ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: philosophy
- Genre: Masters Thesis
Description
ABSTRACT In this work, I provide two novel pieces of evidence in favor of the view that there is pragmatic encroachment on knowledge. First, I present an empirical case via the results of a series of recent experiments to show that folk-knowledge attributions may be sensitive to time constraints even when the latter are construed in a non-truth relevant manner. Along the way, I consider some comments made by Jonathan Schaffer (2006) as it pertains to interpreting time constraints-sensitivity in a manner that supports contextualism, before offering reasons to resist such a treatment. I proceed by applying interest relative invariantism to adjudicate a conflict in the epistemology of testimony namely, the positive reasons requirement a la, reductionism vs. non-reductionism. In particular, I highlight how whether an epistemic subject H needs positive non-testimonial reasons to be justified in accepting S's testimony that p, depends on what is at stake for H in believing that p and how much time H has in deliberating about p.
ContributorsShin, Joseph Ellis (Author) / Pinillos, N. Angel (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven L (Committee member) / White, Michael J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis explores the conceptual span and plausibility of emergence and its applicability to the problem of mental causation. The early parts of the project explicate a distinction between weak and strong emergence as described by Jaegwon Kim. They also consider Kim's objections regarding the conceptual incoherence of strong emergence and the otiose nature of weak emergence. The paper then explores Mark Bedau's in-between conception of emergence and ultimately finds that middle conception to be both coherent and useful. With these three emergence distinctions in hand, the thesis goes on to explore Evan Thompson's recent work - Mind in Life (2010). In that work, Thompson advances a strong emergence approach to mind, whereby he concludes the incipient stages of cognition are found at the most basic levels of life, namely - biologic cells. Along the way, Thompson embraces holism and a nonfundamental
onhierarchical physics in order to counter Jaegwon Kim's objections to the notion of downward causation needed for strong emergence. The thesis presents arguments against Thompson's holism and nonfundamental physics, while supporting his assertion regarding the incipient stages of cognition. It then combines an important distinction between mental causation and the experience of mental causation with Thompson's notion of incipient cognition to arrive at a dual realms approach to understanding mental causation.
onhierarchical physics in order to counter Jaegwon Kim's objections to the notion of downward causation needed for strong emergence. The thesis presents arguments against Thompson's holism and nonfundamental physics, while supporting his assertion regarding the incipient stages of cognition. It then combines an important distinction between mental causation and the experience of mental causation with Thompson's notion of incipient cognition to arrive at a dual realms approach to understanding mental causation.
ContributorsFournier, Thomas (Author) / Kobes, Bernard W (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven L (Committee member) / Armendt, Brad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Saying, "if Mary had watered Sam's plant, it wouldn't have died," is an ordinary way to identify Mary not watering Sam's plant as the cause of its death. But there are problems with this statement. If we identify Mary's omitted action as the cause, we seemingly admit an inordinate number of omissions as causes. For any counterfactual statement containing the omitted action is true (e.g. if Hillary Clinton had watered Sam's plant, it wouldn't have died). The statement, moreover, is mysterious because it is not clear why one protasis is more salient than any alternatives such as "if Sam hadn't gone to Bismarck." In the burgeoning field of experimental metaphysics, some theorists have tried to account for these intuitions about omissive causes. By synthesizing this data and providing a few experiments, I will suggest that judgments - and maybe metaphysics - about omissive causes necessarily have a normative feature. This understanding of omissive causes may be able to adequately resolve the problems above.
