Metaphysics Commons^™

Breathe To Understand, Maxine Swisa

MA TESOL Collection

BREATHE is an acronym for Breathe, Reflect, Empathize, Accept, Thank, Hearten, Engage. The addition of Understand allows for a holistic approach to living a healthy and balanced life both inside and outside the classroom. This paper took form as a result of my personal, spiritual journey, as well as my teaching practice. I noticed that the majority of my students enjoyed experiential activities that included time and space for self-reflection, relaxation and meditation. I began looking for books, seminars, and workshops that explored these areas. Deepak Chopra, Jonathan Kabat-Zinn, Dan Siegel, Eckhart Tolle, et al. offer insights into the benefits …

Naturalism, Causality, And Nietzsche's Conception Of Science, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is a disagreement over how to understand Nietzsche’s view of science. According to what I call the Negative View, Nietzsche thinks science should be reconceived or superseded by another discourse, such as art, because it is nihilistic. By contrast, what I call the Positive View holds that Nietzsche does not think science is nihilistic, so he denies that it should be reinterpreted or overcome. Interestingly, defenders of each position can appeal to Nietzsche’s understanding of naturalism to support their interpretation. I argue that Nietzsche embraces a social constructivist conception of causality that renders his naturalism incompatible with the views …

How To Trace An Erased De Kooning, Ian Gonsher

Scholarly Research

This essay describes a series of paintings made in the early 2000s that investigate art history as a process of sous-rature (under erasure); signified by what is both present and absent in the work.

Nietzsche's Conception Of Truth: Correspondence, Coherence Or Pragmatist?, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Nearly every common theory of truth has been attributed to Nietzsche, while some commentators have argued that he simply has no theory of truth. This essay argues that Nietzsche’s remarks on truth are better situated within either the coherence or pragmatist theories of truth than the correspondence theory. Nietzsche’s thoughts conflict with the correspondence framework because he believes that the truth conditions of propositions are constitutively dependent on our actions.

Derrida's Objection To The Metaphysical Tradition, Christopher A. Wheat

CMC Senior Theses

Derrida’s deconstruction of the philosophic tradition shows us not only the importance of pursuit of knowledge, but also the importance of questioning the assumptions on which such a pursuit is based. He argues that the metaphysical tradition is built from the privileging of the logos (speech, thought, and logic,) over it’s opposite, and while Derrida does not object to the societal results of such a privileging, he questions why we allow ourselves to make such an assumption in the investigation of the origin event, and in the nature of reality.

I chose to study deconstruction because through the course of …

Review Of Anthony Everett's "The Nonexistent", Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

I here review Anthony Everett's monograph, The Nonexistent

The Self In Hume's "Treatise", David M. Krueger

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Much has been written about Hume's treatment of the self and personal identity in his Treatise. However the scholarship generally focuses on individual aspects of Hume's discussion of self and personal identity. This account is an attempt to elucidate Hume's view of the self and personal identity throughout the Treatise, including the Appendix. I argue for a consistent and cohesive interpretation of Hume's account, one that rejects a more traditional view of identity for an unreflective view of identity.

Mullā Ṣadrā On The Efficacy Of Prayer, Sayeh Meisami

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This article presents the manner in which Mullā Ṣadrā explains the influence of prayer (duʿā) on the world, drawing as he does on Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas against the backdrop of his own dynamic metaphysical psychology. Mullā Ṣadrā eventually distances himself from Ibn Sīnā’s position on the passive nature of prayer, and instead opts for Ibn ʿArabī’s reading of the intimate divine–human interplay in prayer itself. In doing so, Mullā Ṣadrā provides a formulation of prayer in which the supplicant plays an active role in eliciting the divine response to her prayer. For Mullā Ṣadrā, prayer therefore fashions the …

Nietzsche On Objects, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Nietzsche was persistently concerned with what an object is and how different views of objects lead to different views of facts, causality, personhood, substance, truth, mathematics and logic, and even nihilism. Yet his treatment of objects is incredibly puzzling. In many passages, he assumes that objects such as trees and leaves, tables and chairs, and dogs and cats are just ordinary entities of experience. In other places, he reports that objects do not exist. Elsewhere he claims that objects exist, but as mere bundles of forces. And sometimes he proposes that we bring all objects into existence. Nietzsche’s writings, then, …

Philosophy's Rarified Air: On Peden's Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The (Re)Naturalization Of Margaret Cavendish: Making Active The Relationship Between Nature And Female Subjectivity In Blazing World, Daniel P. Richards, Julie Chappell (Ed.), Kamille Stone Stanton (Ed.)

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fundamental Mathematics Of Consciousness, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We explore a mathematical formalism that ties together the observer with the observed in the view that Consciousness is primary, operating through three principles which apply at all levels, the essence of qualia of experience. The formalism is a simplified version of Hilbert space mathematics encountered in quantum mechanics. It does, however, go beyond specific interpretations of quantum mechanics and has strong philosophical foundations in Western philosophy as well as monistic systems of the East. The implications are explored and steps for the full development of this axiomatic mathematical approach to Consciousness are discussed.

A Capabilities Approach To The Non-Identity Problem, Jared S. R. Thomas

CMC Senior Theses

Most recent attempts at solving the Non-Identity Problem have focused on providing a deontological solution to the problem, often by giving special attention to rights. In this paper, I argue for a solution that focuses on highlighting the morally permissible second-personal reasons and claims that nonidentity victims may have. I use a natural marriage between a Kantian conceptualization of what it means to be free and equal—being one’s own master—and Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach to identify the rights that all individuals, current and future are assigned. I claim that these rights, or capabilities, are what all are entitled to master for …

Reducing Subjectivity: Meditation And Implicit Bias, Diana M. Ciuca

CMC Senior Theses

Implicit association of racial stereotypes is brought about by social conditioning (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006). This conditioning can be explained by attractor networks (Sharp, 2011). Reducing implicit bias through meditation can show the effectiveness of reducing the rigidity of attractor networks, thereby reducing subjectivity. Mindfulness meditation has shown to reduce bias from the use of one single guided session conducted before performing an Implicit Association Test (Lueke & Gibson, 2015). Attachment to socially conditioned racial bias should become less prevalent through practicing meditation over time. An experimental model is proposed to test this claim along with a reconceptualization of consciousness …

Natural Kindness, Matthew H. Slater

Faculty Journal Articles

Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accom- modate a particular sort of inquiry. Even if coherent, this situation isn’t ideal. My goal in this article is to begin to articulate a more general account of ‘natural kind …

Quasi-Subjectivity And Ethics In Non-Modernity, Justin T. Simpson

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The inspiration behind this philosophical endeavor is an ethical one: interested in what it means to flourish as a human being – how to live well and authentically. Similar to medicine and how the ability to prescribe the appropriate treatment depends on first making a diagnosis, the focus of this work will to be understand the human condition and the ways in which subjectivity, one’s sense of self, is constituted. Given the general dissatisfaction with the modern metaphysical picture of the world, which analyzes the world in terms of the mutually exclusive and completely separate categories of nature/objects and society/subjects, …

Epistemological Realism And Onto-Relations, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Liberty Theological Review

The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious criterion—does the belief in question correspond to reality? My contention is that the aspect of ontology is far too separated from epistemology. This onto-relationship of between reality and beliefs require the epistemic method of epistemological realism. This is not to diminish the task of justification. I will then discuss the role of inference from the onto-relationships of free invention and discovery and whether it is best suited for a foundationalist …

Metaphysics, Deep Pluralism, And Paradoxes Of Informal Logic, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

The paper argues that metaphysical thought, or thought in whose context our general framework of sense is under scrutiny, involves, legitimates, and requires a variety of informal analogues of the ‘true contradictions’ supported in some paraconsistent formal logics. These are what we can call informal ‘legitimate logical inadequacies’. These paradoxical logical structures also occur in deeply pluralist contexts, where more than one, conflicting general framework for sense is relevant. The paper argues further that these legitimate logical inadequacies are real or inherent in sense itself rather than conventional, shows how they can feature in argumentative practice in these metaphysical and …

