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Course
Materials:
Spring 1998:
Fall 1997:
Earlier Courses:
- Postmodernism,
Plato, and Nietzsche - summer reading course
- Phil/GLST 210, Values Analysis, Spring,
1997
- Phil
371, History of Philosophy: Ancient and Medieval, Spring,
1997.
- Informal
Fallacies (web materials for PHIL 100, Introduction to
Logic/Critical Thinking, Spring, 1997).
Conference and workshop
presentations, guest lectures, etc.:
- " Using
Western Philosophy to Approach Eastern Religions: An Initial
List," part of a panel presentation on "Plato's Cave and Asian
Suns," ASIANetwork Conference, Equinox / Manchester Village, VT:
April 26, 1997.
- Academic Dialogue on Applied
Ethics - a series of four forums on the "conversational
ethics" of Putnam, Rorty, Rawls, and Habermas, beginning with
metaethical/theoretical problems, and then turning to the hard
cases of pornography on the Internet (especially from feminist
perspectives), abortion (especially from religious perspectives),
and physician-assisted suicide (as treated by hospital ethics
committees). A joint project with Robert Cavalier, the Center for
the Advancement of Applied Ethics, Carnegie Mellon University
(Pittsburgh, PA), with the additional support of Routledge.
- "Does the
Internet Democratize? Philosophical Dialogue On-Line as a
Microcosm/Case Study." Conference on "Technology and Democracy
- Comparative Perspectives," Centre for Technology and Culture,
University of Oslo, Norway, January 17-19, 1997. (Unauthorized
conference notes)
- Prophetic
Communities Online? Threat and promise for the church in
cyberspace - an examination of whether especially prophetic values
and communities may exploit the democratizing/prophetic potentials
of cyberspace, without losing out to "cybergnosticism" and related
dangers. (Optional reading for Brenda Brasher's experimental
course at Mount Union College on Religion and Cyberspace.)
- The Church
in Cyberspace (materials for articles, conference
presentation, and Disciples' Ministers' Institute workshop)
- Reason,
Revolution, Relativism, and Reactionaries (comments for
ART/ARCH 150, April 2, 1997). A largish set of documents that (a)
moves from common dualisms (true/false, right/wrong,
objective/subjective, dogmatism/relativism, reaction/revolution)
to a series of trichotomies, so as to (b) explore a middle ground
of "constructivist"/intersubjective positions, including
representative positions in philosophy (Socrates, Aristotle,
Augustine, Kant, and Habermas) and religion ("critical
rationalism"). A contemporary experiment in dialogue on abortion
(c) - using Habermas's discourse ethics to frame an ideal space
for such discussion - is then described as a practical example of
such middle ground positions. In this dialogue, Catholic and
Protestant representatives in fact arrived at a complex,
unexpected consensus - one involving both shared values/goals and
means towards those goals, coupled with irreducible differences,
rooted in diverse faith commitments, conjoined precisely in a
pluralism which is neither dogmatic-absolutist nor relativist.
This overview of
a Western rationalism and its trajectory towards greater equality
and liberation in such pluralisms is then contrasted with a
postmodern critique of Western traditions as destructively
dualistic, hegemonic, etc.
- Approaches to
Concepts of Space and Time (comments for "Tea time" in Jay
Garrott's architecture studio, Feb. 12, 1997)
- "Modernism,"
Postmodernism: dogmatism vs. relativism - panel presentation,
ART/ARCH 100 (Foundations of Design), September 12, 1996.
- "Flush Rush?: or, how
to make moral decisions in the face of uncertainty" -
Convocation presentation, October 2, 1996
- Locke's Second
Treatise and the argument for democratic/liberationist
revoutions - a critical thinking piece for Alpha Seminar.
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