History of Philosophy Commons^™

The History Of Apologetics: A Collaborative Article Review, Isaiah B. Parker

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

In The History of Apologetics, the authors examine a variety of noteworthy Western apologists throughout seven distinct historical eras: Patristic, Medieval, Early Modern, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century (American), Twentieth Century (European), and Contemporary. Each chapter presents four essential elements relating to the life and work of one apologist: historical background, theological context, apologetic methodology and response, and critical contribution(s) to apologetics. They aim to provide an overview of influential apologists within their unique cultural contexts. This review structures its content in the same manner, albeit with some necessary minor changes to the elements for ease of reading. The historical …

Man-Machine Dialogues: Computer Representations And Appropriations In The Soviet Union And The United States, Ksenia Tatarchenko

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

What brought a plurality of information societies into existence? The global process of computerizations went hand in hand with political competition between the First and Second World during the second half of the twentieth century. Non-capitalist information societies were imagined and experienced under the socialistregimes alongside and in interaction with their better-known capitalist counterparts. Both capitalism and socialism asserted the power of the new machines to depict and create a better world.

Craft And Virtue In Plato's Early Dialogues, Cecilia Z. Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Ancient philosophers are preoccupied with the idea of craft (technê)—art, expertise, skill, and not infrequently translated as knowledge or science. The idea is often seen by ancient thinkers as the pinnacle of rational agency and offers them a vital paradigm for thinking about the world and our place within it. One longstanding tradition is the view that virtue shares important features with the sort of expertise involved in practicing a craft. In this thesis, I investigate the relationship between craft and virtue in Plato, focusing especially on the early dialogues. The overarching aim of this thesis is to …

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …

Desire Informing Philosophy In Plato: The Lover, The Tyrant, And The Citizen, Christian P. Bagrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Desire informs the good and examined life by giving meaning to and requiring training for human drives. In investigating Plato’s dialogues for how desire informs philosophy, comparison gives way to a genealogical hermeneutic; the obvious want to find changes or discrepancies in Plato’s texts, and Socrates’ words, gives way to interpreting congruent transformations of thought throughout his corpus. Specifically, this thesis evaluates desire’s multitude of signification and significance through the following the chronology: Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic, Statesman, and Laws. That human failing and ambition equally find desire couched between lack and satiation is radically reconsidered in the course of …

The Music Of Sylvano Bussotti And Its Interpretation: Biopolitics, Intersubjectivity, And Modernist Canon Formation, Charles A. Rudig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti (1931–2021) presents intentional challenges to interpretation and canonization. These particular challenges and Bussotti’s reasoning for implementing them are interrogated in this dissertation by reading the score to Bussotti’s La Passion selon Sade (1966) through contemporaneous European social theory, philosophy, and political developments. La Passion selon Sade is a theatre piece for a chamber ensemble, with a primary vocal and dramatic role written for mezzo-soprano Catherine Berberian, with whom Bussotti frequently collaborated. Like much of Bussotti’s music from the 1950s and 1960s, the discourse surrounding the piece and its reception largely relates to its …

Civil War And Power: A Theoretical Inquiry, Can Guven

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is a theoretical project that explores the conceptual nexus between civil war and power. It maps out a lineage of thought which posits civil war as a framework for explicating politics, not as a pre-political stage of savagery or a deteriorated condition of the socio-political order. Starting with Michel Foucault’s radical yet short-lived civil war thesis, which situates civil war as the matrix of relations of power, this investigation traverses the work of several theorists and philosophers who have drawn on, or departed from, this line of thought. It critically evaluates Giorgio Agamben’s use of the concept …

Inner Song Phenomenological Description Of A Musical Object Of Phantasy, Ellen Moysan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is the phenomenological description of a musical object of phantasy I call “inner song,” i.e., the music that the musician “sings in his or her head” while practicing his or her instrument. It describes the specific inner song of a single musician playing a melodic instrument, and rehearsing in a solipsistic situation. The description is based on three resources: my personal experience as a cellist; the third person experiences of other musicians I have interviewed on that topic since 2010; and the Husserlian corpus. Each chapter starts with excerpts of interviews focusing on specific aspects the inner song. …

Ethics And Mathematics – Some Observations Fifty Years Later, Gregor Nickel

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Almost exactly fifty years ago, Friedrich Kambartel, in his classic essay “Ethics and Mathematics,” did pioneering work in an intellectual environment that almost self-evidently assumed a strict separation of the two fields. In our first section we summarize and discuss that classical paper. The following two sections are devoted to complement and contrast Kambartel’s picture. In particular, the second section is devoted to ethical aspects of the indirect and direct mathematization of modern societies. The final section gives a short categorization of various philosophical positions with respect to the rationality of ethics and the mutual relation between ethics and mathematics.

