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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Sacrality Of The Mountain, Manuel Rivera Espinoza Dec 2014

The Sacrality Of The Mountain, Manuel Rivera Espinoza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I explore the conception of the mountain as a "sacred space" based on the definition provided by Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and The Profane and other works. I recognize three major elements in Eliadean sacral spatiality: a) order and orientation b) liminality and c) reality. Using various sources but mainly the oracle bones inscriptions, the Yugong ("Tributes of Yu") of the Shujing ("Book of Documents") and the Shanjing ("Classic of Mountains") of the Shanhaijing ("Classic of Mountains and Seas"), I demonstrate how the three basic components of sacrality are to be found in each of the …


Neo-Molinism: A Reappraisal And Defense, Elijah Hess Dec 2014

Neo-Molinism: A Reappraisal And Defense, Elijah Hess

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the cogency of Gregory Boyd's so-called "neo-Molinist" account of the openness of the future. In particular, it is an investigation into whether Boyd's Square of Opposition for future contingents provides a model of reality for free-will theists that can preserve classical conceptions of (i) omniscience, (ii) logic, and (iii) morally significant freedom. In what follows, I argue that it can.


Facing The Wreck: Death, Optimism, And The Fragmented Form, Rachael Marie Schaffner Aug 2014

Facing The Wreck: Death, Optimism, And The Fragmented Form, Rachael Marie Schaffner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Walter Benjamin described history as a winged angel who faces backwards, staring perpetually into the past as the violent winds of destiny carry him into the future (Illuminations). Despite a western, post-enlightenment myth of eternal progress, the wreckage of human contributions to history is clearly evident in our 21st-century understanding of anthropogenic impact on global ecology. In the context of these ecological crises (and the resulting political and economic questions), postmodern novels reveal a powerful ability to imagine different ways of living and interacting with the world. This thesis traces the relationship between fragmentation, death, and liminal experiences …


Everyone Knew He Did It, But He Was Not Condemned! Knowledge And Knowledge Attributions In Legal Contexts, Danny Marrero Avendano Aug 2014

Everyone Knew He Did It, But He Was Not Condemned! Knowledge And Knowledge Attributions In Legal Contexts, Danny Marrero Avendano

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Theorizing about knowledge attributions has revolved almost exclusively around the problem of skepticism and knowledge attributions in everyday conversations. Sutton (2007), however, points out that Epistemic Contextualism seems to settle another field: "[i]t is sometimes suggested that courtroom proceedings provide a context that shows the context-sensitivity of knowledge ascription truth-conditions" (p. 87). This dissertation is devoted to the evaluation of this contextualist suggestion (CS). Epistemic Contextualism claims that the correctness of knowledge attributions depends on the salience of error possibilities or the practical states of a knowledge attributor's context of utterance. I interpret CS implies that the context of utterance …


Can Libertarianism Or Compatibilism Capture Aquinas' View On The Will?, Kelly Gallagher Aug 2014

Can Libertarianism Or Compatibilism Capture Aquinas' View On The Will?, Kelly Gallagher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The contemporary free will debate is largely split into two camps, libertarianism and compatibilism. It is commonly assumed that if one is to affirm the existence of free will then she will find herself in one of these respective camps. Although merits can be found in each respective position, I find that neither account sufficiently for free will. This thesis, therefore, puts the view of Thomas Aquinas in dialogue with the contemporary debate and argues that his view cannot be capture by either libertarianism or compatibilism and that his view offers a promising alternative view that garners some of the …


Against Self-Defense, Stephen Blake Hereth May 2014

Against Self-Defense, Stephen Blake Hereth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Absolute Pacifism (or AP) is the thesis that no act of assault is morally permissible. This entails that all acts of self-defensive assault are impermissible. This essay defends AP against non-eliminativist theories of justified self-defensive assault - that is, theories of self-defensive assault which, contrary to AP, claim that at least some instances of self-defensive assault are morally permissible. Chapter 1 begins by defining assault and AP and subsequently exploring a species of AP wedded to the Doctrine of Double Effect (or DDE). Chapter 2 defends AP against the thesis that self-defensive assault is morally permissible but not morally obligatory. …