Philosophy Commons^™

A Defense Of Hume's Dictum, Cameron Gibbs

Doctoral Dissertations

Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s day, Hume’s Dictum has played a major role in philosophy, especially in contemporary metaphysics. In ruling out necessary connections, …

In Search Of Psychiatric Kinds: Natural Kinds And Natural Classification In Psychiatry, Nicholas Slothouber

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In recent years both philosophers and scientists have asked whether or not our current kinds of mental disorder—e.g., schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder—are natural kinds; and, moreover, whether or not the search for natural kinds of mental disorder is a realistic desideratum for psychiatry. In this dissertation I clarify the sense in which a kind can be said to be “natural” or “real” and argue that, despite a few notable exceptions, kinds of mental disorder cannot be considered natural kinds. Furthermore, I contend that psychopathological phenomena do not cluster together into kinds in the way that paradigmatic natural kinds (e.g., chemical …

Non-Empirical Modelling And Theorizing: Scientific Progress In Particle Physics, Cristin Cain Chall

Theses and Dissertations

Particle physics (and other fundamental physics research, including searches for a theory of quantum gravity) faces a problem when it comes to acquiring experimental evidence. Many theories and models make predictions that cannot be tested with current, or even prospective technology. Yet these fields continue to develop, with new models and theories regularly being introduced, scrutinized, changed, and discarded. My project aims at examining the way theories and models are constructed, adapted, and assessed in fields that lack the empirical evidence that usually grounds such tasks. I will focus on two prominent examples: string theory and attempts to explain electroweak …

Some Non-Human Languages Of Thought, Nicolas J. Porot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What might we learn if we take seriously the possibility of non-human Languages of Thought (LoT)? A LoT is a combinatorial set of mental representations. And, since mental representations and rules of combination vary in kind, there are many possible LoTs. Simple LoTs might lack familiar features of the putative human LoT, such as object representations, recursively defined rules of combination, sentential connectives, or predicate-argument structure. The most familiar arguments for the existence of LoTs, such as those from productivity, systematicity, concept learning, and perceptual computation, all fail when applied to non-human animals. But recent empirical evidence motivates attributing LoTs …

Theory Construction In High-Energy Particle Physics, Adam Koberinski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Science is a process, through which theoretical frameworks are developed, new phenomena defined and discovered, and properties of entities tested. The goal of this dissertation is to illustrate how high-energy physics exemplified the process of theory construction from the 1950s to 1970s, and the promising ways in which it can continue to do so today. The lessons learned from the case studies examined here can inform future physics, and may provide methodological clues as to the best way forward today. I examine the discovery of parity nonconservation in weak interactions, the emergence of Yang-Mills theories as the foundation of the …

Rethinking Individuality In Quantum Mechanics, Nathan Moore

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One recent debate in philosophy of physics has centered whether quantum particles are individuals or not. The received view is that particles are not individuals and the standard methodology is to approach the question via the structure of quantum theory. I challenge both the received view and the standard methodology. I contend not only that the structure of quantum theory is not the right place to look for conditions of individuality that quantum particles may or may not satisfy, but also that there is an important role for traditional metaphysics to play. Consequently, my work brings together the philosophy of …

On Separating The Wheat From The Chaff: Surplus Structure And Artifacts In Scientific Theories, Marie Gueguen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although logical empiricism is now mostly decried, their naturalist claim that the content of a theory can be read off from its structure, without any philosophical considerations needed, still supports traditional strategies to escape cases of underdetermination. The appeal to theoretical equivalence or to theoretical virtues, for instance, both assume that there is a neutral standpoint from which the structure of the theories can be analyzed, the physically relevant from the superfluous separated, and a comparison made between their theoretical content and virtues. In my dissertation, I examine the presuppositions upon which such strategies depend. I argue that the methodological …

Phantoms In Science: Nietzsche's Nonobjectivity On Planck's Quanta, Donald Richard Dickerson Iii

Undergraduate Theses

What does Maxwell Planck's concept of phantomness suggest about the epistemological basis of science and how might a Nietzschean critique reveal solution to the weaknesses revealed? With his solution to Kirchoff's equation, Maxwell Planck launched the paradigm of quantum physics. This same solution undermined much of current understandings of science versus pseudoscience. Using Nietzsche's perspectivism and other philosophical critiques, Planck's answer to blackbody radiation is used to highlight the troubles with phantom problems in science and how to try to direct science towards a more holistic and complete scientific approach.

Maximally Contiguous Simples, Steven Canet

Theses and Dissertations

Much of the recent work done in mereology has been focused on answers to Ned Markosian’s Simple Question: What are the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an object’s being a simple i.e. a thing with no parts? In this paper, I analyze Markosian’s own answer, The Maximally Continuous View (MaxCon), and highlight a few of the strongest objections against that answer. I then argue that the objections only arise because Markosian assumes problematic conceptions of spacetime and matter. After updating each assumption with our best physics, I arrive at my own view, which I call the Maximally Contiguous View …

Nominalization And Interpretation: A Critique Of Global Nominalization Criteria, Jason Alen Dewitt

Theses and Dissertations

Nominalization is the process which removes abstract objects from our scientific theories. But what makes a proposed nominalization a good or successful one? In the paper “Is It Possible to Nominalize Quantum Mechanics,” Otávio Bueno develops criteria for any successful nominalization. In the present work, I discuss one of these criteria that I call the “interpretation criterion.” It claims that a nominalization of a scientific theory should be neutral with regards to the interpretations of that theory. I argue that the interpretation criterion is problematic, and that it should be replaced with an alternative criterion of nominalization. I first explicate …

