Philosophy Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2041

This collection contains some of the theses and dissertations produced by students in the University of Oregon Philosophy Graduate Program. Paper copies of these and other dissertations and theses are available through the UO Libraries.

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Dewey's Methodology
(University of Oregon, 2025-02-24) Ukai, Shunji; Pratt, Scott
This dissertation traces the development of Dewey’s methodology from the 1880s to the 1940s. The aim of the dissertation is twofold. First, it shows how traversing Dewey’s methodology indicates that the attempt to philosophize with Dewey necessarily culminates in a conception of philosophy that is against analytic philosophy and foundationalism. Second, it shows how philosophizing in Dewey’s wake irresistibly inclines toward protesting against totalitarianism for the sake of creating a more democratic culture. This dissertation achieves these aims by taking up Dewey’s major philosophical and religious predecessors in the dominant western tradition and how he moves away from them. The predecessors that I mainly take up are the following: materialism, Spinozism, Spencerism, Cartesianism, Leibnizianism, Kantianism, Christianity, and scholasticism. In the process of tracing Dewey’s engagements with these predecessors, I show how Dewey first arrives at the “psychological method,” then how he moves away from it for the sake of the “empirical method.” Essentially, Dewey abandons the “psychological method” because it reproduces the old type of philosophizing in which philosophy is taken to be a search to disclose some underlying ground. In the end of the dissertation, I return to the question of how Dewey’s methodology is against analytic philosophy and foundationalism, then to his anti-totalitarianism. Dewey’s methodology is against analytic philosophy insofar as it exhibits the same traits as the “method of intellectualism.” The methodology is against foundationalism because it reproduces the notion that the primary task of philosophy is to search out some underlying ground. Thinking with Dewey’s methodology is irresistibly anti-totalitarian because the unified empirical context that the “empirical method” ventures on to create exhibits democratic traits which are at odds with totalitarianism. I conclude this dissertation by conceptualizing the two as the tension between “democracy as a way of life” and “totalitarianism as a way of life,” and by showing that the Deweyan invitation to make the venture into experience may be reframed as an invitation to undertake “activism” against totalitarianism as a way of life.This dissertation includes previously published material.
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Critique and the Ambivalence of Colonial Modernity: Towards a Postcolonial Genealogical Critique
(University of Oregon, 2025-02-24) Nobowati, Zeinab; Koopman, Colin
This dissertation develops conceptual and methodological tools from a variety of traditions, especially that of critical theory and Michel Foucault’s thought specifically, that can serve the development of a postcolonial genealogical critique, that is, a critique that rethinks the relationship between colonial history and the present and problematizes the postcolonial political order and its hold on our subjectivities. I think about Foucault’s philosophical tools as a method of analysis that is both conditioned by its colonial context and at the same time enables a certain critical interrogation of those very conditions.The first part of the dissertation develops and proposes genealogical postcolonial critique as a method for studying the normative ambivalence of colonial modernity, i.e., the entanglement of enlightenment and violence. Genealogical critique, a philosophical method of critique based on studying the history of the present and developed mainly by Nietzsche and Foucault, is an especially apt method for postcolonial critique, but I suggest that it needs to be modified due to its Eurocentric bias. The third chapter discusses the transformative work of postcolonial genealogical critique by highlighting its epistemological and affective work, as well as its practical implications for the pathologies of collective memories. The last two chapters articulate the possibilities of ethical and feminist self-transformation in postcolonial times by drawing inspiration from Foucault’s work on ethical self-practices. The fourth chapter reflects on the effects of the afterlives of colonialism in relation to the ethical self and explores the relationship between critique, ethical self-practices, and internalized oppression through an engagement with Foucault alongside Franz Fanon and Audre Lorde. The last chapter builds upon my work in the previous chapters to discuss the relevance of postcolonial genealogical critique for the study of the gendered afterlives of colonialism. More specifically, I focus on the study of gendered ideologies in post-revolutionary Iran and show how the historical lens of genealogy allows us to situate the development of gendered ideologies in the global context of colonial modernity and recognize the relationality between local political formations and transnational relations of power.
