How should we act when uncertain about the moral truth, or when trying to remain neutral between competing moral theories? This dissertation argues that some types of actions and policies are relatively likely to be approved by a very wide range of moral theories—even theories which have never yet been formulated, or which appear to cancel out one another's advice. For example, I argue that actions and policies which increase a moral agent's access to primary goods also tend to increase (...) that agent's likelihood of bringing about good consequences, even under varying and mutually incompatible hypotheses about what consequences count as "good". We therefore have a subjective, pro tanto moral reason to perform such actions and enact such policies—one whose justification does not require treating any particular theory as especially probable, but instead merely requires treating at least one at-least-partly consequentialist moral theory as an open hypothesis, and is therefore applicable even under conditions of moral uncertainty or moral neutrality. My discussion begins abstractly, but as it progresses it gradually applies its framework to increasingly concrete issues. I find that the justification of some liberal policies—in the classical sense of "liberal"—can be accomplished with significantly fewer moral assumptions than have traditionally been relied upon. (shrink)

My dissertation is devoted to an examination of the resolution of fallacy in Plato's Euthydemus. It is a familiar claim that the Euthydemus champions Socratic argumentation over sophistical or eristic reasoning. No consensus however exists regarding either the nature or philosophical significance of Socrates’ treatment of the fallacies he confronts. I argue that a careful reading of the dialogue reveals that the Socratic response to fallacious reasoning is conducted at two different levels of philosophical sophistication. Socrates relies upon the resources (...) of Socratic dialectic in responding to sophisms due to ignorance of refutation. Insofar as Socratic dialectic is grounded in a grasp of the nature of genuine refutation, the objections it raises to false refutation are fully explanatory. On the other hand, Socrates employs various self-refutation arguments against theses which depend on false assumptions regarding the nature of predication---for example, the thesis that false speaking is impossible. It is however characteristic of Socratic dialectic that this method of examination cannot explain why the sophists’ theses are false. The Socratic response to fallacy in these cases is non-explanatory in this sense. On the other hand, these limitations on Socratic expertise are overcome in other passages in the dialogue which are replete with clues to the reader that point to a genuine explanation and resolution of the sophists’ arguments for their various theses. In particular, the reader is invited at every turn to modify, clarify, or reject various assumptions made by the brothers regarding the nature of predication. Here Plato implicitly relies on the results of what I call higher dialectic. This theory, which receives explicit formulation in the Sophist, is conceptually rich enough to expose and dispose of the various false assumptions upon which the sophists’ theses rest. I conclude that the Euthydemus is concerned to identify Socratic dialectic as only a part of philosophy, and to locate and strictly delimit its epistemological status as lying above eristic and the rhetorical arts, but below that of dialectic as that is conceived in the Republic and even later dialogues---thus anticipating the Sophist’s conception of Socrates as the practitioner of a ‘noble sophistry’, and the elenchus as a propaedeutic to philosophy, which purges the soul of false beliefs. (shrink)

Thirty-years research seemed to reveal that there is a U-shape development in children’s theory-of-mind abilities: infants have the competence to attribute false beliefs properly when measured by looking time and anticipatory eye gaze, while children younger than four systematically fail the standard false belief tasks measuring their voluntary responses. Why is it, and why does the infants’ implicit belief reasoning seem to be free from the inhibition and selection requirements? Are there really two systems, one explicit measured by verbal tasks (...) and one implicit shown in non-verbal context, involved in theory-of-mind reasoning? We investigated preschoolers’ and adults’ belief attribution with the anticipatory looking method, in both a low-demand and high-demand false-belief reasoning tasks. Subjects’ nonverbal performances turned out to be better in the low-demand condition: they showed strong bias to look at the locations congruent with the actor’s false belief. However, neither adults’ nor children’s eye gaze in the high-demand condition showed belief-congruent anticipations. Besides, adults’ predictions were better with verbal responses than with nonverbal anticipatory eye gaze. Together, these results suggested that there are dual systems involved in belief reasoning, and the two systems share similar property in terms of their sensitivity to the task demands. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the practices of emotion work in the financial services industry as they are constructed in interviews with people employed in different financial organizations. The issues of emotion work in organizations are generally investigated in terms of emotion management, impression formation and negotiation or accomplishment. The previous research has also uncovered that emotions and market moods influence how people make financial decisions under conditions of fundamental uncertainty. In this study, I adopt a critical-interpretive approach and seek to develop (...) an in-depth understanding of organizational practices through which people employed in the financial services industry maintain emotion-reason dualism. This approach allows us to shift the analysis from categorizing what counts as rational versus emotional decision making to examining discourses that constitute claims of preferred rationality and devalue the significance of emotions at work. The transcripts of 23 interviews with 17 people employed in different financial organizations constituted the data for this study. The analysis of the interview discourse shows that emotions are conceptualized as an antipode to rationality, threat, weakness and as a source of stress. On one hand, the strategies of internal emotional control reflect the participants’ desire to take control over their feelings in order to fit into the discourse of preferred rationality. The concept of emotion also shapes the tactics of impression management. The interviewees were consciously aware of which feelings they wanted to display, and how to use emotions in order to build and maintain networks of relationships with different market participants. On the other hand, the simultaneous co-existence of negation and practical utility of feelings at work in the participants’ narratives suggests that meanings associated with preferred rationality and marginalized emotionality fluctuate along the following dimensions: absence-presence, chaos-order/discipline, weakness-power and subjectivity-objectivity. These findings open up a new space to explore the concepts of emotionality and rationality as socially constructed phenomena that are reproduced in the practices of emotion work. The focus on discourse not only offers a communication centered model of rationalized emotion, but also unveils social aspects of financial management. (shrink)

In The Metaphysics of Interpretation, I explore the ontological issues surrounding fictional characters, literary works, and literary interpretation. My central claim is that if one accepts a certain position on the ontology of fictional characters and literary works – artifactualism – then, under certain circumstances, the misinterpretation of a literary work will result in the full-fledged destruction of that work. Some related matters that are studied include: realism about fictional characters, artifactualism’s implications for the debate between textualism and constructivism, the (...) seeming temporal “gappiness” of literary works, and the question of validity in interpretation. (shrink)

This work explores the hypothesis that natural language is a tool for changing a language user's state of mind and, more specifically, the hypothesis that a sentence's meaning is constituted by its characteristic role in fulfilling this purpose. This view contrasts with the dominant approach to semantics due to Frege, Tarski and others' work on artificial languages: language is first and foremost a tool for representing the world. Adapted to natural language by Davidson, Lewis, Montague, et. al. this dominant approach (...) has crystalized as truth-conditional semantics: to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which that sentence is true. Chapter 1 details the animating ideas of my alternative approach and shows that the representational function of language can be understood in terms of the more general function of changing representational mental states. Chapters 2-4 argue that the additional resources of this more general conception of meaning allow us to explain certain phenomena involving conditionals and grammatical mood that truth-conditional semantics does not. In the analysis of these specific phenomena and the articulation of the general approach on offer, it emerges that this approach combines insights and benefits from both use-theoretic and truth-theoretic work on meaning. (shrink)

This dissertation examines some of ways of evaluating beliefs, relevant to epistemology and to metaphysics. Some problems in normative epistemology are solved by properly relating justified belief, rational belief, and knowledge. Chapter 1 uses this strategy to defend externalism about justified belief. Chapters 3 and 4 defend the view that knowledge is the epistemic standard we aim for our beliefs to meet. Chapter 2 investigates which beliefs are improper because formed in an objectionably circular way. The findings support the Moorean (...) response to Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism, by rebutting the objection from ‘easy knowledge’. The theory of justified belief developed in chapter 1 underwrites the Moorean reply. Chapters 5 and 6 make a non-epistemic way of evaluating beliefs central to metaphysics. To understand relativity or vagueness in a subject-matter, we must hold that being true or false is not the metaphysically serious evaluation of how a belief answers to reality. Either verdict on a borderline case is ‘acceptable’ in the metaphysically serious sense. For a matter to be relative is for the ‘acceptability’ of affirming the proposition to vary between judges. Chapters 5 and 6 sketch an approach to metaphysics built from the notion of ‘metaphysically acceptable judgment’, with chapter 6 concentrating on vagueness, and chapter 5 focusing on relativism about knowledge. Chapter 5 argues that the lottery and preface puzzles manifest central features of our concept of knowledge. The proposed version of relativism about knowledge is the only theory to respect those features. The view of knowledge presented in chapter 5 is not an isolated metaphysical extravagance, as the same framework is needed for the right metaphysics of everything that’s vague. It is worth noting that my solution to the lottery puzzle is metaphysical relativism about knowledge, but my rebuttal of Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism concerns epistemic circularity and belongs to normative epistemology. Much recent work incorrectly assumes that the two puzzles receive the same treatment. (shrink)

Public support for social policies or movements is often determined by intuitive considerations, perceived as matters of common sense. Existing theories interpret these dispositions in one of two ways: either as genetic traits inherited from hominid ancestors, or as reified elements of cultural practices. Both of these approaches imply that common sense is local and context-dependent, without any primordial components. Nevertheless, rationality cannot emerge in material environments without a set of necessary beliefs. This means that common sense incorporates universal elements (...) as well. By treating shared factual knowledge as subjective and the basic intuitions as objective, it is possible to understand the roots of cultural paradigms and the parameters that lead to their change over time. The interplay between belief and knowledge determines the type of principles that have the strongest appeal in any society. This process works at the level of the individual, especially in the early formative years, and shapes the generational transfer of values. Of special interest is the possibility of cultural change induced by advancements in science. For example, the social relevance of scientific rationality depends on the perceived compatibility between the necessary intuitions and the supported interpretations of physical phenomena. Global effects are possible in the long run, given the universality of relevant categories. Even the modern trend towards cultural fundamentalism can be reversed, assuming favorable conditions. The goal of this dissertation is to provide a foundation for future research on the evolution of common sense. It is designed as an argument in three main steps. The first part aims to deduce the types of internal and external observables that determine the emergence of rational self-consciousness. The second part derives a limited list of physical properties that can be used to validate the ontological status of rationality. Those properties are shown to be compatible with existing empirical observations in the third part. These conclusions suggest that the progress of democracy can be influenced by future scientific developments, especially through changes in the qualitative approaches to fundamental physical interactions. (shrink)

During traditional pedagogy training, new teachers must learn a myriad of educational philosophies from different philosophers and psychologists.How do children learn and how must educators teach them is the question that is answered by each philosophy. Is a child's aptitude determined by genetics or by environmental influences ? This paper will examine different educational philosophies of great thinkers; some who believe that children are genetically predisposed to intelligence and others who posit that all intelligence is experiential. It will also discuss (...) which philosophies are relevant to teachers in contemporary times. (shrink)

Problem: Throughout his writings, Paulo Freire asserted that education was an act of love, that educators must risk acts of love, and that education should aim at establishing a world where it would be easier to love. But, Freire neither defined love nor explained how education constitutes an act of love. To date, the centrality of love in Freire's thought has been ignored. Defining and interpreting Freire's concept of love constitutes a problem in the philosophy of education. Research Questions: The (...) following interrelated questions will help uncover and clarify this theme in Freire's writings and place love in education in its proper philosophical context. 1) What is Freire’s theory of love as presented in Education as the Practice of Freedom and Pedagogy of the Oppressed? 2) What literature on love can help us understand his theory? and 3) How does his theory of love guide his educational theory? Method: Taking Freire's writings as his effort to create a coherent pedagogy of the oppressed that both requires love and fosters it, a rhetorical analysis of his writings should yield an educational theory that encompasses a theory of love; comparison with recent philosophical ideals regarding love should give pointed definition to Freire's ideals. Significance: This study will provide a new perspective on Freire's work and its place in educational philosophy. It aims at restoring the primacy of love in Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed and achieving an understanding of what love means in Freire's thought and practice. (shrink)

Nobody's going to object to the advice "Do the right thing", but that doesn't mean everyone's always going to follow it. Sometimes this is because of our volitional limitations; we cannot always bring ourselves to make the sacrifices that right action requires. But sometimes this is because of our cognitive limitations; we cannot always be sure of what is right. Sometimes we can't be sure of what's right because we don't know the non-normative facts. But sometimes, even if we were (...) to know all of the non-normative facts, we'd still not be sure about what's right, because we're uncertain about the normative reasons those facts give us. In this dissertation, I attempt to answer the question of what we're to do when we must act under fundamentally normative uncertainty. It's tempting to think that, in such circumstances, we should do what we regard as most probably right. I argue that this view is mistaken, for it is insensitive to how degrees of actions' values compare across different normative hypotheses; if an action is probably right, but, if wrong, is terribly, terribly, wrong, it may be rational not to do that action. A better answer is that we should do the action with the highest expected value. I spend the first part of the dissertation providing arguments for and rebutting arguments against this view of action under normative uncertainty. I spend the next part of the dissertation explaining what degrees of value are, and showing how they can be compared across normative hypotheses. In the remaining parts of the dissertation, I consider two questions related to our primary question -- first, what is one required, or obligated, to do under normative uncertainty; and second, what is it rational for one to do when one is not only normatively uncertain in the way we've been discussing, but also uncertain about what it is rational to do under this sort of normative uncertainty. (shrink)

This thesis explores how the mind uses the motion of animate objects to make inferences about these objects' underlying mental states, intentions, goals, or dispositions. We present dynamic scenes to subjects in which autonomously programmed triangular "agents"' interact with each other and--in two of the experiments--an additional agent that is controlled by the subject. We strive for the autonomous agents to be simple in their underlying programming but to also engage in a rich array of lifelike behaviors. Subjects watch short (...) simulations populated with these agents and then are asked questions designed to probe their perceptions of the similarities among the agents' behaviors. We use the responses to derive a multidimensional scaling solution for the agents in our set. The aim is to relate this MDS solution to the underlying programming on one hand, and to also discover interesting structure in subjects' perception of the "agent space." Clusters in this space, for example, could provide insight into the perceptual biases subjects bring to the experiment for which types of agents are a priori more likely to be observed. The most robust result from the experiments is that subjects, in making inferences about an agent's intentions, pay special attention to how the agent reacts when another agent is at a "critical distance" of about 10-17.5 agent lengths away. (shrink)

This thesis takes as a challenge to think about epistemology in a way that goes beyond epistemology understood as a philosophical discipline. I argue that it is important to deal with epistemological problems, because even in our everyday lives we are constantly in different epistemic situations that require explanations. Therefore, it is necessary to know what we claim when we claim to know something, that something we know is true, and how we explain or justify our knowledge or truth claims.Traditionally (...) speaking, all these problems have been considered within epistemology as a philosophical discipline, which is understood as abstract, disinterested and objective search for knowledge and truth, and its core concepts such as knowledge are defined as apolitical and devoid of any kind of social influence. In this thesis I argue for redefinition of the term ‘epistemology’ in order to keep the term while going beyond its understanding as a private conversation among philosophers themselves. Epistemology is understood now as an interdisciplinary field of research, which takes knowledge as a political event, and where knowledge and power are connected in various complex ways. Both French philosopher Michel Foucault and feminist epistemologists share this understanding of knowledge and in subsequent chapters I explore, first, their accounts of epistemological problems, such as knowledge, the subject of knowledge and the ways how knowledge can be a form of resistance to dominant knowledge, and second, the points of the convergence and differences between Foucault’s epistemology developed within his middle works – so-called ‘genealogical’, and feminist epistemological accounts, primarily developed by feminist standpoint theorist Nancy Hartsock and her feminist postmodern critics.The main goals of this thesis are to provide a dialogue between Foucault and feminist epistemology in order to see how and to what extent Foucault’s ideas of power, knowledge and resistance can be useful for feminist epistemological needs, and what feminist epistemological inquiry can be in the future. (shrink)

The nature of color is an open philosophical and scientific question. In this work I develop a physicalist relationist theory of color. So far, attempts to identify color as a physical property of objects have not been convincing because no physical property used by scientists seems to be well correlated with color sensations. I define a new physical property which I call transformance and show that transformance is 100% correlated with color sensations. Intuitively, transformance is a very general abstract physical (...) property that describes how a system transforms or modifies light or information that characterizes light. It turns out that transformance is a relational property of objects like velocity and weight. Transformance is related to surface reflectance as weight is related to mass. Transformance is a much better candidate to be color than surface reflectance because it is 100% correlated with color sensations, precisely models surround effects and fully explains all issues that relate to perceptual variation or the lack thereof. Several concrete examples are provided that show how the transformance of different systems should be modeled. After defining transformance, I defend the theory that color is transformance against possible objections while contrasting my theory with the theory that color is surface reflectance. I then discuss the relations between color and color sensation and the more general objections to any physicalist theory of color. The final part of the thesis deals with epistemological issues related to my theory of color including two apparent paradoxes that I believe every theory of color must answer: 1) How is it that human beings get along so well with an erroneous theory of color? 2) How can science, which is based on the common sense theory of color, conclude that the common sense theory is wrong? I show that my theory provides answers to these questions. (shrink)

This dissertation offers new proposals, based on a philosophical appraisal of scientific findings, to address old philosophical problems regarding our immediate acquaintance with time. It focuses on two topics: our capacity to determine the length of intervals and our acquaintance with the present moment. A review of the relevant scientific findings concerning these topics grounds the main contributions of this dissertation. Thus, this study introduces to the philosophical literature an empirically adequate way to talk about how the mind represents time (...) at the most fundamental level. In order to account for our immediate acquaintance with the duration of intervals, a theoretical framework for classifying clocks is used to explain why the representational outputs of the circadian clock and the stopwatch have metric structure. A philosophical analysis of these outputs is proposed to classify them and explain their properties. With respect to our immediate acquaintance with the present, a novel two-phase model of the present is proposed. This model shows that there are two forms of acquaintance with the present, which has consequences for contemporary debates in the philosophy of time. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that knowledge is best understood as a true belief acquired through the manifestation of intellectually virtuous performance. I argue that intellectually virtuous performance requires intellectual responsibility but not a characteristic motivation. I distinguish my view from other conceptions of intellectual virtues; particularly the virtue reliabilism of Ernest Sosa and John Greco and the virtue responsibilism of Linda Zagzebski. I argue that intellectual virtues are best understood along the lines of Aristotlean skills by looking at various puzzles in (...) epistemology and showing how this view can make more progress in solving these puzzles than its competitors. (shrink)

Most people find it obvious that concepts like APPLE, DOG, WATER, CACTUS, SWIM, CHIRP, FURRY, and SMOOTH are acquired from perceptual experiences along with some kind of inferential procedure. Models of how these concepts are inferentially acquired, however, force the acquired concepts to be representationally complex, built from, and composed by, the more primitive representations. Since at least the time of Plato, philosophers and psychologists have struggled to find complex sets of representations that have the same meanings, definitionally or probabilistically, (...) as these concepts. For example, to think about the property-kind being gold is not the same as to think about the complex property-kind being yellowish & shiny & malleable.... I call this Fodor's Challenge: Find an acquisition process that is genuinely inferential and yields a concept that genuinely is one of these lexical concepts. Rather than continue the pursuit of a complex representation that has the same meaning as our concept GOLD. I offer a model on which many lexical concepts are acquired from perception and inference, without being built up from, and composed by, the representations involved. The model, Baptizing Meanings for Concepts, is inspired in part by Saul Kripke's baptism process for assigning meanings to linguistic terms. Many lexical concepts, according to the BMC, are acquired by inferring the presence a new property-kind, picking out the property-kind in terms of those perceptible features, and then assigning a simple mental term, a concept, for that property-kind. (shrink)

Ever since David Lewis argued for the indispensibility of natural properties, they have become a staple of mainstream metaphysics. This dissertation is a critical examination of natural properties. What roles can natural properties play in metaphysics, and what structure do natural properties have? In the first half of the dissertation, I argue that natural properties cannot do all the work they are advertised to do. In the second half of the dissertation, I look at questions relating to the structure of (...) natural properties. I argue that the metric structure of fundamental quantitative properties cannot be reduced to mereological structure, and I argue that the simplistic picture of natural properties as monadic must be abandoned in light of theories of fundamental physics. (shrink)

Among the tools the epistemologist brings to the table ought to be, I suggest, a firm understanding of the imagination--one that is informed by philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. In my dissertation, I highlight several ways in which such an understanding of the imagination can yield insight into traditional questions in epistemology. My dissertation falls into three parts. In Part I, I argue that dreaming should be understood in imaginative terms, and that this has important implications for questions (...) about dream skepticism. In Part II, I argue that an understanding of the imagination is important for understanding important parts of philosophical methodology--particularly those involving thought experiments. I mean in Part II to be vindicating a great deal of traditional methodology. In Part III, I explore what I take to be a number of deep connections between knowledge and counterfactuals. I defend a form of contextualism in each domain, and argue that inference among imaginings, with its important structural similarities to inference in belief, plays a central role in the epistemology of counterfactuals. (shrink)

I reconstruct the original versions of Zeno's Racetrack and Achilles paradoxes, along with Aristotle's responses thereto. Along the way I consider some of the consequences for modern analyses of the paradoxes. It turns out that the Racetrack and the Achilles were oral two-party question-and-answer dialectical paradoxes. One consequence is that the arguments needed to be comprehensible to the average person, and did not employ theses or concepts familiar only to philosophical specialists. I rely on this fact in reconstructing the original (...) dialectical versions of the paradoxes. I show that both paradoxes rely for their success on forcing the dialectical answerer to reflect on his own potentially unending experience of imagination, and show that this renders the most popular contemporary critique of each paradox unworkable in an ancient dialectical context. In responding to the Racetrack, Aristotle seeks to replace the answerer's first-person experience with something more objective, a visible diagram. He then argues that the Racetrack involves an equivocation, an equivocation resulting from the fact that one and the same visible diagram can be interpreted in two ways. He frames his charge of equivocation in standard dialectical fashion, but his use of a diagram is his own innovation. While first employing his response to the Racetrack to construct a response to the somewhat different Achilles paradox, Aristotle later proceeds to offer a revised critique of the Racetrack itself. His revised critique is heavily influenced by his reaction to a variant pre-Aristotelian version of the paradox, a version involving counting. This leads him to reflect on the possibility of mentally experiencing an infinite collection. He also reflects on his earlier diagrammatic methodology, and on the conditions that individuate points, especially halfway-points. He concludes that points which are individuated in diagrams need not represent points that are individuated in reality. His revised critique of the Racetrack hinges on the distinction between actual points and potential points, and I show that this critique maintains the dialectical form of its predecessor, while constituting a reflection on the potentially misleading nature of diagrams. (shrink)

This dissertation explores several issues related to the CPT theorem. Chapter 2 explores the meaning of spacetime symmetries in general and time reversal in particular. It is proposed that a third conception of time reversal, 'geometric time reversal', is more appropriate for certain theoretical purposes than the existing 'active' and 'passive' conceptions. It is argued that, in the case of classical electromagnetism, a particular nonstandard time reversal operation is at least as defensible as the standard view. This unorthodox time reversal (...) operation is of interest because it is the classical counterpart of a view according to which the so-called 'CPT theorem' of quantum field theory is better called 'PT theorem'; on this view, a puzzle about how an operation as apparently non-spatio-temporal as charge conjugation can be linked to spacetime symmetries in as intimate a way as a CPT theorem would seem to suggest dissolves. In chapter 3, we turn to the question of whether the CPT theorem is an essentially quantum-theoretic result. We state and prove a classical analogue of the CPT theorem for systems of tensor fields. This classical analogue, however, appears not to extend to systems of spinor fields. The intriguing answer to our question thus appears to be that the CPT theorem for spinors is essentially quantum-theoretic, but that the CPT theorem for tensor fields applies equally to the classical and quantum cases. Chapter4 explores a puzzle that arises when one puts the CPT theorem alongside a standard way of understanding spacetime symmetries, according to which spacetime symmetries are to be understood in terms of background spacetime structure. The puzzle is that a 'PT theorem' amounts to a statement that the theory may not make essential use of a preferred direction of time, and this seems odd. We propose a solution to that puzzle for the case of tensor field theories. (shrink)

Saint Augustine of Hippo did not shy away from the problem of evil, despite the fact that its existence challenged his faith. In his search for God, Augustine confronted and explored the problem and meaning of evil. Augustine's analysis of evil shows that when God is not at the center of an individual's life and the individual's will is not willingly and completely submitted to the will of God that individual is capable of evil. It is when a person is (...) capable of evil acts or of rationalizing evil that evil is possible. Moreover, evil remains evil regardless of whether an individual or a group collectively regards it as such. Augustine developed an understanding of human nature and mankind's capacity for evil that is worth studying and recognizing as wisdom 1500 years after he wrote it. Only by recognizing and understanding the root causes of evil can we hope to combat its existence. It is essential that we abandon secular biases and revisit the works and words of Saint Augustine to reach a thorough understanding of humanity's propensity for evil and for the existence of evil in a good world created by a good God. (shrink)

Few dispute the descriptive necessity of intentions in art, little ground has been gained in virtue of such consensus. Intentions matter, but we must know not only which ones matter and why they matter but also the implications of their mattering for art theory writ large. I show that intentionality cannot be exhausted by mere appeals to deliberateness or bare artifactuality. I then argue that only reflexively governed intentions are necessary for art - artistic intentions are communicative intentions. Finally I (...) show how making intentions reflexive accrues myriad art theoretical advantages ranging from interpretation to evaluation of art. Intentions matter because they are communicative. Art becomes language-like and in doing so art gets to matter because language matters. (shrink)

How should our beliefs change over time? The standard answer to this question is the Bayesian one. But while the Bayesian account works well with respect to beliefs about the world, it breaks down when applied to self-locating or de se beliefs. In this work I explore ways to extend Bayesianism in order to accommodate de se beliefs. I begin by assessing, and ultimately rejecting, attempts to resolve these issues by appealing to Dutch books and chance-credence principles. I then propose (...) and examine several accounts of the dynamics of de se beliefs. These examinations suggest that an extension of Bayesianism to de se beliefs will require some uncomfortable choices. I conclude by laying out the options available, and assessing the prospects of each. (shrink)