Harmony And Complementarity: A Discussion With Bo Mou, Chenyang Li

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

An Overall-Complementarity-Seeking Account That Includes And Transcends Harmonious-Complementarity-Seeking Perspective: A Commentary On Chenyang Li’S Confucian Harmony-Seeking Account / Postscript, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

The Malagasy Ideal Of Fihavanana And Western Ethics, Casey Woodling

Comparative Philosophy

This essay explores various ethical dimensions of the important concept of fihavanana and its role in Malagasy ethics. As a first pass, we can say that fihavanana is a state of peace or harmony that people can achieve with others within their communities; it is modeled on the peace, harmony, solidarity, love, and closeness that is often seen in family ties. Understanding the role that fihavanana plays in the traditional ethics of the people of Madagascar does not come close to providing a complete picture of Malagasy ethics, but fihavanana is arguably the most crucial ethical concept for Malagasy. After …

Comparative What? Latin American Challenges To Philosophy-As-Worldview, Manuel Vargas

Comparative Philosophy

Attention to the details of putatively obvious examples of philosophy-as-worldview within Latin America give us reasons to be skeptical about the taxonomy that gives us the category of philosophy-as-worldview. Among the examples that suggest difficulties for this way of thinking about the philosophical enterprise are 19^th century Mexican ethnolinguistics, contemporary efforts to reconstruct historical and contemporary Indigenous thought, and 20^th century efforts to articulate regional ontologies within Latin America. However, reflection on these cases also point to a different project worth considering, namely, a taxonomy of wisdom- and knowledge-focused practices that might allow a different way of drawing …

Doing Philosophy Comparatively In India: Classical Indian And Western Philosophical Traditions In Engagement, Joseph Kaipayil

Comparative Philosophy

When Western philosophy was introduced to Indian academia in the late nineteenth century, there arose for Indian philosophers a two-fold need: the need to preserve the self-identity of Indian philosophy and the need to dialogue with Western philosophy. In their attempt to defend the distinctiveness of Indian philosophy, the philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century affirmed that classical Indian philosophy was essentially spiritual. The philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, however, did not have a compulsion to defend Indian philosophy in the face of Western philosophy. Many of them critiqued the traditional view about …

Doing Philosophy Comparatively In Southern Europe: Western, Mediterranean, Islamic And Other Perspectives In Engagement, Nevad Kahteran

Comparative Philosophy

Aiming to become a part of transcultural discourses and debates, the author argues in this paper for the use of transcultural approaches overcoming the traditional ones in doing philosophy comparatively in the Southern Europe. Within this framework, new forms of cross-cultural philosophizing in the Mediterranean philosophy will arise in the triangle among the Western Balkans, Italy and Greece as a transcultural exchange of knowledge and ideas including more than twenty surrounding countries in the Mediterranean basin. In this regard, the author is trying to find a way for deepening and broadening transcultural approaches concerning the Southern Europe in general and …

How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems In Theology And Church Posed By Modern Philosophy, Charles W. Westby

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Westby, Charles W. “How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems in Theology and Church Posed by Modern Philosophy.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2022. 347 pp.

This dissertation analyzes modern idealism as developed by René Descartes and Immanuel Kant to show how modern philosophy has impacted conservative theology, focusing on the theology of Carl F. H. Henry. The relationship between theology and philosophy is analyzed in terms of foundationalism, using postliberal theological analysis propounded by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck. Speech Act Theory as propounded by J. L. Austin and John R. Searle is used to critique modern idealism in …

Expecting Blows: Sylvia Wynter, Sociogeny, And Exceeding Marxist Social Form, Sara-Maria Sorentino

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

This article examines the relationship between Sylvia Wynter’s sociogenic principle and the question of “social form” in the critique of political economy. Despite their diverging emphases (the symbolic over the material, the slave over the laborer, sociogeny over social form), both Wynter and Marx pursue theoretical modes of inquiry that account for how empty reality principles reside over the reproduction of historical content and consciousness. In turning to the disavowed terms that heterodox Marxism, from value-form to world-systems theory, seeks to resuscitate, Wynter retains elements of Marxism’s interest in social forms reimagines the terms through which Marx’s critique can be …

​​​​From Repression To Appropriation: Soviet Religious Policy And Reform, 1917-1943, Andriy Dyachenko

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyses the dynamics of religious reform in the USSR from 1917 to 1943. It argues that the early Bolshevik policy of persecution was increasingly substituted by state co-optation. This dynamic was shaped primarily by Stalinist concerns with state security and problems of ideology.

