2010 Senior Essays and Schedule
Last Updated on Friday, 16 April 2010 10:39
All faculty and students are welcome to attend any of the senior essay seminars. Assigned faculty and student readers may pick up a copy of an essay in Viky Bichard's office starting Friday April 17th. Anyone else interested in reading and attending a seminar can get a PDF version of an essay by clicking on its title. Click here for a schedule calendar; there will no doubt be some adjustments, so check often for updates. Please
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right away of any problems.
| Alex Branch |
What constitutes a thought? How do we understand the processes of thinking? How do thoughts relate to knowledge and learning? At what point can we truly say we ‘know’ anything? These are big questions, but this paper works to comprehend them by drawing on the many traditions of Western Philosophy. Pulling from Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and others, Thoughts, Thinking, and the Continuum of Knowledge is a work that can be read with a minimal amount of prior preparation. It does not seek to unite, divide, analyze, or interpret any other author’s works. Rather, it is a self-contained exploration of the questions that might first plague a student as he takes on the beginnings of philosophy and which will surely still plague him four years later as he seeks to take on such authors as Kant and Hegel.
More specifically, this work attempts to answer the questions, ‘what is thought?’ and ‘what is knowledge?’ by carefully studying the processes of thinking; mainly synthesis, abstraction, and reason. It is a systematic inquiry into the various kinds of thinking a man can engage in and the process by which he is said to acquire knowledge. To do so, the work also sets out a hypothesis concerning the qualities of knowing based on the assumption that man may never know anything absolutely and, as such, can never be certain of any supposed knowledge he claims.
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Albert Dragstedt
Michael Riley
Tues, 4 May 5:00pm
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| Patrick Buelna |
This essay analyzes the psychological and theological symbolism of Melville's Moby Dick, Or The Whale in order to explain the transition from Old Testatment to New Testament Scripture and its psychological benefits for humans.
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Brother Donald
Michael Riley
Tues, 20 April 3:30pm
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| Nicholas Carmone |
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Steve Cortright
Joseph Zepeda
Tues, 27 April 5:30pm
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| Ana De Leon |
What is the answer to finding inner peace? According to the two individuals Arjuna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, and Pierre, in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, each is able to find inner peace through the acceptance of a greater hand at work: an infinite and eternal being existing within and around the individual’s suffering. Whether that infinite being is called “Lord Krishna” or “God” there is peace in realizing that nothing in the physical world can tie the inner self, which is one with this infinite being, to a lifestyle which is anything other than contentment.
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Theo Carlile
Ted Tsukahara
Fri, 30 April 11:30am
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| Nalui Garcia |
Nietzsche, the Freddy Krueger, of Philosophy emerges from his shadowy caves alarming man with his grotesque appearance and fierce words. Misunderstood or all too well understood? Nietzsche writes, “the last thing I would promise would be to ‘improve’ mankind. I erect no new idols; let the old idols learn what it means to have legs of clay. To overthrow idols –that is rather my business.” In my thesis, I explore Nietzsche’s will to power and his notion of self-overcoming.
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Steve Cortright
Theo Carlile
Tues, 27 April 4:00pm
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| Jess Hessock |
A look at Satan and the nature of his free will in Miltonʼs “Paradise Lost” and the justification of Gods actions to man.
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Joseph Zepeda
Ted Tsukahara
Mon, 10 May 1:00pm
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| Brianna Merihue |
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” – William Shakespeare. The Joker, Dracula, Venom, and even The Grinch. These names are some of the most recognizable characters in literature and film. What makes them stand out? Why are we so fascinated with the bad guys? My thesis turns three of William Shakespeare’s plays around and shows them from the perspective of the villain. My thesis attempts to find reasons for their malicious actions and assesses what aspects of humanity can be found in each of the villains.
