Philosophy Commons^™

The Evolutionary Global Vision Of Chinese Political Philosophy; China's Socio-Economic Transformation In The 21st Century, Meryem Gurel

Master's Projects and Capstones

Evolving relations of East Asia due to trade liberalization raised the search for financial stability for institutional development. It also increased the importance of China integrating the global economy into renewing its political philosophy in the new century. This capstone project aims to examine why China has transformed its socio-economic structure by generating outward investments and how it has affected international political relations in terms of the role of the economic institution Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Quantitative methodology aims to examine the impact of China’s export trade on income distribution and economic growth through linear regression analysis for the …

Letting The Body Lead, Amanda Boggs

Masters Theses

Letting the Body Lead is an exhibition and workshop series that focuses on embodiment in social context and invites attendees to engage with the work, both as viewers and active participants. Embodiment in social context refers to the understanding of lived experiences in the body. Within my creative practice, I explore the body's creativity, knowledge, and agency while bridging and brining together the fields of fine arts, movement-based and socially just art making. I believe in the transformative potential of how movement and contemplative practices can support a more liberated way of being both within an individual and, by extension, …

“I Said, You Are Gods”: Pastoral Motives Manifest In Patristic Citations Of Psalm 82:6, Charles Schulz

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

The early church fathers frequently cited Ps. 82:6 (LXX 81:6), “I said, You are gods and all sons of the Most High,” a passage Jesus himself quoted (John 10:34) to defend his own title as the Son of God. Scholars agree that the patristic use of verse underwrote the developing doctrine of deification, which promised that Christians would become “gods” in some sense by bearing God’s image and likeness and participating in Christ and his saving work. In order to deepen and focus our understanding of the significance and role of this passage for patristic theology—and particularly for pastoral practice—this …

Apology And Reconciliation In Settler States, Nicholas B. Murphy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation offers a normative account of how we should conceive of reconciliation between Indigenous people(s), states qua states, and their non-Indigenous citizens. It mines pre-theoretic understandings of reconciliation to determine appropriate governing norms for reconciled relationships, the normative expectations that attend these, and what processes or initiatives might be necessary to achieve them. In liberal democratic settler states like Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand the desirability of reconciliation is acknowledged by all parties. However, considerable ambiguity surrounds the concept ‘reconciliation.’ This is problematic because concepts influence social discourse, and the rhetoric of reconciliation not only guides …

An Understanding Of Prisons, Race, And Class In The United States, Seth Ketchum

Honors Projects

After a summer of protests sparked by police brutality, the United States remains divided on this most important issue. This paper will seek to contextualize this country’s situation to explain that these protests stem from a history of inequality, in order to argue against claims that the protests are unjustified. With a multidisciplinary approach, we can begin to observe just how unequal this country is and understand what drives so many people to protest during the middle of a global pandemic.

Politics For Angels, William Kanwischer

Honors Projects

How many idealizing assumptions may we make when doing political philosophy? May we assume our citizens more rational than they are, or our governments more efficient than in reality? These questions lie at the center of the debate between ideal and non-ideal theorists. Ideal theorists believe it permissible to engage in counterfactual assumptions about citizens and states when doing political philosophy, and non-ideal theorists think the opposite. In this paper, I will argue against a particular defense of ideal theory given by David Estlund, who argues that the low probability that a standard of justice will be met does not …

Examining The Notion Of The Boundary Object In Information Systems: The Transdisciplinary Oeuvre Of Cognitive Science, Laura Elien Ridenour

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the transdisciplinary area of cognitive science, and was framed around the sociological notion of the boundary object. Harmonizing theoretical and technical approaches, methods introduced in this work moved beyond qualitative study practices traditional to boundary object theory work to a mixed-methods data-driven approach. Bibliometric Web of Science data, enriched with National Science Foundation (NSF) journal classifications, formed the foundation from which a seed-and-expand dataset were created from journals containing the string cogni* and their cited articles for the years 2006-2016. This two-tiered dataset allowed for the analysis of boundary-spanning interdisciplinary concepts, as identified by noun phrases, and …

Temembe And Sven: The Ethics Of Racist Mirth, Stephen Wilke

Masters Theses

You walk past a crowd of people at a bar, grouped around one person. He’s in the middle of telling a joke, the kind you wouldn’t tell your parents but is often told in the amenable company of close friends. You realize that the butt of the joke, the punchline, assumes that people of color are lazy and entitled. This is not an assumption you agree wit, but you find yourself with a feeling of mirth while scoffing at the comedian. His timing is well executed, and the turn of phrase is witty. The joke was racist, and yet emotionally …

