In order to judge how behavior caused by the positivity effect should be considered, comparisons were made between the positivity effect and two mental disorders. These disorders, Tourette’s syndrome and psychopathy, were selected due to their extreme differences in what Strawsonian attitudes they inspire and how they are perceived relative to disordered patients’ will. Disorder-affected behavior of Tourette’s patients inspires the objective attitude and is seen as a condition affecting an individual’s will, while disorder-affected behavior of psychopaths inspires the interpersonal (...) attitude and is seen as a character trait. Relevant distinctions between psychopathy and Tourette’s syndrome were found to include their neurological causes, the obviousness of the suffering they caused, and how easily their disorder-affected behavior could be mapped onto goal-seeking behavior. These considerations suggest the positivity effect should be viewed similarly to psychopathy in terms of responsibility, although this is complicated by its time of development and other factors. (shrink)

This is a personal account of an intersection of the schools of research in foundations of geometry founded by Alfred Tarski and Friedrich Bachmann. Their academic lineages and the origins of the schools are also described, as well as the mathematics that resulted from this intersection.

Traditional approaches to philosophical theories of tort law have systematically undermined the individual worth and security interests of women. However, torts also provide a particularly powerful avenue for reform, in that they embody the public power of private law and offer individuals the opportunity to seek recourse and accountability for wrongs. In this paper, I offer a framework for such reformist approaches to tort philosophy, predominantly inspired by Jean Hampton’s “Feminist Contractarianism,” which requires that women be recognized as individuals with (...) intrinsic worth who are deserving of respect. To accomplish this, I first note the particular relevance of social contract theory to tort philosophy, in the sense that both fields aim to establish and uphold fair terms of just and reasonable interaction among individuals. I then engage with the various deficiencies, both in classical social contract theory and in instrumentalist and non-instrumentalist theories of tort law, to adequately recognize women as individuals and to protect their corresponding security interests. I utilize scholarship by Martha Chamallas & Jennifer Wriggins to examine the relevance of these deficiencies in torts regarding domestic violence and sexual harassment cases, and assert that although non-instrumentalist theories provide the best framework for affirming individual worth, they have still historically failed to do so in the case of harms against women. Finally, I provide a framework for reform, based in respect for individual worth, dignity, and self-mastery consistent with the aims of non-instrumentalist approaches, that explicitly upholds protections for women – potentially with broader implications for other marginalized groups. (shrink)

Caste and gender oppression are two systems of domination that continue to affect the lives of lower-caste women living in India. Both the caste system and the patriarchy were created to rationalize a hierarchical division of labor in which lower-caste women are subordinated. The best way to understand the reasoning behind these systems of oppression, as well as the impact of them, is through an intersectional historical materialist perspective. This perspective can be utilized when analyzing the evolution of caste and (...) women’s rights in India, specifically focusing on the changes brought on by British Imperialism. This analysis reveals that decisions made by those in places of power – whether that be men, upper-caste individuals, or British imperialists – are made in an effort to preserve their modes of production and keep the set division of labor intact. In India, Dalit women find themselves at the intersection of caste and gender oppression, and thus, at the bottom of the hierarchical division of labor, being both of low-caste status (predominantly Untouchables) and women. The most effective way to improve Dalit women’s well-being is by improving their material conditions. In doing this, the division of labor is impacted and Dalit women gain greater agency, making them more capable of pursuing social and political change. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo is often regarded as a purely negative, eliminativist thinker, defined by the weak thought that he articulated over the course of his storied career. Our temptation to read him in this way is encouraged, not only by an extensive and growing body of secondary literature in the Anglophone world, but by Vattimo’s own consistent focus on weakening as represent an alternative to the strong and violent metaphysical systems that have defined much of the philosophical legacy of the Christian (...) West. What often go unacknowledged, therefore, are the positive elements in Vattimo’s work. Indeed, weakening is, from the start, a politically motivated project, tied up in an effort to reduce (not to say eliminate) violence. This political motivation, in turn, is not merely about reduction but is instead tied to an ethico-aesthetic-religious complex, a vision of the world in which the barriers to community are broken down, in which the previously silenced might call for justice and organize against injustice, and in which we are no longer chained to the necessities of a harsh and repressive metaphysical order but are instead free to pursue voluntary associations in the spirit of love and charity. At stake in this alternative reading of Vattimo is, naturally enough, his utility as a social, political, and religious thinker and his resistance to the concern that his thought leads to a counterproductive quietism, at best, and to a destructive relativism, at worst. Once we have engaged with both the temptation to read Vattimo in a purely negative way and with the reasons to resist this temptation in favor of a more positive reading, it is important to reckon with the never-unproblematic character of the latter effort. Indeed, we cannot simply integrate the positive and negative moves we identify into a coherent and solid whole without reinstantiating the sort of totalizing and violent metaphysics that Vattimo critiques. Rather than succumbing to the temptation to seek such closure, we instead can recognize the (productive and interesting) tensions between the positive and negative elements in Vattimo’s thought and, in so doing, recognize that there is no radical escape from metaphysics or from violence offered here. Metaphysics is weakened, and yet persists, and violence is reduced and reconfigured, but not banished altogether. Part of the project of weakening, perhaps the most vital part, is precisely this willingness to occupy positions of discomfort or, put another way, a willingness to proceed speculatively and to take risks in confronting the problems that face our shared world. In the spirit of this sort of willingness to proceed speculatively, we advance, at last, to the final section of the work, which seeks to take Vattimo beyond his own limits. We examine, firstly, the implications of the positive reading of Vattimo for religious thought, putting Vattimo into discourse with his mentor Luigi Pareyson to examine what role religious institutions and religious practices have to play in a world defined by a weakened metaphysics. Proceeding from that particularity, we confront Vattimo’s own situatedness in a particular cultural position and attempt to address the question of the utility of his thought for cross-cultural discourse and, relatedly, for resistance to systems of oppression. Finally, we place our speculative reading of Vattimo’s thought into discourse with thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Catherine Keller, and Michael Marder to consider the implications weak thought holds for the discourse of the more-than-human world. (shrink)