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

Acting Wide Awake: Attention And The Ethics Of Emotion, Jacob Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In cases where two human cultures disagree over fundamental ethical values, metaethical questions about what could make one or the other position correct arise with great force. Philosophers committed to naturalistically plausible accounts of ethics have offered little hope of adjudicating such conflicts, leading some to embrace moral relativism. In my dissertation, I develop an empirically grounded response to moral relativism by turning away from debates over which action types are right and wrong and focusing instead on shared features of human emotional motivation. On my account, being motivated by ill-will is ethically bad (if it is), just because human …

The Universality Of Hermeneutics In Joseph Kockelmans’S Version Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Dimitri Ginev

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It …

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 …

The Universality Of Hermeneutics In Joseph Kockelmans’ Version Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Dimitri Ginev

Research Resources

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It …

Island Universe Problems, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

We share a common space-time with everything that we interact with in our world. An island universe would be a spatiotemporally interrelated segment of reality that is isolated from the rest of reality; it would be part of our world but something that we cannot interact with. Spatiotemporal interrelatedness plays an important role in a number of metaphysical theories concerning possible worlds. Here I discuss four problems surrounding the possibility of island universes. I contend the most troubling of these problems gives us good reason to think that island universes are possible; metaphysical theories that cannot make sense of the …

Creatures Of Fiction, Objects Of Myth, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

Artifactualists hold that some abstracta are contingent entities, products of the intentional activities of people.  A great many artifactualists are fictional creationists, asserting that fictonal characters are abstracta of this sort, but some, notably Kripke (1973), Salmon (1998, 2002), and Braun (2005), further embrace mythical creationism.  They hold that certain entities that figure in false theories are likewise abstracta that are produced by our intentional activities.  A paradigm example would be Vulcan, the planet proposed by Le Verrier to be the cause of perturbations in the orbit of Mercury.  I here argue that one may not reasonably take the metaphysical …

On Inadvertently Created Abstracta, Fictional Storytelling, And Scientific Hypothesizing, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

In my “Creatures of Fiction, Objects of Myth” (2014), I present and defend an argument for thinking that mythical creationism – the view that mythical objects like phlogiston and Vulcan are abstract artifacts – is false.  One intriguing sort of objection to my argument has been recently put forth by Zvolenszky (2016); she claims that a crucial premise is seen to be unjustified once one considers the phenomena of inadvertently created abstracta, specifically, inadvertently created fictional characters.  I here argue that even if we admit inadvertently created abstracta into our ontology, my argument survives.  I ultimately defend a view on …

Toward Explaining The Gap : How A Particular View Of Explanation Underwrites The Explanatory Gap, Kimberly Van Orman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In my dissertation, I consider a common argument for the existence of an unbridgeable explanatory gap between materialism and conscious experience which purports to show that we can determine a priori that conscious experience cannot possibly be explained by a materialist theory. The claim is: no matter what we might yet learn about the brain (or the world), we know enough right now about materialism and explanation to know that an explanation of conscious experience is beyond our reach. I argue that three well-known examples of this position (Jaegwon Kim, David Chalmers, and Joseph Levine) rely on a very narrow …

The Role Of The Simple Natures And Method In Descartes' Meditations, Thomas C. Fowler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Through The Eyes Of The Dead Others, Isaac Aaron Ceniceros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

I use Edith Wyschogrod's figure of the heterological historian to argue that we have a responsibility to learn from the "dead others" of the past in order to better apply in practical ways the lessons we learn from history. I draw on an interpretation of Nietzsche's view on historiography, to examine the claims of Hegel's dialectic, namely, that the Ideal Absolute for which Spirit pines, is actually achievable, particularly through the advent of the Internet. Beginning with a relatively well-known interpretation of Hegel's philosophy of history, Fukuyama's, I show how Hegel's dialectic takes shape in Fukuyama's interpretation as a negative …

Truth And Falsehood In Plato's Sophist, Michael Oliver Wiitala

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation is a study of the ontological foundations of true and false speech in Plato’s Sophist. Unlike most contemporary scholarship on the Sophist, my dissertation offers a wholistic account of the dialogue, demonstrating that the ontological theory of the “communing” of forms and the theory of true and false speech later in the dialogue entail one another.

As I interpret it, the account of true and false speech in the Sophist is primarily concerned with true and false speech about the forms. As Plato sees it, we can only make true statements about spatio-temporal beings if it …