This thesis studies the historical and intellectual backgrounds of some influential movements in Saudi Arabia, within a binary framework of liberal/conservative or modernist/fundamentalist. Thus, I have to examine the religious and intellectual differences of those movements that may lead to creating conflicts between them. In addition, this study provides possible solutions to conflicts and schism between schools of thought in Saudi Arabia, by focusing particularly on moderate Islamic thought as a new movement that may promote greater harmony. This thesis concludes that moderate Islamic thought can allow us to obtain a clear and better understanding of the main reasons for the struggle between different movements, and apply that on Saudi society, instead of attacking others who have opposing attitudes or different beliefs. It is also important to mention that this plurality of thought is very important for developing the freedom to express opinions within the confines of the law in the application of religious or philosophical ideas. The thesis also concludes that such approaches will help promote dialogue and understanding between different groups or schools of thought. It is hoped that this can also develop cognitive skills, through the exchange of ideas and views between different schools and intellectual movements.

The broad aim of this thesis is to explore fruitful connections between ideology theory and the philosophy of possible worlds (PW). Ideologies are full of modal concepts, such as possibility, potential, necessity, essence, contingency and accident. Typically, PWs are articulated for the analysis and illumination of modal concepts. That naturally suggests a method for theorising ideological modality, utilising PW theory. The specific conclusions of the thesis proffer a number of original contributions to knowledge: 1) PWs should only be used for explication and not as (intrinsic) evidence or criteria of assessment in ideology theory. The estimation of (e.g.) utopian possibilities, human essences and freedoms must be determined by extrinsic criteria. PWs can serve only as a window or means of expression but not as a set of evaluative premises. 2) For this purpose, a modified version of Lewisian genuine realism (GR), with its device of counterpart theory, is the best approach; the alternative theories risk constricting possibilities or smuggling in assumptions that ought to be objects of analysis in ideology theory. This is instructive, since ideology theorists are prone to pick and choose favoured aspects of modal philosophy without further argument. 3) Conclusions (1) and (2) suggest the adoption of GR or fictionalist GR. Overall, the actualist options are less adequate. Fictionalism, by contrast, is a worthwhile contender, but it too presents comparative weaknesses which reinforce GR’s standing as a potent challenger to the modal metaphysician. Therefore, this thesis presents additional reasons (to Lewis’s) to think GR true. The conclusions are not knockdown, and I draw out incentives and consequences for adopting alternative stances. The various chapters also provide specific details for comprehending and debating ideological modals.

Physical object ontology is a sub-branch of ontology which is primarily concerned with three interrelated issues. These are the composition, material constitution, and manner of persistence for physical objects. Philosophers who take up positions on such issues often disagree over what objects they think the world contains – for example a mereological nihilist will argue that there are no composite objects, and thus would say that the ordinary objects that appear to be all around us do not actually exist. Such disputes are thought to be substantive and depend for their truth on what the world itself is actually like. Against this Eli Hirsch develops a meta-ontological argument which states that the debates in physical object ontology are merely verbal, and that what is going in these debates is that each side is simply speaking an alternate language in which their claims come out trivially true and the claims of their opponent come out trivially false. Thus there is no actual disagreement over the facts. This position of Hirsch’s I call semanticism. The purpose of this thesis is to articulate Hirsch’s position, demonstrating its Carnapian roots, but also showing how Hirsch, by making several key commitments, intends his position to be distinctive from a thoroughgoing Carnapianism and its potentially unattractive commitments to anti-realism and/or verificationism. However, in this thesis I develop a number of problems for Hirsch’s position, showing that his modified version of Carnapianism is untenable, and that he is forced between giving up his central contention or retreating into a more thoroughgoing Carnapianism.

This thesis engages with the following three questions. First, how should the presence of risk and ambiguity affect how we distribute a benefit to which individuals have competing claims? (In line with common use in decision theory, a case involves risk when we can assign at least subjective probabilities to outcomes and it involves ambiguity when we cannot assign such probabilities.) Second, what is it about the imposition of a risk of harm itself (that is, independently of the resulting harm), such as the playing of Russian roulette on strangers, which calls for justification? Third, in the pursuit of the greater (expected) good, when is it permissible to foreseeably generate harms for others through enabling the agency of evildoers? Chapters 1 through 3 of the thesis provide an answer the first question. Chapter 1 defends the importance of a unique complaint of unfairness that arises in risky distributive cases: that sometimes individuals are better off at the expense of others. Chapter 2 defends a view called Fairness as Proper Recognition of Claims which guides how a decision-maker ought to act in cases where individuals have unequal claims to a good. Chapter 3 considers how the presence of ambiguity affects distributive fairness, and defends an egalitarian account of the evaluation of ambiguous prospects. Chapter 4 provides an answer to the second question through a defence of the Insecurity Account, which is a unique way in which impositions of risks of harm can be said to harm individuals, namely by rendering the victim’s interests less secure. Chapter 5 provides an answer to the third question by defending what I call the Moral Purity Account, to explain when it is permissible to provide aid in cases where individuals are harmed as a foreseeable consequence of the provision of such aid.

