Philosophy of Mind Commons^™

Sustaining Ireland, Body And Soul: A Woman Leader's Story Of The Cooperative Movement, Elizabeth Summerfield

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This article tells the story of the Cooperative Movement in Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the perspective of one of its woman leaders. It does so in order to distil lessons for the contemporary thought leadership of sustainability from a period before the term was coined. It does so with the warrant of Albert Einstein:

The distinction between the past, the present and the future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Its evidence base is historical literature, but its argument and analysis draw on recent research in leadership studies, neuroscience and theology.

Theorizing, Bounded Rationality, And Expertise: Cognitive Sociology And The Quasi-Realism Of Problem-Solving As A Course Of Activity, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

The question facing sociology is whether it is a field or a discipline. If it is a field, then there is no need for theorizing. However, if sociology is a discipline, then problem-solving cannot be disentangled from theorizing without a loss of intelligibility – the inability to explain the social as the concept of the discipline. Through the quasi-realism of problem-solving as a course of activity, this chapter presents cognitive sociology as a paradigm appropriate to the concept of the social understood as an ongoing course of activity. In doing so, it is shown how bounded rationality and expertise play …

Disharmony Of The Soul: A Philosophical Analysis Of Psychological Trauma And Flourishing, Adam Blehm

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that psychological trauma hinders human flourishing by disrupting psychic harmony and hindering virtuous relationships. Given the negative symptomology of posttraumatic stress related disorders (i.e., PTSD) this conclusion may seem a bit obvious to some. However, making the case for trauma as a hindrance to human flourishing is more complicated than it may first appear.

First, in the extant literature, trauma as a concept tends to be unclear. In much of the empirical and philosophical literature, trauma can include a certain kind of event, experience, effect, or a combination of all three. Furthermore, because of practical …

The Emergence Of Dilemmas Of Consciousness: Resolving The Hard Problem And Explanatory Gap, Gabriel Hull

Psychology Student Research

I propose a resolution to the hard problem of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and the explanatory gap. I set forth conditions that may lead an organism or system to develop dilemmas that correspond directly to our dilemmas of consciousness. I also describe a hypothetical state-machine with the capacity to develop both these dilemmas and related concepts. Since the only objective properties of consciousness are its attendant dilemmas and adjacent concepts, the system serves to resolve the hard problem of consciousness.

Does Integrated Information Theory Make Testable Predictions About The Role Of Silent Neurons In Consciousness?, Gary Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

Tononi et al. claim that their integrated information theory of consciousness makes testable predictions. This article discusses two of the more startling predictions, which follow from the theory’s claim that conscious experiences are generated by inactive as well as active neurons. The first prediction is that a subject’s conscious experience at a time can be affected by the disabling of neurons that were already inactive at that time. The second is that even if a subject’s entire brain is “silent,” meaning that all of its neurons are inactive (but not disabled), the subject can still have a conscious experience. …

Envisioning Ethical Mass Influence Systems, Alex Mayhew, Yimin Chen, Sarah Cornwell, Nicole Delellis, Dominique Kelly, Liu Yifan, Victoria Rubin

Data and Test Instruments

This work envisions the possibility of ethical Mass Influence Systems (MISs). Modern algorithmic MISs, like Facebook and YouTube, have seen a link between the systems design for profit maximization and the increased radicalization of users (Wu, 2017). Using a Goals analysis grounded in philosophy (Falcon, 2022; Lipton, 1990; Bostrom, 2014), we will contrast the goals of existing algorithmic MISs with the goals of a future ethical algorithmic MIS. With the philosophical guidance of the Moral Parliament (Newberry and Ord, 2021) and the Moral Landscape (Janoff-Bulman and Carnes, 2013), we elaborate on a set of goals and mechanisms for promoting human …

Emotional Perspectives On Existential Threat: Evaluating The Rationality Of Climate Anxiety, Rachael Lange

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to answer the following question: Is climate anxiety a rational emotion? In order to arrive at an answer, several queries embedded in the main question must be addressed. This paper will outline a theory of emotion in order to define anxiety, assess climate change as a specific emotional object, and compare the rationality of anxiety using two evaluative standards. Climate anxiety is an emerging emotional phenomenon experienced in response to the perceived detrimental effects of a warming climate. Due to the novel identification of this contemporary emotional phenomenon with the established emotion of anxiety, there has thus …

A Critique Of Scanlon’S Contractualism, Ashley Purdy

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Part of T. M. Scanlon’s project in What We Owe to Each Other (1998) is to explain the importance and priority of moral reasons. But Scanlon also argues that this priority of moral reasons is compatible with the pursuit of other things we value, such as friendship. To this end, Scanlon claims that contractualist moral reasons internally accommodate our interests in such values. In this paper, I argue that Scanlon is unsuccessful in showing the compatibility of morality and the pursuit of our other values. The contractualist may not be able to be a good friend.

