Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Dept. of Philosophy, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

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In the 1840s, Søren Kierkegaard argued that the creation of impersonal media through the newspaper would level down human possibilities by turning every action into a spectacle for publicity. Nearly 200 years later, with smartphones whipped out to capture the most meaningful and trivial events as soon as they begin, we can ask the question—was Kierkegaard right to be worried? This essay will construct a Kierkegaardian analytic argument that our society has been leveled derived from Kierkegaard’s views as expressed in his philosophical analysis of leveling and the present age contained in Two Ages: A Literary Review. After arguing that our society is leveled, I will give an account of how leveling has developed and briefly explain Kierkegaard’s solution to leveling. Lastly, I will extrapolate Kierkegaard’s views of the press to the Internet and argue that the Internet presents new technological developments that force him to hold contradictory views on impersonal media.

<p>In <em>Being and Time</em> Martin Heidegger explores the role that death plays in our lives and consequently the impact that the death of others has on the lives of those around them. Since Heidegger understands our existence to be structured by our being toward death and our being in the world with others, the impact of death on society will inevitably play a significant role.</p> <p>In this thesis I investigate the disconnect that exists between the traditional literature on death and mourning as developed by theorists like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and others and the experiences of mourners themselves. I argue that the disconnect that exists points to and deep seated confusion about the death of the self and the death of others</p> <p>I identify some of the striking commonalities in the experiences of mourners and the lack of recognition of these experiences in the traditional literature. I also examine the role of traditional mourning practices and the impact they have on the mourners experience.</p> <p>I maintain that collectively we are profoundly confused about how to deal with the deaths of others, and the lack of modern western mourning practices is evidence of this. However, I believe that individually, we have some understanding of how to approach the death of another, and that this becomes evident when we are forced to experience this loss. I argue that a Heideggerian understanding of death and mourning more accurately represents the experience of the death of others and, if endorsed, would allow for a more personal experience of mourning because of Heidegger’s unique understanding of the role death plays in our lives and the significance of other people in our lives.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

I am analyzing Nietzsche's idea of independence found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Genealogy of Morals. I am arguing that democracy can lead us to the ultimate form of independence, yet Nietzsche seems to disagree.

<p>For many of us, the events of 9/11 served as a violent birth into a new era. In subsequent years, we have witnessed a mechanical vacillation between reaction and revenge in the domain of politics, at a time where terrorism and counter-terrorism are virtually indistinct. September 11^th was by no means the genesis of xenophobia, but it has been complicit in the production of a global climate where an understanding of xenophobic logic is increasingly relevant.</p> <p>In this thesis, I begin with an analysis of the conceptual anatomy of xenophobia and its relation to ideas of sameness and difference, identity, selfhood, “Otherness” and community. In the second chapter, I provide a taxonomy of xenophobia, differentiating this “exclusive” mode of prejudice from “inclusive” modes. I analyze contemporary manifestations of xenophobia under this framework. In the final chapter, I conclude with an exploration of the manner in which communities may be re-envisioned, in order to avoid identity-essentialism and encourage freedom of action in the political domain.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Describes a theory of gaming inspired primarily by Jean Baudrillard’s claim that gaming is characterized by a “passion for rules.” Key elements of the theory include that games are an attempt to create a new reality, that games create a space for individuality even in an otherwise homogenized world, and that pain and happiness are not diametrically opposed concepts to the gamer. The theory also emphasizes the importance of the player’s meeting with the “superplayer,” the player’s own constructed ideal that he tries to imitate within the game world. This theory of gaming is then applied to the 14th century British poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight both as a demonstration of the theory and to offer a new perspective on the poem. Gawain’s character in the poem is argued as being the archetype of the modern gamer, escaping from an oppressive hegemony by daring to follow the superplayer’s seduction into the passionate world of gaming.

Through an emphasis on the formal similarities in black and white photographs of human bodies and rocks, I attempt to shift my viewer’s existential conception of the “self” by communicating a pansychistic and ecofeminist message which inspires humility in one’s place in the world and justification for the necessity of compassion for nature.

This essay considers the relationship between the creative and philosophical writings of Graça Aranha, in part as response to the critical tendency to exclude the majority of his works when analyzing his oeuvre. Aranha’s major work of philosophy, The Aesthetic of Life, proclaims that aesthetic experience is the “basis of perfection”: the solution the alienation initiated by the duality of consciousness. Yet, the aestheticism of his philosophical treatise is ruthlessly tested through the dramatic embodiment found in his three works of fiction: Canaan (novel), Malazarte (play), The Marvelous Journey (novel). Aranha’s interest in philosophical dialectic is manifested most effectively in the drama of ideas which runs through his fiction. Consequently, Aranha’s works should be evaluated and explicated with attention to the ways in which they comment on each other. In particular, the fictional works suggest a negative aspect to Aranha’s aesthetic concept of the marvelous. The three creative works employ and anticipate ideas found in Psychoanalytic theory, Marxist theory, and Existentialism in order to illustrate that the marvelous experience is a kind of death of the subject. Additionally, this essay contributes to the critical dialogue over Aranha’s place in or outside of Brazilian modernism. The representation of Brazilian dance and ritual found in the two novels are explored as a noteworthy modernist approach to the questions of cultural and aesthetic decadence that influenced the modernist period in both Europe and Brazil. / text

<p>For hermeneutics, liberal universality—the belief that rights for being humans <em>as such</em> are universally true—is a sort of <em>subjective</em> universality. Subjectivity is just another way of saying that universality is historically situated, and whoever claims universality cannot objectify herself from her own history; accordingly, universality is not universality-as-the-thing-is (a sort of “objective” universality), but universality-for-person P -in-her-historical-situation, even if the claimer is totally unaware of the restrictions imposed by her own tradition and historicity.</p> <p>Subjective universality reveals the fact that the content of universality is affected by the <em>personal dimension</em> of its claimer. That is, the claimer’s personal background, including culture, language, tradition, education, social-economical aspects, even gender and race, are reflected, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, in her view of what universality ought to be.</p> <p>How to treat the <em>other­</em>— a political and metaphysical category of existence that is radically different from oneself—reveals the subjective nature of liberal universality. In history, this subjectivity worked negatively, for liberals, to select and exclude some groups e.g. women, the propertyless, and the colonized subjects. But in light of our contemporary understanding of what is truly free and equal, this subjectivity can function positively to assure respect for the other and avoid producing new types of alienated other. The advocated liberal approach is a hermeneutic approach, which asserts the practices of being humble, dialogical, non-violent, and voluntarily self-dislocated, in dealing with the other.</p> / Master of Philosophy (MA)