This studio-based project explores a method of working that assigns agency to paint and process within the medium of painting. Underpinning this exploration is the notion that process driven making could potentially pose as a per formative event. Choreographed yet contingent, the practice investigates the relationship between the potentiality inherent within media and the extent to which this is affected by temporal/ external factors in the determining of outcome. A dialogue between the intentional and the contingent is initiated through a systematic approach that involves manipulation of the constituent elements of paint and the implementation of procedure and protocols as a means to activate conditions of possibility. Central to the research concerns are issues surrounding the ability of media to articulate itself, determine its own temporality and of process and content to operate conterminously. The images produced evidence this investigation as both enquiry and consequence.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 302-304).

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 17, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-33).

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Both intensional and extensional explanations of linguistic meaning involve notions -- linguistic roles and referential relations, respectively -- which are not perspicuous and seem to evade satisfactory explanations themselves. Following Sellars, I make a move away from semantic explanation of the designation relation and of linguistic roles toward an explanation which relates to the use of linguistic and perceptual signs (i.e., pragmatics). In doing so, concerns are raised that seem to be more closely associated with epistemology and phenomenology than with the philosophy of language or logic. In particular, experience is taken to be intentional, i.e., to have a propositional content which is irreducible to the causal order. Along with intentionality, certain essentially autobiographical conditions of experience are neglected in typical conceptions of the problem of meaning. They are reintroduced here. Further, I take as a presupposition the pragmatist notion that each of our conceptual schemes emerges from a community of persons, rather than from individuals. What follows from the preceding starting points is a picture of incomplete personhood in which persons are seen as being inclined both toward experiential wholes which have conceptual content and toward establishing and unifying beliefs which resolve doubts. Because of the conditions of experience constitutive of, and peculiar to, personhood and the necessity of the community for individual inquiry, the notion of incomplete personhood has a central position in my pragmatist conception of the problem of meaning. By emphasizing the pragmatistic conditions of experience and the active role of persons in finding objects and in continually reaching toward a final complete picture, the problems related to objectivity are found to be peripheral to a conception of meaning which captures the practice(s) of persons' living object-directed lives. The result is a new way of conceiving of the problem of meaning. / Master of Arts

Bibliography: pages 136-144. / This thesis is an attempt to defend explanatory incompatibilism, the view that mechanistic and intentional explanations of behaviour are incompatible, against various sorts of objections which come in the form of rival compatibilist theories. In the first chapter the author outlines the prima facie case for explanatory incompatibilism. This prima facie case is then bolstered by a discussion of explanation in general, conditions of compatibility for different explanations of the same phenomenon, and then a more rigorous account of mechanistic and intentional explanations which allows for a formal presentation of an argument for their incompatibility. Chapters Two, Three and Four discuss some of the combatibilist theories which have been advanced. Chapter Two involves a discussion of the "Double-Language" version of compatibilism as advocated by Ryle and Melden. This version is rejected for two main reasons: (1) it fails to keep the two sorts of explanation sufficiently apart so as to render them compatible, and (2) it fails to show that intentional explanations are not a species of causal explanation. Chapter Three attempts to deal with the "Instrumentalist" version of compatibilism as advanced by Daniel Dennett. This is rejected because it fails to provide a rich enough account of rational action and it also leads to epiphenomenalism. In Chapter Four the author discusses the "Physicalist" approach to the question of compatibility as advocated by Alvin Goldman and Donald Davidson. But this version of compatibilism is found to be wanting because it also leads to the epiphenomenalism of the mental. Chapter Five, the conclusion, summarises the basic argument and attempts to develop the author's own account of what the necessary and sufficient conditions for intentional action are. This is found to involve· three main elements: physical indeterminism, intentional intelligibility, and then something like the concept of agent-causation. In the course of this account there is a brief discussion of the problem of other minds and an argument against the desire-belief model of action and its explanation based on its inability to cope with the problem of deviant causal chains. It is concluded that mechanistic and intentional explanations are indeed incompatible and something is said about the broad metaphysical view which is required to accommodate this fact.

No description available.

This research investigates the process of self-authorship by applying self-expression, intentionality and appropriation by South African graphic designer Garth Walker (b. 1957) in the production of the i-jusi magazine. For this purpose, selected issues and designs of i-jusi magazines are analysed. In his search for an indigenous South African design language through self-authorship, Walker works outside of the traditional clientdesigner model. He attempts to capture this unique South African voice through a number of themed i-jusi issues. In self-authorship, the intent of the graphic designer is embedded in personal conviction and expression, which are key factors to the creation of the work. Hollis (2001) describes the designer as a messenger with an eye for the aesthetic and a target market. As the country’s socio-political transformation took on a different shape post-1994, a search for a South African design language became prevalent among South African graphic designers. Writers in design such as Heller (1998), Lupton (2003), and Bierut (2007) coined the term Designer as Author in the critical discourses on self-authorship and design that is more experimental in nature. McCarthy and Melibeu de Almeida (2002) acknowledge the practice in which designers take responsibility to create content and form simultaneously, thus expanding the opportunity for self-expression. In their search for unique self-authorship, contemporary graphic designers give voice to their intent and self-expression, making use of the appropriation or borrowing of different styles, visual languages and cultural contexts. Ijusi serves as an example of self-initiation, a criterion for self-authorship, as it is produced, edited and distributed by Walker himself. In his search for a truly South African design language, Walker explores identity and individual expression to include intent and appropriation as part of the production process. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This research investigates the process of self-authorship by applying self-expression, intentionality and appropriation by South African graphic designer Garth Walker (b. 1957) in the production of the i-jusi magazine. For this purpose, selected issues and designs of i-jusi magazines are analysed. In his search for an indigenous South African design language through self-authorship, Walker works outside of the traditional clientdesigner model. He attempts to capture this unique South African voice through a number of themed i-jusi issues. In self-authorship, the intent of the graphic designer is embedded in personal conviction and expression, which are key factors to the creation of the work. Hollis (2001) describes the designer as a messenger with an eye for the aesthetic and a target market. As the country’s socio-political transformation took on a different shape post-1994, a search for a South African design language became prevalent among South African graphic designers. Writers in design such as Heller (1998), Lupton (2003), and Bierut (2007) coined the term Designer as Author in the critical discourses on self-authorship and design that is more experimental in nature. McCarthy and Melibeu de Almeida (2002) acknowledge the practice in which designers take responsibility to create content and form simultaneously, thus expanding the opportunity for self-expression. In their search for unique self-authorship, contemporary graphic designers give voice to their intent and self-expression, making use of the appropriation or borrowing of different styles, visual languages and cultural contexts. Ijusi serves as an example of self-initiation, a criterion for self-authorship, as it is produced, edited and distributed by Walker himself. In his search for a truly South African design language, Walker explores identity and individual expression to include intent and appropriation as part of the production process. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Rule governance is critical to human society. However, could rule governance be found in non-human animals? A six year old, female, African white-necked raven (Covrus albicollis) named Shade correctly followed informal verbal commands to retrieve specified objects in the past. This ability was tested using two different methods. Both methods involved the researcher verbally asking the bird to retrieve one object out of two either from the same room or an adjacent room. While initial results were not significantly different than chance, review of trial recordings revealed that it is possible to predict when the bird will retrieve an incorrect object based solely on specific behaviors, termed inattentive or uninterested. Trials marked as inattentive by observers were significantly more likely to be incorrect than correct. This indicates that the bird was capable of retrieving the correct object, but that she also occasionally, intentionally retrieved the incorrect object.