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Skill-based reliabilism
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
Etiological teleosemantics and theories of nonconceptual content
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Within the philosophy of mind, discourse regarding the relation between human thought and its objects refers to ‘intentional content’, the information ...
A solution to skeptical puzzles
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
In this dissertation, I aim at resolving the skeptical puzzle. An instance of this puzzle is as follows: (1) I know that I have hands. (2) I don't know that I am not a brain in a vat (being stimulated to experience having ...
The metaphysics of content : towards a minimalist account of propositions
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Propositions appear to be needed as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes, the primary bearers of truth and falsity, and the semantic ...
Epistemic virtue and knowledge attribution
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] What factors influence whether we may rightly attribute knowledge to a subject? It is uncontroversial that factors like whether a subject has a given ...
A salience account of explanatory power
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] When we ask questions like "why won't my car engine start?" or "why is John late?" we are searching for explanations. We search for explanations in a ...
Toward a virtue account of science
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation argues for a virtue account of science in which foundational scientific goals are achieved by scientists' employment of virtuous tools ...
Niche construction and the role of environment : towards a new logic of natural selection explanations
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] I argue that natural selection explanations are not necessarily externalist, i.e. they don't always cite features of the environment as explanans. In ...
The division of moral labor : prospects, problems and progress in examining the moral status/social category relationship
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis outlines a theoretical framework that yields testable predictions concerning how social categorization impacts moral regard. According to ...
Niche construction and the role of environment : towards a new logic of natural selection explanations
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Biological systems may move in, feed on, socialize with, and change the world around it. How should we explain how these systems develop, act, think, ...
Epistemic democracy and political legitimacy
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
My dissertation aims to answer two questions: (1) Is democracy epistemically valuable? (2) Is the epistemic value of democracy, if it has any, necessary for justifying its legitimacy? I argue that democracy in certain form ...
Epistemic duties and blameworthiness for belief
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
People sometimes believe things they shouldn't. Tommy believes in Santa Claus, Rev. Jones believes that the world is ending, and Adolf believes that some ethnic groups are superior to others. But are they somehow at fault ...
Moral wrongness and reactive attitudes
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
In my dissertation, I examine the relationship between moral wrongness and negative reactive attitudes. In particular, I inquire (1) whether moral wrongness is conceptually connected to the empirical disposition to hold ...
Compensation as the moral foundation of Jus Post Bellum
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
Given how much harm can be done after the fighting part of wars end, and given recent failures to secure lasting peace after conflicts (e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq), developing an account of the conditions of a just peace, ...
If matter matters : navigating the moral implications of panpsychism
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
When you gaze at a sunset or taste a peach, there is a subjective feel to be had. This subjective "feel" is referred to as the qualitative character of experience. My goal is to argue that a certain ontological theory of ...
Home aestheticus : species being and the struggle for existence
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] In this paper, I argue for the homo aestheticus thesis - the claim that our species nature is that of artistic producer and consumer; that this nature ...
A defense of moral perception
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
I defend the possibility of moral perception and the contentious view that at least some of our moral knowledge is perceptual knowledge. The first part of the dissertation is spent establishing the possibility of moral ...
Using and coming to own : a left-proprietarian treatment of the just use and appropration of common resources
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
How is it that people come to appropriate (privately own) and justly use resources in the world that initially exist within conditions of "common ownership"? The historical story in our world is surely that the strong ...
An analysis of the State
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
What the state is remains far from clear in political philosophy. However, the state is also a key concept at work in many discussions in political philosophy. For example, there is a debate about anarchism, the question ...
On Foucault and the genealogy of governmentality
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
In this dissertation I perform what I take to be a genealogy of governmentality by tracing the history of governmentality through various political philosophers and culminating in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin with ...