Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mariza A S Vial Ferronatto.pdf: 566092 bytes, checksum: d06d4345d1c983654cc6cf54aba15af9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-19 / The proposal of this work has as conducting wire the inquiry of the following question: how it is possible that the notion of difference, present on the Heraclitu's fragments, can, at the same time, underlie an ontic sense of world, like the conceived by Nietzsche, and the ontologic sense of world, conceived by Heidegger? The reading of the selected bibliography indicates the possibility of exploration of the hypothesis that, as readers of Heraclitus, Nietzsche and Heidegger agree when identifying the difference as relation; however, they diverge when it refers to the dimension in wich this relation effectively happen. With the objective to underlie the hypothesis proposed, the work was divided in three distinct stages, but related. The first chapter dedicates to analyze the heideggerian reading of the fragments 16, 123, and 51 (DK) of Heraclitus. Taking as starting point these three fragments, it intendes to clarify the direction of the reading and the Heidegger's intention when approaching them. The second chapter intends to point the heraclitian theories present in the nietzschian thought and to elucidate this relation through an interpretative analysis of the Nietzsche's texts where this relation makes itself present. The third chapter aims to demonstrate that Heidegger and Nietzsche find in Heraclitus a central fundamental concept: the question of the difference seen as relation, that is used by both as essential nexus for explicitation of his theories. To conclude, it makes a reevaluation of the dimension where the use of the notion of difference as relation effectively happen. / A proposta deste trabalho tem como fio condutor a investigação da seguinte questão: como é possível que a noção de diferença, presente nos fragmentos de Heráclito, possa, ao mesmo tempo, fundamentar um sentido ôntico de mundo, como o concebido por Nietzsche, e o sentido ontológico de mundo, concebido por Heidegger? A leitura da bibliografia selecionada indica a possibilidade de exploração da hipótese de que, como leitores de Heráclito, Nietzsche e Heidegger concordam ao identificar a diferença como relação; porém, divergem quanto à dimensão em que essa relação se efetiva. Com o objetivo de fundamentar a hipótese proposta, o trabalho se divide em três etapas distintas, mas relacionadas. O primeiro capítulo dedica-se a analisar a leitura heideggeriana dos fragmentos 16, 123, e 51 (DK) de Heráclito. Tomando como ponto de partida estes três fragmentos, pretende-se esclarecer o sentido da leitura e o propósito de Heidegger ao abordá-los. O segundo capítulo pretende apontar as teorias heraclitianas presentes no pensamento nietzschiano e elucidar essa relação através de uma análise interpretativa dos textos de Nietzsche onde esta se faz presente. O terceiro capítulo procura demonstrar que Heidegger e Nietzsche encontram em Heráclito um conceito fundamental central: a questão da diferença vista como relação, que é utilizada por ambos como nexo essencial para explicitação de suas teorias. À guisa de conclusão, reavalia-se a dimensão em que se efetiva o emprego da noção de diferença como relação.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leonardo Augusto Catafesta.pdf: 452585 bytes, checksum: 515c147274cd20b36866601e5be4e4ad (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This paper aims to investigate the conception of Dionysian philosophy presented by Friedrich Nietzsche in his final writings. The German philosopher articulates the Dionysian notion along with the notion of Apollo in his first published book, namely, The birth of the tragedy (1872). In this work, there is a direct influence of Wagner s music and Schopenhauer s philosophy in the main theoretical conceptions, thus initiating a metaphysic of artist because, according to his conception, life can only be vindicated while aesthetic phenomenon. Since his work Too human (1878), the Dionysian concept disappears from Nietzschian texts, even in later fragments, returning only in the so called third phase, that is, from Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883), this time under a new approach Nietzsche completely disengages himself from Wagner and Schopenhoauer by not working with the metaphysic of artist or using the concept of Apollo. With a more mature thinking, the German philosopher diffuses his Dionysian philosophy proposing to be completely free from the metaphysic and at the same time affirming