Throughout its history, the evaluation field has developed numerous theories. These theories, or evaluation theory as they are collectively known, are integral to the knowledge of the discipline and represent the field’s collective understanding of how evaluation can and should be practiced. Yet, research suggests that the influence of evaluation theory on evaluation practice is minimal. This finding has left the field questioning what knowledge, if not evaluation theory, guides practitioners? Some theorists propose that evaluation practice is influenced by practical (...) knowledge, a diverse knowledge base inherent to the doing of evaluation. Practical knowledge is a blend of explicit procedural knowledge and tacit ways of knowing that inform practitioners’ perceptions and guide their practice. It is developed through practitioner’s interactions with and theorizing of practical problems as well as insights drawn from experience. Despite its perceived importance to evaluation practice, limited research has been conducted on practical knowledge in evaluation. Consequently, the field lacks an understanding of the underlying knowledge, or epistemology, of evaluation practice. The current study addressed this research gap by investigating practical knowledge in evaluation with a specific focus on the ways of knowing that underlie and guide practitioners. A multiple methods research design, consisting of two studies, was implemented. The first study used a convergent mixed methods design to analyze qualitative and quantitative data collected through document review (N=3) and the repertory grid technique (N=22). The findings presented a holistic epistemology of evaluation practice grounded in four inter-related ways of knowing: knowing self, knowing others, knowing the discipline, and knowing the common good and equity. Important insights into the underlying dimensions of the ways of knowing, including creative processes that actuate knowing (i.e., knowing in action) and methods evaluators use to express what has become known through their practice (i.e., expressions of knowing) were also interpreted from the findings. The second study examined how the epistemology of evaluation practice identified in the first study is integrated into graduate programs in evaluation. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with evaluation faculty (N=11) as well as alumni and advanced students (N=16) from six graduate programs in evaluation based in the United States. The findings suggest that the epistemology is reflected in the evaluation educational programs, albeit to varying degrees. Knowing the discipline was the most evident among the programs while knowing others and expressions of knowing were moderately evident. Knowing the common good and equity, knowing self, and knowing in action were less apparent, suggesting that these may be areas for further development. This research advances the scholarship on evaluation practice and provides valuable insights into the relationship between evaluation theory and practice. Additionally, the findings present a holistic representation of the epistemology of evaluation practice that challenges existing assumptions about how the field conceptualizes practice and knowledge construction. Last, the findings provide valuable information that can further professionalize evaluation by refining the field’s understanding of the unique nature of evaluation practice and informing evaluator education, reflective practice, and professional development. (shrink)

This short poem is inspired by Robert Langlands, recipient of the 2018 Abel Prize. The poem tries to sum up in poetic language, as brief but substantial as it can be, the philosophical and rhetorical connotation of his contributions to mathematics, from automorphic forms to number theory, and the famous Langlands programme, among others. Also partly inspired by Edward Frenkel's tribute to Langlands, the book Love and Mathematics, the poem seeks to capture the philosophical beauty of mathematics that privileges the (...) importance of 'functions' over 'passions', consistent with Langlands' purely mathematical side. (shrink)

Psychedelics have the power to induce in us an altered state of consciousness—a psychological experience radically different from our normal waking state of consciousness. Notable differences include changes in one’s perception of time, their sense of self, and the meaning and significance they attribute to things in their life. Across a broad range of testimonies, many people have reported characteristics of their psychedelic experience that bear a close resemblance to metaphysical accounts of ultimate reality from various cultures and time periods. (...) In this paper, I explore the question of whether one can acquire knowledge of ultimate reality through psychedelic experience. Using an application of Bertrand Russell’s knowledge by acquaintance argument, I demonstrate that one’s perceptual experience in the altered state of consciousness, in combination with post-experience reflection, provides justification for knowledge of ultimate reality. (shrink)

The U.S. law has a weak conception of the right to privacy– one that fails to adequately protect consumers in the technological age. This project draws primarily upon Locke, Kant, and Ripstein to articulate and apply a reorientation of the right to privacy and defend that reorientation as constitutionally sound. Specifically, Locke’s property theory and Kant’s innate right suggest that the right to privacy is derived from an exclusive right to control one’s person, which is one’s most fundamental property. In (...) applying this understanding of privacy, there is a case for a robust protection of consumer data. Further, Ripstein’s analysis of public provisions highlights that the state has a positive duty to secure the conditions for the effective exercise of the right to privacy. Doing so entails state regulation of what I argue are illegitimate business-to-consumer consent agreements. In short, this reorientation provides grounds for a protection and maintenance of a morally robust right to privacy in the technological age that can pass constitutional muster. (shrink)

In my paper, I thoroughly detail the characters, A and B, and their relationship to the double movement, despair, and actuality that appear in Kierkegaard’s works Either/Or and The Sickness Unto Death. I claim that the characters are not isolated characters, but two sides of one psychology in dialogue with each other. The realization of this makes the reading of Kierkegaard’s work more interesting and primes it for deeper engagement for the reader. The parallel of psychological concepts such as the (...) id, ego, and superego allows one to recognize the same dialogue that exists in their own inner life and connect more deeply to Kierkegaard’s task. I show how his religious upbringing and familiarity with tragedy inform his understanding of his own existential questions and provide my interpretation of his solution to the double movement as well as an attempt of my own. Kierkegaard advocates for the leap of faith based on his understanding of the eternal self created in God’s image, with a responsibility to embrace the task of strengthening the self in alignment with God and in rejection of sin and despair. I build on this by including the importance of love and the following passion. I agree that the “true self” cannot be known and it is essential to place your faith in something greater than yourself, such as love or God, to remain in an active relationship with the existential task of strengthening your self through choices. (shrink)

The American national identity is built upon a dream of assimilation commonly referred to as the American Dream. The American Dream speaks to and attracts millions of people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, seeking to assimilate into an identity that would fulfill a good life. Though many people have different interpretations of what defines a good life derived from the American Dream, it is generally associated with two key features: upward mobility and economic success. These features, as the American Dream (...) promises, are the key to obtaining a good life. Yet, for many Americans, these features are difficult to obtain and utilize because of contemporary issues that stem from a lack of equitable opportunities and a deep economic inequality in the United States. This paper will address the difficulties that many Americans face in their journey of assimilation due to contemporary issues that lead to challenges with the people and traits of themselves that they hold dearest. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a sustained theoretical articulation of core Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts situated within the standing difficulties in the practice and theory of museums. Drawing upon research gathered from site visits, informational interviews, textual analysis, and an extensive engagement with the seminars of Jacques Lacan, I enumerate here a first attempt at what a Lacanian theoretical formation can contribute to museum studies scholarship. Through this research this dissertation shows psychoanalysis to be especially useful for museum studies owing to how the (...) troubles immediately encountered in the everyday material practices of museological work are structurally analogous to the impossibilities experienced on the couch. This work is, additionally, performed with an eye sensitive to the ways in which the use of digital technology within museological spaces is increasingly imagined as the best means for solving, avoiding, or otherwise filling-in the lack, separation, or non-relation that exists between visitors and museums. Through the parallel analyses of a collage of examples curated from new media (virtual reality, 3d printing, videogames, augmented reality applications, and online streaming services) and the interrogation of existing theories within museum studies scholarship (such as participatory and Foucaultian theory) this research pursues a direct confrontation with how the extant theory of the museum cannot speak to what are the increasingly heightened contradictions emergent in the discourses determining museums.Rather than interpret obstacles in museological work as impediments to the successful transmission of knowledge between visitors and museums, I seek to show instead how these barriers are, according to a psychoanalytically informed museum studies, both the bedrock and the object-cause of all museological work. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to provoke a desire for psychoanalytic theory among those working in museums and a desire for museum studies scholarship among those working in psychoanalysis and media studies. (shrink)

While some might consider epistolary novels of the long-eighteenth century as the sentimental purview of women readers, this research proposes that many of these epistolary novels serve as powerful markers in the gender wars of this era. While an overall sense of optimism pervaded Britain’s long-eighteenth century, people still grappled with foundational moral questions. These questions came to be addressed in increasingly secular ways by moral philosophy. As these philosophers occupied influential government, law, and publishing positions, their ideas and works (...) greatly influenced the public imagination. The publications of moral philosophers—such as John Locke, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Joseph Butler, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Jeremy Bentham—sparked the imaginations of some of the era’s top epistolary novelists who dramatized their philosophical theories in fictional moral experiments. This project investigates how and why the novelists Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley literalized the dialectics of certain moral philosophers. This research asserts that the novelists adopted the structure of the three-stage moral dialectic found in moral sentiment theories and patterned their novels and their characters’ psychological processes to be a literalization of the moral-philosophical dialectics. As the novelists use the realist epistolary genre, they capture real-world settings and complex psychologies with startling accuracy, prompting interpretive questions regarding character ethics and credibility. Literary analysis reveals that the novelists designed fictional plotlines that facilitate inevitable moral dilemmas for the characters to contemplate and determine their moral actions. These plotlines and character dilemmas follow a three-stage moral dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. While no one to one pairing of novelist and moral philosopher is identified or argued for, the literary analysis reveals undeniable mutual influences and metatextual responses across the works chosen for this project. In the thesis stage, novelists have their characters literalize the philosopher’s process of contemplation. For example, Aphra Behn designs her characters to dramatize John Locke’s focus on applying experience-based knowledge in the process of refuting received social customs. This novelist-philosopher connection also appears in Samuel Richardson’s characters who emulate Shaftesburean principles when they depend upon their innate moral sense to ascertain the virtuous path in a precarious situation. After the contemplative thesis stage is played out, the novelists move to the antithesis stage, which expresses a state of skepticism wherein the characters are unwilling or unable to bridge the gap from moral knowledge to moral behavior. The novelists then dramatize the synthesis stage, which resolves the unstable condition of the antithesis state, through some external regulatory structure. The specifics of the resolution vary across the novels depending on which moral philosopher’s stance is adopted. For instance, Frances Burney’s warning novel of The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (1814), literalizes the importance of everyone adhering to David Hume’s General Rule and of respecting class boundaries. This project uses narratology focused on diegetic framing levels and voice styles to analyze how the novelists shift first-person epistolary voices and third-person omniscient voices to convey their perspectives regarding the social benefits of living out these moral philosophies. Specifically, the novelists assert how the external regulatory structures impact women, eliciting praise or criticism from the various authors. In these designed fictional worlds, this research asserts that several novelists develop narrators who emulate a moral philosopher’s specific concept of an “imagined internal entity.” This entity functions as a self-reflexive tool for thinking and assessing a situation’s holistic moral implications and potential actions. For example, this entity refers to Shaftesbury’s “critical self,” Butler’s “conscience,” and Smith’s “Impartial Spectator.” This project ultimately asserts that the stage three synthesis presents the most significant social commentary posed by the novelists. In this stage three turn to external regulatory structures, such as marriage in particular or the law in general, some of the novelists—such as Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, and Frances Burney—applaud the philosopher’s proposal for regulating social harmony. However, other novelists—such as Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley—use their fictional works to dramatize how this turn to external regulatory structures led to gender and class discrimination, to the point of women experiencing social condemnation, unjust imprisonment, and capital punishment. (shrink)

