Philosophy
This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Philosophy .
Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).
Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.
Recent deposits
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Inferential Role Semantics for Natural Language
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-22)The most general goal of semantic theory is to explain facts about language use. In keeping with this goal, I introduce a framework for thinking about linguistic expressions in terms of (a) the inferences they license, (b) ... -
A Defense of the Public Health-Quarantine Model of Punishment in Light of Obligations of the State to the Wrongdoer
(University of Waterloo, 2017-02-22)Punishment is traditionally justified retributively or consequentially; that is, with respect to the desert of the wrongdoer or the positive consequences of the punishment. State-sanctioned punishment (the kind of punishment ... -
Psychological and Phenomenological Perspectives on the Hard Problem of Consciousness
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-19)In reexamining the hard problem of consciousness through the history of the concept of mind, I argue that psychologists, cognitive scientists, and analytic philosophers of mind should return to the first-person perspective ... -
The Evolution of Reason
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-17)Aristotle’s metaphysics bridges the gap between mind and nature explaining how their relationship constitutes development in life. Charles Sanders Peirce’s objective idealism similarly aims to investigate how the principles ... -
The Depiction of Unwritten Law
(University of Waterloo, 2016-12-14)Even though tacit legal norms are deeply important to our past, present, and future, the very idea of unwritten law has been difficult to pin down, and problematic in a range of ways. Existing discussions of the phenomenon ... -
Authenticity and Enhancement
(University of Waterloo, 2016-10-31)Wanting to change ourselves is nothing new; the means with which we are able to do so are. With our ever-advancing technology, the physical and mental aspects of ourselves that we can target and change are continually ... -
Ethical Leadership for Machiavellians in Business
(University of Waterloo, 2016-10-13)Despite some progress in instilling ethics into business practice, businesses continue to make decisions that result in incredible harms to people and the environment around the world. Academics, the public, and the media ... -
White Paper: Measuring Research Outputs Through Bibliometrics
(University of Waterloo, 2016)This White Paper provides a high-level review of issues relevant to understanding bibliometrics, and practical recommendations for how to appropriately use these measures. This is not a policy paper; instead, it defines ... -
THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF QUINE'S D-THESIS
(University of Waterloo, 2016-02-02)The philosophical significance of Quine's D-thesis is considered. The D-thesis - "Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system? (W.V.0. Quine, From a Logical ... -
The Role of Concrete Models in the Revolution in Superconductivity
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-13)The distinction between the abstract and the concrete is useful in understanding the way in which theories relate to phenomenon, respectively, or vice versa. The connection between theory and the actual workings of ... -
Autonomy and Moral Obligation: People with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-05)In this project I seek to evaluate how social structures and attitudinal norms impact the autonomy of people who live with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and what implications arise from that evaluation. I ... -
Disciplinary Inequality, Collective Agency, and Interprofessional Collaboration in Health Care
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-05)In this thesis, I apply collective responsibility theory to the problem of health care inequality between physicians and nurses. This analysis is conducted in the context of physician-nurse interprofessional collaboration ... -
In Defense of Moral Responsibility Skepticism
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-02)Moral responsibility skeptics have often focused on problems involving determinism in order to defend their position. I argue that this defense of moral responsibility skepticism is misplaced given that what really matters ... -
The Nature of Pluralism in Economics: A Case Study of the Gender Wage Gap
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-02)Understanding and measuring a socially relevant and complex phenomenon like the gender wage gap requires a thorough understanding of the causal factors arising in the real world. This thesis investigates the Marxist and ... -
Existence Assumptions and Logical Principles: Choice Operators in Intuitionistic Logic
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-02)Hilbert’s choice operators τ and ε, when added to intuitionistic logic, strengthen it. In the presence of certain extensionality axioms they produce classical logic, while in the presence of weaker decidability conditions ... -
Crime Prevention in a World without Free Will: Derk Pereboom’s Quarantine Analogy
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-01)The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Pereboom’s attempt to use his quarantine analogy to justify his theory of crime prevention and the use of preventative detainment in place of punishment. Specifically, I will examine ... -
Values and Co-production: Examining the Interface of Indigenous Peoples’ Understandings and Scientific Understandings
(University of Waterloo, 2015-08-31)In this thesis I will examine the role values play in the co-production of knowledge between traditional knowledge and science. In order to understand the role values play, I will first develop clearer definitions of ... -
The Ethics of Deception in Caregiving: A Patient-Centered Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2015-08-24)Deception is a central issue in bioethics. This emerges most clearly when considering ways of assisting individuals who are incapable of making their own decisions. Deception can be defined as purposefully misleading another ... -
Politics, Principles and Pluralism: On why liberalism must be inconsistent if correct
(University of Waterloo, 2014-10-24)In this dissertation, the author argues that constructivist foundations of political liberalism require a rarely recognized sort of pluralism—not only the familiar pluralism between ideas about how we ought to live that ... -
ON BRANDS | An Investigation into the Nature of Consumer Brands | Are they real or constructed?
(University of Waterloo, 2014-10-08)This thesis investigates the nature of consumer brands in the context of the contemporary realism debate. It comprises three chapters. The first chapter introduces the what, the why and the how of brands, to wit: I describe ...
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