Metaphysics Commons^™

Understanding The Alternative Normative Concepts, Dewitt W. Spiller

Theses

Matti Eklund's challenge to normative realism in Choosing Normative Concepts (2017) turns on the possibility of "alternative normative concepts"—concepts that play the same normative role as ours but have different extensions. Eklund argues that the ardent realist cannot express what he calls “the further question” about which concepts to use without either trivializing the answer or changing the subject. I argue that this challenge rests on an unstated assumption about how normative concepts are differentiated. I call this the Fragility Assumption. What I seek to show is that this assumption is not obligatory; there are live views of normative concepts …

Logos-Sophia, Elliott Norman, Donald Wayne Viney, Keith Elliott Perkins, Addyson Kay Campbell, Hunter Hinds, Scott Squires

LOGOS-SOPHIA: The Journal of the PSU Philosophical Society

Logos-Sophia, Volume 17, Spring 2024. The Journal of the Pittsburg State University Philosophical Society has largely been a student publication with occasional faculty contribution

Readings In Western Philosophy For Louisiana Learners, Jeff Mclaughlin, Marco Altamarino (Editor), Ryland Johnson (Editor), Peter Klubek (Editor), Michael Martin (Editor)

Open Educational Resources

It is important for students not only to get an appreciation and understanding of philosophy but also to be exposed to the very words and ideas of those who have shaped our thinking over the centuries. Accordingly, the title of this collection hints at the facts that these readings are from the original sources and that these philosophers were the originators of many of the issues we still discuss today.

Major areas of philosophy covered here are Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Sociopolitical Philosophy, and finally, Aesthetics.

Book Review: Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging With Meditative Inquiry In Teaching, Learning, And Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials In Diverse Contexts. New York, Ny: Routledge., Giovanni Rossini Phd

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Book Review of following text:

Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging with Meditative Inquiry in Teaching, Learning, and Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials in Diverse Contexts. New York, NY: Routledge.

Toward A Dialectical Account Of Nature, Georgia Rae Grimm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The protection of nature has been a central aim of environmentalism for well over a century. However, the concept of nature has been subjected to abundant critiques in recent literature, threatening the conceptual tenability of this goal. In this paper, I discuss why I find the concept of nature too valuable to dismiss and offer an account of nature that I believe remedies existent critiques. In Chapter 1, I recount arguments for the protection of nature and illustrate their dualistic underpinnings. In Chapter 2, I discuss issues with dualistic accounts of nature and demonstrate why Steven Vogel’s monistic alternative is …

Sameness, Difference And Environmental Concern In The Metaphysics And Ethics Of Spinoza And Chan Buddhism, Michael Hemmingsen

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper I contrast the metaphysical philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and the ‘sudden enlightenment’ tradition of Chan Buddhism. Spinoza’s expressivist philosophy, in which everything can be conceived via a lineage of finite causes terminating in substance as a metaphysical ground of all things, emphasises the relative sameness of all entities. By contrast, Chan’s philosophy of emptiness, which rests on the dependent co-origination of all entities, renders such comparison fundamentally meaningless. Having no source beyond dependent co-origination to generate a thing’s distinct nature leads to a metaphysics in which, rather than being relatively similar or different, all things …

Conatus, The Will To Persist: An Introduction, Jasmin Özel, Nikos Psarros

Philosophy Faculty Research

The papers collected in this issue address a variety of aspects of the concept of conatus ranging from the explorations of its roots in early ancient Greek thought to its application on modern theories of democratic education. The conatus is a special relation between the parts of a monad and their subparts and the subparts of the subparts to infinity, which ensures that each part and subpart is a part of this monad and not of any other. As a fundamental trait of monadic existence, the conatus is manifested in a multiplicity of facets that sustain the persistence of any …

Why Practice Philosophy As A Way Of Life?, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This essay explains why there are good reasons to practice philosophy as a way of life. The argument begins with the assumption that we should live well but that our understanding of how to live well can be mistaken. Philosophical reason and reflection can help correct these mistakes. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that philosophical reasoning often fails to change our dispositions and behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, the essay claims that spiritual exercises and communal engagement mitigate the factors that prevent us from living in accordance with our conceptions of the good life. So, many of us …

In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, Ian I. Weckler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has been show to be caused by humans. Human-centric behaviors have affected the world to the extent that many believe we have entered a new geologic epoch. This epoch— the Anthropocene—has prompted exploration into the ethical relationship between humans and the rest of the world. We know that a purely anthropocentric ethical system of values has lead ecological imbalance and environmental destruction, and that a non-anthropocentric (or humancentric) ethical system of value would be better suited for maintaining and regaining a habitable environment. However, past conceptions of non anthropocentrism have relied on abstract conceptions of value that fail …