Open Access
Death of the Armchair Activist: Pragmatic Understandings of Feminist Knowledge
(University of Oregon, 1996-06) Trigilio, Josephine
Engaging in the development of feminist thinking is an act of self- creation and world-creation . Because feminism is fundamentally a socio-political project, feminist thinking ought to be immanent in feminist practice and action, thereby inverting traditional hierarchies which understand theory as guiding practice. An inclusive feminism needs to be inclusive in practice, not theory, and requires the maximization of democratic, grassroot participation in the decisions, activities and practices that structure feminism. I argue that the academic institutionalization of feminist theory exacerbates the growing gap between theory and practice within feminist movements in the U. S. by creating a class of feminist knowledge specialists who produce hypertheoretical discourses. These discourses, instead of a rising out of particular socio-political problems and needs, develop out of the framework of existing academic discourses, and are difficult for non-specialists to access and assess. The proliferation and normalization of hypertheoretical discourses both raises questions about the types of power relations they produce, and serve to distance academic feminist theory from feminist politics and practice . I argue that instead of attempting to ground feminist practice and action in knowledge, feminist knowledge iv projects should arise out of, be situated within, and guided by attempts to work through socio-political problems. I suggest that feminists abandon commitments to particular epistemological approaches and proceed pragmatically, that is, begin within the context of concrete social, cultural, and political situations and problems. Pragmatic understandings of epistemology would permit feminists to be free to select or develop the epistemological approach best suited for the needs and goals of specific socio-political projects. Assessments and judgments about approaches to knowledge cannot be established a priori to, or outside of, particular projects because these evaluations are always relative to what needs to be known and why. The key to proceeding pragmatically is that, in very important ways, practice precedes theory. It is more a way of preaching what you practice, than practicing what you preach . Pragmatic approaches to feminist knowledge mark the end of the armchair activist because they require that feminist theorists become involved in feminist communities and networks that are to give direction and form to knowledge projects.
Open Access
Refusing Evil: The Place of Acuity in Morality
(University of Oregon, 1996-08) Woolfrey, Joan
Arendt wrote that "to think what we are doing" may make humans "abstain from evil - doing. " I suggest that there is more to it than that . Moral Acuity is a phrase I use to discuss how one can know the right thing to do, often practically without thinking, when situations involving evil arise. Evil, for my purposes , refers to the causing of great harm to another. I propose that to be Morally Acute one must have the capacity for independent judgments and possess sympathetic awareness of suffering. One must be able to make decisions independent of others. And, one must emphasize the suffering of the victim in moral decision making. "Truly bringing the victim to mind" is a phrase which illustrates these two attributes. Truly bringing the victim to mind underscores the need for a kind of accuracy or acuity of perception unfettered by ego, belief, peers or cultural norm. Truly bringing the victim to mind emphasizes that the victim's experience be foremost in one's mind, that the suffering of another take precedence over other elements of particular circumstances. I stress the need for literacy regarding evil and those who refuse . I offer suggestions for moral development which stress the importance of thinking for oneself as well as the benefits of being able to see things from another person's perspective. The combination, while not the only channel for doing the right thing, will , I suggest , increase the likelihood . To be thought-full and clear-headed and sensitive to harm will, in the long run--and doesn't common sense tell us this anyway?--be the best route to determining the right thing to do.
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The Metaphysics and Phenomenology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus: An Interpretive Investigatin into the Nature and Function of Simple Objects in Wittgenstein's Early Theory of Meaning
(University of Oregon, 1995-03) Warwick, Michael Charles
If a "theory" of meaning is possible, what form must it take? This study of Wittgenstein's early work was undertaken with this question as its focus. My reinterpretation derives from a close study of the Tractatus and the Notebooks 1914-1916 in which Wittgenstein explores the conditions necessary to representation. The problem relation of language to the world should not be explicated in terms of concepts consequent on it - description, truth, and reference; neither should the theory adopt their presuppositions (concerning the form of reality). It is argued Wittgenstein eschews the practice of redefining those concepts in favor of explicating parallel ones. Propositions do not describe but show the conditions for representation which their forms are congruent with, not true of; for by showing those conditions propositions are not intentional (-ly representational), rather they make the intention to refer possible. This fundamental semantic relation I reinterpret as a linguistic form of intentionality that makes conceivable the universality of languages' representational potential to apply to any world whatsoever (dubbed "blind referencing"). The standard realist and anti-realist interpretations of Wittgenstein's position are criticized throughout though elements of each contribute to the solution I argue for. The conditions for representation Wittgenstein proposes - a subsisting realm of simple objects - are considered both directly and through an exploration of the notions of propositional analysis and of the context propositions provide for the meanings of names (part 1). The conclusions is that the core concept of "simple object" ("logical form", a variable) is infinitely analogically interpretable and phenomenological in character and in part 2 I explore parallels between Wittgenstein's views and Husserl's phenomenology with respite to their methodology and content - the nature of "objects" and the essential intentionality of representation. This conception of semantics is found to substantiate the Tractus's view of the common roots of logic and ethics. My conclusion concerns three issue: distinguishing Wittgenstein's philosophical views from those of empirical linguistics; I draw out some epistemological and ontological implications; finally I argue the failure of Wittgenstein's theory from the hindsight of his later criticism of the (philosophical) notions of "objectivity" and language as rule-governed.
Open Access
Learning to Love: Philosophy and Moral Progress
(University of Oregon, 1991-12) Smith, Philip Dean
Love is a crucially important notion m morals. Moral philosophy, then, should give attention to this notion, and some of that attention should be concerned with how people might develop or improve as lovers. However, when the author tried to think through some rather obvious suggestions relating to love and becoming a lover, it became clear that much moral theory gives love short shrift. Assumptions inherent in rationalistic moral theory prevent most moral philosophers from letting love be the central concept in their work. This dissertation has two aims: to suggest four things which may contribute to moral progress by helping individuals love better, and to defend such suggestions against standard moral theory. Positively, the study suggests: overcoming narcissism enables a person to love; the basic element of love, clear and compassionate attention to individuals, can be practiced; a vision of love, given through narrative, can direct the moral pilgrim; and healthy communities can help would-be lovers. Negatively, the study argues: some of these positive suggestions would be classed as a non-central adjunct to moral philosophy by most rationalistic moral philosophers; this (mis)classification of these suggestions reveals that standard moral philosophy is deficient; these deficiencies flow from the wrong use of the "myth of autonomous reason;" and rationalistic moral theories are rooted in an untenable picture of human nature as essentially rational. Further, questions surrounding the concepts of pluralism of goods and relativism are discussed in one chapter.
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Nagarjuna's Unsurpassed Medicine: Emptiness and the Doctrine of Upaya
(University of Oregon, 1996-12) Schroeder, John William
