Philosophy Commons^™

The Urysohn Lemma: Munkres Variation, Irida Altman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

There is a tradition of Mathematics contributing to the understanding of Music. This article sets out to contribute in the other direction. It uses musical sensibilities to feel its way through a piece of mathematics called the Urysohn Lemma, suggesting the presence of rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic elements within standard proving practices of contemporary Western mathematics. This article employs a literary-philosophical technique of viewing a text in one discipline (mathematics) through the conceptual lens of another (music). As such, this article reports on no experiments—reading the article is the experiment. Each reader performs it for themselves.

Diagrammatic Contemplation, Khang Nguyen

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This work presents the integration of contemplative practice engaging western and eastern philosophies about apperception, consciousness, presence with an art practice that uses diagrammatic contemplation as a basis for developing and presenting art. The aim is not just an optical effect, but to engage the viewer in experiencing non-dual consciousness.

Founding The Steam Journal: Creating Space For Arts, Science, And Life To Meet, Shamini Dias

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This interview spotlights Sara Kapadia, founder of the STEAM Journal, tracing the origins, evolution, and enduring vision of a publication designed to bridge the divide between art and science. Emerging from her dual experiences as an artist and education researcher, Sara created the journal to address a perceived gap between academic and creative communities: spaces that, while often siloed, engage parallel questions about the world. Grounded in her doctoral research on the shared curiosity of artists and scientists, the journal advances a transdisciplinary approach that invites contributors to move fluidly between visual, written, and scholarly forms. In conversation, Sara …

Why Read The Classics (Of Mathematical Proofs)?, Cosimo Perini Brogi

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s (almost) homonymous writing, this short essay suggests a formal perspective to complement the typical categorisation of classical results in mathematics on aesthetic bases. The traditional proof that √2 is not a rational number provides a simple example of proof mining. When studied through the tools of logic, that proof has also led to designing new systems for formal proving based on cyclic proofs. This example thus supports the central thesis of this essay that reading the classics of mathematical proofs enables us to acquire a taste for mathematical beauty and can open new directions in mathematics …

Emptiness Is Enlightenment: Two Interpretations Of Nāgārjuna's Middle Way As Buddhist Soteriology, Isabella R. Sullivan

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the soteriological implications of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) as presented in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), or Root Verses of the Middle Way. While Nāgārjuna’s radical denial of intrinsic existence (svabhāva) is widely recognized as a masterful critique of metaphysics, modern scholarship remains divided on whether this "right view" can sufficiently ground the Buddhist Path to Liberation. This project centers on a comparative analysis of two prominent modern interpretations: Jay Garfield’s semantic anti-dualism and Giuseppe Ferraro’s anti-metaphysical realism.

The inquiry evaluates these perspectives against the doctrinal frameworks of the Four Noble Truths, dependent …

The Epistemic Limits Of Evolutionary Debunking: An Evaluation Of Evolutionary Arguments Against Moral Realism, José Ernesto Guzmán

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Evolutionary debunking arguments contend that the evolutionary origins of moral belief undermine the epistemic standing of moral realism. Sharon Street's Darwinian Dilemma and Richard Joyce's genealogical undercutting argument represent the two most influential formulations of this challenge. This project subjects both to sustained internal critique and finds them wanting. The central contribution is a bridge-requirement framework identifying four principles (BR₁ through BR₄) that any evolutionary debunking argument must supply to move validly from genealogical premises to epistemic conclusions. BR₁ connects genealogy to justification. BR₂ connects population-level evolutionary explanations to individual-level epistemic consequences. BR₃ connects semantic features of moral discourse to …

What It Takes To "Become" Another: An Account Of Immersive Character Imagining, Ariana G. Didomenico

Scripps Senior Theses

Often, when one engages with fiction, one imaginatively portrays the mental states of the characters within said fiction. Typically, when one does this, one relates to the character as separate from oneself, and is consciously aware that what they are imagining is fictional. However, this is not always the case: when one engages in what I will call ‘immersive c-imagining’, one feels roughly as though a character’s thoughts and feelings are one’s own. Furthermore, there is a special subtype of immersive c-imagining, ‘inferential immersive c-imagining’, which occurs when one immersively c-imagines while, at the same time, efficiently and accurately inferring …

Why We Can’T “Get Over It”: Offense And The Moral Limits Of Epistocracy, Yui Kurosawa

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines whether an epistocracy — rule of the knowledgeable — could ever be implemented as a morally permissible alternative to democracy. Building on Jason Brennan’s instrumental critique of democracy in Against Democracy, I lay out his argument that systematic voter ignorance undermines the epistemic capacity of “one person, one vote” to reliably generate just and well-informed political decisions. Brennan argues that epistocratic institutions, which allocate political power according to political competence rather than by equal distribution, are better positioned to achieve such decisions and therefore more legitimate than democracy.

Epistocracy, as an aspirational alternative, may indeed be promising; …

An Examination Of Sycophantic Llms: The Case For Withholding Judgement, Josephine C. Albrecht

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates sycophancy in large language models (LLMs) and argues that although agreement can be socially appealing, it introduces serious epistemic and moral risks. Through Mrinank Sharma’s experiments, I show that sycophancy emerges reliably across major AI assistants, which adjust their responses to match users’ beliefs; even when those beliefs are incorrect. I explain how deep learning and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) shape these behaviors, and why models learn to prioritize user satisfaction over truth. While agreement can build trust, mimic expert testimony, and satisfy human preferences, it also produces epistemic bubbles and misplaced confidence. These risks …

A Defense Of The Good Samaritan Argument For The Moral Permissibility Of Abortion, Ava Von Pechmann

Pitzer Senior Theses

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s 1971 essay “A Defense of Abortion” is a foundational work in contemporary abortion ethics. It offers a critical analysis of and detailed rebuttal against the argument from a right to life, a prominent anti-abortion argument premised on fetal personhood. Thomson crucially asserts that we may offer a concession to the abortion critic by accepting the premise that a fetus is a person, and still reject the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible. This is because the right to life does not necessarily entail the right to use another’s body for survival. As such, carrying an unwanted fetus …

Goods, Practices, Excellence, And The Law: Steps To An Internal Theory Of Value, Rowan Gray

CMC Senior Theses

Practices are the coherent and complex social activities we spend much of our lives engaging in. This category encompasses everything from figure skating to wine-tasting to friend relationships. We gain immense value from participating in practices, and philosophers have articulated a number of accounts for where the value emerges from and how we can best experience it. Many of these theories are ‘externalist’, because they posit that value is incidental to practices and emerges from outside of them.

In contrast, this thesis will argue that the value in practices is internal to each practice. The value comes from each practice’s …

Procedural Rhetoric And Prosociality: How Game Mechanics Shape Altruistic Decision-Making, Elijah Emory-Muhammad

CMC Senior Theses

This study investigates how different prosocial video game designs influence subsequent altruistic behavior, specifically comparing interactive narratives with procedural rhetoric. While prior research demonstrates that prosocial games can prime helpful behaviors, less is known about the underlying mechanical structures driving these effects. Fifteen participants engaged with either an Interactive Narrative Game (ING) or a Procedural Rhetoric Game (PRG) before completing a resource allocation task (Dictator Game). Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the two conditions in promoting sacrificial altruism or satisfying basic psychological needs. Instead, participants across both groups demonstrated a strong adherence to an equality-seeking norm, consistently choosing …

The Aporia Of Divinity: Hegel's Metaphysics In Conversation With Spinoza And Schelling, Abhinav Ganesh

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the intersections between the metaphysics of Spinoza, Hegel, and Schelling, as seen through their engagement with the concept of immediacy. I aim to show that this perspective offers a fruitful way of understanding the arguments of these three figures, while also complicating our understanding of the nature of immediacy and its importance to metaphysical systems.

Staring Into The Void: What Absolute Nothingness Reveals About Existence, Anxiety, And Love, Jasper Datta

CMC Senior Theses

We use contrast to understand the characteristics of the world. Green is understood in contrast to the possibility of being red or blue, and your identity is understood against the possible background of being someone else. In the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro, he extends this approach to define a concept of absolute nothingness, the thing in contrast to which being itself can be understood. In Chapter I, this thesis reconstructs the argument for absolute nothingness, explains how it is situated in Nishida’s broad system, and explores how it entails a philosophical contradiction we ought to accept. I then move on …

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

A Dualistic Interpretation Of Mathematical Creation Through Art And Argumentation, Sofia Almpani, Petros Stefaneas, Mihir Chakraborty

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Creativity, informal reasoning and dynamic exchange of ideas form the pulsating heart of mathematical creation. In this approach, the concept of a mathematical object surpasses conventional boundaries of formal presentation, as they also encompass the intention to prove, significant creative stages within the proving, and the overall experience of prover's journey, which may involve arguments, debates, discovery insights, aesthetic visualizations, and narrative elements. In this paper we present two conceptual frameworks, namely Argumentation-based Proof-Events Calculus (APEC) and Mathematical RUPAs, in order to provide distinct yet interconnected perspectives on informal thinking, knowledge creation, and proving in mathematics. Following the two perspectives, …

On The Nature Of Artworks: An Argument For Artwork Universals, Emma H.B. Rosenberg

Scripps Senior Theses

What kind of a thing is an artwork? Artworks are an extensive, complex category including all manner of media and content. This makes the project of determining what artworks themselves are a significant challenge. Nevertheless, there are many things we intuitively desire to say about what artworks are like and what value they offer. One underexplored theory which I will here argue successfully accommodates many of these features is that of artworks as universals.

It is not my aim in this thesis to compare this theory with other, rival theories of artworks. Rather, I will argue that the theory supports …

The Danger Of Deepfakes: Information Pollution And Epistemic Insecurity, Camille Doherty

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the dangers of deepfakes to democratic stability, emphasizing their capacity to pollute our information ecosystem and undermine trust in media. Beyond the immediate political harms from deepfake incidents, deepfakes are troubling for their impact on our collective relationship to media, truth, and one another. As exposure to deepfakes becomes more common, discerning fact from fiction will become increasingly difficult. Over time, this could foster widespread skepticism of all media and, worse, apathy toward truth itself. With eroded trust and shared truths, democracies risk losing epistemic security – the foundation for informed deliberation, decision-making, and accountability in democratic …

The Paradox Of Pleasure: How Sex-Positive Feminism Constrains Female Freedom, Katherine S. Lanzalotto

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis critiques popular sex-positive narratives that espouse sex as the path to female liberation and empowerment despite ideological and material constraints that tailor female sexual expression to male desires. It interrogates sex-positive feminism's evolution and impact on female freedom. Despite its progressive intentions, mainstream sex-positive discourse has paradoxically constrained female freedom. This thesis analyzes how sex positivity inhibited female freedom, developing a nuanced framework of negative, positive, and republican freedom. This framework elucidates new constraints introduced by pro-sex thinking, such as compulsory female sexuality, the commodification of women under capitalism, and intersectional oversights in sex-positive thinking that particularly affect …

Art As Asset: The Rise Of The Financialized Art Market And The Abstraction Of Value, Kenneth Knothe

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the financialization of art through the expanding use of art-backed loans and institutional involvement. It focuses on how artworks—once primarily valued for their aesthetic or cultural significance—are now routinely treated as financial assets within the art market. The paper uses case studies from Sotheby’s Financial Services and Mitchell F. Chan’s blockchain-based reinterpretation of Yves Klein’s Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility. Drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin, Pierre Bourdieu, and Wendy Brown, it argues that this shift undermines museums’ roles as cultural stewards and redefines the meaning of value in the art world to something more quantifiable. …

Should Students Pull The Plug?: How Ai Redefines Creativity In The Classroom, Labiba Hassan

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) tools, specifically ChatGPT as a tutor for students (ChatGPTt), reshapes creativity in the classroom. Does AI undermine or enrich creativity by altering its relational and self-disclosive dimensions? Engaging with Lindsay Brainard’s critique that AI erodes creativity by disrupting human connection and self-expression, I argue for a redefinition of creativity as a dynamic process sustained by emotion, intention, novelty, risk, and spontaneity — conditions adaptable to AI-mediated contexts. The paper challenges the premise that creativity depends on interpersonal connection, showing that self-disclosure can emerge through meaningful engagement with external systems, such as ChatGPTt. By …

We Are All Mestiz(Ç)Os: An Exploration And Deconstruction Of The Myth Of Mestizaje/Mestiçagem In Mexico And Brazil, Michelle Garcia

CMC Senior Theses

Different from the United States, racial-mixing was permissible in Latin America throughout its history. Furthermore, race-mixing has been cemented into the national identities of LatAm states through Mestizaje, thus painting these states as racial democracies. This thesis examines the construction and maintenance of Mestizaje as a myth and sign for racial democracies as well as the racial disconnect created within those in “Mestizo” nations. This thesis contributes to existing literature by utilizing Mexico and Brazil due to their different socio-historical contexts. They will serve as case studies to evaluate the mechanisms that allow this myth to persevere. First, I will …

Terms, Conditions, And Responsibility: Who Is Responsible?, Dara Schoolcraft

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis I explore the dynamics of responsibility in the context of terms and conditions agreements between corporations and consumers. I begin by highlighting how the burden of understanding terms and conditions has been shifted onto consumers and examine real-world conflicts arising from this shift, such as the wrongful death lawsuit involving Disney and data-sharing practices by General Motors. I argue that consumer responsibility, rooted in Kant’s Categorical Imperative, is not a reasonable solution due to barriers like low literacy levels and information asymmetry. Instead, I advocate for a corporate-centered approach, emphasizing the ethical duty of corporations to ensure …

Mathematics And Determinism: Chaos, Quantum Mechanics, And The Limits Of Predictive Structure, Jackson T. Salumbides

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between mathematics and determinism by analyzing how chaos theory, quantum mechanics, and formal mathematical limits challenge traditional conceptions of predictability and causal structure. Chaos theory shows that deterministic systems can exhibit practical unpredictability due to sensitivity to initial conditions. Quantum mechanics introduces probabilistic outcomes that complicate deterministic interpretation, though alternative frameworks such as Bohmian mechanics and superdeterminism attempt to restore determinism at conceptual cost. Additionally, results from mathematical logic, including Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and Turing’s undecidability, demonstrate intrinsic limitations on what can be deduced or computed, even in fully deterministic systems. By synthesizing these areas, …

“Google Is Free:” The Harm In Deferring To Information Technology And The Reimplementation Of Interpersonal Connection As A Solution, Nicole Cepeda

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I confront the phenomenon that is information technology and the epistemological issues that it raises. I address how we should engage with the online resources allotted to us by media conglomerates, given both the variety of epistemic perspectives that they relay back to the user, from disenfranchised affinity to fake news, and the respective biases of the user. I propose that by reintroducing an interpersonal communicative framework, we are able to create a system that allows users to work deconstruct their biases and learn new information more effectively, all while users are able to flag information as …

The Black Spectacle And Oppressive Double Binds: What Rap On Trial Reveals About Race, Exploitation, And Criminalization In The Music Industry, Giovanni Pierre

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, I investigate the paradox revealed by the Young Thug trial where certain portrayals of Blackness in rap music are simultaneously praised and punished by white institutions. I propose that the theatrics of the Young Thug trial and other instances of rap lyrics used in criminal trials are emblematic of what I call the Black Spectacle. The Black Spectacle is the role Blackness plays in American entertainment. It has three elements: (1) It entertains white audiences because of Black people’s perceived otherness, (2) it provides white people, particularly white men, with a vehicle through which they can …

The Rationality Of Cooperation In One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemmas: A Defense Of David Gauthier's Constrained Maximization, Carlos Hernandez

CMC Senior Theses

For moral skeptics and self-interested individuals, it is difficult for them to recognize the need and benefit for cooperation. That is, there is an intrinsic conflict in claiming that constraining one’s self-interest when cooperating with others serves to promote an individual’s self-interest. Even so, David Gauthier provides constrained maximization as a rational choice theory that addresses this conflict and balances the concepts of rationality and morality. Constrained maximization demonstrates to the moral skeptics and self-interested individuals that cooperation is in their self-interest when using the situation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Yet, as Holly Smith highlights, constrained maximization does not provide …

When Surveillance Silences: Contextual Integrity And The Erosion Of Protest Rights, Jacob Detrinidad

CMC Senior Theses

Government intrusion into our private lives is a standard part of modern democratic life, but how much intrusion should we accept? In the tension between government surveillance and security, many believe security to be a more important value and thus justify greater surveillance at the expense of informational privacy. However, at what point is this intrusion indefensible. This thesis explores the tensions between privacy and security through John Rawls’s theory of justice and Helen Nissenbaum’s theory of privacy as contextual integrity and applies them to issues of public surveillance and the suppression of political protest. I argue that in the …

Expression In Spinoza’S Metaphysics Of Attributes, Emilio Esquivel Marquez

Pomona Senior Theses

Spinoza is famous for his insistence on the fundamental unity of all things, but he never explains how diverse metaphysical elements can join up to form a unified substance. I argue that this gap in his argument is not an obstacle for Spinoza's systematic metaphysics: although he does not justify the unity-variety relation in strictly rationalist terms, his system is founded on a basic posit that guarantees their union. I describe this central posit, the concept of “expression,” through a detailed reading of Spinoza’s pivotal argument for the diversity of attributes in Ethics 1P10S. I propose that Spinoza’s theory of …

Let's Talk About Sex: Investigating Radical Feminist Theories On Prostitution In The United States, Anna E. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the feminist debates surrounding prostitution through an analysis of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin’s abolitionist theories, juxtaposed with critiques from Wendy Brown, Janet Halley, Susie Bright, and Marxist feminist abolitionist Esperanza Fonseca. The text examines the systemic forces of patriarchy and capitalism that commodify women’s bodies and the challenges of legislative approaches to the sex trade. While MacKinnon and Dworkin identify the structural inequalities underpinning prostitution, their legislative proposals often fail to address the stigma and systemic conditions that perpetuate the marginalization of prostituted people. Critics like Brown and Halley highlight the limitations of punitive measures, calling …