Epistemology Commons^™

Philosophy Of 'As If': Contemporary Applications And Defense, Ryan Kopelman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis applies Hans Vaihinger’s Philosophy of ‘As If’, published originally in 1924, onto contemporary philosophical debate. Section 1 develops Vaihinger’s axiom of the evolutionary mind and his conception of logic and fiction. Section 2 further examines Vaihinger’s system of fictions and its metaphysical and epistemological implications. Sections 3-5 apply Vaihinger’s Philosophy of ‘As If’ towards the contemporary debate surrounding ethics. In sections 3-5 I point towards the presence, and use, of fictions within contemporary accounts of God, causation, free will, the self, and morality. Finally, in section 6 I raise potential objections to Vaihinger’s view and attempt to defend …

The Drivers Of Academic Novelty In Digital Capitalism: Job Insecurity, Mental Illness And Time Poverty, Adalberto Fernandes

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The present-day digital capitalist academy increases novel academic results by leveraging factors such as precarious academic employment, time poverty, and mental illness. This paradigm reveals a confluence that turns seemingly negative aspects into productive elements. The consequence of this hypothesis is that by enhancing work, time and mental health conditions, there may be a reduction in the number of novelties, with an enhancement of academic's role as producers of truth.

Shame Clogs The Arteries Of Love: How To Love In The Face Of Shame And Conditions Of Oppression, Theodore J.M. Siasat

CMC Senior Theses

Love and shame, on its face, are at odds with one another. Love tends to foster connection while shame makes one want to hide and isolate oneself. This thesis aims to resolve this tension, particularly in cases of mistaken shame, where the ashamed agent need not feel ashamed, such as in cases of internalized racism, sexism, etc. To do so, this thesis begins by exploring similar cases of love driving people away, looking at (1) love under conditions of oppression and (2) love as seen in Vida Yao’s “Grace and Alienation,” where she is also concerned with ashamed beloveds. …

Logos-Sophia, Elliott Norman, Donald Wayne Viney, Keith Elliott Perkins, Addyson Kay Campbell, Hunter Hinds, Scott Squires

LOGOS-SOPHIA: The Journal of the PSU Philosophical Society

Logos-Sophia, Volume 17, Spring 2024. The Journal of the Pittsburg State University Philosophical Society has largely been a student publication with occasional faculty contribution

Recognition And Domination: A Hegelian Approach To Evolving Gender And Technology Paradigms, Zachary Davis

CMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to develop a strong account of recognition. It begins with a Hegel-inspired account of recognition as a fundamental desire that drives humanity. This account establishes recognition as fundamental to the initial subject formation of independent self-consciousnesses as agents. I offer the lord-bondsman dualism to provide a critique of domination as oppositional to securing the means for recognition. This entails that, as history progresses the world ought to move towards universally adopting mutual recognition relationships without domination. I adopt this goal as an ideal form of recognition. In Chapter 2, I apply this recognitional framework to gender. Through …

Unselfing Love: An Analytical Account Of Personal Love And Its Compatibility With Other-Regarding Love, Fangyi(Steve) Wang

CMC Senior Theses

There is a wealth of philosophical literature on love. The two main camps of literature are descriptive and analytical. The former aims to best synthesize and describe how people manifest love in real life, while the latter takes the normative position of evaluating how people should be loving, which normally blends love with a hint of ethical or justice related principles.

One hidden theme that underlies many of the debates on love is the relation to the lover’s self. As this paper will gradually unfold, there are many self-interested reasons disguised behind the philosophical definition of love and the reason …

Llms And Crisis Epistemology: The Business Of Making Old Crises Seem New, Mich Ciurria

Critical Humanities

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have set in motion a series of crises. These include disruptions to the labor force, education, and democracy. Some people believe that rich technocratic ‘saviors’ should solve these crises. Naomi Klein, however, argues that this is a neoliberal fantasy. Tech CEOs will not solve AI-related crises because they have a vested interest in perpetuating disaster capitalism and the social inequalities that keep wages low. Who, then, can solve the AI crisis? I submit that the answer is: oppressed groups with experiential and intergenerational knowledge of crises. To oppressed folks, technological crises are not new, …

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination Of The Eternal Now” 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月） (July 1931) §1 Of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft Of 2 Jan 19); Translated By Christopher Southward; Revision And Expansion Underway, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination of the Eternal Now” (July 1931) 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月）

§1 of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft of 2 Jan 2019)

Translated from the Japanese by Christopher Southward; Revision and Expansion Underway, October 2023

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking With Master Nishida (First Published In Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, And Revised By Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023 「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking with Master Nishida (First Published in Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, and Revised by Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）

Source text transcribed and published by Aozora Bunko–a compendium of public-domain Japanese literature, philosophy, and criticism

