Philosophy Commons^™

The Concept Of Personhood In The Phenomenology Of Edmund Husserl, Colin J. Hahn

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation attempts to articulate the concept of personhood in Husserl. In his research manuscripts, Husserl recognized the need for a concrete description of subjectivity that still remained within the transcendental register. The concept of personhood, although never fully worked out, is intended to provide this description by demonstrating how the embodied, enworlded, intersubjective, and axiological dimensions of experience are integrated.

After briefly outlining the characteristics of a transcendental phenomenological account of personhood, this dissertation outlines the essential structures of personhood. The person, for Husserl, includes the passive dimension with the instinctive and affective dimensions of subjectivity, which become sedimented …

Special Obligations: The Structural Risks Of Friendship, Anna B. Myavec

Student Publications

Friendship is often conceived of as a freely chosen intrinsic good, yet friendship gives rise to special obligations that can act against ethical regard for others. Philosophers who recognize the significance of special obligations, such as Diane Jeske in Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Creates Reason, argue that special obligations are an undeniable feature of friendship and give rise to conflicts between friends and others to whom one has responsibilities. I argue that friendship can pose insoluble problems of special obligation, not just because obligations to friends can conflict with other obligations we have, but because friendship can challenge …

Freedom As A Natural Phenomenon, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This phenomenon of "freedom" in the natural world - and indirectly the question of free will - is explored using systems-theoretic concepts that link the idea of freedom to ideas about autonomy and agency. The focus is on living systems in general, and on living systems that have cognitive subsystems more specifically. After touching on the relevance to freedom of determinism vs. randomness, the paper examines four types of freedom: (i) independence from fixed materiality, (ii) activeness that is unblocked and wholistic, (iii) internal rather than external determination, and (iv) regulation by an informational subsystem. These types of freedom are …

Sifting The Commonplace: Topoi And The Grounds For Argument In Classical And Modern Rhetoric, Daniel Verlo Cutshaw

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is a reminder that how we consider reasoning to work and its end is very much bound up with how we think about people, what they are, what they can be, and how they do and should live together. Part of the end of the human being is to understand, to understand the Good or God and thus understand herself and her relation to others and her obligation to others; this is something we see in Aristotle's somewhat-spiritual understanding of Ethics and the Human Being. Focusing on reasoning (and its connection to being) in general, instead of accenting …

Preservice Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs: A Study Of Student And Course Characteristics, Peter B. Baker

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The research project described herein was designed to measure teacher education students' epistemological beliefs. Teacher education students' epistemological beliefs were compared according to participants' academic and demographic characteristics as well as characteristics of the courses in which students are enrolled at the time of study data collection. Participants included teacher education students currently studying in Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education. Results indicated that, while participants' epistemological beliefs and the development thereof are both, at times, related to their demographic and academic characteristics as well as the characteristics of the courses in which they were enrolled during the study, …

Sacrée Et Inviolable: The Hiv+ Mother In Ivoirian Health Policy, Amber Alaniz

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

« La personne humaine est sacrée (2)… Le domicile est inviolable. Les atteintes ou restrictions ne peuvent y être apportées que par la loi. (4) La famille constitue la cellule de base de la société. L'État assure sa protection. (5)» Constitution of La Côte d’Ivoire, Articles 2,4,5[1]

The Ivoirian national constitution, authored and enacted in July of 2000, while expressing a devotion to democratic thought (Preamble) and to the sovereignty of the individual (Article 2), also acknowledges the primacy of the Ivoirian family and collective identity as the basis of society and advances a moral duty on the part …

Comparing Suffering Across Species, John Nolt

Between the Species

Moral life often presents us with trade-offs between the sufferings of some individuals and the sufferings of others. Researchers may need to consider, for example, whether the suffering imposed on animals by a certain line of medical experimentation justifies the relief that the resulting discoveries may bring to (human or non-human) others. Often in such cases, the suffering of some individuals is incomparable with—that is neither greater than nor less than nor equal to—the suffering of others. While this complicates moral decision-making across species, it does not undermine it.

The Dialectic Of American Humanism: The Lecture Script, H. Vernon Leighton

Library Faculty Works

This document is the script from a lecture given at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota on March 28, 2012. The lecture described the scholarly discovery process for the peer-reviewed article “The Dialectic of American Humanism,” which was published in the journal Renascence also in 2012.

