In this thesis I consider an argument against the claim that an agent is responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise. Frankfurt-style cases are proposed as scenarios in which an agent is responsible for what they have done, despite having been unable to do otherwise. A successful Frankfurt-style case would render the question of the compatibility of the ability to do otherwise and determinism or indeterminism irrelevant to the question of the compatibility of responsibility and determinism or indeterminism. My aim is to assess whether this style of argument succeeds. I begin by considering a strategy employed by some „leeway compatibilists‟ who have argued, via a modified conditional analysis of the ability to do otherwise, that an agent in a Frankfurt-style case could, in fact, have done otherwise in some relevant sense. I argue that these views fail to establish that the agent could have done otherwise in a sense relevant to accounting for that agent‟s responsibility. I suggest that, for all that these views show, Frankfurt‟s challenge may stand against leeway compatibilism. I go on to argue that, insofar as Frankfurt-style cases are proposed to count against „leeway incompatibilism‟, determinism must not be assumed, and the counterfactual intervener or intervening mechanism must be equipped to pre-empt the agent‟s acts of will. I suggest that no dialectically effective Frankfurt-style case can be constructed which would show that the agent could not have done otherwise, in some relevant sense, if it is granted that the agent has the power to determine, without prior determination, their own acts of will. Leeway incompatibilism must be rejected only if there is independent reason to suppose that this ability is unnecessary for responsibility. I conclude that Frankfurt-style cases, in isolation, do not count decisively against leeway incompatibilism.

This PhD thesis focuses on the elucidation, development and application of Gilbert Simondon's realist philosophy of individuation. In particular the thesis has three main goals: First, to provide a developed account of Simondon's ontology. Second, to develop a coherent account of causality in line with Simondon's theorization of individuation. Third, to give a full account of Simondon's philosophy of technology and evaluate its relevance for the contemporary technological state of affairs. To answer the third of these questions it is necessary to address the others. A realist, non-anthropological account of technology necessarily requires the development of a robust ontology and a suitable theorization of causality. In this thesis this is achieved by developing the key concepts involved in Simondon's theory of individuation such as transduction, metastability and pre-individuality. Before developing an account of transductive operation in the three regimes of individuation which Simondon stipulates (physical, vital and psycho-social) we argue for Simondon's account of allagmatics (theory of operations) as consistent with and in some ways superior to some contemporary powers based theories of causality. Having established the broad scope of Simondon's axiomatic use of individuation it is then utilized in order to fully examine his philosophy of technology. This is achieved by bringing together Simondon's theorization of individuation in multiple domains (e.g. the image-cycle, transindividual) in relation to that of technology. In doing this we also develop other important aspects of Simondon's philosophy such as aesthetics, epistemology and ethics. By necessity the thesis has a broad scope in order to reflect the encyclopedic ambition which Simondon had for his genetic philosophy and without which his work is prone to be misunderstood. As such it describes a novel encounter between cybernetics, phenomenology and energetics.

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This thesis introduces and defends a 'C theory' of time. The metaphysics of time literature is primarily concerned with the distinction between the A and B theories of time, with the disagreement concerning whether the passage of time is an objective feature of reality. I argue that the distinction between the Band C theories-in terms of whether time has a 'privileged' direction-is of more obvious relevance to the philosophy of physics than is the distinction between the A and B theories. The thesis has three main contentions. (1) In order to maintain a substantial metaphysical dispute between the different theories of time, they must be defined in terms of structural properties, and the naturalistic metaphysics of time direction involves the assessment of these structures in light of contemporary physics. (2) The A theory of time requires a model with two temporal dimensions, and although such a model proVides a resolution to a number of problems faced by standard A theories, it is not motivated by physical theory. (3) The dispute between the Band C theories of time is of direct relevance to the philosophy of physics: the B theorist's assumption of the existence of a privileged temporal direction is of explanatory relevance to physics; and a comparison between unidirectional and adirectional explanations in physics can in principle shed light on whether time is B- or C-theoretic.

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This thesis re-evaluates the initial use of organ replacement therapy in Britain during the 1890s with regard to the thyroid gland and the associated disease entity of myxoedema as paradigmatic examples. The scope of my argument, however, encompasses the period between the 1850s and 1910s, as it approaches this subject from three perspectives. Firstly, this thesis examines the difficult and multifaceted history of thyroid insufficiency disorders between 1850 and 1878, such as endemic cretinism and goitre. Secondly, the introduction of myxoedema as a distinct clinical entity between 1878 and 1888 is discussed. Finally, the professional debates surrounding the new therapeutic approach of organ replacement therapy and its clinical application and scientific assessment are analysed for the period from the 1890s onward. By focussing on the notions of disease causation via key historical figures and their publications, I argue that there was a mutual influence between the conception of myxoedema and organ replacement therapy, and that neither one would otherwise have become acceptable by the standards of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century scientific medicine. The origins of the ensemble of the new concepts and practices that constitute myxoedema and the associated organ replacement therapy can thereby be situated within a specific timeframe and context. They did not simply arise from contemporary medical knowledge, nor were they the culmination of some long-held desire of the medical community, or solely the result of medical progress. Instead, the practice of organ replacement therapy, as well as the new disease entity of myxoedema, depended on a view of the human body that assumed the medical possibility and desirability of replacing an organ’s lost function. This view was part of the concept of organ replacement, which emerged in the specific context of an experiment-oriented style of university medicine that predominated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its emergence depended on contemporary clinical and scientific practices as well as on the institutional and epistemological context within which these practices were embedded. As this thesis demonstrates, various social, scientific, and technical conditions needed to concur before organ replacement therapy could become part of medical reality.

This thesis begins by examining how Coleridge Romanticizes Platonism. I argue that Coleridge creatively recasts Plato’s Divided Line analogy, and thereby finds a higher role for a radically re-thought imagination. Through this recast imagination, Coleridge develops a Romantic Platonism by elevating imagination and modifying Plato’s linear scheme into a polarity that harmonizes sense and reason. I argue that Coleridge’s philosophy develops in response to the Empiricist philosophy that dominated the British practice, and transcendental idealism that flourished in Germany. I argue that Coleridge’s philosophy is neither Empiricist, nor a mere translation of German idealism, as critics have sometimes suggested, but that it is quintessentially Platonic. Unlike Plato, however, Coleridge elevates the status of imagination, separating it from fantasy (or fancy, as he calls it), which retains the subordinate position it has for Plato. Attacking Empiricist philosophy, Coleridge argues that reason and its Ideas (and not the understanding) constitute and indeed exceed the apex of human thought, a distinction corresponding to Plato’s between noesis and dianoia. I present a view, developing from Coleridge and answering Plato, of how the practical and the contemplative lives can bring each other nearer to fulfilment, such that, to use Plato’s terms, contemplation can be perfected in the return to the cave, rather than be prevented there, as is often feared. I examine how Coleridgean imagination and reason operate as the higher, ‘spiritual mind’, balancing the lower ‘mind of the body’. While the lower mind desires and consumes, with fancy restlessly moving through ever-shifting mental images, the higher mind yearns, and contemplates, finding stillness in beholding value. I propose what I call the contemplative ars biographica poetica, suggesting not only that we should live our lives as the poetic art of life-writing, but also that we already do so. Usually we shape our lives unawares of any poetic task, yet we manage nevertheless to retrieve moments of strikingly beautiful meaning despite decades-long disasters prolonged by deliberate blindness and a pathological obstinacy that values mere repetition above reason. This art at its best, however, relates to philosophy as the former seeks in the latter a satiating vision, a wisdom to answer profoundest yearning.