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Articles 31 - 60 of 77
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Quantification And Paradox, Edward Ferrier
Quantification And Paradox, Edward Ferrier
Doctoral Dissertations
I argue that absolutism, the view that absolutely unrestricted quantification is possible, is to blame for both the paradoxes that arise in naive set theory and variants of these paradoxes that arise in plural logic and in semantics. The solution is restrictivism, the view that absolutely unrestricted quantification is not possible. It is generally thought that absolutism is true and that restrictivism is not only false, but inexpressible. As a result, the paradoxes are blamed, not on illicit quantification, but on the ``logical'' conception of set which motivates naive set theory. The accepted solution is to replace this with the …
The Concept Of Intrinsic Goodness: Essays In Moorean Moral Philosophy, Miles Tucker
The Concept Of Intrinsic Goodness: Essays In Moorean Moral Philosophy, Miles Tucker
Doctoral Dissertations
I defend and explicate a Moorean program in value theory. I claim that intrinsic goodness is the fundamental concept of axiology, and argue that the notion should be understood as G.E. Moore suggested in the Principia Ethica. In the first three chapters, I address popular challenges to the Moorean project, including objections raised by Judith Jarvis Thomson, Shelly Kagan, and Christine Korsgaard. After, I turn to explication: I attend to the connection between goodness and other normative notions, and present what I take to be the most attractive version of the Moorean view. Finally, I address a perennial puzzle …
Applications And Extensions Of Counterpart Theory, Bridgette Peterson
Applications And Extensions Of Counterpart Theory, Bridgette Peterson
Doctoral Dissertations
An exploration of the details of counterpart theory, and some applications of the view. In Chapter 1, I set out the view and clarify the most important features: that the counterpart relation is a context dependent similarity relation, and that individuals are world-bound entities. I then set out what I take to be the most promising methods of filling in important details. Chapter 2 is a discussion of an alternative view, lump theory. I attempt to distinguish lump theory from counterpart theory, and argue that several attempt to do so fail. Chapter 3 is an attempt to apply counterpart theory …
Me, Myself And I: Reflections On Self-Consciousness And Authority, Jonathan Rosen
Me, Myself And I: Reflections On Self-Consciousness And Authority, Jonathan Rosen
Doctoral Dissertations
The Rationalist conception of the self identifies the subject, the “I”, as a “captain” wielding autonomous rational authority over his subservient attitudes and behaviors—his “crew”. I argue that such a conception of the self is metaphysically untenable and that its practical and ethical ramifications are unattractive. In its place I recommend an alternative, Holistic, “Crew of Captains” conception of the self, and explain its metaphysical, practical and ethical advantages.
Fallibility And Normativity, Joshua Dipaolo
Fallibility And Normativity, Joshua Dipaolo
Doctoral Dissertations
We are fallible, and knowledge of our fallibility has normative implications. But these normative implications appear to conflict with other compelling epistemic norms. We therefore appear to face a choice: reject fallibility-based norms or reject these other epistemic norms. I argue that there is a plausible third option: reconcile these two sets of norms. Once we properly understand the nature of each of these norms, we aren’t forced to reject either.
Structuring Thought: Concepts, Computational Syntax, And Cognitive Explanation, Matthew B. Gifford
Structuring Thought: Concepts, Computational Syntax, And Cognitive Explanation, Matthew B. Gifford
Doctoral Dissertations
The topic of this dissertation is what thought must be like in order for the laws and generalizations of psychology to be true. I address a number of contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind concerning the nature and structure of concepts and the ontological status of mental content. Drawing on empirical work in psychology, I develop a number of new conceptual tools for theorizing about concepts, including a counterpart model of concepts' role in linguistic communication, and a deflationary theory of concepts' formal features. I also suggest some new answers to old problems, arguing, for example, that content realism …
In Theory, There's Hope: Queer Co-(M)Motions Of Science And Subjectivity, Cordelia Sand
In Theory, There's Hope: Queer Co-(M)Motions Of Science And Subjectivity, Cordelia Sand
Masters Theses
Given the state of the planet at present —specifically, the linked global ecological and economic crises that conjure dark imaginings and nihilistic actualities of increasing resource depletion, poisonings, and wide-scale sufferings and extinctions—I ask What might we hope now? What points of intervention offer possibility for transformation? At best, the response can only be partial. The approach this thesis takes initiates from specific pre-discursive assumptions. The first understands current conditions as having been produced, and continuing to be so, through practices that enact and sustain neoliberal relations. Secondly, these practices are expressive of a subjectivity tied to a Cartesian worldview, …
Understanding And Its Role In Inquiry, Benjamin T. Rancourt
Understanding And Its Role In Inquiry, Benjamin T. Rancourt
Doctoral Dissertations
In this dissertation, I argue that understanding possesses unique epistemic value. I propose and defend a novel account of understanding that I call the management account of understanding, which is the view that an agent A understands a subject matter S just in case A has the ability to extract the relevant information and exploit it with the relevant cognitive capacities to answer questions in S. Since inquiry is the process of raising and answering questions, I argue that without understanding, it would be impossible to engage in successful inquiry. I argue that understanding is indispensable for effective cognition and …
Agency And Reasons In Epistemology, Luis R.G. Oliveira
Agency And Reasons In Epistemology, Luis R.G. Oliveira
Doctoral Dissertations
Ever since John Locke, philosophers have discussed the possibility of a normative epistemology: are there epistemic obligations binding the cognitive economy of belief and disbelief? Locke's influential answer was evidentialist: we have an epistemic obligation to believe in accordance with our evidence. In this dissertation, I place the contemporary literature on agency and reasons at the service of some such normative epistemology. I discuss the semantics of obligations, the connection between obligations and reasons to believe, the implausibility of Lockean evidentialism, and some of the alleged connections between agency and justification.
The Path To Supersubstantivalism, Joshua D. Moulton
The Path To Supersubstantivalism, Joshua D. Moulton
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part I defend substantivalism. I do this by offering, in chapter 1, a counterpart-theoretic defense of substantivalism from Leibniz’ shift arguments. Then, in chapter 2, I defend substantivalism from the hole argument and argue, against the consensus, that the question of haecceitism is irrelevant to substantivalism in the context of general relativity. In the second part of the dissertation I defend supersubstantivalism. I do this by offering, in chapter 3, an argument against dualistic substantivalism. The argument appeals to plausible principles of modal plenitude to show that the dualist is …
Physical Geometry, James P. Binkoski
Physical Geometry, James P. Binkoski
Doctoral Dissertations
All physical theories, from classical Newtonian mechanics to relativistic quantum field theory, entail propositions concerning the geometric structure of spacetime. To give an example, the general theory of relativity entails that spacetime is curved, smooth, and four-dimensional. In this dissertation, I take the structural commitments of our theories seriously and ask: how is such structure instantiated in the physical world? Mathematically, a property like 'being curved' is perfectly well-defined insofar as we know what it means for a mathematical space to be curved. But what could it mean to say that the physical world is curved? Call this the problem …
Time To Leave Uchronia: Queer Eco-Temporalities For A Livable World, Claire S. Brault
Time To Leave Uchronia: Queer Eco-Temporalities For A Livable World, Claire S. Brault
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation is a Feminist contribution to Environmental Political Theory focused on temporality. My research investigates the tension between the urgent need to act fast in a fast-changing world, and the necessity for time to pause and think through such radical and rapid changes. As it signals our nearing the planet’s limits, the emergence of the “anthropocene” crisis challenges growth-driven “progress.” I begin this dissertation with a survey of Environmental Thought that helps situate my contribution to the ongoing debates in this field, underscoring that as ecosophers pose the question of the nonhuman, in so doing they also are confronted …
Variations On Some Rossian Themes, Kristian Olsen
Variations On Some Rossian Themes, Kristian Olsen
Doctoral Dissertations
In this dissertation, I develop and defend some of W. D. Ross’s moral views. Ross’s views, I argue, are often highly plausible, though it is also often the case that variations on (or modifications to) his views are needed in order to remain philosophically tenable. In my dissertation, I explain why these variations are necessary and what they should look like. In chapter 1, I discuss Ross’s theory of moral rightness in his most important work, The Right and the Good. In chapters 2 and 3, I correct various misunderstandings about Ross’s position: I argue that he is no …
"The Imagination And Construction Of The Black Criminal In American Literature, 1741-1910", Emahunn Campbell
"The Imagination And Construction Of The Black Criminal In American Literature, 1741-1910", Emahunn Campbell
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation examines the origins of the perception of black people as criminally predisposed by arguing that during eighteenth and nineteenth-century America, crime committed by black people was used as a major trope in legal, literary, and scientific discourses, deeming them inherently criminal. Furthermore, I contend that enslaved and free black people often used criminal acts, including murder, theft, and literacy, as avenues toward freedom. However, their resistance was used as a justification for slavery in the South and discrimination in the North. By examining a diverse set of materials such as confessional literature, plantation management literature, (social) scientific studies, …
The Flight From Despair: A Translation And Critical Exploration Of Hagiwara Sakutarō'S Zetsubō No Tōsō, Samik N. Sikand
The Flight From Despair: A Translation And Critical Exploration Of Hagiwara Sakutarō'S Zetsubō No Tōsō, Samik N. Sikand
Masters Theses
The text that I have translated below, and for which the paper that precedes it is a critical introduction, is Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō no Tōsō, a collection of 204 aphorisms which I have translated as The Flight from Despair. My introduction concentrates on Sakutarō's use of the aphoristic form in order to show how he both follows and subverts the genre's conventions. First, I concentrate on the author's goal to tackle the "everyday" matters of life through his text rather than intellectual abstractions. I also bring attention to the concision of Sakutarō's style and the protean nature of …
Undying Protests: On Collective Action And Practices Of Resistance Against Feminicide In Ciudad Juárez, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza
Undying Protests: On Collective Action And Practices Of Resistance Against Feminicide In Ciudad Juárez, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation project examines the wave of protests and practices of resistance that emerged in response to feminicide—the murder, with state impunity, of women and girls because they are female—in the northern cities of Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico. Its goal is to show how those women who live under extreme regimes of violence contest it since far too often social scientific studies that examine gender-based violence in northern Mexico have sough to understand its social, economic, and political roots. While this is indeed a significant contribution, this study aims to reflect politically on the innovative responses to the increasing …
A Defense Of Russellian Descriptivism, Brandt H. Van Der Gaast
A Defense Of Russellian Descriptivism, Brandt H. Van Der Gaast
Doctoral Dissertations
In this dissertation, I defend a Russellian form of descriptivism. The main supporting argument invokes a relation between meaning and thought. I argue that the meanings of sentences are the thoughts people use them to express. This is part of a Gricean outlook on meaning according to which psychological intentionality is prior to, and determinative of, linguistic intentionality. The right approach to thought, I argue in Chapter 1, is a type of functionalism on which thoughts have narrow contents. On this view, the attitude ascriptions of a regimented psychology capture what people really believe and desire. These attitude ascriptions have …
Antigone Claimed, "I Am A Stranger": Democracy, Membership And Unauthorized Immigration, Andres Fabian Henao Castro
Antigone Claimed, "I Am A Stranger": Democracy, Membership And Unauthorized Immigration, Andres Fabian Henao Castro
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation offers a new framework through which to theorize contemporary democratic practices by attending to the political agency of unauthorized immigrants. I argue that unauthorized immigrants themselves, by claiming their own ambiguous legal condition as a legitimate basis for public speech, are able to open up the boundaries of political membership and to render the foundations of democracy contingent, that is to say, they are able to reopen the question about who counts as a member of the demos. I develop this argument by way of a close reading of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone[1], which allows me to …
Transnational Gestures: Rethinking Trauma In U.S. War Fiction, Ruth A.H. Lahti
Transnational Gestures: Rethinking Trauma In U.S. War Fiction, Ruth A.H. Lahti
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation addresses the need to "world" our literary histories of U.S. war fiction, arguing that a transnational approach to this genre remaps on an enlarged scale the ethical implications of 20th and 21st century war writing. This study turns to representations of the human body to differently apprehend the ethical struggles of war fiction, thereby rethinking psychological and nationalist models of war trauma and developing a new method of reading the literature of war. To lay the ground for this analysis, I argue that the dominance of trauma theory in critical work on U.S. war fiction privileges the "authentic" …
Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent
Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent
Doctoral Dissertations
What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …
Synthetic Reductionism In Moral Philosophy, Scott Hill
Synthetic Reductionism In Moral Philosophy, Scott Hill
Doctoral Dissertations
I defend the view that moral properties are identical to properties that can be expressed without using moral vocabulary.
Taste Disagreements And Predicates Of Personal Taste, Heidi Teres Buetow
Taste Disagreements And Predicates Of Personal Taste, Heidi Teres Buetow
Doctoral Dissertations
In my dissertation, I explore the role of taste disagreements in the debate about the semantics of predicates of personal taste. Linguistic data derived from examples of gustatory disagreement often plays a major role in deciding the correct semantics of taste. I claim that, contrary to the trend in the recent literature, taste disagreements should not play any part in this debate. I argue that the data can be accommodated independently of the semantics by a theory of the purpose of “subjective” disagreements, such as taste disagreements. In support of this claim, I develop such a theory—one that includes an …
The Structure Of Consciousness, Lowell Keith Friesen
The Structure Of Consciousness, Lowell Keith Friesen
Open Access Dissertations
In this dissertation, I examine the nature and structure of consciousness. Conscious experience is often said to be phenomenally unified, and subjects of consciousness are often self-conscious. I ask whether these features necessarily accompany conscious experience. Is it necessarily the case, for instance, that all of a conscious subject's experiences at a time are phenomenally unified? And is it necessarily the case that subjects of consciousness are self-conscious whenever they are conscious? I argue that the answer to the former is affirmative and the latter negative.
