The Specter of the Economic Sovereign in Contemporary Society
Zach Blaakman
While many may fervently reject the bleakness of Hobbes’ ideas in Leviathan, many similarities can be drawn to our own modern institutions. The ideas of C.B. Macpherson and his theory of possessive individualism, where each person is the proprietor of their own capacities, call their origins to Hobbes. Our era of democracy and liberal capitalism creates the conditions that perpetuate a Hobbesian sovereign. The sovereign government then becomes the hands of the economy, mediating market conflict to ensure capitalism’s survival. Moreover, cohesion of the possessing class retains the state’s role as an intermediary for future stability. In this system, the sovereign has similar oppressive powers and responsibilities over its subjects as those recommended by Hobbes. This would be the only way to stave off the violent alternative of the State of War. Thus, although some may find Hobbes' ideas repugnant, his ideas haunt our own current society.
Race, Racialization, and the Trouble with Reclassification
Benjamin Cabot
This essay examines the debate over whether the term “race” should be reclassified by analyzing two competing perspectives: Sally Haslanger’s social constructionist theory and Adam Hochman’s racial anti-realist view. While Hochman argues for replacing “race” with “racialized groups” to avoid biological confusion and better capture the multifaceted causes of racialization, this paper contends that such reclassification is unjustified. By demonstrating that “race” already functions as a historically grounded and socio-politically meaningful concept, and by comparing this case to successful term reclassification such as shell shock to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the essay argues that replacing the term would introduce confusion and diminish its explanatory power. Ultimately, the preservation of “race” is defended as both conceptually accurate and socially significant in describing the phenomenon of racialization.
Beyond the Brain: Assistive Technologies and the Case for Extended Cognition
Saniya Desai
This paper examines how theories of 4E cognition should account for the role of external tools in cognitive activity. While the embedded cognition framework recognizes that environmental resources can scaffold thinking, it maintains that cognition itself remains internally constituted. I argue that this view struggles to adequately explain cases in which reasoning depends on external structures, and that accepting it generates problematic normative consequences for how we understand the cognitive agency of neuroatypical individuals. Drawing on Caroline King's discussion of learning-disabled individuals who rely on graphic organizers to evaluate decisions, I show that the embedded framework leads to a counterintuitive implication: greater reliance on external scaffolding appears to diminish the individual's own cognitive contribution, even when reasoning performance improves. The extended mind framework avoids this result by treating cognition as realized through integrated person–tool systems. I argue that extended cognition therefore provides a more adequate, flexible, and ethically sensitive account of cognitive agency, one that better captures cases in which reasoning is inseparable from environmental resources.
Is Wit a Joke?: Absurdity and the Limits of Aristotelian Moderation
AJ Furse
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines virtue as a rational disposition toward pleasure and pain that enables human flourishing across a complete life. On this account, virtuous action must be guided by reason and cannot depend upon or produce contradiction. However, Aristotle’s inclusion of wit as a virtue introduces a tension within this framework, as witty expression often produces pleasure through absurdity, where contradiction is sustained rather than resolved. This paper argues that Aristotle’s own conditions for flourishing—completeness and self-sufficiency—implicitly require the tolerance of absurdity. If happiness is a complete and self-justifying good, then forms of pleasure that arise independently of reason contribute to flourishing. Because virtue is relative to the individual, the same action can be both virtuous and not virtuous across a single life. If both x and not-x can contribute to flourishing, then Aristotle’s account implicitly tolerates contradiction; absurdity is therefore built into his model of virtue. Drawing on humor theory and Albert Camus’s notion of absurdist rebellion, this paper reinterprets wit as an active engagement with contradiction rather than a trivial source of amusement. Stand-up comedy serves as a case study: comedians “weaponize” inconsistency to produce laughter, demonstrating that pleasure—and thus happiness—can emerge from the deliberate violation of rational expectations. These findings suggest that absurdity is not an anomaly but a fundamental condition of human existence. If flourishing requires happiness within absurd conditions, then virtues that merely regulate contradictions are insufficient. Reason, therefore, is not a necessary condition for the virtuous life. Wit, by contrast, uniquely transforms contradiction into pleasure rather than suffering from it, making wittiness a particularly effective disposition for flourishing in an absurd world.
When to Blame the Bystander: Voluntary Role Acceptance and the Moral Asymmetry Between Killing and Letting Die
Sarah Gorman
This paper defends the moral distinction between killing and letting die by developing a more precise account of when positive duties acquire significant moral weight. Building on Philippa Foot’s distinction between killing and letting die, I argue that strong positive duties arise through voluntary role acceptance. When individuals knowingly undertake social roles that involve expectations of care -- such as physicians, emergency responders, or caregivers -- their positive duties acquire a moral weight comparable to negative duties. This account explains why certain omissions such as those made by medical professionals toward specific patients can be as morally serious as acts of killing, while other acts are not.
On Confusion: Pensee Pensante and the Refusal of Fascist Certainty
Eleanor Harrison
This essay posits that “confusion” encompasses two fundamentally opposed phenomena: creative confusion and disoriented confusion. The following essay proceeds in four major phases: first establishing how we mistakenly place value in products rather than their creative processes, leading to diminished experience. Second, drawing from John Dewey’s Art as Experience and John Keat’s “Negative Capability,” I demonstrate how creative confusion—experiencing the contingency of reality—elevates rather than obscures understanding. Third, I address Walter Benjamin’s fascism concern to illuminate the difference between pensée pensante and the disoriented confusion weaponized by fascism. Finally, through Gabriel Marcel’s philosophy of co-presence, I will show how cultivating creative confusion becomes both the access point to deeper meaning and a political act. From Marcel’s work, the terms pensée pensante—heavy thought or unfinished thought—and pensée pensée—thought thought or completed thought—provide a framework for understanding approaches to thought and how they shape experience. Active tolerance for not-knowing is not just epistemological humility but a refusal to let reality solidify. How we treat our confusion has great stakes not only for the progression of the individual but our capacity to resist totalizing ideology.
The Quest for Coherence: Narrativity as Epistemic Justification
Nathaniel Kenny
This paper argues that coherence can be understood as narrativity in Laurence BonJour’s epistemological theory of coherentism. Coherentism is the view that our beliefs are justified to the degree that the overall system of beliefs form a coherent structure, and I claim, in a reformulation of BonJour, that our beliefs are justified to the degree that the overall system takes the form of a traditional realist narrative. I describe how narrativity can allow for coherentism to more obviously reach towards truth and then provide a few basic elements of narratological coherentism. Finally, I reconcile the fact that narratives usually require an ending, something a system of beliefs doesn’t meaningfully have.
Gamified Professional Self-Optimization: LinkedIn, Standing Reserve, and Self-Discipline
Jennalyn Kwasnik
This paper examines how LinkedIn, a platform designed for professional networking and commonly used by students and aspiring professionals, reshapes users' values, and the way they relate to others, their experiences, and themselves. While participation in LinkedIn career networking is presented as a necessary step in achieving a specific definition of success, I argue that users' values and behaviors are manipulated by the digital format and its punishment/reward system. Users are made to see both people and opportunities primarily in terms of their professional utility. To develop this argument, I draw on Martin Heidegger’s concepts of standing reserve and enframing, Michel Foucault’s account of self-disciplinary behavior under panoptic surveillance, and C. Thi Nguyen’s theory of gamification and value capture. Through Heidegger, I show how LinkedIn enables social standing reserves of optimizable opportunities. Through Foucault, I argue that the platform’s visibility reward system leads users to shape their behavior to abide by the success standards of a surveilling class. And through Nguyen, I suggest that LinkedIn reduces the complex values of students, like curiosity or fulfillment, into measurable signals of success. Ultimately, I argue that LinkedIn extends these philosophical concerns into a social and personal domain, encouraging a form of self-optimization that can come at the expense of genuine relationships, meaningful pursuits, and examined values.
Resituating the Land Ethic
Langston Lamitie
At the time of publication, Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic offered a compelling ethical framework aimed at bridging the gap between human and nature. However, I argue that his framework is theoretically insufficient and empirically outdated. The aim of this paper is to resituate the Land Ethic in a modern context. I begin by addressing the concept of 'community', utilizing a sociological approach to discuss and define the concept. Then, I update the foundations for the ecological conscience to be consistent with modern knowledge of thermodynamic climate systems. Following this, I discuss the contrasting relations between man and nature as described by Leopold, offering an alternative model with respect to contemporary ecological and environmental issues. Finally, I reinforce the ethical responsibility inherent in Leopold’s extension of the biotic community through the adaptation of Eva Feder Kittay’s care ethic.
Examining the Plausibility of Justice as a Form for Plato and Aristotle
Matthew Leon
This paper examines the plausibility of Justice's existence as both a Platonic Form and an Aristotelian form, concluding that the Aristotelian form is the only plausible account. I start by explaining Plato’s Theory of Forms—as conceived within his middle dialogues—which posit the Form of Justice as an eternal, perfect, and unchanging essence that exists metaphysically independent of all just particulars. I then reconstruct Aristotle’s two strongest objections to Plato’s Theory of Forms, specifically the Third Man Argument and the Unlikely Forms Objection. The Third Man Argument demonstrates the infinite regress that necessarily occurs as a result of the Form being self-predicating and separate. Further, the Unlikely Forms Objection notes that Plato’s Forms as a whole are either contradictory or arbitrary. Following the Aristotelian objections, I outline Aristotle’s conception of form as a formal cause, an inherent essence within particulars that structures, defines, and explains them without a separate metaphysical realm. As such, I find that this account is metaphysically, epistemologically, and explanatorily plausible in ways Plato’s notion was not. I then address a potential objection, namely that Aristotelian forms are incapable of supporting universality, by arguing that abstraction allows the same essence to be present within all particulars of the same kind. Ultimately, I conclude that Aristotle’s conception of Justice as a form is more coherent and plausible than the Platonic understanding of Justice as a Form.
Self-Deception and the Salience of Perceptual Experience
Carter Lesko
When we discuss perception, we tend toward assuming that our minds had zero input on the experience. We see, interpret, and memorize our observations, but we can't evaluate whether or not we saw something in a rational way, right? On the contrary, we do seem to evaluate the reasonableness of perceptual claims. When someone claims to have seen Bigfoot, a mythological creature, our instinct is to ask for more context. Susanna Siegel’s thesis of epistemic charge provides a way to evaluate the rational standing of perceptual experiences. The view presented is that epistemic charge can be used to resolve the static self-deception paradox of rationality: the idea that for someone to lie to themselves, they must believe two contradictory propositions, but people appear to lie to themselves all the time.
Infinite Copies, Finite Selves: A Dignity-Based Framework for the Digital Person
Esther Lim
The concept of ownership is normatively inadequate for governing personal data. Data's infinite duplicability, relational nature, and constitutive relationship to identity render the exclusivity and alienability of traditional property rights as incoherent. More critically, the property framework licenses dignity violations by treating personal data as a commodity, permitting individuals to be used as mere means through manipulation, discrimination, and surveillance. As an alternative, I propose a dignity-based framework grounded in Luciano Floridi’s concept of informational personhood and operationalized through Helen Nissenbaum’s notion of contextual integrity. This model replaces property rights with inalienable rights to control and contextual integrity, which protect the conditions for autonomous selfhood in digital environments. I defend this approach against the libertarian counterargument based on self-ownership, showing that the data’s ontology renders property claims metaphysically impossible and that core aspects of personhood must remain market-inalienable.
Wittgenstein and Nāgārjuna: Philosophy as Therapy
Mason Lipczenko
This paper compares the philosophical methods of the later Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations with Nāgārjuna and other (mainly Mahayana) Buddhists. The first section involves a summary of Wittgenstein's understanding of language games and the true nature of philosophical problems, followed by an examination of upaya (skillful means) and the Mahayana understanding of “emptiness”. The second section compares the two methods and treats them as a type of “therapy,” rather than a “theory,” and discusses the implications for how these ideas can be applied and what their authors intended readers to take from them. The latter section also notes several differences, primarily: Nāgārjuna operates within a larger tradition, whereas Wittgenstein breaks away from one. The paper concludes with several ideas about how a student or reader might apply these ideas and potential pitfalls to avoid.
God’s-Eye View and Time Travel: Eternalism, Presentism, and Movement Through Time
Hailey Mcdowell
I argue that the rift between presentism and eternalism is reducible to a difference in one's “vantage point” in relation to time. I claim eternalism is a stronger theory because, unlike presentism, it stands up to common critiques and is not scientifically revisionary. I then propose that objects move through time (rather than time passing by objects), because spatial movement entails temporal movement, and lacking an absolute relativistic reference frame, all objects are spatially moving. This temporal movement may be explained by attributing a temporal as well as spatial direction to vectors. This theory of temporal movement provides an explanation for human experiences of the passage of time and inaccessibility of non-present times that is compatible with eternalism, thus addressing eternalism's problematic dismissal of, and inability to account for, human perceptions of time.