existence without boundaries. To do so, it is mainly necessary to transpose the Dionysian into philosophical pathos. Nietzsche makes use of tragic wisdom as the main instrument for such transposition for, only then, one can converse as regards Dionysian philosophy. Understanding tragic wisdom not as theoretical knowledge, but as the understanding and acceptance of the incessant fight that pervades all fractions of life, Nietzsche can declare himself as the first tragic philosopher. Not to fall in pessimism that depreciates life, due to his relentless fighting character, the philosopher exploits game notion. With it, man establishes common sense to the coming-to-be, interlining himself as supreme creator. Thus, a child s image is the example of the most skillful player because he or she inexorably throws him or herself at it without worrying about victory or defeat -- the important thing is to play the game. Hence, the path to understand Dionysian philosophy without presupposed metaphysisists is open. For Nietzsche metaphysic is articulated with the duplication of worlds a real world is envisioned as a condition of the apparent world . Having the need for truth as modus operandi, metaphysic mendaciously created a fixed and immutable world to justify the flow from the coming-to-be. According to the nietzschinian view, this entails the denial of effectiveness because by privileging the real world the apparent world is refuted, the only sphere on which the phenomenon life is possible. With the conception of the eternal recurrence of it, Nietzsche reaches a thought without metaphysic duality, overcoming the instant/everlasting dichotomy. For the metaphysic tradition, eternity has always been transcendent to the instant, as the eternal recurrence, eternity and instant have become equivalent, in other words, the instant is conceived as eternal. Moreover, to reach supreme affirmation of eternal recurrence, Nietzsche has notion of amor fati as being the great formula for the Yes, ie, of unrestricted affirmation for joy and pleasure as well as pain and suffering. In this sense, we can understand the Dionysian philosophy proposed by Nietzsche in his last writings while total suppression of affirmative pathos and metaphysic par excellence. / O objetivo do presente trabalho consiste na investigação da concepção da filosofia dionisíaca apresentada por Friedrich Nietzsche em seus escritos finais. O filósofo alemão lança a noção de dionisíaco, ao lado da noção de apolíneo, em seu primeiro livro publicado, a saber, O nascimento da tragédia (1872). Nesta obra há uma influência direta da música de Wagner e da filosofia de Schopenhauer nas principais concepções teóricas, surgindo, assim, uma metafísica de artista , pois a vida, na concepção de Nietzsche, só pode ser justificada enquanto fenômeno estético. Desde a obra Humano demasiado humano (1878), o conceito de dionisíaco desaparece dos textos nietzschianos, inclusive nos fragmentos póstumos, retornando apenas na chamada terceira fase do autor, ou seja, a partir de Assim falou Zaratustra (1883), só que agora sob uma nova abordagem: Nietzsche desvencilha-se completamente de Wagner e Schopenhauer, não trabalha sob uma metafísica de artista e não necessita mais da noção de apolíneo. Com o pensamento mais maduro, o filósofo alemão lança sua filosofia dionisíaca com a proposta de ser totalmente livre da metafísica ao mesmo tempo em que afirma irrestritamente a existência. Para isso, é necessário, primeiramente, transpor o dionisíaco em pathos filosófico. Nietzsche utiliza a sabedoria trágica como principal instrumento para tal transposição, pois, apenas assim, pode-se falar em filosofia dionisíaca. Entendendo a sabedoria trágica não como um conhecimento teórico, mas como a compreensão e aceitação da luta incessante que permeia todos os âmbitos da vida, Nietzsche pode declarar-se o primeiro filósofo trágico. E, para não cair num pessimismo que deprecie a vida, devido o seu caráter de luta sem trégua, o filósofo utiliza a noção de jogo. Com esta noção, o homem instaura sentido ao vir-a-ser, pautando-se como supremo criador. Deste modo, a imagem da criança é o exemplo do mais hábil jogador, pois se entrega inexoravelmente sem se preocupar com vitórias ou derrotas: o importante é jogar. Assim, abre-se o caminho para entender a filosofia dionisíaca sem pressupostos metafísicos. A metafísica, para Nietzsche, se articula com a duplicação de mundos: um mundo verdadeiro é concebido como condição do mundo aparente . Tendo a vontade de verdade como modus operandi, a metafísica criou mendazmente um mundo fixo e imutável para justificar o fluxo