Orientation Of The Soul, 2020 Bard College
Orientation Of The Soul, Caleb M A Short
Senior Projects Spring 2020
an ontology and phenomenology of the meaning mechanism
in search of the life best lived and the capacity of human agency
Symposium On Justin Remhof's Nietzsche's Constructivism: A Metaphysics Of Material Objects (Routledge, 2018), 2020 Old Dominion University
Symposium On Justin Remhof's Nietzsche's Constructivism: A Metaphysics Of Material Objects (Routledge, 2018), Justin Remhof
Philosophy Faculty Publications
Like Kant, the German Idealists, and many neo-Kantian philosophers before him, Nietzsche was persistently concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of objects. His texts often address questions concerning the existence and non-existence of objects, the relation of objects to human minds, and how different views of objects impact commitments in many areas of philosophy―not just metaphysics, but also language, epistemology, science, logic and mathematics, and even ethics. In this book, Remhof presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Nietzsche’s material object metaphysics. He argues that Nietzsche embraces the controversial constructivist view that all concrete objects are socially constructed. Reading …
Embedded: The Bed As An Art Object, 2020 Bard College
Embedded: The Bed As An Art Object, Maya Annika Teich
Senior Projects Spring 2020
Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.
On The Question Of Thinking: A Study Of Heidegger's Later Philosophy, 2020 Bucknell University
On The Question Of Thinking: A Study Of Heidegger's Later Philosophy, Shishir Budha
Honors Theses
This thesis explores the writings of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger to understand what “thinking” is and how thinking needs to be undertaken. I examine Heidegger’s commitments to phenomenology in his early writings, his revaluation of the meaning of truth in traditional Western metaphysics, his criticism of calculative thinking and scientific rationality, his diagnosis of the human alienation and homelessness, and his evocation of the redemptive power of art and poetry through which we can find our place in the world. By questioning through all these themes, I attempt to trace Heidegger’s path towards a deeper and more original …
The Ontological Significance Of Consciousness, 2020 Claremont Colleges
The Ontological Significance Of Consciousness, Corydon Diamond
CMC Senior Theses
Providing a wholly physical description of consciousness in nature is an elusive process. Unlike all other physical systems, consciousness seems to be explainable only if it is considered as non-physical. However, the arguments for a materialist view of consciousness, with consciousness prioritized as a process which creates imperfect dependence relations in reality, eliminates the need for a dualist understanding of reality. Through an explanation of imperfect dependence, materialist consciousness overcomes all relevant dualist arguments, while simultaneously retaining an epistemic gap, denying the conceivability of zombies, and providing convincing explanations of seemingly dualist positions in a materialist fashion.
Fool's Rest, 2020 Virginia Commonwealth University
Fool's Rest, Aidan Quinlan
Theses and Dissertations
The text calls itself a guide, but it is no guide. From the genre of guide, it borrows the outlines and silhouettes and lines between things and spaces and ideas. It lingers on the shadows of its subject(s); it is attentive to the periphery of its world; but it cannot take you there. There is no there. It lacks the authority of the guide; it lacks the lucidity, the efficiency, the false totality of the guide; it lacks the confidence.
The guide embodies its own anxieties. This makes sense, as its reason to exist was born on the one-way highway …
St. Augustine And St. Thomas Aquinas On The Mind, Body, And Life After Death, 2020 The University of Akron
St. Augustine And St. Thomas Aquinas On The Mind, Body, And Life After Death, Christopher Choma
Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects
Historical and philosophical investigation of the thoughts of two of philosophy's most innovative Christian thinkers. The thesis primarily deals with the relationship between the mind and the body through the lenses of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas. Thesis also includes theological discussions of life after death, and how one can be certain that the soul survives the corruption of the body.
I See God Everywhere, 2020 Virginia Commonwealth University
I See God Everywhere, Jason Wright
Theses and Dissertations
I would like to share with you how I was able to shed my suffering skin for a life beyond my wildest dreams. My work is about the letting go, my work is about altering perception, my work is about exploring the depths of one’s psyche. My experience is there in every atom of my output and is there for the taking.
Blaise Pascal said “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I am not well-read in the works of Pascal, I became aware of this quote through HBO’s hit period drama …
The Multidimensional Unity Of Life, Theology, Ecology, And Covid-19, 2020 University of Maine
The Multidimensional Unity Of Life, Theology, Ecology, And Covid-19, Derek A. Michaud
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Capabilities Approach To Metaphysical Personhood, 2020 Claremont Colleges
The Capabilities Approach To Metaphysical Personhood, Mohnish Shah
CMC Senior Theses
It is accepted that humans are persons, but what does this mean? Society equates personhood with legal rights, moral worth, and metaphysical status. But exactly what makes us persons and distinguishes us from non-persons? What does our conception of this distinction and the value and rights we grant to persons but not to non-persons say about the type of creature that we are?
Many philosophers have tried to define metaphysical personhood. However, this thesis argues that current accounts of metaphysical personhood are inadequate. Next, this thesis borrows and modifies Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach to human dignity in order to construct …
Tedio: Una Reflexión Filosófica En Torno A La Pregunta ¿Cómo Nos Aburrimos?, 2020 Universidad de La Salle, Bogotá
Tedio: Una Reflexión Filosófica En Torno A La Pregunta ¿Cómo Nos Aburrimos?, German Ramiro Baron Rincon
Filosofía y Letras
No abstract provided.
