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TheRelational Teleology of Francis Mayronis:
No full textThesis advisor: Eileen C. SweeneyFrancis Mayronis was a Franciscan friar and one of John Duns Scotus’s primary students; he became a master of theology in 1323. His Commentary on the Sentences is preserved in more than 100 medieval manuscripts. In recent literature, Mayronis’s work has received considerable attention, especially in his cognitive theory and metaphysics. However, his ethical work has generally received very little attention. Mayronis occupies an important place in the early fourteenth century’s Franciscan intellectual tradition, particularly in the onset of the Scotist tradition. Mayronis not only creatively explicated and developed Scotus’s thoughts in his writings but also actively engaged in conversation with Peter Auriol and William Ockham as the “first” Scotist.My dissertation is organized to present Mayronis’s relational teleology in his notion of beatitude as the enjoyment of God. While generally maintaining a volitional agent-centered perspective that an agent or efficient cause is not determined to seek the good, Mayronis argues for the certitude of the ultimate end of the blessed and sees God, i.e., the final cause, as the total cause of the end. Mayronis harmonizes these seemingly contradictory causal powers of the final and efficient causes with the notion of habitus. First, Mayronis affirms the traditional view of habitus as an active power. In the present life, the free will gradually acquires a habitus toward the good through its own actions, and in heaven, grace or charity, i.e., supernatural habitus, is infused in the will of the blessed so that the will is eventually necessitated by the good. However, he could not maintain this position, i.e., the will’s habitus determines the will’s character, without abandoning Scotus’s emphasis on the will’s free aspect over its natural aspect since habitus is natural, though it is second nature. Hence, he develops a novel story of relation that completely replaces the role of habitus: God freely accepts someone due to a relational change to the person, rather than because the person has a supernatural habitus that is ‘acceptable’ to God.
I begin by presenting Mayronis’s metaphysics of final causality in its historical context. For Plato and Aristotle, the end is formal. Plato considers the end as the form externally given by the divine craftsman, and Aristotle depicts nature’s motion toward the end as matter’s internal desire for its form. Then, Avicenna, while defining the final cause as the cause of causes, develops two ways the efficient cause can be central: the intellect can see something other than the good as its end, and the will can seek something not as determined by its goodness. I treat Averroes, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Mayronis in developing Avicenna’s notion of the final cause and the relationship between the final and efficient causes. In medieval teleology, we see fully developed agent-centered perspectives. In his unique rendering of Avicennian final causality, Mayronis shows that, although the final cause is the primary and necessary cause, it potentially causes our relations with God; then, we, as the efficient cause, contingently actualize the relations. Then, to situate Mayronis’s ethical teleology as a continuation of Scotus’s voluntarism, I argue for Duns Scotus’s ethical teleology against Thomas Williams’s view that sees Scotus’s ethics as proto-Kantian.
I then present Mayronis’s notion of our intellect’s vision of God and our will’s enjoyment of God according to his metaphysics of final causality. First, I examine Mayronis’s cognitive theory that holds the vision of God, i.e., intuitive cognition, as a relation. I then argue for his relational teleology based on the premise that Mayronis views our enjoyment of God as a relation. For Mayronis, our ultimate end is our beatific enjoyment of God; it is neither our beatific act nor the object of the act, i.e., God, but the relation between the act and the object. Happiness is the relation to the Supreme Good, and misery is the lack of the relation. The purpose or goal of our life is neither merely internal nor external but relational. Finally, I present how Mayronis translates the role of habitus that grants the certitude of the enjoyment of the blessed into divine acceptance. For Mayronis, our moral life is not a long journey of accumulating habitus or virtues until we finally reach our destination; it is an everyday journey of love where we actualize the final cause, which potentially orders us to the Supreme Good.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Exploring the Transition to Adulthood for Autistic People:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Kristen Bottema-BeutelUpon high school exit, many autistic adolescents experience a period of disengagement, whereby they are not employed, enrolled in post-secondary education, or participating in community activities. This gap in services suggests that autistic adolescents receive inadequate support in high school to prepare them for the transition to adulthood (Shattuck et al., 2012). Autistic adolescents and adults who do obtain employment opportunities are often underemployed, work fewer hours and receive less pay when compared to non-autistic people (Howlin, 2013; Roux et al., 2013). Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to understand the transition supports provided to autistic high school students and the experiences of autistic adults in employment contexts. In Study 1, an online survey was distributed to 21 school professionals. They were asked to report on the supports they provide the transition-age autistic youth with whom they work and the barriers that make it difficult for them to provide high quality transition services. Open-ended responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Many school professionals identified barriers that were inherent to autistic children and their families, while others described contextual features that make it difficult to provide quality transition supports. In Study 2 (a registered report), 121 autistic employees completed a battery of assessments to determine the predictors associated with job satisfaction. A linear regression revealed that social support in the workplace was significantly associated with job satisfaction, and a mediation analysis demonstrated that person-environment fit partially mediated the relationship between work volition and job satisfaction. Eight of the participants from Study 2 were recruited for participation in Study 3, where they were prompted to tell stories about their work experiences. Discourse analysis was used to understand the discursive resources that autistic adults employ in the construction of their work identities. While telling stories about their professional successes, autistic employees registered surprise at their accomplishments, imagined future interactions, and used character perspectives to construct their work identity. The findings of these studies suggest the need for more widespread training among school professionals, employers, and co-workers, to reframe current understandings of autistic people. With improved knowledge, acceptance, and support, the employment context may foster positive work experiences for autistic people.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction
TheCommunitarian Conscience: A Theological Response to Legal Debates about Religious Freedom
No full textThesis advisor: Cathleen KavenyThis dissertation examines current legal and moral debates about religious liberty and the sanctity of conscience in light of the Christian tradition’s understanding of both. It is important for strong respect for a pluralistic array of consciences to be grounded internally within the Christian tradition, not just based in secular public reason. This dissertation thus develops a Christian understanding of the conscience that can provide this justification, referred to as the “open communitarian conscience.” Specifically, the dissertation analyzes various understandings of the person within the Christian tradition, explores how these have affected political discussions about religious liberty, including sometimes giving support to an excessive individualism, and shows how there are contrasting understandings in the tradition which can be drawn on to better theorize the person’s relationship to her or his communities. It also develops a pneumatological understanding of the conscience to provide theological support for this personalist anthropology and explains how the conscience can be reconceived to better describe the relationship between a person and their moral actions. The dissertation includes a discussion of six key U.S. Supreme Court cases which address issues pertaining to religious liberty and the religious conscience, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and suggests how an understanding of the open communitarian conscience might shift Christians’ understanding of how best to protect everyone’s rights of conscience while maintaining the First Amendment’s specific protection for rights of free exercise also.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Theology
High-resolution multi-temporal analysis of geomorphic change on the Sandy Pond Spit, eastern shore of Lake Ontario, NY
Get PDFThesis advisor: Noah P. SnyderMulti-temporal elevation (MTE) analysis is used to study topographic changes at specific intervals. Barrier-island complexes are often studied using this MTE analysis to quantify changes to the environment after hurricanes to understand how dynamic landscapes respond to different forcings. The Sandy Pond spit (SPS) is a north-south trending barrier island on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, New York, which responds dynamically to fluctuations in water levels, ice cover, and storms. Prior research reconstructed the geomorphic history of the SPS from 1878-2013, determining that the most significant factor affecting decadal change is the lake-water elevation. In the summers of 2017 and 2019, anomalously high precipitation and lake levels resulted in increased erosion along the SPS, and flooding in neighboring communities. In this study I used shoreline position, foredune crest position and elevation and volume of deposition and erosion to determine the dominant force of geometric change on the SPS before, during and after the high water events in 2017 and 2019, using the study period 2001-2020. Lidar data and small uncrewed aerial system images are used to generate digital elevation models (DEMs) and DEMs of difference (DoDs) from surveys conducted in May 2001, July 2007, June 2011, October 2015, May 2018, September 2018, July 2020 and August 2020. Results indicated water level was the most significant factor altering the topography of the SPS. Large storm events although erosive, were not as destructive to the shore environment as the long duration elevated summer water levels. From 2001-2015 the shoreline advanced an average of 0.25 m/year. From 2015-2018 and 2018-2020 the shoreline retreated 0.62 m/year, and 3.27 m/year respectively. The foredune position and elevation altered due to erosion of the dune toe caused by wave action and shoreline retreat from 2015-2020 compared to 2001-2015. To study volumetric changes, the SPS was split into seven ecogeomorphic zones that characterize the barrier-spit system at large. From 2007-2015 net deposition was recorded at five of the seven zones when applying a 95% confidence interval. The zones recording erosion were characterized by high dune complexes with sparse vegetation to anchor sand. From 2015-2018 net erosion was recorded in all seven zones, indicating water level had a statistically significant effect on the rate and volume of geomorphic change to this ecosystem.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Where work works: The role of community context in decent work and life satisfaction
Get PDFThesis advisor: David L. BlusteinThe U.S. has witnessed growing inequality, decreasing wages, and increasing instability in work over the past several decades (Krugman, 2012; Stiglitz, 2015). Moreover, evidence demonstrating work’s impact on well-being is expansive, as is its role in upward mobility and maintaining systemic oppression (Blustein, 2006; 2008; Swanson, 2012). Despite this breadth of research, studies rarely attend to community factors that shape opportunity for accessing work. As such, the present study sought to better understand relationships among individuals’ economic resources and work-related psychological constructs, in conjunction with community economic conditions and access to decent work. The present study utilized latent structural equation modeling to test several hypothesized tenets of the Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016) involving the latent constructs of social class, work volition, decent work and life satisfaction, in a sample of 816 working adults. Modeling contained both a composite decent work (DW) factor and its five discrete components of DW: safe working conditions, adequate compensation, access to healthcare, adequate rest and free time, and a match of organizational and social/family values (Duffy et al., 2017). Moderation analyses relied on matching individual participant data to their county-specific opportunity data, such as poverty, unemployment, and Preschool enrollment rates. Results indicated that social class indirectly predicted DW through work volition and that DW subsequently predicted life satisfaction. When examining distinct DW components in tandem with a global construct, social class predicted the healthcare and rest/time off components of DW, which further attests to the unique variance in these components. Findings underscore the powerful role economic resources play in securing DW and shaping people’s work conditions, in addition to the clear impact of DW on overall well-being. Analyses did not yield significant moderation effects for economic conditions and community opportunity in hypothesized pathways. Implications for research, practice and policy, as well as study limitations are presented.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology
TheOrient, The Occult, and The Other: The Eternal Quest For Legitimacy
Get PDFThesis advisor: Natana DeLong-BasThroughout history, the idea of “hidden wisdom” and “primordial truth” has been a perennial fixture of innovative or heterodox beliefs. Repeatedly, novel methods of thought, be they religious, political, or social, have been introduced as a product of a vaunted time and space: lost secrets of the Persian magi, rediscovered wisdom of Solomon, uncovered Egyptian mysteries, etc. This persistent trope begs examination, and highlights one of the oldest trends in human thought: to find legitimacy in tradition, imagined or otherwise. Furthermore, the literature seems to always point towards a land in the greater Middle East as the font of wisdom - even in the writings of people from the Middle East, who simply attribute works to peoples and lands different from their own. Finally, in more modern times, there is a tendency to lean upon the narrative of a lost past for purposes of cultivating a new national identity, especially by peoples grappling with the overbearing mantle of Arabness or the struggles of a stateless people. Overall, the lost golden ages of the Middle East serve as the ideal wellspring of legitimacy for unorthodox ideas regarding the divine, the state, and the nature of a people.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Middle Eastern Studies
Freedom as Self-Donation: A Hildebrandian Account of the Cooperative Structure of Personal Freedom
No full textThesis advisor: Dermot MoranIn this dissertation, I critically evaluate the contributions of Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) to the relatively neglected topic of the phenomenology of freedom. We can have, I argue, an experience of a “bias” of freedom in favor of the morally good: willing what is morally good renders one freer, and willing against what is morally good renders one less free. Attempts to reconcile freedom and morality have often identified freedom with autonomy, most famously in Immanuel Kant, or even rendered freedom determined by the morally good, as in Socratic intellectualism and in Scheler. These attempts neglect what Hildebrand finds to be the central feature of the will and freedom: the free self-donation (Hingabe) of the person, the will’s fiat (let it be); which is the key to the reconciliation of freedom and morality. The height of freedom, I argue, is embodied particularly in our freedom to sanction and disavow value-responses (Wertantworten) of the heart (esp. affective love), which Hildebrand calls “cooperative freedom” (mitwirkende Freiheit). In order to give ourselves to what has value, what has value must first be given to us. In Chapter One, I show that doing justice to this givenness requires, for Hildebrand, holding the radically realist epistemological claim that consciousness is directly receptive to being. Receptivity is prior to any activity on the part of the person; it comes before freedom.