Nagarjuna is one of the few Buddhist thinkers that Western philosophers have begun to explore in detail and take seriously. Although primarily concerned with explaining Buddhist doctrine to the Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions of India, Nagarjuna's significance for Western philosophers lies in the fact that he is addressing the same types of issues that Western thinkers have struggled with for centuries. He is thus portrayed not simply as a South Asian Buddhist thinker, but as a philosopher who has something important to say about philosophical issues such as causality, metaphysics, the nature of thinking, epistemological realism, and the inherent limitations of language. 1n this sense, Nagarjuna is considered a philosopher with status, on the same level, if not higher, than Kant, Hume, Wittgenstein, and Derrida. This thesis questions this portrayal of Nagarjuna by arguing that it relies on "theoretical" understanding of Buddhist doctrine. Western philosophers persistently view Nagarjuna as addressing "theoretical" problems, and assume that Buddhist liberation is contingent upon a correct "philosophical" understanding of the world, the mind, and the nature of language. This is a "theoretical" approach to Buddhism because it says one needs to adopt a certain "philosophical" viewpoint in order to attain liberation. The irony in this, however, is that Nagarjuna is trying to "cure" this exact way of thinking. For him, to approach Buddhist liberation in "theoretical" or "philosophical" terms is misleading because it forces us to adopt a detached perspective far removed from those who the Buddhist teachings are supposed to help. For Nagarjuna, Buddhist teachings arise only within the context of trying to solve certain life problems, and to adopt a "theory" of Buddhism, therefore, or to think that liberation depends on a "philosophical" understanding of the world, is to lose sight of what those problems really are. Thus, to say Nagarjuna addresses larger "philosophical" issues is to practice what he warns against. This thesis argues against a "philosophical" portrayal of Nagarjuna by examining the doctrine of "skillful means" which plays a distinctive role in Buddhist soteriology. The significance of "skillful means" is its rejection of a "theory of liberation" in favor of a contextual and multi-strategic approach to helping others. "Skillful means" begins with the assumption that there are concrete differences in people's lives, differences that cannot be resolved by appealing to philosophical principles. Because the doctrine of "skillful means" begins with such differences, it promotes innumerable soteriological "devices" and strategies for helping others. Thus, "emptiness," "dependent-arising," "impermanence," and nirvana are only a few of the many "skillful means" that Buddhists use to facilitate liberation, and Nagarjuna warns against turning such terms into "philosophical" problems. Operating within a "skillful means" tradition, Nagarjuna places Buddhist doctrine within a medicinal and heuristic context, and argues that its teachings are best understood within the soteriological practices of Buddhist life.
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Engendered Pragmatism
(University of Oregon, 1995-06) Ross, Jamie P.
Pragmatism as a political theory develops a critical perspective, a sensitivity to context and situation, and a collaborative and interactive engagement of personal experiences that test theories. Given this focus, however, the subject matter of pragmatism does not engage issues of gender. Pragmatism, nevertheless, can be used as a tool to address and handle feminist concerns. The link between pragmatism and feminism can be made by emphasizing pragmatists' efforts to align rationality with praxis. That is, pragmatism can be analyzed in such a way as to break the traditional link of rationality to masculinity and the link of practical life to femininity. However, in so doing, there remains a residue of unrecognized assumptions and cultural attitudes that makes the link between women's experiences and philosophical praxis difficult to establish and maintain. Thus, while this dissertation critiques the absence of an analysis of gender within epistemology generally, it also proposes a new theory of knowledge: engendered pragmatism. It is a theory of knowledge as situated, created by gendered individuals within particular communities. I do not provide a feminist critique of pragmatism in which large parts of pragmatism are altered, replaced or repudiated. I provide a new view of what epistemological problems within the pragmatic tradition entail, not a new interpretation of the problems. Engendered pragmatism does not simply involve a process of highlighting women's experiences where pragmatism can solve the problems of gender issues. As a theory, engendered pragmatism is not simply the application of pragmatism to women's experiences. My claim is that one cannot be a pragmatist without being a feminist. However, one cannot be a feminist pragmatist without addressing two problems within feminist epistemology. There is a tendency within feminist epistemology to universalize and, simultaneously, to relativize women's experiences. This tendency creates the perception that women's experiences are personal truths. From a pragmatist perspective, the value of a woman's standpoint should not be couched in terms of the issue of truth. Engendered pragmatism, as a theory, encourages feminist epistemologists to use the plurality of personal experiences as practical tools for a pragmatic conception of knowledge as warrantability, not truth.
