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This thesis is a critical examination of Fukuyama's "end of history" version of liberalism, in which he announces the triumphant emergence of liberal democracy as a universal form of governance. The thesis seeks to investigate Francis Fukuyama's notion of liberal democracy and his arguments for it, in order to assess the normative impact of market driven political and economic outcomes on the human context or life satisfaction, especially recognition. This is contrasted with Amartya Sen's notion of well-being in order to show that Fukuyama does not pay attention to some of the basic moral demands of human life. The thesis is comprised of an introduction and six chapters. The contents of these chapters can be presented briefly as follows: • The first chapter looks at how Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant use the theory of social contract to explain the genesis and justification of the state. Featuring prominently in all their versions of social contract are the values of freedom, equality, and independence of the individual, the process of consensus, the primacy of self-preservation and the necessity of the state. Together these laid the basis for a philosophically reasoned and progressive theory of politics. This chapter also looks at the theory of laissez-faire, which paved the way for a free market economy. This doctrine was developed in the thought of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Mill and Bentham. For Fukuyama these thinkers inaugurated a tradition of political thought that ultimately led to liberalism and democracy. • The second chapter discusses the teleological view of history underlying the philosophical theories of history advanced by Kant, Hegel, and Marx. Each of these thinkers assumes that history is moving towards an end point or goal. It is from these philosophers that Fukuyama appropriates the idea of universality to envisage the universality of liberal democracy. • The third chapter analyzes Fukuyama's "end of history" claim and his arguments for it. When communism finally collapsed, liberal democracy was the only remaining option, he claims. Drawing on Kant's idea of universal history, Hegel's notion of a universal and homogeneous state and Marx's materialist interpretation of history, Fukuyama envisages a global order that will be ushered in by the universal and homogeneous liberal state which is the ultimate goal of liberal democracy. It is the duty of the liberal state to ensure equal and mutual recognition and affirmation of its citizens' freedom. • The fourth chapter stages a debate between Fukuyama and Sen in which the question of life satisfaction and its achievability is addressed. Fukuyama claims that human-beings desire recognition, and can best satisfy this desire through liberal democracy. Sen for his part claims that people need well-being, and can only achieve it through democracy, which he views as a universal value. The discussion shows that although Fukuyama and Sen may share similar political values they differ ideologically and in historical vision. • The fifth chapter deals with the critical evaluation of liberal democracy. Several issues present major problems for liberal democracy. These issues are liberal individualism as the central focus of liberalism and liberal democracy; the global trend against gender bias; the political and cultural homogenization of the world; the problem of parallel histories versus a single inclusive history; desire-satisfaction versus need-satisfaction, and the cultural preconditions of liberal democracy. • The sixth chapter recapitulates the preceding chapters and spells out the conclusion reached in the course of the thesis. The findings on the notion of the "end of history" show that Fukuyama wishes the equal and mutual recognition of the freedom and dignity of all individuals as well as the affirmation of their individual rights. This concern for the individual is laudable. However, excessive individualism threatens the fabric of every society, and Fukuyama realizes that this threat is especially strong in liberal democracy. His suggested solution is to cultivate social capital in the form of trust. This thesis concludes that Fukuyama's medicine is no match for the disease; the whole thrust of the intellectual tradition leading to liberal democracy - and of much else in Western culture since Hobbes - is in the direction of excessive individualism and the withering of community. Moreover, where Fukuyama sees isothymia - the desire for equal recognition, the psychological truth is probably that people desire to be recognized as superior - mega/othymia, again making individualism intrinsically more threatening to a sense of community than Fukuyama seems to realize. Fukuyama suggests that an international consensus in favour of liberal democracy is emerging. But it appears that such a consensus is unlikely to arise nation- states fear disenfranchisement and assimilation and thus insist on their sovereignty, effectively blocking any shift from the nation-state to a homogeneous and universal liberal state. It is difficult to generate the consensus needed to receive it as a universal system, because not all people subscribe to its cultural preconditions. The satisfaction of human desire of any kind cannot be universalized since human existence is centrally characterized by diversity of context, culture, and perception. Any attempt to impose cultural or ideological homogeneity requires conquest - cultural or military imperialism. The triumphant emergence of liberal democracy cannot be the ultimate end of the whole of human history. If this were the case, it would no longer be worth trying to increase human knowledge, since knowledge always points to an open future in terms of how it will be used for further advancement. Due to its internal contradictions, such as the tension between excessive individualism and community, liberal democracy has unintended negative consequences. Liberal democracy is not yet the final ideology leading to human satisfaction at a global level for this generation and generations to come as long as human thought evolves. This will remain the case as long as Fukuyama's admission that liberal democracy only works where its cultural preconditions are met, remains true. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2003.

