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Articles 181 - 210 of 1360

Full-Text Articles in History of Philosophy

A Russellian Analysis Of Buddhist Catuskoti, Nicholaos Jones Jul 2020

A Russellian Analysis Of Buddhist Catuskoti, Nicholaos Jones

Comparative Philosophy

Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to no analytic resources beyond those of standard predicate logic. The strategy is elegant, because it is, in effect, an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions to Buddhist contexts. The strategy imposes some minor adjustments upon Russell's theory. Attention to familiar catuṣkoṭi from Vacchagotta and Nagarjuna as well as more obscure catuṣkoṭi from Khema, Zhi Yi, and Fa Zang motivates the …

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‘I Have Regained Memory’ (Smṛtir Labdhā): The Bhagavad Gītā As A Parrhesiastic Journey Against Forgetfulness, Raquel Ferrández-Formoso Jul 2020

‘I Have Regained Memory’ (Smṛtir Labdhā): The Bhagavad Gītā As A Parrhesiastic Journey Against Forgetfulness, Raquel Ferrández-Formoso

Comparative Philosophy

This paper proposes an interdisciplinary reading of the Bhagavad Gītā, presenting it as a parrhesiastic dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, and focusing on the importance attached to memory. Foucault’s studies on the exercise of parrhesia (“true speech”) in the Greco-Roman context, but also Heidegger's views on the original memory, and Abhinavagupta’s commentary to the Bhagavad Gītā have been used as important tools of interpretation. Devotion is described as the constant memory of Kṛṣṇa, through which the practitioner succeeds in substituting some subconscious dispositions (saṃskāras) for others, building a psychic memory that allows for liberation at the time of …

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The Yi-Jing Cosmic Model: With An Application Of An Alternative To Neoliberalism, Harry Donkers Jul 2020

The Yi-Jing Cosmic Model: With An Application Of An Alternative To Neoliberalism, Harry Donkers

Comparative Philosophy

Based on Yi-Jing we present an elaborated version of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity that consists of immanent and transcendent processes via the void (Wu-ji), the oneness (Tai-ji), the twofold (Yin and Yang), the fourfold (duograms) and the Five Phases in combination with the eight trigrams (Ba-Gua) to reproduction and the innumerable beings. The duograms are further discussed in a quadrant system with axes derived from pattern li and vital energy qi. The model has similarities with Libbrecht’s model of comparative philosophy, but also differences. It is further consistent with the quadrant system …

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De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn Jul 2020

De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

One fateful day on March 26, 1521, a lowly Augustinian monk was cited to appear before the Diet of Worms.[1] His habit trailed behind him as he braced for the questioning. He was firm, yet troubled. He boldly proclaimed: “If I am not convinced by proofs from Scripture, or clear theological reasons, I remain convinced by the passages which I have quoted from Scripture, and my conscience is held captive by the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract, for it is neither prudent nor right to go against one’s conscience. So help me God, …

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Humanism In The Americas, Carol W. White Jul 2020

Humanism In The Americas, Carol W. White

Faculty Contributions to Books

This chapter provides an overview of select trends, ideas, themes, and figures associated with humanism in the Americas, which comprises a diversified set of peoples, cultural traditions, religious orientations, and socio-economic groups. In acknowledging this rich tapestry of human life, the chapter emphasizes the impressive variety of developments in philosophy, the natural sciences, literature, religion, art, social science, and political thought that have contributed to the development of humanism in the Americas. The chapter also features modern usages of humanism that originated in the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century. In this context, humanism is best viewed as a contested …

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Berkeley On Infinite Divisibility, David Mwakima Jun 2020

Berkeley On Infinite Divisibility, David Mwakima

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Berkeley, arguing against Barrow, claims that the infinite divisibility of finite lines is neither an axiom nor a theorem in Euclid The Thirteen Books of The Elements. Instead, he suggests that it is rooted in ancient prejudice. In this paper, I attempt to substantiate Berkeley’s claims by looking carefully at the history and practice of ancient geometry as a first step towards understanding Berkeley’s mathematical atomism.

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Berkeley On Perceptual Discrimination Of Physical Objects, Keota Fields Jun 2020

Berkeley On Perceptual Discrimination Of Physical Objects, Keota Fields

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Commentators are divided over whether Berkeley holds that physical objects are immediately perceived by sense. As I read Berkeley, discrimination is necessary for perceiving physical objects by sense. Berkeley says that discrimination requires perceiving motion. Since motions can only be mediately perceived according to Berkeley, physical objects can only be mediately perceived by sense. I defend this reading against the following objections. First, that perception of physical objects is non-conceptual. Second, that physical objects are divinely instituted collections of ideas rather than psychologically associated collections of ideas. Third, that some physical objects are small enough to be immediately perceptually discriminated …

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Browne’S Critique Of Religious Propositions In Berkeley: A Reply To Pearce, Benjamin Formanek Jun 2020

Browne’S Critique Of Religious Propositions In Berkeley: A Reply To Pearce, Benjamin Formanek

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Does Berkeley Anthropomorphize God, Kenneth Pearce Jun 2020

