Thesis Guidelines
There are two guidelines for potential thesis students to keep in mind. First, a written thesis proposal and bibliography should be submitted to the department in April of the junior year. Second, thesis writers should have completed about 40 pages by the end of Winter Study. See “The Degree with Honors” for more details. If you have more specific questions, please consult the department chair.
If you are interested in doing a full-year thesis, talk to a faculty member whose teaching and/or research area aligns with a potential research topic. Note: The alternate route to honors has been phased out as of the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.
Key dates for full-year honors theses, 2024-2025
— April 15, 2024: Initial proposal due to potential advisor
— May 15, 2024. Revised proposal/plan of action in light of advisor’s comments
— December 1, 2024. Presentation to department faculty of work in progress including an overview of the entire project and one substantially developed part of the thesis. This should be scheduled in consultation with your thesis advisor and the department chair.
— End of Winter Study, 2025. Progress report and one draft chapter (or equivalent). After this material is turned in to your advisor and second reader, a determination is made whether to continue with the thesis.
— April 30, 2025. Thesis due
— Spring Reading Period. Presentation of Honors Work
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 |
|---|---|---|
| April Owens | Thinking on our Feet: Toward an Embodied Functionalism | 2024 |
| Tai Henrichs | Building a Kantian Home for Animals | 2023 |
| Danny Irvine | How We Mean What We Mean: The Role of Intentions in Determining Meaning | 2023 |
| Reid Kurashige | Kant and the Problem of Inner Alienation | 2022 |
| Yiqiu (Benny) Weng | The Problem of Missing Evidence in Contemporary Dark Matter Research | 2022 |
| Isaac Wilkins | Incredulous Stares: Uncovering Uncertainty in the Everettian Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics | 2022 |
| Zach Schreier | Life, Mind, and the Manifest Image | 2021 |
| Nicholas Anselmi | Kant’s Practical Theodicy: Cutting The Gordian Knot of Evil | 2020 |
| Anhui Huang | How Explanations Explain | 2020 |
| Jason Hansel | The Political Meaning of Epictetan Stoicism | 2019 |
| Zach Ottati | Functional Reality: A Role of Functionalist Interpretation of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism Critique | 2019 |
| Noah Betz-Richman | Phenomenal Intentionality, Private Concepts, and the Problem of Externalism | 2018 |
| Ethan Jacobs | Disclosing the Possibly Actual: Skepticism and the Method of Critique | 2018 |
| Eric Muscosky | Criticis, Dogmatism, and the Problem of a Wittgensteinian Political Philosophy | 2018 |
| Seunghyun Angela Yeo | Reasons in Kantian Constructivist View | 2018 |
| Teague Morris | The Echo of a Thought in Sight: Aspect-Seeing and Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy | 2017 |
| Emma Schwartz | An Ethical Evaluation of Disputes over Frozen Embryos | 2017 |
| Vidya Venkatesh | Beyond the Mathematical Mufti: Wittgenstein and the Language of Mathematical Practice | 2017 |
| Gordon Wilford | Plato’s Divided Soul: A Defense of Tripartition in the Republic | 2017 |
| Conrad Damstra | Spontaneity and Reason: Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Hegel’s Response | 2016 |
| Willis Keuthau | The Ethics of Ethics: The Stakes of a Philosophical Approach | 2016 |
| Dylan Meacham | Rule-Following and Basic Conceptual Capacities | 2015 |
| Taylor Oddleifson | Causal Structuralism | 2015 |
| Zoe Jenkin | Conceptual Change and the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction | 2012 |
| Zina Ward | Realism and Instrumentalism in Contemporary Microeconomics: Considerations for Bounded Rationality | 2012 |
| James Finley | A Defense of a Semantically Dialetheist Response to the Liar’s Paradox | 2011 |
| Santiago Sanchez-Borboa | Reasons and Emotions | 2011 |
| Alison Hansen-Decelles | The Animal-Famine Argument | 2010 |
| Silvia B.S. Lawrence | Philosophizing through Language | 2010 |
| Aditi Chaturvedi | Perfect and Human Eudaimonia:The Nature of Happiness in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics | 2009 |
| Raffana Donelson | U.S. Prohibitions of ‘Organ’ Sale – A Philosophical Diagnosis | 2009 |
| Rachel Schneebaum | Re-reading the Problem of Consciousness | 2009 |
| Jane Gimian | Cultivating A Skillful Attitude: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Intellectual Engagement, Subjective Awareness, and Expert Action | 2008 |
| Lauren Guilmette | Critical Theory in the Bedroom | 2008 |
| Laura Specker | Revising Our Ethical Beliefs: the Consideration of Animals | 2008 |
| Anna Edmonds | Abandoning the Truth Aim: a Reevaluation of the Aim of Belief and the Goal of Cognition | 2007 |
| Caroline Anderson | A Libertarian Defense of Free Will | 2006 |
| Roy Liu | The Procedural Character of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy | 2006 |
| Robert Hemm | Reconstructing Justice: Critiquing Rawls on Justification and Objectivity |
2005 |
| Paul Sonenthal | The Role of the Observer in Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics | 2005 |
| Laura Zuckerwise | Answering the Normative Question: A Critique of Reflective Endorsement | 2004 |
| LaToya Stephens | Justice, the foundation . . . | 2002 |
| John Morrison | Contextualism and the Neglected Question of Context | 2001 |
| Max Weinstein | Dialectic in context : an interpretation of Plato’s Protagoras | 2000 |
| Douglas B. Marshall | Mathematical fictionalism | 2000 |
| 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 |
| Daniel P. Kray | Poetic vision and philosophic thought | 1998 |
| 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 |
| Maura Elizabeth Hedwig Tumulty | Bread alone : Wittgenstein and anorexia | 1995 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Edward S. Lee | Educating Plato | 1992 |
| Margaret Kohn | The politics of bodies and pleasures | 1992 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Raymond Yau | Concepts and capacities : a defense of the dispositional answer to Kripke’s problem of meaning | 1988 |
| 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 |
| McCabe, David | Nietzsche, art, and the affirmation of life | 1985 |
| Merims, Adam Jon | Cinematic essence, film and theater: two ways of thinking about film | 1983 |
| 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 |
| Kightlinger, Mark Fred | The critique of reason in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche | 1981 |
| Smith, Jeffrey Merrill | Against technological determinism | 1980 |
| Raskob, Jakob Thomas | Plato’s “Meno” | 1979 |