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35Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Allen Wood (ed.), Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (5). 2010.
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59Benjamin Rutter, Hegel and the Modern Arts (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 49 (3): 381-382. 2011.
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53The Self as Creature and CreatorIdealistic Studies 37 (3): 179-202. 2007.The conception of subjectivity that dominates the Western philosophical tradition, particularly during the Enlightenment, sets up a simple dichotomy: either the subject is ultimately autonomous or it is merely a causally determined thing. Fichte and Freud challenge this model by formulating theories of subjectivity that transcend this opposition. Fichte conceives of the subject as based in absolute activity, but that activity is qualified by a check for which it is not ultimately responsible. Fr…Read more
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319F. Scott Scribner, Matters of spirit: J. G. Fichte and the technological imagination (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 49 (2): 259-261. 2011.
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50Decentering Anthropocentrisms: A Functional Approach to Animal MindsBetween the Species 18 (1). 2015.Anthropocentric biases manifest themselves in two different ways in research on animal cognition. Some researchers claim that only humans have the capacity for reasoning, beliefs, and interests; and others attribute mental concepts to nonhuman animals on the basis of behavioral evidence, and they conceive of animal cognition in more or less human terms. Both approaches overlook the fact that language-use deeply informs mental states, such that comparing human mental states to the mental states o…Read more
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58Mandatory Ultrasound Laws and the Coercive Use of Informed ConsentTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 16 (1): 16-30. 2012.Requiring that a woman who is seeking an abortion be given the opportunity to view an ultrasound of her fetus has spread from anti-abortion “pregnancy resource centers” to state laws. Proponents of these laws claim that having access to the ultrasound image is necessary for a woman to make a medically informed decision. In this paper, we argue that ultrasound examinations frame fetuses visually and linguistically as persons and interpellate pregnant women as mothers, with all of the cultural mea…Read more
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54Subjecting Ourselves to Capital Punishment: A Rejoinder to Kantian RetributivismPublic Affairs Quarterly 19 (4): 247-264. 2005.
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47Idealism is the Only Possible Philosophy: Systematicity and the Fichtean Fact of ReasonIdealistic Studies 31 (1): 1-30. 2001.Fichte develops his idealism through a higher-level critique: only through the Fichtean fact of reason can one justify a systematic transcendental idealism, thereby making possible the self-sufficiency of theoretical reason. By examining the metaphilosophical implications of our immediate consciousness of the moral law, Fichte is able to assert the necessary metaphilosophical primacy of practical reason for any possible wissenschaftlich philosophy as well as the philosophical unity of theory and…Read more
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37The Significance of the Other in Moral Education: Fichte on the Birth of SubjectivityHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 25 (2). 2008.
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58On the Uses and Disadvantages of the Ticking Bomb Case for LifeInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (1): 19-28. 2012.The ticking bomb case is meant to challenge absolute prohibitions on the use of torture. In “Imaginary Cases,” Michael Davis attempts to show that such cases can only be legitimately employed within certain limited parameters. In this paper, I explain how the ticking bomb case, suitably revised, does not run afoul of Davis’s prohibition on impossible content. The fact that torture could elicit the necessary information is enough; we need not stipulate a guaranteed result. I also defend philosoph…Read more
Ellensburg, Washington, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
19th Century Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |