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- Creator:
- Leech, David Alberto
- Description:
- This thesis recasts the traditional arguments for how to interpret both the Daoist work, the Zhuangzi, as well as Socrates’ daemon using Islamic thinker Henri Corbin’s concept of the imaginal. Examining the outward manifestation of masterful skill is used as a method for better understanding states that purport to go beyond discursive reasoning. The significance of the work is in proposing and arguing for a different ontological plane that sages have access to and this in turn, gives them the skillful ability to solve the multitudes of dilemmas that people bring to the sages.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Andrews, Miles Taylor
- Description:
- Are border controls coercive? Applying the “enforcement approach” to coercion, I show, provides a positive answer to this question. Thus, I side with Arash Abizadeh in his debate with David Miller over the nature of coercion and the legitimacy of border controls. After first countering Miller’s reasons for rejecting the argument, I aim to defend Abizadeh’s (2008) argument against a state’s right to unilaterally control its borders by framing the debate in several important ways. I highlight the ways in which state coercion differs from individual coercion by adopting an approach to coercion that emphasizes power differentials and the choice to use them through the enforcement apparatus of the state based on a monopoly on the use of physical force or violence. This, I take it, is the core of my paper, because it provides a solution to the Abizadeh-Miller debate over whether border controls are coercive in a way that honor both of their respective concerns. Finally, I argue that the enforcement approach, in neatly bringing together these various lines of reasoning, suggests a defense of the democratic justification thesis based instead on the way coercion interacts with the liberal-democratic value of equality, in addition to autonomy.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Chan, Lok Chi
- Description:
- Abstract: Aristotle asserts that the character virtues are inextricably linked to what he calls phronesis, commonly translated as “practical wisdom”. Recently, John McDowell has developed and defended this Aristotelian idea that the ideal practical rationality is a sort of perceptual capacity. This position, hereafter referred to as the perceptualist model of practical wisdom, conceives the possession of virtues as the reliable sensitivity to the ethically salient features of one’s situation. My goal is to understand the role of perceptual authority in McDowell’s conception of practical wisdom by exploiting Sellars’ idea of the space of reasons: the practically wise agent possesses practical knowledge, so she must be in the space of reasons - she must justify, or be able to justify, what she does. In the facilitation of a philosophically cogent discussion, I shall investigate the above issue by critically engaging in the argument offered by R. Jay Wallace. There, it is argued that, in absence of the appeal to inferential authority, the perceptualist lacks the resource to attribute to the agent the ability to justify her action, and this flies in the face of the ordinary understanding of practical rationality. Nevertheless, I argue that Wallace’s analysis is flawed, as it attacks at most a weakened version of the perceptualist model.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Dante, Joseph James
- Description:
- Belief-states possess certain features that allow them to be instantiated as knowledge-states. In this paper I want to examine these features and ask whether or not other mental states besides belief possess such features. If it is the case that mental states distinct from belief possess these key features then these mental states may be able to be instantiated as knowledge-states as well. Also, if this is so, then knowledge can exist without beliefs. If knowledge can exist without beliefs then the belief condition of knowledge can be rejected. In this paper I will mount a rejection to the belief condition that follows the above line of reasoning.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Mortensen, Jason Lars
- Description:
- In this thesis, I raise considerations against some arguments that support evidentialism, the view that all normative reasons for belief are evidential reasons. In the first part of the thesis I lay out the main evidentialist claims I will be concerned with, and explain the significance of evidentialism for the ethics of belief. In the second part, I provide some considerations against a number of moral evidentialist arguments. In part three, I consider an argument for evidentialism based on common epistemic practices, and I explain how rejecting evidentialism is consistent with those practices. In part four, I lay out some value-based arguments against evidentialism. Finally, in part five, I try to show that arguments from the phenomenon of transparency to evidentialism are problematic.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Doliber, Nicholas Michael
- Description:
- I once held the cynical view that the world is valueless, and that our moral evaluations were consequences of our subjective projections onto an indifferent world. A situation is good, or bad, because one deems it so. This position equates moral evaluation to a spook, a figment of our imagination, or a consequence of language, to which we attribute a valueless existence. The metaethical work of John McDowell, and the examples provided by Mengzi, along with the fine tuning work of Eric L. Hutton, firmly situated my ethical worldview away from moral nihilism, and towards moral sense theory which articulates itself through moral connoisseurship. This paper is a celebration of that philosophical turn. My intention is to explore, prod, and disclose the similarities between Mengzi and McDowell, using Eric L. Hutton as a unifying and guiding figure.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Dubreuil, Micah Jacobson
- Description:
- In Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Wilfrid Sellars argues that ostensible perceptions (veridical seeings and non-veridical lookings) share not only a common propositional content but also a common descriptive content. In characterizing this sense content as neither conceptual nor purely causal, Sellars identifies a pressure point between his inferentialism and his critique of the empiricist Myth o f the Given. To resolve this tension, I argue that the Sellarsian position can and should appeal to a non* conceptual normativity—a set of minimal or proto-norms that governs both sense impressions and non-conceptual content more broadly construed. The resulting picture is a hybrid notion of descriptively locating specific sensory states while normatively ascribing these states to be responsible to proto-intentional norms derived from teleologically-structured activities. This account distinguishes non-conceptual representational states from mere physical differential responsiveness, while also allowing the relevant ongoing teleological projects of animals in the space of reasons to be shaped by conceptually normative activity.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- O'Neal, Kathleen Nicole
- Description:
- This thesis presents the argument that children and adolescents are oppressed within the context of nearly all major social, cultural, political, and economic institutions. The concept of “developmentalist protectionism” is introduced and described as a major aspect of the ideology which oppresses young people by appearing to justify the many restrictions placed upon their interests in reference to individual autonomy This thesis then proceeds outline arguments against the developmentalist protectionist ideology while presenting some first steps toward a positive program for liberating young people from the subordinate roles which they now occupy in most sectors of society.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Tatum, Jerome Darin
- Description:
- Lucretius’ belief in an atomic structure of the universe that is very similar to the view modem science holds, helped to inform his views about the lack of possibility for the survival of the soul after death. He feels that we should not worry our minds with the fear of death, because at death, the body and the soul cease to have experience. I will show that the ancient Egyptians also had an understanding of science and the mind that are similar to some contemporaries in the field. I will compare the views of Lucretius on science and the mind with that of the ancient Egyptians. Egyptian views present a powerful challenge to Lucretius' view. I will argue that the ancient Egyptians had legitimate reasons to oppose the view of Lucretius that there is absolutely no possibility for the soul or consciousness to survive the process of death.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Nefcy, Duncan McGee
- Description:
- Andrei Marmor gives us a formulation of convention that may be a significant contribution to social ontology (the study of social reality) in his Social Conventions: From Language to Law, but the claims he makes about what follows from his formulation endanger his formulation's potential to serve as such a contribution. Marmor assumes that beliefs can not be conventional, and then he ends up claiming that we need what he calls Deep conventions, that literal meaning is not conventional, and he also gives an explanation of how conventionality relates to morality. All three of these claims are flawed, and they stem from his assumption that beliefs cannot be conventional. Once I show that beliefs can be conventional, Marmor's formulation of conventionality stops having these implications. Marmor does not seem to anticipate the impact his view of beliefs has on the claims he makes. An improper understanding of beliefs can be very problematic for social ontology, and what Marmor says in his book exemplifies the problematic potential of an improper understanding of beliefs. Society, I assume and with good reason, is inherently indeterminate, and our social ontology would benefit from a good model of the kind of indeterminacy exhibited by society. The kind of indeterminacy that I am talking about is this; some things have reasons, so they are reasonable, but these reasons do not determine the things they are reasons for. In this paper, I will argue that Marmor's formulation does not have any of the bad implications that it appears to have, and I will claim that its importance to social ontology is that it gives us a wonderful model of how social constructs can be both reasonable and indeterminate.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Covington, Michelle Lee
- Description:
- The purpose of this paper is to explore the institution of punishment from a Rawlsian approach by answering the two following questions: would the agents in the original position agree to have punishment and what principle would guide this institution. I look at several major theories of punishment, including retributivism, rehabilitation, and deterrence. I argue that a hybrid theory known as negative retributivism would be chosen to govern the institution of punishment over another hybrid theory known as unified theory.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Long, Nolan Will
- Description:
- In this thesis I explore the topic of identity as it relates to the existence of multiple worlds. I take the stance that identity persists across worlds in a fashion similar to how identity is maintained across periods of time. The first section of the thesis identifies the two primary methods of discussing identity. The second section discusses the identification of identity in an individual as theorized in the dualist and physicalist approaches. The third section analyzes the feature of temporal extendedness as it relates to identity. The fourth section focuses on the key features of the closest continuer theory as it relates to identity across time, focusing on the criteria that the theory utilizes to claim that identity can be maintained. The fifth section articulates the primary issues of transworld identity. The sixth section constructs a series of scenarios in which each issue is manifested. The seventh section develops my criteria for a theory of transworld identity. The eighth section identifies the issue of fission as it relates to temporal and transworld identity. The ninth, and final, section express the theory of treating identity as a reference to an equation.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Abesamis, Lester Conmigo
- Description:
- This paper discusses Platonic learning by utilizing Lee Franklin’s interpretation of recollection. Franklin claims that recollection is the elicitation of beliefs through rudimentary comprehension. Such a claim addresses Meno’s paradox and has interesting implications for the role that Plato’s Forms play in terms of acquiring knowledge or having beliefs. I claim that Franklin’s identification and use of the guiding principle, which determines how one favors certain beliefs over others via a conceptual grasp, lacks explanatory force since it still remains unclear how exactly we are to move from inchoate knowledge to what I call full-blown knowledge. I aim to make sense of the guiding principle by drawing on the veridical reading of being. I ultimately claim that Franklin’s reading would be more coherent if it were complemented with the veridical reading.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Faulks, Eric Colby
- Description:
- I start by distinguishing the intellectual passions from the bodily passions due to the lack of animal spirit movements in the latter. After showing the intellectual passions to be distinct from the bodily passions. The intellectual passions are further shown to be a perception of our volition. Next, I clarify the differing terminology involved in various cases of intellectual passions that Descartes presents in different works and letters. After the terminology is clearly presented, I give a full account of what the intellectual passions are and how it occurs in virtuous action. Given this account, I conclude with applying this definition to other instances in which intellectual passions may occur, including our affirmations of clear and distinct perceptions of God, Mind, and Body.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Camacho, Francisco Javier Jr.
- Description:
- In Mind and World, John McDowell develops his view, which he calls ’‘Naturalized Platonism,” and considers and rejects an opposing view he calls “Bald Naturalism.” I argue, against McDowell and on behalf of the bald naturalist, that there is reason to doubt his claim that human conceptual capacities distinguish humans from nonhuman animals in that they are unconditioned by social or environmental pressure. I develop my argument by drawing on the scientific literature on play behavior in nonhuman animals, culminating in a case study on play in dolphins, which shows that nonhuman animals also engage in unconditioned behavior. I conclude that attempts to vindicate the claim that human conceptual capacities distinguish in kind between humans and nonhuman animals by appealing to observation are useless, since observation equally affirms McDowell’s thesis and the thesis, advocated by the bald naturalist, that the behavior of both humans and nonhuman animals is conditioned by environmental and social pressure.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Jacobi, Jason Arthur
- Description:
- This thesis provides an interpretation of Descartes’ account of the will that is not only framework. Such contemporary frameworks (I discuss the interpretations of Ragland, Newman, and Chappell) assume that freedom is grounded in an ability to do otherwise. I label this conception of liberty ‘ liberty through choice'. I argue that Descartes with a different conception of liberty— liberty as grace.' As a special conception of liberty, liberty as grace conceptualizes the freedom of the will such that what ultimately grounds freedom is one’s intimate relation to the Divine. Henry More, a Cartesian of sorts, provides an account of the will that is similar to that of Descartes’ account. I take it that More also operated with a commitment to liberty as grace. Using More as an illustrative tool, I provide what a 21st century interpretation of Descartes’ account of the will could look like, absent the distracting terminology within 20th/21st century philosophical frameworks.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Fowzer, Fallon Elizabeth
- Description:
- In her book, Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics o f Knowing, Miranda Fricker defines epistemic injustice as harm to an individual specifically attacking his or her capacity as a knower. Beyond the defining of epistemic injustice, Fricker offers a standard of culpability that allows for observers and experiencers to be disappointed in an individual who commits an injustice under certain circumstances. I argue that this standard of culpability is insufficient when the subject of an epistemic injustice is a child and the offender is an adult authority figure. Children are often experiencers of epistemic injustice and due to age or lack of range in vocabulary, they are unable to defend against and recover from such an injustice. Fricker's standard of culpability does not account for epistemic offenders who possess specialized knowledge of those individuals whom they are harming and thus are able to avoid such harms regardless of the information available in the collective societal understanding. I will argue that Fricker’s standard of culpability, while strong, is not universally sufficient. I will then offer a modified theory of culpability, which I will call Specialized Knowledge Theory, that raises the standard when an offender has or can be reasonably expected to have specialized knowledge regarding the mental capacities of individuals belonging to certain improperly judged groups, such as children.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Johnson, Jordan Daniel
- Description:
- In this thesis I seek to articulate a resolute reading of Soren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship. In order to do this I contrast my reading of Kierkegaard’s authorship with that of James Conant. Conant articulates the skeptical thread of Kierkegaard’s authorship by comparing it with his somewhat controversial view of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. I follow Conant’s analysis of the parallel between Kierkegaard’s Postscript and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to act as a catalyst in order to call for a more resolute reading of Kierkegaard. When Conant applies his insights derived from the Postscript to the pseudonymous authorship as a whole, he winds up presenting a deformed image of Kierkegaard’s authorship one in which the possible value of Christian concepts are rendered inert.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Myers, Andrew Triana
- Description:
- The Problem of Coordination is an early 20th century philosophical approach to the puzzle of how concepts, notably numbers, can take on empirical significance. Hans Reichenbach, perhaps the most famous scholar who wrote about the Problem of Coordination, would give treatment to this problem throughout his career. Because his treatment was not consistent over time, many modem authors have criticized Reichenbach’s early account of the Problem of Coordination, while neglecting his ultimate account. There are three objectives in this thesis: 1) to give the reader an adequate understanding of coordination as it bears on measurement, 2) to divide Reichenbach’s views on coordination into an earlier neo-Kantian a priori stage, and a later empirically justified pseudo-conventionalist stage, and 3) to use those summaries to argue that Eran Tal has mischaracterized Reichenbach, and Andrew Peterson’s argument may not succeed against Reichenbach’s pseudo-conventionalist stage.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Wilson, Megan Marie McAtee
- Description:
- Originally appearing in John Rawls’s A Theory o f Justice, the Linguistic Analogy is a conceptual device used to show how morality can be understood as innate, based on the claim that parallels can be drawn between the manner in which we acquire, develop and execute language and the manner in which we acquire, develop and execute moral judgment. The purpose of this examination is to explore the usefulness of this analogy by identifying and verifying parallels between innate linguistic and moral structures, respectively. In this paper, I aim to (1) establish a clear account of the Linguistic Analogy, as it is best construed by its supporters, (2) explore and categorize the main topics the analogy is confronted with and (3) address how the Linguistic Analogy can be defended, clarified or revised in response to each critique. Ultimately, I argue that the Linguistic Analogy is a very plausible interpretation of the manner in which humans moralize.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Roberts, Michael Andrew
- Description:
- In this paper I examine three forms of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics. All three are dependent on scientific, theory realism as their method of natural epistemology and as their source of metaphysical claims. The environmental protections offered by such theories are dependent on theory realism. I argue that theory realism does not offer the robust and human-independent view of the world that these three theories require. I do not argue that theory realism is wrong; instead, I argue that theory realism is being overextended and misused in an attempt to establish human-independent justifications for valuing nature. Instead of relying on non-anthropocentrism, I argue that it would be better to embrace weak anthropocentrism. Weak anthropocentrism cannot offer the exact same protections that non-anthropocentrism aims for, but it does justify valuing nature and can offer real and strong environmental protections.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Murphy, Ryan Michael
- Description:
- Bifurcated resident/non-resident tuition policies are ubiquitous at public universities and colleges in the United States of America. Nonetheless, their political justifications have received minimal academic attention and scrutiny. I start by arguing that public higher education ought to be treated as a primary good, subject to the principles of just distribution because of its close connection with self-respect. Next, I argue a student's state residency is a matter of brute luck; hence the resident/non-resident distinction is arbitrary and incompatible with moral equality. Together this provides a two-part argument that resident/non-resident tuition is, prima facie, incompatible with basic liberal values. I assess several alternative tuition policies before concluding that the reasons invoked in my argument against resident/non-resident tuition imply that universal public higher education is the most equitable alternative.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Bradshaw, Grant Cameron
- Description:
- In this paper, my goal will be to argue for a defense of moral realism in the spirit of John McDowell's thought. The strategy I will employ is to respond to a critique of moral realism by Christine Korsgaard to situate important features of the position of a moral realist. In utilizing McDowell's concept of second nature, the master thought that guides this argument is that rationality is a habitual aspect of human life that allows us to be responsive to reasons, especially moral reasons.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Mogannam, Michelle Ann
- Description:
- In the following paper, I will be arguing against a position held by John Haugeland that puts forth the claim that the sciences are cases of dasein. I draw on Martin Heidegger’s philosophical work, Being and Time, to address this issue and in doing so I demonstrate that the modem sciences cannot be cases of dasein. By adjudicating the views of Hans- Georg Gadamer and John McDowell, I am able to make the relevant distinction between the two. The mode of being-in that Heidegger identifies as tarrying alongside is what does the necessary work for my argument to go through. The realization that only human beings gain phenomenological access to things as they are in themselves situates my findings into a larger picture that puts emphasis on the distinctiveness of dasein, and Heidegger’s overarching phenomenological goals.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Ulloa, Mauricio Arturo
- Description:
- In this paper, I will show why accounts that defend Nietzsche’s perspectivism by reinterpreting him to be more in line with a traditional epistemic theory are mistaken. First, I will compare what Nietzsche calls the old philosopher (traditional philosophers as we know them) and what he calls the new philosopher. Then, I will examine the traditional account of perspectivism as the view that there is no such thing as one universal, truth claim but instead multiple perspectives and explain how it has been defended against its biggest criticism: the paradox of perspectivism. The paradox of perspectivism states that if perspectivism is to be taken seriously it undermines itself as it becomes just another mere perspective and if it is not taken seriously perspectivism is ultimately reduced to relativism. I will look at how Brian Leiter, R. Lanier Anderson, Steven D. Hales, and Rex Welshon try to defend Nietzsche and I will argue that they fail to capture what Nietzsche is doing with his perspectivism. I argue Nietzsche’s perspectivism is not to be understood as an epistemic or metaphysical claim and, thus, the paradox of perspectivism is not an issue. Rather perspectivism should be understood as the only way we can live life-affirming lives in a nihilistic world within the confines of our human limitations. Under my interpretation, Nietzsche’s perspectivism is saved from being reduced to relativism because all that matters to Nietzsche is meaning. In other words, some values are meaningful and life-affirming and others are nihilistic and lifedenying. That is by rejecting the concept of truth, which is life-denying, Nietzsche is able to once again place meaning in the individual’s perspective and the creation of lifeaffirming values while avoiding relativism by placing more meaning on life-affirming values and rejecting life-denying or nihilistic values.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Gharibpour, Aran
