Raphals, Lisa Ann. A tripartite self: mind, body, and spirit in early China
2023, New York: Oxford University Press
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Added by: Xintong WeiAbstract:
Chinese philosophy has long recognized the importance of the body and emotions in extensive and diverse self-cultivation traditions. Philosophical debates about the relationship between mind and body are often described in terms of mind-body dualism and its opposite, monism or some kind of "holism." Monist or holist views agree on the unity of mind and body, but with much debate about what kind, whereas mind-body dualists take body and mind to be metaphysically distinct entities. The question is important for several reasons. Several humanistic and scientific disciplines recognize embodiment as an important dimension of the human condition. One version, the problem of mind-body dualism, is central to the history of both philosophy and religion. Some account of relations between body and mind, spirit or soul is also central to any understanding of the self. Recent work in cognitive and neuroscience underscores the importance of our somatic experience for how we think and feel.Comment: available in this Blueprint
Reader, Soran. Aristotle on Necessities and Needs
2005, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 57:113-136
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
Aristotle’s account of human needs is valuable because it describes the connections between logical, metaphysical, physical, human and ethical necessities. But Aristotle does not fully draw out the implications of the account of necessity for needs and virtue. The proper Aristotelian conclusion is that, far from being an inferior activity fit only for slaves, meeting needs is the first part of Aristotelian virtue.
Comment: This paper complements, and in some ways underpins, Reader's other works on need-based ethical theory - therefore, one might choose to read it alongside some of her later development of her moral theory. It also offers an novel analysis of the Aristotelian approach to needs, which may prove useful in an introductory course as a non-traditional approach to or alternative perspective on the classical greek canon.
Restall, Matthew, Solari, Amari. The Maya: A Very Short Introduction
2020, Oxford University Press
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Added by: M. Jimena Clavel Vázquez and Andrés Hernández VillarrealPublisher’s Note:
The Maya: A Very Short Introduction examines the history and evolution of Maya civilization, explaining Maya polities or city-states, artistic expression, and ways of understanding the universe. Study of the Maya has tended to focus on the 2,000 years of history prior to contact with Europeans, and romantic ideas of discovery and disappearance have shaped popular myths about the Maya. However, they neither disappeared at the close of the Classic era nor were completely conquered by Europeans. Independent Maya kingdoms continued until the seventeenth century, and while none exists today, it is still possible to talk about a Maya world and Maya civilization in the twenty-first century.Comment: available in this Blueprint
Rochberg, Francesca. Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science
2016, Chicago University Press
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, Contributed by: Quentin PharrPublisher’s Note:
In the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.Comment: For students wondering whether or not "philosophy" was done before Socrates and the Pre-Socratics, this text is a fairly comprehensive overview of how ancient Assyro-Babylonians conceived of "nature," their place within it, studied it, and recorded their findings about it. But, more than anything else, this text also shows that ancient Near Eastern cuneiform texts are not to be ignored by budding scholars of ancient philosophy or historians and philosophers of the sciences and their methodologies. Some prior engagement with ancient Greek philosophy, as well as the history and philosophy of science, will help to understand this text.
Rogers, Dorothy. America’s First Women Philosophers
2005, Bloomsbury.
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Added by: Alison StonePublisher's Note: The American idealist movement started in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, becoming more influential as women joined and influenced its development. Susan Elizabeth Blow was well known as an educator and pedagogical theorist who founded the first public kindergarten program in America (1873-1884). Anna C. Brackett was a feminist and pedagogical theorist and the first female principal of a secondary school (St. Louis Normal School, 1863-72). Grace C. Bibb was a feminist literary critic and the first female dean at the University of Missouri, Columbia (1878-84). American idealism took on a new form in the 1880s with the founding of the Concord School of Philosophy in Massachusetts. Ellen M. Mitchell participated in the movement in both St. Louis and Concord. She was one of the first women to teach philosophy at a co-educational college (University of Denver, 1890-92). Lucia Ames Mead, Marietta Kies, and Eliza Sunderland joined the movement in Concord. Lucia Ames Mead became a chief pacifist theorist in the early twentieth century. Kies and Sunderland were among the first women to earn the Ph.D. in philosophy (University of Michigan, 1891, 1892). Kies wrote on political altruism and shared with Mitchell the distinction of teaching at a coeducational institution (Butler College, 1896-99). These were the first American women as a group to plunge into philosophy proper, bridging those years between the amateur, paraprofessional and professional academic philosopher. Dorothy Rogers's new book at last gives them the attention they deserve.Comment: A book covering many US 19th-century women philosophers, mostly influenced by Hegel to some extent. Could be used as supplementary reading on a history of philosophy course if it covers the nineteenth century, so that students are aware there were women active in philosophy then.
