The current project attempts to construct a modest version of natural theology with the aid of Confucian axiology and American Pragmatism. Its main thrust is to map out several levels of integrative valuation moving from nature and society into the innermost part of the human core. It envisions a Confucian axiological cosmos where values are scattered ubiquitously in the universe and its myriad presences. The pragmatic theories of Charles S. Peirce and William James are employed to construct methodological mechanisms by which natural values are to be recognized, semioticized, transferred and integrated into the human equilibrium as valutional core. Nature, society and the human valutional core are envisioned as three major value hubs that are intricately intertwined and mutually reciprocal. The levels of integrative valuation consist of a series of evaluative steps spread along the history of Confucianism. Beginning with an objective observation of Investigation of Things, it reaches the semiotic stage of Rectifying the Name, which followed by physical participation in the Unity of Knowledge and Action, and eventually arrives at the grand stage of Ritual Appropriateness. The Protestant churches with Chinese cultural background are considered as the communal basis of this project. The rival coexistence of both naturalistic and anti-naturalistic tendencies makes them an apt sample for this axiological project of reconfiguring a natural theology. If accomplished successfully, this project will establish an axiological type of natural theology by means of integrating resources from Confucianism, American Pragmatism and Christian Theology. It will demonstrate a way of engaging nature alternative to those of logical positivist, materialistic or even ecological approaches. This project may help conservative Protestant Christians redress their obsession concerning special, direct, salvific grace by redirecting them towards natural values that are profoundly rich and nourishing by reconciling the cultural and religious dimensions of their lives.

Traditional theories of gender performativity, grounded in the tradition of Judith Butler, fail to capture the experience of encountering a gendered subject. By reducing gender to a series of discursive acts and ignoring the aesthetic dimension of gender, these theories neglect the possibility for alternative gender performances divorced from the materiality of the body, except through acknowledging the ficticious nature of gender as a consequence of citational acts. In contrast, this dissertation presents a theory of gender as aware, or the “aboutness” that emerges through the repeated citational acts that make present gender in our lived experience. Gender, therefore, does not possess any ontological essence except insofar as it is articulated by citational practices, without which it cannot exist. To this end, this dissertation argues for an expansion of our discourse on gender through appealing to Japanese aesthetic and poetic concepts of aware and mono no aware to demonstrate the aesthetic nature of gender. In so doing this dissertation will present gender as fundamentally aesthetic through appeal to no, kabuki, and the Takarazuka Revue, all sites which divorced gender form biological sex for the purpose of an aesthetic praxis.

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The goal of this thesis is to influence a re-evaluation of self conceptions in America in order to influence an alternative relational understanding of one’s self and others. This thesis begins based on the premise that individualism is a prominent aspect of American societies meaning its member’s understandings of their selves are self-centered, often non-empathetic, and in general more concerned with their own lives than that of others. The first half of this thesis is dedicated analyzing the American situation through an analysis of the sources of individualism and proving that individualism is actually an illusion that individuals falsely believe in. American Pragmatists John Dewey and George Herbert Mead are primarily discussed to offer a more socially oriented understanding of the self that begins the process of this thesis in defending a relational model of selfhood. The second half of this thesis introduces Ancient Chinese philosophy where the relationally constituted model of self is thoroughly fleshed out. An analysis of Confucian and Daoist philosophy is given to explain those traditions unique vocabulary and drastic differences from traditional Western theories of morality and self-understanding. The third half of this thesis uses an hybrid self conception derived from a combination of Pragmatist and Chinese thought to argue the Philosophy For Children (P4C) pedagogical model is the medium in which Americans can learn to re-evaluate their selves starting with educating their children. P4C is shown to be itself a model of relationality where children begin from younger ages to be more other-focused, empathetic, and communally involved.

The philosophical and empirical study reported here developed from the observation that information science has had no comprehensive understanding of nonuse of information. Without such an understanding, information workers may use the words "nonuse of information" while referring to very different phenomena. This lack of understanding makes the job of the information professional difficult. For example, the model presented here reduces hundreds of theories of information behavior to a conceptually manageable taxonomy of six conditions that lead to nonuse of information. The six conditions include: 1) intrinsic somatic conditions, 2) socio-environmental barriers, 3) authoritarian controls, 4) threshold knowledge shortfall, 5) attention shortfall, and 6) information filtering. This dissertation explains and provides examples of each condition. The study of a novel area that had no prior theory or model required a novel methodology. Thus, for this study, I adopted the pragmatism formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, a method of evaluating concepts by their practical consequences. This pragmatism applied in two ways to the study of nonuse of information. First, because nonuse of information is a behavior, pragmatism helped me to limit the psychologic implications of the study to behavior, rather than to expand the discussion to psychodynamics or cognition, for example. I justified this limiting on the basis that behavior reflects the use or nonuse of information, and behavior is more observable than other aspects of psychology, such as cognition. Second, Peirce's concept of pragmatism supported another of his contributions to philosophical inquiry, retroduction, sometimes referred to as abduction. To study nonuse of information through retroduction, I created a fivestep "definition heuristic," based on the writings of Spradley and McCurdy. I then created a nine-step "retroduction heuristic" based on the system of logic identified and termed "retroductive" or "abductive" by Peirce. I used this heuristic to identify examples of nonuse of information and applied the examples to a second corpus of research reports that contained examples of compelled nonuse of information. The taxonomy of this study resulted from this second application and represents a descriptive model of compelled nonuse of information. / text