Philosophy of Mind Commons^™

For Narrativity: How Creating Narratives Structures Experience And Self, Natallia Stelmak Schabner

All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation responds to the challenge to narrativity posed by Galen Strawson in “Against Narrativity,” where he claims that not everyone is Narrative by nature and that there is no reason to be. I make my claim “For Narrativity” as a mental process of form finding and coherence seeking over time that is an inherent mental activity and essential for experience of one’s Self. I make my case through examinations of our experience of time, our use of language, how we plan, and our sense of Self. In the first chapter, I show that considering Narrativity as viewing life ...

Perception Of 3d Symmetrical And Near-Symmetrical Shapes, Vijai Jayadevan, Aaron Michaux, Edward Delp, Zygmunt Pizlo

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Down Syndrome, The Image Of God, And Personhood, Paris Webb

Dialogue & Nexus

People with Down syndrome help Christians understand what being made in the image of God truly means. After describing Down syndrome, we will examine the different views of the image of God and how these relate to people with Down syndrome. Another approach will be to define personhood in light of God’s image and relate it to Down syndrome. We will use the principles held by the L’Arche community as an exemplar in this discussion to demonstrate that those with Down syndrome encourage us to expand our understanding of the image of God. Consequently, Down’s persons allow ...

Mollifying Neuroscience And Christian Faith: An Emergent Monistic Claim For Free Will And The Soul, Paul Figel

Dialogue & Nexus

Modern neuroscience makes it difficult for one to support a case for substance dualism regarding the existence of a soul and free will. The neuroscientific evidence stems from several experiments in which test subjects were instructed to perform a simple voluntary movement. Scientists consistently observed neurological antecedents preceding the subject’s conscious decision to perform the action. An examination of these experiments and the conclusions drawn will show several key inconsistencies that weaken the extreme anti-conscious will claim. However, it is important to not reject the neurological evidence against substance dualism, but instead discover a new perspective (e.g. emergent ...

Volume 3 Editorial, Daniel Brannan

Dialogue & Nexus

No abstract provided.

On Craft, William Lentjes

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Craft is a relationship - a dialogue - between craftsman, tool, and material. Craft begins with the intent of all of these loci, and all of these loci are rooted in Being.

Being is known through the consciousness, awareness, and perception of a subject. Being is the inherent existence and totality of "what is."

Being crafts us; Craft imbues Being.

This thesis re-examines the pedagogical approach of an architectural education. The focus is placed on craft through presuppositionless phenomenology.

In an age of endless mechanized production and spiritless materialism, the practice of craft can teach us to return to the experience of ...

Humanity On The Verge Of Insanity: Maintaining Cultural Identity Against Oppressive Rule, Danica Katarina Skoric

Senior Theses and Capstone Projects

Ubuntu is a South African term in the Bantu language that translates to “human kindness.” This essay discusses the present-day impact of the South African philosophical concept of Ubuntu in light of the dehumanization, which Aboriginal Australians and Black South Africans faced, specifically during the period of 1960-1985. How has humanity been enslaved and degraded by assimilation and a cruel division of races, yet positively evolved and progressed due to the efforts of both female and male activists--in particular literary figure Oodgeroo Noonuccal and political leader Nelson Mandela? A lack of respect and tolerance as a result of colonialism has ...

Lacuna: Transcendence Of The Human Body Through The Space Between, Anica Bottom

Honors Theses and Capstone Projects

This essay examines the author’s choreography, Lacuna, and research integral to its representation. During the choreographic process, experimentation of how the human body moves in relation to different architectural space was observed. In collaboration with the cast of dancers, cohesion of personal experiences in particular locations was evaluated: specifically, investigation of how environments has the ability to trigger habits or patterns of movement from both past and present experiences. A closer look at how the body responds on a visceral level to the physical and emotional sense of place is described. Although the choreographic piece, Lacuna, came to be ...

Gnosticism, Technology And The Soul In Cuarón's Gravity, Karli Brittz

Journal of Religion & Film

Situated within the Digital Age, where technology and science have made life in space possible, Alfonso Caurón's award-winning space-thriller, Gravity, explores critical notions of the relationship between technology and the soul. More specifically, Cuarón’s depiction of space voyage illustrates the dualistic approach to the soul in relation to technology, especially the gnostic mind/body split and its manifestation in the Digital Age. This intersection between technology and the soul is a notion of increasingly importance in contemporary society, however it is often evaded in literature. Accordingly, it is crucial to analyze and unpack films, such as Gravity, that ...

Relational Power, Music, And Identity: The Emotional Efficacy Of Congregational Song, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Relational Power, Music, and Identity: The Emotional Efficacy of Congregational Song

The power of congregational song to unify (or divide) people along various lines is well documented. Yet, how this process of uniting or dividing is accomplished has proven necessarily difficult to document. This paper examines the complex and polyvalent factors that contribute to the meaningfulness of congregational music making, seeking to offer a synthetic, conceptual framework with which to engage this often murky milieu.

