The nature of mathematical theorizing underwent a dramatic transformation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mathematicians are prone to describe this transformation by saying that mathematics became more 'conceptual' and that, consequently, we have come to enjoy more and better 'understanding' in mathematics. The purpose of my dissertation is to introduce a configuration of philosophical notions that allows us to analyze the epistemic significance of these changes. In order to arrive at such a configuration, I conduct a case study in which I compare two approaches to the solvability of polynomial equations by radicals, one characteristic of 19th century mathematics, another characteristic of 20th century mathematics. I use the pre-philosophically visible differences between the two approaches to motivate a new epistemological notion I call cognitive control. To have cognitive control over an epistemic process such as reading or writing a proof is to have epistemic guidance for the process in virtue of having an epistemic scaffolding. To have epistemic guidance at a given juncture in a process is to have a constellation of cognitive resources that allows one to represent the different possible ways of pursuing the process further; to have an epistemic scaffolding for a process is to have a suitably organized representation of the epistemically possible facts in the range of facts one has chosen to examine. I apply the notion of cognitive control to two proofs of the fact that there is no general formula for a solution by radicals for polynomial equations of degree 5, again one characteristic of 19th century mathematics, another characteristic of 20th century mathematics. I argue that we enjoy much better cognitive control over the process of reading the 20th century proof than we do over the process of reading the 19th century proof. This suggests that the epistemic significance of the said changes in the nature of mathematical theorizing consists, at least in part, in the circumstance that the conceptual resources of 20th century mathematics allow us to enjoy more and better cognitive control over the epistemic processes in mathematical research and learning.

In this philosophical project, I discuss the different kinds of companion animal and human relations, or in other words, and provide an argument that specifies our ethical obligations to the animals we live with-our pets. In the first chapter, I suggest that there are three types of relationships that humans can have with animals. These are a relation of instrumentalism, paternalism, and companionism, respectively. Such relations rest along a spectrum, but I will argue that companionism is the ideal. After making and defending such conceptual distinctions between human-animal relations, the next chapter will tackle the problem of animal minds. Specifically, I will argue first that, though we cannot know exactly what an animal is feeling or thinking, it is safe to assume first that animals do in fact have mental states. Secondly, Ill argue that animals in fact experience very complex emotions and work according to what seems to be akin to practical reason. Finally, Ill argue that it is possible to attribute mental content to them accurately. Accurate attributions must be based on science and must be done under a caring disposition. Next, chapter three will discuss what it means to care for another being, both human and animal, and it will posit that the relation of companionism, the ideal human-animal relationship, is modeled as an animal care ethic. This ethic is richer than an egalitarian and impartial animal ethic operating under deontology or utilitarianism. Ill show why the care tradition in ethics works as a better framework for companion animals than the justice tradition. In the fourth chapter, I will conclude with a discussion of what an ethic of companionism would look like if it were practiced in an end-of-life context.

As it is currently being discussed, hydraulic fracturing or fracking is the unconventional method of drilling and extracting oil and natural gas. Fracking starts at the earths surface where the technology is created and the sites are constructed. The process continues downward: drills pierce thousands of feet vertically and then horizontally underground. Then, millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals (referred to as fracking fluid or slick water) are pumped at high pressure through the pipe so as to fracture shale deposits and release gas or oil. Whether to allow fracking and its associated industrial activity is a complex and heated controversy. The mainstream positions on the issue are typically divided between concerns for the environment and the economy. My subsequent argument against fracking moves beyond both of these mainstream positions. The following argument against fracking is moral and moves in the opposite direction than fracking; it starts from the bottom and moves upward. At the bottom layer, I point out that fracking violates necessary obligations of environmental justice. At the middle layer, I claim, fracking threatens local moral solidarity as I conceive it. Finally, at the top layer, I argue fracking collides with the good life and human flourishing. In other words, I claim fracking not only hinders the availability of necessary material goods, like clean water and air, it also significantly impedes human flourishing. Moreover, fracking promotes or propagates a life of consumption that displaces the good life. I argue against fracking because of its insidious and neglected moral implications. The following three chapters are moral layers; starting at my claim that fracking violates necessary obligations of environmental justice and ascending toward the social and then the material conditions of daily life. The layers of the argument are interconnected, just like the layers of the fracking process itself. By shedding light on how fracking impedes the good life I aim to bring attention to the issue in way that is has yet to be assessed.