ContributorsHenne, Paul (Author) / Kobes, Bernard W (Thesis advisor) / Pinillos, Nestor A (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Panpsychist double aspect theory, the most promising version of panpsychism, holds that the mental and the physical are mutually irreducible properties, or features, of ultimate matter, therefore they both are ontologically fundamental and ubiquitous. This version of panpsychism involves the following two notions: anti-reductivism and anti- emergentism. The former states that mental phenomena are not recordable in terms of physics. The latter implies that mental phenomena do not causally arise only from a certain macroscale physical condition, and the mental and the physical do not constitute an ontological hierarchy. From these notions, it follows that any macroscale mental phenomenon is the result of a combination of ultimate mental properties. Yet this idea creates the combination problem: how higher level mentality, e.g., human or animal consciousness, arises from lower level mentality, the ultimate mental "particles." Panpsychist double aspect theory purports to find the proper location of mind in the world without being vulnerable to typical mind-body problems. Nevertheless, since this version of panpsychism explains the ontological structure of higher level mentality as analogous to the atomic structure of a molecular physical entity, the combination problem arises. In Chapter 1, I explain the general conception of panpsychism. Chapter 2 shows the plausibility of panpsychist double aspect theory and how the combination problem arises from this version. I discuss the history and implications of the combination problem in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I introduce some alternative versions of panpsychism that do not raise the combination problem, and point out their implausibility. The intelligibility of mental combination is explained in Chapter 5. The moral of these chapters is that our epistemic intuition that mind is not composed of "smaller" minds fails to undermine the possibility that mind is structurally complex. In Chapter 6, I argue that C. Koch and G. Tononi's integrated information theory (IIT) is a form of panpsychism, and that the IIT can serve as a model for solving the combination problem. However, I am not committed to the IIT, and I point out theoretical weaknesses of the IIT besides the combination problem.
ContributorsNoh, Hyungrae (Author) / Kobes, Bernard W (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven (Committee member) / Pinillos, Angel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Principles of climate mitigation in environmental ethics often draw on either considerations of fairness and forward-looking concerns, or on justice and backward-looking concerns. That is, according to some theorists, considerations of the current distribution of climate benefits and burdens are foremost, while others take repairing historic wrongs as paramount. Some theorists integrate considerations of fairness and justice to formulate hybrid climate principles. Such an integrative approach is promising particularly in the context of environmental harm to indigenous subsistence peoples, who are among those suffering the most from climate change. I argue that existing integrative climate principles tend not to sufficiently emphasize considerations of backward-looking justice. This is a problem for indigenous peoples seeking reparations for environmental harm and violations of their human rights. Specifically, indigenous people in the Arctic suffer a cultural harm from climate change as they lose their land, and their way of life, to erosion, cementing their status as climate refugees. I argue that the current climate situation facing Native Arctic people is unfair according to Rawls' second principle of justice. In addition, the situation is unjust as indigenous people suffer from emissions by others and few attempts are made for reparations. Thus, Rawlsian fairness combined with reparative justice provide a befitting theoretical framework. I conclude that an acceptable climate principle will adequately integrate considerations of both fairness and justice, both forward-looking and backward-looking considerations.
ContributorsSweetland, Lauren (Author) / Brake, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Portmore, Douglas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze experimental evidence involving anti-substitution intuitions about co-referential names in simple sentences. In her book Simple Sentences, Substitution, and Intuitions, Jennifer Saul claims that anti-substitution intuitions involving co-referential names in simple sentences are particularly resistant, so much so that they exist even when one is given an identity statement that shows that the two names refer to the same individual. She uses this claim to motivate her thesis that a psychological explanation is needed to understand why these anti-substitution intuitions exist. Her theory is that before people know that two names co-refer to an individual, they have two "nodes" or "mental files" that contain information that is associated with the name. Saul claims that the reason anti-substitution intuitions in simple sentences involving co-referential names are resistant is that when people find out that two names co-refer to an individual, they do not merge the nodes into a single node, but instead the nodes are kept separate and are linked. The linked nodes then are capable of sharing information, though they do not do so by default. Instead, good reasons are needed for the sharing of information. The experimental results show that, contrary to Saul's claims, anti-substitution intuitions of this sort are not resistant such that they persist even when one is given the identity statement. This evidence is used to call into doubt the psychological explanation given by Saul and is used to raise the possibility that a particular implicature view can better explain these anti-substitution intuitions.
