Philosophy Commons^™

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 …

Assessing Asthma-Specific Health-Related Quality Of Life In Children With An Ecological Systems Approach, Jamyia Clark

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite initiatives and management efforts to minimize exacerbation and adverse outcomes, asthma remains a leading cause of childhood chronic disease in the United States. Environmental, personal, and social factors have been associated with an increase of asthma morbidity. However, little is known about how they cumulatively affect children's quality of life. This study applied a multifactorial conceptual model grounded by the ecological systems theory framework to ascertain which environmental, personal, and social factors were cumulatively associated with adverse health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with asthma ages 5-17 years. A national, cross-sectional survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System …

Capturing Transitional Justice: Exploring Colleen Murphy’S The Conceptual Foundations Of Transitional Justice, Margaret Urban Walker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Colleen Murphy’s impressive book presents a unified theory of transitional justice as a single, novel, distinct kind of justice, intended to guide normative evaluation of the choices transitional societies make in dealing with the past. I raise three central challenges to Murphy’s theory. First, how do we know that transitional justice is fundamentally a single special kind of justice that permits a grand unified theory? Second, is it plausible to hold, as Murphy claims, that societal transformation is the overarching aim or objective of transitional justice? Third, is transitional justice convincingly explained as pursuing societal transformation ‘through’ or ‘by’ dealing …

Anthropocentrism As Cognitive Dissonance In Animal Research?, Ellen Furlong, Zachary Silver, Jack Furlong

Animal Sentience

Harmon-Jones et al. (2017) make a thought-provoking suggestion in their commentary on Zentall (2016): Overlooked biases among researchers on animal cognition might lead them to discount the traces of higher-order cognition in animals they study. We find the suggestion both philosophically important and worth further reflection for animal scientists. Harmon-Jones et al. point to two “cognitive dissonance” biases involving the clash between the common human resistance to viewing ourselves as animals/meat-eaters and how these biases might lead to discounting possible advanced cognitive performances in the animals studied. We show how these biases might appear in cognitive research generally and argue …

Español (Y Castellano), José Del Valle, Vitor Meirinho

Publications and Research

El significando y traducibilidad de «español» está indefectiblemente ligado al vocablo «castellano», cuyo significado y traducibilidad resultan también inaccesibles si se ignoran los de aquel. Cualquier relato que persiga trazar la historia de este idioma y, especialmente, determinar su origen se encuentra con la coexistencia de, al menos, estas dos palabras. Esta sinonimia, que como tal se manifiesta imperfecta e incómoda, revela también la condición política de la lengua que designa, es decir, su participación en la construcción y cuestionamiento de subjetividades políticas –ya sean regionales, nacionales o sociales–. Es precisamente la condición política de la palabra –de «español», de …

Marsilio Ficino’S Neo-Platonist Concepts Of Power As Represented In Selected Paintings By Sandro Botticelli: A Study In Representation, Iconography, Iconology And Reasoning, Frank C. Martin, Ii

Theses and Dissertations

arsilio Ficino's Neo-Platonist assessments of differing aspects of powers or capacities associated with the human soul (spiritual, conceptual, influential, and the capacity to engender effects upon material reality), as represented within selected religious and secular paintings by Sandro Botticelli, are discussed in this study for an analysis of the innovative, syncretic conceptual unity of ancient North-African, MiddleEastern, Greco-Roman and early Christian and Medieval philosophical and theological traditions which are advocated by Ficino’s theoretical formulations. Botticelli's paintings are considered for the manner in which they may be understood, within the context of Ficino's conceptual systems, as externalizing, serving as a catalyst …

Can Neuroimaging In Dogs Have Practical Implications?, Tiffani J. Howell

Animal Sentience

Jealousy, or at least aggression, can be observed in dogs using neuroimaging techniques, but this response attenuates quickly following repeated exposure to the aggression-inducing stimulus. This may have a practical application. Early socialisation as a puppy, and habituation as an adult dog, could help prevent undesirable behaviours such as predatory behaviour. It is unclear whether these processes are the same, and affected only by the dog’s age. Neuroimaging could help us understand whether the same neurological processes underlie socialisation and habituation, and whether self-rewarding behaviours such as predatory behaviour could be stopped using socialisation/habituation techniques.