Shakespeare’S As You Like It And James Cameron’S Avatar: Reharmonizing Society With Nature, Erin Rebecca Turner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a comedy whose main character, Rosalind, is forced out of her home among the upper caste of society through no fault of her own, but because of an issue with her father. She moves into the pastoral unknown disguised as a man to avoid the issues that come traveling as a woman, outside the protection of the home. Along the way, she finds pleasure with the power she holds as a man. She is heard when she speaks as a man and she is given access to knowledge she would not be given as …

Aristotle's Account Of Time: A Moderate Realism, Pierre-Luc Boudreault

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation proposes an interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of time as a whole from a study of Physics IV. 10-14. It addresses interpretive issues and objections pertaining to Aristotle’s view about the nature of time, its existence, as well as its unity and universality. In response to these problems, the interpretation of some ancient and medieval commentators – Themistius, Simplicius, Philoponus, Albert the Great and in particular, Thomas Aquinas – is by and large defended against recent interpretations. It is argued that by defining time as “the number of movement with respect to the “before” and “after” (Phys. IV. …

An Archaeology Of Contemporary Speculative Knowledge, Justas Patkauskas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation investigates contemporary speculative knowledge grounded in the immanence episteme, which is struggling to emerge as a foundation for a new kind of absolute knowledge. Regarding method, I use Michel Foucault’s concept of archaeology, situating archaeology in the context of deconstruction. In general, by delineating the various differences and genealogies within immanence theory, I show that immanence is neither a monolithic homogeneity nor a schizophrenic multiplicity but a coherent, if troubled, ground for speculative thought.

In Chapter 1, I define deconstruction as a broad philosophical project concerned with the order of knowledge and the University and its disciplines. I …

Applications Of Land Surface Temperature From Satellite Remote Sensing Over The United Arab Emirates (Uae), Abduldaem Saeed Farea Qasem Alqasemi

Dissertations

In cities worldwide, increasing urbanization causes major land use and land cover changes on the surface of the Earth. It has been identified as being one of the most important anthropogenic effects on the climate. As a result, rapid population growth and the rise in industrialization in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may have created substantial environmental stress and consequence for life quality. Remote sensing-based Land Surface Temperature (LST) is significantly essential for different studies. Satellite images obtained by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are used to retrieve LST. This research consists of an introduction and five components of …

Measuring The Greatest Weight: A Comprehensive Interpretation Of Nietzsche’S Doctrine Of Eternal Recurrence, Sebastian Brumfield Mejía

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Humanistic Climate Philosophy: Erich Fromm Revisited, Nicholas Dovellos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Given the current juncture in history, humanity is faced with the herculean task of adapting to a tumultuous present and a gimmer future. Should climate projections be accurate, there is little time to waste. This work makes the claim that we are not only in a political gridlock but also in an academic one. Researching climate philosophy from its inception, the concluding view is that no major progress, outside of a standardized descriptive analysis, has been achieved. Thus, the work evaluates an array of climate philosophers e.g. Stephen Gardiner, James Garvey, Peter Singer, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, etc., with specific emphasis on …

Bodily Harm: An Analysis Of The Phenomenological And Linguistic Aspects Of Harm And Trauma, Grant Samuel Peeler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work seeks to explore the phenomenological experience of harm through an investigation of trauma and its existential features. Harm, despite its importance for many topics in both Political Science and Political Theory, is not often investigated as a subject in itself. By interrogating elements of Merleau-Ponty’s uniquely embodied philosophy, this work seeks to further our understanding of harm as a phenomenon which is both uniquely subjective and yet socially informed.

The text is split into two halves – with the first offering an exegesis of relevant sections of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, and the second engaging with contemporary secondary …

Modelo Filosófico-Literario De La Retrospectiva Contemporánea, Bermaries A. Vélez Maldonado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Este trabajo define el concepto de retrospectiva contemporánea como “mecanismo de análisis textual que simplifica la manera en que una obra clásica se logra tornar contemporánea”. Desde teóricos como Immanuel Kant hasta otros como Fernando Ángel Moreno permiten aquí una explicación de cómo se logra dislocar la obra clásica La vida es sueño para colocarla en el mundo de la interpretación contemporánea, y entonces así, verla como una obra escrita en el presente, bajo las preocupaciones y perspectivas de escritores en la actualidad.

