The thesis traces the evolving attitudes towards rhetoric in the highly-rhetorised English-language prose of the late sixteenth century by focusing on a term that was itself subject to significant change: 'wit'. To wit's pre-existing denotations of intellectual acumen, capacity for reason and good judgement was added a novel meaning, related to the capacity for producing lively speech. As a term encompassing widely divergent meanings, many Elizabethan and early Stuart works explored 'wit' as a central theme or treated the term as significant to explorations of the human mind, its capacity for rhetoric, and the social and moral dimensions of this relationship. The research centres on how 'wit' is seen and how it corresponds to rhetorical wittiness as produced in practice, and questions the implications of this for understanding the social and moral dimensions of the authorial wit. By focusing on the early vernacular manuals of rhetoric by author such as Thomas Wilson and Roger Ascham, on Lyly's and Greene's euphuist prose, and on Thomas Lodge's and Sir Philip Sidney's prose defences of poetry, the first half of the thesis explores the term's conceptual ambiguity. Potentially both reformative and deceptive, this ambiguity becomes a useful tool for the author looking to construct a profitable persona as a Wit, or a brilliant-yet-unruly master of rhetoric. The second half of the research notes how 'wit' tends to outlive its usefulness as a multivalent term in later writings when these seek to move away from the social commodification of an author's rhetoric. Examining Sidney's theological and political aims in The New Arcadia, Thomas Nashe's carnivalesque questioning of the idea of profit, and Francis Bacon's systematic interpretation of Nature, the research suggests that rhetoric and 'wit' maintain both their significance and their ambiguity into the seventeenth century. A meta-rhetorical signpost, 'wit' comes to reflect through its use and disuse both the issues at hand and the inherent self-reflexivity of any attempt to deal directly with rhetoric.

This thesis explores the disciplinary relationship between natural philosophy (the study of nature or body) and theology (the study of the divine) in seventeenth-century England. Early modern disciplines had two essential functions. First, they set the rules and boundaries of argument – knowledge was therefore legitimised and made intelligible within disciplinary contexts. And second, disciplines structured pedagogy, parcelling knowledge so it could be studied and taught. This dual role meant disciplines were epistemic and social structures. They were composed of various elements, and consequently, they related to one another in a variety of complex ways. As such, the contestability of early modern knowledge was reflected in contestability of disciplines – their content and boundaries. Francis Bacon, Thomas White, Henry More and John Locke are the focus of the four chapters respectively, with Joseph Glanvill, Thomas Hobbes, other Cambridge divines, and a variety of medieval scholastic authors providing context, comparison and reinforcement. These case studies offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century thought and belief; they embody different professional and institutional interests, and represent an array of philosophical, theological and religious positions. Nevertheless, each of them, in different ways, and to different effect, put the relationship between natural philosophy and theology at the heart of their intellectual endeavours. Together, they demonstrate that, in seventeenth-century England, natural philosophy and theology were in flux, and that their disciplinary relationship was complex, entailing degrees of overlap and alienation. Primarily, natural philosophy and theology investigated the nature and constitution of the world, and, together, determined the relationship between its constituent parts – natural and divine. However, they also reflected the scope of man’s cognitive faculties, establishing which bits of the world were knowable, and outlining the grounds for, and appropriate degrees of, certainty and belief. Thus, both disciplines, and their relationship with one another, contributed to broad discussions about, truth, certainty and opinion. This, in turn, established normative guidelines. To some extent, the rightness or wrongness of belief and behaviour was determined by particular definitions of, and relationship between, natural philosophy and theology. Consequently, man’s place in the world – his relationship with nature, God and his fellow man – was triangulated through these disciplines.

Aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, les historiens des sciences associaient généralement Francis Bacon et Galilée pour leur rôle dans l’émergence de la science moderne, mais, à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle, la Révolution scientifique fut identifiée de manière stricte à la construction de la physique mathématique, ce qui eut souvent pour conséquence de rejeter Bacon hors de l’histoire des sciences. Nous reprenons l’étude conjointe de ces deux auteurs pour mesurer quelle est exactement la nature de leur divergence. Dans la première partie de notre travail, nous abordons les questions cosmologiques. Sur quels arguments Galilée fonde-t-il sa défense publique du copernicianisme entre 1610 et 1616, jusqu’à la première condamnation de l’opinion copernicienne par l’Eglise Catholique ? Pour quelles raisons Bacon, qui suit cette campagne copernicienne, rejette-t-il la plupart des découvertes astronomiques de Galilée ? Pourquoi Bacon, tout en réussissant à percevoir le caractère (trop peu) systématique du géocentrisme, refuse-t-il l’héliocentrisme ? Dans la deuxième partie de notre travail, nous abordons les questions relatives à la méthode, ainsi que les théories de la matière et du mouvement. Quel est le rôle de la perception sensible et la fonction des mathématiques dans les théories de Bacon ? Quelle est la signification de sa théorie du mouvement, qui multiplie les objets d’étude en proposant une typologie des différents mouvements concrets, alors que la physique mathématique tend à réduire tout déplacement au seul mouvement linéaire inertiel ? Quelle est la fonction de l’atomisme mathématique de Galilée ? Dans quelle mesure sa science du mouvement se distingue-t-elle de l’approche baconienne ? La différence fondamentale entre la science galiléenne et la démarche de Bacon consiste, selon nous, dans la nature des expériences et des observations qui sont convoquées, ainsi que dans le type d’abstraction que ces deux auteurs veulent conférer à la philosophie naturelle. / During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, historians of science usually considered that Francis Bacon and Galileo had respectively played their role in the merging of modern science, but, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, Scientific Revolution has been strictly reduced to the elaboration of mathematical physics, which had for consequence to exclude Bacon from the history of science. Our aim is to underline the exact nature of the difference between those two authors. In the first part, we deal with the cosmological problems. What arguments did Galileo produce to sustain his public commitment for the Copernican system, from 1610 to 1616, until the first condemnation of copernicanism by the Roman Church ? For what reasons did Bacon reject most of Galileo’s astronomical discoveries ? Why Bacon, who clearly perceived the fact that the geocentric theory lacked systematic character, refused heliocentrism ? In the second part, we deal with the methodological questions, we analyse matter theories and the science of motion. What is the role of sense perception and what is the fonction of mathematics in Bacon’s theories ? What is the significance of his theory of motion, which multiplies the objects of study, proposing a typology of concrete movements, while mathematical physics aims at reducing any motion to the rectilinear inertial movement ? What is the fonction of the mathematical atomism proposed by Galileo ? In what measure does his science of motion distinguish from the baconian approach ? We think that the fondamental difference between the science of Galileo and the theories of Bacon consists in the nature of the experiments and observations used, and in the type of abstraction they are looking for in natural philosophy.

[pt] Esta tese se move sob o peso de uma palavra. Também se pode dizer que é movida por certa força extensora e que deseja esticar ou pulverizar uma palavra. Essa palavra se move sob o peso de algumas consistências – da carne – e indicia um conjunto de perturbações: a carnificação do texto, o erotismo dos signos, a textualidade refratária à coagulação da textualidade. Carnigrafia, eis o que a tese tenta dizer. Para dizê-la, conta com um punhado de línguas: a língua de Francis Bacon, a língua de Ana Hatherly, a língua de Henri Michaux, a língua de Mira Schendel. Mais as línguas de Novalis, Roland Barthes, Tatsumi Hijikata, Herberto Helder, Hilda Hilst, Antonin Artaud, Ghérasim Luca, Anne Carson, Emil Cioran, Georges Bataille... Se, na esteira de Bataille, o espaço de uma tese deve hospedar as tarefas (e não os sentidos) dos conceitos, ao entregar esta tese a uma palavra, eu o faço mirando suas tarefas e buscando multiplicá-las. Dessa proliferação surgem outras: propagam-se, por exemplo, as ponderações sobre a textura, a gestualidade da escrita, e uma vontade de horizontalização passa a se impor. Numa tese que se quer ela própria carnigráfica, convém aumentar sempre a superfície de contato; por isso, a fragmentação pareceu inevitável e levou a dois modos que se alternam e entremeiam: “Os aparentados da carne”, ensaio dividido em três partes – a carne do corpo, a carne do signo, a carne da língua – e os quatro volumes de um dicionário