- Description:
- This paper aims at justifying Hegel’s method through a Hegelian criticism of Kant. The main clue is Hegel’s claim that Kant smuggles unjustified presuppositions into his system. Developing that line of criticism not only reveals the fundamental flaws in Kant’s approach but also shows why Hegel’s dialectics is immune to such flaws. Incorporating presuppositions instead of unsuccessfully trying to avoid them, following a top-down approach in presenting concepts initially in their undifferentiated unity, pursuing the line of a constant immanent criticism of conceptual frameworks, and expanding the dialectical examination to actual, taken-for-granted standards in history, are the essential elements of Hegel’s dialectics argued for in this paper.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Maler, Matthew Curtis
- Description:
- Imagination is a central component of human cognition. With imagination, we engage in fictionalizing, pretense, and knowledge-gathering. We make spatio-temporal inferences, and we make conclusions about other's state of mind. Here I attempt to answer four - questions: (1) what is imagination, (2) is imagination able to give us knowledge, (3) are imagination and memory the same thing, and (4) does imagination contribute to individual and collective identity, and, if so, how? I utilize two recent accounts of imagination to develop an original theory of imagination's structure by providing a counterexample to each theory. I then show how that theory can, under a virtue reliabilist framework, explain how we arrive at knowledge via imagination. I turn to the temporal distinction between imagination and memory, concluding that imagination and memory cannot be entirely two separate mental processes; however, there is a spectrum of dissociation that must be explored. Finally, I conclude with a few thoughts about how my theory of imagination can explain individual and collective identity.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Agoff, Zachary Robert
- Description:
- Descartes is commonly framed as the great defender of the individual- i.e., the lone meditator: reaching clarity and distinctness in solitude, by the light of his own nature, perpetually flirting with solipsism. Here, I contrast such a framing of Descartes to an alternative reading -vis., one in which Descartes is heavily concerned with unity to other things in such a way as to motivate altruistic behavior. There is an existing interpretation that purports that, when Descartes speaks of such a unity to other things, he is, in fact, describing an imaginative union between things that does not exist independently of the perceiver's mind. I argue that such an interpretation misses key elements of Descartes theory oflove, and consequently, misses out on a proper Cartesian grounding of altruism. Instead, I demonstrate that Descartes holds that all union is grounded in God's mind, and upon recognizing and affirming such unions, altruistic behavior necessarily follows. I further show three interpretational payoffs such a reading has.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Peterson, Andrew H.
- Description:
- Peter Kosso argues that the execution of experiments under the guidance of theory is epistemologically problematic. In particular, he asserts that the inclusion of theory in experimental design, observation, and instrumental manipulation biases results in favor of presupposed theoretical assumptions. In sharp contrast, I argue that this position generates a false dichotomy between theory-ladeness and scientific breakthrough. I defend two theses to substantiate this claim: (1) that theory-laden experiment is the condition for the possibility of scientific breakthrough rather than an epistemic limitation. And (2) scientific innovations are radical phenomenological breakdowns that are dependent upon latent theoretical assumptions for recognition. I ground these theses in the broader assertion, defended by Hans-Jorg Rheinberger, that experimental inquiry is, fundamentally, a historically coherent, emerging, experimental system. I couch my arguments in two examples from the history of biomedical science: Stanley Prusiner’s prion research and Ignaz Semmelweis’ discovery of rudimentary asepsis.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Valle, Francisco Daniel
- Description:
- In this paper I address the role of mind and conceptuality in absorbed and expert coping as brought forth in the McDowell/ Dreyfus debate. I aim to support McDowell's view of practical rationality and situation specific conceptual understanding by providing evidence through examples of the role that conceptuality and mind play in virtue, as presented in McDowell’s work “Virtue and Reason”. I also draw from Heidegger’s Being and Time to present evidence, via his characterization of the sui-generis nature of significance and Dasein’s pre-ontological understanding of being, that suggest that Dasein’s everyday engagement with the world relies on a fundamental conceptual understanding of the world and is pervaded with a practical rationality that aligns with McDowell’s account of minded absorbed coping.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Werndorf, Sigmund Amadeus
- Description:
- The purpose of this work is to identify factive beliefs and their use, give an explicit definition, and evaluate their use within epistemic systems. The methodology is to examine the use of factive beliefs across three different epistemic systems, two positive (Laurence BonJour and Earnest Sosa) and one negative (John McDowell). From them I derive the definition that factive beliefs are identified by the following features: veridicality, spontaneity, and epistemic neutrality, and conclude that while the use of factive beliefs is not inherently untenable, there are serious questions about their integrity that may be raised.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Phillips, Rachel Sherman