ContributorsZimmerman, Thomas (Author) / Pinillos, Nestor (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven (Committee member) / Kobes, Bernard W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study questioned how the Navajo Nation was going to mitigate and/or adapt
to Global Climate Change. By employing a Diné philosophy based research methodology this study seeks to holistically reframe the lens that the Navajo Nation conceptualizes Global Climate Change. The study uses a comprehensive review of literature that pertained to four research questions. The research questions are: 1) What do Diné oral histories say about climate change? 2) How is the Navajo Nation going to mitigate and adapt to changes to the climate using Western knowledge? 3) How can Diné research methodologies help inform policies that will mitigate and adapt to climate change? 4) What type of actions and frameworks can the Navajo Nation use to generate meaningful policy? The study utilizes a Diné philosophy based analytical framework to focus on how climate change will affect the Diné peoples' A) spirituality, B) economic sustainability, C) family-community, and D) home-environment. The findings are: a) the Navajo spiritual ceremonies are process models that can be used to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, and they must continue to be practiced. b) The economic development section revealed that economic security is not found solely in resource development, but in the security of ceremonial knowledge. The burden of the Navajo government however, is not to promote labor, but the ability for people to live into old age. c) Because families and communities drive Diné philosophy, Diné families and communities must remember how to treat each other with respect. The collective survival of the Navajo Nation always depended on this teaching. d) The findings of the home-environment section is that Diné have to acknowledge that their lives are fragile in the face of global climate change, and the only way that they can live happily is to trust the power of the stories of the ancestors, and seek to embody the Diné philosophy. This study succeeded as an honest attempt to apply an Indigenous Diné methodology to reframe Global Climate Change into a phenomenon that is survivable.
to Global Climate Change. By employing a Diné philosophy based research methodology this study seeks to holistically reframe the lens that the Navajo Nation conceptualizes Global Climate Change. The study uses a comprehensive review of literature that pertained to four research questions. The research questions are: 1) What do Diné oral histories say about climate change? 2) How is the Navajo Nation going to mitigate and adapt to changes to the climate using Western knowledge? 3) How can Diné research methodologies help inform policies that will mitigate and adapt to climate change? 4) What type of actions and frameworks can the Navajo Nation use to generate meaningful policy? The study utilizes a Diné philosophy based analytical framework to focus on how climate change will affect the Diné peoples' A) spirituality, B) economic sustainability, C) family-community, and D) home-environment. The findings are: a) the Navajo spiritual ceremonies are process models that can be used to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, and they must continue to be practiced. b) The economic development section revealed that economic security is not found solely in resource development, but in the security of ceremonial knowledge. The burden of the Navajo government however, is not to promote labor, but the ability for people to live into old age. c) Because families and communities drive Diné philosophy, Diné families and communities must remember how to treat each other with respect. The collective survival of the Navajo Nation always depended on this teaching. d) The findings of the home-environment section is that Diné have to acknowledge that their lives are fragile in the face of global climate change, and the only way that they can live happily is to trust the power of the stories of the ancestors, and seek to embody the Diné philosophy. This study succeeded as an honest attempt to apply an Indigenous Diné methodology to reframe Global Climate Change into a phenomenon that is survivable.
ContributorsAtencio, Mario (Author) / Killsback, Leo K (Thesis advisor) / Tippeconnic, John (Committee member) / Lee, Lloyd L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This thesis is concerned with the methodological role of intuitions in metaphysics. It is divided into two main parts. Part I argues that an academic field can only employ a method of gathering evidence if it has established some agreed-upon standards regarding how to evaluate uses of this method. Existing meta-philosophical disputes take the nature of intuitions to be their starting point. This is a mistake. My concern is not the epistemic status of intuitions, but rather how metaphysicians appeal to intuitions as a form of evidence. In order for intuitions to play a viable role in research they must be subject to certain constraints, regardless of whether they allow individual researchers to know that their theories are true. Metaphysicians are not permitted to use intuitions as arbitrarily having different evidential status in different circumstances, nor should they continue to use intuitions as evidence in certain disputes when there is disagreement amongst disputants about whether intuitions should have this evidential status.
