American Philosophy/Group Research Assignments (2/1/04)
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Topic 1: Edwards on
Free Will and Determinism
Groups 1 and 2
Chair of Group 1:
Campbell
Members & Assigned Sections: Campbell (Critical),
Chepolis (Explanatory), Franklin (Critical)
Chair of Group 2:
Voss
Members & Assigned Sections: Sinton (Critical), Voss (Critical), Zides (Explan)
Info on topic, suggested readings: Jonathan Edwards was a determinist whose philosophical position
regarding the issue is almost identical to those of John Locke and Thomas
Hobbes. Published critical appraisals
of this position on determinism often focus on Hobbes or Locke. This position is also related to the problem
of moral responsibility. Your focus in
the paper can be centered on the problem of determinism itself or on moral
responsibility as it is relevant to determinism. Check The Philosopher’s
Index and books on Hobbes and Locke on this issue, as well as articles and
books/book chapters specific to Jonathan Edwards.
Groups 3 and 4
Chair of Group 3:
Hughes
Members & Assigned Sections: Hughes (Critical), Kelly (Expl), Molano
(Crit), Moore (Crit), Williams (Exp)
Chair of Group 4:
Kanning
Members & Assigned Sections: Kanning (Crit), Ruggiero
(Exp), Sansone (Exp), Shulman (Crit), Soto (Crit)
Info on topic, suggested readings: This topic is related to a wide variety of
separate issues, among them the general spirit of the Enlightenment (see
Voltaire, Kant), the work of Bertrand Russell in Why I am Not a Christian and in his essay on Thomas Paine. You should check on topics such as “atheism”
and “deism” and “Thomas Paine” for explanatory and critical works in both The Philosopher’s Index and in the
Library catalog.
Group 5
Chair: Reagan
Members & Assigned Sections: Leary (Exp), Reagan (Crit), Riedeman (Exp)
Info on topic, suggested readings: One of Dewey’s most famous works is “The Influence of Darwin on
Philosophy.” This should be one of your
primary sources in addition to Wright’s views as a precursor to the
Pragmatists. You should focus your
attention on how this issue (Darwinism/Evolution), according to Wright and/or
Dewey, has or should affect the practice of philosophy. Note, for example, the tendency of Darwinism
to work against absolutism and absolutist tendencies in the realms of
knowledge, science, politics and ethics.
You will have no problem finding critical and interpretive commentary on
this issue in The Philosopher’s Index
and in the UCF and SUS catalogs. You
might also find D. Dennett’s work, Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea and Freedom Evolves
to be useful resources.
Groups 6 and 7
Chair of Group 6:
Martin
Members & Assigned Sections: Boon (Crit), Briand (Exp), Dunn (Crit),
Hokanson (Exp), Martin (Crit)
Chair of Group 7:
Hall
Members & Assigned Sections: Hall (Crit), Hudson (Explan), Margolis
(Crit), Olen (Crit), Tuell (Crit), Whelan (Explan)
Info on Topic, Suggested readings: Emerson was concerned with “continuing” the
American Revolution in the sense that America and Americans must free
themselves from the traditions and culture of Europe. Further, however, Emerson and Thoreau both argued for a kind of
individualism as self-reliance that is characterized by a challenge to the
authority of reason and traditional education.
They both also held the position that less government is best. Your papers should focus on some aspect of
the individualism and suspicion about organized government systems, or on the “authority”
of individual ability, feeling, and thought.
Works to consult as primary sources are “Self-Reliance,” “The American
Scholar,” Walden and Civil Disobedience. Others are critical commentaries and
appraisals of the works of Emerson or Thoreau in periodicals and books.
Chair of Group 8:
K. Beers
Beers (Crit), Fisk-Humbert (Crit), Jones (Crit), Smith
(Crit). Since everyone in this group
wished to do critical analysis, but someone has to explain the general position
of Peirce and James on the nature of knowledge, I’ll leave it to the four of
you to determine who will write the explanatory section. If you have any problems, let me know.
Info on Topic, Suggested Readings: Primary sources here are C.S. Peirce’s “The
Fixation of Belief” and William James’s “The Will to Believe” as well as both
Peirce and James on the nature of Pragmatism (“What Pragmatism is” and “What
Pragmatism Means”). Secondary sources
are articles and books or book chapters analyzing and commenting on the
connections or disagreements that might exist between these works and thinkers
on the nature of knowledge and belief.
Remember that the Pragmatists were NOT absolutists. Also keep in mind that there are some
affinities between James’s “The Will to Believe” and Blaise Pascal’s “Wager”
regarding faith and belief. You might
find that interesting.
Chair of Group 9: J.
Rayfield
Members & Assigned Sections: Donaruma (exp), Farrell (crit), McNary (crit), Prestage (Exp),
Rayfield (Crit)
Info on topic, suggested Readings: The primary readings on this issue are
listed in a link in the syllabus for the UCF Common Reader. The topic is, generally, how this landmark
decision regarding desegregation can be justified by or critically appraised
from the point of view of one or more of the following: the ethical/social/political theories of
Thomas Paine, R.W. Emerson, H.D. Thoreau, Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, or John
Rawls. It is up to you which one(s) of these you wish to use to expand on and
analyze the importance, implications, and reasoning behind the court decision. Remember that you are looking for the arguments and philosophical content of this issue/court decision. You will, for the most part, create your arguments based on one of the
ethical/social/political theories in the list above.
Chair of Group 10: Wilkinson
Members & Assigned Sections: Gigler (exp), Hayhurst (exp AND crit), Miranda (exp), Wilkinson
(Nietzschean Critique)
Info on topic, suggested readings: At least one person in this group chose to write on feminist
ethics, not on the religious subjection of women in the work of E.C. Stanton. These two topics are now combined because
they are not unrelated and there were not enough people to form a group on feminist
ethics. What you can do here is
concentrate critical attention on the way in which the positions of Frye or
Held can be seen to be consistent with/inconsistent with Stanton’s
position. You may also wish to focus
your attention on the quality of Stanton’s argumentation in itself in some
aspect(s) of this paper. There are
numerous articles and books on Stanton and her views on religion, religious
belief, and the way(s) in which religions and religious belief have hindered
the moral, social, and educational progress of women. Remember that most of the works on Stanton are not philosophical works. But this certainly does not and should not
keep you from critically evaluating and appraising her argumentation, or that
of others, against the views of thinkers such as Rousseau and Kant or
consistent with the views and arguments of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor
Mill in their work, The Subjection of
Women.
Topic 8, Groups 11
and 12: ML King, Jr.’s Philosophy of
Love, and Human Dignity in the Civil Rights Movement
Chair of Group
11: C. Peterson
Members &
Assigned Sections: Peterson (expl), Jacobson (crit), Anaya (crit)
Chair of Group 12: M. Saver
Members & Assigned
Sections: Barron (crit), Altvater
(exp), Saver (crit)
Info on topic,
suggested readings: This topic is
relevant to the Brown vs. BOE decision, as well as to the conceptions of human
dignity and self-respect in ethical and political contexts. Some of the works to which you should turn
are King’s letters and writings on agape
(and critical/interpretive work on this issue) as well as commentary on human
dignity and the value of protest in works of Bernard Boxill et al. Others, such as Charles Mills, have also written
works relevant to this topic. Check
both The Philosopher’s Index and
books and book chapters relevant to the philosophical
work of Martin Luther King, Jr.