- Description:
- I contend that music is like a language and it complements language. I present my thesis against the backdrop of two investigations: (a) similarities between Plato’s and Wittgenstein’s thoughts on music and (b) two theoretical approaches of understanding music. My first investigation involves the examination of two unlikely colleagues, Plato and Wittgenstein. I examine how each deals with music with an emphasis on the resemblance between their views on harmony, metaphors, and gestures. Their views lend support to my view that music is like a language and it complements it. Second, I investigate two theoretical approaches that are used to explain music: emotive-content approach and music formalism. I briefly summarize these approaches and show where I differ from some of the theorists of formalism. Last I draw on the preceding investigations to show how music can be viewed like a language and complements it
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Smith, Patrick Brendan
- Description:
- In this paper, I present two possible ways of interpreting Descartes’s views on the individuation of time: Descartes either as a phenomenalist or as a realist. I argue that a phenomenalist reading of Cartesian time represents the correct interpretation because it provides an account that is consistent with the constraints Descartes’s theory of distinctions places on objects that can be considered as candidates having a positive ontological status (that is, as really existing) in his ontology. This paper provides a unique contribution, first, because it develops the “Irvine Intuitionist” reading of Descartes such that it maps on to contemporary discussions on Cartesian time; and second, it provides an alternative interpretation to the current readings given by contemporary commentators who, nearly categorically, presuppose Descartes’s realism concerning temporal individuation.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Kohnen-Barberán, Ana Lorena
- Description:
- The purpose of this study is to critically investigate how public school kindergartens have become subject to changing educational policies that are academically oriented and less focused on play. Methodology consisted of interviews with public school teachers and kindergarten classroom observations. This study’s findings show: 1) the implementation of educational initiatives; 2) how children’s range of developmental capacities influence performance; 3) external factors that cause discrepancies in skills; and 4) the continuing relevance of play and games. Conclusions of the study suggest: 1) educational policy making should become more collaborative; 2) educational policy makers must work with experts in the fields of cognitive sciences, developmental psychology; and experienced educators to make informed multilateral decisions in creating educational initiatives aligned with children’s developmental capacities.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Skifich, Luke
- Description:
- The purpose of this thesis is to develop a defensible account of international justice. Theorists such as John Rawls and Thomas Nagel have advocated the domestic priority view of international justice, according to which strict principles of justice apply only within nation-states. Cosmopolitan theorists such as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge conversely argue that such principles ought to be applied globally in light of significant international relationships or other principles of fairness. This thesis will focus primarily on criticisms of Rawls' essay The Law o f Peoples (1999) with the aim of mounting a fresh defense of institutional cosmopolitanism distilled from these leading theorists. Justifying cosmopolitanism has proved challenging and controversial; however, the need for a solid grounding of this view is ever more pressing due to an increasingly globalized world.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Sakkaris, Helen
- Description:
- In the Introduction, I present the problem of change, also known as the problem of temporary intrinsics, in contemporary philosophy. Then, I briefly discuss Lewis's two main solutions to the problem of change, namely, Lewis's perdurantism, and Haslanger's endurantism. Next, I argue that Descartes is relevant to the problem of change, and Nelson's approach to time is a viable fourth solution that neither Lewis, nor Haslanger consider. First, in section 1, I discuss our common-sense assumptions about persisting things. Then, in section 2, I elaborate on perdurantism and illustrate the consequences of Descartes being a perdurantist. I argue that Descartes is not a perdurantist. Next, in section 3, I elaborate on endurantism, and the consequences of Descartes being an endurantist. I argue that Descartes is not an endurantist. Further, in section 4, I use Nelson's strategy to advance an interpretation of Descartes as a phenomenalist. Finally, section 5 concludes with a summary of my discussion on the problem of change.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Kruse, Cheri Lynn
- Description:
- Most would agree that humans must consider the needs of nonhuman animals in our ethics. This paper examines extreme implications of different systems of animal ethics and addresses why these systems lead to intuitively absurd conclusions, arguing that the problem is a paternalistic attitude found at the heart of these ethics and based in consideration of animals’ capacities to motivate humans to take animals into account. This attitude leads to extreme interventions in nonhumans’ lives based, ultimately, on human morality. To avoid policies toward nonhumans which impose human morality where it has no business, we must revise our conception of animal ethics to eradicate this paternalistic attitude, replacing current capacities-based approaches with a biocentric one.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Alavi, Nathaniel A.
