Theses - Department of Philosophy

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Faculty of Humanities And Letters

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Open Access
A fictionalist social ontology
(2024-05) Bakkal, Erim
In this thesis, I explore how a fictionalist approach can be applied to social ontology, especially for conferred kinds, in the context of action explanation and prediction by comparing this view with various realist views. Chapter 1 is concerned with clarifying constitution accounts and the criteria for comparison. Chapter 2 gives three different kinds of problems against this realist view, which makes this view less credible. Chapter 3 introduces conferralist accounts. Chapter 4 will deal with the question of whether conferralist accounts can solve these problems. I will argue that even if the second problem is solved, the first and third problems still arise in conferralism. In Chapter 5, I propose a fictionalist social ontology. Thus, in Chapter 6, I argue that social fictionalism solves the problems in question.
Open Access
Are fictional emotions SUI generis?
(Bilkent University, 2018-05) Arıcan, Bensu
In this master‟s thesis, I address the question whether fictional emotions are sui generis or whether they are reducible to genuine emotions. I argue that we can neither put fictional emotions in a different category nor we can reduce them to genuine emotions. The reason is that since there is a continuum between belief and imagination, there is also a continuum between fictional and genuine emotions. To defend my argument I take into account of Susanna Schellenberg‟s continuum thesis (SCT) on belief and imagination and my argument relies on a slightly reconsidered version (RCT) of SCT. I suggest that an analysis of how the mind of the Reality TV Show audience is, which might be put forth as a new miscegenated genre, supports the RCT. Furthermore, I believe that recognizing the continuity between fictional and genuine emotions should lead us to reconsider on responses to the paradox of fiction.
Open Access
Armies as corporate agents: a new response to Lazar’s ‘responsibility dilemma’
(Bilkent University, 2019-05) Boğa, Dilara
The ‘Responsibility Dilemma’ is a significant issue for Just War Theory. The dilemma deals with the question of how to explain why non-combatants are not liable for lethal defensive harms despite being blameworthy. In this thesis, I suggest that we can overcome this dilemma by recognizing armies as corporate agents who bear liability. This explains why armies are liable, and why civilians are not. I also claim that there is a distinction between liability and blameworthiness.
Open Access
Autonomy, authority and manipulation
(Bilkent University, 2024-05) Bağcı, Aleyna Tutku
As Weber argues, the main threat of the bureaucratic state is the excessive limitation of individual autonomy. The individual autonomy will always be restricted by state authorities, either for the individual’s benefit or to his detriment. This outcome is an economical and sociological necessity. What does “autonomy” mean? I argue that there are two types of autonomy: the objective and the subjective. Wolff stresses that the autonomous person is not subject to the will of another; he is self-legislating. So, objective autonomy can be understood as self-governance. However, objective autonomy has no prudential value; only subjective autonomy does. A person is autonomous if he thinks that he is autonomous. How is this going to be achieved, though? The main problem which creates the inconsistency between individual autonomy and state authority is the use of coercion. Sunstein proposes the use of “nudges” instead of coercion. As he emphasizes, the use of nudges leads people towards making better choices without restricting their freedom of choice. However, nudges can only be applied on a small scale. What I will propose is a revised bureaucratic state, the rule of selected and very well-trained experts purged from politicians, which does not penetrate into individual matters – except for the use of nudges to direct people to the best possible option for them from a paternalistic perspective – and consists of citizens who trust the expertise of the bureaucrats because of their unique education and their commitment to the legal system. Even though this model reminds of Plato’s Kallipolis, it will be explained in the thesis how the two states differ from one another. The revised bureaucratic system is one way to cut the Gordian knot of authority and autonomy.
Open Access
Can philosophical practices serve as tools for well-being in education?
(Bilkent University, 2023-06) Deniz, Simge Zeynep
Philosophical practices have an important place in the tradition of philosophy as a way of life. In this thesis, I support the utility of philosophical practices in education. I begin with the idea that one of the objectives of education is to promote tools for individual well-being. In the first two chapters, I present an account of well-being which I discuss with the concepts of self-knowledge, authenticity, autonomy, resilience, and integrality. Next, I show that even if education aims primarily at communal gains, liberty, and cultural transmission, they do not contradict the well-being account that I present as the aim of education. In the last chapter, I introduce philosophical practices as tools of well-being and choose journaling practices as an example that can be applied to educational curricula. The thesis also aims to encourage pedagogues and psychologists to empirically work on these practices and choose the appropriate ones that can support well-being in education.
