Philosophy Commons^™

Llms And Crisis Epistemology: The Business Of Making Old Crises Seem New, Mich Ciurria

Critical Humanities

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have set in motion a series of crises. These include disruptions to the labor force, education, and democracy. Some people believe that rich technocratic ‘saviors’ should solve these crises. Naomi Klein, however, argues that this is a neoliberal fantasy. Tech CEOs will not solve AI-related crises because they have a vested interest in perpetuating disaster capitalism and the social inequalities that keep wages low. Who, then, can solve the AI crisis? I submit that the answer is: oppressed groups with experiential and intergenerational knowledge of crises. To oppressed folks, technological crises are not new, …

A World Of Difference: The Fundamental Opposition Between Transhumanist “Welfarism” And Disability Advocacy, Susan B. Levin

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

From the standpoint of disability advocacy, further exploration of the concept of well-being stands to be availing. The notion that “welfarism” about disability, which Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane debuted, qualifies as helpful is encouraged by their claim that welfarism shares important commitments with that advocacy. As becomes clear when they apply their welfarist frame to procreative decisions, endorsing welfarism would, in fact, sharply undermine it. Savulescu and Kahane's Principle of Procreative Beneficence—which reflects transhumanism, or advocacy of radical bioenhancement—morally requires parents to choose the child who will, in all probability, have “the best life.” Assuming the emergence of potent …

The Meaning Of A Choice, Julie-Louise Zeitoun

Masters Theses

If you are disabled or disadvantaged, you will be dismissed and stifled. Few people will actively care for your struggles. As a person with autism, I was deeply fearful of the persecution I had faced throughout my life; it was a fear that followed me with terrifying determination. I desperately wanted to blend into society. So I designed myself to be devoid of any weakness, and productivity was the way I chose to conceal any difficulties I faced. It was a way to measure my success — a way to measure my normalcy.

Standard medical textiles are generic, cumbersome devices. …

Dismodernizing The Working Class And Social Reproduction, After The Pandemic Lumpenproletariat: Towards An Autonomist Disability Perspective, Arianna Introna Dr

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Capitalism establishes a fundamental connection between the constitution of society and the sphere of production. Whether in the form of direct participation or indirectly through the performance of social reproduction, the working class is expected to be working. The universals of capitalist society as a work-based society revolve around the material and symbolic centrality of the working class, its struggle and its social reproduction. This association is reinforced by the othering effect that the definitional politics of the universal working class has on subjects defined by their non-relation to the sphere of production, but also by the categories we …

A Portfolio, Samuel Webb

Masters Theses

This master’s thesis is a portfolio of essays that were submitted to the philosophy department of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in order to complete the competency requirements of the PhD program. This portfolio contains three essays that fall under each of the three broad divisions that are typically used to categorize the disparate areas of discourse that philosophy encompasses: ELMS, value theory, and the history of philosophy. In “Defending Practical Attitude Intellectualism”, I reconstruct an attempt by Yuri Cath to put forward an analysis of practical knowledge which synthesizes elements from two competing analyses of practical knowledge. Next, …

The Social Ontology Of Psychiatry: Psychiatric Diagnosis As An Ontogenetic, Interpellative Speech Act, Ashton Sorrels

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Psychiatry is the study, evaluation, and treatment of mental disorders – disorders that affect the behavior and cognition of individuals and which are associated with underlying dysfunctions in the brain and nervous system. Though psychiatry is a medical and scientific discipline, it also takes place within a social context that modifies its effects, particularly in its application of diagnostic categories to individuals. In this thesis, I argue that, because of this context, psychiatric diagnosis can be modeled as an ontogenetic, interpellative speech act. A speech act is an utterance or sign that constitutes an action through its performance, called an …

Vulnerability, Invulnerability, And The Mechanism Of Disavowal, Mariah C. Partida

