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Bridgewater State University

Philosophy

Thesis

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Existential Philosophy Of David Foster Wallace, Shoshana Primak May 2020

The Existential Philosophy Of David Foster Wallace, Shoshana Primak

Honors Program Theses and Projects

It is no secret that philosophy and literature are often closely intertwined: beginning with works as old as Plato’s dialogues, philosophers have always seen the merit in utilizing fiction to share philosophy with both their contemporaries and with the general public. The most prominent existentialists are perhaps the most famous for using literature as a vehicle for their philosophical ideas: Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre all published some kind of fiction, through parables, novels, plays, and so forth. Likewise, I will argue in this thesis that renowned writer David Foster Wallace was not …


Towards An Understanding Of Nietzsche’S Will To Power, Jeffrey Beery May 2020

Towards An Understanding Of Nietzsche’S Will To Power, Jeffrey Beery

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Given his aphoristic writing style, his poetical and metaphorical depictions of philosophical ideas, and his presentations of seemingly logically contradictory or inconsistent views, Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy lends itself to a variety of competing interpretations among scholars and a plethora of misconceptions among everyday readers. These misconceptions have invited many negative connotations to be attributed to his philosophy, including Nazism, misogyny, and egoism. Amongst his most misconstrued concepts is the Will to Power, a concept Nietzsche himself never explicitly defines, but discusses in a variety of ways throughout his texts.