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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Skeptics and Unruly Connectives: A Defence of and Amendment to the Non-Factualist Justification of Logic
(University of Waterloo, 2018-10-04)This thesis attempts to positively solve three problems in the foundations of logic. If logical connectives are defined by their introduction and elimination rules, then how might one prohibit the construction of dysfunctional ... -
The Phenomenological Origins of Property
(University of Waterloo, 2018-09-26)This thesis delineates the phenomenological basis of ownership and property. The phenomenological theory of property has three main elements: the minimal self, the relationship between the sense of agency and the sense of ... -
Sex, Dementia, and Consent
(University of Waterloo, 2018-08-01)Sex and dementia is becoming an increasingly important topic in applied ethics. By the year 2030, more than 74.7 million people are expected to be diagnosed with dementia worldwide; many of these people may want to engage ... -
The Sense of Self and Sensorimotor Functions
(University of Waterloo, 2018-03-28)This thesis investigates whether biological sex and motor function have a role in the visual representation of the self. The principal contribution is a new virtual reality experiment that systematically varied an avatar’s ... -
A Constructive Critical Assessment of Feminist Evolutionary Psychology
(University of Waterloo, 2017-12-21)In this dissertation, I develop an approach to philosophical critique of morally relevant science and apply this approach to a new branch of evolutionary psychology called “feminist evolutionary psychology.” Morally relevant ... -
The Continuity of Explanation: Peircean Pragmatism, Reason, and Developing Reasonable Behavior
(University of Waterloo, 2017-09-27)Charles Peirce, the founder of Pragmatism, is not known for having developed a normative and ethical theory. His remarks on ethics and normativity are scattered and sparse. There is nonetheless increasing interest in ... -
Ethical Pluralism and Informed Consent in Canadian Health Care: Exploring Accommodations and Limitations
(University of Waterloo, 2017-09-26)Vibrant and evolving diversity has become an integral part of Canadian identity. Communities are experiencing an enrichment of new ideas, and unique opportunities to learn about those with whom we share the world. At the ... -
The Emergence of a New Human Superorganism After Organ Transplantation
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-30)The biological human being is an emergent human superorganism consisting of the human organism physiologically integrated with other organisms. The persistence of a superorganism in space and time requires communication ... -
How Prejudice Affects the Study of Animal Minds
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-24)Humans share the planet with many wonderfully diverse animal species and human-animal interactions are part of our daily lives. An important part of understanding how humans do and should interact with other animals is ... -
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 ...
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