Imagined Futures: Feminist Science Studies In An Era Of Climate Change Denial, Emily K. Crandall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What space is there for critical approaches to science in a context where the authority of science to say anything meaningful, or to prescribe, appears to be somewhat tenuous—in other words, in a moment of rampant climate change denial? To answer this question against the backdrop of the common refrain that the problem is one of capitalism vs. the climate (e.g. Naomi Klein 2014), I examine cases where debates about science, economistic organizational arrangements, and political clashes between neoliberals and environmentalists come together, while insisting on the view, following critical engagements with the sciences, that the sciences and their societies …

Transdisciplinary Creative Ecologies In Contemporary Art Within Emergent Processes, Siglinde Langholz Villarreal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is composing in the moving with affective speeds and rhythms, instead of unfolding direct and in linear ways. It is important to come across different planes of composition in movement. There are so many planes of voices spinning around in relation. Research-creation seems as forms of relations and an invitation to appreciate the collectivity at the heart of thinking. The many entering-into relation within a differential thought in the making of its own.

Emergent properties in non-human interactions, such as those presented in Steven Shaviro ́s Against Self-Organization (2009) and Brain Massumi, are symptomatic of how individualities relate …

Reasoning Of The Highest Leibniz And The Moral Quality Of Reason, Ryan Quandt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Loving God is our highest perfection for Leibniz. It secures our belief and trust in the Creator, which is integral to the sciences as well as faith. Those who love God have justification for reasoning, that is, they can rationally expect to arrive at truth. This is because love is a receptivity to the perfection all of things; loving God, then, is a disposition and tendency toward the most perfect being, the ens perfectissimum. Individuals who perceive the divine nature “do not merely fear the power of the supreme and all-seeing monarch,” Leibniz writes, “but are assured of his beneficence, …

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

Homelessness Status Among Female Veterans: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, And Hopelessness, Shorrelle Sheri Kennedy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Homelessness among female veterans is a problem that is likely to increase as growing numbers of women in the United States military reestablish themselves into their communities as veterans. The purpose of this quantitavie quasi-experimental study was to determine whether there are differences in posttraumatic stress (PTSD), depression, and hopelessness in homeless versus nonhomeless female veterans who have experienced at least 1 U.S. military deployment. Four theories served as the basis for this research: the cognitive theory of depression, conditioning theory, ecological theory, and the hopelessness of depression theory. The data were collected from 88 female veterans who were deployed …

Towards A Critical Understanding Of Deepfakes: Developing A Teaching Module And More, Wentao Guo

Pomona Senior Theses

Recently, computer-generated and computer-altered videos known as deepfakes have raised widespread concerns about the harms they may cause to democratic elections, national security, people’s reputation, and people’s autonomy over their words and actions as represented in videos and other media. How can we build towards a critical understanding of not only deepfakes, but also photos, videos, and the role of many other media objects surrounding us that inform us about the world? In this thesis, wanting to take a historical approach and noting the newness of deepfakes, I first investigate a historical case study regarding a manipulated photo from a …

Man Is A Downgoing, Olorin Ts Etemad-Lehmer

Senior Projects Spring 2019

I write in pursuit of the question: what is the difference between Friedrich Nietzsche’s overman and the posthuman foretold by transhumanists?

I have found two significant differences between Nietzsche’s overman and the posthuman:

1. Nietzsche does not advocate for the extension of the human life in pursuit of the overman. Quite the opposite, it will take many generations of births and deaths to bring about the overman. Overlong lives block the way to the overman. Life extension is a universal principle of transhumanism.
2. Nietzsche hates the value of equality. He despises its Christian origins. He argues that structural inequality, even a …

A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions In Scientific Inquiry, Karina Bucciarelli

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how scientific knowledge claims can become distorted due to socially constructed conceptions of gender. Further, it delves into the key components of an epistemological framework that will minimize these distortions.

To set up the analysis, I first explore how ‘traditional’ scientific explanations of human fertilization map stereotypes of the passive female and the active male onto the scientific participation of the egg and the sperm in human reproduction, thus rendering this knowledge claim problematic. We then turn to arguments presented by prominent feminist epistemologists. I argue that in order to produce knowledge claims free of distortions due …

Art's Truth: An Aid To Ethical Sensibility, Nova Quaoser

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper I explore the philosophical implications of decision theory and deliberation on ethics, paying special attention to how vicious individuals yearn for a separate philosophical account. Drawing largely on Fricker, McDowell, Paul, and Nussbaum I discuss how transformative experiences open a window for understanding moral development in terms of habituation in the Aristotelian sense, and further how the vicious individual’s failure to deliberate may be remedied via a transformation through art.

Predictors Of Perceived Multicultural Competence Among Neuropsychological Trainees, Hannah K. Greenbaum

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Multicultural competence is necessary to provide psychological services to an increasingly diverse population (Sue, 2001). It is established that multicultural competence is important for training in psychology (Bodin et al., 2014; Diaz-Santos & Hill, 2016). Despite increased interest in recent years, multicultural competence in neuropsychology has not progressed in parallel with the focus of multiculturalism in psychology broadly (Rivera Mindt, Byrd, Saez, & Manly, 2010). Little is known about multicultural assessment, and it is not yet known what factors in training contribute to perceived multicultural competence in neuropsychological trainees (Elbulok-Charape, Rabin, Spadaccini, & Barr, 2014). The primary purpose of this …