Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-171).

Thesis (M.A.) -- Memorial University of Newfoundland. / Typescript. Bibliography : leaves 94-96. Also available online.

Thesis (doctoral)--Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-85).

Revised version of the author's Ph. D. thesis, Free University, Amsterdam. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-245) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 31-32).

The thesis argues that, were there any moral obligations, they would be categorical; but there are no categorical requirements on action; therefore, there are no moral obligations. The underlying claim is that, because of this, morality itself rests on a mistaken view of normativity. The view of categoricity I provide rests on there being 'external reasons' for action. Having explained the connections between oughts (in particular the ought of moral obligation) and reasons for action in the first part of the thesis, I then develop and defend a version of reasons internalism that I call 'recognitional internalism'. The basic idea, which is not itself incompatible with categoricity, is that to have a reason one must be able to recognise that one has that reason. However, I work this basic claim into a substantive truth-condition for reason-statements and argue that the reasons one is able to recognise are controlled by one's subjective motives. I use this to argue that there are no categorical moral obligations. Nonetheless, I also argue that the substantive challenge internalism poses morality is importantly different, indeed more pressing, than usually thought. This is to justify the objective supremacy of the reasons for action constitutive of moral obligation.

This thesis defends an interpretation of the argument that Immanuel Kant calls his Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. It is divided into four chapters. The subject of the first chapter is the aim of Kant's Deduction of the Categories. It is argued that what Kant has set out to find is an answer to the question how it is that the Categories are able to serve as representations of objects. This chapter also includes a detailed account of what Kant thinks is required for a concept to serve as a representation of an object. The subject of the second chapter is the strategy of Kant's Deduction of the Categories. It is argued that what Kant thinks he needs to do in order to deduce the Categories is to show that an object must conform to the Categories if we are to make a judgment about this object. The third chapter is concerned with the central claim of Kant's Deduction of the Categories, viz. the Principle of the Original Synthetic Unity of Apperception. It is argued that this principle consists in the claim that if we are to make a judgment about an object then we must be able to achieve a special sort of consciousness - specifically, the consciousness of what Kant calls the necessary unity of synthesis. The fourth and final chapter of the thesis is concerned with Kant's justification for the Principle of the Original Synthetic Unity of Apperception. It is argued that Kant's commitment to this principle is based on his recognition of a key fact about an act of judgment, viz. the fact that in making a judgment about an object, part of what we think is that our representations ought to be connected in a particular way.

We define morphism (E, M)-structures in an abstract category, develop their basic properties and present some examples. We also consider the existence of such factorization structures, and find conditions under which they can be extended to factorization structures for certain classes of sources. There is a Galois correspondence between the collection of all subclasses of X-morphisms and the collection of all subclasses of X-objects. A-epimorphisms diagonalize over A-regular morphisms. Given an (E, M)-factorization structure on a finitely complete category, E-separated objects are those for which diagonal morphisms lie in M. Other characterizations of E-separated objects are given. We give a bijective correspondence between the class of all (E, M)factorization structures with M contained in the class of all X-embeddings and the class of all strong limit operators. We study M-preserving morphisms, M-perfect morphisms and M-compact objects in a morphism (E, M)-hereditary construct, and prove some of their properties which are analogous to the topological ones. / Mathematical Sciences / M. Sc. (Mathematics)

The Grothendieck group is an interesting invariant of an exact category. It induces a decategorication from the category of essentially small exact categories (whose morphisms are exact functors) to the category of abelian groups. Similarly, the triangulated Grothendieck group induces a decategorication from the category of essentially small triangulated categories (whose morphisms are triangulated functors) to the category of abelian groups. In the case of an essentially small abelian category, its Grothendieck group and the triangulated Grothendieck group of its bounded derived category are isomorphic as groups via a natural map. Because of this, homological algebra and derived functors become useful in surprising ways. This thesis is an expository work that provides an overview of the theory of Grothendieck groups with respect to these decategorications.