Date of Submission

Fall 2018

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Philosophy; Mind, Brain & Behavior

Project Advisor 1

Jay Elliott

Abstract/Artist's Statement

This work questions whether rational judgment and emotion need to always stand apart, and whether objectivity and accuracy need to always stand together. I look to push the question of whether moral imagination and scientific thinking can go together. More specifically, I suggest that when one wants to morally respond to reality (in all of the emotionally, and imaginatively thick conceptions this entails), one needs to idealize reality in order to provide an object for the response to greet. Otherwise, if one focuses too much on accuracy, then too many questions will be demanded to be answered in terms of what is to be considered a commendable response. Further, I propose that the difference between Derrida and Descartes suggests that accurately secured consequence is always underwritten by an unknowing and unbounded desire. While we may be able to say a lot about the world, we should question why we expect the world to speak to what we are. I suggest that the way our conception of ourselves as a human being stands in relation to our conception of ourselves as a human being who have secured accurate authoritative consequence is an imaginative relationship. Lastly I consider why philosophy may struggle with thinking of a monstrous child and track the imagery of childhood innocence across four different arguments.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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