Philosophy Commons^™

The Trolley Problem In Virtual Reality, Jungsu Pak, Ariane Guirguis, Nicholas Mirchandani, Scott Cummings, Uri Maoz

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Would people react to the Trolley problem differently based on the medium? Immersive Virtual Reality Driving Simulator was used to examine participants respond to the trolley problem in a realistic and controlled simulated environment.

Radical Botany: Plants And Speculative Fiction [Table Of Contents], Natania Meeker, Antónia Szabari

Literature

No abstract provided.

Introduction, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Asian-American Visibility: Movement Toward Authenticity And Exposing The White Gaze, Nora Tsou

Senior Theses

Asian-Americans have a historical legacy and a multiplicity of narratives that are often rendered absent in American culture. Our oppression is not commonly spoken about, but it is relevant. By decentering Eurocentric thought as the only valid philosophy, herein this study I perform Asian-American philosophy through an analysis of philosophical and sociological texts on race. I continuously echo George Yancy and Gloria Anzaldua, philosophers of race, respectively, on the African-American and Latin-American experience, for their philosophy has greatly lead me to understanding my own. In order to conceptualize what oppressive struggles Asian-Americans face, I delve into research that exposes these …

Weatherlessness: Affect, Mood, Temperament, The Death Of The Will, And Politics, John J. Stuhr

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

First, I develop an account of the nature of moods and the relation of mood to emotion and temperament. This account stresses that social and individual moods are marked by four features: They are transactional - neither wholly subjective nor objective; in experience they shade into and blur back and forth with feeling and temperament; they are ambient and atmospheric, a habit of living ·in the world more expansive than a habit of mind; and, whether conscious or not, moods have causes that, if known, may be manipulated to advance both personal and political ends. Second, I focus …

Affect And Immediation: An Interview With Brian Massumi, Brian Massumi, Jacob Ferrington, Alina Hechler, Jannell Parsons

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Brian Massumi is the author of numerous works across philosophy, political theory, and art theory. His publications include 99 Theses on the Revaluation of Value: A Postcapitalist Manifesto (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts (MIT Press, 2011) and Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Duke University Press, 2002).

Gut Feelings: Race And The Embodied Self: An Interview With Shannon Sullivan, Shannon Sullivan, Shannon Branfield, Ruwen Chang, J. D. Saperstein

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Shannon Sullivan is Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Philosophy and Health Psychology at UNC Charlotte. She specializes in feminist philosophy, critical philosophy of race, American philosophy (especially pragmatism), . and continental philosophy. She is the author of four books, most recently, Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism (2014) and The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression (2015). She also is co-editor of four books, including Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (2007) and Feminist Interpretations of William James (2015).

Pilosopiyang Pinoy: Uso Pa Ba? (The Relevance Of Filipino Philosophy In Social Renewal), Romualdo E. Abulad

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

This paper evaluates the titular question and features a summative evaluation and critique of the works and contributions of Leonardo Mercado, Dionisio Miranda, Albert Alejo, Rolando Gripaldo (1947-2017), and Florentino Timbreza to the anthropological and cultural approaches that form a significant part of the discourses on Filipino philosophy. In this piece, Abulad maintains, as in his other writings, that any strict emphasis with regard to methodology restricts the true potential of Filipino philosophy. He buttresses this assertion by invoking postmodernism's 'incredulity towards metanarratives' We should be skeptical about the metanarrative of Filipino identity for it is precisely our rootlessness that …

Filipino Postmodernity: Quo Vadis?, Romualdo E. Abulad

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

In this paper, Romualdo Abulad initially presents variations of postmodernity as distinct historical breaks which feature paradigmatic shifts that lead us to a new beginning. Postmodernity, as Abulad shows, is characterized by a radical openness; this leads him to argue that postmodernity as an event occurred in different moments in the history of thought, from ancient to contemporary. In what seems to be a dialectical description of history, he maintains that an opportunity for a break occurs when the inherent limitations and deficiencies of the prevailing status quo emerge, and as a result, ignite the tensions between the preservation of …

Denis Diderot: A Secular Hero, Ben Scott-Brandt

Honors Projects

My Honors Senior Project is a biography of Denis Diderot in the form of a children's song. MY understanding of Diderot's life is based on Andrew Curran's book, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely.

Songs help us memorize and retain information about the world, and singing songs together strengthens cultural and religious connections. Secular (nonreligious) people need songs, too. Diderot was a philosopher who didn't believe in God. He was an editor of L'Encyclopédie, one of the first encyclopedias, and he snuck in articles that challenged how people think. This was an important moment -- knowledge about the world …

In Search Of Work-Life Balance: Organizational And Economic Challenges Confronting Women In Banking And Management Consulting Firms In Southwest Nigeria, Oluwafisayo Ogundoro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life …

Comparing Functions, Costs And Rewards Of Quality Engineers And Six Sigma Black Belts, C. Grant Short

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The respective Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) as described by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) for Certified Quality Engineers (ASQ, 2015a) and Certified Six Sigma Black Belts (ASQ, 2015b) are quite similar, yet anecdotally, six sigma black belts are recognized and consequently rewarded more highly than are quality engineers. While Quality Engineering work is typically regarded as preventive in nature, work performed by six sigma black belts is in the realm of improvement, hence is reactive in nature. Consequently, a dichotomy exists in that preventive actions, which are less costly by their nature, are not rewarded as well as costlier …

Managing The Effects Of Wireless Sensors On Vehicle Ad Hoc Network (Vanet) Safety, Melvin Hayes

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper proposes to conduct research on the vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) area of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) with a focus on investigating safety methods that will significantly reduce passenger vehicle collisions which ultimately will help to save lives and reduce property losses. Key areas of this ITS research will include highway infrastructure or wireless sensor networks (WSN) to the cloud (web service) and the cloud (web service) to highway infrastructure or wireless sensor network (WSN). In turn, the cloud (web service) will communicate with passenger vehicles as components of a highway infrastructure (WSN) to vehicle (I2V) systems and …

Response To My Commentators, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Anonymous Web In Adichie’S Americanah, Michelle Jude Gibeault

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adichie’s Americanah is a novel that elevates anonymous blogging into black cultural performance. The novel follows a young Nigerian, Ifemelu, who arrives in the United States on a student visa and depicts her stressful confrontation with racism in post-slavery America. Through beginning a blog, Ifemelu voices her experiences as a black woman and immigrant in ways that renew the concerns of James Baldwin, an author whom she studies closely. Like Baldwin, her style blends humor and techniques of persuasion that trace to traditional oral folklore. Ifemelu’s success rests partly on Adichie’s construction of her as a character of good ethos, …

Managed Engagement; Considering A Space For Policy In Aesthetics, Connell Vaughan

Conference papers

Aesthetics and the philosophy of art is routinely faced with a problem of a binary opposition of two silos, namely: Theory and Practice. For want of a better word, these domains are often reluctant to “engage” each other. Philosophers of aesthetics are often unable to connect the aesthetic enquires of Kant et al, which almost ignore the world of art practice, with sustained philosophical reflection on the artworld itself. As a way of thinking through the connections between aesthetic theory and art practice, I propose to consider another domain as intermediate, namely, policy.

O My Neighbors, There Is No Neighbor, Harris B. Bechtol

All Faculty Scholarship (Archived)

This article meditates on the Christian command to love the neighbor as yourself by focusing on how both Jacques Derrida and Søren Kierkegaard have read this command. I argue that Derrida, failing in his faithfulness to Kierkegaard, makes a mistake when he includes this command in the Greek model of the politics of friendship in his Politics of Friendship. Such a mistake is illumined by Kierkegaard’s understanding of the neighbor in this command from Works of Love because this understanding helps to develop Derrida’s vision of a democracy and politics that resists the hegemony of the masculine and remains …

John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty', Dale E. Miller, Nico Perrino

Philosophy Faculty Publications

On today’s episode of So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, we are joined by professor Dale E. Miller to discuss the life and philosophy of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, whose 1859 essay “On Liberty” is a classic text — maybe the classic text — defending the principles of free expression.

Miller is a professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies at Old Dominion University. He is the author of J.S. Mill: Moral, Social, and Political Thought.

The Shapes Of Solidarity Through Difference, Bella Brown

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

The following paper will track the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between various forms of feminism, specifically the differences between Indigenous and white feminism. Though the differences can outnumber the similarities, I do not see this as a discouragement for forming intercultural bonds for a peaceful coexistence, in fact this is the opportunity for solidarity to change the perception and reach of feminism as a movement. Feminism has the potential for reaching a broader audience without minimizing the differences of separate groups. This paper does not call for the aggregation of different groups in order to further the goals of white …

Value-Laden Free Will, Lixing Miao

Acta Cogitata: An Undergraduate Journal in Philosophy

In this paper, I deliver a value-laden concept of free will. This concept of free will depends on an insight into agential psychology: we generally act in light of the desire of the good and the conception of a good life. Since our actions are performed in relation to the motivational final end—a good human life, the value-laden concept of free will defines that an agent has free will in x-ing only if the agent is motivated in such a way that x-ing is genuinely conducive to a good life. The value-laden concept of free will does not aim at …