History of Philosophy Commons^™

Homoeopathy During One Hundred Years Of Lmhi (1925–2025)– Part 1: Philosophical Perspectives, Josef M. Schmidt

Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy

The celebration of 100 years of “Liga medicorum homoeopathica internationalis” (LMHI) in 2025 gives reason to reflect on the philosophical essence of Homoeopathy as well as its historical development within a dynamic, changing world up to now.

From a philosophical perspective, in this first part, it is pointed out that Hahnemann, the founder of Homoeopathy, needs to be understood in his entirety– not only as a keen discoverer, practitioner and thinker, but also in his spiritual shape, i.e. in his ethical, religious and humanitarian attitude and conviction.

Only thus may one grasp the significance of the schism pervading Homoeopathy’s history …

Nature Naturing In And As Place, Edward S. Casey

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

In this brief article, I single out two distinctly different kinds of natural place, attempting to show how these not merely contrast with each other but display larger patterns or tendencies that are also found in many other sorts of place. This is to take one integral step to a larger ecology of places provided by the natural world and from which human and nonhuman beings draw life and motion that sustain and support many ways of existing on earth. Without such places, we—and every other form of life—would perish or would not even exist to begin with. It is …

"Let Your Body Do The Talkin'": An Investigation Of Aesthetic Experience Through Phenomenological Psychology, Tone Roald, Anders Essom-Stenz

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

How does the experience of one’s own body contribute to aesthetic experience? This article answers the question from the point of view of phenomenological psychology by portraying how the body is lived from within in intense experiences with works of visual art. Based on descriptions of aesthetic experiences juxtaposed with phenomenological insights about the body and, in particular, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts on concrete and abstract movement, it is shown how the lived body gives form to the experience. The experience of one’s own body reflects the expressions of the works of art and comprises not only movement, and with it …

Emotions As Work Material: On Dancers' Refined Use Of Affectivity, Camille S. Buttingsrud

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

As part of their professional practice, dancers allow their affectivity to enhance their kinesthetic work. Their intentional and disciplined use of personal, emotional resources ensures both creativity, interpretation, absorption, and connections in ways that extend beyond the traditional phenomenological understanding of affectivity as pre-reflectively based. The affective regulations dancers employ can be seen as an “artistic epoché,” and their layered performance awareness corresponds with Edmund Husserl’s descriptions of “image-consciousness.” Through qualitative interviews with three professional dancers, phenomenological theory, and additional supportive literature, this article shows how affectivity can be experienced through high-order levels of Leib, constituting states of “bodily …

Introduction: Duquesne Studies In Phenomenology Volume 5, Jeffrey Mccurry

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

No abstract provided.

A Place For Ancient Philosophy In Axial Age Historiography, John R. Shook

Comparative Philosophy

Long-standing debates over historiographical approaches to the Axial Age have distracted the history of philosophy from its own disciplined inquiry into the breadth and depth of ancient thought beyond the Greeks. The philosopher Karl Jaspers offered a vista for seeing commonalities among ancient innovations and discerning continuities along history to modern times. That dual agenda divided Axial historiography with the question of whether axiality reflects creativities of ancient systems or have modern reflections created images of axiality. A singular chronology for humanity encourages a mode of philosophical history open to providential designs, epochal turns, spiritual evolutions, psychological leaps, or cognitive …

A Constructive Engagement Between Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy And Latin American & Latine Liberatory Philosophy, Alessandro R. Moscaritolo Palacio

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I bring into dialogue a movement in Latin American social and political philosophy – which I have named Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy – and a Western, or more precisely global North, philosophical movement sometimes called Ordinary Language Philosophy. By ‘Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy’, I refer to a movement, adumbrated at the dawn of the 19^th century and developed during the 20^th century, whose guiding theme is the political, social, and cultural liberation of Latin America (and global South peoples more generally). By ‘Ordinary Language Philosophy’, on the other hand, I refer …

Prison-Breaking From Plato's Cave, Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the philosophical significance of nature (ϕύσις) in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The word is used in the protasis of the conditional clause at 515bc where Socrates proposes to inquire into ‘what the manner of the release and healing from these bonds and this folly would be if in the course of nature (ϕύσϵι) something of this sort should happen to them’. This instance of ‘nature’ has been a matter of philological and philosophical debate, with attention paid principally to the narrow passage of the allegory for reconstructing Plato’s meaning. This article argues from the standpoint of …

The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through a selection of and close reading of key passages, I offer an interpretation of Hamlet that seeks to illuminate the play as an important work of moral philosophy, and to situate the play within a strand of moral philosophy named moral perfectionism by Stanley Cavell. Indeed, Hamlet is a masterpiece of Renaissance drama, but when read with attention to moral perfectionism, the play yields additional layers of meaning. Hamlet is a “philosophical drama” that navigates the “moral calling of philosophy”—a text that seems to, almost uncannily, elicit the audience to think reflectively, to ask fundamental human questions along …

Plato’S Moral Realism By Lloyd Gerson (Review), Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Plato’s Moral Realism by Lloyd Gerson.

The Fangs Of Philosophy: Religious Experience As A Persuasive Device, Lukas A. Dunford

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

The philosophical systems of Plato and Lucretius use the religious experience to compel readers into their distinct philosophical versions of reality. This compulsion is necessary for philosophy. This study’s three philosophical systems reappropriate this experience from the existing structures of religion to violently produce conviction in readers. The religious experience is not window dressing over the arguments of the philosophical systems, but a necessary component that reorients the audience into a new discursive reality. Ultimately, the philosophers we examine will show how the knowledge structure of philosophy becomes able to grip the audience, consuming them into its reality – how …

On The Interpretation And Analytics Of Cogito, Ergo Sum, Jacob H. Riggs

2025 Symposium

Descartes’ famous axiom, “cogito, ergo sum,” was supplied as a supposedly viable first principle of philosophy. According to Descartes, this foundation is so clear and distinct that through our knowledge of it we can deduce nearly any other information we seek to establish as true. Descartes himself contends that the deductions proceeding from this foundation rival those of mathematics and geometry in certainty. The research conducted here aimed at discerning the veracity of Descartes’ claim concerning the validity of the Cogito as a first principle. To determine the validity of Descartes’ principle, first the efficacy of his rationalist …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Nietzschean Expressivism, Cameron Jackson

Theses

What is Nietzsche’s metaethical stance? Does he even have one? We can, I argue, reconstruct an interesting metaethical view from his writings. Rather than focusing narrowly on his claims about moral judgement, I explore Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology broadly in order to argue that he is best interpreted as holding an emotivist type of expressivism. The function of moral judgement lies within its affective and action-guiding nature, and its communal role of coordinating our evaluative attitudes with one another.

The Grand Narratives: The Rise And Fall Of Universal Philosophical Systems, Gavin S. Litchford

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis reviews the development of narrative and systematic methods of argumentative legitimation in the Western tradition of philosophy from its conception until the present day. Utilizing both primary sources from central figures in key movements within this development process and supplementary secondary sources, this analysis notes which systems were used as appeals to higher authority and the trends in the adoption and transformation of new models. It is demonstrated that the Enlightenment era punctuated a progression begun in the premodern era from simple, cultural narratives to individualized, subjective, and self-perpetuating Grand Narrative systems, and that it generated the preconditions …

Historical Criticism According To Abu Ali Ahmad Bin Muhammad Bin Yaqoub Miskawayh 320-421 Ah / 932-1030 Ad: His Book The Experiences Of Nations And The Succession Of Desires Is An Example, Mamdouh Gh. Barry, Adnan Melhem

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Objectives: There are many references that specialize in Miskawayh's moral philosophy, especially books, as well as precise and specialized research, while we did not find this interest among researchers in the subject of historical criticism at Miskawayh, except for a few published and peer-reviewed scientific researches, which covered limited aspects about his approach to writing history, and his style in recording the narratives of the first sedition was absent from them, especially during the reign of Othman bin Affan, and what happened during the reign of Ali bin Abi Talib, as well as Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan, and did not …

Phi 243 Early Modern Philosophy, Naomi Zack Phd

Open Educational Resources

This course will introduce the student to key authors and texts in the history of modern western philosophy, from the 17^th and 18^th centuries--Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The focus will be on metaphysics (what exists) and epistemology (how we know, what knowledge is and what we know); universal human identity (what am I? and what makes me the same person?); what some philosophers thought the role of God is in metaphysics and epistemology. Included will be historical contexts of the philosophers studied, and their religious claims.

Epicurus And The Buddha On Desire, Andrew Alwood

Comparative Philosophy

The philosophies of Epicurus and the Buddha aim to free us from suffering by helping us to recognize how ignorance and delusion lead us to pursue harmful desires. Since the problem lies in our attitudes, the solution is to change our attitudes. Like doctors healing the sick, they offer therapeutic practical advice, to remove the groundless opinions and the unhealthy desires that cause suffering. Although various misconceptions may lead us to conceive of these two thinkers as quite different with respect to values and ethics, there are remarkable similarities. Indeed, their practical advice for how to live has the same …

Johann Georg Hamann And The Liberal Project, Jesse D. Ansley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the political thought of Johann Georg Hamann, his relationship to liberalism, and the importance to modern concerns for consensus formation and intercultural dialogue. This contributes to the line of literature sparked by Isaiah Berlin debating the political legacy of Hamann and its relation to the development of modern politics. Berlin labels Hamann an anti-rationalist whose current developed into the ideology of the Nazi party. My work supports the countervailing arguments that Hamann’s work is importantly different from the Romantics he inspired and even more so from the Nazis. By examining two complete works and a number of …

Review Of Of Rule And Office: Plato’S Ideas Of The Political, By Melissa Lane., Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, by Melissa Lane.

Manila As Sophie’S World: Mapping Sites Of Wonder In 19th C. Intramuros And Environs, Jovino G. Miroy

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

This paper draws a philosophical heritage map of Intramuros

and environs. The map includes several religious sites in

Intramuros and two monuments of heroes outside the walls. The

paper explains the reason for drawing such a map by, firstly,

discussing the theory of place-based learning. Secondly, it will

discuss the philosophical walk as a dialogue with the

environment (nature and the city). A philosophical heritage

map is also understood not only as a tour of sites associated with

philosophers and the history of ideas but a movement along sites

of wonder, rumination, contemplation, and critical thinking. As

such, walking as …

Male Fantasies: The Search For Female Sexuality In Ancient Greek Thought, Sophie J. Guthrie

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Feminine sexuality has often been viewed through the lens of male desire. There are many paths one may take to analyze this issue. In this essay, I turn to ancient Greek texts to search for the meaning of a feminine sexuality. I will analyze various scientific, philosophical, and poetic ancient Greek works to better understand the prevalent beliefs at the time. I will begin by looking at the ancient Greek medical explanation of women’s bodies, particularly their sexual organs. Then, I will turn to female sexuality through the lens of a male narrative in ancient Greek texts. In the end, …

Hannah Arendt As Hermeneutic Phenomenologist: Natality And The Miracle Of Philosophy, Andrew H. Marquis

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

I argue that Hannah Arendt practiced hermeneutic phenomenology in the canonical mode of her mentor, Martin Heidegger. Hermeneutic phenomenology is not a philosophical school defined by methods, results, or topics. It is a practice of transformative thinking by which we work through the burdens of who and how we have been towards the possibilities of who and how we could be. Heidegger, burdened by the scientism of his philosophical milieu, articulated this practice not by rejecting scientistic philosophies outright but by interpretively recovering their most promising tendencies.

Though seldom recognized as a hermeneutic phenomenologist, Arendt’s philosophical response to Nazism reveals …

Expression In Spinoza’S Metaphysics Of Attributes, Emilio Esquivel Marquez

Pomona Senior Theses

Spinoza is famous for his insistence on the fundamental unity of all things, but he never explains how diverse metaphysical elements can join up to form a unified substance. I argue that this gap in his argument is not an obstacle for Spinoza's systematic metaphysics: although he does not justify the unity-variety relation in strictly rationalist terms, his system is founded on a basic posit that guarantees their union. I describe this central posit, the concept of “expression,” through a detailed reading of Spinoza’s pivotal argument for the diversity of attributes in Ethics 1P10S. I propose that Spinoza’s theory of …

Reconciling Theory And Praxis. Defending Subjective Agency Against Althusser's Structuralism - Daniel Guerrero, Daniel Guerrero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Louis Althusser labels Marx’s early works as humanist, pseudo-materialist, and self-contained within the ideology of German idealism. Therefore, all attempts to develop a Marxist theory based on these works are futile and ideological. Instead, Althusser proposes a ‘scientific’ reading of Marx developing a structuralist theory based on dialectical materialism. I argue that his interpretations deny individual agency and reduce social relations to mechanistic processes, which directly conflicts with fundamental Marxist ideas like alienation, production, and species-being. By discussing authors within the Marxist Humanist tradition, I argue that a theoretical framework based on Marx’s early works is not only possible, but …