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Full-Text Articles in Ancient Philosophy

Nietzsche And Socrates: Reflections Of Redefined Virtue In Greek Tragedy, Kyle M. Lowry May 2026

Nietzsche And Socrates: Reflections Of Redefined Virtue In Greek Tragedy, Kyle M. Lowry

Senior Honors Theses

The works of Friedrich Nietzsche were used to study how Greek Tragedy was “born” and “died,” particularly in relation to the rise of Socratic philosophy in Ancient Greece. The intoxicated “Dionysian” and disciplinary, artistic “Apollinian,” are the elements Nietzsche claims encompass and catalyze human experience; the former containing the primal nature of the Being, and the latter containing the ordering through which identity is formed and art is created. Tragedy, the art form perfectly balancing these two elements was “born” within the conditions of a Dionysian Pessimism, by which the inevitable life of suffering was redeemed aesthetically. Socrates introduced rationality …


The Story Game: Dissuading The Abolition Of Man With Narrative Intellectual Virtue & The Hunger Games, Camille Bewley Apr 2026

The Story Game: Dissuading The Abolition Of Man With Narrative Intellectual Virtue & The Hunger Games, Camille Bewley

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

Relativism in modern America is leading society toward the fruition of C.S. Lewis’ warning of the abolition of man. This nation once founded on freedom inches closer to the dystopia which Suzanne Collins depicts in her Hunger Games series. This paper recognizes the growing need for humanity to realign with truth and universal values, first by reorienting itself to narratives. Through intellectual virtues of understanding and prudence as defined by Aristotle, society can translate stories into their inherent purpose; seeing truth and reality within the bottle of imagination. Stories contain the answers, narratives are the way humanity subscribes to reality. …


The Hypocrisy Of The Wizards—A Proposal To Correct Incentives In Higher Education Loan Financing, Caden Benedict Apr 2026

The Hypocrisy Of The Wizards—A Proposal To Correct Incentives In Higher Education Loan Financing, Caden Benedict

School of Public Policy Capstones

This paper explores the origins of the student loan debt crisis and proposes tying university incentives to graduates' repayment plans and disclosing median earnings for degrees before students apply. Specifically, while there are numerous factors explaining why the price of education has increased dramatically since the 1970s, this paper proposes solutions that will specifically target university moral hazards by requiring universities fund: (1) the current subsidies to federal student loan repayments under income-driven plans as the House of Representatives intended before the Senate removed "risk-sharing," and (2) bankruptcy law discharge amounts. Moreover, requiring universities to disclose the median earnings of …


The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright Aug 2025

The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through a selection of and close reading of key passages, I offer an interpretation of Hamlet that seeks to illuminate the play as an important work of moral philosophy, and to situate the play within a strand of moral philosophy named moral perfectionism by Stanley Cavell. Indeed, Hamlet is a masterpiece of Renaissance drama, but when read with attention to moral perfectionism, the play yields additional layers of meaning. Hamlet is a “philosophical drama” that navigates the “moral calling of philosophy”—a text that seems to, almost uncannily, elicit the audience to think reflectively, to ask fundamental human questions along …


Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves May 2025

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.


The Cost Of Happiness: The Implications Of Utilitarianism On Economics, Adam Opp Dec 2024

The Cost Of Happiness: The Implications Of Utilitarianism On Economics, Adam Opp

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Bentham and Mill proposed the utilitarian theory, which has moral and economic applications. Bentham and Mill differed slightly in their ideologies, as Mill critiqued Bentham and argued that man is in a separate category from beasts. To assess this, one must study human nature and if man really is different from the beasts. To this end, utilitarianism will be discussed, but also Aristotle’s discussion on virtue, the magnanimous man, and generosity. The next critical area to discuss is what differentiates humans from beasts, and if humans are distinct. Several characteristics that differentiate men from beasts include mental, psychological, moral, and …


Limitation For Liberty: A Commentary On Federalism And The Tenth Amendment, Riley Banker Dec 2024

Limitation For Liberty: A Commentary On Federalism And The Tenth Amendment, Riley Banker

Senior Honors Theses

The concept of Federalism is essential to the very survival of the United States. However, recent decisions by the Supreme Court have illustrated attempts by the federal government to expand its authority and undermine the balance of power created by Federalism. This thesis will explore the concept of Federalism to demonstrate how it can best be protected. First, this thesis will address the origins of Federalism. Second, it will show how the principles of Federalism are manifested within the founding documents of the United States. Finally, this thesis will analyze current events including Supreme Court cases to demonstrate a concerning …


Poetic Justice: Connecting The Modern American Prosecutor To Her Rhetorical Roots, Michael Caves May 2022

Poetic Justice: Connecting The Modern American Prosecutor To Her Rhetorical Roots, Michael Caves

