Philosophy Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2799
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item Visual Insight in Geometry(2016) Fletcher, Logan; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)According to a traditional rationalist proposal, it is possible to attain knowledge of certain necessary truths by means of insight—an epistemic mental act that combines the 'presentational' character of perception with the a priori status usually reserved for discursive reasoning. In this dissertation, I defend the insight proposal in relation to a specific subject matter: elementary Euclidean plane geometry, as set out in Book I of Euclid's Elements. In particular, I argue that visualizations and visual experiences of diagrams allow human subjects to grasp truths of geometry by means of visual insight. In the first two chapters, I provide an initial defense of the geometrical insight proposal, drawing on a novel interpretation of Plato's Meno to motivate the view and to reply to some objections. In the remaining three chapters, I provide an account of the psychological underpinnings of geometrical insight, a task that requires considering the psychology of visual imagery alongside the details of Euclid's geometrical system. One important challenge is to explain how basic features of human visual representations can serve to ground our intuitive grasp of Euclid's postulates and other initial assumptions. A second challenge is to explain how we are able to grasp general theorems by considering diagrams that depict only special cases. I argue that both of these challenges can be met by an account that regards geometrical insight as based in visual experiences involving the combined deployment of two varieties of 'dynamic' visual imagery: one that allows the subject to visually rehearse spatial transformations of a figure's parts, and another that allows the subject to entertain alternative ways of structurally integrating the figure as a whole. It is the interplay between these two forms of dynamic imagery that enables a visual experience of a diagram, suitably animated in visual imagination, to justify belief in the propositions of Euclid’s geometry. The upshot is a novel dynamic imagery account that explains how intuitive knowledge of elementary Euclidean plane geometry can be understood as grounded in visual insight.Item VIEWS OF GOD AND EVIL: A PERSPECTIVAL APPROACH TO THE ARGUMENT FROM EVIL(2008-06-30) Bernard, Christopher William Thomas; Stairs, Allen; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A view referred to as "skeptical theism" has received much attention in recent discussions of the argument from evil against the existence of God. According to skeptical theism, humans are not in an epistemic position to make the inferences necessary for the evidential argument from evil to go through. In this dissertation, I defend the importance of individual variations in epistemic position to our evaluation of the argument from evil. Skeptical theists highlight the inadequacy of the human epistemic position to make the relevant judgments. I underscore the importance of individual differences in epistemic position---perspectival differences---to our evaluation of the argument from evil. (Some would prefer the term "worldview" over "perspective." As I use the term, an epistemic perspective includes a worldview but includes factors that are broader than our beliefs, like practical interests and social factors.) I argue that believers and nonbelievers may be epistemically justified in drawing different conclusions about God from similar evidence because the evidence is judged from different epistemic perspectives. In particular, my discussion focuses on two perspectival factors which have received relatively little attention by analytic philosophers of religion: practical interests and social factors.