Thesis (doctoral)--Frankfurt am Main, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-235).

xi, 266 p. / This dissertation employs recent developments in the cognitive sciences to explicate competing social and religious undercurrents in Beowulf. An enduring scholarly debate has attributed the poem's origins to, variously, Christian or polytheistic worldviews. Rather than approaching the subject with inherited terms which originated in Judeo-Christian assumptions of religious identity, we may distinguish two incongruous ways of conceiving of agency, both human and divine, underlying the conventional designations of pagan and Christian. One of these, the poly-agent schema, requires a complex understanding of the motivations and limitations of all sentient individuals as causal agents with their own internal mental complexities. The other, the omni-agent schema, centralizes original agency in the figure of an omnipotent and omnipresent God and simplifies explanations of social interactions. In this concept, any individual's potential for intentional agency is limited to subordination or resistance to the will of God. The omni-agent schema relies on social categorization to understand behavior of others, whereas the poly-agent schema tracks individual minds, their intentions, and potential actions. Whereas medieval Christian narratives, such as Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert and Augustine's Confessions, depend on the omni-agent schema, Beowulf relies more heavily on the poly-agent schema, which it shares with Classical and Norse myths, epics, and sagas. While this does not prove that the poem originated before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, it suggests that the poem was able to preserve an older social schema which would have been discouraged in post-conversion cultures were it not for a number of passages in the poem which affirmed conventional Christian theology. These theological asides describe an omni-agent schema in abstract terms, though they accord poorly with the representations of character thought and action within the poem. This minimal affirmation of a newer model of social interaction may have enabled the poem's preservation on parchment in an age characterized by the condemnation, and often violent suppression, of non-Christian beliefs. These affirmations do not, however, tell the whole story. / Committee in charge: James W. Earl, Chairperson; Louise Westling, Member; Lisa Freinkel, Member; Mark Johnson, Outside Member

xi, 202 p. / This dissertation examines the legal and national dimensions of citizenship, focusing on the nature of social justice, multiculturalism and state formation in light of an increasing "migrant" population in the United States. For many individuals, Hispanic people and undocumented immigrants are outside of stereotypic understandings of "American" and the legal structure of the United States. Seeking to question this belief and the subsequent political atmosphere it engenders, this work presents the challenges that Hispanic people and undocumented persons pose to the central tenants of liberal political theory and the politics of recognition. Liberal theories of justice that assume the nation-state as their starting point and ignore the international elements of 21st century societies need reconsideration. Although John Rawls's work remains central to this tradition, by constricting his theory of justice to a closed, self-sustaining polity that assumes all persons behind the veil of ignorance to be citizens, the trajectory of liberal political thought after his work evades the question of citizenship and the possibility of social justice for undocumented people. Although conversations about "multicultural citizenship" are abundant in North American political contexts, these discussions focus on the national representation of minority peoples and ignore the legal aspects of citizenship and the reality of undocumented immigration. Philosophers that do think about undocumented persons argue for international theories of justice, human rights or cosmopolitanism. These are positive steps in thinking about social justice for immigrants, but they only matter insofar as they do not impinge upon state sovereignty and render social justice for immigrants a secondary issue. While Latin American political thinkers such as Enrique Dussel ground the origins of political power in the citizenry of states, they nonetheless assume the category of "citizen" to be uncontested. Thus, even in settings where radical political change is underway, the basis of state membership remains to be defined and freed of racial (or even "post-racial") expectations. I undertake this project in terms of Estadounidense or "Unitedstatesian" citizenship, a concept that combats ethnocentric beliefs about the meaning of "American" while also informing of more open understandings of legal citizenship and porous conceptions of the state. / Committee in charge: Naomi Zack, Chairperson; Cheyney Ryan, Member; Scott Pratt, Member; Michael Hames-Garcia, Outside Member