Chapter Two explores how things are given as having “importance” (Bedeutsamkeit) and “value” (Wert). Values issue a call (Fordern, “demand”) to give a proper response (Antwort). Chapter Two also outlines Hildebrand’s conception of phenomenology as involving “reverence” (Ehrfurcht). Reverence is openness to value’s word (Wort) and call to give that response. Reverence is defined as freely allowing oneself to be formed by the “laws” of values, and it is essential to freedom.
Chapter Three argues that freedom’s most fundamental aspect is defined as “self-donation” (Hingabe), encapsulated in the fiat of the will. Building on William James and Edmund Husserl, Hildebrand expands the phenomenological account of willing as giving the person’s fiat to being moved by potential motives according to their objective importance, in what amounts to an act of giving oneself (Hingabe) in one’s free response. It is this notion of self-donation that enables Hildebrand to secure the independence of the will from affectivity (in contrast to Scheler) and from the mind (in contrast to James and Husserl). Yet this independence rests upon a dependence on values being given for the will to will. Reversing Kant and aligning more with Emmanuel Levinas, Hildebrand finds reverent “heteronomy,” not just autonomy, to be the foundation of the independence of the will and “invests” it with meaning and purpose.
Chapter Four explores Hildebrand’s notion of cooperative freedom to sanction or disavow experiences according to their value. For Hildebrand, the sanction can only be actualized in accord with a “general will to be morally good,” or else it is an arbitrary pseudo-sanction. Unlike our freedom to do actions, cooperative freedom is a freedom that can only be fully actualized as a moral freedom. Hildebrand claims cooperative freedom does not pertain to the will, but to a separate “free personal center” (freies Personzentrum), because he associates the will with action. I will argue, nonetheless, that every fiat of the will includes what I term the “cooperative moment” of freedom, so that only a morally good fiat is fully actualized as a fiat.
Chapter Five defines this general will to be morally good. It is a will composed of fundamental moral attitudes, particularly reverence for the hierarchy of values, that are the core of the virtues. In this concept of the general will, Hildebrand unites a Kantian concern for willing what is good-in-itself with Scheler’s concern for willing higher values over lower values. In so doing he comes to a unique synthesis of Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and value-ethics in his conception of good will, which all rest on the concept of self-donation.
Chapter Six argues that any ethics that is based on what is good-in-itself necessarily, if it recognizes the unique preciousness of the person, becomes a love ethics, for love is the fullest and most proper response to the value of the person. Without recognizing this connection of ethics to love, one almost inevitably misses the connection between morality and happiness. In that case a morality based on the good-in-itself ends up appearing somewhat depersonalizing and burdensome. Just as it is legitimate to pursue one’s own happiness in love by making the beloved the condition of one’s happiness, so too with morality it is legitimate to pursue the happiness that only being moral can bring. So it is in the person who has a quality of loving goodness (Güte) for all where we experience the height of personal freedom as moral freedom. From a phenomenological analysis of this person, I derive four ways moral value enhances freedom: 1) it recollects the person to his or her deepest subjectivity (Eigenleben, “own life”), 2) it “supports” the will and prevents it from being arbitrary, 3) the happiness being moral can bring “nourishes” freedom by giving it energy and strength, and, finally, 4) the happiness being moral brings “intensifies” good activities, i.e., it makes the person readier to do them in the future.
Chapter Seven argues that while one is free to reject value in favor of what Hildebrand calls the merely subjectively satisfying, doing so subverts freedom itself into prideful self-enclosure. It also annuls freedom in that it enslaves one to one’s desires. In contrast to Kant, this identification of freedom with moral freedom is not because freedom is the autonomy of following a law given in pure practical reason, but rather it is the reverent acceptance (fiat) of the “heteronomy” the word and law of values impose on us.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Stepping Stones: Adventure-Based Learning as Transformative Teacher Development
Get PDFThesis advisor: Audrey A. FriedmanThrough adventure-based learning (ABL), individuals analyze unique experiences in order to generalize and apply critical skills and dispositions to their homes, schools, workplaces, and communities (Dillon, Tannehill, & O’Sullivan, 2010). However, there is a lack of research documenting the transferability of ABL to other contexts (Kraft, 1999; Furman & Sibthorp, 2012). In educator preparation programs, coursework in ABL has been found inadequate for its incorporation into practice (Sutherland & Legge, 2016; Dillon, Tannehill, & O’Sullivan, 2010). Expanding this research base is critical in justifying “adventure programming [as] more than just fun and games, and to support it as the powerful form of change that practitioners tacitly know it to be” (Priest & Gass, 1999, p. 478), and understanding how that change can impact teachers.
