Philosophy Commons^™

Speculative Realism And Systems Metaphysics, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included emergence of a school of “speculative realism” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought, but also opposes naïve realism or positivism. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but most agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Speculative realists who draw upon Marxist thought identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative realism from the perspective of the metaphysics of systems …

The Emergence Of Dilemmas Of Consciousness: Resolving The Hard Problem And Explanatory Gap, Gabriel Hull

Psychology Student Research

I propose a resolution to the hard problem of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and the explanatory gap. I set forth conditions that may lead an organism or system to develop dilemmas that correspond directly to our dilemmas of consciousness. I also describe a hypothetical state-machine with the capacity to develop both these dilemmas and related concepts. Since the only objective properties of consciousness are its attendant dilemmas and adjacent concepts, the system serves to resolve the hard problem of consciousness.

Tiempo Y Gubernamentalidad: Aproximaciones Al Gobierno Del Tiempo En El Neoliberalismo, Edwin Alexander Hernández Zapata, Mauricio Hernando Bedoya Hernández

The Qualitative Report

En este trabajo problematizamos los diagnósticos sobre gubernamentalidad neoliberal, analizando las formas en que hoy son dirigidas las conductas de los sujetos con base en ritmos caracterizados por la velocidad, el presentismo y la competencia. Estudiar estas formas marcan un precedente para el abordaje de los procesos de subjetivación contemporánea a partir de la analítica de la temporalidad. Así, la pregunta de investigación que guía este trabajo es la siguiente: ¿Cómo los diagnósticos sobre la racionalidad neoliberal describen la experiencia del tiempo que tienen los sujetos contemporáneos? Utilizamos el método histórico crítico, específicamente lo que Foucault denominó ontología del presente, …

A Virtue-Ethical Approach To Cultured Meat, Carlo Alvaro

Publications and Research

The proposed benefits of cultured meat fail to track our moral intuitions because they are focused on the practical aspect of cultured meat production and consumption. A virtue-oriented approach can show cultured meat in a different light.

On Probabilistic Reasoning Of Actual Causation, Jingzhi Fang

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Probabilistic actual causation is a theory about actual causal relations in probabilistic scenarios. Compared with general (or type) causal connections, actual (or token, singular) causation involves specific and actual events occurring in a particular time and space. Halpern and Pearl proposed three mathematical definitions on actual causation via structural equation models (or causal models). Fenton-Glynn extended one of their definitions into a probabilistic version by following the probability-raising principle in the tradition of theorizing about probabilistic causation. The basic idea of this principle is that a cause shall raise the probability of its effect. He adopted interventional probabilities to analyse …

Potentiality, Resistance And Bare Life: Giorgio Agamben On Melville’S Bartleby, Yanjun Wang, Yaping Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The idea of potentiality runs through Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy. In his analysis of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, Agamben thoroughly interprets potentiality and bare life through Bartleby’s “I prefer not to”. Agamben believes that Bartleby’s inoperativeness is the highest form of resistance, which exists as pure potentiality against the power apparatuses in modern society. Agamben considers Bartleby’s inoperativeness as the exact way to redeem bare life in modern society, where the state of exception already becomes normality. This article starts with Agamben’s reading of Bartley, focuses on potentiality, resistance and bare life to analyze the pure and thorough way …

Does Integrated Information Theory Make Testable Predictions About The Role Of Silent Neurons In Consciousness?, Gary Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

Tononi et al. claim that their integrated information theory of consciousness makes testable predictions. This article discusses two of the more startling predictions, which follow from the theory’s claim that conscious experiences are generated by inactive as well as active neurons. The first prediction is that a subject’s conscious experience at a time can be affected by the disabling of neurons that were already inactive at that time. The second is that even if a subject’s entire brain is “silent,” meaning that all of its neurons are inactive (but not disabled), the subject can still have a conscious experience. …

Envisioning Ethical Mass Influence Systems, Alex Mayhew, Yimin Chen, Sarah Cornwell, Nicole Delellis, Dominique Kelly, Liu Yifan, Victoria Rubin

Data and Test Instruments

This work envisions the possibility of ethical Mass Influence Systems (MISs). Modern algorithmic MISs, like Facebook and YouTube, have seen a link between the systems design for profit maximization and the increased radicalization of users (Wu, 2017). Using a Goals analysis grounded in philosophy (Falcon, 2022; Lipton, 1990; Bostrom, 2014), we will contrast the goals of existing algorithmic MISs with the goals of a future ethical algorithmic MIS. With the philosophical guidance of the Moral Parliament (Newberry and Ord, 2021) and the Moral Landscape (Janoff-Bulman and Carnes, 2013), we elaborate on a set of goals and mechanisms for promoting human …

Emotional Perspectives On Existential Threat: Evaluating The Rationality Of Climate Anxiety, Rachael Lange

