Browsing by Author "Wright, Kathleen, 1944-"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 63
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A Philosophical Investigation of Virginia Wolf's A Room of One's Own
    (1994) McCanless, Katherine W.; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Gangadean, Ashok K., 1941-
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Accessing Women through Masculine Discourse: Luce Irigaray’s Embodied Syntax
    (2012) Lieberman, Alyson; Miller, Jerry; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    Men and women’s relationship to their bodies is mediated by the linguistic structures surrounding them. The human body plays an important role in understand the border between language and the body. Contemporary Feminists, Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler, understand this relationship as intrinsically linked. This thesis articulates a possible development of the body that sees the female body as becoming a linguistically necessary reference for the male dominated discourse. By existing in a society that values the phallus as the master signifier women become displaced from their own bodies. This displacement is represented in how women relate to language. Without a connection to their own bodies women lose their position as a subject. Additionally, the rejection of her own body leaves the woman in a state of sexual and psychological repression. According to Irigaray their lost female identity can only be reclaimed through a new understanding of language. This new language would incorporate the materiality of the body in an attempt to reclaim a space for the female subject in discourse. These claims are based on a reinterpretation by Luce Irigaray, of Sigmund Freud’s theoretical and psychoanalytic work on sexual development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    African Art as Symbolic Representation of African Thought: Sculpting the Whole
    (1988) Hodges, Lisa R.; Outlaw, Lucius T., 1944-; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Against a Machiavellian Approach to Journalism Ethics
    (1999) Lathrop, Daniel; Koggel, Christine M., 1955-; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Architecture demonstrates power
    (2003) Glenn, Molly; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    This paper discusses the links between architecture and power, beginning with the exploration of how architecture is tied to power, then what monumental architecture demonstrates about the power that created it. Architecture uses structure to demonstrate cultural beliefs. Leaders use architecture to materialize their relationship to the community. It also expresses the nature of that relationship of power. Axial architecture is tied to authoritarian power, and non-axial architecture is tied to power as a mandate from the people, as illustrated in buildings throughout the world, in city plans, and in prisons as exhibited by Foucault. Architecture demonstrates both the presence and the nature of power.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Autonomy Beyond Independence Autonomy: Responsibility Relations of Reciprocity in Biomedical Ethics
    (2008) Edmundson, Philip; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Macbeth, Danielle
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Balancing Sustainable Development: Philosophy of Technology and Aesthetic Evaluation
    (2009) Gasperik, Dylan; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Gangadean, Ashok K., 1941-
    My thesis is an attempt to explain the imbalanced and incomplete modes of thinking in the modern consciousness that I find to be responsible for humanity's collective irrational and violent destruction of the global environment. I argue that the environment is a direct material extension of human identities and its destruction is evidence of unbalanced behavior and thinking in need of rehabilitation. Furthermore, the discourse of sustainable development fails to provide an adequate alternative to the destructiveness of the modern consciousness. My thesis draws on three distinct traditions of thought to attempt to analyze the imbalance and propose an alternate mode of thinking: Albert Borgmann's "device paradigm," Martin Heidegger's "supreme danger" of modern technology, and David Hall and Roger Ames' "aesthetic cosmology" reading of the classical Taoist texts. The device paradigm highlights the important role of technology in distracting us from the destruction that has become so unavoidable and innocuous in the modern lifestyle. Heidegger's complex analysis of technology provides a foundation for understanding its power for salvation as well as destruction and distraction. Hall and Ames' readings of Taoism provide an example of an alternate mode of thinking that could potentially rehabilitate the imbalances endemic to the modern consciousness that cause us to be destructive. I am aware of and wary of the breadth and ambition of my thesis topic. This has not deterred me or distracted me from writing it, and I have found the process to be helpful in solidifying, clarifying, and justifying my philosophical explorations up to this point.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Bonds Beyond Heidegger
    (2015) Crawford, Charlie; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    Our modem world is one ever increasingly dominated by technology. As such, our relationship to it has become more complicated than one would normally assume. As a byproduct, modernity has conditioned us to value practicality and efficiency above all else, an idea that encourages those involved to miss out on opportunities to create meaningful bonds with entities in both the material and social worlds. It is the goal of this thesis to explore how history suggests that the way we are, our way of being, can be thought of as a fluid phenomenon that need not stay the same. From there I explore how the physical spaces themselves are part of brings a way of being into existence and how engaging with risk and ritual is what opens us to these meaningful connections. I then turn to how Heidegger understands ourselves as beings alongside technology, how the essence of modern technology has done something detrimental to our current way of being, and lastly, how to save ourselves from this condition by engaging with risk and ritual appropriately.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    “Bursting from Slavery: Processes of Subjection and Struggles for Freedom in Hegel and Foucault”
    (2011) Martin, Laura; Stauffer, Jill, 1966-; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    How do we become subjects, and what does this process of subjection mean for our freedom? This paper will speak to this question through an exploration of the dynamic differences and similarities between the work of Hegel and Foucault. Hegel claims we are progressing triumphantly towards a re-worked ideal of freedom to be concretely realized in a golden age of modernity. Foucault’s dystopic vision, however, forces us to face the possibility that the attainment of freedom is a mere mirage, and exposes the way progress conceals subtle forms of unfreedom. One conventional way to read these two views are as the positions of a modern and a post-modern thinker respectively. Indeed, the traditional conceptual, chronological narrative tells a story in which Foucault corrects Hegel’s system: Foucault denies the reconciliatory Hegelian view of a totalizing historical progression, and in doing so, takes us beyond the modern myth of progress and freedom to a place more accurately reflecting our ambivalent experience with modernity. Through the exploration of themes of power, freedom, and subjection in both thinkers’ work, I wish to complicate this philosophical order and suggest that in the realm of freedom, each thinker’s work can be used to modify and enrich the other. Foucault’s attitude towards Hegel was at best ambivalent, at worst hostile. He once claimed that the primary task of his generation was to flee Hegel. Despite the fact that his work is in part an effectuation of an intellectual separation from Hegelian themes, there are moments of surprising intimacy between the two thinkers’ theoretical visions. Foucault obliquely admits to this when he confesses, “…truly escaping Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes we are aware of the extent to which Hegel, insidiously perhaps, is close to us…” (Foucault 1972, 235) This paper will play upon one of these moments of closeness in order to compare each thinker’s understanding of how we come to 2 be subjects. This is the similar primordial scene of dominating force where both thinkers locate the birth of the subject: for Foucault, this scene is one of repeated enactment of power upon the historical body, whereas for Hegel it is the oppressive power the master exerts over the slave’s embodied self. Despite Foucault’s attempt to break with Hegelian themes, an exploration of these two processes of subjection and their implications for freedom presents us with a Foucaultian aporia prompting a return to Hegel. This partial return to Hegel generates a rich comparison, leading us to ask important questions about the nature of oppression and freedom in today’s society. The paper will be divided into three broad sections. Part I will first situate the work of Hegel and Foucault and their struggles with understanding the freedom of a historical, socialized individual within the development of modern philosophy. Next, I will describe Foucault’s theory of power, drawing attention to the innovative tools he provides to articulate subtle forms of oppression and to enact resistance against this oppression. I will argue, however, that his description of the production of the subject by power renders it difficult to understand how the subject moves from being impacted by forces to being able to resist those forces. His notion of freedom through resistance is problematized by his weak concept of the subject. Part II will focus on the alternative Hegelian vision of subjection figured in the master-slave dialectic, and will draw attention to the way in which intersubjective, self-reflexive Hegelian individual serves to respond to the aporia of the Foucaultian subject. Part III, will describe Hegel’s notion of freedom and its requirements, and will offer some reflections on how we might understand both theories in conjunction with each-other. This reflection will open up space to ask important and necessary questions about struggles for freedom.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Civic Participation, Ideal Education, and Well-being
