Central to Kant’s moral philosophy are the notions of autonomy and spontaneity, and their relation to reason and the understanding. Recent ‘constructivist’ readings of Kant’s ethics thus emphasise the role of the subject’s reflection in moral actions - reason is the only guarantor of the moral, and the right action must be worked out by the subject and consciously assented to. In contrast, for Fichte the moral is simply self-evident and immediately known to the subject. If Kant views the moral as requiring reflection and Fichte views the moral as immediate certainty, then it seems at first glance that the two are at loggerheads. Yet Fichte regarded himself as completing Kant’s Critical project by simply following through Kant’s thought to its fullest conclusions. Rather than dismissing Fichte’s claim to complete Kant’s philosophy, I suggest that paying close attention to Kant’s ethics reveals him to be closer to Fichte than is often recognized.

Studies into schematic and symbolic hypotyposis in Kant’s Critical works rarely set out how different types of concept and idea are realised comprehensively. As a consequence, it is difficult to compare the two types of exhibition in respect to how they differ and relate to one another. There are numerous reasons why these two modes have not been set out with clarity, I will focus on three. The first pertains to the nature of the subject matter itself as the schematism chapter is notoriously dense. Attempts to render Kant’s account coherent consistently fail to acknowledge the schema he addresses in the Architectonic of Pure Reason and as a result they cannot be considered comprehensive or exhaustive. Secondly, the realisation of practical ideas is rarely addressed, referred to or included for comparison in works that address schemata and symbols. Consequently, one cannot gain a comprehensive view of Kant’s account of exhibition. The practical schemata (if one may call them that) prove interesting as they challenge the distinction between direct and indirect exhibition that Kant sets out so confidently in § 59 of the Third Critique (5:352). Thirdly, attempts to present Kant’s account of the symbol with clarity either seek to reduce the symbol to a mode of schematic exhibition (in line with schema from the Architectonic of Pure Reason), or, they fail to distinguish between the examples Kant gives and consequently make claims about one type of symbol based upon their understanding of another, all of which results in further confusion and complications. This thesis will present a clarification of Kant’s account of exhibition with respect to the use of symbols, schemata, and analogy to establish the extent to which philosophy must appropriate art to communicate ideas and concepts. It will draw out the rhetorical connotations affiliated with the term hypotyposis and present the consequences of this in respect to philosophical methodology.

Within this thesis I incorporate Don Ihde’s philosophy of technology to consider the human body’s relationship to three contrasting types of media in the form of cinema, interactive art and computer gaming. Using Ihde’s concept of postphenomenology, I consider how corporeality changes with different technological devices and how engagement with each of these contrasting media contributes towards a unique co-creation of story between a body and a technology. Across three chapters I examine how a user’s experience of fictional stories changes based upon the relationships between media and the user’s body, understood through the framework of postphenomenology. This is considered through Ihde’s key concepts of human-technology relationships, which simultaneously amplify and reduce experiences of bodyhood. In Chapter 1 I consider this through the textual analysis of a number of first person point-of- view films including Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac (2012) and Julian Schabel’s Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and Butterfly, 2007). In Chapter 2 this is expanded upon through analysis of interactive art installations and original interviews with artists. These include Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With (2010), Toni Dove’s Artificial Changelings (1998) and Dennis Del Favero’s Scenario (2011). Chapter 3 considers the postphenomenology of the playing body through titles that range from the Grand Theft Auto franchise (2001-present, Rockstar Games) to smaller independent games such as The Novelist (2013, Orthogonal Games) and This War of Mine (2014, 11 bit studios). Using Ihde’s framework, this thesis contributes a new approach to film and media studies by applying postphenomenology to consider different types of fictional experiences. This is a concept that moves viewers and participants of screen and media culture towards a haptic, corporeal and postphenomenological comprehension of narrative.

This thesis interprets certain passages in Kierkegaard with reference to a problem for the theory of judgement. The problem is generated by powerful considerations to the effect that rule-governed thought essentially involves spontaneous activity. This goes against the grain of many accounts of what thoughts are, and what it means to think. Yet the notion of 'constrained spontaneity' is paradoxical- for how can one and the same act be both spontaneous and determined by rules? I explore how this puzzle informs Kierkegaard's criticisms of Hegel in ways that both anticipate and can be used to interpret Wittgenstein's so-called rule-following considerations. Whilst Kierkegaard's critique has often been seen to trade on a crude view of Hegel, I show how in this respect it survives the sophisticated 'non-metaphysical' readings developed by many contemporary commentators. I proceed to examine whether Kierkegaardian conceptions of 'the leap', indirect communication and imagination can furnish an understanding of constrained spontaneity. In these connections, I (i) advance an 'Inseparability Thesis' about the relation between acts and objects of thought; (ii) adumbrate a form of argument I call the rhetorical reduction, the aim of which is to elicit spontaneous agreement; and (iii) defend a 'direct imagist' account of the role of imagination in rule-following. In a Prologue to the thesis, I mediate between 'content-' and 'form-based' approaches to Kierkegaard's texts by appeal to the art of caricature. In an Epilogue, I assess parallels and disanalogies between judgement and faith in Kierkegaard' s work.