- Description:
- In the philosophy of emotion, theories that favor the cognitive side of the emotion process have incorporated a rich account of the intentionality of emotion, while forfeiting the essential place of feelings in emotional experience. In contrast, proponents of the non-cognitive side of the emotion process have provided an account of feelings, but at the risk of leaving out the intentionality of emotions. 1 aim to conceptualize feelings in order to intentionalize them. Feelings, as an essential constituent of the emotion process, are necessary for providing a more complete account of the nature of the relation between the recognition of an object and the emotional response to it. I argue that feelings are conceptually contentful and thus coupled to the objects of the world. Also, I claim that these emotional feelings can play a significant role in providing us with information about the way the world is.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Allen, Allison Keiko
- Description:
- What are the identity conditions for streams of consciousness? Elizabeth Schecter poses this question in her paper, “The unity of consciousness: subjects and objectivity.” In particular, she is interested in the capacity of a recent thesis about the unity of consciousness, one posed by Tim Bayne in the book, The Unity o f Consciousness. In this paper, I take into consideration the main limitations Schecter finds with Bayne’s view. I use her main points to formulate a new unity thesis—one which addresses a kind of unity that neither Bayne nor Schecter describe, and yet belongs in a complete account of the unity of consciousness.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Schweig, James Kyle
- Description:
- This paper will try to answer the question of whether Confucius can commit acts of civil disobedience. The first part will focus on Confucian writings, as well as skillful analysis by contemporary writers, to determine what the Gentleman can do under an unjust Government. This will not give us a full answer of civil disobedience however; we need to determine what an act of civil disobedience is. To do this, the second part will focus on the writings of contemporary philosophers who try to define what an act of civil disobedience would consist of. The third, and final part, will then use the definition of civil disobedience found in the second chapter as a measuring stick to the acts of the worthy to determine whether the actions he is allowed to take under an unjust government can be considered acts of civil disobedience.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Tubig, Paul Andrew
- Description:
- The objective of this article is to provide a reasonable account of the political significance of health within the liberal theory of justice as elaborated by John Rawls. First, I argue against the biomedical approach of defining health when the notion is embraced as a political value and ideal. An interpretation of health that is politically useful in deriving ethical claims of rights and responsibilities requires a normative component. In this paper, I appeal to the liberal framework of justice to shape the political conception of health. Second, I consider two prominent liberal interpretations of health and argue that they are, in some ways, inadequate. Third, I make the case that the most reasonable political conception of health is derived from Rawls’s democratic conception of persons. By understanding the public or institutional identity of citizens as persons who possess two moral powers and the two highest order moral interests to develop and exercise these powers, we can then derive the political significance of health as a necessary background condition to enable these powers. Therefore, structural arrangements and institutional practices should promote public health to the extent that the highest order moral interests shaped by all citizens are developed and sustained.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Paul, Eric Harrison
- Description:
- According to John Rawls, a well-ordered liberal democratic society requires citizens to possess the virtue of reasonableness, regarding fellow citizens as standing in a relationship of reciprocity among equals. To maintain a stable overlapping consensus of reasonable cooperation, citizens need to wholeheartedly endorse a reasonable political conception of justice by accepting it as a part or module of their own comprehensive doctrines. The failure of political cooperation in contemporary liberal societies suggests the failure of some of these conditions. I argue that due to the influence of pervasive persuasive advertising, citizens are socialized into the unreasonable comprehensive doctrine of consumerism, and that in conjunction with conditions of inadequate moral education in their comprehensive doctrines and in a reasonable political conception of justice, they are committing reasonableness akrasia as they fail to consistently act from moral considerations they would endorse upon reflection at both the comprehensive moral and political levels. To solve this problem, I argue that societies must provide opportunities for comprehensive moral education in the home and community as well as citizenship moral education in public schools according to principles of liberal neutrality.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Wilkerson, Jeuel Bernard
- Description:
- In this paper I give a basic over-view of Helen Longino’s account of objectivity in scientific knowledge and then offer two different readings of Longino’s basic account. The first reading is what I call the purification reading. The second reading is what I call the exposure reading. The strength of the exposure reading, which is not found in the purification reading, is its ability to avoid criticisms of Longino’s account put forth by Karyn Freedman, Tara Smith, and Stephanie Ruphy. I show why this is the case and then, because of this strength, argue for the adoption of the exposure reading. Lastly, in order to elaborate upon the exposure reading, I apply it to three different cases of scientific practice.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Lentz, Jillian Renee
- Description:
- This project examines the soul in Henry More’s ethical work, Enchiridion Ethicum. The thesis considers Grace Neal Dolson’s position on the role of the Boniform Faculty and Right Reason and argues for a reading of these as separate faculties of the soul.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Driscoll, Cecily Clough
- Description:
- Although Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition and Michel Foucault’s late works on ethics initially appear to be incommensurable, I demonstrate in this paper how in fact Arendt and Foucault engage in analogous emancipatory projects that propose aesthetic theories of action designed to reclaim the freedom, spontaneity, and difference preempted by modernity. Weighing the emancipatory potential of Arendt’s ontologically distinct, explicitly political and collective activity against Foucault’s individualized practices of self-formation, I argue that Foucault’s aesthetics of the self better enables us to resist modem dangers and constitutes a more practicable form of contemporary praxis than does Arendt’s action. Arendt’s theory fails because the rigid ontological strictures she places around what politics is and where it may be practiced (1) foreclose our opportunities to purposefully implement action in today’s world, and (2) negate action’s agonistic, virtuosic qualities, and thus create an internal contradiction within her theory. Foucault provides us with a concept of political resistance we can successfully enact today, and which encompasses the public and private, action and work, politics and critical thought.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Taplin, James D.
