Recent Dissertations

2025

Taylor Smith 
"A Schematization, Defense, and Application of Strawson’s Inescapability Argument”

Lauren Wilson 
"The Scope and Limits of Reasoning Practices in Behavioral Genetics"

2024

Kylie Shahar 
“Emerging Themes in Early Modern Philosophy: Locke, Cockburn, and Kant on Moral Knowledge and Development”

Nathan Lackey 
"The Moral Psychology of Implicit Bias: Interpretations, Obligations, and Responsibilities”

Michael Calasso 
"Ontological Methodology and the Philosophy of Arithmetic: A Critique of Abstractionism’’

Sara Parhizgari 
"Abstraction, Objects, and Existence’’

2023

Tucker Marks 
“From Well-Being to Citizen Well-Being in Jean-Jacques Rousseau”

Christopher Nagel 
"Subjectivism About Artistic Value"

Justin Ivory 
"Essays on Well-Being’’

Nicole Thompson 
"The Voice of the Voiceless: Addressing Various Forms of Injustice in the Civil Commitment Process for Those with Eating Disorders’’

Qiannan Li
"Shame, Respect and Well-Being: What Can We Learn from Early Chinese Philosophy?’’

Yoshinari Yoshida
"Philosophy of science, philosophy of biology Generalizations in Practice: Investigating Generality and Specificity in Developmental Biology’’

2021

Max Dresow
"Time, Life, and Environment: Practices of Geohistory at the Intersection of the Earth and Life Sciences."
Advisor: Alan Love

Brian Tebbitt (MA Plan A)
"Demarcation and Definition: The Metaphysics of Project Management Considered."
Advisor: Peter Hanks

2019

Justin Kuster
"A Critique of Reductive Accounts of the Source of Necessity"
Advisor: Peter Hanks

2018

Melanie Bowman
"An Epistemology of Solidarity: Coalition in the Face of Ignorance"
Advisor: Naomi Scheman

2017

Haidar Al-Dhalimy
"On Order Types of Space-Time Dimensions"
Advisors: Roy T Cook, Geoffrey Hellman

Kathryn Swanson
"Non-Ideal Autonomy in the Relationship of Care"
Co-advisors: Sarah Holtman and Joan Tronto (POSC)

2016

William Bausman
"From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics"
Advisor: C. Kenneth Waters

Patrick Laine
"The Living Mind"
Advisors: Peter Hanks, Naomi Scheman

John "Jack" Powers
"Descriptive Practices and Values in Endocrine Disruption Research"
Advisor: Alan Love

Jason Steffen
"A Kantian Theory of Criminal Law"
Advisor: Sarah Holtman

Yi Tong
"Conceptual Analysis in Jurisprudence: An Essay in Methodology"
Advisor: Brian Bix

Brian Wilson Baer
"A Theory of Moral Obligation"
Advisors: Sarah Holtman, Roy T Cook

2015

Marisol Brito
"Why Friendship?"
Advisors: Sarah Holtman, Naomi Scheman

Kirsten Kringle
"The Decision to Know"
Advisor: Naomi Scheman

Shay Logan
"Categories and Constructs"
Advisors: Geoffrey Hellman, Roy T Cook

2014

Thomas Doyle
"Philosophy and the Professional Image of Philosophy"
Advisors: Alan Love, Douglas Lewis

Mark Herr
"Human Defect"
Advisor: Valerie Tiberius

2013

Stephen Nelson
"Committing Ourselves to Nothing: An Anti-Orthodox View of Existential Quantifier Expressions"
Advisors: Peter Hanks, Geoffrey Hellman

Jason Swartwood
"Cultivating Practical Wisdom"
Advisor: Valerie Tiberius

2012

Yi Deng
"Toward 'Free Trade' from Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal"
Advisors: Sarah Holtman, Joseph Owens

Loree Kalliainen
"The Application of Evidence-Based Medicine to the Field of Surgery"
Advisor: Michael Root

Anastasia Panagopoulos
"Knowing What It's Like and Mind-Reading"
Advisor: Peter Hanks

Hyun Joo Shin
"Individualism and the Aesthetic"
Advisors: Joseph Owens, Geoffrey Hellman

2011

Monica Berrier
"Rethinking Aesthetic Concepts: Lessons from the Art of Classical Dressage"
Advisor: Keith Gunderson

Jovana Davidovic
"International Law and Global Justice: Why Institutional Features of International Law Matter to Discussions of Global Justice"
Advisor: Michelle Mason

Joseph Martin (MA)
"Contingency, Predication, and Counterfactuals in the History and Philosophy of Science"
Advisor: C. Kenneth Waters

Ian Stoner
"The Reward of Virtue: An Essay on the Relationship Between Character and Well-Being"
Advisors: Valerie Tiberius, Michelle Mason

2010

Deepanwita Dasgupta
"On the Peripheries of Western Science: Indian Science from 1910-1930, a Cognitive-Philosophical Analysis"
Advisor: Ronald Giere