Philosophy of Mind Commons^™

You, Your Neurons, And Free Will: Concerns About Reductionism And The Popularization Of Cognitive Science, Karl G. D. Bailey

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Women's Use Of Violence: An Ecological Systems Model, Sara Byczek

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

On Love In The Realm Of Science, Vuk Uskoković

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

In the first half of 2009 I organized a series of talks at University of California, San Francisco. The series was dedicated to observing science from a wider perspective and figuring out where its trains and we as scientists in it are heading to. The final presentation in the series I envisaged as the one drawing threads between love and science. However, my aim was neither for that particular talk to be the one of explaining sensations of love using scientific language nor to be based on pastoral and pathetic eruptions of love about science. What I had in mind …

How To Be Happy: An Interview With Kevin Corcoran, Kevin Corcoran, Evan Rosa

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Ethics, Law, And The Science Of Fish Welfare, Colin Allen

Between the Species

Fish farming is one of the fastest growing sectors of agriculture, attracting considerable attention to the question of whether existing farming regulations and animal welfare laws are adequate to deal with the expanding role of fish in feeding humans. The role of fish as model organisms in scientific research is also expanding -- a majority of research biology departments now keep zebrafish for the purposes of genome biology, and they are used widely used for basic neuroscience research. However, due to their diversity and distance from mammalian biology, fish pose difficult questions for the application of legal and ethical principles …

Defending The Multiple Realization Argument Against The Identity Theory, David Barrett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A classic argument in the philosophy of mind is that the identity theory is false because mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types. In this dissertation I provide a detailed elaboration of the argument and a defense of it against a few of its prominent contemporary critics. Finally I offer empirical evidence from inter-species differences in humans and monkeys, and also from a case of extensive neural plasticity, which shows that mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types.

'I Am Rooted, But I Flow': Virginia Woolf And 20th Century Thought, Emily Lauren Hanna

Scripps Senior Theses

My thesis is about Virginia Woolf’s novels, Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse. I examine these novels in relation to the theories of Henri Bergson, William James, and Sigmund Freud, and the groundwork of Modernism. I relate Woolf's use of water imagery and stream of consciousness technique to Bergson’s theory of “la durée,” or psychological, subjective time, James’ “stream of consciousness” theory in psychology, and Freud’s theory of the “oceanic” feeling of religious experience.

Altered States Of Consciousness & The Creative Individual: Breaking The Affective Thinking Skills Paradigm, Dana M. Calanan

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the affective side of creative thinking and creating a bridge to the cognitive side. It presents the personal transformation of the author using non-drug induced altered states of consciousness. The finished project includes the beginnings of a holistic creative problem solving model and a workshop which will assist those wishing to become more creatively productive or are looking for a way to creatively self-heal.

Keywords: Creative healing, shamanism, psychedelia, holistic creativity, creative problem solving, Thinking Skills Model, altered states of consciousness, affective thinking skills.

The Correspondence Of Attachment Dimensions To Prayer Styles Among Undergraduate Students, Nathaniel Aaron Lamkin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Sociology Of Harriet Martineau In Eastern Life, Present And Past: The Foundations Of The Islamic Sociology Of Religion, Deborah A. Ruigh

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper is a critical analysis of Harriet Martineau’s philosophical stance and epistemological modes, her systematic sociological methodology, her use of this methodology, and her sociology of religion. How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848), and other relevant works will be used to examine Martineau’s evolving epistemological modes as well as her sociology of religion. How to Observe, Martineau’s treatise on systematic sociological methodology and cultural relativism, will serve as an exemplar for analysis of Martineau’s methodological practice as evidenced in Eastern Life. The research problem herein is three-fold: (1) to examine …

Mechanistic Explanations And Animal Model Simulations In Neuroscience, Nina Atanasova

