Continental Philosophy Commons^™

Dialogical Interspecies Ethics: Ataraxia, Desire And Hope In The Post-Human World Of Anne Carson's Pastoral, Thomas Bristow Dr

The Goose

This review essay implicitly revisits human and non-human power relations within a critical animal studies context that understands the affective conjunction between the manipulation of our worlds (action, partly through knowledge) and degrees of involvement with these others that live in our worlds (comportment via emotions). I take Louise Westling’s new study as the platform for an analysis of two book-length poems, The Autobiography of Red (1998) and red doc> (2013), which centre on the life of a shepherd, Geryon. Rather than revisit classical pastoral, these texts extract power-relations that classical myth and pastoral spatialise. In so doing, I argue, …

Why Ontologize?, Melvin Woody

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Moving Back To The 18th Century View's Of Women's Role And Perception Of Their Lives: The Case Of Motherhood, Yelena Liepelt

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This project will explore the role of French women of the 18th century, and specifically the problems they faced due to their gender. I will analyze the obstacles that made it difficult for strong women, such as physicist and author Madame du Châtelet, to obtain happiness. These include the complicated identity of educated and ambitious women who lived within a strict gender binary system.

I will compare Châtelet’s concept of happiness from a female perspective to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s view of women’s happiness and maternity. Rousseau believed women played an important role in society; however, their existence was always relative to …

The Possibility Of The Gift, Bruno Cassara

Akadimia Filosofia

Like many others who work in continental philosophy, Jean-Luc Marion has written on the gift and its possibility. His essay attempts to refute Jacques Derrida’s conclusion that the gift as such is impossible, as its structure is in fact always one of exchange within an economic horizon. Marion first presents the gift as it appears within the horizon of economy and identifies the reasons for the impossibility of the gift. He therefore reasons that the gift must be examined under another, more primordial horizon—givenness, where the gift becomes possible as non-self-identical and unconditioned possibility. This paper provides an alternative solution …

Das Gestell And Human Autonomy: On Andrew Feenberg's Interpretation Of Martin Heidegger, Zachary Peck

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In my thesis, I examine the relationship between modern technology and human autonomy from the philosophical perspective of Martin Heidegger. He argues that the essence of modern technology is the Gestell. Often translated as ‘enframing,’ the Gestell is a mode of revealing, or understanding, being, in which all beings are revealed as, or understood as, raw materials. By revealing all beings as raw materials, we eventually understand ourselves as raw materials. I argue that this undermines human autonomy, but, unlike Andrew Feenberg, I do not believe this process is irreversible from Heidegger’s perspective. I articulate the meaning of the …

Thriving, Not Just Surviving, On Food Stamps, Sam L. Mccaughey

Senior Honors Projects

Food insecurity has been a persistent element in the history of the United States. Efforts to address the problem - and the larger issue of poverty - have been wide-ranging, but the debate about how best to respond to hunger has often centered on the relative roles of government and charity. Often that debate has led to hybrid solutions that combine government sponsored welfare such as food stamps and community-based food relief programs such as food banks. Yet, even such complementary approaches leave many people’s needs unmet, and there remains a significant population, both across the country and in Rhode …

Personal Identity And Angelic Touch In Wim Wenders' Wings Of Desire, Chris Venner

Journal of Religion & Film

Wenders' Wings of Desire offers a rich tapestry for theorists of personal identity and its relationship to the Other. Set in a Berlin where angels walk among humans, it depicts those angels reorienting humans' lives with but a touch. Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze also theorize the Other's touch as central to any change in the self. Bringing Wenders' film into dialogue with their theories offers new insights into the film's central question, “Why am I me and not you?”

The Binding Of Abraham: Inverting The Akedah In Fail-Safe And Wargames, Hunter B. Dukes

Journal of Religion & Film

This article draws upon Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death to trace how two exemplars of atomic bomb cinema reinterpret the Binding of Isaac (Akedah). Released during the twin peaks of Cold War tension, Fail-Safe (1964) and WarGames (1983) invert the Akedah of Genesis 22. In both films, an act of sacrificial patricide accompanies or replaces the sacrifice of an Isaac-like son. When viewed in the context of Cold War cultural politics—events such as Norman Morrison’s Abrahamic self-immolation and Kent State’s rejection of George Segal’s sacrificial memorial— the inverted Akedah emerges as …

Course Syllabus (Sp15) Coli 214 Literature & Society: "Societies Of Discipline And Control", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course description:

Optics is central to the arts of producing human subjects and governing our spatiotemporal deployment of vital forces. Yet, in the transition of societies from industrial to post-industrial modes of production, there seems to have occurred a parallel shift in governmental focus from merely producing and disciplining subjects at the material level to controlling them at the ideological. In this discussion-driven course, we will turn to works of theory and fiction in order to examine the basic tenets of discipline and control and consider the extent to which these social practices diverge and converge in our present era.

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 …

The Fragility Of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, And Democratic Activism By William E. Connolly, Brian Mccormack

The Goose

Review of William E. Connolly's The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism.

“Lucian Blaga On The Difference Between Minor And Major Cultures: An Excerpt From The Third Chapter Of Ființa Istorică.”, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Religion As Philosophy And Art In The Work Of Lucian Blaga, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article introduces the thought of the Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga on religion as a cultural creation that has value apart from questions of the truthfulness of religious doctrines. According to Blaga, religion has considerable aesthetic and philosophical significance. The article places this insight within the context of Blaga’s metaphysical vision and his analysis of epistemology and illustrates it with a new translation of one of his most famous poems.

