John McDowell claims that a 'human' (as opposed to 'animal') orientation towards the world is characterised by a 'deep connection' between reason and freedom. In this thesis, I argue that McDowell cannot make good on this coincidence, since his Platonic conception of rationality serves to bind free reflection in advance. This is a problem both for the 'minimal empiricism' that McDowell aims to secure in his magnum opus, Mind and World, as well as for the ostensibly liberal, anti-scientistic 'naturalism of second nature' that accompanies it there. Ultimately, I argue that the problems that McDowell's thought is subject to can be solved by invoking the philosophy of nature (and specifically, the idea of 'natural-history') which we can find in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor Adorno. Adorno is, I argue, able to secure the appropriate connection between reason and freedom, and thus what McDowell himself describes as a distinctively human orientation towards the world. Convinced McDowellians should therefore be motivated to, at least in this sense 'become Adornians'. The thought of McDowell and a number of his contemporaries (Brandom, Pippin) is often considered to represent a kind of 'Hegelianisation' of analytic philosophy; my arguments suggest the need for its 'critical-theoreticisation'.

Mesmo não estando entre os casos de câncer com maior incidência, os tumores oculares têm acometido a população brasileira. O Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN-CNEN/SP), juntamente à Escola Paulista de Medicina (UNIFESP), criou um projeto que visa o desenvolvimento e implementação de um tratamento de câncer oftálmico alternativo que consiste na utilização de sementes de irídio-192 em braquiterapia. O Projeto surgiu pelo motivo da Escola Paulista tratar muitos casos oncológicos no âmbito do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) e pela experiência em pesquisas de fontes radioativas seladas do grupo de braquiterapia do IPEN. A metodologia foi desenvolvida a partir da infraestrutura disponível e pela experiência dos pesquisadores. O protótipo desenvolvido da semente se apresenta com um núcleo (irídio em liga de irídio-platina) de 3,0mm de comprimento selado por uma cápsula de titânio de 0,8mm de diâmetro externo, 0,05mm de espessura de parede e 4,5mm de comprimento. Nenhum estudo sobre a confecção destas sementes foi encontrado em literatura disponível. Criou-se uma metodologia que envolveu: caracterização do fio, criação do dispositivo para ativação neutrônica dos núcleos e testes de estanqueidade da fonte produzida. A análise dos resultados comprovaram a viabilidade do método. Como sugestão para trabalhos futuros, estudos quanto à metrologia e dosimetria destas fontes e aprimoramento da metodologia devem ser realizados, para uma futura implementação em caráter nacional. / Even ocular tumors are not among the cases with a higher incidence, they affect the population, especially children. The Institute of Energy and Nuclear Research (IPEN-CNEN/SP) in partnership with Escola Paulista de Medicina (UNIFESP), created a project to develop and implement a alternative treatment for ophthalmic cancer that use brachytherapy iridium-192 seeds. The project arose by reason of the Escola Paulista treat many cancer cases within the Unified Health System (SUS) and the research experience of sealed radioactive sources group at IPEN. The methodology was developed from the available infrastructure and the experience of researchers. The prototype seed presents with a core (192-iridium alloy of iridium-platinum) of 3.0 mm long sealed by a capsule of titanium of 0.8 mm outside diameter, 0.05 mm wall thickness and 4,5mm long. This work aims to study and develop a seed of iridium-192 from a platinum-iridium alloy. No study on the fabrication of these seeds was found in available literature. It was created a methodology that involved: characterization of the material used in the core, creation of device for neutron activation irradiationand ans seed sealing tests. As a result, proved the feasibility of the method. As a suggestion for future work, studies regarding metrology and dosimetry of these sources and improvement of the methodology should be carried out, for future implementation in national scope.

This thesis is an examination of the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and its relation to the romantic movement. The Introduction outlines reasons to believe that such an inquiry is sensible: Mill's readings of the British and German romantics are outlined. I proceed to offer an argument for the application of an historical term such as ‘romanticism' in philosophy and suggest that the space opened up by the revisionist view of romanticism as an extension, rather than a denial, of the Enlightenment project creates room to take seriously Mill's relation to the romantic movement. Chapters 1-4 are concerned with Mill's metanormative theory. For Mill, the norms of acting and believing are founded on the assent given to our primitive dispositions under critical scrutiny. I investigate this foundation in the context of Mill's denial of normative validity to intuitions. The relation of Mill's metanormative theory to romanticism is taken up during the process of interpretation. The movement shows broad endorsement of what I term ‘romantic-cognitivism' – the post-Kantian view that we can arrive at truth through the process of ‘creative-discovery'. I hold that Mill's metanormative theory is not so far away from romantic-cognitivism in orientation as might be thought. I turn to Mill's macro-epistemology and conception of mind in Chapter 5. Mill's view of how we come to know, I suggest, moves towards a Coleridgean position – Mill sees the mind as active, and holds that we come to possess a deeper state of knowledge by engaging with propositions actively. In Chapter 6, I consider Mill's philosophy of history. Many have noted that Mill endorses a directional theory of historical progress. I argue that he also adopts ‘hermeneutical historicism' in his discussions of history. In Chapter 7, I consider Mill's theory of human nature. Mill believes that human nature is malleable: it is subject to change and emendation.

The philosopher James Mylne (1757-1839) vindicated the rational powers of humanity against the sceptical and “common sense” philosophies of his Scottish predecessors and earned the trust of his contemporaries for his Whig politics. He and the largely neglected philosophy and political economy classes he taught in Glasgow clearly merited closer study. My thesis thus contains a biography of Mylne and interpretative essays on his lectures on moral philosophy and political economy and his political views. James Mylne attended St Andrews University where he acquired a liberal education in the Scottish tradition and a particular knowledge of theology. He became a Deputy-Chaplain with the 83rd Regiment of Foot during the American War of Independence and his experience sheds light on his later advocacy of a militia. Thereafter he served for 14 years as a Minister in Paisley where he was exposed to the literary culture of Glasgow and the radical tinged politics of the French revolutionary era. From 1797 until his death he was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, where he delivered effective lectures on moral philosophy and political economy. His impact of his teaching was enhanced by student exercises in essay-writing, following the method of George Jardine. He was also active and influential in the Whig politics of the day. Mylne broke with the political caution of Adam Smith, Thomas Reid (1710-96) and James Beattie. Smith’s warning of a “daring, but often dangerous spirit of innovation” in politics contrasts with the “speedy and substantial reform” advocated by Mylne, who extended the Whig thought of John Millar (1735-1801). The lectures contain material common to Scottish traditions of mental philosophy. However, Mylne’s philosophy is anchored in a tradition of “rational piety” that places individual judgements at the core of mental life and in a philosophy of history that sees intellectual progress at the heart of social, economic and political developments. In place of the scepticism of David Hume (1711-76) and the common sense of Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), he proposed a constructive account of experience, developing directly from John Locke (1632-1704) and his French follower Condillac (1714-80). In two particular respects, Mylne’s thought diverges from the ‘moral sense’ and ‘common sense’ traditions associated with Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid in Glasgow. These are his doctrine of the external world and his account of free will and providence. Mylne draws on Condillac to argue that there is no need to draw on common sense to explain belief in an external world as this is explicable by an analysis of touch. He considers that the mind is determined to act by rational motives and the concept of freedom without motive is incoherent. As a result of these views, Mylne reinstates reason as the guiding principle of conscience and argues for utility as the predominant criterion of morality. His views of political reform and the concept of value in his political economy lectures on the emerging market economy are related loosely to these features of his philosophy. The influence of Mylne’s teaching was extensive both in Scotland and the English-speaking world. This can be documented by acknowledgements and reminiscences by his students, many of whom who went on to teach themselves and by comparison of their published works with the content of Mylne’s teaching. More distantly, I argue that Mylne had an indirect influence on the ethos of the early Idealist movement in Glasgow. Mylne’s philosophy evinces a sense of the unity of experience, drawn initially from the universal elements of sensation and judgement, but with religious overtones. His commitments to inquiry and social reform and critique of the common sense school prepared the ground for the Glasgow idealists.

There is an as yet unacknowledged and incomparable contribution to the philosophical debates about know-how to be found in the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is sourced in his investigations into knowledge and certainty in On Certainty, though it is not limited to these late passages. Understanding the ramifications of this putative contribution (even if one does not agree with it) highlights the extent to which (i) there is now a new range of issues pertaining to know-how which no future philosophical consideration of the topic can ignore, except on pain of failing to engage comprehensively with the subject; (ii) the topic of know-how has been inappropriately marginalised by naturalized epistemology, and may well be as central to epistemology as the propositional knowledge which currently dominates epistemology’s attention; and (iii) any engagement with these potential Wittgensteinian contributions will need to be conducted in tandem with a reflection on the meta-philosophy of epistemology, since their potential impact extends to epistemology’s main methodology, i.e., naturalized reflective equilibrium. These three conclusions, together with a diagnosis of where and why all the current intellectualist accounts of know-how are either internally inconsistent, or irreconcilably flawed on their own terms, provide the motivation and the opportunity for a New Epistemology of Know-How. These conclusions established, I offer one possible Wittgensteinian-orientated version of the New Epistemology of Know-How, providing the first example of a non-naturalized philosophical approach to the topic since Gilbert Ryle.

It is the claim of this thesis that central to any reading of the work of Gillian Rose is an understanding of her development of Hegel's thought. This thesis accordingly examines Rose's work through a comprehensive reading of Hegel contra Sociology. It is argued that an irresolvable aporia is discovered at the heart of Rose's reading of Hegel which, this thesis argues, manifests itself through the question and answer of style. It is argued that Rose simultaneously undermines the presupposition of style and at the same time reinforces it. It is also argued that this is consistent with Rose's acknowledgment and critique of prevailing social relations. It is argued in conclusion that Rose's work is both simply an expression of aporia which undermines the question of style and at the same time is itself also aporetic which thus reinforces the question of style.

No description available.

No description available.

by Robert M. Freund and Kok-Choon Tan. / Also issued as: Working paper (Sloan School of Management) ; WP 2100-89. / Includes bibliographical references (p.[53]-[54]).

The study is concerned with some aspects of the philosophical development of Russell and Wittgenstein in the period in which their doctrines interacted closely with each other. The questions investigated -nay be summarised as follows: (i) What does it mean to say that language represents reality in an isomorphic manner ? (ii) How is it possible for language to represent reality isomorphically and yet be related to it in such a way that the relation it has in virtue of its sense is independent of the relation it has in virtue of its truth? In answering these questions, particular attention has been paid to Russell's unpublished Manuscript Epistemology (1913) because of the impact it had on Wittgenstein, who severely criticised it. These criticisms began to emerge, as an alternative to Russell's views, in 'Notes on Logic' and in the other pre-Tractarian writings. It is in the Tractatus, eventually, that the two-fold relation between language and reality, which Russell's position left unexplained, is accounted for, by virtue of the distinction form/structure. The following are the central theses of this study: (a) Although Russell and Wittgenstein share the assumption of linguistic isomorphic representation, their isomorphisms are totally different, since Wittgenstein makes the distinction form/structure and Russell does not; (b) Wittgenstein's development from the earlier writings to the Tractatus may be viewed in terms of the emergence of distinctions such as, the world as substance/the world as fact, possibilities/ actualities, form/structure, which lie at the heart of the Tractatus and serve to substantiate its central semantic doctrine concerning the language-reality relation of representation; (c) since the Tractatus maintains the principle that 'sense is independent of the facts' (i.e., that there is an independence or priority of sense over truth) then a proposition's relation to reality cannot be accounted for by means of ostension, for such an account involves the denial of the principle; (d) the divergence between Russell and Wittgenstein as regards the main concern of the Tractatus, centres on the divergence of their views concerning the vagueness of ordinary language; (e) a central aspect of the unity of Wittgenstein's entire philosophy, as regards the internal relation- ship between language and reality, lies in his conception of form.