Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reasons To Care About Reasons For Action: A Response To Paul S. Davies, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In eschewing the specialty-standards of neuro-babble and philosophical neologism, Paul S. Davies (2016) argues with courageous clarity. He connects issues in neuroscience and epistemology to problems surrounding agency. I agree with many of his claims, but I think they need more context and precision for application. This is because his argument as it stands now affects only a limited set of theories, and a hidden modality in thesis 3 tempers his argument further. And perhaps most urgently, if his theory fails to address “top-down”1 mental processes or social dimensions of knowledge, his argument fails to meet even his own goals …

Why Animal Welfarism Continues To Fail, Lori Marino

Animal Sentience

Welfarism prioritizes human interests over the needs of nonhuman animals. Despite decades of welfare efforts other animals are mostly worse off than ever before, being subjected to increasingly invasive and harmful treatments, especially in the factory farming and biomedical research areas. A legal rights-based approach is essential in order for other animals to be protected from the varying ethical whims of our species.

The Role Of Explicit Genre Pedagogy And Genre Awareness: Investigation Student Perceptions Of Instructor Feedback In Intermediate Composition, Jule Thomas Thomas

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the role of explicit RGS pedagogy in an Intermediate Composition course for aiding in students development of genre awareness in their genre-based writing. I argue that students acquire genre awareness when provided with discipline specific, genre and assignment-based instructor feedback, ongoing moments for revision, and reflective writing. From this perspective, the project demonstrates how explicit pedagogy in the form of genre-based instructor feedback, scaffolded assignments, and ongoing moments of revisions provides students with the possibility to develop disciplinary genre awareness in their writing. First, I provided a review of RGS literature in order to argue that a …

Novelistic Intimacies: Reading And Writing In The Late Age Of Print, Vincent Michael Haddad

Wayne State University Dissertations

In Novelistic Intimacies, I consider the political and aesthetic structure of intimacy in a diverse set of narrative forms produced in the so-called digital age, or the late age of print—from encyclopedic and metafictional novels to graphic storytelling and Afrofuturist fantasy. As an organizing principle, intimacy forces us to consider, at once, how novelists have attempted to restore language and narrative with personal meaning after postmodernism—often termed New Sincerity or post-irony. At the same time, intimacy allows us to see how novelists have experimented on the materiality of the book and the eroticism of language to invent new, impersonal modes …

V.1 2016-2017, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2016-2017 issue contains articles on Kara Walker, Women's March, "Look at Art, Get Paid" program, #pizzagate, the Mutual Encounters exhibition, and smartphones.

Allen D. Breck Award Winner (2016)

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

This year’s recipient is Samantha Dressel, doctoral candidate in English at the University of Rochester.

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Small Mid-Tudor Chronicles And Popular History: 1540-1560, Barrett L. Beer

Quidditas

This essay examines twenty-two editions of little-studied small Mid-Tudor chronicles that were published by printers at Canterbury and London. They demonstrate the important role of printers in historical scholarship and offer a significantly different perspective on English history than the better-known, larger contemporary works of Robert Fabyan, Edward Hall, and Thomas Cooper. The chronicles also shed light on the readership of historical works by non-elite readers who presumably could not afford larger and more expensive chronicles. The short chronicles present a simplified view of the past, avoid propagating the well-known Tudor myths including the tyranny of Richard III, and demonstrate …

Master William’S Hamnet: A New Theory On Shakespeare’S Sonnets, Juan Daniel Millán

Quidditas

This essay suggests the Fair Youth in Shakespeare’s Sonnets is Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, to whom he later dedicated the cycle. Nevertheless, the larger claims of the essay are independent of the biographical details of Shakespeare’s life, and even independent of the particular ordering of the Sonnets as they have come down to us.

"All Things Denote There Is A God": Platonic Metaphysics, Thomistic Analogy, And The Creation Of A Christian Philosophy, Neil Longo

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

In Raphael's School of Athens, Plato famously points upward, while Aristotle brings his hand forward, parallel to the ground. Western thought has positioned itself between these two poles. Its dual purpose was to explain what was and explore what could be. This distinction worked its way into Christianity, which quickly divided itself between the spiritual and the physical, the church militant and the church triumphant, the city of God and the city of man. The audacious goal of St. Thomas Aquinas was to synthesize these urges in such a way as to logically describe the Kingdom of God using the …

“The Man In The Shyppe That Showeth The Unstableness Of The World”: Social Memory And The Early Modern English Sailor, 1475-1650, Vincent V. Patarino Jr., Ph.D.

Quidditas

Both medieval and early modern English writers described the tumultuous, raging sea as the epitome of chaos and evil. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both manuscript and print documents connected seething storms with the power and influence of evil, especially the devil. As the Reformation advanced, this link included Satan’s supposed minions, witches. In addition to these texts, woodcut illustrations confirmed in very stark terms, a direct association between the devil, the sea, and sailors’ supposedly anti-religious behavior and beliefs. One powerful image revealed “the man in the shyppe” tormented by the devil; others depicted the devil steering a …

Delno C. West Award Winner (2016)

Quidditas

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

This year’s recipient is Ruth Frost, Associate Professor of History, the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, BC.

Richard Iii: Beyond The Mystery, Daniel Hobbins

Quidditas

He is not the likeliest theme for an American undergraduate classroom: his reign lasted barely two years; he contributed nothing of lasting significance to history; he is more memorable for his spectacular final defeat than for any victory; he was accused of murdering children; and he was after all an English king, as far removed as possible from the typical experience of an American undergraduate. Even the times he lived in are against him. In the immortal words of Mark Twain, his century was “the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages.”1 Yet he continues to …

“Like To My Soft Sex”: Female Revenge And Violence In The Fatal Contract, Samantha Dressel

Quidditas

The Fatal Contract by William Heminge is not a good play. Its critical afterlife is essentially non-existent, with Fredson Thayer Bowers being one of the only critics to discuss it, criticizing its lack of “inspiration” and “ethical spirit.”1 I argue however, that the play is both inventive and moral, despite its many derivative aspects and narrative foibles. I suggest a new reading of the play as deeply innovative in terms of gender and revenge. Bowers criticizes the play’s morality because of the ultimate exoneration of Chrotilda, the central revengeress. The play can be reinterpreted and partially redeemed by understanding Chrotilda’s …

War As Morally Unintelligible: Sovereign Agency And The Limits Of Kantian Autonomy, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Kant’s treatment of war is usually discussed as part of his political philosophy or philosophy of history. In contrast, this essay locates these discussions in direct reference to major elements of his moral philosophy: autonomy, the categorical imperative, and the moral relationality of the kingdom of ends. Within this context, Kant’s account of war, particularly in writings from the 1790s, can be read as affirming war as morally unintelligible: It is the expression of a collective withdrawal from the constitutive relationality of moral community. This results in a radical disparity in the exercise of moral autonomy by the sovereign agency …

A Moral Problem For Difficult Art, Antony Aumann

Journal Articles

Works of art can be difficult in several ways. One important way is by making us face up to unsettling truths. Such works typically receive praise. I maintain, however, that sometimes they deserve moral censure. The crux of my argument is that, just as we have a right to know the truth in certain contexts, so too we have a right not to know it. Provided our ignorance does not harm or seriously endanger others, the decision about whether to know the truth ought to be left to us. Within this limit, therefore, difficult art is morally problematic if it …

Armed Drones: An Age Old Problem Exacerbated By New Technology, Grant H. Frazier

Pomona Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the history behind and the use of militarized drones in modern day conflicts, and to conclude whether the use of these machines, with special attention to the United States, is legal, ethical, and morally defensible. In achieving the aforementioned goals, shortcomings of current policy surrounding drone warfare will be highlighted, acting as the catalyst for a proposal for changes to be made to better suit legal, ethical, and moral considerations. The proposal of a policy to help us work with armed drones is due to the fact that this thesis acknowledges that …

Defending The Social Good Theory Of Punishment, Sydney R. Scott

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper attempts to justify punishment on the grounds that it is a benefit to the person being punished. I accept the basic premise of a previous theory of punishment, the Moral Good Theory (MGT), which states that we cannot harm anyone. Thus, punishment can only be justified if it is not a harm. The MGT claims that punishment is beneficial in that it provides a moral education to the offender. I reject the idea that punishment is morally educational and instead propose a new theory which revises and strengthens the MGT, accounting for its flaws. This new theory, the …

Spirited Folk, Emily J. Oldham

A with Honors Projects

For a student honors project, the author composed a one-act play providing a commentary on American folklore and the effects of the spiritualism movement of the mid-1800s on American Culture.

The Other Face Of Catharine Cockburn, Christopher Mckee

Honors Theses

This paper explores the subtle nuances between John Locke and Catharine Trotter Cockburn, with an emphasis on Cockburn's ideas on space and the Great Chain of Being. I argue that Cockburn meshes Lockean empiricism and 18th-Century Neoplatonism to create an idiosyncratic approach to the ideas of her time. I also show that Cockburn's method can offer novel insights on Locke's thinking matter.