xv, 256 p. : ill. / This dissertation stages a reciprocal critique between traditional and marginal philosophical approaches to language on the one hand and interdisciplinary studies of speech-accompanying hand gestures on the other. Gesturing with the hands while speaking is a ubiquitous, cross-cultural human practice. Yet this practice is complex, varied, conventional, nonconventional, and above all under-theorized. In light of the theoretical and empirical treatments of language and gesture that I engage in, I argue that the hand gestures that spontaneously accompany speech are a part of language; more specifically, they are enactments of linguistic meaning. They are simultaneously (acts of) cognition and communication. Human communication and cognition are what they are in part because of this practice of gesturing. This argument has profound implications for philosophy, for gesture studies, and for interdisciplinary work to come. As further, strong proof of the pervasively embodied way that humans make meaning in language, reflection on gestural phenomena calls for a complete re-orientation in traditional analytic philosophy of language. Yet philosophical awareness of intersubjectivity and normativity as conditions of meaning achievement is well-deployed in elaborating and refining the minimal theoretical apparatus of present-day gesture studies. Triangulating between the most social, communicative philosophies of meaning and the most nuanced, reflective treatments of co-speech hand gesture, I articulate a new construal of language as embodied, world-embedded, intersubjectively normative, dynamic, multi-modal enacting of appropriative disclosure. Spontaneous co-speech gestures, while being indeed spontaneous, are nonetheless informed in various ways by conventions that they appropriate and deploy. Through this appropriation and deployment speakers enact, rather than represent, meaning, and they do so in various linguistic modalities. Seen thusly, gestures provide philosophers with a unique new perspective on the paradoxical determined-yet-free nature of all human meaning. / Committee in charge: Mark Johnson, Chairperson; Ted Toadvine, Member; Naomi Zack, Member; Eric Pederson, Outside Member

xii, 163 p. / The principle of respect for autonomy has been the center of gravity for the doctor-patient relationship for forty years, replacing the previous defining concept of physician paternalism. In this work, I seek to displace respect for patient autonomy with narrative and phronesis as the skills that must be mastered by the physician to engender a successful therapeutic clinical relationship. Chapter I reviews the current state of affairs in the philosophy of medicine and the doctor-patient relationship and explains how and why autonomy has become so central to physicians' understanding of how to conduct a clinical encounter with a patient. Chapter II argues that "respect for autonomy," while remaining a valid rule to be considered in some clinical relationships, cannot be the central concept that defines the relationship both because it fails to describe accurately human selfhood and also because it empirically lacks universal applicability--many humans, and most seriously ill patients, actually lack autonomy. Shared decision making, an autonomy-based model of the doctor-patient relationship, suffers from this critique of autonomy as well as its own shortcomings in that it maintains a strict fact/value distinction that is untenable. Chapter III introduces narrative philosophy and its extrapolation, narrative medicine, as a possible alternative to an autonomy model of care. I defend a narrative view of selfhood, while recognizing that even if we are in some sense narratively constituted, this still leaves many questions regarding the relationship between story and self, particularly in a clinical encounter. In Chapter IV, I seek to limit the claims of narrative by arguing that story and self can never be fully equated and that narrative must be understood as demonstrating alterity rather than eliminating it. In Chapter V, a new conception of the physician's role in the doctor-patient relationship is presented, combining phronesis, or practical wisdom, with narrative skill in four aspects of the clinical encounter: diagnosis, treatment, assistance in medical decision making, and emotional support of the patient. / Committee in charge: Naomi Zack， Chairperson； Cheyney Ryan， Member； Mark Johnson， Member； Mary Wood， Outside Member

