This thesis has three parts. In the first part, the author defends the coherence of Cartesian scepticism about the external world. In particular, the author contends that such scepticism survives attacks from Descartes himself, as well as from W.V.O. Quine, Robert Nozick, Alvin Goldman, and David Armstrong. It follows that Cartesian scepticism remains intact. In the second part of this thesis, the author contends that the semantic or content externalisms of Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge do not refute Cartesian scepticism about the external world. In particular, he argues that Putnam and Burge do not make good their respective externalist cases against scepticism, and that they beg the question against that position. The author concludes that semantic or content externalism is important against such scepticism. In the third part of this thesis, the author addresses the mind, and suggests that Descartes, by offering his cogito argument, also offers a theory of thought content, which he then supports with his substance dualism. He suggests that Descartes does not succeed with any of his arguments here, although his theory of thought content is still plausible. To remedy this, the author discusses the versions of narrow meaning or content offered by Jerry Fodor and Colin McGinn, and defends a version of such meaning or content that presupposes that semantic or content externalism is false. The author lastly follows Donald Davidson, and argues for a version anomalous monism, which he contends is a theory that shows how semantic or content internalism might be true.

In this thesis I analyse the notion of temporal passage (the passage of time), our (alleged) experience of it, and whether we can come to know anything about temporal passage through experience. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part concerns the metaphysics of temporal passage. I argue that temporal passage is a logically coherent notion, as long as it is understood as a change in what exists (exists simpliciter) within a presentist framework. A core element of part one is my reconstruction of McTaggart’s (1908; 1927) infamous argument against temporal passage as a special case of the problem of change. I argue that McTaggart’s argument requires a view of time according to which all times exist (A-eternalism), and temporal passage as a qualitative change of terms in the time-series with regards to pastness, presentness and futurity (A-properties). I provide a limited defence of the paradox within McTaggart’s framework, where I interpret it as a regress of mutually dependent, merely relational changes. The regress I say is vicious, due to the dependencies between its different stages: every change in terms of A-properties involves the instantiation of mutually exclusive A-properties and must thus be qualified to different times, which must undergo the same kind of change. To maintain the dynamic of time while avoiding contradiction, none of these relational changes can occur without the next, where on each level of the regress the solution to the initial problem recreates the very same kind of problem. I then argue that temporal passage, understood as change in what exists simpliciter, or absolute becoming, avoids the paradox. This view is best accommodated by presentism, the view that only the present exists. The conclusion of part one is that temporal passage should be understood as absolute becoming of times within a presentist framework. In the second part of the thesis I argue against a frequently found (but rarely explicitly analysed) argument, which states that we can infer that time passes from experience because the fact that time passes is the best explanation for having experiences of temporal passage. I argue that the argument fails because we either cannot experience temporal passage at all, or not in a way that allows us to infer that time passes from experience. I begin by discussing different types of experiences that are commonly mistaken for experiences of temporal passage: experiences of qualitative change and successive experiences of events as occurring now. I then argue that the only experience that could be best explained by the fact that time passes would be a perceptual experience of events undergoing absolute becoming. Whether we can perceptually represent the absolute becoming of events, or ‘A-change’, is then assessed in the light of three major accounts of temporal perception: the memory theory, the retentional theory and the extensional theory. None of those theories, I argue, can account for the required experience, at least not in the right way. The memory theory does not allow for experiences of A-change because it denies that we can have perceptual experiences of change in general. The retentional theory does not allow for experiences of A-change as A-change. The extensional theory proves to be incompatible with presentism and therefore with absolute becoming. I explore two non-standard forms of presentism that take the metaphysical present to be temporally extended (in different ways) and that are, for this reason, prima facie compatible with the extensional theory. One of these views turns out to be incoherent. Combined with the extensional theory, the other one does not allow us to perceptually represent absolute becoming either. Given all major theories of temporal perception, we cannot infer that time passes from experience. In the last section I defend my argument against two objections, one involving ‘high level properties’, and one involving ‘present-as-absent’ representation in experience. I conclude that we cannot infer from experience whether time passes or not.

