Epistemology Commons^™

Plurality Of Traditions And Metatheories In Information Science, Taufik Asmiyanto, Muhamad Prabu Wibowo

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Information science presupposes multi traditions because of its close relationship to the convergence of several fields of science that saw epistemic and practical needs and demands due to the phenomenon of the information revolution and information and communication technology (ICT). The multi traditions in information science are relevant to explain limitless study objects in information science in understanding reality and ways of gaining knowledge throughout the development of science. A previous study on ontology and epistemology shows that there is a limitation on human reasoning on the understanding reality that affects further development of science. The plurality of traditions enables …

Hinduism As A Political Weapon: Gender Socialization And Disempowerment Of Women In India, Aindrila Haldar

Master's Theses

There is a growing use of religion as a political tool to control Hindu women in India, contributing to a rise in gender inequality. Immediate authoritative patriarchal domains such as household and politics, continuously speak of “protecting” Hindu women by disregarding their voices and needs. Consequently, potentially creating a loss of agency among women. This research will use inductive reasoning to understand the position of Hindu women in modern Indian society. Particularly, through the understanding of the involvement of religion in the political and household sphere. Hindu women are highly influenced by the expectations of what being an ”ideal” woman …

Real Possibility: Modality And Responsibility, Julia Gaul

Honors Scholar Theses

Imagine: someone is backing out of a parking space and does not look in their rear view mirror. They subsequently hit a car that was passing by. One could argue that they simply could have avoided the accident had they looked in their mirror. This non-actual possibility, that they could have looked in the mirror, seems legally and morally relevant. One could also argue that they could have avoided the accident had they stuck their feet out of their window and sung La Marseillaise.

My leading questions is: how do we distinguish possibilities that are legally and morally relevant from …

Sounding The Nile: River Politics, Environment And Nubian Musical Expression, Regan L. Homeyer

Music ETDs

ABSTRACT

In the mid 1960s, almost 100,000 Egyptian Nubians, people Indigenous to the Nile River Valley, were removed from their ancestral homeland due to the creation of the Aswan High Dam. In the years surrounding their displacement, Nubian musicians in Cairo and villages in new settlement areas gathered traditional Nubian songs and composed new songs to form a distinctive Nubian musical repertoire. This thesis addresses contemporary Nubian musical performance and the role of these reclaimed and newly-written songs in maintaining and revitalizing not only Nubian languages and culture, but especially senses of self in relation to place and, above all, …

Benefits Of The Waldorf Educational Model On Students' Academic Success, Tyler J. Curry

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

As traditionally ran public schools have focused more on testing in the past few decades, alternative methods of education have been rising in relevance. One model of alternative education, the Waldorf method, has an emphasis on developmental stages and the arts in a way that has been shown to increase test scores and reduce behavioral problems in their students. This capstone project examines the academic benefits of the Waldorf model of education and whether their curriculum is equitable for all students in one of the schools in the Monterey Bay area.

Perceptual Characterization: On Perceptual Learning And Perspectival Sedimentation, Anthony Holdier

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In her analysis of perspectival effects on perception, Susanna Siegel has argued that perceptual experience is directly rationally assessable and can thereby justify perceptual beliefs, save for in cases of epistemic downgrade or perceptual hijacking; I contend that the recalcitrance of known illusions poses an insurmountable problem for Siegel’s thesis. In its place, I argue that a model of perceptual learning informed by the dual-aspect framework of base-level cognitive architecture proposed by Elisabeth Camp successfully answers the questions motivating Siegel’s project in a manner that avoids such issues.