In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, 2020 University of Montana, Missoula
In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, Ian I. Weckler
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Climate change has been show to be caused by humans. Human-centric behaviors have affected the world to the extent that many believe we have entered a new geologic epoch. This epoch— the Anthropocene—has prompted exploration into the ethical relationship between humans and the rest of the world. We know that a purely anthropocentric ethical system of values has lead ecological imbalance and environmental destruction, and that a non-anthropocentric (or humancentric) ethical system of value would be better suited for maintaining and regaining a habitable environment. However, past conceptions of non anthropocentrism have relied on abstract conceptions of value that fail …
Nine Stories And The Society Of The Spectacle: An Exploration Into The Alienation Of The Individual In The Post-War Era, 2020 Georgia Southern University
Nine Stories And The Society Of The Spectacle: An Exploration Into The Alienation Of The Individual In The Post-War Era, Margaret E. Geddy
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis analyzes the thematic links between three of J. D. Salinger’s short stories published in Nine Stories (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” “Down at the Dinghy,” and “Teddy”), ultimately arguing that it is a short-story cycle rooted in the quandary posed by the suicide of Seymour Glass. This conclusion is reached by assessing the influence of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” on these stories, something that is understood through the Marxist frame of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle.
Objects, Events, And Property-Instances, 2019 University of Tübingen
Objects, Events, And Property-Instances, Riccardo Baratella
Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication
The theory of events as property-instances has been considered one of the most widely accepted metaphysical theories of events. On the other hand, several philosophers claim that if both events and objects perdure, then objects must be identified with events. In this work, I investigate whether these two views can be held together. I shall argue that if they can, it depends on the particular theory of instantiation one is to adopt. In particular, I shall conclude that the theory of events as property-instances and the view that identifies objects with events can be held together only if instances of …
Personal Identity, Psychological Continuity, And Survival, 2019 Coastal Carolina University
Personal Identity, Psychological Continuity, And Survival, James D. Martin, Dennis Earl
Honors Theses
In this paper, I consider the question of personal identity, namely: in virtue of what is one person the same person at two different points in time? I first raise objections to theories which argue it is in virtue of physical continuity or continuity soul, then argue that an account of psychological continuity is most successful. One might object to psychological continuity on the grounds of reduplication and fusion problems. I argue that strict numerical identity is a bar set too high and rather that survival (construed as the continuation of a first-person perspective) is what matters for personal identity. …
Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda Of Naming And Necessity, By Scott Soames, 2019 Iowa State University
Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda Of Naming And Necessity, By Scott Soames, Heimir Geirsson
Heimir Geirsson
n Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke criticized descriptivist theories of proper names and suggested a ‘better picture’ as a replacement. But while the ‘better picture’ that Kripke provided was very interesting and stimulating, it was little more than a sketch of a theory that needed much work and refinement. While Kripke argued that proper names are not synonymous with definite descriptions or clusters of definite descriptions, he was silent on what the semantic contents of names might be. Further, he even speculated in the introduction to his book that the apparatus of propositions might break down given his arguments, thus …
A Defense Of Hume's Dictum, 2019 University of Massachusetts Amherst
A Defense Of Hume's Dictum, Cameron Gibbs
Doctoral Dissertations
Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s day, Hume’s Dictum has played a major role in philosophy, especially in contemporary metaphysics. In ruling out necessary connections, …
In Search Of Psychiatric Kinds: Natural Kinds And Natural Classification In Psychiatry, 2019 The University of Western Ontario
In Search Of Psychiatric Kinds: Natural Kinds And Natural Classification In Psychiatry, Nicholas Slothouber
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
In recent years both philosophers and scientists have asked whether or not our current kinds of mental disorder—e.g., schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder—are natural kinds; and, moreover, whether or not the search for natural kinds of mental disorder is a realistic desideratum for psychiatry. In this dissertation I clarify the sense in which a kind can be said to be “natural” or “real” and argue that, despite a few notable exceptions, kinds of mental disorder cannot be considered natural kinds. Furthermore, I contend that psychopathological phenomena do not cluster together into kinds in the way that paradigmatic natural kinds (e.g., chemical …
The Reliable Revisionist, 2019 Augustana College, Rock Island Illinois
The Reliable Revisionist, Caitlyn Schaffer
Philosophy: Student Scholarship & Creative Works
The present text explores how the topic of head and heart is much more complicated than one would expect, according to Paul Henne and Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, contributors of Neuroexistentialism. “Does Neuroscience Undermine Morality” aims at figuring out the problem of which moral judgments we can trust, judgments from one’s head (revisionism) or judgments from one’s heart (conservatism). My hypothesis suggests the opposite of the authors, I believe that if you are a revisionist, your first order intuitions are reliable. After setting the framework, I make three main arguments. (A.) If you are able to self-correct then you can identify errors …
Mentality And Fundamentality, 2019 The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Mentality And Fundamentality, Christopher D. Brown
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Extant well-considered problems with physicalism primarily come from two sources: philosophers of mind arguing that subjective experience does not fit into a physicalist world-picture, and metaphysicians trying to figure out the particular commitments of the view. I examine the thesis of physicalism in order to produce a clearer notion of the physical and to help straighten out physicalism’s entailments, while simultaneously providing a strategy for physicalists to sidestep well known anti-physicalist arguments concerning consciousness. This involves both a critical and a positive effort: on the critical side, I expose an issue with a popular way of understanding physicalism called “via …