proveniente do vir-a-ser. Isso acarreta, segundo a visão nietzschiana, a negação da efetividade, pois, ao privilegiar o mundo verdadeiro, nega-se o mundo aparente, único âmbito no qual o fenômeno vida é possível. Com a concepção do eterno retorno do mesmo, Nietzsche atinge um pensamento sem dualidades metafísicas, superando também a dicotomia instante/eternidade. Para a tradição metafísica, a eternidade sempre foi transcendente ao instante, com o eterno retorno, eternidade e instante passam a ser equivalentes, ou seja, o instante é concebido como eterno. E, para atingir a afirmação suprema do eterno retorno, Nietzsche dispõe da noção de amor fati como sendo a grande fórmula para o Sim, ou seja, da afirmação irrestrita tanto da alegria e do prazer, quanto da dor e do sofrimento. Neste sentido, podemos compreender a filosofia dionisíaca, proposta por Nietzsche em seus últimos escritos, enquanto supressão total da metafísica e pathos afirmativo por excelência.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose Fernando Schuck.pdf: 540719 bytes, checksum: d0b358eb41a0056a4c7a7a06e27ac0eb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-23 / The dionysiac concept is as basic as the true novelty of the sight philosophical, aesthetic and philological of Nietzsche on the Greeks and the tragic art. The Birth of Tragedy is written under the shadow of the vocabulary and the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, and also a very close relationship with the aesthetic and metaphysical themes of German philosophy. This work (dissertation) demonstrates the genesis of the Nietzschean dionysiac through a dialogue with the notion of Will in the inaugural work of Nietzsche. If at first the notions of will and dionysiac seem to enter the Nietzschean discourse in the conceptual domains of Schopenhauer and romantism, shortly afterwards, by the uniqueness that the terms acquire in Nietzsche, become key devices for the formation of a new perspective tragic and assertion of existence. The art, relegated to the status of illusion or contemplation of the Idea, is reinserted as the creation and justification of coming-to-be. / A noção de dionisíaco constitui-se como noção basilar, como verdadeira novidade da visada filosófica, estética e filológica de Nietzsche sobre os gregos e a arte trágica. O nascimento da tragédia é escrito sob a sombra do vocabulário e da metafísica de Schopenhauer, e, ainda, numa relação muito próxima com os temas estéticos e metafísicos da filosofia alemã. Este trabalho visa demonstrar a gênese do dionisíaco nietzschiano através de um diálogo com a noção de Vontade no âmbito da obra inaugural de Nietzsche. Se num primeiro momento as noções de Vontade e dionisíaco parecem inserir o discurso nietzschiano nos domínios conceituais schopenhaueriano e romântico, num momento seguinte, através da singularidade que os termos adquirem em Nietzsche, tornam-se dispositivos fundamentais para a constituição de uma nova perspectiva trágica e afirmativa da existência. A arte, relegada à condição de aparência ilusória ou de contemplação da Ideia, é reinserida como criação e justificação do vir-a-ser.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando de Sa Moreira.pdf: 900127 bytes, checksum: e6dca220fe2a2ad340fec9e410b1d430 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-08-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation investigates the conception of asceticism on two German philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. Whereas there isn't a precise language to mediate this two philosophies, we apply the concepts of pathos and ethos to make a dialog between the German philosophers, which allow us to investigate how these concepts appear in the cosmological and ethical parts of their theories. Especially in the Nietzsche's philosophy, we concentrate the researches on his third period. We use mainly the books Genealogy of Moral, Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichrist. About Schopenhauer's books, we use mainly the two volumes of The World as Will and Representation. Our conclusion is that, on Schopenhauer's doctrine, the cosmological effectiveness (Wirklichkeit) is pathos, but the metaphysical reality (Realität) is ethos. Therefore the asceticism is a sui generis pathos on Schopenhauer: when the will extraordinarily makes a turn, it makes the negation of the will, it does not become an absolute nothing. It become a relative nothing, a negative pathos. The same does not occur to Nietzsche. According to the philosopher of the will to power, the will never negates itself. All the effectiveness is always pathos