This dissertation is centered around a set of apparently conflicting intuitions that we may have about mathematics. On the one hand, we are inclined to believe that the theorems of mathematics are true. Since many of these theorems are existence assertions, it seems that if we accept them as true, we also commit ourselves to the existence of mathematical objects. On the other hand, mathematical objects are usually thought of as abstract objects that are non-spatiotemporal and causally inert. This makes it difficult to understand how we can have knowledge of them and how they can have any relevance for our mathematical theories. I begin by characterizing a realist position in the philosophy of mathematics and discussing two of the most influential arguments for that kind of view. Next, after highlighting some of the difficulties that realism faces, I look at a few alternative approaches that attempt to account for our mathematical practice without making the assumption that there exist abstract mathematical entities. More specifically, I examine the fictionalist views developed by Hartry Field, Mark Balaguer, and Stephen Yablo, respectively. A common feature of these views is that they accept that mathematics interpreted at face value is committed to the existence of abstract objects. In order to avoid this commitment, they claim that mathematics, when taken at face value, is false. I argue that the fictionalist idea of mathematics as consisting of falsehoods is counter-intuitive and that we should aim for an account that can accommodate both the intuition that mathematics is true and the intuition that the causal inertness of abstract mathematical objects makes them irrelevant to mathematical practice and mathematical knowledge. The solution that I propose is based on Rudolf Carnap's distinction between an internal and an external perspective on existence. I argue that the most reasonable interpretation of the notions of mathematical truth and existence is that they are internal to mathematics and, hence, that mathematical truth cannot be used to draw the conclusion that mathematical objects exist in an external/ontological sense.

The questions about the origin of evil in the world were often a secondary product of the great philosophical systems. One of the first thinkers to deal with that problem systematically was neoplatonic scholar Plotinus. He developed a theory which he considered to be only a continuation of Plato´s thinking. It became an original theory, which in its core, has influence to this day. This theory was, mostly thanks to St. Augustine, applied to christian theology and became the living doctrine. The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate in what Plotinus´ theory of evil was "christianized" through the hand of Augustin. In other words, how it trasformed from a pagan philosophy to a theological one and how it was preserved for rediscovery in the scholastic era and became a new-again topic of scholastic scholars.

The main purpose of the doctoral thesis is to show "platonic motive" in Patočka's philosophy as unitary movement of thought, which exists in Patočka's thought since the thiertes to the sixties of the twentieth century. The aim is motivated by general question of relationship between modern thinking and European philosophical tradition. The thesis pursues to display, that Patočka's thinking makes possible to see and overcome an alienation contemporary European man from European philosophicaly tradition. The doctoral thesis has five chapters. First four chapters interpret socratic and platonic motives in Patočka's philosophy in chronological order (Patočka's philosophy in the thierties; philosophy of the Eternity and historicity; negative platonism; care of the soul and Europe). Chapter five contains intepretation of main question of doctoral thesis, it is question of unity of "platonic motive" in Patočka's philosophy. This question proceeds in three interpretative steps. In the first interpretative step are Patočka's all socratic and platonic motives reduced to three leading thoughts, that represent "platonic motive" as such: thoughts chōrismos, transendence and care of the soul. In second interpretative step the opposition "givenness- freedom" is established as a common core of the three thoughts. The...

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The history of Western civilisation is generally demarcated into three broad epochs: ancient, Christian and modern. These eras are usually defined in political terms, but they may also be differentiated in terms of fundamental differences in the nature of the organisations that constitute civil society in each age, how they defined the public good, and even what they consider philanthropic. In the nineteenth century, for instance, 'Scientific philanthropy' displaced 'Christian charity' as the dominant model for charitable giving; a development accompanied by a number of other secularising trends in Western civil society, generally understood as a broad cultural shift in conceptions of public good, from religious to scientific. From the fourth to the sixth century CE, by comparison, another broad cultural shift, from paganism to Christianity, also led to fundamental changes in the nature and composition of ancient civil society. A central premise of this dissertation is that fundamental historical transformations in Western civilisation – from pagan to Christian, to modern, to post-modern – may be traced to the influence of some of the most important philosophers in the Western philosophical tradition, among them: Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Francis Bacon and Friedrich Nietzsche. Each of these philosophers may be seen to have promulgated their teachings in a consciously Promethean manner; as gifts of fire, understood as philosophical teachings intended to be promulgated for the wider benefit of humankind. In Greek myth, Prometheus, whose name is traditionally thought to have literally meant 'forethought', is the one who steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans. Prometheus is also the first figure in history to be described as "philanthropic" (Prometheus Bound, 11 & 28). Plato, Bacon and Nietzsche all employ significant variants of the Promethean mũthos in their philosophical works, and may be seen to personally identify with the figure of Prometheus, as an allegorical figure depicting the situation of the wise, particularly in relation to political power. This dissertation thus closely analyses the Promethean mũthos in order to cast light on the philosophical philanthrôpía and Promethean ambitions of Protagoras, Socrates and Plato, and to provide the basis for consideration of the same in Bacon and Nietzsche.

