Philosophy, Department of
The Department of Philosophy at Queen's University has faculty working in a wide variety of fields, including political philosophy, ethics, bioethics, feminism, contemporary metaphysics and epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, continental philosophy and the history of philosophy.
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Interests and Rights: Minority Communities, Parents, and Children
Children play an integral role in the reproduction and maintenance of cultures. Simultaneously, culture groups inform the identify formation and development of children. For this reason, one would think that theories ... -
The Logically Perfect Language on Words without Objects
Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism holds that the world is made up of a body of structured facts composed of simple objects. A Logically Perfect Language (LPL) is constructed to reflect this hierarchy of facts—every sentence ... -
Matter and Minds: Examining Embodied Souls in Plato’s Timaeus and Ancient Philosophy
With the rise of Platonism influenced by Plotinus and Descartes, philosophers have largely overlooked the fact that Plato directly acknowledges that there is a practical and valuable role for the body. The Timaeus clearly ... -
Epistemic Disjunctivism: A New Story about a Familiar Picture
The primary aim of this thesis is to evaluate the position known as ‘epistemic disjunctivism’ and its relation to the traditional epistemological framework it is meant to replace. In particular, this will involve the ... -
A Pedagogy of Discomfort: A Qualified Defense
This thesis considers Megan Boler’s proposal for a pedagogy of discomfort, an approach to social justice education that harnesses students’ emotional responses of felt discomfort, such as anger or guilt, in order to prompt ... -
A Defence of Associative Duties
In this thesis, I defend associative duties – typically understood as non-contractual, special moral responsibilities that arise from valued relationships – as a genuine class of duties. I do this in the spaces of both ... -
Nietzsche's Idea of the Overman and the Current State of Collective Consciousness
Nietzsche’s idea of the overman has been interpreted in several ways and is often misunderstood. Observing people’s tendencies to act in specific ways along with the common forms of social organization and development ... -
Beyond the Geometrical Method: Nature, Necessity, and Nihilism in Spinoza's Philosophy
This dissertation is a study of Spinoza’s method. I begin with Spinoza’s own views on method. I show that he begins with a largely Cartesian outlook, while acknowledging a debt to Bacon, and adopts a monistic framework ... -
Posthumanist Education: Rethinking Human-Animal Relations in Teaching and Learning
(2017-10-17)Educational institutions have traditionally privileged human perspectives and interests, while using animals as scientific objects or ‘resources’ for our teaching and learning, rather than as subjects in their own right. ... -
How Compassionate Education can Assist in Repairing Injustice: A Study into the Enduring Injustices of Black People
The focus of this project is to think more deeply, and also differently, about the injustices experienced by Black people. One initial problem is that of reparations: why have reparations never been given to Black people ... -
The Ethics of Care of the Self as Resistance to a “Peculiar Institution”
This thesis discusses some of the critiques of modern moral theories (deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics) posed by Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Stocker, Bernard Williams, and Susan Wolf. It focuses on Stocker’s ... -
Heidegger and the Meaningfulness of Questioning and Thinking
What does it mean to question and think? Questioning and thinking are two activities which we consider imperative to doing philosophy and the two activities that we involve ourselves in most of the time, albeit without ... -
Understanding the Role and Nature of Intuition in Philosophical Inquiry
This thesis explores the role and nature of intuition in philosophical inquiry. Appeals to intuition have either been used as evidence for or against philosophical theories or as constitutive features of judgement. I attempt ... -
The Structure of Blame and its Relation to the Moral Emotions
It is not clear what role emotions play in our conception of blame. In this thesis, I aim to understand the role of the emotions in blame, and the question that I explore can be phrased in the following way: is blame ... -
The Reasonable Person in Criminal Law
The reasonable person standard has permeated the legal sphere as a guideline for determining the appropriate judgment in various situations. If one is to be justified, he or she must have acted as a reasonable person would ... -
TOWARD A POLITICAL CONCEPTION OF MINORITY RIGHTS: RECONCILING SOVEREIGNTY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND MINORITY CLAIMS
The question that I will explore in this research dissertation is whether one can defend the rights of homeland minorities as a progressive extension of the existing norms of human rights. This question calls for several ... -
Experience, Education and Subjectivity: A Comparison of John Dewey's and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Conceptions of Experience and Their Implications for Education
(2016-10-27)This thesis compares John Dewey’s philosophy of experience and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, and illustrates how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology can strengthen and further Dewey’s philosophy of education. I begin ... -
Paternalism and Competent Patient Choice in the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender-Nonconforming People
(2016-10-13)In 2016 physicians in Ontario will be granted the authority to refer patients with gender dysphoria for sex reassignment surgery. In order to be granted this authority physicians must be trained in the World Professional ... -
A Restorative Theory of Criminal Justice
(2016-10-12)In this project, I defend a restorative theory of criminal justice. I argue that the response to criminal wrongdoing in a just society should take the form of an attempt to heal the damage done to the community resulting ... -
Language, Logos, and Social Ontology: Naturalist and Post-Naturalist Narratives of Human Rationality and Social Reality
(2016-10-04)I distinguish two ways that philosophers have approached and explained the reality and status of human social institutions. I call these approaches “naturalist” and “post-naturalist”. Common to both approaches is an ...
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