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Delno C. West Award

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The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Delno C. West Award for 2019

Corinne Wieben

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

“We Are Perpetually Moralists:” Samuel Johnson And Renaissance Epistemology, Brandon Schneeberger

Quidditas

This article discusses how new Renaissance epistemological views shaped the important eighteenth-century critic Samuel Johnson. I argue that Johnson emphasizes conversation as an important element of epistemology, pushing against what was an over-emphasize on book learning perpetuated by educators such as Peter Ramus. The rise in print-culture led to a shift in epistemology, in which knowledge could be seen as linear, codified, or fixed. While Johnson works both within and against these new epistemological trends, I argue that his criticism of John Milton’s poetry can be appreciated more fully if Johnson’s own reservations about print culture are kept in mind. …

The Fiscal Policy Of Richard Iii Of England, Alex Brayson

Quidditas

Influenced by the “new” fiscal historiographical agenda of the 1990s, this article pioneers a radical reconstruction of the Yorkist-era royal budget. This demonstrates that the increased role of demesne revenues managed by the royal chamber in financing total expenditures under Edward IV, which was famously applauded by B. P. Wolffe, signally failed to provide for long-term fiscal stability. The removal of Edward’s French pension in 1483 led to a substantial deficit which compelled Richard III to contravene his brother’s pledge to “live of his own”. Richard’s sustained attempts, during 1483-4, to resurrect and revise controversial late Lancastrian attempts to secure …

“Sapere Videre” How A Spreadsheet Helps “Knowing How To See” Royal Power On Display In England’S Counties, 1277 To 1642, James H. Forse

Quidditas

Using a spreadsheet tracking touring in England’s counties by entertainers attached to members of England’s royal families suggests that such activity was wide-spread dating from the time of Edward III, and that those entertainers may have served to “advertise” royal power.

Stricken By Terror: Seeing And Knowing In Late Medieval Criminal Case Records, Corinne Wieben

Quidditas

Medieval legal records frequently feature parties and lawyers willing to stretch the truth and weave tales that fulfill statutory requirements and promote their cases, but what happens when defendants testify against themselves? When Giambono of Matraia, a monk from the monastery of San Ponziano in Lucca, appeared before Lucca’s episcopal court in 1356, he found himself facing charges of adultery, robbery, and murder. After four witnesses testified against him, Giambono confessed. When all seemed lost, Ser Giovanni Folchini, a well-known Lucchese notary, appeared as Giambono’s legal representative and claimed his client’s confession was false, since “he said these things while …

Bergson’S Philosophy Of Self-Overcoming, Messay Kebede

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

This book proposes a new reading of Bergsonism based on the admission that time, conceived as duration, stretches instead of passes. This swelling time is full and so excludes the negative. Yet, swelling requires some resistance, but such that it is more of a stimulant than a contrariety. The notion of élan vital fulfills this requirement: it states the immanence of life to matter, thereby deriving the swelling from an internal effort and allowing its conceptualization as self-overcoming. With self-overcoming as the inner dynamics of reality, Bergson dismisses all forms of dualism and reductionist monism because both the absence of …

Preparing For The Unthinkable? The Prevention Of Posttraumatic Stress And The Limits Of Positive Psychology, Urlich Koch

Clinical Research and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dworkinian Liberalism, The Right To Pornography, And The Internet, Will Nowell

Honors Theses

In a 1981 journal article, “Is There A Right to Pornography?,” Ronald Dworkin argues that we have a right to ethical independence that includes the right to consume pornography. The purpose of this thesis is to inquire as to whether Dworkinian liberalism does entail a right to specifically internet pornography. This research is primarily focused on Ronald Dworkin’s writings in Justice for Hedgehogs, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, and Taking Rights Seriously to describe the principles and character of Dworkinian liberalism and its philosophical relationship to the question of the right to pornography. This thesis considers contemporary …

Inviting Others In: How Oppression Affects The Self, Mylo Apollo Parker-Emerson

Senior Independent Study Theses

Broadly, the focus of this thesis is to consider how oppression affects the self. More specifically, this project supports the claim that there is a conflicting imposition (by being oppression) placed on queer folk in black (American) Christian spaces that affects the self. The position is elucidated through a four-chapter structure. In the first chapter, I provide a charitable reading to Mead’s theory of the self. I end the chapter by considering how a dissonance may occur. In chapter two, I define identity through a hermeneutical lens and supplement this theory by considering the ways identity can be imposed and …

Says Who? A Feminist Challenge Of Moral And Epistemic Authority In Advocacy, Coral Ciupak