The structuralist conception of metaphysics holds that it aims to uncover the ultimate structure of reality and explain how the world's richness and variety are accounted for by that ultimate structure. On this conception, metaphysicians produce fundamental theories, the primitive, undefined expressions of which are supposed to 'carve reality at its joints', as it were. On this conception, ontological questions are understood as questions about what there is, where the existential quantifier 'there is' has a fundamental, joint-carving interpretation. Structuralist orthodoxy (...) holds that there is exactly one fundamental, joint-carving interpretation that an existential quantifier could have. This orthodox assumption could go wrong--either by there being too few fundamental-quantifier interpretations, or by there being too many. In this dissertation I examine the implications of these non-orthodox options. Someone who thinks there are too many fundamental-quantifier interpretations might think this means standard ontological debates are in some sense defective of 'merely verbal', or she might think instead that the different quantifiers show that there are different 'ways' or 'modes' of being. I argue that the first option runs into problems with a certain sort of realism about logic, but that there is no general problem with the second option, despite its longstanding bad philosophical reputation. I also argue that realism about logic gives us reason to think the dispute between someone who thinks there are many 'modes of being' in this sense and someone who thinks there is just one is not itself verbal. Finally, I turn to the case in which there are no fundamental quantifiers, arguing that it brings with it a host of theoretical problems we could avoid with quantifiers. (shrink)

For any normative domain, we can theorize about what is good in that domain. Such theories include utilitarianism, a view about what is good morally. But there are many domains other than the moral; these include the prudential, the aesthetic, and the intellectual or epistemic. In this last domain, it is good to be knowledgeable and bad to ignore evidence, quite apart from the morality, prudence, and aesthetics of these things. This dissertation builds a theory that stands to the epistemic (...) domain as utilitarianism stands to the moral domain. It builds an epistemic value theory. (shrink)

This dissertation explores issues in the philosophy of psychology and metaphysics through the lens of the emotion of disgust, and its corresponding property, disgustingness. The first chapter organizes an extremely large body of data about disgust, imposes two constraints any theory must meet, and offers a cognitive model of the mechanisms underlying the emotion. The second chapter explores the evolution of disgust, and argues for the Entanglement thesis: this uniquely human emotion was formed when two formerly distinct mechanisms, one dedicated (...) to monitoring food intake and protecting against poisons, the other dedicated to protecting against parasitic infection, where driven together until they became functionally integrated. The third chapter explores the sorts of acquisition mechanisms that could give rise to the patterns of individual and cultural level variation we find with disgust elicitors. It argues for the Empathic Acquisition thesis, which holds that one important route for the social acquisition and transmission of disgust elicitors is linked to empathic recognition of facial expressions of the emotion. The fourth chapter builds on the Entanglement thesis, and embeds the emotion of disgust in gene-culture coevolutionary theory and the tribal instincts hypothesis. The Co-opt thesis is defended, which maintains that disgust was co-opted to play an important role in our moral psychology, particularly in our cognition of social norms and ethnic boundary markers. In doing so, however, it brings to bear many features initially linked to poisons and parasites. This explains the puzzling and troublesome character of moral judgments linked to disgust. After shifting gears from psychology to metaphysics, the fifth chapter recasts the Humean tradition of projectivism in the terminology of cognitive science. Using examples such as disgust, I argue that a psychologized projectivism is able to make sense of the idea that some properties are projected onto the world, rather than found there to begin with. The final chapter criticizes three other accounts of the property of disgustingness, two inspired by functionalism in the philosophy of color, one inspired by fittingness accounts in metaethics. I argue that none provide nearly as satisfactory account of the property as the psychologized projectivism articulated previously. (shrink)

A traditional line of inquiry in epistemology tried to analyze the concept of knowledge into its constituent components. In virtue of understanding these alleged more basic concepts, such as truth, justification, and belief, it was hoped that a complete and informative theory of knowledge would emerge. According to the revolutionary approach advocated here, one which originates in Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits, better success can be achieved by reversing this conceptual analysis structure by taking knowledge as the fundamental explanatory (...) tool in epistemological theorizing. I defend the view that this knowledge-theoretic approach exceeds the explanatory value of its conceptual analysis competitor in the sense that the best explanations of epistemologically significant phenomena are appropriately expressed in terms of knowledge per se. (shrink)

In my dissertation I analyze the structure of fundamental physical theories. I start with an analysis of what an adequate primitive ontology is, discussing the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and theirs solutions. It is commonly said that these theories have little in common. I argue instead that the moral of the measurement problem is that the wave function cannot represent physical objects and a common structure between these solutions can be recognized: each of them is about a clear three-dimensional (...) primitive ontology that evolves according to a law determined by the wave function. The primitive ontology is what matter is made of while the wave function tells the matter how to move. One might think that what is important in the notion of primitive ontology is their three-dimensionality. If so, in a theory like classical electrodynamics electromagnetic fields would be part of the primitive ontology. I argue that, reflecting on what the purpose of a fundamental physical theory is, namely to explain the behavior of objects in three--dimensional space, one can recognize that a fundamental physical theory has a particular architecture. If so, electromagnetic fields play a different role in the theory than the particles and therefore should be considered, like the wave function, as part of the law. Therefore, we can characterize the general structure of a fundamental physical theory as a mathematical structure grounded on a primitive ontology. I explore this idea to better understand theories like classical mechanics and relativity, emphasizing that primitive ontology is crucial in the process of building new theories, being fundamental in identifying the symmetries. Finally, I analyze what it means to explain the word around us in terms of the notion of primitive ontology in the case of regularities of statistical character. Here is where the notion of typicality comes into play: we have explained a phenomenon if the typical histories of the primitive ontology give rise to the statistical regularities we observe. (shrink)

This dissertation is an experiment: what happens if we treat proper names as anaphoric expressions on a par with pronouns? The first thing to notice is that a name's `antecedent' can occur in a discourse prior to the one containing the name. An individual may be introduced and tagged with a name in one context, and then retrieved using the name in a later context. To allow for discourse-crossing anaphora, in addition to the usual cross-sentential anaphora, a revision of discourse (...) semantics is in order. Essentially, we must countenance discourse referents that span contexts, and think of contexts, not as islands, but as nodes connected to each other by the discourse referents they share. Discourse semantics gives rise to a new notion of content determined by discourse reference rather than pure reference. In a space of contexts structured by shared discourse referents, discourse content becomes transmissable. For a piece of content may be sent from one context to another whenever the discourse referents bundled up in the content are held in common by the two contexts. The final step is to treat the cognitive state of an agent as just another kind of context, and so a potential recipient of discourse content. Discourse content is more fine-grained than traditional `singular' content, and so is a better fit for our pretheoretic intuitions about communication and attitude reporting. This is illustrated by applying the theory to Frege's puzzle, a puzzle of Loar's about communication, Kripke's puzzle about belief, Geach's intentional identity and new breed of `mixed' de re-de dicto sentence. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses a variety of foundational issues pertaining to the notion of algorithm employed in mathematics and computer science. In these settings, an algorithm is taken to be an effective mathematical procedure for solving a previously stated mathematical problem. Procedures of this sort comprise the notional subject matter of the subfield of computer science known as algorithmic analysis. In this context, algorithms are referred to via proper names of which computational properties are directly predicated )). Moreover, many formal results (...) are traditionally stated by explicitly quantifying over algorithms. These observations motivate the view that algorithms are themselves abstract mathematical objects -- a view I refer to as algorithmic realism. The status of this view is clearly related to that of Church's Thesis -- i.e. the claim that a function is computable by an algorithm just in case it is partial recursive. But whereas Church's Thesis is widely accepted on the basis of several well-known mathematical analyses of algorithmic computability, there is presently no consensus on how we can uniformly identify individual algorithms with mathematical objects. In the first chapter of this work, I attempt to illustrate the theoretical significance of algorithmic realism. I suggest that this view is not only of foundational significance to computer science, but also worth highlighting due to the role algorithms play in the fixation of mathematical knowledge and their relationship to intensional entities such as propositions and properties. Chapter Two presents a formal framework for reducing computational discourse to mathematical discourse modeled on contemporary discussion of mathematical nominalism. Chapter Three is centered on a case study intended to illustrate the technical exigencies involved with defending algorithmic realism. Chapter Four explores various ways in which algorithms might be identified with models of computation. And finally, Chapter Five argues that no such identification can uniformly satisfy all statements of algorithmic identity and non-identity affirmed by computational practice. I suggest that the technical crux of algorithmic realism lies in the necessity of reducing recursive specifications of algorithms to iterative models of computation in a manner which preserves algorithmic identity. (shrink)

