Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Ephesians And Ecumenism, Toby Eisenberg

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Christian ecumenism has made great strides during the twentieth century but is now widely seen as needing a new path. Avery Dulles has proposed an “exchange of gifts” notion of dialogue in which the participant churches share their understanding of the Christian life and all of the reasons they have for holding their particular doctrines and practices, drawing on whatever normative sources they believe are appropriate. The approach enables the participants to bear testimony in love in the hopes that they may better understand and appreciate each other more fully, thereby opening a path to increased doctrinal consensus and thus …

The Unwavering Movement: Integrating Reason Into British Penal Code 1730-1823, Rebecca M. Good

International ResearchScape Journal

Between the early 16^th and 18^th centuries, English attitude towards crime and correction were based on the strong held belief that faith and religion were the only cure to immorality. Lawmakers began to threaten citizens with capital punishment for menial crimes such as petty theft and begging. Resulting of a moral panic, lawmakers turned to the deterrence to dissuade citizens from partaking in criminal activity. The list of crimes punishable by death in England rose from 50 offenses in 1688 to over 220 in 1815. This article explains the origins of the Bloody Code and how Enlightenment-Era thought …

The Religious-Philosophical Legacy Of Ahmed Zaki Validiy, Muminjon Xojaev

The Light of Islam

This article analyzes the social and social life during the time of Ahmad Zaki Validi Togan, the religious-philosophical, socio-political views of A. Validi.

The emergence of the need to study the history of Islam and Christian doctrine, religious and philosophical thoughts by Ahmаdom Zaki Validi. Socio-political views of Zaki Validi on the political situation during the Soviet totalitarian politics based on an analysis of his views on the spiritual degradation of society, the moral impoverishment of people and the dependent of communist ideology among people of the former Soviet Union.

Affect And Immediation: An Interview With Brian Massumi, Brian Massumi, Jacob Ferrington, Alina Hechler, Jannell Parsons

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Brian Massumi is the author of numerous works across philosophy, political theory, and art theory. His publications include 99 Theses on the Revaluation of Value: A Postcapitalist Manifesto (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts (MIT Press, 2011) and Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Duke University Press, 2002).

Gut Feelings: Race And The Embodied Self: An Interview With Shannon Sullivan, Shannon Sullivan, Shannon Branfield, Ruwen Chang, J. D. Saperstein

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Shannon Sullivan is Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Philosophy and Health Psychology at UNC Charlotte. She specializes in feminist philosophy, critical philosophy of race, American philosophy (especially pragmatism), . and continental philosophy. She is the author of four books, most recently, Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism (2014) and The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression (2015). She also is co-editor of four books, including Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (2007) and Feminist Interpretations of William James (2015).

Asian-American Visibility: Movement Toward Authenticity And Exposing The White Gaze, Nora Tsou

Senior Theses

Asian-Americans have a historical legacy and a multiplicity of narratives that are often rendered absent in American culture. Our oppression is not commonly spoken about, but it is relevant. By decentering Eurocentric thought as the only valid philosophy, herein this study I perform Asian-American philosophy through an analysis of philosophical and sociological texts on race. I continuously echo George Yancy and Gloria Anzaldua, philosophers of race, respectively, on the African-American and Latin-American experience, for their philosophy has greatly lead me to understanding my own. In order to conceptualize what oppressive struggles Asian-Americans face, I delve into research that exposes these …

Harold Brown, Harold Brown

Oral History

Harold Brown, PhD, taught philosophy as a faculty member at Pace University from 1969 to 2019.

The Philosophy Of Dance, Aili W. Bresnahan

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This encyclopedia entry surveys the field of philosophy of dance both within and beyond Western philosophical aesthetics.

Baruch Spinoza As A Jewish Thinker, Lucas Waggoner

PPPA Paper Prize

Despite being born Jewish, Baruch Spinoza has long been shunned from the canon of Jewish thought. The Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated him. Today, the secular world too refuses to acknowledge him as a Jewish thinker. Spinoza is divorced from his context. Recovering the Spinoza's context requires showing that he can still be considered a Jewish thinker. This can be done based on three criteria: his view on God, his perspective on scripture, and his position on the nature of the soul.

The Real Legal Realism, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.

Against The Conventionalist Turn In Legal Theory: Dickson On Hart On The Rule Of Recognition, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.

