Philosophy Commons^™

Review Of The Slow Professor: Challenging The Culture Of Speed In The Academy, Rory J. Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I entered the academy having inherited a particular view of higher education from my mentors. They informed me about what I would face if I were lucky enough to land a teaching position. Not surprisingly, what they shared with me was an accurate foretelling of what I have experienced, including the exhausting Retention, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) process, with its focus on research, teaching, and service – and ranked in that order!

It was after a quarter century of being a professor that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the …

On Vulnerability: Distinguishing Differences Between The Knight Of Faith And The Knight Of Resignation In Kierkegaard's Fear And Trembling, Christopher G. Cross

Honors Theses

In Søren Kierkegaard's work, Fear and Trembling, he describes two kinds of individuals, which he calls the knight of faith and the knight of infinite resignation. The purpose of this thesis is to consider the differences between the two. Several scholars of the work identify different characteristics that distinguish the knight of faith and the knight of infinite resignation. These characteristics include care (Mooney), courage (Carlisle), and autonomy (Lippitt). This thesis uses those three notions to suggest that another difference between the knight of faith and knight of infinite resignation is the characteristic of vulnerability.

Attitudinal Changes In Experiential Learning Via Poverty Simulation, Madison E. Bandler

Honors Theses

More than 10% of people living in the United States are impoverished. These human beings are subjected to poor living conditions, experience increased mental and emotional stress, lack basic necessities, and are more susceptible to many health conditions. Lack of poverty awareness and understanding has contributed to the spread of misconceptions, the majority of which are damaging to the impoverished community. These misconceptions affect how impoverished individuals are viewed by health care professionals and influence the quality of medical treatment they receive. The Missouri Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) is an experiential learning tool that requires participants role-play a low-income …

Abortion: Drawing A Line Of Moral Permissibility In Fetal Development, Madison Elizabeth Nash

Honors Theses

The goals of this thesis are to first examine prominent arguments in philosophical and religious ethics regarding the morality of induced abortions, and then to create my own moral argument regarding induced abortion by drawing a line during fetal development. I will first discuss the biological stages of fetal development, the effects of pregnancy on a pregnant woman, and the mechanics of common induced abortion procedures. Next, I will present and analyze renowned philosophical arguments regarding the morality of abortion. Then, I will present and analyze arguments regarding the morality of induced abortions drawn from two religious traditions - Roman …

Recent Publications, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Appreciating Nature And Art: Recent Western And Chinese Perspectives, Glenn Parsons, Xin Zhang

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Landscape painting has played a significant role in shaping practices of nature appreciation in Western and Chinese cultures. Both cultures have also seen the recent emergence of philosophical views of nature appreciation that stress the importance of ecological understanding. However, these philosophical views differ in their response to the influence of the landscape painting tradition: whereas Western approaches have largely been critical, Chinese ecoaestheticians have embraced it. In this paper, we explore this difference and argue that it is not explained by differences between Western and Chinese art but by differences in Western and Chinese philosophers’ conceptions of ecology. We …

The Aesthetics Of Silence: A Matter Of Spatial Critique In The Works Of Marcel Broodthaers, Elsbeth Dekker

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In 1967 Susan Sontag published her essay, "The Aesthetics of Silence,” on the craving towards silence in artistic movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Even though it appears that notions of silence are still influential within the visual arts, theoretical writings on silence are nearly absent. This article explores how notions of silence emerged in the early works of Marcel Broodthaers, by scrutinizing his works, related to Pense-Bête, together with the writings of Susan Sontag and related ideas from Stéphane Mallarmé and Theodor Adorno. Through a vivisection of these early works of Broodthaers, this article argues how silence …

The Problem Of Thick Representation, Rafe Mcgregor

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to define the problem of thick representation and to show that the problem is a puzzle for representation rather than a puzzle for a specific art form or art, in general, as has previously been suggested. In the course of identifying and formulating the problem, I shall demonstrate why the solution proposed thus far fails to solve either the artistic problem at which it is aimed or the representational problem I define. I conclude by indicating two promising directions in which a solution might be found and by explaining the philosophical and critical …

The Ontological Foundations Of Digital Art, RóIsíN Lally

Leadership Studies Faculty Scholarship

In recent decades, the internet has become our predominant public space and yet the role of art in this space remains largely unthought. This paper argues that graphic art, and in particular digital graphic art, has great power to shape and transform our thinking and experience. But with that power comes an enormous political and ethical responsibility, a responsibility too often ignored by programmers and computer scientists. This paper uses the work of Denis Schmidt and Jacques Taminiaux as important resources for developing a Heideggerian response to this lack.

A Critical Examination Of Understanding’S Characteristics: Why, In A Sense, Understanding Is Unique, Christopher Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Is understanding a unique kind of epistemic state or simply another word for knowledge? Recently, there is a dispute in the literature between those, non-reductionists, who argue that we cannot reduce understanding to knowledge. Sliwa and Khalifa, two reductionists, on the other hand, argue that understanding is basically just another word for knowledge (if we are fairly comparing the two). After considering the dialectic between non-reductionists and reductionists, undogmatically, I argue that Sliwa's arguments in favor of reductionism fail. Sliwa's analytical argument in defense of reductionism is unsuccessful because a special kind of understanding, subjective understanding, can be independent of …

A Philosophical Exploration Of Motivated Ignorance, Michael Rowse

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Homonymy And The Comparability Of Goods In Aristotle, Robert Duncan

Dissertations

My dissertation will draw attention to an underexplored problem in Aristotle's theory of the good and advance two alternative proposals about how it can be solved. Aristotle endorses an inconsistent triad of premises concerning homonymy, comparability, and goodness. First, he argues that the good is homonymous: there is no single characteristic, goodness, which is shared by all good things. Rather, he argues that different kinds of good things require different accounts specifying what it is for them to be good. Second, he holds that homonyms are incomparable. If two things are homonymously F, then we are not entitled to claim …