and there is no ethos: the world is always pathos, in all aspects. The asceticism is an ordinary case of the will to power (Wille zur Macht) and the ascetic pathos is merely a strategy of a form of life to conserve itself in existence. / Esta dissertação investiga a concepção de ascetismo nos filósofos alemães, Arthur Schopenhauer e Friedrich Nietzsche. Considerando que não há uma linguagem precisa para mediar estas duas filosofias, aplicamos os conceitos de pathos e ethos para criar o diálogo entre os dois filósofos alemães, o que nos permite investigar como esses conceitos aparecem nas partes cosmológicas e éticas das suas teorias. Na filosofia nietzschiana, concentramos nossas pesquisas no seu terceiro período, principalmente os livros Genealogia da moral, Além de bem e mal e O anticristo. Em relação às obras schopenhauerianas, utilizamos principalmente os dois volumes de O mundo como vontade e representação. Nossa conclusão é que, na doutrina schopenhaueriana, a efetividade cosmológica (Wirklichkeit) é pathos, mas a realidade metafísica (Realität) é ethos. Assim, o ascetismo é um pathos sui generis em Schopenhauer: quando a vontade extraordinariamente faz uma viragem, ou seja, faz a negação da vontade, ela não se torna um nada absoluto, mas se torna um nada relativo, um pathos negativo. O mesmo não acontece em Nietzsche. Para o filósofo da vontade de potência, a vontade jamais nega a si mesma. Toda efetividade é sempre pathos e não há ethos algum: o mundo é sempre pathos, em todos os seus aspectos. O ascetismo é um caso ordinário da vontade de potência (Wille zur Macht) e o pathos ascético é apenas uma estratégia de uma forma de vida para conservar-se na existência.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Renan Jacubowski.pdf: 1744971 bytes, checksum: 7afb0e462c96efe203ee15b408eb10eb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-07-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The incessant criticism of Nietzsche to the mechanicism (Mechanistik) presents in his later writings show the importance of the refutation of the mechanistic thinking. The aim of this paper is to propose, after investigation of the criticism nietzschinian to mechanicism, the will to power (Wille zur Macht) as a conception of the world and the life able to overcome it. In criticizing the mechanicism, the German philosopher seeks to overcome its many facets imposing the doctrine of will to power as dominant. Nietzsche does not attack the mechanicism from a single point of view, but from multiple perspectives, denounces it as a theory which reduces the coming-to-be the logic, as dogmatic science, as theory teleological, utilitarian, and as a particular form of metaphysics and of christianity. From the dynamic struggle between impulses and the tendency of growth of intensity, Nietzsche aims to provide an interpretation of the processes that not only exceeds the present explanations at the mechanistic theories, but, above all, that affirms the life as a continuous struggle and overcoming. This new attitude of the world, thought as overcoming of the mechanicism, emerges from a Homogeneität of effectiveness (Wirklichkeit) in which every event is explained in terms of the will to power: there are no metaphysical dichotomies present in the world, has no teleology, was not created by a god. The world is changing or moving around, without beginning or end, and returns eternally. The life or the body is no longer thought of as organized matter and becomes a battleground between various forces or impulses that struggle each other for more power in a continuous process of overcoming resistance. In this confrontation between mechanicism and will to power, Nietzsche needs of the life as criterion to establish the superiority of his theory. It is from a psychophysiological analysis of the life that the differences can be established: through the investigation of the present symptom in all evaluation, it establishes a hierarchy (Rangordnung) between types of life. The outcome of this can to denounce the mechanicism as a physiological symptom of decay, ie, as a theory that denies the dynamic and perspectivist character of the life. Conceiving that the mechanistic theories are rooted in moral and metaphysical prejudices, the philosopher considers the mechanicism a theory inferior and presents the will to power as upper. On contrary of the mechanicism, the will to power affirms the life as continuous overcoming, and, therefore, Nietzsche considers an upper interpretation, presenting it as a new alternative explanation of the existence. / As incessantes críticas de Nietzsche ao