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Ser Y Objeto, Víctor Velarde-Mayol

Víctor Velarde-Mayol

Rationality, Parapsychology, And Artificial Intelligence In Military And Intelligence Research By The United States Government In The Cold War, Guy M. Lomeo

Theses and Dissertations

A study analyzing the roles of rationality, parapsychology, and artificial intelligence in military and intelligence research by the United States Government in the Cold War. An examination of the methodology behind the decisions to pursue research in two fields that were initially considered irrational.

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

Species Pluralism: Conceptual, Ontological, And Practical Dimensions, Justin Bzovy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Species are central to biology, but there is currently no agreement on what the adequate species concept should be, and many have adopted a pluralist stance: different species concepts will be required for different purposes. This thesis is a multidimensional analysis of species pluralism. First I explicate how pluralism differs monism and relativism. I then consider the history of species pluralism. I argue that we must re-frame the species problem, and that re-evaluating Aristotle's role in the histories of systematics can shed light on pluralism. Next I consider different forms of pluralism: evolutionary and extra-evolutionary species pluralism, which differ in …

"A Return To Reality": Mark Hansen's Metaphysics: Towards A New Relationality Of Twenty-First-Century Media, Sandra Moyano Ariza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is framed in the recent turn to speculation in philosophy which aims to develop new ontologies that deprivilege the human and human cognition, in turn claiming the capacity of all entities to hold agency in experiential processes. New philosophical scholarship is seeing the resurgence of an old problematic within this turn: the ontological debate of substances vs. relations. The study is structured around these two positions, represented by Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology which claims the essence of all entities and Steven Shaviro's understanding of relationality through Whitehead's structure of experience and becoming, respectively. These two positions will help …

Mental Disease And Criminal Responsibility, Joseph T. Tinnelly, C.M.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Rhetoric Of Tyranny: Callicles The Rhetor And Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Greg Whitlock

Sophia and Philosophia

Here I will work through the rhetoric of tyranny as practiced by Callicles and as reflected in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, in particular. In Part 2 it will be shown that Nietzsche’s account of Plato as the complex figure with a Socratic exterior but a latent alternative ego of the tyrant, arrived at an image consistent with E.R. Dodds’ later thesis. Callicles the rhetor, featured as a student of Gorgias, embodies this alter-ego. In Part 3 we find Callicles and Zarathustra shared very similar beliefs once they overcame shame and gained honesty. Indeed, Callicles expounded a number of propositions foundational to …

"Part Of That Force That Always Wills The Evil And Always Produces The Good" On A Devilish Incoherence, Peter Baumann

Sophia and Philosophia

When Mephisto was asked by Faust, "Well now, who are you then?" (“Nun gut, wer bist Du denn?”), he gave the well-known answer, "Part of that force that always wills the evil and always produces the good" (“Ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft”: Goethe, Faust, 1334-1336). This answer raises some important questions which in turn lead to interesting answers. Let us start by looking at the content of Mephisto's utterance.

The Problem Of Obviousness, Benjamin Goldberg

Sophia and Philosophia

1. The Problem of Obviousness
There’s no such thing as obviousness.

This isn’t, of course, itself obvious; nor is it clear why it should be a problem. So let me start elsewhere, with the anti-vaccine movement. A friend of mine laid out the ‘obvious’ position: there are facts and rationality on one side, unenlightened ignorance and bigotry on the other. Scientists versus fools, and the fools don’t even know what game is being played.

Poetic Justice: Apology Overdue, Stephen Faison

Sophia and Philosophia

Jurors of our republic, I do not know whether you were persuaded by the case made against me, but I certainly hope that you were not. Some of what the prosecutor told you is accurate, though much of it is untrue. To put it another way, some of his facts are correct, yet the conclusions he presented were usually misleading distortions and in some cases simply incorrect. If the indictment is clarified to its essentials, I am accused of corrupting the young and not believing in the gods in whom the city believes. I intend to show that these charges …

‘To Warm Our Hands’, Emmanuel O. Angulo

Sophia and Philosophia

Lovers often die shortly one after the other. Romeo and Juliet. June Carter and Johnny Cash. My grandfather and my grandmother. Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.