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Alexis Doval
Michael Riley
Wed, 12 May 2:30pm
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| Jeffery Morgan |
All questioning seeks satisfaction in answering. The possibility of questioning is the potency of being. But the objects of our questioning are infinite in number and in essence. Because our questioning concerns an infinity of objects, the total satisfaction of the questioner is in infinite being. George Berkeley and Thomas Aquinas both conceive of infinite being, but through different means according to their respective philosophical traditions. Does Berkeley’s denial of material existence bear on the determination of the realm of being? An infinite less a finite leaves us with the infinite. It is my aim in this essay to satisfy the question: “does George Berkeley’s ideal metaphysical horizon terminate being or allow for the same infinity of being as the horizon of St. Thomas?”
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Patrick Downey
Alexis Doval
Wed, 5 May 1:00pm
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| Courtney Neal |
Compassion is an intellectual process leading to the successful achievement of the good. It allows the individual to recognize the humanity within the object of compassion and catalyzes the unity of the whole of humanity. This thesis explores the nature and affect of compassion by examining instances in Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov and Tolstoy's War and Peace.
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Rali Christo
Brother Martin
Mon, 3 May, 1:00pm
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| Irene Nino |
This essay is an exploration into freedom as it is seen through understanding man’s nature. Rooted in two foundations of thought, the essay compares and contrasts t the conception of a free will. In Immanuel Kant’s The Foundations for the Metaphysics of Morals, a separation between man’s world of sense and world of intellect results in a freedom that is self-governing through a dutiful reasoning. In the Bible, a man that is created dependent on God finds freedom in returning to this dependence. For both, a requisite of freedom is knowledge, but that knowing that is required is essentially different for each. Freedom is radical either as pure reasoning or as a holy relationship.
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Ed Porcella
Brother Raphael
Wed, 28 April 4:00pm
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| Stephanie Olano |
I have written a modern rendition of Saint Augustine’s Confessions. I have titled this paper, A Work In Progress because the protagonist, Auggie, is attempting to reflect and repent about his past through journal entries and short poems. |
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Steve Cortright
Albert Dragstedt
Tues, 20 April 5:00pm
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| Rachel Roelofs |
In the Second Epilogue of War and Peace Tolstoy says, “All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of freewill to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.” How does this view shape our ideas of the life of his narrative characters? By looking at the first scene of the soiree in Anna Pavlóvna’s drawing room and the last at Bald Hills in the First Epilogue, I hope to present a way to view these two worlds of society and family through these lenses and ultimately to answer why Tolstoy leaves his characters where he does: in a life defined and formed by family.
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Joseph Zepeda
Alexis Doval
Wed, 21 April 3:00pm
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| Johanna Timmer |
This thesis is an exploration of the original children’s narrative ¬The Great Dialogue which is currently being written by the author of the essay. The novel is discussed in light of its style (using texts such as The Little Prince), structure (Gulliver’s Travels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Plato’s Dialogues) and its Societal Themes (Kant, Nietzsche, The Bible, William James, and Bhagavad Gita). Further the essay addresses how and why we explore as members of the Integral Program. Appendices include selections from the original work which on its deepest level is a dialectical exploration of man’s role in nature.
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Roy Wensley
Brother Martin
Wed, 12 May 4:00pm
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| Stefanie Wang |
The core of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is that species gradually change as a result of natural selection. What if a species has the ability to reject or augment some of the rules of natural selection? Darwin hinted to this situation when he differentiated between natural selection and man’s power of selection (for example, the domestication of animals in which animals are bred for qualities favorable and advantageous to humans). This essay explores what happens when the rules of evolution are bent. Beings that consciously augment, change or supplant the rules of natural selection will be defined as post-natural. The claim is that humans are post-natural beings and behave in peculiar ways. Though some peculiarities mirror those found in natural animals, the fundamental differences will be outlined to demonstrate the post-naturalness of it all. By reading this, you, judicious reader, are becoming more post-natural.
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Jim Sauerberg
Roy Wensley
Wed, 5 May 2:30pm
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