This thesis will examine closely two aspects of Pauline theology, namely, the timing of the resurrection and the state of the believer who dies before the parousia. Through exegesis of 2 Cor 5:1-10, the basic consistency in Paul's thinking and the arguments for and against the intermediate state will be examined. Chapter 1 analyzes what 1 Thess. 4, 1 Cor. 15, and 2 Cor. 5 have to say on the issue, comparing the passages as to content and compatibility. Chapters 2 and 3 pursue more fully questions related to the issue of postmortem existence. Chapter Two deals with Paul's use of verb $ underline{ eta o iota mu alpha sigma beta alpha iota}$ as a metaphor for death and the idea of the intermediate state as soul-sleep (psychopannychism). Chapter 3 explores the matter of Paul's concept of the "I" or "self" (or "naked" self), raised by Paul in 2 Cor. 5:3. The Pauline anthropology is compared with Hellenistic anthropological dualism in order to show the similarities and differences.

Introduction  Our pre-determined view of entrepreneurship and enterprising was that their motivation for existence where to earn money – to make profit. While we got deeper understanding in the subject we understood that entrepreneurship and enterprises has more to offer than just profit. In their local communities there seem to be an interest from them to contribute and take on a social responsibility. We wanted to understand why they do this. Problem formulation What is the motivation behind taking on a social responsibility in the local community? Purpose           The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to increase the understanding of why local entrepreneurs and enterprises take on a social responsibility in their local community. Highlight possible motivational factors that underlie the entrepreneurs and enterprises engagement in the social environment of their community. Method            The study is hermeneutic with an iterative approach. A case study was used to collect the empirical data. Five semi-structured interviews have been conducted with local entrepreneurs and enterprises in Lammhult. Conclusion      The motivation behind our respondents taking on a social responsibility in the local community could be explained by factors as them wanting to feel appreciated, respected, internal motivation – like personal agenda, context and economic factors.

The general view of pragmatism holds that universal moral norms cannot be justified within a pragmatic perspective. Pragmatism, thus, is associated with relativism. C.I. Lewis says that pragmatism without universal norms is a self-contradiction. I defend the view that there are two dimensions to pragmatism. I claim that Lewis' philosophy encompasses both. I argue that there are two different pragmatic justifications implicit in his philosophy; while one is associated with relativism, the other is not. I call them: "the pragmatic choice of the best" and "the pragmatic justification of the non-repudiable," respectively. What is justified by the first is a choice from alternatives; what is justified by the second is the Categorical Imperative--the imperative to be practically consistent. I argue that the imperative governing ethics is secured as one aspect of, or derivation from, the imperative of practical consistency. I argue that there are ethical alternatives but that this flexibility occurs within the discipline; I propose that pragmatic choice of the best be the determining methodology for selection of an alternative. While the first justification belongs to the dimension of pragmatism as understood by the conventional wisdom, the second belongs to the dimension I call "foundational pragmatism." / From the Introduction to Chapter 2, I present my position. From Chapter 3 to 7, I explain the structure which underlies and makes possible the two different justifications: this requires a careful, and at times helpful, approach to the way Lewis structures a complex and unified system of norms, knowledge, decisions and choices. In Chapters 8 and 9, I explain how Lewis justifies the Categorical Imperative as pragmatically a priori: I also provide a definition of practical consistency, which is lacking. In Chapters 10 through 12, I develop some ideas connecting the later Wittgenstein, Apel and Winch in order to argue for a convergence between Wittgenstein and Lewis. In the concluding chapter, I argue that Richard Rorty's claim that pragmatism and foundationalism are incompatible is incorrect--indeed, it is not upheld by his own version of pragmatism. By these arguments, I bring Lewis' pragmatism into the contemporary arena of the struggle to ground ethics.

My thesis centers on a critical analysis of the concept of the "educated person" in Kieran Egan's theory of educational development. Egan presupposes that the erudite human being in western societies is ideally a sophisticated ironic thinker, that is, a person who possesses the fullest range of sense making capacities known to our culture; and furthermore, a person who tactfully and innovatively applies these capacities in everyday life. / My thesis attempts a "thick" description of Egan's notion of ironic understanding in light of the writings of Martin Buber on dialogue, Hannah Arendt on human thinking, Hans Georg Gadamer on the serious playfulness of the interpretative act, Richard Rorty on private irony and liberal democracy, and finally, Michael Oakeshott on the educational conversation. It suggests that these theoretical notions of the fully human life may be practically realized in the educated ironist characterized by Egan in his various writings.

Chapter 1. In the 1970s, competition policy in the United States banking sector changed from exempting competition to liberalization and deregulation. Competition not only plays an important role in allocational efficiency but it is also essential for long-term economic growth. This chapter develops a model of banking contributions to evaluate to what extent banks affect the level of competition in the banking sector, and tests the model's predictions using a novel detailed dataset which includes all contributions made by banks from 1993 to 2010 in the United States. Controlling for banks' characteristics, the results are consistent with the model's predictions and show show that a higher level of contributions increases the Lerner index (as a measure of competition) or in the other words, decreases the level of competition. Chapter 2. This chapter provides the first empirical evidence that market structure affects the electoral power of firms as special interest groups. Firms not only affect the election outcomes by making contributions to their preferred candidates, they also enforce social norms among their members by encouraging them to vote for the candidate with the most closely-aligned interests. This chapter uses a linear probability model to analyze 574 open-seat races for the House of Representatives in the United States between 1990 and 2014. The results show that, even when controlling for the total value of contributions made to a candidate, political donations made by firms with high market power have a positive effect on the candidates' probability of winning. The findings are consistent with the idea from collective action theory that concentrated industries are more likely to behave as an organized interest group to advance their interests. Chapter 3. Ethnic heterogeneity is an important factor in the formation of human sexual network and the prevalence of STDs. Racial and ethnic ties create closed social networks with rigid in-group boundaries and hampers the intra-group dissemination of information. Slow information flow among groups facilitates the spread of STDs by encouraging individuals to ethnically diversify their sexual partners in order to lower the chance of getting caught cheating. Analyzing a cross-province sample of 39,830 sexually active adults driven from the 2013-2014 Canadian Community Health Survey, we find that individuals who live in a highly ethnically diversified neighbourhood are more susceptible to STDs compared to ones who live in a ethnically homogenous neighbourhood. Evidence from several robustness checks suggests that the relationship is causal.

Esta dissertação pretende contribuir para ordenação de informações acerca das estações ferroviárias paulistas, ressaltando a importância da ferrovia e da arquitetura produzida no contexto sócio-econômico-cultural do fértil período experimentado por São Paulo e pelo Brasil, durante a segunda metade do século 19 até os anos de 1940, quando o declínio dos negócios ferroviários, processo iniciado décadas antes, torna-se de fato evidente. A sistematização de alguns dados auxilia a compreensão do tema no campo da história da arquitetura e do urbanismo, e também do patrimônio cultural, permitindo ensaios de leitura das estações ferroviárias paulistas quanto a aspectos urbanísticos, especificidade e ineditismo de programa, vínculos com a arquitetura erudita, potencial simbólico dos edifícios e o conteúdo revelado pelo patrimônio construído e ainda existente no território do estado. / This dissertation intends to contribute to organize information about Paulistas railway stations, emphasizing the significance of the railway and the architecture produced in the social-economic-cultural context of the progressive period experienced by São Paulo and Brazil, from the second half of the 19th century until the 1940\'s, when the decline of railway system, a process that started decades before, becomes clear. The systematization of some basic facts helps to understand the subject in the architecture and the urbanism\'s scope and also of the cultural heritage, and to allow essays on the Paulistas railway stations related to the urbanistic aspects, and program\'s novelty, ties with the investigations of the formal architecture, symbolic potencial of the buildings and the contents revealed by the built heritage yet existent in the state of São Paulo.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-07-01T11:10:33Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO versão final Depósito Biblioteca BDTD Maria Angélica da Silva PPGEduC UFPE CAA.pdf: 4605419 bytes, checksum: 161a97c14b9f703257b00d4fa5a9356e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-01T11:10:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO versão final Depósito Biblioteca BDTD Maria Angélica da Silva PPGEduC UFPE CAA.pdf: 4605419 bytes, checksum: 161a97c14b9f703257b00d4fa5a9356e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-17 / CAPEs / A identidade investigativa desta pesquisa ancora-se nas contribuições do componente curricular da didática para o desenvolvimento da profissionalidade docente de estudantes-professores (as) do curso de Pedagogia em três IES do agreste pernambucano. Para tanto, teve como objetivos específicos identificar, nos PPC‘s e nas ementas os discursos que tratam dos conhecimentos constituintes da profissionalidade docente; identificar, nos discursos dos (as) estudantes-professores (as), quais discussões promovidas pelo componente auxiliam na construção da profissionalidade e identificar os sentidos que emergem dos discursos dos estudantes-professores em relação à contribuição do componente curricular da Didática para a construção da sua profissionalidade. Nessa direção, ancoramo-nos nas discussões de Pimenta e Anastasiou (2002), Pimenta (2002, 2011, 2012, 2013) e Libâneo (2002, 2012, 2013) que versam sobre as contribuições da Didática no desenvolvimento profissional dos professores, dialogando com Farias (2011), Lins (2011) e Azzi (2012) na direção dos saberes-fazeres construídos a partir do espaço de práxis promovido pelas discussões da Didática. Articuladas a estas discussões teóricas, estabelecemos diálogos com as produções discursivas da ANPED, do ENDIPE e do EPENN, às quais se delinearam, também, como nosso dispositivo teórico-analítico. Nesse sentido, a dinâmica desta pesquisa corresponde a um movimento discursivo, sob a luz teórico-metodológica da Análise do Discurso (ORLANDI, 2010), pois, a partir dela pudemos compreender os discursos inscritos nas formações político-ideológicas das quais emergem, promovendo uma compreensão do dito, do não-dito e do silenciado na construção dos sentidos. Sendo assim, nosso percurso metodológico perpassou a aplicação do questionário sócio profissional, que nos possibilitou o recorte dos nossos sujeitos, seguido por entrevistas semiestruturadas que nos permitiram o acesso aos discursos dos (as) seis estudantes-professores (as) das três IES campo de pesquisa, articuladas aos discursos curriculares expressos nos PPC‘s de Pedagogia e nas ementas da Didática dos respectivos cursos-Ies. A partir dos discursos destes grupos – ementas, PPC‘s e estudantes-professores (as) - e da rede discursiva que permeia esta pesquisa, identificamos saberes-fazeres que mobilizam profissionalidades nas dimensões da pesquisa, da reflexão, da política, da organização, da contextualização e das questões técnico-didático-pedagógicas que envolvem a prática docente nos processos de ensino-aprendizagem. Nessa direção, as contribuições da Didática se referem à possibilidade da mesma se constituir enquanto espaço de socialização dos saberes-fazeres existentes, buscando também problematizar a realidade como mecanismo de formação de uma intelectualidade profissional docente, autônoma e critica, na construção de novas profissionalidades. / The investigative identity of this research is based upon the contributions of the curricular component of didactic to the development of teaching professionalism of student-teacher in the Pedagogy course of three Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in the Agreste region of Pernambuco. So, it had as especific objectives to identify, in the Pedagogical Project of the Course (PPC) and the course structures the discourses that deal with the knowledge that constitutes the teaching professionalism; to identify, in the discourses of student-teacher, which discussions promoted by the component help in the construction of professionalism and to identify the meanings that rise from the discourses of the students-teachers related to the contribution of the curricular component of Didactic to the construction of their professionalism. In this direction, we are based upon the discussions of Pimenta and Anastasiou (2002), Pimenta (2002, 2011, 2012, 2013) and Libâneo (2002, 2012, 2013) that deal on the contributions of Didactic in professional development of teachers, dialoguing with Farias (2011), Lins (2011) and Azzi (2012) on the direction of the knowing-doing built from the space of the praxis promoted by the discussions of Didactic. Articulated to these theoretical discussions, we stablish dialogues with the discoursive productions of the ANPED, the ENDIPE and the EPENN, to which outlined, also, as our theoretical-analytical device. In this sense, the dynamic of this research corresponds to a discoursive movement, under the theoretical-metodological light of the Discourse Analysis (ORLANDI, 2010), for, starting from it we could comprehend the discourses inscribed in the political-ideological formations from which they emerge, promoting a comprehension of the said, the non-said and the silenced in the construction of meanings. Therefore, our methodological route crossed the aplication of the social professinal questionnaire, which allowed the highlighting of our subjects, followed by semistructured interviews that allowed us access to the discourses of six students-teachers from the three IHE of the research field, articulated with the curricular discourses expressed in the PPC of Pedagogy and the Didactic structures from the respective courses-IHE. From the discourses of these groups – structures, PPC's and students-teachers – and the discoursive network that permeates this research, we identified the knowing-doing that mobilize the professionalism in the dimensions of the research, the reflexion, the politic, the organization, the contextualization and the technical-didactical-pedagogical questions that involve the teaching practice in the processes of teaching-learning. In this direction, the contributions of the Didactic refer to the possibility of it constituting as a space of socialization of the existent knowing-doing, searching also to problematize the reality as a formation mechanism of a professional teaching intelectuality, autonomous and critical, in the construction of new professionalism.

Une méthode systématique permettant d'identifier et de hiérarchiser les sources sonores soit la méthode d'analyse des chemins de transfert en condition opérationnelle (OTPA) d'un véhicule récréatif a été investiguée. Elle a permis d'identifier et d'hiérarchiser les sources et les chemins de transfert dominants selon un critère de moyenne du niveau global avec pondération C des contributions sur tous les régimes d'opération. Des solutions basées sur les règles de l'art du domaine de la vibro-acoustique ont ensuite été appliquées sur ces sources et chemins de transfert dominants. Une validation expérimentale sur les composants individuels a été accomplie afin de quantifier le niveau d'amélioration. La mise en oeuvre de ces composants modifiés et installés sur le véhicule a permis de réduire de façon majeure le niveau sonore perçu pour le conducteur et le passager du véhicule en plus d'en augmenter la qualité subjective. Avec la même méthodologie, la hiérarchisation de ces sources a permis de confirmer la diminution importante du contenu fréquentiel en moyenne et haute fréquence. Cependant, le niveau global à l'opérateur n'a pas toujours diminué, conséquence d'une augmentation du niveau selon les ordres moteur 1 et 2. Cette hausse de niveau n'est toutefois pas perceptible pour l'utilisateur. Un indice amélioré, tenant compte non seulement du niveau sonore mais aussi de la "perception de qualité sonore" sur lequel la hiérarchisation des sources devrait reposer, doit être développé.