Against The Intentional Definition Of Argument, G. C. Goddu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Intentional definitions of argument, i.e. the conclusion being intended to follow from the premises, abound. Yet, there are numerous problem cases in which we appear to have arguments, but no intention. One way to try to avoid these problem cases is to appeal to acts, in which case one has to give up on the repeatability of arguments. One can keep repeatability and intentions if one resorts to act types, but then it appears that the problem cases re-emerge.

From Justice To Fairness: Does Kant's Doctrine Of Right Imply A Theory Of Distributive Justice?, Michael Nance, Jeppe Von Platz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The fact that Kant does not articulate a theory of distributive justice has not kept political philosophers from citing Kant as inspiration and support for whatever theory of distributive justice they favor - including those who argue that the notion of distributive justice is itself mistaken. This widespread reliance on Kant invites the question, "Does the Doctrine of Right imply a theory of distributive justice?"

To address this question, we discuss Paul Guyer's argument that Kant's Doctrine of Right implies, roughly, the principles of distributive justice as found in Rawls's justice as fairness. Guyer's argument is that Kant's theory of …

In Defense Of Penalizing (But Not Punishing) Civil Disobedience, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

While many contemporary political philosophers agree that citizens of a legitimate state enjoy a moral right to civil disobedience, they differ over both the grounds of that right and its content. This essay defends the view that the moral right to civil disobedience derives from (or is a facet of) a general right to political participation, and the characterization of that right as precluding the state from punishing, but not from penalizing, those who exercise it. The argument proceeds by way of rebuttals to criticisms of both claims recently advanced by Kimberley Brownlee. While in some cases those criticisms fail …

Sentient Plants? Nervous Minds?, Arthur S. Reber

Animal Sentience

The commentaries by Calvo (2018) and Mallatt & Feinberg (2017) on my 2016 target branch out from a common conceptual node like forks in a road. Calvo criticizes me for not acknowledging that plants too are likely to be sentient and claims I have fallen into the kind of category error of which I accuse others ─ a zoocentric bias that fails to grant consciousness to flora. Mallatt & Feinberg maintain that I've gone too far in granting sentience to any species that lacks a nervous system. Calvo makes some good points but there are other issues concerning plant sentience …

Nocifensive Behavior As Evidence For Sentient Pain In Fish, Marissol Leite Da Silva, Caio Maximino, Diógenes Henrique Siqueira-Silva

Animal Sentience

Fish nocifensive behavior can be studied and understood similarly to the way pain is studied and understood in more advanced vertebrates. Nocifensive behavior is a behavioral and physiological response to a noxious stimulus that leads to the fish avoiding it in the future. This behavioral flexibility is an important criterion for inferring pain sentience in fish. Modulation of the nocifensive behavior by anxiety, fear, or stress has already been demonstrated in zebrafish. The affective experiences of fish will not be identical to those of human beings, clearly. Empirical research will need to ascertain how similar they are.

Fish Are Smart And Feel Pain: What About Joy?, Becca Franks, Jeff Sebo, Alexandra Horowitz

Animal Sentience

Sneddon et al. rightly point out that the evidence of fish pain is now so strong and comprehensive that arguments against it have become increasingly difficult to defend in balanced academic discourse. But sentience involves more than just pain. Recent research indicates that fish have an impressive range of cognitive capacities, including the capacity for pleasure, in the form of play and other behaviors likely to involve positively valenced experience. Having made the case for pain, research can now focus on other aspects of fish sentience. Doing so will not only provide a more complete picture of the mental lives …

Ample Evidence For Fish Sentience And Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, David C.C. Wolfenden, Matthew C. Leach, Ana M. Valentim, Peter J. Steenbergen, Nabila Bardine, Donald M. Broom, Culum Brown

Animal Sentience

The majority of commentaries are supportive of our position on the scepticism that muddies the waters surrounding fish pain and sentience. There is substantial empirical evidence for pain in fish. Animals’ experience of pain cannot be compared to artificial intelligence (AI) because AI can only mimic responses to nociceptive input on the basis of human observations and programming. Accepting that fish are sentient would not be detrimental to the industries reliant on fish. A more proactive discussion between scientists and stakeholders is needed to improve fish welfare for the benefit of all.

Fake Or Not: Two Prerequisites For Jealousy, Juliane Bräuer, Federica Amici

Animal Sentience

Cook and colleagues (2018) use a novel approach to test jealousy in dogs. Although such a non-invasive approach is more than welcome in comparative research, several methodological shortcomings limit the impact of this study. We briefly outline two main problems. (1) There is no evidence that the fake dogs in the study were perceived as real, and thus as social rivals, which would be a prerequisite for jealousy. (2) It is questionable whether dogs generally show the cognitive prerequisites for jealousy, such as attentiveness toward a social rival, the ability to understand intentions, and a sense of fairness. We suggest …

Using Anthropocentrism To The Benefit Of Other Species, Vanessa Wilson

Animal Sentience

Chapman & Huffman (2018) argue that we should not consider humans as unique or superior to other animals when we have the chance to explore the diversity of the traits of other species. This is a valid and progressive point in our approach to research, but I suggest that an anthropocentric approach can have animal welfare benefits when it helps us perceive other species – especially distantly related ones such as crustaceans – in a human light.

Individuals In The Wild, Bob Fischer

Animal Sentience

If many wild animals have net negative lives, then we have to consider how likely it is that the good for animals, considered as individuals, aligns with the good for species, or the climate, or the preservation of wild spaces.

How To Foster Respect For Animals? Superiority, Dissimilarity, And Prejudice, Matteo Colombo

Animal Sentience

Chapman & Huffman (C & H) might be taken to argue as follows: Humans may treat animals however they want only if humans are superior to animals. But humans are not superior to animals. Therefore, humans may not treat animals however they want. Whatever its merit, this is not C & H’s actual argument. Their point, instead, is that humans often mistreat animals because they tend to perceive them as inferior. A remedy for animal mistreatment would then be acknowledging the deep similarities between us and animals. But is C & H’s suggested remedy likely to be effective to foster …

แนวคิดเรื่องความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาของมิแรนด้า ฟริกเกอร์, ภคมน สุภัคคุณธรรม

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์นี้มีจุดมุ่งหมายเพื่อวิเคราะห์มโนทัศน์เรื่องความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาของมิแรนด้า ฟริกเกอร์ (Miranda Fricker) ฟริกเกอร์แบ่งความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยาเป็นสองแบบ ได้แก่ความอยุติธรรมในการรับฟังคำบอกเล่าของผู้อื่น (Testimonial Injustice) หมายถึงการที่ผู้พูดถูกผู้ฟังตัดสินด้วยอคติที่มีต่อตัวผู้พูด และความอยุติธรรมในการตีความ (Hermeneutical Injustice) หมายถึงการที่บริบทของสังคมไม่เอื้อต่อการทำความเข้าใจประสบการณ์ของคนบางกลุ่ม โดยมีสาเหตุมาจากการที่ความรู้ของคนชายขอบไม่ถูกนำมารวมเป็นองค์ความรู้ของสังคม เธอเห็นว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยามาจากอคติ โดยแสดงออกมาในรูปของสามัญทัศน์ที่มีอคติแฝงอยู่ (Prejudicial Stereotype) ซึ่งสามารถแก้ไขได้โดยการใช้ความอ่อนไหวต่ออคติเพื่อจะไม่ตัดสินผู้พูดจากอคติที่แฝงอยู่ในสามัญทัศน์ วิทยานิพนธ์นี้จะอภิปรายข้อวิพากษ์ของนักญาณวิทยาต่างๆที่มีต่อข้อเสนอของฟริกเกอร์ ได้แก่ ลอร่า บีบี้ (Laura Beeby) ที่โต้แย้งว่าความอยุติธรรมในการตีความนั้นไม่ได้เป็นเรื่องเชิงญาณวิทยาแต่เป็นปัญหาจากสภาพสังคม และเจมส์ โบแมน (James Bohman) ที่แย้งว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมคือการครอบงำและจะแก้ปัญหานี้ได้ด้วยการสร้างพื้นที่ที่ปราศจากการครอบงำ ทั้งนี้ผู้วิจัยได้นำแนวคิดที่สนับสนุนฟริกเกอร์มาร่วมอภิปรายด้วย ได้แก่ ไซมอน เม (Simon May) ซึ่งเสนอตัวอย่างแย้งให้เห็นว่าความอยุติธรรมที่ไม่ได้เกิดจากการครอบงำนั้นมีอยู่ และแซลลี่ ฮาสแลนเจอร์ (Sally Haslanger) ที่อธิบายถึงจุดเริ่มต้นของอคติและเป็นการสร้างความชอบธรรมให้กับการจัดการสิ่งผิดปกติ วิทยานิพนธ์นี้ต้องการเสนอว่าสาเหตุของความอยุติธรรมเชิงญาณวิทยานั้นเกิดได้ทั้งจากอคติและการครอบงำ โดยอคตินั้นเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของสภาพสังคมที่มีการกดทับ ในขณะที่การครอบงำนั้นเป็นการทำให้สภาพสังคมดังกล่าวคงอยู่และสืบทอดอำนาจต่อไป ดังนั้นการแก้ไขปัญหานี้จึงต้องทำควบคู่กันไป ด้วยการส่งเสริมให้คนมีความตระหนักรู้ต่อความอยุติธรรมพร้อมกับการที่สถาบันเข้ามาสร้างให้คนรู้สิทธิของตนเองและไม่ปล่อยให้ถูกครอบงำโดยอคติ