Senior Independent Study Theses

This Independent Study thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter, “The Challenge of Feminist Ethics,” describes the project of feminist ethics to respond to patterns of inclusion and exclusion within the dominant tradition of moral thought and practice. I then highlight several features of consideration in feminist ethics that are useful in its response and subsequent development of alternative representations of moral life. My second chapter, “The Moral and Epistemic Commitment of Advocacy,” discusses the field of advocacy as morally and epistemically engaged through practices of speaking for others. I give reasons to believe that the commitment underpinning …

Nietzsche And The Aestheticization Of The Natural Sciences, Sean Dillard

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis is an exploration of Friedrich Nietzsche's dictum that life only justifies itself aesthetically. Given his attempt to physiologize aesthetics, this project attempts to show the value of the parallels and reciprocities between taste, style, beauty, and good health for scientists - especially natural scientists. It hopes to show something valuable about what late-modern scientific practice lost, especially in the context of the departmentalization of the sciences in universities. Specifically, I argue, disentangling scientific practice from philosophical concerns - the death of what used to be natural philosophy - has resulted in worse scientists, worse scientific practice, and a …

Intersectionality: Engaging The Epistemology Of Leadership Theory, Carolyn J. Morales

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation investigates the potential of linking intersectionality and leadership theories utilizing a theoretical bricolage research strategy. In order to explore a theoretical merger between these two disparate disciples warrants a preliminary understanding of how the production of knowledge has constructed a long-standing epistemic bias against marginalized perspectives. This analysis will seek to illustrate how androcentrism pervades the corpus of intellectual thought and the resulting impact which extends beyond the traditional canon of epistemology to the field of leadership. Intrinsic to this analysis will be an exploration of social identity and how it interacts with larger social environmental factors such …

The Illusion Of An Abundant End- A Phenomenological Approach To Sustainability: The Progress Trap And The Transformative Potential Of Dialogue, Shantanu Rojatkar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Abundance is a concept according to which a thing is deemed to be in plenty. The feeling of satisfaction and assurance, arising from something that is concretely abundant, serves as a material reason for motivation of a desired action. Just like the stock of food lying in our fridge, ensuring more than just the needs of the moment, the abundance cooks the taste of freedom, freedom from worrying about tomorrow. However, over consumption out of greed as a potential outcome of abundance, could result in the increased capacity of a person in order to reach the initial level of satisfaction. …

Collective Responsibility By Agreement, David Atenasio

Dissertations

It is often challenging to fairly distribute responsibility for harms that result from collective wrongdoing. Few object to blaming an agent for making a contribution to wrongdoing, but it is far more controversial to attribute fault to one agent for the contributions made by other participants in collective wrongdoing. I argue that we ought to distribute co-responsibility for collective wrongdoing only to those who authorize the offending actions, whether expressly or tacitly. By authorizing another to carry out wrongdoing on one's behalf, one becomes to blame for the unjustified harm caused by one's agent or agents. In this dissertation, I …

Retrieving And Reimagining Sanctuary And Solidarity: Racial Disparities In Infant Mortality, Alyson Capp

Dissertations

In Milwaukee, Black babies die before their first birthday nearly three times as often as White and Hispanic babies. Prematurity is the major cause of infant mortality, and social determinants of health play a large role. Commitments from within Christian bioethical traditions can critique ethical frameworks commonly in use in US bioethics by calling for the incorporation of analysis of social power dynamics that is necessary for addressing this issue. Original ethnographic fieldwork that listens closely to Black mothers and health professionals uncovers key themes related to women's and infant health at the intersection of race, class, and gender. By …

Review Of The Oxford Handbook Of Philosophy And Race, Julie Ward

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Power Of The New Economic Sanctions, Joy Gordon

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

At The Intersection Of Due Process And Equal Protection: Expanding The Range Of Protected Interests, Vincent J. Samar

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Are the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses interconnected? Justice Kennedy in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case holding the fundamental right to marry includes the right to a same-sex marriage, stated that they are profoundly connected in that each clause “may be instructive as to the meaning and reach of the other.” But exactly what instruction each doctrine might afford the other, Justice Kennedy did not say. An earlier Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, also suggested a connection, when the Court held unconstitutional a Texas statute baring funding for the education of undocumented children. But …

Contesting The Public Sphere: Within And Against Critical Theory, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter examines how European thinkers working from within and without the Frankfurt School of critical theory have understood the public sphere as a distinctive political category. First-generation members of the school rejected institutional democracy and mass politics as ideologies that mask domination. The succeeding generation, whose most important representative is Jürgen Habermas, rejected that diagnosis. Habermas’s more optimistic assessment of the emancipatory potential of the public sphere as a medium of rational learning sought a middle ground between critics and defenders of liberal democracy. This ambivalence provoked strong counter-reactions from systems theorists, such as Niklas Luhmann, and from adherents …