What Rome Really Adopted From Ancient Greece, Christian J. Vella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Roman conquest of the Greek city-states and the appropriation of many aspects of its culture, especially architecture and art, is well known. But what of the many great philosophies that began in the various city-states of Ancient Greece? This piece is made in attempt to answer this question. The scope of these sources will start with the beginning of the Western Philosophical Tradition, with Thales of Miletus and the Milesian, all the way up to, but not including, the foundation of the Christian Philosophical Tradition. After the year 146 BC if a philosopher is born in a Greek-City state, …

Is Love A Ladder? Reading Plato With Leonard Bernstein, Joshua T. Parks

The Hilltop Review

This paper reads Leonard Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" as a careful interpretation of and commentary on Plato's text. While a straightforward reading of Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium suggests that human relationships are merely an instrumental step toward higher loves, Bernstein's music emphasizes the intrinsic goodness of interpersonal love. The connections between the two works have been dismissed as superficial by critics, but Bernstein's piece is actually carefully engaged with the narrative structure of Plato's text. It therefore encourages a re-reading of Plato's dialogue in which its form shapes and complicates its meaning. By depicting in music the interpersonal …

Wholeheartedness And Acquaintance With God, Sarah Naomi Dannemiller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I demonstrate that wholeheartedness is a constitutive intellectual virtue. Wholeheartedness consists of a definite and unified volitional structure in which one’s desires are integrated around union with God and which contributes to one’s personal intellectual worth by positively orienting her toward acquaintance with God. Since wholeheartedness consists of a hierarchy of the will that prioritizes a desire for union with God, wholeheartedness aims towards the epistemic good of acquaintance. By desiring that one have a will that wills union with God, she cooperates with God toward wholeheartedness. As one becomes aware of her volitional structure changing, she …

Book Review: What Is A Mathematical Concept? Edited By Elizabeth De Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, And Alf Coles, Brendan P. Larvor

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is a review of What is a Mathematical Concept? edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, and Alf Coles (Cambridge University Press, 2017). In this collection of sixteen chapters, philosophers, educationalists, historians of mathematics, a cognitive scientist, and a mathematician consider, problematise, historicise, contextualise, and destabilise the terms ‘mathematical’ and ‘concept’. The contributors come from many disciplines, but the editors are all in mathematics education, which gives the whole volume a disciplinary centre of gravity. The editors set out to explore and reclaim the canonical question ‘what is a mathematical concept?’ from the philosophy of mathematics. This review comments …

From Deconstruction To Rehabilitation: Heidegger, Gadamer, And Modernity, David Liakos

Philosophy ETDs

This dissertation is a study of the problem of modernity, formulated as the following multivalent question: How should we understand the scope, character, and limitations of our historical age? The study approaches this question from the point of view of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. We will, first, clarify how Heidegger and Gadamer think about modernity, thereby shedding light on their widely misunderstood intellectual relationship; and, next, uncover and defend a distinctively Gadamerian response to modernity as a viable argument, and as potentially more coherent and hopeful than Heidegger’s answer to the problem of the modern age.

In the first …

Superhero Movies And Politics: The Moral Obligations Of Film Makers According To Virtue Ethics, Russell Hendrickson

Senior Theses

The theory of virtue ethics implies that filmmakers have a moral obligation to explore political themes within superhero films. My thesis is comprised of four main sections. I begin by discussing the general theory of virtue ethics and what moral obligations are placed upon someone who subscribes to this moral theory. From there, I establish my argument for why film can be used as a tool of moral education, and I outline a framework for how artists can work to cultivate virtue in themselves through the use of Arnold Berleant’s Artists and Morality: Toward an Ethics of Art as a …

Expertise And Expression In Second Language Acquisition: An Embodied Perspective, Mia Burnett

Senior Theses

In directing our attention to mundane aspects of the human experience, we can discover new ways of interacting with and understanding the world. One such formative experience, regularly seen as mundane in much of the world, is learning a second language. It is no exaggeration to say that second language acquisition is one of the processes which most influences and drives our globalized world, and yet we understand and study this process relatively little.

Continuing the trends of naturalizing phenomenological inquiry, this project attempts to evaluate phenomenological approaches to skill acquisition alongside second language acquisition theory and research through an …

Moments As They Pass, Jesus Armenta

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This is a creative project titled “Moments as They Pass.” It’s an anthology of poetry with over 106 original pieces, spanning over 135 pages. These pieces all center on the thematic elements of existential philosophy and its intersection with beauty, time, and concept of self. Each poem will explore a particular facet of existentialism. The anthology will be broken up into chapters that reflect each concept accordingly. There is a dialogue that occurs within each piece that will encourage readers to reflect on their own lives and how they navigate their own search for meaning. Ultimately, this creative …

Nonstate Actors And International Law: Just War Theory Or The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights?, Jason Lee Mitchell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is a debate taking place within the global war on terror (GWT), and its legal and moral parameters are established by two basic arguments. The first is that “Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war” (Ex parte Quirin, 37). The second is that an “Enemy combatant” is a general category that subsumes two sub-categories: lawful and unlawful combatants. The conclusion as it currently stands is …

The Irrational Appeal Of The Punishment Paradigm: How "Tough On Crime" Subverts Reason And Empathy, Curry Carr

Student Symposium

This investigation will examine the ways of thinking that facilitated the enactment of harsh sentencing laws in the U.S., with a specific focus on truth in sentencing laws in Illinois. Truth in sentencing laws dictate that people convicted of violent crimes must serve 85%-100% of their sentences, basically eliminating their chances for parole for good behavior. In the 1980s and 1990s almost every state enacted truth in sentencing laws after federal funding was promised to those who do. The implementation of these laws, in some ways, seemed to follow reason, especially when states lowered the requisite time served during a …

