In the last several decades, philosophers of biology have published countless books and articles on the causal mechanisms underlying evolutionary change. There has been scant effort devoted, however, to detailed analysis of what these mechanisms mean for the relationship between our best interpretations of evolutionary change and our metaphysical picture of the world. This thesis addresses some key aspects of that metaphysical picture. I argue for a metaphysically realist interpretation of dispositions as causally active in evolutionary biology. I address fitness and evolvability in particular, as they present two of the best possible case studies for a metaphysically realist interpretation of dispositions. I claim that dispositional realism is justified in part based on its empirical warrant. That is, as a metaphysics of science, it gives us all the metaphysics we need for making sense of the empirical success of science (especially biology), and no more. I present Ontic Structural Realism as an opposing view. Ontic Structural Realism argues for the dismissal of objects and dispositions on the basis of a certain interpretation of fundamental physics. I present some arguments against this view and in favor of my own.

The thought of Martin Heidegger is considered to make a drastic change from modern philosophical thought which begins with Descartes. The reason for the strong distinction that Heidegger makes between those philosophers and his own thought is a result of the way in which his understanding of the kind of being we have (Dasein) is different from conceptions of the human subject. Because traditional approaches to ethics incorporate this understanding of the human subject, an investigation of ethics from Heideggers presentation of Dasein is poised to lend new insights into what it means to be ethical. The point of this thesis, though, is not to find those ways in which Heideggers presentation of Dasein can add to our understanding of ethics. Instead, it is first to suggest that an understanding of Dasein can make sense of ethical language. In order to make the case that Dasein is ethical, it will first be required that we present those elements of Daseins being which are central to its distinction from the traditional human subject. The next task will be to examine this depiction of Dasein in relation to traditional ways ethics has been carried out. If we are able to find a connection between some key elements of Daseins being and what we traditionally think to be ethical, then we will have a strong base off of which to build a case for thinking that Dasein can be understood as an ethical kind of being. We will argue that there are such elements which give us strong reason to consider Dasein as ethical. Finally, it will be our task to show how these key elements interact with one another and are constitutive of Daseins being. We will argue that this can be done and that Dasein can be made the focus of a further ethical investigation.

This thesis examines the complex role of ethics within Psychoanalytic theory, finding not a prescriptive ethics, but a reference to ethics in the cathartic methodology that I argue underpinned Psychoanalytic thought from the very beginning. The introduction provides the reader with the necessary background to the material to be covered. The first chapter examines the neglectful attitude found throughout the foundational writings of Psychoanalytic theory in the work of Sigmund Freud, as well as covering two different methods by which ethics are often reduced, and which Freud successfully avoided. The second chapter seeks the origin of an alternative ethics in the traditional locus of freedom and agency: the ego, and explains how this assumption is problematic. The ego is shown to be surmounted through the cathartic method. The final chapter examines the processes of post-egoic ethics, shows their role in the Psychoanalytic relationship, and summarizes the entire project in the last two pages.

This thesis will explore the problem of implicit bias and motivate a negative definition of implicit bias. The first chapter takes a survey of implicit bias research in psychology and engages with Tamar Gendlers proposal of aliefs. Based on her description I argue that she is advocating for a model of implicit bias that consists of an addition or distortion to visual perception. I then explored implications of this model, including the tenacity of the additions to visual perception in the face of conflicting evidence and beliefs. Ultimately, I argue that her primary Cosmos Club example does not support her model of implicit bias and reinterpret her example to motivate a new model of implicitly biased perception. Combining the Cosmos Club example with alternative epistemologies, the second chapter demonstrates the importance of perspectival knowledge in formulating a model of implicit bias. Attention research indicates that executive control of attentional processes is motivated by top-down processes, and therefore the personal experiences, habits, and biases of the observer must necessarily be taken into account. Rather than focusing on individual differences in perceptual capacities and cognitive biases, I claimed that the occurrences of implicit bias in particular social groups (white, wealthy, etc.) demonstrates that the loci of measurable difference in perspective is at the intersection between different social groups determined by race, gender, age, sexuality, etc. After establishing the indispensability of group perspective, I then argued for a model of implicit bias as inattentional bias. The third and final chapter will delve into the cognitive science research into attention, and inattentional blindness. It will draw a comparison between positive and negative implicit bias and bottom-up and top-down attentional processes on visual perception. I will propose a model of perception that provides an explanation for inattentional blindness that is in accordance with the claims of epistemologists of ignorance that ignorance is active and can lead to implicit bias as de-selecting evidence. The thesis ends by suggesting what future research of negative implicit bias should focus on.

Following his newfound celebrity upon publication of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger delivered a lecture in 1927 and 1928, titled Phenomenology and Theology, where he discussed how his recent groundbreaking work in existential phenomenology relates to Christian theology. Far from offering his philosophy as a method for theology, he instead attempted to utterly separate the two, setting the former as fundamental ontology and the latter as a positive science more akin to history, with the Christian faith as its positive object of study. The lecture was left unpublished until 1969, when Heidegger added an appendix, a piece exemplary of the later Heideggers thought. The point of this thesis is to properly expound the lecture and provide critique regarding his classification of theology as a positive science. Due to his existential description of Christian faith, his formula of theology as the study thereof sets that science as an ontology more akin to philosophy than he allows. Rather than correct this problem, it is more fitting to let stand Heideggers existential definition of faith and elucidate its consequences for Christian theological praxis. This leads to Dietrich Bonhoeffers Act and Being, a dissertation on the role of ontology in Christian theology which addresses Heideggers phenomenology. Bonhoeffer claims that the Cross event in Christianity requires a Christian existential analysis independent of Heideggers own analytic of pre-Christian Dasein. Here I conclude that this provides an opening for theological work in ontology, one which theologians must take if they wish to assert independence from and fruitfully engage with philosophy. I then provide an epilogue concerning the appendix, where I suggest the later Heidegger himself recognizes this need for theology, though only in a subtle manner

This thesis attempts to create an ontology of the self using Nietzsches concept of will-to-power forces, which operate in the individual unconsciously, leading to non-linear individuation resulting from responding or participating in chance events. Individuation results non-linearly because of Nietzsches claim that the Deed has no doer and that subjects and thoughts rely on fictitiously created causal chains, but that in actuality there are nothing but chance events and competing forces of nature which shape the individual into non-linear directions. The individual can only respond as creatively as possible to moments which arise, once loss of ultimate control is embraced. The main original points in this thesis are the interpretations that Nietzsches will-to-power acts as unconscious processes in individuals, and that non-linear individuation results from the directions which are taken during the participation and mastery of chance events.

Throughout the history of science, philosophers and scientists alike have sought to codify a set of rules that would guarantee those who practice science success. These rules, if followed faithfully, would eliminate the guesswork from science, and instead, mold the practice of science into a rule - governed enterprise. Many philosophers of science have attempted to generate the rules that would govern successful scientific practice; however, with no success. Miriam Solomon attempts to give scientists heuristic advice by using a naturalistic approach in which she uses various case studies throughout the history of science to illustrate her approach. The core of Solomon's ideas surrounds her use of decision vectors, or those things that lead scientists to accept or reject a particular theory. Decision vectors can come from empirical data, or are based on conceptual biases, and are termed either empirical decision vectors, or non - empirical decision vectors. I use Solomon's guidelines and apply them to a case study in an attempt to demonstrate that her heuristic advice ought to be developed further if it is to proceed successfully. The Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis was developed by a group of scientists trying to establish a connection between chemical effluents leaching out into the environment and abnormal development in some species of animals. I have shown that Solomon's suggestions need to be developed further if they are to provide heuristic advice to scientists in the manner in which she strives. Solomon leaves unaddressed problems dealing with conceptual vagueness, such as when it is not clear if a decision vector is empirical or non - empirical. Moreover, though she says that the magnitude of non - empirical decision vectors does not figure in their tally, I have shown that her project cannot proceed unless she provides a clearer method for determining a strong ranking method for non - empirical decision vectors. To avoid making too hasty a mistake, I have refrained from making suggestions on the direction she should take in order to begin addressing some of the ambiguities present I this particular project.

This work is devoted to criticisms of libertarian philosophers who attempt to provide an account of agent freedom that relies solely upon indeterminism. First, the philosophy of Robert Kane is examined. I argue that Kane's account does not succeed as an intelligible libertarian account of freedom and at best makes compatibilist accounts more intuitive. I next examine objections to indeterminist accounts as lodged by Galen Strawson, Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Double before turning to an analysis of a debate among Peter van Inwagen, John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza. Van Inwagen argues that we are seldom able to do other than we do but as long as we are in some way responsible for this inability then this does not entail that we can only rarely be held responsible. Typical cases are those in which an agent's character determines a particular action and the agent is responsible for having the character she has. Fischer and Ravizza argue that van Inwagen's account is empty because the character of an agent is formed at an early age by forces beyond her control. I conclude by arguing, pace Kane and van Inwagen, that even if an action is determined by an agent's character and the agent is responsible for having that character, we still may not be able to hold the agent responsible in a significant amount of cases. Additionally, I attempt to provide a compatibilist solution to the problem of free will in an attempt to show that the ability to do otherwise is not relevant to the problem of free will.

In the ongoing philosophical debates between scientific realists and antirealists, scientific modeling is often taken as an exemplar antirealist scientific methodology due to the abstract, idealized, and metaphorical nature of most scientific models. I argue against the antirealist view and in favor of a realist view of scientific modeling as it is performed in biological morphology. On my view, morphological modeling is a type of what I call multiperspectival modeling, which involves multiple related models deployed to represent a single target phenomenon. I show how multiperspectival morphological modeling can be incorporated into the version of scientific realism developed by Richard Boyd, known as accommodationism, based on the role modeling plays in informing the definitions of natural kind terms and on the role theoretical judgments play in model construction and deployment. I claim that multiperspectival morphological models contribute to the inductive and explanatory successes of biological morphology by playing a central role in accommodating (on the one hand) the inferential, conceptual, and classificatory practices of morphology to (on the other hand) independently existing causal phenomena. I intend for the realist view of morphological models presented here to serve as an example for how scientific modeling can be interpreted realistically across scientific disciplines.

Moral Theories can often place implausible demands upon agents, and these demands generally provide the criteria for the denial of such theories. In his book, On What Matters, Derek Parfit provides a systematic critique of subjective theories, and concludes that normative demands generated through subject-given reasons are both highly implausible, and logically incoherent, and thus it is incumbent upon philosophers to recognize them as inept in creating normative force. Through an analysis of the Deliberative Theory of subjectivism, Parfit provides three arguments; the Agony, All or None, and Incoherence Arguments which he claims undermine subjective theories. In this thesis I argue that Parfit is mistaken in his view that Deliberative Subjectivists do not have a plausible response to Parfits critiques. Through the works of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Michael Smith, and Christine Korsgaard, subjectivists can formulate a theory of deliberation which adequately responds to Parfits challenges. By combining the use of procedural rules, subject-given desires, and pre-analytic moral intuitions, subjectivists can provide an account of normativity that does not depend upon ideal deliberation, as Parfit claims, and thus circumnavigates the challenges raised through Parfits three arguments.