The Affection In Between : From Common Sense To Sensing In Common, April Flakne

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Exposing a fundamental but forgotten capacity to sense with others, this fresh approach to ethics centers on expressive, moving bodies in everyday affective encounters.

Common sense has yet to yield its golden promise: robust selves, a stable sense of reality, and bonds of solidarity. The Affection in Between argues that reimagining common sense involves tackling two intractable philosophical puzzles together: the problems of sensory integration and of “other minds.” Construing common sense as either an individual cognitive capacity or a communal body of beliefs and practices, as our tradition of philosophical and political thought has done for too long, constricts …

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 …

Belonging Amidst Bias: Embracing Difference On The Path To Common Humanity, Alyssia Sheikh

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The mindfulness community prioritizes self-awareness and common humanity, but is often entrapped by the idea that oneness is equivalent to sameness. This inclination for objectivity is rooted in the same neural propensities that facilitate bias; the brain is a subjective organ, however, and so neurologically speaking, bias is inevitable. This paper asks: Is striving for sameness separating us from interconnectedness? A human experience is a subjective, diverse, and variable one. The path to shared humanity and social justice co-occurs with increasing cultural humility through mindful awareness and acknowledging our subjective nature. Exploring our neurological tendency to make assumptions, we …

Taming The Wandering Mind: Where Buddhism & Polyvagal Theory Meet, Tamara Embrey

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The ability to tame the wandering mind is at the heart of the insights emerging from the places where Buddhism and the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2001, 2011) meet. A polyvagal understanding of how our nervous system functions opens the door to developing skills that can strengthen our ability to regulate ourselves and others during times of challenge. The Buddha’s meditation instructions, laid out in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse offers a type of attentional training that allows us to become aware of our current neural state so that we can make intentional choices to tame our wandering …

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 …

Pervasive Nonarbitrariness: Meaning From Form In Natural Language, David J. Neely

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is generally assumed that the expressions of a natural language are largely arbitrary. That is, any expressions that display a nonarbitrary connection between what their utterances sound like and what they mean are small in number and of no real theoretical importance.

This thesis challenges such a position. I argue that nonarbitrariness is a pervasive feature of natural language and that understanding the sound/meaning connections that exist in language is necessary if to appreciate how languages work.

I begin, in Chapter 1, by showing that many theorists are committed to the idea that nonarbitrary sound/meaning connections are of little …

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 …

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

A Qualitative Study On Nurse Facilitators Of Mind-Body Skills Groups, Paula D. Blake-Beckford

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), founded by Dr. James Gordon, provides communities with evidence-based Mind-Body Skills Groups (MBSGs) that foster self-care, self-awareness, and self-expression. MBSGs range from 8 to 12-week series on various mind-body practices wherein group members meet, practice, and reflect on the impact of mind-body skills in their lives. Research has demonstrated that participants in MBSGs have positive outcomes. Healthcare professionals (HCPs), especially nurses, gain resiliency from MBSGs. As facilitators of MBSGs, nurses develop essential skills transferable to clinical and educational settings. MBSGs are therapeutic for adult participants with chronic stress. Prior to this thesis, only one …

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 …

Reaching For The Stars: A Constructivist Investigation Of Astrology As A Tool For Self-Discovery In A New Age Of Leadership, Cameron Martin

Dissertations

To fully understand leadership in today’s world, we need a radical reconceptualization of the developmental process required to lead. Changing paradigms demands new perspectives on leadership; these new paradigms suggest leaders must turn inward and develop knowledge of their inner selves to realize their full potential as leaders.

Astrology is an ancient way of knowing and making sense of the world and one’s place in it that provides benefits to many people in our modern world, despite fervent academic, religious, and scientific criticism. Astrology is more than a divination tool. It is an entire epistemology of self in relation to …

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.