Basée sur l’idée de progrès, la science moderne, d’inspiration cartésienne, est perçue par Simone Weil comme la principale cause de la crise moderne des valeurs. Sous-tendue par le mouvement droit, elle a perdu le principe d’analogie et s’est, de la sorte, dessaisie du monde ambiant des réalités quotidiennes. Aussi apparaît-elle non seulement comme à la source du scientisme, de la croyance en une raison scientifique autonome et du culte rendu aux applications techniques, mais aussi à l’origine du capitalisme industriel, du communisme révolutionnaire, du totalitarisme, de l’effondrement de l’ordre axiologique universel traditionnel concomitant à la crise de la civilisation. Les conséquences issues de ce mouvement de déracinement n’ont pas seulement conduit à l’oppression prolétarienne et coloniale ou au modernisme comme primat des valeurs d’innovation sur les valeurs de tradition, mais surtout à l’oppression généralisée et à l’oubli des structures axiologiques primordiales universelles que sont l’Etre, la Nécessité, le Passé, le Surnaturel. Fondé sur une dialectique structurelle déracinement-enracinement, pesanteur-grâce, le discours philosophique de Simone Weil sur la modernité poursuit un double enjeu. Sans se démarquer de la raison philosophique immanente, elle s’attelle à la fois à la dénonciation des propensions et défaillances qu’offrent les valeurs illusoires modernes d’argent, d’algèbre, de machinisme, d’impérialisme, de révolution, de démocratie, qu’à la conception d’une philosophie de la médiation des valeurs apte à contribuer à la renaissance d’une culture d’attention au capital axiologique de l’humanité. En effet, la modernité n’apparaissant plus que comme synonyme de crise des valeurs, il convient de tirer au clair ce piège qui fait de l’homme l’esclave de ses propres productions en y entreprenant une herméneutique ouverte non seulement au principe ontologique de nécessité, au-delà de toute projection avant-gardiste, mais surtout à une herméneutique des civilisations inspiratrices de l’humanité, en dehors de tout misonéisme passéiste, où le Surnaturel s’atteste dans sa plénitude comme critérium des valeurs authentiques et principe de médiation témoignant de l’enracinement de toutes choses dans l’être. Sans être en opposition avec les impératifs de découverte, d’invention et de développement, la philosophie weilienne de la médiation des valeurs se dévoile dans sa posture et sa validité comme une philosophie d’inspiration universelle à l’enracinement des peuples, des cultures et des nations, attentive à une pensée permanente des rapports entre la tradition et l’innovation, l’universalité et l’historicité. / Based on the idea of progress, the modern science, inspired by Descartes, is seen by Simone Weil as the primary cause of the modern crisis of values. Sustained by a linear movement, this science has lost the principle of analogy and, by consequent, it has lost its bindings with the surrounding world of everyday reality. Also, this science shows itself not only as the source of scientism, this belief in an independent scientific reason and the cult of the technical applications, but also as the source of industrial capitalism, of the revolutionary communism, of the totalitarianism, of the collapse of the traditional axiological order simultaneously to the crisis of civilization. Theses consequences resulting from the movement of uprooting not only led to the proletarian and the colonial oppression and to the modernism as the priority of the values of innovation on the values of tradition, but especially to a generalized oppression and the forgetting of the primordial universal axiological structures: the Being, the Need, the Past and the Supernatural.Based on a structural dialectic, the dislocation and the rooting, the fall and salvation, the philosophical discourse on modernity of Simone Weil seeks a double stake. Without a delimitation of the reason of the immanent philosophy, she is equally attached to the denunciation of the propensities and the failures of the modern illusory values of the money, of the algebra, of the machinery, of the imperialism, of the revolution, of the democracy, and to the conception of a philosophy of the mediation of values able to contribute to the rebirth of a culture attentive to the axiological capital of the humanity. Indeed, if the modernity appears no more as a synonym of the crisis of values, we must clarify this trap that makes the man the slave of his own productions by a hermeneutic open not only to the ontological principle of necessary, beyond any avant-garde projection, but principally a hermeneutic of the inspired civilizations of the humanity, without any outdated misoneism, where the Supernatural is attested in its fullness as criterion of the authentic values and as a principle of mediation reflecting the roots of all things in the Being. Without being in a conflict with the requirements of the discovery, of the invention, of the progress, the weilian philosophy of values mediation reveals itself as a philosophy of universal inspiration, founding the rooting of peoples, of cultures and of nations, paying permanent attention to the relationship between the tradition and the innovation, between the universality and the historicity.

Mit der Behauptung, dass seine eigene Philosophie als »umgedrehter Platonismus« verstanden werden soll, stellt Nietzsche seine Beziehung zum platonischen System dar. Dieses Forschungsprojekt sucht nach einer neuen Variation dieser Darstellung, um die philosophischen Analogien beider Autoren aufzuspüren. Das erste Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit einer Erläuterung des Begriffes „umgedrehter Platonismus“, womit die Differenz zwischen diesen beiden Systemen definiert wird. Diese Diskrepanz ist spürbar in vier verschiedene Bereichen: metaphysisch, axiologisch, gnoseologisch und ästhetisch. Das zweite Kapitel behandelt die Rolle des Apollinischen und des Dionysischen in der nietzscheschen Theorie. Die beiden Konzepte werden mit dem des platonischen Eros verglichen, da diese es dem Menschen ermöglichen, die sinnliche Welt zu verlassen und eine Ur-Realität kennenzulernen. Das dritte Kapitel analysiert die Verurteilung der Kunst in Platon’s „Staat“. Der griechische Philosoph strebt die wahre Kenntnis an und verbindet seine ästhetischen Überlegungen mit der Idee der Wahrheit. Nietzsche bearbeitet diese Verbindung zwischen Ästhetik und Erkenntnistheorie unter dem Begriff »amor fati«. Das vierte Kapitel ist der Physiologie der Liebe gewidmet. Nietzsche verwandelt der Erkenntnisprozess in eine leidenschaftliche Liebe. Die Erkenntnis nimmt die Form einer Passion an und kristallisiert sich allmählich und nach einem langen Prozess mit Höhen und Tiefen in »amor fati«. »Amor fati« schafft eine Ästhetisierung der Erkenntnis und Epistemologiesierung der Ästhetik. Somit liegt Nietzsches Erkenntnistheorie parallel zu jener Platons. / By claiming that his philosophy should be understood as “inverted Platonism” Nietzsche defined his relationship to the Platonic system. This research project aims to articulate a new understanding of this relationship by analyzing philosophical similarities between the two authors'' respective philosophies. The first chapter is dedicated to the explanation of the term “inverted Platonism” and articulates the differences between Plato''s and Nietzsche''s systems. These discrepancies are manifested in four main areas: the metaphysical, the axiological, the gnosiological and the aesthetic. The second chapter deals with the roles of the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Nietzschean theory. Both concepts are compared with the Platonic Eros, as they invite man to abandon the sensual world and instead to commune with the very origin of reality. The third chapter analyzes Plato´s denunciation of art in “The Republic”. The Greek philosopher seeks true knowledge and connects his aesthetic concerns with the idea of Truth. Nietzsche refers to the cynosure between aesthetics and cognitive theory as “amor fati”. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the physiology of love. Nietzsche transforms the cognitive process into a passionate love. Cognition assumes the shape of passion, slowly crystallizing over time, with many twists and turns, into “amor fati”. “Amor fati” aestheticizes cognition and epistemologizes aesthetics. Therefore Nietzsche''s cognitive theory is actually equivalent to that of Plato.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:59:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabio Alessandro Somenci.pdf: 479433 bytes, checksum: 0b8a547c86dc3f04a242505e47c8876d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-11-26 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / This dissertation has as initial aim to develop a study about the loving poetry of Fernando Pessoa himself, of the heteronimous Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos, as well as to evidence the place occupied by the love theme in his work, despite of being little studied by the majority of researches of pessoa s poetic aventure. Initiating with the exposition of the significant aspects of the poetic production of the author himself and of the heteronimous, and passing, posteriously, to the presentation of a synthetic reflection of the theories about love (Eros) and the eroticism, developed by Plato and Georges Bataille, respectivily; the present study culminates with the analysis of representative poems for the comprehension of the theme. Having as a central hub the work with the language accomplished by Fernando Pessoa, this research aims to demonstrate the importance of the loving theme in his poetry, as well as its indissociability with the entirety of the work or heteronimic context that it belongs to. Considering the fact that the love is a strenght that joins the individuals by corporeal means leading them to the reproduction of bodies or animicus, leading them to the reproduction of ideas, but being, in both cases, an experience that leads to the improvement of the being, this study attempts to verify its form of presentation in the poetry of Pessoa and its relation with other poetic themes. Based on the analysis of the work through the perspective of the love theme, this research also desires to demonstrate how the eroticism is strictly connected with the poetry, through its corporeality, meanings and sensations that evokes, by means of sound, ceremony, representation or imagination. Besides, there is an intimate relation of the poetry with the words and of the eroticism with the bodies; the first interrupts the simple communication and the second, the reproduction / Esta dissertação tem como proposta inicial desenvolver um estudo sobre a poesia amorosa de Fernando Pessoa ele-mesmo, dos heterônimos Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis e Álvaro de Campos, bem como evidenciar o lugar ocupado pelo tema do amor em sua obra, apesar de pouco estudado pela grande maioria dos estudiosos da aventura poética pessoana. Iniciando com a exposição de traços marcantes da produção poética do autor ele-mesmo e dos heterônimos, passa, posteriormente, a dedicar-se à apresentação de uma reflexão sintética das teorias sobre o amor (Eros) e o erotismo, desenvolvidas por Platão e Georges Bataille, respectivamente; o presente estudo culmina com a análise de poemas representativos para a compreensão do tema. Tendo como eixo central o trabalho realizado com a linguagem por Fernando Pessoa, esta pesquisa visa demonstrar a relevância do tema amoroso em sua poesia, bem como sua indissociabilidade com o conjunto da obra ou contexto heteronímico a que pertence. Considerando-se o fato de o amor ser uma força que une os indivíduos pela via corporal - levando-os à reprodução dos corpos ou anímica, levando-os à reprodução de idéias, mas sendo, em ambos os casos, uma experiência que leva ao aperfeiçoamento do ser, procura-se verificar sua forma de apresentação na poesia pessoana e sua relação com outros temas poéticos. A partir da análise da obra sob o ângulo do tema do Amor, o presente trabalho visa também, demonstrar como o erotismo está estreitamente ligado à poesia, através de sua corporalidade, dos sentidos e das sensações que evoca, seja por meio do som, cerimônia, representação ou imaginação. Além disso, existe uma íntima relação da poesia com as palavras e do erotismo com os corpos; a primeira interrompe a mera comunicação e a segunda, a reprodução

<p>Jag vill i den här uppsatsen beskriva hur sexualitet och genus konstrueras, befästs och utmanas i Margareta av Navarras verk <em>Heptameron</em>. Jag utgår från Judith Butlers och Thomas Laqueurs queerteoretiska perspektiv och visar hur de olika maktdiskurserna kristendom, aristokrati, patriarkalism och nyplatonism påverkar och påtvingar olika konstruktioner av sexualitet<strong> </strong>och genus, och kan konstatera att alla dessa diskurser bygger på<strong> </strong>en normerande och<strong> </strong>normaliserad heterosexualitet som ständigt för tillbaka avvikelserna från denna norm, hos såväl devisanterna som i de två noveller jag studerat, till en binär könskategorisering. Huvudfokus ligger på tvetydigheten hos begrepp som man, kvinna, och fullkomlig kärlek. Jag menar att just avsaknaden av slutgiltiga definitioner av sådana begrepp i verket visar på att det inte går att finna något essentiellt ursprung eller någon slutgiltig definition av dem. Det är just därför den heterosexuella normen måste iscensättas gång på gång.</p><p>Jag menar dock att man kan konstatera att det finns en skillnad i fråga om de bakomliggande diskursernas gestaltning i ramberättelse där de slås fast och i novellerna där de problematiseras, vilket också påpekats av Bernard. Det finns med andra ord ett större utrymme för avvikande från sexualitets- och genusnormer i <em>Heptamerons </em>noveller, medan ramberättelsens funktion tycks vara att föra dem tillbaka till ordningen. Likväl sker en ständig upprepning av den heterosexuella normen både hos devisanterna och i novellerna, en upprepning som tyder på att heterosexualiteten inte är vare sig given eller naturlig utan iscensatt.</p> / <p>In this study I am analyzing how categories of sexuality and gender are represented in Marguerite de Navarre’s <em>Heptameron</em>. I have narrowed the object of study down to two of the seventy-two novellas; number forty-seven and forty-three, and to four of the ten devisants; Oisille, Parlamente, Hircan and Dagoucin. The theoretical frame<strong> </strong>is taken from Judith Butlers <em>Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity</em> (1990) and <em>Undoing Gender</em> (2004) and from Thomas Laqueurs <em>Making Sex. Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud</em> (1990). Butler’s aim is to deconstruct terms such as feminine and masculine, which function as imagined normalization categories due to power relations. In <em>Undoing Gender </em>she asks: “If I am a certain gender, will I still be regarded as part of the human? Will the ‘human’ expand to include me in its reach? If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” These questions are of great importance for my study, which presents how the categories of sexuality and gender can be negotiated in the equalized frame Marguerite de Navarre creates for her ten devisants and novellas. At the same time I assess how every attempt to go beyond the boundaries of norms fails due to a norm of heterosexuality, which constrains the binary categories of man and woman.</p><p>There are four main discourses by which the heterosexual norm is internalized by the devisants in <em>Heptameron</em>: the Christian, the aristocratic, the patriarchal and the neo-platonic. I suggest that each of the four devisants that I have studied represents one of these discourses. Since there are no definitive lines or definitive conclusions reached in the discussions among them it would be more correct to say that all the discourses effect all of the devisants to some extent, but<strong> </strong>that all the devisants act through a main discourse when he/she express his/her individual opinions.</p><p>When the devisants in the frame leave it to the reader to come to a conclusion about right or wrong behavior for men and women, they are still rather set in their own opinions and, also, quite unforgiving. It is my contention that the novellas create more room for negotiations of the sexual and gender roles than the frame. In novella forty-three a woman acts within the role of the active, hence masculine, part of a love affair, and novella forty-seven tells the story of a <em>parfaicte</em> <em>amytié</em> between two men. But it is also obvious that these attempts to stress and break the norms of sexuality and gender are unsuccessful, once again due to the fixed norm of heterosexuality which constrain the binary categories of man and woman. In the novellas these very failures put the norms under stress, since they point out the very problem with the determination of sexual and gender categories which were prevalent during the Renaissance.</p><p>I conclude my results by returning to Butler’s question above; “If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” In <em>Heptameron </em>one can always find a chance to try a different way, but in the end only the heterosexual desire in which man and woman are in dichotomy survives.</p>

The argument advanced is this thesis is that the entities that make up the environment are those that do not owe their origin to any willful creative activity but have evolved through accidental natural processes. This fact of not being willfully created makes the environment ontologically independent and confers on it intrinsic value as opposed to instrumental value. This intrinsic value is one that all the entities that make up the environment share. It is further argued that this intrinsic value is aesthetic rather than moral. Only beings that are specially endowed with certain capacities, like reflection and understanding, could be said, in the context of this work, to have intrinsic moral value in the sense of being moral agents. But as moral agents, we need to give moral considerability to all the natural entities in the environment since they share the same natural right with us, based on our common origin. So, even though the nonhuman, natural entities in the environment do not have moral rights, they have natural rights. It is further argued that this natural right could be best safeguarded in a legal framework.