All Dissertations

Poetic Justice: Connecting the Modern American Prosecutor to her Rhetorical Roots explores the gap between rhetoric and the American prosecutor, to eventually advocate for a more creative, inventive trial practice for prosecutors that embraces the spirit and methods of narrative, poetics, and Ulmeric mystories, with the prosecutor’s unique ethical obligations forming the basis of a new prosecutor’s rhetoric. This research opens with an autoethnographic account of the author’s own path to criminal prosecution, to give the reader a sense of the author’s ethos, to identify the shortcomings of rhetorical training in law school pedagogy, and to outline the rhetorical …


Civil Disobedience From A Biblical Perspective, Gabriel Reed May 2021

Civil Disobedience From A Biblical Perspective, Gabriel Reed

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

To say that civil disobedience is a complicated topic is to severely understate the topic. It is a subject matter that has derived many different and disparate opinions, points of view, and public policies. Specifically, within America today, we observe calls for civil disobedience from both sides of the political spectrum, over several divergent political ideals. These issues are, primarily, driven from both sides’ desire to provide protection and provision for the oppressed and those who cannot necessarily speak for themselves. The definition of who is necessarily oppressed and whom their oppressors are varies from person to person, regardless of …


De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn Jul 2020

De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

One fateful day on March 26, 1521, a lowly Augustinian monk was cited to appear before the Diet of Worms.[1] His habit trailed behind him as he braced for the questioning. He was firm, yet troubled. He boldly proclaimed: “If I am not convinced by proofs from Scripture, or clear theological reasons, I remain convinced by the passages which I have quoted from Scripture, and my conscience is held captive by the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract, for it is neither prudent nor right to go against one’s conscience. So help me God, …


Deficient Virtue In The Phaedo, Douglass Reed Jan 2020

Deficient Virtue In The Phaedo, Douglass Reed

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Plato seems to have been pessimistic about how most people stand with regard to virtue. However, unlike the Stoics, he did not conclude that most people are vicious. Rather, as we know from discussions across several dialogues, he countenanced decent ethical conditions that fall short of genuine virtue, which he limited to the philosopher. Despite Plato's obvious interest in this issue, commentators rarely follow his lead by investigating in detail such conditions in the dialogues. When scholars do investigate what kind of virtue, if any, Plato thinks is open to non-philosophers, they typically look to the Republic. But in the …


Aristotle's Quarrel With Socrates: Friendship In Political Thought, John Boersma Mar 2019

Aristotle's Quarrel With Socrates: Friendship In Political Thought, John Boersma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Friendship played an outsized role in ancient political thought in comparison to medieval and modern political philosophies. Most modern scholarship has paid relatively little attention to the role of friendship in ancient political philosophy. Recently, however, scholars are increasingly beginning to investigate classical conceptions of friendship. My dissertation joins this growing interest by examining the importance of friendship in the political thought of Socrates and Aristotle. Specifically, I analyze the divergent approaches that Socrates and Aristotle take to politics and trace these distinct approaches to their differing conceptions of friendship. Through an examination of two Platonic dialogues—the Lysis and the …


Interpreting The Republic As A Protreptic Dialogue, Peter Nielson Moore Jan 2018

Interpreting The Republic As A Protreptic Dialogue, Peter Nielson Moore

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Protreptic is a form of rhetoric, textual and oral in form, which exhorts its recipients to reorient their lives both morally and intellectually. Plato frequently portrays Socrates' use of this rhetoric with interlocutors who are enticed by the moral and political views of figures from Athens' intellectual culture. During these conversations Socrates attempts to persuade his interlocutors to reorient their lives in a way that conforms more closely to his own moral and intellectual practice of philosophy. Plato's depiction of protreptic, however, also exerts a protreptic effect on readers of his dialogues. Plato's writing thus performs a dual function, simultaneously …


The Structure Of Ethics In The Early Christian Church: A Sourcebook, James Edward Shaul Jul 1993

The Structure Of Ethics In The Early Christian Church: A Sourcebook, James Edward Shaul

Open Access Master's Theses (through 2010)

Rather than construct a moral monolith, or argue for any specific ethical position, the goal of this thesis is to lay a foundation upon which an ethical system can be built. The goal of this thesis is to construct a solid base of information that will inform and help direct discussion in Christian ethics. In finding a common base, the Christian community may not necessarily find moral consensus, but it certainly is hoped that is can find common understanding and therefore some measure of intellectual unity. This thesis attempts to examine the actual writings of the early Christian church, describing …


Sumptuary Guidelines In Clement Of Alexandria's Paedagogus And Seneca's Epistulae Morales, Stephen Crump Jan 1989

Sumptuary Guidelines In Clement Of Alexandria's Paedagogus And Seneca's Epistulae Morales, Stephen Crump

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis, Sumptuary Guidelines in Clement of Alexandria's Paedagogus and Seneca's Epistulae Morales, explores the similarities between the ethical outlooks of Clement of Alexandria and Seneca, as well as peculiar emphases of each writer. The thesis is introduced with a discussion of the Christian search for identity within the Roman world, and the influence of Stoicism in formulating this identity. The next two chapters provide the social and intellectual context within which Clement and Seneca respectively wrote. In establishing Clement's backdrop, the cultural, intellectual, and economic settings of Alexandria are examined. The argument is put forth that these various settings …