ABSTRACT CAMUS: A REBEL AT THE JUNCTION OF EXISTENTIALISM AND SKEPTICISM (Basar) Baskaya, Dilek Ph.D., Department of Philosophy Supervisor: Prof. Dr. S. Halil Turan May 2011, 190 pages The purpose of this thesis is to examine Albert Camus&rsquo / s stance in existentialism and scepticism, to discuss his philosophy by referring to his life, which, in many respects, forms a foundation for his philosophy and to exhibit that he maintains his contemporariness in the 21st century. As existentialism is treated differently by different philosophers, the main concern of the thesis is to discuss how Camus handles it. This is done by focusing on his approach to issues appearing commonly in existentialism, such as the absurd, suicide, God, rebellion, freedom, and alienation and by scrutinising the link between existentialism and skepticism. According to Camus, the absurd is the paradoxical condition caused by a contradiction or a confrontation of two unequal concepts or situations. The merit, for Camus, is to survive despite the disillusionment the absurd brings about. Consequently, he is against suicide because he regards it as surrender to the absurd. Camus claims that it is man himself who can make his own life meaningful. Thus, man may question the existence of God and revolt metaphysically against the absurdity and injustice in the world. The metaphysical rebel can then establish the unity and order that he believes is lacking in the world. Camus attaches great importance to rebellion because it brings man freedom. And freedom is indispensable because being deprived of freedom means submission to an authority and, therefore, loss of human dignity. Alienation is a major issue for Camus, too, as it is a result of man&rsquo / s &lsquo / thrownness&rsquo / on to the world and displays the human situation. The thesis analyses the above items in detail with reference to all Camus&rsquo / s major works.

Hegel&#039 / s system, with a purpose of being the newest philosophy, represents a turning point in the history of thought. In contrast to the philosophical thoguht of Enlightenment which seperates branches of knowledge, or that of philosophy, Hegel tries to recombine them. In this study, I intend to reveal the close connection of the concepts appeared in the two works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, namely, The Phenomenology of Spirit (Ph&auml / nomenologie des Geistes) and Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts). These concepts are consciousness, self-consciousness, desire, recognition, freedom and intersubjectivity that are very important for considering self-actualization of the individual and for understanding also the process of human socialization. In this sense, Hegel&rsquo / s philosophy, in general, is an attempt to analyze modern society through the light of these conceptions which are still central to our aspirations as reflective social beings.

This thesis is based on two readings on death. The first one is Martin Heidegger&rsquo / s Being and Time chapter two, part one and the second one is Jacques Derrida&rsquo / s Aporias. The first reading is based on the phenomenological analysis of death. The line of argument of Heidegger is figured out. The second reading is based on Derrida&rsquo / s deconstruction of Heidegger&rsquo / s account of death in Being and Time. The thesis and the conclusion part is based on the idea that, on death, these philosophers are fundamentally similar and radically different. This is shown by the comparison of these philosophers.

Phenomenal consciousness presents a recalcitrant problem for the scientific conception of the world and the physicalist thesis that claims that everything that exists (including whatever is involved in any mental phenomena) is physical and physically explainable. Thus, on this view, every truth is a physical truth. By Putnam-Kripkean considerations and for several other reasons, I defend the claim that any version of such a physicalist thesis must be a necessary thesis, which ultimately means that contingent physicalism is not tenable. Against this thesis, philosophers have put forward several anti-physicalist arguments including the knowledge argument, the conceivability/modal argument, the explanatory gap argument, and the property dualism argument. All these arguments rest on the assumption of an epistemic/explanatory gap, which I call the &ldquo / phenomenal-physical gap,&rdquo / between the phenomenal and the physical. I claim that the phenomenal-physical gap (the PP-gap) is unbridgeable, from which it can be concluded that a priori physicalism is not tenable. The phenomenal concept strategy (PCS), which is a specific strategy within a posteriori necessary physicalism, aims at offering an explanation in physical terms of why we have such an unbridgeable gap by differentiating between phenomenal and physical concepts in a fundamental way. Nevertheless, proponents of PCS&mdash / the most promising version of a posteriori necessary physicalism&mdash / face a severe problem that I call &ldquo / the problem of phenomenal subjecthood&rdquo / in explaining in physical terms why we have the PP-gap. The phenomenon of &ldquo / experiencing&rdquo / consists of three substantially existing elements: the phenomenal subject (the experiencer), the experiential item (what is experienced by the subject), and the phenomenal s-v-o relation (the experiential relation) between the first two. I argue for the substantial existence of phenomenal subjects based on an argument I provide, the reality of some mental phenomena such as phenomenal unity and continuity, and the mental facts concerning phenomenal peculiarity, phenomenal agency, and the sense of phenomenal I-ness, the reality of all of which one cannot deny. Since PCS accounts are mostly qualia-centered accounts that ignore the reality of phenomenal subjects and the phenomenal s-v-o relation, they cannot account for the PP-gap in physical terms without first offering substantial theories of phenomenal subjecthood. But once they grant the substantiality of phenomenal subjects, they face severe difficulties in establishing their accounts of the nature of phenomenal concept, and thus the PP-gap in physical terms.

The thesis argues that for Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, the free will debate has been rendered intractable by a fundamental misunderstanding of the terms involved. This is exacerbated by a failure to identify and adopt an appropriate methodological approach to the problem. Both philosophers argue that this error in the free will debate is symptomatic of a broader misunderstanding of philosophical enquiry and the method it necessitates. For Heidegger, the entire history of ‘analytic/western' ontology has been fatally misconceived as a result of an effort to define the being of entities in static terms. The insistence on the question of what a being ‘is' obstructs any meaningful enquiry by conceding its existence at the outset of the investigation. Sartre's project is founded on Heidegger's argument, pushing it into a definitive claim about the nature of consciousness. He argues that as the only being for whom ‘meaning' is possible, consciousness is distanced from beings by ‘nothingness' which ensures its ontological freedom. The thesis will argue that Sartre has misconstrued Heidegger's work, making comprehension of his freedom all the more complicated. We propose that a thorough investigation of their projects will reveal an account of ontological freedom that does not suffer from the shortcomings of existentialism whilst avoiding the methodological missteps of the traditional discourse.

ABSTRACT THE GROWING DESERT: NIHILISM AND METAPHYSICS IN HEIDEGGER&rsquo / S THOUGHT Duman, Musa Ph. D., Department of Philosophy Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Ahmet inam March 2009, 209 pages In this study, we explore Heidegger&rsquo / s understanding of nihilism as the essential dimension of metaphysics, of metaphysical experience of Being, and in the following, we address his responses to it. Heidegger takes nihilism as rooted in the metaphysical way of thinking, hence metaphysics and nihilism standing in a primordial identity. Such metaphysical way of thinking as a framework in which Being is experinced and articulated, explicitly or implicitly in all areas of Western culture, from art to science, gives us the deep history or movement of Western tradition. Heidegger considers such movement to be presenting an ever growing threat, indeed as something to be consummated in the eeriest possibility of world history, that is, total destruction of human essence as an openness for the disclosure of Being. He points out to this underlying phenomenon with various designations: forgetfullnesss of Being, abandonment of Being, darkening of the world, Gestell and devestation are some of them. In this tradition, Being, from Plato and Aristotle onwards, becomes nothing at all, that is, excluded from any thoughtful consideration, reduced to a mere abstraction. Anything nihilistic, if fully delved into, would prove to conceal at its heart an alienation to the true sense of Being. Therefore, we need to develop a way of thinking outside the dominion of metaphysics, which should not only discover No-thing as the concealment dimension of Being, thus be deeply open to our finitude, but also learn to respond thoughtfully and thankfully to the gift of Being in, through and towards which we ex-sist as human beings. Vis-a-vis the futural potentials of nihilism in this long end of Western history, the futural character of Heidegger&rsquo / s thinking, his search for a new way of thinking that would incipate the other beginning, harbours a strange Tension that is characteristic of his whole philosophy.