The Moral Argument, Existential Problems Of Evil, And A Non-Existential Alternative, Jonathan Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Within this paper, it is shown that certain ethical assumptions are implicit within the claim that certain kinds of evil exist. When taken in tandem with the moral argument for the existence of God, these assumptions can be arranged in such a way as to provide a contradiction. To avoid this contradiction, I posit a non-existential alternative to direct inductive arguments from evil, but the non-existential alternative gives rise to novel objections. When considering their respective ethical implications, both the existential and non-existential variations of direct inductive arguments fail. Since any direct inductive problem of evil must be either existential …

The Limits Of Sociality, Johnna B. Mcgovern

Theses

There is a longstanding tradition in Western philosophy of emphasizing the capacity for reflection in theories about humans’ characteristic nature. In Talking to Ourselves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency, John Doris attempts to shift the focus to an emphasis on human sociality. Particularly, Doris argues that sociality, both implicitly and in the form of collaborative reasoning, is what makes humans best equipped for moral improvement. This collaborativism possesses a defining role in his account of agency and responsibility. This thesis attempts to gain an understanding of how sociality affects moral behavior and to argue that it is not conducive to agency …

A Christian Response To The Impact Of Nietzschean Philosophy On Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Amanda N. Staufer

Musical Offerings

This article explores the way Friedrich Nietzsche’s worldview influenced the compositions of Richard Strauss, specifically Strauss’s most famous work—a tone poem called Also sprach Zarathustra. This tone poem is a fascinating piece of music because it reflects Strauss’s philosophical inquiries into the nature and meaning of life. Although Strauss left relatively limited explanations of Also sprach Zarathustra, his few words regarding the tone poem reveal his intention to convey in music an idea of man’s evolution from his original state up to Nietzsche’s idea of a superman. First, this article surveys the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as it is displayed …

How To Distinguish Qualities And Dispositions, Seth Reed

Theses

There is an intuitive difference between a qualitative and a dispositional predicate. Qualitative predicates seemingly refer to inherent features of an object, while dispositional predicates point outward to possible interactions. Attempts to further spell this distinction have proven difficult, however. Past approaches have either started from metaphysical assumptions or compared paradigmatic cases of each side-by-side. In this paper I offer a new approach to solving this puzzle. Starting with a qualitative or dispositional predicate of a property, we can examine how that differs from a predicate of the other kind that applies, in virtue of that property, to the same …

Morality From Meaninglessness In Simone De Beauvoir's "The Ethics Of Ambiguity", Victoria L. Riggs

Honors College Theses

In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, French existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir delves into the human condition and the possibilities for morality that arise from her understanding of such. Beginning with the assumption that there is no externally objective meaning or value to humanity, Beauvoir presents humanity as fundamentally free to create meaning and values for themselves. Beauvoir argues that humans are all simultaneously free to choose, yet limited in our choice by the facts of our situations, a paradoxical state of being she labels as our fundamental ambiguity. It is because of this ambiguity, she asserts, that …

Who Is Baby Girl? A Philosophical Discussion Of The Legal Obligation To Define Authenticity, Madison Hayes

Honors College Theses

In the later twentieth century, American law attempted to address legacies of unjust treatment of Native Americans though legislation like the Indian Child Welfare Act, which requires considering Native American identity in child custody decisions. This created some complex legal questions about exactly what constituted Native identity. The Supreme Court case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, exposed a number of problems that arose from determining authentic tribal identity. To offer a more precise analysis of the problem of identity in American law, I will engage in philosophical investigations into the nature of authenticity, bringing in the work of the …

Greek Music Theory Vs. The Bible, Kearsten M. Kostelnik

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

The great philosophers of Ancient Greece have been studied in depth and are known throughout society. Famous Greek philosophers and writers, such as Plato and Pythagoras, formulated theories on musical philosophy — it’s purpose, use, dangers, power, and importance in society. Greek philosophy of music heavily influenced early European society’s view and development of music, it only partially supports Biblical views and principles of music and worship. Pythagoras introduces the theory that music is more than just entertainment with his notion of Music of the Spheres but fails to align with the biblical view of stars and planets as mere …

Perception: Exploring Cognition And Consciousness Through Visual Art, Summer Shepherd

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The concept of consciousness has perplexed humankind for thousands of years. Countless scientists, philosophers, and artists have devoted their lifetimes to solving humanity’s questions about our relationship with the world we live within. The creative arts, such as music, theater, and visual art, can facilitate critical thinking and meaningful interpersonal communication. This paper explores the visual artwork of the author, Sunny Shepherd, through examination of historical and contemporary artistic influences on the work, as well as the psychological and philosophical concepts that fuel it. Months of research, planning, and creating went into the manifestation of the final exhibition, Metamorphosis , …

Understanding Empowerment Through Virtue Theory, Jane Somerville

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Applying virtue theory to empowerment, domination, and oppression.