Constructing Consciouness: Reverse Engineering The Architecture Of The Mind, Scott K. Clarke

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Brain Scan As Ideograph, Paige Welsh

English (MA) Theses

Medical imaging devices have enabled doctors to render images of the brain without cutting into the body. These images are colloquially called “brain scans.” Through journalism and mass dissemination online, brain scans have become an example of Michael Calvin McGee’s “ideograph,” a language term that subtly takes on outsized political and symbolic meaning to enforce state power. In conversation with theories of new materialism, I situate the brain scan as an ideograph within Jenny Edbauer’s model of rhetorical ecologies. The rhetorical force of the brain scan comes out of a collision between René Descarte’s mind/body dualism, the medical model of …

Down The Misinformation Rabbit Hole: Falling Or Jumping In?, Alex Siebenmorgen

Philosophy Undergraduate Honors Theses

The primary goal of this paper is to determine in which cases, if any, an individual is culpable for adopting, expressing, or acting upon a misinformed belief. To determine this, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms by which individuals select beliefs and the biases or mistakes that lead them to adopt false ones. I will compare and evaluate the views of Neil Levy and Dan Kahan, who offer opposing viewpoints on the source of misinformed beliefs. I will also consider the attempts to model belief adoption and expression through signaling theory. Finally, I will propose a particular standard to …

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes, Andrew Demczuk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. …

Cognitive Tribalism: A Social Doxastic Model, Robert Ragsdale

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How are facemasks – seemingly innocuous artifacts of the biomedical industry – currently embroiled in cultural wars? What motivates popular rejections of scientific consensus and messaging about the reality and consequences of anthropogenic climate change or the COVID-19 virus and vaccine? The puzzle is that (a) despite its being in everyone’s rational interests to have a well-informed public and body politic about collective threats, and (b) despite the public availability of accurate and reliable information, scientific messaging and public discourse surrounding climate change, COVID-19, and vaccine hesitancy, nevertheless, tend to be hijacked by political interest. Yet, if belief is essentially …

Narrative Inquiry Of Opt Workers In Manufacturing Engineering Fields, Marietta Joleen Watson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Optional Practical Training (OPT) is a highly valued and highly underutilized program designed to offer international students an opportunity to work in the U.S. and train in their field of study. This qualitative study collected and analyzed the narratives of three alumni of a Midwest university who completed OPT in the manufacturing engineering field. Four themes were identified in the narratives. These themes were inextricable to the premise that OPT is a deeply appreciated opportunity for F-1 students. The first theme is viewing the OPT experience as a system which includes the university, USCIS, and the employer and moreover a …

The Nature Of Persons And Our Ethical Relations With Nonhuman Animals, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

If we accept that at least some kinds of nonhuman animals are persons, a variety of paradoxes emerge in our ethical relations with them, involving apparently unavoidable disrespect of their personhood. We aim to show that these paradoxes are legitimate but can be illuminatingly resolved in the light of an adequate understanding of the nature of persons. Drawing on recent Western, Daoist, and Zen Buddhist thought, we argue that personhood is already paradoxical in the same way as these aspects of our ethical relations with nonhuman animals, and in fact is the source of their paradoxical character. In both contexts, …

A Festival Of Form: Score, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

"A Festival of Form" was both an event at Bridwell and Perkins School of Theology and a conceptual piece of music that lasted several days. In this rendering, the "piece of music" was articulated in a fluid combination of activities that included works by other composers, including John Cage. The activities involved--from lectures, conversations, and meals to actual performances of both short works and especially the world-record breaking rendition of "Organ2/ASLSP" played by Christopher Anderson--comprise the entirety of "A Festival of Form" as performance piece. The challenge of this work is that unlike nearly any other music, it is purposely …

Emotions As Modulators Of Desire, Brandon Yip

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We commonly appeal to emotions to explain human behaviour: we seek comfort out of grief, we threaten someone in anger and we hide in fear. According to the standard Humean analysis, intentional action is always explained with reference to a belief-desire pair. According to recent consensus, however, emotions have independent motivating force apart from beliefs and desires, and supplant them when explaining emotional action. In this paper I provide a systematic framework for thinking about the motivational structure of emotion and show how it is consistent with the Humean analysis. On this picture, emotions are not reducible to beliefs and …

Locating The Embodied Sense Of Self And Examining Its Relationship With Psychological Well-Being, Adam Hanley, Natalie Lecy, Robert Hanley

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Westerners tend to localize their sense of self in the head, and, to a lesser degree, in the chest. However, single-point, localization studies of the self omit direct exploration of the size and shape of the embodied self. This study explored a) beliefs about the location and spatial distribution of the embodied sense of self, and b) whether individual differences in how the embodied self was represented were associated with psychological and subjective well-being. Results from a sample of 206 American adults confirm extant reports, indicating that the embodied sense of self is most often located in the head and …