Imagine slicing your hand with a steak knife. Inevitably, this leads to a characteristic unpleasant sensation, and just as reliably, to a withdrawal of the wounded limb. But can this rather mundane fact--and other similar facts--shed any light on the mind-body problem or the issue of the role of experience in causing behavior? In my dissertation, I explore this issue head on, and in the process clarify and criticize the arguments of philosophers who have given an affirmative answer to this (...) question--philosophers such as William James and Herbert Spencer. These arguments have coupled evidence like the above with the fact that human beings have evolved, in order to make the case that epiphenomenalism with respect to qualia is false. My first task will be to formulate a rigorous version of a James-Spencer style argument, which will occupy us in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is dedicated to answering a number of objections to the argument, in an effort to show that if there is a problem with it, this problem lies elsewhere. Chapter 3 explores alternative arguments in the spirit of the original one formulated in Chapter 1, and discusses any resulting effects on the plausibility of the conclusion. Chapter 4 is the capstone chapter of the dissertation. In it, I discuss a crucial objection to all arguments in the spirit of that given in the first chapter--namely, that physicalism has analogous flaws to epiphenomenalism where accommodating the relevant evidence is concerned. My conclusions in this final chapter are twofold. First, that even if there is no fatal flaw in the general strategy the evolutionary argument employs, it works against all forms of dualism, not just epiphenomenalism. And second, the accusations made in the objection are correct; physicalism suffers from problems analogous to those faced by epiphenomenalism. Although the primary findings of the dissertation are negative, there are many lessons we can take from them along the way. Most prominent among them is an improved perspective on the appropriate roles of empirical findings and armchair philosophical theorizing in debate over the mind-body problem. (shrink)

Interest-relative invariantism conjoins the interest-relativist thesis that knowledge depends in part on our interests with the invariantist thesis that ‘knows’ is not a context-sensitive word. Neither thesis entails the other, and interest-relativism is interesting in its own right. If interest-relativism is true, then knowledge depends in part on truth-irrelevant factors, since our interests will often be irrelevant to our grip on the truth. In Chapter 1, I steer the debate away from the invariantist thesis that ‘knows’ is not a context-sensitive (...) word and toward the interest-relativist thesis that knowledge depends in part on our interests. Interest-relativism comes in two varieties: what I call ‘pragmatism’ and ‘intellectualism.’ Pragmatism is the view that practical interests can make a difference to knowledge, while intellectualism is the view that intellectual interests can make a difference to knowledge. Pragmatism and intellectualism might both be true, but neither view entails the other. While pragmatism has received considerable attention in the literature, intellectualism has scarcely been identified as a position in logical space, and it has no defenders. As a result, many philosophers think they can resist interest-relativism by simply resisting pragmatism. In Chapters 2 through 7, I show otherwise. First, in Chapters 2 through 6, I argue extensively against pragmatism. Then, in Chapter 7, I argue for intellectualism. Since purism is just the denial of pragmatism, and since intellectualism is a species of interest-relativism, Chapters 2 through 7 jointly defend purist interest-relativism. Knowledge depends in part on our interests, but not on our practical interests, I argue. Along the way, I sketch a theory of belief, apply this theory of belief to questions about the value of knowledge, and say how believing that p relates to one’s credence that p. (shrink)

Engagement and motivation have become increasingly important to mathematics education, particularly as concern about the educational success of students in the US grows. As a way to describe the patterns cognitive, behavioral, and affective engagement of students, Goldin, Epstein, Warner, and Schorr developed the theoretical concept of engagement structures. Engagement structures are idealized, recurring highly dynamic affective patterns inferred from behavior. This study focuses on characterizing two of these patterns of behavior: Let Me Teach You and Look How Smart I (...) Am in the context of urban middle-school students working on a conceptually challenging problem. These structures were selected because they both are likely to focus on the mathematical content as well as require interaction between students. This dissertation reports on a qualitative study with video and audio data as well as survey responses of 55 seventh- and eighth-grade students in four classes in a large urban school district in NJ. These students worked in small groups on the same task. The students’ survey responses were compared to the findings based on the audio and video analysis. The results indicate that students appear to help one another and are often, though not always, willing to accept help from classmates. Students who attempt to impress others in some way may be trying to prove they are smarter than others or may wish to be perceived at least as smart as their classmates. Behavioral features for each engagement structure emerged from the data and describe the different behaviors that seem to be in service of the same goal. The features associated with the LMTY structure are: 1) teaching to clarify, 2) teaching procedures, 3) teaching or explaining strategies, and 4) checking for understanding. The features associated with the LHSIA structure are: 1) expressing an idea, 2) stating an answer or answers, 3) correcting others, 4) stating, “I’m smart,” or “We’re smart,” 5) keeping up with others in the group. This study, an initial investigation of two patterns of engagement, contributes to a goal of better understanding the complexity of “in the moment” engagement in the mathematics classroom. (shrink)

Modal primitivism is the view that there are modal features of the world which cannot be reduced to the non-modal. Theories which embrace primitive modality are often rejected for reasons of ideological simplicity: the fewer primitive notions a theory invokes, the better. Furthermore, modal primitivism is often associated with the view that all modal features of the world are irreducibly modal, which appears unsystematic and unexplanatory. As a result, many prefer modal reductionism. This work is an articulation and defense of (...) a modal primitivist theory of modality which requires minimal ideology and is systematic and explanatory. On this version of modal primitivism, only some modal features of the world are irreducibly modal—namely, incompatibilities between certain properties or relations. Other modal features of the world are reducible to a combination of primitive incompatibilities and the non-modal features of the world. In chapter 1, I introduce various issues in the metaphysics of modality, giving appropriate background for what follows. My modal primitivist theory of modality is introduced in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 2, I argue that a well-known modal reductionist theory of modality is not as ideologically innocent as it’s thought to be: modal primitivism has the upper hand with respect to primitive notions. I then introduce the primitive notion of incompatibility and show how this notion can be used to account for de dicto modality, which concerns purely qualitative modal claims. In chapter 3, I present a theory of de re modality, that which concerns modal claims involving particular individuals. Since on this theory the de re is reducible to the de dicto, it requires no more primitive modality than that which appears at the level of the de dicto. I end in chapter 4 by arguing against a rival modal primitivist theory, showing that the primitive notion that it countenances, dispositionality, cannot account for all modal claims. (shrink)

Authenticity refers not only to the physical characteristics of cultural properties, but also to the ways in which collective memories connect with particular environments. Each historic site presents a unique interpretation of authenticity, rooted in a combination of the material, contextual, and cultural realms. Preservation standards have emerged to answer a number of questions regarding the need to develop guidelines for conservation of historic properties. This thesis addresses 90 years of cultural preservation policy through international standard-setting instruments, including the Athens (...) Charter of 1931, the Venice Charter of 1964, UNESCO72, the World Heritage Operational Guidelines, the 1994 Nara Recommendation on Authenticity, and the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, as well as core United States federal preservation legislation, including the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the Secretary of Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for the Treatment of Historic Properties. These documents are examined for the specific framing of reconstruction actions, and the ways in which major interventions may simultaneously bolster and compromise authenticity of a historic property. Four case studies, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan, New York; the Ise Temple complex in Japan; the rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany; and the Abu Simbel temple complex located near Aswan, Egypt, contribute to the discussions surrounding authenticity. Each site explored in this paper further illustrates the difficulties emerging from attempts to establish a uniform method of preservation interventions across a range of heritage sites. Modern, flexible preservation tools will establish the groundwork for new approaches to authenticity that accurately reflect the multifaceted significance of the global cultural environment and contribute to contemporary discussions on sustainable development. (shrink)

Adults are prone to treating percents, one representational format of rational numbers, as novel cases of natural number. This suggests that percent values are not differentiated from natural numbers; a conceptual shift from the natural numbers to the rational numbers has not yet occurred. This is most surprising, considering people are inundated with rational numbers all around them, from the “% Daily Values” on nutrition labels to sales and discounts in stores to the constant ups and downs of gas prices. (...) From an early age, humans have a rather robust concept of natural number, but this earlier knowledge seems to act as a barrier to future learning of rational number. While participants performed better on one-statement problems with a single percent, they ignored the principles of rational number when presented with two-statement percent problems. For example, using rational numbers involves dropping the successor principle, a principle that applies to the natural numbers. Problems presented algebraically gave participants great difficulty, though performance improved when subjects were able to replace the variable y with a natural number. When using a numerical hint, participants still did not improve their performance on algebra problems in posttest. Error analyses revealed a strong tendency for students to interpret the problems as novel examples of natural number problems. This research discusses the failure to understand percents in light of overuse or failure to apply the natural number successor principle, division, false cognates, and the absence of knowledge that relates multiple rational number representations to a common underlying knowledge structure. The amount of previous math experience is also correlated with the ease of moving between natural number and rational number concepts. (shrink)

In slogan form, the thesis of this dissertation is that shaping the far future is overwhelmingly important. More precisely, I argue that: Main Thesis: From a global perspective, what matters most is that we do what is best for the general trajectory along which our descendants develop over the coming millions, billions, and trillions of years. The first chapter introduces some key concepts, clarifies the main thesis, and outlines what follows in later chapters. Some of the key concepts include: existential (...) risk, the world's development trajectory, proximate benefits and ripple effects, speeding up development, trajectory changes, and the distinction between broad and targeted attempts to shape the far future. The second chapter is a defense of some methodological assumptions for developing normative theories which makes my thesis more plausible. In the third chapter, I introduce and begin to defend some key empirical and normative assumptions which, if true, strongly support my main thesis. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I argue against two of the strongest objections to my arguments. These objections come from population ethics, and are based on Person-Affecting Views and views according to which additional lives have diminishing marginal value. I argue that these views face extreme difficulties and cannot plausibly be used to rebut my arguments. In the sixth and seventh chapters, I discuss a decision-theoretic paradox which is relevant to my arguments. The simplest plausible theoretical assumptions which support my main thesis imply a view I call fanaticism, according to which any non-zero probability of an infinitely good outcome, no matter how small, is better than any probability of a finitely good outcome. I argue that denying fanaticism is inconsistent with other normative principles that seem very obvious, so that we are faced with a paradox. I have no solution to the paradox; I instead argue that we should continue to use our inconsistent principles, but we should use them tastefully. We should do this because, currently, we know of no consistent set of principles which does better. (shrink)

What does it mean for something to be called “avant-garde”? The ambiguity of such a label fails to define the works of which it is typically applied. It’s more relevant to think of the term as an on-going process that explores new artistic possibilities. This thesis will look at some factors that helped propel such a process into motion and the shared aesthetics that came as a result. An avant-garde process began in the early 20th century as individuals and groups (...) sought out a divergent worldview that began to question the rapidly developing Western worldview dominated by science and its frameworks. By looking at the works and statements of key individuals of the time such as the surrealist André Breton, psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and poet Charles Olson, one gets a clearer picture of the many factors that fueled this divergence. The most notable being World War I with its atrocities and globalized horrors, the splintering of social groups between capitalism and communism and increased secularization. In cataloguing the connections between both political and artistic groups it becomes clear how the collective skepticism and questioning of the then dominant worldview led to the eventual creation of an altogether new worldview centered around concepts and ideas not available in old. The development of jazz is seen within this light as a uniquely culturally positioned art form. From more traditional jazz styles to more experimental, jazz is looked at as following a parallel trajectory into a moment of avant-garde synthesis. In looking at the early development of progressive jazz musicians Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane, this thesis aims to cement the 1950s as a hotbed in which an avant-garde aesthetic converged, ultimately resulting in music of the likes of free jazz and beyond. (shrink)

Some regard harms to currently existing persons as a basis for reparations for historical injustice. By focusing on corrective justice as the basis for repairing wrongful harm, this thesis aims to clarify and strengthen the harm-based approach to reparations. I defend a version of the conformity account as the moral basis of corrective justice, critiquing various versions of this argument by Joseph Raz and John Gardner. I argue that the notion of harm relevant to corrective justice is a counterfactual comparative (...) one and respond to various objections to that conception. I then consider two different cases in which compensation for an historical injustice might be thought appropriate. First, I examine an argument developed independently by Bernard Boxill and George Sher. I analyze Andrew Cohen’s critique of the argument, clarifying the problems it faces before offering some tentative solutions. Second, I examine and critique Judith Jarvis Thomson’s proposal to solve the non-identity problem in the case of the Risky Policy. I explain why her argument fails and offer my own solution. (shrink)

Chapter One: James is often accused of claiming that a belief is true just in case it is useful. The objections to this view are obvious. I offer a more sophisticated interpretation of James's theory of truth, and defend it from the standard objections. Chapter Two: I discuss Steve Stich's notorious claim that `once we have a clear view of the matter, most of us will not find any value, either intrinsic or instrumental, in having true beliefs.' I argue that (...) Stich reaches this conclusion only because he makes some false assumptions about content-determination. I show that using an interpretationist account of content-determination we can explain the value of true beliefs. Chapters Three and Four: `Definitionalism' is my name for the thesis that the theorems of mathematics are a priori because they are entailed by definitions. I discuss two objections to this view: the `Kantian' objection and the Quinean objection. According to the `Kantian' objection, definitionalism must be false because existential generalisations can't be true by definition. According to the Quinean objection, the definitionalist's distinction between definitions and other statements is illicit, because it is not discernible in mathematical practice. I argue that the Kantian objection is misguided, but the Quinean objection is correct. Chapter Five: Elitists draw a distinction between two sorts of word: the elite and the plebeian. They claim that only by using the elite words can we describe the world as it is `anyway'; using the plebeian words, we can at best describe the world as it seems to us, with our own particular physiology, tastes and history. For the sake of argument I grant these claims, but then contend that we have no way of identifying the elite expressions. (shrink)

The perception of structure in music is frequently based upon a theoretical understanding of the musical elements. This basis tends toward stylized analysis of a specific element of the music, for instance, pitch, form, rhythm, et cetera, with the goal of revealing the tendencies or development of this element throughout the piece. Not frequently discussed is the function and significance of stasis in perceiving the structure of music. A “moment” of stasis, as Stockhausen called it, can alternatively be understood as (...) a “state of existence.” A static section of music can give a sensation of inactivity often comprehended as a slowing of the music!s forward momentum, or temporality, as contrasted with more dynamic states. A musical state is reliant upon a particular treatment of its internal elements, incorporating varying degrees of limitation and change. Analysis of both dynamic and static states is considered in an endeavor to further understand the function of musical stasis in the structure of a composition. (shrink)

Many models, theories, and frameworks of information management incorporate the concept of anticipated response to sharing information. These models, however, do not consistently conceptualize or operationalize anticipated response. This dissertation project consisted of two studies. The first study explored the conceptualization of anticipated response and developed measurement. The second study continued to validate the anticipated response measures created and tested how information, relationship, and response attributes predict anticipated response. Measured variables included anticipated response, anticipated outcome, relational evaluation, information assessment, efficacy, (...) self-concealment, responsiveness, and likelihood of disclosure. Results supported the dimensional structure, validity, and reliability of the anticipated response measure created. The studies additionally verified the utility of information, relationship, and response attributes in predicting anticipated response to disclosure of personal/private information. The dissertation also discusses findings, implications, limitations, and directions for future research. The conceptual and operational clarity of the concept of anticipated response presented in this dissertation will augment existing information management models and contribute to future work in this area. (shrink)

Some environmentally disastrous events lead to significant institutional change while others do not. Consider that the volume of oil spilt at Guadalupe Dunes, California was twice that of the Exxon Valdez accident. Few have heard of the former while the latter has led to significant legislation to control oil pollution. Organizational institutionalists are ambivalent about why events lead to change or even whether they do. Some theorists argue that shocking events break the status quo but what constitutes shocking is unclear. (...) Others argue that events do not by themselves cause change. Instead, individuals or groups who seek change look for events merely as a tool to publicize a problem and recruit support. The central goal of this dissertation therefore is to understand why and how events that arise from industrial accidents that harm the environment lead to significant institutional change. This study is focused on the claims that key actors make in establishing shared meanings that compel the new institution. By devising a comparative case study of four environmental accidents, I have developed a theory to explain why and how events lead to significant institutional change. I find that institutional change occurs when a few people perceive that an industrial accident has disrupted their lives and make claims to problematize the accident as causing an undesirable condition that must be alleviated. These people, labeled problem providers, then engage others, labeled solution providers, to create new meaning or symbolize the event. Such meanings further persuade others to create new institutions to effectively enforce a new order. (shrink)