Testing the Foundation: A Proposed Architecture of Foundationalist Justification
Alisha Mokal
The foundationalist account of knowledge is like a staircase, in which a series of steps, each justified by the previous, takes us from the base to the summit of objective truth. In what manner is our base, our foundational belief justified? In this paper, I explain two existing theories: (1) It is justified internally, by the clarity with which we can conceive of it, and (2) The foundational belief is unjustified and, if justification is a requirement for knowledge, we cannot have knowledge in the foundationalist account. I shall present my alternative view that the foundationalist belief is justified externally, in a mind-independent manner. I pose that if justification of the foundationalist belief, i.e., knowing that we know, is not a requirement for knowledge, then we can have infallible knowledge. Finally, I discuss the implications of this view on the relation between knowledge and belief and address objections.
Sartre, Beauvoir, and, Gaslighting: An Essay on Feminist Epistemology and Metaphilosophy
Lil Montevecchi
Kate Abramson’s 2014 essay entitled Turning Up The Lights On Gaslighting provides a definition for and lays out several different examples of behavior which she labels as gaslighting. Many of these examples are straightforward instances that are easily identifiable as gaslighting, such as a female employee being told that she is being “sensitive” or “unsympathetic” after raising concerns about a senior male colleague touching her inappropriately. The example that Abramson provides which I find most interesting—and most peculiar— is an interaction between Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, in which Sartre sharply criticizes Beauvoir’s pluralist morality. In this essay I argue that what Abramson diagnoses as an instance of gaslighting is actually just an aggressive, often masculine approach to philosophical discourse. I will first begin by fleshing out Abramson’s definition of gaslighting, differentiating it from testimonial injustice (which it is sometimes confused with). Next I move to explaining why the Sartre/Beauvoir instance should not be considered an instance of gaslighting under Abramson’s definition while also mapping out why I think Abramson mistakenly categorized it in that way. Next, I will expound upon the harm that gaslighting represents. I will then move to drawing upon Janice Moulton’s essay A Paradigm of Philosophy: The Adversary Method. Finally, I assert that this abrasive approach to criticism on the part of Sartre did not harm Beauvoir and actually advanced her development as a philosopher.
Attentive Attribution: Discussion on Discord in Disagreements
John Olubiyi
A large portion of interpersonal conflict is not about the surface issue being discussed. Two people may be arguing about tone, timing, chores, or plans, or a particular action, but underneath that disagreement is a deeper question: what does this behavior mean about you? How we interpret the behavior influences how we respond to it. One person treats an action as circumstantial, the other treats it as a reflection of character. Once those interpretations split, the conflict becomes more personal, and it becomes difficult to communicate at all. This paper argues that when two people have a mismatch in how they attribute the “wrongful” behavior, the best response is to pause and address the fundamental misalignment, or they will not even understand the real friction point of the argument they are in. More specifically, this paper argues that attentive attribution, a practiced way of pausing to examine how behavior is being interpreted, offers a systematically better way to handle such discord than simply debating the surface issue.
Reconciling A-Time & B-Time
Ty Reynolds
Since J.M.E McTaggart’s “Unreality of Time” , a plethora of theories regarding time have erupted. Predominantly, two arise: A-theory and B-theory. In I explain what the theories are and attempt to show that the larger contemporary debate on the topic is misconstrued; A-Theory and B-Theory need not, are not, opposed.
Hyperepisteme and the Ethics of Measured Presence: Lorde and Glissant on Coerced Visibility
Mason Sanchez
This paper examines the political demand for emotional legibility in contemporary social life, a condition I describe as hyperepisteme: the coercive expectation that certain subjects render themselves endlessly intelligible. While visibility is often treated as a moral or civic virtue, I argue that enforced legibility functions as a form of emotional extraction structured by hierarchies of race, gender, and power. Through a comparative reading of Audre Lorde and Édouard Glissant, I develop an account of resistance grounded in rhythm and opacity. Lorde’s reflections on anger and care reveal a disciplined emotional practice that regulates when and how feeling is disclosed, while Glissant’s defense of opacity articulates an epistemic boundary against the demand for transparent self-explanation. Read together, they offer an ethics of measured presence: a framework in which visibility is neither rejected nor surrendered, but strategically governed. I conclude that protecting interior life is not a retreat from political engagement, but a necessary condition for sustaining dignity, solidarity, and collective struggle.
