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Love: A Biological, Psychological And Philosophical Study, Heather M. Chapman

Senior Honors Projects

The concept of love has been an eternally elusive subject. It is a definition and meaning that philosophers, psychologists, and biologists have been seeking since the beginning of time. Wars have been waged and fought over it, while friendships have been initiated and have ended because of this idea. But what exactly is love, and why is it important to define this enigma?

In order to help define this idea of love, several books and numerous research articles were consulted, and interviews were conducted with faculty of The University of Rhode Island. Dr. Nasser Zawia was interviewed, in order to …

Thought And Verse: French Poetry In Conversation With French Existentialist Philosophy, Maxwell E. Edmonds

Senior Honors Projects

Thought and Verse: French Poetry in Conversation with French Existentialist Philosophy

Maxwell Edmonds

Faculty Sponsor: Karen de Bruin, French Language & Literature

What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? How can we live authentically and with purpose? How can we conduct our day to day lives, while faced with our own mortality? These are several of the principle themes focused upon within existentialist philosophy, the philosophy of existing as a mortal human being.

I chose to study existentialist philosophy through the lens of one of my other interests: French poetry. This combination has allowed me to approach both …

Lived Philosophy: How We Define Ourselves And Our Lives, Molly A. Bandola

Senior Honors Projects

As a student about to graduate with a degree in philosophy, the task of merging both the intellectual and practical aspects of the discipline necessarily emerges from the past four years of my study. As I myself am at the precipice of a whole new stage of life, I find myself drawn to questions of reflection and purpose. Throughout the history of philosophy, questions arising around the concept of death and one’s own mortality are ever-present and I am drawn to the stories that individuals have to share of their experiences surrounding death and dying. How is it that one …

The Perpetual Creation And Provocation Of The Self, Krista Damico

Senior Honors Projects

The Perpetual Creation and Provocation of the Self

Krista D’Amico

Faculty Sponsor: Stephen Barber, English

This project consists of four related parts. The first part is a critical and creative work of prose in which I converse with the thought of two philosophers, namely Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze. This conversation enables me to present my own thought and subjectivity in relationship to a very important aspect of my life: music-making. The second part of my project is a critical essay in which I contemplate the work of another artist, Virginia Woolf, and the way that her credo Three Guineas (1938) …

The Implications Of Merleau-Ponty For The Human Sciences, Ryan Marcotte

Senior Honors Projects

The Implications of Merleau-Ponty for the Human Sciences Ryan Marcotte Cobb Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy The American Anthropology Association (AAA) made headlines in November 2010 due to a controversial change in their 'Long-Range Plan.' The revised AAA mission statement omits all mention of the word 'science' and this omission has sparked a fierce debate within the anthropology community. The debate reveals that the study of social phenomena can be approached from two competing points of view – a scientific and a non-scientific perspective. This project is concerned with the historical and intellectual developments that led to this competition between …

The Mind In Motion, Shayan A. Gates

Senior Honors Projects

The Mind in Motion

Shayan Gates

Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy

The origin of most scientific disciplines can be traced back to a few philosophical insights posed by a few curious thinkers throughout time, and cognitive science is no exception.While intrigue has nearly always surrounded the human mind and its relation to the brain, validation of this relationship has not been so easy to come by, and there are still areas of contention during this time of advancement in neurological sciences and related technologies.

This topic is very broad (to say the least) so I decided to confine this paper …

Healthcare Issues In The United States And Beyond With Existentialist Philosophy, Kristen D'Entremont

Senior Honors Projects

Healthcare Issues in the United States and Beyond with Existentialist Philosophy

Kristen D’Entremont
Faculty Sponsor: Gail Faris, Women’s Center

The importance of quality healthcare is a personal matter for each and every individual across the globe. We cannot go a day without considering the impact that proper health through good nutrition, disease prevention, and access to care has on our bodies. The topic of medical care has interested me for many years and has lead me to the major and position that I am in today. As a senior, majoring in Biology with a pre-medical focus, I will begin the …

Wrench Yourself, Luca W. Cintolo

Senior Honors Projects

Wrench Yourself

Luca Cintolo

Faculty Sponsor: Cheryl Foster, Philosophy

Wrench Yourself was originally conceived as a three part project. Part one, learning about the writing life, came to fruition through reading books on the craft. Part two involved producing a body of original, creative, non-fiction. Part three culminated in binding the polished pieces of writing in limited production, hand made, leather bound books.

At the completion of this project I have created a hand-made book containing two essays. The first essay, Driven to Distraction, focuses on inattention behind the wheel and the pervasiveness of multi-tasking as a societal norm. …

What Is A Human Person? An Exploration & Critique Of Contemporary Perspectives, Emmanuel Cumplido

Senior Honors Projects

What is a Human Person? An Exploration and Critique of Physicalist Perspectives

Emmanuel Cumplido

Faculty Sponsor: Donald Zeyl, Philosophy

Answers to the question “What is a human person?” that have garnered the allegiance of people throughout millennia fall under two broad categories: “physicalism” and “dualism”. One of the earliest renditions of physicalism was the philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists. In their view, all of reality could be explained through two principles: atoms and empty space. As a consequence, people were thought to be nothing but assemblages of atoms in space. Plato’s Phaedo presents one of the earliest philosophical endorsements …

Marcuse On The Two Dimensions Of Advanced Industrial Society And The Significance Of His Thought Today, Michael C. Hartley Mr.

Senior Honors Projects

Herbert Marcuse was a philosopher and social theorist who wrote extensively about the dynamics of social change in the technologically advanced societies of the Western world. Motivated by the desire to see humanity develop societies that would allow for individuals to live a free and happy existence, Marcuse critiqued the existing societies of his time. Although Marcuse’s main work, One-Dimensional Man, is over forty years old, it can continue to offer us new insights today. I believe that Marcuse’s thought offers a powerful framework for analyzing our contemporary society. In this project I distill this framework, what could be …

Care Of The Self And The Will To Freedom: Michel Foucault, Critique And Ethics, Stephanie M. Batters

Senior Honors Projects

Care of the Self and the Will to Freedom

Stephanie Batters

Faculty Sponsor: Stephen Barber, English

What do subjectivity, power and ethics have in common? For French philosopher Michel Foucault, each of these concepts inherently resides within the others. His works, spanning from the mid-1950s to his death in 1984, offer a profound theoretical approach to the complex questions that obtain between the individual and society. Foucault’s works present careful and intricate theories about the relationships of the past with the present, the individual with society, and power with truth. Many of his writings explore how the individual is made …