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

The ‘new mechanists’ assume that discovering neural mechanisms is a major aim of neuroscience where this constitutes a process of explaining. They strive to articulate the norms for good explanations. I argue that: the normative project of the ontic mechanistic explanation is unrealistic; the epistemological version of mechanistic explanation accounts for the practical epistemological constraints of neuroscience but fails normatively; hence a dilemma: either methodologically strong but unrealistic or epistemologically realistic but methodologically weak view of mechanistic explanation. I propose that the solution is in abandoning the idea that the study of mechanisms in neuroscience aims mainly at explaining. Model-building …

A Catholic Core Curriculum, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Phenomenological Theories Of Crime, Peter K. Manning, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

The distinctive aspect of phenomenological theories of crime is that they are based upon a stated epistemology: how things are known and a specific ontology—the nature of social reality. This specificity aligns itself with neo-Kantian concern with forms of knowing, interpretation, and meaning, as well as with 20th-century concern with perception, cognition, and the framing of events. While there are influences of phenomenological thinking on varieties of theorizing, such as symbolic interactionism, critical theory, queer theory, and gender-based theories of crime, these ideas are refractions and are inconsistent in their reference to and understanding of the foundational phenomenological works. A …

The Three-Fold Significance Of The Blaming Emotions, Zac Cogley

Publication

Much of the philosophical work on moral responsibility assumes that we should understand people’s moral responsibility for the actions they take in terms of the appropriateness of the blaming emotions—resentment, anger, and indignation. However, current theorizing about the blaming emotions is often psychologically uninformed. Drawing on work in empirical psychology, I have recently argued that anger serves three functions in human psychology: appraisal, motivation, and communication. In this project, I propose to extend that analysis to the entire class of blaming emotions. I will show that theorizing about moral responsibility is myopic if it focuses on one of the functions …

Social Cognition And The Allure Of The Second-Person Perspective: In Defense Of Empathy And Simulation, Karsten R. Stueber

Philosophy Department Faculty Scholarship

This essay serves as an evaluation of challenges to the orthodox way of conceiving "mindreading" abilities by defending a 2006 claim by the author that those abilities involve basic and reenactive empathy .

Biological Autonomy, A. Grandpierre, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We argue that genuine biological autonomy, or described at human level as free will, requires taking into account quantum vacuum processes in the context of biological teleology. One faces at least three basic problems of genuine biological autonomy: (1) if biological autonomy is not physical, where does it come from? (2) Is there a room for biological causes? And (3) how to obtain a workable model of biological teleology? It is shown here that the solution of all these three problems is related to the quantum vacuum. We present a short review of how this basic aspect of the fundamentals …

Mary’S Dilemma: A Novel Take On Jackson’S Famous Thought Experiment, Noah O. Abolafia-Rosenzweig

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores and evaluates the famous Mary case put forward by Frank Jackson in support of what he calls the knowledge argument against physicalism. After laying out Jackson’s position, I set out to determine whether certain previous physicalist attempts at undermining it have been successful. Finding that they have not, I use their shortcomings to inform the construction of a new position, one which I argue renders the Mary case at odds with itself and frees physicalism from the knowledge argument’s grasp.

The Influence Of Intersecting Identities On Acceptance, Disclosure, And Internalized Homonegativity, Megan C. Lytle

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Authentic Self And Advertising : The Effects Advertising Has On The Formation Of The Authentic Self, Lorivie Abapo

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a world bombarded with advertisements, it may be difficult for the development of an authentic self. Authenticity is a mode of existence in which there is ownership in the sense of self, while at the same time being able to present this sense of self to others. To be authentic is to act and live in a way that expresses a genuine concern for the self in which projects and goals pursued. The sense of self is the feeling of genuineness of the self and representing this self requires actions that correlate to these feelings. Advertisements act as communication …

A Nietzschean Account Of Human Flourishing: Affirming The Will To Power Inside The Contours Of Friendship, Christian Joshua Roos

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of the will to power, his account of friendship and his understanding of human flourishing. Through textual analysis, I offer a new way of interpreting the will to power, as the achieving of self-realization. The process of achieving self-realization is undergirded by the satisfaction of seven existential needs that are rooted in the paradoxical human conflict between instincts and consciousness. The existential needs are the need for a frame of orientation, the need for devotion, the need for unity, the need for rootedness, the need for stimulation, the need for effectiveness and …

The Content Of Consciousness: Do We Need Qualia?, Sara Copic

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Doing Without Desiring, Steven E. Swartzer

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation defends a cognitivist alternative to the Humean belief-desire theory of motivation against standard philosophical arguments.

