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Ibn Khaldun And The Modern Social Sciences: A Comparative Theoretical Inquiry Into Society, The State, And Revolution, Douglas H. Garrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis represents a link in a long chain of recent Western scholarship that has attempted to bring the work of Ibn Khaldun, the late 14th century Tunisian jurist and historian, into the mainstream of historiographic, political, and sociological learning. Why Ibn Khaldun? What makes his work stand out among the classics of pre-modern and early-modern political and social theory? Why are his ideas still relevant to the study of politics and societies today? My thesis attempts to answer these questions through the lenses of comparative political theory and theoretical reinterpretation.

The study hinges on a thematic comparison of Ibn …

The Hyperspatial Self: Henry James And Posthuman Modalities, Christina Patsiokas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the era of computing and ubiquitous media, scholars across disciplines have been developing new models for how humans operate in complex environments. This line of inquiry can be bracketed under the larger term of posthuman thought. This thesis attempts to engage the critical and fictional work of Henry James with several posthumanist texts to challenge the temporal limitations of both. Against the backdrop of posthuman discourse, James emerges not as the cherished father of modernism but rather as a pioneer of distant territories far beyond the ways in which the modernist novel conceptualized the self and its consciousness. James …

Virethics And The Problem Of Aging, Robert Edward Mongue

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It seems wrong that a theory of a good life, well-being, or flourishing would be unable to accommodate those normal changes that distinguish natural aging and dying processes from external forces which truly do impede life. I argue in this paper that several versions of contemporary virethics, which depend heavily on a theory of the good life, suffer from this very defect. I examine the difficulties experienced by contemporary Aristotelian-based virethics in accommodating natural aging into well-being and flourishing lives, and ask whether those difficulties are intrinsic to Aristotle's theory itself. I examine Aristotle's theory in the context of its …

Problems With Truth: Scope, Mixing, And Truth Pluralism, Christopher Dyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I will be taking up the debate between monistic and pluralistic inflationary theories of truth. Truth monism claims that there is one explanatory story which accounts for the truth of all and only true propositions. There seem to be, however, certain domains of discourse wherein monistic theories fail. If monistic theories cannot provide an explanation for how all true propositions are true, then they would not be adequate theories of truth. Truth pluralism is motivated to avoid the scope problem. The pluralist sees that there are as many truth properties as there are domains of discourse. A …

Between God And Man: Community's Place In Virtue, Practical Reason, And Transcendent Good, Jordan Herz Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Talbot Brewer's Retrieval of Ethics and Robert Adams's Finite and Infinite Goods present distinct theories in ethics and metaethics. Brewer begins with the fundamental ethical perspective of the practical deliberator who experiences his practical deliberations as a continuous, unified, and constantly revised activity which begins with inchoate intimations of goodness and proceeds better or worse to understand and pursue the goodness which pervades his evaluative outlook. From this Brewer aims to account for how we achieve excellence in practical deliberation and arrive at a more tenable and self-consistent evaluative outlook which informs our ethical deliberations. Alternately, Adams begins in the …

The Modern Ontological Argument: In Which The Position Of Alvin Plantinga Is Refuted, Zachary Green Crownover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I set out to accomplish three tasks. First, I hope to educate those who may be unfamiliar with the philosophy of religion, by presenting to them rough outlines of positions commonly assumed by logically minded spokespersons for atheism and theism, respectively. Second, I introduce and explicate the work of Alvin Plantinga—a prominent proponent of theistic belief—and in such a way that it may be clearly understood even by those without prior experience of modal logic. Finally, I adopt a polemical stance against Plantinga, and reach the following conclusion: Contrary to Plantinga's assertions, and given the modal framework …