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When Metaphors Bewitch, Analogies Illustrate, and Logic Fails: Controversies Over the Use of Metaphoric Reasoning in Philosophy and Science
(University of Oregon, 1998-12) Rohrer, Timothy Charles
I begin by investigating the conventional view of the relationship between metaphor and natural kinds in both classical and contemporary philosophy of science. l argue that Plato and Aristotle originated the conventional view that metaphors are a peripheral and ornamental supplement to philosophical and scientific argumentation proper. On their accounts philosophy and science are supposed to be about tracing the causal and logical (as opposed to the metaphorical and analogical) connections between the objects of knowledge. Because metaphors are seen as improper categorizations made merely for the purposes of rhetorical persuasion, metaphors are considered obstacles to proper philosophical and scientific argumentation. The exclusion of metaphor from argumentation supposedly gives us a realist system of philosophy and science which takes as its objective the discovery of natural kinds alleged to be independent of human conceptualization, thereby "cleaving nature at the joints" (in Plato's notorious phrase). However I argue not only is that attempt deeply mistaken in light of the contemporary research within the cognitive sciences on metaphor, but that by analyzing the metaphors that Plato and Aristotle in fact use we can see that metaphor and metaphoric reasoning is itself what makes possible their shared view that metaphor is to be excluded from philosophy and science. Having shown how Plato's and Aristotle's treatment of metaphor is caught in a strange loop--where some metaphors in their views of philosophy and science are used to argue for the exclusion of metaphor in general from the future practice of science and philosophy~-1 reject realism about natural kinds in favor of the embodied pragmatism espoused first by Dewey and currently by Lakoff and Johnson. I argue that Dewey provides an alternative metaphysical framework to realism that is crucial for recent work by the neuroscientists Damasio and Edelman on the role of embodiment in the philosophy of cognitive science. I then use that Deweyan framework to both extend and critique Lakoff and Johnson's hypothesis that human reasoning--including scientific and philosophical reasoning--is constituted by embodied conceptual metaphors. I conclude that neither metaphor nor rhetoric are incidental to philosophical and scientific argumentation.
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The Ontology of Privacy
(University of Oregon, 1993-03) Roberts, Leilani Anne
The dissertation is an examination of the philosophical concept of privacy. It begins with an exposition of the evolution of the concept of privacy from ancient Greece to the present. It includes an evaluation of the extant scholarship on privacy in philosophy which I criticize as inadequate to explain privacy's value to us. I suggest an alternative model of privacy which completes and unites relevant prior theories. Focus is then shifted from philosophy to law. For background, I include a summary exposition of the concept of privacy as a right in both jurisprudential literature and in case law. I argue that a principle of privacy law needs to be articulated in order to attain coherence and consistent adjudication of claims to privacy in courts of law. To this end, I test my theory of privacy by applying it to a 1986 supreme Court case, Bowers v. Hardwick, in order to show the superiority of my model.
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Epistemology and Environment: The Greening of Belief
(University of Oregon, 1998-12) Preston, Christopher J.
Following a sequence of papers in the middle of the twentieth century by W.V.O. Quine, epistemologists have increasingly recognized that the agent of knowledge is situated relative to certain social and natural conditions. This 'epistemic location' has been shown by feminist epistemologists to lend shape to the knowledge claims that individuals and communities make. Sensitivity to the facts of epistemic location has led to a process of increasing scrutiny of the range of variables believed to be epistemically significant. In this dissertation, I argue for the introduction of local geographical and ecological conditions as an additional epistemically significant variable. After an historically informed discussion of why the situating of knowledge should be done and a survey of contemporary approaches to how it has been done, I construct a synthetic argument for the epistemic significance of place. Examples drawn from ancient philosophy, anthropology, cultural geography, environmental psychology, and personal narrative experience illustrate the agency of place. Next, an argument indicating the continuity between dialectical biology, ecological perception, and enactivist cognitive science illustrates a direction for research on cognition that would continue to take more serious]y the significance of place. Finally, I suggest through an argument for pluralism that the epistemic significance of place demands that some rich connections be made between environmental philosophy and epistemology. Diverse natural environments should be valued as epistemic sources that ensure the diversity of perspectives and theories necessary for knowledge to progress.
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Unbinding the Structures of Narrative Agency: Internarrative Subjectivity and the Classical Aesthetic Foundation of Ricoeurean Identity
(University of Oregon, 1997-12) Maan, Ajit K.
