Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1948, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1920, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature

My dissertation, Of Mushrooms, Stones, and Stars. Post-Enlightenment Onto-/Epistemologies in 21st Century Art, Literature and Theory, contributes to the field of Anthropocene Studies in the German-speaking context. The man-made climate crisis that unfolds in the age of the Anthropocene poses the urgency of a paradigm shift and a need for new ways of planetary (co-)existence. I propose that the Anthropocene is deeply connected to the Age of Enlightenment: the centrality and particularity of the human subject as well as the conception of Man as the master of nature, which evolve in the Age of Enlightenment, find their cumulation in the contemporary anthropocenic crisis. Since Enlightenment paradigms have so firmly shaped today's world, I subsequently argue that a critical evaluation of Enlightenment thought is necessary to explore ways of being and knowing that allow for a departure from anthropocentrism and the oppression of nature. I focus on three non-human, material-discursive agents – mushrooms, stones and stars – and show how and why they are of particular importance to Anthropocene discourse; how they inspire a critique of Enlightenment ideas (particularly by Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes); and to what extent they offer onto-/epistemological impulses that mark a departure from these ideas. In exploring these agents, I engage with contemporary theorists such as Leo Bersani, Karen Barad and Elizabeth Povinelli, in dialog with German-language art, film, and literature by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Esther Kinsky, Marion Neumann and Ursula Biemann. My chapter on stones deals primarily with ontological questions. I trace the shift from the distinction between the organic and anorganic in the late 18th century to contemporary concepts that question this distinction – particularly Elizabeth Povinelli's Geontology – and engage with Goethe's geological essays from the 1780s as well as his late novel Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (1829) and Esther Kins (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tanja Nusser Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Rolf Parr Ph.D M.A B.A. (Committee Member); Todd Herzog Ph.D. (Committee Member); Thomas Kuepper Ph.D M.A B.A. (Committee Member); Peter Rehberg Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Germanic Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, Philosophy (Arts and Sciences)

This paper explains Immanuel Kant's theories of art and fine art, and argues that tattoos should be considered fine art within his aesthetic framework. After outlining Kant's general conception of art and how it differs from nature, science, and craft, I demonstrate that individual tattoos can be designated as works of art in Kant's theory. I then use Kant's method of comparing the relative talent presupposed by a discipline to show that tattooing as a discipline should be considered an art form. Afterwards, I explain Kant's conception of fine art and describe how it differs from mechanical, aesthetic, and agreeable art. I then demonstrate that individual tattoos can be designated as works of fine art in Kant's theory. Next, I shift my focus from individual works of fine art to examining what makes a discipline a fine art. I provide an analysis of the phrase "X is a fine art” and offer two novel views. First, the Inherence View, which posits that when we claim a discipline to be a fine art, we are claiming that the discipline inherently lends itself to the creation of fine art. Second, the Cultural Entrenchment View, which posits that when we claim that a discipline is a fine art, we are claiming that the discipline is culturally established to have as its intention the production of works of fine art, and as a result, most artists in the discipline hold this intention. I argue that these viewpoints are consistent with Kant's perspective and are more satisfactory accounts than two noteworthy alternatives. With these accounts in place, I then argue that tattooing as a discipline should be considered a fine art.

Committee: James Petrik (Committee Chair); Jeremy Morris (Advisor); Christoph Hanisch (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts; Philosophy

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2022, Philosophy

One may think that the extent of the relationship between law and ethics is exhausted by the two leading legal theories: Positivism and Natural Law Theory. On the one hand, Positivism is the family of theories that are committed to a conceptual separation between legal and ethical norms. On the other hand, Natural Law Theories are committed to a more robust relationship between legal and ethical norms, this relationship can be (roughly) characterized by the ancient slogan “Unjust laws are not laws”. However, as Mehmet Demiray has argued, Immanuel Kant's legal philosophy constitutes an alternative to both Positivism and Natural Law Theory by locating the normativity of law wholly inherent to the concept of Recht. The essence of the Kantian alternative is that the concept of a legal person i.e., an individual with the innate right to freedom (the right to set and pursue ends independently from the choices of others), delimits the legal domain. As such, I argue that Kant's legal philosophy provides the ground for a substantive conception of the rule of law. In brief, the innate right that is constitutive of legal personality both constrains and justifies the coercive means a state may employ in achieving its purpose. That is, the innate right to freedom discards those legal norms which are inconsistent with external freedom in accordance with a universal law e.g., a norm that subjected some to a condition of slavery or serfdom. Moreover, the innate right to freedom justifies those norms which are consistent with external freedom in accordance with a universal law e.g., the norm that laws be publicly promulgated. Because the innate right to freedom is distinct from any comprehensive ethical or religious doctrine, the coercive force characteristic of law and the substantive requirements of the rule of law are given a normatively non-arbitrary justification. Or so, at least, I argue.

Committee: Scott Carson Dr. (Advisor); Alyssa Bernstein Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Philosophy

The constitutive principles approach to scientific theories attempts to identify particular principles within science that serve unique roles in justifying or making possible the success of novel theories. The three essays that make up the bulk of this dissertation attempt to approach the topic of the constitutive a priori from various, previously unexplored angles. The first chapter extends the discussion of the constitutive a priori to a new area of contemporary physics – statistical mechanics. The Past Hypothesis is the claim that the universe came into being in a very low entropy state, and this hypothesis plays a major role in nearly all contemporary philosophical accounts of statistical mechanics. This chapter argues that the Past Hypothesis is best seen as a constitutive principle of statistical mechanics, and that this identification can help shed light on how the Past Hypothesis might be justified, given well-known problems regarding its confirmation. The second chapter updates the existing literature on constitutive a priori principles with a discussion of contemporary historical work on Newton and the scientific method of the Principia. It argues that this new work puts novel constraints on theories of constitutive principles. In particular, Newton's evidential strategies in the Principia must be captured by any constitutive principles account of the laws of motion. Finally, the third chapter investigates the constitutive a priori in the context of historical epistemology, a tradition within philosophy of science focused on the role of local, historical conditions on the success of the sciences. This chapter argues that critiquing the constitutive principles approach from the perspective of historical epistemology allows us to diagnose some of the faults in existing constitutive principles approaches, and points the way to an improved, revised conception. The overarching lessons of this dissertation are three-fold. First, the constitutive princip (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Pincock (Advisor); Richard Samuels (Committee Member); Neil Tennant (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy; Philosophy of Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History of Art

From its earliest known formulation as an aesthetic concept in the first century CE, the sublime has been explored over the centuries by thinkers as diverse as Pseudo-Longinus, Lord Shaftesbury, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. A defining property of the sublime consistent throughout these various theorizations is its ability to transport the subject, however briefly, beyond the self and into an encounter with the supersensible; a transcendental experience that leaves the subject with an expanded sense of identity and understanding. The European Enlightenment focused on aspects of the sublime which aligned with the prioritization of rationalism and positivism. In keeping with the contemporaneous idea of progress and a belief in the perfectibility of mankind, the ability of the sublime to improve humanity through moral enlightenment was linked to the triumph of reason and emphasized at the expense of sublimity's less humanistic, less intellectual, and more sensual and spiritual elements. This began to change in the early nineteenth century and, by the 1830s, artists were producing work which reached for sublimity through a dramatic and emotional collapsing of the experiential and conceptual distance between the viewer and the work of art. This aspect of the sublime, which I call the immersive sublime, distinguished itself from its eighteenth-century, intellectual counterpart by activating a subject's emotional, spatial, and sensorial perception as a path to sublimity. In relying on fundamental human faculties like empathy and fear to achieve the sublime, the immersive sublime made transcendent experience available to all viewers, regardless of class, gender, education, or acculturation. The desire to eliminate any sense of distance between the viewer and the painting encouraged the use of highly illusionistic representational modes which failed to find favor with the rise of modernist aesthetics that valued the material presence of the artist. The i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew Shelton Prof. (Advisor); Lisa Florman Prof. (Committee Member); Patrick Bray Prof. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Art Criticism; Art History

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2018, Philosophy

The following is an investigation into representations of temporal and spatial relations in literature and how they change the conception of the self. I compare literary discourses of time and space with those found in philosophical metaphysics and epistemology, most prominently Kant and Poincare. The thesis provides evidence for a relationship between scientific and philosophical epistemology and the way time, space, and self are expressed in fiction. I detail this relationship using the work of Borges, Proust, and host of other authors to emphasize that the use of epistemology in literature is not limited an isolate case concerning a few authors, but a general tendency within fiction.

Committee: Ammon Allred (Committee Chair); Grazzini Benjamin (Committee Member); Jeanine Diller (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Philosophy

