Honors Theses
Honors Theses
Philosophy Honors Theses are the written presentations of research conducted under the guidance of Colby faculty by senior Philosophy majors. A bound copy of each thesis is kept in the Department library.
2022:
Steve Li, Philosophy and Music: A Search for Truth
Harry Kolb, (Senior Scholar Project): Samuel Alexander: Life and Thought
2021:
Sarah Bash, Fertile Femininity: Ontological and Phenomenological Perspectives on Reproduction and Feminine Embodiment
Daniel Ellison, The Transcendental Ground of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism
Sam Sessions, The Tetralemma of Nothingness
2021j:
Ronahn Clarke, Socrates and the Divine Mission of Political Friendship
2020:
Kieran Dunn, Racism: Who is Responsible?
2019:
Ethan Ashley, The New White Moderate: Bearing Witness to the Differend of Race
Erin Maidman, Didn’t I used to be me?” Personal Identity after Trauma and Mental Illness
2018:
2016:
Griffen Isaac Allen, Don’t Know, Do Not Resuscitate: A Principle for the Creation of the Kingdom of Ends in the ICU
Alex Sarappo, In Trust We Trust: An Epistemological Investigation of Ethical and Aesthetic Testimony
2014:
Uzoma Orchingwa, Unfreedom.
Kelsey Park, Beyond Our Conscience: A Proposal for and Improved Model of Self-Forgiveness
2012:
2011:
Michael Yohai, We the Peoples of the United States: Constituting American Identities Through Pluralism and Narrative
2010:
Kevin P. Smith, The Metaphysics of Modality
William A. Price, The Purely Reflected Self
Kristen Psaty, On Perfect Friendship: An Outline and a Guide to Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship
2009:
Jason Stigliano, The Conceptual Being in Contemporary Life: A Pontification
Kris Miranda, Break the Sky: an exploration of ethics with swords and superheroes
Carlie Minichino, Gender Specific Rules in Sport are based on an Outdated Idea of Femininity
2007:
Elizabeth Coogan, Rawls and Health Care
Adam Marvin, Interpretation Stops Here: Judicial Politics in a Constitutional Republic
Allyson Rudolph, Collective Moral Responsibility
2006:
Emily Brostek, An Impoverished Philosophy
Gregory Lusk, Truth, Knowledge and Understanding
2005:
Megan Burd, Mysticizing Philosophy
Josh Kahn, Separating the Good from the Great: Toward an Objective Criterion for Value in Music
Chris Surprenant, Cultivating the Good Will: Moral Progress and the Kantian State
Alex Telis, Ethics and the Akeda: An Existenial Exegesis of Genesis 22
2004:
Edward F. Smith, Rationality, Warrant, and Theistic Belief
2003:
Peter K. Osborn, Lost in the Woulds: Why I am Not a Counterpart and Other Lessons from Modal Logic
Tracy E. Schloss, When Morality Builds: An Analysis of Art, City Planning, and The Ethics of Iris Murdoch
Edwin Stone, Positivism in the Wasteland: An Essay on the Nature of International Law
2002:
John S. Brownell, Ethical and Legal Issues of Informed Consent in Medicine
Ryan M. Wepler, Boats, Bats, and Bootstraps: A Defense of American Neopragmatism
2001:
Bryan P. Kessler, The Importance of the Ontological Relationship Between Absolute Spirit and Individual Minds in G.W.F. Hegel’s Philosophy
2000:
Scott J. Bridges, Challenging the Laws of Thought
1999:
Dennis N. D’Angelo, If I’d Known Then What I Know Now
Katie Quackenbush, Literature, Drama, and Philosophy in Plato: The Trials and Death of Socrates
1998:
John S. Brunero III, Autonomy, Authority, and Discourse: Can Habermas and Mill Resolve Philosophical Anarchism?
1997:
Michael S. Barber (senior scholar), Reading Nietzsche, Reading Emerson: (Con) Texts for Creative Meaning
Andrew B. Glos, The Mystic, the Heretic, and the Dame of Norwich
1996:
Paul J. Fontana, The Existence of Evil and the Problem of God
Christopher McMath (senior scholar), Medical Treatment and the Good Death
1995:
John E. Costenbader, Buddhism and the Unveiling of an Environmental Ethic
Caleb E. Mason, The Early Genealogy of the Concept of Will