While contemporary inquiries into the nature of the "self' are inclined to allow previously marginalized groups to assert their status as subjects and their stories as narratives, the postmodern denial of authorship and deconstruction of the self as a linguistic construction throws this entire inquiry into question. But while deconstruction calls autobiography into question by problematizing the authority and source of any utterance, others point out that the postmodern deconstruction of subjectivity is a luxury of the privileged. As one philosopher puts it, "in order to announce the death of the subject one must have gained the right to speak as one." Paul Ricoeur sees his work as providing a solution to the recent debates concerning the status of the subject. Ricoeur's is a narrative solution. Aristotelian muthos becomes the imaginative technique whereby an otherwise fractured and fluctuating subject constitutes herself. But I argue that this exclusive focus on Aristotelian employment causes a marginalization of narratives based on other constructions of experience. Aristotelian muthos is a process of making the intelligible out of the accidental, the universal from the singular, the necessary from the episodic. But there are different kinds of narrative practice which represents subjectivity that is disjunctive and non-linear. This type of narrative practice is aligned with the postmodern suspicion of identity, and yet it recognizes the imperative for situating an already marginal subject. While canonical Western narratives associate identity with formal integrity, I argue that textual discontinuity results from experienced nonlinearity and that these textual qualities are deliberate strategies to subvert authoritarian modes of self-representation. I propose an alternative to Narrative Identity Theory, a theory I call Internarrative Identity Theory, which involves a more inclusive notion of plot. To unbind classical structure is to maximize agency in determining, and re-determining, who one is in a way that is truly imaginative.
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The Drama of the Dialectic: Hegel, Marx, and the Theory of Appropriation
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Knowlton Jr, Kenneth; Muraca, Barbara
This dissertation develops a theory of appropriation through an account of dialectical materialism as a relational ontology. Appropriation is argued as creative-aesthetic activity definitive of the human species-essence through which sociality metabolically transforms. In turn, the universality of appropriation becomes an analytic for designating historical change through the mode of appropriation, where the transhistorical and ontological dimension of appropriation take on a historically specific character. I begin with a critical reconstruction of German Idealism through an account of FWJ Schelling’s critique of GWF Hegel’s Science of Logic. Schelling’s criticism initiates a tendency to misrepresent Hegel’s dialectical logic that extends into 20th century philosophy, a misrepresentation which also transposed itself onto the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. I trace this lineage in Part I, critically responding to it. Part II provides a materialist interpretation of Hegel’s Science of Logic, focusing on essence, necessity, universality, telos, and reason. I demonstrate the relational and anti-representational character of Hegelian dialectics through a systematic account of these categories. Consequently, I draw on Hegel to provide the logico-theoretical structure of the concept of appropriation as constitutive of a dialectical relational ontology. Part III develops appropriation and the mode of appropriation through an engagement with the works of Marx and Engels. I argue that their work is predicated on a dialectical relational ontology fundamental to their political, economic, and historical analysis. I show that the mode of appropriation is constituted by a triadic structure of changing labor-forms, property-forms, and belonging-forms that together elucidate socio-historical transformation.
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Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociated Identity Disorder: The Client as Actor Model
(University of Oregon, 1999-12) Prane, Jada Z.
This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of Multiple 1Jersonality Disorder/Dissociated Identity Disorder. It investigates what the existence or presence of alter-identities in a client means, and critically analyzes the metaphysical basis of that existence or presence. This dissertation also has a major focus of concern with the therapeutic value of treating multiple personalities/dissociated identities as a disorder. An analysis of the metaphysics of the prevailing conception of multiplicity ( the alter model) is shown to have fatal logical problems. Moreover, the conception of multiplicity as a disorder is shown to have destructive consequences for the typical client who manifests multiplicity and whose therapy is based on the disorder conception. These problems and consequences provide the motivation for replacement of the alter model with one that is free of logical problems and that does not treat multiplicity as a disorder. A model of multiplicity as a form of acting provides the replacement conception. A previous consideration of the acting approach (by some clinicians) in favor of the alter model was based both on a conception of acting as mimicry or faked feeling, and the idea of extreme dissociation experienced only as a psychopathology. This alter-actor comparison is referred to as the alter-actor distinction. However, this dissertation reconsiders the alter-actor distinction and shows how the alter model is contradicted by the testimony of some important actors, directors, and theoreticians and psychologists of acting. Moreover, consideration of how actors are counseled to protect themselves from the effects of extreme dissociation reveals that this advice is at odds with the advice and encouragement given to some M.PD/DID clients about the emergence of multiple personalities/dissociated identities. This dissertation urges that the alter model of multiplicity/dissociated identity be replaced by the actor model. The actor model overcomes the logical deficiencies of the alter model, and has improved compatibility with, and a more accurate understanding of, the continuum of dissociative experience. The actor model will thereby serve clients more effectively and less dangerously.
Open Access
Unreasonable Expectations: A Phenomenological Defense of Taking a Group-Rights Based Perspective Towards the Adjudication of Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment Claims
(University of Oregon, 1998-06) Pendleton, Kenneth
There is currently a debate among legal scholars about what kind of reasonableness standard courts should adopt while adjudicating hostile environment sexual harassment claims. The alternatives generally fall into two categories: traditional individual-rights based standards and group-rights based standards. Using the former types of standards entails a commitment to several traditional liberal principles- social consensus as mediator, tolerance of diversity, assumption of risk, and interchangeability- while using the latter types of standards entails either the modification or abandonment of them. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the explicit or implicit positing of different theories of the self ultimately underlies these disagreements. First, I will argue that a commitment to one crucial aspect of social atomism, i.e., the view that a rational individual can choose not to be seriously psychologically affected by the views that others take towards her or him, underlies claims that courts should appeal to these traditional liberal principles and adopt some variation of a reasonable person standard. I will then argue that all previous attempts to criticize this type of theory of the self for being "excessively individualistic" have failed; these theories of the self whether they are based on modern individualism, cornmunitarianism, or cultural feminism-still either explicitly claim or strongly imply that a rational woman can reject and consequently be psychologically unaffected by having to work in misogynous, traditionally all male work environment. Second, I will combine Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of "the look of the other" and with several aspects of George Herbert Mead's theory of social development in order to construct a theory of the self that will better explain why a rational individual cannot help but be psychologically affected by the disparaging attitudes that others express about her or him under certain sociological circumstances. In turn, this theory of the self will then be used to defend the claim that courts should adopt a group-rights based reasonableness standard while adjudicating hostile environment claims.
Open Access
Justifying State Toleration of Diversity and Dissent
(University of Oregon, 1992-06) Newman, Sandra
Attempts to justify toleration usually utilize moral arguments based on respecting the agency of, or preventing harm to, an individual. These arguments provide a sufficient but not a necessary reason for powerful states to tolerate a diverse and dissenting populous. Provided a state is interested in promoting non-violence, I claim that, because political controversy increases tolerance and decreases violence, toleration of all non-violent diversity and dissent is incumbent upon a state. This argument also justifies state intolerance of violent dissent, where violence is either threatened or manifest.
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The Truth About Fiction: Some Reflections on Philosophy and Literature
(University of Oregon, 1994-08) Miller, Jennifer Abbe
This investigation is concerned with certain philosophical problems which arise in current discussions about reading fictional literature, and with philosophical problems a nd themes that arise in literature itself. A number of theories have been offered by philosophers as well as literary critics not only to account for what fiction is , but also as to how appreciation of fiction occurs. The two are related in that how we answer the question "What is fiction?" may bear upon the problem of reading. One of my goals is to show how attitudes towards literature have evolved from philosophic views regarding the nature of , and connection between, language and knowledge. The theories of reading that I will consider are enmeshed in problematic presuppositions about this connection. I will also claim that fiction can be a source of insight, and that insight is a form of knowledge . This is a robust claim that will be illuminated by exploring certain works of literature. Novelists and other creative writers are often engaged with the same themes that philosophers are. In fact, some fictional works may even present a challenge to a given philosophical theory or view. However, most of the literature I will be examining does not set out to assess or even exemplify the views of particular philosophers, but rather pursues certain themes that authors share in common with philosophers, for instance, questions concerning truth, meaning, appearance and reality. I intend to show how certain works of literature offer different approaches to, and expressions of, philosophical themes. I claim not only that literature can expand our scope for thinking about philosophical questions, but more importantly, that it may help us in rethinking them.
Open Access
Nature Ethics Without Theory
(University of Oregon, 1989-06) Mellon, Joseph
This work presents a case against the need for moral theory in nature ethics. A theory is not needed to bridge a gap between f acts and values. One is not needed to handle crisis cases. Nor is one needed to extend the moral circle of car e beyond human beings. Ordinary moral reasoning will suffice . To show this , moral cases are made for a vegan diet , and against the use of animals in research. The moral theorist is then left with this dilemma: either the details of a moral issue are enough to settle it , thus rendering a moral theory unnecessary , or the details are not enough, but neither is any moral theory. In place of theory, a moral vision is sketched , one which is at once contemplative , feminist . anarchist , pacifist, anti-capital ist , and pro- nature.
Open Access
To Prove or Not To Prove: Pascal on Natural Theology
(University of Oregon, 1993-06) Groothuis, Douglas Richard
In this dissertation I argue that Pascal's reasons for rejecting the enterprise of natural theology are inadequate to negate the discipline's possible value for Christian theism. I begin by explaining the nature, function, and scope of natural theology or the attempt to argue for God's existence apart from revelation. Pascal argues that the Bible itself precludes the activity of natural theology. I dispute this claim by giving reasons why the omission of natural in the Bible does not mean that the enterprise itself is illegitimate. Although Pascal argues that the very nature of God as an infinite being renders a positive proof of his existence impossible because of the opacity of the infinite, I argue that Pascal misconstrues the nature of divine infinity and that when properly understood the notion of divine infinity does not rule out natural theology a priori. According to Pascal , the kind of reasoning used in theistic proofs is inappropriate for religious believers because it is "too remote from human reasoning" to move one to real religious devotion. I claim that even complex proofs for God's existence, if successful, could engender a kind of religious devotion. Pascal finds the God derived through natural theology--the "God of the philosophers"--to be too abstract and religiously unsatisfying to be equated with the biblical "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." On the contrary, I affirm that the divine predicates derived from natural theology (should they be derivable) have a significant overlap with the description of God in the Scriptures. Against Pascal's idea that a successful natural theology engenders a kind of pride in its practitioners that is incompatible with the Christian claim, I argue that philosophical proofs may but need not engender such pride. Finally, I take up the matter of the cogency of one version of the cosmological argument in relation to the defense of Christian theism.
Open Access
Hera, Not Hero: Centering the Moral Life on Moral Commitment, Rather than Heroic Courage
(University of Oregon, 1993-12) Gould, Robert Jarvis
Instances of moral commitment are central to the moral life, whereas instances of heroic courage are not necessarily central to the moral life. Given this contrast, it is odd when heroic courage is privileged over moral commitment. Heroic vitalism is the strongest expression of the privileging of heroic courage over moral commitment. My thesis counters heroic vitalism by building on a tradition of rejection that has deep roots , but finds its strongest support in the work of Josiah Royce and the feminist and nonviolent traditions. Though there are some senses of courage, such as heart, fortitude and endurance that are not particularly informed by the heroic, I suggest that our understanding of courage is dominated by the heroic . My suggestion of moral strength as an alternative to courage is based not only on courage's association with the heroic, but also on moral strength's close connection with moral commitment, which implies an engagement with the world and counters any preoccupation with character traits. My critique of heroic courage centers on its tendency toward being episodic, involving the overcoming of great fear, taking great risks and enduring potential violence. In contrast, moral strength is constant, not episodic and involves a moderated response to fear, risk and potential violence. This moderated response allows one to avoid the dissociation that often accompanies fearful, risky and violent situations. In turn, a freedom from dissociation facilitates a constant, lifelong engagement with the moral life. I conclude by addressing the question, what use might this rethinking of "courage" and the conceptual development of "moral commitment" and "moral strength" mean in the day to day practice of ordinary people interested in positive social change? I suggest that a strongest moral commitment can be constructed and used to resolve problems of violence in achieving revolutionary goals. These problems include the means and ends problem involved in seizing power, the problem of violent self -defense against genocidal predation, the problem of political and cultural domination and the problem of structural violence in the marketplace.