Philosophy Commons^™

What We Owe To Our Audience: The Hermeneutical Responsibility Of Fiction Creators, Kathryn Wojtkiewicz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this project is to provide a theoretical underpinning for the belief that creators of fiction should dedicate time to diversifying the cast of characters in their fictions, and to avoiding harmful stereotypes when doing so. I establish this as a hermeneutical responsibility: because of the epistemic influence fictions can wield over their audiences, trafficking in harmful stereotypes of marginalized identities (instances of which I call Bad Representation Problems) or excluding marginalized identities entirely (which I call No Representation Problems) from one’s fictions can reinforce harmful beliefs about real people with those identities. The more popular the fiction, …

Aung San Suu Kyi’S Defensive Denial Of The Rohingya Massacre: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Denial And Positive-Image Construction, Idhamsyah Eka Putra, Hema Preya Selvanathan, Ali Mashuri, Cristina Jayme Montiel

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

In December 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accused the Myanmar government of genocide against Rohingya Muslims. Represented by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar authorities denied such accusations. To understand how a political leader can deny ingroup wrongdoings, we unpacked Suu Kyi’s ICJ speech and analyzed her defensive rhetorical style through critical narrative analysis. We aimed to identify and describe the denial strategies Suu Kyi used as well as how she maintained a positive ingroup image to support her position. Our findings showed that Suu Kyi engaged in interpretative denial of genocide by arguing that …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

The Disunity Of Perception, Benjamin Austin Henke

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues for disunity in perceptual processing: rather than outputting to a single ‘centralized’ cognitive system, separate perceptual processing pathways produce different person-level representations for different purposes. I argue that this disunity has important implications for abstract theorizing in the philosophy and cognitive science of perception, for experimental methodology, and for our understanding of the normative role of perception itself. The first three chapters explore models in cognitive neuroscience which support perceptual disunity. In Chapter 1, I argue that a version of Milner and Goodale’s (2006) influential ‘two visual streams hypothesis’ survives its recent empirical challenges. In Chapter 2, …

Parental Incarceration: Negative Impacts And How To Find Reform, Emma Melendrez

McNair Scholars Program

It is no secret that the Criminal Justice System has been put into question and even more so in recent years. The following research raises the thought provoking reality regarding the impacts of parental incarceration, more specifically the behavioral, socioeconomic, and placement impacts, as well as raises the question of if there can be or is a possibility of reform to these systems implemented to protect the well-being of these children. For this I have compiled data from articles spanning from across the United States within the past 20 years (2000-2021).

Who Is A Wise Person? Zhuangzi And Epistemological Discussions Of Wisdom, Shane Ryan, Karyn Lai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay articulates the contribution that the Zhuangzi can make to contemporary epistemological discussions of wisdom. It suggests that wisdom in the Zhuangzi involves, in part, correctly distinguishing the "heavenly" (or the naturally given) from human artifice. It is important for humanity to understand naturally given conditions (e.g., seasons, climate, forces, mortality) to grasp what is within, and what beyond, our initiatives. To enable this, we need to be openly engaged with the world, rather than approach it with rigid convictions about outcomes or goals. We characterize such openness and readiness to engage as an attitude, that of "epistemic humility." …

Vulnerability: Sensation And Subjectivity In The Late Victorian Novel, Michael Shelichach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Vulnerability: Sensation and Subjectivity in the Late Victorian Novel” explores how developments in the science of psychology in the second half of the nineteenth century destabilized the genre of literary realism in Britain. Prominent mid-Victorian psychologists theorized a subject with a highly impressionable brain and nervous system. This new understanding of the mind’s potential vulnerability to external influence impelled contemporary novelists to contemplate the extent to which subjective interiority could be altered by the environment. Through close readings of canonical realist novels like Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone …

Rethinking Thinking About Thinking: Against A Pedagogical Imperative To Cultivate Metacognitive Skills, Lauren R. Alpert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In summaries of “best practices” for pedagogy, one typically encounters enthusiastic advocacy for metacognition. Some researchers assert that the body of evidence supplied by decades of education studies indicates a clear pedagogical imperative: that if one wants their students to learn well, one must implement teaching practices that cultivate students’ metacognitive skills.

In this dissertation, I counter that education research does not impose such a mandate upon instructors. We lack sufficient and reliable evidence from studies that use the appropriate research design to validate the efficacy of metacognitive skill-building interventions (not just evaluate their relationship to learning outcomes). I argue …

Victim Impact: The Manson Murders And The Rise Of The Victims’ Rights Movement, Merrill W. Steeg

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Empathy And Fairness In Nonhuman Primates: Evolutionary Bases Of Human Morality, Colt Halter

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Darwin offered an evolutionary perspective on the origins of human morality, suggesting that humans share a biological foundation with nonhuman primates. This paper reviews the current literature on moral and prosocial behaviors of nonhuman primates, specifically examining whether nonhuman primates exhibit behaviors that are typical of empathy and fairness. The literature documents that nonhuman primates exhibit empathetic behaviors regarding emotional contagion and sympathetic concern. There is also evidence that nonhuman primates have a sense of fairness, seen in their reciprocal behaviors and aversion to inequity. Taken together, this suggests that there are evolutionary roots of morality, lending empirical support to …

Are Delusions Beliefs?, Dorothy Reviss

Publications and Research

A belief is one’s personal attitude regarding an issue in the universe that contains evidence of truth to it. A delusion can be defined as a peculiar belief that contradicts reality, scientific evidence, and rational thinking, and may be attributed to personality disorders. In order to determine where a delusion is a belief, it is important to recognize the circumstances under which certain beliefs are held. While a delusion sounds similar to a false belief, it is an entirely unique phenomenon. In the case of personality disorders like the Capgras delusion, schizophrenia, and Reverse Othello syndrome individuals genuinely believe in …

Language As The Medium: A Literature Review. Harnessing The Prolific Power Of Dramatic Language As A Therapeutic Tool In Drama Therapy, Edward Freeman

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Language in and of the theatre, with its palate of variegated writing styles and playwrights from throughout time, has the potential to be harnessed, focused, and systematized for use as a therapeutic tool within drama therapy – the field’s artistic medium. Drama therapy could benefit from having a specific medium germane to its artform which has the potential to provide practitioners with a common resource and means of communication, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning, as well as align the field with other creative arts therapies. Language encompasses all forms of human communication – speaking, writing, signing, gesturing, expressing facially – …

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

The Role Of Aesthetics In Classroom Design: Implications For Engagement And Equity, Giuliana Barraza

Master's Theses

The desire for achieving greater equity in education has been a prevalent topic of research, with many studies indicating that the current education system in this country is designed in a way that exacerbates initial inequities and has a negative impact on student motivation and engagement (EOCD, 2012). While existing scholarship mostly discusses equity and engagement through the lens of curriculum and instruction, the power of physical classroom environments and aesthetic elements present in those environments is less explored. With student populations becoming more diverse, there is a greater need for new tools for teachers to utilize in pursuit of …

The Feeling Mind, Maria Doulatova

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

According to standard conceptions of agency, our reasons and intentions guide our actions. That is, goal-directed intentions play a key role in practical deliberation, planning, and execution of action. Furthermore, purposeful, goal-directed behavior warrants attributions of responsibility or “reactive attitudes” like resentment, anger, gratitude and forgiveness. However, recent developments of the dual-process theory of mind cast doubt on the empirical adequacy of this picture. While people take themselves to be responding to relevant reasons, they are often bypassed by irrelevant affective or automatic reactions. In this work I go beyond the dual-process theory of mind to offer a mechanistic account …

Oppression And The Limits Of Individual Moral Progress, Cameron Charles Evans

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Systemic social problems are the product of complex interactions among institutions, policies, biases, stereotypes, and false beliefs. While we may be pessimistic about our abilities to combat social change, we may remain optimistic about our abilities as individuals to achieve moral growth. However, in societies organized by socially unjust practices, our individual capacities for improvement may be stunted. My primary concern is to identify key obstacles to our moral development. I argue that "self-help" methods for reducing our social biases and prejudices are ineffective. Our biases interact in complex ways with each other, and with the environment, in ways that …

Event Perception, Emily Prychitko

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

We seem to perceive events, like songs playing, thunderstorms, and people having conversations. Extensive empirical research suggests that we indeed perceive events. Yet the philosophy of perception has not addressed event perception much at all. I lay out goals and methods for a fruitful philosophical investigation of event perception, then pursue that investigation. Primarily on the basis of the empirical evidence, I argue that we perceive events across the senses, and that event representations are a unique type of perceptual representation. In doing so, I address concerns about event perception as such, relative to object and property perception. I argue, …

Psychological Construct Validity, Caroline Marie Stone

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

A primary concern for any psychological research project is determining how to measure unobservable mental entities, such as "implicit memory", or "intelligence". Psychologists say that a measure has construct validity when they believe that a measurement method measures the construct they intend it to measure, where a construct is any theoretical term that refers to a mental entity. Construct validity, then, is the process of justifying one's belief that a measure has construct validity. My dissertation seeks to answer three related questions, 1. What is construct validity?, 2. What is the best epistemic theory of justification for construct validation?, and …

Coherence, Travis Walthall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

COHERENCE is a series of oil paintings and pen drawings that explores open narratives, or different ways to read artwork. The paintings and drawings showcase harmony, or tension, between ambiguous and representational forms. The visual experience requires the viewer to create their own narrative and decipher forms to do so. COHERENCE is a psychological and aesthetic exhibition fueled from human experience— one of fragility, uncertainty, imperfection, beauty, faith and memories.

Poem, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

"Napë" By Ernesto Casiquiare

Spanish and English Versions

Table Of Contents, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

“Ichachu”: Ontological Diversity For Assembling Common Futures, Kaliana Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

The present work explores the role of discursive analyses of language as potent elements in networks of discourse and practice. A particular focus is with how language functions in multiple, overlapping registers, and how this affects its ability to motivate and coalesce diverse actors into communities of practice. In particular, usages of sovereignty, food sovereignty, and ontology are explored as a means for understanding the process of cross-cultural eco-social action. Fundamental to these analyses is the precept that registers of language represent an epistemic diversity always operating in collaborations for biocultural sustainability. By “eco-social action,” it is meant any practice, …

Desingularizing “Self” And “Nature”: Bruno Latour’S Politics Of Nature And Lorraine Daston’S Against Nature, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

"... looking to embrace “the whole of nature” with the “totality of one’s self” is a gluttonous impossibility that betrays the real non-trope insatiable consumerism ..."

Book Review Jeff Vandermeer (2021), Hummingbird Salamander, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Editorial Introduction Vol 2 (1) 2021

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998): Reading Between His Lines, A Summary Judgment, Jay C. Fikes Phd

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Don Juan is a fictional character. Yaqui in Sonora and Arizona have no history of peyote rituals. These two facts help explain why, by 1975, Castaneda’s followers were seeking shamans comparable to Don Juan among the Huichol of Mexico. In recent years peyote tourists have invaded the sacred land where Huichol venerate the peyote spirit. The rising tide of tourists in that area is rapidly depleting peyote and has stimulated Mexican authorities to incarcerate Huichol peyote hunters (Fikes, 1993; 2013). In the early 1990s Castaneda created a cult, Tensegrity, which taught disciples stylized movements combining “tai chi, modern dance and …

Nostalgia, The Liminal, And Feral Love In Guillermo Enrique Hudson’S “Green Mansions”, George Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Plastic Shamans, Intellectual Colonialism And Intellectual Appropriation In New Age Movements, Joseba I. Arregi Phd

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

The reality of colonialism plagues indigenous populations and continues into the present, generating new scenarios of oppression. This new oppression is tied to so-called alternative models of progress, to the success of sustainable development, and to the recognition of the importance of biodiversity in the 21^st Century. This work presents three processes of biological and cultural appropriation which constitute a new chapter in the long history of colonial aggression and indigenous resistance.

Intellectual Access And Spirituality: The Twin Urgencies Of Responsible American Education, Matthew Schmitz

Educational Studies Honors Papers

America is increasingly, and perhaps overwhelmingly, becoming a society characterized by political divisiveness. At its most extreme form, Hannah Arendt argues such a division can make us vulnerable to a loneliness that destroys our confidence and leaves us dependent on ideologies. A renewed sense of spirituality and intellect are prime candidates for helping us develop a healthy relationship with ourselves that can help counteract this loneliness. Not only that, but fully accessing our intellectual and spiritual sides can give us the confidence to tackle democratic republican citizenship the way Thomas Jefferson envisioned it. Here, Jacques Rancière helps us to construct …