Senior Honors thesis--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 12, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 1999. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 24 p. : col. ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 19).

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1945. / Bibliography: p. 215-217.

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1945. / Bibliography: p. 215-217.

Thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universität Berlin. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 481-501).

This essay is primarily an examination of a view, propounded by Richard Rorty at the beginning of the last decade, about the nature and existence of minds and mental states. The view is a species of eliminative materialism, and one which is of historical importance in the development of this general position. I argue that it is false. I also attempt to draw some positive conclusions in the philosophy of mind from a criticism of some of its underlying assumptions. Rorty's fundamental idea is that the belief in the existence of minds and mental states is a primitive scientific theory, which in all likelihood is soon to be overthrown by the superior theory of neurophysiology. It will then be rational, he claims to deny the existence of minds and mental states. Essential to Rorty's argument for this view is the notion that mental states have a property which the neural states of the replacing theory lack, namely of being the proper subjects of certain in corrigible reports, and which prevents the identification of the two. I undermine this argument by showing that ( i ) incorrigibility is not the mark of the mental and ( ii ) even if it were, it could not ground the categorical gulf which Rorty sees between mental and physical. I turn then to the major presupposition of the view, that mental states are theoretical entities posited in the causal explanation of behaviour, to see if this characterisation of the mental is an hypothesis adequate to account for the various phenomena of mental discourse. After examining reason-explanation, causal explanation in terms of mental states, the reporting role of mental ascriptions and the non-constative uses of mental language, I find that it is not. In particular, Rorty's view cannot account for the limited extent to which certain mental reports are incorrigible, nor for the validity of justificatory and non-constative uses of mental language. I argue that the existence of mental states is guaranteed by this validity, and therefore that the issue of their elimination goes beyond considerations of theoretical superiority to the very fabric of human interaction, moral and otherwise. I emerge with the view that ordinary language and neurophysiology are compatible ways of describing people and their behaviour, and that far from being the murky posits of some proto-scientific folk-psychology, mental states are known to exist. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

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This thesis examines the place of information communications technology (ICT) as a form of power in International Relations (IR) theory. Through an examination of the dominant approaches to ICTs in IR I outline the need to introduce a concept of technological power which can account for agency and culture in the process of technological design and development. Turning towards the critical theory of technology of Andrew Feenberg, the thesis argues that conceptualizing technology as biased but ambivalent provides the space within which agency may be considered alongside the structuring characteristics of technology to provide a more theoretically balanced and analytically productive account of the politics of technology. Building upon this foundation, the thesis outlines ICTs as a form of institutional power in international politics, acting upon agents at a distance in both space and time. This form of power is enmeshed in, and supported by, structural power relations and the interrelated discursive and ideological forms of power which maintain these structures. I examine the utility of these concepts through an extending empirical illustration of the role of the Internet in American Foreign Policy. This analysis argues that the Internet, as a product of American technological development, expresses a bias towards liberal capitalist values which forces other states to either alter their social practices or enact costly filtering regimes. The open networks of the Internet thereby facilitate the pursuit of an Open Door foreign policy by the United States government. Accounting for the technologically embedded cultural norms of the Internet casts a different light upon the nature of power in international relations, and requires that we take the constitution of an global material culture into account in our theories of international relations.

Materialism, or the orientation towards viewing material goods and money as important for personal happiness, is detrimental in several ways: it is associated with psychological maladjustment and lowered well-being and also conflicts with pursuits of caring for and relating to others. Although research has found that materialism is associated with fewer and lower-quality relationships with others, no research to date has explored the effects of materialism on the parent-child relationship, and the resulting impact on the child’s orientation towards others. These associations were explored in the present research. One hundred and five mothers and 76 fathers were assessed on measures of materialism (self-enhancement values and extrinsic aspirations) and parenting. Three domains of parenting were considered: control parenting (disciplinary strategies), protection parenting (responsiveness to child distress), and guided learning parenting (guidance through parent-child discussion). The 105 adolescents of these parents were assessed on indicators of moral development: prosocial and antisocial behavior, value internalization, prosocial moral reasoning, and empathy. It was hypothesized that parent materialism would predict lower levels of adolescent moral development and that this association would be mediated by parenting behaviors. This hypothesis was partially supported, but only for mothers. One measure of mother materialism - self-enhancement - related to adolescent prosocial behavior, while the other measure of mother materialism - extrinsic aspirations - related to adolescent approval orientation. Two mediators were identified for the mother self-enhancement/adolescent prosocial behavior link: mother operational-interfering style during moral discussions (guided learning parenting) and mother use of non-reasoning and punitive disciplinary strategies (control parenting). Beyond these links to adolescent moral development, both mother and father materialism were linked to negative parenting behaviors, including low responsiveness to adolescent distress, low empathy (in mothers), and high use of scolding and criticisms (in fathers). The results of this research indicate that when parents place high value on demonstrating power over others and achievement according to social standards at the expense of more prosocial values, adolescent moral development suffers, as mediated by the effect of materialism on parenting behaviors.