The majority of people on Earth now live in cities, and estimates hold that 60 percent of the world’s cities have yet to be built. Now is the time for philosophers to develop a philosophy of the city to address the forthcoming issues that urbanization will bring. In this dissertation, I respond to this need for a philosophy of the city by developing a theory of city identity, developing some of the theory’s normative implications, illustrating the theory with a case study, and outlining the nature and future of philosophy of the city more generally. Indeed, this dissertation is only a part of my larger project of founding and institutionalizing this new field of both academic and socially-engaged philosophical activity. Throughout the history of the discipline, other areas such a personal identity have received numerous considerations, along with the concept of identity as an abstraction. For example, there is a bounty of research addressing problems pertaining to how objects and people retain an identity over time and claims about identity in general. While one could argue that cities are not any different than any other object, such an account fails to consider that a city’s dynamic nature makes it dissimilar to other things. To illustrate this point, I develop a position called dynamic composition as identity theory that provides a framework for understanding the identity of a city, exhibiting that views within analytic metaphysics are too narrow to apply to all cases. After establishing a concept of city identity, I use an applied mereology to develop a model of city identity that shows how the parts of a city fit together to form a complete city. This model introduces the normative dimension of my project by providing a way to identify how incongruence between a city’s parts can cause problems for residents’ wellbeing. To understand the moral dimensions of infrastructure, I argue that moral theory alone is ill prepared to adequately demonstrate its full range of effects. Yet, instead of developing another moral theory, we can supplement existing moral theories with the concepts of sustainability and resilience thinking to account for the elements that traditional moral systems neglect. I support this view with a detailed account of transportation infrastructure. Namely, I show that current frameworks for assessing transportation infrastructure are inadequate, and employ the method of complex moral assessment developed earlier to make such assessments. Lastly, I show how the research in this dissertation counts as intra-disciplinary research, a new kind of method for philosophical research.

The current research investigated the effects of competition on empathy and prosociality in two studies. Study 1 aimed to explore associations between competition and prosociality by asking participants to play a computer puzzle game that was either high or low on competitiveness, and then to complete measures of empathy, perspective taking, compassionate love and willingness to sacrifice for a romantic partner. Study 1 found a marginally significant difference across conditions for perspective taking, a marginally significant gender interaction for perspective taking, and a significant gender by condition interaction for compassionate love, in support of hypotheses that competition reduces prosocial responses in men. Study 2 addressed methodological limitations from Study 1 and examined the effect across a broader range of relationship contexts, including close friends. Results for Study 2 did not replicate the marginally significant effect for perspective taking seen in Study 1, but found a significant interaction between gender and condition predicting perspective taking. Significant findings in line with prior research emerged for dominance and commitment, indicating that higher dominance and lower commitment were associated with less empathy and prosociality. Overall, results do not consistently support the hypothesized effect of competitive situations on prosocial and empathic behavior, although results of exploratory analyses suggest potential moderated or conditional effects. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Only The Body Remembers is a collection of poems, lyric essays, and short stories that explore several subjects, including love (both romantic and familial), loss, grief, sexuality, identity, and obsession. The primary thematic thread that binds this collection together is somatic memory -- the way the body records experiences, and the strong emotional charge these recorded experiences carry. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Prosocial behavior can be defined as any behavior that an individual engages in to benefit another (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). Prosociality is not one homogenous trait, however, but is made up of three specific types of behavior: helping, cooperating, and sharing (or, more accurately, donating) (Tomasello, 2009). Although helping and cooperating are important to understanding prosocial development, giving behaviors might be particularly informative when trying to understand prosociality in young children as it poses a distinct problem for younger children (Tomasello, 1998). Research on proximate causes of prosocial behavior state that these behaviors are influenced by emotions of empathy (Batson, 1991), theory of mind, or understanding of social norms of ownership (Blake & Rand, 2010). Research on more ultimate causes of prosociality suggest that these behaviors evolved due to mechanisms or kin selection (Hamilton, 1964) and inclusive fitness (Trivers, 1971), and is evident by the effect of social category and relatedness on donations in resource- allocation games (Gummerum et al., 2009). Research with children using resource- allocations games, such as the dictator game, are sparse, but typically find that children donate more as they get older, and that out-group receive fewer allocations than in-group members (Moore, 2009). This research also highlight the importance of anonymity and its effect on prosociality. When tested using an anonymous design, children donate less and some children don’t donate at all (Benenson et al., 2007). Using an anonymous dictator game, children’s giving behaviors were examined across in- group, out-group, and family members. Thirty-five children (12 3-year-olds (7 male), 13 4-year-olds (8 male), and 10 5-year-olds (7 male) completed the experiment. Each child participated in each condition, as well as measures of theory of mind and ownership understanding. Children’s empathy scores were attained from a parent questionnaire regarding children’s empathic behaviors. Results revealed that some children did not donate any stickers at all; seven in total, and that these children differed significantly from those that gave on measures of empathy. Of those that donated, 3-year-old children donated significantly more than 5-year-old children (F(1,3) =3.64, p < .05). This is contrary to previous findings which find that giving increases across age., The was no main effect for Recipient, and no significant interaction between Age and Recipient. Five-year-olds scored significantly higher on measures of ownership understanding (F(2, 25) = 4.36, p< .05), suggesting that understanding of social norms of ownership may be partially responsible for their decrease in overall giving. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Self-concept clarity and grit are important constructs in the self-concept and selfregulation domains. Though distinct in their focus on identity and goal processes, self-concept clarity and grit similarly emphasize the extent to which self-views and goal-perseverance are strong, clear, consistent, and unshakeable. We hypothesized self-knowledge and goalperseverance may be mutually reinforcing given the role of self-knowledge in directing goal pursuit, and of goal pursuit in structuring the self-concept. The present study tested this hypothesis in the form of whether self-concept clarity and grit reciprocally influence one other across time, and was conducted using a daily diary design with 97 college-aged participants across several weeks. Data were analyzed using multilevel cross-lagged panel modeling. Results indicated daily self-concept clarity and grit both had positive influences on each other across time, while controlling for their previous values. The reciprocal influences were also symmetric: self-concept clarity and grit had equally strong influences on each other. The results of the present study are the first to indicate the existence of reinforcing feedback loops between self-concept clarity and grit, and to demonstrate that fluctuations in self-knowledge trigger fluctuations in goal resolve, and vice versa. The results suggest the two are, in part, both causes and consequences of one another. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Chan, Chiu Fung Maria Goretti. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-95). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Contents --- p.vi / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Anna´ةs Voyage in a New World --- p.15 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Trapped in a Power Struggle --- p.39 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Reacting against Predestined Roles --- p.64 / Conclusion --- p.88 / Bibliography --- p.92

"The Fevered Road" is a memoir about coming to know oneself through what is lost and finding the liberation available in moments of absolute failure. The thesis explores the themes of failure, loss, identity, and rites of passage through the lens of the early 1990s, AIDS, murder, family, queerness, travel, and punk rock. The research is based primarily on journals, letters, correspondence with local historians, newspaper reports, internet sources, Massachusetts Department of Correction documents, and the author's personal recollection of events. The narrative is centered around the experience of two deaths in the author's early twenties, and is presented in a hybrid bookended/braided structure of the present and the chronological backstory.

Human Subjects is a collection of eight short stories that explore the role of identity, otherness, and personhood in contemporary life. Two sex workers try to buy new faces after a botched plastic surgery, a young girl struggles to find her place in a religious sweat cult, mixed race orphans commune with ghosts in a Korean orphanage, best friends embark on a road trip across America in search of a mother. Human Subjects works to tell stories about deeply felt wants and desires from perspectives at the margins, caught in a state of in between. This collection grapples with what it means to be a subject, and what it means to be subjected.

This dissertation explores the maker economy and culture in Detroit, MI and Portland, OR and queries the "Made in Place" branding strategy that relies so heavily on a shared imagination of cities, identities, and values. Bridging the gap between urban economic development, political economy, and affect theory, this dissertation is centrally concerned with how imagination works as a commons and how such "imaginaries" shape each city's milieu of small, entrepreneurial, artisanal producers ("makers"). The constituent elements of "Made in" branding "made" and "place" suggest common understandings of each; this sense of coherence is critical for how value is added to a maker's product. Rather than coherence, however, my data revealed a great deal of tension and ambiguity: how can something be coherent, ambiguous, and mobilized as economic value all at the same time? I answer this question by analyzing data from over 70 interviews with makers in Detroit and Portland, two cities experiencing rapid development and perceptive shifts from "old" to "new." I conclude that the various imaginaries so critical to "Made in Place" branding suggest not just economic rationality, but also a desire for stability in a turbulent world. Theoretically informed by Lauren Berlant, Gilles Deleuze, and Walter Benjamin, I argue that makers' imaginaries of identity, value, and place provide a collective sense of grounding amidst the flux of transition and uncertainty.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 313-325) Specific concern is the poetic, as well as literal, significance given to the environment, and in particular to land, as a measure of belonging in Australia. Environment is explored in the context of ecologies, offered here as an alternative configuration of the nation, and in which the subject, through human and non-human environmental relations, can be culturally and spatially positioned. Argues that both environment and ecology are narrowly defined in dominant discourses that pursue an ideal, certain and authentic belonging for non-indigenous Australians.