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to answer the following question: Is climate anxiety a rational emotion? In order to arrive at an answer, several queries embedded in the main question must be addressed. This paper will outline a theory of emotion in order to define anxiety, assess climate change as a specific emotional object, and compare the rationality of anxiety using two evaluative standards. Climate anxiety is an emerging emotional phenomenon experienced in response to the perceived detrimental effects of a warming climate. Due to the novel identification of this contemporary emotional phenomenon with the established emotion of anxiety, there has thus …

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …

The Story Of Understanding, Brian M. Sunguza

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

This paper is an exploration of the role of doubt and sensations in the development of an understanding of an object. Inspired by Charles Sanders Peirce, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, I begin by arguing that understanding is a circular process that begins with a pre-understanding that is then refuted by the intended or inferred as-structure of an object. The belief found to settle the doubt that comes from such a refutation is one’s understanding of said object as that object. In the second part of this paper, I explore a method to harness this circular process to facilitate a …

Psychophysiological Effects Of Increasing Awareness Of Nondual Consciousness In Young Adults With Depression And Anxiety, Milena Braticevic

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Young adults increasingly suffer from anxiety and depression during the time of transition into adulthood. This research study examined the effects of increasing awareness of nondual consciousness in young adults who were experiencing various levels of anxiety and depression. The methodology was mixed-method and included four 1-hour group-based sessions over 4 weeks. Increasing awareness of nondual consciousness through educational, experiential, and behavioural components resulted in reduction in the average depression score from 19.4 (borderline clinical depression) to 10 (normal), and reduction in the average anxiety score from 12.7 (moderate anxiety) to 6.9 (mild). Participants reported increased mental, emotional, physical, and …

Identification And Treatment Of Kierkegaardian Despair: An Informal Indirect Apologetic Strategy, Licio Soares

Masters Theses

The central question this paper aimed at addressing was: How to present the gospel to people that are resistant to its presentation? The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard suggested that the best strategy in this scenario was indirect communication. In Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings many theological themes were indirectly presented as philosophical ones. The following Kierkegaardian themes were selected and arranged into a two-phase apologetic strategy that can be used in informal conversational settings: Anxiety, Despair, The Crowd, Single Individual, Revelation, and Faith. Indirect communication takes place in the first phase which is comprised of the first four themes. The …

The Identity Of The Father: Defining The Nature Of The Relation Between The God Of Jesus, And The God Of Israel, Manuel Alejandro Boglio Meléndez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most difficult doctrines to explain and comprehend. Historically, trinitarian discussions, especially during the first four centuries, have centered on the deity of Christ and His relation to the Father. Later, this discussion centered on the deity of the Holy Spirit, and His relation to both the Father and the Son. The identity of the Father, however, is rarely discussed, but rather it is simply assumed. The Father is simply the first Person of the Trinity, the God of Israel, YHWH. The problem, however, is that, for Christians, YHWH is triune. …

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Mask-Less Shopping Is Like Drunk Driving, Jonathan Spelman

Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many states in the U.S. issued stayat-home orders that prohibited people from leaving their homes except to access essential services. Upon reopening, a number of those states passed mask mandates requiring people to wear face coverings while in public, but as I write this, in October of 2020, there remain a substantial number of states that have not outlawed what I’ll call ‘maskless shopping’. This is a mistake. After describing the standard, public health argument for outlawing mask-less shopping and explaining why it fails, I give a better argument for outlawing mask-less shopping that …

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Allen D. Breck Award Winner

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Breck Award 2022

Katharine Davidson Bekker

Communication And Social Interactions In The Late Middle Ages: The Fables By The Swiss-German Dominican Ulrich Bonerius, Albrecht Classen

Quidditas

There are many possible and useful approaches to the study of literature. One very effective way proves to be to study literary texts as platforms to explore the meaning, relevance, and workings of human communication, or the very opposite, miscommunication. Such an approach proves to be rather productive both for medieval and modern texts, from the western and the eastern tradition, whether we are reflecting on entertaining, moral, didactic, religious, or political texts. The literary work consists of words exchanged, and thus here we encounter the perfect example of a theoretical platform to discuss human interactions in many different contexts …

How To Teach With Shakespeare: James Baldwin, The Liberal Arts, And The Progymnasmata, Steven Hrdlicka

Quidditas

This review essay addresses pedagogical principles found in Scott Newstok’s recent book How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (2020). Specifically, the essay discusses the progymnasmata exercises of paraphrase and êthopoeia and provides real-life applications and examples. The essay also suggests how such study aims at “fruitful” effects, as well as providing distinctions between “fruitful” and “useful” study. Other points relevant to the fruitful ends of the study of the liberal arts, such as freedom and empathy, are discussed as they pertain to a student’s ability to think creatively and to express thoughts with clarity and originality. …