Free Will, Genuine Alternatives And Predictability,
2011
Claremont McKenna College
Free Will, Genuine Alternatives And Predictability, Laura Hagen
CMC Senior Theses
Through evaluating Hilary Bok’s argument from her essay Freedom and Practical Reason, I hope to shed light on the overall question of whether we can have free will if determinism is true. In the first two chapters I will fully explain and break down Bok’s argument for genuine epistemic alternatives. In chapter three I will evaluate the success of Bok’s arguments. Specifically, I will offer a variety of intuitive examples to show that epistemic unpredictability is not enough to make our alternatives genuine. I will then use more examples to consider the relative importance of unpredictability and endorsement to …
Theories Of Justice To Health Care,
2011
Claremont McKenna College
Theories Of Justice To Health Care, Jacob R. Tobis
CMC Senior Theses
In this thesis, many topics will be discussed and a variety of philosophers will be mentioned. The main goal of this thesis is to determine a health care plan that fits with the theories of Robert Nozick, Arthur Ripstein, Norman Daniels, and Amartya Sen. I conclude that Ezekiel Emanuel’s health care plan, The Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan, can be used as a compromise between the views of each of these philosophers. In reaching such a conclusion, I take many steps. I begin with the explanation of theories of justice and their focus. I then turn to the important distinction between …
Reception Of Marxism In 20th Century Russia,
2011
Claremont McKenna College
Reception Of Marxism In 20th Century Russia, Aleksandr Grabovskiy
CMC Senior Theses
In my thesis I will study how the revolutionary philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was received and interpreted by early 20th century Russian intellectuals in an attempt to reconcile orthodoxy with the real conditions present in Russia. Through analysis of documents spanning several decades of debate, I will trace the evolution of this discussion to unlock the logic that led to philosophy put to action in the form of revolution. Finally, I will evaluate how this logic fits into the historic trajectory described by Marxism.
Does The Mind Extend Out Into The World,
2011
Claremont McKenna College
Does The Mind Extend Out Into The World, Andrew D. Kishino
CMC Senior Theses
The extended mind debate juggles the possibilities of whether or not the mind extends out into the world. Today, with the rise in technology, we have an additional claim that our tools are responsible for extending our minds. The internet, smart phones, and other tools give us a foothold in the extended mind debate by providing real world examples of how our mind is perceived as extending out into the world. In discovering where the divide between mind and environment exists we can come up with a conclusion whether or not the mind truly extends out into the world.
Korsgaard On Reason And The Normativity Of Rationality,
2011
University of Mississippi
Korsgaard On Reason And The Normativity Of Rationality, Robert Colin English
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Korsgaard (2009) argues, against Kolodny (2005) and Broome (2007), that rational requirements are in fact normative. In her view the normativity of rational requirements is a function of their constitutive role in the deliberative activity of reason. After surveying the treatment of this question in the relevant literature, I explain Korsgaard's theory using pure constructivism as a framing device. I then argue that not only is her account of deliberative reason as an activity unsatisfactory (specifically, it fails to defeat the intuition that charges of boot-strapping are deeply problematic, and makes the adoption of reasons for belief from the deliberative …
Will You Survive A Trip To Rekall, Inc.?,
2011
University of Richmond
Will You Survive A Trip To Rekall, Inc.?, G. C. Goddu
Philosophy Faculty Publications
What would you do for ninety-two million dollars? In the movie Paycheck (based on the Philip K. Dick story of the same name), Michael Jennings agrees to give up three full years of his life-kind of. He loses three years of his mental life. To ensure confidentiality for his current client, the Rethrick Corporation, Jennings agrees to have all his memories of the three years he will work for the company removed. In return, Jennings will receive a large quantity of company stock options worth approximately $92 million. A good deal? Maybe, but I suspect most of us would be …
Hey Buddha! Don’T Think! Just Act!: Reply To Finnigan,
2011
Smith College
Hey Buddha! Don’T Think! Just Act!: Reply To Finnigan, Jay L. Garfield
Philosophy: Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Consulting The Architect When Problems Arise – The Divine Law,
2011
University of Oklahoma College of Law
Consulting The Architect When Problems Arise – The Divine Law, Brian Mccall
Faculty Articles
In The Architecture of Law: Building Law on a Solid Foundation- The Eternal and Natural Law, I began laying the foundation for a particular form of legal architecture. Taking inspiration from St. Thomas Aquinas’ description of God as the artificer or architect, I argued that the Law is a multi storied edifice comprised of different types of law. I explored the nature of the foundational law, the Eternal Law and its relationship to justice. I considered how the frame of Natural Law is erected upon or participates in the foundation of Eternal Law. Finally, I discussed some of the most …
The Declaration Of Independence And Immigration In The United States Of America,
2011
Kennesaw State University
The Declaration Of Independence And Immigration In The United States Of America, Kenneth M. White
Faculty Articles
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, and immigration policy has always been controversial. The history of immigration in the United States is contrasted in this article with a normative standard of naturalization (immigration policy) based on the Declaration of Independence. The current immigration debate fits within a historical pattern that pits an unrestricted right of immigration (the left) against exclusive, provincial politics (the right). Both sides are simultaneously correct and incorrect. A moderate policy on immigration is possible if the debate in the United States gets an infusion of what Thomas Paine called "common sense."
Phenomenology As Eschatological Materialism,
2011
Dordt College
Phenomenology As Eschatological Materialism, Neal Deroo
Faculty Work Comprehensive List
No abstract provided.
A Imparcialidade Da Ciência E As Responsabilidades Dos Cientistas,
2011
Swarthmore College
A Imparcialidade Da Ciência E As Responsabilidades Dos Cientistas, Hugh Lacey
Philosophy Faculty Works
This article, making use of a distinction between endorsing and accepting a claim, discusses the responsibilities that scientists incur in the light of the necessity to act, formulate policy, and to design regulations pertinent to technoscientific innovations, when decisions will inevitably be based, in important part, on claims that are only endorsed (and so implicated in compromises with ethical/social values), and not accepted in accordance with impartiality. Then, after introducing the notion of "impartial investigation", I conclude that the central responsibility of scientists is to engage in impartial investigation, and that this requires, not the exclusion of ethical and social …
Epistemic Closure,
2011
Swarthmore College
Stanley Cavell And Literary Studies: Consequences Of Skepticism,
2011
Swarthmore College
Stanley Cavell And Literary Studies: Consequences Of Skepticism, Richard Thomas Eldridge, B. Rhie
Philosophy Faculty Works
No abstract provided.
An Unlikely Marriage: Theorizing The Corporeality Of Language At The Crossroads Of Thoreau, Heidegger And The Botanical World,
2011
Edith Cowan University
An Unlikely Marriage: Theorizing The Corporeality Of Language At The Crossroads Of Thoreau, Heidegger And The Botanical World, John Charles Ryan
Research outputs 2011
This paper examines the relationship between language, particularly language that expresses aesthetic experiences of plant life, and corporeality. The theorisation of language is a keystone towards conceptualising participatory relationships between people and the botanical world. A comparative reading of the works of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Heidegger provides a framework for approaching language as embodied participation. Despite political differences, Thoreau and Heidegger shared a mutual conviction about the generative powers of language. Thoreau’s literary practice partly involved immersion in places such as swamps and forests. Fittingly, Heidegger’s explication of Rilke’s concept of “the Open” mirrors the participatory aesthetics of …
Plants As Objects: Challenges For An Aesthetics Of Flora,
2011
Edith Cowan University
Plants As Objects: Challenges For An Aesthetics Of Flora, John Charles Ryan
Research outputs 2011
This paper presents the conceptual challenges to an aesthetic model of living plants based in embodied interaction with flora through smell, taste, touch, sound and sight. I argue that the science of aesthetics is deterministically visual. Drawing from theories of landscape aesthetics put forth by Carlson and Berleant, I outline four primary obstacles to an embodied aesthetics: plants as objects of sight, plants as objects of art, plants as objects of disinterestedness and plants as objects of scientific discourse. A multi-sensorial aesthetics of flora requires auto-centric proximity and degrees of intersubjectivity between the appreciator and the appreciated plant that raise …