This professional paper investigates and questions the extent to which romantic love is a matter of agency. Toward this end, I draw a distinction between two contrasting conceptions of romantic lovethe agent-external conception and the agent-centered conception. In this paper I make the assumption that the agent-external conception is pervasive and commonplace in contemporary culture, and that it conceives of romantic love as being involuntary and without agency. My investigation then questions the accuracy of this agent-external conception by juxtaposing it with what I consider to be an agent-centered conception of romantic love. An agent-centered conception, I claim, conceives of romantic love as being a purposive and voluntary endeavor constituted by certain practices on the part of the lover indicative of agency. In order to justify this claim, I examine various practices involved in romantic loving that instantiate this agency. In doing so I not only suggest that romantic love is, to an extent, constituted by practices indicative of agency but that the agent-external conception fails to account for these instances. By examining a commonplace appearance and beliefwhich holds that the romantic lover is involuntarily compelled to love her belovedI suggest that an agent-centered conception of romantic love can explain that while this appearance does exist, it is nevertheless wrong in its assertion that romantic love is without agency. By investigating some important features of romantic love I propose that an agent-centered conception is better suited to account for this commonplace appearance, which is often used as evidence for the agent-external conception. The upshot of this investigation suggests that an agent-centered conception more accurately recognizes the extent to which romantic love involves and is a matter of agency.

Working at the nexus of bioethics and disability studies, I argue that the quest for human enhancement is at least partially motivated by the rejection of the disabled body. In other words, positive and negative eugenics are paired together in bioethical treatments of enhancement. To demonstrate this, I critically assess the work of transhumanist bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, who strongly promote an assortment of enhancement strategies as moral obligations. I carry my assessment forward by drawing from Michel Foucault and feminist disability studies and using the transhumanist strategy of negative genetic selection as a case study. I claim that transhumanism is perniciously utopian; it figures disability as a site of risk and seeks the proliferation of choice for a utopian agent through radical medical interventions. Marking this restrictive location of disability, which defines disability against a utopian body, I describe parallels between bioethical and political images of disability by investigating the location of disability in liberal theory. Both locations are restrictive and attach stigma to persons with disabilities.

In this dissertation, I establish that Ludwig Wittgensteins and Michel Foucaults thoughts share a common philosophical ethos of freedom which shapes the political dimensions of their works. As opposed to accusations on and interpretations of their works as suggesting and prescribing a conservative line of political thought, I argue that being shaped by the normative demands of the ethos of freedom, their thoughts resist such conservative understandings and press us to read and judge them in the medium of radical transformative politics. This is because while the conservative interpretations of their works diminish the range and effectiveness of Wittgensteins and Foucaults philosophical claims on our political thought, the context of radical transformative politics allow us to appreciate and use their thoughts in a wider and richer range to politically articulate our concerns, discontents, and dissatisfactions. Such an ethos steers their thoughts towards an incessant questioning of the limits and constraints imposed on our lives by grammar and the discursive order. The ethos of freedom, in this sense, conveys a sense of politics as a battle against these false necessities that deny us a wide range of possibilities available in our human form of life. I call such a philosophical/political endeavor politics of grammar because both Wittgenstein and Foucault point to the level of the grammar of our concepts as the site in which these false necessities are formed and sustained. Accordingly, they both suggest that a critique of the grammar of our concepts is a critique of our form of life shaped by the constraints of our grammar. The form of this critique is therapeutic in the sense that it constantly reminds us of the historical contingency of such constraints rendering them accessible and available for political interventions and negotiations.

This dissertation is intended as an intervention in the interminable and apparently antinomical philosophical exchange between political theories of radical democracy descended from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and liberal democracy descended from John Rawls. Radical democrats have deployed the friend-enemy distinction of Carl Schmitt to criticize liberal democracy as hypocritical and ultimately undemocratic in its refusal to critique its own ground; liberal democrats have riposted by characterizing radical democracy as dangerously anarchic. In this project, I read Immanuel Kant in dialog with the work of Ingeborg Maus to show in a novel way that contemporary radical democratic theories ultimately fall to the very critique upon which they indict liberal democracy, that they degenerate into the valorization of mere war, and that it was in fact in full recognition of this dynamic that Kants theory of liberal democracy begins. Kants theory of countervailing liberalism is ultimately discovered to be a politics of love over barbarism. The project ranges over a wide ground, from a close reading of Kant, to the 19th Century Pantheismusstreit, to works by Arendt, Hardt and Negri, Žižek, and Strauss.