In the first chapter, I set the stage by distinguishing phenomenal unity from other …
The Plausibility Of Moral Error Theories, Casey Alton Knight
The Plausibility Of Moral Error Theories, Casey Alton Knight
Open Access Dissertations
The project that resulted in this work had two main goals. The first was to sort out the most plausible form of the moral error theory, the view made popular by J.L. Mackie in his Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Second, I aimed to determine the extent of its plausibility. The first three chapters of this dissertation are the result of my attempt to accomplish the first goal, and the last two chapters are a consequence of the second. In the end, I argue that the most plausible version of the error theory (viz., Richard Joyce's development of Mackie's views) …
Towards A Neopragmatist Understanding Of Translation: A Cross-Disciplinary And Cross-Medial Survey, Steffani Scheer
Towards A Neopragmatist Understanding Of Translation: A Cross-Disciplinary And Cross-Medial Survey, Steffani Scheer
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
Maria Tymoczko (2005) highlights four research trajectories that are likely to be at the forefront of translation studies in coming decades: the attempt to define translation, the internationalization of translation, the impact of technology and globalization on translation theory, and the contextualization of translation studies relative to other areas of academic inquiry. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the first research trajectory. I hope to enrich current developments in translation studies by offering a new way of conceptualizing translation based upon pragmatist philosophy and its particular approach to language and epistemology. Specifically I build upon certain passages …
One Breath/ One Line, Theresa Antonellis
One Breath/ One Line, Theresa Antonellis
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
The scale of the body, the accretion of marks, the pace of the breath and a list of rules, underlie the work. These are parts of the process. I give myself over to the process. The drawing is evidence of the process. During process, there is constant struggle for dominance between the points of attention. Limitations of the body, habits of the mind, observation of the breath, and action of drawing compete for dominance. When are equal, the state of meditation arises. To me this is ultimate freedom. The intention is the viewer will also find freedom in contemplative viewing …
True And Useful: On The Structure Of A Two-Level Normative Theory, Fred Feldman
True And Useful: On The Structure Of A Two-Level Normative Theory, Fred Feldman
Fred Feldman
Act-utilitarianism and other theories in normative ethics confront the implementability problem: normal human agents, with normal human epistemic abilities, lack the information needed to use those theories directly for the selection of actions. Two Level Theories have been offered in reply. The theoretical level component states alleged necessary and sufficient conditions formoral rightness. That component is supposed to be true, but is not intended for practical use. It gives an account of objective obligation. The practical level component is offered as an implementable system for the choice of actions by agents lacking some relevant information. It gives an account of …
Self-Knowledge In A Natural World, Jeremy Cushing
Self-Knowledge In A Natural World, Jeremy Cushing
Open Access Dissertations
In this dissertation, I reconcile our knowledge of our own minds with philosophical naturalism. Philosophers traditionally hold that our knowledge of our own minds is especially direct and authoritative in comparison with other domains of knowledge. I introduce the subject in the first chapter. In the second and third chapters, I address the idea that we know our own minds directly. If self-knowledge is direct, it must not be grounded on anything more epistemically basic. This creates a puzzle for all epistemologists. For the naturalist, the puzzle is especially tricky. To say that self-knowledge has no epistemic ground threatens the …
Counterpossibles, Barak Krakauer
Counterpossibles, Barak Krakauer
Open Access Dissertations
Counterpossibles are counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents. The problem of counterpossibles is easiest to state within the "nearest possible world" framework for counterfactuals: on this approach, a counterfactual is true (roughly) when the consequent is true in the "nearest" possible world where the antecedent is true. Since counterpossibles have necessarily false antecedents, there is no possible world where the antecedent is true. On the approach favored by Lewis, Stalnaker, Williamson, and others, counterpossibles are all trivially true. I introduce several arguments against the trivial approach. First, it is counter-intuitive to think that all counterpossibles are true. Second, if all counterpossibles …
The Praxis Of Horst Hoheisel: The Countermonument In An Expanded Field, Juan Felipe Hernandez
The Praxis Of Horst Hoheisel: The Countermonument In An Expanded Field, Juan Felipe Hernandez
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
This paper examines the work of German artist Horst Hoheisel in Latin-America. I open the conversation by including Hoheisel’s provocative participation in the 2005 memory debates in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, I introduce the nature of Hoheisel’s reasoning and the dialectical self-reflectiveness that is at work in his artifacts. In each project, I look for the way in which Hoheisel lays down the “memorialistic substance” of a specific site together with the self-critical rationality that characterizes his creation. The second part of this essay attempts to construct the theoretical parameters for the expansion of the definition of the countermonument. This …