Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-191).

Heart of Darkness, Chance, and Lord Jim can be described as philosophical works if considered in light of "ordinary language" philosophy. Conrad wrestled with skepticism much as Wittgenstein later would, but his struggle with the "bewitchment" of skeptical thinking took a narratival form. His champion was Marlow, raconteur of the three novels, who recurrently loses and recovers his words and his capacity to tell (to judge, to narrate). In these works the Marlovian investigation of human convention, linguistic and otherwise, is shown to be a necessary but perilous task. The possibility that we may be dissatisfied with the ordinary or transcendental conditions of living is dramatized in all three novels, often (but not only) by threats to marriage. Heart of Darkness demonstrates the loss of linguistic attunement that may follow upon taking human relation to be a problem of knowledge, and links this to Kurtz's world-devouring repudiation of the ordinary. Chance explores in melodramatic form the "germ of destruction at the source of our strength", and unmasks men's denial of women as one face of skepticism. Lord Jim presents skepticism, Romanticism, and fantasy as different versions of ontological dissatisfaction, and shows how a return to the ordinary requires a practice of reading and remembering (our words).

Thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 2003. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-230) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-234). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-260).

Thesis--Heidelberg. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral) - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-230) and index.

<p>My dissertation is about good arguments and why they fail to persuade. Besides being a common experience of everyday life, this is an old worry of Plato's that continues to motivate two contemporary lines of research. The first concerns what makes something a good argument, and the second concerns what a mind must be like to be moved by one. Together, these lines guide my project and divide it into two parts. Part I is about good reasons, specifically epistemic reasons. In my first chapter, I defend epistemic instrumentalism, the position that epistemic reasons are good reasons only relative to one's epistemic preferences. I acknowledge that epistemic instrumentalism opens the door to a terrible proliferation of incompatible preferences, but claim that this is merely a potential problem, and not an actual problem to be solved. In my second chapter, I discuss the nature of reasonhood, and argue, contrary to orthodoxy, that there is no compelling reason to accept the skeptic's claim that, because of the inconsistency of three very basic epistemic preferences, it is impossible for any position to be conclusively safe to hold. Part II is about immovable minds. Immovable minds are minds that are unpersuaded by good reasons. In my third chapter, I argue that for good reasons to be persuasive, the properties that make them good reasons must be identified, through habituation, with other desirable qualities like pleasure or success. Identifying the merits of good reasons with other rewards cultivates intellectual character, and intellectual character, as I argue in my final chapter, remains worth cultivating, notwithstanding situationist doubts about the existence of character and intuitionist concerns about human rationality.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

This first half of this thesis investigates the epistemological foundations of mathematical theories, with special attention devoted to two questions: (1) how can we have a warrant for the satisfiability and consistency of mathematical theories, and (2) given we conceive of mathematical judgement as objective - as being concerned with a realm of abstract entities - can we have a warrant for thinking that such a realm of entities exists? In Chapter 2, two kinds of mathematical scepticism are developed. The regress sceptic argues that we can have a warrant for accepting neither the satisfiability nor the consistency of a mathematical theory. The I-II-III sceptic maintains that there can be no warrant for thinking that a realm of abstract entities exists if mathematical judgement is conceived as being objective. The notions of entitlement of cognitive project and entitlement of substance - recently introduced into the literature by Crispin Wright - are invoked to respond to the mathematical regress and I-II-III sceptic. This is done in Chapters 3 and 4. The distinctive feature of an entitlement is its non-evidential nature. What is relevant is not the presence of positive evidence, but rather the absence of sufficient countervailing evidence. The second half of the thesis explores and develops certain aspects of this proposal. Chapter 5 develops the notion of entitlement of cognitive project by investigating two of its three defining clauses. Chapter 6 draws a picture of a wider philosophical framework of which entitlement can be regarded an integrated part. In so doing entitlement is discussed in light of the internalism/externalism distinction and the distinction between monism and pluralism about epistemic value. Chapter 7 tables two fundamental challenges to the entitlement proposal - firstly, whether entitlement is an epistemic notion of warrant at all, and secondly, whether the notion of rationality associated with it is epistemic in nature or of some other kind?