A thesis submitted to the College of Dental Medicine of Nova Southeastern University of the degree of Master of Science in Dentistry. Objective: This study aimed to determine and compare the esthetic preference of the general public, dentists, orthodontists and prosthodontists in relation to the width of the most anatomically variable tooth in the mouth, the maxillary lateral incisor. Background: The general public today places more importance on facial esthetics than they have in the past and their esthetic preferences are evolving. The smile is a main feature of facial esthetics and its attractiveness is based in part on the size and proportion of the anterior teeth. The lateral incisors are the most variable in size and there is a continuing debate in the literature with conflicting reports about how wide they should be in proportion to their neighboring teeth. Methods: Two sets of seven images of frontal and oblique (three-quarter) smile views were created with Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 by morphing two "Master Smile" images. The seven images within each set had different width proportions of lateral incisors. However, they were identical in every other aspect such as differences in lip thickness or tooth shape to diminish the impact of compounding variables between photographs. A link to an online survey was distributed by email to four groups: laypeople, general dentists, orthodontists and prosthodontists. Subjects taking the survey ranked the seven photographs in each set from the most to the least esthetic based on their personal preference. The results were studied to ascertain whether the general public has an esthetic preference in the width of lateral incisors and, if that preference exists, whether it is different from that of trained dental professionals. Results: In a frontal view of a smile, the global preference for the width of a lateral incisor falls into the range of 62.5-72.5% of the width of the central incisor. The probability that the most preferred choice is 67.5% or greater is 66%. In the frontal view there was no statistically significant difference between professions. Non-Hispanic white respondents preferred slightly more narrow laterals than other ethnicities in the frontal view. Respondents older than forty preferred slightly wider laterals than respondents under forty in the frontal view. In the oblique view, there was a 69% probability that the most preferred choice was the largest option: a lateral incisor 91.5% of the width of the visible width of the central incisor. In the oblique view, the three groups of dental professionals were more likely than the general public to select a wider incisor as the most esthetic option. Conclusion: Preference for smile attractiveness can be significantly influenced by the width of lateral incisors in a frontal and oblique view. Orthodontist, general dentists, and prosthodontists were shown to be in general agreement with the public in preferring a wider lateral incisor viewed from a frontal smile. In an oblique view, their professions had a statistically significant impact on the difference between their choices compared to laypeople in that they preferred a slightly wider lateral incisor. All groups preferred significantly wider laterals than is proscribed by the Golden Proportion.

Faculty in higher education overtly teach content and skills to their students in their courses. However, faculty teach and demonstrate a tacit curriculum in their interactions with their students as well. This study examined how faculty believe they articulate and personally demonstrate these tacit goals and objectives to their students. This study examined the interview responses of ten female university English instructors. The faculty were questioned regarding the values, moral principles, ethical standards, and academic goals that they believe they demonstrate and enforce among their students. In addition, faculty were asked if they believed if the elements changed over time as faculty gained teaching experience or if they changed according to the students' academic rank. As the data from this study was coded, a grounded theory of the tacit curriculum in higher education emerged. This grounded theory can best be seen as a developmental model through which female English Department faculty progress as they gain classroom teaching experience. Faculty in this study progressed through three stages in their development as teachers; Show-Off Lecturer, Audience Respecter, and Mentor/Teacher, and developed a tacit curriculum as they gained teaching experience. These stages correspond with movement from novice to expert status in teaching. The presence of this developmental model lends credence to the phenomenological model of human learning developed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus and supports Polanyi's concepts of the personal and tacit dimensions of human knowing. This responses in this study indicate that as faculty develop teaching skill, they also develop tacit moral aims to their teaching. It is unclear if the development of these moral aims are deferred until tenure is obtained or if the process of their development just takes about the same time as the tenure process. In addition, while there is no way to exclude all other influencing factors in the faculty member's lives, the data in this study suggests that experience is central in the development of the faculty's tacit moral curriculum.

The central aim of this thesis is to analyse the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer. This relationship has been almost universally recognized. And yet this area has received no comprehensive study, limited within the secondary literature to footnotes, digressions, and the occasional paper. Furthermore, what little literature there is has been plagued by several stereotypes. First, discussion is often limited to Discipleship. Second, Kierkegaard has been identified as an individualist and acosmist who rejected the church, leading many to consider Bonhoeffer the ecumenist and ecclesiologist as selectively agreeing with Kierkegaard, but ultimately rejecting his overall stance. This thesis will argue that neither stereotype is true, and suggest (a), that Kierkegaard’s influence can be found throughout Bonhoeffer’s work, and (b) that although a more stereotypical perspective may be present in SC, by the end of his life Bonhoeffer had gained a far deeper understanding across the breadth of Kierkegaard’s work. The importance of this thesis is not simply to ‘plug the gap’ of scholarship in this area, but also to suggest the importance of analysing Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer together. This will focus on three specific areas. First, alongside the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer, it will argue for the importance of using Bonhoeffer as an interpretive tool for understanding Kierkegaard. This thesis will show how Bonhoeffer adopted and adapted Kierkegaard’s work to his own situation, forcing Kierkegaard to answer questions that were not present during his own life. In this way, we are led to compare Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer as individuals, and not simply their static declarations. Secondly, against the tendency to consider Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer’s final attacks on Christendom as unfortunate endings to otherwise profound careers, it will be suggested that these attacks stand as the fulfilment of their earlier thought. It will be argued that despite their different contexts, both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer were led to the same conclusions concerning Christendom. Thirdly, given Kierkegaard’s submission to indirect communication and his somewhat 'prophetic' proclamations concerning one who will come after him and reform, this thesis will ask whether Bonhoeffer stands as something of a fulfilment to Kierkegaard’s thought in the guise of a Kierkegaardian ‘reformer’.

The notion that we are voluntary agents who exercise power to choose and, in doing so, determine some of what happens in the world has been an important notion in certain theological accounts concerning our relationship with God (e.g. 'the freewill defence' for God's goodness and omnipotence in light of moral evil and accounts of human moral responsibility in relation to God). However, it has been claimed that the physicalism supported by contemporary neuroscience research calls into question human voluntary agency and, with it, human power to choose. Emergentist (or non-reductive physicalist) accounts of psychological phenomena have been presented as a way of reconciling the physicalism supported by contemporary neuroscience and the theologically important notion of human power to choose. But there are several issues that remain for the plausibility of the required kind of emergentist account; namely - Does recent neuroscience research show that voluntary agency is an illusion? and Is there evidence for neurophysiological causes which, along with neurophysiological conditions, determine all we do? In this dissertation I set out to address these issues and, in doing so, present an account of voluntary agency as power to choose in the state of being aware of alternatives. I argue that this account allows for the notion that human beings determine some of what happens in a way that is consistent with what contemporary neuroscience shows. Thus, contemporary neuroscience does not undermine this notion of human voluntary agency; or, then, the predominant theological view that we are morally responsible in our relationship with God.

Horrendous evils pose distinctive challenges for belief in an ethically perfect God. To home in on these challenges, I construct an ethical framework for theodicy by sketching four cases of human action where horrors are either caused, permitted, or risked, either for pure benefit (i.e., a benefit that does not avert a still greater harm) or for harm avoidance. I then bring the framework and the moral valuations confirmed by this casuistry to bear on the project of theodicy. I construct four analogous structures – one for each case – and identify examples of each structure in theodicies in contemporary philosophy of religion. I summarize each theodicy and evaluate whether it is structurally promising with respect to horrendous evils. That is, if the proposed interconnected set of facts and reasons were true, would God be ethically in the clear? My initial conclusions impugn the dominant structural approach of depicting God as causing or permitting horrors in individual lives for the sake of some merely pure benefit. This approach is insensitive to relevant asymmetries in the justificatory demands made by horrendous and non-horrendous evil and in the justificatory work done by averting harm and bestowing pure benefit. I next argue that the structurally promising theodicies I have identified are implausible due to their overestimation of the extent to which finite human agents can bear primary responsibility for horrendous evils and their underestimation of the importance for theodicy of being consonant with a broadly Darwinian approach to evolutionary theory. The project of theodicy is in trouble. The second half of my thesis develops an approach to theodicy that falls outside my proffered taxonomy. Following a suggestion of Leibniz, Robert Adams has argued that theodicy can be aided by the insight that almost all of the evil of the actual world is metaphysically necessary for the community of actual world inhabitants to be comprised of the specific individuals who comprise it. Beginning with this insight, I develop (what I term) Non-Identity Theodicy. It suggests that God allows the evil he does in order to create and love the specific individuals comprising the community of inhabitants of the actual world. This approach to theodicy is unique because the justifying good recommended is neither harm-aversion nor pure benefit. It is not a good that betters the lives of individual human persons (for they wouldn’t exist otherwise), but it is the individual human persons themselves. In order to aim successfully at the creation of particular individuals, however, God would need a control of history so complete that it might be argued to be inconsistent with beliefs about human free will that are important to some theologies. I construct a second version of Non-Identity Theodicy designed to avoid this problem by considering whether God’s justifying motivation for allowing the evil of this world could be his aiming for beings of our type, even if it could not be his aiming for particular individuals. I suggest that God would be interested in loving those he creates under various descriptions (e.g., biological, psychological, and narrative descriptions), and argue that a horror-prone environment is necessary for us to be the type of being we are under each of the descriptions. I assess the structural promise and plausibility of Non-Identity Theodicy. In order to do so, I engage with Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem and with some influential assumptions in the ethics of procreation literature. I end by recapping what I take to be the key areas of overemphasis and under-emphasis in contemporary theodicy.