This thesis article analyzes Rodolfo Teófilo's novel "A fome" through the lens of ecofeminism, exploring the representations of gender and nature in Brazilian literature. The novel, set during a devastating drought in the Northeast, follows Manuel de Freitas and his family as they seek relief in Ceará. While existing criticism has focused on the novel's use of nature and masculinity, the portrayal of female characters and the connection between gender and nature representations have been overlooked. Ecofeminist theory offers a critical perspective to understand these dynamics, revealing the devaluation of women and nature in favor of men and human beings in the narrative. The novel inadvertently perpetuates this oppressive view, objectifying women and land as submissive entities open to domination, despite acknowledging their abundance and creative power. While "A fome" effectively depicts the horrors of drought and societal injustices, it misses the opportunity to explore the imbalanced, hierarchical binaries of men/women and human/nature. By embracing an ecofeminist approach, the novel could have delved into the intertwined discourses of environmental and gender justice, presenting potential for empowerment and positive change. This article emphasizes the need to interweave these discourses in Brazilian literature to create a more inclusive and equitable societal narrative.

The following inquiry pursues two interlinked aims. The first is to understand Wittgenstein's idea of non-foundational certainty in the context of a reading of On Certainty that emphasizes its Pyrrhonian elements. The second is to read Wittgenstein's remarks on idealism/radical skepticism in On Certainty in parallel with the discussion of rule-following in Philosophical Investigations in order to demonstrate an underlying similarity of philosophical concerns and methods. I argue that for the later Wittgenstein, what is held certain in a given context of inquiry or action is a locally transcendental condition of the inquiry or action in question. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein's analysis of the difference between knowledge and certainty forms the basis of his critique of both Moore's "Proof" and radical skepticism. This critique takes the shape of rejection of a presupposition shared by both parties, and utilizes what I identify as a Pyrrhonian-style argument against opposed dogmatic views. Wittgenstein's method in this text involves describing epistemic language-games. I demonstrate that this is consistent with the rejection of epistemological theorizing, arguing that a Wittgensteinian "picture" is not a theory, but an impressionistic description that accomplishes two things: (i) throwing into relief problems with dogmatic theories and their presuppositions, and (ii) describing the provenance of linguistic and epistemic practices in terms of norms grounded in convention. Convention, in turn, is not arbitrary, but grounded in the biological and social natures of human beings--in what Wittgenstein calls forms of life. Thus there is a kind of naturalism in the work of the later Wittgenstein. It is a naturalism that comes neatly dovetailed with Pyrrhonism--a combination of strategies traceable to Hume's work in the Treatise. I read Hume as someone who develops the Pyrrhonian method to include philosophy done "in a careless manner," and argue that Wittgenstein adopts a similar method in his later works. Finally, I explain the deference to convention in the work of both Hume and Wittgenstein by reference to a passage in Sextus' Outlines, on which I provide a gloss in the final chapter of this work.

In this dissertation, I reconcile our knowledge of our own minds with philosophical naturalism. Philosophers traditionally hold that our knowledge of our own minds is especially direct and authoritative in comparison with other domains of knowledge. I introduce the subject in the first chapter. In the second and third chapters, I address the idea that we know our own minds directly. If self-knowledge is direct, it must not be grounded on anything more epistemically basic. This creates a puzzle for all epistemologists. For the naturalist, the puzzle is especially tricky. To say that self-knowledge has no epistemic ground threatens the naturalist's ability to understand it as psychologically real. I argue that the idea that self-knowledge is direct is not well motivated and that models of direct self-knowledge have fundamental problems. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I examine first-person authority. I distinguish between epistemic authority, or being in a better position than others to know, and non-epistemic authority, or being immune to challenge according to some conventional norm. I argue that we have only limited epistemic authority over our own minds. I then consider whether there may be an interesting non-epistemic authority attached to the first-person perspective. This would locate first-person authority in connection with our responsibility for our own minds. I argue that this sort of authority may exist, but is unlikely to threaten naturalism without further anti-naturalist commitments in the philosophy of mind. In the final two chapters, I explore the possibility that the underlying disagreements between naturalists and anti-naturalists are about the nature of belief. I consider what failures of self-knowledge might demonstrate about the nature of belief. I show how, with the proper understanding of belief, a theory of self-knowledge can assuage some of these worries. Having adopted a conception of belief that makes sense for philosophy and empirical psychology, I outline a positive theory of self-knowledge and suggest directions for future research.

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This dissertation traces the development of classical American pragmatism in the work of C.S. Peirce and Josiah Royce, and its convergence with the naturalist project that currently dominates anglophone philosophy. I argue that naturalism, as it is typically construed, either neglects or underestimates the importance of a rich and nuanced model of selfhood, one that captures not only the biological, but also the cultural features of human persons; what is needed is an account that shows how culture and human selves are themselves "natural." John McDowell has recently offered a promising line of thought which pursues this intuition, but his model has faced heavy criticism and its viability remains questionable. My project, then, is an alternative account that incorporates the best of McDowell's intuitions, but which is immune to the most common objections brought against his model. I proceed by focusing on one aspect of what it means to be a human person that has enormous significance for all areas of philosophical inquiry and which has a rich, if often overlooked, philosophical history. This is the inherent finitude or ignorance which characterizes human knowledge and practice, what Peirce referred to as "fallibilism." Peirce's notion of fallibilism, which today remains his greatest legacy, tempers philosophical discussions of universal concepts such as truth and "the good" by way of considerations of scope and context, forcing such abstractions to find their place within the practical environments of actual lived existence. I offer that Peirce is perhaps a unique figure in the Western philosophical tradition with respect to the importance he gives to fallibilism and in his understanding the doctrine not only in terms of its negative consequences, but also a positive theory that generates a practical response to the sort of existential crisis introduced by the recognition of human fallibility and finitude. Ultimately, Pierce offers a naturalized model of the self which is both a semiotic artifact and communal in nature. The self is a sign that emerges within an interpretive community and which manifests itself as an individual primarily through its fallibility. As such, the self is a cultural artifact, but Peirce's metaphysics makes this a natural process continuous with those processes studied by natural sciences. As a scientist, he was committed to naturalism but not reductionism; his account, therefore, embraces the work of culture and the importance of cultural idioms which are often left out of modern naturalist projects. In this, Peirce offers a promising way to fulfill McDowell's project of "naturalizing" culture and "re-enchanting" nature, thereby eliminating the gap between "mind and the world." However, despite its importance to his philosophical system, Peirce's explicit treatment of selfhood is notably unfocused. It is therefore necessary to couple his philosophical system with that of another of the classical pragmatists who was deeply influenced by Peirce's philosophy but who extended its development into detailed discussions of selfhood and community. The figure I have in mind is Josiah Royce. Royce's philosophy hinges on two central notions, loyalty and community. Loyalty is, for Royce, the means by which individual selves are connected with communities and moral concerns. For Royce, loyalty is given first and foremost to an individual community. However his development of this concept comes to include loyalty to loyalty itself, thus making an individual's loyalty to a particular community continuous with a loyalty to a global community. Moreover, his account of community picks up on Peirce's semiotic theory of interpretation, and connects his account of the individual with Peirce's metaphysical and epistemological concerns. I read the theory of selfhood Royce develops as providing the crucial element that Peirce's philosophical system requires but does not explicitly provide. Throughout this discussion, I show how this model is a promising direction for the future course of contemporary philosophical naturalism. / Philosophy

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, KY longs for religious naturalist ritual, but a framework for cultivating leaders of religious naturalist ritual does not exist. This project will explore and encourage the development of religious naturalist ritual leadership in a Unitarian Universalist congregation through experimentation and engagement with established ritual theory. Using characteristics of ritual as outlined in the work of Richard Grimes, the intersection of pastoral care and ritual leadership, and ritual improvisation, an ethic of ritual leadership will start to emerge. From this theory of ritual leadership, a curriculum to create a Ritual Design Lab in a congregational context will be formed to form ritual leaders while creating rituals rooted in a religious naturalist worldview.

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This dissertation is a critique of synthetic ethical naturalism (SEN). SEN is a view in metaethics that comprises three key theses: first, there are moral properties and facts that are independent of the beliefs and attitudes of moral appraisers (moral realism); second, moral properties and facts are identical to (or constituted only by) natural properties and facts (ethical naturalism); and third, sentences used to assert identity or constitution relations between moral and natural properties are expressions of synthetic, a posteriori necessities. The last of these theses, which distinguishes SEN from other forms of ethical naturalism, is supported by a fourth: the semantic contents of the central moral predicates such as 'morally right' and 'morally good' are fixed in part by features external to the minds of speakers (moral semantic externalism). Chapter 1 introduces SEN and discusses the most common motivations for accepting it. The next three chapters discuss the influential "Moral Twin Earth" argument against moral semantic externalism. In Chapter 2, I defend this argument from the charge that the thought experiment upon which it depends is defective. In Chapters 3 and 4, I consider two attempts to amend SEN so as to render it immune to the Moral Twin Earth argument. I show that each of these proposed amendments amounts to an abandonment of SEN. Chapter Five explores Richard Boyd's proposal that moral goodness is a "homeostatic property cluster." If true, Boyd's hypothesis could be used to support several metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic claims made on behalf of SEN. I advance three arguments against this account of moral goodness. In the sixth chapter, I argue that moral facts are not needed in the best a posteriori explanations of our moral beliefs and moral sensibility. Because of this, those who accept a metaphysical naturalism ought to deny the existence of such facts or else accept skepticism about moral knowledge. In Chapter 7, I consider a counterargument on behalf of SEN to the effect that moral facts are needed in order to explain the predictive success of our best moral theories. I show that this argument fails.