This thesis attacks the neglected and unresolved historiographical problem connecting Adam Ferguson’s work, in particular, his Essay on the History of Civil Society, to his early life experience. During the 1960s and 1970s, the issue of Ferguson’s Highland background first came to the fore. A knowledge of Gaelic marked Ferguson out from his colleagues, denoting his status as a Highlander. Michael Kugler’s 1994 study examined how Ferguson and his contemporaries constructed an idealised representation of Highland society. My investigation takes a novel approach by concentrating on matters relating to the concrete reality of the locale, language and vestigial shame-honour culture. These were imbibed by Ferguson during his childhood and early adult life. During these phases, Ferguson became conversant in the Gaelic language which acted as a conduit for the mores, history and legends of Highland communities. The elements of the shame-honour culture, the neural pathways generated by Gaelic, and Highland orality, all left their mark on him. Evidence of these component influences can be identified in his Essay, correspondence and other works. An analysis of Ferguson’s correspondence confirms his native-like control of the Gaelic sound system, indicating fluency from a young age. Ferguson experienced a traditional, communal way of life in transition. During his lifetime, there was an increasing drive to modernise the rural parts of Scotland. His insider-knowledge of two cultures, together with his familiarity of two naturally acquired grammatical systems, provided him with some unique intuitive perceptions. Ferguson’s works and his success as a university lecturer testify to his assimilation and integration into mainstream Scotto-British eighteenth-century intellectual culture. Nevertheless, his writing bears some hallmarks of alternating cultural loyalties and the occasional affirmation of his first culture. This thesis provides a new dimension to the understanding of Ferguson’s early enculturation, by inviting fresh explication of important passages of his writing. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Cette thèse vise à réinscrire l'analyse économique d'Adam Smith dans son projet avoué mais inachevé d'une science élargie de la société et de son évolution en s'appuyant de manière récurrente sur ses cours de rhétorique, peu étudiés jusqu'alors. Pour Smith, l'économie, le droit, la morale et la politique sont indissociables. Son plaidoyer pour la liberté du commerce et la croissance s'appuie sur l'identification des bienfaits moraux (adoucissement des mœurs et possibilité d'une vie digne et décente pour le plus grand nombre, justice du marché en situation de concurrence libre), éthiques (pratique étendue de la prudence, de la justice et de la maitrise de soi chez les individus), et politiques (une administration de la justice plus impartiale, et une liberté, une sécurité et une indépendance des individus accrue) engendrés par l'enrichissement des sociétés. La croissance entraine la civilisation et le progrès des sociétés.

This work explores the relationship between time, temporality, and power by utilizing interactions between Jesuit missionaries and the Ming and Qing governments of late imperial China as a case study. It outlines the complex relationship between knowledge of celestial mechanics, methods of measuring the passage of time, and the tightly controlled circumstances in which that knowledge was allowed to operate. Just as the Chinese courts exercised authority over time and the heavens, so too had the Catholic Church in Europe. So as messengers of God’s authority, the Jesuits identified the importance of astronomical and temporal authority in Chinese culture and sought to convey the supremacy of Christianity through their mastery of the stars and negotiate positions of power within both imperial governments.

Garden of Eden imagery is ubiquitous in contemporary print advertising in North America, especially in advertisements directed at women. Three telling characteristics emerge in characterizations of Eve in these advertising reconstructions. In the first place, Eve is consistently hypersexualized and over-eroticized. Secondly, such Garden of Eden images often conflate the Eve figure with that of the Serpent. Thirdly, the highly eroticized Eve-Serpent figures also commonly suffer further conflation with the Garden of Eden itself. Like Eve, nature becomes eroticized. In the Eve-Serpent-Eden conflation, woman becomes nature, nature becomes woman, and both perform a single narrative plot function, in tandem with the Serpent. The erotic and tempting Eve-Serpent-Eden character is both protagonist and antagonist, seducer and seduced. In this dissertation, I engage in an ecofeminist narratological analysis of the Genesis/Fall myth, as it is retold in contemporary fashion magazine advertisements. My analysis examines how reconstructions of this myth in advertisements construct the reader, the narrator, and the primary characters of the story (Eve, Adam, the Serpent, and Eden). I then further explore the ways in which these characterizations inform our perceptions of woman, nature, and environmentalism. Using a narratological methodology, and through a poststructuralist ecofeminist lens, I examine which plot and character elements have been kept, which have been discarded, and how certain erasures impact the narrative characterizations of the story. In addition to what is being told, I further analyze how and where it is told. How is the basic plot being storied in these reconstructions, and what are the effects of this version on the archetypal characterizations of Eve and the Garden of Eden? What are the cultural and literary contexts of the reconstructed narrative and the characters within it? How do these contexts inform how we read the characters within the story? Finally, I examine the cultural effects of these narrative reconstructions, exploring their influence on our gendered relationships with each other and with the natural world around us.

Le mémoire porte sur deux économistes, Adam Smith et Amartya Sen. L'introduction présente la motivation à vouloir aborder ces économistes qui sont pourtant en apparence fondamentalement différents. Une des raisons est que Sen peut être considéré comme un des nombreux interprètes de l'oeuvre de Smith. Par contre, l'interprétation qu'il en fait est très différente de celles qui sont communément admises. Pourquoi Sen présente-t-il une vision de Smith comme un économiste pour qui les considérations éthiques étaient tout aussi importantes que les considérations plus techniques rattachées à l'économie? Le mémoire commence par tracer un bref récit de la vie de Smith, de son oeuvre et de la conjoncture historique de ses écrits. Ces éléments nous facilitent la compréhension de plusieurs interprétations de l'oeuvre de Smith ainsi que du contexte dans lequel elles ont été développées. Comme l'interprétation de Smith par Sen sort des sentiers battus, le mémoire tente d'identifier les influences intellectuelles qui auraient pu façonner la pensée de Sen de façon à ce qu'il analyse les propos de Smith d'une manière plus riche et plus nuancée. Ces influences sont présentées sous la forme de cinq pierres angulaires. La première remonte à son enfance alors que la dernière se situe au moment où Sen entreprend de s'attaquer à une vision trop restreinte de la pensée de Smith. Ces cinq pierres angulaires s'insèrent dans le récit biographique de la vie de Sen. L'apport de Sen à la nouvelle compréhension de Smith est aussi abordé. La conclusion du mémoire s'ouvre sur une réflexion sur l'importance des influences intellectuelles. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Adam Smith, Amartya Sen, Économie, Éthique, Influence intellectuelle.

Recent scholarship on Hegel has employed the Wittgensteinian concept of a "form of life" in order to explain how sociality shapes and determines the reflective practices of self-conscious individuals. However, few of these scholars have considered how the non-reflective aspects of inhabiting a form of life- especially the abilities to form habits and to have feelings- contribute to the reflective aspects. In this thesis I argue that this oversight leads to serious exegetical and philosophical problems for making sense of Hegel's theory of ethical life. Not only does Hegel regard habit and feeling as playing a necessary role in the justification of our reflective practices, but he is right to do so, since, were he not to consider these factors, he could not account for how any of our moral claims could be justified.

Enligt den svenska översättningen av bibeln skapades mannen först och kvinnan skapades därefter av mannens revben. Detta arbete syftar till att studera om det finns utrymme för en annan tolkning av den andra skapelseberättelsen i Genesis, än den som traditionsenligt berättas i till exempel Bibel 2000. Kan det vara så att den första människan, ’adam, var en människa av båda eller inget kön, och att kvinnan sedan separerades ifrån ’adam och det som var kvar var mannen? Genom att studera olika forskares och teologers tolkningar av människans skapelse i Genesis 2 och de hebreiska ordens betydelse och placering i verserna har jag kommit fram till att den mest troliga tolkningen av texten är att mannen skapades först och att kvinnan därefter skapades utifrån mannens revben.

<p>Enligt den svenska översättningen av bibeln skapades mannen först och kvinnan skapades därefter av mannens revben. Detta arbete syftar till att studera om det finns utrymme för en annan tolkning av den andra skapelseberättelsen i Genesis, än den som traditionsenligt berättas i till exempel Bibel 2000. Kan det vara så att den första människan, ’adam, var en människa av båda eller inget kön, och att kvinnan sedan separerades ifrån ’adam och det som var kvar var mannen? Genom att studera olika forskares och teologers tolkningar av människans skapelse i Genesis 2 och de hebreiska ordens betydelse och placering i verserna har jag kommit fram till att den mest troliga tolkningen av texten är att mannen skapades först och att kvinnan därefter skapades utifrån mannens revben.</p>

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Philosophische Fakultät--Universität zu Köln, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. [399]-421. Index.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Lett.--Varsovie, 1988. / Bibliogr. p. 188-191. Index.