Employing interdisciplinary research techniques drawn from sociology, ritual studies, and ethnomusicology, I construct a conceptual framework with which to understand the profoundly formative power of ...

Exploring The Notion Of Forgetting, Nora H. Coyne

Student Publications

Ignorance and forgetting are similar in some regards, as both involve a state of not knowing. Often forgetting, like ignorance, can put us at a disadvantage in regards to a lack of retaining knowledge. Forgetting can lead to ignorance if not realized and remedied. However, just as ignorance is more than a lack of knowledge, forgetting is more than a lack of remembrance. There are many kinds of forgetting, each with different kinds memories lost and purposes served. Despite the inherent risks of forgetting, there are advantages, ones that make forgetting an essential part of human cognition. In fact, without ...

Knowing How: A Computational Approach, Joseph A. Roman

Student Publications

With advances in Artificial Intelligences being achieved through the use of Artificial Neural Networks, we are now at the point where computers are able to do tasks that were previously only able to be accomplished by humans. These advancements must cause us to reconsider our previous understanding of how people come to know how to do a particular task. In order to unpack this question, I will first look to an account of knowing how presented by Jason Stanley in his book Know How. I will then look towards criticisms of this view before using evidence presented by the existence ...

The Perspective And Perspective-Transcending Dimensions Of Consciousness And Its Double-Aboutness Character: Bridging Searle And Zhuang Zi, Bo Mou

Bo Mou

What I intend to do here are closely related three things. First, in response to Searle’s “reply” comments on my previous article “Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism”, I will clarify and further elaborate one of the central points concerning the “perspective” dimension and “perspective-transcending” dimension of consciousness there. Second, more substantially, I will strengthen my point by explaining the “double-aboutness” character of consciousness which is intrinsically related to the foregoing two dimensions of consciousness concerning its “hooking-up-to-objects” capacity; through a semantic-ascent strategy, I will also explain how the point has substantial theoretic implications for exploring the issue of ...

A New Framework For Enactivism: Understanding The Enactive Body Through Structural Flexibility And Merleau-Ponty’S Ontology Of Flesh, John Jenkinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The enactive approach to cognition and consciousness offers a valuable alternative to the standard approaches dominant in the sciences of mind. As an embodied account, enactivism incorporates theoretical perspectives on the body from phenomenology, cognitive science, and biology, which provides a unique interpretation of embodiment with critical insight into the embodied nature of cognition and consciousness. Nonetheless, I argue that several revisions are required to make enactivism viable within the context of the sciences of mind. The enactive account of subjectivity is problematic, in light of arguments developed in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s later texts, because it is implicitly dualistic. I ...

Content Individuation And Evolutionary Content Emergence, Yujian Zheng

Comparative Philosophy

This short paper addresses two connected issues which were brought to some focused light by Searle’s comments on my contributed article to the anthology Searle’s philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement. The first issue concerns the claim that animals cannot have observer-independent intentional content of the same type as that of human beings. The second is my denial that mental content can be merely caused in specific brain states, given its holistic and normative character. I defend my position on the second issue by distinguishing content individuation from content realization while I elaborate my relatively more sophisticated argument ...

The Perspective And Perspective-Transcending Dimensions Of Consciousness And Its Double-Aboutness Character: Bridging Searle And Zhuang Zi, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

What I intend to do here are closely related three things. First, in response to Searle’s “reply” comments on my previous article “Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism”, I will clarify and further elaborate one of the central points concerning the “perspective” dimension and “perspective-transcending” dimension of consciousness there. Second, more substantially, I will strengthen my point by explaining the “double-aboutness” character of consciousness which is intrinsically related to the foregoing two dimensions of consciousness concerning its “hooking-up-to-objects” capacity; through a semantic-ascent strategy, I will also explain how the point has substantial theoretic implications for exploring the issue of ...

Searle And Buddhism On The Non-Self, Soraj Hongladarom

Comparative Philosophy

In this brief note I continue the discussion that I had with John Searle on the topic of the self and the possibility of continuity of consciousness after death of the body. The gist of Searle's reply to my original paper (Hongladarom 2008) is that it is logical possible, though extremely unlikely, that consciousness survives destruction of the body. This is a rather startling claim given that Searle famously holds that consciousness is the work of the body. Nonetheless, he claims that such issue is an empirical matter which could perhaps be discovered by future science. Another point concerns ...

Searle’S Master Insight And The Non-Dual Solution Of The Sixth Patriarch: Sorting Through Some Problems Of Consciousness, Robert E. Allinson

Comparative Philosophy

The Platform Sutra, which dates back to the seventh century C.E., is one of the classic documents of Chinese philosophy and is the intellectual autobiography of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Ch’an Buddhism. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch demonstrates that the spiritual and intellectual problems of consciousness stem from a false adherence to the dualistic standpoint. The Sixth Patriarch utilizes ingenious arguments to demonstrate how one can escape the problems of dualism. An example of a constructive engagement between Chinese philosophy and Searle is to compare and contrast the arguments of Hui Neng with those ...

Editor's Words

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.