My thesis examines Kant's metaphysics and its critical appropriation by Schelling, particularly in his early identity-philosophy. My first two chapters focus on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of the Power of Judgement, wherein I discuss core themes in Kant's metaphysics and aesthetics. In the first chapter these themes include intellectual intuition, the ideas of reason, and das Unbedingte (the unconditioned or absolute). In the second chapter I deal with aesthetic judgment, aesthetic ideas and genius. In chapter three and four I offer a critical analysis of Kant's ideas and Schelling's identity-philosophy, defending the powerful, if little known arguments Schelling formulates to overcome the limitations Kant imposes upon metaphysics. I relate this analysis to three central themes common to Kant and Schelling; intellectual intuition, aesthetic experience, and the unconditioned. I argue that Schelling struggles to overcome Kant's critical limitations, particularly with regard to the status of intellectual intuition for human cognition. My discussion of Schelling focuses on two of his essays; Presentation of my system of philosophy (1801), and Further presentations from the system of philosophy (1802). These texts consolidate Schelling's identity-philosophy in the wake of his more well known work, System of transcendental idealism from 1800. In addition, I examine Schelling's Philosophy of art lectures from 1804. These are all crucial texts in the history of German idealism which are rarely discussed. In the course of my thesis I engage and respond to recent research by Paul Guyer, Dalia Nassar, Daniel Whistler, Manfred Frank, Karl Ameriks, Dieter Henrich, and others.

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According to Freud, fetishism is based on disavowal (Verleugnung): the possibility of believing two contradictory propositions to be true simultaneously. This thesis argues that the structure of the sign and of meaning more generally can be understood to function in exactly this way. The sign both is and is not that which it represents. Disavowal offers a theoretical explanation of the functioning of language, meaning and text based on a principle of the simultaneous existence of two contradictory propositions. The fetish is aligned with a series of concepts which, it is argued, have a similar contradictory structure: Sigmund Freud's unheimlich, Tzvetan Todorov's fantastic, Slavoj Žižek's real (incorporating Jacques Lacan's objet petit a and Alfred Hitchcock's McGuffin), Jacques Derrida's différance and Ferdinand de Saussure's sign. Theoretical underpinnings come from psychoanalysis, anthropology and Marxism. There is a consideration of the history of fetishism in philosophy and in film theory. Following the work of Derrida in Glas, an argument is made for the radical potential of the "generalised fetish", defined by disavowal. The thesis explores the action of fetishism in writing and film. Hair is used as one example of a symbolic object to show that an understanding of such a symbol is based on disavowal. The concept of fetishism is then used to explore the way in which the object is represented in the writings of Franz Kafka and the films of Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay. These works provide complex representations of objects on a thematic level while the texts themselves function as just such fetish objects on a formal level. It is the self-reflexive interaction between these two levels that makes these texts exemplary.

This thesis is concerned with the epistemology of absolute alethic necessity. The thesis begins with a characterisation of absolute alethic necessity and its distinctive epistemology. The challenge of explaining the reliability of belief in necessity is identified as the primary goal of the thesis and four broad forms of response to that challenge are identified. Of the four strategies, two are dismissed as prima facie inapplicable to the case of necessity. The two remaining options are identified as Modal Anti-Realism and Non-Standard Realism. In chapter 2, it is suggested that the field can be narrowed further, in light of Anna Sherratt's (2010) Transparency Objection to Modal Anti-Realism. From chapter 3 onwards, the thesis aims to close in on a suitable variety of Non-Standard Realism by drawing upon a number of further, foundational, issues concerning modal thought. It is suggested that a type of normativity concerning content stability (or loss of content) offers the prospects of progress on these foundational questions. It is suggested that notions of normativity of this type are found in, both, the work of Christopher Peacocke (1999) and John Divers and Jose Edgar Gonzalez-Varela (2012). It is suggested that by combining elements of these two works we can make progress on the foundational questions. However, in order to develop the account into a response to the Reliability Challenge, the central remaining task is to articulate the nature and epistemology of the notion of content stability. In chapter 7, a specific notion of content stability is identified as 'proper deployment'. It is also suggested that in order to meet the Reliability Challenge, we require a notion of proper deployment that maintains a minimal degree of objectivity. In particular, there must be facts concerning the proper deployment of content. Chapter 7 also indicates the significant sceptical attack that threatens the required factuality of judgements of this type. It is suggested that the objectivity of proper deployment required for a response to the Reliability Challenge can be maintained on a non-reductive account of proper deployment. It is highlighted, however, that the non-reductive account still faces the task of explaining the epistemology of proper deployment. It is at this point, I suggest, that anti-realism has significant explanatory work to do in the epistemology of modality, but that such work directly concerns the nature and objectivity of content, not modality, itself. In chapters 8 and 9, a constitutive account of proper deployment is proposed and integrated with the responses to the foundational questions concerning modal thought and knowledge.