Open Access
Can we see non-human animals are agents?
(Bilkent University, 2020-06) Pamukcu, Efsun İlayda
In this thesis, I investigate non-human animal agency and I question whether we can see non-human animals are agents or not. I shall adopt a Moorean approach to animal agency and argue that we can see animals are agents just as we can see human agency because non-human animals are kind of entities that have the capacity for agency. There is a close connection between rights and agency and agents have inviolable rights that protect them. In order for animals to have rights, it is necessary for them to be agents. I claim that a theory of animal rights needs a theory of animal agency. Thus, the main argument is that we can in fact, see animals are agents which implies that we can actually see animals are agents when we look at them, just like we can see human agency.
Open Access
Carnap on the method of philosophy
(Bilkent University, 2020-05) Kaya, Hatice
This thesis examines Carnap’s view on the method of philosophy. More specifically, it examines his gradual inclusion of non-formal elements to an initially formal method of philosophy. In his early period, Carnap proposes merely a formal method of philosophy to which he calls rational reconstruction, logical analysis and logical syntax. However, in his late period with the addition of some non-formal features such as semantics and pragmatics Carnap’s method becomes less and less formal. The decrease in the formal aspects of Carnap’s method of philosophy indicates the inadequacy of formal methods on their own and the need for the non-formal features in the method of philosophy. It is argued that the non-formal aspect of philosophy is essential and philosophy and its method cannot be merely formal.
Open Access
Color-blindness in rawls’s theory of justice
(Bilkent University, 2019-05) Oktay, Emine Naz
I argue that Rawls’s theory of justice cannot be a guide to rectify or even to address racial injustice. While critics of Rawls’s theory do not particularly focus on colorblind discourse, my critique builds on this problematic feature of Rawls's account. In particular, the original position, a central element of the motivation for Rawls's account, is constructed from a color-blind perspective. For the case of racial injustices, any ideal drawn from a color-blind perspective cannot be of any help, since it emphasizes equality and sameness of all human beings. This serves to cover up the deep causes of racial inequalities and contributes to maintenance of racial structure in society. In order to illustrate my point, I use Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s conceptualization of color-blindness as “color-blind racism”, which makes clear the negative impact of a focus on egalitarian considerations. Surely, Rawls’s conception of a perfectly just society is taken by him as a part of ideal theory. Yet, even though questions of racial injustices are part of nonideal theory, the fact that his ideal theory is the foundation of his normative theory renders this defense questionable, as Charles Mills also emphasizes. This is because it suggests that our actual society would become more just, if it approximates to his ideal society. And since ideal society is a color-blind one, my worry is that Rawls’s normative account is also color-blind and would give us a society where racial structures remain intact and keep producing racial inequalities.
Open Access
A critique of Davidsonian theories of Metaphor
(Bilkent University, 2022-01) Gürsoy, Zeynep
With their rich imagery and unique effects they generate, metaphors have been used in a variety of discourse. But what are their functions in language and communication? Which mechanisms govern the metaphorical interpretation? These fundamental questions fueled dissensus between different theories of metaphor in philosophical and linguistic frameworks. In the emergence of this ongoing debate, Davidson’s rejection of a special category of metaphorical meaning and his characterization of metaphor in terms of a special effect had an influential role. Lepore and Stone side with the Davidsonian tradition. By stressing the creativity of the user against the conventionality of content, they argue that metaphorical content is open-ended and semantically indeterminate. Moreover, Lepore and Stone ground these arguments in their distinction between imagination and convention, as well as in the notion of conversational record, which are fundamental to their inquiry-based model of language and communication. In this thesis, I present a critique of Davidsonian theories of metaphor, by particularly focusing on their argument from open-endedness. I argue that we must distinguish between two types of metaphors: poetic/creative and ordinary. I claim that ordinary metaphors are not open-ended in the way Lepore and Stone understand them to be. By offering a new interpretation of open-endedness, I illustrate how literal content can, in this regard, be similar to metaphorical. To solve potential challenges of my radical view, rather than providing a pragmatic or contextualist account, I turn to Fillmore’s notion of frames and illustrate the role of information, embedded in lexical items, on our understanding of literal and metaphorical content.
