Papers by D. Seiple
limbo, 2023
Readers new to Santayana may feel puzzled by aspects of Scepticism and Animal Faith. A number of ... more Readers new to Santayana may feel puzzled by aspects of Scepticism and Animal Faith. A number of Santayana’s early critics were puzzled as well. Some found the relation between scepticism and common sense troublesome. Others were put off by Santayana’s indirect poetical style and his lack of “clarity.” In this paper I reflect on Santayana’s estimation of George Berkeley, whose work is both an inspiration and a foil for Santayana, and I tease out some observations that illuminate puzzlements that first-time readers might share with Santayana’s early critics. This same line of analysis should lead us to appreciate the impact of Santayana’s great “discovery of essence,” which he re-enacts in this book and which holds the key to understanding Santayana’s mature project.
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Metaphilosophy, 2020
"Philosophy as a way of life" has its roots in ancient ethics and has attracted renewed interest ... more "Philosophy as a way of life" has its roots in ancient ethics and has attracted renewed interest in recent decades. The aim in this paper is to construct a contemporized image of Socrates, consistent with the textual evidence. The account defers concern over analytical/theoretical inquiry into virtue, in favor of a neo-existentialist process of self-examination informed by the virtue of what is called "moral seriousness." This process is modeled on Frankfurt's hierarchical account of self-identification, and the paper suggests an expansion of Frankfurt's concept of a person to include "full" personhood, in which the apprehended "meaning" of one's "whole life" is taken as a necessary condition for eudaimonia (meaning of life) and is characterized by phenomenological transcendence. In addition , the importance of the informed scrutiny of a community of philosophers to the self-examination process is discussed.
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Christopher Morse has set out to salvage “dogmatics” as a theological discipline, but a first-yea... more Christopher Morse has set out to salvage “dogmatics” as a theological discipline, but a first-year seminarian might naturally wonder if her teacher isn’t dodging the big issue. The most natural question for dogmatics would seem to be: What should any individual Christian, personally, believe? Yet even the faith statements Morse eventually offers are usually stated in terms of doctrine, as in “the Christian Faith” or “the church’s faith in God the Creator,” and a reader is bound to wonder if these locutions aren’t more sociological than personal, presented in terms of “the deposit of faith”—the “traditioned” symbolic representations of the “social facts”1 associated with worship.2 Now it’s true that when it comes to what should not be included among those doctrines, Morse’s recommendations seem to take on a more personal aspect. Discerning “faithful disbeliefs” is something both individual congregants and church councils can readily do. Hence the subtitle of his book.3 But this prese...
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This article, which appeared in the Library of Living Philosophers series, is a thought experimen... more This article, which appeared in the Library of Living Philosophers series, is a thought experiment that imagines Danto’s analytical framework reaching well beyond what he had called the “drab” state of philosophy in the early 2000s. It describes, in minimalist terms, what he saw as the fundamental project of all philosophy -- regardless of the specific theoretical content any particular philosopher might put forth. It discusses his central (and still underdeveloped) notion of representation, and his quasi-Hegelian view of how art theory has been altered by its own recently emerging self-consciousness. It draws out the implications of his Argument from Intelligibility, which informs Danto’s interest in human self-consciousness, in autonomy, and (somewhat speculatively) in “spirit.”
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Dictionary of Literary Biography, 2003
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Contemporary Pragmatism, Jan 1, 2004
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The State of Schleiermacher Scholarship Today, 2006
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Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (1st ed), 1998
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Dokumentation , Dec 14, 2010
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Newsletter on Philosophy and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues, 2002
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Books by D. Seiple
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Dissertation by D. Seiple
AVAILABLE FROM UMI DISSERTATION SERVICE @ http://dissexpress.umi.com/dxweb/search.html --
Ente... more AVAILABLE FROM UMI DISSERTATION SERVICE @ http://dissexpress.umi.com/dxweb/search.html --
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Dewey's Art as Experience should be read as a sustained rejection of "Compartmentalism" in art -- i.e., of the notion that because art and ordinary life have little direct pertinence to each other, interpretation and exhibition of art objects should occur irrespective of practical context (a claim I label `the Significance-for-Praxis Thesis' (SPT)). Dewey however does not make explicit any real argument for the rejection of Compartmentalism. Accordingly, {1} my first general aim is to reconstruct that argument by indicating how praxis is relevant to aesthetics, and I do this by making essential use of the concepts of `organic unity', `immediacy', `fusion', `critical control', and `expression'. I argue in Chapter I that aesthetic experience has significance for the practice of artistic creativity, and in Chapter III (against the Disinterestedness Thesis (DT)) that practical interests have significance for aesthetic experience.
