Philosophy Commons^™

The Syndrome Of Romantic Love, Arina Pismenny

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What kind of phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary folk think it is an emotion. I challenge this assumption and argue instead that romantic love is best characterized as a syndrome ⎼ a pattern comprised of different kinds of mental states and behaviors that tend to co-occur. An examination of major emotion theories in philosophy and psychology demonstrates that romantic love does not fit into any of them. Likewise, the commonly endorsed but increasingly controversial categories of basic and nonbasic emotions do not account for romantic love. While both culture and evolution have shaped the phenomenon of …

Unarticulated Constituents And Theories Of Meaning, Jesse Rappaport

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work is an investigation into a phenomenon introduced by John Perry that I call ‘totally unarticulated constituents.’ These are entities that are part of the propositional content of a speech act, but are not represented by any part of the sentence uttered or of the thought that is being expressed - that is, they are fully unarticulated. After offering a novel definition of this phenomenon, I argue that totally unarticulated constituents are attested in natural language, and may in fact be quite common. This raises fatal problems for a prominent theory of underspecification defended by Jason Stanley, according to …

Confronting The Nihilism Of Our Day With Thomas Nagel’S Ethical Objectivity, Kristoffer Bolaños

Mabini Review

There are few scholars today who are challenging the notion "nothing is objectively right or wrong because nothing objectively matters," one such scholar is Thomas Nagel; we will pursue in this essay a keener understanding of the possibilities of ethical objectivity in the face of the popularity of the position mentioned above (often understood as "nihilism"). We will attempt to articulate Nagel's alternative, a "view from nowhere," as a way out of the rather relativistic and reductionistic tendencies of moral philosophies today.

A Change Of Face:Using Graffiti To Re-Imagine Spaces, Luba Pirgova-Morgan

Mabini Review

In much of the literature graffiti is connected to notions of defacing, devaluing, vandalising, participating in an illegal activity or exhibiting ‘anti-social behaviour.’The aim of this paper is to show the change of perceptions toward graffiti as less of an act of vandalism or a criminal activity and more of a solution to many social and political concerns. The paper offers a way to re- frame graffiti as the solution rather then the problem based on a study of graffiti crews in Sofia, Bulgaria. The paper presents three cases of these crews, each attempting to address different social and political …

Ongangen (Wisdom): Women’S Means Of Overcoming Troubles As Depicted In Maranao Folktales, Eugenia Velasco

Mabini Review

This paper utilized feminist analysis to find out how women characters in the selected Maranao folktales used ongangen or wisdom to solve their problems. Specifically, this study aimed to find out (1) the roles of women as depicted in Maranao folktales; (2) their struggles; and (3) their means of maintaining balance to overcome such struggles. The analysis revealed that Maranao women played important roles in the Maranao society, especially so, if they held royal titles. They performed social functions inside their clan. However, these women still struggled against discrimination within their own societies as well as against stereotyping once they …

La Chinoise And Aesthetic Dissensuality, Jesus Emmanuel Villafuerte

Mabini Review

Jean Luc-Godard and Jacques Ranciere are two of the most important intellectuals of their time— the first is a filmmaker whose films are considered to be some of the best French Cinema has produced, the latter is a philosopher whose works continue to immensely influence the intellectual current of the world. While it can be said that their lives did not intersect, their respective oeuvres are not totally different from each other, in fact, Ranciere in his works on Cinema has continuously referenced the films of Godard in explaining his theoretical concepts, and Godard for his part, although he never …

Perspectives On Natural Philosophy, Stanley N. Salthe

Publications and Research

This paper presents a viewpoint on natural philosophy focusing on the organization of substance, as well as its changes as invited by the Second Law of thermodynamics. Modes of change are pointed to as definitive of levels of organization; these include physical, chemical, and biological modes of change. Conceptual uses of the subsumptive hierarchy format are employed throughout this paper. Developmental change in dissipative structures is examined in some detail, generating an argument for the use of final causality in studies of natural systems. Considerations of ‘internalism’ in science are presented along the way.

The Price Of Sociality, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Jonathan Birch's The Philosophy of Social Evolution, published by Oxford University Press.

A Triadic Approach To Deception In Strategic Counterintelligence Operations, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes a model for inducing deception in strategic counterintelligence operations based on the psychology of communications and influence.

Global Media Wars: The Ironic Prescience Of George Orwell, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes similar psychologies among people who intend to tell the truth and those who intend to lie. It posits the writings of George Orwell on political communication as relevant today as back in the 1940s.

Enthymemathical Proofs And Canonical Proofs In Euclid’S Plane Geometry, Abel Lassalle, Marco Panza

MPP Published Research

Since the application of Postulate I.2 in Euclid’s Elements is not uniform, one could wonder in what way should it be applied in Euclid’s plane geometry. Besides legitimizing questions like this from the perspective of a philosophy of mathematical practice, we sketch a general perspective of conceptual analysis of mathematical texts, which involves an extended notion of mathematical theory as system of authorizations, and an audience-dependent notion of proof.

Tortured Policies On Torture: Notes From The House Of The Dead?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes issues needing to be resolved before policies on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques including torture are developed, implemented, and assessed.

The Philosophical Heritage Of Desire For God In Ibn Ṭufayl’S Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān, Bethany Somma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the role of desire in Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān through a philosophical investigation of desire from Plotinus to Ibn Ṭufayl. I examine Plotinus’s account of desire for the Good, and I argue that this desire forms the basis of his account of substance, such that this desire is non-rational, permanent, fundamental to all hypostases. I also examine the Arabic translations of Plotinus’s text, arguing that the role of desire for God is severely diminished. Indeed, the desire for God we find in these texts is rational and non-permanent – a modified version of the Plotinian model. …

The Zombie Apocalypse Has Already Happened: Queering Subjectivity In Zombie Film, Jessica Dunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation traces the encounter between psychology as a human science and the viral zombie film genre using the collaborative works of Deleuze and Guattari in conjunction with the queer anti-humanist theories of Colebrook and Halberstam. I interwove thematic (i.e. plot, dialogue, character development) and cinematographic (i.e. shot composition, editing, lighting, musical score) analyses of fourteen viral zombie films with theoretical arguments regarding the deterritorialization of the human subject and its relevance to psychology as a human science. The films were selected from the plethora of viral zombie films released after the turn of the 21st century. The selection was …

Paving The Way For Merleau-Ponty’S Eye And Mind In Organizational Communication Studies, Johan Bodaski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The body is a sense-based medium that creates and interprets organizations. Bodies create organization. An aesthetic theory of organizational communication reveals the significance of the body to the organization. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of aesthetics offers a theory of aesthetic organizational communication that is yet to be developed. Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetic essay on painting, Eye and Mind, describes the body as the medium through which painters turn the world into painting. His philosophy of painting builds bridges between aesthetics, the body, and organizational communication.

In chapter one, four theories of organizational communication are described: communication constitutes organization (CCO), text/interpreter, ventriloquism, and …

To The Effort Itself: A Phenomenological Study Of Wang Yangming's 王陽明 Theory Of Moral Effort, Minglai Dong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I phenomenologically clarify the theory on moral effort (gongfu 功夫) of the sixteenth-century Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (or Wang Shouren 王陽明/王守仁 1472-1529). For Wang, the final purpose of moral effort is to cultivate one’s heart (xin 心) as the subject of consciousness, with the goal of sagehood. The heart is also the foundation on which all methods of moral effort can rely. I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology can shed a light on Wang’s doctrine, for it describes the transcendental structure of all aspects related to consciousness, which are also topics and phenomena studied by Wang’s …

Writing A Moral Code: Algorithms For Ethical Reasoning By Humans And Machines, James F. Mcgrath, Ankur Gupta

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The moral and ethical challenges of living in community pertain not only to the intersection of human beings one with another, but also our interactions with our machine creations. This article explores the philosophical and theological framework for reasoning and decision-making through the lens of science fiction, religion, and artificial intelligence (both real and imagined). In comparing the programming of autonomous machines with human ethical deliberation, we discover that both depend on a concrete ordering of priorities derived from a clearly defined value system.

Counterterrorist Profiling, The Self, And The Problem Of Open And Quiet Skies, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

Psychological profiling supporting counterterrorism may be based on an invalid presumption.

The Larger Conversation: Contemplation And Place By Tim Lilburn, Emory Shaw

The Goose

Review of Tim Lilburn's The Larger Conversation: Contemplation and Place.

Perma/Culture: Imagining Alternatives In An Age Of Crisis By Molly Wallace And David Carruthers, Bryant Scott

The Goose

Review of Molly Wallace and David Carruthers' Perma/Culture: Imagining Alternatives in an Age of Crisis.

Reducing Extreme Suffering For Non-Human Animals: Enhancement Vs. Smaller Future Populations?, Magnus Vinding

Between the Species

This paper argues that ethical views that place primary importance on the reduction of extreme suffering imply that, at least in theory, it can be better to allow enhanced non-human animals to come into existence rather than unenhanced non-human animals. Furthermore, they imply that it would be even better if no non-human animals came into existence at all. However, it is unclear, from the perspective of these ethical views, whether enhancement or reduction of future populations is the more effective strategy in practice, and whether it might even be better to instead pursue a seemingly more robust and less controversial …

The Logical Fallacies In Political Discourse, Zilin Cidre Zhou

Summer Research Program

I examined the use of logical fallacies in political discourse. Logical fallacies are fraudulent tricks people use in their argument to make it sound more credible while what they really do is to fool the audience. Out of more than 300 kinds of fallacies, I focused on 18 common ones by analyzing their use in debates about political issues. During conducting my research, I noted that being aware of my mental state is very important if I want to accurately detect the fallacies. Furthermore, while watching two sides debating, being impartial is as significant as staying calm. I also need …

Exit, Voice, And Public Reason, Kevin Vallier

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Public reason liberals appeal to public deliberation to ensure that a legal order can be publicly justified to its citizens. I argue that this voice mechanism should be supplemented by exit mechanisms. By allowing citizens to exit legal orders they believe cannot be publicly justified, citizens can pressure states to change their laws. This exit pressure is sometimes more effective than deliberation. I explore federalism as an exit mechanism that can help public deliberation establish a publicly justified polity.

Why Don’T We Have A Peace Memorial? The Vietnam War And The Distorted Memory Of Dissent, Christian G. Appy

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

First paragraph:

Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York’s Riverside Church on April 4,1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counter-revolutionary foreign policy. The United States had not supported Vietnamese independence and democracy, King argued, but had repeatedly opposed it; the United States had not defended the people of South Vietnam from external Communist …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Phi 1600 (Logic And Moral Reasoning), Andreea Prichea

Open Educational Resources

The goal of the course is for students to familiarize themselves with the structure of an argument. Identify and iterate the difference between inductive and deductive, valid and invalid arguments. Learn methods to determine if an argument is valid or invalid, and be able to identify faulty arguments based on the argument's structure. The core of the course will focus on deductive arguments as they relate to moral arguments. . The student throughout the course will be exposed to arguments in natural language, and try to analyze them through the methods learned.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Phi 1600 (Logic And Moral Reasoning), Alexander Steers-Mccrum

Open Educational Resources

The goal of this class is to familiarize students with formal and informal logic. Logic illustrates and explores the connections between ideas. It can help us evaluate our beliefs and make and understand arguments. Aside from its use in philosophy, logic is of particular importance in mathematics and law, and is foundational for computer science.

Epistemic Dimensions Of Gaslighting: Peer-Disagreement, Self-Trust, And Epistemic Injustice, Andrew D. Spear

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Miranda Fricker has characterized epistemic injustice as “a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower” (2007, Epistemic injustice: Power & the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20). Gaslighting, where one agent seeks to gain control over another by undermining the other’s conception of herself as an independent locus of judgment and deliberation, would thus seem to be a paradigm example. Yet, in the most thorough analysis of gaslighting to date (Abramson, K. 2014. “Turning up the lights on gaslighting.” Philosophical Perspectives 28, Ethics: 1– 30), the idea that gaslighting has …

Abandoning The Dream Of Omnipotence: On Autonomy And Self-Binding, Charlie Coil

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I offer a prolegomenon to the philosophical study of a uniquely human activity—the self-binding act. This philosophical interest directly connects with the Enlightenment project of centralizing personal autonomy and individual freedom as primary values of personhood. Self-binding represents an easily referenced action that introduces a possible clash between autonomy and freedom on the one hand seen as in conflict with other ancient basic human values like self-control and avoiding akrasia. This dissertation investigates the inverted manner whereby an act of self-binding, which voluntarily and effectively limits a person’s options, can end up augmenting rather than interfering with personal autonomy. I …

Potential For Participatory Big Data Ethics And Algorithm Design: A Scoping Mapping Review, Madisson Whitman, Chien-Yi Hsiang, Kendall Roark

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Ubiquitous networked data collection and algorithm-based information systems have the potential to disparately impact lives around the planet and pose a host of emerging ethical challenges. One response has been a call for more transparency and democratic control over the design and implementation of such systems. This scoping mapping review focuses on participatory approaches to the design, governance, and future of these systems across a wide variety of contexts and domains.

Art And Trauma: Yet Another Arthur Danto Zombie, Tania Love Abramson, Paul R. Abramson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.