Ce mémoire s’intéresse au travail d’enquête et plus spécifiquement à la méthode du détective privé dans le diptyque que composent Un privé à Tanger (1987) et ma haie : Un privé à Tanger II (2001) du poète français Emmanuel Hocquard. Suivant l’hypothèse que le diptyque ne constitue pas seulement un travail sur l’enquête, mais bien un travail d’enquête, nous chercherons à rendre compte, dans toute sa complexité et sa richesse, de la teneur de cette enquête. Puisant à la fois dans les théories de l’enquête, les études littéraires, les études médiatiques et la philosophie, ce mémoire s’affairera à montrer le fonctionnement du diptyque comme ouvrage de savoir. Dans un premier temps, nous travaillerons à détailler la généalogie de la figure du privé et du polar sous le signe desquels est posé le diptyque. En insistant sur les nombreuses affinités entre la pratique littéraire de l’écrivain hard-boiled états-unien Raymond Chandler et celle d’Emmanuel Hocquard dans Un privé à Tanger I et II, nous chercherons à aborder leur relation sous l’angle de l’héritage plutôt que sous celui du pastiche. Puis, fort de cette compréhension du rapport étroit entre le poète français et le polar américain, nous travaillerons, dans un second temps, à analyser la structure du diptyque à l’aune de ce que nous appellerons, à la suite de Christophe Hanna et Philippe Charron, la méthode du privé. Dans un troisième temps, nous nous intéresserons à l’objet et aux visées de l’enquête hocquardienne. Si, comme l’affirme Gilles A. Tiberghien et Jean-François Puff, l’enquête hocquardienne est autoréflexive et autobiographique, notre travail sera non pas de montrer un caractère spéculaire, mais plutôt de cerner la façon dont, chez Hocquard, l’anecdotique et le personnel sont intégrés à une réflexion politique et éthique. / This dissertation explores the investigative work and the implementation of the private detective method in the diptych Un privé à Tanger, an oeuvre written by the French poet Emmanuel Hocquard and composed of Un privé à Tanger (1987) and ma haie : Un privé à Tanger II (2001). Following the hypothesis that the diptych is not only a work on investigation, but also a work of investigation, we will seek to understand the terms of this inquiry in all its complexity. Through the use of a diverse theoretical framework – combining investigation studies, literary studies, media studies and philosophy –, this dissertation aims to make plain of the inner operations of the diptych as a work of knowledge. Firstly, we will delineate the genealogy of the diptych and detail its relation with the hard-boiled novel and the writings of Raymond Chandler; a relation that can’t and won’t be described as a pastiche. Secondly, we will analyse the structure of the diptych through its connection to what we’ll name, following the works of Philippe Charron and Christophe Hanna, the private’s method. Thirdly, we will turn our attention to the object of the diptych’s investigation. As claimed by Gilles A. Tiberghien and Jean-François Puff, the hocquardian investigation can be characterize as self-reflective and autobiographical, our work will then be to make clear of the ways in which, in the works of Hocquard, the realm of the anecdotal and the personal, is used for ethical and political thinking.

<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a proper treatment for two groups of logical paradoxes: semantic paradoxes and set-theoretic paradoxes. My main thesis is that the two different groups of paradoxes need different kinds of solution. Based on the analysis of the diagonal method and truth-gap theory, I propose a functional-deflationary interpretation for semantic notions such as ‘heterological’, ‘true’, ‘denote’, and ‘define’, and argue that the contradictions in semantic paradoxes are due to a misunderstanding of the non-representational nature of these semantic notions. Thus, they all can be solved by clarifying the relevant confusion: the liar sentence and the heterological sentence do not have truth values, and phrases generating paradoxes of definability (such as that in Berry’s paradox) do not denote an object. I also argue against three other leading approaches to the semantic paradoxes: the Tarskian hierarchy, contextualism, and the paraconsistent approach. I show that they fail to meet one or more criteria for a satisfactory solution to the semantic paradoxes. For the set-theoretic paradoxes, I argue that the criterion for a successful solution in the realm of set theory is mathematical usefulness. Since the standard solution, i.e. the axiomatic solution, meets this requirement, it should be accepted as a successful solution to the set-theoretic paradoxes.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract This thesis sets out to explore the cultural differences between Sweden and the United States by examining the substantial changes made to Men Who Hate Women, including the change in the book’s title in English to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. My thesis focuses in particular on changes in the depiction of the female protagonist: Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately we do not have access to translator Steven T. Murray’s original translation, though we know that the English publisher and rights holder Christopher MacLehose chose to enhance Larsson’s work in order to make the novel more interesting for English-speaking readers, which resulted in Murray translating under the pseudonym Reg Keeland as he did not agree to the translation made by MacLehose and Knopf. Furthermore, this thesis touches on the ethics of translation, and will likewise argue the importance of facilitating a dialog concerning misogyny and rape culture.

