Philosophy of Science Commons^™

On Powerful Qualities, Dean J. Morales

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present work is a critical examination of the Powerful Qualities Ontology. Categoricalism affirms that intrinsic properties are quiddistic or qualitative in nature, and Pure Powers Theory affirms that they are by nature powerful. The Powerful Qualities Ontology, though, affirms that intrinsic properties are both qualitative and powerful, and that by being a more robust ontology than both Categoricalism and Pure Powers Theory, it promises to account for more phenomena and solve more problems than these rival theories. Despite its advantages, however, I challenge the feasibility of the Powerful Qualities Ontology. In chapter 1, I define important terms and provide …

Theorizing, Bounded Rationality, And Expertise: Cognitive Sociology And The Quasi-Realism Of Problem-Solving As A Course Of Activity, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

The question facing sociology is whether it is a field or a discipline. If it is a field, then there is no need for theorizing. However, if sociology is a discipline, then problem-solving cannot be disentangled from theorizing without a loss of intelligibility – the inability to explain the social as the concept of the discipline. Through the quasi-realism of problem-solving as a course of activity, this chapter presents cognitive sociology as a paradigm appropriate to the concept of the social understood as an ongoing course of activity. In doing so, it is shown how bounded rationality and expertise play …

Speculative Realism And Systems Metaphysics, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included emergence of a school of “speculative realism” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought, but also opposes naïve realism or positivism. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but most agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Speculative realists who draw upon Marxist thought identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative realism from the perspective of the metaphysics of systems …

Transformative, Noetic, And Transpersonal Experiences During Personal Development Workshops, Helané Wahbeh, Cassandra Vieten, Garret Young, Agnes Cartry-Jacobsen, Dean Radin, Arnaud Delorme

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The global personal development market was valued at $38.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow an additional 5% from 2020 to 2027. Many of these workshops promise to be transformational. This secondary analysis study examined transformative, transpersonal, and noetic aspects of personal development workshops. We found that 74% of post-survey records endorsed that participants experienced a moment of clarity or profound insight during their workshop. In addition, 66% endorsed that participants had experienced at least one noetic experience, and 84% endorsed at least one transpersonal experience. These analyses provide preliminary evidence for the transformational potential of personal development …

Facing The Fringe, Laura Gradowski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fringe theories are a broad set of alternative views that mainstream scientists deny. Case studies from the past two centuries demonstrate that fringe theorists have sometimes been marginalized to the detriment of scientific advancements. While it is accepted that once in a blue moon comes a diamond in the rough, there are far more cases of fringe theories becoming mainstream than has been traditionally acknowledged. Indeed, fringe theories become mainstream with such regularity that our epistemic intolerance towards them is in need of urgent reexamination. With the recognition that tolerance is an epistemic virtue, we can view debates about theory …

Necessity, Essence And Analyticity: Toward An Analytic Essentialist Account Of Necessity, Dongwoo Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Some truths could not have failed to hold. Such are called metaphysically necessary truths. As Michael Dummett once aptly formulated, the philosophical problem about necessity is twofold: what makes necessary truths necessarily true and how do we recognize them as such? This dissertation aims to address these questions by developing and defending a novel account of necessity, which has the following three main theses: (1) the necessity of a statement about an entity is established as a consequence of a general principle implying that if the entity is a certain way then it is necessarily that way and the fact …

Why Imre Lakatos’S Account Of Science Is Superior, Kyle J. Q. Catarata

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

An important question that has always been debated in philosophy of science concerns that of the best account of science. Ranging from multiple accounts, from Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos, etc., an argument of how Lakatos’s Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (MSRP) is the best account of science will be defended. In addition, the best account of scientific evidence and explanation – featuring philosophers from Lakatos, Peter Achinstein, Nancy Cartwright, and Philip Kitcher – is presented in support of Lakatos’s MSRP. Furthermore, using the scientific theory of continental drift, proposed by Alfred L. Wegener, will illustrate how Wegener’s …

Philosophy Of Technology: The Creation Of A New Course, Anthony Tannous

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Technology has become such an enormous part of our daily lives that we often forget how much we rely on it. Although we may appreciate how technology has made our lives easier, we also realize the detriments that come with it. The purpose of this project was to create a syllabus for a new course being taught at Western called Philosophy of Technology. The course is designed to provide students with several philosophical points of view on technology to create and encourage the discussion of common questions in the Philosophy of Technology.

Unraveling Dna And Identity: A Humanistic Perspective On Epistemologies And Ethics Of Genetic Ancestry Testing., Eve Carlisle Polley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The advent of DNA ancestry testing motivated a burst of human activities that constitute a scientific-technological-industrial-personal-social movement of immense scale, infused with epistemological and ethical questions of great and important variety. This movement has motivated many discourses in the social sciences, with study subjects ranging from the language usage of geneticists, to moral conundrums faced by test-takers, to potential ramifications in global structures of political power. At the same time, and especially in recent decades, the discourses of the comparative humanities have included with increasing frequency and urgency research and theorization about concepts and consequences of human social identities, alongside …

The Social Ontology Of Psychiatry: Psychiatric Diagnosis As An Ontogenetic, Interpellative Speech Act, Ashton Sorrels

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Psychiatry is the study, evaluation, and treatment of mental disorders – disorders that affect the behavior and cognition of individuals and which are associated with underlying dysfunctions in the brain and nervous system. Though psychiatry is a medical and scientific discipline, it also takes place within a social context that modifies its effects, particularly in its application of diagnostic categories to individuals. In this thesis, I argue that, because of this context, psychiatric diagnosis can be modeled as an ontogenetic, interpellative speech act. A speech act is an utterance or sign that constitutes an action through its performance, called an …