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In this thesis I argue that the constructive philosophical project of Jean-Luc Marion offers a new way of thinking the analogical relation between God and the human person. I particularly examine his concept of the saturated phenomenon in order to show how we might construct the relation between incommensurable terms (God and the human being) without requiring a similitude to mediate the relation. I argue that for Marion God's transcendence is understood as what he describes as "impossibility" and that his immanence is understood through Augustine's interior intimo meo, the God more intimate to me than I am too myself. I demonstrate that radical immanence is God's transcendence insofar as the event of the impossible precedes the being-possibility correlation of metaphysics. Thus I develop the relation of God and the human being as a coincidence of opposites more than an analogy: the infinite distance of radical alterity becomes a belonging together of the human being with God. As a consequence of this analysis, I develop a new concept of relation, which I call "hyperbolic relation." If similitude always threatens to abolish the alterity of the terms of the relation (as was Barth's objection to the analogia entis), in this case, alterity is maintained not by removing relation but by increasing it to the level of hyperbole. Like Marion's God who is "without Being," this analogy is "without similitude" by means of excess. The concept of God that I develop (impossible as intimate and vice versa) will consequently lead to a deepening of the concept of the human person through the transfiguration that saturation precipitates within the concept of relation.

This study examines factors that influence managers’ choice to recognize goodwill impairment under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 142 (SFAS 142). The debate surrounding SFAS 142’s effectiveness centered on whether the managerial discretion allowed by the standard could lead to biased decisions in managers’ determination of goodwill impairment. I use a conditional logistic regression to compare 130 firms that did recognize the existing impairment losses (write-off firms) to a control sample of 130 matching firms that did not recognize the existing impairment losses (no write-off firms). I find that the likelihood of recognizing the existing impairment losses significantly decreases when the managers have sizable holdings of in-the-money stock options. On the other hand, the likelihood of recognizing the existing impairment losses significantly increases when firms have stronger corporate governance, as measured by percentage of outside directors, percentage of outside directors’ ownership, number of busy directors, and separation of CEO and Chair titles. Additionally, I find that during the period leading up to the SFAS 142 write-off, there have been more favorable changes in corporate governance structures of the writeoff firms, compared to that of no write-off firms. These favorable changes in governance structures occurred to a greater extent in firms that have delayed the recognition of existing impairment losses to the sample period compared to the firms that have been recognizing the write-offs on a timely basis. These results are consistent with the notion that favorable changes in corporate governance induce firms to take SFAS 142 impairment losses, which managers have avoided taking in the prior period. Overall, the results imply that managerial incentives do affect the implementation of standards that expand managerial discretion and highlight the importance of corporate boards in the monitoring of discretion allowed by such standards.

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This thesis examines the little-known phenomenological ethical theory of Max Scheler, discussed in his Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values and The Nature of Sympathy, also bringing in various other complementary philosophers. It argues that Scheler’s theory, when supplemented with complementary ideas, is superior to those offered by contemporary analytic intuitionism and other meta-ethical theories. It argues that a theory of pluralist emotive intuitionism provides a better description of both our experience of ethical value and the logical requirements for the ethical knowledge presumed by that experience. This thesis places Scheler’s theory in the context of ethical intuitionism up until the present. It considers why intuitionism has been generally rejected, looking at outstanding philosophical questions facing ethical intuitionism and previous attempted answers, and discussing current theories of analytic ethical intuitionism and their flaws. It explains the significant elements of Scheler’s ethical theory and how it can be understood in its phenomenological context. To demonstrate how Scheler’s material intuitionism is better than current theories of rationalist intuitionism, and other meta-ethical alternatives, this thesis looks at two main groups of issues. Firstly, the epistemological issues raised by Scheler’s theory and how it offers a possible solution to the problem of ethical knowledge, along with a brief consideration of ontological issues. Secondly, normative issues raised by Scheler’s theory: major issues on normative judgement raised but not answered by Scheler’s theory and, following this, a chapter dedicated to Scheler’s theory of ‘persons’, particularly with reference to Emmanuel Levinas. It concludes that an adapted Scheleran theory of ethical intuitionism can be superior to contemporary theories. It explains how the fundamental features of ethical experience may be epistemologically and phenomenologically justified based on objective values. It provides better responses to standard problems raised against intuitionism while also providing a natural explanation for a wider range of moral phenomena than standard meta-ethical alternatives. This demonstrates its superior explanatory power and provides strong arguments for its value as an over-arching meta-ethical theory.

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