The Moral Argument, Existential Problems Of Evil, And A Non-Existential Alternative, Jonathan Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Within this paper, it is shown that certain ethical assumptions are implicit within the claim that certain kinds of evil exist. When taken in tandem with the moral argument for the existence of God, these assumptions can be arranged in such a way as to provide a contradiction. To avoid this contradiction, I posit a non-existential alternative to direct inductive arguments from evil, but the non-existential alternative gives rise to novel objections. When considering their respective ethical implications, both the existential and non-existential variations of direct inductive arguments fail. Since any direct inductive problem of evil must be either existential …

Justifying A Standard Of Death, Michael Milhim

Honors Projects

There are three major positions in the legal definition of death debate: the cardio-pulmonary standard, the whole-brain standard, and the higher-brain standard. Prominent arguments for each standard appeal to a theory of human persistence. I’ll contend that these arguments fail for two reasons: the metaphysical underpinnings of the arguments are not decisive, and even if they are decisive, they may not be the right policy to enact. The later of these is more practically important than the former.

Human-Nonhuman Chimeras, Ontology, And Dignity: A Constructivist Approach To The Ethics Of Conducting Research On Cross-Species Hybrids, Jonathan M. Vajda

The Hilltop Review

Developments in biological technology in the last few decades highlight the surprising and ever-expanding practical benefits of stem cells. With this progress, the possibility of combining human and nonhuman organisms is a reality, with ethical boundaries that are not readily obvious. These inter-species hybrids are of a larger class of biological entities called “chimeras.” As the concept of a human-nonhuman creature is conjured in our minds, either incredulous wonder or grotesque horror is likely to follow. This paper seeks to mitigate those worries and demotivate reasonable concerns raised against chimera research, all the while pressing current ethical positions toward their …

How Should We Conceptualize Moral Disagreements About Animals?, Kristian Cantens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I intend this paper as a sort of philosophical reflection on my experiences as an animal activist. In my three years of doing outreach on college campuses, I came to an increasing appreciation for what Murdoch referred to as “the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons” (Murdoch 1998d, 293). This appreciation came in turn at the cost of an increasing disappointment with many of the philosophers I admired at the time – namely, Peter Singer and Tom Regan. What I came to understand is that many of these contemporary moral theories were in fact …

Real Intentions And Virtual Wrongs, Elaine Sohng

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I answer the gamer's dilemma or the inability to find a moral distinction between virtual pedophilia and virtual murder. I expand virtual pedophilia to virtual rape to address increasing rates of sexual harassment and assault in virtual reality. In this thesis, I 1) explain what occurs when one engages in virtual rape; 2) identify relevant moral differences between physical rape and virtual rape; 3) challenge the existing relationship between committing harm and wrong in the case of rape; and 4) argue that virtual rape is morally reprehensible due to the agent’s intention to utilize a person as …

Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, Stephen E. Harris

Comparative Philosophy

This article explores the role of weakness of will (akrasia) in the Indian Buddhist tradition, and in particular within Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practice of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra). In agreement with Jay Garfield, I argue that there are important differences between Aristotle’s account of akrasia and Buddhist moral psychology. Nevertheless, taking a more expanded conception of weakness of will, as is frequently done in contemporary work, allows us to draw significant connections with the pluralistic account of psychological conflict found in Buddhist texts. I demonstrate this by showing how Amélie Rorty’s expanded treatment of akrasia as including …

A Black Art: Ontology, Data, And The Tower Of Babel Problem, Andrew J. Iliadis

Open Access Dissertations

Computational ontologies are a new type of emerging scientific media (Smith, 2016) that process large quantities of heterogeneous data about portions of reality. Applied computational ontologies are used for semantically integrating (Heiler, 1995; Pileggi & Fernandez-Llatas, 2012) divergent data to represent reality and in so doing applied computational ontologies alter conceptions of materiality and produce new realities based on levels of informational granularity and abstraction (Floridi, 2011), resulting in a new type of informational ontology (Iliadis, 2013) the critical analysis of which requires new methods and frameworks. Currently, there is a lack of literature addressing the theoretical, social, and critical …

Nietzschean Ethics: One's Duty To Overcome, Emmanuel Hurtado

CMC Senior Theses

Abstract

In this paper, I will analyze Nietzsche’s argument for a moral error theory and examine the implications of his view. In order to arrive at the best possible interpretation I will heavily incorporate many passages from Nietzsche’s original works so that I can delve into a textual analysis of Nietzsche. Because Nietzsche is notoriously vague at times and often contradictory, I recognize that this is far from the only appropriate interpretation. However, I hope that it is one which has at least some intuitive appeal. Eventually, I hope to prove that despite his rejection of moral truths, Nietzsche’s theory …

The Origin Of Living Things, By Julius Seiler, Translated By Gerard Farley, Gerard Farley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.