This project considers repetition as both individual action and accumulated force. Thinking of repetition in this way means finding ourselves, with each repeated action, between the force of what we have done and the potential of what we can yet do. From this position, the project will, first, explore how previous repetition creates inertia toward future action. Second, it will explore the possibility of ongoing negotiation of this inertia in a way that allows some indeterminacy to exist for our future (...) actions. The first chapter considers how it is that repetitions compress over time into habit and how this compression allows past actions to be made useful for present and future action. The chapter will challenge the understanding of habit as a static position, or place of stagnation, for the body and instead address it as a necessary process. It will account for the formation of habits as well as their effects. That our actions, reactions, and repetitions occur in a context of prescriptive forces is addressed in the second chapter, specifically through technique of ii discipline and the effects of normalization. The second chapter addresses the disciplinary techniques employed to move bodies toward a particular, recognizable form and to value bodies relative to their distance from this form, and their distance from other bodies. Through Michel Foucault and Sara Ahmed, pressures of normalization are discussed in terms of pressure on the body to align with other bodies, and extended to the example of femininity. Retaining the terms of straightness and alignment, the third chapter will consider curvature as a departure that may be painful and punishable but which has the potential to open new possibilities of action for the future. It provides a way of relating to our own inevitable repetitions and forces that seek to direct those repetitions. (shrink)

My assertion is simply that when understood in its fullness and in all its complexity, Cassirer’s Symbolic Forms offers a method for overcoming cultural divisions through a “middle way” advanced by and through symbolic forms. Human interpretations of perspective must evolve. Connection to others is the basis for genuinely ethical attitudes and actions. Ethical precepts of the past are becoming the imperatives for survival in the future. We must now choose conscious ethical evolution. The principles that we learn from symbolic (...) forms can be used as guides to overcoming separation, reconciling difference, and giving meaning to everyday experience. These principles can assist us in navigating the complexities of ethical decision making, and can point us toward moral action, transforming stagnant mores of today into living, dynamic, cultural expressions tomorrow. Each self-identity becomes enriched and expanded through interaction with different belief systems, cultures, faiths, norms, and values. As people open themselves to multifarious experiences, their own center becomes more secure, while their outward expression becomes more multi-dimensional and diverse. Ethics becomes a project of breaking down internal and external boundaries which prevent people from perceiving from a variety of perspectives. Self-knowledge becomes a means for responsible action in collaboration, not opposition, with others. This is the outcome of the use of symbolic forms. Each aspect in the design of Cassirer’s symbolic forms speaks to a new evolution of our interpretation of our perceptions which we can apply to people, situations and relationships, and cultural forms. (shrink)

Many philosophical positions depend on claims about the mind. Though it‟s tempting to think that the claims that matter – at least from a philosophical perspective – are claims about the conscious mind, emerging evidence suggests that the unconscious plays a surprisingly significant role in our mental lives. Given the centrality of claims about the mind to philosophical positions, and the centrality of the unconscious to the mind, it‟s important for philosophers to take account of discoveries about the unconscious. My (...) dissertation is an attempt to do this. I use empirical findings about unconscious states and processes to investigate the nature of personhood and the relationship between human beings and persons. Most contemporary empirical work on unconscious states and processes is conducted in two overlapping literatures: the dual process literature and the cognitive unconscious literature. According to the dual process literature, we have two different ways – one conscious and the other unconscious – of performing many types of cognitive tasks. The central moral of the cognitive unconscious literature is that we underestimate the unconscious; unconscious processes are capable of much more sophisticated and flexible processing than we tend to think. I draw on these overlapping literatures to challenge two common philosophical assumptions. In Chapters 1-2, I use findings in the dual process literature to challenge the assumption that there‟s a single, unified person in each human being. In Chapters 3-5, I use findings in the cognitive unconscious literature to challenge the assumption that consciousness is necessary for personhood. These two challenges combine to form a larger project. As I argue in the Coda, they raise the possibility that there are two distinct persons in each human being – one conscious and the other unconscious. This possibility, in turn, has implications for a range of philosophical issues, from diachronic personal identity to moral responsibility to animal and artificial consciousness. (shrink)

A-theories of time postulate a fundamental distinction between the present and other times. This distinction manifests in what A-theorists take to exist, their accounts of property change, and their views about the appropriate temporal logic. In this dissertation, I argue for a particular formulation of the A-theory that dispenses with change in existence and makes tense operators an optional formal tool for expressing the key theses. I call my view the minimal A-theory. The first chapter introduces the debate. The second (...) chapter offers an extended, logic-based argument against more traditional A-theories. The third and fourth chapters develop my alternative proposal. The final chapter considers a problem for A-theorists who think the contents of our attitudes reflect changes in the world. (shrink)

My dissertation examines prominent arguments for and against the use of intuition in philosophical theorizing. Many of the concerns I raise involve areas of oversimplification - particularly concerning the relationship between the reliability of our intuitions and their evidential status. Specifically, I argue that there are two primary barriers to framing the intuition debate as a simple question about whether intuitions are either unreliable and therefore wholly unsuitable for use in philosophy, or reliable and therefore always suitable for philosophical use. (...) The first of these barriers involves the widespread assumption that intuition forms a fairly cohesive, fairly natural mental kind which can be usefully evaluated for reliability. The second involves the assumption that anyone who questions the suitability of intuitions as evidence must deny that intuitions are reliable enough to constitute knowledge. A further theme of my dissertation involves the relationship between the categories delineated by our intuitive classifications and the categories which serve as the targets of philosophical investigation. I examine two major approaches to this relationship - the ‘mentalist’ view, according to which the targets of philosophical analysis are our own concepts, and the ‘extramentalist’ view, according to which the targets of philosophy are external phenomena ‘in the world’. I conclude that both projects are legitimate, but that only the former justifies the commonly held view that there exists a sort of ‘constitutive’ relationship between intuitions and truth. Ultimately, I advocate a position according to which use of intuition in philosophy should be restricted, but not eliminated. (shrink)

Discourses are dynamic things - new information gets communicated, affecting the state of the conversation and the states of minds of the conversational participants. This work explores the question of how much of these discourse dynamics should be accounted for by semantics and how much by pragmatics. There are some philosophers and linguists who claim that the dynamic nature of discourse is good reason for abandoning traditional truth-conditional semantics and adopting instead a notion of semantics that focuses on the level (...) of discourse, treating the semantics of sentences as their contribution to the discourse as a whole, or as their potential effect on the conversational context. I argue that such a semantic explanation is the wrong sort of explanation; we can maintain a traditional, static semantics and explain changes to the context by appealing to pragmatics - broadly speaking, by appealing to the fact that conversations are rational, co-operative activities. In chapter 1, I examine some purported differences between dynamic and static semantics, arguing that the central difference between the two views is whether changes to the conversational context are encoded in the semantics or explained by pragmatics. In chapters 2-4, I look at an extended case study of discourses containing indefinite descriptions and cross-sentential anaphora, such as: A woman walked in. She ordered lunch. The first sentence in this sort of discourse seems to introduce a new object under discussion that the pronoun in the second sentence picks up on. In chapter 2, I argue that there are good reasons to think a dynamic semantic account is not the right sort of approach, and that a pragmatic approach better explains the data. In chapter 3, I extend my pragmatic account to cases of embedded indefinites such as: A wolf might walk in, Mary doesn’t own a car, and If a farmer owns a donkey, he beats it. In chapter 4, I argue against a rival approach that tries to explain the same phenomena by appealing to the referential intentions of speakers. (shrink)

This dissertation is about Semantic Uniformity. Semantic Uniformity is the claim that what is true for some expressions is true for them all—at least, when it comes to semantics. In particular, I defend three claims in three chapters, in this order: First, all simple linguistic expressions, and not just some, are non-descriptive. That is, their referents are not determined by fit with our beliefs. Second, all simple linguistic expressions are rigid. Relative to each possible world, construed as a world of (...) evaluation, every expression has one and the same referent. These two claims point toward a general picture of why simple expressions refer to what they do. Simple expressions have their referents determined by the causal, informational, or lawful connections they bear to objects and properties in the world. Furthermore, this referential connection is 'direct‘ in that it doesn‘t depend on the distribution of objects and properties at a world; simple expressions simply refer, and that explains their rigidity. In the third chapter I defend the view that the same holds for complex expressions. Consensus has it that complex expressions derive their meanings from the meanings of their parts and how those parts are combined. But, I argue, a better account assumes that complex expressions have their referents determined by the causal, informational, or lawful connections they bear to objects and properties in the world, just like simple expressions. In the background of all this is the Referentialist thesis, that there is no further aspect to meaning than reference. If Referentialism is accepted, then the argument of the dissertation is that we can have a "complete" theory of meaning simply by extending a direct causal theory of reference to all expressions. (shrink)

Because humans cannot know one another’s minds directly, every form of communication is a solution to the same basic problem: how can privately held information be made publicly accessible through manipulations of the physical environment? Language is by far the best studied response to this challenge. But there are a diversity of non-linguistic strategies for representation with external signs as well, from facial expressions and fog horns to chronological graphs and architectural renderings. The general thesis of this dissertation is that (...) there is an impressively wide spectrum of conventional systems of representation, corresponding to the many ways that the problem of communication can be solved, and that these systems can be described and explained using the tools of contemporary mathematical semantics. As a partial corrective to the countervailing norm, this work concentrates on the class of systems arguably most different from language— those governing the interpretation of pictorial images. Such representations dominate practical communication: witness the proliferation of maps, road signs, newspaper photographs, scientific illustrations, television shows, engineering drawings, and even the fleeting imagery of manual gesture. I argue that systems of depiction and languages embody a parallel technologies of communication. Both are based on semantics: systematic and conventional mappings from signs to representational content. But I also provide evidence that these semantics are profoundly divergent. Whereas the semantics of languages are based on arbitrary associations of signs and denotations, the semantics of systems of depiction are based on rules of geometrical transformation. Drawing on recent research in computer graphics and computational vision, I go on to develop a precise theory of pictorial semantics. This in turn facilitates a detailed comparison of iconic, image-based representation, and symbolic, language-based representation. A consequence of these conclusions is that the traditional, language-centric conception of semantics must be overhauled to allow for a more general semantic theory, one which countenances the wide variety of interpretive mechanisms actually at work in human communication. (shrink)

We encounter offense through various media: an intended facetious remark, a protester’s photographic image of an aborted fetus, an epithet, a stereotypical joke of a minority racial group. People say things that cause offense all of the time. And causing offense can have serious consequences, both personal and professional; the offending party is subject to termination, suspension, or social isolation and public opprobrium. Since the stakes are so high we should have a better understanding of the mechanisms of offense involved (...) in these media and how they work. In this dissertation I focus on two mechanisms for communicating offense—i.e. racial and ethnic slurs and racial humor. First, I lay out a few distinctions concerning the particular kind of offense being targeted, objective versus subjective offense, and when state involvement might be appropriate for penalizing offensive behavior. Next, I discuss racial slurs and the conditions of their offensiveness. I offer a non-content based view of slurs’ offense, which contradicts the consensus view held by most philosophers of language and linguists working on this issue. Also, I look more closely at a purportedly non-offensive use of slurring language, so-called linguistic appropriation, and determine that appropriated uses are permissible in certain settings only under certain conditions. And finally, I propose a tri-partite analysis of racial jokes that provides conditions for when they are merely racial, racially insensitive, or racist. (shrink)

My dissertation examines how the feminine was invoked as a representational strategy to cope with the nihilism lying at the heart of Chinese modernity in the period from 1915 to 1936. As a revolution on both the individual level and the social level, Chinese modernity began with and continued in crisis. One imperative of Chinese modernity was to ceaselessly bring excitement and passion to the individual, urging and enticing the latter to join the nationalist project. However, this idealist endeavor demanded (...) more power than the individual could summon within a coherent and rational consciousness. The individual was forced to confront decentering or shattering experiences of revolution, which were impossible to represent. Therefore, the nihil lied at the heart of modern Chinese subjectivity. In the West, nihilism emerged as a psychological effect to the decline of belief; but in May Fourth China, nihilism emerged a response to the belief in a heightened spirit that is incommensurate with any practical goals. However, the very nihilistic experience had to be disguised or shielded to ensure the purity and sublimity of the revolution. The trope of woman was employed as a metonymy for the nihil, which gave birth to a “shadow subject” that was different from the ideal masculine and rational one. On the one hand, the projection of nihil onto woman further alienated and mystified the feminine; on the other hand, it empowered the feminine and incorporated woman into the mainstream of revolutionary discourse. Therefore, not only male writers used the representation of woman to overcome the traumatic nihilistic experience in their subjectivity, some female writers also integrated the nihil in their self-representation as a strategy to empower themselves. In my dissertation, I engage myself in a re-reading of selective modern Chinese literary works. Combining the theoretical strength of post-structuralism, existentialism, and feminism, my dissertation aims to deconstruct and reconstruct subjectivity, narrative, and revolutionary discourse in modern China. The discovery of the relation between woman and nihil provides a new perspective to reexamine the construction of modern subjectivity, as well as the gender relations in Chinese modernity. (shrink)

I explore various claims about the nature of phenomenal concepts and isolate two recurring intuitions. The first involves the epistemological role of phenomenal concepts: a phenomenal concept is supposed to be a concept of a type of experience that must be possessed by a subject who knows what it is like to have an experience of the type in question. The second involves the importance of experience: a phenomenal concept is supposed to be a concept of a type of experience (...) that can be possessed only by a subject who has had an experience of the type in question. Most accounts of phenomenal concepts have stipulations designed to satisfy both these conditions. I argue, however, that they cannot jointly be satisfied. We thus face a choice: either we can possess phenomenal concepts of types of experiences we haven't had, or a phenomenal concept is not required for phenomenal knowledge. I argue that the latter is unacceptable, as the idea of a phenomenal concept is inextricably tied to issues involving the relationship between phenomenal knowledge and non-phenomenal knowledge. I defend a recognitional account of phenomenal concepts, whereby a subject possesses a phenomenal concept partly in virtue of being able to recognize an experience as being of a certain type and which does not require having had an experience of the type in question. I consider and reject the rival "quotational" account, which holds that a phenomenal concept actually contains its referent as a proper part. The latter part of my dissertation is an analysis of some prominent antiphysicalist arguments through the lens of phenomenal concepts. I consider, especially, a theme that runs through them, which is what Brian Loar calls 'the semantic premise', and which Stephen White has recently argued for: the claim that any true identity statement that involves noncontingent modes of presentation on both sides of the identity must be a priori. (shrink)

Legal theorists commonly employ a distinction between justification defenses and excuse defenses, but there are significant theoretical disagreements about the nature of the distinction as well as about what the distinction entails. This dissertation is concerned with finding the best way to describe the distinction between the moral concepts of justification and excuse that underlie the concepts employed by legal theorists. Chapter 1 begins by examining moral defenses in general, with emphasis on their purpose, nature, function, and epistemology. Chapter 2 (...) critically examines many of the traditional theoretical assumptions made about justification and excuse in the literature with the goal of winnowing them down to an uncontroversial core that can provide the foundation for a fuller, more specific account. Chapter 3 examines the ordinary language meaning of the words "justification" and "excuse" in order to identify any analytic constraints on what a correct theoretical account of justification and excuse may legitimately include. Finally, Chapter 4 offers and defends a reductive theory of justification and excuse which I call "the praise/blame theory." This theory identifies justified acts with those prima facie wrongful acts for which the actor is morally praiseworthy and excused acts with those prima facie wrongful acts for which the actor is merely not to blame. This simple account is consistent with the logical form of moral defenses, requires minimal elaboration on the terms' ordinary language content, avoids the conceptual mistakes that plague more traditional theories, and has the potential help resolve nagging theoretical issues in related fields. (shrink)

This dissertation is a critical examination and rejection of the two principal types of moral justification, the compensatory and noncompensatory, of affirmative action involving preferential treatment for blacks, Hispanics,American Indians, and women in hiring, promotions, andadmissions. Neither of these approaches to the justification of AA, I have argued, is able to defend AA successfully. AA not morally justified. Thus, succeeding compensatory arguments for AA, individualand group oriented, are unable to evade, undermine,or disarm the objections that AA violates the principles of (...) compensatory justice governing who is owed compensation, what compensation is owed, and who owes compensation, and that AA violates the principles of justice and fundamental individual moral rights governing the distribution of such social goods or benefits as desirable and valuable positions. The principles of justice and moral rights violated by AA govern the distribution of social benefits, including desirable positions, and burdens and systematize, unify, and explain correct moral judgments about the injustice of actions, policies, and practices in a variety of contexts of distribution. Moreover, backward-looking or compensatory arguments for AA have the implication that unjust and morally unacceptable compensatory policies that are morally similar to AA would be justified in contexts other than hiring, promotions, and admissions. Furthermore, the noncompensatory justifications of AA, including meritocratic and utilitarian forward-looking arguments, are unable to evade or to undermine the objection that AA violates principles of justice and fundamental individual moral rights and the objection that these attempted justifications of AA have the implication that unjust and morally unacceptable noncompensatory, forward-looking policies that are morally similar to AA would also be justified in contexts other than the standard ones. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Rene Descartes' view of certainty and defends the view that Cartesian certainty is possible. The first half of the dissertation includes an interpretation of Descartes' epistemology as well as an examination of other interpreters' readings. The second half of the dissertation is a defense of the claim that Cartesian certainty of a particular kind is possible; it includes a variety of contemporary objections and replies in defense of the possibility of certainty.

I. The life of Aristotle -- II. The works of Aristotle -- III. The "Organon" of Aristotle -- IV. Aristotle's "Rhetorio" and "Art of Poetry" -- V Aristotle's "Ethics" -- VI Aristotle's "Politics" -- VII. The natural philosophy of Aristotle -- VIII. The biology of Aristotle -- IX. The metaphysics of Aristotle -- X. Aristotle since the Christian Era.