Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Humanities

The object of this text is to discuss aspects of the intellectual history of the Western civilization that reflects the doctrine of nihilism and how the precept is manifest in the culture of postmodern twenty-first century society. The pith of the essay is to conclude that, nihilism, as an intellectual supposition, hinges on the philosophies of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Nihilism is a worthy discussion because the concept has permeated Western thought at least since the time of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and has become essential to Western culture in the twenty-first century. Nietzsche's pronouncement that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…” in tandem with Dostoevsky's rejoinder “But what will become of men then? ... without God… All things are permitted then, they can do what they like” is a notable definition for nihilism. Nihilism is a philosophical position that reflects a belief in nothingness and/or everything. Nihilism is “the belief that life is meaningless.” “Nietzsche defines nihilism as the situation which obtains when ‘everything is permitted' or when nothing is permitted.” Nihilism occurs as a result of the distrust of the highest value (killing God, which results in a belief in nothing) hence the reception to all eventuality (everything is permissible). In short, nihilism is a collection of ideas that denies generally believed interpretations of the human existence like morality, knowledge and meaning. This text is a discussion of the concept of nihilism and its repercussions on society.

Committee: David Simonelli PhD (Advisor); Brian Bonhomme PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Ayana PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Within Heidegger's work Being and Time, many scholars have argued that Heidegger's account of authenticity undermines elements of his project that were set out in the first division. One common complaint is that Heidegger's account of authenticity undermines his ability to account for Dasein as being-in-the-world. The concern, according to these scholars, is that the establishing normative force of the world gets stripped away through authenticity, which would lead to a worldless subject. My goal is to challenge these interpretations. I argue that authenticity actually brings into focus characteristics of the world like finitude, rather than creating a separation between subject and world. In doing this, I will lay out what exactly an account of authenticity centered on being-in-the-world looks like to show that it doesn't create problems for Heidegger's project.

Committee: Matthew Coate (Advisor); Kim Garchar (Committee Member); Michael Byron (Committee Member); Joanna Trzeciak-Huss (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Bioethics

This project is a critique of the concept of consensus and its relation to secular moral reasoning. Proponents of public deliberation argue that achieving consensus is crucial to informing moral norms in secular pluralist societies. Without a transcendental basis for morality, ascribing authority to moral norms requires a process of deliberation. Many bioethicists are concerned with formulating ways to ensure discourse is tolerant, non-coercive, mutually respectful, and grounded in intersubjective understanding. The problem is that secular discourse is fraught with varying conceptions of human rights, ethical principles, and what constitutes a morally authoritative consensus. Bioethicists acknowledge the tyranny of the majority problem, but secularism lacks a sufficient rationale to identify when a majority is wrong. Since competing visions of the good comprise bioethics and consensus does not necessarily indicate moral truth, moral uncertainty is the logical result of secular pluralism. Some moral scientists argue that science can inform moral norms, but a careful reading of their work suggests that what is being espoused is moral nihilism. From determinism to deep pragmatism, many scientists are inadvertently supporting a view of reality that obliterates the possibility of values. In secular pluralist societies, consensus is required to establish basic norms, but no account of consensus can indicate when moral truth is known. Consensus is necessary to fulfill the visions of moral scientists, but such scientists implicitly endorse nihilism. What secularists are discovering – by their own reasoning – is that moral truth is elusive, science cannot inform human values, and bioethical dilemmas are incapable of being resolved. The conclusion to this project offers an Engelhardtian solution. Not only is the principle of permission the only viable basis for secular pluralism – the principle coincides with moral scientists' own account of human nature.

Committee: Matthew Vest (Advisor); Ryan Nash (Committee Member); Ashley Fernandes (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethics; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Bioethics

This thesis argues that the right to die should be understood as an attempt to palliate nihilism due to the encounter of an existentially impoverished ontology with death, informing clinical, ethical, and political accounts of physician aid-in-dying. Following Heidegger's critique of technology, contemporary medicine espouses a Nietzschean metaphysic predicated upon reducing its objects into `standing reserves' on call for efficient manipulation. Physicians become passive, anonymous technicians responding to technological frameworks, bodies become resources for maintenance and re-creation, and death appears an obstacle to overcome in this active nihilism. In this context, the birth of bioethics can be appreciated as a response to the hegemony of techno-logic at the end of life. I argue, however, that it has largely failed by capitulating to a similar procedural rationality, at best, and endorsing autonomy as a manifestation of the will to power at worst. After the death of God, ethics must be radically reframed as a human project resembling a cafeteria of lifestyle aesthetics where the moral good easily becomes free choice. The liberated, autonomous individual playing a leading role fits hand in glove with techno-logic. Thus, assisted suicide may appear as a personal `death-style' for fashioning the illusion of meaning and transcendence by the will, particularly in the post-Christian, generic spirituality of hospice and palliative care. Patients with existential or spiritual suffering – lives not worth living – can be relieved of the human condition within liberal politics, signifying new, deceptive rites for the end of life, an ars ad mortem. At the end of the day, however, the choice for suicide is predestined by the techno-logic critiqued in this thesis, suggesting that it may not, in fact, be the triumph of autonomy but rather of a violent nihilism and despair. This critique, then, moves towards clarity in the right to die movement regarding its quasi-religio (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Matthew Vest PhD (Advisor); Ryan Nash MD (Committee Member); Dana Howard PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Medical Ethics; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

In Religion and Nothingness, Nishitani Keiji offers a diagnosis and solution to the problem of nihilism in Japanese consciousness. In order to overcome the problem of nihilism, Nishitani argues that one needs to pass from the field of consciousness through the field of nihility to the field of emptiness. Drawing upon Japanese Buddhist and Western philosophical sources, Nishitani presents an erudite theoretical resolution to the problem. However, other than Zen meditation, Nishitani does not provide a practical means to arrive on the field of emptiness. Since emptiness must be continuously emptied of conceptual representations for it to be fully experienced, I argue that solving the problem of nihilism in Japanese consciousness requires individuals first become aware of the reality of the problem of nihilism in Nishitani's terms and then personally contend with emptying representations of emptiness in their own lives.

