Philosophy

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    True Solidarity and bell hooks’ Engaged Pedagogy
    (2023) Wang, Yufan; Mason, Qrescent Mali
    Huge inequalities exist in the U.S. K-12 and higher education systems, which further widen the achievement gap between classes and races. In addition to the quantitative studies that reveal the deficiency of social mobility, I want to examine the role of education in perpetuating oppression in various forms. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire argues that the banking concept of education as a tool of oppression prevents the oppressed from developing a critical consciousness about their nature of being oppressed and makes them more submissive and subordinate to the dominant values (47). While Freire's work is primarily focused on developing a pedagogy with the oppressed to regain their humanity and liberation, I argue the privileged students should be included in critical pedagogy, not only because a fundamental change in exploitation and oppression needs them to engage in the movement, but also because banking education prevents them from building true solidarity with the oppressed and engaging the liberation struggle meaningfully. In addition, true solidarity in Freire’s mind is an act of love and a praxis that requires reflection and action. Therefore, if we want to build true solidarity between the oppressors and the oppressed, we must abandon the existing banking education and adopt bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy, which emphasize well-being, healing, love, respect, and equity.
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    Coping with Mortality: an argument for a stoic lifestyle
    (2023) Walker, Khalil Ayele; Mason, Qrescent Mali
    This text discusses the difficulty of coping with death and mortality, and how Stoicism can provide a practical approach to dealing with these issues. Stoicism is a philosophy that aims to help individuals live a life of inner peace and tranquility by cultivating virtues such as wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. The Stoics believe that happiness is found in our ability to control our thoughts and emotions and live by reason and purposeful lives. By accepting the natural order of life and death, individuals can focus on living fulfilled lives and achieving inner peace. Stoicism offers a practical and rational approach to dealing with death, in promoting resilience and personal growth.
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    Truly Seeing Mathematics: An Exploration of Mathematical Aspects through Ability, Skill, and Expertise
    (2023) Deuber, Lara; Macbeth, Danielle
    Mathematics has been described as a form of synthetic a priori. This paper uses Wittgensteinian aspects to examine the realm of mathematics in ability, skill, and expertise. These categories show different degrees of mathematical comprehension. Aspects are meant to help us “see” meaning under the original concept of an object. This thesis aims to bring examples to light to support my claim that mathematics is not black and white. I hope to show how we can see mathematical aspects as they relate to matching identities, patterns, and constructions to gather a deeper understanding for why there are such differences between levels of mathematical knowledge. As a student continues to develop their mathematical familiarity, they take everything they have acquired from ability to skill to potentially becoming an expert one day. But rather than focusing on a linear relationship between these three categories, I hope to instead give an account of why these are distinct categories.
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    Leaps in Perception: Towards a Philosophy of Imaginatively-endowed Perceiving
    (2023) Rousseau, Jade; Yurdin, Joel
    Inquiry into our perception soon leads us to a kind of skepticism, whereby we not only doubt that our senses give us access to the objective world, we doubt they give us access to anything at all. This is the problem of perception. At the heart of this problem lies a distance between us and the world. Introducing the concept of perceptive faith, I argue that our fundamental attitude towards the world is thus one of leaping. Using the lens of the leap, I first consider the way perception unfolds within us. I emphasize the importance of theorizing perception as a lived perceiving, and suggest that imagination may be necessary for our perceiving, as that which allows us to bridge the gaps and give life to them. I then consider two analytic theories of perception, drawing out their phenomenological sensibility, and suggest that if intentionalism begins to tie the world to us, enactivism embeds us firmly in the world. The distance between the world and us thus seems to be bridged when we realize perception is an embodied and imaginatively-endowed perceiving. I contend that such premises were ignored because of a pervasive optocentrism in Western philosophy, an overvaluation of sight and a devaluation of the other senses (especially of touch) which led certain problems, questions, and conclusions to appear at the expense of others. I conclude that a philosophy of perception that emphasized the imaginary texture of the world would allow us to unproblematically encompass both our being towards and away from the world.
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    Uneasiness in the Museum: the Affective Subjectivity and Openness of Art Interpretation
    (2023) Bhat, Amolina; Miller, Jerry
    This thesis is a part of my journey of coming to terms with the realization that we are not static beings and thus, neither our creations nor our interpretational processes can ever remain final. As my foundation, I use Jacques Derrida’s understanding of the supplement, Sara Ahmed’s theory on the power of emotion, and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s understanding of artistic hermeneutics interconnected with the general theme of uneasiness. By using the experience of viewing, interpreting, and internalizing art specifically in the space of the museum as my medium, I problematize three interconnected supposed dichotomies: art and natural language, the humanities and sciences, and emotion and rationality. I use the three theories to begin the process of understanding that the meaning of art is never fixed, neither in a specific context nor to a specific person. I argue that the process of interpretation is not, and can never be, completely satisfied or complete. Art is meaningful because it changes us and it encourages us to do the work to remember that we can be changed. While this understanding may initially generate uneasiness, the conversations we have with each other can alleviate this feeling through the realization that we are not alone in our experiences.