Philosophy Commons^™

A Stewardship Curriculum To Promote Financial Independence: Congregants Of Sbc Depend On The Church For Financial Support, Davon Simpson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis project investigates the congregation of Second Baptist Church of Selma, Alabama, and their dependency upon the church for financial support. The thesis presupposes biblical illiteracy on stewardship as the hinderance for congregants of Second Baptist Church in obtaining financial independence. This project will launch a research study of the congregants of Second Baptist Church using a triangulated approach evaluating the knowledge of participants from the congregation in comparison to the stewardship curriculum. The research method includes surveys, one-on-one interviews, and small focus groups as tools to investigate the problem. This design proposes that when the curriculum is implemented …

Flickering The W-Defense, Michael Robinson

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

One way to defend the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) against Frankfurt-style cases is to challenge the claim that agents in these scenarios are genuinely morally responsible for what they do. Alternatively, one can grant that agents are morally responsible for what they do in these cases but resist the idea that they could not have done otherwise. This latter strategy is known as the flicker defense of PAP. In an argument he calls the W-Defense, David Widerker adopts the former approach. I argue that, while Widerker's argument does a poor job showing that these agents are not morally responsible …

Panem's Parallel's: Authoritarianism In The Real World, Quentin J. Stewart

Honors Capstones

Throughout the twentieth century, there has been an increasing awareness and fear of authoritarian governments in the Western world, the United States in particular. While these methods of governance were steadily becoming more present in Western media throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, portrayals of authoritarianism and dystopia experienced a peak in popularity toward the end of the two-thousands decade, with book and film franchises like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins spearheading this emergence. Many of the themes and aspects of the series setting alert the audience to many of the ways authoritarianism can be seen in real life, …

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas

Secrecy and Society

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center “We the Curious” and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of …

Vows, Prayers, And Dice: Comic Values In The Man Of Mode, Roberta F.S. Borkat

University of Dayton Review

“Because religion makes some run mad, must I live an atheist?” (I,i, Young Bellair)
br> “… because some who want temper have been undone by gaming, must others who have it wholly deny themselves the pleasure of play?” (III, iii, Harriet)

These statements, which refer to love, are spoken by two of the most successful characters in The Man of Mode. The similes comparing love to religion and love to a game echo each other because of their similar structure; furthermore, they vibrate throughout the playas central images which explain the system of comic values in The Man of Mode. …

Narrative Comedy In Wallace Stevens' "The Comedian As The Letter C", K. E. Marre

University of Dayton Review

Readings of Wallace Stevens' "The Comedian as the Letter C" take several directions. The allegorical, literal, and philosophical aspects of the poem have received much attention and have illuminated ways in which the poem can be meaningful. The style of the poem, however, has been of constant interest to critics, and aspects of it have attracted attention, but those readings that deal with it do not concern the narrator's function in the comedy of the poem. It is my belief that the poem would perhaps be more accessible if the kind of comic technique in it were explained. Crispin's reduction …

Fathers And Son: Conrad's The Shadow Line As An Initiation Rite Of Passage, Donald Gutierrez

University of Dayton Review

Conrad's late short novel The Shadow Line, which has struck some critics as a poorly constructed romance, acquires coherence and depth when regarded as an initiation rite of passage. Indeed the ritual character of this story is so dominant in orienting the protagonist and his initiatory society significantly as to constitute the chief narrative mode in the story. Society in this fiction is divided in ways that highlight ritual features but also ironize the initiand, the initiators, and, by implication, the community, the basic triad in traditional initiation ceremony. Its ritualistic character, furthermore, is accentuated by a pattern of motifs …

Horace Walpole And The Methodists, Samuel J. Rogal

University of Dayton Review

In England between 1739 and 1775, opposition to the Methodist movement and its leadership-especially John Wesley (1703-1791), his brother Charles (1707-1788), George Whitefield (1714-1770). and Lady Selina Shirley, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791)-assumed three distinct forms: Anglican bishops prohibited Methodist preachers from conducting services in Established churches; mobs, instigated by Anglican vicars, rioted at Society meetings; beginning around 1739 and continuing even into the nineteenth century, a steady stream of anti-Methodist pamphleteers poured forth invective and twisted Biblical evidence in an effort to expose what they generally concluded to be political traitors, religious heretics, and empty-minded enthusiasts. These opponents, although achieving …

Dayton And The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, George Ruppell S.M.

University of Dayton Review

Even today some people wonder why Dayton, Ohio is called the home of aviation and the mention of McCook, Wright and Patterson fields seems like another mystery. Even the news media before 1910 missed the big story. In Dayton the two sons of Bishop Milton Wright, Wilbur and Orville, bicycle builders and repairmen, thought that they could fly with an engine, and at the same time there was Samuel P. Langley, the head of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., doing the same thing. The Dayton boys corresponded with everyone they thought would have some experience with flying. Octave Chanute …

A Historian Looks At Frank Lloyd Wright And The Nature Of Architecture, Frank F. Mathias

University of Dayton Review

Is it possible for contemporary historians to evaluate accurately the work of Frank Lloyd Wright? It must be realized than an accurate evaluation of the work of any creative genius presupposes much more than a mere opinion on the part of the evaluator. An architect who blandly asserts that history is no more than a dusty trail of dates, may stack many bricks but will probably be unable to provide a home for the evolving spirit of mankind. Similarly, a historian who believes that architecture is limited to the physical qualities of stone and wood is often the one who …

Mussolini And The Vatican: 1922-1943, James E. Mcgoldrick

University of Dayton Review

It has become common among students of totalitarianism to dismiss Benito Mussolini as an incompetent braggard whose every effort finally met with ridiculous failure. Indeed, if there were any comic aspect of World War II, it was provided by 11 Duce trying to be an imperialist. His abortive invasion of Greece, Hitler's rejection of his offer to contribute Italian troops for the invasion of Russia and his continual posing for photographers with arm raised and lower lip jutting out give one the impression that Mussolini was a theatrical ham the world would always have difficulty taking seriously.