General website: https://www.aozora.gr.jp

Current text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000218/files/50538_37481.html

Plurality And Epistemic Injustice: A Neo-Arendtian Reading Of Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice, David Casciola

West Chester University Master’s Theses

In this thesis I bring the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Miranda Fricker into conversation. Specifically, I argue that through Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice (EI) we are able to see more clearly the importance of testimony—lexis as an aspect of Action for Arendt—in Arendt’s socio-political framework. Arendt divides the world into the Private, Social, and Public as separate realms of human activity (Labor, Work, and Action respectively); it is in the Public where we are able to appear and express our plurality. According to Arendt this is the only space where equality must be ensured. However, in using …

Life In The Multiverse: Bringing Chaos Out Of Order?, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper was given as the opening keynote address at the International Conference on Religion and Film at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on June 8, 2022, and is here presented in that form.

My thanks go to those who organized the conference for Vrije Universiteit, notably Professor Johan Roeland and Miranda van Holland.

Epistemic Priors, Social Justice, And The Ethics Of Humor, Paul Butterfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I set out a theory of humor ethics and, in particular, I establish what difference humorousness makes to an instance of speech’s moral value. I set out by making the case for this approach to the topic, demonstrating that focusing on how humorous speech differs, morally, from non-humorous speech allows us to avoid getting caught up in prior ethical debates that are not strictly about humor itself – a shortcoming that is common to many treatments of humor ethics in the existing literature. I show that, in cases of humorous speech, we typically do not assert the …

Hema Upadhyay: Disrupting The Hegemony Of The Slums, A Negative Social Spiral., Silvia Márquez Pease

Department of Art and Art History

This essay presents the theoretical framework that informs my reflections on the hegemony of the slums’ poverty and human conditions, and whether art can disrupt the hegemony and also become a conduit to question our Being, hence Dasein, as per Martin Heidegger. The following pages investigate the work of Hema Upadhyay, in India, and specially, her inspiring protest work offering insights on India’s overpopulation in urban areas such as, Dharavi. She depicts slums becoming a continuum circle of human misery and wealth, politically called a negative social spiral. I argue that the slums, not only destroy the harmony and promise …

Counter-Archival Surplus: Remembering The Partisan Rupture In Post-Socialist Times, Gal Kirn

Artl@s Bulletin

The article departs critically from the postsocialist condition in Yugoslavia marked by conservative revisionism that transformed the memorial landscape. The nation-building process took a clearly negative attitude towards the Yugoslav, socialist and partisan/antifascist past. The first part of the text will shortly present the notion of »counter-archive« and the central features of the method. The second part of the text will offer a short analysis of four case studies: A short partisan poem written by Iztok, a drawing by Dore Klemenčič, a partisan dance by Marta Paulin and a partisan film by Rudi Omota.

Cognitive Tribalism: A Social Doxastic Model, Robert Ragsdale

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How are facemasks – seemingly innocuous artifacts of the biomedical industry – currently embroiled in cultural wars? What motivates popular rejections of scientific consensus and messaging about the reality and consequences of anthropogenic climate change or the COVID-19 virus and vaccine? The puzzle is that (a) despite its being in everyone’s rational interests to have a well-informed public and body politic about collective threats, and (b) despite the public availability of accurate and reliable information, scientific messaging and public discourse surrounding climate change, COVID-19, and vaccine hesitancy, nevertheless, tend to be hijacked by political interest. Yet, if belief is essentially …

Researcher-Participant Privilege: Confidentiality And Qualitative Criminology, Eric Michael

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research institutions have the responsibility to comply with laws that govern the oversight of all research including research with human subjects. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) review research protocols and approve research based on the rights and safety of research subjects. When conducting qualitative criminological research, researchers must weigh ethical considerations around their methods. These methodological considerations are coupled with guiding ethical principles that are fundamental to human subject research. One major consideration regards breaking confidentiality which can bring about great risk to participants. The following thesis focuses on the ethics of researcher-participant privilege and issues that qualitative researchers have in …

Facultas Marginem: Assessing Disability Data And Public Aau Universities’ Affirmative Action Plans For Systemic Barriers Facing Faculty With Disabilities, Joseph Carlton Barry

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

This dissertation contributes to education equity scholarship produced by academics seeking to develop understandings of disability, Persons with Disabilities (PWD), and how both are situated amongst faculty in institutions of higher education. As such, this dissertation centers on a study of public US universities belonging to the Association of American Universities (AAU). This study looks for institutional level associations between respective rates by which college and university faculty with disabilities (FWD) are employed, certain aspects of disability policy drawn from each institution’s 2020 Affirmative Action Plans (AAP), and various other instances of empirical disability data (EDD).

