Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Sartre And The Nothingness Of Consciousness, Matthew Dale Massey

Doctoral Dissertations

Sartre’s claim in Being and Nothingness that consciousness is nothingness is typically understood as meaning either that consciousness is not itself, that it is not its objects, that it is not its past, or that it is some sort of state of affairs. Although these interpretations of Sartre are often presented independently of each other, I argue that one can combine several of them in order to arrive at the best understanding of Sartre’s treatment of consciousness. Such an understanding treats consciousness as the state of affairs that is its facticity transcending itself toward its objects. One could also combine …

Pluralism And Practical Reason: The Problem Of Decisiveness, James Michael Okapal

Doctoral Dissertations

Some have criticized pluralistic theories as failing to be decisive, in other words, pluralistic theories fail to produce judgments that are rational and justified. The argument starts by claiming that if a theory has neither the ability to justify actions through comparison nor the ability to guarantee a single answer about what one ought to do, then the theory is not decisive. The argument identifies the source of these failings in the pluralists commitment to incomparability and non-reductionism. I argue that pluralistic theories can be comparativist and that the demand for a single right answer is too stringent. Thus, it …

Searching For America: The Development Of The Immigrant Narrative Across Jewish, African, Cuban, And Korean American Literature, Amanda Maree Lawrence

Doctoral Dissertations

Searching for America: The Development of the Immigrant Narrative across Jewish, African, Cuban, and Korean American Literature is a longitudinal study that traces and accounts for the development of immigrant literature within specific ethnic groups, focusing on how different generations rewrite the immigrant narrative of their own cultures. Considering multiple texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Jewish, African, Cuban, and Korean American authors, I examine the changing relationship between language or literary form and identity politics for each group. In addition to exploring individual patterns of development, I suggest ways in which these very different ethnic texts speak …

Biomechanical And Temporal Measurement Of Pharyngeal Swallowing For Stroke Patients With Aspiration, Youngsun Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

This study compared three pharyngeal swallowing measurements: Pharyngeal Delay Time (PDT), Stage Transition Duration (STD), and Delayed Pharyngeal Swallow (DPS) on the correct classification of three groups of subjects. These groups were: 15 stroke patients who aspirated (aspirators), 15 stroke patients who did not aspirate (non-aspirators) and 15 normal subjects.

Overall, the STD had highest mean classification among the three pharyngeal swallowing measurements. All three measures has a significant difference between aspirators and normal subjects. None of the measurements showed a difference between non-aspirators and normal subjects. The aspirators and the normal subjects were classified correctly most often; whereas the …

Catholic Health Care In The Public Square: Resolving Moral Conflict With Integrity, Jennifer Heyl

Doctoral Dissertations

Catholic health care faces a difficult challenge in today’s secular society. Because they are directed by the teachings of the Catholic Church, certain services, such as abortion, sterilization and contraception, cannot be provided at Catholic health care facilities. This limitation on services has placed Catholic health care providers at odds with many in the communities which they serve. This conflict was exacerbated in the 1990s during the active period of mergers and acquisitions which left some communities with only one hospital, which was now Catholic. These moral conflicts often seem intractable.

This dissertation examines the nature of moral conflict and …