Telling And Testimony, Sam Filby

Theses

A central question in the epistemology of testimony concerns whether a

speaker’s testimony should count as a reason for a hearer to believe the

content of the speaker’s assertion. Proponents of the interpersonal view of

testimony (IVTs) contend that it is the interpersonal relationship between

speaker and hearer that provides the hearer with a reason to believe what

the speaker says. In contrast, critics of IVTs argue that the interpersonal

relationship between speaker and hearer is epistemically superfluous. Call

this the superfluity objection to IVTs. In the following paper, I defend

an IVT against the superfluity objection. I argue that …

Probability Of Naturalism And Metanormative Realism, Curtis Howd

Theses

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution can be mobilized to provide epistemological challenges to metanormative realism. It is argued that, since natural selection selects for behaviors adequate for survival and fecundity, our psychologies must be shaped by this same process. A-type challenges point to the improbability of the vast number of true normative beliefs given that they evolved to track survival and fecundity, not truth. B-type debunking arguments point to the improbability of the hypothesis that evolution would track truth given that there are a multitude of defeaters for this hypothesis. I will argue that both a-type and b-type arguments fail to …

Plato's Ban: Why The Poets Are Exiled, Seth J. Gerberding

Honors Thesis

This thesis examines Plato’s ban of poetry in the Republic. In particular, I draw a link between Plato’s method for finding the truth, dialectic, and his banishment of the poets. There are three parts to this thesis. First, I analyze dialectic as a process, understanding what the science searches for and how it does so. Second, I analyze poetry and its metaphysical standing and how that influences psychology. Finally, I argue that the design of dialectic has an inherent weakness, a weakness that allows poets and rhetoricians to corrupt former students of dialectic. In Plato’s perfect state, there is no …

Cosmological Models And The Christian Faith In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Jacob R. Taylor

Tenor of Our Times

In this work the author argues that John Milton justifies the intelligibility and priority of Christian faith against modern revolutions of science in his epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton argues against scientists who choose to believe modern astronomy over cosmology. He argues that Christian faithfulness stands firm despite the crumbling of its medieval cosmological basis. This endurance of the faith is the primary scientific theme of the epic English poem.

When Knowledge Is Not Enough: Racial Ignorance And Understanding, Eric Bayruns García

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

I argue that merely causing individuals to have knowledge of racial injustice and race relations in society is insufficient to prevent them from coming to hold false racist beliefs. I also argue that causing individuals to have understanding of racial injustice and race relations is sufficient to prevent individuals from coming to hold false racist beliefs. I suggest that if these two claims are correct, then educators should compose curricula such that they engender deep understanding of racial injustice and race relations in students.

I suggest curricula should include Charles Mills’ classic book The Racial Contract because this book involves …

Flower Unfurling: Buddhist Modernism And The Early Writing Of James Joyce, Erin Garrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the history of the references to Buddhism in Stephen Hero, James Joyce’s first and unpublished novel, through the author’s previous writing, his sources, and his context, in order to determine how—if at all—the tradition bore upon his earliest depiction of consciousness. Acknowledging that Joyce habitually revisited and refined earlier ideas and prose, it attends to previous essays, notebooks, book reviews, conversations, letters, epiphanies, poems, and autobiographical prose; to available material, bibliographical, and biographical evidence about the specific volumes and performances to which Joyce had access; to language and paratext—including advertisements, introductions, and appended essays—in those volumes; …

Logical Pluralism And Vicious Regresses, Daniel Boyd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This material in this dissertation will be divided into two parts. The first part is a preliminary discussion of vicious regress arguments in the philosophy of logic in the 20th century. The second part will focus on three different versions of logical pluralism, i.e., the view that there are many correct logics. In each case an argument will be developed to show that these versions of logical pluralism result in a vicious regress.

The material in part one will be divided into three chapters, and there are a few reasons for having a preliminary discussion of vicious regress arguments in …

Objectivity, Dagfinn Føllesdal

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

A Defense Of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, Evan O'Donnell

Philosophy Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Climate Discourse And Legitimating Indigenous Wisdom: Toward An Ecosystemic Episteme, Caitlin Robison

Honors Program Theses

Devoted to redefining western capitalist epistemologies through recognition and acceptance of Indigenous wisdom in modern sociopolitical structures, I use this paper to expose theoretical and material flaws in western neoliberal capitalism as an implicitly colonial knowledge system incapable of sufficiently addressing the climate crisis. Here, colonialism is broadly understood as ideological and/or material practices of exploitation and domination within social, cultural, economic, and ecological frameworks. Colonialism, in this paper, is further characterized by having particular philosophical commitments to notions of binarism, individualism, and consumerism which reveal capitalism’s structure and function as neocolonial by nature. Most evidently, today’s global climate crisis …

Against Monetary Functionalism: A Social Ontology Of Money, James Payne

Honors Program Theses

This paper explores the concepts of individualism and holism in social ontology through an analysis of the ontology of money by integrating insights from the Critical Realist tradition as well as the distinction between metaphysical grounds and anchors. In doing so it examines alternative explanations of money's ontology like the paradigmatic approach of John Searle. The results of the inquiry are then connected in relation to the models of social explanation in mainstream economics.