Negation & Acosmism: Hegel's Acosmist Reading Of Spinoza, Jared Jones

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I argue that Spinoza's views on negation are coupled with a view of being which, although Hegel misunderstands it to an extent, makes it impossible for finite things to exist, as Hegel's "acosmist" reading of Spinoza maintains. I begin by arguing that acosmism would present an internal problem for Spinoza's system in the Ethics, framing the importance of the topic and showing why Hegel's interpretation, as an interpretation, does not work. After that, I first provide an account of Hegel and Spinoza's views on negation. In the process, I give an account of Hegel's views on …

Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff

Journal of Religion & Film

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …

"For You There Are No Strangers": Albert Schweitzer And The Ethics Of Necessity In Pandemic America, Joel (J.T.) Young

Faculty Scholarship

Claiming millions of lives and affecting millions more, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust humanity into a period of intense reflection on the fragility of life. However, in this time when people have been encouraged to care for their fellow human beings by taking the precautions necessary to protect one another, many have asked the same question as one of Jesus’ antagonistic opponents in the Gospel of Luke: “and who is my neighbor?” In addition to the virus, though, the United States has been plagued by another adversary: non-necessity toward the other. By claiming no responsibility for the well-being and care …

“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

The second conjunct of the Republic’s account of justice—that justice is “not meddling in the work of another”—has been neglected in Plato literature. This paper argues that the conjunct does more work than merely reiterating the content of the first conjunct—that justice is “doing one’s own work.” I argue that Socrates develops the concept at work in this conjunct from its introduction with the Principle of Specialization in Book II to its final deployment in the finished conception of justice in Book IV. Crucial to that concept’s development is the way in which the notion of “another” comes to …

Imagination As Thought In Aristotle's De Anima, Matthew Small

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Aristotle appears to indicate in various passages in the De Anima that imagination is a kind of thought, and my thesis attempts to make some sense out of this claim. I examine three possible interpretations of the claim that imagination is a kind of thought and eliminate two of them. The first states that Aristotle only calls imagination a kind of thought in a superficial “in name only” sense. The second, more radical interpretation, identifies images as the most basic kind of thoughts. My final chapter defends a more moderate position—inspired by Avempace and the early Averroes—which steers between the …

The Cynics' Understanding Of And Contribution To Philosophy, Yossra Hamouda

Theses and Dissertations

The Cynics are an understudied school in the history of philosophy especially, if we compare the amount of literature written on the Cynics to the amount of literature written on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other Greek schools like the Epicureans, the Neo-Platonists and even the Stoics. The lack of research interest in the Cynics, both from the side of philosophers and historians, is possibly grounded in a lack of interest in understanding the Cynical conception of philosophy. Unless we take a serious interest in understanding the Cynical conception of philosophy, we risk reducing the Cynics to the historical clowns of …

Shinran As Global Philosopher, Sarah Mattice

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

Gutoku Shinran (1173-1263) is one of Japan’s most creative and influential thinkers. He is the (posthumous) founder of what ultimately became Jōdo Shinshū, better known today as Shin Buddhism, the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in Japan. Despite this, his work has not received the global attention of other historical Japanese philosophical figures such as Kūkai (774-835) or Dōgen (1200-1253). The relationships of influence between Shin Buddhism in general—or Shinran’s work more specifically—and earlier Chinese sources, especially non-Buddhist sources, are complex, rarely examined in much detail, and often buried under layers of interpretive difficulties, made all the more challenging …

Theory Of Knowledge In The Tretise Of Al-Gazali “Al-Kistasu-Lmustakim” (Right Scales), Kodirov Davronbek

The Light of Islam

Today, one of the urgent tasks of the social sciences is the construction of the Third Renaissance in our country, the transfer of the heritage of our ancestors to the younger generation, and their education in the spirit of moral and spiritual ideas based on Islamic philosophy. Therefore, it is important to study and research the sources that underlie the religious and philosophical views that have been formed and consolidated in our country for centuries. One of these philosophical writings is Al-Qistasu-l-Mustakim (Right scales) by Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad alGhazali, a thinker, lawyer, philosopher, and mystic who lived and …

Le Secret D’Une Pyramide : Diderot, La Double Doctrine Et L’Encyclopédie, Rudy Le Menthéour

French Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Sexual Difference In Plato's Timaeus, Mary Cunningham

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

My dissertation is a reading of Plato’s Timaeus that centers sexual difference and in particular femininity. I analyze the role of sexual difference in the framing of the dialogue as well as its accounts of body in the first and second discourse and its account of health in the third discourse. I argue that sexual difference, and, in particular, sexual reproduction, serves as a guiding paradigm of Timaeus’ entire project. I argue in each part of my dissertation that various aspects of the Timaeus depend on a certain notion of sexual difference—even aspects which are seemingly causally prior to the …

Do Androids Dream Of Improvisation?, Aidan J. Samp

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Why Are They Called Real Numbers If They Aren’T Real, And Other Such Questions?, Rahmat Rashid

Honors Program Theses

This thesis studies the position of mathematical realism (the position that mathematical objects have ontological status) through history, starting with Pythagoras up until W.V.O Quine, and examining how these positions originate from each other. I hope to see how the position has changed and why, and provide an argument against the strongest of the realist positions, drawing on this extensive background. Finally, I advance my own argument against the strongest arguments for mathematical realism, and propose alternatives to a view of mathematical realism.