Lucian Blaga Si Filosofia Contemporana.Docx, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

“Lucian Blaga și Filosofia Contemporană.” In Lumina din Cuvinte: Antologie, edited by Irina Petraș, 67-71. Cluj-Napoca, România: Editura Școala Ardeleană, 2015.

On The Hallelujah Efect: Priming Consumers, Recording Music, And The Spirit Of Tragedy, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

An overview of The Hallelujah Effect concentrating on priming or sonic branding, media, online porn as well as marketing and media programming, with a special excursus on the space of music --and radio in Adorno's Current of Music, and a detailed discussion on Nietzsche and music in antiquity as he explores this with reference ot Beethoven in The Birth of Tragedy.

Nietzsche's Antichrist: The Birth Of Modern Science Out Of The Spirit Of Religion, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Nietzsche argued that the Greeks were in possessions of every theoretical, mathematical, logical, and technological antecedent for the development of what could be modern science. But if they had all these necessary prerequisites what else could they have needed? Not only had the ancient Greeks no religious world-view antagonistic to scientific inquiry, they also lacked the Judeo-Christian promissory ideal of salvation in a future life (after death). Subsequently, when Greek culture had been irretrievably lost, what Nietzsche regarded as the "decadent" Socratic ideal of reason ultimately and in connection with the preludes of religion and alchemy developed into modern science …

The ‘New’ Heidegger, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

If discussion of “new” approaches to Martin Heidegger contradicts Heidegger’s own indictment of the passion for “novelty” in philosophy, today’s Black Notebooks scandal reminds us of the ontic problem of new news. Indeed the backwards working evidence of the notebooks kept before, during, and after WWII both vindicates and problematizes his notion of temporality temporalizing from the future -- lapsing into the past -- setting up what is now regarded as patent in the present. Simultaneously, we see that if heretofore many philosophers of technology sought to dismiss engagement with Heidegger’s critique of technology, these critical contributions turn out to …

Calling Science Pseudoscience: Fleck’S Archaeologies Of Fact And Latour’S ‘Biography Of An Investigation’ In Aids Denialism And Homeopathy, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudo-science. I am especially concerned with scientists who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudo-science including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudo-science version of the demarcation problem turns …

The Philosophical Differences Between Heisenberg And Bohr, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

Chapter from: Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. With a foreword by Michel Bitbol. Edited and with a foreword by Babette Babich. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015.

Naturalism, Causality, And Nietzsche's Conception Of Science, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is a disagreement over how to understand Nietzsche’s view of science. According to what I call the Negative View, Nietzsche thinks science should be reconceived or superseded by another discourse, such as art, because it is nihilistic. By contrast, what I call the Positive View holds that Nietzsche does not think science is nihilistic, so he denies that it should be reinterpreted or overcome. Interestingly, defenders of each position can appeal to Nietzsche’s understanding of naturalism to support their interpretation. I argue that Nietzsche embraces a social constructivist conception of causality that renders his naturalism incompatible with the views …

Nietzsche's Conception Of Truth: Correspondence, Coherence Or Pragmatist?, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Nearly every common theory of truth has been attributed to Nietzsche, while some commentators have argued that he simply has no theory of truth. This essay argues that Nietzsche’s remarks on truth are better situated within either the coherence or pragmatist theories of truth than the correspondence theory. Nietzsche’s thoughts conflict with the correspondence framework because he believes that the truth conditions of propositions are constitutively dependent on our actions.

The Uncertainty Relations, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. With a foreword by Michel Bitbol. Edited and with a foreword by Babette Babich. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015.

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

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

Economies Of Violence, John Protevi

Faculty Publications

I discuss "economies of violence," comparing non-state (acephalic forager bands and horticultural chiefdoms) and state societies. Capital punishment and tolerated personal revenge in forager bands is both anti-war and anti-state, while some chiefdoms practice war as an anti-state practice.

Partial Minds: The Strategic Underrepresentation Of Consciousness In Postwar American Novels, Nathan A. Shank

Theses and Dissertations--English

Partial Minds argues that contemporary American novels strategically break conventionally-defined norms for the representation of fictional minds to highlight unusual character thoughts. Certain states of mind—including traumatic experiences, conflicting feelings, some memories, and the simultaneous possession of multiple identities—are more difficult to represent than others, and so some authors or narrators reject conventional cognitive representations, such as naming feelings, if they seem poor tools for effectively communicating that character’s exceptional quality to the reader. For example, the trauma of Marianne in Joyce Carol Oates’s We Were the Mulvaneys is represented by the narrator, her brother Judd. But in attempting to …

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” …

The Life Aquatic: Liquid Poetics And The Discourse Of Friendship In The Faerie Queene, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

From Michel de Montainge’s essay “Of Friendship” to Jacques Derrida’s rearticulation of the former in The Politics of Friendship, scholars both early modern and modern have sought ways to address the fluid co-mixture of bodies from which the discourse of friendship can and does emerge. More recently still, new materialist thinkers of ontology have begun to shift our attention to the ways both human and nonhuman bodies inter-animate in the making of political, interpersonal, and artistic life worlds. Together with these investigations, I argue that an aquacentric account of relation is necessary to think the subject of friendship …

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

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Practicality Of Statistics: Why Money As Expected Value Does Not Make Statistics Practical, Sean Reimer

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis covers the uncertainty of empirical prediction. As opposed to objectivity, I will discuss the practicality of statistics. Practicality defined as "useful" in an unbiased sense, in relation to something in the external world that we care about. We want our model of prediction to give us unbiased inference whilst also being able to speak about something we care about. For the reasons explained, the inherent uncertainty of statistics undermines the unbiased inference for many methods. Bayesian Statistics, by valuing hypotheses is more plausible but ultimately cannot arrive at an unbiased inference. I posit the value theory of money …