The problem considered in this thesis is whether or not there is an ethics of belief. The notion that it could be right or wrong to believe something is examined. William James, in The Will To Believe, advocated the right to believe, in certain cases, whatever most tempts one's will. William Kingdon Clifford had earlier argued in The Ethics Of Belief that it is always wrong to believe anything for which the evidence is insufficient. I have argued that belief is not an action that can be executed or refrained from at will but is the acceptance of something as being true. As such, it is not possible for us to believe what most appeals to us unless we deem it true. If 'belief’ is used in any other sense than 'deem true', the true-false distinction is vitiated. Since belief is not an action and is therefore not voluntary, the ethics of belief cannot apply to what is believed. The right or wrong of belief applies to the attitude we adopt to a certain proposition or to the manner in which we acquire our beliefs. The distinction is made between belief-cultivation and inquiry. A detailed analysis of The Will To Believe is then undertaken. The claim that religion is a hypothesis which we can verify is questioned. It seems that before one can 'test' the hypothesis, one must believe it already — thus there is really no test at all. The contrasts between science and religion are presented -- explanation being the main concern of the former and consolation that of the latter. The following six claims are called into question: 1) the decision regarding the truth or falsity of religion is forced and momentous, 2) no test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon, 3) there is a striking similarity between the potential religious believer and the scientific investigator, 4) the universe must have a purpose, 5) in religion, faith creates its own verification, 6) to believe in religion requires hope and courage while to doubt or disbelieve indicates fear and cowardice. It is concluded that even if religious belief influences or changes our actions and reactions, this is proof not of the truth of religion but of its utility, which may be helpful or harmful to the individual and to society. My thesis, in short, is that insofar as we attempt to proportion belief to our desires and not to the evidence, we risk losing the true-false distinction altogether. We thus risk loss of communication with others. And effective communication, I submit, is essential to the acquisition and transmission of knowledge — the raison d'etre of philosophy. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to study Henry James's use of art objects and art imagery in the delineation of character. I have first endeavoured to briefly outline the basic concepts of art which James embraced and applied in his tales and novels, and have traced, in his literary and art criticism, his developing views of the "real," the "romantic," and the "ideal." James's change in attitude toward the "real" and the "romantic" has been noted in his own work published between 1876 and 1894, and the principal techniques of the painter which he employs have been set forth. In an analysis of three tales: "The Madonna of the Future," "The Liar," and "The Real Thing" I have attempted to illustrate James's view of the nature and function of art and the artist and the problems involved in achieving a satisfactory balance between the real and the ideal. The conclusions reached have been applied to two of James's major novels of his later phase: The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl in an attempt to demonstrate that, using the objet d'art and art imagery (as in the stories examined), James achieves reality of characterization and the complete realization of the ideal in the real. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

A Scent of Flowers by James Saunders was produced and directed by Judith Freiman, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in the Department of Theatre of the University of British Columbia, at the Frederic Wood Studio Theatre from Wednesday, January 31 to Saturday, February 3, 1968. The following is a detailed record of that production along with the director's analysis and interpretation of the script. A Scent of Flowers was produced on a budget of $300.00 with a three and a half week rehearsal period and had a run of five performances in a theatre seating one hundred three people. The cast was composed of five students and three non-Equity performers. The set was designed by Brian Arnott; costumes, by Susan Gibson. This record is divided into three main sections. The first is an essay which begins with brief biographical information about James Saunders and a short discussion of his recurring basic themes and his style. This is followed by a detailed examination of A Scent of Flowers with particular emphasis on the structure of the play as the basis of the directorial concept. The essay concludes with re-emphasis on the play as an image. The second section is made up of the actual script including inserts and cuts, blocking, significant division into beats, and indicating light, sound, and scenery cues. For each major unit or beat there is a brief analysis which indicates the directorial approach taken in terms of purpose, action, dominant emotions, character dominance, and any difficulties involved. The third section is made up of various tables, records, and illustrations relating directly to the production. Included are the insertions for the mass in Act II and lists of light cues, music cues, properties, costumes, cost lists, and box office reports. Also included are a sample of the program and copies of the press reviews. The illustrations include colour photographs of the production, costume drawings, and finally, blueprints of the floor plan and working drawings. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

