Philosophy Commons^™

The Lawgiver And "The Progress Of Evil", Andre Chang

Senior Theses

The study advances a reinterpretation of Madison’s concept of “constitutional liquidation,” presenting it not merely as a theory of legal interpretation but as a broader political strategy for preserving republican government amid recurring crises. Through an analysis of Madison’s responses to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the nullification controversy, the thesis demonstrates how Madison sought to balance constitutional stability with principled conflict, allowing fundamental questions of authority, justice, and union to be resolved through disciplined public deliberation rather than force or procedural formalism.

Finally, the thesis contends that Madison’s commitment to national supremacy and …

Bearing The Benefit: An Evolution Of Passing To Trespassing & How We Got Here, Kennedi J. Williams

Honors College Theses

In recent years, we have seen a shift in the social treatment of white people in America. The desire to be politically correct at all times, in hopes of avoiding becoming the next viral “Karen” or racist has become imperative. The following thesis will explore the latest trend of white women buying racial capital by producing mixed-race children. At first glance, this idea can be a bit problematic. How can we assume the reasoning behind a woman choosing to bear a child? With this in mind, I would like to emphasize that individuals do not have to consciously be racist …

An Ecofeminist Ontological Turn: Preparing The Field For A New Ecofeminist Project, M. Laurel-Leigh Meierdiercks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ecofeminists have predominantly refuted oppressive conceptual frameworks by rejecting dualistic logic and value hierarchies, despite the foundational view of ontology that underlies our logic and value systems. I argue that ecofeminists must engage in the creative process of articulating an ecofeminist ontology. I demonstrate that the omission of ontological discourse in ecofeminist scholarships is primarily due to the time period during which ecofeminism gained peak traction and their concerns with essentialism. I also show that feminists experienced an ontological turn in the 2000s that produced a new model for ontological theories that would be beneficial for ecofeminists to embrace. In …

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 …

Alyosha The Christian Hermeneut, Eddie Li

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Presentation Abstract: Alyosha as the Christian Hermeneut

This presentation is adapted from my essay Alyosha as the Christian Hermeneut, written under the supervision of Dr. Paul Contino. In the essay, I gave an analysis of the character Alyosha in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, in light of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and Dr. Contino’s book on Incarnational Realism. I discussed how Alyosha adapts from an inexperienced Christian disciple to a mature interpreter capable of conducting the hermeneutical fusion of horizons with different horizons. Within this capability, Alyosha develops his unique Christian horizon, enabling him to understand and reconcile the …

The Problems Of Personalism Today, Bennett Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

In lieu of an abstract, here is a short excerpt:

I shall speak today, generally and just within my 15 minutes, about the problems of personalism today—that is, its current position in philosophy and its internal stresses that must be addressed to improve that situation. My comments are the first fruits of my next book, now under way, which will develop a renewed humanism on a personalistic basis by reformulating a foundation for personalism. The book will also apply this personalism to the challenges of the Anthropocene and particularly of transhumanism. For reasons I will explain, no one has yet …

Articuli Temporis: St. Augustine And Phenomenology On The Temporal Syntax Of God’S Self-Disclosure, Scott Roniger

Philosophy Faculty Works

In this essay, I articulate an Augustinian “philosophy of history” by highlighting some important texts sprinkled throughout St. Augustine’s writings, especially his City of God. I concentrate on Augustine’s claim that there are “joints of time” that structure God’s self-disclosure to us through sacred history, and I develop these Augustinian insights with the help of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. While Augustine enables us to see that God’s revelation is achieved in a sacred history that illuminates the deepest structure and order of the temporal flow of human events, Husserl’s phenomenology can be used to show that the structure and order of …

Looking And Seeing, Nicolas Cornell

Book Chapters

On November 6, 1938, Charles T. Dashiell, Jr, was driving south through Maryland. Around 5.30 or 6, Dashiell picked up two 19-year- old hitchhikers, J. Reginald Moore and Reginald Porter. Moore and Porter had been dropped off by Moore’s older brother and were now seeking to rejoin him several miles further on. The two boys got into Dashiell’s one-seat coup, with Moore sitting in the middle and Porter sitting on the right. It was a clear day, and the road was dry. Dashiell’s car lights were turned on and in good working condition.

Permintaan Dalam Perjanjian Persahabatan Antara Belanda Dengan Raja Badung Pada 3 Juli 1818 Dalam Surat K45.84, Muhamad Rifky Astari, Tommy Christomy

Multikultura

No abstract provided.

Gastrodiplomasi Korea Dalam Acara Realitas Memasak “The Genius Paik”, Gusti Agung Ayu Tehilla Putri Cahyadi, Zaini Zaini

Multikultura

No abstract provided.

