This thesis examines the role of tradition and discursive knowledge transmission on the formation of the ‘ulamā’, the learned scholarly class in Islam, and their approach to the articulation of the Islamic disciplines. The basis of this examination is the twelfth/eighteenth century scholar, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Dardīr, an Egyptian Azharī who wrote highly influential treatises in the disciplines of creedal theology, Mālikī jurisprudence, and taṣawwuf (Sufism). Additionally, he occupied a prominent role in the urban life of Cairo, accredited with several incidents of intercession with the rulers on behalf of the Cairo populace. This thesis argues that a useful framework for evaluating the intellectual contributions of post-classical scholars such as al-Dardīr involves the concept of an Islamic discursive tradition, where al-Dardīr’s specific contributions were aimed towards preserving, upholding, and maintaining the Islamic tradition, including the intellectual “sub-traditions” that came to define it. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to al-Dardīr, the social and intellectual climate of his era, and an overview of his writings. Chapter 2 analyses the educational paradigm that preceded al-Dardīr, and affected his approach to the Islamic disciplines. We then focus our attention to al-Dardīr’s contribution to the Islamic educational paradigm, in the form of taḥqīq (verification). Chapter 3 analyses al-Dardīr’s methodology in the synthesis of the rational and mystical approaches to knowledge located within the Islamic disciplines of creedal theology and Sufism. Chapter 4 analyses al-Dardīr’s to the Mālikī fiqh tradition, specifically his methodology of tarjīḥ (weighing of juristic evidence between different narrations). Chapter 5 examines his societal roles, and the influence of tradition on his relationships with the ruling elite, the ‘ulamā’ class, and the masses. The thesis ends with a conclusion that summarises the results of all of the above.

This diploma paper deals with the two very first purely moral weekly magazines that used to appear in Prague in the beginning of the 70's of the 18th century, Die Unsichtbare and Die Sichtbare. The goal of the diploma paper is to describe the contentual and also the formal aspect of the text in order to enable depicture of the genre's function and its influence on public. There are questions established concerning the source basis and the used methodics in the first chapter. The second chapter tries to get into the history and the structure of the moral magazines using the period hand-books and all available literature. There are the Prague enlightenment and the task of the moral magazines in it brought closer in the third chapter. The fundamental part of my work is the fourth chapter that contains the analysis of the surveyed magazines from the view of the subject-matter, content and marginally language. The last chapter outlines the end of both of the magazines and the fading of this genre in czech lands. The supplement is made of photocopies of the front pages of both of the magazines and examples of the text.

“The existing work is easy to summarise; despite the ever present nature of furniture in people's lives, and its obvious position in a social context as a reflection of taste, wealth and progress, the study in Scotland of the trade which made it, and the furniture itself, has until recently been sadly neglected.” -- From the Preface. “This thesis is intended to hang flesh on the bones of Francis Bamford's ‘Dictionary of Edinburgh Wrights', rather than to be a counterpart to Pat Kirkham's study of the London trade¹². Whereas in Glasgow 'no rich vein of documentation has revealed the existence of a dominant city manufacturer comparable with Trotter of Edinburgh, whose furniture and business activities can be traced back into the eighteenth century¹³', in Edinburgh rich veins do exist. They have been used not only to illuminate the careers of individuals but also to explore the great range of services which these individuals offered. The editorial of the 1992 volume of ‘Regional Furniture' states that 'some work on Norwich, Chester, Doncaster, Lancaster and Glasgow is in print, but coverage is patchy'. That Edinburgh had such a clearly vibrant trade will hopefully be of encouragement to historians of all major British cities, even those that did not benefit from the privileges of a capital city, or bask in the reflected glow of the Enlightenment.” – From the Introduction.

ABSTRACT THE TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF JOHN GILL (1697–1771): CONTEXT, SOURCES, AND CONTROVERSY Steven Tshombe Godet, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015 Chair: Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin In the eighteenth century in Britain, a major controversy arose over the doctrine of the Trinity. This controversy embroiled both the Established Church and Dissenters. One of the champions among the Dissenters was John Gill, a Particular Baptist minister. This dissertation will examine how Gill defended the doctrine of the Trinity against various unorthodox views. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis, history of research, and methodology. Chapter 2 examines the political, cultural, and theological context of John Gill and then surveys his life and works. Chapter 3 examines the trinitarian crisis in two phases: phase 1 (1688–1711) and phase 2 (1712–29). Chapter 4 surveys Gill as a Patristic scholar and analyzes his use of Patristic sources in the debate over the Trinity. Chapter 5–8 introduces Gill’s doctrine of Trinity. Chapter 5 defines Gill’s key trinitarian terms while also considering the importance, revelation, and mystery of the Trinity. Chapter 6 seeks to understand Gill’s defense of the unity of God and plurality of the Godhead. Chapters 7 and 8 examine the distinction of the three persons in the Godhead and the distinct personality and deity of the three persons who are one God. Chapter 9 considers how Gill applied the doctrine of the Trinity to several areas of the Christian life. Chapter 10 summarizes the main arguments and suggests some areas of future study in Gill.

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My aim in this thesis is to demonstrate that common interpretations of Kant’s theory of respect do not account for the motivation a subject feels to follow the moral law. A large number of interpreters focus on Kant’s early ethical works—such as the Grounding and the Critique of Practical Reason—to justify how the moral law alone motivates a subject to act rightly. However, by the time he published Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant had discovered the problem of radical evil—the fact that people tend to feel more motivated by the inclinations than by the moral law. Kant’s solution to this challenge comes in the form of moral education: the contingent practices of historical institutions (factors that are extraneous to the moral law) are required to learn respect for the law. By the end of the Religion, it will be asked whether duty for duty’s sake is ever achieved.

Despite voluminous research concerning French society during the eighteenth century the scientific practices of the Society of Jesus in France during that period remain a relatively neglected subject. That obscurity has been compounded by a historical tradition originating in the impassioned polemics of the Enlightenment which depicts the Jesuits, with varying degrees of emphasis, as a bastion of resistance to intellectual progress of all sorts. Such interpretations - alternating between censure and neglect - are challenged in this thesis. Through an analysis of scientific reviews in the Journal de Trévoux - a monthly periodical published by the Jesuits in France between 1701 and 1762 - it is argued that the latter took a serious and constructive interest in scientific affairs during the period in question. The emphasis placed here on the Journal de Trévoux is justified by the importance of that enterprise to the intellectual life of its time, and by the wealth of evidence it offers concerning Jesuit attitudes to science. The possibilities of such an investigation are vast. Research has therefore been confined initially to the question of how Jesuit writers responded to Newton's system of the world as described in the Principia and in multitudes of subsequent works by Newtonian authors. It is clear that this response evolved more or less in step with developments in French scientific culture generally. However, a persistent resistance on the part of Jesuit writers to the theoretical and methodological complexity of Newtonian science is also apparent. Such thinking, it is argued here, owed much to a culture of rhetoric cherished by the Jesuits which emphasized diversity and accessibility. Given evidence of a resistance on the part of the Jesuits to one of the fundamental characteristics of eighteenth century science, a further effort is made here to discern what the Jesuits considered to be the defining qualities of a vibrant scientific culture. In this case an analysis of diverse scientific and philosophical reviews identifies: a sustained enthusiasm for intellectual curiosity {outside the theological domain); a conviction that scientific progress was an evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary process; and finally, an emphasis on the importance of necessary social conditions for such progress to occur. Though definitive conclusions are elusive at this stage, on the basis of such findings it is argued that the French Jesuits reflected a strong affinity for Baconian ideas in their approach to science. According to such an argument it is therefore possible to contextualize the scientific attitudes in the Journal de Trévoux within a more general intellectual tradition. Such a conclusion supports one of the fundamental premises of this thesis - that Jesuit contributions to French scientific culture during the eighteenth century must not be marginalized in accounts of that period — and it illuminates an avenue for further research. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

The thesis undertakes to examine the dimensions of involvement that may exist between the reader and the Romantic poem. The introductory chapter briefly explores some of the grounds for the mis-conception and denigration of Romantic poetry. Some of the problems in differentiating between Romantic modes of conception and the "normal" results of discursive reasoning as applied to Romantic poetry are introduced. Romantic conception points to an order of interaction with the world that is beyond the capacity of ordinary linear thinking. This chapter suggests the primary significance of the experience of Romantic poets as informing their thought. It also stresses the relation that exists between the "subject" matter of Romantic poems and metaphysical doctrines not usually connected with "historical" Romanticism. The active principles that initiate both Romantic poems and Romantic thought are the same principles that inform the reading experience. The introduction concludes by suggesting the "formal" similarity between the original experience of the poet and the response which a reader may have in any given poem. The reader is often carried beyond what a linear conception of the poem would indicate. The second chapter picks up the theme of detachment from normal, pre-defined codes of awareness, as this occurs in the historical context of the Romantic movement. Mainly, the chapter explores the existential implications of the Romantic withdrawal from the Enlightenment cultural and intellectual milieu. The condition of vulnerability, which disorientation from conventional values engendered in the poets, becomes the central construct for the ensuing pages. For it is believed that vulnerability initiates the possibility of openness, and that it is from this ground of receptivity that the poets emerge as discoverers. The real dynamics of human life and awareness are not to be found in the world of conceptual thinking, but in the immediate relations a man has with the concrete things in the environment. The discovery of things, in a state of total receptivity, leads to a dramatic new conception of being, as well as to a new poetic presentation of those dynamics. But it is in a particular culture that these trans-cultural ideas are fostered. It is the impetus of an entire cultural milieu which compels the re-valuation of conceptual and non-conceptual experience that we know as Romanticism. Chapter Three contains a discussion of the theoretical relation of a reader to Blake's THE SICK ROSE, in order to illustrate the requirement of a suspension of disbelief. The central idea here is that the search for the "meaning"of a poem must begin, and does begin, in the very experience a reader "has" while he is engaged in the poem. The principles of the reader's engagement in the activity of the poem are paralleled with the principles of the poet's original discovery of certain energies. The reader actually repeats the Romantic disorientation, and thus comes to make the Romantic discovery. The chapter stresses the necessity of a high degree of involvement with any Romantic poem before the full dimensions of the poem's meaning can be truly comprehended. The reader's involvement is fundamentally characterized by a disruption of one's ordinary anticipation of both language and experience. The fourth chapter is an illustration of the physical aspects of disorientation, mainly in terms of the reader. Using the analogy of music, the chapter argues the concept of "surprise" as a signal of engagement in the stimulus, be it poem or drums. The fact that physical involvement in the new stimulus can be demonstrated to precede conceptualizing indicates that sense perception actuates new physical orientations even without consultation with logical reflection. This brief interlude prepares for the following chapters by pointing to the fact of physical immediacy in the act of dislocation from a conventional context of response and entrance into the world dictated by the energies of the present stimulus. The next chapter deals with the "ideas" of some Romantic poets in terms of the ground from which they emerge, The emphasishere is on the fact that a certain order of non-conceptual experience is necessary before linear conception is capable of entertaining ideas such as those found throughout Romantic writing. Perception precedes conception. But perception— powerful, direct—also stops conception. In Romantic poetry and prose we find that a process of "negative capability" is pre-requisite to any direct perception. Negative capability is a conceptual construct for the process through which the poet gradually, sometimes swiftly, is opened to the things in his immediate environment. Whether that environment be the life of external or internal phenomena does not alter the process, however much the resultant poem may be influenced. The stress which most Romantics give to negative capability and its resulting theodicy, justifies critical attention upon the experiences realized in "spots of time." These experiences are a major source of Romantic concepts of the mind. At the same time, the inherent form of these experiences gives rise to the mythic, multi-dimensional ideas of Romantic thought. Chapters Six and Seven deal with the formal principles of some Romantic poetry—that poetry in which the full dimensions implicit in a spot of time are expressed. Chapter Six employs Charles Olson's theory of "projective" verse in order to grasp the formal dynamics of Romantic verse. Olson's work is used because his conception of the "projective" act issues from the same ground that gives birth to the most comprehensive vision of Romanticism—the synthesis of the contraries in a direct apprehension of unity. The last chapter demonstrates some precise ways in which the formal properties of certain Romantic poems compel the reader to act in certain ways. Here, the concern is primarily with the dimensions of experience that the unfolding poem is capable of initiating in the 'negatively capable' reader. In conclusion, the formal activity of certain Romantic poems can be shown to have emerged from a complex experiential matrix, and to have rendered the energies of that matrix to a receptive reader. This transference is the prime "legislative" act of Romantic poetry. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis set out to explore the changing nature of consumption patterns in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London through the analysis of archaeological evidence previously excavated by the Museum of London Archaeology. The aim of this research was to address existing gaps and limitations within the existing methodology related to the excavation and analysis of these environments, to establish a more holistic method of approaching consumption practices from this period, and to explore the complexities which were being performed within the setting of these establishments. To do this, a typological system for artefact classification was developed which enabled the categorization of material by their fabric, form and their associated functions. The distribution patterns of the various types and functions across three sites and five establishments in the City of London were analyzed. The material was then assessed for patterns indicating changes in consumption. Linkages from these patterns are then made between historical themes and theoretical frameworks outlined within the thesis. Particular focus will be given to developing a better understanding of how these venues changed over time based on the degree of variation that can be perceived between the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries. By exploring the character of consumption practices, I will demonstrate how they work together to provide a more complete picture of the complex systems at work. During the course of this research, specific objectives have been achieved and conclusions reached which make original contributions to the wider dialogues surrounding how meaningful patterns of consumption can be perceived and interpreted through material goods from establishments of social or public consumption. The focus on the everyday materials from closed deposits related to clearance episodes (Pearce 2000) from these establishments and their how they relate to emergent and shifting patterns of social trends in consumption is what separates this thesis from other scholarship on these and similar spaces. Significantly, this research differs from the previous examples by attempting to detect social change across a variety of classes and in a variety of different settings, all brought together in relatively modest atmospheres of social and public consumption. This has allowed for both the subtle and the overt shifts in social patterns to be detected, and from there, conclusions are drawn regarding wider social ideology.

The development of the English novel during the eighteenth century is illustrated in this thesis by the concept of the author's "mask of reality," or the rhetorical stance adopted by the novelist for the telling of his story. The novelist creates and populates a fictional world, or Kosmos, and the success of his work depends on his power to invest this illusory world with an air of reality. Through the medium of the printed word, he convinces the reader of the truth of his vision. My examination of the modes of narration in the major novels of the period clarifies their authors' use of the mask of reality. Defoe's novels seem to exclude the author from the life of the novel, allowing him to appear only on the title-page and in the editor's prefaces. Defoe uses his heroes and heroines as narrators to conceal his own presence as the creator of their world of perceptual experience. Nevertheless, the themes, images, syntactic patterns, and diction, which recur throughout the Defoe canon, enable the reader to discern, behind the mask, the existence of the author who controls and evaluates the fictional Kosmos. In Richardson's novels this authorial presence becomes more explicit in the critical prefaces and postscripts surrounding the fictional letters. Moreover, Richardson's correspondents themselves exemplify the process of fiction as they record and evaluate their fictional experiences through the medium of writing, while their letters, becoming a part of the action of the novel, bridge the gap between the fictional world of the Kosmos and the actuality of the printed text - the two realities of life and art. In Fielding's and Sterne's novels the role of the narrator becomes still more explicit with the result that the reader's attention is diverted from the contemplation of the imaginary life of the Kosmcis to the consideration of the work as a piece of fiction. The novelist's rhetoric involves the reader in the process of fiction by making him conscious of the novel as a created artifice rather than as the simple verbal representation of the world of imaginary or real experience. This pattern of development which shows the eighteenth-century English novel becoming increasingly self-conscious is examined in this thesis in relation to Cervantes' Don Quixote, which achieved renown during this period. Cervantes' influence is shown both in the minor and major works of English fiction. Charlotte Lennox, Smollett, and Richard Graves use the quixotic theme mainly to pit the presumed reality of their contemporary world against the literary fantasies of their protagonists. Fielding, however, emulates the perspectivism of his Spanish predecessor in the creation of his narrator-historian as his mask of reality, achieving a more complex, ironic view of the fictional Kosmos. Sterne, too, borrows many elements from Cervantes. His narrative mask of Tristram demonstrates the interaction between language and experience, as the novel displays its form in the dialogue between novelist and reader. The self-consciousness of Tristram Shandy as a work of narrative art results in a relativistic, ambiguous attitude to remembered experience, and shows many of the qualities that make Don Quixote an example of the art of mannerism. In Tristram Shandy Sterne emphasizes the narrative techniques by which Tristram re-creates the world of the Shandy family. Sterne's Shandean mask of reality fuses the self-conscious display of the art of the novelist with the fictional life of Shandy Hall. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate