Philosophy Dissertations

Author

Title

Date

Institution

Added

Dever, Josh

Variables (link)

1998

UC Berkeley
>

2006.10.4

Fara, Michael

Dispositions and Their Ascriptions (link)

2001

Princeton
>

2006.10.4

Greene, Joshua

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad
Truth About Morality and What to Do About It (link)

2002

Princeton

2006.10.4

MacFarlane, John

What Does it Mean to Say That Logic is
Formal? (link)

2000

Pittsburgh

2006.10.4

Sider, Theodore

Naturalness, Intrinsicality, and Duplication
(link)

1993

Massachusetts

2006.10.5

Brigandt, Ingo

A Theory of Conceptual Advance: Explaining
Conceptual Change in Evolutionary, Molecular, and Evolutionary
Developmental Biology (link)

2006

Pittsburgh

2006.10.5

Caplan, Ben

Empty Names: An Essay on the Semantics,
Pragmatics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Empty Names and Other
Directly Referential Expressions (link)

2002

UCLA

2006.10.5

Williams, Robbie

The Inscrutability of Reference (link)

2005

St. Andrews

2006.10.5

Sosa, David

Representing Thoughts and Language (link)

1996

Princeton

2006.10.5

Schwitzgebel, Eric

Words About Young Minds: The Concepts of
Theory, Representation, and Belief in Philosophy and Developmental
Psychology (link)

1997

UC Berkeley

2006.10.5

Pritchard, Duncan

'Hinge' Propositions and the Radical
Sceptical Paradox (link)

2000

St. Andrews

2006.10.5

Dorr, Cian

The Simplicity of Everything (link)

2002

Princeton

2006.10.5

Parsons, Josh

Theories of Persistence (link)

2001

ANU

2006.10.5

McGonigal, Andrew

The Metaphorical Problem: Realism and
Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Metaphor (link)

2004

Glasgow

2006.10.5

Fitelson, Branden

Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory (link)

2001

Wisconsin

2006.10.5

Mikhail, John

Rawls' Linguistic Analogy: A Study of the
'Generative Grammar' Model of Moral Theory Described by John Rawls in 'A
Theory of Justice.' (link)

2000

Cornell

2006.10.5

Knobe, Joshua

Folk Psychology, Folk Morality (link)

2006

Princeton

2006.10.5

Jackman, Henry

Semantic Norms and Temporal Externalism (link)

1996

Pittsburgh

2006.10.5

Raymont, Paul

An Idle Threat: Epiphenomenalism Exposed (link)

1999

Toronto

2006.10.5

Hofweber, Thomas

Ontology and Objectivity (link)

1999

Stanford

2006.10.5

Rupert, Robert

The Best Test Theory of Extension (link)

1996

Illinois-Chicago

2006.10.5

Zach, Richard

Hilbert's Finitism: Historical,
Philosophical, and Metamathematical Perspectives (link)

2001

UC Berkeley

2006.10.5

Paul, L.A.

Essays on Causation (link)

1999

Princeton

2006.10.5

Gendler, Tamar

Imaginary Exceptions: On the Powers and
Limitations of Thought Experiments (link)

1996

Harvard

2006.10.6

Levine, Daniel

The Chronological Paradox in Customary
International Law (Or, the Virtue of Sloppy Timing in a Messy World) (link)

2005

Georgetown

2006.10.6

Wilkins, John

The Origins of Species Concepts: Histories,
Characters, Modes, and Synapomorphies (link)

2003

Melbourne

2006.10.6

Morgan, Gregory

The Beauty of Symmetrical Design: The
Alleged Epistemic Role of Aesthetic Value in Theoretical Science (link)

2004

Johns Hopkins

2006.10.6

Weisberg, Michael

When Less is More: Tradeoffs and
Idealization in Model Building (link)

2003

Stanford

2006.10.6

López de Sa, Dan

Response-Dependencies: Colors and Values (link)

2003

Barcelona

2006.10.9

Merritt, Melissa

Drawing From the Sources of Reason:
Reflective Self-Knowledge in Kant's First Critique (link)

2004

Pittsburgh

2006.10.9

Magnus, P.D.

Underdetermination and the Claims of Science
(link)

2003

UC San Diego

2006.10.9

Levy, David

On Moral Understanding (link)

2004

London

2006.10.9

Wüthrich, Christian

Approaching the Planck Scale From a
Generally Relativistic Point of View: A Philosophical Appraisal of Loop
Quantum Gravity (link)

2006

Pittsburgh

2006.10.10

Frost-Arnold, Gregory

Carnap, Tarski, and Quine's Year Together:
Logic, Mathematics, and Science (link)

2006

Pittsburgh

2006.10.25

Brown, Kenneth

The Strict Interpretation of Locke's Theory
of Ideas (link)

2006

UC Irvine

2006.10.25

Woodbridge, James

Truth as a Pretense: A Deflationary Account
of Truth-Talk (link)

2001

Michigan

2006.10.25

Carpenter, Andrew

Kant's Earliest Solution to the Mind/Body
Problem (link)

