Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1934. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [201]-206).

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In the years since the truth wars of Bertrand Russell and William James the realism/antirealism debate has taken on at least two main forms. There is a debate between those that claim that truth transcends knowledge and those that hold that truth is inseparable from a mind and its concepts. But there is another discussion that has less to do with language and the property of truth, and more to do with the primacy of matter or mind. Philosophers of Science Ronald Giere and Jeffrey Foss share an interest in this latter debate and reject the linguaphilia that permeates philosophy. l will exploit their use of models and argue that from a properly pragmatic perspective it is possible to reconcile an internalist approach to truth with realist attitudes. To do so, I will explore the methodological materialism of Jeffrey Foss and Ronald Giere. I will argue that models make statements true and I will replace the principle of transcendence with a principle of methodological transcendence. I conclude that the external aspects of language that philosophers of language have persistently posited can be dispensed with.

La pédagogie appelée seikatsu tsuzurikata (litt. écriture ou rédaction de la vie) s’est développée à partir de 1912 dans le cadre du mouvement de l’« éducation libérale de Taishô » (Taishô jiyû kyôiku). Durant ces années, de nombreuses écoles privées furent établies sur la base des principes de l’éducation nouvelle développés dans les pays occidentaux. Dans certaines écoles publiques également, quelques jeunes enseignants « progressistes » s’efforcèrent de développer une pédagogie permettant notamment aux enfants de s’exprimer plus librement et intimement dans leurs rédactions. L’« expression écrite » (tsuzurikata) était en effet la seule matière à ne pas être contrainte par l’utilisation des manuels scolaires imposés par l’Etat, et elle constituait en ce sens un champ d’expérimentation relativement libre. Malgré l’oppression du gouvernement militariste avant et pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, cette méthode fut alors suffisamment élaborée pour survivre dans des classes japonaises d’après-guerre jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Nous étudierons dans cette thèse le contexte historique dans lequel a émergé cette forme de pédagogie, qui vise un développement global des enfants, c’est-à-dire tant au niveau intellectuel (les connaissances) qu’émotionnel (la personnalité). La question qui nous guidera dans cette étude sera de comprendre comment et pourquoi cette pédagogie s’est développée dans un système éducatif qui, du fait des principes sur lesquels il s’était développé et des objectifs qui lui avaient être fixés à partir de l’ère Meiji (1868-1912), ne pouvait pourtant a priori que la rejeter. / The pedagogy called seikatsu tsuzurikata was developed after 1912 within the «Taishô liberal education movement» (Taishô jiyû kyôiku). During this period, many private schools were established on the basis of the ideas of the «New Education» imported from West. In several public schools also, some young «progressive» teachers tried to develop one pedagogy that could help the children to express more freely in their writing. The composition (tsuzurikata) was in those days the only class that had no obligation to use the textbook screened by the government. Therefore, this class offered the teachers the possibilities to do some experiments relatively freely. Although the oppression by the government before and during the Second World War, this method was elaborated enough to survive in the Japanese classes after the War until the present time. We will study in this thesis the historical context in which emerged this form of education which aims at a holistic development of children, that is to say, both intellectually (knowledge) and emotional (personality). The question that will guide us in this study will be to understand both how and why this pedagogy succeeded to develop in an educational system which, because of the principles and objectives on which it was developed from the Meiji era (1868-1912), was a priori supposed to reject it.

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An examination of the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan with regard to Nicaragua and its relation to the theory of offensive realism espoused by John Mearsheimer / May 2007

In what follows I will examine problems surrounding Hilary Putnam's defense of 'internal' realism. I will begin by considering his motivations for rejecting what he calls 'metaphysical realism' and the theory of truth that this leads him to adopt. This theory, idealized rational acceptability, in turn raises doubts that 'internal' realism could be an undesirable form of 'relativism'. Putnam tries to show that his position is distinct from relativism, giving several specific arguments that the latter is inconsistent in various ways in which 'internal' realism is not. These arguments will constitute the main focus of this work. I shall argue that the arguments only succeed against a very narrow and naive class of relativist positions. I will then consider a more careful formulation of a sophisticated relativism offered by Chris Swoyer. From this it will be seen that other relativist doubts can be eliminated and I will then briefly consider what other resources the 'internal' realist position can make use of to deal with some remaining difficulties.

In this paper I shall discuss the theory of what may be called material realism. The term "material" is borrowed fran Kant. He defined "material idealism" as "the theory which declares the existence of objects in space outside us either to be merely doubtful and indemonstrable or to be false and impossible." [...]

Created in 1925 by the art critic Franz Roh, the term magic realism originally meant a form of post-expressionist painting. Soon thereafter, writers such as Massimo Bontempelli, Johan Daisne, and Franz Hellens applied it to literature and made it a genre combining elements of realism with a fantastic inner world. It is that "interiority" which distinguishes magic realism from conventional fantastic literature. With Alejo Carpentier's "real maravilloso", this interiority takes on collective dimension and that is perhaps why magic realism is nowadays linked to South American fiction. The second part of this thesis is made up of short stories, most of which are inspired by magic realism.

<p>The thesis examines the role of magical realism as a postcolonial trope in Ways of Dying and The Madonna of Excelsior. It begins by stating that the author uses magical realism as an alternative strategy for self narration in the face of the dominant ideologies of colonialism (apartheid) and nationalism. Chapter One examines the absurd taxonomies of colour that were legislated under apartheid in South Africa and, using ideas of postcolonial deconstruction, locate Toloki and Niki as characters in existing in incongrous circumstances. Chapter Two shows the strategies adopted by Toloki to fashion his own reality as opposed to accepting a place within a predetermined objective reality. Chapter Three examines the examination of sex as a physical act and the gendered rolesof women. The thesis concludes by considering the place and possiblities of Mda's writing in the canon of Southern African Literature in the light of the rich heritage of elements that are magical on the sub-continent of Africa.</p>