Marianne was the inspiration, most famously, of Cohen’s song “So long, Marianne”, but also of “Bird on the wire” and poems from the collection Flowers for Hitler. Cohen’s last words for her reached her just two days before her death—and a few months before his own. They said: ‘you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don't need to say anything more about that because you know …

Cindy, Ken Clatterbaugh

Sophia and Philosophia

Cindy Norton sang loud in slightly accented Spanish. The song was “Perfidia” (“Wicked Woman”). She remembered the melody, and the Spanish language radio reminded her of the lyrics, although she could hardly hear the radio or herself above the grinding, popping, and rattling of her Volkswagen Rabbit. Her radio picked up only one station.

The Descent Of Winter: William Carlos Williams Under The Influence Of Paris, Phillip Barron

Sophia and Philosophia

The Descent of Winter, published in Ezra Pound’s magazine The Exile in 1928, is an uneven experiment in unclassifiable writing. Williams began writing the diaristic entries aboard the SS Pennland “in the fall of 1927. He was returning from Europe, where he had left Florence Williams with their two sons, who were to attend school in Geneva.” (Imaginations, 231) The slim book alternates between spare, image driven poems composed of short lines and diaristic prose. Most entries are titled only with the dates of their composition. In aesthetics, Williams always concerned himself with form. The variety of …

Keats, Truth, And Empathy, Peter Shum

Sophia and Philosophia

At one level, Keats’s sonnet entitled On Peace (1814) is full of philosophical certainties. The speaker believes, for example, that a nation’s people have a right to live in freedom under the rule of law, and that the rule of law should be applicable to everybody. Political and philosophical commitments of this kind do not seem to be called into question in this poem, or made the subject of an enquiry. On the contrary, it is as though we are confronted with somebody who, in certain central thematic respects at least, appears to know his own mind.

The Entelechial Thinker In Space: ‘Worlds Within Worlds’ In Durrell, Flaubert, And Carroll, Sheena M. Jary

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis argues that the interior space of each individual mind has infinite potentiality to do or create x new reality in one’s life via possible worlds. I use Lawrence Durrell’s short story “Zero” (1939), Gustave Flaubert’s “Un coeur simple” (1877), and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) as literary representations of how readers outside of the literary text share an unbreakable bond with universal space. I discuss the infinite potentiality of the finite being, and the experiential data in the process of entelechy, or epistemological maturation of the mind. I bring Leibniz’s theory of the continuum of infinitesimals …

Amazon Book Review Of David Ray Griffin's God Exists But Gawd Does Not (2016), Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

David Ray Griffin employs the term “anatheism” (ana-theism) for describing a natural scientific return to theism, by moving logically from traditional theism to atheism to panentheism. Griffin shows how natural scientific reasoning leads from commitment to traditional theism (“Gawd” exists) to modern atheism (“Gawd” does not exist), then from modern atheism to [constructive postmodern] Whiteheadian panentheism (“God” does exist).

Contra Lewisian Naturalness, Dylan Abney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Some ways of talking or thinking about the world are better than others. Most obviously, it is often better to say or believe true things rather than false things. Perhaps less obvious is the notion that our speech and thought ought to, or often in fact does, reflect the natural formation or structure of the world. This idea—that we ought to be carving the world at its natural joints—can be found at least as far back as Plato’s Phaedrus. More recently, we can see a related idea in the work of David Lewis. In “New Work for a Theory of …

The Path To Supersubstantivalism, Joshua D. Moulton

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part I defend substantivalism. I do this by offering, in chapter 1, a counterpart-theoretic defense of substantivalism from Leibniz’ shift arguments. Then, in chapter 2, I defend substantivalism from the hole argument and argue, against the consensus, that the question of haecceitism is irrelevant to substantivalism in the context of general relativity. In the second part of the dissertation I defend supersubstantivalism. I do this by offering, in chapter 3, an argument against dualistic substantivalism. The argument appeals to plausible principles of modal plenitude to show that the dualist is …

Physical Geometry, James P. Binkoski

Doctoral Dissertations

All physical theories, from classical Newtonian mechanics to relativistic quantum field theory, entail propositions concerning the geometric structure of spacetime. To give an example, the general theory of relativity entails that spacetime is curved, smooth, and four-dimensional. In this dissertation, I take the structural commitments of our theories seriously and ask: how is such structure instantiated in the physical world? Mathematically, a property like 'being curved' is perfectly well-defined insofar as we know what it means for a mathematical space to be curved. But what could it mean to say that the physical world is curved? Call this the problem …

Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, Stephen E. Harris

Comparative Philosophy

This article explores the role of weakness of will (akrasia) in the Indian Buddhist tradition, and in particular within Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practice of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra). In agreement with Jay Garfield, I argue that there are important differences between Aristotle’s account of akrasia and Buddhist moral psychology. Nevertheless, taking a more expanded conception of weakness of will, as is frequently done in contemporary work, allows us to draw significant connections with the pluralistic account of psychological conflict found in Buddhist texts. I demonstrate this by showing how Amélie Rorty’s expanded treatment of akrasia as including …

Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Die Phantasie Gottes: An Analysis Of The Divine Ideas In Deity Theories And Brian Leftow, With A Proposed Synthesis, Nathaniel Dowell

Masters Theses

This thesis was on how God is related to the truth-values of propositions on possible worlds - specifically, those propositions that do not seem to be about Him and constitute His ideas for what to create. It opened with a survey of some historical positions with special emphasis on Aquinas, Leibniz, Spinoza and Kant. Next, some criticisms were given for these so-called deity theories (i.e., the belief that possibilities are dependent on God and God must, by nature, recognize the necessary truths He does) with the most space given to Brian Leftow’s critiques. The second chapter detailed Brian Leftow’s theological …

The C3 Conditional: A Variably Strict Ordinary-Language Conditional, Monique L. Whitaker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I provide a novel logic of the ordinary-language conditional. First, however, I endeavor to make clearer and more precise just what the objects of the study of the conditional are, as a lack of clarity as to what counts as an instance of a given category of conditional has resulted in deep and significant confusions in subsequent analysis. I motivate for a factual/counterfactual distinction, though not at the level of particular instances of the conditional. Instead, I argue that each individual instance of the conditional may be interpreted either factually or counterfactually, rather than these instances dividing …

It's Always Better With A Good Dm, David Colannino

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

It’s Always Better With A Good DM is about our relationship with objects and maps as a vector for fantasy. Beginning from the premise that humans understand the world via narrative, I am concerned with the loss of imagination in adulthood in lieu of ideology, which is no more real than stories of future and fantastic places.

Fundamental Awareness: A Framework For Integrating Science, Philosophy And Metaphysics, Neil D. Theise, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The ontologic framework of Fundamental Awareness proposed here assumes that non-dual Awareness is foundational to the universe, not arising from the interactions or structures of higher level phenomena. The framework allows comparison and integration of views from the three investigative domains concerned with understanding the nature of consciousness: science, philosophy, and metaphysics. In this framework, Awareness is the underlying reality, not reducible to anything else. Awareness and existence are the same. As such, the universe is non-material, self-organizing throughout, a holarchy of complementary, process driven, recursive interactions. The universe is both its own first observer and subject. Considering the world …

The Constellations Of Empiricism, New Science, And Mind In Hobbes, Locke, And Hume, Lisa Pelot

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, positive and negative tensions among the “unit-ideas” of New Science and empiricism are explored as they relate to explanations of aspects of mind in the Modern period. Some constellations of ideas are mutually supporting, and provide fruitful discussion on how mind can fit into the natural world. This project aims to clarify the adequacy of this type of framework in accommodating and explaining mind, and aspects of mind. I proceed by analyzing key texts via the “unit-ideas” of New Science and empiricism. The three central chapters are case studies, looking at Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. Each chapter …

Theories Of Properties And Ontological Theory-Choice: An Essay In Metaontology, Christopher Gibilisco

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that we have no good reason to accept any one theory of properties as correct. To show this, I present three possible bases for theory-choice in the properties debate: coherence, explanatory adequacy, and explanatory value. Then I argue that none of these bases resolve the underdetermination of our choice between theories of properties.

First, I argue considerations about coherence cannot resolve the underdetermination, because no traditional theory of properties is obviously incoherent. Second, I argue considerations of explanatory adequacy cannot resolve the underdetermination, because every traditional theory of properties lacks the theoretical resources to adequately explain resemblance, …

Avatars Of Oneself, Patrick L. Miller

Sophia and Philosophia

Zoe is an American woman who has found that “drawing the line and standing firm has always made me feel like a bitch, and, actually, I feel that people saw me as one too.”[3] For two years, however, she played an online role-playing game using a male character where “as a man I was liberated from all that.” She made mistakes in her unfamiliar role, but learned from them. “I got better at being firm but not rigid,” she says; “I practiced, safe from criticism.” Case is an American man, who plays a similar game but always appears as a …