In this project I investigate and develop a theory of desire primarily focused on the metaphysics of desire. Since my theory of desire is an evaluative theory, I address discussions concerning value and goodness, and its relation to the ethics and metaphysics of desire. Defining a desire is a complex endeavor and so is determining how desires fit within our mental economy. To locate my position, I begin with an investigation of various, often opposing, theories of desire. I examine motivational (...) theories, pleasure-based theories, reward/learning accounts, and evaluative models. Ultimately, I argue that none of these theories provides adequate explanation for the metaphysics or phenomenology of desire. After providing arguments against these approaches, I develop my position called the “agent relative” model. I argue that desire is affective and that all affect requires an attachment to the object. Attachments are essentially self-regarding; therefore, desire is essentially self-regarding. I argue that for S to desire P, is for S to see P as good-for S. It may be that for S to desire P, is for S to experience P as good rather than experiencing P as good for S’s own wellbeing. Nevertheless, I argue for the latter and hold that the former can be true of hope, but that hope and desire are different. Finally, I argue that given my evaluative theory of desire, a modified desire satisfaction account of well-being can connect the truths found in standard desire satisfaction models with an objective list model of well-being. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop a convict epistemology that interweaves two elements: 1) a deep engagement with the works of particular philosophers and scholars investigating questions of punishment, violence, biopolitics and political philosophy 2) with some specific, publicly-reported incidents within California prisons in the late 20th and 21st centuries and my own detailed narration of events and the structural and quotidian dynamics of the prison yard as I experienced them as inmate #K73299 from 1997 to 2005. Diverging from Foucauldian theories (...) of disciplinarity, I argue that under neoliberalism, the primary punishments that any inmate is subjected to within the carceral thresher are in excess of what they were sentenced to endure by the court. Taken together, these extrajuridical punishments constitute a thanatopolitical machinery of forms of state-organized violence that are delegated to inmates and are therefore disavowed and have utterly subsumed the carceral interior. Because this violence is directed at particular, largely racialized populations – the majority of the prison population being Black and Brown - abandonment to the contemporary prison and its thanatopolitical machinery is proto-genocidal. The primary function of the contemporary prison, then, is to actively abandon a largely racialized, rendered superfluous population within a forcefully bounded and statetotalized space to a steered machinery of delegated, proto-genocidal death production. As this thanatopolitical machinery of inmate-on-inmate violence has subsumed the prison yard, I argue that the contemporary prison is the carceral state’s manufacture of an artificial Hobbesian-style state of nature, an always potential war of all-against-all or prison race riot, through the interaction of the four following carceral logics: 1) The imposition of scarcity, 2) atop a forcefully undifferentiated population, 3) that is barred the capacity to flee, or, the state enjoying a monopoly over inmate movement, and 4) within conditions of functional lawlessness. Resultantly, through carceral inscription, each and every inmate is rendered as a “savage,” a less-than-fully-human ontological type, and it is this concept that does sufficient ideological work to anchor normative subjectivity within neoliberalized social space through negation. It is also the prison as artificial state of nature and constitutive boundary that civil society comes to define itself against, both materially and ideologically. Further, as a result of these four foundational carceral logics, inmates are forced to enact or endure daily forms of lesser violence, often as conscious means of forestalling more lethal and larger-scale entropic violence. As disease infects the individual body and undermines it, this violent “savagery” at the gates (prison race riot and lesser forms of violence meant to prevent it) is perceived within the whitesupremacist Hobbesian fantasy anchoring normative subjectivity as threatening the “body politic” with annihilation. Through Roberto Esposito’s immunitarian paradigm, the contemporary prison should be read as a series of recursive quarantines called forth to inoculate civil society from the perceived contagious threat of “violence disease” materialized as largely racialized, inmate bodies. The concept of the less-than-fully-human inmate is thus semantically overloaded with notions of both savagery and contamination then, and daily life within prison for inmates is largely organized by “prison-politics” as prophylactic, epidemiological strategy that guarantees social distance between racialized groupings that stalls out a race riot’s transmissibility as the prison’s very condition of being, And as inmates are articulated as a less-than-fully-human savage/contaminant threats, they are through René Girard’s framework of sacrificial violence to be read as being marginalized from civil society; a sacrificial category of less-than-full-humanness functioning as lightning rod or attractor for all the varied hostilities and insecurities roiling a violently restructured, neoliberalized social space. It is the contemporary prison that allows white supremacist community to cohere through time through the regular displacement of internal antagonisms generated under neoliberalism towards the inmate as sacrificial subject. The prison is a sacrificial stone. (shrink)

Almost exactly fifty years ago, Friedrich Kambartel, in his classic essay “Ethics and Mathematics,” did pioneering work in an intellectual environment that almost self-evidently assumed a strict separation of the two fields. In our first section we summarize and discuss that classical paper. The following two sections are devoted to complement and contrast Kambartel’s picture. In particular, the second section is devoted to ethical aspects of the indirect and direct mathematization of modern societies. The final section gives a short categorization (...) of various philosophical positions with respect to the rationality of ethics and the mutual relation between ethics and mathematics. (shrink)

Both Spinoza and Buddhism raise objection to the existence of the self as independent. This work presents Spinoza’s and early Buddhism’s account of the non-self respectively, namely, that the self does not have independent existence. Starting from the non-self, I look into the metaphysical pictures outlined by Spinoza and Buddhism and argue that despite their agreement on the non-self, they differ in regard to their metaphysical views in general. In comparing and contrasting the two, I shall conclude that both fall (...) short in some regards, and the two should be combined and complement each other. This will lead us to a denial of any independent existent thing. Thus, a comparative study of Spinoza and early Buddhism will end up with a view held by later Buddhism, emptiness, such that all things lack independent existence. (shrink)

This paper is a critique on ideology critique. In this paper, I argue that, even though ideology critique is often conceived as the means to unmask oppressive relations, it can also mask and further perpetuate those relations. First, I introduce the concept of discourse by discussing its implications for social activities. Then, I draw a parallel between discourse and games to offer a way of accounting for the mechanism of discourse–how it is structured and how it may be changed. With (...) this understanding of discourse, I analyze some case studies of ideology critique, which I identify as a type of discourse. In those case studies, I demonstrate how an ideology critique can assume problematic rules, so that it no longer plays a liberation game but an oppression game. I propose some ways to avoid constructing an oppressive ideology critique and anticipate some possible objections. In the end, I show how this lesson learned from ideology critique can be applied to self-examination and raise some interesting questions for further exploration. (shrink)

Fidelity to the Cartesian philosophy requires a defense of dualism as well as mind-body union and interaction, all the while keeping to some form of the causal likeness principle. Each of these positions are ones that Descartes maintained throughout his writings. Yet, successors and scholars alike have noted the inconsistencies that arise from defending these views conjointly and have argued that one or more of them should be abandoned. Even the first generation of Cartesian successors whose fidelity to the Cartesian (...) principles was especially steadfast, such as Louis de la Forge, have been interpreted and characterized as giving up causal interactionism and wittingly or unwittingly embracing occasionalism. In my dissertation project, I have made mind-body not body-body cases the starting point of the inquiry into cartesian causal interactionism and from there developed a general model of interaction. This goes against the scholarly norm of focusing on the body-body cases to develop a model that then cannot explain how the mind-body cases work. This is not a minor change in point of view, but rather, requires a paradigm shift in cartesian studies, particularly with respect to understanding mind-body union and interaction. Further supporting the needed paradigm shift in our reading of La Forge is that in his account of union criteria we discover that mind-body union is the true union and that body-body unions are considered such only by extension. As such the case of mind-body union should be taken as the exemplar case and not body-body. According to La Forge, mind and body are linked via the relative attribute of will and share a relationship of mutual and reciprocal dependence. Union is not based on a spatial relation. The union is a hybrid mode – a way of being of the two substances if and when they stand in such a relation to one another. While, the union provides the commonality needed to bridge the gap of what two distinct substances have in common it does not provide the explanation of how mind and body interact. Operationalizing the union in terms of mutual and reciprocal dependence requires further explanation. La Forge explains that mind and body are secondary causes. The causal model of interaction of mind and body is one in which these particular causes and their relation of mutual and reciprocal dependence allows for the action of the one to bring about the effect in the other. The body’s movements stimulate thoughts in the mind and the mind’s thoughts direct movements in the body. There is a bi-directional causal interaction. Furthermore, by coupling La Forge’s account of union and interaction with that of Nadler’s proposed occasional causation model we find that mind and body both have causal agency in the weaker secondary sense. Both substances have the power to determine and direct motion, albeit neither mind nor body create motion per se. La Forge establishes a key distinction between universal and particular causes, which then grounds his subsequent attribution of secondary causal power to wills – to direct the movements of bodies, and to bodies in virtue of their modes of configuration – to direct the movement of other bodies. While, God is the universal and efficient cause that creates minds, bodies, and motion, He has minimal involvement in the particular determinations of volitions and movements. He imparts power to His creatures to determine motion. God conserves the world and the laws set by Him in the form of three laws of motion and seven laws of union. However, finite substances such as mind and body also have force, albeit not in the same sense as God does as the universal and total cause, but rather as particular secondary causes that have autonomy and can determine the direction and local quantity of motion. Thus, La Forge explains how both mind-body and body-body interactions are genuine causes, i.e., non-occasionalistic. Accordingly, in keeping with Cartesian philosophy La Forge maintains dualism, and provides an account of union and an account of interaction that is not occasionalistic. Both mind-body and body-body interaction is based on equivocal causation – the effect does not strictly resemble the cause – but both operate through the likenesses of relations of union, mutual dependence and proximity respectively. Thus, La Forge’s causal model that has minds and bodies interacting based on their relation of mutual and reciprocal dependence, and bodies interacting based on their shared mutual proximity and dependence, provides a weaker account of the causal likeness principle. Nonetheless, there is nothing inconsistent with his defense of a weaker notion of likeness that does not demand resemblance. My examination of La Forge’s Treatise on the Human Mind has demonstrated that we can maintain fidelity in our interpretation of Descartes and the Cartesian philosophy that maintains its adherence to dualism while giving an account of union and causal interaction. (shrink)

Ethics isn’t a conversation exclusive to philosophers. There is value, then, in not only understanding how laypeople think about issues in ethics, but also bringing their judgments into dialogue with those of philosophers in order to make sense of agreement, disagreement, and the consequences of each. Experimental philosophers facilitate this dialogue uniquely by capturing laypeople’s judgments and analyzing them in light of philosophical theory. They have done so almost exclusively by using face valid quantitative surveys about philosophically interesting thought experiments. (...) Based on high participant support for this or that response, researchers conclude that a given theory is more or less intuitive, and in some cases that it is or isn’t true. However, such conclusions can only be drawn from quantitative survey data if one assumes those data accurately reflect laypeople’s thinking on the issues of interest, an assumption that can’t be justified by the quantitative data itself since they are potentially opaque. This is the methodological problem of experimental philosophy: experimental philosophers who use quantitative methods alone can’t sufficiently demonstrate their data to be reflective of relevant judgments/intuitions. To better explore people’s judgments on issues in ethics and to determine whether experimental philosophers are or aren’t getting what they take themselves to be getting in surveys, I recreated part of an experiment by Chituc, Henne, Sinnott-Armstrong, and De Brigard on the Kantian principle that “ought implies can”, or that whenever an agent ought to do something then it is the case that she can, and added a layer of qualitative data to it by having participants think aloud while completing the surveys and conduct a follow-up interview. With similar quantitative results to those from Chituc et al., I argue that my qualitative results 1) cast doubt on Chituc et al.’s data being reflective of many people’s judgments, especially on the more interesting questions relating to moral obligation; 2) reveal unique insights into how people think about OIC; 3) generally speak to the value of experimental philosophers using triangulation of methods in better understanding laypeople’s complex and varied thinking about questions important to ethics and beyond. Supplemental documents: Appendices A, B, C, D, and E are surveys I used in my study. Appendices C and D are derived from Chituc et al.’s publication “Blame, Not Ability, Impacts Moral ‘Ought’ Judgments for Impossible Actions: Toward an Empirical Refutation of ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can.’” Appendix F is the recruitment flyer I distributed for my study. Appendix H is the quantitative data from my study. (shrink)

This dissertation begins by asking, what is the body, and how does one develop an understanding of the body? In this study, I aim to rework the notions of discursive practices and material phenomena, seeking to examine the relationship between the two in light of the work of art, so conceived within the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, in an attempt to deal with the question: “what is the body?” This dissertation avoids reifying certain normative descriptions of the body or constraining (...) the matter of the body as strictly the effect of discursive power. I attempt a phenomenological observation about subjectivity and our capacity for meaning-making, which avoids a reduction to both materialism and discourse. My own approach to the topic seeks to gain an existential-ontological understanding of the body through the lens of disclosive affectivity, specifically when experiencing the work of art. I take as a starting premise that the situated nature of being human is fundamentally corporeal, in a way that is not reducible to either materialism or idealism. This dissertation also aims to see whether it is possible to maintain that bodies change the quality of the space they inhabit and, in turn, to see how space affects the corporeal nature of an entity. In the course of this study, the matter of the body will unfold as more than an instantiation of materiality and more than an effect of language, for it exists and emerges, in its totality, as a kind of liminal space, one that is irreducible to certain categories of thought and analysis, as the experiences of what we will come to call the “lived-body,” which is the situation of the person asking the question of the body, is the very basis and possibility of questioning. This dissertation will demonstrate how it is that Martin Heidegger’s post-metaphysical conceptions of truth, especially those emerging out of a focus on the work of art, provide a means to conceive of the body beyond the matter/language binary prominent in much post-structuralist literature on materiality. In going a step further than being, by taking “being human” as the central concept in Heidegger, I aim to more fully understand corporeality through the lens of later Heidegger’s writings on the fourfold, art and space, and dwelling. There are numerous approaches to aesthetics and philosophy of art from which one can appropriate when inquiring into the nature of the body; an entity, I argue, that is constituted at the point of overlap between materiality and discourse. With a broad understanding of what encompasses objects of art, I see art as a means and a conduit for the perpetual reconstitution of the becoming self, as well as a way to make sense of the self. The work of art is powerful because it “un-conceals” and reveals truths in non-conceptual, non-verbal ways: art shows, it does not tell. When we think about what it means to be human, to be situated as a material person also capable of thoughts and emotions, this dissertation seeks to know how we develop, shed, change, alter, and deepen a sense of self and what is true. Art fulfills this role in its ideological function and its affective effect. The other contention is that this affectivity is possible only based on a very particular way of expressing what it means to be a material being, and I think this requires a shift from embodiment and body to flesh. Flesh is that part of ourselves that situates us as an individual and as an entity enmeshed in the world, porous to experience and affected by what we encounter. This dissertation draws a connection between flesh and the lived-body. We will see that art is born of the flesh, and the body is, in turn, affected by aesthetic experiences. Thus, art is a way to understand the mutually dependent ideas of world, flesh, and lived-body. The significance of this study, an inquiry into the nature of the body from an existential-ontological approach, is that it reaches for a type of relationality and ontological structure that bears on the social order, to set a foundation for how to approach issues of ethics and justice. (shrink)