Does Berkeley Anthropomorphize God, Kenneth Pearce

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Berkeley occasionally says that we use analogy in thinking and speaking of God (Alc, §4.21). However, the scholarly consensus is that Berkeley rejects the traditional doctrine of divine analogy and holds instead that words like ‘wise’ apply to God in precisely the same way as they apply to Socrates. The difference is only a matter of degree (Daniel 2011; Curtin 2014; Pearce 2018; Fasko 2018). Univocal theories of the divine attributes have historically been charged with anthropomorphism—that is, with imagining God to be too similar to human beings (see Maimonides, Guide, ch. 1.1). Can Berkeley fairly be charged with anthropomorphizing …

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Day 3 Schedule, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Day 3 Schedule, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Thomas Reid And The Priority Thesis: A Defence Against Turri, Benjamin Formanek, Lewis Powell Jun 2020

Thomas Reid And The Priority Thesis: A Defence Against Turri, Benjamin Formanek, Lewis Powell

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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What Makes Hume An External World Skeptic?, Graham Clay, David Landy, Nathan Rockwood Jun 2020

What Makes Hume An External World Skeptic?, Graham Clay, David Landy, Nathan Rockwood

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

What would it take for Hume to be an external world skeptic? Is Hume's position on knowledge sufficient to force him to deny that we can acquire knowledge of (non-logical) propositions about the external world? After all, Hume is extremely restrictive about what can be known because he requires knowledge to be immune to error. In this paper, I will argue that if Hume were a skeptic, then he must also deny a particular kind of view about what is immediately present to the mind. I will argue that direct realisms—views that maintain that mind-independent (i.e. ontologically distinct) things are …

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Cancelled - Berkeley's A Priori Argument For God's Exstence, Stephen H. Daniel, Alberto Luis Lopez Jun 2020

Cancelled - Berkeley's A Priori Argument For God's Exstence, Stephen H. Daniel, Alberto Luis Lopez

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood as the creator of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should …

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Kant’S Long Shadow On The Interpretation Of Swedenborg, Hasse Hämäläinen, Alin Varciu Jun 2020

Kant’S Long Shadow On The Interpretation Of Swedenborg, Hasse Hämäläinen, Alin Varciu

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Among the readers of Swedenborg, the Swedish thinker’s ‘theory of correspondences’ is often interpreted as treating empirical realities as only imperfect manifestations of spiritual realities (e.g. Lamm 1915, Benz 1948, Beiser 2002). This interpretation that ascribes (Platonic) idealism to Swedenborg was originally proposed by Kant in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). Although Kant criticizes Swedenborg’s theory, he considers it no inferior to the theories of Leibniz and Wolf, which can entice a reader of Swedenborg to take Kant’s interpretation at face value: even if Kant did not agree with Swedenborg, at least he took him to be on par …

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Cavendish And Berkeley On Inconceivability And Impossibility, Peter West, Colin Chamberlain Jun 2020

Cavendish And Berkeley On Inconceivability And Impossibility, Peter West, Colin Chamberlain

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

In this paper, I compare Margaret Cavendish’s argument for the view that colours of objects are inseparable from their ‘physical’ qualities (such as size and shape) with George Berkeley’s argument for the view that secondary qualities of objects (such as colours, tastes, and sounds) are inseparable from their primary qualities (such as size and shape). By reconstructing their respective arguments, I show that both thinkers rely on the ‘inconceivability principle’: the claim that inconceivability entails impossibility. That is, both premise their arguments on the claim that it is impossible to conceive of an object that has size and shape but …

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Day 2 Schedule, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Day 2 Schedule, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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The Middle Standpoint In Spinoza’S Ethics, Raphael Krut-Landau, Kristin Primus Jun 2020

The Middle Standpoint In Spinoza’S Ethics, Raphael Krut-Landau, Kristin Primus

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Spinoza’S Formal Essence, Christopher Martin Jun 2020

Spinoza’S Formal Essence, Christopher Martin

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Spinoza stipulates in E2def2, his definition of the essence of a thing, that the essence of each particular can neither exist nor, even, be conceived, except alongside its particular. Yet a mere eight propositions later states that God maintains an idea of the essence of nonactual particulars “in the same way as the formal essences of the singular things are contained in God’s attributes” (E2p8). While there are known interpretive controversies with each of these claims, I argue that according to E2def2, essences of particulars can only be and can only be conceived alongside the actual existence of their particular, …

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Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

“Do your students struggle with Spinoza’s geometric exposition, and if so, how do you get them past it?”

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Malebranche’S Alleged Idealism, Fabio Malfara, Dylan Flint Jun 2020

Malebranche’S Alleged Idealism, Fabio Malfara, Dylan Flint

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Over the span of eleven years (1683-1694), Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld, two prominent sympathizers of the Cartesian tradition, engaged in a rigorous debate. In his initial set of criticisms, Arnauld objects that a natural consequence of Malebranche’s theory of ideas is idealism.1 This charge of idealism has puzzled scholars: why did Arnauld believe this? Han Adriaenssen2 has convincingly argued that Arnauld’s charge of idealism is founded on the representationality of Malebranchean ideas. According to Arnauld, ideas represent for Malebranche in much the same way that portraits do—by inciting a perceiver to form a conception of whatever they pertain to. …

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Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

“Why is it important that philosophers study the history of philosophy and why should we continue to teach it? Alt formulation: Why should programs continue to have history of philosophy courses as degree requirements?”

