Metaphysics Commons^™

Intuition In Modal Epistemology: Concept-Based Or Imagination-Based?, Jeremy Bachman

Honors Scholar Theses

In both George Bealer’s moderate modal rationalism (MMR) and Peter Kung’s modal evidence from imagination (MEI) intuition plays an indispensable role in modal knowledge. However, these modal epistemologies differ in whether modal knowledge is based on intuitions yielded by concepts or by imaginations. Both MMR and MEI take intuitions to be sui generis propositional attitudes, basic epistemic units, reasons for belief, and sources of evidence. However, MEI holds that sensory and intellectual content can prompt a rational intuitions. On the other hand, MMR is restricted to intuitions yielded by non-sensory content. According to MMR, intellectual intuitions about privileged concepts give …

On Learning Your Gender: A Comprehensive View, Audra M. Hazelwood

Theses

This essay provides a metaphysical and epistemological account of gender. The metaphysics involves a ‘non-reductionist view of gender’, which is to say that gender cannot be reduced to a single factor. On this view gender begins with one’s innate gender inclinations (in the vein of Julia Serano). These inclinations pick out a specific range of gender possibilities from the gender spectrum that apply to a person. At the same time we live in communities and cultures with certain gender norms. This is where epistemology comes into play since our gender inclinations are filtered through gender norms and some people are …

Abortion: Analysis Of The Bioethical And Metaphysical Standpoint, Lauren Kovarick

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

The antagonistic relationship between a mother and their unborn child creates the controversial topic of abortion. With massive moral implications and consequences associated, education on the laws and reasoning is significant to determine the direction of society. To analyze the ethics of abortion, the bioethical and metaphysical debate must be considered. With the former, the four principles of bioethics are used in healthcare practice to break down an ethical concern. On the metaphysical side, the life-status and rights of the fetus are acknowledged. With this topic, it is important not to argue in favor of one position, but instead have …

The Myths Of Plato: Socratic Kenosis And The Call Of Beauty, Daniel Edward Shirley

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

The myths of Plato have been inordinately subordinated to the “intellect” of Plato since the eighteen-thirties. The ancient Christian tradition of interpreting stories and scriptures with symbolic understanding serves as a potentially primary hermeneutical pattern that could correct the modern tendency of subconscious materialism. To restore the Platonic myths, there are two foundational arguments to be made about the myths. The first is that these myths are kenotic in function. Observing the Socratic call to self-emptying, especially in the cosmological image of the World Axis, challenges modern assumptions concerning the second goodness of Platonic myth. The second argument is the …

Western Science And Eastern Zen To Seek The Origin Of Truth: Philosophical Background Of Scale Modeling, Kozo Saito

Progress in Scale Modeling, an International Journal

This article was written to introduce philosophical background of scale modeling, where Zen philosophy was applied to overcome the limitation of logical thinking and hypotheses-driven deductive science. Three specific reasons are as follows. The first is related to the law approach in scale modeling; it uses the kufu principle, originated in Zen Buddhism, together with the other three scientific methods: experimental, theoretical, and computational. The second reason is because scale modeling seeks relativistic understanding by attempting to realize similarity; the concept is closer to Eastern philosophy rather than absolute understanding cultivated by deductive science. The third is in the educational …

Of Method: A Propaedeutic To Coleridge's Prose Works, Michael A. Granger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coleridge’s prose works, published and unpublished, demonstrate a thorough and critical testing and understanding of British and German philosophical responses to skepticism and the ability of philosophy to progress by maintaining a double-minded and conflicted suture of both the practical or imaginative eclipse of knowledge and theorizing the hypothetical epistemological absolute that explains the relativity of facticity. Any inadequate method of inquiry stagnates within attempting a purely figurative or purely demonstrative solution to skepticism. Thus, the appropriate way to approach Coleridge’s understanding of philosophy is the struggle to make inquiry adequate though progression. Coleridge’s methodological impulse originates explicitly in a …

Eternal You, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Eternal You (2023), directed by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck.

Book Review On Kyoto School Philosophy In Comparative Perspective: Ideology, Ontology, Modernity (By Bernard Stevens), Dennis Stromback

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

A Madhyamaka Critique Of Jaegwon Kim's Supervenience Argument, Tyler J. Jungbauer

Comparative Philosophy

Jaegwon Kim’s supervenience argument objects to the possibility of emergent causation (both downward and same-level) based on both (1) the causal overdetermination of both (a) higher-level emergent events and (b) lower-level basal events, and (2) the causal closure principle of the physical domain. Kim argues that emergent causation entails epiphenomenalism. Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy skeptically critiques the primary (ultimate) existence of causal phenomena and instead suggests that all such phenomena may only be secondarily (conventionally) existent. Mādhyamikas acknowledge that, conventionally, emergent phenomena appear to cause both basal phenomena and other emergent phenomena. However, contra Kim, Mādhyamikas doubt that causal relations ultimately …

Logos-Sophia, Elliott Norman, Donald Wayne Viney, Keith Elliott Perkins, Addyson Kay Campbell, Hunter Hinds, Scott Squires

LOGOS-SOPHIA: The Journal of the PSU Philosophical Society

Logos-Sophia, Volume 17, Spring 2024. The Journal of the Pittsburg State University Philosophical Society has largely been a student publication with occasional faculty contribution

Do Languages Really Exist?, Robert Stainton, Christopher Viger

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

The Standing Of Anger: Insights From The Debate(S) On Constructed Emotion, Andrew Holzer

CMC Senior Theses

In her book, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice, Martha Nussbaum argues that anger is inherently flawed because it fundamentally contains the desire for payback. To support her argument, she posits specific metaphysical claims about the nature of emotions like anger. This thesis is an extended critique of her metaphysical foundation from the perspective of empirical research in the neuroscience of emotion. The first reason to dispute this picture is descriptive; this view of anger is based on an outdated version of cognitive appraisal theory, which sees emotions as triggered directly by static moments of cognitive appraisal. The second …

Relationality In Rousseau's Philosophy Of Education, Thayne Cameron

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s assertion of Emile that “Our true study is that of the human condition” serves as the foundation for this dissertation, which examines the significance of certain kinds of basic experiential relationships in Rousseau’s philosophy of education. By analyzing the relationships between the self and objects, the self and others, and the educator and the learner, this work elucidates how these interactions underpin Rousseau’s pedagogical views and their implications for fostering personal and social virtue.

The dissertation explores the self-object relationship through affectivity, embodiment, and purposeful activity, demonstrating how direct engagement with objects shapes perceptions and behaviors. It then …

An Ideal Science, Kyle Singh

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Many contemporary debates and distinctions in the philosophy of science stem from a methodological view that takes the project of metaphysics to be descriptive in nature. I argue that if one adopts an approach that looks at how we use and change our concepts instead several key implications follow. The first is that non-trivial conceptual continuity between theories is unavoidable. The second is that Identifying these continuities can help us determine how we ought to develop successive theories. My prime example for a candidate that merits this kind of continuous status are ghost fields in Quantum Field Theory (QFT). In …

Readings In Western Philosophy For Louisiana Learners, Jeff Mclaughlin, Marco Altamarino (Editor), Ryland Johnson (Editor), Peter Klubek (Editor), Michael Martin (Editor)

Open Educational Resources

It is important for students not only to get an appreciation and understanding of philosophy but also to be exposed to the very words and ideas of those who have shaped our thinking over the centuries. Accordingly, the title of this collection hints at the facts that these readings are from the original sources and that these philosophers were the originators of many of the issues we still discuss today.

Major areas of philosophy covered here are Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Sociopolitical Philosophy, and finally, Aesthetics.

Subjectivity In Circulation: Jean Baudrillard And The Image As Objective Reality, Jacob Crawley

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to examine Jean Baudrillard’s theory of the image in both historical and philosophical terms and propose that his understanding of the image as disconnected from any sort of objective reality is an important starting point for further discussion of the photographic image. This thesis seeks to answer the question – how does Baudrillard’s theory of the photographic image shape our contemporary understanding of images, and what are the implications of his removal of the referent to reality within photographic images on mass culture, society, and the current state of image creation? This paper seeks …

Difference And Alterity: On Hegel And Deleuze, Thomas Szwedska

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study in ontology. Its central question is: can we think difference without alterity and still think of difference as an essential determination of what something is? I answer that it is possible to ontologically disambiguate difference from alterity. The central thesis of my dissertation is that thinking difference without otherness not only produces meaningful differences, but if we are committed to a complete understanding of what difference is and how it functions, then it is necessary to account for this determination. Thus, I find two cases in the history of philosophy which do think difference without …

Mackie, Martin, And Inus In The Morning: Explaining Mackie’S Inus Conditions Through The Humor Of Demetri Martin, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Distinguishing necessary and sufficient conditions can be challenging to undergraduate logic and critical thinking students. Explaining J. L. Mackie’s notion of INUS conditions—insufficient but necessary parts of unnecessary but sufficient conditions—is an even more difficult concept to understand. It is helpful to have memorable examples that not only clarify the concept, but make it easy to remember. Law student turned stand-up comedian Demetri Martin uses necessary, sufficient, and INUS conditions to construct absurdist jokes. These jokes provide effective tools for making Mackie’s notion understandable and memorable.

Theistic Open Futurism: A Critical Philosophical Investigation, Elijah Hess

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I critically evaluate and develop a model of God I dub “theistic open futurism”—the view that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being exists but fails to know future contingent statements because such statements are not true. Contrary to what their free will critics have supposed, I argue that theistic open futurists do not subscribe to a metaphysical vision of the future that is logically or religiously incoherent. With respect to the latter, I suggest that while some open theists have overstated their case concerning the amount of providential control God could have given the reality of an …

The Basic Dualism In The World, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Graham Harman writes that the “basic dualism in the world lies…between things in their intimate reality and things as confronted by other things.” This paper supports Harman’s assertion from a systems theoretic perspective and illustrates it with some examples, including conceptions about truth, ethics, value, and intelligence. But dualism implies irreconcilable difference; what Harman points to is better expressed as a dyad, where the two components not only imply one another but are related, and where this spatial dyad is usefully augmented with a temporal dimension, expressed in a third component or an additional orthogonal dyad.