Osborne, Catherine. Eros Unveiled: Plato and the God of Love
1994, Oxford University Press.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Laura JimenezPublisher's note: This unique book challenges the traditional distinction between eros, the love found in Greek thought, and agape, the love characteristic of Christianity. Focusing on a number of classic texts, including Plato's Symposium and Lysis, Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics, and famous passages in Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, Dionysius the Areopagite, Plotinus, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, the author shows that Plato's account of eros is not founded on self-interest. In this way, she restores the place of erotic love as a Christian motif, and unravels some longstanding confusions in philosophical discussions of love.Comment: The author’s view represents a new approach to ancient views on eros and its place in the Christian tradition. It is suitable for undergraduate or postgraduate courses on Ethics and Ancient Philosophy. Perfect as a secondary reading for students working on Plato's Symposium and Lysis, or Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics.
Pacherie, Elisabeth. Qualia and representations
1999, In Denis Fisette (ed.), Consciousness and Intentionality: Models and Modalities of Attribution. Springer. pp. 119--144.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: Dretske has recently offered a representational theory of perceptual experience - considered as paradigmatic of the qualitative and phenomenal aspects of our mental life. This theory belongs, as do his previous works, to a naturalistic approach to mental representation
Palmer, Clare. Killing Animals in Animal Shelters
2006, In: Killing Animals, edited by The Animal Studies Group. Champaign: Illinois University Press.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Rochelle DuFordSummary: In this article, Palmer provides a clear survey of positions on killing domestic animals (cats and dogs) in animal shelters. She argues that there are three ways of understanding the killing that occurs in animal shelters: consequentialism, rights based, and relation based. She considers the relationship of humans and domesticated animals that leads to their killing in animal shelters as well as providing an ethical assessment of the practice.Comment: This text is a clear introduction to the ethical issues involved in keeping 'pets' or 'companion animals.' It would serve as a clear introduction to the problem of 'painless killing' in a course on ethics of killing, environmental ethics, or animal ethics.
Pasternak, Avia. Political Rioting: A Moral Assessment
2018, Philosophy and Public Affairs
-
Expand entry
-
, Contributed by: Henry KrahnAbstract:
Avia Pasternak offers a moral assessment of political rioting, focusing on cases like the riots over the police killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015 and the 2005 French Banlieu riots. As she notes, there are two common responses to such cases: that rioters are just the same as common criminals, or that rioters are morally worse than common criminals. In response, Pasternak develops an analysis of political rioting as a form of "spontaneous, disorganized, public collective violence in order to protest against and to defy [the] political order" (2). In her view, political rioting ought to be understood as a form of defensive harm--harm inflicted in order to avert an attack, as in justified cases of self-defence or just wars. Those who engage in political rioting, Pasternak argues, "do so in order to bring an end, or at least to ameliorate their on-going unjust treatment at the hands of their state. It follows then that in determining the appropriate moral response to rioters, we ought to examine their actions in light of the various constraints offered by just war theorists" (3). Pasternak focuses on three such constraints: necessity, success, and proportionality. And she argues that, objections to the contrary notwithstanding, "under circumstances that are not far from those we find in some real-world democracies, the resort to political rioting can comply with the criteria of permissible defensive harm" (4).Comment: This paper offers a thorough and careful discussion of political rioting that is deeply informed by real-life cases, which it discusses in detail. This paper would be a great starting place for a class discussion over what people are entitled to do in situations of entrenched injustice, or over the limits of morally acceptable protest. The paper's analysis builds on the just war literature, so the paper could also be used in a class on the ethics of war to discuss how principles from that literature apply to domestic politics.
Patterson, Sarah. The explanatory role of belief ascriptions
1990, Philosophical Studies 59 (3):313-32.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: The aim of this paper is to argue that belief ascription in common- sense discourse is not uniformly non-individualistic, as Burge's conclusion suggests. (In concentrating on belief ascriptions I follow the usual practice of treating belief as the paradigm propositional attitude.) I shall present some examples which suggest that when giving common-sense explanations of action we do not individuate thoughts with reference to agents' linguistic environment in the manner indicated by Burge's thought-experiment. The challenge supposedly presented to the Continuity Thesis by Burge's thought-experiment is thus removed. I then discuss whether the mode of individuation characteristic of our explanatory practice deserves to be called individualistic, and conclude with some remarks on the expressibility of thought contents.
Phemister, Pauline. The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz
2006, Polity.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Pauline PhemisterPublisher's Note: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as the great rationalist philosophers. Each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Pauline Phemister explores the rationalists seminal contribution to the development of modern philosophy. Broad terminological agreement and a shared appreciation of the role of reason in ethics do not mask the very significant disagreements that led to three distinctive philosophical systems: Cartesian dualism, Spinozan monism and Leibnizian pluralism. The book explores the nature of, and offers reasons for, these differences. Phemister contends that Spinoza and Leibniz developed their systems in part through engagements with and amendment of Cartesian philosophy, and critically analyses the arguments and contributions of all three philosophers. The clarity of the authors discussion of their key ideas including their views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals will make this book the ideal introduction to rationalist philosophy
Pointon, Marcia. Portrait, Fact and Fiction
2013, in: Portrayal and the Search for Identity, Reaktion Books, pp. 23-46.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Hans MaesSummary: Considers portraiture an unstable, destabilizing, potentially subversive art through which uncomfortable and unsettling convictions are negotiated. As such, it is primarily an instrumental art form, a kind of agency. Also argues that there is an element of the fictive involved in all portrait representations. Explains how portraiture is a slippery and seductive art.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture, as well as depiction and representation in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Garibaldi at Caprera, frontispiece of G.M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, May 1860 (1931 edition)
A reproduction of a photograph of a copy of a many times copied portrait of the guerilla leader. Devoid of monetary or aesthetic value. Not very likely that Garibaldi looked like this or posed for the artist. The portrait works to endow the historical narrative with its illusion of a unified subject. Useful in discussing portraiture, as well as depiction and representation in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Garibaldi at Caprera, frontispiece of G.M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, May 1860 (1931 edition)
A reproduction of a photograph of a copy of a many times copied portrait of the guerilla leader. Devoid of monetary or aesthetic value. Not very likely that Garibaldi looked like this or posed for the artist. The portrait works to endow the historical narrative with its illusion of a unified subject.
Pointon, Marcia. Slavery and the Possibility of Portraiture
2013, in: Portrayal and the Search for Identity, Reaktion Books, pp. 47-73.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Hans MaesSummary: Draws attention to the fact that portraits of slaves are rarely exhibited or discussed; and that not all images of slaves are portraits. Reflects on the dynamics of power involved in portraiture and on the relation between subject and viewer in particular. Includes extensive commentary on the historical development of portraiture and the place of portraits of slaves therein.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as power relations and art's role in them in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Francis Wheatley, A Family Group in a Landscape (c.1775)
A dark clad black boy stands motionless at the extreme left of the canvass, scarcely making into the group. He is literally in the shadows. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as power relations and art's role in them in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Francis Wheatley, A Family Group in a Landscape (c.1775)
A dark clad black boy stands motionless at the extreme left of the canvass, scarcely making into the group. He is literally in the shadows.
Rahman, Shahid, Carnielli, Walter. The Dialogical Approach to Paraconsistency
2001, Synthese 125 (1-2):201-232
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
Being a pragmatic and not a referential approach to semantics, the dialogical formulation of paraconsistency allows the following semantic idea to be expressed within a semi-formal system: In an argumentation it sometimes makes sense to distinguish between the contradiction of one of the argumentation partners with himself (internal contradiction) and the contradiction between the partners (external contradiction). The idea is that external contradiction may involve different semantic contexts in which, say A and not A have been asserted. The dialogical approach suggests a way of studying the dynamic process of contradictions through which the two contexts evolve for the sake of argumentation into one system containing both contexts. More technically, we show a new, dialogical, way to build paraconsistent systems for propositional and first-order logic with classical and intuitionistic features (i.e. paraconsistency both with and without tertium non-datur) and present their corresponding tableaux.
Comment: This paper would fit well in a course on dialogical formulations of logic (as either main or further reading, depending on the time dedicated to Lorenz-style approaches), or in a course on paraconsistent logic (as an alternative way of thinking about paraconsistency); both topics are introduced in an accessible enough way. If students have no familiarity with tableaux systems, sections 4 and 5.2 can be skipped.
Rand, Ayn. The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature
1969, New York, World Pub. Co.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Simon FoktPublisher's note: In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned book, Ayn Rand throws a new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again Miss Rand eloquently demonstrates her refusal to let popular catchwords and conventional ideas stand between her and the truth as she has discovered it. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place beside The Fountainhead as one of the most important achievements of our time.Comment: Teaching this text might be quite challenging, as the theory proposed is very revisionist. The text can be inspiring in two ways. Firstly, it can encourage a discussion on the status of the avant-garde and most abstract art forms – some students will likely share the sentiment that many such works are not art. Second, Rand’s definition has clear normative undertones: it is not only about what art is, but about what art is for and what its purpose should be. It might be instructive to use her text to inspire a discussion on whether we should expect definitions of art to cover these points.
Can’t find it?
Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!