The Somewhere We Wish Were Nowhere: Dystopian Realities And (Un)Democratic Imaginaries, Benjamin B. Taylor

Senior Independent Study Theses

How do political practices influence mass culture? Conversely, how does mass culture influence political practice? This project addresses these questions by turning to the concepts of utopia and dystopia. Imagined utopic and dystopic visions express both the hopes and anxieties of the societies producing them. Dystopias also highlight the mechanisms of power that function within particular social orders. Through readings of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I demonstrate how utopia and dystopia function and how we can respond to dystopic realities by theorizing solutions that are more conducive to the …

The Mechanics And Fixed Operations Of Human Experience, James Dominick Di Netta

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper will use the natural laws of the universe and amassed evidence to support a dynamic systems theory approach to explain the mechanics and fixed operations of the human experience taking place inside a causally determined universe without the possibility of free will. By reductionary methods, the universe and all its’ contents, including human agents, will be exemplified as complex dynamic systems. In so doing, the human experience is reduced to being comprised of information acting and reacting with other information existing in the universe, specifically ideas. Allowing ideas to take on a physical manifestation shows how the feedback …

A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) describes the neural system involved in human pain experience in an excellent fashion but then suggests that only that complete system can generate the experience of pain. Thus animals without all components will not feel pain. This argument has been refuted in the past by analogy to vision where it is clear that a broad range of taxa, vertebrate and invertebrate, have good visual abilities albeit with completely different central nervous systems and receptors. This known counterargument to Key’s main idea is not mentioned in the target article. Further criteria that might indicate pain and studies examining these …

Rewriting, Recapturing, Reenvisioning: Writing Assessment Revisited In The Hermeneutic Sphere, Judith Ann Fourzan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation explores the use of hermeneutics in reconsidering the role of writing assessment in composition. The traditional view of writing assessment is negative. In order to change this traditional view and enable composition faculty to utilize writing assessment and a valuable and necessary tool, a hermeneutic sphere offers the best framework upon which to recast writing assessment as part of composition and writing. A hermeneutic sphere is an interpretive methodology that allows for the investigation of any and all aspects of the subject at hand - in this case, writing assessment. The hermeneutic sphere works much like a heuristic …

A Theory Of Animal Oppression, Sharon Stephania Murillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

American society is characterized by indifference toward the notion of animal rights. Americans are unaware or often ignore the fact that “more than 9,000,000 farm animals die each year in the U.S. and exceeds 70 billion globally.” More than 6,000,000 animals die every hour, and die every second in slaughterhouses around the world. These numbers reflect the reality of American meat consumption. In this thesis, I will argue that individuals often ignore the impact of animal exploitation and as the “oppressors”, such that we do not even realize that we are oppressing animals and committing an injustice.We have the false …

Music And What It Is Like: What A Phenomenology Of Perception Tells Us About The Experience Of Music, Chavah Schwartz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op.125 is one of his most brilliant and influential musical compositions. However, at the time that he writes his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven is completely deaf. Beethoven exhibits a unique situation where his mind is unaffected in its ability to continue creating new music even though his body is effected in its ability to experience music. Theories of mind, like reductive physicalism and non-reductive dualism, offer a way of understanding Beethoven's conscious experiences of music in relation to physical or non-physical information about mental phenomena associated with conscious experience. Yet, these theories …

How The Validity Of The Parallel Inference Is Possible: From The Ancient Mohist Diagnose To A Modern Logical Treatment Of Its Semantic-Syntactic Structure, Bo Mou

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of how the validity of the parallel inference (as a type of deductive reasoning) is possible in view of its deep semantic-syntactic structure. I first present a philosophical interpretation of the ancient Mohist treatment of the parallel inference concerning its semantic-syntactic structure. Then, to formally and accurately capture the later Mohist point in this connection for the sake of giving a general condition for the validity of the parallel inference, I suggest a modern logical treatment via an expanded predicate logic account.

The Groundwork For Food Criticism: How Normative Aesthetic Judgments Are Possible With Regards To Tastes, Jacob Caldwell

Senior Independent Study Theses

Issues of tastes and smells are often relegated to an ancillary or minor rank of importance in the domain of aesthetics, if recognized at all as legitimate objects of aesthetic inquiry and experience. This essay aims, firstly, to carve out a space of legitimacy for the aesthetics of tastes, and secondly, to clarify what aesthetic inquiry with regards to tastes must look like. In order for the above to be decisively established, the following positions will be argued for: (1) tastes are real, (2) our ordinary or scientific conception of what tastes are, upon which our reasons for doubting the …

Thoughts On Poetry, Alexandra B. Gustafson

Senior Independent Study Theses

The subject of this three-part project is poetry. More specifically, the project is a collection of thoughts about poetry, the language of poetry, and poetry-as-philosophy.

In its introductory section can be found a description of two competing accounts of language: referent theory, and meaning-is-use. While the latter seems a more complete picture on the whole, or so I assert, one must wonder: does it account for all the ways we use language? Specifically, can it account for the language of our main subject—poetry?

I assert not. In this vein, the second part of the project attempts to do what …

Why Is It Good To Stop At A Red Light_ The Basis Of Authority And Obligation, Brian Mccall

Faculty Articles

Throughout history, some have questioned whether the authority exercised by some over others is consistent with human nature. Is it possible for a law made by one human being to bind the conscience of another, or is such a claim merely tyranny? If such a power to bind to laws made by humans is justified, what is its scope? The answers to these related questions explored in this Article are both descriptive and normative. This Article explains the nature of authority and the extent of the obligation to obey the law as well as explains how the architecture of natural …