1998

UC Berkeley

2006.10.25

Speak, Daniel

Moral Responsibility and the Relevance of
Alternative Possibilities (link)

2002

UC Riverside

2006.10.26

Schliesser, Eric

Indispensable Hume: From Isaac Newton's
Natural Philosophy to Adam Smith's "Science of Man" (link)

2002

Chicago

2006.10.30

Dale, Russell

The Theory of Meaning (link)

1996

CUNY

2006.11.01

Opie, Jonathan

Consciousness: A Connectionist Perspective
(link)

1998

Adelaide

2006.11.03

Price, Huw

The Problem of the Single Case (link)

1981

Cambridge

2006.11.08

Jackson, Camo

Causation (link)

1953

Cambridge

2006.11.15

Millstein, Roberta

The Chances of Evolution: An Analysis of the
Roles of Chance in Microevolution and Macroevolution (link)

1997

Minnesota

2006.12.02

Macpherson, Fiona

Representational Theories of Phenomenal
Character (link)

2000

Stirling

2006.12.21

Hawley, Patrick

Skepticism Avoided (link)

2003

MIT

2007.1.19

Graff, Delia

The Phenomena of Vagueness (link)

1997

MIT

2007.1.19

Heck, Richard

Logic, Semantics, Ontology (link)

1991

MIT

2007.1.19

Stanley, Jason

Meaning and Metatheory (link)

1997

MIT

2007.1.19

Stainton, Rob

Non-Sentential Assertions (link)

1993

MIT

2007.1.19

Stoljar, Daniel

The Content of Physicalism (link)

1995

MIT

2007.1.19

Szabo, Zoltan

Problems of Compositionality (link)

1995

MIT

2007.1.19

Uzquiano, Gabriel

Ontology and the Foundations of Mathematics
(link)

1999

MIT

2007.1.19

Segal, Gabriel

In Deference to Reference (link)

1987

MIT

2007.1.31

Reimer, Marga

The Semantic Significance of Referential
Intentions (link)

1992

MIT

2007.1.31

Weisberg, Josh

The Problem of Consciousness: Mental
Appearance and Mental Reality (link)

2007

CUNY

2007.3.25

Nes, Anders

Content in Thought and Perception (link)

2006

Oxford

2007.6.11

Galaaen, Øistein Schmidt

The Disturbing Matter of Downward Causation:
A Study of the Exclusion Argument and its Causal-Explanatory
Presuppositions (link)

2007

Oslo

2007.6.11

Angner, Erik

Subjective Measures of Well-Being: A
Philosophical Investigation (link)

2004

Pittsburgh

2007.6.11

Mandik, Peter

Objective Subjectivity: Allocentric and
Egocentric Representations in Thought and Experience (link)

2000

Washington-St. Louis

2007.6.11

Piccinini, Gualtiero

Computations and Computers in the Sciences
of Mind and Brain (link)

2003

Pittsburgh

2007.6.11

McKay, Steve

Biological Rationalism (link)

2007

McGill

2007.6.11

Seeley, William

The Neurophysiology of Aesthetic Experience:
Three Case Studies (link)

2006

CUNY

2009.1.2

Pupa, Francesco

Ambiguous Articles: An Essay on the Theory
of Descriptions (link)

2008

CUNY

2009.1.2

Brown, Richard

The Semantics of Moral Communication (link)

2008

CUNY

2009.1.2

Botterell, Andrew

Analysis in Mind (link)

1998

MIT

2009.1.2

Eggleston, Ben

Self-Defeat, Publicity, and Incoherence:
Three Criteria for Consequentialist Theories (link)

2001

PittsburghT

2009.1.2

Why?: Philosophy dissertations have a way of disappearing into the void.
They are rarely read or cited, and if they are to have an influence, it's only
by way of being extracted into papers or reworked into books. It isn't like that
in every field. In linguistics, for example, dissertations are quite frequently
cited. Irene Heim's dissertation, for example, gets 1,120 citations on Google
Scholar. It's hard enough to find any philosophical work with that many
hits, let alone a dissertation. (Question: what's the philosophical work with
the highest citation count on Google Scholar? Michael Kremer and David Chalmers
have drawn my attention to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, at
10,556. I think that will be very hard to beat. The next closest I know of is
A Theory of Justice, at 6001. I haven't found a dissertation with more
than 22.) I'm sure the reasons for the lack of reference to dissertations in
philosophy is complex, but it's hard to avoid the suspicion that good work is
going unnoticed in them. I thought perhaps a central clearinghouse might make a
small step in a positive direction just by making the dissertations easy to get
at.

How?: If you would like your dissertation added to the
philosophy dissertation list, e-mail
me either a copy of the dissertation or a link to it. I prefer a copy of the
dissertation, if possible, because then worries about broken links over time are
avoided. You can also send me a link plus permission to store the dissertation
locally, and I'll add it to the database here so that, again, broken links are
available. I will convert dissertations not already in pdf form into that form
(unless the author objects) for consistency. If you've got one of those
old-fashioned non-electronic dissertations, you can mail me a physical copy of
it and I'll digitize it and add it to the database.