The main topic of this diploma thesis is support of informal caregivers taking care for dying loved ones or loved ones with life-threatening illness in the home environment. The theoretical partis focused on informal carers, the quality of life of informal carers, the quality of life of dying people and quality of life of people with life-threatening diseases, death and the stages of coping with death. It also deals with hospice and palliative care, their forms, methods and uses. The practical part is focused on the analysis and evaluation of questionnaires filled out by informal carers. The aim of my diploma thesis is to point out the need to help informally caring for dying loved ones or loved ones with life-threatening illnesses. Within the practical part of this thesis, it was intended to map helpful and, conversely, deficit types and ways of support. These outputs can then be the basis for improving the quality of support and services for informal carers caring for a loved one in the home environment. Keywords Informal care, formal care, hospice care, palliative care, quality of life, death.

Consistently throughout the book of Jonah, the author draws attention to matters of life and death. The present study argues that by approaching this recurring subject through a rhetorical-critical approach, it is evident that the author has intentionally constructed a motif of life and death, which they implement as the foundation for the theme of YHWH’s sovereignty that runs throughout the narrative. In this way, the motif is designed to build anticipation which comes to its climax as Jonah and YHWH converse directly in Jonah 4. This thesis argues that the presence of this motif is found in both the recurring key words and key situations connected with the concepts of life or death. Furthermore, the study identifies the purpose of Jonah as a declaration of YHWH’s sovereignty over matters of life and death, yet with a tendency toward mercy for the repentant. This is realized in and through the very motifs under examination.

This dissertation is a philosophical examination of the concept of reincarnation from an African point of view. It does so, largely, from the cultural perspective of the Akan people of Ghana. In this work, reincarnation is distinguished from such related concepts as metempsychosis and transmigration with which it is conflated by many authors on the subject. In terms of definition, therefore, the belief that a deceased person can be reborn is advanced in this dissertation as referring to only reincarnation, but not to either metempsychosis or transmigration. Many scholars would agree that reincarnation is a pristine concept, yet it is so present in the beliefs and worldviews of several cultures today (including those of Africa). A good appreciation of the concept, it can be seen, will not be possible without some reference to the past. That is why some attempt is first made at the early stages of the dissertation to show how reincarnation was understood in the religious philosophies of ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese and the Incas. Secondly, some link is then established between the past and present, especially between ancient Egyptian philosophy and those of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. In modern African thought, the doctrine of reincarnation has not been thoroughly researched into. Even so, some of the few who have written on the subject have denied its existence in African thought. The dissertation rejects this denial, and seeks to show nonetheless that reincarnation is generally an irrational concept. In spite of its irrationality, it is acknowledged that the concept, as especially presented in African thought, raises our understanding of the constitution of a person as understood in the African culture. It is also observed that the philosophical problem of personal identity is central to the discussion of reincarnation because that which constitutes a person is presumed to be known whenever a claim of return of a survived person is made. For this reason, the dissertation also pays significant attention to the concept of personal identity in connection, especially, with the African philosophical belief in the return of persons. / Philosophy & Systematic Theology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

This thesis examines six factors that helped to shape beliefs and expectations about death among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880: the literary conventions associated with the denominational magazine obituaries that were used as primary source material, theology, social background, denominational variations, Romanticism and the last words and experiences of the dying. The research is based on an analysis of 1,200 obituaries divided evenly among four evangelical Nonconformist denominations: the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Baptists. The study is distinctive in four respects. First, the statistical analysis according to three time periods (the 1830s, 1850s and 1870s), close reading and categorisation of a sample this large are unprecedented and make it possible to observe trends among Nonconformists in mid-nineteenth-century England. Second, it evaluates the literary construct of the obituaries as a four-fold formula consisting of early life, conversion, the living out of the faith and the death narrative as a tool for understanding them as authentic windows into evangelical Nonconformist experience. Third, the study traces two movements that inform the changing Nonconformist experience of death: the social shift towards middle-class respectability and the intellectual shift towards a broader Evangelicalism. Finally, the thesis considers how the varying experiences of the dying person and the observers and recorders of the death provide different perspectives. These features inform the primary argument of the thesis, which is that expectations concerning death and the afterlife among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880 changed as reflections of larger shifts in Nonconformity towards middle-class respectability and a broader Evangelicalism. This transformation was found to be clearly revealed when considering the tension in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters. While the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience that placed hope in the life to come, the obituaries as compiled by the observers of the death and by the obituary authors and editors reflected changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformists that looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfilment of hopes.