Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

Simone Weil's Spiritual Critique of Modern Science: An Historical-Critical Assessment

Joseph K. Cosgrove — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:36:33 PST

This paper evaluates Simone Weil's philosophy and theology of science from the perspective of an historical phenomenology of science.

Cartesian Certainty and the Infinity of the Will

Joseph K. Cosgrove — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:53:37 PST

This paper interprets Descartes' conception of "certainty" as most fundamentally a function of the human will, controlling the cognitive encounter with the world.

Husserl, Jacob Klein, and Symbolic Nature

Joseph K. Cosgrove — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:04:23 PST

This paper examines Husserl's later philosophy of science in light of Jacob Klein's work in the history of mathematics and in the context of 20th-century "spacetime" physics.

On the Mathematical Representation of Spacetime: A Case Study in Bewitchment by Algebra

Joseph K. Cosgrove — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:19:51 PST

This paper argues that the concept of “Minkowski spacetime” (specifically, the so-called “spacetime interval”) is a physically incoherent, notational artifact of the symbolic method of representation employed in mathematical physics. I show that the concept of Minkowski spacetime, generalized in general relativity as a “semi-Riemannian manifold,” is unnecessary to the formulation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and that therefore, the aforementioned notion of “spacetime” should be discarded as a concept of mathematical physics, as it does not and cannot give a true description of the physical world. It follows that spacetime physics can provide no support for the philosophical concept of so-called “block time” or “eternalism.

Principles and Paradoxes of International Law

Phillip E. Devine — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:39:26 PST

The Search for Moral Absolutes

Philip E. Devine — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:50:17 PST

The New Fuzziness: Richard Rorty on Education

Phillip E. Devine — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:07:35 PDT

The New Fuzziness: Richard Rorty and Education is an examination of the works of Richard Rorty, focusing on his impact on education. Richard Rorty is "one of the most provocative and influential of contemporary thinkers writing in English." This unpublished manuscript is written by Dr. Philip E. Devine, Professor of Philosophy at Providence College.