Free Will, Sin, and the Saints: the Problem of Heavenly Freedom
Therese Shimkus
A well-known response to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom is that developed by Kevin Timpe and Timothy Pawl, in which they endeavor to show that the traditional Christian view of the saints in heaven is not inherently contradictory (Pawl & Timpe 2009, Pawl & Timpe 2013, Timpe 2014). By “the traditional view”, Timpe and Pawl mean the conjunction of (i) “the redeemed in heaven have free will” and (ii) “the redeemed in heaven are no longer capable of sinning”, with the “Problem” being the apparent conflict between (i) and (ii) (Pawl & Timpe 2009). Timpe and Pawl respond to this problem by invoking a distinction between derivative and non-derivative freedom. An agent performs an action with non-derivative freedom when at the time of their action nothing determines their choice. However, an agent can be determined by their own character to act in a certain way without the ability to do otherwise and still be acting with derivative freedom, so long as the character that determines their action is the result of previous non-derivatively free choices the agent has made. This is the idea that Timpe and Pawl rely on to argue that the saints in heaven can still be free despite not being able to sin. However, Timpe and Pawl’s use of the concept of derivative freedom has not gone unchallenged (Matheson 2017, Kittle 2020). Simon Kittle in particular argues that while it is easy to motivate the idea that agents can be derivatively responsible even when they can’t do otherwise, it is much harder to motivate the idea that they are acting freely albeit derivatively in such scenarios. He notes that this relatively uncontroversial concept of derivative responsibility is applied in cases (like that of the saints in heaven) where the agent lacks choice and, in his view, freedom (Kittle 2020). If Kittle is right, then Timpe and Pawl have only shown that the saints in heaven are derivatively responsible rather than derivatively free. Fortunately, a solution like Timpe and Pawl’s to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom does not need to rely on the dubious distinction between derivative versus non-derivative freedom. Instead, it can simply be motivated on source incompatibilist grounds. According to source incompatibilism, an action is free when its ultimate source is in the agent (Stump 1996, more Stump, Timpe book). This conception of freedom is particularly useful in regards to answering the Problem of Heavenly Freedom, as it specifically rejects that an agent always requires alternative possibilities in order to be free. The mere fact that certain choices are no longer available for the saints in heaven does not in itself undermine their freedom, according to a source incompatibilist. In this paper, I will invoke this source incompatibilist approach to argue that the saints in heaven are free, not because they possess alternative possibilities or are somehow derivatively free, but because their actions are ultimately sourced in themselves.
Dual-Level moral Anthropology
Delroy Tyrell
This paper presents Dual-Level Moral Anthropology (DLMA), a novel theoretical framework that reconceptualizes moral responsibility through two distinct but integrated levels of moral processing. Drawing on teleological principles, moral psychology, and event-causal libertarianism, DLMA proposes that moral agency operates through: (1) Teleological Moral Psychology — automatic moral intuitions aimed at tracking moral truth, and (2) Conscious Moral Agency — libertarian responses to these teleologically-oriented intuitions. This framework aims to resolve classical problems in moral philosophy while providing new insights into moral development, responsibility attribution, and the relationship between determinism and free will. DLMA’s core claims are grounded in six axioms illustrating the relationship between agents and these two “Levels”. From these axioms, three key theorems follow: (1) Inherited Properties Without Culpability: Agents can inherit corrupted teleological natures without bearing moral guilt if their conscious agency remains uncorrupted. This addresses debates about inherited moral responsibility, genetic determinism, and conditions for culpability. (2) Rational Agency Without Biological Drives: Purely rational agents lacking appetitive drives can still engage in morally significant action through conscious agency alone. (3) Necessary Goodness Compatible with Libertarian Freedom: Agents possessing necessary goodness can retain libertarian freedom when their conscious agency perfectly endorses their teleological orientation. This contributes to compatibilist-libertarian debates and Frankfurt-style cases. DLMA addresses classical challenges in moral philosophy including compatibilism, moral responsibility, and Frankfurt cases, as well as theological puzzles such as divine freedom and Christ's sinlessness, through its integration of teleological orientation with libertarian free will. Keywords: moral psychology, teleological ethics, libertarian free will, dual-process theory, moral responsibility, moral epistemology, moral development, event-causal libertarianism, moral intuition, moral agency
Inverting the Cave: Marx’s Materialist Reconstruction of Platonic Truth
Phillip Venne
Plato’s metaphysical structure becomes unnecessary once we understand how material conditions generate the appearance of universality. Plato grounds universality and moral truth in a transcendent world of Forms. In order to secure stability against the flux of the sensible world. This paper argues that such metaphysical transcendence becomes explanatorily unnecessary once abstraction is understood as materially generated. Drawing on Marx’s historical materialism, critique of ideology, and analysis of commodity fetishism, I argue that what Plato interprets as access to the intelligible realm can instead be reconstructed as a socially produced form of abstraction. By inverting Plato’s cave and locating the source of universality not above but within material life, Marx provides a more parsimonious and historically dynamic account of truth without collapsing into relativism.