Reconsidering Moral Perception: The Dialectical Emergence Of Moral Perceptual Contents During Experience Via Cognitive Penetration And Oppressive Socialization’S Suppression Of Our Ability To ‘See’ Moral Reasons For Humanization And Liberation, James William Lincoln

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Moral perceptions occur when a subject makes an immediate discernment about the moral features of an occurrent experience. This project taxonomizes theories of moral perception into the following two camps: experientialism and judgementalism. I defend a version of experientialism, Moral Perceptual Orientation, by arguing that we, in addition to making moral judgments, have genuine perceptions with moral content during occurrent experience. I then go on to advance a framework for understanding how these perceptions are curated by our background beliefs by developing a view of dialectical consciousness. I do this by synthesizing Herbert Marcuse’s perspective on the epistemic subject with …

In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, Ian I. Weckler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has been show to be caused by humans. Human-centric behaviors have affected the world to the extent that many believe we have entered a new geologic epoch. This epoch— the Anthropocene—has prompted exploration into the ethical relationship between humans and the rest of the world. We know that a purely anthropocentric ethical system of values has lead ecological imbalance and environmental destruction, and that a non-anthropocentric (or humancentric) ethical system of value would be better suited for maintaining and regaining a habitable environment. However, past conceptions of non anthropocentrism have relied on abstract conceptions of value that fail …

Towards A New Cholx Consciousness: The Visual Rhetorics Of Cholx Artistas As A Method For Social Justice Movements, Elvira Carrizal-Dukes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation study examines the Cholx subculture through the artwork of Chola artistas Paola Rascón and Vicko Alvarez Vega. Growing up, I interacted easily with Cholos and Cholas, but I also knew that in society there was an overall negative idea of Cholos and Cholas. My research advances Cholx consciousness as a method for social movements through the examination of the visual and written rhetorics by Chola artistas. For my dissertation study, I have drawn on theoretical frameworks from Chicana Feminism, Latino Critical Theory, and Social Justice Rhetorics as discussed by Dolores Delgado Bernal, Kendall Leon, Tara Yosso, Daniel Solórzano, …

Wonder: A Phenomenological Exploration, Henry R. Kramer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper presents a phenomenology of wonder through careful description of the internal state of wonder, defined here as “full engagement with something that bewilders you.” This phenomenology explores what is at stake in regards to our inhibitions toward wonder, how we can overcome those inhibitions, what the experience of wonder is like, and what effects wonder can have on our lives and ethical activity. This includes an investigation of the relationships between wonder and topics such as judgment, attention, engagement, imagination, play, and our ethical treatment of the more-than-human world. This paper demonstrates that by cultivating wonder we are …

St. Augustine And St. Thomas Aquinas On The Mind, Body, And Life After Death, Christopher Choma

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Historical and philosophical investigation of the thoughts of two of philosophy's most innovative Christian thinkers. The thesis primarily deals with the relationship between the mind and the body through the lenses of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas. Thesis also includes theological discussions of life after death, and how one can be certain that the soul survives the corruption of the body.

The Ontological Significance Of Consciousness, Corydon Diamond

CMC Senior Theses

Providing a wholly physical description of consciousness in nature is an elusive process. Unlike all other physical systems, consciousness seems to be explainable only if it is considered as non-physical. However, the arguments for a materialist view of consciousness, with consciousness prioritized as a process which creates imperfect dependence relations in reality, eliminates the need for a dualist understanding of reality. Through an explanation of imperfect dependence, materialist consciousness overcomes all relevant dualist arguments, while simultaneously retaining an epistemic gap, denying the conceivability of zombies, and providing convincing explanations of seemingly dualist positions in a materialist fashion.