    (2011) Jiang, LinKai; Yurdin, Joel; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    If one is struggling between a decision to party or to organize for social change, this thesis hopes to provide resources for reconciling this tension between personal desires and political duties. I argue that civic participation is an essential part of living a good life. Living well entails more than material satisfaction, it requires active engagement in the affairs of the state. In the process of deliberating the affairs of the state one establishes concrete and genuine relationship with valuable people/objects/events. Such a relationship is an actual manifestation of one's well-being, beyond the lofty psychological state of happiness. I arrive at my conclusion by considering the essential purposes of the state and thus its responsibilities. I structure my thesis according to the following four sub-questions: 1. what sort of responsibilities does a state have toward its citizens? 2. what sort of responsibilities do citizens have toward their state? 3. what constitutes human well-being? 4. what sort of mutual responsibilities will lead to the individual and the collective well-being? I will look at Plato’s 'Republic, and Aristotle’s 'Nicomachean Ethics' and 'The Politics' to locate the responsibilities of ideal citizens and an ideal state. I will look at Mill’s 'Utilitarianism' and James Griffin’s 'Well Being' to locate essential elements of well-being.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Common Themes of Emancipation: Nietzsche and Socrates
    (1991) Rodriguez, Bridget; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Esheté, Andreas
    My project in this essay will be to compare the philosophical work of Nietzsche and Socrates. For both Nietzsche and Socrates there are processes of ideological emancipation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    De Quo Jure? : Heidegger, Arendt, and Modern Questions of Law
    (2005) Davis, Allison C.; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Miller, Jerry
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Desired Outcomes: Possibilities for Community in Hegel's Master/Slave Dialectic
    (2008) Jackson, Lorin K.; Miller, Jerry; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Empiricism, Determinism, and Naturalism
    (2012) Sergay, Nathaniel; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Miller, Jerry
    Brian Leiter’s naturalistic interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics reduces the cause and explanation of all facts about an individual to biological and psychological properties. He makes two central claims. First, that empiricism is the distinctive scientific way of looking at the world, providing access to objective, valueless truth. Second, that Nietzsche seeks to identify the causal determinants of human values, actions, thoughts, feeling, etc. in a fixed psycho‐physical human nature. I argue that Nietzsche’s endorsement of empiricism does not entail his endorsement of Leiter’s strong naturalism. Leiter misconstrues Nietzsche’s arguments concerning truth, failing to realize that his own thesis of truth is susceptible to Nietzsche’s attack on metaphysics. In fact, Nietzsche subscribes to a “postmodern” falsification thesis, rejecting the scientific and/or empirical claim to access “valueless,” objective reality. Nietzsche believes all of our “truths,” “knowledge,” judgments, and experiences are infused with subjective values. Instead of seeking “objectivity” through disinterested empiricism, we must seek objectivity by engaging with our values and affective interests. I go on to show that Leiter also misconstrues Nietzsche’s arguments concerning causality. As a result, Leiter’s thesis that Nietzsche seeks to identify deterministic causes of human facts is untenable. Finally, I show that, due to his naturalistic interpretation, Leiter misconstrues Nietzsche’s dismissal of the Kantian problem of freedom (of the causa sui) as an endorsement of determinism.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Ethical and Epistemic Belief Justification
    (2015) Halterman, Erik; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    This essay seeks to develop a new theory of intellectual virtue. It rejects the popular reliabilist account as a fundamental misunderstanding of the metaphysical nature of virtue. Namely, reliabilism reduces virtues to something akin to mere habits or tendencies when they are in fact normative, fallible capacities. Further work is needed to explain this, however, as the disjunctivist account of capacities suggests that capacities are only relevant when successfully exercised. This leads to the key insight of this new theory of intellectual virtue: the notion of ethical justification for belief as separate from epistemic justification. This notion is essential for explaining why we sometimes praise knowers for their false beliefs and why we can rightfully call these people intellectually virtuous. These knowers are achieving success of a sort which cannot be captured by reliabilist virtue epistemological theories. Armed with this new theory of intellectual virtue as directed at ethically justified beliefs, we are able to answer several problems which have vexed virtue epistemologists, and to which reliabilists have given particularly unsatisfying answers. We are able to explain how historical scientists such as Aristotle who were unreliable in their scientific theories can rightly be called intellectually virtuous, as they certainly seem to be. We are also able to answer Gettier and Gettier-type problems by clarifying that knowledge must be epistemically justified true belief and demonstrating that these cases always involve ethically justified true belief.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Faith and the Fall of Christendom: A Thesis Regarding the Nature of Judeo-Christian Faith
    (1999) McCandlish, Jon; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Macbeth, Danielle
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Fight the Power: An Exploration of Foucault's Incitement to Rebellion as Applied to the Human Sciences
    (1991) DeRose, Jennifer; Esheté, Andreas; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Focusing on “What is Happening Right Now”: Understanding Michel Foucault’s Writings On the Iranian Revolution Through Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Action
    (2013) Soroush, Nazanin; Miller, Jerry; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-
    Michel Foucault visited Iran in 1978 in the midst of the popular uprisings that ultimately toppled the Shah’s monarchic regime and led to the foundation of the Islamic Republic. His writings and interviews on the Iranian Revolution indicate his astonishment with the movement. He was particularly awed by the surprising unity of the movement and the role that Shia Islam played in bringing hundreds of thousands of people together. His writings, however, received a lot of immediate criticism, especially after Khomeini founded a fundamentalist Islamic government in the aftermath of the revolution. Foucault was asked to admit to his “mistake”. But he refused to reevaluate his observations on the Iranian revolutionary movement in hindsight. In his writings, he explicitly stated that he aimed at grasping what was “happening right now,” indifferent to the past or the future of the movement. The purpose of this thesis project is to analyze Foucault’s understanding of the Iranian movement through a close reading and analysis of his writings on the movement. In doing so, this thesis draws on Hannah Arendt’s theory of action to argue that Foucault witnessed the actualization of human freedom in Iran. Furthermore, this thesis hopes to, in Foucault’s defense, show the value in attempting to grasp a new phenomenon as it occurs, placing emphasis on the process, as opposed to the aftermath, of a movement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    From mourning to melancholia : voicing authorship in its loss
    (2002) Block, Daniel R.; Benston, Kimberly W.; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Kosman, Louis Aryeh
    How do writers mourn for their unconscious alienation from the authorial norm? Sigmund Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia," and its more recent applications to psychoanalytic trauma theory, illuminates the latency of the writer's melancholia, whose alienation is belatedly experienced out of time. For just this reason, Freud prescribes against melancholia as grief's privative disorder to which mourning is a recuperative process. Contra Freud, the essay works to recover the writer's melancholia from Freud's reading of its lack as unredeemably debilitating. An initial inquiry into why writers suffer melancholic loss will proceed to ask how melancholia addresses its authorial other within the writerly self. How does authorship fashion its mode of self-relation vis-a-vis loss? The latter project focuses itself through an analysis of elegiac poetry and Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" as the paradigmatic mode of relation in and through which writers confront their authorial self-abstention. Here, Gray's poem grounds the study of the call and response between self and absent other, which defines the rhetoric of prosopopeia. In particular, prosopopeia's dialogic imperative to tell and be heard envisions how melancholia might rehabilitate the writer's unconscious loss.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Habermasian and Derridian Texts Make Semantic Contact: Exploring the ‘Strategic’ Nature of Linguistic Structures and Identities
    (2013) Weathers, Sally; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Miller, Jerry
    This study utilizes Derridian deconstruction to subvert the hierarchy order that Habermas posits between communicative and strategic utterances, thus positing strategic utterances as reflective the fundamental structures of language. In so doing, Habermas’s and Derrida’s respective texts are posited as expatriates within the foreign body of this document, thereby demonstrating the intercultural challenges of linguistic communication and structure of linguistic meanings (identities) explored through this text.