This thesis expands our understanding of the role of several different mating behaviours in the process of forming and maintaining human mating pair-bonds. Chapter 2 investigated within-sex mating strategies and found that their distribution reflects the presence of two phenotypes, one favouring the pursuit of short-term mating and one the establishment of mating pair-bonds, each driven by prenatal testosterone exposure. Chapter 3 investigated the possible functional role of kissing in mating relationships, and found that it was utilised divergently by individuals pursuing different mating strategies, with those interested in short-term mating utilising it to assess the suitability of potential mates at initial relationship stages, and those interested in long-term mating using it to mediate pair-bond attachments. Chapter 4 examined female attitudes towards kissing across the menstrual cycle and found that attitudes varied with cycle phase, mediated by fluctuations in the hormone progesterone. This chapter also investigated the effects of kissing-related information on mate assessment and found that such information influenced mate desirability, even in the presence of typically dominant visual cues. Lastly, Chapter 5 investigated the cognitive effects of established pair-bonds, finding that individuals ‘in love’ with a mating partner show improved empathising abilities, particularly males when it comes to assessing negative emotional states in others. Using an evolutionary framework, each chapter of this thesis contributes novel insights to our understanding of these diverse behaviours. These results suggest that that future research must take into account within-sex phenotypic differences in order to truly understand human mating strategy decisions, and that different mating strategy phenotypes might adaptively utilise the same courtship behaviours in divergent ways. Furthermore, these results also suggest that pair-bonding in humans may be a relatively recent phenomenon, and that the formation of such pair-bonds can have adaptive cognitive effects for males within such bonded relationships.

This is a study of love (erōs) in Plato’s Symposium. It’s a study undertaken over three chapters, each of which serves as a stepping stone for the following and addresses one of three primary aims. First: to provide an interpretation of Plato’s favored theory of erōs in the Symposium, or as it’s referred to here, a theory of Platonic love. This theory is understood to be ultimately concerned with a practice of living which, if developed correctly, may come to constitute the life most worth living for a human being. On this interpretation, Platonic love is the desire for Beauty, ultimately for the sake of eudaimonic immortality, manifested through productive activity. Second: to offer a reading of the Symposium which attends to the work’s literary elements, especially characterization and narrative structure, as partially constitutive of Plato’s philosophical thought on erōs. Here it’s suggested that Platonic love is concerned with seeking and producing truly virtuous action and true poetry. This reading positions us to see that a correctly progressing and well-practiced Platonic love is illustrated in the character of the philosopher Socrates, who is known and followed for his bizarre displays of virtue and whom Alcibiades crowns over either Aristophanes or Agathon as the wisest and most beautiful poet at the Symposium. Third: to account for how to love a person Platonically. Contra Gregory Vlastos’ influential critical interpretation, it’s here argued that the Platonic lover is able to really love a person: to really love a person Platonically is to seek jointly for Beauty; it is to work together as co-practitioners in the art of love. The art of Platonic love is set up in this way to be explored as a practice potentially constitutive of the life most worth living for a human being.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

Plato’s Symposium masterfully depicts several different explanations of the phenomenon of Eros or love. The physician Eryximachus depicts Eros as a cosmic force that can bring harmony to a number of areas, from medicine and music to astronomy and divination. Most readers of the Symposium have read Eryximachus in an unflattering way, as a pompous know-it-all who fails to give a speech that meets either his high aspirations or his high opinion of himself. In this paper I argue that this reading of Eryximachus and his speech is unpersuasive. My defense of Eryximachus has three components: (1) Plato treats Eryximachus sympathetically in the Symposium and elsewhere, and has him deliver a modest and perfectly coherent speech about the science of Eros. (2) Eryximachus’s speech can only be properly understood if we read it in the context of Hippocratic medical theory, which infuses the speech throughout. (3) Outside the Symposium, Plato views medicine as a model technē, and health as a central philosophical concept; inside the Symposium, Plato has his mouthpiece Socrates give a speech on behalf of the priestess Diotima that agrees with Eryximachus on nearly every point of his speech. This indicates that Plato would have viewed Eryximachus’s speech quite favorably, and that modern readers should follow suit. I conclude by suggesting how this reading of Eryximachus should influence how we read the Symposium as a whole. / text

<p>During this life-history I met a person who was enthusiastic in her personality. You can see Marianne’s special and unique personality very well because of the method I have chosen. The purpose of writing about this subject is that children spend most of their time awake in school; thus it is important for me, as an educationalist, to discover the ones that are mistreated. This study is about how I can discover children who are not taken care of. The answer I found wasn’t what I expected when I started this study. The answers I got were hidden in her personal story by being an educationalist human being. Her life has been surrounded with love and consideration just like her work. Being genuinely interested in human beings but above all children has created this altruistic pedagogue Marianne. By putting my literature beside Marianne’s story, it was obvious to me that the only way to discover children that get hurt in life is to be an afflated pedagogue.</p> / <p>Mariannes entusiastiska person som jag fick glädjen att möta och ta del av, löper som en gyllene tråd genom det här arbetet som jag vill delge er. Att Mariannes speciella och unika personlighet kommer fram på det sätt som det gör, beror mycket på valet av metod. Metoden bygger på att man får ta del av en person på ett djupare plan- en livsberättelse. Syftet att skriva om detta ämne är för det är viktigt hur jag som pedagog kan upptäcka de barn som far illa, eftersom barnen tillbringar den största delen av sin vakna tid i skolan. Arbetet handlar om hur jag som pedagog kan se/upptäcka barn som inte mår bra. Jag fick ett svar men det kom inte fram på det sättet jag räknade med. Svaret jag istället möttes av var inlindade i Mariannes engagerade berättelse om sitt liv som pedagog och människa. Jag möttes av en människa vars uppväxt var präglad av kärlek och omtanke som hon senare tagit med sig i sin pedagogik under 40 år. Att vara genuint intresserad av människor, men framför allt av barn har skapat den altruistiska pedagogen. Genom att ställa min litteratur bredvid Mariannes berättelse stod det klart för mig att sättet att upptäcka barn som far illa är att vara en besjälad pedagog.</p>

Two trials were conducted to demonstrate diet selected by grazing cattle. Selection criteria were investigated on the basis of cattle selection for plant species, green leaf in preference to dry leaf or dry stem and the chemical contents of esophageal samples versus those in the standing crop. The influence of residual old vegetation on selection ability was studied by mowing all or part of the pasture. Cattle consumed Lehmann lovegrass in preference to shrubby species (Table 1). The esophageal samples contained higher levels of protein, phosphorus and IVDMD than that in the standing crop in both Trial 1 and Trial 2. Neutral detergent fiber was higher in the standing crop than in the esophageal samples, whereas in Trial 2, there appeared to be no difference in NDF. Removal of old vegetation by mowing had no effect on selection for plant parts. Cattle selected green leaf, in preference to dry leaf or dry stem regardless of the presence of old material. Free ranging cattle selected a diet that was higher in nutrient density and more digestible than the available forage.

To many people love is special, sacred even. Love plays a countless number of roles for a countless number of people. Contemporary ideas about love, however, are more in alignment with the philosophies of Aristotle, and not of Plato. Aristotle held that love could exist as many people see it today – wishing well for others purely for their own sake. But Plato disagreed. Plato claimed that love was a way by which one could better themselves and become wiser. In this thesis, I explain Plato’s theory of love put forth in the Symposium. I also explore the textual evidence for the selfish nature of Plato’s love.