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates presents an image of human beings in a cave to portray the political situation. I contend a close reading of Aristotle’s extant Corpus Aristotelicum reveals a possible path to liberation from his version of the cave. For Aristotle, human beings are slaves if they are unable to follow the rule of the soul. Within the soul, the intellect is the ruling part. Following Simpson, I think it is plausible that all four surviving ethical works were written (...) by Aristotle with the possibility that each had a particular audience. An exegesis of these works as well as his treatise on politics brings to light the liberal education that he intends for some of his students. This education appears to begin with habituation toward the virtues culminating in the attainment of the virtue of prudence such that the student will be liberated both from excessive pursuit of external goods and the passions of the body. Once free, this student will be able to solely pursue the intellectual virtue of wisdom and find happiness in the contemplative life. For Aristotle, the peak of human life is found in the attainment of nobility-and-goodness as described in the Eudemian Ethics. The noble-and-good human being has all the necessary and measured amounts of both the external goods and the goods of the body. This human being also has complete virtue and pursues the goods of the soul to excess culminating in a life devoted to contemplating the god, which I take to be a reference to the motionless first mover. The Great Ethics appears to be addressed to a politically ambitious student and it seems that Aristotle specifically attempts to persuade this student toward a serious pursuit of virtue, justice, and prudence with a view to both citizenship and friendship. The audience of this treatise is repeatedly told that it is just and prudent to give up wealth and rule to those of greater virtue. Otherwise, such goods would be harmful to those without the proper virtues. Although serious is a neutral term itself, when it is combined with the verb to rule, the term can take on a negative connotation. This combined word means to scheme, to intrigue, or to be eager for office, and is found in the Politics. For Aristotle, democracies undergo revolution and turmoil when those eager for office act as demagogues. Regarding the other works, I assert the Eudemian Ethics is likely addressed to someone who has experience with or at least knows of the theoretical or natural sciences. The Nicomachean Ethics appears to be addressed to those especially from the standpoint of the judge, ruler, and lawgiver. On Virtues and Vices seems to be directed to a younger audience and almost anyone in the polis or political community concerned with virtue and vice. Overall, education in youth is directed toward the free, the noble, and the true. Aristotle gives the impression that this education is an early preparation for the contemplative life. Later education has an openness to this life and generally comes into being through a combination of following the law, habituation, and being persuaded by speech or teaching. Overall, Aristotle seems to direct certain students or audiences to specific ends. Some could be led to pursue wisdom, some might pursue prudence in light of possibly serving as judges, rulers, or lawgivers, while others may pursue prudence with a view to both citizenship and friendship. Lastly, Aristotelian freedom differs from liberty in liberal democracy in a few important ways. First, liberal democracy overemphasizes external freedom within the regime. Second, in liberal democracy there is an excessive pursuit of property and a later push towards absolute equality that is unjust by Aristotle’s standards. Third, in liberal democracy and early modern political philosophy, education is an entirely separate topic and there is no longer a direct connection between education and the regime as found in Aristotelian political philosophy. (shrink)

The thesis of this dissertation is to integrate and prioritize the intellectual virtues into a reading of Smith’s theory of approbation in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). In so doing, it will be argued that Smith’s moral theory is a normative one. Most scholars interpret Smith’s principle of approbation as a judgment of sympathy, understood to be empathy. The role of reason at best takes a back seat, and emotion is given a primary role in such accounts. Moreover, (...) the consensus is that Smith’s theory is descriptive and relativistic, or at least that the normative aspects cannot escape the descriptive and relativistic aspects. If this interpretation is correct, it will shift the discussion about TMS in two significant ways. First, the principle of approbation in Smith’s moral theory will be shifted from corresponding sentiments, read as emotions, to observations and generalizations about the right kinds of sentiments, or moral sentiments, which are determined by reason. Second, the alleged tension of the “is-ought” or descriptive to normative “issue” will be resolved. The methodological approach used in this dissertation is a close reading and analysis of TMS with specific attention to the intellectual virtues. The close reading entails focusing on where Smith discusses intellectual virtues in TMS, and how that discussion connects to other aspects of TMS, as well as The History of Astronomy (HA), and, on occasion, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (WN), as well as why it is important to understanding Smith’s TMS as a normative theory. Those aspects are Smith’s understanding of intellectual virtue and: causality in general; the wise man as opposed to other types of men; the general rules, as well as the guidance of the passions; moral sentiments; and proper sympathy. The current study does not attempt to renew philosophy through Adam Smith’s corpus and, at the same time, preserve the ancients in the vein of Griswold (1999). Nor is it in the vein of Montes (2004) who approaches Smith’s corpus viewed through the lens of critical realism. Montes then uses that lens to examine Das Adam Smith Problem, self-command, propriety, and Smith’s Newtonianism. Nor is it a reconciling project attempting to show that the TMS is a text of “emotional sentiments”, on the one hand, and that the WN is a work of economics without the human view, on the other hand, in the vein of Vernon Smith (1998). In this dissertation the focus is on Adam Smith as a moral philosopher and it provides a careful reading of the final edition of TMS. While sensitive to Smith’s historical setting, his legacy, and the importance of his corpus, the aim is to provide an interpretation of Smith’s philosophical position in TMS as a work of moral philosophy that grounds virtue in a unique and significant conception of reason, which guides both sentiments and sympathy. A final, but important aspect of the TMS, which guides this close reading, is the dialectical style of Smith’s TMS. That is, Smith often begins his ideas, whether in a section of TMS or the entirety of TMS, with a discussion of an idea that is likely not his own. As the reading progresses, contrary ideas may also be explored, but his final thoughts on the matter are not discerned until one arrives at the end of the section or the end of the part or the end of the text. That Smith’s writing style has dialectical aspects is the canonical view of Smith’s TMS even if this reading of the substance of TMS is different. (shrink)

This dissertation explores Levinas’s phenomenology of death in order to unveil the religious dimension in his ethical thought through examining the political moment of the third party. I argue that death is neither a pure phenomenon transparently intelligible in the noema-noesis structure of intentionality nor a mere non-phenomenon totally irrelevant to the phenomenological investigation. Rather, death is a para-phenomenon whose unfathomable feature calls into question Levinas’s two important philosophical precedents: 1) Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, in a methodological sense, and 2) Heidegger’s (...) ontological interpretation of death, in a thematical sense. On the one hand, Levinas faces in the para-phenomenality of death the failure of phenomenology in the sense that phenomenology fails to capture a para-doxical feature of death in terms of a noetico-noematic correlation. On the other hand, Levinas ceaselessly contests Heidegger’s ontological thematization, which neutralizes the para-phenomenality of death and thereby reduces the enigmatic mystery of death into the heroic mastery of death; in sum, the para-phenomenality of death is subsumed under the doxical architecture of ontology. By appealing to the para-doxical character of death, this dissertation claims that the architectonic structure of Heidegger’s ontology dissimulates or covers up a more primordial and exigent signification of the death of the other than the ontological mineness [Jemeinigkeit] of death. Therefore, Levinas’s phenomenology of death justifies its raison d'être not in its adroit achievement to thematize death but rather in its failure to thematize and make sense of it since the ethical meaning of death emerges from the miscarriage of the doxical-ontological thematization of death. In order to disclose the ethical signification of death that remains concealed, obscured, and suppressed in the “Sein-topped" architecture of ontology, Levinas endeavors to uncover what ontology has covered up—i.e., the brutal nakedness of being [être] that is concretized in the ethical encounter with the other who commands: “Thou shalt not kill.” This primordial interdiction obsesses and overwhelms me [moi] more than the anxiety [Angst] for my death does, as if the death of the other would matter to me even more than my own. The ethical signification of death comes from the primordial call inscribed in the face of the other, which makes me vigilant, restless, and non-indifferent to the death of the other. However, the advent of the third party puts into question my exclusive, unconditional, or unquestioned responsibility for the other and orders what the other orders: “Me voici.” Nevertheless, the political interrogation of the third party never compromises the ethical structure but, on the contrary, makes it possible for ethics to remain ethical without relapsing into an impotent, silent, or angelic form of ethics, which entails violent, apolitical, and anti-ethical rapprochements. This dissertation insists that the radical peculiarity of Levinas’s phenomenology of death culminates in his para-doxical conception of religion, “rapport sans rapport,” in which the ethical rapport always remains as a question par excellence within the political context. To be religious does not require an ontological question of “to be or not to be,” of being or non-being; rather, it is otherwise than being, beyond essence, or beyond the conatus essendi, in which Levinas recognizes the primordial signification of death, such as substitution, sacrifice, or dying for others. (shrink)

This dissertation is a collection of four studies which collectively explore a hypothesized construct of ‘moral evaluation of patient behaviors’ (MEPB) as a driver of health professionals’ readiness to interact humanistically with their patients. In these studies, ‘humanistic interactions’ refer to the non-technical, intangible skills and factors of clinical competence; the factors specifically explored in these studies were compassion toward patients, self-efficacy for treating patients, and optimism toward patient treatment. For the purpose of specificity, all factors were examined as they (...) pertained to patients with substance use disorders. Survey data from a convenience sample of 524 health professionals (i.e. physicians, nurses, and other health professionals) from three culturally distinct areas of the world (i.e. California (n = 173), urban France (n = 102), and urban China (n = 249)) were analyzed using analyses of variance, Welch’s t-tests, confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation models. Results indicate: 1.) Psychometric support for the survey tool that was created for the assessment of the hypothesized construct of MEPB among health professionals, and information on differences on this hypothesized construct by age group, occupation, and country of residence; 2.) Indication that this survey tool operates differently among health professionals in different countries, which supports the notion that people from differing cultures have differing notions about morality. 3.) In the California sample, results indicate that while moral judgements of patients’ behavior carries mixed associations with factors of health professionals’ readiness to interact humanistically with these patients, moral judgements of the self (or, moral self-image) have only positive associations with factors of this readiness for humanistic interaction. This finding supports the notion that having a healthy self-concept strengthens one’s ability to support others. 4.) In all three countries, moral evaluations were positively associated with optimism toward treating patients, and in urban China, they were additionally positively associated with compassion and with self-efficacy. Given weak measurement invariance (i.e. differences in the operation of the measurement of moral evaluations by country), more research is needed in this area. The current research provides a tool for examining research of just this nature, and most importantly suggests that morality does not need to be eliminated from perspectives of mental illness or addiction, but rather that more nuanced moral perspectives are needed. Future research may explore distinctions between moral appraisals and stigma, and associations between moral evaluations (both among health professionals and among patients) and clinical/health outcomes such as rates of relapse and recovery. (shrink)

This review of Reckonings shares our thoughts on the diverse insights presented by Stephen Chrisomalis’s version of the history of numerical notation. Chrisomalis suggests that members of distinct cultural groups write numbers as an active choice in accordance with their own sociocultural contexts, which reflect the influences of historical, cognitive, social, economic, political, environmental, and cultural factors. This book integrates comparative, cognitive, and evolutionary understandings on numerical cognition with historical and linguistic evidence on the use and transformation of numeral systems (...) through the historical advancement of numeracy. Chrisomalis offers an interesting historical perspective on numbers that builds upon three main themes: numerals, cognition, and history. Reckonings can inspire us to view the concept and constructs of numeracy through a historical and sociocultural lens. (shrink)

My entire life I have had to navigate educational structures labeled as “underrepresented” in my fields—mathematics and mathematics education. As many people who are similarly labeled in this way know, this meant I had to navigate oppressive structures that positioned me as lesser. Making sense of these repeated interactions, I wrote my dissertation as a series of three articles, each prefaced with an essay that situated a broader social, cultural, and political context and also connected to my lived experiences navigating (...) academia. These essays were some of my most personal academic writing, and I took time to process why it was important for me to write down these stories of my life—both for the purposes of my dissertation and for my own healing as a human trying to live in this academic world. My conclusion is the title of this piece: Academia will not save you. I initially did not think academia deserved these stories; however, upon further reflection I realized that I did want to share my experiences for those who might have similar experiences navigating the academy. What follows is a revised and expanded collection of those essays. (shrink)

This thesis explores how society can and should compensate those who have been wrongfully convicted after they are exonerated and how we can prevent these mistakes from happening to others in the future. It begins by presenting research on the scope of the problem. Then it suggests possible reforms to the U.S. justice system that would minimize the rate of innocent convictions. Lastly, it takes both a philosophical and political look at what just compensation would entail as well as a (...) variety of state compensation laws. (shrink)

In this article I describe a project activity for an undergraduate introduction to proof course aimed at mathematics and computer science majors that combines logic and philosophy with a significant dimension of writing. Pedagogically, the project involves a broader range of critical thinking skills than is usual in such courses. Undergraduate students analyze Anselm of Canterbury's and Kurt Gödel's proofs of the existence of God using modal logic.