Rogers, Dorothy. The Other Philosophy Club: America’s First Academic Women Philosophers
2009, Hypatia 24(2): 164-185.
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Added by: Alison StoneAbstract: Recent research on women philosophers has led to more discussion of the merits of many previously forgotten women in the past several years. Yet due to the fact that a thinker’s significance and influence are historical phenomena, women remain relatively absent in 'mainstream' discussions of philosophy. This paper focuses on several successful academic women in American philosophy and takes notice of how they succeeded in their own era. Special attention is given to three important academic women philosophers: Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot, and Marietta Kies.Comment: Focusing on three nineteenth-century women philosophers, Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot, and Marietta Kies. Could be used as supplementary reading on a history of philosophy course if it covers the nineteenth century.
Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg. Explaining Emotions
1978, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75, issue 3
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Added by: Jimena ClavelAbstract:
Sometimes our emotions change straightaway when we learn that what we believed is not true. The grieving husband recovers when he learns that, because she missed her plane, his wife did not die in the fatal plane crash. But often changes in emotions do not appropriately follow changes in belief. Their tenacity, their inertia, suggests that there is akrasia of the emotions; it reveals the complex structure of their intentionality.'Comment: In this paper, Rorty discusses the complexity of the intentionality of emotions by focusing on the phenomenon of akrasia. The paper can be included in a session on the recalcitrance of emotions or on the intentionality of emotions. The paper can be listed as recommended reading for an advance undergraduate course or as mandatory for a graduate course.
Rošker, Jana S.. Classical Chinese Logic
2015, Philosophy Compass, 10(5): 301-309.
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Added by: Chris Blake-TurnerAbstract: The present article provides an introduction to classical Chinese logic, a term which refers to ancient discourses that were developed before the arrival of significant external influences and which flourished in China until the first unification of China, during the Qin Dynasty. Taking as its premise that logic implies both universal and culturally conditioned elements, the author describes the historical background of Chinese logic, the main schools of Chinese logical thought, the current state of research in this area and the crucial concepts and methods applied in classical Chinese logic. The close link between Chinese logic and the Chinese language is also stressedComment: Presupposes some familiarity with Aristotelian and Fregean logic, as well as ideas in analytic philosophy of language (e.g., theories of reference). This would be a good piece for countering the prejudice that nothing worthy of being called logic was done in the classical Chinese tradition. It is also a good piece for expanding students' imaginative horizons and showing them how their ideas of what logic is have been culturally shaped.
Ross, Steven, Warenski, Lisa. Socratic Metaethics Imagined
2017, Sophia and Philosophia 1.3., 1-8
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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: A time machine mysteriously appeared one day in ancient Athens. Curious about the future of philosophical dialogue, Socrates entered the device and traveled to the 21st Century. He spent several months in the United Kingdom and United States discussing metaethics before returning to Athens, now a devoted and formidable quasi-realist moral genderexpressivist.
Saito, Yuriko. Why Restore Works of Art?
1985, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44(2):141-151.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Erich Hatala MatthesSummary: Saito examines arguments concerning why artworks should be restored, which are couched in terms of a debate between "purist" and "integral/conservator" restoration. Purists believe artworks should only be cleaned, emphasizing the integrity of the material object, whereas integral restorationists are open to adding material to the work, emphasizing the integrity of the original aesthetic experience. Rather than embracing a particular side in this debate, Saito's discussion reveals how cultural/historical considerations can be as important to the debate over restoration as aesthetic considerations.Comment: This article offers a useful philosophical framework for thinking about the relationship among preservation, restoration, and authenticity. Using it alongside the following readings might be particularly good in inspiring further discussion: Coleman, Elizabeth Burns. “Aboriginal Painting: Identity and Authenticity.” Jeffers, Chike. “The Ethics and Politics of Cultural Preservation.” Young, James O. “Art, Authenticity and Appropriation.” Korsmeyer, Carolyn. “Real Old Things.” Karlström, Anna. “Authenticity.”
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