Latest additions
Hanson, Karen. Dressing down Dressing up – The Philosophic Fear of Fashion
1990, Hypatia 5 (2):107 - 121.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: There is, to all appearances, a philosophic hostility to fashionable dress. Studying this contempt, this paper examines likely sources in philosophy's suspicion of change; anxiety about surfaces and the inessential; failures in the face of death; and the philosophic disdain for, denial of, the human body and human passivity. If there are feminist concerns about fashion, they should be radically different from those of traditional philosophy. Whatever our ineluctable worries about desire and death, whatever our appropriate anger and impatience with the merely superficial, whatever our genuine need to mark off the serious from the trivial, feminism may be a corrective therapy for philosophy's bad humor and self-deception, as these manifest themselves when the subject turns to beautiful clothes.Comment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
Graham, Jody L.. Does integrity require moral goodness?
2001,
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: Most accounts of integrity agree that the person of integrity must have a relatively stable sense of who he is, what is important to him, and the ability to stand by what is most important to him in the face of pressure to do otherwise. But does integrity place any constraints on the kind of principles that the person of integrity stands for? In response to several recent accounts of integrity, I argue that it is not enough that a person stand for what he believes in, nor even that he is committed to and stands for what, in his best judgement, is morally right. In our web of moral concepts integrity is internally related to a host of virtues which exclude weakness of will and dogmatism, and presuppose trustworthiness. Integrity requires that the principles stood for must be those that a morally good, morally trustworthy agent would stand for, and that the agent himself is morally trustworthy.
Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music
1992, Oxford University Press.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirPublisher's Note: What is the difference between a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the symphony itself? What does it mean for musicians to be faithful to the works they perform? To answer this question, Goehr combines philosophical and historical methods of enquiry. She describes how the concept of a musical work emerged as late as 1800, and how it subsequently defined the norms, expectations, and behavior characteristic of classical musical practice. Out of the historical thesis, Goehr draws philosophical conclusions about the normative functions of concepts and ideals. She also addresses current debates amongst conductors, early-music performers, and avant-gardists.
Glaude, Eddie S.. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America
2007, University of Chicago Press.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Bart SchultzPublisher's Note: In this timely book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation's rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude's mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey's pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life - or what we often speak of as the blues - can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black, or that short-circuit imaginative responses to problems confronting actual black people. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking, and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity, Glaude argues, can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied. Heady, inspirational, and brimming with practical wisdom, In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first centuryComment: A really terrific, historically sophisticated work that highlights how philosophical pragmatism can be developed in connection with critical race theory.
Goehr, Lydia. Political music and the politics of music
1994, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (1):99-112.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirIntroduction: On September 24th, 1947, a composer with "an international reputation" became the first Holly wood artist to be called before the Committee on Un-American Activities [HUAC]. The charge against him was that his music had aided the Communist infiltration of the motion-picture industry.' A significant part of his defense con sisted in his claim that he was only a musician and thus not responsible for any part of a Com munist conspiracy. What is peculiar is that he almost got away with this unlikely defense, unlikely because he had spent much of his life developing a political music consistent with the ideals of Communism. In the end, the Commit tee caught him out on technical grounds: it found a history of inaccurate statements in his visa applications. The composer was deported. It was the second exile of his life: the first had been from Germany ten years earlier.
Gertler, Brie. The relationship between phenomenality and intentionality: Comments on Siewert’s The Significance of Consciousness
2001, PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktPublisher's Note: Charles Siewert offers a persuasive argument to show that the presence of certain phenomenal features logically suffices for the presence of certain intentional ones. He claims that this shows that phenomenal features are inherently intentional. I argue that he has not established the latter thesis, even if we grant the logical sufficiency claim. For he has not ruled out a rival alternative interpretation of the relevant data, namely, that intentional features are inherently phenomenal
Gannett, Lisa. Echoes From the Cave: Philosophical Conversations Since Plato
2014, Oup Canada.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktPublisher's Note: Echoes from the Cave: Philosophical Conversations since Plato is an anthology of classic and contemporary readings in philosophy compiled to introduce students to the main problems discussed by philosophers past and presentComment: This is an anthology of texts on central topics in philosophy, many of which might be suitable for the DRL.
Gertler, Brie. The Knowledge Argument
2005, In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. MacMillan.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: The definitive statement of the Knowledge Argument was formulated by Frank Jackson, in a paper entitled 'Epiphenomenal Qualia' that appeared in The Philosophical Quarterly in 1982. Arguments in the same spirit had appeared earlier (Broad 1925, Robinson 1982), but Jackson's argument is most often compared with Thomas Nagel's argument in 'What is it Like to be a Bat?' (1974). Jackson, however, takes pains to distinguish his argument from Nagel's. This entry will follow standard practice in focusing on Jackson's argument, though I will also describe the main points of alleged similarity and dissimilarity between these two arguments.
1992, Blackwell.
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Added by: Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract: Book synopsis: The feminist movement has challenged many of the unstated assumptions on which ethics as a branch of philosophy has always rested - assumptions about human nature, moral agency, citizenship and kinship. The twenty-six readings in this book express the discontent of a succession of fiercely articulate women writers, from Mary Wollstonecraft to the present day, with the masculine bias of `morality'. The editors have contributed an overall introduction, which discusses ethics, feminism and feminist themes in ethics, and have provided introductions to each of the readings, designed to situate in their historical and intellectual context. They have also compiled two lists for further reading: `Ethics: a Feminist Bibliography' and `The Male Tradition'. Ethics: A Feminist Reader is an essential resource for students and teachers of philosophy, political theory and women's studies. For anyone with a stake in progressive sexual politics it is an inspirational guide.
Friend, Stacie. The pleasures of documentary tragedy
2007, British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2):184-198.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentaries might be plausible candidates, I further argue, against (2), that the scope of tragic pleasure is limited to works that possess certain thematic and narrative features.Comment: This is a clearly written paper that can be used in teaching a wide array of topics in aesthetics, especially the literatures on emotional engagement with art, and documentary film. Friend does not presuppose much background knowledge on these issues. As such, this paper would make for an excellent addition to an introduction to aesthetics module, perhaps being used as a main reading for units on emotion and art. A more focused upper-division module on a subject such as philosophy of film could also benefit from this paper's inclusion.