Identifying Effective Systems And Processes To Promote Ethical Workplace Cultures In The Applied Behavior Analysis (Aba) Therapy Industry, Manuel Rodriguez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study is to identify methods and practices which encourages and enables ethics in organizations providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapeutic services to individuals with development disabilities. The professional and organizations they represent must protect the consumer, the employees and the integrity of the practice as part of their ethical responsibilities. The specific focus of this research is the behavior analyst and the ABA industry. The behavior analyst is a practitioner who studies and applies behavior analysis, working with various populations such as individuals with development disabilities, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. The subject …

Worlds In A Stochastic Universe : On The Emergence Of World Histories In Minimal Bohmian Mechanics, Alexander Ehmann

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

This thesis develops a detailed account of the emergence of for all practical purposes continuous, quasi-classical world histories from the discontinuous, stochastic micro dynamics of Minimal Bohmian Mechanics (MBM). MBM is a non-relativistic quantum theory. It results from excising the guiding equation from standard Bohmian Mechanics (BM) and reinterpreting the quantum equilibrium hypothesis as a stochastic guidance law for the random actualization of configurations of Bohmian particles. On MBM, there are no continuous trajectories linking up individual configurations. Instead, individual configurations are actualized independently of each other, carving out the decoherence-induced branching structure of the universal wave function. Yet, by …

Toward A Fluid Cinematic Spectatorship And Desire: Revisiting Laura Mulvey’S Psychoanalytic Film Theories, Taylor Ashton Mcgoey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis project re-evaluates Laura Mulvey’s film theories regarding psychoanalysis and the “male gaze,” first found in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). By re-evaluating the limitations of Mulvey’s use of the Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic model this project seeks to understand the desires and processes of identification of cinematic spectators who reject the ideological imperative of the “male gaze”. As many critics have noted, Mulvey’s initial examination of cinema does not account for LGBTQ+ spectators and/or black spectators who occupy looking relations that reject cis-normative and heteronormative white Hollywood cinematic conventions. From this standpoint, we begin the …

"Second Sight": Acknowledging W.E.B. Du Bois's "Double Consciousness" As A Step Towards Dissolution, Alexandra M. Hudecki

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project examines American scholar W.E.B.’s DuBois’ idea of “double consciousness”, from his book The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The idea of “double consciousness” has and continues to be utilized by Black scholars and artists in literary, theoretical, and psychological contexts, some of which I hope my paper will adequately survey. I begin by examining “double consciousness” from the perspective of particulars by understanding Du Bois’s original idea and the specificities of the American context he himself was a part, considering the legacy of slavery. Then, by focusing primarily on writers such as Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright and Paul …

Ihde’S Encounter With “Technological Determinism” In Technology And The Lifeworld, Hossein Kaji

Major Papers

Ihde’s project is an intellectual challenge with elements of hard technological determinism. Apart from different accounts of hard technological determinism in the literature of philosophy of technology, it can be regarded as a view that focuses on determination of a certain direction by using given technological artifacts regardless of other forces and contexts. At the cultural level, it means a single, massive trajectory happens by the rise of high-technological culture and its attainment as a world culture. I believe that Ihde’s project cannot be fully understood unless one thinks about its challenge while keeping in mind this meaning of technological …

Technology And Human Dignity: The Contemporary Relevance Of George Grant's Views, Eamon Joseph Brennan Mr.

Major Papers

George Grant argues that modern innovations in technology are delineated by what he terms ‘the co-penetration of art and science’, which disposes their rational methods towards the satisfaction of while in a purported ‘spirit of creativity’. Though such a spirit has provided many benefits, a natural worry arises as to what may be justified, morally, within the parameters of such creativity. For Grant, such skepticism is well-founded as the gradual expansion of technology is co-measure with ‘demythologization’, that is, the loss of any sense of objective, transcendent purpose. Noting how this worrying trend invites a dangerous premise of making human …

Cultivating Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective On The Relationship Between Moral Motivation And Skill, Ashley Potts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past twenty years, virtue ethics has seen a resurgence of interest in understanding how virtues are cultivated. Philosophers are now teaming up with psychologists to better understand how psychological research on skills can inform us about the relevant kinds of skills that aid in cultivating virtue. However, this promising line of research rests on a heavily-debated philosophical foundation. To what extent are the moral virtues like and/or cultivated by certain kinds of skills? One group of scholars, referred to as the “proponents of the moral motivation objection,” argue that the moral virtues are motivational dispositions that skills not …

The Health Care Commons: A Philosophical Approach, Roel Feys

Theses and Dissertations

This project is the first large-scale and systematic effort to bridge the fields of commons research and biomedical ethics, with the aim of furthering key debates in both areas of inquiry. The aims and contributions of the project are twofold.

First, I argue that commons research is valuable to bioethics, because it provides a language to talk about health care institutions. I critically discuss commons research’s main conceptual tools in the context of health care: the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, the design principles of successful commons, parallel experimentation, and polycentric governance regimes. This conceptual apparatus can help to …

Cosmic City - Cosmic Teleology: A Reading Of Metaphysics Λ 10 And Politics I 2, Brandon Henrigillis

Dissertations (1934 -)

The goal of my project is to provide a reading of Metaphysics Λ 10. Λ 10 states that there is an order in the cosmos, or a cosmic nature. The problem for the interpreter of Aristotle is how to make sense of this claim given Aristotle’s arguments elsewhere regarding nature/substance and the priority of substances over the parts of a substance. To explain what Aristotle means when he states that there is a cosmic nature and arrangement, I first examine the army and household analogies offered by Aristotle in Λ 10. I contend that the household analogy in particular provides …

Stop Making Sense: Hegel’S Critique Of Common Understanding, Daniel A. Burnfin

Masters Theses

This thesis presents Hegel’s account of abstract ‘understanding’ (Verstand) and asserts that his thought is to be read as primarily presenting a critique of abstract understanding. Verstand involves the methodological supposition of a self-subsistent fundament of what it speaks of, and hence the critique of understanding is the critique of the supposition of self-subsistent fundaments. Grasping his account and reading him in its critical light yields a very different image of Hegel than the caricature of ‘totalizing systems’. The dimension of the Verstandeskritik has been relatively neglected in Hegel-reception and misunderstandings result from trying to ‘understand’ Hegel, by …

¿Cómo Traducimos "Ni Una Más" Al Inglés?: Latin American Manifestation Of The Phenomenology Of Femicide, And The United States’ Subsequent Internal Neglect, Suemi Mendez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper aims to tackle two components in analyzing the phenomenological concept of femicide, most simply known as the killing of women because they are women through structural violence and oppression. First, it will develop its deployment within the Latin American framework as it has been adapted to function within the regional lexicon, both socially and legislatively. This assessment will serve to address the successes and failures thus far in tackling femicide as the location with the highest statistics globally. Through this foregrounding, it will lead into how this revised deployment of femicide fits into the context of Global North …

A Defense And Expansion Of The Theory Of Capitalist Ground Rent: Speculation, Securitization, And Struggles Over Land And Housing, Francesca Manning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why are the rents so high? Who is responsible for homelessness, for urban and rural displacement? How can these problems be combatted?

Recent literature addressing these questions has pointed to gentrification and the financialization of land and housing, faulted financialized landlords, hedge funds, and the irredeemable logic of finance, and pointed to the importance of land and housing regulation to prevent displacement.

However, theories of displacement—in both land and housing, on both urban and rural terrain—suffer from a lack of an underlying theory of the logic, tendencies, and limits of ground rent extraction in capitalism.

This dissertation develops a theory …

Epistemic Injustice And Sexual Violence Intervention Advocacy, Jennifer Ware

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this project, I will explore how victims of sexual violence have faced epistemic injustices by reviewing the histories of two advocacy movements aimed at improving collective understanding of those experiences. In doing so, I will consider how those very activist movements may have introduced new epistemic lacunas and, even while successfully addressing some injustices, committed further epistemic wrongs as well. I will explore forms of hermeneutical resistance used by victims of sexual violence and their advocates. While these methods of resistance have been discussed elsewhere, I contribute to this ongoing work by applying these ideas to new examples. Finally, …

All Day In The Trey-Fold: Sound, Objecthood, And Place In The Mixtapes Of Dj Screw, Matthew K. Carter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the impact of the mixtapes of DJ Screw on the emergence of Houston hip hop culture in the 1990s. The relationship between these “screwtapes” and local culture resists demonstration through conventional modes of representational analyses, due in part to the screwtape’s preponderant use of hip hop tracks that originally represent other places. I suggest that representation itself is the result of the structuring tension emerging from a threefold field of representation of sound, objecthood, and place, and that when a hip hop artist or critic or fan claims to "represent" Houston (or any other constituted and constituting …