Philosophy Commons^™

Existential Phenomenology's Role In Understanding Minority Cynicism In The American Legal System, Layla Garcia-Brown

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

This paper will discuss the cynicism many people of color have toward the American legal system by using the intersections between existential philosophy, Africana philosophy, black existentialism and phenomenology. This paper will explore the cynicism and lack of trust held by many American minorities toward the American legal and judicial systems primarily through the lenses of philosophy, but additionally, the disciplines of: psychology, political science, criminology and sociology will also be discussed as they are vital and unavoidable disciplines to the discussion. Therefore, the methodology of this paper is intersectionality, meaning that all of the above systems as well as …

Hypothetical Pattern Idealization And Explanatory Models, Yasha Rohwer, Collin Rice

Philosophy Faculty Research and Scholarship

Highly idealized models, such as the Hawk-Dove game, are pervasive in biological theorizing. We argue that the process and motivation that leads to the introduction of various idealizations into these models is not adequately captured by Michael Weisberg’s taxonomy of three kinds of idealization. Consequently, a fourth kind of idealization is required, which we call hypothetical pattern idealization. This kind of idealization is used to construct models that aim to be explanatory but do not aim to be explanations.

Carruthers And Constitutive Self-Knowledge, John C. Hill

Student Publications

In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science. In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results.

Higher Than The Original Stands The Translation: Translating Heidegger Into Filipino, Remmon E. Barbaza

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

This paper is a reflection on the author’s experience of translating Martin Heidegger into Filipino. It first addresses the questions of principles underlying the act of translation, such as those of fidelity (to both source and target languages, original author and translator), as well as the role of the translator as an intermediary between the original author and the readers. Then it demonstrates examples of his experience of translating selected key terms and passages in Heidegger—such as sein, stellen, Ereignis, and their cognates—indicating the difficulties as well as the challenges that arise in the work of translation. A notable problem …

The Role Of Adaptation To Disability And Disease In Public Health, Meghan Mary Connors

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Some patients with chronic disabilities and diseases are able to adapt to their health states and, as a result, rate their quality of life higher than hypothetical patients imagining themselves to be in such states. Due to this phenomenon of adaptation, there is much controversy surrounding the effect of adaptation on patient preferences and the role that these adapted preferences ought to play in health care resource allocation decisions. The process of adaptation affects public health debates about whether we ought to give priority to the worst off in allocation decisions because within traditional public health frameworks, it is unclear …

Why The Basic Structure Is Basic : A Defense Of The Doctrinal Autonomy Of Political Philosophy, Pete Murray

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In my dissertation, I defend John Rawls's claim that the question of the design of the basic structure of society is the central question of distributive justice. The basic structure, on my understanding, and following Samuel Freeman, is the system of basic background institutions within which we pursue our everyday lives. It includes the institutions of our political and legal system, our system of property, our economic system, and the legal structure of the family.

Illusion In The Commonplace : Reinterpreting Ernst Gombrich's Concept Of Illusion, Jonathan Auyer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the dissertation I analyze and interpret Ernst Gombrich's book Art and Illusion, focusing on his view that illusion is involved in pictorial representation. Since Gombrich never gave a concise, systematic account of illusion, my goal will be to fill this void by using the text of Art and Illusion as well as Gombrich's subsequent writings in order to present a coherent account of how illusion might play a role in a picture's representing an object.

The I Think, Self-Awareness And Reflexivity : A Reconstructed Kantian Model Of Self-Awareness, Jie Yin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

I aim to explore, in this dissertation, whether Kant has a plausible view on self-awareness in his Critique of Pure Reason, and that if the answer is positive, then in what way one could best appreciate his insight; and besides that, I also want to explore how Kant's view sheds light on contemporary debate on self-awareness. I aim to consider two questions addressed by Howell (2006) as below: (A) how exactly the I think functions, designatively, to represent the self and bring it to our thought-awareness, and (B) how, theI thinK orI, a simple representation and a mere designation of …

Phronesis After Situationism, Edward C. Dubois

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Situationism, as put forward by John Doris' Lack of Character (2002) and several short articles by Gilbert Harman (2003, 2000, 1999), is the philosophical position that is skeptical of the existence of robust character traits of the kind that Aristotle described. Situationism posits that human beings lack robust character traits and are too easily made overconfident in their own behavioral abilities. Reams of social psychological data suggest that such 'thick' character traits do not exist. Doris and Harman suggest that subtle and potentially irrelevant situational cues may easily influence behavior. Moreover, situational pressures may cause people to deviate from expected …

The Structure Of Narratives In Political Theories, Wesley Dan Nishiyama

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I use the ideas of Kenneth Burke and Wolfgang Iser to understand how narrative types, including: novelistic, historical, biographical, and hypothetical, are used as rhetorical devices to persuade the reader of the theory at hand. I will begin by

Eudaimonia And Virtù : Excellence And Conflict In Democratic Politics, Christine M.K. Dow

