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Rik Dalvit and Thomas Shapley Video Interview
No full textRik Dalvit and Thomas Shapley talk about starting their careers in journalism at Central Washington State College. They tell about notable events and professors they remember. They talk about campus life and what the town and college were like in the early 1970\u27s. They also discuss other notable events and places in their careers as newspaper men.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/cat_tales/1024/thumbnail.jp
On the Possibility of Four-Dimensional Objects
Get PDFIn this paper I will be examining the possibility of four-dimensional objects on Mark Heller’s view.1 I will begin by explaining Heller’s “unpleasant alternatives” argument to three-dimensional objects and why he believes these unpleasant alternatives should lead us to accept a view of four-dimensional objects. I will then examine a challenge to Heller’s view based on an earlier argument by Peter van Inwagen.2 I will show two ways to interpret van Inwagen and will argue that, based on the strong interpretation of van Inwagen, we should reject Heller’s idea that material objects are four-dimensional
On Objects as Events and the Ontology of Temporal Parts
Get PDFTemporal parts pose something of a quandary. On the one hand, if they exist and fulfill the roles they are frequently claimed to, they appear to be an elegant solution to a number of basic metaphysical problems, change and identity of an object through time foremost, but also a number of smaller (perhaps subsidiary) issues. But on the other hand, an account of their ontology (not the ontology of things the temporal-parts theorist claims they compose) is not easily intuitively forthcoming. The questions of just exactly what a temporal part is and why we ought to believe they exist are troubling indeed. I will here briefly rehash the conventional view on the ontology of temporal parts, raise a few of the choiciest problems it faces in the cogency of the existence of temporal parts as entities of the sort that can solve the metaphysical problems in question (or indeed as entities at all), and offer my own alternative view. In the end, we will see that temporal parts can be constructed from the more fundamental notion of events and so become theoretical entities that nonetheless can do the heavy philosophical lifting we expect of them
Searching for Being
Get PDFThis paper is an attempt to discern the importance of the way in which philosophers read each other to the philosophical enterprise. To do this I compare Socrates’ treatment of Parmenides and Heraclitus in the Theaetetus to Heidegger’s treatment of Kant in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Using Heidegger’s notion of ‘unthought thoughts’, I attempt to tease out ontological points that contradict the way in which most people think of the philosophers examined in this paper. In this way we see an upset in the traditional understanding of the theory of Forms and the Phenomena/ Noumena distinction
The Failing of the Self or the Self of Failing? Gadamer, Derrida, žižek, and the \u3cem\u3ePhaedo\u3c/em\u3e
Get PDFThis paper begins with an examination of the notoriously shoddy proofs for the immortality of the soul that Socrates presents in the Phaedo. I first turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of the proofs (as historically situated between science and myth), and then, using evidence from the Phaedo itself and a wide sampling of the dialogues, reframe the proofs as a metaphor for the self. With the discussion thus redirected, I look at Jacques Derrida’s “Plato’s Pharmacy” in order to begin to the discussion about the implications of the failed proofs for a new understanding of the Platonic subject (as a subject whose description is always-already failed because of the confines of language). Finally, I apply Slavoj Žižek’s critique of Derrida in order to achieve a more nuanced, radical, and complete understanding of the subject being presented in the Phaedo—a subject whose incompleteness (“failure”) is constitutive and ontological, rather than linguistic and epistemological
The Value of Mathematics within the ‘Republic’
Get PDFIn this paper I examine two prominent views regarding the value of mathematics within the republic. One view, formulated by Julia Annas, gives mathematics only instrumental value while the second view, attributed to M.F. Burnyeat, states that mathematics is constitutive of the Good. I will end up arguing, contrary to both views, that mathematics plays not only an instrumental role but also that it is also good “just for itself.” In other words, I place mathematics within the second category of goods defined at the start of Book II- good just for itself as well as good for its consequences
The Theory of Structured Propositions and the Resolution of Problems with the Essential Indexical
Get PDFJohn Perry laid out an argument that he believes falsified the structured theory of propositions. He claims that indexicals cannot be accounted for by this theory. I maintain that indexicals are unproblematic for structured proposition theory, and that Perry has mistakenly presupposed that knowledge is ‘black or white’ – one either knows or does not know – rather than adopting a more subtle definition of knowledge. I also argue that he further presupposed that humans will reason perfectly. Disputing this assumption and defining knowledge accurately resolve the issues posed by Perry. Some consequences of my notion of knowledge are discussed
Railton’s Moral Properties and Sinclair’s Critique of Them
Get PDFThe field of Ethics in philosophy is confusing for many, even those having worked in the field a few years. Thus, the field of Meta-ethics may be even more confusing. Meta-ethics, in a nutshell, is arguing about how to argue about Ethics. A question to ask in this field is what are moral properties? That is, what makes claims about morality true or false? Peter Railton takes them to be naturalistic properties (facts in the natural and social sciences) that play an explanatory role in empirical theories. Railton’s ethical naturalism is one such theory of morality. Here I will focus on an objection to Railton’s theory. Neil Sinclair claims that instrumentally rational people might sometimes not agree with Railton’s definition of moral rightness; moral rightness being identical with satisfying the objective interests of a group of people. Based on this, Sinclair argues, one should reject Railton’s claim that moral properties are identical with facts in the natural and social sciences. My argument allows for exceptions in Railton’s theory such that it preserves his definition of moral rightness and allows for instrumentally rational agents to sometimes disagree with his definition of moral rightness.Editor\u27s Note: Honorable Mention Paper, 17th Annual Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference (2013
Divine Hiddenness and Affective Forecasting
Get PDFIn this paper I argue that J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness Argument is committed to a problematic implication that is weakened by research in cognitive psychology on affective forecasting. Schellenberg’s notion of a nonresistant nonbeliever logically implies that for any such person, it is true that she would form the proper belief in God if provided with what he calls “probabilifying” evidence for God’s existence. In light of Schellenberg’s commitment to the importance of both affective and propositional belief components for entering into the proper relationship with God, this implication of his argument becomes an affective prediction or forecast. However, research in cognitive psychology has shown that in multiple and varied circumstances humans often make inaccurate predictions of their future affective states or reactions. Thus, this research provides strong empirical reasons to doubt that the implication is warranted