Philosophy Commons^™

Reading Nietzsche As A Tool For Feminist Politics, Juliana I. Fedorko

Honors Theses

My Honors Thesis in Political Science builds upon the scholarly tradition of reading beyond Friedrich Nietzsche’s explicit discussions of women, which are oftentimes blatantly misogynistic. As a philosopher typically included in the Western existentialist canon, Nietzsche’s ethics of self-transcendence is relevant to one of the vital feminist objectives: individual autonomy. His commentary in Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, On the Genealogy of Morals, and The Use and Abuse of History for Life prescribe ways of being that disrupt traditional moral systems and their accompanying social conditioning. If we examine patriarchy as one of these value …

A Phenomenological Approach To Addiction, Zollie Foss

Honors Theses

This paper proposes a phenomenological investigation of addiction, with the goal of describing how it is experienced from within, as an embodied and existential phenomenon. I begin by establishing a conceptual framework—drawn from the works of existential phenomenologists Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty—outlining the key structures of everyday experience such as being-in-the-world, freedom, embodiment, bad faith, and sedimentation. I then turn to a description of the lived experience of addiction by drawing on various first-person addiction memoirs, showing how the aforementioned existential structures are experienced in active addiction and how pathways to sobriety reflect and are experienced as targeting these structures. …

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 …

(2025) Curriculum Vitae Of David Kennedy, David Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

No abstract provided.

The Lotus At Dawn: Rethinking Climate Resilience In An Archipelago, Marie Franchesca M. Borras

English Faculty Publications

Super Typhoon Rai, locally called Odette, hit the Philippines on December 16, 2021, devastating General Luna, a municipality in Surigao del Norte. Due to this natural disaster, this study—originally written as a pre-pandemic autoethnographic account via flâneuserie—endeavors to understand how the mobility of city dwellers contributes to the anthropogenic climate by exploring the ethics of care. Additionally, it seeks to posit inquiries on what it means to be climate-resilient in an archipelagic country such as the Philippines. Beyond economic methodologies, it is pivotal to examine issues of care that deal with our relationship with nature by understanding how, for example, …

Evading A Post-Truth World: Rorty’S Foundationless Philosophy For An Acculturating Education, Madhu Narayanan

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

A challenge for educators is how to teach in a “post-truth” world. Lies, fake news, and a gleeful disregard for facts – what I collectively term mis/information – all seem to undermine the very project of education. The pragmatism of Richard Rorty holds promise to address such issues. I first argue that Rorty’s philosophy of education is of limited use, whereas his broader thoughts on a philosophy without foundations are more relevant. I then suggest that a way forward is to evade the fight against post-truth dynamics altogether. An insistence on rational objectivity and foundational truth are at the root …

Walk In The Woods (2023) By Nikki Grimes, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

An unnamed Black boy walks in the woods near his home a week after his father’s funeral. Because the boy knows how to be mindful in nature—to move slowly, step carefully, and pay close attention—he becomes more connected to the woods and the creatures in it. Rediscovering is his father’s legacy of ecstatic, aesthetic reverence for nature begins to assuage the boy's anger-tinged grief.

Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints (1999) By Millicent E. Selsam, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

Coming up with the most reasonable explanation of the available clues is something we all do on a daily basis. This book describes animal tracks as clues from which children can make inferences about what kind of animal left them and what they were doing when they did.

Possum That Didn't (1950/2016) By Arthur Frank Tashlin, Maughn Rollins Gregory, Peter Shea

Picture Books

The possum ‘that didn’t’ is a very contented animal who smiles in sunshine and rain, but when a group of human picnickers spot him hanging by his tail, they read his smile as a frown and call him stupid for insisting that he is happy. They decide to take him to the city to find amusement and, because he won’t climb down from the tree, they excavate it and transport tree and hanging possum together. Frank Tashlin's book goes philosophical in two different directions. One is the direction of satire: We laugh at humans taking a possum to a nightclub, …

Aquariam (2018) By Cynthia Alonso, Samantha Piede

Picture Books

When the protagonist of Cynthia Alonso's Aquarium discovers a small, orange fish has splashed onto her neighborhood pier, she delightedly attempts to realize her dream of living amongst marine life. She decides to build a new home for it -- a human-sized aquarium -- in her living room. However, her earnestness is not enough to make this space a true home for the fish. Samantha Piede's Thinking in Stories review highlights several ethical and epistemological questions raised by this wordless narrative. What can we know of the needs and desires of species other than our own? What are the ethical …

I’M In Charge Of Celebrations (1986) By Byrd Baylor, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

