History of Philosophy Commons^™

The Other, Derrida, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Review of Benoît Peeters' Derrida: A Biography

The Value Of Public Philosophy To Philosophers, Massimo Pigliucci, Leonard Finkelman

Faculty Publications

Philosophy has been a public endeavor since its origins in ancient Greece, India, and China. However, recent years have seen the development of a new type of public philosophy conducted by both academics and nonprofessionals. The new public philosophy manifests itself in a range of modalities, from the publication of magazines and books for the general public to a variety of initiatives that exploit the power and flexibility of social networks and new media. In this paper we examine the phenomenon of public philosophy in its several facets, and investigate whether and in what sense it is itself a mix …

Books And Our Human Stories, Paul H. Benson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

An essay on the impact of the works in the Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, an exhibition of rare books from the collection of Stuart Rose. Exhibition was held Sept. 29-Nov. 9, 2014, at the University of Dayton.

For What I Hate, I Do: An Investigation Of Weakness Of Will, Craig B. Knepley

Global Tides

In this paper, I argue that Alfred Mele's account of weakness of will (externalism) is more philosophically defensible than R. M. Hare's account (internalism). I explain why the phenomenon of weakness of will is philosophically troubling, then go on to spell out Hare and Mele's respective views. I entertain Austin's psychological objection to Hare, as well as the objection that Hare ultimately overreaches. I argue that Hare might respond to the first but not the second of these objections. I consider the free will objection to Mele's schema, in addition to Bratman's objection that such a schema is counter-intuitive. I …

Stephen James On The Challenge Of Human Rights: Origin, Development And Significance By Jack Mahoney. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 215pp., Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Challenge of Human Rights: Origin, Development and Significance by Jack Mahoney. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 215pp.

The Philosophical Approach To God: A New Thomistic Perspective, 2nd Edition, W. Norris Clarke, S.J.

Philosophy & Theory

This book is a revised and expanded edition of three lectures delivered by the author at Wake Forest University in 1979. Long out of print, in its new edition it should be a valuable resource for scholars and teachers of the philosophy of religion.

The first two lectures, after a critique of the incompleteness of St. Thomas Aquinas’s famous Five Ways of arguing for the existence of God, explore lesser-known resources of Aquinas’s philosophical ascent of the mind to God: the unrestricted dynamism of the human spirit as it reaches toward the fullness of being, and the strictly metaphysical ascent …

[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren

Bookshelf

The tension between ruler and ruled in democratic societies has never been satisfactorily resolved, and the competing interpretations of this relationship lie at the bottom of much modern political discourse. In this fascinating book, Thomas Wren clarifies and elevates the debates over leadership by identifying the fundamental premises and assumptions that underlie past and present understandings.

Words In Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy And Poetry, Music And Eros In Hölderlin, Nietzsche, And Heidegger, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

The Nature Of Science: A Perspective From The Philosophy Of Science, Juli T. Eflin, Stuart Glennan, George Reisch

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In a recent article in this journal, Brian Alters (1997) argued that, given the many ways in which the nature of science (NOS) is described and poor student responses to NOS instruments such as Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (NSKS), Nature of Science Scale (NOSS), Test on Understanding Science (TOUS), and others, it is time for science educators to reconsider the standard lists of tenets for the NOS. Alters suggested that philosophers of science are authorities on the NOS and that consequently, it would be wise to investigate their views of current NOS tenets. To that end, he conducted a …

The Patrilineal Discourse Of Enlightenment: Reading Foucault Reading Kant, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The English translation of Foucault's unpublished French manuscript addressing Kant's statement on enlightenment appeared in 1984, 200 years after the publication of Kant's essay. Foucault meant to entitle his essay as Kant did, but instead he gave it the interested and partially correspondent title What is Enlightenment? This is only a partial correspondence, because the full title of Kant's essay is Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? Foucault's title suppresses the fact that Kant's essay is not framed as a question, but as a definitive answer. This is present in the perfectiveness of the initial substantive; it is not an …

Seneca And The Schools Of Philosophy In Early Imperial Rome, Victoria Larson

Department of Classics and General Humanities Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Benedict De Spinoza, Translated By George Eliot, Benedict De [Baruch] Spinoza, George Eliot , Translator, Thomas Deegan , Editor

Electronic Reference Materials

The Ethics of Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was written in Latin 1664-65 and published posthumously the year of his death. Spinoza's statement of moral philosophy, inspired by the rationalism of Descartes and the Enlightenment, was considered heretical at the time. He was excommunicated by Jewish religious authorities and his writings proscribed by the Catholic Church. His works, however, proved a hiden influence on the thought Locke, Hume, Liebnitz, and Kant, and became one of the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition, with profound influence on the works of Hegel, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

