Other Philosophy Commons^™

Preservation, Passivity, And Pessimism, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Journal Articles

Many committed and passionate environmental thinkers currently champion restoration as an appropriate and positive model for human-nature interaction and interdependence. Recent philosophical defenses of restoration sidestep the issues that have been raised about the possibility of restoring degraded nature to a state that is identical, ontologically or evaluatively, to some pre-degraded state. Informed by feminist theory, I expose and explore some problematic assumptions and associations found in common defenses of restoration and defend the thesis that preservation is the more promising avenue to character remediation and the forging of a harmonious human-nature culture. I allow that many restoration projects will …

Symbolic Violence As Subtle Virulence: The Philosophy Of Terrorism, Jonathan Beever

Re-visioning Terrorism

Jean Baudrillard’s semiotic analysis of violence leads us to understand the form of violence as three-fold: aggressive, historical, and semiotically virulent. Violence of the third form is the violence endemic to terrorism. If violence has been typically understood as of the first two types, terrorism should be understood as the virulence of simulacra. The conflation of these types of violence explains the failure of militaristic responses to terrorism. This paper will explore Baudrillard’s conception of symbolic violence as the virulence of signs and help us come to terms with the semiotic foundation of terrorism.

Smashing The Mirror Of Yamato: Sakaguchi Ango, Decadence & A Postmetaphysical Buddhist Critique Of Culture, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This article focuses on several key philosophical themes in the criticism of Sakaguchi Ango (1906–1955), one of postwar Japan’s most influential and controversial writers. Associated with the underground Kasutori culture as well as the Burai-ha of Tamura Taijirō (1911–1983), Oda Sakunosuke (1913–1947) and Dazai Osamu (1909–1948), Ango gained fame for two provocative essays on the theme of daraku or “decadence”—Darakuron and Zoku darakuron—pubished in 1946, in the wake of Japan’s traumatic defeat and the beginnings of the Allied Occupation. Less well-known is the fact that Ango spent his student years studying classical Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, Pali and …

Comparative Philosophy Vol 2 No 2 Cover Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Daoism As Critical Theory, Mario Wenning

Comparative Philosophy

Classical philosophical Daoism as it is expressed in the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi is often interpreted as lacking a capacity for critique and resistance. Since these capacities are taken to be central components of Enlightenment reason and action, it would follow that Daoism is incompatible with Enlightenment. This interpretation is being refuted by way of developing a constructive dialogue between the enlightenment traditions of critical theory and recent philosophy of action from a Daoist perspective. Daoism's normative naturalism does neither rest on a primitivist call for a return to the past, nor does it suggest future-directed activism. By way of …

Comparative Philosophy Vol 2 No 2 Information Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Constructive Engagement Of Analytic And Continental Approaches In Philosophy: From The Vantage Point Of Comparative Philosophy, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

See Editor's Words

Comparative Philosophy Vol 2 No 2 Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Analytic And Continental Philosophy, Science, And Global Philosophy, Richard Tieszen

Comparative Philosophy

Although there is no consensus on what distinguishes analytic from Continental philosophy, I focus in this paper on one source of disagreement that seems to run fairly deep in dividing these traditions in recent times, namely, disagreement about the relation of natural science to philosophy. I consider some of the exchanges about science that have taken place between analytic and Continental philosophers, especially in connection with the philosophy of mind. In discussing the relation of natural science to philosophy I employ an analysis of the origins of natural science that has been developed by a number of Continental philosophers. Awareness …

The Future Of Humanity: Heidegger, Personhood And Technology, Mahon James O'Brien

Comparative Philosophy

This paper argues that a number of entrenched posthumanist positions are seriously flawed as a result of their dependence on a technical interpretive approach that creates more problems than it solves. During the course of our discussion we consider in particular the question of personhood. After all, until we can determine what it means to be a person we cannot really discuss what it means to improve a person. What kinds of enhancements would even constitute improvements? This in turn leads to an examination of the technical model of analysis and the recurring tendency to approach notions like personhood using …

Comparative Philosophy Vol 2 No 2 Whole Set, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

The Experience Of Forgiving In The Marital Relationship, Kathleen M. Leo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Arguments By Analogy, Matt Donner

Philosophy

This paper is an inquiry into the largely unexamined analysis of arguments by analogy (ABA). By exposing the degree of philosophical complexity, which ultimately renders evaluation of ABA subjective, we shall see that the most appropriate doxastic attitude to adopt, with respect to the conclusions drawn from these arguments, is often suspension of judgment. A critical examination of Copi’s criteria for evaluating ABA shows that while these criteria work well for simple arguments, they fail when considering more philosophically profound ABA. This paper supports these claims by using Cleanthes’ teleological argument for the existence of God from Hume’s Dialogues Concerning …

Thought And Verse: French Poetry In Conversation With French Existentialist Philosophy, Maxwell E. Edmonds

Senior Honors Projects

Thought and Verse: French Poetry in Conversation with French Existentialist Philosophy

Maxwell Edmonds

Faculty Sponsor: Karen de Bruin, French Language & Literature

What is the meaning of life?  Does God exist?  How can we live authentically and with purpose?  How can we conduct our day to day lives, while faced with our own mortality?  These are several of the principle themes focused upon within existentialist philosophy, the philosophy of existing as a mortal human being.

I chose to study existentialist philosophy through the lens of one of my other interests: French poetry.  This combination has allowed me to approach both …

Lived Philosophy: How We Define Ourselves And Our Lives, Molly A. Bandola

Senior Honors Projects

As a student about to graduate with a degree in philosophy, the task of merging both the intellectual and practical aspects of the discipline necessarily emerges from the past four years of my study. As I myself am at the precipice of a whole new stage of life, I find myself drawn to questions of reflection and purpose. Throughout the history of philosophy, questions arising around the concept of death and one’s own mortality are ever-present and I am drawn to the stories that individuals have to share of their experiences surrounding death and dying. How is it that one …

In Defense Of Existence Monism, Peter Finocchiaro

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The objective of this paper is a defense of a particular answer to van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question: when is it the case that some objects together compose some additional object? The answer is the conjunction of two claims. The first claim, compositional nihilism says that, necessarily, there is never an instance of material composition, and therefore all material objects that do exist are simple, or without proper parts. The second claim, existence monism, says that there exists a material object, and that all other material objects are identical with this object. In other words, there is just one …

Articulating Animals: Animals And Implicit Inferences In Brandom’S Work, Joel D. Musser

Between the Species

Brandom denies animals implicit reasoning by emphasizing their inability to make inferences explicit, and in so doing, denigrates animals by likening their behavior to that of machines and artifacts. With disturbing regularity and ease, Brandom equates pigeons and parrots to machines and thermostats in their inability to express implicit/explicit inferences: neither the pigeon nor the machine can “provid[e] reasons for making other moves in the language game.”

I contest, however, that animals are paradigmatically more than any similarity or analogy to mechanical processing, just as humans are paradigmatically more than any reductive analogy to animals. The human/animal distinction need not …

The Identity Of The Διψυχος In The Shepherd Of Hermas, Jeremiah Mutie

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Pluralism About Truth In Early Chinese Philosophy: A Reflection On Wang Chong’S Approach, Alexus Mcleod

Comparative Philosophy

The debate concerning truth in Classical Chinese philosophy has for the most part avoided the possibility that pluralist theories of truth were part of the classical philosophical framework. I argue that the Eastern Han philosopher Wang Chong (c. 25-100 CE) can be profitably read as endorsing a kind of pluralism about truth grounded in the concept of shi 實, or "actuality". In my exploration of this view, I explain how it offers a different account of the truth of moral and non-moral statements, while still retaining the univocality of the concept of truth (that is, that the concept amounts to …

Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 2 No 1 Cover Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 2 No 1 Information Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 2 No 1 Contents Page, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Atman, Identity, And Emanation: Arguments For A Hindu Environmental Ethic, Christopher G. Framarin

Comparative Philosophy

Many contemporary authors argue that since certain Hindu texts and traditions claim that all living beings are fundamentally the same as Brahman (God), these texts and traditions provide the basis for an environmental ethic. I outline three common versions of this argument, and argue that each fails to meet at least one criterion for an environmental ethic. This doesn’t mean, however, that certain Hindu texts and traditions do not provide the basis for an environmental ethic. In the last section of the paper I briefly outline and defend an alternative, according to which all plants and animals have intrinsic value …

Comparative Aspects Of Africana Philosophy And The Continental-Analytic Divide, Tommy L. Lott

Comparative Philosophy

Critical engagement involving philosophers trained in continental and analytic traditions often takes its purpose to be a reconciliation of tensions arising from differences in style, or method. Critical engagement in Africana philosophy, however, is rarely focused on method, style, or orientation because philosophic research in this field, regardless of orientation, has had to accommodate its empirical grounding in disciplines outside of philosophy. I focus primarily on the comparative dimensions of three important strands of this research: (1) a history of ideas, (2) a problem-orientation, and (3) a sub-area specialization, to indicate why a need to reconcile tensions between continental and …

Whole Set Of Volume 2 No 1 (2011) Of Comparative Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Co-Creation Of Experiential Qualities, Vuk Uskoković

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Cognitive sciences have been interminably in search for a consistent philosophical framework for the description of perceptual phenomena. Most of the frameworks in usage today fall in-between the extremes of constructivism and objective realism. However, whereas constructivist cognitive theories face difficulties when attempting to explain the experiential commonality of different cognitive entities, objectivistic theories fail in explaining the active role of the subject in the formation of experiences. This paper undertakes to compare and eventually combine these two major approaches to describing cognitive phenomena. It is argued that constructivist explanations inevitably refer to a ‘hidden’ ontological source of experience, and …

Free Will, Genuine Alternatives And Predictability, Laura Hagen

CMC Senior Theses

Through evaluating Hilary Bok’s argument from her essay Freedom and Practical Reason, I hope to shed light on the overall question of whether we can have free will if determinism is true. In the first two chapters I will fully explain and break down Bok’s argument for genuine epistemic alternatives. In chapter three I will evaluate the success of Bok’s arguments. Specifically, I will offer a variety of intuitive examples to show that epistemic unpredictability is not enough to make our alternatives genuine. I will then use more examples to consider the relative importance of unpredictability and endorsement to …

Reception Of Marxism In 20th Century Russia, Aleksandr Grabovskiy

CMC Senior Theses

In my thesis I will study how the revolutionary philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was received and interpreted by early 20^th century Russian intellectuals in an attempt to reconcile orthodoxy with the real conditions present in Russia. Through analysis of documents spanning several decades of debate, I will trace the evolution of this discussion to unlock the logic that led to philosophy put to action in the form of revolution. Finally, I will evaluate how this logic fits into the historic trajectory described by Marxism.