Moral judgments influence our action. For instance, someone might donate to charity because she believes she has a duty to give back to her community. According to the Humean orthodoxy, some additional state—some passion or desire—is needed to explain her action. She may want to donate the money, to give back to her community, or to fulfill her duty. Yet there must be something she wants, the Humean insists, because only desires are capable of moving us. Even moral judgment is no more …

The Mind In Motion, Shayan A. Gates

Senior Honors Projects

The Mind in Motion

Shayan Gates

Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy

The origin of most scientific disciplines can be traced back to a few philosophical insights posed by a few curious thinkers throughout time, and cognitive science is no exception.While intrigue has nearly always surrounded the human mind and its relation to the brain, validation of this relationship has not been so easy to come by, and there are still areas of contention during this time of advancement in neurological sciences and related technologies.

This topic is very broad (to say the least) so I decided to confine this paper …

The Implications Of Merleau-Ponty For The Human Sciences, Ryan Marcotte

Senior Honors Projects

The Implications of Merleau-Ponty for the Human Sciences Ryan Marcotte Cobb Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy The American Anthropology Association (AAA) made headlines in November 2010 due to a controversial change in their 'Long-Range Plan.' The revised AAA mission statement omits all mention of the word 'science' and this omission has sparked a fierce debate within the anthropology community. The debate reveals that the study of social phenomena can be approached from two competing points of view – a scientific and a non-scientific perspective.  This project is concerned with the historical and intellectual developments that led to this competition between …

In Defense Of Existence Monism, Peter Finocchiaro

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The objective of this paper is a defense of a particular answer to van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question: when is it the case that some objects together compose some additional object? The answer is the conjunction of two claims. The first claim, compositional nihilism says that, necessarily, there is never an instance of material composition, and therefore all material objects that do exist are simple, or without proper parts. The second claim, existence monism, says that there exists a material object, and that all other material objects are identical with this object. In other words, there is just one …

What Is A Human Person? An Exploration & Critique Of Contemporary Perspectives, Emmanuel Cumplido

Senior Honors Projects

What is a Human Person? An Exploration and Critique of Physicalist Perspectives

Emmanuel Cumplido

Faculty Sponsor: Donald Zeyl, Philosophy

Answers to the question “What is a human person?” that have garnered the allegiance of people throughout millennia fall under two broad categories: “physicalism” and “dualism”. One of the earliest renditions of physicalism was the philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists. In their view, all of reality could be explained through two principles: atoms and empty space. As a consequence, people were thought to be nothing but assemblages of atoms in space. Plato’s Phaedo presents one of the earliest philosophical endorsements …

Articulating Animals: Animals And Implicit Inferences In Brandom’S Work, Joel D. Musser

Between the Species

Brandom denies animals implicit reasoning by emphasizing their inability to make inferences explicit, and in so doing, denigrates animals by likening their behavior to that of machines and artifacts. With disturbing regularity and ease, Brandom equates pigeons and parrots to machines and thermostats in their inability to express implicit/explicit inferences: neither the pigeon nor the machine can “provid[e] reasons for making other moves in the language game.”

I contest, however, that animals are paradigmatically more than any similarity or analogy to mechanical processing, just as humans are paradigmatically more than any reductive analogy to animals. The human/animal distinction need not …

Method In Catholic Studies, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Changing Our Minds: Bernard Lonergan And Climate Change, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Review- Startling Strangeness: Reading Lonergan's., Randall Rosenberg

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.