Philosophy Commons^™

Assessing The Damage: Moral Realism And The Evolutionary Debunking Argument, Olivia Denton

Honors Theses

For millennia, prominent thinkers have believed that moral sentiments were the recognition of external, objective truths, be they of divine, Platonic, or natural origin. Now the challenge is to find any objective tether at all for our evaluative judgements. The theory of evolution’s encroachment on metaethics is practically as old as Charles Darwin himself, but the more evolved version of this attack on the justification for moral realism (the position that avers the existence of objective moral truths and that we can know at least some of them) comes in the form of Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (EDAs). The (specifically ...

Pervasive Nonarbitrariness: Meaning From Form In Natural Language, David J. Neely

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is generally assumed that the expressions of a natural language are largely arbitrary. That is, any expressions that display a nonarbitrary connection between what their utterances sound like and what they mean are small in number and of no real theoretical importance.

This thesis challenges such a position. I argue that nonarbitrariness is a pervasive feature of natural language and that understanding the sound/meaning connections that exist in language is necessary if to appreciate how languages work.

I begin, in Chapter 1, by showing that many theorists are committed to the idea that nonarbitrary sound/meaning connections are ...

Play: A Normative Theory Of Agency And Culture, Maxaie Belmont

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From the beginning, people are introduced to many different attempts at engaging with various “cultures”, and of course, are born into their own. The extant literature of various fields in the social sciences have afforded us the realization that no one culture holds neither moral ground nor blueprint for how to be a culture, as our own culture is one of many, all a part of the world. Yet, because of the way our culture specifies how we are to engage and live, we tend towards the assumption that our culture has monopoly on the definition of culture. The following ...

Reconstructing The Practical Theory Of Communication In Dating Matters: Examining Teen Dating Violence Prevention From A Communicative Approach, Diana Costanzo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teen Dating Violence (TDV) has lasting impacts on teens’ health and well-being. Dating Matters: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships (DM), a curriculum published by the CDC in 2019, seeks to mitigate the consequences of TDV and promote healthy relationships. Using Grounded Practical Theory (Craig & Tracy, 1995, 2014), this paper analyzes how DM conceptualizes communication. Specifically, I explore and critique how DM discusses topics related to communication and conflict. The findings of the analysis show that DM focuses on sending the right message in communication. In DM, parents and teens are encouraged to “talk it out” or “speak up” when ...

The Volition Of Faith And Appreciation Of Pragmatism And Existential Contributions, Sterling Courtney

The Hilltop Review

Propositions of belief depend on some degree of factual basis. Philosophical arguments vary as to whether certainty is necessary to form beliefs which can lead to compelling faith. Furthermore, if faith is a criteria for salvation, the volition of faith would be fundamental in ones’ culpability for having faith. Idealism represents the antithetical position of pragmatism and involves factual accounts in which to base beliefs, however, this paper intends to provide various considerations for pragmatic and existential philosophies by examining concerns of William James, Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and others. I.e., “Pascal’s Wager” is a philosophical idea used ...

A Sublime Death: Shock And Awe, Olivia L. Moskot

The Hilltop Review

Death has the almost paradoxical capacity to appear larger than life. It chills with its permanence and astonishes as it stands before us—great, terrible, and vast beyond comprehension. The obscurity of death cries out for grief to answer, and it is that very sensation of astonishment that triggers and also lingers over the process of grief that has gone unexamined for too long. I believe there is a familiar name to put to that sensation that will aid future research. That is, we may be justified in calling that sensation awe. In this paper, I thoroughly examine the relationship ...

The Moral Significance Of Empathy: A Scottish Sentimentalist Perspective, Xiaolong Wang

The Hilltop Review

Which feature of human nature accounts for moral motivation? From a Scottish Sentimentalist perspective, the answer lies in our fellow feelings: empathy, the capacity for sharing what other people feel; and sympathy, the capacity for feeling concern for other people’s well-being. Recently, disagreement has emerged within Scottish Sentimentalism on which of the two fellow feelings does the real work in motivating moral acts. Paul Bloom famously argues that sympathy is sufficient for moral motivation with the help of theory of mind (or often called mind reading), and thus concludes that empathy is not necessary from a Scottish Sentimentalist perspective ...

Ethical Considerations Concerning The Dignity Of Patients With Terminal Disabling Illness, Hebatallah Rashed

Theses and Dissertations

Almost everyone agrees that they should be treated and treat others in a dignified manner; however, people have different views about dignity and what gives people honour and worth. There are different philosophical ideas about the meaning of this concept and its conditions. The concept of human dignity has been a fundamental yet controversial area in the field of bioethics, especially with the ongoing debate over euthanasia.

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate different philosophical views about the concept of dignity, and how the evolution of this concept throughout history affected our understanding of the moral permissibility of ...

Womanist Poetics: Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, And Audre Lorde, Aya Telmissany

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the sentimentality associated with poetry is often condescendingly dubbed in a patriarchal society as “feminine poetry.” The first women poets who dared to attempt the pen were often met with attacks on their femaleness and harsh critiques of their writing which was likened to sorcery and witchcraft. Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Audre Lorde are three American women poets who countered these attacks and turned them inside out in favor of their own womanist poetics. They wrote about experiencing the world as women and most importantly about experiencing poetry as women. What happens to poetry when a woman appropriates ...

Methodological Innovation In Research Of Science And Technology Ethics, Xiao Lu, Xinzhe Li, Huihui Liu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The rapid development of modern science and technology not only brings benefits to human society, but also brings huge ethical risks and challenges. How to carry out systematic science and technology ethics research has become an important issue currently. Science and technology ethics research is a typical interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and complex think tank problem that draws upon the fields of natural sciences and social sciences. The relevant research is reviewed to found out important issues and themes in the field, and the think tank double helix methodology is used to propose conceptual framework and practical method in the science and ...

A Metaphysics Of Artifacts: Essence And Mind-Dependence, Tim Juvshik

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation explores the nature of artifacts – things like chairs, tables, and pinball machines – and addresses the question of whether there is anything essential to being an artifact and a member of a particular artifact kind. My dissertation offers new arguments against both the anti-essentialist and current essentialist proposals. Roughly put, the view is that artifacts are successful products of an intention to make something with certain features constitutive of an artifact kind. The constitutive features are often functional features, but may include structural, material, aesthetic, and other features. I further explore the ways in which artifacts are mind-dependent and ...

Cura Personalis: The Incarnational Heart Of Jesuit Education, Catherine Peters

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Cura personalis is one of the distinctive characteristics of Jesuit education, but the precise meaning of this phrase can sometimes be difficult to discern. Often translated as “care or education of the whole person,” the expansiveness of its formulations can lead to an overlooking of what should be central: the care of a person in their full personhood and a reminder of the person’s ultimate end. To understand cura personalis in a way that retains its distinctive character, I propose a return to Ignatius of Loyola himself, focusing especially on the importance of the Incarnation. I maintain that the ...

The Extinction Race: Techniques Of The Human In Proust, Via Houellebecq, James Dutton

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “The Extinction Race: Techniques of the Human in Proust, via Houellebecq” James Dutton “reads” identity and race from the point of view of technics. Namely, he does so through the work of two nominally “Eurocentric” authors, Marcel Proust and Michel Houellebecq, observing how familial and racial resemblance is a living inscription of “lost time.” This inscription comes about through the technical means available to and constitutive of the categories which bind them. Thus, instead of furthering unfinishable racial distinctions which only serve to support discourses of racism, this article follows assertions made in the novels of Proust ...

The Digital Compilation And Restoration Of Herculaneum Fragment P.Herc.118, Christy Y. Chapman, C. S. Parker, Ali Bertelsman, Kristina Gessel, Hannah Hatch, Kyra Seevers, James H. Brusuelas, Stephen Parsons, Brent Seales

Manuscript Studies

Ancient documents pose many challenges for the scholars who painstakingly study and elucidate them. Natural deterioration occurs over time, erasing words and sentences that were once apparent. Water and fire damage can render text completely unreadable. Wrinkles and folds obscure content essential to meaning. Thankfully, old and new imaging methods can today be combined to rescue “lost” text and make it once again accessible to scholars. Using computer vision techniques like registration, historical images that often represent the most faithful record of the original content of a document can now be combined with those produced by newer technologies, like spectral ...

Hope And Wonder In The Wasteland: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction As Tolkienian Fairy Story, Alfredo J. Mac Laughlin

Journal of Tolkien Research

J. R. R. Tolkien’s four functions of fantasy stories, as developed in his Andrew Lang lecture “On Fairy Stories” (1939), have become a key conceptual tool for discussing human beings’ attraction to fantasy stories, particularly when attempting to push the analysis beyond the literary into the aesthetic, and beyond the aesthetic into the existential. Applying this interpretive key to an analysis of the expanding genre of post-apocalyptic fiction reveals that post-apocalyptic stories, despite superficial differences, are surprisingly close to fairy stories in their aesthetic core and orientation, and that post-apocalyptic stories are well-suited to fulfill—albeit with their own ...

Volume 33, Rosalie Looijaard, Ariel Lafayette, Gavin Foster, Marybel Menzies

Episteme

No abstract provided.

A Life Well Lived Is A Life Completed: A Heideggerian Account Of A Good Life, Rosalie Looijaard

Episteme

No abstract provided.

Illusionism On The Brink Of Disillusionment, Ariel Lafayette

Episteme

No abstract provided.

The Axiology Of Panpsychism, Marybel Menzies

Episteme

No abstract provided.

Was Meinong Right About Negative Existentials Revision?, Gavin Foster

Episteme

No abstract provided.