Continental Philosophy Commons^™

The Human 'As-If'-Function And Its Loss In Schizophrenia, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Thinking Too Much. The Psychopathy Of Hyperreflexivity, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Body Memory And The Unconscious, Thomas Fuchs

Phenomenology Center Annual Symposium

No abstract provided.

Paul Piccone’S Providential Moment: Phenomenology, Subjectivity, And 20th Century Marxism In Telos, Jacob A. Ulmschneider

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intellectual history of editor, writer, and philosopher, Paul Piccone and Telos, an independent journal of contemporary critical theory, which he founded in 1968. Born in Italy, Piccone lived most of his life in the United States, earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo in 1970. Piccone served as Telos’ editor and a major contributor from 1968 to 2004. This thesis follows the trajectory of his thought by contextualizing his writing within the broader world of Marxist, and eventually post-Marxist, political philosophy. Telos also concerned itself with modern interpretations of historical dialectics and early 20^th-century …

Into The Wilds: Influences From Video Games On Our Perception Of 'Nature', Toryn W P Rogers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this paper I examine how representations of human-sparse natural environments, e.g. wilderness, influence what expectations we have when we actually engage with comparable physical places. I use Don Ihde's phenomenology of technology to describe my own experiences playing three games that take place among large photorealistic human-sparse natural environments: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Horizon Zero Dawn, and theHunter: Call of the Wild. I also conduct a brief literature review on the effects of video games as interactive media on players. I argue that players are capable of applying their expectations of what constitutes realism from digital to physical environments, …

Digitization Of The World: A Phenomenology Of Digitization, Thomas C. Adolphs

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The dissertation analyzes digitization through a phenomenological lens, understanding the digitization as an “outgrowth” of a potential that was always already latent within our being as the human-being. The analysis primarily utilizes the philosophic work of the 20^th century philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Through their philosophies, I seek to synthesize Heidegger’s concept of de-severance with Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of embodiment and the world as possessing depth. In doing so, I bring these theoretical concepts together to build a phenomenological “picture” of how it is that the digitization of the world came into being. All the while, my ultimate …

The Varieties Of Place-Based Education, Laureen Park

Publications and Research

Traditionally, the predominant focus of Place-based educational (PBE) theories and practices has been the natural environment. The focus of this chapter will be on urban and digital environments as incubators of the PBE goals of experiential learning, interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, ethical reflection, and other goals. The framework used to interpret and analyze the various senses of place is based on the notions of the lifeworld, personalistic attitude, noesis and noema, all concepts found in Edmund Husserl’s Ideas I and II. Urban and virtual places share the characteristic of being built, which has resonances for the interactivity and engagement …

Motivation And The Primacy Of Perception, Peter A. Antich

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

In this dissertation, I provide an interpretation and defense of Merleau-Ponty's thesis of the primacy of perception, namely, the thesis that all knowledge is founded on perceptual experience. I take as an interpretative and argumentative key Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological conception of motivation. Whereas epistemology has traditionally accepted a dichotomy between reason and natural causality, I show that this dichotomy is not exhaustive of the forms of epistemic grounding. There is a third type of grounding, the one characteristic of the grounding relations found in perception: motivation. I argue that introducing motivation as a form of epistemic grounding allows us to see …

Phenomenology And Blindness: Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, And An Alternative Metaphysical Vision, Jesse Younger Workman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project addresses the problem of an "ocularcentric" bias in philosophy, with a focus on phenomenological and continental thought. Being a blind phenomenologist, I noticed an ocularcentric tendency dominating philosophers' perspectives, including their arguments, use of metaphors, and choices of examples. As a blind reader I found that such ocularcentrism prevented me from understanding their claims. This made me wonder whether ocularcentric biases might be leading them to unbalanced or invalid arguments and world-views. The questions raised are: Can there be philosophy that is not reliant on vision above all other senses? Is it possible for philosophy to not be …