Stakes-Sensitive Testimonial Injustice: Prejudicial Thresholds For Belief In Testimony Of Sexual Assault, Grace Kelleher

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I expand on Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice by advancing an additional model of testimonial injustice. This model, called stakes-sensitive testimonial injustice posits that an individual may incur an epistemic harm when his or her testimony is measured against a threshold for belief that has been unjustly influenced due to prejudiced stakes considerations on the part of the hearer. In particular, I focus on our society’s tendency to hold the statements of women who testify about their experiences of sexual assault to high thresholds for belief and posit that this tendency stems from a biased understanding …

The Noxious Market Of Division 1 College Football, Bryan Carlen

CMC Senior Theses

This paper is made up of four sections. The first will explain Satz’ framework for identifying and treating noxious markets, as well as how it was developed, and the second will make the case for viewing D1 football as a labor market. The second section will lay out who’s involved, what their incentives are, and what they must do to earn these incentives. The third section will then apply Satz’ framework to the market at hand, as well as address a gap in her theory regarding her concept of weak agency. The paper will then conclude with policy guidelines that, …

Ephesians And Ecumenism, Toby Eisenberg

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Christian ecumenism has made great strides during the twentieth century but is now widely seen as needing a new path. Avery Dulles has proposed an “exchange of gifts” notion of dialogue in which the participant churches share their understanding of the Christian life and all of the reasons they have for holding their particular doctrines and practices, drawing on whatever normative sources they believe are appropriate. The approach enables the participants to bear testimony in love in the hopes that they may better understand and appreciate each other more fully, thereby opening a path to increased doctrinal consensus and thus …

Metaphors For Meaningful Documents, Martin I. Nord

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The ever-increasing speed and reach of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are often lauded for the beneficial social effects we are told they have. This raises questions about the connection between knowledge and social relationships, especially concerning meaningful relationships in a world where people are increasingly represented as data. To answer this question, one approach is to consider the role of documents in communicating “meaningful” content in pursuit of understanding. Because this is difficult to articulate, this paper takes the approach of using metaphors—specifically of the document as a bridge, a window, a painting, a briefcase, and a mirror—to consider …

Functional Corporate Knowledge, Mihailis Diamantis

William & Mary Law Review

The line between guilt and innocence often turns on what a defendant knew. Although the law’s approach to knowledge may be relatively straightforward for individuals, its doctrines for corporate defendants are fraught with ambiguity and opportunities for gamesmanship. Corporations can spread information thinly across employees so that it is never “known.” And prosecutors can exploit legal uncertainties to bring knowledge-based charges where corporations were merely negligent in how they handled information. Whereas knowledge as a mens rea has unique practical and normative properties that vary with a corporation’s size and industry, corporate law treats knowledge just like any other mental …

Breaking The Epistemic Pornography Habit: Cognitive Biases, Digital Discourse Environments, And Moral Exemplars, Andrew D. Spear

Articles, Book Chapters, Essays

Purpose: This paper analyzes some of the epistemically pernicious effects of use of the Internet and social media. In light of this analysis, it introduces the concept of epistemic pornography and argues that epistemic agents both can and should avoid consuming and sharing epistemic pornography.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper draws on research on epistemic virtue, cognitive biases, social media use and its epistemic consequences, Fake News, paternalistic nudging, pornography, moral philosophy, moral elevation, and moral exemplar theory to analyze the epistemically pernicious effects of the Internet and social media.

Findings: There is a growing consensus that Internet and social media activate …

The Reliable Revisionist, Caitlyn Schaffer

Philosophy: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The present text explores how the topic of head and heart is much more complicated than one would expect, according to Paul Henne and Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, contributors of Neuroexistentialism. “Does Neuroscience Undermine Morality” aims at figuring out the problem of which moral judgments we can trust, judgments from one’s head (revisionism) or judgments from one’s heart (conservatism). My hypothesis suggests the opposite of the authors, I believe that if you are a revisionist, your first order intuitions are reliable. After setting the framework, I make three main arguments. (A.) If you are able to self-correct then you can identify errors …