An analysis of the psychological and philosophical dimensions of two central symbols of Henry James's later work, the Maltese cross of The Spoils of Poynton (1897) and the golden bowl of The Golden Bowl (1904), reveals that by 1903 James had assimilated from the late nineteenth century Zeitgeist the essential features of Darwinism, psychic determinism, fin de siècle romanticism, Bergson's élan vital, Henry Adams' equation of spiritual with physical energy or force, and William James's pragmatism. The complex symbolism of the Maltese cross and the golden bowl mainly expresses the destructive potential of romantic idealism and ethical absolutism; hence I conclude that James unconsciously shared Ibsen's attitude toward ideals and idealism, as interpreted by Shaw in The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891). Two visions of man underlie these novels: (1) the Darwinism-inspired view of man as a being whose animal nature must be sternly repressed by that conscience T. H. Huxley termed "the watchman of society" before either psychic evolution or amelioration of man's general condition could be achieved; (2) the ancient doctrine of man as microcosm and the ethical goal of psychic harmony from which the animal nature is not excluded. The former is ultimately rejected in favor of the latter, as James dramatizes the problem of the ethically sensitive person who is involved in a struggle to fulfil his life-potential. In The Spoils of Poynton, in his presentation of Fleda Vetch, James implicitly rejects renunciation of life for the sake of honor as a valid mode of conduct. In The Golden Bowl, in his presentation of Maggie Verver, he in effect offers a solution to the problem of how the individual should react to evil. James's treatment of the problem of self-fulfilment in these two novels implies his gradual, and to a large extent unconscious, conversion to an ethical pragmatism similar to that advocated by William James. The totally destructive practice of self-sacrifice on the part of the heroine of the first novel gives way in the second novel to a partial self-sacrifice that is not only compatible with self-fulfilment but necessary for psychic development. As static ideals are found to inhibit psychic evolution, the corresponding philosophical change is an implicit reorientation from belief in the validity of immutable ideals to a final intuition that ultimate reality lies in the dynamic archetypes of psychic life. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

To see built form is to see colour. Alternatively, architecture cannot be colourless. Even glass-clad buildings reflect their surroundings while all-white structures are revealed through various shadows and shades. To what degree, then, should colour be considered an architectural element?James Stirling and Architectural Colour, a PhD thesis by Michael William Farr submitted to the University of Manchester in 2013, explores how, exactly, architect James Stirling (1924-92) used colour and what it might say about the evolution of his design ethos. Going beyond what has been written so far this investigation explores the significance of colour in the eclectic array of strikingly individual buildings Stirling designed throughout his career. But while these structures are presented as often visually arresting and idiosyncratic, their varied colour schemes also reveal significant thematic consistencies across his oeuvre. Initially discussion centres on Stirling’s rather contrary use of relatively muted colours. By simply countering expectations or clashing with established contextual characteristics, Stirling ensured his buildings visually attracted attention, courting comment and controversy. In addition it is proposed that he used colour as a means of enticing and inviting those who saw/used his buildings to explore and investigate the very fabric of his structures. As his palette became bolder, so too did his contextual references. Acquainted with the attention-grabbing benefits of incongruous colours, Stirling also recognized the increasing importance of context. By combining sympathetic forms with ever-brighter colour schemes he paradoxically designed buildings that simultaneously fitted in while standing out. It is also argued that these much brighter colours represent a regard for those using his buildings dating back to his and James Gowan’s Preston Housing Project (1957-61). His exploration of structural candour in some projects left them less than hospitable, but the overt anthropocentricity of his later designs is not presented as entirely new. If his colour schemes, in later years, changed considerably, his motivations did not. Focusing on specific design issues - contrariness, structural explication, contextualism and anthropocentricity – this thesis does not attempt classification. Set against Modernism’s demise and Post-Modernism’s ascendancy, Stirling’s relationship to both is explored; his propensity to draw upon any style he felt appropriate revealing the futility of labelling his work as either one or the other. If his earliest designs contain the eclecticism and metaphoric content normally associated with Post-Modern architecture, his later buildings employed a typically Modernist candour regarding materials and techniques. Throughout his career Stirling consistently sought to design buildings that were visually striking, contextually inspired and inviting to explore. His reliance upon both a multiplicity of styles and the considered use of colour was fundamental to these aims.

James's profound pessimism about the lives of the vast majority of the characters whom he chooses to portray in his fiction has been somewhat under emphasized by the critics. James considers a life successful only when the individual in question realizes his inner potential and thus achieves a sense of self-fulfilment. Yet the reader's cumulative impression of James's fiction is that his characters almost invariably fail to achieve this desirable state, and that they are doomed to disappointment and heartache. This unhappiness almost invariably arises from the relation between the sexes. James considers several major categories of people, but all but one group, the artists, fall short of the objective. For example, James's young female characters (whether European, English, or American), are under constant pressure to "marry well"—to seize the nearest man and the largest fortune. Yet James portrays marriage as the most inhumane of institutions; as one in which women immure themselves and sacrifice all their individuality. Similarly, James's male characters are never happy or fulfilled either in marriage or in business, for in marriage they tend to be brutal or insensitive, while in business they subjugate their moral and aesthetic senses to acquisitive ones. Such debased values are detrimental to the man himself and to all those with whom he lives. Nor are the rare sensitive men in James's fiction successful in life, for they tend to base their own happiness on the actions of other people—a precarious foundation. James believes only one sort of happiness is worthwhile and lasting, and that possession of it constitutes success in life. Only the artist can achieve this perfect happiness but he can enjoy it only on the most difficult terms: he must commit himself absolutely to his art. The artist must be a man or woman unlike others, sacrificing all earthly vanities to his one ideal vision. He cannot permit himself to be overwhelmed by the ordinary concerns of daily life. He must remove himself as much as possible from the world of getting and spending, loving and marrying. Only by making this absolute commitment can he achieve the happiness which consists of knowing that he has done the best work that is in him. This sense of consummate achievement constitutes happiness for James's artist characters. They consider it worth the price they pay. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.