Biofeedback Technologies As Extended Cognition: A Philosophical Analysis, Haesoo Park

Student Publications

Every year technologies become more sophisticated and more accessible. Some have become a seamless extension of mind, so much so that they are better understood no longer as tools, but as integral parts of how our mind works. Biofeedback devices are examples of such technologies that are increasingly used in institutional contexts and for personal use. They offer a presumed scientific and objective basis for life decisions and behavioral health interventions, as well as a promise of new forms of self-knowledge. Yet in the very design of biofeedback technologies are cultural and institutional values that are rarely critically appraised. This …

Interdisciplinary Communication By Plausible Analogies: The Case Of Buddhism And Artificial Intelligence, Michael Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Communicating interdisciplinary information is difficult, even when two fields are ostensibly discussing the same topic. In this work, I’ll discuss the capacity for analogical reasoning to provide a framework for developing novel judgments utilizing similarities in separate domains. I argue that analogies are best modeled after Paul Bartha’s By Parallel Reasoning, and that they can be used to create a Toulmin-style warrant that expresses a generalization. I argue that these comparisons provide insights into interdisciplinary research. In order to demonstrate this concept, I will demonstrate that fruitful comparisons can be made between Buddhism and Artificial Intelligence research.

Actual Causation: Apt Causal Models And Causal Relativism, Jennifer R. Mcdonald

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation begins by addressing the question of when a causal model is apt for deciding questions of actual causation with respect to some target situation. I first provide relevant background about causal models, explain what makes them promising as a tool for analyzing actual causation, and motivate the need for a theory of aptness as part of such an analysis (Chapter 1). I then define what it is for a model on a given interpretation to be accurate of, that is, say only true things about, some target situation. This involves a systematization of various representational principles …

How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems In Theology And Church Posed By Modern Philosophy, Charles W. Westby

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Westby, Charles W. “How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems in Theology and Church Posed by Modern Philosophy.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2022. 347 pp.

This dissertation analyzes modern idealism as developed by René Descartes and Immanuel Kant to show how modern philosophy has impacted conservative theology, focusing on the theology of Carl F. H. Henry. The relationship between theology and philosophy is analyzed in terms of foundationalism, using postliberal theological analysis propounded by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck. Speech Act Theory as propounded by J. L. Austin and John R. Searle is used to critique modern idealism in …

Dissolving Nature/Nurture: Development As Coupled Interaction, Derek E. Oswick

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For many, the Nature/Nurture approach to development is a quaint figment of the past. We have moved on, one might think; everyone thinks that both categories are important for development, not merely one. The reality, however, is not so simple. In this dissertation, I argue that contemporary biology has not succeeded in getting out from under the shadow of Nature/Nurture, despite everyone being some sort of interactionist about development. The central aim of my project is to offer a form of developmental interactionism worth having, which succeeds in shedding the pernicious aspects of Nature/Nurture. I begin by giving an overview …

The Brain Scan As Ideograph, Paige Welsh

English (MA) Theses

Medical imaging devices have enabled doctors to render images of the brain without cutting into the body. These images are colloquially called “brain scans.” Through journalism and mass dissemination online, brain scans have become an example of Michael Calvin McGee’s “ideograph,” a language term that subtly takes on outsized political and symbolic meaning to enforce state power. In conversation with theories of new materialism, I situate the brain scan as an ideograph within Jenny Edbauer’s model of rhetorical ecologies. The rhetorical force of the brain scan comes out of a collision between René Descarte’s mind/body dualism, the medical model of …

Aristotle And Darwin Hand In Hand: Biologists In Pursuit Of Understanding The Underlying Mechanics Of The Natural World, Timothy Christopher Meidl

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Arguing For The Philosophy Of Political Science, Robert Herold

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

While there are many working scientists who engage in things like theory building and empirical testing, there has also been a group of scientists who sought to better understand the philosophy behind science. This philosophical study of science as a project is referred to as the philosophy of science and there are different sub-fields for each of the natural and social sciences, except for political science. This lack of an explicit sub-field dedicated to reflecting on our philosophy of science, i.e., our beliefs, values, methods, etc., has caused this knowledge to become tacit within our community. Because the knowledge of …

Unknowable Truths: The Incompleteness Theorems And The Rise Of Modernism, Caroline Tvardy

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

This thesis evaluates the function of the current history of mathematics methodologies and explores ways in which historiographical methodologies could be successfully implemented in the field. Traditional approaches to the history of mathematics often lack either an accurate portrayal of the social and cultural influences of the time, or they lack an effective usage of mathematics discussed. This paper applies a holistic methodology in a case study of Kurt Gödel’s influential work in logic during the Interwar period and the parallel rise of intellectual modernism. In doing so, the proofs for Gödel’s Completeness and Incompleteness theorems will be discussed as …

Effective Field Theories: A Philosophical Appraisal, Dimitrios Athanasiou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The word “effective” has become the standard label attached to scientific theories these days. An effective theory allows us to make accurate predictions about a physical system at a certain (energy, length) scale while being largely ignorant of the details at more fundamental levels. One does not need to know anything about the deeper, quantum structure of water molecules to describe the macroscopic behaviour of waves or water in a glass. Although effective descriptions so broadly construed have been part of research in physics since the earliest stages of modern science, it is particle physics that has most clearly relied …