Concord lectures on philosophy, comprising outlines of all the lectures at the Concord summer school of philosophy in 1882, with an historical sketch;

References: Blanck. Bibl. Amer. lit. 129.

Abstract[s] of [theses] submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of doctor of philosophy in the graduate school of the University of Illinois

Mode of access: Internet.

Locating whiteness in the academic production of "I Philosophy" in and of time and place

This review will critically evaluate two recent texts by white academics working across disciplines of cultural studies, history and anthropology and published by UNSW Press, which share a focus on the relationship between Aboriginality, Philosophy, Place and Time in Australia. I write from the position of a queer white academic committed to engaging politically and intellectually with the challenge of Indigenous sovereignties in this place while also aware that my position as a middle class white woman and intellectual imposes limits on what it is possible for me to know about Indigenous epistemologies (see Moreton-Robinson, 2000). In the course of this review I will demonstrate how anthropology's tendency to fix its objects of study within a circumscribed space of 'difference' limits the capacity of texts produced within this discipline to account for racialized struggles over sovereignty. While these struggles are equally embedded in the ethnographic context and the nation's constitution and political institutions, we will see that Muecke and Bird Rose confront problems in analysing the relationship between the intimate space of the 'field', in which one's research subjects quickly become one's 'friends' and/or 'classificatory kin'—on one hand—and the public space of the nation within which statements about Aboriginality by white academics circulate and are vested with an authority that escapes individual intentions and control—on the other.

A philosophy in action: Carl Einstein and Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen

Carl Einstein is a not very well known figure within German culture, but his essay Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen remains ignored even among scholars of his work despite containing highly valuable clues to understand the intersection between philosophy and politics that characterizes much of the European thought of the twentieth century. Given this situation, after an initial part where the author’s personality and his latest ideas and actions are taken in account, the article makes a thorough review of Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen by doing firstly a comparison of the different interpretations that it has received until now, and continues by carrying out a new reading of its main ideas –the conflict between Realität and Wirklichkeit or the very concept of Fiktion– and an exercise of contrast between the essay and certain works by contemporary thinkers like Siegfried Kracauer and Paul Nizan.

Running on Rooftops: a novel and critical reflection on writing from an identity of expatriation with an examination of West-meets-East encounters and attitudes depicted in literature

This thesis is in two parts: a creative work of fiction and a critical reflection on writing from an identity of expatriation. The creative work, a novel entitled Running on Rooftops, revolves around a fictitious community of expatriates living and working in China. As a new college graduate, Anne Henry, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, decides to spend a year teaching English in China. Twelve years later, though still unsure of how to make sense of the chain of events and encounters that left her with an X-shaped scar on her knee, she nevertheless tells the story, revealing how “just a year” can be anything but. The critical reflection, entitled Writing on Rooftops, explores the nature of expatriation as it relates to identity and writing, specifically in how West-meets-East encounters and attitudes are depicted in literature. In it, I examine the challenges and benefits of writing from an identity and mindset of expatriation as illustrated in the works of Western writers who themselves experienced and wrote from viewpoints of expatriation, particularly those Western writers who wrote of expatriation in China and Southeast Asia. The primary question addressed is how expatriation influences perception and how those perceptions among Western foreigners in China and Southeast Asia have been and can be reflected in literature. In the end, I argue that expatriation can be a valuable viewpoint to write from, offering new ways of seeing and describing our world, ourselves and the connections between the two.

Modernes Drama und Weltanschauung.

Mode of access: Internet.

Rhetoric and Representation : Exploring the Cultural Meaning of the Natural Sciences in Contemporary Popular Science Writing and Literature