Missed Appropriations: Uncovering Heidegger's Debt To Kierkegaard In Being And Time, Kenneth David Geter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is widely held that Martin Heidegger appropriated several existential concepts from Søren Kierkegaard in his 1927 work, Being and Time. Most scholars agree that Heidegger did not sufficiently credit Kierkegaard. What was the extent of the appropriation, and why did Heidegger not duly cite Kierkegaard? This work will focus on the concept of anxiety which appears throughout Being and Time and which was influenced by the concept of the same name presented in Kierkegaard's 1844 work The Concept of Anxiety. It will also be seen how the structure of Being and Time closely resembles that of Concept …

Why Ontologize?, Melvin Woody

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Marion Helps Us To Understand Kierkegaard’S Fear And Trembling, Mark Tazelaar

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

In the past decade, many interpretations of Fear and Trembling highlight the significance of the “eschatological”—the marvel of Abraham’s expectation that he will get Isaac back. For these interpretations, the central issue is the contrast between the knight of faith and the knight of resignation. Merold Westphal, however, contends that these interpretations lead us away from the main contrast between the hero of faith and the tragic hero. Kierkegaard scholarship is at an impasse. I argue that Marion’s phenomenology of sacrifice, together with the important idea of veritas redarguens that he appropriates from Augustine, offer insights that can resolve the …

A 'Paradox Of Expression': Bertolt Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt In Performance, Cohen L. Ambrose Mr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Critical-Reflective Thinking: A Phenomenology, Margot D. Wielgus

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation formulates and describes a type of thinking called critical-reflective thinking. Examples of critical-reflective thinking appear in the works of many major Western philosophical figures, including the main thinkers considered here, Plato, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Henry David Thoreau. Although this list of thinkers is eclectic, these philosophers come together in describing a common phenomenon, although they do not thematically designate or explain it. Their works illustrate a type of thinking in which people are invited by prompting events to consider their presuppositions—notions they have taken as true without prior consideration. I have deemed this phenomenon “critical-reflective thinking” …

Philosophy's Rarified Air: On Peden's Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Urban Desertification.2014.Pdf, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 8.5px Times} My thesis is that current cities and the way that cities are beingdeveloped is unsustainable and poses global problems for the long-termflourishing of the world’s inter-related and interdependent economies, formatters of justice and happiness in socio-cultural relations between peoples,and for the health of our natural environments. I argue that ‘urbandesertification’ happens in the complex relationship between cities (both urbanand suburban) and rural environments that support them as both a natural andethical phenomenon that I study using a form of analysis calledphenomenological ethics. First, I briefly present sketches of phenomenologyand sustainability in …

Heidegger And Our Twenty-Fi Rst Century Experience Of Ge-Stell Theodore Kisiel, Theodor Kisiel

Research Resources

I propose an etymological translation of Ge-Stell, Heidegger’s word for the essence of modern technology, from its Greek and Latin roots as “synthetic com-posit[ion]ing,” which presciently portends our twenty-first century experience of the internetted WorldWideWeb with its virtual infinity of websites in cyberspace, Global Positioning Systems, interlocking air traffic control grids, world-embracing weather maps, the 24-7 world news coverage of cable TV-networks like CNN, etc., etc.—all of which are structured by the complex programming based on the computerized and ultimately simple Leibnizian binary-digital logic generating an infinite number of combinations of the posit (1) and non-posit (0). The sharp …

Urban Desertification And A Phenomenology Of Sustainability: The Case Of El Paso, Texas, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 8.5px Times} My thesis is that current cities and the way that cities are beingdeveloped is unsustainable and poses global problems for the long-termflourishing of the world’s inter-related and interdependent economies, formatters of justice and happiness in socio-cultural relations between peoples,and for the health of our natural environments. I argue that ‘urbandesertification’ happens in the complex relationship between cities (both urbanand suburban) and rural environments that support them as both a natural andethical phenomenon that I study using a form of analysis calledphenomenological ethics. First, I briefly present sketches of phenomenologyand sustainability in …

Bringing Back Color, Bringing Back Emotion: Exploring Phenomenological Empathy In The Reclamation Of The Female Nude In Painting, Sophia R. Forman

Scripps Senior Theses

At the nexus of the seemingly disparate art-theoretical topics of color and the female nude is a critical consideration of phenomenology in both one of its most basic senses—as the first-person experience of perceived phenomena—and as a larger philosophical position which, through its abstraction of perception to subject-object relationships, implicates the painted figure. Specifically, this paper conflates the phenomenology of color with the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in investigating empathy. Structured as a dialectic, it establishes the most prominent views of both color and the female nude—the nude as a symbolic figure, color as perceptual experience—before …