Philosophy ETDs

In this dissertation, I defend the view that, contrary to popular opinion, vulnerability is not merely susceptibility to harm but also openness to unanticipated change and transformation. Drawing on the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Erinn Gilson, Gilles Deleuze, and Benedict Spinoza, I also aim to show that vulnerability is not a static property of some individuals but rather a relational process that is both universal and differently distributed. My original contribution to vulnerability studies is to trace the mechanism of disavowal across 20^th and 21^st century figures in philosophy: from Heidegger’s account of disavowing our …

Racialized Disablement And The Need For Conceptual Analysis Of “Racial Health Disparities”, Desiree Valentine

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

It is well established that racial health disparities are impacted by structural racism, but the imbrication of racialization processes with processes of disablement remains underdeveloped. This essay advocates for a conceptual lens that looks historically and politically at the co-constitution of “race” and “disability.” Racism and ableism intersect in ways that manifest what I call racialized disablement, a key heuristic for building a fuller understanding of “race” and “racial health disparities.” This terminology, I propose, helps illuminate the following about race and racism in healthcare: first, racialized disablement seeks to denaturalize both race and disability to focus on their political …

Facultas Marginem: Assessing Disability Data And Public Aau Universities’ Affirmative Action Plans For Systemic Barriers Facing Faculty With Disabilities, Joseph Carlton Barry

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

This dissertation contributes to education equity scholarship produced by academics seeking to develop understandings of disability, Persons with Disabilities (PWD), and how both are situated amongst faculty in institutions of higher education. As such, this dissertation centers on a study of public US universities belonging to the Association of American Universities (AAU). This study looks for institutional level associations between respective rates by which college and university faculty with disabilities (FWD) are employed, certain aspects of disability policy drawn from each institution’s 2020 Affirmative Action Plans (AAP), and various other instances of empirical disability data (EDD).

While this study contributes …

Mutual Rescue: Disabled Animals And Their Caretakers, Lynda Birke, Lori Gruen

Animal Studies Journal

In this paper, we explore how caretakers experience living with disabled companion animals. Drawing on interviews, as well as narratives on websites and other support groups, we examine ways in which caretakers describe the lives of animals they live with, and their various disabilties. The animals were mostly dogs, plus a few cats, with a range of physical disabilities; almost all had been rehomed, often from places specializing in homing disabled animals.

Three themes emerged from analysis of these texts: first, respondents drew heavily on the common narrative of disabled individuals as heroes, often noted in disability rights literature – …

The Empathetic Autistic: A Phenomenological Look At The Feminine Experience, Dana Fritz

Dissertations (1934 -)

Western philosophy has asserted that in order to be a person, one must be rational. This idea was not challenged until the nineteenth century. One school to challenge this notion was phenomenology, which asserted that what made one a person was their ability to empathize. While the founder of the school, Edmund Husserl, did not assert that the ability to decipher nonverbal cues was necessary in order to empathize, several of his followers did. This emphasis on deciphering nonverbal cues proved problematic for some populations, especially the Autistic. Autism is a neurological condition which makes it difficult to decipher nonverbal …

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

Instructing Normalcy, Anna R. Derosa

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Beast Or God: Philosophical Exclusion Of Disability And Disabled Voices, Ellie Alsup

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

In philosophy, our goal is to ultimately discover what it is to be human. How do we exist in our world, and how should we exist? Throughout history, philosophers have been attempting to answer these questions in any way possible. Well, almost. Unfortunately, marginalized voices -- such as those with disabilities -- have been excluded from the conversation in a way that minimizes and undermines any answers provided. Philosophers such as Descartes make the argument that human existence is purely in the mind, and that we can separate ourselves from our bodies; many disabled philosophers would disagree. Disability studies finds …

Reckoning With Race And Disability, Jasmine E. Harris

All Faculty Scholarship

Our national reckoning with race and inequality must include disability. Race and disability have a complicated but interconnected history. Yet discussions of our most salient socio-political issues such as police violence, prison abolition, healthcare, poverty, and education continue to treat race and disability as distinct, largely biologically based distinctions justifying differential treatment in law and policy. This approach has ignored the ways in which states have relied on disability as a tool of subordination, leading to the invisibility of disabled people of color in civil rights movements and an incomplete theoretical and remedial framework for contemporary justice initiatives. Legal scholars …

Care Ethics, Disability, And Public Policy, Piper Gibson

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

An Extension Of Social Justice : A Rawlsian Application Of Justice For The Intellectually Disabled, Jennifer Christina Tillman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I add to the literature in the following way. First, I review the existing criticisms of Rawls’s theory of justice, which claims that he is unable to address the question of justice for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Second, I explain how Rawls’s idea of reciprocity can accommodate some forms of disability but not the more severe cases. Third, I develop an account of a right to political identity that can provide an extension of Rawls’s theory to address the more severe cases of disability. From these steps, I will suggest that these changes will allow us to …

No Man's Land: Critical Disability And Exile In Modernist Literature, Danny Fernandez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis works to synthesize literary theory into an examination of socio- cultural and political factors of post-World War I Europe, as they appear in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood, that led to nationalist movements in the 1930s and the current day. These concepts are divided into three sections with the first being an introduction to the formation of signifiers among the modernist writers. The second involves a differentiation of disability from gender in the expatriate community. The third an investigation of disability among the veteran expatriates. The modernist novel, whilst assisting in the creation …

A Hundred Houses: Pauline Leader And The Spatial Poetics Of Disability, Carl Robert Nelson

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Re-Imagining Embodiment And The Self In People With Traumatic Spinal Cord Injuries: A Narrative Approach, Namitha Kumar, Sangeetha Menon

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Traumatic spinal cord injuries from accidents cause physical and social suffering, pain and loss. After an initial period of physical and psychological trauma, the individual begins to cope and successfully crosses over. Crossing over as a term used in the spinal cord injury register refers to positive adaptation—physical, psychological and social. This paper is based on a qualitative narrative study of the lived experiences of individuals negotiating spinal cord injuries in the Indian context wherein the disability is no longer the location of inability, tragedy, pain, and loss, but one of creative possibilities. As individuals re-imagine embodiment and self, a …

No Player Is Ideal: Why Video Game Designers Cannot Ethically Ignore Players’ Real-World Identities, Erica L. Neely

Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship

As video games flourish, designers have a responsibility to treat players and potential players justly. In deontological terms, designers are obliged to treat all of them as having intrinsic worth. Since players are a diverse group, designers must not simply focus on an idealized gamer, who is typically a straight white male. This creates a duty to consider whether design choices place unnecessary barriers to the ability of certain groups of players to achieve their ends in playing a game. I examine the design implication of this for the gameworld, avatar design, and accessibility to players with disabilities. I also …

Free Play: Removing Barriers To Athletic Self-Expression In Sport, Matthew R. Waddell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The choice of what sport to play and the manner in which a person plays it has moral content and represents values that are personally meaningful to the individual athlete. However, due to the hegemonic influence of the concept of fair play, athletes do not have control over, or freedom of expression within, their chosen sports. This has additional and harmful ramifications for those currently excluded from communities of sport practice because the rules of sporting contests have very little flexibility to allow for participant directed change. A rights-based conception of sport encourages athletes to engage in ‘civil disobedience’ within …

Daoism And Disability, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

Ideas found in the early Daoist texts can inform current debates about disability, since the latter often involve assumptions about personhood and agency that Daoist texts do not share. The two canonical texts of classical Daoism, the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi, do not explicitly discuss disability as an object of theory or offer a model of it. They do, however, provide conceptual resources that can enrich contemporary discussions of disability. Two particular ideas are discussed here. Classical Daoist thinking about the body undermines normative assumptions about it that attributions of ‘disabled’ often depend upon; and Daoism vividly problematises the …

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Our book Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press 2009) highlights and explains the major themes and methodologies of a group of scholars who challenge the traditional claim that tax law is neutral and unbiased. The contributors to this volume include pioneers in the field of critical tax theory, as well as key thinkers who have sustained and expanded the investigation into why the tax laws are the way they are and what impact tax laws have on historically disempowered groups. This volume will provide an accessible introduction to this new and growing body of scholarship. It will be …