Philosophy Commons^™

Hume's Conception Of Geometry And The Role Of Contradiction, Sofia Remedios Paz

Theses and Dissertations

David Hume’s account of geometry can seem puzzling as he claims that geometry is inexact and demonstrable. Graciela de Pierris argues for an interpretation that explains why Hume sees geometry as inexact and, yet, demonstrable. However, she doesn’t consider Hume’s description of relations of ideas found in the Enquiry. Hume distinguishes between matters of fact and relations of idea by checking to see if there is a contradiction with the denial of a proposition. Geometry is categorized as relations of idea, so the denials of geometric propositions cannot be conceivable and must imply a contradiction. I will argue that De …

A Player’S Sense Of Place: Computer Games As Anatopistic Medium, Kristopher John Purzycki

Theses and Dissertations

This project works to understand how open-world computer games help generate a sense of place from the player. Since their development over a half century ago, computer games have primarily been discussed in terms of space. Yet the way we think about space today is much different than how those scientists calculated space as a construction of time, mass, and location. But as computer games have evolved, the language has failed to accommodate the more nuanced qualities of game spaces. This project aims at articulating the nuances of place through phenomenological methods to objectively analyze the player experience as performed …

A Pedagogy Of Techno-Social Relationality: Ethics And Digital Multimodality In The Composition Classroom, Kristin M. Ravel

Theses and Dissertations

I bring together the relational ethics of feminist critical theory with approaches of multimodal rhetoric to examine the ethical implications of composing on social media platforms. Most social media platforms are designed to value consumerism, efficiency, quantity of web traffic, and constant synchronous response over concerns of responsible and critical communication. I propose a rhetorical approach of techno-social relationality (TSR) as an intervention against such corporate-minded design. Through this approach, I argue that civil engagement is not limited to people’s social responsibilities but rather is entwined in complex, material-technical contexts. By considering the responsibility of our machines as much as …

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 …

Explanation And Prediction: Strategies For Extending Scientific Realism To Mathematics, Owen Henry Forbes

Theses and Dissertations

One central question in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the ontological status of mathematical entities. Platonists argue that abstract, mathematical entities exist, while nominalists argue that they do not. Scientific realism is the position that science is (roughly) true and the objects it describes exist. There are two major competing arguments for platonism on the basis of scientific realism: Indispensability and Explanation. In this paper I consider which argument the platonist ought to prefer by comparing their motivations and results. I conclude that, given the current role of mathematics in our best scientific theories, Explanation does not support platonism. Thus, …

"This Is Simply What I Do": Primitive Normativity In Following A Rule, Taojie Wang

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I propose an account of normativity of meaning that answers the skeptical challenge against meaning which Kripke puts forward on behalf of his reading of Wittgenstein. According to Kripke (1982), the skeptic asks us to identify the fact that constitutes a language user as meaning addition, instead of some other mathematical functions, by “+”. On the view I develop, such facts are facts about a certain type of normative attitude, the primitively normative attitude, that we have as a part of our human nature.

In illustrating my account, I start with discussing a similar-sounding proposal that Hannah …

Defending A Modest Semantic Brutalism, Jean Pierre Cordero Rojas

Theses and Dissertations

Scott Soames is a naturalist propositional realist. Propositional realism requires a commitment to propositions, propositional access, and semantic properties (namely, representationality and truth conditionality). Soames' task, as a naturalist propositional realist, is to give appropriate explanations of the entities in question in terms of a naturalist base ontology. In contrast, brutalism (of any sort) holds that some facts are brute or unexplainable in terms of some base ontology. I argue that at least one semantic fact in particular—that propositional representationality bears the property I call Tight Connection—remains unexplained even given Soames' efforts. I argue that there is no route available …

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 …

Humean Constructivism And Deliberative Coherence, Danilo Doche Linhares

Theses and Dissertations

According to Humean constructivism in metaethics, there is no incoherence in holding that different agents should act on aims that are not co-possible. I will show that this commitment undermines Humean constructivists’ own treatment of normative judgments, where these judgments are meant to function both as prescriptions and assertions of fact. When ideally coherent Humeans engage others in conversation, their claims about others’ reasons to act function as imperatives rather than as assertions; conversely, when Humean reasoners think of those claims while deliberating on their own, they carry no prescriptive weight at all. In light of these issues, I propose …

Poetics, Not Pragmatics: Understanding Metaphors In A Poetic Context, Savannah Marciezyk

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this paper is to explain why the leading theories of metaphor fail when applied to metaphors which appear in poems. The ability to understand the true meaning of a metaphor in conversations relies on understanding speaker intention and extralinguistic context. This paper argues that because such material is not available to the reader of a poem, theories which rely heavily on pragmatics to explain metaphors cannot be successfully applied to metaphors which appear in poems. This paper makes use of the views on metaphor by John Searle and Paul Grice, and discusses how meaning is constructed in …

Taking The Other To Be Itself: The Struggling Self-Consciousness’S Motivations In Hegel’S Phenomenology Of Spirit, Jordon Kent Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Hegel develops an account of self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit in which a self-consciousness fights another in a life-and-death struggle. There are many readings of the motivations for self-consciousness’s risking of its own life and aiming at the life of the other in the struggle. I argue that Robert Stern’s account of these motivations is problematic because he attributes more rational self-awareness to self-consciousness than it possesses at this stage in the dialectic. John McDowell’s reading presents advantages over Stern’s, but still leaves us with the problem of how to understand that self-consciousness “in the other sees its own …

Reasonableness And The Means Of Production, Dennis Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Although John Rawls’s work has been incredibly influential in political philosophy, the question of how Rawls’s principles of justice would be realized in the institutions of a just society has only recently received significant attention. Stated most clearly in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Rawls discusses five regimes, only two of which are compatible with justice as fairness: liberal socialism and property-owning democracy. Rawls argues that both regime types can satisfy his principles of justice and choosing which regime to institute depends on the culture of the nation in question. In this essay, I argue that although both liberal socialism …

Philosophy Without Title: Hume's Sceptical Principles In The Treatise, John Frederick Muller

Theses and Dissertations

At the end of Book I of the Treatise, David Hume identifies a dilemma that has him ready to abandon philosophy. We have no choice, he suggests, between (1) a “false reason” that leads to “errors, absurdities, and obscurities,” and (2) no reason at all, a paralysis of self-doubt that ends in “total scepticism.” In the last two decades, the “Title Principle” has recast the debate around how Hume is able to continue with philosophy in the face of this dilemma. Per its proponents, the Title Principle is Hume’s “answer” to the dilemma, an articulation of the sort of reasoning …