Browsing Philosophy by Issue Date
Now showing items 41-60 of 134
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The Social Dimension of the Self: Self-formation as Revealed by Depersonalization
(University of Waterloo, 2010-09-30)In this thesis I investigate the social and cultural dimensions of the self through an examination of the psychiatric disorder of depersonalization. Specifically, I apply Thagard's Multilevel Interacting Mechanisms framework ... -
Conceptual Change: Gods, Elements, and Water
(University of Waterloo, 2010-09-30)On what does the meaning of the concept of water depend? I consider three possible answers: the physical world, theory, or both the physical world and theory. Each answer supports a particular history. If the history ... -
Moral Responsibility and the Self
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-31)Moral responsibility is an issue at the heart of the free-will debate. The question of how we can have moral responsibility in a deterministic world is an interesting and puzzling one. Compatibilists arguments have left ... -
A Dynamic Account of the Structure of Concepts
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-31)Concepts are widely agreed to be the basic constituents of thought. Amongst philosophers and psychologists, however, the question of how concepts are structured has been a longstanding problem and a locus of disagreement. ... -
Ficino's Efforts to Reunite Philosophy and Religion
(University of Waterloo, 2011-09-12)Marsilio Ficino (1433 to 1499) was the first Renaissance philosopher to have access to the full Platonic corpus. He desired to use these ancient writings, plus faith, scripture, and reason to reunite religion and philosophy ... -
Virtue Ethics and Rational Disabilities: A Problem of Exclusion and the Need for Revised Standards
(University of Waterloo, 2011-10-05)When we develop accounts of the good life we inevitably need to work with simplified images of human beings so as to limit the ideas our account must grapple with. Yet, in the process of this simplification we often exclude ... -
Moral Encroachment
(University of Waterloo, 2011-10-28)Can practical factors influence a subject's position to know? Traditionally this question has been answered in the negative. A subject's position to know proposition p is not thought to improve merely because the subject ... -
The Philosophy of Behavioral Biology
(Springer, 2012)This volume offers a broad overview of central issues in the philosophy of behavioral biology, addressing philosophical issues that arise from the most recent scientific findings in biological research on behavior. It thus ... -
A Multidimensional Model of Biological Sex
(University of Waterloo, 2012-01-10)This dissertation is about biological sex and how we ought to make sense of it. By biological sex I mean those elements of an individual’s body that are involved in reproduction of the individual’s species; by make sense ... -
Intentionality as Methodology
(University of Waterloo, 2012-01-25)In this dissertation, I examine the role that intentional descriptions play in our scientific study of the mind. Behavioural scientists often use intentional language in their characterization of cognitive systems, making ... -
Reasonable Assertions: On Norms of Assertion and Why You Don't Need to Know What You're Talking About
(University of Waterloo, 2012-04-17)There’s a widespread conviction in the norms of assertion literature that an agent’s asserting something false merits criticism. As Williamson puts it, asserting something false is likened to cheating at the game of ... -
Fairness through Legal Literacy: A Case for Active Involvement
(University of Waterloo, 2012-05-04)This thesis started with one question: “how could we make the legal system more fair for more people?” One possible answer is given to that question in the four chapters that follow: we can achieve a more fair and efficient ... -
Quantum Field Theory: Motivating the Axiom of Microcausality
(University of Waterloo, 2012-09-19)Axiomatic quantum field theory is one approach to the project of merging the special theory of relativity with that of ordinary quantum mechanics. The project begins with the postulation of a set of axioms. Axioms should ... -
Knowledge, First Aid and the Moral Requirements of Rescue
(University of Waterloo, 2012-09-27)In cases involving the rescue of people in need of immediate medical care, it is often thought that the responsibility to save the lives of the imperilled falls to advanced professionals, such as paramedics, doctors, nurses, ... -
Everything Is Going to Be Okay, Right? Kindness, Compassion, and the Moral Permissibility of Self-Deception
(University of Waterloo, 2012-09-28)Most people seem to have the intuition that self-deception is always and obviously wrong. In this thesis, I make the case that under certain circumstances, self-deception can actually do a great deal of good and ought to ... -
Simone de Beauvoir and The Problem of The Other's Consciousness: Risk, Responsibility and Recognition
(University of Waterloo, 2013-05-23)In an interview with Jessica Benjamin and Margaret Simons in 1979, Simone de Beauvoir identified the problem that had preoccupied her across her lifetime, that is, “her” problem, as the problem of the “the consciousness ... -
Renaturalizing the Individual with Borderline Personality Disorder
(University of Waterloo, 2013-05-24)Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is among the most troubling Personality Disorders. Individuals with the disorder have exaggerated fears of abandonment, distorted self-identity and problems in interpersonal relationships, ... -
Logic In Context: An essay on the contextual foundations of logical pluralism
(University of Waterloo, 2013-10-02)The core pluralist thesis about logic, broadly construed, is the claim that two or more logics are correct. In this thesis I discuss a uniquely interesting variant of logical pluralism that I call logical contextualism. ... -
Do Birds Have a Theory of Mind?
(University of Waterloo, 2013-10-04)It is well known that humans are able to represent the mental states of others. This ability is commonly thought to be unique to humans. However, recent studies on the food caching, gift giving, and cooperative behaviours ... -
A Hybrid Theory of Evidence
(University of Waterloo, 2013-10-28)In the literature on doxastic evidence, the phenomenon is regarded as either internal (Plantinga 1993, Feldman and Conee 2001, Turri 2009) or external (Armstrong 1973, Collins 1997, BonJour 2008). Though the specifics of ...