George Eliot [Marian Evans] (1819-1880) prepared …

Styling Nietzsche: A Review Essay Of Jacques Derrida Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Any examination of a text by Derrida challenges us to begin with an inquiry into its style. ''The Question of Style" was in fact the originally announced title of this essay which Derrida has since changed to Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles (Èperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche). Style is often regarded as a somewhat extraneous aspect of the philosophical enterprise; it is thought to be a variable form or container which may obstruct our comprehension of the matter or spirit of philosophical communication. Now it is well known that Derrida's whole enterprise involves a challenge to the "logocentric" tradition of philosophy according …

Habit And Meaning In Peirce's Pragmatism, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The pragmatic movement has often been misunderstood; the most frequent misconceptions, which assimilated the philosophies of Peirce and James in particular to forms of positivism, reductionism, or crude voluntarism seem to be on the wane. Peirce's scholastic realism, his doctrine of signs, and his conception of truth as the unique and destined goal of inquiry now tend to receive the attention that was formerly reserved for his empiricism and pragmatism. A similar change in the estimation of James seems to be taking place insofar as his theory of truth is seen as much less simplistic than was formerly supposed; and …

The Philosophy Of Sri Ramana Maharshi, David Benjamin White

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was threefold (1) to derive the philosophy of the contemporary Indian sage who was known for the greater part of his life as Sri Ramana Maharshi; (2) to present this philosophy in English an accurately as possible; and (3) to explain it as clearly as possible in terms understandable to those not familiar with the Indian philosophical tradition.

Xxii. Philosophical Meaning, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

As we have seen, philosophy was one of the major contributions of Greek Civilization. It was the Greeks who gave it its first major impetus as well as its name, "the love of learning." This very phrase embodies the most important aspects of their contribution to the West: the love of the best or most excellent; the search for something beyond a description of immediate experience; and the attempt to grasp, in some comprehensive fashion, both the actual and the ideal, both the given and the possible. In order to accomplish this task philosophy has, as we have seen, traditionally …

1. The Logical Atomism Of Bertrand Russell, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

As can easily be seen, the impact of these three schools of contemporary philosophy — the linguistic, the logical analytical, and the logical empiricist — has been largely negative, critical, and destructive, especially with regard to theological beliefs, metaphysical systems, and value judgment. Thus the particular growing edges of contemporary philosophy have contributed their full share to the shaking of the foundations of Western Civilization. But, during the last few decades they have presented less of a united front than before. The differences which have appeared have come largely from a rethinking of the status and role of value, and …

4. Martin Buber, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXIII: Theological Meaning

In 1957 a little man of about eighty years gave a series of lectures at the Washington School of Psychiatry. He had come to the United States from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to speak under the auspices of an institution concerned with restoring to health the mentally ill or aberrant. The guest was a philosopher, not a renowned therapist. Yet for Martin Buber (1878- ) himself such a designation is both acceptable and unacceptable. On the one hand he concerns himself with the objective world as philosophy conceptualizes it. On the other hand his primary concern is not speaking …

2. The Instrumentalism Of John Dewey, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

The approach of John Dewey to philosophy, while influenced by many of the same factors which were important to Russell, and despite his agreement with Russell on many social issues, takes a radically different direction. Dewey sees a person's philosophy as more intimately and internally related to the social processes than does Russell. Instead of viewing it as primarily a means of analysis and clarification, Dewey sees the role of philosophy as a method of social reconstruction, and logic as a method of inquiry rather than a means of exploring the implications of analytical definitions and empirical facts. It is …

3. Whitehead's Philosophical Synthesis, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

In Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) we meet a philosopher who was born an Englishman and died an American, and whose thought combined the major recent philosophical contributions of both countries in a radically new and startling metaphysical synthesis. Unlike both Dewey and Russell, he sees in philosophy neither the individual nor the social creation of meaning, but rather adventurous exploration in the discovery of meaning. His approach, like Russell's, is individualistic and, like Dewey's, total rather than partial or limited. He drew both on the English analytical interest in psychology and sociology, while at the same time maintaining his own …

Dialectic As A Philosophical Method, Pierre Grimes

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Philosophy is the quest for wisdom and hence it may share a common end with religion. Not all philosophies are, however, concerned with this end, nor, again are all religions involved with a quest for wisdom. There may be different techniques and tools employed in the accomplishment of wisdom, but this dissertation is concerned only with the study of the nature and use of reason. In the philosophy of Plato reason is employed in diverse fields including mathematics, myths, and elaborate analogies, but when he turns to reason itself, then it becomes important to this analysis. Reason may be utilized …

An Oration, Delivered Before The Two Societies Of The South Carolina College, James Henry Hammond

Rare Books

An Oration, Delivered Before the Two Societies of the South-Carolina College on the Fourth of December, 1849, is a speech by James Henry Hammond discussing history, Francis Bacon, and other philosophers and statesmen. The speech includes some of Hammond's pro-slavery views.