Committee: Jung-Yeup Kim (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy; Religion; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This dissertation intends to delineate and explore the work of Shibata Renzaburo (1917-1978), author of kengo shosetsu novels, the genre of historical and adventure novels, which occupies a large and important niche in popular Japanese literature of the twentieth century. Shibata Renzaburo is widely known in Japan; his works have seen numerous editions and reprints, and a number of his most popular works have been adapted for film and television. Shibata Renzaburo is an iconic writer in that he was instrumental in establishing and solidifying the kengo shosetsu genre, a genre in which stories were usually set in the Edo period (1603-1868) and which involved elaborate plots and revolved around fictional master swordsmen, featuring intrigue, adventure, masterful swordplay, and fast-paced narratives. While the notion of a master swordsman protagonist was not new and came about during the prewar period, Shibata's writing differed from prewar works in several important aspects. One of the points of difference is the role and influence of French literature in Shibata's work, in particular, in the character of Nemuri Kyoshiro, the protagonist of the eponymous Nemuri Kyoshiro series.

Committee: Richard Torrance Ph. D. (Advisor) Subjects: Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Literature; Modern Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1981, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1979, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: History

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Youngstown State University, 2015, Department of Languages

Dear Goth is a collection of poems that chronicles the tumultuous life of a modern-day "goth kid" in small-town USA, how his musical heroes have influenced him, his relationships, and his ultimate conclusion that perhaps life isn't all about doom and gloom all the time.

Committee: Mary Biddinger PhD (Advisor); Catherine Wing MFA (Committee Member); Steven Reese PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Language; Literature; Modern Literature; Music

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Anarchism was an important social and political movement in prewar Japan, promoted by Kotoku Shusui in the first decade of the 20th century and developed into a rich political and artistic philosophy by Osugi Sakae in the 1910s. Japanese anarchists saw industrial capitalism as the cause of the suffering of the working class, and sought the destruction of the capitalist system and of all external government, championing individualistic rebellion as the vehicle of revolution. Literary anarchism gave artistic form to the values of anarchism and sought to promote political and social revolution. This dissertation explores selected works of literature by anarchists in order to trace the development of an anarchistic style. Chapter One identifies the main elements of literary anarchism: realistic reporting on the lives of the poor; the reification of concepts like “nature” and “life” in a philosophy celebrating the growth and evolution of individuals and society; the championing of violent, nihilistic rebellion; and radical individualism. The origins of these elements are explored in a discussion of earlier journalistic writers and the fiction of early Japanese naturalist writers like Shimazaki Toson. Chapter Two discusses the creation of a truly anarchist literature through Osugi Sakae's anarchistic philosophy of art, which was put into practice by writers like Miyajima Sukeo, who welded the elements of journalism and naturalism to a firmly anarchist political stance, creating a dramatic new form of revolutionary literature. Chapter Three discusses the development of anarchist literature through the late 1920s. Two important “proletarian” writers with heavily anarchist sympathies, Hirabayashi Taiko and Yamakawa Ryo, utilized realistic prose and anarchistic themes to deal with the conflicts which attended their lives as members of the “proletarian” movement. Also discussed is the flourishing of anarchist avant-garde poetry by such writers as Hagiwara Kyojiro. Such poetry (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Torrance (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, Philosophy (Arts and Sciences)

According to Nietzsche, the history of philosophy is dominated by “nihilism,” i.e., the hierarchical valuation of the supersensible over and above the sensible and material. This “nihilism,” according to Nietzsche, is particularly evident in Kant's use of the concept of things in themselves in his epistemology and moral philosophy. For example, Nietzsche claims that Kant uses the concept of things in themselves to reinstitute the notion of a true world that stands “behind” and devalues the world of human experience by contrast. Some Kant scholars, however, have argued that a “two aspect” (as opposed to a “two world”) interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism allows Kant to sidestep the charge of practicing dogmatic metaphysics as well as exhibiting the value judgments of traditional metaphysics. In my thesis, I contend that no matter which interpretation one adopts concerning things in themselves, Nietzsche's charge of nihilism holds.

Committee: James Petrik (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy

MFA, Kent State University, 2008, College of the Arts / School of Art

Inner Dialogue is the result of twenty-four consecutive days of painting, each day producing a different painting. The primary unifying elements are the scale of the paintings (29.5 inches x35.5 inches – vertically oriented), wet into wet painting technique using a single color as the base for each day, and the time frame. The primary elements that distinguished the paintings one from another was that I chose a different color, subject, style and approach each day. These elements were chosen in a self-consciously arbitrary fashion using the first thought that came to mind at the beginning of the day. The purpose of this was to visually manifest the underlying thought processes separate from the more apparent concerns of style and content in order to comprehend the essential elements of my personal style and motivations as a painter. The twenty-four painting were hung together in a grid format. The elements of style that stand out as consistent are an emphasis on the fluidity of paint, an overall tonality that ranges around the middle of the gray scale, and the use of an abundance of contrasting elements. I concluded that pleasure is my primary motivation, with painting's purpose being to fill the space between cradle and grave of an essentially meaningless existence.

Committee: Craig Lucas (Advisor); Martin Ball (Committee Member); Isabel Farnsworth (Committee Member); Diane Scillia (Committee Member); Doug Unger (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts