Quidditas

Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost often is considered a “problem play” because of its emphasis on word-play and its extreme “topicality” to a 16th-century, London audience. Yet imaginative staging reveals that the play actually provides excellent opportunities for connecting with our current millennial students and audience members.

A Dialogue On Disaster: Antichrists In Jewish And Christian Apocalypses And Their Medieval Recensions, Natalie E. Latteri

Quidditas

This paper examines textual and iconographic representations of antichrist personae in medieval Christian and Jewish manuscripts. Through a common language of polemics, Christians and Jews conflated antichrist personae to represent a more generalized category of apocalyptic antagonist that reflected the most significant temptations and threats to each respective religious community. As will be argued here, the greatest temptation and threat for Christians and Jews alike were those posed by members of the other religious group