The publication of Reid's Essays on the Active Powers of Man in 1788 fully completed his project, begun in 1785 with his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, to present to the public the substance of his lectures and reflections during his tenure as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. The Active Powers comprises five essays on the metaphysics of causation and the foundation of morals--four essays dealing with causation, motivation, and human liberty, and a fifth containing the main lines of his theory of morals and critique of Hume's moral theory. Unlike the Intellectual Powers, and unlike his first book, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), the Active Powers has kept the attention of few philosophers and scholars. Even those who have turned its pages are unclear about the central doctrines contained therein, and are accordingly undecided as to their implications and philosophical merits. Through a critical reconstruction of the Active Powers, this thesis remedies a long-standing neglect. After an extensive developmental exploration of Reid's epistemological designs and the naturalistic stamp of his theory of knowledge, I turn to his Active Powers and argue that the unifying doctrine of the essays is man's moral liberty, a doctrine that he supports with two strategic theses--first, that the only legitimate kind of cause, an efficient cause, is always an intelligent agent and, second, that men are efficient causes which act on rational motives. The first thesis has genuine religious implications, especially for his epistemology, but he cannot hold it, I argue, without also proving the second. Initially unable to do this, as a comparison with Hume demonstrates, Reid must then outline the nature of efficient causation by reason alone, and must prove that humans are efficient causes by rendering consistent our commitment to the durable causal principle, Every event must have an efficient cause that produced it, and what is necessarily demanded by our natural system of morals. Although the balance between animal motivation and the practical ends provided by reason is uneven, only the latter enable men to have moral liberty and make it possible for us both to accept the causal principle and to have the freedom required by our system of morals. Unfortunately, I argue, Reid's need for the motivation of reasons, or "rational principles of action," entails an untoward paradox: Either no efficient cause acts on reasons or liberty is simply irrelevant to our acting morally. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Engine Running: Essays is a collection of creative nonfiction that explores, in parts, a persona's distancing from home and self against the backdrop of an increasingly fractured family doing the same. Through a variety of forms, the essays seek to balance themes like loss, self-discovery, and manhood in reflections on the role of childhood memory, the early revelations and experimentation of sexuality, and the carving-out of personal identity in West Texas.

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Capsule of the Caterpillar is a multi-genre collection consisting of hybrid poetry, personal essays, and vignettes of prose which thread together the mental health journey of the speaker as a belatedly diagnosed neurodivergent with ADHD and Bipolar Type II. The main thread highlights the relationships which influenced this journey of self-discovery, treatment, and reorganization of the self. This collection is divided into four arcs which build upon the speaker’s inner and outer world. The poems “Stage Larva,” “Stagnant as Larva,” “Stage Pupa,” and “Reshaped as Pupa” thread throughout the collection to highlight the mental epiphany at the epitome of “Dear To T, I Don’t Want to Know You Anymore”; the prose vignettes of “The Moments to Question the Masks Made by Media” highlight the aftermath of their social awareness through relationships and movies relative to mental health in horror. The first arc revolves around self-awareness in its presence and absence within the speaker, with the essay “Antichrist vs Aswang” exemplifying an aware speaker after diagnosis and the poems like “Stage Larva” exemplifying an oblivious or in- denial speaker before diagnosis; these explore the speaker’s inner world interacting with their outer world, their continuous conflicts and influences upon each other, and how their lore began. The second arc spins around the denial, conflicts, doubts, and fears of the speaker manifesting on the pages as they attempt to make sense of their diagnosis; this arc represents the months of rumination after diagnosis. The third arc digests and focuses on auto-fictional relationships in the past, present, and future with how the diagnosis has influenced them and acknowledged their doubts and delusions. The fourth arc breaks apart from the rest as it bursts to reiterate the first poem letter and the consequences of their diagnosis in their relationships.

No / What do lecturers look for when marking essays? What impresses them and what frustrates them? In this paper, we present the results of a survey which asked lecturers to address these questions. Thirty-two lecturers responded to an email survey in which they listed the problems they found most frustrating when marking essays and the factors which most impressed them. This resulted in 206 comments related to sources of frustration and 139 comments listing factors which impress them. The comments were then coded into themes and ranked in order of importance by 16 lecturers from the original sample. The results highlight a range of issues that may be useful for lecturers when discussing assignments, and instructive for students when writing their assignments.

Este estudo faz a análise discursiva do corpus composto por trinta e dois ensaios admissionais de estudantes admitidos pela Universidade Johns Hopkins nos Estados Unidos da América. Os textos foram submetidos à instituição entre 2012 e 2016 e escolhidos como exemplos a serem seguidos pelos candidatos aos programas de graduação. Considerando que os ensaios foram validados por uma instituição com admissão altamente competitiva, os escritos constituem uma fonte valiosa e fornecem uma compreensão mais profunda do ensaio de admissão, tanto como instrumento de ingresso na Universidade Johns Hopkins quanto nas instituições norteamericanas de educação superior de forma geral. O estudo utilizou uma abordagem de análise qualitativa de dados assistida por computador com a primeira camada consistindo em análise qualitativa por meio da demarcação manual e posterior codificação de segmentos veiculadores de efeitos de sentido. Em uma segunda etapa, os códigos atribuídos foram submetidos à análise computacional que informou a relevância dos segmentos demarcados em função do número total de ocorrências e do número de ensaios em que foram verificados. A camada quantitativa de análise forneceu dados que levaram à segunda camada de análise qualitativa, que, por sua vez, permitiu uma compreensão mais precisa do objeto em relação ao que constitui um ensaio de admissão excelente para a Universidade Johns Hopkins. Os resultados apontam para o ensaio de admissão como um gênero complexo e de raízes profundas, cuja construção se baseia em um discurso destinado a veicular, por meio de uma demonstração emblemática, o éthos do enunciador, bem como o alinhamento de um conjunto de valores identitários específicos com o quadro axiológico da instituição. Este estudo pioneiro contribui para a compreensão dos ensaios autobiográficos que integram o corpus quanto ao seu conteúdo e expressão. Os escritos analisados sugerem um plano discursivo em que identidade, valores identitários e éthos desempenham um papel crucial em um processo no qual o candidato, investido em seu enunciador, é reconhecido como merecedor de integrar a instituição. O estudo também demonstra a utilidade de combinar abordagens assistidas por computador e ferramentas computacionais com estudos discursivos, pois permitem a visualização e organização de dados que não seriam naturalmente acessíveis ao pesquisador. / This study conducts the discursive analysis of the corpus comprised of thirty-two personal statements by students admitted to The Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America. The texts were submitted to the institution between 2012 and 2016 and chosen as examples to be followed by candidates to the undergraduate programs. Considering that the essays have been validated by an institution where admission is highly competitive, the writings constitute a valuable source and provide a deeper understanding of the admission essay, both as an instrument of admission to The Johns Hopkins University as well as American institutions of higher education in general. The study utilized a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis approach with the first layer consisting of qualitative analysis with manual demarcation and subsequent coding of segments conveying meaning effects. In a second stage, the assigned codes were submitted to the computational analysis which informed the relevance of the demarcated segments as a function of their total number of occurrences and number of essays in which they were verified. The quantitative layer of analysis provided data that prompted the second layer of qualitative analysis, which, in its turn, allowed a more precise comprehension of the object regarding what constitutes an excellent admission essay for The Johns Hopkins University. The results point to the admission essay as a complex and deep-rooted genre whose construction is based on a discourse designed to convey, through an emblematic demonstration, the ethos of the enunciator as well as the alignment of an array of specific identity values with the axiological framework of the institution. This pioneering study contributes to the understanding of the autobiographical essays which integrate the corpus regarding their content and expression. The writings analyzed suggest a discursive plan in which identity, identity values, and ethos play a crucial role in a process in which the candidate, invested in his enunciator, is recognized as deserving of integrating the institution. The study also demonstrates the utility of combining of computer-assisted approaches and computer tools to discursive studies, since they allow the visualization and organization of data that would not be naturally accessible to the researcher.