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This thesis explores the philosophical and educational projects of Rowan Williams and Nigel Tubbs. It argues that there is a shared Hegelian ground in their work, fundamentally rooted in the reading of Hegel by the philosopher Gillian Rose, which brings them into conversation around the notion that ‘difficulty’ is philosophically, educationally and spiritually significant. To do this, the thesis will explore Rose’s retrieval of Hegelian speculative in Hegel Contra Sociology, for it is the pivotal reading upon which Williams and Tubbs evolve their own Hegelianism. It will also examine the central concepts of life and death and master and slave in Hegel as the structure of experience within which difficulty knows itself to be education. In this way, the thesis argues that philosophical experience has education as they very substance of what it is and does. In Williams, across the landscape of the social, political and religious interventions, negative and speculative experience is thought through with remarkable acuity and insight. The thesis will explore the philosophical underpinnings of these insights as it is developed in a sophisticated theory of ‘negotiation, ‘self-dispossession’ and ‘ironic’ learning. I will also argue that his philosophical thinking is articulated most powerfully in his analysis of the works of Dostoevsky. In Tubbs, Hegelian philosophy underpins a compelling theory of education embodied in the philosophical structure and experience of two degrees at the University of Winchester. I will show how it is also carried in and by the life and truth of the teacher/student relation. Both project, albeit in different ways, are a philosophy of difficulty brought to bear on many of the problems facing social and political relations. The thesis as a whole works primarily with the educational theorising of Tubbs, for it is the light by which, I argue, William’s work can be better understood.

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It is clear that Kant's theory of motivation plays a central role in his ethical theory' as a whole. Nevertheless, it has been subjected to many interpretations: (i) the 'orthodox' interpretation, (ii) the 'Aristotelian' or 'Humean' interpretation and (iii) the 'rationalist' interpretation. The first part of the thesis aims to provide an interpretation of Kant's theory of rational agency and motivation. I argue that the 'orthodox' and 'Aristotelian' interpretations should be rejected because they are incompatible with Kant's conception of freedom, defending an account of Kant's position that goes along the lines of the rationalist interpretation. I show that Kant's theory of motivation is committed to a form of cognitivism, that is, the cognitive aspects of a motive are always the active factors in motivation.

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This thesis focuses on 'New' or 'Resolute' readings of Wittgenstein's work, early and later, as presented in the work of, for instance, Cora Diamond and James Conant. One of the principal claims of such readings is that, throughout his life, Wittgenstein held an 'austere' view of nonsense. That view has both a trivial and a non-trivial aspect. The trivial aspect is that any string of signs could, by appropriate assignment, be given a meaning, and hence that, if such a string is nonsense, that will be because we have failed to make just such an assignment. The non-trivial aspect is this: that there is no further, non-trivial story to be told, and so nonsense is only ever a matter of our failure to give signs a meaning. Hence, too, logically speaking, all nonsense is on a par. That view, both of nonsense and of Wittgenstein, has attracted a great deal of controversy. It is particularly controversial in relation to Wittgenstein's <italic>Tractatus,</italic> where Wittgenstein famously declares, in the penultimate remark, that the reader is to recognise Wittgenstein's own elucidatory propositions there as nonsensical, and must eventually throw them away in coming to understand Wittgenstein himself. I defend the austere view and its attribution to Wittgenstein, early and later (but focussing primarily on the earlier), against a number of exegetical and substantial criticisms put forward by, for instance, Peter Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock and Adrian Moore.

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Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Marburg, 2003.

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