Open Access
The development of preschoolers’ understanding of culpability
(Bilkent University, 2020-06) Alimujiang, Reyihanguli
The effect of outcome and intention on children’s moral judgment is much debated in developmental literature. Combining this debate with norm understanding literature we investigated children’s ability to understand intentions and norm violators’ culpability in a given situation. 4-year-olds were randomly assigned to two different groups that involve a puppet either intentionally violates a norm or violates the norm based on a false belief. Further, we investigated other sociocognitive abilities that may influence children’s understanding of intentions and culpability. Theory of mind Battery (Wellman & Liu, 2004), Change in location False Belief Task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) and standard Executive Functions task (Zelazo, 2006) are tested in each participant. Regarding protest behavior during transgression and tattling behavior after transgression as salient markers of children’s understanding of intention and culpability, the result shows that children tattle more when a norm violation is done with an intention to violate the rule as compared to the same norm violation that is done based on a false belief about the situation. In other words, 4 year-olds do understand intentions and decide transgressors culpability by incorporating the mental state of the transgressor. Moreover, children who could not pass the explicit false belief tasks show the same pattern in tattling while the ones who passed at least one of the explicit false belief tasks show no difference in tattling among conditions. Taken together, 4-year-olds understand and comprehend intention information especially when they do not have explicit false belief understanding.
Open Access
Do we need philosophical ethics? The case against unified ethical methodology
(Bilkent University, 2022-05) Ateşsal, Mert
Metaethics and normative ethics are often thought to be two independent enterprises. This view of ethics has been challenged in the recent past and the idea that normative ethics and metaethics should be unified is gaining traction. Against this trend, I argue that the most promising cases for methodological unification in ethics are not compelling. These cases are based on the epistemic implications of metaethical views, conceptual truths in metaethics, claims about the subject matter of morality, metaphysical identity claims in metaethics, and semantic claims about ethical terms. They either fail outright, fail to be of interest to the normative ethicists because they do not bring about methodological revision, or fail to establish unified methodology as an appropriate method for practicing normative ethicists because the costs of the method outweigh the benefits. When all is said and done, normative ethicists do not need to be too concerned with metaethics.
Open Access
Extra-legal decision-making during supreme emergencies
(Bilkent University, 2024-05) Uraz, Cansu
A supreme emergency refers to an imminent threat to the security, freedom, and well-being of a significant number of people, presenting a serious challenge to democratic processes. In such situations, the absence of specified legal guidelines may prompt a government to resort to extralegal measures to address the imminent danger. This raises the critical question of whether democracy can justify the use of extralegal measures by political authorities during life-threatening situations. To examine that question I consider the instrumental and intrinsic accounts of the normative basis of democracy. I conclude that neither approach offers an adequate justification for extralegal actions during emergencies. Instead, I argue that such actions are excused but not justified.
Open Access
Finding the middle way: the formation of democracy and the conflict of authority and autonomy
(Bilkent University, 2018-06) Civelek, Mert
This thesis aims to find a place where in the conflict of autonomy and authority there is a place for a democratic state to exist. The possibility of a democratic state that could have legitimate authority over its subjects is through consent of the subjects. I claim that individuals in a given neutral state in which there is no sign of a political body that has legitimate authority, will form a body that carries properties of a democratic state. I argue that if there is a possibility for the subjects to refrain from democratic participation, democratic participation can be considered as a way of expressing consent that would enable the state hold legitimate power and impose institutional obligations to its subjects.
Open Access
How can bundle cosmopsychism solve the subject-derivation problem
(Bilkent University, 2024-05) Celayir, Berk
Cosmopsychism is the view that the universe as a whole is conscious and metaphysi- cally grounds all conscious subjects. While this position has the important advantage of avoiding the fundamental problems of physicalism, dualism and micropsychism, it faces a challenge called the subject-derivation problem, that is, it must explain how all the different conscious subjects derive from a singular cosmic subject. In this thesis, I will argue that the subject-derivation problem cannot be solved as long as a singular cosmic subject is assumed, and I will propose a new model for solving this problem, which I call Bundle Cosmopsychism. The main idea of my thesis is that a bundle of cosmic subjects subsuming the entire phenomenal statespace can ground all subjects in an irreducibly collective way.
Open Access
How to be fragmented?
(Bilkent University, 2018-05) Eroğlu, Ali Kerem
Actual human agents have limited cognitive capacity. They might display deductive failure, contradictory beliefs and imperfect recall. These and other similar cases raise a problem for idealized models of belief and behavior. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a way to accommodate these cases through a model of belief formation and retrieval based on information access. I will argue that belief formation and retrieval are sensitive to the informational context within which they take place. Human agents deploy information relative to the set of possibilities they take to be relevant.
Open Access
How to understand mental actions
(Bilkent University, 2023-06) Oral, Kemal Tarık
There are lots of goings-on in our mental lives: thinking of something, calculating the sum of two numbers, daydreaming, deciding what to do, or trying to remember a particular moment. Some of these are actions we do intentionally while others are things that just happen to us. Thus, philosophers of action take different stands about the scope of mental agency. In this thesis, I argue that there is an implicit metaphysical assumption in discussions about the scope of mental agency, which is somewhat due to Strawson’s (2003) influential account. Roughly put, the assumption is that for a mental act A, A-ing occurs only after certain processes, which might (not) be agential, that lead up to an event of A-ing. I argue that this conceptualization leads many philosophers to argue that most mental activities cannot be agential. However, I think that this is metaphysically inaccurate. The objective of this thesis is to show how and why this is the case by focusing on a particular mental action: deciding. Inspired by the Vendler-Kenny typology of verbs, I argue that deciding can be considered as an accomplishment and that the occurrence of the decision is not a distinct effect, but a result of deliberative processes: deciding is nothing over and above deliberative processes, but just these processes’ coming to an end. I believe that this approach will be effective in solving problems an account of mental agency can face.
Open Access
Imagination in the study of history: Collingwood reconsidered
(Bilkent University, 2019-05) Hadley, John
Philosopher and historian R.G. Collingwood made bold claims for the role imagination plays in the study of history, but does not adequately qualify his claims. In this thesis I add content to Collingwood’s conception of historical imagination by using Collingwood’s works to inter-illuminate each other and by incorporating more thought on imagination and history that has been written since Collingwood. I conclude that there are three types of imagination relevant to a Collingwoodian historian: inquisitive, instructive, and representative imagination.
Open Access
Is relativized BSA anti-realist?
(Bilkent University, 2021-01) Sonsayar, Utku
This thesis investigates one version of Best System Accounts (BSA) of laws of nature: relativized BSA. I argue that relativized BSA, unlike its proponents claim, is an anti-realist account. In the second chapter, I argue that relativized BSA cannot give a plausible metaphysical story for Humean Laws. In the third chapter, I show how acceptance of explosive realism brings irreducible pragmatic elements that render relativized BSA anti-realist. I suggest that there is a general tension between BSA’s naturalist-friendliness and scientific realism.
Open Access
Knowledge and wisdom: a reading of the digression in the Theaetetus
(Bilkent University, 2020-06) İsmet, Doğacan
The Theaetetus digression has attracted scholars in both its form and content. No final answer is given as to how we should read the digression. I propose another reading, which engages in the structural intricacies of the Theaetetus and its implications of the digression. To do so, I attend to Mitchell Miller's reading of the Republic and I show that the digression is in fact about the unity of mathematics and philosophy. The digression, I argue, naturally divides into two. Its first part corresponds to the ones who become philosophers on their own account, its second part corresponds to the ones the city educates in the Republic. The digression, therefore, neither portrays a caricature, nor is its flying philosopher the ideal of Platonism. The Socrates of the Theaetetus, I argue, looks for someone who will continue philosophy after him, and his directives to Theaetetus follow the direction of the Republic‘s curriculum toward dialectic.
Open Access
Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolution in manners and the kickback of constructed femininity
(Bilkent University, 2024-05) Çiftci, Sena
In my thesis, by using Simone De Beauvoir's concept of ‘the other’ from her book Second Sex, I attempt to solve the issue of how some features of produced femininity, such as submission, caretaking, sentimentality, and so forth, increase women's oppression. I argue that discriminatory practices that are explicitly gendered and imposed on a single gender have been producing negative outcomes, regarding the problem explained. Also, it should be acknowledged that adhering to these practices should not be promoted as necessary to be identified as a woman. I propose to follow the revolution in female manners advocated by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women as a plausible and effective answer to ‘the otherness’ of women in society. Here I argue that the main reason for the plausibility is the said revolution’s inclusivity. Since Wollstonecraft argues that the revolution in female manners can be attained only by equal distribution of knowledge of the right kind of virtues and national education to all genders, inclusivity should be a given.