carnigráfico, composto por um ecossistema de verbetes. Esses dois modos reciprocam, e é possível, até certo ponto, destrinchá-los: se o ensaio procura pensar a carne, ou farejá-la, aliando-se aos artistas e autores excitantes da pesquisa, os verbetes tentam espasmá-la, movendo-se sob o peso dessas poéticas, tanto quanto de alguns temas e motivos, como a dança, o barroco, o jogo, a embriaguez, o desejo, o anagrama. Pretendi espalhar verbetes e motivos e autores e temas e imagens e conceitos para que tudo pontilhe a tese e aumente a sua extensão; perseguir, enfim, a carnigrafia, lançá-la de vários jeitos, tocá-la com várias línguas. / [fr] Cette thèse se meut sous le poids d un mot. On peut aussi dire quil est mû par une certaine force d extension et quil veut étirer ou pulvériser un mot. Ce mot se meut sous le poids de certaines consistances – de la chair – et indique un ensemble de perturbations : la carnification du texte, l érotisme des signes, la textualité réfractaire à la coagulation de la textualité. La carnigraphie, c est ce que tente de dire la thèse. Pour le dire, il a une poignée de langues : la langue de Francis Bacon, la langue d Ana Hatherly, la langue d Henri Michaux, la langue de Mira Schendel. Plus les langues de Novalis, Roland Barthes, Tatsumi Hijikata, Lydia Davis, Herberto Helder, Ghérasim Luca, Anne Carson, Emil Cioran, Georges Bataille... Si, après Bataille, l espace d une thèse devait accueillir les besognes (et non les sens) des concepts, quand je livre cette thèse à un mot, je le fais en visant ses besognes et en cherchant à les multiplier. Cette prolifération en génère d autres : par exemple, des considérations de texture, des gestes d écriture, un désir d horizontalisation commencent à simposer. Dans une thèse qui se veut carnigraphique, il convient toujours d augmenter la surface de contact. Pour cette raison, la fragmentation semblait inévitable et conduisait à deux modes qui salternent et sentremêlent : Les parents de la chair , essai divisé en trois parties – la chair du corps, la chair du signe, la chair de la langue – et les quatre volumes d’un dictionnaire carnigraphique, composé d un écosystème d entrées. Ces deux modes se répondent, et il est possible, dans une certaine mesure, de les démêler : si l essai cherche à penser la chair, ou à la renifler, alliée aux artistes et auteurs qui font vibrer la recherche, les entrées tentent de la réverbérer et se meuvent sous le poids de ces poétiques, ainsi que quelques thèmes et motifs, comme la danse, le baroque, le jeu, l ivresse, le désir, l anagramme. J avais l intention de diffuser des entrées et des motifs et des auteurs et des thèmes et des images et des concepts afin que tout parsème la thèse et augmente son extension ; poursuivre, enfin, la carnigraphie, la lancer de diverses manières, la toucher avec plusieurs langues.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The history of Western civilisation is generally demarcated into three broad epochs: ancient, Christian and modern. These eras are usually defined in political terms, but they may also be differentiated in terms of fundamental differences in the nature of the organisations that constitute civil society in each age, how they defined the public good, and even what they consider philanthropic. In the nineteenth century, for instance, 'Scientific philanthropy' displaced 'Christian charity' as the dominant model for charitable giving; a development accompanied by a number of other secularising trends in Western civil society, generally understood as a broad cultural shift in conceptions of public good, from religious to scientific. From the fourth to the sixth century CE, by comparison, another broad cultural shift, from paganism to Christianity, also led to fundamental changes in the nature and composition of ancient civil society. A central premise of this dissertation is that fundamental historical transformations in Western civilisation – from pagan to Christian, to modern, to post-modern – may be traced to the influence of some of the most important philosophers in the Western philosophical tradition, among them: Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Francis Bacon and Friedrich Nietzsche. Each of these philosophers may be seen to have promulgated their teachings in a consciously Promethean manner; as gifts of fire, understood as philosophical teachings intended to be promulgated for the wider benefit of humankind. In Greek myth, Prometheus, whose name is traditionally thought to have literally meant 'forethought', is the one who steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans. Prometheus is also the first figure in history to be described as "philanthropic" (Prometheus Bound, 11 & 28). Plato, Bacon and Nietzsche all employ significant variants of the Promethean mũthos in their philosophical works, and may be seen to personally identify with the figure of Prometheus, as an allegorical figure depicting the situation of the wise, particularly in relation to political power. This dissertation thus closely analyses the Promethean mũthos in order to cast light on the philosophical philanthrôpía and Promethean ambitions of Protagoras, Socrates and Plato, and to provide the basis for consideration of the same in Bacon and Nietzsche.