Healthcare For Undocumented People In America, Richard Pazer

Graduate Student Research Symposium

Millions of undocumented people live in America and roughly a million have entered every year since 2021. This is a hot-button issue in mainstream politics for a variety of reasons. However, there is an issue that tends to get overlooked which is their health care. In most states, undocumented people do not qualify for healthcare coverage of any kind. This leaves them reliant on EMTALA and emergency departments (ED). Through an examination of the various state and federal policies that pertain to undocumented people’s healthcare coverage, we can see that these people are in desperate need of assistance. It becomes …

A Metaphysics Of The Moral Imagination: John Ruskin's Realism, Revisited, Jesse Goodman

Graduate Student Research Symposium

The Victorian philosopher John Ruskin is primarily remembered for his political writing, as a forerunner of what we would today call Christian Socialist politics. In aesthetic circles, he is also often considered something of a punchline: a stuffy conservative who represents the worst vagaries of his day, an enemy of abstraction. Ruskin thus has a double-being in cultural memory: both an admired social reformer and a laughingstock art critic.

These views of Ruskin can be potentially reconciled by showing how his critics have misunderstood his aesthetic philosophy. Ruskin is often described as an aesthetic realist, the view on which art …

From Displacement To Intersubjectivity: A Phenomenology Of Sound In Classic Film Noir, Thomas Goodchild

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the use of sounds displaced from their sources in classic filmsnoir. Noir is often understood as a dark and solipsistic moment in American cinema. Interpretations of noir frequently emphasize isolated individuals who are physically, psychologically, and socially displaced from their environments. Although scholarship on noir has examined this alienation through various sonic motifs such as music and voice-over, I investigate how several noirs draw attention to the act of listening through acousmatic sound—that is, sound heard without a visible source. Far from being an ephemeral auditory experience, I argue that the separation between sound and image invites …

On The Possibility Of Secular Morality, Zachary R. Alonso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Is something like a transcendent God necessary to have a coherent moral system, or at the very least, necessary for one to have personal ethical guidelines to live by that are not entirely subjective? This paper explores the claims of two Christian thinkers, David Bentley Hart and D. C. Schindler, as well as some alternatives to their thinking in the ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and Jeffrey Stout. Hart and Schindler portray society as downcast, riddled with moral decay, and the only solution to this decay is to turn toward God, thereby recognizing a hierarchical, cosmological worldview. While MacIntyre believes that …

Role Of Glia In Diurnal Rhythms In Neuroinflammation And Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown, Jennifer Hoi-Ping Lawrence

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

While inflammation is an important mechanism for the return to homeostasis post insult or injury, inflammation in the central nervous system (CNS) can lead to irreparable damage. To mitigate this process, the brain is protected from circulating neurotoxic molecules as well as peripheral immune cells through the tightly regulated blood-brain barrier (BBB). The balance between pro- and anti- inflammation in the CNS rapidly shifts towards a neurotoxic proinflammatory state during acute bacterial or viral infections or chronic neuroinflammatory diseases. Excessive inflammatory responses are also coupled with extensive BBB leakage and breakdown, allowing rampant entry of peripheral inflammatory cells and mediators …

It Ain’T Necessarily So: Ludwig Boltzmann’S Darwinian Notion Of Entropy, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Ludwig Boltzmann's move in his seminal paper of 1877, introducing a statistical understanding of entropy, was a watershed moment in the history of physics. The work not only introduced quantization and provided a new understanding of entropy, it challenged the understanding of what a law of nature could be. Traditionally, nomological necessity, that is, specifying the way in which a system must develop, was considered an essential element of proposed physical laws. Yet, here was a new understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that no longer possessed this property. While it was a new direction in physics, in other …

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 …

Sauron: Weirdly Sexy, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

A popular meme depict Galadriel and Frodo admitting that Sauron is "weirdly sexy," a humorous allusion to The Rings of Power’s Halbrand. The show's controversial revelation of Halbrand as Sauron highlights the differences between Tolkien’s construction of Second and Third Age Sauron as an attractive or admirable leader compared to Peter Jackson’s portrayal of him as a monster or disembodied fiery eyeball. This, in turn, has implications for the geopolitical order of Middle-earth in which many people legitimately might wish to be on Sauron’s side. Acknowledging Sauron's "sexiness" may allow us to see Tolkien's world system in a new …

How Can Generative Ai (Genai) Enhance Or Hinder Qualitative Studies? A Critical Appraisal From South Asia, Nepal, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative researchers can benefit from using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), such as different versions of ChatGPT—GPT-3.5 or GPT-4, Google Bard—now renamed as a Gemini, and Bing Chat—now renamed as a Copilot, in their studies. The scientific community has used artificial intelligence (AI) tools in various ways. However, using GenAI has generated concerns regarding potential research unreliability, bias, and unethical outcomes in GenAI-generated research results. Considering these concerns, the purpose of this commentary is to review the current use of GenAI in qualitative research, including its strengths, limitations, and ethical dilemmas from the perspective of critical appraisal from South Asia, Nepal. …

Ethical Implications Of Space Colonization, Anna K. Orta, Jose Lopez, Carlos Ontiveros

Young Scientists and Philosophers on the Border

No abstract provided.