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Descartes And The Monstrous Thesis, Evan Thomas, Zachary Agoff Jun 2020

Descartes And The Monstrous Thesis, Evan Thomas, Zachary Agoff

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Welcome And Introductory Remarks, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Welcome And Introductory Remarks, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Cancelled - The Ontological Status Of Cartesian Possibilia, Daniel Stermer, Marc Bobro, Liz Goodnick Jun 2020

Cancelled - The Ontological Status Of Cartesian Possibilia, Daniel Stermer, Marc Bobro, Liz Goodnick

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

In this paper I present a novel view of the ontological status of possible objects for Descartes. Specifically, I claim that possible objects just are innate ideas considered objectively. In the act of creation, God creates possibilities—in all its richness—in the form of innate ideas. Thus, in acts of thinking, one may clearly and distinctly perceive, via one’s innate ideas, that such and such is possible. To argue this, I first analyze and critique two competing views—one from Calvin Normore who claims that innate ideas represent an independent realm of possibilia, and another from David Cunning and Alan Nelson who …

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Day 1 Schedule, Benjamin Hill Jun 2020

Day 1 Schedule, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

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Ood For The Ghosts: Reading Ruin’S Being With The Dead With Nietzsche, Babette Babich Jun 2020

Ood For The Ghosts: Reading Ruin’S Being With The Dead With Nietzsche, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

A focus on roots, localizations, usurpations, and obliterations together with commemoration and different fields of scholarly research, along with a thematic focus on Homer’s Nykia, permit Hans Ruin to revisit the foundations of history in Being with the Dead. Ruin draws on cultural sociology, including the work of Alfred Schütz, as well as Heideggerian historicity and the dead of the distant past, including archaeology and ethnography, paleography and physical anthropology. Ruin also engages Michel de Certeau’s Writing of History and its focus on the other in a necropolitical account tracked through interdisciplinary fields. In my reading I supplement Ruin’s critical …

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Hannah Arendt’S Vision Of Politics: Exemplary Negativities And The Ostjuden, Jacob E. Pearce Jun 2020

Hannah Arendt’S Vision Of Politics: Exemplary Negativities And The Ostjuden, Jacob E. Pearce

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hannah Arendt’s vision of politics is one of the most enigmatic, perplexing, thoroughly analyzed, and potentially generative aspects of her philosophic corpus. It is marked by insightful analysis, cutting deconstructions of pressing moral issues, and confusing vernacular wherein her analytic boundaries, topics, and categories appear obfuscated. Although it has been observed that Arendt’s late-career theory of the political owes a debt to her earlier writings on Jewish history, including her Kantian-influenced theory of political judgment and storytelling, in this thesis I would like to narrow down this debt to a specific trope: The Ostjuden, or the imagined associations with Eastern …

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British Romanticism And The Paradoxes Of Natural Education, Catherine S. Engh Jun 2020

British Romanticism And The Paradoxes Of Natural Education, Catherine S. Engh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“British Romanticism and the Paradoxes of Natural Education” offers a distinct perspective on Romantic-era ideas on “natural” education and human development. Though the Romantic retreat into nature has long been understood as a break from the Enlightenment’s programmatic commitment to the progress of reason, I contend that the ideas on natural development of four canonical Romantic authors—Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mary Shelley—actually originate in the ideas of one of the foremost figures of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Natural education is doomed to failure in Rousseau’s thought because “nature” is paradoxically a social construct. I argue that …

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Relations And Folds In Leibniz: Monadological Intimacy, Jeff Lambert May 2020

Relations And Folds In Leibniz: Monadological Intimacy, Jeff Lambert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My goal is to provide a clear explanation of Leibniz’s notoriously difficult system of relations. Relations among ‘windowless’ substances that exert no causal power over one another seems like a pipe dream that should be abandoned. However, I demonstrate that each substance expresses its relations only through the unique representation of all other substances. That is, any relation a substance expresses is due to this unique, perspectival, non-causal, representation of others. Because this is the case for all substances, this means that this relation of representation is an ongoing process of interconnection for all substances. This representation is not merely …

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Pierre Hadot's Holistic Philosophy Of Communication, Jonathan Crist May 2020

Pierre Hadot's Holistic Philosophy Of Communication, Jonathan Crist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pierre Hadot’s holistic philosophy of communication attends to the health of the self and community through practice of spiritual exercises for the transformation of one’s entire being, working at the nexus of mind, body, soul, and cosmos. The task is ever-incomplete, works in an understanding of “human being as essentially an exposure that lacks a closed identity” and “keep[s] sight of the opening, wound, or lack that remains at the heart of any community and all communication” (Butchart 136). This is responsive to the present moment experiencing disjointed experience of time and space, increased anxiety, underdeveloped capacity for attention, and …

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