Metaphysics Commons^™

Powers And The Metaphysics Of Fundamentality, Benjamin Cook

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I address the question of whether ground, the relation that obtains between entities e1...en and a further entity e when e ontologically depends on, and is metaphysically explained by, e1...en, should be understood causally and, if so, whether this has any substantive implications. I answer both in the affirmative. I argue that ground and causation are similar enough to motivate characterizing ground as a special kind of causation, and that this can be done if we adopt a powers-theoretic account of causation. Moreover, I argue that the resultant view of ground, what I call “powerful, existential causation,” …

“Imbedded” Belonging And Black Being: A Critical Analysis Of Blackness In Kendrick Lamar’S 2016 Grammy Awards Performance, Anwar Uhuru

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

This article argues that in a space of artistic performance Black people can fully imbed themselves in the space, despite the temporality of the performance itself. Therefore, in the act of performing, Black people are able to fully be recognized as a human whole. The goal of this article is to think of a Hip Hop beingness that fuses the temporal/body, consciousness/beyond the body, and the ancestral connections of orality and genetic memory. I do so by looking at how black performance disrupts dominant narratives of black bodies as being just flesh. This article brings together, Hip Hop studies, Africana …

Interdisciplinary Convergence To God: A Supplement To The Big Bang & God– An Astro-Theology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Here is a December 2022 supplement to the 2015 book—The Big Bang and God: An Astro-Theology wherein an astronomer and a theologian offer a study of interdisciplinary convergences with natural theology both in the scientific researches of Sir Fred Hoyle and in the philosophical researches of Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead, thereby illustrating a constructive postmodern trend (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) by Theodore Walker Jr. and Chandra Wickramasinghe, with editing and co-authoring by Alexander Vishio.

Biology, astronomy, astrobiology, cosmology, and theology converge when the word “God” refers to “that than which none greater can conceived” (St. Anselm), …

The Ins And Outs Of Undergraduate Research And Leadership: A Student's Perspective, Regina F. Hockert

Kinesiology and Public Health

This manuscript is a reflective write-up of Regina Hockert’s experience in completing KINE 462, Honors Kinesiology Senior Project, during the 2022 Fall Quarter. It describes their experience as an undergraduate research leader, including specific milestones and artifacts related to a broader replication study and the daily activities of Dr. Jafrā Thomas’ lab. This essay was designed to be a written reflection around their senior project presentation and the insights shared through that medium about the senior project experience. It is created to showcase lessons learned in relationship with the tasks and responsibilities required of working in-depth on student-led research. …

To The Lighthouse Or To Mrs. Ramsay? A Study Of Materialization Through The Symbolism Of The Lighthouse In Virginia Woolf’S To The Lighthouse, Virginia Moscetti

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In this paper, I argue that the “lighthouse” in Virginia Woolf’s novel To The Lighthouse operates as a symbol for Mrs. Ramsay’s “self-hood” and for Mr. Ramsay’s obscure desire for sanctuary and domesticity in Mrs. Ramsay. Through this symbolism I further contend that Woolf renders the ambiguous processes associated with self-hood and desire materially legible and, in doing so, demonstrates how metaphor and symbolism reconstitute our material world into representation. Moreover, I argue that we can conceptualize the lighthouse symbolism revolving around and centered in Mrs. Ramsay in terms of T.J. Clark’s “dual figure”; a figure with two symbolic connotations …

Speculative Realism And Systems Metaphysics, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included emergence of a school of “speculative realism” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought, but also opposes naïve realism or positivism. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but most agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Speculative realists who draw upon Marxist thought identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative realism from the perspective of the metaphysics of systems …

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …

Dialogue Concerning The Existence And Nature Of God, Theodore J. Szpakowski

Student Publications

This fictional work is based on Euthyphro by Plato and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. It mimics the dialogue style of these authors and places Socrates, Cleanthes, and Philo at Gettysburg College to discuss the existence and nature of God along with the author, a Gettysburg College student. In doing so, it shows how the questions asked by Plato and Hume are relevant today.

