Camille Atkinson

Coastal Bend College
  •  91
    Gadamer, Tradition and Subjectivity
    Dissertation, New School for Social Research. 1998.
    In Truth and Method, Hans-Georg Gadamer maintains that "tradition" and "prejudice" are constitutive of hermeneutic understanding, or the kind of understanding that is proper to the human sciences. This has led certain critics to accuse him of "conservatism" insofar as he appears to be ignoring, and thereby tacitly validating, the intellectual or political power structures that determine what counts as traditional, what it means to belong to a tradition, etc. On the other hand, there are those wh…Read more
  •  525
    Self- Deprecation and the Habit of Laughter
    Florida Philosophical Review 15 (1): 19-36. 2015.
    My objective here is to give an account of self-deprecating humor—examining what works, what doesn't, and why—and to reflect on the significance of the audience response. More specifically, I will be focusing not only on the purpose or intention behind self-deprecating jokes, but considering how their consequences might render them successful or unsuccessful. For example, under what circumstances does self-deprecation tend to put listeners at ease, and when is this type of humor more likely to p…Read more
  •  176
    "That's Not What I Meant! Projection and Intention in Interpretation"
    ALEA: International Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 9. 2011.
  •  26
    Is Gadamer’s Hermeneutics Inherently Conservative?
    Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 14 (2): 285-306. 2009.
    According to two critics, Georgia Warnke and John Caputo, Gadamer's hermeneutics is inherently "conservative" insofar as he appeals to tradition as a constituent in understanding. They insist that he simply preserves the ideals, norms and values of the Western metaphysical tradition without critically examining them. I do not agree and will argue that views like this depend upon several false assumptions -- for example, that Gadamer reifies the text as a "thing-in-itself" and remains trapped in …Read more
  •  84
    What’s So Funny? Or, Why Humor Should Matter to Philosophers
    Philosophy Today 50 (4): 437-443. 2006.
  •  119
    Kant on Human Nature and Radical Evil
    Philosophy and Theology 19 (1-2): 215-224. 2007.
    Are human beings essentially good or evil? Immanuel Kant responds, “[H]e [man] is as much the one as the other, partly good, partly bad.” Given this, I’d like to explore the following: What does Kant mean by human nature and how is it possible to be both good and evil? What is “original sin” and does it place limits on free will? In what respect might Kant’s views be significant for non-believers? More specifically, is Kant saying that human beings need God in order to be good or is morality pos…Read more