The notion of "the subject" is central methodologically to the heuristics of Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957; 5th ed., 1992) is Lonergan's most significant work in which he attempts to unveil the ever-elusive dynamics of conscious being as it functions in diverse realms of human thought. Essential to this endeavor is the identification of conscious operations (acts) and their objectifications (contents). This constitutes the "semantic" burden of Insight which, consequently, ought not to be separated from Lonergan's pragmatical mode of investigation. Failure to note this dipolar structure of Insight results in misinformed analyses which are quick to make faulty ideational correlations, thereby excusing out of hand any ingenuity on the part of Lonergan. This study attempts to reverse such trends by examining certain basic relations of the thinking subject in Insight (i.e. "experience" and "understanding"), and by developing the dynamics of such a relation in the larger context of the differentiations of consciousness (i.e. "intellectual" and "religious"), a concept that is brought to full fruition in Lonergan's widely read Method in Theology (1972).

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and the characters within, tell a prominent story of the posthuman condition in a society where humanist thought is the only conception of subjectivity. The use of not only posthuman studies, but more specifically studies including subjectivity was needed, in order to analyse the relationship between the humanist and the posthuman subjects. Theories of posthuman subjectivity and subjectivity by Rosi Braidotti and Michel Foucault were used in order to examine the posthuman condition of “Frankenstein’s monster” and the role of humanist vs. posthuman subjectivity between Victor Frankenstein and the monster. The tension between Victor and the monster was analysed in order to investigate the monster’s struggle at acquiring subjectivity in a posthuman state, which revealed why it is impossible for the humanist and posthuman subject to peacefully coexist.

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The concept of identity and identities have a long history, especially regarding societal and behaviour studies. Many of them are analyzed trough class-schemes or family-situations, others are based on more direct approaches, such as income and education. This paper are examining a fraction of these different theories, and then applying it to the main purpose of the study, which is to examine different kinds of identities in context to subjective social status. Furthermore will the analysis concern different kinds of capital, which also will be presented in context to identities and subjective social status. This kind of analysis where possible by using already existing quantitative data from ISSP (International social survey programme) and their 2003 draft about National identity. My debentent variable, self-concept (subjective social status), was extracted through the existing material. The study was concentrated to the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.        By presenting these results through frequency and mean-tables, and multiple-regressions, but also with the theoretical framework, then it stands clear that their is no direct relation between identities and subjective social status, expect for religious identification. It is presented as that the capital itself are more influencial.

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Thesis (MA) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is an enquiry into the interrelated nature of artistic production, theoretical concerns and subjectivity. It serves as an interrogation of linear and hierarchal argumentation and draws parallels between conceptions of textuality and the human body. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis is ‘n ondersoek aangaande die onderlinge verhouding tussen kunspraktyk, teoretiese belange en subjektiviteit. Dit dien as bevraagtekening van liniêre en hierargiese redenasie en trek verwantskappe tussen teks en die menslike liggaam.

published_or_final_version / abstract / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study, contextualized within the critical debate on Shakespearean dramatic character, examines how the “character effect”— or the audience’s impression of a character’s ontological reality— is produced. Approaching character from the perspective of linguistic pragmatics, I contend that character effects are produced by the counterpoint between characters’ pragmatic use of language and the allegorical meanings that underpin characters’ utterances in a theatrical context. These allegorical meanings, which Shakespeare conveys through his characters to the audience, dialogically interact with characters’ textually or historically scripted roles and converge with their speech to create the impression that characters control language and have extra-textual lives of their own. I thus demonstrate that the interiority ascribed to character is a function of its anteriority. Following the introductory chapter, which lays out the critical history of Shakespearean character and a pragmatic methodology, each of the remaining chapters explores the particular speech habits of a complex and larger-than-life Shakespearean character who is also a self-conscious user of language. Chapter 2 examines how Falstaff’s conversational implicatures produce the character effect of his vitality. Chapter 3 looks at how Cleopatra’s performative use of report creates her sexual charisma. Chapter 4 focuses on how Henry V’s rhetorical argumentation works to create the effect of his moral ambivalence. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2013-06-28 14:41:27.453

This dissertation is an exposition and critique of Robert Brandom's theory of discursive objectivity. It discusses this theory both within the context of Brandom's own systematic philosophical project and, in turn, within the ideas and questions characteristic of the Kantian and post-Kantian tradition in German philosophy. It is argued that Brandom's attempt to articulate a theory of the objectivity of discursive norms (and hence also of the content of discursive attitudes) resembles J.G. Fichte's development of themes central to Kant's philosophy. This "Fichtean" approach to the problem of objectivity is then compared and contrasted to that of G.W.F. Hegel. Though Brandom, Fichte and Hegel share the desire to derive an account of the conditions of objectivity from the social character is discursive practices, Hegel offers a version of this project that differs with respect to the nature of self-consciousness, sociality and truth. It is then argued that Brandom's theory suffers significant internal inconsistencies that could be avoided by adopting a more "Hegelian" approach to these three themes. More specifically, Brandom's own project requires that he recognize the necessity and irreducibility of firstperson and second-person discursive attitudes, as well as that he recognize the role of "I-We" social practices for discursive objectivity. Furthermore, he must include in his explanations some form of natural teleology and hence he must abandon his deflationary approach to semantic explanation. However, Brandom's methodological and metaphysical commitments prevent him from doing so.

The purpose of this study was to engage with a group of students from a diverse school environment about how they construct value or status in their own and others bodies in physical education (PE) and sport. This study was premised on the notion that young people s constructions of bodies that have value affect both their sense of self and their (dis)engagement with physical activity in and out of school. Sport, physical activity and education are not value-free in their purpose or practices, and constitute arenas in which young people learn about what those values are and how they apply to their own bodies. Learning more about how young people make embodied decisions to engage in physical activity can aid in understanding how best to create inclusive, positive experiences within PE and youth sport. The feminist / poststructuralist theoretical framework that this research draws upon focuses attention on the constructions of embodied subjectivities through an individual s subject positions amongst multiple discourses. These discourses are (re)produced but shift as individuals take up and negotiate positions through the multiple narratives available to them. By linking these notions to that of physical capital, this study explores how individuals practices affect how they might be seen as valued. This study pays particular attention to gendered and racialised constructions of bodies in PE and sport, as literature identifies concerns about equity in participation and representation. Data were generated over one school year with a cohort of students in Year 9 of an ethnically diverse secondary school in the East Midlands, UK. Fourteen boys and eleven girls volunteered to take part in a collaborative visual ethnographic project consisting of a fortnight s photo diary and the sharing of participant-produced images in group interviews. Taped group interviews, participants photographs, field notes from observations of the participants PE lessons and researcher s photographs of the school notice boards were collated and analysed using a combination of thematic, discourse and content analyses. Findings indicated that the participants constructed as valued bodies those that are good at PE : meaning competency, strength and a desire and ability to win. Alongside this, students also valued fit, not fat bodies, and the display of effort or trying one s best. These constructions were often tied to their potential to perform convincingly. The students took up positions in relation to these notions of status, sometimes investing in practices that would develop their bodies in these ways. Participants fluid subjectivities as they negotiated different activities, physical cultures, and assumptions about gendered and racialised bodies affected their choices not just whether to engage but in what ways they would engage in physical activity.