CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Cearà / A recusa hegeliana a todo Absoluto intuÃdo ou posto irrefletidamente exigiu a elaboraÃÃo de um sistema filosÃfico inteligÃvel e discursivo do princÃpio ao fim. A ideia daà decorrente à que a possibilidade de inteligibilidade deste Absoluto à correlata à possibilidade de sua exposiÃÃo. Ou seja, a necessidade a ele inerente, que precisa produzir seus prÃprios conteÃdos, exteriorizando-se e ao mesmo tempo reconhecendo sua identidade consigo mesmo, provando a necessidade do comeÃo na efetivaÃÃo de um sistema da ciÃncia que tem por base um projeto de uma ciÃncia da lÃgica fundadora da prÃpria ciÃncia em si mesma. Assim, o desenvolver de um princÃpio primeiro-Ãltimo especulativo, na filosofia hegeliana, marca o papel inequÃvoco de mediador, no sentido de liberar o sistema de mÃtodos e propostas exteriores e contingentes que ainda o condicionam. O resultado disso à que, na CiÃncia da LÃgica, a pressuposiÃÃo de um comeÃo imediato e vazio do sistema cientÃfico-filosÃfico das categorias do Absoluto, e o discurso metodolÃgico pelo qual ele se expÃe, precisam ser descritos e explicados, devido justamente ao carÃter incondicional do pensamento puro, no qual se estrutura tais bases para o dito sistema. Eis a tarefa, aparentemente irrecusÃvel à filosofia, de buscar a uniÃo entre ser e pensar em um sistema que seja capaz de se auto-fundar e justificar, doando bases sÃlidas nÃo somente a si, mas a toda e qualquer ciÃncia, o que o faz ser considerado como uma verdadeira doutrina da ciÃncia, capaz de estabelecer os pressupostos bÃsicos a todo e qualquer saber que se queira dizer vÃlido. Sendo em Hegel tal feito realizÃvel tÃo somente em bases de um mÃtodo dialÃtico, fruto da prÃpria natureza de comeÃo que traz imanente a si o elemento da contradiÃÃo, da negaÃÃo determinada, capaz de promover o autodesenvolvimento de um saber dito absoluto. / The Hegelian refusal to entire Absolute suggests or post unrefletly demanded the establishment of a system of discursive and philosophical intelligible from the principle to the end. The idea is that the resulting possibility of intelligibility is the Absolute connection to the possibility of their exposure. That is, the inherent need it that needs to produce its own contents, extruding up while acknowledging its identity with itself, proving the need to start the effectiveness of a system of science that is based on a project of a science the logic founder of the science itself. Thus, the developing of a principle firstâlast speculation, the Hegelian philosophy, make clear the role of mediator, to liberate the system of methods and proposals outside and quotas that have condition. The result is that in the Science of Logic, the assumption of an early and immediate vacuum system of scientific-philosophical categories of the Absolute, and methodological speech in which it explains, must be described and explained, precisely due to the nature of the unconditional pure thought, which structure such bases to the said system. That is the task, apparently irrefutably the philosophy, to seek the union between being and thinking of a system that is capable of self-grounded and justified, donating solid basis not only to itself but to any science, which does be regarded as a genuine doctrine of science, able to establish the basic assumptions to any knowing that you want to say valid. As in Hegel made this feasible only on bases of a dialectical method, the fruit of the very nature of starting that brings you the inherent element of contradiction, denial determined, capable to promote self-development of a knowledge absolute said.

The last half of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, in the West, has been referred to as postmodern. Postmodernity represents a stage in a society after having passed through a nihilism, itself produced by the universal commodification inherent in late stage capitalism. Here we explore the progress of devaluation through Adorno’s negative dialects to ascertain the potential for truth and authenticity in the object. Informing Adorno’s negative dialectics, were Kant, Hegel, and Marx. Through their dialectics, Adorno postulated the effect of commodities, as objects, within the first part of the 20th century, and how the lack of potential for truth and freedom in these objects anticipated the nihilism of both the late capitalism period, into the postmodern period. This nihilism itself, was anticipated by Nietzsche. Further, this entire focus on and influence of commodities on the individual, from the early twentieth century to the present is referred to as the commodity structure and itself can be equated to Heidegger’s falling prey. Once the subject has had the valuation or meaning of their lives stripped via this universal commodification of the commodity structure, this paper will argue through the works of Heidegger and Nietzsche and the role of the aesthetic, only then can the subject in the postmodern period reclaim qua participation in one’s own becoming towards both truth and authenticity, as well as freedom.

This thesis has four primary aims. Firstly, I develop an account of Adorno’s critique of Kant and Hegel’s philosophy. I argue that the role and structure of judgement is key to his critical analysis. Adorno's discussion of their metaphysics, epistemology revolves around an immanent critique of judgement. This critique reveals, in the dialectical sense, the irreducibility of the 'negative moment' within judgement. This critical exposition grounds the second aim of the thesis. Analysis of Kant and Hegel's philosophies enables us to discern a number of key concepts in Adorno's own thought, concepts which will help us to understand his notion of negativity. In particular, his dialectical critique produces a constellation of critical - or negative - dialectical concepts: conceptless [begriffslose], non-identity [Nichtidentität], mediation [Vermittlung]. The generation of these concepts and their elucidation provides the basis for the third aim: to give a textually viable and philosophically fruitful explanation of key commitments in Adorno’s negative dialectics. I argue that negative dialectics does not amount to a system, a standpoint, or even a set of principles. Rather, it is a critical activity. The commitments, which revolve around the constellation of concepts outlined above, indicate a critical sensitivity to the limits of epistemology and metaphysics and the problem that these limits pose for judgement. Finally, I develop the resources to answer Michael Rosen’s claim that Adorno’s rejection of Hegelian determinate negation leaves his dialectics without any dynamic force. Drawing upon aesthetics, we can better understand the dynamics of negative dialectics. Aesthetic engagement with artworks not only demonstrates an appropriate orientation of philosophy to material, it is also an appropriate medium through which we can gain a clearer understanding of the philosophical commitments elucidated above.

A thinker of impurity, Rancière is most often read as proposing an alternative to the ontology of the political. Against the many attempts to restore a pure sense of politics and of its public space, Rancière maintains the place of politics in a common appearance that is identical to reality. Though typically seen as having broken with the Marxist tradition, I argue here that it is possible to find in his fragmentary style something like a negative dialectic. While politics is what his works address, it is also how it is addressed. Politics, and its assertion of an apparently impossible equality, must be lived out by critique and not merely described. In doing just this, Rancière offers a renewed take on the western-Marxist tradition’s politics of aesthetics. Indeed, I maintain that Rancière, far from breaking with Marxism full stop, instead effects a reversal, a reversal of education into politics.

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<p> This dissertation explores the recent history and politics of the formation of the center or middle as the sovereign horizon of contemporary political practice and history. The political center has typically been imagined as the space between the two poles of Left and Right. Rather than beginning with an assumption of the political center's absolute relativity-a history absorbed by infinitely contingent contexts-this thesis understands centrism as itself a political position: a plural, yet relatively stable complex of meanings in urgent need of problematization. Guided methodologically by the work of Michel Foucault and Frederic Jameson, the thesis grounds this analysis in a reading of The Economist magazine between the years 1950-2007. A self-identified advocate of the "extreme center", the magazine functions as a primary archive through which to document shifts in the constitution of an historically-specific centrism, a political position with significant global traces and consequences.</p> <p> In the Introduction the basic theoretical coordinates of the center as a metaphor, concept and political fantasy are unpacked against the backdrop of a broader diagnostics of the present. Chapter 1 addresses itself to the Keynesian centrism prevalent in the years immediately following the war in Britain, one characterized primarily by ideas about balance, consensus, and moderation. Chapter 2 follows the content of this discourse across the break-down of post-war growth and its subsequent identification with "radical" Thatcherism. In Chapter 3, the contradictions accumulated in this shift from a thematics of caution to one emphasizing a radical break with consensus, are examined through the figure of the heretical manager, the pragmatist who presides over the inherently revolutionary fabric of capitalist space and innovation. Finally, the conclusion thinks through the ways in which the radical center functions within a broader cultural sensation of middleness very much a basic part of life in postmodern societies.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

For theory and literature to evolve parallel to the subject matter which it associates, it recurrently progresses through admittance of variably incremental, yet critical, entries. This is the nature of modernism. This thesis reflects on one important point in the life of modernism, the advent at which society is first formalized and assimilated into theory: the origin of social theory, a point indisputably influential to twentieth century philosophy, but just eclipsed by one of that century's most noticeable theoretical features. The past century saw the rise and fall of a universalizing framework called structuralism. Informing the disciplines, especially the social sciences, on unearthing matters of the unconscious, structuralism occupied a place of knowledge-generation in a world entering its atomic youth. The heirs of this framework are the poststructuralists, and my paper applies poststructuralism to pre-structural social theories. The purpose of this activity is to articulate the value dormant in these dated theories by recontextualizing their abstracted elements for a world ready to use them. The developed world has acquired a postmaterial status in regard to the necessities of survival, as Inglehart explains, while the developing world burdens to address materialist concerns in close contingency to cultural and traditional concerns. This opens up the discussion to a greater postmodern debate, one involving politics, economic status, cultural difference, and more. The international stage has consolidated a considerable level of liberty, but the semantics are often neglected in light of the success of convention. The purpose of this thesis is then to make an interdisciplinary, holistic attempt to reconstruct, exposing the relevance and potential of the deconstructed.

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This thesis commences with the notion that interorganizational exchange relationships are dynamic to an unprecedented degree. It is argued that, global production networks have integrated firms into interdependent structures that blur traditional geographical and organizational boundaries. It is also true that the same networks bring together companies with diverse socio-cultural and economic backgrounds. Thus, the thesis focuses on the complexity of the contemporary international business landscape. The purpose of the work performed was to understand the process of change in interorganizational relationships under these complexities. Through a qualitative study of two main cases and a pilot study, the thesis investigates the networking behavior and the relationship dynamics between multinational companies from Sweden and Turkey, operating in Turkish and Swedish markets, respectively. By examining how firms create, maintain, dissolve and reconstruct their relationships, the thesis contributes to problematizing some of the assumptions that are commonly taken for granted, but which underpin several studies of interorganizational relationship dynamics. The findings illustrate that as recent trends such as cross-border acquisitions frequently perturb the contexts within which firms are embedded, the impact might be favorable for some actors, while others might push for new and different ‘directions’, finding the existing relational arrangements and resource structures counter to their future goals. Yet, the actions of parties are constrained by the structural position in which they find themselves. Thus, the development of an exchange relationship involves multiple processes, often inconsistent with one another, thereby disturbing the stability of the relationship. Through the aggregation of each paper’s contribution, the “Thesis Summary” offers a wide perspective of the relationship dynamics. By incorporating both teleological and dialectical views, the framework proposed captures both the actions undertaken by individual firms to make change, and the structural forces both promoting and opposing change. Ultimately, the thesis offers a framework for investigating the impact of complexity on change in interorganizational relationships, opening doors to an improved understanding of the significance divergent perspectives and disruptive experiences have on relationship change.

Philosophical tenets have been at the heart of the counseling process since its inception. This study explores the factors present within a graduate-level counseling class that directly teaches these philosophical foundations through an exploration of dialectics and its impact on the medium of conversation. Interviews were conducted with both the professor that created the class as well as its current instructor along with focus groups of both current program students and program alumni. The fundamental aim was to understand the processes at work within the class and their influence on its students. The results suggest that by bringing the students into awareness of their own interpretative process by reading and discussing dense philosophical works that require them to bring something of themselves to the literature, the class fosters within its students an understanding and appreciation for the pervasiveness of the interpretative process within all people, especially those that will one day be their clients. This knowledge also seems to provide the students with a paradigm compatible across all perspectives and theories that will contribute to their counselor education.