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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Mind
Life Beyond The Set: A Philosophical Analysis Of Existentialism In The Truman Show, Sharlene Almanzar
Life Beyond The Set: A Philosophical Analysis Of Existentialism In The Truman Show, Sharlene Almanzar
CAFE Symposium 2026
This paper aims to examine The Truman Show (1998) through the existentialist ideas of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, with particular attention to his concepts of freedom, bad faith, and self-creation, while also exploring the existentialist themes previously articulated by philosophers such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. The Truman Show serves as an allegory of existential freedom, demonstrating throughout that individuals are not born with an innate, fixed nature, but rather continually define themselves through their choices, ultimately illustrating Sartre’s principle that “existence precedes essence”. The concluding realization of the main character, Truman Burbank, that his world is an elaborate illusion embodies that …
Is Ignorance Bliss?, Eliana R. Mandelberg
Is Ignorance Bliss?, Eliana R. Mandelberg
CAFE Symposium 2024
This project explores the ethics of telling someone factual information, even if it could hurt them. Specifically, the main question is: If a person were to learn that our world was just The Matrix, would they be obligated to tell people to be truthful or keep it to themselves to spare the feelings of others?
Horror Fiction, Aljoša Mršović
Horror Fiction, Aljoša Mršović
Student Publications
Horror is a relatively new emotion. It is based on the subversion of a scientific account of the world. Therefore, it could not have existed prior to the establishment of such an account. Furthermore, it is unique because it can only be experienced through a fictional medium, as only a fictional medium allows the violation of the scientific, or natural, account of the world. There are several schools of thought that attempt to explain the phenomenon of fictional emotions, but 'irrationality' appears to be the most in touch with the scientific understanding of how the brain processes fictional emotions. Ultimately, …
The Possibility Of An Afterlife As Examined Through Near-Death Experiences, Anastasia N. Semenov
The Possibility Of An Afterlife As Examined Through Near-Death Experiences, Anastasia N. Semenov
Student Publications
Approximately five percent of the world’s population has dealt with a near-death experience, which is the unusual phenomenon after temporarily dying or coming close to death, where people feel like they have left their body and see an afterlife. Millions of accounts from people around the world who have experienced this occurrence tell of seeing an afterlife, which should allow for the possibility of a life after death. Although peoples’ experiences in another realm differ, they all have similar features such as travelling in a fast tunnel and encountering loving light beings. These experiences are so intense that they form …
Exploring The Notion Of Forgetting, Nora H. Coyne
Exploring The Notion Of Forgetting, Nora H. Coyne
Student Publications
Ignorance and forgetting are similar in some regards, as both involve a state of not knowing. Often forgetting, like ignorance, can put us at a disadvantage in regards to a lack of retaining knowledge. Forgetting can lead to ignorance if not realized and remedied. However, just as ignorance is more than a lack of knowledge, forgetting is more than a lack of remembrance. There are many kinds of forgetting, each with different kinds memories lost and purposes served. Despite the inherent risks of forgetting, there are advantages, ones that make forgetting an essential part of human cognition. In fact, without …
Knowing How: A Computational Approach, Joseph A. Roman
Knowing How: A Computational Approach, Joseph A. Roman
Student Publications
With advances in Artificial Intelligences being achieved through the use of Artificial Neural Networks, we are now at the point where computers are able to do tasks that were previously only able to be accomplished by humans. These advancements must cause us to reconsider our previous understanding of how people come to know how to do a particular task. In order to unpack this question, I will first look to an account of knowing how presented by Jason Stanley in his book Know How. I will then look towards criticisms of this view before using evidence presented by the existence …
The Stakes Of Spinoza’S Language: A Moderate Necessitarian Understanding Of 'Ethics' And Spinoza’S Conception Of Freedom As Both Positive And Negative Liberty, Jeffrey J. Horvath
The Stakes Of Spinoza’S Language: A Moderate Necessitarian Understanding Of 'Ethics' And Spinoza’S Conception Of Freedom As Both Positive And Negative Liberty, Jeffrey J. Horvath
Student Publications
This paper explores different readings of Spinoza's "Ethics" with a specific focus on Spinoza's understanding of the relationship between infinite and finite modes in his constructed universe. These different readings suggest that Spinoza's conception of human freedom can be read both as examples of positive liberty and negative liberty.
Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, And The Political Nature Of Thought, Vernon W. Cisney
Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, And The Political Nature Of Thought, Vernon W. Cisney
Philosophy Faculty Publications
In this paper I employ the notion of the ‘thought of the outside’ as developed by Michel Foucault, in order to defend the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze against the criticisms of ‘elitism,’ ‘aristocratism,’ and ‘political indifference’—famously leveled by Alain Badiou and Peter Hallward. First, I argue that their charges of a theophanic conception of Being, which ground the broader political claims, derive from a misunderstanding of Deleuze’s notion of univocity, as well as a failure to recognize the significance of the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze’s thinking. From here, I go on to discuss Deleuze’s articulation of the ‘dogmatic image …
Carruthers And Constitutive Self-Knowledge, John C. Hill
Carruthers And Constitutive Self-Knowledge, John C. Hill
Student Publications
In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science. In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results.
Avoiding The Super-Naturalistic Fallacy: Practical Reasoning And The Insightful Undergraduate, Steven Gimbel
Avoiding The Super-Naturalistic Fallacy: Practical Reasoning And The Insightful Undergraduate, Steven Gimbel
Philosophy Faculty Publications
It has become cliche to say that today's student are moral relativists. With the twin movements of ethics across the curriculum and critical thinking across the curriculum sweeping the Academy, one might think that we are in a good place to start making inroads towards creating careful and willing discussants of contemporary moral issues out of our students. Unfortunately, the reverse is far too often true. Associated with the standard sort of introduction to ethical theory, there is a regularly arising trap that brings with it the worst of all possible results - the alienation of our very best students …
Virtue And The Need For Heroes, Daniel R. Denicola
Virtue And The Need For Heroes, Daniel R. Denicola
Philosophy Faculty Publications
Ronald Zigler has intended to take us on an educational adventure, a descent into the moral underworld of human biology, in search of "a theory of virtue and how it can be taught." With the shade of John Dewey as guide, intoning the admonition that "all virtues and vibes are habits," Zigler tracks the sources of aggression through the epigenetic land and, lo, approaches even unto the hypothalamus itself. He returns blinking into the daylight of moral education, clutching the truth that training in meditation is a key to the development of virtue, because it can "promote the functional integration …
The Education Of The Emotions, Daniel R. Denicola
The Education Of The Emotions, Daniel R. Denicola
Philosophy Faculty Publications
Human emotion is, to some, an embarrassment. They regard our emotional aspect as not fully human; like some grotesque offspring, it should be hidden away in our psychic cellar or gotten rid of altogether. Our emotions (or "passions" or "affections") are powerful, but they may be kept at bay by our fair child, reason. The enmity seems natural; reason represents the orderly, the proper, the Apollonian; emotion is the disruptive, the capricious, the Dionysian. The accomplishments of cool reason may be consumed in the heat of passion. To give vent to emotion is thus to turn irrational and to reveal …