Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1951. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 512-523).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska, 1928. / "Sources of data": p. 58-60. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska, 1928. / "Sources of data": p. 58-60. Also available as E-Book.

Th. Ph. D.--Chicago--University of Chicago, 1938. / Bibliogr. p. 74-80.

In "Rethinking Legal Pragmatism: A Philosophical Approach," I take issue with the position of Judge Richard A. Posner, a contemporary spokesperson for legal pragmatism and the law and economics movement. Posner holds that academic philosophy and philosophical pragmatism in particular has no role to play in legal pragmatism as it manifests itself in the process of adjudication and the process of legal scholarship. By redefining philosophy functionally, as opposed to merely sociologically, I illustrate a threefold function of philosophy corresponding to the roles it plays in legal pragmatism. I show the methodological function of philosophy using C.S. Peirce's logic and epistemology, the critical function of philosophy using the insights of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s legal theory, and the normative function of philosophy, using John Dewey's illustration of continuity among moral, aesthetic, practical, and intellectual inquiries. By illustrating the insights of classical American pragmatism to Judge Posner, I show the normative dimensions of the use of history in adjudication and legal scholarship, which prescribe that we narrow the gap between theory and practice in the way we use history. By undermining the strict dichotomy Posner has erected between philosophy and law and between theory and practice, I cultivate a more productive dialogue between law and philosophy, prescribing a broad vision of normativity, allowing for intelligent social growth, and the reconstruction of ends.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka lärarens uppfattningar och synsätt kring det elevdemokratiska arbetet, om den moderna informationsteknologin påverkar arbetet, samt att se huruvida det finns några tendenser kring att verksamhetens arbete påverkar lärarens arbete inom samhällskunskapsämnet. I studien genomfördes semi-strukturerade intervjuer bland fem gymnasielärare som sedan analyserades utifrån en tematisk analys. Intervjuerna ägde rum på två olika gymnasieskolor i Östersund, en friskola och en kommunal skola. Resultatet visade på att de flesta av lärarna ansåg sig missnöjda med verksamhetens arbete, och att slutsatsen utifrån detta var att detta kunde påverka lärarens eget arbete med elevdemokrati negativt. Informationsteknologin ansågs av samtliga lärare påverka det elevdemokratiska arbetet i en positiv riktning, och gällande synen på elevdemokratin ansåg lärarna att fenomenet är grundläggande för arbetet inom skolan. / <p>Godkännande datum: 2018-06-02</p>

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In this dissertation, I make a serious philosophic application of several aesthetic theories to the emerging medium of video games. I look at concepts such as the play of art, psychical distancing, and an experience, and apply each of these to a representative video game. Hence, I use a variety of aesthetic works, but apply these in a pluralistic manner. The thesis I defend is that a number of specific video games offer possibilities for aesthetic experience that can be comprehended through these traditional aesthetic theories. The purpose of my project is not a comparative one among these theories: I do not argue that any one of these is definitive in application to all video games. Instead, I hold these theories in tension by showing that each has practical merit in being applied to different games I use a variety of aesthetic approaches to argue that a specific game exemplifies the aesthetic value which is at the core of a particular theory. I apply John Dewey's notion of an experience as a single, distinctive whole consisting of parts in unity to the music-based game Rock Band. To consider the distance between the player of a video game and the game's content, I discuss Edward Bullough's theory of psychical distance and apply this concept to a violent game such as Grand Theft Auto IV. Finally, I consider Hans-Georg Gadamer's thoughts on the play of art and the connection of play to seriousness and apply these thoughts to a game which integrates a sense of playfulness with serious themes: Braid.

My thesis is an attempt to show the brilliance and novelty of John Dewey's theory of knowledge, instrumentalism. The main objective of my thesis is to explain Dewey's theory of knowledge, which he coined instrumentalism, and to describe how instrumentalism as a theory of knowledge overcomes the pitfalls of competing theories within the philosophical tradition. Dewey's theory of instrumentalism does not assume that ideas are mental entities nor that ideas are true if they somehow match or fit with the object in question; thus, Dewey's theory presents a different view opposed to what we have usually called coherence, or correspondence theories of knowledge. Dewey also argued that consciousness and thinking are functions of a complex organism in transaction with its environment and thus consciousness is an instrumentality not a thing-in-itself.

I offer an interpretive reconstruction of John Dewey’s naturalistic metaphysics. I explore the function and interrelation of a number of terms that are central to Dewey’s metaphysics, including “nature,” “continuity,” “generic traits of existence,” the “qualitative,” “experience,” and “emergence.” In place of a strictly “pluralistic” idea of nature, I suggest that a Deweyan model provides the basis for understanding nature as a continuous whole. The generic traits of existence are the most general ontological features of nature; they are operative in all that exists, but manifest in unique ways within every particular existence. Because all things share these traits, they can be understood as the ground for naturalistic continuity, for how all existences are capable of interacting within a common world. Generic traits are best understood as the underlying patterns or rhythms of nature, patterns that are “tensional” or oppositional. I propose that “tension” is at the heart of any productive process. Through characterizing generic traits in this way, I link them to an emergent theory of generation. Thus, the generic traits of existence are the common grounds for particular existences, relations among existences, and the generation of new existences and relations. Experience is a broad term, but Dewey provides the basis for differentiating among types of experience in accordance with their functionalities, as well as their contextual “size” or “scope.” We can discuss Deweyan experience as an integrated series of emergent contexts or fields that include what he terms, in order of diminishing size, culture, mind, subconscious, consciousness, and cognitive thought. This emergent scheme shows why culture is a directive field of experience, and that cognitive or reflective thought is only a small portion of our experiential process. Through reflecting upon the nature of various experiential contexts, through treating these contexts as our empirical data, we can engage in what Dewey terms “metaphysical inquiry.” If knowledge itself is understood within a broader experiential context, the ways in which knowledge integrates into experience, the “forms” of our meanings, can tell us a great deal about basic features of existence.