Philosophy
In its Honors Program, the Philosophy Department awards one level of Honors to student research projects. Prior to 2021, a student could recieve Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors. The projects listed below have been defended successfully, and a copy of the thesis deposited in Swem Library.
Key:
- Student, "Thesis" (Honors level)
Committee Chair + Other Committee Members
2023-2024
- Juntong Gu, "In the Fabric of Experience: Exploring Time and Self" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Matthew Haug, Brian Rabinovitz
- Ryan Taylor Kopelman, "Philosophy of 'As If': Contemporary Applications and Defense" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Laura Ekstrom, Robert Barnet
- Benjamin Whitmore Lee, "A Comparison of Neo-Hobbesian Social Contract Theory and Anthropological Accounts of Socio-Political Complexity" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Paul Davies, Victoria Costa, Chandos Brown
- Kia Morawetz, "A New Metaphysical Approach to Intersectionality" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Laura Ekstrom, Francesca Sawaya
- Yi Shao, "The Self in the Mirror of Despair: Søren Kierkegaard on the Authentic Christian Life" (Honors)
Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Alexander Angelov
2022-2023
- Preston Scott Budd, "On Conditional Reasons" (Honors)
Chris Tucker + Josh Gert, Akshay Gupta
- Tanja Rounds, "On Certain Antinomies of Freedom: Divine Foreknowledge and Immutability" (Honors)
Phillip Swenson + Noah Lemos, Alexander Angelov - Ruyu Wang, "Exploring Moral Saints" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Noah Lemos, Rebecca Farber
2021-2022
- Hengyun Yang, "Indeterminacy, Disagreement, and Reasonable Reference Magnetism" (Honors)
Joshua Gert + Paul Davies, Talbot Taylor - James Forte, "Free Speech and Its Limits: An Exploration of Tolerance in the Digital Age" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, John Lombardini - Jared Jones, "Negation & Acosmism: Hegel's Acosmist Reading of Spinoza" (Honors)
Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Robert Leventhal - Nickolas Boylan, "Cultural Evolution and the Intuitionist Paradigm in Ethics: Ethics as Creation" (Honors)
Paul Davies + Philip Swenson, Margaret Saha
2020-2021
- Jacob Beardsley, "Gender in Time" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Joshua Gert, Alicia Andrzejewski - Yuan Dong, "A Neopragmatist Understanding of Mathematics" (Honors)
Joshua Gert + Matthew Haug, Pierre Clare - Sihan Feng, "Weight of Words: Moral Responsibility and Freedom of Speech" (Honors)
Philip Swenson + Jennifer Bestman, Timothy Costelloe - Neal Going, "The Metaphysics of Sexual Orientation: A Pluralist Account" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Victoria Costa, Elizabeth Losh - Elissa Gosling, "Addressing Systemic Harms Through Restorative Justice Principles" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Aaron Griffith, Cheryl Dickter, Christopher Freiman - Yongkang Li, "Welcoming the Game Changer of Human Society: A Defense of the Moral Permissibility and Obligations of Human Genetic Engineering" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Maria Victoria Costa, Dana Lashley - Brett Restrick, "Theories of Responsibility and Punishment in a Causally Determined World" (Honors)
Philip Swenson + Laura Ekstrom, Claire McKinney
2019-2020
- Luke Erdahl, "'Poverty of Particularity:' Reconciling Divine Transcendence and Imminence Using Gregory Palamas' Essence-Energies Distinction" (High Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Kevin Vose, Noah Lemos - Elisabeth Holmes, "Euthyphro, Non-Conditional Valuing, and the Possibility for Evaluative Error: A Humean Approach to Animal Ethics" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, Caitlin Brown
2018-19
- Nathaniel Anderson, "Egoism and the Repugnant Conclusion" (High Honors)
Philip Swenson + Committee: Noah Lemos, Molly Swetnam-Burland - Riley Covert, "Ghosts of the Anthropocene" (Honors)
Aaron Griffith + Philip Swenson, Adela Amaral - Bryce Herndon, "On the Divergence of Schopenhauerian and Schweitzerian Ethics-of-Will"
Timothy M. Costelloe + Aaron M. Griffith, Robert S. Leventhal - Qiuyang Shen, "The Methodological Puzzle of Phenomenal Consciousness: What it is, and Why it is Still Unsolved"
Matthew Haug + Joshua Gert, Paul Kieffaber - Taro Shirakawa, "Individual Responsibility for Structural Injustice" (High Honors)
Victoria Costa + Noah Lemos, Amy Quark - William Siegmund, "Difference without Deference: An Individualistic Theory of Group Accommodation" (Highest Honors)
Christopher Freiman + M. Victoria Costa, Rebekah Sterling
2017-18
- Yuanchen Lu, "Perceptual Experiences Cannot Be an Inference’s Conclusion" (Honors)
Christopher Tucker + Joshua Gert, Noah Lemos, Nathaniel Throckmorton - Yonghao Wang, "Towards an Interactionist Dualism" (High Honors)
Matthew Haug + Joshua Gert, Robert Leventhal - Hannah Winckler-Olick, "Citizenship and Partiality: Group Membership and the Bounds of Morality" (High Honors)
Christopher Tucker + Christopher Freiman, Joel Schwartz
2016-17
- Kristen Ekstrom, "Dignity and Self-Respect" (High Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Aaron Griffith, Christopher Ball
- Hunter Gentry, "A Threefold Defense of Perceptual Dogmatism" (Honors)
Christopher Tucker + Noah Lemos, Matthew Hilimire
- Samantha Kim, "A Defense of Retributivism as a Theory of Punishment" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Victoria Costa, Christine Nemacheck
- Cody Turner, "The Combination Problem: Russellian Monism, Panpsychism, and Panqualityism" (Highest Honors)
Christopher Tucker + Kate Harrigan, Paul Davis
2015-16
- Delaney Berman, "On Animal Rights, Speciesism, and the Nature of Social Change" (High Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, Melvin Ely - Connor Dantzler, "A Psychological Approach to the Special Composition Question (Honors)
Chad Vance + Jonah Goldwater, Christopher Ball - Jackson Eskay, "Addressing the Problems in American Drug Policy: A Case for the Legalization of Drugs" (Honors)
Victoria Costa + Christopher Freiman, Tracy Sohoni - George Rudebusch, "Political Liberalism and a Theory of Justice: Recasting Justice as Fairness as a Political Conception of Liberal Justice" (Highest Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Victoria Costa, Julie Agnew
2014-15
- Jose Lopez, Jr., "A Battle for Rights Justification: Millian Utilitarianism vs. Scanlonian Contractualism" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Timothy Costelloe and Ross Carroll
2013-14
- No Honors students this year
2012-13
- Grace Mendenhall, "Mozi: the Man, the Consequentialist, and the Utilitarian" (Honors)
Christopher Freiman + Maria Costa, Timothy Costelloe, Kevin Vose
2011-12
- Dustin Crummett, "Approaching the Problem of Evil" (Highest Honors)
Laura Ekstrom + Adam Potkay, Neal Tognazzini - Adam Lerner, "Rehabilitating the Consequentialist View of Moral Responsibility" (Highest Honors)
Matthew Haug + Lee Kirkpatrick, Neal Tognazzini
2010-2011
- Devin Curry, "All Heads Gently Nodding: How Naturalism Dissolves the Problem of Other Minds" (High Honors)
Paul Davies + Alan Goldman, Matt Haug, Chris Ball - Carolyn Fisher, "
Remas (k)ulating the American Man: Fear and Masculinity in the Post-9/11 American Superhero Film" (Honors)
Colleen Kennedy + Fred Corney, Arthur Knight
2009-10
- Daniel Homer, "Clarifying Intuitions about Moral Responsibility and the Self" (Highest Honors)
Matthew Haug + Neal Tognazzini, Michael Green
2008-09
- Sean Dalby, "Turning the Fly Around: The Relationship between Wittgenstein's Discussion of Meaning and the Self: An Exegesis and Defense" (High Honors)
Matthew Haug + Jim Harris, Rob Leventhal
2007-08
- Devin DeBacker, "Harmful Offense to Others: A New Liberty-Limiting Principle and the 'New' Child Pornography" (Honors)
Tim Costelloe + Alan Fuchs, Michael Green - Samuel Thacker, "Ressentiment and Nietzsche's Determinism" (High Honors)
Tim Costelloe + Laura Ekstrom, Rob Leventhal
2006-07
- Stephen Chanderbhan, "An Analysis of Theistic Replies to the Evidential Problems of Evil" (Honors)
Laura Ekstrom + Jim Harris, John Drew - Andrew Schwarm, "Choice Criterion of Value and the Liberty Principle" (High Honors)
Alan Fuchs + Noah Lemos, Joel Schwartz
2005-06
- Andrew Penman, "The Austere Reading of the Tractatus: a Critique" (Highest Honors)
Maximilian DeGaynesford + Gideon Manning, Rob Leventhal - Jason Swartwood, "Pain and Peace in Wittgenstein: John McDowell on the 'Private Language Argument'" (Highest Honors)
Maximilian DeGaynesford + Gideon Manning, Talbot Taylor
2004-05
- Michelle Saint-Payne
James Harris + Maximilian de Gaynesford, Josh Erlich, Marc Sher