The Classical Versus The Grotesque Body In Edith Wharton's Fiction, Joshua T. Temples

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton's "inconvenient" women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the "Angel in the House." The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to …

Jealousy In Dogs? Evidence From Brain Imaging, Peter Cook, Ashley Prichard, Mark Spivak, Gregory S. Berns

Animal Sentience

Domestic dogs are highly social and have been shown to be sensitive not only to the actions of humans and other dogs but to the interactions between them. We used the C-BARQ scale to estimate dogs’ aggressiveness, and we used noninvasive brain imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in their amygdala (an area involved in aggression). More aggressive dogs had more amygdala activation data while watching their caregiver give food to a realistic fake dog than when they put the food in a bucket. This may have some similarity to human jealousy, adding to a growing body of evidence that differences …

Situating The Study Of Jealousy In The Context Of Social Relationships, Christine E. Webb, Frans B. M. De Waal

Animal Sentience

Whereas the feelings of other beings are private and may always remain so, emotions are simultaneously manifested in behavior, physiology, and other observables. Nonetheless, uncertainty about whether emotions can be studied adequately across species has promoted skepticism about their very presence in other parts of the animal kingdom. Studying social emotions like jealousy in the context of the social relationships in which they arise, as has been done in the case of animal empathy, may help dispel this skepticism. Empathy in other species came to be accepted partly because of the behavioral similarities between its expression in nonhuman animals and …

Sentience In Fishes: More On The Evidence, Michael L. Woodruff

Animal Sentience

In my target article, I argued that the brains of ray-finned fishes of the teleost subclass (Actinopterygii) are sufficiently complex to support sentience — that these fishes have subjective awareness of interoceptive and exteroceptive sense experience. Extending previous theories centered on the tectum, I focused on the organization of the fish pallium. In this Response to the commentaries, I clarify that I do not propose that the fish pallium is, or must be, homologous to the mammalian neocortex to play a role in sentience. Some form of a functionalist approach to explaining the neural basis of sentience across taxa is …

Socratic Oblivion And The Siren Songs Of Academe: Responding To Anne-Marie Schultz’S “Stirring Up America’S Sleeping Horses”, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo, Terrell Taylor

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Definition Of Whole Person Care In General Practice In The English Language Literature: A Systematic Review, Hayley Thomas, Geoffrey Mitchell, Justin Rich, Megan Best

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

Objectives: The importance of ‘whole person’ or ‘holistic’ care is widely recognised, particularly with an increasing prevalence of chronic multimorbidity internationally. This approach to care is a defining feature of general practice. However, its precise meaning remains ambiguous. We aimed to determine how the term ‘whole person’ care is understood by general practitioners (GPs), and whether it is synonymous with ‘[w]holistic’ and ‘biopsychosocial’ care.

Design: Systematic literature review.

Methods: MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Proquest Dissertations and Theses, Science. gov (Health and Medicine database), Google Scholar and included studies’ reference lists were searched with …

Is Viewing A Painting Really Like Reading? An Investigation Of Trans-Symbolic Comprehension Processes, Christian C. Steciuch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Humans form mental models of the world around them. A large body of research has outlined these mental processes for comprehending texts, yet less work has been conducted in the world of comprehending artworks. The recent Trans-Symbolic Comprehension (TSC) Framework has posited that there are shared comprehension processes between the domains of text and artwork. The current study tested this claim by having individuals think-aloud while viewing paintings and reading texts. Think-aloud protocols were then parsed and coded for six distinct mental processes that the TSC framework claims are required for comprehension across symbol systems. It was hypothesized that individuals …