PHILOSOPHY LINKS OF INTEREST
Phlosophical Gourmet Report: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/default.asp
Eric Schwitzgebel has recently wrote up a comprehensive guide to applying to graduate school in pholosophy:http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html
ALUMNI UPDATES - LET US KNOW WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO!
Kevin Winchell will serve as Coordinator of Bonner Leadership and Community OutreachInitiatives here at Stetson next year.In this position, he will coordinate community-serviceprograms while building relationships with community partners to advance causes of social justice, leadership, and empowerment.
Sonal Patel (Right) was a Capitol Hill intern for Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) where she worked on public policy issues, the US-India Nuclear Deal, and Women's reproductive rights issues.
Craig Dobson (1996) graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy. He is a software engineer forConvergys Corporation in Lake Mary, Florida and completed aMaster's of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Florida Institute of Technology in 2003. Craig plans a return to the classroom for an M.A. in Philosophy.
Jacqueline McCarthy Karp (1997) received a B.A. in Philosophy and went on to graduate from Emory University's School of Law in 2000.She practices land use and zoning law in the DC area and in 2004 married Richard Karp, a lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute.
2007 Senior Project
NICOLE BELIAN"Are We Obligated to Protect the Environment for FutureGenerations?:A Communitarian Approach to Intergenerational Justice."It is argued that future persons have a right to live in an environment that not only can sustain their basic needs to life, such as clean water and clean air, but also the aesthetic worth of nature.On the basis of a communitarian theory, it is argued that future generations have inherent value, and therefore present human beings have a moral obligation to preserve the environment.
MARY BERNARD"Simone de Beauvoir's Existentialist Ethics of Freedom" Simone de Beauvoir helped create, in her work The Ethics of Ambiguity,an ethical system within existentialist philosophy founded on a two-level concept of freedom and demanding opposition to oppression. Often labeled a feminist, she has been marginalized from mainstream philosophy. A major claim of this thesis is that she ought to be recognized as a philosopher in her own right, and not only a feminist who borrowed her philosophy from Sartre.
KENAN GORDON"Karl Marx: Morality and Capitalism"It is argued that the debates concerning Marx's moral stance on capitalism are not necessary. Over time Marx's style of writing changes from ideological to concrete and pragmatic. He talks less about moral issues because he saw morality as a creation of capitalism, and concepts of morality would not need to exist in a socialist society.
IAN HALL "Resurrecting Moral Relativism-Approaching an Ethic Fit for Human Beings"While many ethical theories champion the universal, ethical relativism is a theory that addresses the needs of the individual human being in the concrete context of his or her actual life projects. While naïve relativism is rejected, this thesis argues that the contextual element of ethicalrelativism is worth preserving. (December 2006)
SONAL PATEL"A Philosophical Investigation of Sex Selective Abortion in India"Using the thought of Nussbaum and Sen, it is argued that sex selective abortion, as this is practiced in India today in some places, is not morally defensible.
JOHN O'KEEFE"Aesthetic Pursuits: Reflections on Art, Morality, and Language"In Part I, it is argued that aesthetic pursuits have an intrinsic value that is independent of moral value. In Part II, it is argued that an aesthetic medium, music in particular, is a language.
IAN WASSER"Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Will to Power:An Analysis and Critique" Different interpretations of Nietzsche's 'Will to Power' are considered and it is argued that the best interpretation is that it is a mythological doctrine. This myth provided for Nietzsche a means for breaking away from a narrowly moralized conception of will, that is, from a notion of it as simply a choice between good and evil. For him, will to power is broader and deeper than this and its embrace is an affirmation of all of life, including its most basic desires and emotions.
KEVIN WINCHELL"Taking Rights for Granted:An Examination of Social Reality and its Influence on the Allocation of Morality" It is argued that human rights are granted by human agreement, but nevertheless have an objective grounding. This grounding is analogous to the grounding of linguistic facts and social facts, asopposed to the grounding of the sort that physical facts have. As well, it is argued that the granting of rights that are analogous to human rights can be legitimately extended to non-human beings, but only to the extent and to the degree that non-human beings are connected to the human form of life.
CHANTEL WONDER"The Philosophical Grounding of Human Rights in a Pluralistic World"It is argued that human rights have an objective grounding in nothing more or less than human agreement and that this agreement is of the same sort that, according to Wittgenstein, underlies human language. This thesis is opposed to a realist theory which would ground human rights in nature or god, and it is also it is also opposed to an idealist theory that human rights have noobjective grounding at all.
2006 Senior Project
Brendan J. Rogers (May 2006) is the Hall Award recipient for 2006.In addition to writing a thesis in which he argued that the categories of time cannot be intelligibly reduced to thecategories of space, Brendan produced a video as part of his oral defense.The title of his thesis is "Time that Strikes an Emotional Cord: Emotion Being Used as an Argument for a Tense View of Time."