Anthoethnography: Emerging Research Into The Culture Of Flora, Aesthetic Experience Of Plants, And The Wildflower Tourism Of The Future,
2011
Edith Cowan University
Anthoethnography: Emerging Research Into The Culture Of Flora, Aesthetic Experience Of Plants, And The Wildflower Tourism Of The Future, John C. Ryan
Research outputs 2011
How does anthoethnography contribute to the development of understandings of aesthetic experiences of wild plants and wildflower tourism? As exemplified by the quintessentially aesthetic industry of wildflower tourism, the culture of flora represents diverse engagements between people and plants. Such complex engagements offer further avenues for research. The critical methodology of anthoethnography has been one such approach to circumscribing the values, practices and rhetoric of wildflower tourism. Interviews have revealed perceptual phenomena such as the orchid and everlasting effects as two counterpoised examples of the differences between visual aesthetic values occurring in the region. For appreciators such as Tinker, botanical …
Cultural Botany: Toward A Model Of Transdisciplinary, Embodied, And Poetic Research Into Plants,
2011
Edith Cowan University
Cultural Botany: Toward A Model Of Transdisciplinary, Embodied, And Poetic Research Into Plants, John C. Ryan
Research outputs 2011
Since the eighteenth century, the study of plants has reflected an increasingly mechanized and technological view of the natural world that divides the humanities and the natual sciences. In broad terms, this article proposes a context for research into flora through an interrogation of existing literature addressing a rapprochement between ways to knowledge. The natureculture dichotomy, and more specifically the plant-to-human sensory disjunction, follows a parallel course of resolution to the schism between objective (technical, scientific, reductionistic, visual) and subjective (emotive, artistic, relational, multi-sensory) forms of knowledge. The foundations of taxonomic botany, as well as the allied fields of environmental …
Plants, Processes, Places: Sensory Intimacy And Poetic Enquiry,
2011
Edith Cowan University
Plants, Processes, Places: Sensory Intimacy And Poetic Enquiry, John Ryan
Research outputs 2011
As an arts-based research approach, poetic enquiry has been theorised and applied recently in the social sciences and in education. In this article, I extend its usage to eco-critical studies of Australian flora and fauna. The Southwest corner of Western Australia affords opportunities to deploy arts-based methodologies, including field poetry, for celebrating the natural heritage of a region of distinguished biodiversity. I suggest that lyric practices in places such as Lesueur National Park and Anstey-Keane Damplands in southern Perth can catalyse embodied engagements with flora. The outcome of these practices is the invocation of the multiple senses— including the proximities …
Philosophy For Teenagers: Finding New Relevence In Old Concepts,
2011
Edith Cowan University
Philosophy For Teenagers: Finding New Relevence In Old Concepts, Andrea Monteath
Theses: Doctorates and Masters
In 2008, the Curriculum Council of Western Australia launched a formal curriculum of philosophy and ethics education for upper secondary students. This thesis is a writing project that provides a new teaching text in support of this course. The thesis is composed of two components, a creative project and an essay. The creative project is a work of non-fiction entitled, Philosophy for Teenagers: Finding New Relevance in Old Concepts, and has been researched and designed employing the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) Philosophy and Ethics course model. Philosophy for Teenagers aims to provide an innovative introduction to concepts such …
Saving Morality: Why We Cannot, And Why We Must,
2011
Bucknell University
Saving Morality: Why We Cannot, And Why We Must, Jon Drake
Honors Theses
Philosophers and laymen alike have often used morality to invite misconceptions of human life into ethics, and also of ethics into human life. The Kant/Williams discourse provides a rich backdrop on which to consider these misconceptions. But the misconceptionsof morality involved are just as numerous and just as serious. One thing that the Kant/Williams discourse shows is this: that ethics can be neither contained by nor cultivated without morality. Though much of Williams’ critique of Kantian morality is quite astute, thephilosophical and ethical wisdoms of morality abound in spite of these. Morality understands the fundamental condition of moral loss, and …