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite renewed interest in republicanism as a political and theoretical alternative to liberalism, much of contemporary republican scholarship emphasizes the ways that republican principles - liberty, rule of law, political participation - fit within a liberal framework, sharing its institutions and commitment to individual liberty. This project, in contrast, extracts a radically democratic republican theory of politics from two founding republican thinkers - Aristotle and Machiavelli. Using an analytical approach, I argue that a concept of human excellence or flourishing is central to a democratic interpretation of these texts. I show, in an analysis of the Ethics and Politics, that …

The Case For Character : A Reply To Situationism, Brandon Lee

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The notion of character is a familiar and prominent part of ethical theorizing, and of our everyday discourse. Character is used to explain how people act, to predict what they will do, to judge whether they ought to be trusted, and utilized in a multitude of other ways. A camp of philosophers dubbed the "Situationists", however, argue that research in social psychology shows the notion of character as we traditionally understand it is empirically unsupported, and consequently that all our discourse and ethical thought involving character is gravely mistaken. Instead, these philosophers contend that what influences and informs our perception …

Sartre's Second Or Dialectical Ethics, Thomas C. Anderson

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Circular Justification And Explanation In Aristotle, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Abstract Aristotle’s account of epistēmē is foundationalist. In contrast, the web of dialectical argumentation that constitutes justification for scientific principles is coherentist. Aristotle’s account of explanation is structurally parallel to the argument for a foundationalist account of justification. He accepts the first argument but his coherentist accounts of justification indicate that he would not accept the second. Where is the disanalogy? For Aristotle, the intelligibility of a demonstrative premise is the cause of the intelligibility of a demonstrated conclusion and causation is asymmetric. Within the Posterior Analytics itself, Aristotle does not account for this, but elsewhere he develops the resources …

Consciousness As Integrated Information: A Provisional Philosophical Critique, Anthony F. Peressini

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Giulio Tononi (2008) has offered his integrated information theory of consciousness (IITC) as a ‘provisional manifesto’. I critically examine how the approach fares. I point out some (relatively) internal concerns with the theory and then more broadly philosophical ones; finally I assess the prospects for IITC as a fundamental theory of consciousness. I argue that the IITC’s scientific promise does carry over to a significant extent to broader philosophical theorizing about qualia and consciousness, though not as directly as Tononi suggests, since the account is much more focused on the qualitative character of experience rather than on consciousness itself. I …

Reconsidering The Theoretical/Practical Divide: The Philosophy Of Nishida Kitarō, Lockland Vance Tyler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the years professional philosophy has undergone a number of significant changes. One of these changes corresponds to an increased emphasis on objectivity among philosophers. In light of new discoveries in logic and science, contemporary analytic philosophy seeks to establish the most objective methods and answers possible to advance philosophical progress in an unambiguous way. By doing so, we are able to more precisely analyze concepts, but the increased emphasis on precision has also been accompanied by some negative consequences. These consequences, unfortunately, are much larger and problematic than many may even realize. What we have eventually arrived in at …

An Examination Of Wanting In Anscombe's Intention, Mallory Dianne Kunz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In intention, G.E.M. Anscombe sets out to examine the standard ways in which we use the word "intention". To this end, she also examines desire and how desires play a role in our intentions. In the process, she divides desire into two distinct categories, those of weak and strong wanting. This distinction is quite different from ancient and modern views of desire, which are briefly discussed as a means of comparing Anscombe's view to her predecessors. After she has made this distinction, Anscombe tries to establish what is required of this new category of strong wanting. These requirements include knowledge …

Harmful Beneficence, Lisa Rivera

Philosophy Faculty Publication Series

Beneficence can be significant to moral action but criteria for good beneficence is rarely discussed. Much work has focused on how extensive the demands are on agents to be beneficent and on agents’ motivations for beneficence.

There has been little direct attention to the relationship between benefactor and beneficiary. The argument here is that serious deficiencies exist in the view that benefactors should focus primarily on satisfying another’s self-chosen ends. A narrow focus on the attempt to help someone satisfy her ends misses the harmful effects that benefactors can have on a dependent beneficiary's ability to choose freely from her …

A Critique Of Charles Peirce's Account Of The Necessary Conditions For The Possibility Of Experience, Daniel Edward Kruidenier

Theses and Dissertations

Herein is investigated the effort to establish the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience begun by Immanuel Kant and carried further by Charles Peirce. I focus my attention on Peirce's development of a Kantian strategy for discovering and proving such conditions. The conclusion that I argue for is that such an effort requires the use of a rational intuitive faculty. Both Kant and even more vociferously Peirce overtly reject the existence of such a faculty, yet, I argue, it is difficult to make sense of certain crucial discoveries in its absence.

The Desert Of The Ethical, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

 As far as I can tell, the concept of “desert” in Levinas’s thought seems to retain itsfamiliar associations, namely, as an environment that can be empirically characterizedas inhospitable, barren, and destitute of the kinds of material resources necessary forthe growth of the autonomous and autochthonous subjective self. It also seems plausiblethat a relevant extension of desert conditions to human community in Levinas’stopography would be the “cities” of concentration camps of the Holocaust. In otherwords, there is a correlative interior type of desert that, with Levinas, can be intuitedas what I am calling a desert of the ethical . In what …