The young woman speaking to us from this beautiful book shows us a way of honoring and celebrating singular experiences we have in the natural world, and how doing this could enrich the meaning of our lives. She describes them in a notebook, marks their dates, and gives them names. Think of this as what ancient Greek philosophers called a “spiritual exercise”— something we do to strengthen our ability to pay attention, to heighten our sense of the beauty and dignity of the natural world, and to better understand our place in it. Of course, moments worth celebrating can happen …

How Beautiful (2021) By Antonella Capetti, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

The question of what is and isn’t beautiful occurs to the caterpillar in this elaborate picture book when a giant Unknown Thing (human) lifts him out of his familiar leaf bed world and tells him, “You’re so beautiful.” The caterpillar wonders, “But what does beautiful mean?” The question leads him on a day-long trek through the forest, where other animals offer a variety of perplexing answers.

Depth Of The Lake And The Height Of The Sky (2017) By Kim Jihyun, Megan Jane Laverty

Picture Books

The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky (2017) is KimJihyun’s first picture book; it is composed entirely of pictures. It “tells” the story of a young boy and his dog who spend a day swimming and sunbathing at a lake that is within walking distance from his grandparents' home, whom he is visiting with his parents. At first glance, the story might seem unremarkable, recounting an experience familiar to many. However, Kim’s illustrations challenge this assumption by drawing us into the boy’s encounter with nature. She creates a visual journey that guides us through a perceptual …

I'M Going To Make A Friend (2025) By Darren Chetty, Peter Shea

Picture Books

Philosopher Darren Chetty’s first picture book playfully explores a sort of language-accident: we say we make drawings and machines–and also that we make friends. Chetty shows us a child who tries to construct a robot-friend. As the child thinks about the elements that go into a friendship, we’re reminded of the contradictory desires of childhood companionship: for space and comfort, adventure and familiarity, a private connection and an opening to the wider world. What would one put into an artificial companion? The problem is as old as Pinocchio and Pygmalion. As the construction proceeds, the other kind of “making friends” …

Spirituality In Place: Assessment Of Spirituality, Place Attachment, And Locus Of Control In College, Chloe Armand

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore how spirituality in place shapes college students’ cognition. While spiritual development is recognized as an important aspect of student affairs, its influence on cognitive factors such as locus of control and place attachment remains underexplored. This study investigates the relationship between spirituality, place attachment, and locus of control, as well as students’ perceptions of spiritual design elements on UCF’s campus. To assess these perceptions, a Quality of Place Questionnaire for Spirituality was developed. This instrument aims to measure humanity, sensuality, and sustainability in the built environment. This research uncovers the connections between …

Existential Resilience In The City, Shane Ray Epting

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

Severe weather continues to challenge cities worldwide. Typhoons, wildfires, floods, and extreme temperatures test urban systems, communities, and governments at all scales. To combat such effects, resilience has emerged as a term geared towards increasing their ability to address impacts, strengthen infrastructure, and deal with cleanup measures. Although this business sounds straightforward to non-philosophers, ethical and existential elements remain out of view for the sciences and require investigation. This article fleshes them out. The first step is to identify relevant stakeholder groups and competing interests. The second is discovering equitable ways to bring professionals and city dwellers together to develop …

Historicity And Axiology: Temporal Implications For Axiology, Bennett Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

To develop the axiology of moral (or ethical) values, phenomenological analysis must look at temporality in a way that is unfamiliar to it. This way is through knowledge and experience of the actual historical past, from which it has been separated by the Heideggerian conception of historicity and its classical Husserlian analysis of time consciousness. The development of historical studies helps to make this possible. A simple sample model of the diachronesis of the awareness of ethical significance, value, and obligation is presented. It moves the analysis from a presentist focus to the field of experience in which subjects develop …

History’S Movement: The Historical Ontology In Social Ontology, Bennett B. Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social ontology and the philosophy of history both concern themselves with human collectives. Social ontology is supposed to be theoretical, although the social sciences are supposed to be empirical. Philosophy of history is supposed to be theoretical, although historiography is supposed to be empirical. In fact, the a priori and the a posteriori mix in both theoretical and empirical endeavors in similar ways. Since the two endeavors hold part of their objects of inquiry in common, they should be able to speak to another. In what follows I aim to expose some of the ways their dialogue stresses and can …

Exploring Childcare Leaders’ Perspectives On Program Philosophies At The Intersection Of Care, Education, And Business: A Multi-Method (Qual + Qual) Study Using Simon Sinek’S Golden Circle, Megan Kybartas