Categorization is a process that simplifies thoughts into manageable pieces by grouping related entities. This reductive analysis can lead to internal harm in individuals’ overarching identities, or Ganzheiten, which is the focus of this thesis. Given that categorization is necessary to our conceptual management of the world, is there a way to counteract the internal harms it can cause? Because acts of self-affirmation can have healing effects, I argue that one manifestation of permanent self-affirmation—custom tattooing—can be an effective repudiation of (...) the divisiveness and reduction categories cause. Custom tattooing’s permanence, individualization, and personal significance make it a great choice as a method of healing internal damage caused by external categorization. Though tattoos might not be the answer for every person experiencing internalized categorization, I have shown that it should be considered as a valid source for the self-affirmation needed to heal from or counteract such internalized harms. (shrink)

The proposed experimental study seeks to explore under what conditions white participants might demonstrate less behavioral resistance to engaging in conversations about racism. In this study, approximately 128 white-identifying students at Scripps College will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a non-racist framing condition or an anti-racist framing condition. After completing the framing task, participants will be asked to imagine that they are going to meet with a group of Students of Color to discuss the issue of the (...) lack of diversity on campus. Participants’ interview behaviors will be videotaped, and later coded for behavioral resistance. Lastly, participants will complete affect and self-esteem self-report measures. Participants in the non-racist framing group are expected to score lower on self-esteem, and higher on negative affect and resistant behavior than participants in the anti-racist framing group. Furthermore, the effect of framing on participants’ behavior is expected to be mediated by participants’ affect. Lastly, it is predicted that the effect of framing on participants’ affect will be mediated by participants’ self-esteem. (shrink)

Mathematics plays a central role in the philosophical system of Alain Badiou. The aim of this essay is to situate this appeal to mathematics in the broader context of his work, including its literary and political elements.

The Stories of Environmental Ethicists in Word and Image captures the spirit of three local people: John B. Cobb, Jr., Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Dean Freudenberger. As teachers, writers, activists, and members of the progressive retirement community Pilgrim Place, they’ve had a significant influence on the global environmental movement. The photographs and small essays in this project highlight who they are and what they’ve done, and how they continue to shape contemporary intellectual discourse. An analysis of how portrait photographers use (...) images to tell stories and how they incorporate text in their photographic collections to create fuller, more robust pictures of their subjects provides context. An epilogue explains a mixed-media artwork I created that evolved out of my conversations with Cobb, Ruether, and Freudenberger. A three-dimensional rendering of transformations currently happening in California’s landscape, it visualizes rural and urban spheres converging within the state. It shows how boundaries separating what we’ve traditionally categorized as “country” and “city” are eroding, and how the landscape is becoming simultaneously rural and urban. New spatial forms are springing up and integrating in ways we’ve never seen before. As green areas get grayer, gray areas get greener. The mixed-media installation attempts to bring people’s attention to various environmental shifts happening now in California and all over the world, and to ask us to question the implications of such changes. (shrink)

This paper examines online fan fiction communities as spaces for identity formation, collaborative creativity, and fan empowerment. Drawing on case studies of a LiveJournal fan fiction community, fan-written essays, possible world theory, and postmodern theories of the hyperreal and simulacrum, this paper argues that writing fan fiction is a definitive, postmodern act that explores the mutable boundaries of reality and fiction. It concludes that fans are no longer passive consumers of popular media—rather, they are engaged, powerful participants in the creation (...) of celebrity representation that can, ultimately, alter reality. (shrink)

An exploration of self-deception in proslavery arguments in the antebellum South. This work explores how proslavery theorists were able to support slavery despite overwhelming evidence that slavery was immoral. By using non-intentional self-deception, slavery supporters tested their hypothesis that slavery was good in a motivationally biased manner that aligned with their interests and desires.

The narrative about the nineteenth century favored by many philosophers of mathematics strongly influenced by either logic or algebra, is that geometric intuition led real and complex analysis astray until Cauchy and Kronecker in one sense and Dedekind in another guided mathematicians out of the labyrinth through the arithmetization of analysis. Yet the use of geometry in most cases in nineteenth century mathematics was not misleading and was often key to important developments. Thus the geometrization of complex numbers was essential (...) to their acceptance and to the development of complex analysis; geometry provided the canonical examples that led to the formulation of group theory; and geometry, transformed by Riemann, lay at the heart of topology, which in turn transformed much of modern mathematics. Using complex numbers as my case study, I argue that the best way to teach students mathematics is through a repertoire of modes of representation, which is also the best way to make mathematical discoveries. (shrink)

The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has agreed to fund a series of three meetings with associated publications on mathematical cultures. This note describes the project.

Many students experience mathematics as ahistorical and acultural. We review the philosophical roots of this experience and pose alternatives. We argue that there is evidence that the inclusion of a historical dimension into the teaching of mathematics courses at all levels, combined with an ‘active’ approach to learning, will improve motivation and achievement.

A dialogue between a mathematics professor, Frank, and his daughter, Sarah, a mathematical savant with a powerful mathematical intuition. Sarah's intuition allows her to stumble into some famous theorems from number theory, but her lack of academic mathematical background makes it difficult for her to understand Frank's insistence on the value of proof and formality.

In this paper, we will elaborate on a pronouncement that should be at the onset of any study in epistemology and ethnomathematics, namely, we will argue that learners do think mathematically and it is our responsibility as educators to recognize and appreciate their modes of mathematical reasoning. We will conduct our study in five parts. Following a brief introduction, in the second part, we will briefly discuss some of the critical tenets of epistemology especially as it applies to mathematics. The (...) third part will be devoted to elucidating the basic nomenclature and hypotheses associated with ethnomathematics. In the fourth part we will expound on the organic and intrinsic relationship between these two fields. Lastly, we will propose some changes in the way academic mathematicians regard philosophy and pedagogy of mathematics that, in our opinion, will facilitate students’ understanding of the cultural aspects of mathematics. (shrink)