Metaphysics Commons^™

Subterranean Echoes, Daniel E. Garcia

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Subterranean Echoes is an immersive exhibition that explores themes of spirituality, geology, growth, and decay. Depictions of earthly entities, sacred architecture, crystalline portals, reliquary and geological forms are what drive my narratives of ancestral beginnings in-between states of physical and metaphysical realms.

I rekindle and reimagine what it means to stay connected to the land and ancient people of the past. With ceramic materials, I channel divine energy through a primordial process involving earth, water, air, and fire that allows me to reconnect with the land and our predecessors. I create adaptations of spirituality that reflect my own philosophies, experiences, …

The Ballad Of The Wheel, John Kosch

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The Ballad of the Wheel is a piece for voice, percussion, and electronics that examines the cyclical nature of humanity. It draws texts from existential literature that spans almost all of recorded history, from antiquity to present day. In this work, a single narrator poses the same concerns about the nature of existence in different texts, revealing that questions about the meaning of life transcend boundaries of time and space. The prevalence of the theme of reincarnation also suggests that each movement of the piece presents a different manifestation of a single being. The Ballad of the Wheel implies a …

Biological Teleology In The Modern World, Kathryn Siena

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In humans, the heart moves blood through the body. Does the heart therefore have a teleological explanation? Aristotelian teleology (described in Aristotle’s Physics) is the cause-for-the-sake-of-which, or the end towards which something moves. It is evident from current scientific knowledge that there is some sort of orientation of organisms toward an end. This orientation, following Aristotle’s definition of teleology, is conceptually distinct from efficient causation. This orientation is also metaphysically distinct from efficient causation because efficient causal explanations do not properly describe the orientation. However, two common ways of describing teleological explanations imply efficient causation as a metaphysical element. …

Take Your Time, Terry A. Ratzlaff

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I see the world not as one seamless world but as a world composed of other worlds, built on top and within one another. They exist harmoniously, bound not by space but by time. In an instant I can move from one world into another where I can exist in two worlds simultaneously—in space, I am here. In time, I am there.

Worldmaking is a conceptual process of seeing connections and making distinctions within our lived reality.1 It is a process of dividing and organizing parts into collections that represent different narratives. Only through suitable arrangements can we handle vast …

Vagueness And The Logic Of The World, Zack Garrett

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this dissertation, I argue that vagueness is a metaphysical phenomenon---that properties and objects can be vague---and propose a trivalent theory of vagueness meant to account for the vagueness in the world. In the first half, I argue against the theories that preserve classical logic. These theories include epistemicism, contextualism, and semantic nihilism. My objections to these theories are independent of considerations of the possibility that vagueness is a metaphysical phenomenon. However, I also argue that these theories are not capable of accommodating metaphysical vagueness.

As I move into my positive theory, I first argue for the possibility of metaphysical …

Review Of Potentiality: From Dispositions To Modality By Barbara Vetter, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

In recent years, there have been several books written about dispositions. Barbara Vetter’s Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality is another, but it is not just another. Vetter’s book stands out as an ambitious, original, and systematic attempt to develop a new account of metaphysical modality in terms of dispositional properties she calls ‘potentialities.’ According to Vetter, saying that something has a disposition, like fragility or flammability, is to say something about what it can do, such as break or burn. Dispositional concepts are members of a broader class of modal concepts, which also includes necessity, possibility, causation, laws, and essence. …

Theories Of Properties And Ontological Theory-Choice: An Essay In Metaontology, Christopher Gibilisco

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that we have no good reason to accept any one theory of properties as correct. To show this, I present three possible bases for theory-choice in the properties debate: coherence, explanatory adequacy, and explanatory value. Then I argue that none of these bases resolve the underdetermination of our choice between theories of properties.