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature

In this dissertation I focus on two types of genre fiction as viewed through the lens of Kantian ethics and social contract theory. The two types of genre fiction include detective novels written by a German speaking Swiss author named Friedrich Durrenmatt, as well as two spy novels by John le Carre. All of these novels are set in the second half of the twentieth century and in le Carre's case, during the height of the Cold War. Durrenmatt is well-known throughout the German literary canon for both his plays and his prose. I argue that he tends to differ from other writers of detective fiction because he focuses less on the mystery of the murder itself and more on the interaction of the characters, as well as the philosophical ramifications of what is happening in the story. The first Durrenmatt novel, Justiz, focuses on the conflict between a failed lawyer, named Spat, and an influential member of Swiss high-society, Dr.h.c. Isaak Kohler, who has been convicted of shooting his friend, Dr. Winter, in a crowded restaurant. This novel focuses on Spat's tortured quest for justice, in that Kohler is able to elude justice. This first chapter sets up the idea of the Kantian hero and Kantian villain. Kantian heroes and villains differ from conventional heroes and villains in that they are judged not by conventional standards but by ideas of duty, or deontologically based ethics, as well as how they treat the inherent dignity of their fellow humans. This conflict between Kantian hero and villain continues into the second chapter, which is also a detective novel by Durrenmatt, called Der Richter und sein Henker. The villain in this story is just as villainous as the hero is heroic, and again I will work with Kantian ideas of ethics to enhance the ideas of what makes a hero or villain. By this point it will be the case that conventional methods of defining heroes and villains are quite different from Kantian standards. In the third chapter, I bring in the spy fiction of John (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Harold Herzog Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Werner Jung Ph.D. (Committee Member); Tanja Nusser Ph.D. (Committee Member); Richard Schade Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Germanic Literature

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Arts and Sciences: Philosophy

This dissertation is a phenomenological account of embodied understanding that is located in the theoretical context of contemporary phenomenology (Dreyfus 1972, 2002, 2007a, 2007b; Kelly 2002; Ratcliffe 2002, 2008, 2015) and phenomenologically-inspired embodied cognition (Varela et al. 1991; Noe 2004, 2012, 2013, 2015; Thompson 2007; Chemero 2009; Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014). This dissertation is a phenomenological account in that I apply the phenomenological method as it has been in particular developed by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time (Heidegger 1962). This means that I provide a careful analysis of phenomena which I then analyze in terms of the conditions of their possibility. This phenomenological account is an account of embodied understanding in that it is only about those forms of understanding that are body-relational. This means that I am concerned here only with those forms of understanding that are responsive to the world in relation to the bodily structures of an agent, her bodily needs and her ability to sense and move. My dissertation identifies and analyzes two central structures of embodied understanding. Embodied understanding is body-relationally spatiotemporally schematic and integrated with affective concern. That embodied understanding is body-relationally spatiotemporally schematic means that embodied understanding exhibits a structure that allows it to be responsive to the experience of a world in space and time that is itself reflective of one's embodied ability to move and sense; i.e. that is reflective of an agent's embodiment (Husserl 1989; Noe 2004; Merleau-Ponty 2012). This responsiveness is possible, since embodied understanding shares characteristics with embodied experience by means of what Kant (1998) called `schemata'; a priori space and time determinations that allow embodied understanding to respond to the spatial and temporal characteristics of experience. That embodied understanding is integrated with affective concerns (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Anthony Chemero Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Peter Langland Hassan Ph.D. (Committee Member); Thomas Polger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1980, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1967, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1957, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

BS, Kent State University, 2016, College of Architecture and Environmental Design

While the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is not often analyzed in conjunction with the theory of architecture, there is a strong possibility Richard Neutra was consciously aware of Kant philosophy and might have utilized Kants ideas in his architectural design. This thesis mines Neutras various connections historically in terms of what he read as well as various connections with historical figures such as Adolf Loos in order to discover the ways in which their ideas have served as a secondary conduit between Kant and Neutra. It also analyzes heavily Richard Neutras original writings and reveals that the ideas of Neutra can be considered practical applications of Kants ideas. Immanuel Kant states that we first know the world through our senses, then through a mental system and finally judgements are made upon perception. In his writings, Richard Neutra coveys the same ideas that design needs to be based upon the senses, that the senses are not the end of perception, and that understanding of human psychology in necessary in order to design for humans. Kant lays out an extensive system detailing perception itself while validating science and establishing a base for psychology to emerge. Neutra's applied psychological approach to architecture bares resemblance to general Kantian ideas as well as more specific ideas. This thesis examines primary sources by Immanuel Kant and Richard Neutra. Secondary sources from authors such as David Leatherbarrow, Dietrich Neumann, and Tomas Hines are taken into consideration when interpreting historical events, built projects, and various theoretical ideas by Neutra. Other writings about Immanuel Kant and architecture are briefly mentioned as well. Looking at these secondary sources affirm the relevance and originality of this topic.

