This thesis aims to offer a fresh account of Adorno's work on and in sociology. Specifically, it seeks to explore, present, and discuss Adorno's thoughts on the problems and potentials of a sociology that confronts the task of examining exchange society. The focus rests on six broad themes which decisively shape Adorno's thinking in this context: exchange society, sociological material, sociological reflection, social critique, the sociological text, and a reality escaping exchange society. Each theme is investigated in one substantive chapter in two ways: through exposition and analysis of the concepts, conceptual interrelations, and arguments informing Adorno's perspective on the respective theme; and through illustrations of these concepts and arguments with reference to Adorno's specific attempts to carry out sociological examinations of exchange society. A persistent theoretical motif that recurs in many thematic dimensions of Adorno's sociological thinking, the thesis argues, is the double character of sociology. In order to gain clarity on sociology's double character, the thesis highlights the multiple ways in which this motif makes itself felt, analyses it from different angles, and discusses it in its various manifestations. In addition to Adorno's sociological writings, the thesis draws on two further types of sources. Each chapter emphasises interconnections between Adorno's sociology and other areas of his work, chiefly philosophy and epistemology, but also psychology, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Moreover, the thesis traces the intellectual sources relevant for illuminating the themes of this research. The thesis adds to Anglophone interpretations of Adorno's oeuvre in that it presents a sustained account of his sociology of exchange society. It thereby also challenges several extant readings of his work, especially those concerning his sociology or sociologically relevant areas of his oeuvre. This research partly draws on writings which have either been neglected tout court or have remained unduly overlooked for Adorno's sociology.

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This study considers the implications for Christian ethics of the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer (in particular, his hermeneutics as presented in Truth and Method). The adequacy of moral deliberation based on autonomous moral reasoning to complex dynamic situations is challenged, as is the Enlightenment conception of abstract, universal rationality. Two mąjor theses are proposed. First, that ethics (including Christian ethics) should adopt a stance that is properly hermeneutical: taking proper account of ethics' embeddedness in history and tradition; and abandoning hope of a universal or objective standpoint from which to make ethical judgements. Second, that human beings are fundamentally imaginative moral beings: imagination is central to ethics because it is central to language and reason. Legalism and utilitarianism are critiqued as examples of the dependence of ethics on notions of absolute truth and universal method. Gadamer’s Truth and Method is considered, highlighting areas of relevance to ethics. In response to Gadamer’s observations on the centrality of language to hermeneutics, the work of Mark Johnson in cognitive science is explored in detail. The centrality of imagination to moral reasoning and to conscience is noted; and parallels are drawn between conscience and taste. It is proposed that a proper emphasis on the metaphorical nature of moral language, together with a notion of reason (and of moral deliberation) that is essentially imaginative, accord better with the phenomenology of ethical deliberation than the traditional accounts and also allow for more flexible responses. The implications of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Johnson's moral imagination for Christian ethics are explored in relation to creation, incarnation, revelation and inspiration. The study concludes that a properly hermeneutical Christian ethics would allow a greater role for the imagination in moral deliberation and provide a system which is flexible, creative, and humane, and which properly reflects the goodness and beauty of God.

This thesis rejects the traditional picture of Fichte as a 'philosopher of subjectivity' who conceives of reality as the product of an 'absolute subject'. In opposition to this view, this thesis presents Fichte as a philosopher of intersubjectivity, whose primary concern is with relations between subjects. It argues that the true originality of Fichte's philosophy lies in his claim that intersubjectivity is a condition of the possibility of self- consciousness. Part 1 of this thesis defends Fichte's claim that Kant's transcendental idealism requires an account of how we recognize other rational beings. It seeks to demonstrate the necessity of such an account by examining the role of intersubjectivity within Kant's transcendental philosophy. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 deal, respectively, with the significance of intersubjectivity for Kant's accounts of theoretical reason, practical reason and the unity of reason. Part 2 of this thesis considers Fichte's attempt to develop a theory of intersubjectivity within his system of transcendental philosophy or Wissenschaftslehre. Chapter 4 considers Fichte's conception of such a system, and stresses the importance of political, ethical and pedagogical themes to this conception. Chapter 5 provides a detailed discussion of Fichte's first serious treatment of the topic of intersubjectivity — Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation. Chapter 6 seeks to provide a reading of Fichte's first presentation of the 'foundations' of his system that is consistent with his concern with intersubjectivity. Chapters 7 provide an extensive discussion of Fichte's most complete presentation of his theory of intersubjectivity — the Foundations of Natural Right.

The influence of Spinoza on Post-Kantian Idealism has been acknowledged by virtually all commentators in the area. Much research on the influence of Spinoza on Hegel has been already carried out by many of Hegel's commentators in both the Continental and Anglo- American tradition, and Hegel himself wrote a great deal on Spinozism. Detailed research and study on the influence of Spinoza on Fichte and Schelling, however, is still to be carried out in the Anglo-American tradition; and this situation is in contrast to the current scenario in Germany, where much effort has been devoted to this topic. Commentators in the Anglo-American tradition acknowledge the influence of some of Spinoza's views on Fichte's and Schelling's respective projects but fail to provide a detailed account of this influence. This thesis will attempt to help fill in the gap in this area by providing a detailed study of the influence of Spinozism on Fichte and Schelling. This will be done by drawing parallels and by demonstrating similarities between some of their philosophical views, as well as referring to textual evidence where Fichte and Schelling acknowledge, overtly or not, their debt to Spinoza. This thesis is divided into three parts. In Part I I shall provide the context or background to this thesis. This part focus on the reception of Spinoza's writings in the Netherlands and Germany (chap. 1), the Enlightenment and Romantic movement as well as the Enlightenment crises (chap. 2), and Kant's attempt to solve the crises (chap. 3). In Part II and III I deal with Fichte's and Schelling's Spinozism respectively. Part II is divided into three chapters, which are entitled: "Metaphysics, Knowledge and Freedom" (chap. 4), "Theology and Religion" (chap. 5)， and "Ethics" (chap. 6). Part III is also divided into three chapters, which are entitled: "From Kant to Fichte to Schelling: Spinoza's contribution to Absolute Idealism" (chap. 7), "Pantheism and God" (chap. 8), and finally "Deep Ecology" (chap. 9). Finally, in this abstract I find it important to draw the reader's attention to a few issues. My sympathies with, or antipathies to, the various positions taken by the authors I discuss will no doubt be apparent as the thesis unfolds. And it could be said that this thesis is primarily intended as an exercise in the history, influence and study of some conceptual views particular to Spinozism, and as such it shall be of great interest to metaphysicians. But in doing so this thesis will also set the background for a proper understanding of Fichte's and Schelling's philosophical systems - this is an important point as there is a tendency in philosophical and academic circles to 'box in' philosophical systems as if these systems were self-contained and bore no connection with previous philosophical systems; moreover, there is also a tendency in these circles not to appreciate the legacy of philosophical systems either. As such, this thesis aims to help correcting this situation insofar as Spinoza, Fichte and Schelling are concerned - but it can be also viewed as a template for similar research in connection to other philosophical systems. It is also intended that the interpretations of Fichte and Schelling in the light of their Spinozism, which I propose will be useful to other scholars in their attempt to critically appraise the writings of these important figures.

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A Telling Silence: Nietzsche on the Downfall of the Dialectic presents a rereading of Nietzsche's work in the German original with a view to the conspicuous silence in which Nietzsche shrouds his relationship to the dialectic. The study shows how this silence is betrayed in the intricacies of Nietzsche's writing, and in turn betrays the nature of his relationship to the dialectic as integral to his minking and inherent in his historical position as a philosopher. Nietzsche's distinct use of the terms Wiederkehr and Wiederkunft indicates that he thinks his fundamental thought specifically as Wiederkunft and, correspondingly, determines being as bringing-forth, as giving-birth, as Niederkunft. Since Niederkunft, in metaphysical terms, describes the tragic act per se, this definition of being coincides with the definition of being as tragedy, which had preoccupied Nietzsche since his youth. An inquiry into the fact that Nietzsche hardly speaks of work at all shows, accordingly, that he renounces the notion of the human that has characterized Western philosophy since Plato. As the first thinker of the West, he defines the human not in work, but in labour and in this sense not as man, but as woman - signalling, thus, a solution to the dead end of the master-slave-dialectic. Finally, the study questions the tradition of reading Nietzsche's thinking as explosion, which prevails in Nietzsche scholarship to date, and presents Nietzsche's minking as the antidote to the explosive age of dialectics. As it ascribes to Nietzsche's thinking the implosion of the dialectical age as well as the emergence of a new era of human life on earth, it depicts his thinking in essence as the Niederkunft of the Western system of thought, and subsequently examines its implications today.

This thesis is about the way aesthetic thought changed or developed in Germany in the years immediately after the publication of Immanuel Kant's third critique - A Critique of the Power of Judgement. Besides many comparatively minor developments, it identifies three important changes in aesthetic thinking after Kant. Firstly, there was an increased emphasis on the integrated and interdependent nature of the human thinking that Kant had been more concerned to classify and analyse. Secondly, the change in aesthetics marks the change from Enlightenment classicism to Early German Romanticism. Thirdly, the role of aesthetics itself changed, from attempting to define the concept of beauty and explain how we perceive it, to claiming that aesthetics is concerned with humanity's search for meaning in the work of art. This last development amounts to a suggestion that the hermeneutic strand in philosophy grew out of early post-Kantian aesthetics. Three thinkers have been selected as a means of showing these changes. They are Friedrich Schiller, the poet and dramatist, Friedrich Holderlin, the poet, and Friedrich Schlegel, the literary theorist and essayist. Chronologically, our period begins in 1793 and ends about 1800, just before the death of Kant (1804), the death of Schiller (1805), the mental collapse of Holderlin (1806), and with the final editions of Schlegel's literary journal, Athendum (1800). This timespan allows a fairly close study of Schiller's influential series of essays on philosophical aesthetics, which he wrote in direct response to the Third Critique, re-examining Kant's claim that the judgement of taste is subjective, and expanding Kant's account of how it is possible to create works of art and also of Friedrich Holderlin's and Friedrich Schlegel's most productive years, when both worked out aesthetic theories that moved onwards from Schiller, but nevertheless remained indebted to Kant in several respects.