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An analysis of the nature of reflexivity--a relation which relates a thing to itself although it is regularly used to relate two different things--is followed by specific discussions of its place and functions in the writings of various philosophers. These discussions substantiate the following theses: reflexivity is a basic structure common to different phenomena; although traditionally unacknowledged, it is a useful and important concept in philosophy as well as in other disciplines; acknowledging its existence and understanding its structure deepens our understanding of philosophical systems; since, like any other philosophical tool, reflexivity can be used either legitimately or illegitimately, nothing in it is inherently flawed; a structural analysis of different types of reflexivity and the relations between them can be presented; the history of its use is marked by a tendency towards its "normalization". These discussions are intended to raise awareness and generate future studies of this important but neglected philosophical structure.

As information systems become more complex it is infeasible for a non-expert to understand how the information system has evolved. Accurate models of these systems and the changes occurring to them are required for interpreters to understand, reason over, and learn from evolution of these systems. Ontologies purport to model the semantics of the domain encapsulated in the system. Existing approaches to using ontologies do not capture the rationale for change but instead focus on the direct differences between one version of a model and the subsequent version. Some changes to ontologies are caused by a larger context or goal that is temporally separated from each specific change to the ontology. Current approaches to supporting change in ontologies are insufficient for reasoning over changes and allow changes that lead to inconsistent ontologies. / In this thesis we examine the existing approaches and their limitations and present a four-level classification system for models representing change. We address the shortcomings in current techniques by introducing a new approach, augmenting ontologies with operations for capturing and representing change. In this approach changes are represented as a series of connected, related and non-sequential smaller changes. The new approach improves on existing approaches by capturing root causes of change, by representing causal relationships between changes linking temporally disconnected changes to a root cause and by preventing inconsistencies in the evolution of the ontology. The new approach also explicitly links changes in an ontology to the motivating real-world changes. We present an abstract machine that defines the execution of operations on ontologies. A case study is then used to explain the new approach and to demonstrate how it improves on existing ways of supporting change in ontologies. The new approach is an important step towards providing ontologies with the capacity to go beyond representing an aspect of a domain to include ways in which that representation can change.

As information systems become more complex it is infeasible for a non-expert to understand how the information system has evolved. Accurate models of these systems and the changes occurring to them are required for interpreters to understand, reason over, and learn from evolution of these systems. Ontologies purport to model the semantics of the domain encapsulated in the system. Existing approaches to using ontologies do not capture the rationale for change but instead focus on the direct differences between one version of a model and the subsequent version. Some changes to ontologies are caused by a larger context or goal that is temporally separated from each specific change to the ontology. Current approaches to supporting change in ontologies are insufficient for reasoning over changes and allow changes that lead to inconsistent ontologies. / In this thesis we examine the existing approaches and their limitations and present a four-level classification system for models representing change. We address the shortcomings in current techniques by introducing a new approach, augmenting ontologies with operations for capturing and representing change. In this approach changes are represented as a series of connected, related and non-sequential smaller changes. The new approach improves on existing approaches by capturing root causes of change, by representing causal relationships between changes linking temporally disconnected changes to a root cause and by preventing inconsistencies in the evolution of the ontology. The new approach also explicitly links changes in an ontology to the motivating real-world changes. We present an abstract machine that defines the execution of operations on ontologies. A case study is then used to explain the new approach and to demonstrate how it improves on existing ways of supporting change in ontologies. The new approach is an important step towards providing ontologies with the capacity to go beyond representing an aspect of a domain to include ways in which that representation can change.

In this thesis I explore the attempt by Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Georges Bataille to confront the problem of the meaning and value of existence. I consider each of these philosophers as involved in the development of a stream of post-Kantian thought that, following Nick Land, I call libidinal pessimism. Libidinal pessimism is both the metaphysical principle of the primacy of willing as the fundamental reality, and the moral principle that the greatest value to our existence is to be found in liberating willing from the small-scale concern of the good of individual beings. Each sees a crisis in the dominance of optimism: the belief that willing is commensurate with the good of individuated beings. They attack the dominance of optimism not just in the history of philosophy, but also in the values that dominate the culture at large. My contention is that these thinkers were provoked to think about the meaning and value of existence by encountering the tragic sublime: a pleasure in the destruction of the happiness of the individual. This affective intensity provokes them to the realisation that our will is not directed towards the happiness of the individual, contra the dominant values of our culture. Yet since the tragic sublime is non-conceptual, its implications for the meaning and the value of existence are not explicit. The task of philosophy is to conceptualise this affective intensity to specify the inadequacy of the values that dominate the age, and to assert the values that can liberate human possibility from its current wretchedness to a new glory. To structure the thinking of these philosophers on the problem of existence, I analyse their thinking using the following logical model: 1) specifying what they regard as the predominant symptoms of the problem regarding existence, our current wretchedness; 2) their diagnosis of the source of this wretchedness in the dominant optimism; 3) their pronouncement of the solution to this problem, through liberating willing from the small-scale; and 4) their prescription for how to overcome this problem, for how the tragic sublime can liberate willing from the fetters of a concern for individuated beings. In elaborating upon the thinking of these philosophers as a definite stream of post- Kantian thought, I also highlight how each engages with the thinking of the earlier of the philosophers. I explore how Schopenhauer's philosophy develops out of Kant's philosophy, how Nietzsche develops the thinking of Schopenhauer and how Bataille develops the problematics of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Through this I attempt to explore how these three philosophers mark a development in the attempt to conceptualise the tragic sublime as the key to address the problem of the meaning and value of existence.

In this thesis I explore the attempt by Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Georges Bataille to confront the problem of the meaning and value of existence. I consider each of these philosophers as involved in the development of a stream of post-Kantian thought that, following Nick Land, I call libidinal pessimism. Libidinal pessimism is both the metaphysical principle of the primacy of willing as the fundamental reality, and the moral principle that the greatest value to our existence is to be found in liberating willing from the small-scale concern of the good of individual beings. Each sees a crisis in the dominance of optimism: the belief that willing is commensurate with the good of individuated beings. They attack the dominance of optimism not just in the history of philosophy, but also in the values that dominate the culture at large. My contention is that these thinkers were provoked to think about the meaning and value of existence by encountering the tragic sublime: a pleasure in the destruction of the happiness of the individual. This affective intensity provokes them to the realisation that our will is not directed towards the happiness of the individual, contra the dominant values of our culture. Yet since the tragic sublime is non-conceptual, its implications for the meaning and the value of existence are not explicit. The task of philosophy is to conceptualise this affective intensity to specify the inadequacy of the values that dominate the age, and to assert the values that can liberate human possibility from its current wretchedness to a new glory. To structure the thinking of these philosophers on the problem of existence, I analyse their thinking using the following logical model: 1) specifying what they regard as the predominant symptoms of the problem regarding existence, our current wretchedness; 2) their diagnosis of the source of this wretchedness in the dominant optimism; 3) their pronouncement of the solution to this problem, through liberating willing from the small-scale; and 4) their prescription for how to overcome this problem, for how the tragic sublime can liberate willing from the fetters of a concern for individuated beings. In elaborating upon the thinking of these philosophers as a definite stream of post- Kantian thought, I also highlight how each engages with the thinking of the earlier of the philosophers. I explore how Schopenhauer's philosophy develops out of Kant's philosophy, how Nietzsche develops the thinking of Schopenhauer and how Bataille develops the problematics of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Through this I attempt to explore how these three philosophers mark a development in the attempt to conceptualise the tragic sublime as the key to address the problem of the meaning and value of existence.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis aims to demonstrate the congruence between music and philosophy. The demonstration has three aspects: a discussion of philosophical and ontological aspects of music, a discussion of the importance of music in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and a discussion of philosophy itself. The starting point for the demonstration is a discussion of the philosophy of music in relation to the ontology of the musical work, the relationship of performance to notation and the musical work, the nature of improvisation and the temporality of music. I discuss the contextualisation of the musical work concept, the aporetic character of music and consider phenomenological accounts of music and time consciousness. Following this discussion I propose an ontological concept of the musical work as a topos of musical activity. The second section discusses music in the context of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. It develops characteristics of music which are also relevant to theoria and philosophy. Most notable among these are the characterisations of music as play and energeia. I consider music in the context of the Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis and argue for a qualified conception of music as energeia. The concluding section of the thesis deals with philosophy itself. I discuss the requirements of philosophy to maintain the energeia of thinking in the living and breathing word in the context of Plato’s Phaedrus. I attempt to demonstrate that the active conceptions of philosophy as a journey, examination of life, way of life (Hadot) and Lebensphilosophie align philosophy with a conception of music as meditatio mortis and form of temporality.

The aim of The Poetics of Being is to inquire into how the apperception of the Being of beings is produced. We will recognize this production not primarily in philosophy, but in a medium accessible to us all, theatre. Although the Romantic tradition of literary criticism from Herder to Bloom has noted that Shakespeare produces an exceptional sense of what is [true], so much so that he is said to create the impression of nature or life, no one has so far attempted to show how precisely Shakespeare affects this experience. Contrary to T. S. Eliot, who is unable to discern any kind of poetics in Shakespeare’s plays, we have discovered an insistent and consistent pattern of inadequation, a kind of mismatch. The thesis argues, that the predominant tropes of inadequation are falsity, dissimilarity, nothing, indefinition, elision and substitution. We shall show that these figures of inadequation are the universal means by which Shakespeare, almost imperceptibly, compels the spectator to infer the apperception of what is [true]. On the basis of these tropes of inadequation the thesis makes the fundamental philosophical claim that the cognition of Being through non-Being is a negative form of what Heidegger calls the ontological difference. We call this the negative ontological difference. The thesis demonstrates that with the exception of some Pre-Socratic thinkers, Plato in the Sophist, the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, and the writings of Derrida, the bulk of the tradition of Western philosophy has argued Being in terms of positivities. While the thesis does not question the possibility of realizing the ontological difference in a positive fashion, as does Heidegger’s philosophy of unconcealment, the thesis claims that the negative ontological difference, or ontological contradiction, is the more forceful process by which we become aware of what is [true].

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1976. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Philo A. Hutcheson, committee chair; Theophus Smith, Susan Talburt, Douglas R. Davis, committee members. Electronic text (355 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 1, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 348-355).