{2} My second general aim is to show why this argument retains any current interest for us. This involves showing {a} how for Dewey aesthetics is relevant to praxis -- specifically, to moral deliberation, and {b} how this claim fits into contemporary discussion. I do this by demonstrating how certain other key terms are applicable to Dewey's account ‑‑ `intentionality', `activity', `method', `context-sensitivity', `virtue', `vitality', `representation' and `the end of art'. In Chapter II I show that Dewey provides a plausible account of moral deliberation that exhibits a structure similar to the process of artistic creativity, and in Chapter IV I indicate how Dewey's understanding of the social function of art provides an intriguing story about the educative use of art criticism in the development of a unified self.
My reading of Dewey takes as central a broad notion of "intelligence" as a univocal concept defined in terms of the qualitative end-states it promotes, and this calls into question some prominent interpretations of Dewey -- especially the reading offered by Richard Rorty. Rorty regards Dewey as a proto-deconstructionist, and if my argument here is correct, that is a seriously misleading view.
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Presentations by D. Seiple
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Papers by D. Seiple
Books by D. Seiple
Dissertation by D. Seiple
Enter order number 9318279 under "Search Terms"
Dewey's Art as Experience should be read as a sustained rejection of "Compartmentalism" in art -- i.e., of the notion that because art and ordinary life have little direct pertinence to each other, interpretation and exhibition of art objects should occur irrespective of practical context (a claim I label `the Significance-for-Praxis Thesis' (SPT)). Dewey however does not make explicit any real argument for the rejection of Compartmentalism. Accordingly, {1} my first general aim is to reconstruct that argument by indicating how praxis is relevant to aesthetics, and I do this by making essential use of the concepts of `organic unity', `immediacy', `fusion', `critical control', and `expression'. I argue in Chapter I that aesthetic experience has significance for the practice of artistic creativity, and in Chapter III (against the Disinterestedness Thesis (DT)) that practical interests have significance for aesthetic experience.
{2} My second general aim is to show why this argument retains any current interest for us. This involves showing {a} how for Dewey aesthetics is relevant to praxis -- specifically, to moral deliberation, and {b} how this claim fits into contemporary discussion. I do this by demonstrating how certain other key terms are applicable to Dewey's account ‑‑ `intentionality', `activity', `method', `context-sensitivity', `virtue', `vitality', `representation' and `the end of art'. In Chapter II I show that Dewey provides a plausible account of moral deliberation that exhibits a structure similar to the process of artistic creativity, and in Chapter IV I indicate how Dewey's understanding of the social function of art provides an intriguing story about the educative use of art criticism in the development of a unified self.
My reading of Dewey takes as central a broad notion of "intelligence" as a univocal concept defined in terms of the qualitative end-states it promotes, and this calls into question some prominent interpretations of Dewey -- especially the reading offered by Richard Rorty. Rorty regards Dewey as a proto-deconstructionist, and if my argument here is correct, that is a seriously misleading view.
Presentations by D. Seiple
Enter order number 9318279 under "Search Terms"
Dewey's Art as Experience should be read as a sustained rejection of "Compartmentalism" in art -- i.e., of the notion that because art and ordinary life have little direct pertinence to each other, interpretation and exhibition of art objects should occur irrespective of practical context (a claim I label `the Significance-for-Praxis Thesis' (SPT)). Dewey however does not make explicit any real argument for the rejection of Compartmentalism. Accordingly, {1} my first general aim is to reconstruct that argument by indicating how praxis is relevant to aesthetics, and I do this by making essential use of the concepts of `organic unity', `immediacy', `fusion', `critical control', and `expression'. I argue in Chapter I that aesthetic experience has significance for the practice of artistic creativity, and in Chapter III (against the Disinterestedness Thesis (DT)) that practical interests have significance for aesthetic experience.
{2} My second general aim is to show why this argument retains any current interest for us. This involves showing {a} how for Dewey aesthetics is relevant to praxis -- specifically, to moral deliberation, and {b} how this claim fits into contemporary discussion. I do this by demonstrating how certain other key terms are applicable to Dewey's account ‑‑ `intentionality', `activity', `method', `context-sensitivity', `virtue', `vitality', `representation' and `the end of art'. In Chapter II I show that Dewey provides a plausible account of moral deliberation that exhibits a structure similar to the process of artistic creativity, and in Chapter IV I indicate how Dewey's understanding of the social function of art provides an intriguing story about the educative use of art criticism in the development of a unified self.
My reading of Dewey takes as central a broad notion of "intelligence" as a univocal concept defined in terms of the qualitative end-states it promotes, and this calls into question some prominent interpretations of Dewey -- especially the reading offered by Richard Rorty. Rorty regards Dewey as a proto-deconstructionist, and if my argument here is correct, that is a seriously misleading view.