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In recent years, Nietzsche's moral philosophy has been receiving more and more attention in the English speaking moral philosophical community. This study is a contribution to the ongoing debate in this area. Its central aim is to understand Nietzsche's critique of Christian morality in relation to his own particular understanding of modernity. For Nietzsche modernity is a condition in which the individual is committed to the antithetical moral value schemes of master and slave moralities, whilst failing to recognise that this is so. These value schemes are antithetical in regard to the stance they take towards existence. A master morality is one that affirms life, whereas a slave morality is one that denies life. The thesis begins by looking at Nietzsche's characterisation of the problem of morality. For Nietzsche, Christian morality has become a problem because, in the light of the death of God, it has lost its foundations. He argues that we should attempt to assess the value of these Christian values. His method of doing so is a psychological-historical one, which he calls genealogy. This thesis examines Nietzsche's genealogy of Christianity in detail and treats it as a serious historical account rather than as illustrative fiction as some scholars have done in the past. I argue that some of the problems that one encounters when treating genealogy as history stem from the fact that commentators have placed too much emphasis on Nietzsche's work, On the Genealogy of Morality, and that his other genealogical texts deserve equal attention. I then show how this genealogy supplies the modem human being with the necessary self-knowledge in order that it can recognise its commitment to antithetical value schemes. Finally, this thesis examines some of the issues that surround Nietzsche's attempt to aid the modem human being in overcoming its commitment to Christian values.

In this thesis, I draw on Wittgensteinian philosophical thought to critically explore Nietzsche’s diagnosis of (and proposed therapy for) the alleged malaise in modernity. In chapter 1, I argue that Wittgenstein’s concepts of aspect-seeing and certainty provide the resources to resolve several apparently contradictory claims Nietzsche makes about the predicament of his fellow moderns. I show that the condition Wittgenstein calls ‘aspect-blindness’ offers a unified account of the predicament Nietzsche describes. In chapter 2, I explore Nietzsche’s claim that some overarching framework (what Wittgenstein calls a ‘form of life’) has ‘died’. I argue that the pathological attitude of Wittgenstein’s interlocutor towards frameworks provides the most satisfactory model for understanding the nature of the supposed ‘death’ of frameworks in modernity. In chapter 3, I argue that Nietzsche’s proposed remedy for the malaise of modernity is a form of therapy akin to Wittgenstein’s attempt to free his readers from a picture which holds them captive. I show that our understanding of Nietzsche’s therapeutic method will be improved if we bear in mind certain distinctions and ambiguities highlighted by Wittgensteinian discussion of pictures. In chapter 4, I address the concern that Nietzsche appears to characterise modernity in two contradictory ways as both excessively and insufficiently emotional and excessively and insufficiently sceptical. I resolve the appearance of contradiction by showing that (on Nietzsche’s view) the moderns are inherently prone to extreme shifts between poles and that many of the apparent emotions and ideals of the moderns are ‘fake’.

My thesis attempts to provide a new account of the opening transitions of My thesis attempts to provide a new account of the opening transitions of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (i.e. the transitions of sections A.-C.(AA.)) as the basis for a critical assessment of that work. My account is motivated by two interpretative difficulties that often prove divisive for commentators. First, the difficulty of how we are to understand the transition from section 'A. Consciousness' to section 'B. Self-Consciousness': and second, the difficulty of precisely what Hegel means by identifying Kantian Idealism as the "same kind of self-contradictory ambiguity as Scepticism" (PS 238. p. 144). albeit a positive rather than a negative expression of this ambiguity, in section C.(AA.). I argue that these two difficulties are related, insofar as Hegel's reaction to Scepticism informs his critique of Kant, which in turn affects the conception that Hegel has of his own project in the Phenomenology and of the manner in which it is to be structured. I contend that, for Hegel, a key problem to be addressed is the failure of previous philosophical positions to investigate the general form of judgement (the subject/predicate relation) in a sufficiently critical manner. This failure, for Hegel. leads to a distorted view, to the effect that thought and being are irreparably separated. which he takes to be at the heart of Kantian theoretical philosophy, and which precludes the possibility of giving true philosophical proofs. 1 argue that the correction of such a distorted view is a main aim of the Phenomenology and that, in the transitions from A. to C.(AA.). Hegel provides an in principle proof of the unity of thought and being.(i.e. the transitions of sections A.-C.(AA.)) as the basis for a critical assessment of that work. My account is motivated by two interpretative difficulties that often prove divisive for commentators. First, the difficulty of how we are to understand the transition from section 'A. Consciousness' to section 'B. Self-Consciousness': and second, the difficulty of precisely what Hegel means by identifying Kantian Idealism as the "same kind of self-contradictory ambiguity as Scepticism" (PS 238. p. 144). albeit a positive rather than a negative expression of this ambiguity, in section C.(AA.). I argue that these two difficulties are related, insofar as Hegel's reaction to Scepticism informs his critique of Kant, which in turn affects the conception that Hegel has of his own project in the Phenomenology and of the manner in which it is to be structured. I contend that, for Hegel, a key problem to be addressed is the failure of previous philosophical positions to investigate the general form of judgement (the subject/predicate relation) in a sufficiently critical manner. This failure, for Hegel. leads to a distorted view, to the effect that thought and being are irreparably separated. which he takes to be at the heart of Kantian theoretical philosophy, and which precludes the possibility of giving true philosophical proofs. 1 argue that the correction of such a distorted view is a main aim of the Phenomenology and that, in the transitions from A. to C.(AA.). Hegel provides an in principle proof of the unity of thought and being.

This dissertation is concerned with Heidegger 's conception of phenomenological method as it is worked out in his corpus pre-1930. The primary aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that Heidegger's distinctive early conception of phenomenology is decisively shaped by his recognition of two interconnected methodological problems. Heidegger conceives of phenomenology as a method that must allow its subject matter to 'show itself on its own terms. This task is thorny, however, for it is not clear that we can assume that a given kind of subject matter will admit of being made into an object of phenomenological consideration without losing its ability to show itself on its own terms. I refer to this difficulty as the "Objectification Problem.” •A further problem arises, however, given Heidegger's observation that the subject matter of phenomenology is fundamentally self-concealing or se lf-obfuscating. If phenomenology follows its subject matter, it appears to run the risk of being contaminated by its obfuscating tendencies . I call this threat the "Contamination Problem". In Heidegger's treatment, these two problems issue in methodological desiderata that seem to be diametrically opposed. Whereas the Contamination Problem makes it desirable that the phenomenologist fin ds critical distance from the subject matter of her research, the Objectification Problem renders questionable whether she can take such distance without undermining her endeavour to allow the subject matter to show itself on its own terms. For this reason, I argue, we must consider these problems not as two separate and unrelated issues, but in their interrelationship. I argue that on Heidegger's distinctive conception of hermeneutic-phenomenological method, the Objectification Problem and the Contamination Problem can be navigated jointly through a combination of destruction, formal indication and appropriation. Nevertheless, for Heidegger, it remains utterly important to conceive of phenomenological method as interminable. Phenomenology must maintain and develop the questionability of its subject matter.

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The aim of my thesis is to explain the meaning of the thing in itself in Kant's philosophy. In my thesis I propose a threefold approach to this key concept. I take Kant's system in its theoretical aspect to be the philosophy of cogito, its representations and the conditions of their possibility. Not only do I introduce my own approach to the problem of thing in itself, but I also explain most of the issues directly related to it. In Chapter I give a few preliminary remarks concerning various meanings of metaphysics in Kant's philosophy and I explain the term "representation". Chapter" analyses the particular meanings of the thing in itself: the empirical one, the transcendental one and the metaphysical one. Here I present the table of the technical terms used by Kant. In Chapter III I analyse some of the interpretations of the thing in itself in contemporary philosophy. I use my own independent analysis from Chapter" as an interpretative tool to analyse and assess the most often raised objections against Kant. I argue that despite these objections the properly understood teaching on the thing in itself is entirely coherent.

'Bakhtin and the Hegelian Tradition' explores the influence of Georg Hegel and Hegelianism in the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin. The thesis demonstrates that, either directly or indirectly (through neo-Kantianism, Lebensphilosophie, and phenomenology), Hegelian philosophy made a fundamental contribution to Bakthin's thought throughout his career. To this end, the thesis maintains a close connection between the historical analysis of philosophy and contemporary philosophical thought. Historically, the thesis discusses Bakhtin's work with reference to, among other, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and the important works of Bakhtin's contemporaries-especially the Lebensphilosophen Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, the neo-Kantians Hermann Cohen and Ernst Cassirer, and the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. Philosophically, the thesis critically analyses Bakhtin's key concepts and theories in order to disclose their philosophical character. In particular the thesis evaluates the origin and evolution of Bakhtin's concepts of the subject, the object, the ought, culture and knowledge, and looks at his theories of being-as-event, intersubjectivity, language, genre, and world-view. By applying both analytic philosophy and Michael Kosok's formalised dialectical logic, the thesis demonstrates that many of Bakhtin's key concepts and theories have an indubitable Hegelian nature, or indeed origin. One of the most fundamental issues this thesis reveals is Bakhtin's desire to redefine and develop the nature of the Hegelian methodology, and in particular the nature of dialectics. As such, this investigation into Bakhtin's Hegelianism is valuable for the fact that it presents a new perspective on Bakhtin's philosophical concepts and theories, as well as a new viewpoint on Hegelian philosophy.

This study about sexuality in Eckhart’s works contains two major parts. The first division of the study (the first two chapters) treats sexuality, which is also to be understood as body from a universalistic perspective, while the latter part of this work (four chapters) deals with sexuality (as soul) from a particularistic or Eckhartian perspective. Furthermore, the universalistic part of this study deals with sexuality from a historical, philosophical, biological, sociological, and psychological point of view, while the latter part focuses on sexuality as seen through the theological and metaphysical lenses of Eckhart. However, there is harmonisation between both models – the universalistic and the particularistic models of sexuality – and this is where Eckhart brings about a reconciliation or synthesis between, on one hand, the traditional model which is often conflicted or dualistic in itself, and on the other hand, his model, stripped of, or detached from its historical sexual 'angst' is a model which no longer views sexuality as a deterrent, or an impediment in the path of the soul in her assent towards the divine. Because of this, he offers us a dynamic, a relevant, a progressive and a systematically coherent sexual theology which shows the necessity, the efficacy, and the meritoriousness of sexual relations between the soul and the divine. Furthermore, Eckhart’s language of sexuality is really an allegory about the sacredness of human sexual relationships. He, also by his sexual doctrine, shows that there is essentially no divide between God and humans. That is to say, God’s divinity is the 'ratio' of humanity’s existence, and this existence is mediated through imageries of birth and procreation. Moreover, these imageries mirror the nature of the Divine which is the 'totum' of all that is animate and inanimate, visible and invisible.

This thesis explores the initial history of Schopenhauer's reception in Britain and then considers in detail his impact on the work of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence and Samuel Beckett. It argues that Schopenhauer's influence on the literature of the modernist period was both more nuanced and pervasive than has been previously supposed, contesting in particular the typical reduction of this inheritance to that of 'pessimism'. Special attention is paid to the philosophy's significance as an early theorisation of the unconscious. It will be a central tenet of this thesis that Schopenhauer's colossal influence on the intellectual developments of the latenineteenth and early-twentieth centuries has tended ultimately to obscure his wider cultural legacy, with the literary employment of ideas that were contained in embryo in his writing often ascribed automatically to later thinkers, such as Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud. The chapter on Hardy considers the possible influence of Schopenhauer's metaphysics on the treatment of 'evolutionary themes in his later novels, and - by analysing the use of the reproductive urge in these works to underscore humanity's essential identity with the natural world - seeks to elucidate the degree to which early notions of the unconscious originated from a monistic understanding of nature. The following chapter argues that the idiosyncratic psychology expounded in Lawrence's 'psychoanalytic' essays of the 1920s is indebted to Schopenhauer's theory of will, which is reflected equally in the model of consciousness that finds expression in his fiction of the period. The final chapter argues that the proliferation of 'pseudocouples' in Beckett's writing have their roots in Schopenhauer's dissection of the Cartesian cogito into the ontologically distinct elements of will and intellect, a radical reimagining of human subjectivity which also illuminates the trope of the listener and speaker which achieves similar prominence in the later work. The conclusion highlights Schopenhauerian elements in the work of Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis and Vladimir Nabokov.