Philosophy: Recent submissions
Now showing items 61-80 of 134
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The Nature of Pluralism in Economics: A Case Study of the Gender Wage Gap
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-02)Understanding and measuring a socially relevant and complex phenomenon like the gender wage gap requires a thorough understanding of the causal factors arising in the real world. This thesis investigates the Marxist and ... -
Existence Assumptions and Logical Principles: Choice Operators in Intuitionistic Logic
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-02)Hilbert’s choice operators τ and ε, when added to intuitionistic logic, strengthen it. In the presence of certain extensionality axioms they produce classical logic, while in the presence of weaker decidability conditions ... -
Crime Prevention in a World without Free Will: Derk Pereboom’s Quarantine Analogy
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-01)The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Pereboom’s attempt to use his quarantine analogy to justify his theory of crime prevention and the use of preventative detainment in place of punishment. Specifically, I will examine ... -
Values and Co-production: Examining the Interface of Indigenous Peoples’ Understandings and Scientific Understandings
(University of Waterloo, 2015-08-31)In this thesis I will examine the role values play in the co-production of knowledge between traditional knowledge and science. In order to understand the role values play, I will first develop clearer definitions of ... -
The Ethics of Deception in Caregiving: A Patient-Centered Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2015-08-24)Deception is a central issue in bioethics. This emerges most clearly when considering ways of assisting individuals who are incapable of making their own decisions. Deception can be defined as purposefully misleading another ... -
Politics, Principles and Pluralism: On why liberalism must be inconsistent if correct
(University of Waterloo, 2014-10-24)In this dissertation, the author argues that constructivist foundations of political liberalism require a rarely recognized sort of pluralism—not only the familiar pluralism between ideas about how we ought to live that ... -
ON BRANDS | An Investigation into the Nature of Consumer Brands | Are they real or constructed?
(University of Waterloo, 2014-10-08)This thesis investigates the nature of consumer brands in the context of the contemporary realism debate. It comprises three chapters. The first chapter introduces the what, the why and the how of brands, to wit: I describe ... -
Reducing the Emergence of the Gaps: Computation for Weak Emergence
(University of Waterloo, 2014-09-29)This thesis contributes to the growing literature surrounding the importance of weak emergence by showing it can account for more phenomena than originally conceived via the use of computational reduction. Weak emergence ... -
A Study of the Discursive Aspect of Scientific Theorizing and Modeling
(University of Waterloo, 2014-09-26)My dissertation contributes to the study of scientific theories and models by using a speech-act-theoretic framework to investigate the discursive aspect of theorizing and modeling practices. In the philosophical study of ... -
Private Property Rights: An Indispensable Moral Foundation of Society
(University of Waterloo, 2014-09-05)The philosophic justifications of private property reach back to the ancient world. Aristotle regarded secure possessions as necessary for successful social functioning, and Cicero understood government’s function to be ... -
Transplantation and the Nature of the Immune Self
(University of Waterloo, 2014-09-02)There are many theories regarding the nature of the immune self. However, existing theories have not accounted for the clinical experience of transplantation. Kidney transplantation provides a unique opportunity to examine ... -
A Preservationist Approach to Relevant Logic
(University of Waterloo, 2014-08-29)The semantics I develop extend an approach to logic called preservationism. The preservationist approach to logic interprets non-classical consequence relations as preserving something other than truth. I specifically ... -
Ending the Stigma: How a Causal Deterministic View of Free Will Can Inform Both Healthy and Pathological Cognitive Function and Increase Compassion
(University of Waterloo, 2014-06-24)Depression is the leading cause of disability around the world, and in Canada, 8% of adults will experience depression in their lifetimes. Nearly half of those with depression will not seek treatment, one of the major ... -
Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Case Study in Causation and Explanation in Psychiatric Conditions
(University of Waterloo, 2014-01-28)This thesis discusses epistemological and ethical issues in classifi cation and diagnosisof psychiatric conditions, and briefly discusses realism about psychiatric conditions. I use autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a case ... -
Agency and Autonomy: A New Direction for Animal Ethics
(University of Waterloo, 2014-01-21)The main problem addressed in animal ethics is on what grounds and to what extent we owe animals moral consideration. I argue that many animals deserve direct moral consideration in virtue of their agency, selfhood and ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
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. ... -
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, ... -
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 ...