Sense-Making Bodies: Feminist Materiality And Phenomenology In Constructive Body Theologies, Heike Peckruhn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Constructive body theology provides an ethical commitment to and a set of analytical principles for understanding bodily experience. If we insist upon the theological value of embodied experience, how can we give an adequate account of it? Are feminist appeals to the senses useful in developing theological truth claims based in embodied experiences? Feminist theologies which explicitly seek to overcome body/mind dualisms often reinscribe them when they neglect to attend to perception as a critical element of bodily experience. Phenomenological analyses of perception (such as suggested by Merleau-Ponty) strengthen and refine our conception of embodiment. Grounding constructive theology in experience …

From Being To Givenness And Back: Some Remarks On The Meaning Of Transcendental Idealism In Kant And Husserl, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant’s and Husserl’s versions of it. I present Kant’s transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant’s transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. He thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the quid iurisquestion, and provides a new conception of …

Husserl’S Concept Of The ‘Transcendental Person’: Another Look At The Husserl–Heidegger Relationship, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in …

Continental Philosophy In Britain And America, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Continental, or as it is sometimes called, contemporary European philosophy represents a range of approaches to academic philosophy distinguished from the analytic modality dominating professional or institutional philosophy in the United Kingdom and in the United States, as in Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Where the analytic tradition itself may be said to trace its own roots to Europe, e.g., positivism may be traced to France and its originator August Comte, and logical empiricism to Germany and to Austria and the writings of Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein and the members of the Vienna Circle, continental philosophy expresses an ideological tradition …

Getting At The Rapture Of Seeing: Ellsworth Kelly And Visual Experience, Leo J. O'Donovan Sj

Research Resources

Leo J. O'Donovan offers an art-critical account of the American artist Ellsworth Kelly including a comprehensive overview of his career and his attention to color and to vision. O'Donovan explores context and situation to raise questions of painterly color and atmosphere:

Citation:

Leo J. Donovan, "Getting at the Rapture of Seeing: Ellsworth Kelly and Visual Experience." In: Babette Babich, ed., Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh’s Eyes, and God: Hermeneutic Essays in Honor of Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), pp. 295—300.

Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Science is distinguished as an element of our total contemporary culture, or “historical science,” from science as the professional business of natural scientists, or “experimental science.” Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biases -- objectivism, scientism, technicism -- it has found in historical science. It is my purpose to show that these defects and biases, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science. The notion of dialectic is given …

Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Research Resources

Science is distinguished as an element of our total contemporary culture, or “historical science,” from science as the professional business of natural scientists, or “experimental science.” Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biases -- objectivism, scientism, technicism -- it has found in historical science. It is my purpose to show that these defects and biases, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science. The notion of dialectic is given …

Hermeneutics Of Experimental Science In The Context Of The Life-World, Patrick A. Heelan

Research Resources

As an element of our total contemporary culture, "historical science" may be distinguished from "experimental" science as the professional business of natural scientists. Phenomenology has always taken a very critical stance against certain defects or biasses -- objectivism, scientism, techicism -- it has found in historical science. I show that these defects and biasses, associated historically with physical science, are not necessary parts of physical science, and consequently, that physics, especially experimental physics, has all of those hermeneutical, ontological, historical and dialectical dimensions negated by historical science.

Quantum Mechanics And Objectivity - Table Of Contents And Preface And Acknowledgments, Patrick A. Heelan

Research Resources

This book deals with the 'crisis of objectivity' and the 'crisis of realism' which overtook physics when Heisenberg and Bohr consciously rejecting the intentionality-structure of classical physics, gave physics a new form and a new philosophy. The new physics was called quantum mechanics and the new philosophy was called complimentarity. Using the method 'analysis of horizons,' the author attempts to disentangle the epistemological and ontological pesuppositions of Heisenberg's view of complementarity. A similar analysis of Bohr's view of complimentarity reveals a remarkable contrast in basic philosophy between the two founders of quantum physics. The author distinguishes various kinds of objectivity …