Committee: Brett Tippey Dr. (Advisor); Jon Yoder Dr. (Committee Member); Natasha Levinson Dr. (Committee Member); Gina Zavota Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture; Philosophy

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

From its precursors in the 1950s and 1960s to its full emergence on the art scene in the 1970s, conceptual art has been met with controversy, criticism, and disgust. Conceptual art challenges the very notions that many people hold about art – namely, that art must be beautiful, visual, and arise within the viewer some kind of aesthetic emotion. Many aesthetic theories proposed by philosophers such as Kant, Dewey, and Greenberg only reinforce these ideas, thus relegating conceptual art to categories such as the “vulgar” and “mundane.” Other theories offer a more inclusive definition of art that create a space for conceptual art in the art world. In this paper, I will be examining both definitions of art that exclude conceptual art and those that include it. I will ultimately argue for why conceptual art should be considered art and why a more inclusive definition of art that includes conceptual art is preferable to one that does not.

Committee: Gina Zavota (Advisor); Linda Williams (Committee Member); Frank Ryan (Committee Member); John-Michael Warner (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, English

An apparent rift exists between the anti-aesthetic emphasis in postmodern and contemporary literary theory, on the one hand, and readerly appreciations of and engagements with the aesthetic, on the other. This tension between anti-aesthetic critical paradigms and aesthetic experiences of fiction is the central problem I examine in my dissertation. By putting philosophical, aesthetical, narrative, and literary traditions in conversation with each other, I propose a new framework for understanding aesthetic impulses at work in twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction by revising Immanuel Kant's and Friedrich Schiller's heuristic tools and categories—which I argue remain pertinent to understanding twentieth and twenty-first century fiction. Drawing on these and other contributions to aesthetic theory, I suggest that post-war fiction is dominantly concerned with the harmonies, engagements, and tensions between what I term the form-drive, the moral-drive, and the sense-drive, in relation to readerly roles and responses. Part I includes two chapters devoted to play, which I characterize as the dominant aesthetic energy that characterizes postmodernist fiction (McHale). My analysis of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) and Alasdair Gray's Lanark (1981) relates to readers' inhabitation and orientation of the playful, complex ontological worlds of postmodern fiction. I use the tension/conflict between the form- and sense-drives to characterize the aesthetic category of play, and suggest that Marie-Laure Ryan's possible-worlds theory provides a useful critical apparatus for explicating how the form-drive functions as a system of ordering in readers' navigations of these ontologically-complex fictional worlds. Part II deals with the ways in which twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction has reinvigorated traditional aesthetic categories. In chapter three, I use Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (1939-40/1967) and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (1985) to demon (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brian McHale (Advisor); David Herman (Committee Member); James Phelan (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American Literature; British and Irish Literature; Ethics; Literature

MFA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

What I Lived for addresses themes of identity and the projection of identity. In this series, the imagery combined in each piece constructs a narrative regarding the wearer's connection with nature, or feelings of biophelia. It becomes evident that more important than the wearer's actual communion with the outdoors is the notion that others would associate the natural world with the wearer. While such identities we construct for ourselves may not hold up over extreme testing, through the completion of this thesis body of work it becomes clear that they are nonetheless critical for self awareness.

Committee: Kathleen Browne (Advisor); Gianna Commito (Committee Member); Isabel Farnsworth (Committee Member); Sean Mercer (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

My project is to establish a secularized concept of evil by filtering F.W.J. Schelling's philosophy through that of Martin Heidegger. Schelling's philosophy is essential to my project, because he seeks to claim a positive ontological status for evil, as do I. Schelling's evil, despite its religious context, is not mired in concepts of malformation, or even original sin, as is the evil of his predecessors. I offer Aristotle and Immanuel Kant as Schelling's key secular predecessors, in whose philosophies we find the beginnings of Schelling's free-will theodicy. Similarly, Schelling stands apart from modern theodicy—that is, from G.W. Leibniz, who coined the term “theodicy”—in three key ways: Schelling focuses on human beings, rather than on God; he embraces nature, rather than seeking to overcome it, which requires that he also embrace chaos; and he insists that evil has a positive ontological status, rather than a negative one. These departures show the influence of both Kant and Aristotle on Schelling's conception of evil. Over the course of this project, we will find that when we uncover evil's positive ontology and lay bare its actualization by humans, we ground an approach to evil suited to the political necessities of the twenty-first century. That is, we see that a proper philosophical understanding of evil necessarily calls us to a political address of the same. What the evils of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have shown us, especially, is that a stronger, positive conception of evil enables us to assign accountability more effectively to those who commit evil acts. Hence, crafting a positive conception of evil outside of a theological framework will necessitate a moral framework. To that end, I engage the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt in order to make clear the implications of an ontologically positive evil and draw conclusions regarding the best concept of evil for a contemporary context. My view is that the best concept of (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Gina Zavota PhD (Advisor); Kim Garchar PhD (Committee Member); Michael Byron PhD (Committee Member); Tammy Clewell PhD (Other) Subjects: Philosophy