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101Humor, Dialectic, and Human Nature in PlatoEpoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (2): 319-330. 2011.Drawing principally on the Symposium, this paper argues that humor in Plato’s dialogues serves two serious purposes. First, Plato uses puns and other devices to disarm the reader’s defenses and thereby allow her to consider philosophical ideas that she would otherwise dismiss. Second, insofar as human beings can only be understood through unchanging forms that we fail to attain, our lives are discontinuous and only partly intelligible. Since, though, the discontinuity between expectation and act…Read more
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93Spinoza on the Political Value of Freedom of ReligionHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 21 (2): 167-182. 2004.The last chapter of Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) is a brief for freedom of religion. In our enthusiasm for Spinoza's conclusion it is easy to overlook the blatant contradiction between this thesis and the central claim of the immediately preceding chapter that "right over matters of religion is vested entirely in the sovereign." There Spinoza emphasizes the necessity that there be but one sovereign in the state and the threat that autonomous religious authorities would pose to …Read more
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77Aristotle’s Rethinking of PhilosophyProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 2 107-114. 2008.For Aristotle and other Greek thinkers, philosophy is itself a rethinking. There are other branches of knowledge, like medicine and mathematics, that each grasp some particular subject matter. Since philosophy or, as it has come to be called, metaphysics is the highest science, its job is to grasp somehow all the other sciences and all their subjects. If the science of a subject requires a type of thinking proper to the subject, then the science of that science requires a rethinking of this and …Read more
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47Primary Ousia (review)Review of Metaphysics 46 (3): 625-627. 1993.Loux sets the stage with a discussion of ousia in the Categories. There, he claims, Aristotle maintained that "basic subjects" are ontologically fundamental, and the essence of each such subject is its species. Loux thinks that Aristotle was tacitly committed to the "intersection" of these two, which he terms the "unanalyzability principle": An ousia's falling under its species is a "primitive... fact about it... not susceptible of further ontological analysis".
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67Jacob Klein on the Dispute Between Plato and Aristotle Regarding NumberNew Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 11 249-270. 2011.By examining Klein’s discussion of the difference between Plato and Aristotle regarding the ontology of number, this article aims to spells out the significanceof that debate both in itself and for the development of the later mathematical sciences. This is accomplished by explicating and expanding Klein’s account of the differences that exist in the understanding of number presented by these two thinkers. It is ultimately argued that Klein’s analysis can be used to show that the transition from…Read more
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94The Idealism of Hegel’s SystemThe Owl of Minerva 34 (1): 19-58. 2002.This paper aims to show Hegel’s system to be a self-generating and conceptually closed system and, therefore, an idealism. Many readers have agreed that Hegel intends his logic to be a self-generating, closed system, but they assume that the two branches of Realphilosophie, Nature and Spirit, must involve the application of logical categories to some non-conceptual reality external to them. This paper argues that Nature emerges from logic by the reapplication of the opening logical categories to…Read more
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195Freshman Seminar Film CoursesTeaching Philosophy 28 (4): 351-365. 2005.The aim of this paper is to explain how to design and teach a course that meets the special requirements of Freshman Seminar programs by using feature films to examine philosophical themes. Two such courses are discussed. By organizing each course around a theme, the teacher can use the films to illustrate and, sometimes, critique philosophical positions that she elaborates. Discussing the films, the students develop analytical and interpretive skills important for more rigorous philosophy cours…Read more
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9Colloquium 8Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 5 (1): 247-276. 1989.
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67Sachs, Joe. Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study (review)Review of Metaphysics 50 (3): 687-689. 1997.
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6One and many in Aristotle's MetaphysicsParmenides. 2005.After showing how Aristotle justifies his doctrines by demonstrating how they resolve one/many problems, the author uses this justification to clarify the doctrines and what is puzzling in them.
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31Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (review)Review of Metaphysics 57 (2): 430-432. 2003.Pangle’s thesis is that Aristotle’s account of friendship in Nicomachean Ethics 8 and 9 addresses multiple audiences. For his ostensible audience, statesmen and other men of action, Aristotle paints an enticing picture of friendship that is based on moral virtue and issues in acts of benevolence. However, he embeds within this analysis subtle “tensions” designed to signal to thoughtful readers the limits of moral virtue and so to provoke them to pursue a philosophical life as well as to provide …Read more
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73Hegel’s Family ValuesReview of Metaphysics 54 (4). 2001.FEW PHILOSOPHERS, NONE APPROACHING HIS STATURE, would agree with Hegel’s claim that we have an ethical duty to marry. More commonly, philosophers sanction marriage as ethically permissible, as Kant does, or even, at least in recent years, reject marriage as ethically illegitimate. Hegel’s view reflects his understanding of the family as a moral institution, that is, an institution in which mere participation is a moral act and, therefore, obligatory. The notion that the family is or, at least, i…Read more
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22Spinoza on the Political Value of Freedom of ReligionThe Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 2 37-44. 2006.The last chapter of Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) is a brief for freedom of religion. In our enthusiasm for Spinoza's conclusion it is easy to overlook the blatant contradiction between this thesis and the central claim of the immediately preceding chapter that "right over matters of religion is vested entirely in the sovereign." There Spinoza emphasizes the necessity that there be but one sovereign in the state and the threat that autonomous religious authorities would pose to …Read more
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65Aristotle's Solution to the Problem of Sensible SubstanceJournal of Philosophy 84 (11): 666-672. 1987.
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1Plato on the Rationality of NatureSkepsis: A Journal for Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research 18 (1-2). 2007.
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11Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle's Metaphysics 2 & 3 by William E. Dooley & Arthur Madigan (review)Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 88 63-64. 1994.
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21Thinking About the Environment: Our Debt to the Classical and Medieval Past (edited book)Lexington Books. 2002.Why should the work of the ancient and the medievals, so far as it relates to nature, still be of interest and an inspiration to us now? The contributions to this enlightening volume explore and uncover contemporary scholarship's debt to the classical and medieval past. Thinking About the Environment synthesizes religious thought and environmental theory to trace a trajectory from Mesopotamian mythology and classical and Hellenistic Greek, through classical Latin writers, to medieval Christian v…Read more
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19Jacob Klein on the Dispute Between Plato and Aristotle Regarding NumberNew Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 11 249-270. 2011.By examining Klein’s discussion of the difference between Plato and Aristotle regarding the ontology of number, this article aims to spells out the significanceof that debate both in itself and for the development of the later mathematical sciences. This is accomplished by explicating and expanding Klein’s account of the differences that exist in the understanding of number presented by these two thinkers. It is ultimately argued that Klein’s analysis can be used to show that the transition from…Read more
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