The general topic of the thesis is the history of the Ordinary Language Philosophy. To be more precise, it deals with the critical arguments, which were raised against is. The thesis offers a short historical and sociological review of the Ordinary Language Philosophy. Critical analysis shows two things: 1) the main reason for the rejection was a different understanding of meaning (and consequences of such a understanding); 2) critics begged the question and already assumed the justification of these rejections in their arguments. The area of this criticism was: the paradigm case argument, the empirical nature of the statements of meaning produced by the Ordinary Language Philosophy, the structural elements of meaning and the political implications of the theory of meaning. The thesis criticizes the Ordinary Language Philosophy in those parts (and in such interpretations), where its understanding of meaning does not differ from the understanding of the critics and where they share common assumptions. On the other hand, the thesis argues for an interpretation, which avoids classical understanding of meaning in all its consequences. Finally, the thesis asks how the Ordinary Language Philosophy can be useful for contemporary debates.

Notre hypothèse est que la réflexion de Diderot dans les Salons ne porte pas tant sur l’image que sur le langage : la confrontation avec les œuvres d’art l’oblige à questionner la langue. Traduire l’image permet d’expérimenter les limites expressives de la langue, de saisir ses conditions d’apparition, son origine. La présente étude se donne trois objectifs principaux. Remettre les Salons au cœur des pratiques d’écriture des salonniers. La critique d’art est à envisager non seulement au regard des idées nouvelles défendues par les salonniers, mais aussi de leurs expérimentations formelles. En examinant les textes antérieurs et postérieurs aux Salons se dessine la genèse de la critique d’art comme genre littéraire. À l’autre extrémité des influences, cette étude explore les Salons en les plaçant au cœur de l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Diderot. Diderot y approfondit ses intuitions théâtrales et esthétiques, développe ses thèses sensualistes et matérialistes, sa philosophie morale, ses idées politiques et physiologiques, affine sa conception de la langue. Les Salons l’accompagnent dans son cheminement intellectuel et dépassent le commentaire des œuvres exposées. La critique d’art est laboratoire d’écriture et de pensée. Plus encore, sa critique d’art pose avec une acuité toute particulière l’un des grands problèmes du tournant des Lumières : le conflit naissant entre nature et culture, dont le langage devient l’un des lieux d’interrogation privilégié. C’est à la question du langage que nous avons choisi de nous intéresser, parce que ses fonctions sont emblématiques des tensions du texte. Le langage peut servir à communiquer avec les autres, à échanger. Mais il a également la capacité de figurer, de créer une image dans l’esprit. Il permet enfin de s’interroger sur lui-même. Une involution semble poindre dans les Salons : c’est à partir des discours sur l’art comme lieux de sociabilité que Diderot réfléchit à la langue originelle. / My thesis is entitled “La mise en question du langage dans les Salons de Diderot”. It aims at showing that Diderot’s art critic does not focus so much on image than on language, or more precisely on the fact that, when looking at a painting, Diderot is compelled to question language. In the Salons, he tries to make pictures arise from words and to give speech and voice to images. Three aspects of the relationships between image and language arise, and make up the three parts of my thesis. First of all, Diderot talks about the paintings of the Louvre’s exhibitions. The Salons are part of Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire, whose subscribers are all members of European monarchies. While he depicts paintings, Diderot always keeps in mind that these very urbane readers expect to be entertained. Speech about art need to remain close to playful conversation in order to entertain the elite. I studied Diderot’s borrowings from other art critics, thanks to the “Collection Deloynes” in which are gathered all texts from the eighteenth century about the Louvre’s exhibitions. Working on this collection enable me to prove Diderot’s influence on evolution of art criticism considered as a literary genre. The second part of my thesis focuses on the language of image. Diderot also tries to invent a language that imitates image, whose structure and phrasal progression match the dynamic of the painting. He adapts his writing to pictures until he reaches sometimes the limits of syntactic structure. Finally, Diderot questions the ability of words to convey images, which lead him to a metalinguistic reflection. Paintings are perceived as a gestural form of language which gives clues to understand the origins of language. My research consists in proving that there is a kind of “involution” of language in Diderot’s art critic. Whereas evolution led language from nature to urbanity, in the Salons, being confronted to images, Diderot seems to go the way back, from urbanity to nature.

In this thesis I examine various theories of humor to establish an account of the functional roles of humor in social interaction and agentive development. These roles are integrated into a view of agency developed by G.H. Mead, and further refined by the recognition theory of Axel Honneth. The core thesis is: Humor is under-examined as an aspect of human interaction, because it plays such an integral role in individual agency and social development. Understanding how humor works helps to explain how agents are formed through the internalization of the expectations of others via processes of recognition, either positively or negatively. Through the explication of the core humor theories—superiority, relief, incongruity, and play—insight is offered into the various processes of basic human interaction, understanding, and identity. The work has theoretical application by proving Mead's and Honneth's emphasis on recognition for development is justified, while also correcting an overly positive view of recognition by outlining the social policing function of humor. But the thesis has also obvious practical value in day to day human interaction, as it shows that humor is able to address issues that are very difficult through other modes of communication and understanding. Humor’s role in agentive interaction and formation cannot be overstated, both as a mode of expression and coping, but also since the threat of embarrassment through ridicule underpins and motivates a great deal of human interaction. The negative ethical implications of the role of humor, which are often overlooked, are extensively outlined and developed through the conceptual frameworks of social power (punching-up and punching down) as well as act-centered vs. agent-centered views of discriminatory humor. The thesis offers and analyzes ready examples from the work of Chris Rock and Bill Cosby, and looks at the implications of each through the theoretical lenses fleshed out in previous chapters. Through this it is clearly demonstrated, not only how these theories interconnect, but as well how such knowledge is of obvious, and practical value in day-to-day human interaction.

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage a ‘transgression’ that leads to the possibility of a transformative awareness of being. Subsequently, I present a series of ‘antithetical’ commentaries that neither explain nor expand the installation, rather, they create a non-binary duality that, through an entirely non-linear anti-narrative, work to erode the overlay of personal, civic and collective grids present in the memory space/time referenced in the video, TAG. Finally, in “Grid: Towards a Transgressive Humanism.” I propose a path by which installation art might serve to create transgressive opportunities for viewers, rather than the transcendence sought through religious rituals, which often reinforce stigmas, fears and authoritarian social dynamics, or worse, the reductive loop, of many contemporary approaches to art which proclaim their detachment in wordy displays, essentially leading to a form of aesthetic nihilism. This Transgressive Humanism is not presented as a dogma, but rather a revitalization of the work as a vessel of possibilities, an agent of creative growth for the artist and the viewer.

Working through methods of abstraction and comedic mimicry I choreograph awkwardly balanced sculpture with objects of adornment as a means to defuse personal sensitivities surrounding my experiences of gender, desire, and home. The research that follows is concerned with the adjacent, the in between, above and underneath, because I feel that this kind of looking means that you are, to some degree, aware of what lies at the edges. Maybe this is what Gertrude Stein means to act as though there is no use in a center—because this concerns a way of relating, though there are many things in the room. ‘A spectacle and nothing strange’ is an arrangement of gestures, of made difference, of kinships, of orientations and possible futures, sustained tension, coded adornment, big dyke energy, shifts in hardness, leaning softness, much more than flowers, ...and in any case there is sweetness and some of that.

There exists a broad inclination among those who theorize about mental representation to assume that the meanings of linguistic units, like words, are going to be identical to, and work exactly like, mental representations, such as concepts. This has the effect of many theorists applying facts that seem to have been discovered about the meanings of linguistic units to mental representations. This is especially so for causal theories of content, which will be the primary exemplars here. It is the contention of this essay that this approach is mistaken. The influence of thinking about language and mental representation in this way has resulted in the adoption of certain positions by a broad swathe of theorists to the effect that the content of a concept is identical to the property in the world that the concept represents, and that because of this a concept only applies to an object in the world or it does not. The consequences of such commitments are what appear to be insoluble problems that arise when trying to account for, or explain, misrepresentation in cognitive systems. This essay presents the position that in order to actually account for misrepresentation, conceptual content must be understood as being very much like measurements, in that the application of a content to an object in the world is akin to measuring said object, and that conceptual content ought be understood as being graded in the same way that measurements are. On this view, then, concepts are the kinds of things that can be applied more, or less, accurately to particular objects in the world, and so are not identical to whatever it is that they represent.

There exists a broad inclination among those who theorize about mental representation to assume that the meanings of linguistic units, like words, are going to be identical to, and work exactly like, mental representations, such as concepts. This has the effect of many theorists applying facts that seem to have been discovered about the meanings of linguistic units to mental representations. This is especially so for causal theories of content, which will be the primary exemplars here. It is the contention of this essay that this approach is mistaken. The influence of thinking about language and mental representation in this way has resulted in the adoption of certain positions by a broad swathe of theorists to the effect that the content of a concept is identical to the property in the world that the concept represents, and that because of this a concept only applies to an object in the world or it does not. The consequences of such commitments are what appear to be insoluble problems that arise when trying to account for, or explain, misrepresentation in cognitive systems. This essay presents the position that in order to actually account for misrepresentation, conceptual content must be understood as being very much like measurements, in that the application of a content to an object in the world is akin to measuring said object, and that conceptual content ought be understood as being graded in the same way that measurements are. On this view, then, concepts are the kinds of things that can be applied more, or less, accurately to particular objects in the world, and so are not identical to whatever it is that they represent.