The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that semantic conventionalism of a, more or less, Dummettian variety is unjustly neglected in contemporary philosophy. The strategy for arguing this is to make a conjecture about why people ignore it; there seem to be two plausible reasons: 1) there are (what people take to be) obviously preferable candidates on offer; 2) there are (what people take to be) knock-down arguments against semantic conventionalism. In response to 1), I consider intentionalist Gricean semantics, and argue it is at least no better off than conventionalist theories. Of course, any number of theories could be used oppose semantic conventionalism. But the Gricean theory is seen as particularly strong, and showing that it is no better off makes my case for the viability of semantic conventionalism all the more compelling. For 2) I consider three possible reasons for thinking that conventionalism has been refuted. Chapter Three concerns the objection that semantic conventionalism depends on the existence of ``luminous'' psychological states, of which there are none (according to Williamson's anti-luminosity argument). I agree with Williamson, and reject luminosity as part of a viable conventionalist theory. Chapter Four supposes that semantic conventionalist theories depend on the (untenable) analytic/synthetic distinction to avoid collapse into holism. However, I also reject the analytic/synthetic distinction for a more favourable distinction. In Chapter Five, the objection I consider is that semantic conventionalism involves an epistemically constrained notion of truth and so collapses into incoherence because of the knowability paradox. However, my response to this is that the semantic conventionalist should be happy with such an epistemic account of truth and that it does not lead to the knowability paradox. The paradox can, and is, resolved in this chapter. So, (1) and (2) are false. The concluding chapter brings together all that we have learned throughout the dissertation about what a defensible version of conventionalism might look like.

In the case of miracle reports, David Hume famously argued that there is something about "the very nature of the fact" to which the testimony testifies which contains the seeds of the testimony's destruction as credible evidence. The Humean idea, still held by several important contemporary philosophers, is that the very concept of miracle has logical implications for the world, these implications (especially those arising from a miracle's law-violating nature) make a miracle extremely improbable, and so, at least for thinking people, reports of a miracle's occurrence are rendered unbelievable. Hume and apparently some of his contemporary disciples view this feature of miracle reports as an "everlasting check" against reasonable belief in reports of <I>any</I> miracle's occurrence. </P><P> At the risk of seeming unfair to Hume, but taking seriously Hume and company's apparent judgment that the Humean argument is at least a <I>present day</I> check on miracle reports, this dissertation transfers the heart of the Humean argument <I>into the present</I> and it makes a case for thinking that, today, the Humean argument <I>backfires</I>. In this dissertation a close conceptual look is taken of the "very nature" of the miraculous object of a miracle testimony, a very nature paradigmatically given to us in the reports of Jesus' (allegedly) miraculous resurrection and virgin birth; and then an examination occurs of the logical implications of this conceptual analysis in the context of what science tells us is reasonable to believe about the world at the beginning of the 21st century, and in the context of what some moral philosophizing allows us to reasonably believe as well. The result, this dissertation contends, is that, contrary to what Hume and company think, the concept of miracle contains the seeds not for <I>weakening</I>the credibility of a miracle testimony but for <I>strengthening</I> it. </P><P> The thesis of this dissertation is the following: On the specification of a miracle concept that is comprehensive enough to capture such paradigm cases as Jesus' allegedly miraculous resurrection and virgin birth (and which does not include a violation of a law of nature clause in its definition), certain features of this concept's metaphysical and moral implications - when examined in the context of some implied/predicted findings from contemporary science plus some implied/predicted discernments from moral philosophy - serve to enhance the plausibility of a hypothesis which employs the miracle concept to describe the operation of a theoretical causal entity or power to make sense of some facts which suggest such an operation. </P>

Martha Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is integral to her capabilities approach. She argues that dignity is rooted in the flourishing and striving of animals. Her view is distinct from Kant’s, as Kant claims that persons have dignity in virtue of their rational nature. Though Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is important to her approach, its exact content and its relation to her thought is not clearly stated in her work, and I will attempt to provide an overview of Nussbaum’s conception of dignity. Also I will compare and contrast Nussbaum’s dignity with Kant’s (and contemporary Kantians’). Nussbaum provides four reasons for why her approach is superior to the Kantian split between rationality and animality, all of which I will examine. Finally, I will look at three areas of Nussbaum’s theory which require further exploration.