The advancement of the ideas of Plato an Aristotle on the one hand and the Stoics on the other overshadowed the view of the Cynicism of Diogenes which chronologically served as a bridge between them, historically rendering Cynicism for much of its history nothing more than a stopgap. The purpose of this thesis is to show that Diogenes' philosophy was not a stopgap, but rather a viable alternative to the major philosophies which paid it little heed. The use of historical and etymological analysis on trusted sources puts Cynicism in a clearer light. It demonstrates first, that Diogenes' life was an experiment in "plainness of living " which led him to adopt a natural lifestyle akin to the traditional Greek way of life. Second, it reveals that a natural way of life caused him to reject new conventional norms, which he believed encouraged acquisitiveness, class distinction s and licentiousness thereby undermining the youth. And third, over time Diogenes developed his own philosophy, which focused on freedom of speech or parrhesia, self-sufficiency and autonomy - ideals,which attracted modern philosophers, like Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Foucault. I conclude that a better reading of Diogenes displays an intelligent and witty philosopher who lived as he spoke. His criticism of conventional Athenian norms took the form of humorous satire and entertained as well as instructed, and in that practice he became a man of parrhesias- a truth-teller who could be counted on to uphold the truth even in dangerous situations. This took courage, which the stories about him are quick to point out. Thus, Diogenes'Cynicism as a way of life in which one develops the character and courage to speak truly is a necessary companion to any philosophy in any age, not only his own.

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This thesis examines the relationship between metaphysical theorisation and the practice of philosophy as a way of life. The thesis begins by highlighting the parallels between the Cartesian shift away from the premodern practice of philosophy as a way of life (what Foucault terms ‘the Cartesian moment’) and the ontological suspension of ‘life’ in Descartes’ influential re-conception of the soul as the principle of thinking instead of life and in his mechanistic understanding of living beings as automata. After this, it examines the works of Martin Heidegger, Heidegger’s former students Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben, as well as Gilles Deleuze (and via Deleuze, Henri Bergson) and considers how the metaphysical theoretical conception of ‘being’, ‘living’ and ‘thinking’ informs and affects the practice of philosophy. The thesis concludes with a re-reading of Augustine’s philosophy of life in light of these contemporary philosophical developments. By underscoring the connections between Augustine’s metaphysical conception of God as ‘Life itself’ and his philosophical practice of introspection as notably found in his Confessions—one of the most important texts of Western metaphysics and spiritual practice, this thesis argues that metaphysical theorisation is in fact not incompatible with the premodern practice of philosophy as a way of life or spiritual exercise (as suggested by Foucault and to some extent Heidegger). Instead, Augustine’s Christian appropriation of the Platonic metaphysics of participation in light of his philosophical interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation not only shows us how speculative metaphysics can provide a powerful theoretical incentive to lead a philosophical life, but also how a ‘religious’ approach to philosophising can help recover the understanding of philosophy as way of life and furthermore reconcile the supposed division between metaphysical theorisation and the practice of philosophy as a way of living.

Thinking and using a language are two different but similar activities. Thinking about thinking and thinking about language use have been two major strands in the history of philosophy. One of the principal similarities is that they are both rational activities. As a result, the ability to think and the ability to use a language require being able to recognise and respond to reasons. However, there is a further feature of these activities: we humans are able to have explicit knowledge of how those activities work and what is done by performances in those activities. Thus, theorists face at least two constraints: 1. An account of a rational activity must be compatible with the possibility of agents engaging in that activity. 2. Having described an activity, it must be possible to have knowledge of an activity which is correctly described like that. There are a variety of accounts of how thinking works and how using a language works, and further variation in accounts of what is involved in explicit understanding of particular performances. These accounts can be distinguished by their views of the nature of the reasons that govern performances in that activity and by their views of the way a description of the activity relates to the way the activity proceeds. I argue that any description of thinking or language use requires showing how the truth conditions of thoughts/sentences are determined, and how the truth values of thoughts/sentences affects the way the activity proceeds. I then argue that in order to have explicit knowledge of what we do, truth has to be a substantial evaluative property of uses of language, and furthermore a truth conditional theory of meaning has to be taken as the description of the rationality of using a language. The big result is that, because in understanding language we understand truth, the philosophy of language is first philosophy.

In this thesis, I am arguing for a single claim, namely that perceptual experiences are judgements, and I am arguing for it in a very specific way. This has not been a popular theory, although some have defended similar theories. One main reason that this has been a historically unpopular theory is to do with the problems of conflicting beliefs. I can see (strictly speaking, experience) the Müller-Lyer lines as being of different lengths, they look different lengths, and yet I know that they are the same length. Hence, I have explicit contradictory judgements on a judgement-theory of experiences. However, despite this being the major historical obstacle, two widely held theses in the philosophy of perception in recent times also stand as an impediment to this theory, namely the theses that experiences have a phenomenal character which individuates them from judgements, and that experiences, unlike judgements or beliefs, have non-conceptual content. I seek to offer an ''incremental defence'' of the judgement-theory of experiences by arguing in stages against the competing theories, and defending the judgement-theory from the objections that arise from the motivations for these other theories. As regards the phenomenal character of experience, I argue that once the representational theory is accepted, the path is open, should a range of individuating conceptual contents for experiences be found, to analyse the psychology of experience in terms of this content. I define this conceptual content, and then I motivate and defend the theory that experiences are judgements.

This thesis argues for an austere form of monism that incorporates aspects of panpsychism and physicalism, with the aim of putting naturalist epistemology on a secure footing. I criticise panpsychism for failing to live up to its promises of defending what we ordinarily think of as consciousness against physicalism, and criticise the metaphysical presuppositions of its current highprofile proponents. These presuppositions are contrasted with more recent approaches in philosophy of science. The mind‐body problem itself endures these assaults, however, and I criticise physicalists who claim their position is the more common‐sensical, along with naturalists who think they can avoid metaphysics. Both tendencies are represented by phenomenal concept strategists, whose position comes to seem extreme over the course of two chapters. I then offer my own solution to the mind‐body problem. My position seeks a dialectical reconciliation between the possibility of directly experiencing reality, associated with anti‐physicalist mysticism, and physical reductionism. I therefore take time to establish both the historical novelty of physicalism, and aspects of continuity which it may share with its predecessors.