mecanicismo (Mechanistik) presentes em seus últimos escritos evidenciam a importância da refutação do pensamento mecanicista. O objetivo da presente dissertação é propor, após a investigação das críticas nietzschianas ao mecanicismo, a vontade de potência [Wille zur Macht] como uma concepção de mundo e de vida capaz de superá-lo. Ao criticar o mecanicismo, o filósofo alemão procura superar suas várias facetas impondo a doutrina da vontade de potência como dominante. Nietzsche não ataca o mecanicismo partindo de um único ponto de vista, porém, em múltiplas perspectivas, denuncia-o como teoria que reduz o vir-a-ser à lógica; como ciência dogmática; como teoria teleológica e utilitarista; e como forma particular de metafísica e de cristianismo. A partir da luta dinâmica entre os impulsos e da tendência de crescimento de intensidade, Nietzsche pretende fornecer uma interpretação dos processos que não apenas ultrapasse as explicações presentes nas teorias mecanicistas, mas, sobretudo, que afirme a vida enquanto luta e superação contínua. Essa nova postura de mundo, pensada como superação do mecanicismo, emerge de uma Homogeneität da efetividade (Wirklichkeit) em que todo acontecimento é explicado em termos de vontade de potência: não há quaisquer dicotomias metafísicas presentes no mundo, não possui nenhuma teleologia, não foi criado por um deus. O mundo é mudança ou movimento por toda parte, sem início nem fim, e retorna eternamente. A vida ou o corpo deixa de ser pensada como matéria organizada e passa a ser um campo de batalha entre várias forças ou impulsos que lutam entre si por mais potência, em um processo contínuo de superação de resistências. Nesse confronto entre mecanicismo e vontade de potência, Nietzsche precisa da vida como critério para estabelecer a superioridade de sua teoria. É a partir de uma análise psicofisiológica da vida que as diferenças podem ser estabelecidas: por meio da investigação do sintoma presente em toda valoração, institui-se uma hierarquia (Rangordnung) entre tipos de vida. O resultado dessa análise pode denunciar o mecanicismo como sintoma de decadência fisiológica, ou seja, como teoria que nega o caráter dinâmico e perspectivista da vida. Concebendo que as teorias mecanicistas estão enraizadas em preconceitos morais e metafísicos, o filósofo considera o mecanicismo uma teoria inferior e apresenta a vontade de potência como superior. Ao contrário do mecanicismo, a vontade de potência afirma a vida como superação contínua, e, portanto, Nietzsche a considera uma interpretação superior, apresentando-a como uma nova alternativa explicativa da existência.

Orientador: Eduardo Roberto Junqueira Guimarães / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T07:43:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Machado_IsadoraLima_D.pdf: 2842339 bytes, checksum: 659cbcc46726a0c74148485f516b65ef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: A partir da perspectiva da História das Ideias Linguísticas, a tese investiga as filiações a Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche nas Ciências da Linguagem. A hipótese do trabalho é a de que a enunciação nietzscheana é um acontecimento na história da reflexão sobre a linguagem. Compreende-se o acontecimento, tal como o define Eduardo Guimarães, ou seja, não enquanto um fato no tempo, mas como aquilo que produz diferença em sua própria ordem. Tomada como acontecimento, a enunciação nietzscheana instaura sua própria diferença, e nela consideramos duas temporalidades distintas: por um lado, a que produz a filiação de Edward Sapir a Nietzsche, e que recorta Wilhelm von Humboldt como memorável; por outro, a que produz a filiação de Michel Pêcheux e Eni Orlandi a Nietzsche. A possibilidade de pensar as temporalidades em sua equivocidade demonstra que há um caminho na reflexão sobre a linguagem a ser trilhado nas sendas de um materialismo trágico ¿ a consideração de que a determinação histórica não é fruto de um processo maquínico, motorizado, mas que há algo do acaso que comparece, e que, nesse acaso, intervalo entre o equívoco e a linguagem, há ainda um espaço para a arte, para a criação, para r-existir ao sedentarismo dos sentidos / Abstract: From the perspective of the History of the Linguistic Ideas, this thesis investigates the affiliations to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in Language Sciences. The hypothesis of this work is that Nietzsche's enunciation is an event in the history of the reflection on language. We understand the event, as defined by Eduardo Guimarães, i.e., not as a fact in time, but as something that produces a difference in its