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The question addressed by this thesis is the extent to which prosperity teaching, both Word-faith and non-Word-faith, may be regarded as legitimate in its interpretation of Scripture, regarded by all concerned as the final authority on matters of faith and doctrine. This thesis will derive a considered ‘ideal’ or complete hermeneutical strategy based on the teaching of well-respected hermeneutics scholars, which will be used to evaluate the interpretation of Scripture by all parties to this prosperity debate. These include Word-faith and non-Word-faith prosperity teachers, as well as those critical of Word-faith prosperity teaching, and a group of commentators on their teaching, providing the scholarly context to this thesis. Works highly critical of Word-faith prosperity teaching have been produced between 1979 and 1992, asserting that such prosperity teaching is not legitimate scriptural teaching. So this thesis will evaluate the hermeneutics of prosperity teachers, their critics and the commentators of Word-faith prosperity teaching, using the ‘ideal’ hermeneutical strategy derived in this thesis. This thesis therefore begins with an analysis of the pioneers and forerunners of prosperity teaching from the nineteenth and early twentieth century who demonstrate that prosperity teaching has some early roots, adding a degree of legitimacy to prosperity teaching. Then, the interpretation of all parties to the prosperity debate is evaluated using the considered hermeneutical strategy derived, supported by the views of contemporary commentators on the scriptures consulted. In the light of this evaluation legitimate prosperity themes are identified and analysed to formulate a categorised prosperity theology having three categories of righteousness, wisdom and faith as they apply to the prosperity of the believer The categorised prosperity theology thus derived will also provide a prosperity classification which believers of all persuasions should be able to assess their position on biblical prosperity and thereby find prosperity advice applicable to them.

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Solipsism was conceived as a preliminary to grounding knowledge in the seventeenth century. This doctrine suggested that, in order to achieve certainty, one had to temporarily admit the conceivability of doubt about the existence of other minds and the external world as a whole. The existence of the external world was then taken to be established by means of proofs of the existence of a unique creator, or assured by means of transcendental deduction. By comparison, nothing seems to prove the existence of others. On the one hand, nothing seems to count as proof a posteriori of the existence of others, for the doubt it would dispel cannot be grounded in experience. On the other hand, nor can a proof which would dispel such doubt be produced a priori, for the empirical and generalized absence of others is conceivable a posteriori. Thus, nothing seems to exclude the possibility of an a priori discovery of one’s unicity. This thesis endeavours to bring out the similarity of the treatment of this difficulty by Sartre and Wittgenstein. Each of these philosophers confronted the illusion of confinement that presupposes admitting the generalized absence of others. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre proposes a conceptual means to establish that the theoretical problem of the existence of other minds is a pseudo-problem. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein proposes to dissolve the philosophical problems of the existence of the external world and the existence of other minds via reflexion on the intelligibility conditions of expression. Both cases involve dispelling the appearance that doubt about the world and other minds is possible and required. Not only that proof of the existence of other minds is impossible, it is also superfluous. To require such a proof therefore can lead to nothing but missing the obviousness of our commitments to others, and thereby to denying their existence.

The notion of a concept has been widely viewed to be fundamental to understanding the mind. However, some have recently questioned the explanatory role of this notion, asserting that we should eliminate it from our considered theory of the mind. In doing so, these critics are said to endorse a form of concept eliminativism. In this thesis, I challenge concept eliminativism and advance a defence of the theoretical relevance of the term ‘concept’. Firstly, I develop a new general taxonomy of eliminativist arguments and claims through examining a range of different eliminativist projects in different domains. Particularly relevant for this thesis, the proposed taxonomy allows for the characterisation of a type of eliminativism that appeals to the theoretical inadequacy of concepts that do not clearly designate a single class of things. Secondly, I challenge what is currently the most prominent eliminativist proposal regarding concepts, namely, Machery’s concept eliminativism. I begin by providing an overview of contemporary theories of concepts and their main problems. Then I go on to show that Machery’s eliminativist proposal fails because it inherits many of the same problems facing the theories of concepts that Machery criticizes. Moreover, I contend that Machery’s alternative to concepts is ill-equipped to solve the problem of intentional content. I conclude that these are good reasons to reject the claim that the benefits of eliminating the notion of a concept overweigh the cost of keeping it. Finally, I defend the theoretical term ‘concept’ by sketching an approach to natural kinds suitable for an immature science, such as the contemporary science of the mind. I examine several apparently incompatible attitudes towards natural kinds within philosophy of science and argue that this apparent incompatibility demands revision. I address this challenge and develop a positive view that vindicates the scientific relevance of the term ‘concept’.