Part II is dedicated to showing that metaphysicians currently use intuitions in precisely the sort of inconsistent manner that was shown to be impermissible in Part I. I first consider several competing theories of how intuitions function as evidence and argue that they all fail. As they are currently used in metaphysics, intuitions are analogous to instruments in the sciences in that they are taken to be a substantial non-inferential source of evidence for theories. I then analyze several major metaphysical disputes and show that the source of controversy in these disputes boils down to inconsistencies in how the different parties treat intuitions as evidence. I conclude that metaphysicians must abandon appeals to intuition as evidence--at least until the field can agree upon some general standards that can resolve these inconsistencies.
Part II is dedicated to showing that metaphysicians currently use intuitions in precisely the sort of inconsistent manner that was shown to be impermissible in Part I. I first consider several competing theories of how intuitions function as evidence and argue that they all fail. As they are currently used in metaphysics, intuitions are analogous to instruments in the sciences in that they are taken to be a substantial non-inferential source of evidence for theories. I then analyze several major metaphysical disputes and show that the source of controversy in these disputes boils down to inconsistencies in how the different parties treat intuitions as evidence. I conclude that metaphysicians must abandon appeals to intuition as evidence--at least until the field can agree upon some general standards that can resolve these inconsistencies.
ContributorsMusgrave, Shea (Author) / Creath, Richard (Thesis advisor) / Pinillos, Nestor A. (Committee member) / Kobes, Bernard W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This project examines and challenges the West's generally accepted two category approach to the world's belief systems. That is, it will deconstruct the religion / science `paradigm' that has developed over the past two centuries. It will argue that the dichotomy between the two categories was created by modernity for the purpose of establishing an exclusive view believed to be based on knowledge. This exclusive view, philosophical naturalism (science), was set in opposition to all alternative views identified as religion. As the exclusive view, though constructed on a defective foundation of knowledge, philosophical naturalism, nonetheless, became the privileged interpreter and explainer of reality in the academy of the Western world.
As a work in the area of epistemology and the philosophy of religion, this project will challenge philosophical naturalism's claim to knowledge. The approach will be philosophical and historical critically assessing both modernity's and postmodernity's basis for knowledge. Without a rational basis for exclusive knowledge the popular dichotomy dissolves. The implications of this dissolution for `religious studies' will be addressed by offering an alternative scheme that provides a more plausible way to divide the world's belief systems.
As a work in the area of epistemology and the philosophy of religion, this project will challenge philosophical naturalism's claim to knowledge. The approach will be philosophical and historical critically assessing both modernity's and postmodernity's basis for knowledge. Without a rational basis for exclusive knowledge the popular dichotomy dissolves. The implications of this dissolution for `religious studies' will be addressed by offering an alternative scheme that provides a more plausible way to divide the world's belief systems.
ContributorsTussing, Rodney W (Author) / Cady, Linell (Committee member) / Anderson, Owen (Committee member) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Libertarians affirm the right to liberty, i.e., the right to do what one wants free from interference. Libertarians also affirm the right to private property. One objection to libertarianism is that private property relations restrict liberty. This objection appears to have the consequence that libertarianism is an incoherent position. I examine Jan Narveson's version of the libertarian view and his defense of its coherence. Narveson understands the right to liberty as a prohibition on the initiation of force. I argue that if that is what the right to liberty is, then the enforcement of property rights violates it. I also examine Narveson's attempt to support private property with his distinction between interference with and mere prevention of activity and argue that this distinction does not do the work that he needs it to do. My conclusion is that libertarianism is, in a sense, impossible because conceptually unsound.
ContributorsSchimke, Christopher (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / McGregor, Joan (Committee member) / Blackson, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011