Any realistic appraisal …

The Fox And The Hyenas, Leroy V. Eid

University of Dayton Review

In late October of 1884 a huge parade wended its muddy way in a heavy rain down the streets of New York City. A fascinated English visitor watched as a thousand lawyers chanted their ridiculous:

Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine
We don't care a bit for the rain,
O-O-O-O-HI-O

The visitor knew they were celebrating the state of Ohio voting in favor of James G. Blaine for the presidency. Modern historians are just as amazed as was James Bryce, the first Viscount Bryce, when he described this unreal scene in his classic work, The American Commonwealth. Who was Blaine and …

This Side Of Rapture: The Quiet Sisterhood Of The British Feminists, Alice Gilmore Vines

University of Dayton Review

"Women were struck with fists and knees, knocked down, dragged up, hurled from hand to hand, and sent reeling back, bruised and bleeding, into the arms of the crowd. They were no longer demonstrators; they were monsters, their presence unendurable. They were pummeled and they were pinched, their thumbs were forced back, their arms twisted, their breasts gripped, their faces rubbed against the pailings; and this went on for nearly six hours ... there were a certain number of tough characters who did not choose to let this opportunity slip, and some ... were dragged away and miserably ill-treated; indeed, …

The Abolition Of Slavery In The British West Indies; The Case Of Barbados, Bruce Taylor

University of Dayton Review

In June of 1833, the British Parliament passed an act to abolish slavery within the imperial system. While this was the beginning of a profound legal revolution in the British West Indies, it was a logical result of a series of reforms by Parliament in response to a relentless drive by abolitionist forces and a corresponding loss of political influence by the West Indian planters. The planters were able only to salvage a cash payment as compensation for their loss of property and a period of adjustment euphemistically called "apprenticeship."

Menelik Ii: Another Look, Erving E. Beauregard

University of Dayton Review

Mankind has a penchant for adulation. This trait glows in the great man theory of history. Thomas Carlyle gave the classic rendition of this: "We come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender ourselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men." Carlyle, being a racist, raised only Europeans to that supreme hall of the earthly Valhalla. Various writers, historians and other sundry, perhaps lesser, breeds, have entered the fray …

The Ghost Of Cromwell — Republican Revolution Without Military Dictatorship: The American Constitutional Experience, 1775-1800, Stephen M. Millett

University of Dayton Review

Lt. Gen. Oliver Cromwell met with the House of Commons in a stormy session on April 20, 1653. Enraged by their obstinacy, he harangued the Commons with violent language. "Perhaps you think that this is not Parliamentary language; I confess it is not; neither are you to expect any such from me," he concluded defiantly. "You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament. I will put an end to your sitting." At his command, his troops entered the hall and pulled the Speaker off his chair. Cromwell had forcibly terminated the Long Parliament, which had governed for the …

Napoleon I And Education In The Sciences: One Aspect Of The Two Cultures In Conflict, Raymond J. Maras

University of Dayton Review

Several years ago the position was taken that Napoleon's patronage of the sciences when weighed against the provisions for the teaching of science in the schools seems to be in the nature of propaganda. According to the research on the subject, science, under the Napoleonic aegis, was defined in a narrow, utilitarian manner and "any attempt to institutionalize a concept of science which went beyond this utilitarianism was immediately thwarted." Hence, Napoleon's contribution was merely to continue the close link between science and the military which the Revolution introduced. In fact, in Napoleon's regime "the pursuit of a scientific education …

Proposing A Measure Of Ethicality For Humans And Ai, Alejandro Jorge Napolitano Jawerbaum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Smarter people or intelligent machines are able to make more accurate inferences about their environment and other agents more efficiently than less intelligent agents. Formally: ‘Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments.’ (Legg, 2008)

In this dissertation we extend this definition to include ethical behaviour and we will offer a mathematical formalism and a way to estimate how ethical an action is or will be, both for a human and for a computer, by calculating the expected values of random variables. Formally, we propose the following measure of ethicality, which is computable, or …

Tarski And Bachmann In Regina: A Magical Connection, James T. Smith

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is a personal account of an intersection of the schools of research in foundations of geometry founded by Alfred Tarski and Friedrich Bachmann. Their academic lineages and the origins of the schools are also described, as well as the mathematics that resulted from this intersection.

A Transcendental Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Law Enforcement Officers Challenges In Combatting Human Trafficking In Alabama, Patience S. Johnson-Daniels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Human trafficking (HT) is a heinous crime that has gained international attention. Millions of people (specifically young girls and women) are affected by prostitution and sexual exploitation, the most common forms of human trafficking. Currently, anti-trafficking law enforcement agencies are struggling to respond to human trafficking due to the lack of data, the hidden nature of the crime, the current service providers, and the strategies of human trafficking task forces. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study will be to understand better the challenges of law enforcement officers and the impact of law enforcement officers in combatting human trafficking. The …