As the primary interface between the runner and the road, athletic footwear has a potentially important role to play in the reduction/management of chronic injuries and enhancement of performance. Over the past thirty years the running shoe has changed considerably. However, despite significant advances in footwear technology, the incidence of injury in distance runners has not altered meaningfully. It has been postulated that poor footwear selection is the mechanism behind this, whereby running shoes are incorrectly selected/inappropriate for the populations and situations in which they are worn. The investigations and results obtained from this thesis aim to attenuate this, and provide runners and footwear manuafacturers with new knowledge regarding the application of footwear to different populations and conditions in order to improve both injury occurence and performance. In addition to a significant amount of developmental analyses, four principal examinations were conducted as part of this thesis. Study 1 aimed to determine the kinetic and 3-D kinematic differences between treadmill and overground running, in order to determine whether the treadmill replicates overground running and whether different footwear is necessary during treadmill running. It was observed specifically that treadmill running was associated with significant increases in eversion and tibial internal rotation whilst overground runners exhibited greater peak tibial accelerations. It was concluded that treadmill runners are likely to require footwear with additional medial stability properties, aimed at reducing rearfoot eversion whilst overground runners should consider footwear with more advanced midsole cushioning properties designed to reduce the magnitude of impact transients. Study 2 examined the gender differences in the kinetics and 3-D kinematics of running in order to determine whether females require running shoes specifically tailored to their running mechanics. Females were associated with significant increases in eversion and tibial internal rotation; reaffirming the notion that they are more susceptible to overuse injuries than males. It is reccommended that females select running footwear with design characteristics aimed towards the reduction of rearfoot eversion in order to reduce the incidence of injury. Study 3 investigated the kinetics and 3-D kinematics of running: barefoot, in conventional running shoes and in barefoot inspired footwear in order to determine the efficacy of barefoot running in comparison to shod and also the ability of barefoot inspired footwear to closely mimic the 3-D kinematics of barefoot running. Barefoot running was associated with significant increases in impact parameters. It was also observed that barefoot inspired footwear does not closely mimic the 3-D kinematics of barefoot running. This leads to the final conclusion that barefoot running may not serve to reduce the incidence of injury. Study 4 aimed to examine the influence of footwear with different shock attenuating properties on the energy requirments of distance running and to investigate the biomechanical parameters which have the stongest association with running economy using regression analyses. Whilst footwear with different shock attenuating properties did not influence running economy, it was observed that a significant proportion of the variance in running economy could be explained by kinematic and EMG parameters. The thesis has provided information not previously available regarding the injury prevention and performance aspects of running footwear. It is clear that footwear cannot be universally prescribed and that the population and circumstances in which different shoes are used are key when selecting and designing appropriate running footwear.

This thesis pursues two closely related lines of argument. In the first half, I explore the Bataillean notion of man through his complex relationship with Hegel and Nietzsche. The Janus-like conception that will be dis-covered results from Bataille’s unwillingness to grant priority either to Hegel’s insights concerning the structure of consciousness or to Nietzsche’s claim, contra Hegel, that those putative insights ‘involve a vast and thorough corruption, falsification, superficialization, and generalization’ (The Gay Science) Bataille acknowledges the heuristic value of both thinkers’ work but ultimately refuses to let either become the dominant force within his thought. In the end Bataille’s human being remains caught between the ‘ex-cess’ of Nietzschean Will and the ‘restriction’ of Hegelian consciousness. He sees human existence, much like Freud, as moving with a ‘vacillating rhythm’ (Beyond the Pleasure Principle) between ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ activity. This recognition leads him to conclude that there exists a fundamental ambiguity to human existence – the Impossible – which resists reduction or assimilation to any kind of formal discourse. The second half proceeds to explore this ambiguity in more detail by first teasing out the relationship be-tween the traumatic experiences at the heart of two of Bataille’s novels against the Freudian notion of Trauma (repetition automatism) and its relation to the creation of Identity. This ultimately proves insuffi-cient when it comes to interpreting the actions of Bataille’s fictional characters. However it opens a space within which other methodologies of interpretation, namely those of Lacan, Girard, and Derrida, can be in-vestigated as potential sources of insight into those characters’ psychological structures and motivation. Here they are explored in relation to each other and in order to describe and explain more adequately the ‘impossible’ ambiguity at the heart of Bataille’s novels and conception of the human.

Few people would dispute that today’s world is highly technological. But what do we mean when we talk of ‘technology’, and is it possible to quantify its effect on human beings? This thesis considers the relationship between technology and humanity as being one of symbiosis - we shape our tools and in turn, our tools shape us. The nature of this relationship is described by ‘essentialist’ critics of technology as narrowing the focus of human endeavour towards a technological value-set dominated by efficiency, to the detriment of other values important to the human animal. Sport provides an excellent framework for examining the impact of technology defined in this way, as it is a ubiquitous and highly technological arena. If it can be plausibly argued that an increasingly technological and performance-centred approach to sport is detrimental to an holistic understanding of sport’s potential to benefit both the individual and society as a whole, it may be the case that sport provides accessible and irrefutable evidence for the truth of the essentialists’ claims regarding the impact on society of technology writ large. This thesis presents such an argument. Furthermore, if we grant the essentialist critics their contention and admit the impossibility of returning to an ‘untechnological’ world, we have to find some way of restoring and maintaining an holistic existence in the face of the restricted value-set imposed by our technology and our interactions with it. To this end, the latter part of this thesis promotes ‘metaphysical’ sporting values (freedom, self-affirmation and beautiful, harmonious action) as a way to counter-balance the impact of technology in sport and suggest ways to solve the ‘technological problem’ more generally.

“Foreknowledge, Fate and Freedom” is concerned with diagnosing and debunking a pervasive and prevalent folk intuition: that a foreknown future would be problematically, and freedom-hinderingly, fixed. In it, I discuss foreknowledge in and of itself, but also as a lens through which we can examine other intuitions and concepts: the apparent asymmetry of future and past; worries about fate and free will; notions of coincidence and likelihood; assumptions about God, time travel and ourselves. This thesis provides the first philosophical map of a region of conceptual space visited often by the folk and popular culture, and as a result ties together a host of disparate threads in the literature. I make three central claims: 1. The folk intuition is wrong in rejecting foreknowledge wholesale on the basis that it entails a problematically fixed future, and thereby undermines our freedom. 2. Foreknowledge gives rise to new problems, and sheds new light on old ones, but none of these are insurmountable. 3. The same paradoxes thought to plague backwards time travel can arise in foreknowledge cases, and can be defused in the same way. I conclude that foreknowledge is puzzling, but possible: it neither inevitably entails fatalism nor precludes free will. While its consequences may be strange, they are not sufficient to vindicate the folk intuition.

In this thesis I investigate causal inquiry in the social sciences, drawing on examples from various disciplines and in particular from conflict studies. In a backlash against the pervasiveness of statistical methods, in the last decade certain social scientists have focused on finding the causal mechanisms behind observed correlations. To provide evidence for such mechanisms, researchers increasingly rely on ‘process tracing’, a method which attempts to give evidence for causal relations by specifying the chain of events connecting a putative cause and effect of interest. I will ask whether the causal claims process tracers make are defensible, and where they are not defensible I will ask how we can improve the method. Throughout these investigations, I show that the conclusions of process tracing (and indeed ofthe social sciences more generally) are constrained both by the causal structure ofthe social world and by social scientists’ aims and values. My central argument is this: all instances of social phenomena have causally relevant differences, which implies that any research design that requires some comparison between cases (like process tracing) is limited by how we systematize these phenomena. Moreover, such research cannot rely on stable regularities. Nevertheless, to forego causal conclusions altogether is not the right response to these limitations; by carefully outlining our epistemic assumptions we can make progress in causal inquiry. While I use philosophical theories of causation to comment on the feasibility of a social scientific method, I also do the reverse: by investigating a popular contemporary method in the social sciences, I show to what extent our philosophical theories of causation are workable in practice. Thus, this thesis is both a methodological and a philosophical work. Every chapter discusses both a fundamental philosophical position on the social sciences and a relevant case study from the social sciences.

This thesis is a systematic presentation of William Desmond's philosophical system and an argument for its viability and superiority relative to dominant alternate visions, here represented by that of John D. Caputo. Desmond, I argue, provides a viable and preferable alternative to - and an alternative narrating of - the kind of late twentieth century "postmodern" anti-metaphysical frame represented by Caputo. Desmond's vision is viable in that it answers Caputo's critiques - showing that they need not be the case. Here Desmond shows how metaphysics (and ethics and religion informed by metaphysics) escapes Caputo's narration/location. Desmond defeats Caputo's defeaters in order to make Desmond's vision a possible position. On a deeper level, Desmond's vision is arguably preferable inasmuch it can be used to critique Caputo's vision - largely in that it (Desmond's vision) as it can be seen to fulfill Caputo's motivating concerns in a more satisfying manner than Caputo's own vision. It does this in two ways. First, from Desmond's vision one can see how such a "LeviNietzschean" vision tends to betray its own motivating concerns. Second, Desmond's position shows how a metaphysical vision/stance/picture (like Desmond's) is, in fact, necessary for one to fulfill these concerns (... or simply necessary, as such). In this manner, Desmond out-narrates the "postmodern" "LeviNietzschean" position, showing Desmond's as a preferable position - as possessing a broader and greater explanatory reach.

The purpose of the thesis is to consider travel relations with regard to their onto-phenomenological and semantic of possibility and to raise the question of a possible ethics of travel. In turning the notion of travel back upon its signifying conditions, a connection is established with the notion of metaphor. The metaphysical polarity between proper and metaphorical meaning is furthered onto a problematic of the couple Oikos (house, home in Greek and generally everything that constitutes a sense of the-at-home) and travel with the purpose of complicating their mutual determination and to deconstructively challenge the derivational and recuperative logic that permeates their intra-metaphysical designation. The reconsideration of the conceptual presuppositions of “travel” is carried out through the critique of what is called its hermeneutic premise, formulated here largely drawing on Paul Ricoeur. It is maintained that “travel” in its Western European conceputalisation participates in the traditions of the metaphysics if presence and logocentrism and it is on this level that deconstructive thinking takes effect. Questions related to the theme of travel, such as space, time, boundary, itinerary, event, encounter, as well as to travel writing, such as generic delimination, representation, constative reference and performative engagement, testimonial value, and the antinomy of fact and fiction, are addressed and relocated through the preoccupation with their phenomenological and tropological motifs and in particular with their generalised metaphorical and allegorical conditions, as these are designated by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, respectively. The association of the notion of travel with metaphor, and, by extension, that between Oikos and properness, will show that senses of home and away, rather than being pregiven, emerge from a scriptural condition - a structural of difference and deferral- that interrupts their reductive, totalising, monistic formulations as well as dialectical conceptualisations.

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