Department of Philosophy Graduate Theses
Recent Submissions
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Feminist Philosophy of Religion in Eisler and Archaic Greece
The neglect of women’s perspectives by presocratic scholarship since its inception, as well as the misunderstanding of the beginning of western philosophy by feminists which has resulted from this neglect, have prevented ... -
Holistic Education: From Dewey to Tokkatsu
The educational philosophy of John Dewey is used as a conceptual framework through which to analyze the pedagogical goals and practices of the Japanese ‘tokubetsu katsudou’ system of holistic education. The insight into ... -
Recognizing Ruins: The Need for an Environmental Ruin Aesthetics in the Anthropocene
This thesis identifies the need for an updated approach to ruin aesthetics that integrates recent work in environmental aesthetics alongside discourses about the changing meaning of “nature” in the Anthropocene epoch. By ... -
Ethics and The Other: An Interpretation of The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
This thesis aims to present a reading of Levinas that defends his philosophy against criticisms that it is ultimately idealistic or quietist, made by thinkers like Gillian Rose and Alain Badiou. This understanding of Levinas ... -
The Ethical and the Aesthetic in Literature: What’s Missing in the Ethical Criticism Debate
This thesis will examine the ethical criticism debate within the philosophy of literature, with a focus on the interaction between ethical and aesthetic value in works of literary art. It is clear that works can be criticized ... -
Infinity in Leibniz's Metaphysics: Substantial Unity and Possibility
Recent decades in Leibniz scholarship have seen the growing influence of a new interpretation of his metaphysics, based on the understanding and development of his conception of infinity/the infinite. In the early modern ... -
Iris Murdoch's Philosophical Methodology, 1950–1961: Philosophy on the Borders of Literature and Politics
In this dissertation I argue that Iris Murdoch’s 1950 to 1961 writings exemplify a distinctive philosophical methodology characterized by literary and metaphysical argumentative strategies, public audience, and practical ... -
Theory and Training in Epictetus' Program of Moral Education
This dissertation examines the educational function of training, as contrasted with the study of theory, within Epictetus’ program of moral education. The motivation for this research is that there exists an apparent tension ... -
ON THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF TRANS PHILOSOPHY: TRANSITIONING TEXTS AND GENRE REASSIGNMENT
This thesis consists of two parts: the first is an academic article that puts forward three arguments—phenomenological, affective, and ambiguous—for the use of trans poetics as a form of trans philosophy. The second is a ... -
The Clarity of Understanding
A platitude about understanding is that it involves grasping. But what is grasping? In this thesis, I develop a novel account of grasping that is rooted in phenomenal consciousness. According to this account, grasping is ... -
The Sources of Solidarity: Negotiating the Horizons of Indigenous-State Relations between Moderate and Radical Views
The following thesis is concerned with articulating the ways to reconcile moderate and radical views of Indigenous-state relations and finding compatible sources of solidaristic support between those endeavours. Moderate ... -
The Role of Sociability in Political Philosophy
This dissertation identifies, and argues in support of, the fundamentally important role that accounts of sociability play in the project of political philosophy. I will show that assumptions about the nature of human ... -
From Alienation to Self-Realization: Pathologies of Late Modernity, Work, and the Successful Life
The “promise of modernity”—the capacity of individuals to lead successful lives comes under severe strain in late modernity. Adopting a formal “appropriative” model of alienated labour which is responsive to individuals’ ... -
Meeting Epistemic Challenges in Psychiatry With Embodied Cognition
Psychiatry faces epistemic problems because of its roughly dualist philosophy of mind. Theory and practice that implicitly or explicitly separate mind and body challenge psychiatry’s ability to describe, meet and treat its ... -
Autonomous Misdirection
This thesis will examine how the way we experience knowledge has changed due to the ubiquity of electronic media. Specifically, there will be an examination of how the new digital media – and social media in particular – ... -
Norms, Reasons, and Moral Progress
In the literature of moral progress, there is an ongoing debate over the role of moral reasoning in enabling large-scale behavioural change. On the one hand, rationalists argue that more and better moral reasoning is key ... -
An Encounter between East and West: The Notion of Truth in William James and Swami Vivekananda
William James considered Swami Vivekananda the exemplary example of a monist, and he comes to reject Vivekananda’s philosophy because it ultimately did not suit his active temperament. However, judging from his assessment ... -
Democracy, Instrumentalism, and Power as a Trust: On the Foundations of Political Instrumentalism
In this dissertation, I explore the theory of political instrumentalism and its application to the justification of democracy. I suggest that because of the dominance of intrinsic accounts of the justification of democracy ... -
Reason, Agency, and the Malaise of Mental Health
Mental health conditions create incredibly complex experiences in the world. Some medical professionals argue that mental health conditions are purely physical phenomena – simply a deficiency of brain chemicals. Some ... -
Animal Personhood: A Postanthropocentric Multispecies Legal Subjectivity
This thesis looks at the human relationship to other animals in the eyes of the law. Many contemporary legal systems categorize nonhuman animals as property, which means that they can be objectified and commodified. The ...
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