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Defining Creativity And Its Role In Marx's Philosophy, Carlos Avila
Defining Creativity And Its Role In Marx's Philosophy, Carlos Avila
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The intent of this thesis is to explore the concept of creativity as it appears in the major works of Karl Marx and to attempt to discern its role in the emancipatory political project that Marx proposes. Contemporary understandings of creativity still rely upon notions of the artist-genius, locating the "true" expression of creative freedom in the work of art. A more recent development is the commodification of creativity as a quality of a good worker, who is now expected to find innovative ways of doing their job more efficiently. Both of these ideas about creativity allow for our creative …
Spinoza's Cosmopsychism: The Multifaceted Mind Of Nature, Audrey N. Perryman
Spinoza's Cosmopsychism: The Multifaceted Mind Of Nature, Audrey N. Perryman
Honors Undergraduate Theses
In my thesis, I will argue that while at first glance Spinoza's system seems to conflict with itself and provide an explanation of the mind that can be more confusing than helpful, its aspect of panpsychism provides a sort of lifeline for understanding. Not only does Spinoza's cosmopsychism make his system cohesive, but it can also be independently motivated by ideas that are compatible with the more contemporary intuitions in philosophy of mind. I will explore the specific nature of this universal mentality, how Spinoza's particular genre of panpsychism relates to other theories of panpsychism, and how his conception of …
Avicenna's Doctrine Of Emanation And The Sphere Of The Heavens, Brian C. Manere
Avicenna's Doctrine Of Emanation And The Sphere Of The Heavens, Brian C. Manere
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Avicenna argues that the celestial spheres each have a soul, termed the motive soul, which is emanated by the first celestial intellect––a body of knowledge which knows itself. Despite outlining the powers of the motive soul, Avicenna does not formally investigate the psychology of the spheres nor their volition. Rather, he presents their volition as a mystery and leaves it to posterity to solve. In an attempt to resolve this mystery, I will argue that it is a direct result of Avicenna having purposefully written a repeated gap into his account of emanation such that there is no clear account …
"Auto"-Exploitation: A Marxist Examination Of Self-Driving Cars, Parker Duvall
"Auto"-Exploitation: A Marxist Examination Of Self-Driving Cars, Parker Duvall
Honors Undergraduate Theses
In this thesis, I argue that a neo-Marxist critical theory perspective on self-driving cars shifts critical conversations from risks and benefits to concerns about the commodification of free time necessary for our human experience of autonomy. First, I outline that neo-Marxist perspective by charting the different types of power exercised by a capitalist in order to increase their surplus. I then analyze Karl Marx's conception of time in economic exchange to show that, under capitalism, power is exercised over labor through the commodification of workers' free time. I then introduced Michel Foucault's concept of biopower to transition to the commodification …
Wild Wild Country: Netflix, Orientalism, And The Guru, E. K. D. Wood
Wild Wild Country: Netflix, Orientalism, And The Guru, E. K. D. Wood
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Recent years have produced an influx of popular documentaries of Indian gurus who founded transnational spiritual communities and became embroiled in various forms of controversy. One example of this is Wild Wild Country, a 2018 Netflix documentary that depicts the rise and fall of a spiritual community, started by an Indian guru named Osho (1931-1990) in a failed attempt to build a utopian commune in Oregon. American representations of Asian religious figures have historically been a complex, and often prejudiced, affair. This thesis will attempt to assert the best fit theoretical framework with which to interpret Wild Wild Country …
The Concept Of Grief: A Phenomenological Account With Continual Reference To Kierkegaard, Nathan Sweetman
The Concept Of Grief: A Phenomenological Account With Continual Reference To Kierkegaard, Nathan Sweetman
Honors Undergraduate Theses
My thesis argues that Søren Kierkegaard provides a perspective on grief that validates emotional experience while offering the opportunity for transcendence beyond the immediacy of grief through the work of love in recollecting one who is dead. Conventional philosophical approaches offer an incomplete picture by focusing on grief either as exclusively emotional or exclusively moral. The alternative methodology of phenomenology serves to draw out common threads from the intensely subjective, inward experience of grief. Kierkegaard’s writings on the topics of grief, sorrow, and love for the dead reflect the complexity uncovered in the phenomenological analysis. Traditional interpretations of Kierkegaard’s call …
Rule-Following, Enculturation, And Normative Identity, Nicholas Odom
Rule-Following, Enculturation, And Normative Identity, Nicholas Odom
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Rule-following has been a controversial issue in professional philosophical literature since Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Many authors have developed accounts of rule-following along different lines, including those that naturalistically reduce rule-following to non-normative phenomena and those that take rule-following to be an irreducible aspect of cognition and agency. Hannah Ginsborg, a prominent contributor to rule-following literature, has developed a partially reductive account of rule-following, combining features of both reductionist and nonreductionist accounts. But naturalizing or internalistic theories of rule-following, or even Ginsborg's partial reduction of rule-following, ignore important facets of what it is to follow a rule, particularly its social …
The Lived Experience Of Chronic Pain: On The Contributions Of Phenomenology In Understanding Chronic Pain Disorders, Riley C. Smith
The Lived Experience Of Chronic Pain: On The Contributions Of Phenomenology In Understanding Chronic Pain Disorders, Riley C. Smith
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Chronic pain disorders are estimated to affect a significant proportion of the global population. These disorders are often debilitating and pose a substantial challenge to the everyday life of those affected. Modern medicine has made great strides in understanding the physiological processes involved in chronic pain. However, chronic pain is more than merely a physiological process. Chronic pain is an embodied mode of being-in-the-world that manifests in multiple aspects of lived experience, from the ability to perform day-to-day tasks to the relationship between body and self. Consequently, it is essential to cultivate a rich appreciation of chronic pain as a …
A Pre-Structural Center: Deconstructing Classical Social Theory, Darius F. Irani
A Pre-Structural Center: Deconstructing Classical Social Theory, Darius F. Irani
Honors Undergraduate Theses
For theory and literature to evolve parallel to the subject matter which it associates, it recurrently progresses through admittance of variably incremental, yet critical, entries. This is the nature of modernism. This thesis reflects on one important point in the life of modernism, the advent at which society is first formalized and assimilated into theory: the origin of social theory, a point indisputably influential to twentieth century philosophy, but just eclipsed by one of that century's most noticeable theoretical features. The past century saw the rise and fall of a universalizing framework called structuralism. Informing the disciplines, especially the social …
Rethinking Causality: Thomas Aquinas' Argument From Motion & The Kalām Cosmological Argument, Derwin Sánchez Jr.
Rethinking Causality: Thomas Aquinas' Argument From Motion & The Kalām Cosmological Argument, Derwin Sánchez Jr.
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Ever since they were formulated in the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas' famous Five Ways to demonstrate the existence of God have been frequently debated. During this process there have been several misconceptions of what Aquinas actually meant, especially when discussing his cosmological arguments. While previous researchers have managed to tease out why Aquinas accepts some infinite regresses and rejects others, I attempt to add on to this by demonstrating the centrality of his metaphysics in his argument from motion. Aquinas cannot be properly understood or debated with a contemporary view of causality, but rather must wrestle with the concepts …
An Ecofeminist Analysis Of The Ready-Made Garment Industry In Bangladesh, Yasmin Fakhoury
An Ecofeminist Analysis Of The Ready-Made Garment Industry In Bangladesh, Yasmin Fakhoury
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Bangladesh's ready-made garment industry and its harsh working conditions have been the center of intense scrutiny for the past decade, especially following the massive death tolls of the Tazreen Fashions factory fire in 2012 and the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013. While lauded by many for its tremendous contributions to the Bangladeshi economy and its employment of primarily women, the garment industry is responsible for causing harm both to the women who work there and the local environment. Women workers are physically and verbally abused in the workplace for little pay, while the factories emit pollutants that contaminate the …
Collective Nobility: Spinoza And The Politics Of Emotion, Ethan K. Uhlig
Collective Nobility: Spinoza And The Politics Of Emotion, Ethan K. Uhlig
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The intent of this thesis is to examine Spinoza's philosophy of emotion as it relates to groups of individuals, or collectives. These groups, especially political collectives such as nation-states, are evaluated through Spinozist understandings of virtue, nobility, and blessedness. From this analysis, a novel concept of "collective nobility" is used to create philosophical guidance for the emotional dimensions of politics and state action. Drug policy is used as a case study to understand how emotion influences policymaking and vice versa, both negatively (as in the United States) and positively (as in Portugal).
Culture, Power, And Control: A Discussion Of Autonomy And Responsibility, Loren A. Alonso
Culture, Power, And Control: A Discussion Of Autonomy And Responsibility, Loren A. Alonso
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The purpose of this thesis is to explore how power, control, autonomy, and responsibility are active participants in culture and daily human life. First, I discuss two understandings of power, structured and diffused. I examine some different techniques of power that help support and reproduce the current power systems in place and how historically, these systems have been predominantly unjust. I then discuss an alternative view of power that incorporates both structured and diffused forms of power. I explain why this new understanding of power could be more useful in actively shifting the current unjust power structures present in the …
The Metaphysics Of The Collective Unconscious, Oscar B. Jablon
The Metaphysics Of The Collective Unconscious, Oscar B. Jablon
Honors Undergraduate Theses
This thesis shows how the metaphysical features of the Jungian collective unconscious can be demystified by viewing the collective unconscious through the lens of functionalism. The features of the collective unconscious that will be investigated in this thesis are the possibility of the collective unconscious being present in every person, the archetypes as being the formal feature of some of our modes of perception, psychic energy, and synchronicity. By admitting functionalism, Jung doesn't need to posit synchronicity to explain how it is possible for the archetypes to interact with the body. This is because functionalism can view mental states as …
Flocks, Swarms, Crowds, And Societies: On The Scope And Limits Of Cognition, Zachariah A. Neemeh
Flocks, Swarms, Crowds, And Societies: On The Scope And Limits Of Cognition, Zachariah A. Neemeh
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Traditionally, the concept of cognition has been tied to the brain or the nervous system. Recent work in various noncomputational cognitive sciences has enlarged the category of “cognitive phenomena” to include the organism and its environment, distributed cognition across networks of actors, and basic cellular functions. The meaning, scope, and limits of ‘cognition’ are no longer clear or well-defined. In order to properly delimit the purview of the cognitive sciences, there is a strong need for a clarification of the definition of cognition. This paper will consider the outer bounds of that definition. Not all cognitive behaviors of a given …
The History Of Inequality In Education And The Question Of Equality Versus Adequacy, Diana Carol Dominguez
The History Of Inequality In Education And The Question Of Equality Versus Adequacy, Diana Carol Dominguez
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Although the U.S. Constitution espouses equality, it clearly is not practiced in all aspects of life with education being a significant outlier. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote about inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These two theories are related to education through educational adequacy and equality. Sufficientarianism, or educational adequacy, says that what is important is that everyone has “good enough” educational opportunities, but not the same ones. Egalitarianism, or educational equality, says that there is an intrinsic value in having the same educational opportunities and only having good enough opportunities misses something …
Gendered Virtue: A Study Of Its Meaning And Evolution In Early Modern France, Mariela Saad
Gendered Virtue: A Study Of Its Meaning And Evolution In Early Modern France, Mariela Saad
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Virtue in early modern France was a broad concept considered by clergymen, philosophers, and moralists as an instrument for measuring and implementing human ethics. This unprecedented research seeks to track the development of the notion of virtue from a gendered and dichotomous notion to a unique and undivided term. The word virtue is constantly present in French texts such as manuels de conduite1 , since the medieval period. Thus, it can be regarded as one of the most significant concepts defining genders in Western civilization. However, it is difficult for modern readers to grasp the complexity of the debate unless …
Situating Political Obligation In Political Ontology: Ethical Marxism And The Embedded Self, Chris A. Chambers
Situating Political Obligation In Political Ontology: Ethical Marxism And The Embedded Self, Chris A. Chambers
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Though various obligations typically affect our behavior without being recognized, they have a substantial impact on how we operate as human beings. The relationships we have between, say, our parents when in their household obligate us to take out the trash at certain times and wash the dishes after dinner. The relationships we have between our closest friends often oblige us to hear them out when they have undergone a traumatic experience. Upon reflection, it may be easy to point out a number of the obligations which inform our social behavior. What is not so easy, however, is pointing out …
Process And Mind: Exploring The Relationship Between Process Philosophy And The Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Science Of Cognition, Larry A. Moralez
Process And Mind: Exploring The Relationship Between Process Philosophy And The Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Science Of Cognition, Larry A. Moralez
Honors Undergraduate Theses
This work examines the relationship between Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and the nonlinear dynamical systems framework for studying cognition. I argue that the nonlinear dynamical systems approach to cognitive science presupposes many key elements of his process philosophy. The process philosophical interpretation of nature posits events and the dynamic relations between events as the fundamental substrate of reality, as opposed to static physical substances. I present a brief history of the development of substance thought before describing Whitehead’s characterization of nature as a process. In following, I will examine the both the computational and nonlinear dynamical systems frameworks for …