Trey S. Smith (May 2006)is a double major in Philosophy and History and the Haas Awardrecipient.He presented a senior thesis entitled "A Critical Look at Political Philosophy from the Student Movement to the Second Iraq War" and explored the evolution of Jurgen Habermas'political philosophy from the German Student Movements in the 1960's to the Second Iraq War.In his project, Trey highlights Habermas' shifting emphasis away from Marx and toward Kant.
Kevin R. Hanson (May 2006) is a Lawson scholar and a double major in Philosophy andReligious Studies."In God Beyond Theism: An Analysis of John Shelby Spong and a NewParadigm of Christianity's God", he analyzes both the contemporary scholar John Shelby Spong and the traditional understanding of a theistic God.Through a concentration on Spong's view of a non-theistic God and the history of liberal Christianity that he builds upon, Kevin argued thattheism is but one human definition of God, none of which can ever fully exhaust the meaning of God.
Tiffany L. Porter (May 2006) graduates with a major in Philosophy and presented a seniorproject entitled "Woman as Life: An Essay in Nietzscheian Hermeneutics" where in opposition to the charge of misogyny (hatred of women), she claims that Nietzsche's emphasis on awakening the Dionysian spirit in us suggests his own positive evaluation of women.
Rebecca L. Nichols (May 2006) graduates with a major in Philosophy and presented a senior thesis on Aristotle's and Nussbaum's accounts of who is capable of leading flourishing lives.Her thesis, "Born Losers: A Criticism of Aristotle's Elitism" examines the question of whom, if anyone, is responsible for providing citizens with the basic necessities essential for human flourishing.
2004-2005 Graduates
Wesley S. Sun (December 2004) is a double major in Philosophy and Religious Studies and the 2005 Hall Award recipient.His senior thesis "Happiness and Autonomy in Kant's Ethical System" argued that Kant's introduction of happiness, by way of what he calls the highest good, undermined his deontology.Wes lent his support this spring as co-teacher for the Honors Program inFoundations of Knowledge andUnderstanding II.He was awarded a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago Divinity School in the fall.
Danielle J. Pepin (December 2004) offered a defense on "Self-Interest in Aristotle'sNicomachean Ethics," and argued that self-interest plays an important role in Aristotle's ethics as that is developed in his work Nicomachean Ethics. Concentrating on a discussion of the moralvirtues of justice and magnanimity, and on the role of friendship in the good life, Pepin argued that these goods are not only inconsistent with the pursuit of self-interest, but required as auniting concept in Aristotle's teleological ethical theory.
Damaris Del Valle (May 2005) is a Lawson scholar and double major in Philosophy and History. Her senior thesis "The Evolution of Evil: Hannah Arendt's Concept of Evil from The Origins to Eichmann" develops the thesis that Hannah Arendt's concept of evil underwent animportant change from her earlier idea of it as radical (in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism) to her idea of it as banal (in her later book Eichmann in Jerusalem).This latter book was based on her infamous coverage of the trial of Adolph Eichmann for his role in the Holocaust.Damaris will be attending The University of Cincinnati School of Law in the fall.
Kenneth J. Matthews (May 2005) is a double major in Philosophy and Religious Studies.His senior project was entitled "The Impersonal Ethic."He claims that there is no contradiction in embracing both to the moral teaching of Buddhism and its metaphysical doctrine of emptiness.According to the metaphysics of emptiness, the moral agent, that is, the self or the ego has no positive reality.To make his case for the impersonal ethic, he relies on the thought of thecontemporary analytic philosopher Derek Parfit.
Amielee Farrell (May 2005) argues that David Hume is not just a skeptic in "David Hume:Skeptic or Agnostic?"Amy distinguishes the epistemic from the ontological skeptic.She labels Hume an epistemic skeptic as he claims there are limits to the things we can know and anontological agnostic in his belief to suspend judgment on matters of the nature f being, i.e.,existence.
Christina M. Crespo (May 2005) offered a senior project on the ways in which Ralph Waldo Emerson and Benjamin Franklin have been influenced by the ethical theories of Bentham and Mill in "The Principle of Utility as Seen by Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essays and Lectures and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Dissertation on Pain and Pleasure.Christina graduates a double major in Philosophy and English.
Jennifer Hodge (class of 2002) is currently working as a teacher in the DC metro area at NewHorizons Computer Learning Center, where adults are taught how to use the computer.She is considering a masters in Philosophy from George Mason University, a medical ethics program at Georgetown, or possibly a social philosophy program at George Washington University.
Rob van Kaam (class of 2004) was accepted to study at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he will join alum classmate Wes Sun in the study of theology.Way to go Rob!!!