Thesis Guidelines
In the future this page will contain a list of departmental guidelines. In the meantime there are two rules that the department would like students to keep in mind. First, a written thesis proposal and bibliography should be submitted to the department by the beginning of May. Second, those writing a full year thesis should have completed about 40 pages by the end of Winter Study. If you have more specific questions please consult the department chair.
Sample Thesis
At present we have a sample thesis by Max Weinstein. We expect to add more theses soon. Max’s thesis is saved as an Adobe Acrobat file. You may view different portions of his thesis by clicking on one of the appropriate titles below. To return to this menu use the return button.
Dialectic in Context: An Interpretation of Plato’s Protagoras
Title Page - Introduction - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Conclusion – Bibliography
Past Thesis Topics
| Name | Theses Title | Year |
| Raskob, Jakob Thomas | Plato’s “Meno” | 1979 |
| Smith, Jeffrey Merrill | Against technological determinism | 1980 |
| Kightlinger, Mark Fred | The critique of reason in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche | 1981 |
| Adams, Philip Bratten | The problem of freedom and determinism: is soft determinism a pseudo-solution? | 1982 |
| Koessel, Michael Duane | The paradox of the other: freedom and the social vision of Jean-Paul Sartre | 1982 |
| Merims, Adam Jon | Cinematic essence, film and theater: two ways of thinking about film | 1983 |
| McCabe, David | Nietzsche, art, and the affirmation of life | 1985 |
| Stein, Edward D | On the origin of beliefs : an analysis of evolutionary epistemology / by Edward D. Stein | 1987 |
| Tae Cho | Reconciling diverse elements of meta-ethics | 1987 |
| Raymond Yau | Concepts and capacities : a defense of the dispositional answer to Kripke’s problem of meaning | 1988 |
| William E. Underwood III | Hannah Arendt and human plurality | 1989 |
| David Reiss | Nietzsche’s conception of the self | 1989 |
| Karen Elizabeth Bessin | Thinking bodies and other selves : women’s experiences of body, relationship, and identity | 1989 |
| Michael Reisman | Communicating the ineffable : the dramaturgical theory of action | 1990 |
| Rachel Elizabeth Zuckert | Freedom and objectivity in Kant’s first two critiques | 1990 |
| Robert J. McCarthy | “In the end, I blame society” : the social unification of the fragmented self | 1990 |
| Rajiv Vrudhula | The inner experience : western and Buddhist deconstruction | 1990 |
| Norah M. Vincent | Metamorphoses of fear | 1990 |
| Michael W. Swartz | Missings and mis-directions in language | 1990 |
| Kenneth M. Levy | Behind the eight ball : the mystery of the causal connection | 1991 |
| Joel McElvain | The collapse of the right and the good : a critique of liberal foundations | 1991 |
| Jeff Butler | Determinism : reviving a dead hypothesis | 1991 |
| Joseph Lewis Cruz | Epistemology/ideology : justified belief in context | 1991 |
| Michael Cole | Hegel and Nihilism | 1991 |
| Edward S. Lee | Educating Plato | 1992 |
| Margaret Kohn | The politics of bodies and pleasures | 1992 |
| Kurt Shaw | The ecstasy of the postmodern : Jean Baudrillard and late capitalism | 1993 |
| Charles H. Stevenson | The environment, attitude, and truth | 1993 |
| Michael E. Lapin | Personal identity and the brain | 1993 |
| Nicholas Kolodny | The late Foucault | 1994 |
| Michael Masterson | Pictures of captivity : escaping philosophical pictures | 1994 |
| Peter Adamson | A place to stand : reason and faith in the works of Dante Alighieri | 1994 |
| Maura Elizabeth Hedwig Tumulty | Bread alone : Wittgenstein and anorexia | 1995 |
| Charles Imohiosen | The description of nature : Kant, Bohr, and the new metaphysics of science | 1997 |
| Alexandra Natasha Steinberg | Examining multiculturalism theory and practice in the liberal/communitarian debate | 1997 |
| Karolina Hubner | Language’s bewitchment : the metaphysical fallacy and Ludwig Wittgenstein | 1997 |
| Daniel P. Kray | Poetic vision and philosophic thought | 1998 |
| Christian Dankers | Incommensurability and the relationship between Chinese and Western medicine | 1999 |
| Jeffrey S. Edmonds | Metaphysics, nihilism, and style : learning from Heidegger’s study of Nietzsche | 1999 |
| Jennifer Ann Smalligan | Written transformations : an approach to Michel Foucault’s The history of sexuality vols. 2 and 3 : The use of pleasure and The care of the self | 1999 |
| Max Weinstein | Dialectic in context : an interpretation of Plato’s Protagoras | 2000 |
| Douglas B. Marshall | Mathematical fictionalism | 2000 |
| John Morrison | Contextualism and the Neglected Question of Context | 2001 |
| Laura Zuckerwise | Answering the Normative Question: A Critique of Reflective Endorsement |
2004 |
| Robert Hemm | Reconstructing Justice: Critiquing Rawls on Justification and Objectivity |
2005 |
| Paul Sonenthal | The Role of the Observer in Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics | 2005 |