While this study contributes …

A Kantian View Of Transgenderism, Michael S. Mendoza

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

• The recent popularity of sex reassignment surgery is logically untenable and immoral when understood in the light of Kantian philosophy. From a Kantian perspective of synthetic a priori judgments, I argue that a biological male cannot rationally claim to “feel like a woman inside.” As a male, any female is part of the noumenal world and cannot be known apart from perception. The statement “I feel like a woman inside” assumes all women feel the same on the inside. Kant’s explanation of the noumenal and phenomenal excludes the possibility of knowing that all women or men feel the same inside …

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, …

The Intuitiveness Of Animal Rights: Audi's Epistemology, Kantian Ethics, And Regan's Case, Andrew Nesseler

Between the Species

In this paper, I will argue that ethical intuitionism and Robert Audi’s work on its moral epistemology as applied to Kant’s formula of humanity can offer grounding and support for an animal rights position that approaches that of a view articulated by Tom Regan. The combination of these positions will be done by testing our intuitions concerning non-rational individuals—leading one, I argue, to an animal rights view. Then I will briefly note the skeptical concerns about the role of intuitions in our knowledge of the moral status of human animals and non-human animals alike. Ultimately, I will conclude that intuitions …

A Unifying Pluralist Account Of Truth And The Case Of Chinese Philosophy Examined From The Cross-Tradition Engaging Vantage Point: Reply To Chenyang Li, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Truth In Chinese Philosophy: A Commentary On Bo Mou’S Semantic-Truth Approaches In Chinese Philosophy, Chenyang Li

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Philosophy, Ryan Mcelhaney

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

How To Have Impossible Conversations: A Practical Review, J. T. Byrd, Brant Wenger

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

Boghossian, Peter & James Lindsay. How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide. NY: Lifelong Books, 2019. Kindle. 234 pp. $16.99

Augustine Of Hippo: A Historical Theology Critique, Zachary Monte

Honors Program Projects

This study evaluates how current historical theology survey texts understand and present the theology of Augustine. The texts are examined to assess the following: accuracy of presentation on discussed topics, specific theological topics Augustine addressed excluded in the surveys, and theological bias on the part of the authors. The historical theology surveys include Gregg Allison’s Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine, Justo González’s A History of Christian Thought, and Alister McGrath’s Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. The three major topics treated include Augustine’s Trinitarian thought, the Donatist Controversy, and the Pelagian Controversy. The findings …

Augustine Of Hippo: A Historical Theology Evaluation, Zachary Monte

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Historical Theology Survey Critique: Augustine of Hippo evaluates how current historical theology survey texts understand and present the theology of Augustine. The texts will be examined to assess the following: the accuracy of presentation on discussed topics, the specific theological topics which Augustine addressed which are excluded in the surveys, and if there is any discernible theological bias on the part of the authors. The historical theology surveys that are focused on within this research paper include Greg Allison’s Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine, Justo González’s A History of Christian Thought, and Alister McGrath’s Historical Theology: An Introduction …

A Glitch In The Matrix, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of A Glitch in the Matrix (2021), directed by Rodney Ascher.

Método De Enseñanza De Valores Lasallistas Por Medio Del B-Learning En La Universidad De La Salle De Bogotá, Carolina Arévalo Rodríguez

Doctorado en Educación y Sociedad

La universidad se enfrenta a la flexibilidad del tiempo y el espacio en la enseñanza de valores. Se hace necesario el diseño de nuevos métodos de enseñanza a través de las TIC y apoyar las diferentes modalidades de educación a pesar de los desafíos de la universidad: la resistencia al cambio, la habilidad tecnológica de los docentes y estudiantes, la motivación de los estudiantes y el acompañamiento permanente. Esta investigación doctoral tuvo como objetivo determinar el alcance formativo de un método de enseñanza de valores (lasallistas) bajo la modalidad b-learning en estudiantes de pregrado de la Universidad de La Salle …

It's Funny 'Cause It's True: The Lighthearted Philosophers’ Society’S Introduction To Philosophy Through Humor, Jennifer Marra Henrigillis, Steven Gimbel

Open Educational Resources

It's Funny 'Cause It's True is an introductory text in philosophy exploring logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics through questions in the philosophy of humor. Subfields receive a substantive introduction with interactive essays written to be accessible to undergraduates.

The Economic And Philosophic Manuscripts Of Data, Sage D. Young

CMC Senior Theses

Society is filled with words and images that elucidate the positive force radiating from technology entities. I push back against this imprecise and inaccurate narrative by breaking down the illusions created by surveillance capitalism. I argue that there exists a unique relationship between an individual and their environment in creating value, especially in the form of data. This relationship tears down the smokescreens prompted up by the surveillance state because it demonstrates the costs of technology and surveillance capitalism. I found that how data is created and made monetarily valuable has significant, adverse repercussions on the capability to flourish as …