This research is informed by the overall question: In what ways can experience as an adventure-based learning (ABL) leader impact the subsequent epistemologies and practices of professional educators? Utilizing qualitative, collective case study methodology (Yin, 2018; Hancock & Algozzine, 2017) and grounded in Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning theory, this research studies ten professional educators who, as college students, had served as ABL facilitators.
Findings indicate that participants’ experience in facilitating ABL aligned with Mezirow’s criteria for transformative learning both personally and professionally. While participants rarely incorporated the physical challenges and fantastical premises typically associated with ABL, they reported their pre-professional experiences deeply influenced their pedagogical practice. This research posits a new framework for these connections, adventure-informed pedagogy, to explore how ABL philosophies and processes, but not practices, impacted former facilitators and their classrooms. Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Effective classes in the projectivized k-th Hodge bundle:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Dawei ChenWe study the classes of several loci in the projectivization of the k-th Hodge bundle over the moduli space of genus g curves and over the moduli space of genus g curves with n marked points. In particular we consider the class of the closure in the projectivization of the k-th Hodge bundle over the moduli space of genus g curves with n marked points of the codimension n locus where the n marked points are zeros of the k-differential. We compute this class when n=2 and provide a recursive formula for it when n>2. Moreover, when n=1 and k=1,2 we show its rigidity and extremality in the pseudoeffective cone. We also compute the classes of the closures in the projectivization of the k-th Hodge bundle over the moduli space of genus g curves of the loci where the k-differential has a zero at a Brill-Noether special point.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Mathematics
Resolving the Limitations of Genetic Code Expansion Platforms:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Abhishek ChatterjeeThesis advisor: Eranthie WeerapanaOver the past twenty years, the site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into a target protein through genetic code expansion (GCE) has emerged as one of the foremost technologies to selectively modify proteins in their native cellular context. This technology relies on engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS)/tRNA pairs that are orthogonal to the host cells’ endogenous aaRS/tRNA pairs. Traditionally, scientists look towards evolutionarily distant domains of life to identify orthogonal aaRS/tRNA pairs that can be further engineered for GCE applications in the host system. For example, bacterial aaRS/tRNA pairs are used for GCE in eukaryotes. The directed evolution of orthogonal aaRS/tRNA pairs for eukaryotic GCE has been less fortuitous due to the cumbersome nature of established yeast-based selection platforms. Recently, our lab circumvented this platform-based limitation by developing “altered translational machinery” (ATM) Escherichia coli strains that enabled the directed evolution of bacterial aaRS/tRNA pairs for eukaryotic GCE applications. In the ATM-tyrosyl (ATMY) E. coli strain, reintroduction of the E. coli tyrosyl-tRNA (tRNAEcTyrCUA) as a nonsense suppressor led to cross-reactivity with the endogenous E. coli glutaminyl-tRNA synthetase (EcGlnRS), restricting the activity range of aaRSs that could be selected, ultimately diminishing the scope of incorporable UAAs. To recover the dynamic range of this platform, cross-reactivity of the tRNAEcTyrCUA was eliminated through directed evolution of the tRNA acceptor stem. This new, orthogonal tRNA revealed weak mutant aaRSs whose suppression efficiencies were boosted through additional rounds of directed evolution. Improved aaRS mutants exhibited higher solubility, thermal stability, and suppression efficiency than their predecessor. While the newly engineered, orthogonal tRNAEcTyrCUA gave access to novel aaRS/tRNA pairs for eukaryotic GCE, some notable UAAs were still missing that could be incorporated with the archaeal Methanococcus jannaschii tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (MjTyrRS)/tRNA pair in bacteria. Following a systematic investigation into the discrepancy between the E. coli tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (EcTyrRS)/tRNA and MjTyrRS/tRNA pairs, we found that it can be partially attributed to the low structural robustness of the EcTyrRS. This limitation was overcome by rationally designing chimeric TyrRSs composed of EcTyrRS and a structural homologue from the thermophilic bacterium Geobacillus stearothermophilus. The chimeric scaffolds demonstrated enhanced stability, activity, and resilience to destabilizing active site mutations, offering a potentially more attractive scaffold for GCE.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry