<p> This thesis recontextualizes the politics of Charles Brockden Brown's gothic novels in terms of the literary development of Gothicism (Friedrich Schiller) and Romanticism (Friedrich Schlegel) in Germany. This recontextualization highlights the ways in which Brown's work is participating in a transatlantic conversation about the relation of epistemology and politics in art, while underscoring how Brown's use of the gothic addresses the vital issues of grounding democratic politics in the early republic. The argument is that between his earliest extant gothic novel and his later gothic novels Brown uses Schiller's model of the gothic tale and its appeal to methodologies of epistemological verification to support democratic politics. However, in the later novels, he disregards method and uses the state of uncertainty to articulate radical subjectivity as the basis of democratic politics&mdash;<i>pace</i> Schlegel's defense of democracy.</p>

Cette recherche s’inscrit dans le cadre philosophique de l’analyse et de la réflexion concernant le fonctionnement de la conscience et ses effets sur nos comportements et notre mode de penser, de connaître le monde extérieur par le moyen de la représentation et par l’acte de conscience visant l’objet, qui aurait pour rôle de faire apparaître l’objet à la conscience. L’objectif est de donner un corps effectif à l’acte de percevoir et au fait que nous avons conscience de cet acte perceptif et de l’objet perçu, en analysant les activités « internes » de la perception et de la conscience, voire de la connaissance, de la mémoire, de la croyance, de l’attention et des activités logique, réflexive…etc. et en observant parallèlement le fonctionnement « objectivé » de la « conscience », dans une perspective neuropsycho-physiologique. L’hypothèse centrale cible deux notions, la représentation et l’intentionnalité qui figureraient le trait formel et le fonctionnement essentiel de la conscience et qui au final dégageraient la problématique portant sur le mode de compréhension du monde existential et scientifique, problématique mise en œuvre par des théorisations de la croyance effectuées selon la méthode empirique ainsi que par la saisie perceptuelle et conceptuelle du monde. / This research refers within the philosophical framework in order to analyse and to reflect about the conscious functionality and its effects on our behaviour, on our thinking mode to know the external world by means of the representation and of the conscious act which aim the object, which can let appear the object to the conscience. The objective is to give some consistence to the perceptive act and to the fact in which we have the conscience of this perceptive act and of the perceived object, by analysis of the internal activities of the perception and the conscience, that’s to say the knowledge, the memory, the belief, the attention and logic, reflexive activities…etc. in parallel by observation of the “conscious” “objective” functionality in a neuropsycho-physiological perspective. The central hypothesis is to aim the both notions, representation and intentionnality which mark the formal profile and the functionality of the “conscience”, which finally figure out the problems of the understanding mode about the existential, scientific world made by theorisations of the belief carried out by the empirical method and by the perceptual , conceptual capture of the world.

<p>The focus of this study is the opposition of Ludwik Fleck to the logical positivism. The main interest focuses on the mutability of knowledge and the inherent problems of incommensura-bility, as well as on Fleck´s notion of reality. Fleck emphasizes a rational and continuous de-velopment of knowledge, in contrast to Thomas Kuhn´s discontinuous and irrational devel-opment, and rejects all forms of reality independent of human beings.</p><p>Fleck´s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Tatsache is a rich and multifac-eted inquiry into the nature of knowledge, emphasizing the social and historical aspects of the epistemology of science at the expense of certain logical precepts. With his concepts thought style and thought collective, Fleck is generally acknowledged as a precursor to Kuhn´s con-cepts of paradigm and scientific community. Fleck maintains a relativistic view of science and develops a comparative epistemology which challenges the logical positivists in many re-spects. He dismisses every form of reality and has therefore been regarded as an idealist, al-though there are certain aspects to his epistemology which point toward an implicit ontology based upon his idea of the passive components of knowledge.</p><p>The chief epistemological works of Fleck and his contemporary Karl Popper were published within a year of each other, 1934 and 1935, respectively, by which Popper had left the Continent to eventually become one of the leading British philosophers, while Fleck spent several years during the Second World War as a prisoner in Nazi camps. Both were firmly opposed to the logical positivism, one as a critical rationalist, the other as a sceptical relativist. Fleck was also a forerunner to the constructivist ideas and the Strong Programme.</p><p>The word ”incommensurability” has been ascribed Kuhn but the term had already been used by Fleck in 1927. The ”incommensurability thesis” dominates Kuhn´s notion of scientific revolutions and is accordingly the reason why scientific progress is considered an irrational process. The debate on the incommensurability thesis has continued to interest epistemologists and philosophers of science and many solutions have been suggested, some in line with the one proposed by Fleck.</p>

The focus of this study is the opposition of Ludwik Fleck to the logical positivism. The main interest focuses on the mutability of knowledge and the inherent problems of incommensura-bility, as well as on Fleck´s notion of reality. Fleck emphasizes a rational and continuous de-velopment of knowledge, in contrast to Thomas Kuhn´s discontinuous and irrational devel-opment, and rejects all forms of reality independent of human beings. Fleck´s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Tatsache is a rich and multifac-eted inquiry into the nature of knowledge, emphasizing the social and historical aspects of the epistemology of science at the expense of certain logical precepts. With his concepts thought style and thought collective, Fleck is generally acknowledged as a precursor to Kuhn´s con-cepts of paradigm and scientific community. Fleck maintains a relativistic view of science and develops a comparative epistemology which challenges the logical positivists in many re-spects. He dismisses every form of reality and has therefore been regarded as an idealist, al-though there are certain aspects to his epistemology which point toward an implicit ontology based upon his idea of the passive components of knowledge. The chief epistemological works of Fleck and his contemporary Karl Popper were published within a year of each other, 1934 and 1935, respectively, by which Popper had left the Continent to eventually become one of the leading British philosophers, while Fleck spent several years during the Second World War as a prisoner in Nazi camps. Both were firmly opposed to the logical positivism, one as a critical rationalist, the other as a sceptical relativist. Fleck was also a forerunner to the constructivist ideas and the Strong Programme. The word ”incommensurability” has been ascribed Kuhn but the term had already been used by Fleck in 1927. The ”incommensurability thesis” dominates Kuhn´s notion of scientific revolutions and is accordingly the reason why scientific progress is considered an irrational process. The debate on the incommensurability thesis has continued to interest epistemologists and philosophers of science and many solutions have been suggested, some in line with the one proposed by Fleck.