Theses and Dissertations

This multi-method (QUAL + qual) study explores childcare leaders’ perspectives on program philosophies at the intersection of care, education, and business, which I call The Childcare Tripartite. Recognizing the significant dependency on high-quality childcare services and the foundational role of program philosophies in achieving this quality, this research addresses a notable gap in the literature regarding how early childhood leaders communicate and prioritize their program philosophies within the complex American childcare landscape. Employing semi-structured interviews, documentary materials, and demographic forms, and analyzed through both thematic and deductive content analysis, drawing on Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, the study uncovers how philosophical …

The Body Is On, Kitty F. Davies

Theses and Dissertations

THE BODY IS ON is a visual art exhibition that considers queer embodiment, pervert as political identity, the arriving climate catastrophe, and difficulty in artmaking. I make use of various concepts from Deleuze and Guattari to interconnect my own with the primary goal to ask: what does futurity look like or mean in these climates (in both a literal, warming sense and an increasingly fascistic, political one), and how do we actualize that future?

Vision Or Exemplification? Augustine And Aquinas On Divine Illumination, Matthew Richard Cain

Theses

Many interpreters of Thomas Aquinas since the second half of the twentieth-century emphasise the Platonist dimensions of his thought, particularly his metaphysics. This contrasts with, and is a shift away from, the dominant Aristotelian interpretations of previous generations. Aquinas’s theory of knowledge, however, tends still to be interpreted in Aristotelian terms, according to which Augustine’s Platonist illuminationism is replaced by a Peripatetic emphasis on sensation and abstraction in the soul.

This thesis reexamines the role of illumination in Augustine and Aquinas’ theories of knowledge. It asks whether scholarship today ought to reconceive the relationship between these two major thinkers in …

Sealing The Deal: A Case Study Of A Private, Southeastern, Regional College’S Student Onboarding Practices, Alicia R. Gaston, Kristen Meyer, Tyler Ogden, Jennifer Perkinson, Casey Yocum Michaels

Doctor of Education Capstones

Each year, higher education institutions offer support to new, incoming students through an onboarding process that requires dedication and collaboration across multiple departments. Offering streamlined guidance and clear communication throughout the onboarding process is essential to ensure incoming students understand action steps without becoming overwhelmed with new terminology, processes, and environments. This explanatory case study is set to understand the current communication practices and technology use across onboarding departments at Brightside College – also referred to as Brightside or BC (pseudonym). The research team aimed to understand Brightside's onboarding staff's perspective of current processes and practices. With emphasis on the …

Introducing Justice And Rights To Students Of Economics, Mark D. White

Publications and Research

Most economics instruction is focused on outcomes, whether evaluated in terms of individual or collective welfare or well-being. This is consistent with economics’ roots in classical utilitarianism, and no consideration is usually given to the process by which these results obtain, which is a deontological concern of right and wrong. This can seem odd to economics students, especially in the context of trade-offs in which one party is benefited at the expense of another, or aggregate welfare is maximized while some individuals are harmed, with no consideration in either of rights, desert, or justice. This chapter argues for the importance …

In Praise Of Dust, Hasler Gomez-Perez

Theses and Dissertations

A desire path is a physical manifestation of where a system has failed, but also where it has been refused, where a new path has been made. The wake exists in the post, it is not a singular, untethered event, but a subtle double entendre that lives in the post-death, but also in the pre-life—not a liminal limbo, but a superposition of dying and waking.

This collection was assembled and composed over the course of two years as I navigated my practice, myself, and others. Present here are my thoughts, my experiences, and in many ways my beliefs. IN PRAISE …

Hegel Meets The Corleones: Critical Racket Theory And The American Crime Family, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay interrogates Frankfurt School “racket theory.” While sympathetic to its claim that the most pervasive form of hegemony is the hierarchical and authoritarian group, the paper explores the School’s apparent blind spot in underestimating the crime family’s resurgent significance (e.g., the Trumps or culture industry sagas from The Godfather to Ozark). Early racket theory was limited by Horkheimer’s intensified version of Hegel’s concept of the modern family, its nuclear form and early dissolution. A brief genealogy of the US crime film—from early 1930s individual rogue gangsters to the present—confirms the need to rethink this aspect of racket theory.

The Excessive Cost Of Health: An Analysis Of Pharmaceutical Accessibility Issues In The United States, Henry Woodman Curtis

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Compared to the rest of the world, the United States has one of the worst-performing health care systems. While this is influenced by our hospital systems and clinical care in certain contexts, one of the biggest culprits for our poor ratings is the cost and availability of prescription medications. We pay more than any comparable country for the exact same medications and have a harder time actually accessing them. In this dissertation, I aim to analyze how individuals, companies, and governmental agencies have responded to various instances of high-cost or low-availability prescription medications. To begin, I examine pharmaceutical patenting practices …