Online research in philosophy

I argue that Graham Priest's story 'Sylvan's Box' has an attractive consistent reading. Priest's hope that this story can be used as an example of a non-trivial 'essentially inconsistent' story is thus threatened. I then make some observations about the role 'Sylvan's Box' might play in a theory of unreliable narrators.

One major idea within the great epic of the Mahabharata is the concept of fate. Daiva, literally 'of the gods', could be said to direct or even manipulate every character and theme throughout the entire epic. The story of Nala and Damayanti offers us an opportunity for insight into Daiva within the epic as a whole. The short story, when placed in the Mahabharata, results in an interesting encapsulation of a love story, numerous metaphors and a tale of initial loss and eventual redemption. Through the investigation of each character's specific dharma, we will see that actions and consequences seemingly blend together, with an arguable disregard for the passage of time. Throughout the story of Nala and Damayanti, we will notice the overarching theme of fate. Human choice and divine authority are questioned as people and gods are unable to escape from what must be.

The old story and the new story -- Have we changed the story? part 1 -- Have we changed the story? part 2 -- Why do we need the new story? -- Some questions in the new story -- Navigating the stories -- Boats and airplanes : a brief digression -- Three questions about God -- Is God angry? -- Is God angry? part 2 -- A small digression about judgment -- Is God distant? part 1 -- Is God distant? part 2 -- Is God distant? part 3 -- Is God distant? part 4 -- Is God a bully? part 1 -- Is God a bully? part 2 -- Is God a bully? part 3 -- A short word on exclusivity -- The path of wisdom -- The eclipse of doctrine -- Ethos versus doctrine -- Where to begin?

The story of God -- The story of the church -- The story of ethics -- The story of Christian ethics -- Universal ethics -- Subversive ethics -- Ecclesial ethics -- Good order -- Good life -- Good relationships -- Good beginnings and endings -- Good earth.

This book explains the novel as a genre in terms of spoken language, oral story, and writing. It begins by laying out certain grounding concepts. The cognitive sciences have established that language and story are constitutive elements of the human animal. Both language and story are built into our cognitive make-up and have specifiable qualities. It is also the case that if we think historically and anthropologically, then we can establish that oral story in oral culture is the default kind of human storytelling. It, too, has specifiable qualities. Then, if we consider the qualities of oral story in relation to our cognitive capacities, we can establish certain foundational elements of human story in general. In other words we can make a reasonable case for the nature of story as such, and then we can use this basis as a means for thinking about kinds of story that vary from the oral story paradigm. Given the well-established effects of the technology of writing in human life, it seems almost natural to consider written story in relation to the oral story paradigm. But because print is always taken as primary, there has been only passing consideration of the most prominent kind of written story—the novel—in relation to writing. As I show in great detail, it is alphabetography, not print, that determines what is most distinctive about novelistic story. In fact the novel is the conformation of story to alphabetography, and as a genre it is essentially conflicted by just this fact. After presenting these ideas in my introduction, I go on to examine and extend them in close-readings of a series of great novels: Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Bleak House, Passage to India, The Waves, The Golden Notebook, and Atonement.

From antiquity on, the status of Critias' account has been the subject of intense debate. Is the Atlantis story 'real history'? The dialogue invites us to raise this question but also to reflect on its terms. In this paper I shall argue that the story should be seen as 'history' only in a special Platonic sense: it is a story which is fabricated about the past in order to reflect a general truth about how ideal citizens would behave in action.

The title of this paper is 'The Story of the Story'. If its argument is valid, I cannot be speaking to you now, trying to change your view of something without telling a story myself, even about the Story. Over the last two decades there has been an increasing number of people in a variety of disciplines telling us that the story, narrative, is an inescapable feature of human communication. Listen to a few representative voices. from psychology - Theodore Sarbin: 'Human beings think, perceive, imagine, and make moral choices according to narrative structures' (Sarbin, 1986,8); from philosophy' - Alasdair MacIntyre: 'In what does the unity of a human life consist? The answer is that its unity is the unity of a..

A short while back, I collected the most common marginal notes I was making to student seminar papers and used them as the basis of a series of essays about legal writing. My goal was to provide a short-yet-comprehensive, entertaining explanation of particular legal writing skills that I could tailor to each individual student. Now, instead of writing a lengthy marginal notation on (for example) the over-use of the passive voice, I simply circle several examples in the student's paper and clip to the paper a copy of my essay. Students readily make the connection between the applicable legal writing skill and their own work, and I am able to much more efficiently and comprehensively explain not only the “hows” but also the “whys” and “what ifs.” This first essay is about legal storytelling. It first discusses the elements of a good story: character, conflict, resolution, and organization. It then describes why storytelling is important for legal persuasion, discussing jury trials (which should tell a sympathetic story about the client), motions (which should remind the judge of the story of the underlying suit, but also should tell a story of what the motion is requesting), and case descriptions in motions and legal memoranda. The essay has proven most useful for students who have difficulty with case descriptions. The essay describes the importance of (1) using an introductory sentence to identify the case name, court, and what the case stands for in; (2) introducing the relevant characters; (3) describing the facts and posture in chronological order; (4) identifying the disputed issue of law as the story's conflict; and (5) identifying the holding as the story's resolution. Every motion and case tells a story. Only one party, however, is likely to be happy with the ending. The lawyer's job is to tell a story that “fits” the desired ending, so it's that lawyer's client whose ending is happy.

In this essay I begin with Aristotle’s perplexing observation that a tragic drama is a “whole,” one identified by a clear beginning, middle and ending. I pause to wonder how Aristotle imagines such ends, given his contention that a play concludes in such a way that “nothing can follow from it.” On the face of it, it is very difficult to imagine what Aristotle has in mind here. I suggest that one clue may be found in his title, Poetics, with its clear suggestion that a dramatic event is in fact a making, a poiesis. I develop this idea to suggest that the end of a story, any story, tends to be something the reader imposes, often in the interest of generating a specific moral. I then display these readerly dynamics by providing a close reading of the famous story from Genesis, concerning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. I explore a number of different ways in which this story may be thought to “end,” as well as the implications of each such ending.

Although it seems plausible to say that the same story can be retold in different media, it is difficult to say exactly what this would entail. The primary difficulty is in coming up with an acceptable theory of story identity. In this article I present several theories of story identity and explore their weaknesses. I argue that in the end we are left with two unattractive options: a strict theory that implies that the same story can almost never be retold and a lenient theory that has trouble differentiating between a general story type and the same story.