News & Events
New Faculty Appointments
2007 - 2008
Tom Kasulis PhD, Yale
We are pleased to announce that Tom Kasulis (Ph.D. Yale), a member of the Department of Comparative Studies at OSU since 1991, has now become officially an affiliated member of the Department of Philosophy. A former president of the international Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, his specialization is the philosophical study of the interface between culture and thought. How do cultural patterns affect the development of philosophical thinking and how does philosophy impact the generation of cultural worldviews? His research includes the comparative study of the development of various philosophical schools and theories in both the West and in Asia. His books include Zen Action/Zen Person, Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference (the 1998 Gilbert Ryle Lectures), and Shinto: The Way Home, as well as five edited volumes and many articles. He is currently completing a history of Japanese philosophy and collaborating in the editing of a sourcebook of readings in Japanese philosophy. He annually teaches the undergraduate Introduction to Asian Philosophy course and a graduate seminar focusing on a key Asian philosopher or text.
Richard Samuels PhD, RutgersEffective Autumn, 2007
Richard Samuels (Ph.D., Rutgers) joins us as a Professor in the Department of Philosophy having previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania and King's College London. His research focuses primarily on issues in the philosophy of psychology and the foundations of cognitive science. More specifically, he has published extensively on topics concerning modularity and cognitive architecture, the concept of innateness, and the implications of empirical psychology for theories of rationality. He is currently working on a number of projects, including a book about cognitive architecture and a variety papers about human reasoning and rationality. This year Professor Samuels will teach a graduate course in the philosophy of psychology and an undergraduate course on philosophy of mind.Book Publications
2007 - 2008
Artworld Metaphysics
by Robert KrautOxford University Press, 2007
Artworld Metaphysics turns a critical eye upon aspects of the artworld, and articulates some of the problems, principles, and norms implicit in actual practices of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, and commodification. Aesthetic theory is treated as descriptive and explanatory, rather than normative: a theory that relates to artworld realities as a semantic theory relates to the fragments of natural language it seeks to describe. The book examines emotional expression, correct interpretation and objectivity in the context of artworld practice, the relevance of jazz to aesthetic theory, and the goals of ontology (artworld and otherwise). It also considers the relation between art and language, the confusions of postmodern relativism, and the relation between artistic/critical practice and aesthetic theory.