- Description:
- In Lack o f Character, John Doris argues that virtue ethics has been debunked by social psychological studies, which he argues indicate a lack of character traits in individuals. Doris argues that situational variance, rather than character traits, is explanatory of human behavior. In this paper I argue that Doris mischaracterizes the central features of virtue ethics as understood by ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. I propose a solution to the problem of situationism based on an argument that ancient virtue ethics may be understood as both rare and egalitarian. Ideal moral action is characterized by the virtuous individual who instantiates a moral lifestyle, while practical ethical norms are derivative of this ideal. Thus, activities such as the virtuous person would perform are morally praiseworthy even if not attended by the proper moral attitude.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- DuJardin, Troy Ada
- Description:
- Ernest Sosa’s virtue epistemology presents a powerful tool with which to construct a new theory of knowledge that can avoid the pitfalls of traditional foundationalism and coherentism, by basing knowledge acquisition in the proper use of specialized intellectual competences. Sosa’s account, however, does not explain what sort of personhood a knower must first develop in order to be able to properly make use of such competences, and I draw on the Heideggerian notion of authenticity as a corrective in this regard. I argue that only a person who is fully authentic can be open to receiving the phenomena of the world directly, as they are disclosed, and can have access to Sosa’s reflective knowledge. Thus, all the aspects that make up an authentic person will become important elements in the process of knowledge acquisition.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Greene, Travis Wayne
- Description:
- I analyze Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument by conceiving of human experience as consisting of three types of information: the phenomenal, propositional, and indexical. The knowledge argument raises two questions, one epistemological and the other metaphysical. The epistemological issue is: What is it like for Mary to see red? The metaphysical issue is: Does physical information capture the entirety of human experience? I argue that our lack of indexical information prevents us from knowing absolutely what seeing red is like for Mary. I also claim that physically-realized indexical information allows for physical information to capture the entirety of human experience, but only contingently. Indexical information is aphysical and, metaphysically speaking, could be realized non-physically. Finally, I propose that, on Kantian grounds, indexical information is necessary for experience.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- McManmon, James
- Description:
- This paper critiques the positions taken by Holmes Rolston in his article "Feeding People Versus Saving Nature." Specifically, I argue that Rolston's accounts of the causes and effects of Poverty on the natural environment in developing countries are false. Thus his central claim that there are times when it is morally correct to let people die of starvation to save nature does not hold. In particular, this paper challenges Rolston's contention that the causes and responsibilities for poverty, birthrates, and resources consumption are phenomena best understood as occurring primarily within societies. I argue, Rolston overlooks the multiple ways that societies are interdependent and deeply connected economically, politically, and culturally. In fact, the current structure of the global economy confers many advantages on affluent states and disadvantages on developing states, which substantially contribute to problems of extreme poverty in the developing world. To substantiate my claims that Rolston's analysis contains multiple errors I focus my argument on three of his contentions that I argue are flawed: the causes of poverty are primarily local, population growth and the destruction of nature are directly related and also are local, that feeding the poor causes over-population in a one-to-one manner, and that our value preferences are self-justifying, thus immune to a human right critique.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Forsythe, Scott
- Description:
- A solution to the problem of the unity of the proposition is of recently renewed interest among philosophers of language. John Collins argues in his book, The Unity o f Unguistic Meaning, that the reigning doctrine of top-down semantics has shirked the burden of explaining precisely how interpretable combinations of words relate to uninterpretable versions of the same form or character. Collins attempts to justify a method of semantics which focuses on syntactic relations governed by a psychological, combinatorial mechanism known as Merge. The aim of the present paper is twofold: first, I will delineate the current debate on the problem of the unity of the proposition and linguistic meaning. Second, I will argue that both Collins’ proposed solution to questions of linguistic meaning and his critiques of the semantic priority thesis are inadequate. This in turn, I argue, leaves open the possibility that top-down holistic theories can solve Collins’ problem of linguistic meaning.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy