Digital Commons Network^™

2019: Religious Freedom Laws, C. J. Rhodes, Eleanor Ruffner, Richard Howorth, Sarah Moses, Matthew Hall, Amy Mcdowell

Policy Talks

The common reading resource (see additional documents below) for this event is the Honors thesis of Religion major Samuel Brassell, "The Baptist Tradition and Religious Freedom: Recent Trajectories." This 2019 thesis provides an analysis of religious freedom laws in the state of Mississippi. We encourage all attendees to read this common reading resource prior to the event for a more focused conversation during the Q and A session and during the reception.

Who Is Baby Girl? A Philosophical Discussion Of The Legal Obligation To Define Authenticity, Madison Hayes

Honors College Theses

In the later twentieth century, American law attempted to address legacies of unjust treatment of Native Americans though legislation like the Indian Child Welfare Act, which requires considering Native American identity in child custody decisions. This created some complex legal questions about exactly what constituted Native identity. The Supreme Court case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, exposed a number of problems that arose from determining authentic tribal identity. To offer a more precise analysis of the problem of identity in American law, I will engage in philosophical investigations into the nature of authenticity, bringing in the work of the …

Morality From Meaninglessness In Simone De Beauvoir's "The Ethics Of Ambiguity", Victoria L. Riggs

Honors College Theses

In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, French existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir delves into the human condition and the possibilities for morality that arise from her understanding of such. Beginning with the assumption that there is no externally objective meaning or value to humanity, Beauvoir presents humanity as fundamentally free to create meaning and values for themselves. Beauvoir argues that humans are all simultaneously free to choose, yet limited in our choice by the facts of our situations, a paradoxical state of being she labels as our fundamental ambiguity. It is because of this ambiguity, she asserts, that …

Review Of Environmental Humanities And Theologies: Ecoculture, Literature And The Bible, By Rod Giblett, Sam Mickey

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This is a review of Rod Giblett's Environmental Humanities and Theologies: Ecoculture, Literature and the Bible, published by Routledge in 2018. The review notes Giblett's contributions to the field in tracing wetlands iconography through theological and literary discourses in landmark works in the Anglo-American tradition, Judeo-Christian doctrine, and Australian Aboriginal myth.

The Profoundest Problem Of Ethics: About The Possibility Of A Profound Solution, Pol Pardini Gispert

LSU Master's Theses

My thesis is concerned with the prospects for finding a solution to what Henry Sidgwick called the Profoundest Problem of Ethics. I begin by analysing Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics to reveal the assumptions about rationality that led Sidgwick to claim that Ethics is plagued with a profoundest problem. I then evaluate the capacity of seven accounts – those of Derek Parfit, Roger Crisp, David Brink, David Phillips, William Frankena, Owen McLeod, and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer – to solve the Profoundest Problem of Ethics; arguing that not one is able to solve it. In the conclusion, I …

William Of Ockham's Divine Command Theory, Matthew Dee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There was a long-standing consensus that Ockham was a Divine Command Theorist - one who holds that all of morality is ultimately grounded in God's commands. But contrary to this long-standing consensus, three arguments have recently surfaced that Ockham is not a divine command theorist. The thesis of this dissertation is that, contrary to these three arguments, Ockham is a divine command theorist. The first half of the dissertation is an analysis of the three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for virtuous action, whereas the second half is a response to the three contemporary arguments that Ockham isn't a divine …

In Celebration Of Notebooks (December 2018) By Schubert M. Ogden: Avoiding The Partialist Fallacy In Theology, Especially In Liberation Theology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

As an ethicist, and especially a theological ethicist, and more especially as a liberation theologian, what I most appreciate about Schubert M. Ogden’s “revisionary theology”* is his appreciation of Charles Hartshorne’s neoclassical theology, including especially panentheism (all-in-theos-ism), and his insistence that such appreciation is essential to adequately formulated theology and ethics, including liberation theology. And insofar as Ogden is contributing something essential to liberation theology, he might be called a neoclassical liberation theologian, or at least a wanna-be-helpful neoclassical theologian.

Confucian Role Ethics: Issues Of Naming, Translation, And Interpretation, Sarah Mattice

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

This chapter explores the arguments behind considering Confucian ethics as a kind of "role ethics", as articulated by Roger Ames and others. I see at least three sets of concerns that animate the reasoning behind Confucian role ethics: naming, translation, and interpretation. In terms of naming, I discuss this project as an example of zhengming 正名, or proper naming, which is a common Confucian ethical project. Confucian thinkers are often preoccupied with appropriate categorization, one species of which is naming. The naming of Confucian ethics as role ethics, I argue, is not only consistent with but is situated in a …

A Further Look At Explanatory Potency Of Constructive- Engagement Strategy: Replies To Soraj Hongladarom And Wei Sun, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Sino-African Philosophy: A Re-“Constructive Engagement”, Paul A. Dottin

Comparative Philosophy

“Constructive-Engagement” is a meta-philosophical and meta-methodological “strategy” suggested by Chinese and comparative philosophy scholar Bo Mou for analyzing and enriching philosophical exchange. In this paper, I will use this strategy towards an end, on a scale, and with a topic not attempted before. I will use it as a “template” for redesigning a poorly developing area of cross-cultural comparison I call Sino-African reflective studies (SARS). My goal in this work-in-progress is to design a plan for reconstituting SARS as Sino-African philosophy (SAP), an inclusive yet coherent field of research and innovation unified through organizing principles. I will design the overhaul …

Mackie's Arguement For The Infinite Man, Abigail J. Basile

Quaerens Deum: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal for Philosophy of Religion

Theists and non-theists alike have toiled with the characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God and how they may or may not be contradictory with the existence of evil. Some philosophers, such as J. L. Mackie, have decided that God and evil cannot coexist, mainly because the existence of evil means that any God is unable to keep evil and suffering away from His beloved creation, and such a limited God is no God at all. But Mackie’s argument rests on flawed foundation. Mankind is necessarily finite because even the infinite God cannot do the logically impossible and create the infinite—nothing infinite …

Truth-Makers And The "Grounding Objection" To Molinism, Tyler Crown

Quaerens Deum: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal for Philosophy of Religion

One of the most discussed topics on the nature of God, in Christian circles today, is the subject of God’s knowledge. There are a few popular positions today that are engaged in a serious debate as to what the true biblical and philosophical position on the nature of God’s knowledge is. One such position, which has become increasingly popular and has found support among many leading Christian philosophers, such as Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Flint, and William Lane Craig, is called Molinism. While Molinism does have an abundance of supporters, there are many detractors as well. Calvinist’s, Thomists and open theists …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality …

Promoting Spiritual Wellness On A College Campus Through Community Based Participatory Research, Regina Idoate, Melissa Tibbits, Mark Gilbert, Michele Marie Desmarais, Christopher Fisher, Alicia Bower, Daniel J. Shipp, Joe Kaminski

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This case study describes an initiative to promote spiritual wellness on a public state college campus and demonstrates evidence of the effectiveness of taking a community-based approach. We employed the community readiness model to develop an initiative to promote spiritual wellness in a Midwestern state university. We recruited informants through purposeful sampling and conducted interviews, both pre- and post-initiative launch. Baseline data was used to inform initiative efforts. The community’s level of readiness to promote spiritual wellness increased from stage three, vague awareness, at baseline to stage six, initiation, at follow up. Although these findings are specific to our community, …

Promoting Spiritual Wellness On A College Campus Through Community Based Participatory Research, Regina Idoate, Melissa Tibbits, Mark Gilbert, Michele Marie Desmarais, Christopher M. Fisher, Alicia Bower, Daniel J. Shipp, Joe Kaminski

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This case study describes an initiative to promote spiritual wellness on a public state college campus and demonstrates evidence of the effectiveness of taking a community-based approach. We employed the community readiness model to develop an initiative to promote spiritual wellness in a Midwestern state university. We recruited informants through purposeful sampling and conducted interviews, both pre- and post-initiative launch. Baseline data was used to inform initiative efforts. The community’s level of readiness to promote spiritual wellness increased from stage three, vague awareness, at baseline to stage six, initiation, at follow up. Although these findings are specific to our community, …

Ua101/1 Society For Values In Higher Education Bylaws / Charter, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Bylaws and charter documents created by The Society for Values in Higher Education

Ua101/5 Society For Values In Higher Education Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications of The Society for Values in Higher Education.

Whither Rose?: Philosophy, Theology, And The West, Elijah Perry

Philosophy Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Is Diversity Possible In An Integrative Psychology-Transpersonal As A Whole Person-All Person Approach, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

The Metaphysics Of The Collective Unconscious, Oscar B. Jablon

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis shows how the metaphysical features of the Jungian collective unconscious can be demystified by viewing the collective unconscious through the lens of functionalism. The features of the collective unconscious that will be investigated in this thesis are the possibility of the collective unconscious being present in every person, the archetypes as being the formal feature of some of our modes of perception, psychic energy, and synchronicity. By admitting functionalism, Jung doesn't need to posit synchronicity to explain how it is possible for the archetypes to interact with the body. This is because functionalism can view mental states as …

Participatory Research Methods In Transpersonal Studies: Introduction To The Special Topic Section, Olga R. Sohmer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

Logical Instrumentalism And Concatenation, Teresa Kouri Kissel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Logical pluralism is the theory that there is more than one right logic. Logical instrumentalism is the view that a logic is a correct logic if it can be used to fruitfully pursue some deductive inquiry. Logical instrumentalism is a version of logical pluralism, since more than one logic can be used fruitfully. In this paper, I will show that a logical instrumentalist must accept linear logic as a correct logic, since linear logic is useful for studying natural language syntax. I further show that this means that the logical instrumentalist must accept a wide range of connectives, in particular …

Science, Social Critique, And The Need For Ethics, Peter Woodford, Alecia Carter

Animal Sentience

Marino & Merskin’s target article on the cognitive and psychological capacities of sheep commendably aims to use science to critique human practice. However, the article fails to make specific recommendations about how human-sheep relations should change going forward. We also underscore two problematic assumptions highlighted by other commentators: (1) that cognitive complexity is important to the case for the moral status of non-human animals and (2) that the way humans use and treat animals is caused by our conception of animals’ capacities. Scientists should engage more with philosophy and ethical theory to articulate the implications of animal capacities for human …

The Philosopher's Journey: A Chapter In Kindness And Animals, Vaughn E. Sayers

UNF Undergraduate Capstone Projects and Honors Theses

We each are presented with a choice; do we remain in the cave of ignorance or embark on the philosopher’s journey. Your choice will determine the way in which you interpret this paper. However, I will confidently make the assumption that you, like myself, desire to embrace an existence guided by the light of wisdom. This thesis is one of many chapters in the philosopher’s journey, dealing with animals and (cutting through the jargon) kindness. I have found that a lot of scholarship on animal ethics acknowledges a truth, but does not acknowledge that the application of such a truth …

A Reading Of Phaedrus's Eulogy In Plato's Symposium, Benjamin Goodman

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis provides a reading of Phaedrus's eulogy in Plato's Symposium.

The Life Of The Other: An Analysis Of Puerto Rico Within The United Nations, Angelica Roman

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

"Not A Simple Matter: Rejecting Materialism As A Solution To The Mind-Body Problem", Andrew Coyle, Steve Parchment Dr., Minh Nguyen Dr.

Posters-at-the-Capitol

"Not a Simple Matter: Rejecting Materialism as a Solution to the Mind-Body Problem"

By Andrew Coyle

Mentored by Dr. Steve Parchment and Dr. Minh Nguyen

Department of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies Many scholars accept materialism as an adequate solution to the mind-body problem. However, acceptance of materialism creates more problems than it purports to solve. This poster provides a background to the mind-body problem. This poster explores materialism as a potential solution to the mind-body problem. After reviewing materialism, it is rejected as an adequate solution to the mind-body problem. The poster concludes by positing property dualism as an …

Physician Assisted Dying As An Extension Of Healing, Zoe I. Marinacci

Student Publications

The role of a physician is to provide care for those who seek their assistance. Lisa Yount attributes the most ancient statement about this activity to the Hippocratic Oath. Many doctors, in fact, still take this oath, part of which reads, “I will [not] give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to that effect,” (8). This vow is still widely considered to be the ultimate statement of the physician’s moral creed (Yount 8). Debate over whether active physician assisted dying is an extension of healing ability or a violation of their …

A Neurotheological Approach To Spiritual Awakening, Andrew B. Newberg, Mark R. Waldman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A neurotheological approach suggests an analysis of spiritual awakening experiences by combining phenomenological data with neuroscience. This paper presents a synthesis combining information on the thoughts, feelings, and experiences associated with spiritual awakening experiences and neurophysiological data, primarily from neuroimaging studies, to help assess which brain structures might be associated with these experiences. Brain structures involved with emotions correlate with emotional responses while areas of the brain associated with the sense of self appear to correlate with the key feature of these experiences in which an individual loses the sense of self and feels intimately connected with God, universal consciousness, …