Kirjallisuuden- ja kulttuurintutkimus on viimeisten kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana tullut yhä enenevässä määrin tietoiseksi tieteen ja taiteen suhteen monimutkaisesta luonteesta. Nykyään näiden kahden kulttuurin tutkimus muodostaa oman kenttänsä, jolla niiden suhdetta tarkastellaan ennen kaikkea dynaamisena vuorovaikutuksena, joka heijastaa kulttuurimme kieltä, arvoja ja ideologisia sisältöjä. Toisin kuin aiemmat näkemykset, jotka pitävät tiedettä ja taidetta toisilleen enemmän tai vähemmän vastakkaisina pyrkimyksinä, nykytutkimus lähtee oletuksesta, jonka mukaan ne ovat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneita diskursseja, jotka kohtaavat usein samankaltaisia todellisuuden mallintamiseen liittyviä ongelmia, vaikka niiden käyttämät metodit eroavatkin toisistaan. Väitöskirjani keskittyy yllä mainitun suhteen osa-alueista popularisoidun tietokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Paul Davies, James Gleick ja Richard Dawkins) käyttämän kielen ja luonnontieteistä ideoita ammentavan kaunokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Jeanette Winterson, Tom Stoppard ja Richard Powers) hyödyntämien keinojen tarkasteluun nojautuen yli 30 teoksen kattavaa aineistoa koskevaan tyylin ja teemojen tekstianalyysiin. Populaarin tietokirjallisuuden osalta tarkoituksenani on osoittaa, että sen käyttämä kieli rakentuu huomattavassa määrin sellaisille rakenteille, jotka tarjoavat mahdollisuuden esittää todellisuutta koskevia argumentteja mahdollisimman vakuuttavalla tavalla. Tässä tehtävässä monilla klassisen retoriikan määrittelemillä kuvioilla on tärkeä rooli, koska ne auttavat liittämään sanotun sisällön ja muodon tiukasti toisiinsa: retoristen kuvioiden käyttö ei näin ollen edusta pelkkää tyylikeinoa, vaan se myös usein kiteyttää argumenttien taustalla olevat tieteenfilosofiset olettamukset ja auttaa vakiinnuttamaan argumentoinnin logiikan. Koska monet aikaisemmin ilmestyneistä tutkimuksista ovat keskittyneet pelkästään metaforan rooliin tieteellisissä argumenteissa, tämä väitöskirja pyrkii laajentamaan tutkimuskenttää analysoimalla myös toisenlaisten kuvioiden käyttöä. Osoitan myös, että retoristen kuvioiden käyttö muodostaa yhtymäkohdan tieteellisiä ideoita hyödyntävään kaunokirjallisuuteen. Siinä missä popularisoitu tiede käyttää retoriikkaa vahvistaakseen sekä argumentatiivisia että kaunokirjallisia ominaisuuksiaan, kuvaa tällainen sanataide tiedettä tavoilla, jotka usein heijastelevat tietokirjallisuuden kielellisiä rakenteita. Toisaalta on myös mahdollista nähdä, miten kaunokirjallisuuden keinot heijastuvat popularisoidun tieteen kerrontatapoihin ja kieleen todistaen kahden kulttuurin dynaamisesta vuorovaikutuksesta. Nykyaikaisen populaaritieteen retoristen elementtien ja kaunokirjallisuuden keinojen vertailu näyttää lisäksi, kuinka tiede ja taide osallistuvat keskusteluun kulttuurimme tiettyjen peruskäsitteiden kuten identiteetin, tiedon ja ajan merkityksestä. Tällä tavoin on mahdollista nähdä, että molemmat ovat perustavanlaatuisia osia merkityksenantoprosessissa, jonka kautta niin tieteelliset ideat kuin ihmiselämän suuret kysymyksetkin saavat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneen merkityksensä.

A Literary Turn : Rethinking the Roles of Generalization and Theory in Anglo-American Moral Philosophy

This work investigates the role of narrative literature in late-20th century and contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophy. It aims to show the trend of reading narrative literature for purposes of moral philosophy from the 1970 s and early 80 s to the present day as a part of a larger movement in Anglo-American moral philosophy, and to present a view of its significance for moral philosophy overall. Chapter 1 provides some preliminaries concerning the view of narrative literature which my discussion builds on. In chapter 2 I give an outline of how narrative literature is considered in contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophy, and connect this use to the broad trend of neo-Aristotelian ethics in this context. In chapter 3 I connect the use of literature to the idea of the non-generalizability of moral perception and judgment, which is central to the neo-Aristotelian trend, as well as to a range of moral particularisms and anti-theoretical positions of late 20th century and contemporary ethics. The joint task of chapters 2 and 3 is to situate the trend of reading narrative literature for the purposes of moral philosophy in the present context of moral philosophy. In the following two chapters, 4 and 5, I move on from the particularizing power of narrative literature, which is emphasized by neo-Aristotelians and particularists alike, to a broader under-standing of the intellectual potential of narrative literature. In chapter 4 I argue that narrative literature has its own forms of generalization which are enriching for our understanding of the workings of ethical generalizations in philosophy. In chapter 5 I discuss Iris Murdoch s and Martha Nussbaum s respective ways of combining ethical generality and particularity in a philosophical framework where both systematic moral theory and narrative literature are taken seriously. In chapter 6 I analyse the controversy between contemporary anti-theoretical conceptions of ethics and Nussbaum s refutation of these. I present my suggestion for how the significance of the ethics/literature discussion for moral philosophy can be understood if one wants to overcome the limitations of both Nussbaum s theory-centred, equilibrium-seeking perspective, and the anti-theorists repudiation of theory. I call my position the inclusive approach .

Ethics and Aesthetics : Intersections in Iris Murdoch's Philosophy

The study addresses the question concerning the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in the philosophy of Iris Murdoch. The main argument is that Murdoch s philosophy cannot be accurately understood without an understanding of the relationship she sees between the aesthetic experience and morality. Reading Murdoch s philosophy with this relationship in mind shows that it must be considered as a relevant alternative to the main forms of aesthetic-ethical theories. The study consists of seven previously published articles and a summary. It shows that Murdoch belongs to a tradition of philosophers who seek to broaden the scope of ethics by reference to aesthetic value and aesthetic experience. She sees an attitude responsible for aesthetic experiences as relevant for morality. However, she does not collapse morality into aesthetic experience. The two meet on the level of the subject s attitude towards its object, but there is a distinction between the experiences that accompany the attitudes. Aesthetic experiences can function as a clue to morals in that they present in a pleasing manner moral truths which otherwise might be psychologically too difficult to face. Murdoch equates the aesthetic attitude with virtuous love characterized by unselfish attention to its object. The primary object of such love is in Murdoch s account another human individual in her particularity. She compares the recognition of the other person as a particular existence to the experience of the Kantian sublime and offers her own version of the true sublime which is the experience of awe in the face of the infinity of the task of understanding others. One of the most central claims in Murdoch s philosophy is that human consciousness is evaluatively structured. This claim challenges the distinction between facts and values which has had an immense influence on modern moral philosophy. One argument with which Murdoch supports her claim is the nature of great literature. According to her, the standard of greatness in literature is the authors awareness of the independent existence of individuals in the particularity of their evaluative consciousnesses. The analysis of the standard of greatness in literature is also Murdoch s only argument for the claim that the primary object of the loving unselfish attention is the other particular individual. She is convinced that great literature reveals a deep truth about the human condition with its capacity to capture the particular. Abstract philo¬sophical discourse cannot compete with this capacity but it should take truths revealed by literature seriously in its theorising. Recognising this as Murdoch s stand on the question of the relation between philosophy and literature as forms of human discourse settles whether she is part of what has been called philosophy s turn to literature. The answer is yes.

Notes of four lectures on the literature and philosophy of the middle ages,

Mode of access: Internet.

From physics to metaphysics: philosophy and style in the critical writings of T. S. Eliot (1913-1935)

This thesis considers Eliot's critical writing from the late 1910s till the mid-1930s, in the light of his PhD thesis - Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley - and a range of unpublished material: T S. Eliot's Philosophical Essays and Notes (1913- 4) in the Hayward Bequest (King's College, Cambridge University); T. S. Eliot's Family Papers in the T. S. Eliot Collection at the Houghton Library (Harvard University); and items from the Harvard University Archives at the Pusey Library. 'Me thesis offers a comprehensive view of Eliot's critical development throughout this important period. It starts by considering The Sacred Wood's ambivalence towards the metaphysical philosophy of F. H. Bradley and Eliot's apparent adoption of a scientific method, under the influence of Bertrand Russell. It will be argued that Eliot uses rhetorical strategies which simultaneously subvert the method he is propounding, and which set the tone for an assessment of his criticism throughout the 1920s. His indecision, in this period, about the label 'Metaphysical' for some poets of the seventeenth century, reveals the persistence of the philosophical thought he apparently rejects in 1916, when he chooses not to pursue a career in philosophy in Harvard. This rhetorical tactic achieves its fulfilment in Dante (1929), where Eliot finds a model in the medieval allegorical method and 'philosophical' poetry. Allegory is also examined in connection with the evaluation of Eliot's critical writings themselves to determine, for instance, the figurative dimension of his early scientific vocabulary and uncover metaphysical residues he had explicitly disowned but would later embrace. Finally, it is suggested that, the hermeneutics of allegory are historical and it is used here to test the relationship between Eliot's early and later critical writings, that is the early physics and the later metaphysics.