Selfless Selfishness: The Me And We Of Individuality, Jacob Bennett

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

In this provocation, I argue against contributors to the global publication The Economist that the biggest threat to western liberalism is not equity but rather an incomplete and misplaced definition of individualism. Such a definition does not take the history of racism in the context of the United States (U.S.) into consideration. Through lessons taught by a heyoka of the Oglala Lakota people, Black Elk, a refined conceptualization of individuality could center both the personal and communal to set the stage for truly equitable policy development within the U.S.

Transformative, Noetic, And Transpersonal Experiences During Personal Development Workshops, Helané Wahbeh, Cassandra Vieten, Garret Young, Agnes Cartry-Jacobsen, Dean Radin, Arnaud Delorme

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The global personal development market was valued at $38.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow an additional 5% from 2020 to 2027. Many of these workshops promise to be transformational. This secondary analysis study examined transformative, transpersonal, and noetic aspects of personal development workshops. We found that 74% of post-survey records endorsed that participants experienced a moment of clarity or profound insight during their workshop. In addition, 66% endorsed that participants had experienced at least one noetic experience, and 84% endorsed at least one transpersonal experience. These analyses provide preliminary evidence for the transformational potential of personal development …

Decolonizing Genderqueer: An Inquiry Into The Gender Binary, Resistance, And Imperialistic Social Categories, Lauren E. Abruzzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines core metaphysical properties of nonbinary and genderqueer categories in dominant U.S. contexts. I address a prevailing argument that these categories, by definition, resist the gender binary and are therefore radical modes of existing. In response, I put forth a view of ‘nonbinary’ and ‘genderqueer’ that I call the Diachronic Approach, which describes these categories as yet another set of tools within an imperialistic gender system, much like ‘man’ or ‘woman.’ In other words, they are what I refer to as imperialistic social categories. While nonbinary and genderqueer people do not fall perfectly within the U.S. gender …

Necessity, Essence And Analyticity: Toward An Analytic Essentialist Account Of Necessity, Dongwoo Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Some truths could not have failed to hold. Such are called metaphysically necessary truths. As Michael Dummett once aptly formulated, the philosophical problem about necessity is twofold: what makes necessary truths necessarily true and how do we recognize them as such? This dissertation aims to address these questions by developing and defending a novel account of necessity, which has the following three main theses: (1) the necessity of a statement about an entity is established as a consequence of a general principle implying that if the entity is a certain way then it is necessarily that way and the fact …

When Knowing Prevents Doing: An Exposition On Commitment Hazards, Alexander Porter

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Information hazards are risks posed by potentially harmful true information. Information hazards include the risks posed by instructions on how to make a bomb, facts about world events which could cause harmful political unrest, or even the password to an email account being revealed. I will examine and explain one specific type of information hazard which can be seen as the subject of discussion in three well-known but disparate philosophical texts: information which draws attention away from individual control. I will argue that this idea shows up in Plato as what is being avoided through noble falsehoods in The Republic …

Spirituality, Well-Being, And The Role Of Oneness, Kelly S. Erickson Albonico

Psychology ETDs

Spirituality is generally found to have a significant but small positive association with well-being; however, the associations between spirituality and well-being vary greatly. One organizing framework for understanding the varying associations may be the degree to which spirituality and well-being measures capture connection, the pinnacle of which may be conceptualized as Oneness. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to begin exploring this hypothesis by examining the associations between beliefs in Oneness and dimensions of subjective well-being and to test possible conflating and contributing factors in the associations between beliefs in Oneness and subjective well-being. Results indicated preliminary support for …

Actual Causation: Apt Causal Models And Causal Relativism, Jennifer R. Mcdonald

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation begins by addressing the question of when a causal model is apt for deciding questions of actual causation with respect to some target situation. I first provide relevant background about causal models, explain what makes them promising as a tool for analyzing actual causation, and motivate the need for a theory of aptness as part of such an analysis (Chapter 1). I then define what it is for a model on a given interpretation to be accurate of, that is, say only true things about, some target situation. This involves a systematization of various representational principles …

How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems In Theology And Church Posed By Modern Philosophy, Charles W. Westby

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Westby, Charles W. “How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems in Theology and Church Posed by Modern Philosophy.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2022. 347 pp.

This dissertation analyzes modern idealism as developed by René Descartes and Immanuel Kant to show how modern philosophy has impacted conservative theology, focusing on the theology of Carl F. H. Henry. The relationship between theology and philosophy is analyzed in terms of foundationalism, using postliberal theological analysis propounded by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck. Speech Act Theory as propounded by J. L. Austin and John R. Searle is used to critique modern idealism in …

Metaphysical Coherentism, Jan Swiderski

Dissertations - ALL

I defend metaphysical coherentism, according to which reality is an interdependent network, system, or web, held together by a relation philosophers call "metaphysical explanation" or "grounding". If coherentism is true, nothing is ungrounded, things ground each other, and understanding what it is to be any given thing – a tree, a house, or a person – is grasping how it fits in: how it grounds and is grounded by its environment.

Coherentism is inconsistent with a widely-accepted, orthodox view of grounding, according to which certain fundamental facts about reality asymmetrically determine everything else. In Chapter 1, I argue that this …

Adoration Above Objectification: The Promotion Of Other In Black, Mexican And Arabic Love Poetry, Joycelynn L. Baker

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the philosophical fundamentals of sexual objectification and presents opposing literature, written in the 20th century, by Black, Mexican and Arabic male poets in contrast. In vigorous patriarchal environments that provide more opportunities to practice sexual objectification, the poets reframe male metaphysical perception and behavior in romantic or sexual contexts by promoting the autonomy and agency of women above themselves, and displaying their enjoyment of that situation. This paper will discuss how Western metaphysical philosophy impacts self-perception and belief in contemporary romantic contexts.

New Animals, Alina Iakirevitch

Theses and Dissertations

To transfer the rhythms of the body into the earth, in Lippard’s language, one has to engage in a non verbal, illogical action. Art is the sphere of this action. Staying engaged with the unpredictable in us, the random, the primal, is the core of art making and encountering art.

Speech Acts As Contingent Encounters: Realizing Agency In Contaminated Worlds, Zachary Cross

Honors Theses

Agency is realized in the act of speaking, an act which is always contingent on a collaborative process that transforms all parties involved. We think and act with one another and our concepts, there is no act of speech prior to encounter. In this paper I explore different ways which language shapes our thinking and play with those structures to use them as models for realizing agency. This exploration became personal insofar as exploring ways of thinking transformed my own sense of agency in the speech act. The completion of this paper is thus essential to its conclusion.

Bad Actors, Wendell Ward

English Theses & Dissertations

This manuscript contains a collection of short stories. It also includes the first several chapters of a novella. Within are characters who act and suffer consequences without the imposition of supernatural elements to affect outcomes, which is hopefully what makes them seem “real.” But then there are ambiguities and archetypes and symbolic imagery dancing around the edges of their predicaments, too. Think flambéed Flaubert with the saltiness of Hemingway and the peppery tang of Woolf complimented with a sugary pinch of Charlotte Bronte to bring out the flavor of the tomatoes, poured over with a rich, Jungian gravy. If this …

Disorienting Object Oriented Ontology: Queer Landscapes And Ecological Bodies In Richard Siken And Harryette Mullen., Andrew N. Hutto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on a recent development within the study of metaphysics, known as object oriented ontology (OOO), and works out questions of being alongside contemporary poetry. Recognizing the post anthropocentric purchase afforded by OOO’s claim that everything is an object and that these objects are impossible to correlate with, this thesis will look at the use of objects in Richard Siken’s War of the Foxes and Harryette Mullen’s Recyclopedia. Drawing heavily from Sara Ahmed’s queer theory of disoriented objects and Timothy Morton’s ecological insights, this thesis will argue that despite OOO’s advancement, there are critical gaps to fill in …

The Foundation Of A Grand Unified Metaphysics, Jason R. Miller

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Philosophers from Leibniz to Parfit have tackled the problem of existence and the problem of arbitrarity. I divide the solutions to these two problems into three general categories: (1) infinite regress answers, (2) ex nihilo answers, and (3) self-caused cause answers. I show that the first two (infinite regress and ex nihilo) categories of answers either fail to answer the problem of existence or the problem of arbitrarity or fail to satisfy one or more reasonable assumptions about said problems. Believing it to be useful to a self-caused cause answer to the problem of existence and the problem of arbitrarily, …

A Defense Of Moral Realism, Caleb Robb

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

My Theis is a defense of the moral metaethical theory known as moral realism. Moral realism is the idea that moral laws are objective, true, non-natural, and applicable to all moral agents. I reference and subscribe to the form of moral relativism that is proposed by Russ Shafer-Landau in his book Moral Realism. In my thesis I argue that moral realism is the correct view of moral laws, and that relativism, error theory, and noncognitivism are all incorrect views. Relativism argues that moral laws stem from the culture and people in each society, and that they are subjective to only …

Where Epistemology And Metaphysics Touch In Lois Lowry's The Giver, Seth Vannatta

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In Lois Lowry’s dystopian young adult novel, The Giver, the veil of perception— the gap between appearance and reality— is woven into the community as a policy measure meant to establish Sameness—the effort to insure a world without conflict, inequality, difference, pain, or freedom of choice. But a question lingers in the premise of the novel’s community. Given that our options for bridging the gap amount to building a bridge of experience across it or digging a tunnel of existence under it, has the bridge been sabotaged to render perception spurious, or has the tunnel been blocked to alter reality …

A Humanist's Account: Manetti On Humanism's Impact On Morality In 15th Century Italy., Connor Kurtz, Beau Kilpatrick

Undergraduate Research Events

Abstract

Religion, art, and politics were at their peak during the Italian Renaissance. However, because of the generously allocated talent of the Italian sphere at this time it is easy to overlook the contributions of those who broke away from the Catholic concentration and kick started this humanistic era. Giannozzo Manetti, an Italian politician who in 1452 wrote De Ignate er Excellencia Hominis, a challenge to Pope Innocent III’s philosophy. The text has been translated to “On Human Worth and Excellence” and describes a deep-rooted foundation of humanism in religion. He concludes a functionality of society and religion in …

The Theological Structure For Forming Christian Vocational Spirituality: A Practical Method For The Whole Of The Christian Life, Yong Sub Sim

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

The Christian church works for reconciliation between God and his creatures through Jesus Christ. For this, the church calls people and helps them hear, understand, recognize and receive the Spirit of God through Jesus. This dissertation explains this process as walking with, working with and following Jesus.

This dissertation builds a theological structure for forming “Christian vocational spirituality” as the whole of the Christian life reconciled with the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ. This theological structure guides the process through which a human being becomes a true Christian being, and a Christian being becomes a true human being reconciled …

Knowledge Through Divine Light: Ghazali’S Notions Of Mystical Cognition, Maisara Maasoum Marzouk

The Undergraduate Research Journal

Illumination, or knowledge through divine light, is a type of mystical cognition that Abu Hamid Ghazali regarded to be the cause of his rescue from his famous skeptical crisis. According to him, this type of divine knowledge is the apex of knowledge, to which all other sciences are subordinate. The receptive organ of this knowledge is the heart, a divine and cognitive subtlety that is distinct though related to the physical heart. Such is done by removing the veils that obstruct divine light from reaching it by means of the science of unveiling. The disclosure of knowledge that occurs once …

Theory Of Knowledge In The Tretise Of Al-Gazali “Al-Kistasu-Lmustakim” (Right Scales), Kodirov Davronbek

The Light of Islam

Today, one of the urgent tasks of the social sciences is the construction of the Third Renaissance in our country, the transfer of the heritage of our ancestors to the younger generation, and their education in the spirit of moral and spiritual ideas based on Islamic philosophy. Therefore, it is important to study and research the sources that underlie the religious and philosophical views that have been formed and consolidated in our country for centuries. One of these philosophical writings is Al-Qistasu-l-Mustakim (Right scales) by Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad alGhazali, a thinker, lawyer, philosopher, and mystic who lived and …

First-Person Experience Cannot Rescue Causal Structure Theories From The Unfolding Argument, Michael H. Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrian Doerig

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

We recently put forward an argument, the Unfolding Argument (UA), that integrated information theory (IIT) and other causal structure theories are either already falsified or unfalsifiable, which provoked significant criticism. It seems that we and the critics agree that the main question in this debate is whether first-person experience, independent of third-person data, is a sufficient foundation for theories of consciousness. Here, we argue that pure first-person experience cannot be a scientific foundation for IIT because science relies on taking measurements, and pure first-person experience is not measurable except through reports, brain activity, and the relationship between them. We also …