First, I argue considerations about coherence cannot resolve the underdetermination, because no traditional theory of properties is obviously incoherent. Second, I argue considerations of explanatory adequacy cannot resolve the underdetermination, because every traditional theory of properties lacks the theoretical resources to adequately explain resemblance, …

A Dispositional Account Of Gender, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

This paper argues that one’s gender is partially constituted by extrinsic factors. In Sect. 2, I very briefly explain my understanding of sex, gender, and transgender. In Sect. 3, a survey recent accounts of gender as a socially constructed or conferred property, ending with Judith Butler’s idea that gender is a pattern of behavior in a social context. In Sect. 4, I suggest a modification of Butler’s idea, according to which gender is a behavioral disposition. In Sect. 5, I develop my dispositional account by responding to a worry that it is too essentialist. In Sect. 6, I defend my …

The Mystical And Metaphysical In The Mundane: Directing Middletown, Joshua S. Waterstone

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis contains written documentation regarding the process of directing a theatrical production in fulfillment of the partial requirements for Master of Fine Arts in Directing for Stage and Screen at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.

Topics addressed include play selection, script analysis, director/designer collaboration, coaching of actors and evaluation of final product.

Advisor: Virginia Smith

Dispositions And Potentialities, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Dispositions and potentialities seem importantly similar. To talk about what something has the potential or disposition to do is to make a claim about a future possibilitythe "threats and promises" that fill the world (Goodman 1983, 41). In recent years, dispositions have been the subject of much conceptual analysis and metaphysical speculation. The inspiration for this essay is the hope that that work can shed some light on discussions of potentiality. I compare the concepts of disposition and potentiality, consider whether accounts of these concepts are subject to similar difficulties, and whether having a disposition or a potentiality can depend …

Review Of Getting Causes From Powers By Stephen Mumford And Rani Lill Anjum, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Some philosophers have suggested that having powers in one’s ontology has the advantage of providing resources for an account of causation (see Cartwright 1999; Harré 1970; Mill 1843; Whitehead 1929). But what would a theory of causation look like if we assume that powers are real? In Getting Causes from Powers, Mumford and Anjum make what is perhaps the first sustained attempt to answer that question. The basic idea is that, if there are powers, understood as property-like entities that have manifestations which can be merely possible, then causation is a matter of powers manifesting. According to the authors, …

Manifestations As Effects, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

According to a standard characterization of dispositions, when a disposition is activated by a stimulus, a manifestation of that disposition typically occurs. For example, when flammable gasoline encounters a spark in an oxygen-rich environment, the manifestation of flammability—combustion—occurs. In the dispositions/powers literature, it is common to assume that a manifestation is an effect of a disposition being activated. (I use “disposition” and “power” interchangeably). I address two questions in this chapter: Could all manifestations be effects that involve things acquiring only dispositional properties? And, is thinking of manifestations as contributions to effects preferable to thinking of them as effects? I …

Review Of Thomas Reid’S Theory Of Perception By Ryan Nichols, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

In Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception, Ryan Nichols presents an interpretation and critique of the views of one of the most interesting thinkers of the early modern period, in particular, as the title indicates, those relating to perception. The book covers Reid’s Newtonian method, perception through touch and vision, the intentionality of perceptual states, the role of sensations in perception, perception of primary and secondary qualities, and the unity of perception via a discussion of Molyneux’s question regarding the perceptual abilities of one with recently acquired sight. Nichols’s book is somewhat challenging, more suitable to someone who is familiar …

Reburying The Treasure—Maintaining The Continuity: Two Texts By Śākya Mchog Ldan On The Buddha-Essence, Yaroslav Komarovski

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The rich and interconnected universe of Śākya Mchog Ldan’s views, including those on the buddha-essence, cannot be limited to or summarized in a few neat categories. Nevertheless, the following two interrelated ideas are crucial for understanding Śākya Mchog Ldan’s interpretation of the buddha-essence: 1) only Mahāyāna āryas (’phags pa) have the buddha-essence characterized by the purity from adventitious stains (glo bur rnam dag); 2) the buddha-essence is inseparable from the positive qualities (yon tan, guṇa) of a buddha; In his writings, Śākya Mchog Ldan argues against identifying the buddha- essence as a mere natural …

The Cosmological Argument, Sufficient Reason, And Why-Questions, Dan D. Crawford

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

I propose to take a fresh look at the cosmological argument for God by focusing on one contemporary version defended by Richard Taylor in his book Metaphysics. I have selected Taylor’s argument, first, because of its wide circulation and influence on contemporary philosophers of religion, but more importantly, because it is a contemporary version of a classical argument and will enable me to evaluate traditional themes.

I find that Taylor, like many cosmologists, runs together two importantly different motivations for the cosmological argument—one which starts from a certain causal property of things in the world, another which emphasizes a …