own order. Taken as an event, Nietzsche¿s enunciation establishes its own difference, and in it we consider two different time frames: on the one hand, the one that produces Edward Sapir¿s affiliation to Nietzsche, and that highlithts Wilhelm von Humboldt as memorable; on the other hand, the one that produces Pêcheux and Eni Orlandi¿s affiliation to Nietzsche. The possibility of thinking temporalities in its own equivocity demonstrates that there is a path in the reflection on language to be taken in the paths of a tragic materialism - the consideration that the historical determination is not a result of a machine and motorized process, but that there is something from chance that appears, and that, in that chance, an interval between the misunderstanding and the language, there is still a space for art, for creation, to resist to the sedentary senses / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutora em Linguística

“Cinematic Theatricality” is the combination of conventionally “cinematic” and “theatrical” styles. It occurs on both screen and stage, and in intermedial performances. Despite their entwined histories, cinema and theater often define their aesthetics against each other. This dissertation posits that “cinematic theatricality,” in combining these allegedly “oppositional” aesthetic codes, actually intensifies the effects of both media. It is a dynamic that prompts explorations of relationship between intellectual and affective spectatorship in each medium. My definition of “cinematic theatricality” moves beyond dominant Brechtian conceptions of theatricality in cinema, and incorporates theater and performance scholarship that develops different understandings of theatricality as dynamic and affective. These other definitions of theatricality enable more sympathetic and mutually enhancing dialogues with cinema. I locate this cinematic theatricality in the work of four queer directors—Luchino Visconti, Patrice Chéreau, Werner Schroeter and Ivo van Hove—who were active in both European film and theater from the 1950s to the present. These directors’ works are often dismissed as “excessive” because they go “over-the-top” of realist aesthetic norms. The plenitude arising from the combination of cinematic and theatrical effects produces these aesthetic “excess,” styles of surplus that foreground the links between intellectual and emotional experiences of a medium. Different theatricalities produce different variants of excesses, each of which has its own aims and is rooted in these directors’ theatrical careers and their participation in the Regietheater (Director’s Theater) movement in post-war European theater. Nietzsche’s characterization of the “gestural,” decadentist excesses of Wagner’s theater suggests how editing can theatricalize the norms of cinematic continuity editing, creating simultaneous narcotic absorption in and critical distance from historical narratives. Opera’s tension between mimetic representation and “over-the-top” bodily and vocal expressivity leads to rhythmic, melodramatic relationships between the moving camera and the expressive performing body in the transmission of meaning. The queer traditions of camp theatricality, combining both ironic theatrical references and the sincerity and sensual intensity of performances, tie the signifying and sensorial aspects of cinematic spectatorship. In contemporary theater, screen-to-stage adaptations and productions with video and projection are often dismissed as overblown spectacles, too distracting to be meaningful or valuable. Cinematic theatricality on the stage makes video and projection intentional distractions. It forces the spectator to choose where to (not) look, to experience complex phenomena of intermedial “absence” and “presence,” in ways that challenge the norms and ethics of different mediated modes of showing and not showing. Cinema and theater have long expanded their senses of themselves beyond strict ontological characteristics, and our contemporary mediascape further encourages more dynamic understandings of both the cinematic and the theatrical. Cinematic theatricality, in its doubled entwinings, opens a way to combine formalist with affective readings of each medium, thus providing a richer understanding of each medium’s powers and effects. Cinematic theatricality’s permutations—the decadent, operatic, camp, and spectacular—suggest new ways of taxonomizing the “aesthetic categories” of contemporary intermediality’s ardor for excessive aesthetics, and its embrace of excess as a mode suitable for asking serious questions about history, politics, and identity.

<div>This dissertation redefines the placebo effect in light of new empirical observations and certain strands of philosophical ethics. </div>Chapter 1 critically reviews available definitions of placebo responsiveness against their abilities to hang together the diversity of empirical observations and emerging research interests. Projecting Wittgenstein's example of a child learning pain language, Chapter 2 redefines the phenomenon as a particular kind of experience of meaning and reconsiders clinical empathy in terms of the loss and recovery of language that belongs to illness experience and diagnosis. Chapter 3 broadens the account of psychosomatic responsiveness from the experience of meaning to the experience of values, utilising Canguilhem's definition of health and Nietzsche's genealogical account of the health of values. Chapter 4 explores the foregoing by recounting how Wittgenstein's moral philosophy might hold together the traditional ethical and bioethical question of what makes life worth living with psychosomatic responsiveness.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The history of Western civilisation is generally demarcated into three broad epochs: ancient, Christian and modern. These eras are usually defined in political terms, but they may also be differentiated in terms of fundamental differences in the nature of the organisations that constitute civil society in each age, how they defined the public good, and even what they consider philanthropic. In the nineteenth century, for instance, 'Scientific philanthropy' displaced 'Christian charity' as the dominant model for charitable giving; a development accompanied by a number of other secularising trends in Western civil society, generally understood as a broad cultural shift in conceptions of public good, from religious to scientific. From the fourth to the sixth century CE, by comparison, another broad cultural shift, from paganism to Christianity, also led to fundamental changes in the nature and composition of ancient civil society. A central premise of this dissertation is that fundamental historical transformations in Western civilisation – from pagan to Christian, to modern, to post-modern – may be traced to the influence of some of the most important philosophers in the Western philosophical tradition, among them: Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Francis Bacon and Friedrich Nietzsche. Each of these philosophers may be seen to have promulgated their teachings in a consciously Promethean manner; as gifts of fire, understood as philosophical teachings intended to be promulgated for the wider benefit of humankind. In Greek myth, Prometheus, whose name is traditionally thought to have literally meant 'forethought', is the one who steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans. Prometheus is also the first figure in history to be described as "philanthropic" (Prometheus Bound, 11 & 28). Plato, Bacon and Nietzsche all employ significant variants of the Promethean mũthos in their philosophical works, and may be seen to personally identify with the figure of Prometheus, as an allegorical figure depicting the situation of the wise, particularly in relation to political power. This dissertation thus closely analyses the Promethean mũthos in order to cast light on the philosophical philanthrôpía and Promethean ambitions of Protagoras, Socrates and Plato, and to provide the basis for consideration of the same in Bacon and Nietzsche.

This thesis examines the intellectual environment in which Pope John Paul II's thought operates, especially as it pertains to his writings on the truth. The pontiff's thinking faces open hostility toward Christianity, as exemplified by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. The pope's theology pays attention and builds links to modern thought through its positive engagement with phenomenology and personalism, as well as through its opposition to materialism. Despite these connections, this theology fails to fit well with (post)modern thinking, as it takes a wider view of things in two ways: (1) By offering a spiritual sense of things, it goes beyond thought and takes into account supernatural sources of knowledge, sources which are both a one-time event (the Resurrection of Jesus Christ) and part of the ongoing journey of the Christian community; (2) By boldly referring to traditional, outmoded language, as with the words obedience and humility, with the same level of reverence and fullness of their sense as they were used before the secular-feminist era condemned these virtues. The strange and unique qualities of John Paul II's thinking issues from these two practices. It also arises from his bold ability to engage with modern thought without becoming defensive and without hiding behind the Bible or Catholic piety, though he uses both of these generously. John Paul II offers a clear alternative to the chaos and confusion of post-Enlightenment thought, in both his thought's style and substance. The Holy Father's words cause us to reflect more deeply than those of modern or postmodern thinkers, and call us away from the relativism of Richard Rorty, Foucault, and so many others. The pope's thought succeeds in part because he takes a much wider vista of things, in that he digs more deeply into Western and Christian thought and that he enters this heritage as an inheritor rather than as a skeptical scientist-researcher as in Foucault's case. The pope's thought also succeeds because he assigns spiritual meaning to this journey of Christian and world people. In this sense, his thought is also radically inclusive. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / D. Th. (Systematic Theology)