Abstract Derrida's deconstructive strategy of reading texts can be understood as a way of highlighting the irreducible plurality of discursive meaning that undermines the traditional Western “logocentric“ desire for an absolute point of reference. While his notion of logocentrism was modeled on Heidegger's articulation of the traditional ontotheological framework of Aristotelian metaphysics, Derrida detects a logocentric remnant in Heidegger's own interpretation of gathering ( Versammlung ) as the basic movement of λόγος, discursiveness. However, I suggest that Derrida here touches upon (...) a certain limit of deconstruction. As Derrida himself points out, the “decentering“ effect of deconstruction does not simply abolish the unifying and focalizing function of discourse. Insofar as deconstruction involves reading and interpreting, it cannot completely evade narrative focalization. Rather, both Heidegger and Derrida can be understood as addressing the radical contextuality of all discursive centers and focal points as well as the consequent impossibility of an ultimate and definitive meta narrative. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the topics of ethics, religion, and their relationship in the work of Charles Taylor. I take Taylor's attempt to confront modern disenchantment by seeking a kind of re-enchantment as my guiding thread. Seeking re-enchantment means, first of all, defending an `engaged realist' account of strong evaluation, i.e., qualitative distinctions of value that are seen as normative for our desires. Secondly, it means overcoming self-enclosure and achieving self-transcendence, which I argue should be understood in terms of (...) transcending a `lower' mode of selfhood for a `higher' one in concern for `strong goods'. One of the main issues that Taylor raises is whether re-enchantment requires theism for its full adequacy. He advances - often as `hunches' - controversial claims regarding the significance of theism (1) for defending strong evaluative realism and (2) for motivating an ethic of universal human concern. I seek to fill out his hunches in terms of a theistic teleological perspective that is centered on the `telos of communion'. I argue that such a view is important for overcoming the problem of what Bernard Williams calls the `radical contingency' of ethical beliefs, which seems to undermine their normative authority. However, I argue that if a non-theistic view of cosmic purpose (e.g., Thomas Nagel's view) can be regarded as a viable option, then it could also help to address this problem and support a kind of re-enchantment. Taylor also advances the controversial view that (3) there is an ineradicable draw to `transcendence' in human life in connection to the quest for the meaning of life. Here he opposes certain mainstream theories of secularization that see it as a process involving the ineluctable fading away of the relevance of religion. I seek to fill out and defend Taylor's view in this matter. Besides providing a reading of Taylor's work as a whole and advancing further some of the issues he raises, I also examine his general evaluative framework based on his account of strong evaluation. In doing so I show how he provides a distinct and important perspective among contemporary moral philosophers. (shrink)

In the English-language reception of Alain Badiou#39;s work, he has often been one-sidedly positioned as a direct heir to the antihumanist projects of Lacan, Althusser and Foucault. Whilst there is much to this claim, this paper argues that the retention of a notion of the #39;political subject#39; in Badiou#39;s work necessarily also depends upon a commitment to a much-underexamined notion of a minimal philosophical anthropology that puts Badiou in a tradition with thinkers such as Ludwig Feuerbach. It is further argued (...) that Badiou#39;s minimal philosophical anthropology is opposed in essence to apparently similar phenomenological projects because it aligns humanity with infinity and not finitude.nbsp. (shrink)

Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) has released its complete 2017 Final Report, an 81-page document that collects data on PhD-granting philosophy programs (including ratings by former students, placement rates, and diversity) and the discipline as a whole (including hiring networks, placement maps, cluster analyses of programs, job descriptions, non-academic hiring). The report was created by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Patrice Cobb, Pablo Contreras Kallens, and Angelo Kyrilov, all of University of California, Merced. (from Daily Nous).

There are two main motivations for undertaking this thesis on Sen’s capability approach and microfinance. One is to evaluate Sen’s capability approach by considering moral philosophy and developmental ethics contexts. The other is to analyse the impact of microfinance on poverty reduction in accordance with Sen’s approach. This thesis argues that Although Sen’s capability approach has drawbacks, both as a general moral theory and as a theory of justice, it does bring up important aspects of development and poverty reduction. When (...) the empirical evidence is combined with criteria from the capability approach, microfinance is a relative failure as a poverty-reducing approach. The evidence that micro-loans reduce poverty is weak, and there are moral arguments against the group lending approach that is used to assure repayments. Other services sometimes associated with microfinance – savings and insurance — do help the poor, however. However, we should notice that the conclusion I propose here does not exclude the possibility that perhaps microfinance does help promote some other freedoms that are of significance locally. (shrink)