Introduction, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To Psychological Aphistemalgia, Justin Manning

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Virtual Queerness: Resisting Heteronormativity In Online Spaces, Denise Springett

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Virtue, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

With the advent of contemporary virtue epistemology, many philosophers of knowledge have turned their attention to intellectual virtues and their role in the life of the mind. This entry examines two general concepts of intellectual virtue and the theoretical uses to which they have been put. It is shown that “reliabilist” and “responsibilist” approaches to virtue epistemology, while emphasizing different aspects of cognition, are more closely aligned than they initially appear to be. The ethical significance of intellectual virtues is also considered. In particular, intellectual virtues are shown to occupy an important role in moral perception and practical reasoning.

Philosophy And Theology: The Egg And I: Conception And Identity, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Flannery O’Connor And Religious Epistemology, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

What are the demands of religious inquiry? It can be tempting to think of these demands in strictly epistemic terms, e.g. as a function of the inquirer's background beliefs, cognitive faculties, natural cognitive ability, intellectual skills, and intellectual character. In this article, I extrapolate an alternative model of religious inquiry from three stories by the Southern Gothic writer Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964). According to the model, a person's fitness for religious inquiry also depends on whether she possesses a certain moral posture. In particular, I argue that something like moral humility functions as an epistemic virtue in the theistic domain.

Philosophy And Theology: The Ethics Of Circumcision, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Sex Reassignment Surgery, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy And Theology: Chemerinski And Goodwin On Abortion, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Creativity, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Virtues And Truth, Understanding, And Wisdom, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

This chapter addresses the proper end or aim of intellectual virtues. After distinguishing between two fundamentally different conceptions of intellectual virtue, the author considers the plausibility, with respect to each conception, of the “binary thesis,” according to which the proper aim of intellectual virtues is true belief and the avoidance of cognitive error. The author goes on to argue that if one understands intellectual virtues (as many virtue epistemologists do) as admirable traits of personal character—for example, as traits like curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility—then sophia or theoretical wisdom presents itself as a plausible way of understanding their …

How To Think Actuality? Schelling, Aristotle And The Problem Of The Pure Daß, Marcela Garcia Romero

Philosophy Faculty Works

In this paper, I address a problem of Schelling’s late philosophy: the relation between negative and positive philosophy, and the role of the “pure Daß” in the transition from one to the other. While the so-called transition is a well-known and much discussed issue, recent Schelling scholarship has underlined the difficulties involved in the mere notion of pure Daß. I propose that we can avoid some of these difficulties by taking into account Schelling’s particular and original interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of actuality (energeia) and the way he applies this notion in his late negative philosophy.I would like to begin …

The Many Faces Of Fear And Vigilance, Guy Beauchamp

Animal Sentience

In the target article, I examined the relationship between vigilance and fear in prey animals. The joint occurrence of vigilance and other physiological responses to fear, such as increased heart rate and stress hormone release, would bolster the idea that vigilance can be a useful marker of fear. Nevertheless, a common theme in much of the empirical research is an uncoupling of vigilance and physiological correlates of fear. The commentators suggest several ways to refine the concepts of vigilance, fear, and risk. I discuss these refinements, which in the end will prove useful to assess further the relationship between vigilance …

Notices, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

The Art Scenes, Jozef Kovalčik, Max Ryynänen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

"The art scene in Berlin is political." "The Atlanta hip hop scene is red hot!" These are remarks we have heard lately about scenes. Scenes are a commonplace in art talk. But what are scenes, and what is their role in arts? Aestheticians, art theorists, and art historians often pay attention to different scenes. Although many classics in the field are based on comments regarding only one scene, which is, for example, the case with Arthur C. Danto's "The Artworld" (1964) and Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp" (1964), which both focus on New York, there is still no discussion about …

Agnostic Moralism, Mark Silcox

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Many otherwise admired authors in the Western tradition (e.g. Plato, Augustine, and Tolstoy) have defended views about the radical dependence of aesthetic value upon morality that are nowadays regarded with deep skepticism. In more recent work on the connection between moral and aesthetic properties, Noël Carroll, Anne Eaton, Berys Gaut, and others have tried to defend relatively moderate varieties of moralism about art, according to which the aesthetic value of ethically significant artworks sometimes overlaps with but might also independently vary from their moral status. Here, I develop an immoderate species of moralism that treats the type of ethical knowledge …

Aesthetics In Digital Worlds, Ossi Naukkarinen, Darius Pacauskas

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Aesthetics is often seen as a philosophical academic discipline focusing on questions about art, beauty, the nature of aesthetic experiences, and many other related issues. However, there is another, non-academic side of aesthetics where similar issues are addressed. Non-academic cases of aesthetics, on the internet and elsewhere, far outnumber anything academic aestheticians can ever produce. However, how the picture of aesthetics looks like outside academia is not necessarily very actively considered in academic contexts, as professors, lecturers, and students tend to form their understanding of the field through scholarly literature and academic datasets. In this essay, we explore how close …

Replicating Paintings, Matteo Ravasio

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this paper, I discuss cases of replication in the visual arts, with particular focus on paintings. In the first part, I focus on painted copies, that is, manual reproductions of paintings created by artists. Painted copies are sometimes used for the purpose of aesthetic education on the original. I explore the relation between the creation of painted copies and their use as aesthetic surrogates of the original artwork and draw a positive conclusion on the aesthetic benefits of replica production by artists. A skeptical conclusion follows regarding the use of such replicas as surrogates for the original painting. The …