1,720,971 research outputs found
Adding academic rigor to introductory ethics courses using Bloom’s taxonomy
Full text linkSince philosophy is a notoriously difficult subject, one may think that the concept of adding rigor to a philosophy course is misguided. Isn’t reading difficult texts by Immanuel Kant or Friedrich Nietzsche enough to categorize a class as academically rigorous? This question is based on the misguided assumption that academic rigor has only to do with course content. While course content is a component of academic rigor, other aspects such as higher-order thinking, as well as how an instructor designs and grades assignments, contribute to the level of academic rigor in a course. The author provides several ways to increase the level of academic rigor in a philosophy course based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy using examples from an introductory ethics course and then provides recommendations as to how to grade to promote academic rigor
The Need for Basic Rights: A Critique of Nozick's Entitlement Theory
Full text linkAlthough the Libertarian Party has gained traction as the third biggest political party in the United States, the philosophical grounding of the party, which is exemplified by Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory is inherently flawed. Libertarianism’s emphasis on a free market leads to gross inequalities since it has no regard for sacred rights other than one’s right to freedom from interference from the government beyond what is essential for societal functioning. I argue that Nozick’s entitlement theory leads to indirect injustice and is therefore an unfitting philosophical theory, which means that the Libertarian Party’s platform is flawed
Leibniz and Huayan Buddhism: Monads as Modified Li?
Full text linkWhen the question is posed as to when Chinese thought influenced Western philosophy, people often turn to the philosophy of the German rationalist Christian Wolff, whose 1721 speech on the virtues of Confucianism led to his academic indictment and eventual ousting from the University of Halle in 1723. In his speech, Wolff lauds the Chinese for attaining virtues by natural revelation rather than appealing to Christian revelation, which made their accomplishments all the more impressive in his eyes (Fuchs 2006). According to Kanamori (1997), the audience of Wolff’s speech “criticized it as the product of atheistic thoughts because they thought that the speaker valued Chinese morality as highly as Christian morals, which were formulated by divine revelation” (p. 299). The worry, in other words, was that Wolff was corrupted by Chinese thought since the atheism of Confucianism may have influenced Wolff’s own views. Almost invariably, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s name is involved in conversations that question the Chinese influence on Western philosophy, but it is typically tempered by the standard scholarly interpretation of the Leibniz-China connection, which is that Leibniz respected Chinese thought but was not influenced by it. I will argue against this standard scholarly interpretation by showing how Leibniz could have been influenced by Chinese thought. In particular, I propose that Leibniz’s conception of monads, which is something that we only see after his engagement with Chinese thought, may have been influenced by the Huayan Buddhist concept of li, which creeps into the Neo-Confucianism with which Leibniz had exposure. Should my argument be persuasive, this means that Chinese thought influenced the Western world sooner than has been previously believed
Review of Kevin Aho, One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality
No full textBook Review of Kevin Aho's One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality (Polity, 2022
Hermeneutical Healing: Physical Therapy with a Gadamerian Twist
Full text linkIn recent decades, phenomenology has been utilized not only as a conceptual framework from which to understand medical encounters in healthcare settings, but also to guide medical professionals in providing care. In the realm of physical therapy, phenomenology has been touted as a philosophically-based avenue to aid in helping to understand what it means to be a patient. The works of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger have been utilized as paths to approach phenomenologically-informed care in physical therapy. However, to our knowledge, no significant connection has been made in regard to the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s phenomenology and hermeneutics in the realm of physical therapy. The authors aim to close that gap by showing the ways in which Gadamer’s philosophy can help physical therapists provide phenomenologically-informed patient care. They begin by outlining some of the touchpoints between phenomenology and healthcare and then introduce Gadamer as a figure who deserves attention in the question of how to apply phenomenology to healthcare settings. Upon analyzing Gadamer’s account of what it means to experience an altered body, they outline Gadamer’s understanding of tact, practical knowledge, and good sense in order to show how to understand at a conceptual level what it means to empathize with patients on the path to building therapeutic alliance, that is, a cooperative working relationship. They then look closely at Gadamer’s hermeneutics and particularly his comments on how to cultivate a fusion of horizons in order to attempt to help guide physical therapists in theoretically understanding how to empathize with their patients. Ultimately, they argue that physical therapists who practice phenomenologically-informed care, which they call “hermeneutical healing,” are positioned well to form strong working relationships with their patients
Responding to Unexpected Urine Drug Test Results: A Phenomenological Approach
No full textAs a response to the opioid epidemic in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) published the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in
2016. This document served as a means to reduce risks and address harms of opioid use by
recommending that clinicians conduct periodic urine drug testing for patients on chronic opioid
therapy. As an unintended result of this recommendation, providers began using unexpected
urine drug test results as a reason to dismiss patients from practice, both out of concern for their
patients’ wellbeing as well as their own legal risks. Using Husserl’s and Heidegger’s
phenomenology, we argue that this science-based, black-and-white practice does not heed the
patient as a whole person. Instead, we recommend a more contextual, patient-centered approach
that can help us to better understand and manage patient needs in such contexts
Book Review of Roisin Lally's Sustainability in the Anthropocene
No full textRóisín Lally’s Sustainability in the Anthropocene provides a wealth of essays on the
philosophical meanings and implications of renewable technologies, as well as glimpses of novel
ways toward a sustainable future that integrate deeply meaningful ways of being for humans.
The edited collection features some of the most reputable thinkers in the philosophy of
technology, such as Don Ihde, Babette Babich, and Trish Glazebrook, as well as some
newcomers with novel perspectives that need to be taken into consideration not only for fellow
philosophers, but for anyone interested in the future of our increasingly vulnerable planet. The
book is divided into four parts: defining sustainability, exploring the relationship between
sustainability and particular renewable technologies, investigating sustainability and design, and
finally examining sustainability and ethics. The authors engage in applications of various
philosophers from the Continental tradition, most prominently the work of Martin Heidegger. I
provide a brief summary of the various sections and highlight key arguments while providing
some commentary with an aim to keep the conversation goin
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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