Within the field of theological aesthetics, this project assesses the divide between theological accounts of art and the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art. More specifically, American Protestant theologians and their accounts of visual art will be taken up as a representative set of contemporary theological inquiry in the arts. Under this category, evaluation will be made of three diverse traditions in American Protestant thought: Paul Tillich and Liberal Protestantism, Francis Schaeffer and the Neo-Calvinists, and the open evangelical accounts of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Dyrness. With respect to modern and contemporary visual art, this evaluation judges the degree to which theologians have understood the primary concepts and dominant narratives of various modernisms and postmodernisms of art since the end of the nineteenth century, recognised the watershed moments in the lineage of the twentieth century avant-garde, and acknowledged the influence of critical theory not only upon the contemporary discourse in aesthetics and art production but also in the social reception of art. In tracing the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this project takes up three diverse traditions: the Crucifixions of Francis Bacon and the memento mori art of Damien Hirst, the ‘re-enchantment’ of art in the work of Joseph Beuys, and the art of ‘False Blasphemy’ associated with lapsed Catholics like Rober Gober and Andres Serrano. By assessing what theologians have written concerning visual art and the surprising return of certain religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this study will intimate a new way forward in a mutually beneficial dialogue for art and religious belief.

Contemporary scholarship has seen increasing interest in the study of elegy. The present work attempts to elevate and expand discussions of death and survival beyond the ambit of elegy to a more genre-inclusive and ethically sensitive survey of Romantic posthumous life writings. Combining an ethic of remembrance founded on mutual fulfilment and reciprocal care with the Romantic tendency to hybridise different genres of mourning and commemoration, the study re- conceives 'posthumous life' as the 'inexhaustible' product of endless collaboration between the dead, the dying and the living. This thesis looks to the philosophical meditations of Francis Bacon, John Locke and Emmanuel Levinas for an ethical framework of human protection, fulfilment and preservation. In an effort to locate the origin of posthumous life writing, the first chapter examines the philosophical context in which different genres and media of commemoration emerged in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, it will commence with a survey of Enlightenment attitudes toward posthumous sympathy and the threat of death. The second part of the chapter turns to the tangled histories of epitaph, biography, portraiture, sepulchre and elegy in the writings of Samuel Johnson, Henry Kett, Vicesimus Knox, William Godwin and William Wordsworth. The Romantic culture of mourning and commemoration inherits the intellectual and generic legacies of the Enlightenment. Hence, Chapter Two will try to uncover the complex generic and formal crossovers between epitaph, extempore, effusion, elegy and biography in Wordsworth's 'Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg' (1835-7) and his 'Epitaph' (1835-7) for Charles Lamb. However, the chapter also recognises the ethical repercussions of Wordsworth's inadequate, even mortifying, treatment of a fellow woman writer in his otherwise successful expression of ethical remembrance. To address the problem of gender in Romantic memorialisation, Chapter Three will take a close look at Letitia Elizabeth Landon' s reply to Wordsworth's incompetent defence of Felicia Hemans. Mediating the ambitions and anxieties of her subject, as well as her public image and private pain, 'Felicia Hemans' (1838) is an audacious composite of autograph, epitaph, elegy, corrective biography and visual portraiture. The two closing chapters respond to Thomas Carlyle's outspoken confidence in 'Portraits and Letters' as indispensable aids to biographies. Chapter Four identifies a tentative connection between the aesthetic of visual portraiture and the ethic of life writing. To demonstrate the convergence of both artistic and humane principles, this cross-media analysis will first evaluate Sir Joshua Reynolds's memoirs of his deceased friends. Then, it will compare Wordsworth's and Hemans's verse reflections on the commemorative power and limitation of iconography. The last chapter assesses the role of private correspondence in the continuation of familiar relation and reciprocal support. Landon's dramatic enactment of a 'feminine Robinson Crusoe' in her letters from Africa urges the unbroken offering of service and remembrance to a fallen friend through posthumous correspondence. The concluding section will consider the ethical implications for the belated memorials and services furnished by friends and colleagues in the wake of her death.

「當代的教育有被多數人當成一項藝術來實踐嗎？我們的教育有美嗎？教育如何成人之美？我們又如何觀看教育之美？」本研究採用藝術家、教師與教育研究者三位一體的研究取徑a/r/tography（art-based forms of educational inquiry）並混合多元研究方法、跨領域理論交互辯證以及表達性藝術實踐行動，旨在試圖超越目前科學家、藝術家、心理分析學家與教育家各自觀看世界的方式。本研究戮力創新教育美學研究取徑，以跨領域對話回應研究提問。 本研究借喻近代攝影史上最重要的變革演化：新紀實（The New Documentary），將其預設並倡議為一種後現代背景下之教育美學的多元視野（長鏡頭），以做為「教育的生命（神經性）、生成（藝術性）、生態（靈性）」的觀看之道。研究者並創作一系列新紀實攝影作品，期以多元真相涵化單一紀實的缺陷，改以不完美的長鏡頭與檔案的中性特質，一方面認清教育紀實的虛妄無明，另一方面則從教育的限制裡生出另隻眼。 教育美學所揭示的實踐智慧，大多來自「人如何描述眼前的世界」，故本研究深入梳理近二十年的神經科學對於視覺腦（visual brain）與靈性冥想（meditation）活動的研究成果，探究藝術家的實踐歷程以及進行藝術評論文本分析，並依多年田野經驗重新設計了一系列合作式彩繪曼陀羅（Cooperative Mandala Coloring）表達性藝術活動，以求能更充份反映榮格學派（Jungian Psychology）之共時性（synchronicity）理論與推演新時代靈性生態觀點，最終援引本質直觀的現象學（phenomenology）進行詮釋。 本研究成果特別關注青少年處於神經美學、藝術實踐與靈性成長之間精神流變（spirit flux）歷程，建議首先提供真誠友善的安全空間（safe space）、引入神馳（flow）的靈性體驗、以藝術活動滿足個體化的表達性需求（expressed needs）、在人我關係中創造利他的美感經驗。新紀實視野下的後現代教育美學倡議「自我陶養」、「德美一致」與「三性一體」，教育必需讓人有力量、有光芒、有夢想，始能真正啟動教育最美的樣子。 / This study borrows ‘the New Documentary’, the most important evolution in the photography history, as a metaphor to presuppose and advocate ‘the Lens’ as a diverse vision of education aesthetics under its post-modern context. It is utilized as a way to perceive the life (Neurological), the formation (Artistic), and ecology (Spiritual) of education. In this study, a series of the New Documentary work has been created. Two decades’ research on visual brain and meditation in neuroscience has been reviewed. The researcher also inquired into the artists’ journey of praxis and criticized numerous art reviews. Moreover, a series of Cooperative Mandala Coloring work has been redesigned based on the researcher’s years of practical teaching experience. This Cooperative Mandala Coloring, an expressive artistic activity, is adopted in present study to reflect Jungian Psychology’s theory of synchronicity, deduce the spiritual and ecological perspectives of new age, and interpret the phenomenology. The results of the present study particularly focus on adolescents’ spirit flux in neuro-aesthetics, art praxis, and spiritual development. The researcher proposes friendly safe space and spiritual experience in flow. It is also suggested that young individual’s expressed needs be fulfilled through artistic activities and altruistic aesthetic experience be created through relationships with others.