The Purpose Of Personal Value, Erica Stonestreet

Philosophy Faculty Publications

It seems as if there are things that have what we might call personal value—special objects, artwork by our children, etc. This term is meant to mark a difference between things whose value seems tied to a particular person, as opposed to things (like the Mona Lisa) that are valuable, period. The concept of personal value hasn’t received much focused attention, but I believe that it is of not only theoretical, but practical importance. In this paper, I explore the practical angle, arguing that personal value is important to our ability to make sense of ourselves. I give …

A Philosophical Analysis Of Intellectual Property: In Defense Of Instrumentalism, Michael A. Kanning

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues in favor of an instrumental approach to Intellectual Property (IP). I begin by reviewing justifications for IP that have been offered in recent literature, including Lockean labor theory, Hegelian personality theory, Kantian property theory and utilitarianism. Upon a close and careful analysis, I argue that none of these justifications suffice to ground contemporary IP practice. I review some recent works that offer `pluralist' justifications for IP, which draw from multiple theories in order to account for the diverse field of IP-related laws and practices in existence. I argue that these pluralist theories are also insufficient, because there …

Misunderstanding & Misdirecting The Liberal Arts, John Thorp

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

No abstract provided.

Endorsement, Worth And Well-Being: What Is It For A Life To Go Well?, Michel Hébert

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

Theories of well-being give an account of what it is for persons to fare well. They state the general features that make a life good for the person who lives it.

The Mechanistic Roots Of Occasionalism: Stage One, Benjamin Hill, Henrik Lagerlund, Todd Ryan, Elliot Rossiter

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

What is Occasionalism?

Occasionalism is the doctrine about causal efficacy that exploits the non-observational nature of causation. We observe a prior and a posterior state of the universe, and discern the difference between them. But we cannot observe the force or power causally necessitating the change.

Henry David Thoreau And Health In Nature (Flyer), James Engell

The Idea of Nature Public Lecture Series

As if he had always been looking to the future, Thoreau’s idea of health remains astonishingly relevant. He senses the danger of environmentally-linked and environmentally-caused illness. He promotes wellness of body, mind, and spirit together, which achieves harmony with nature through diet, exercise, sensory contact, and ethical self-reflection. The idea of human health in relation to nature informs all that he wrote and appears repeatedly for two decades throughout his Journal. Yet, he doesn’t devote a whole book, single chapter, or complete essay to it exclusively, perhaps because health and nature connect to so many other concerns. Instead, health linked …

Towards A Coherent Theory Of Animal Equality, Stijn Bruers

Between the Species

In this article I want to construct in a simple and systematic way an ethical theory of animal equality. The goal is a consistent theory, containing a set of clear and coherent universalized ethical principles that best fits our strongest moral intuitions in all possible morally relevant situations that we can think of, without too many arbitrary elements. I demonstrate that impartiality with a level of risk aversion and empathy with a need for efficiency are two different approaches that both result in the same consequentialist principle of prioritarianism. Next, I discuss that this principle can be trumped by an …

Reconciling Justice And Pleasure In Epicurean Contractarianism, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Epicurean contractarianism is an attempt to reconcile individualistic hedonism with a robust account of justice. The pursuit of pleasure and the requirements of justice, however, have seemed to be incompatible to many commentators, both ancient and modern. It is not clear how it is possible to reconcile hedonism with the demands of justice. Furthermore, it is not clear why, even if Epicurean contractarianism is possible, why it would be necessary for Epicureans to endorse a social contract. I argue here that Epicurean contractarianism is both possible and necessary once we understand Epicurean practical rationality in a new way. We are …

Trust And The Trickster Problem, Zac Cogley

Publication

In this paper, I articulate and defend a conception of trust that solves what I call “the trickster problem.” The problem results from the fact that many accounts of trust treat it similar to, or identical with, relying on someone’s good will. But a trickster could rely on your good will to get you to go along with his scheme, without trusting you to do so. Recent philosophical accounts of trust aim to characterize what it is for one person to trust another so as to avoid this problem, but no extant account successfully does so.

I argue that connecting …

Knowledge, Wisdom, And Service: The Meaning And Teaching Of Professionalism In Medicine, Matthew K. Wynia

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Papers presented for the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University. Presented September 29, 2011.

Milwaukee's King Of Comix: The Underground Art Of Jim Mitchell, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Is A Formal Ethics Of Justification Enough For Morality? Response To Prof. William Rehg, Pol Vandevelde

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.