Thesis (MA(Philosophy)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-118)

Thesis (M.A.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-68).

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2002. / Added t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-317).

xiii, 253 p. / This project presents a critical engagement with the concept of ideology. It advances the view that political ideologies can be regarded as distinctive narrative styles and as such can be analyzed in their peculiar discursive formations. It specifically concentrates on liberalism, which I regard as the dominant ideology in much of "the West" today. My study contributes to the scholarship at the intersection between contemporary political theory, theories of language, and comparative politics. By employing simple instruments of semiotics I show how the discourse of liberalism organizes the production and deployment of political meaning. In particular, I argue that a critical engagement with the texts of thinkers ranging from John Locke to John Stuart Mill and John Rawls can contribute to unveiling the deep structures of liberal discourse. I maintain that these structures constitute liberalism as a "grammar" which operates by organizing political content around key concepts like individual agency, rationality, and anthropocentrism. Crucially, liberalism also acts as a "meta-ideology" capable of expressing alternative positions through its versatile grammatical infrastructure. I analyze contemporary theorists like Will Kymlicka, Robert Putnam, and Philip Pettit, and argue that they engage in similar intellectual projects, incorporating elements of communitarianism and republicanism in a liberal framework. In the second part of my dissertation I inquire into the possibility of alternative meta-ideological constellations. In particular, I focus on the contribution of Jean-Luc Nancy: I argue that his characterization of "being-in-common" as the fundamental position of existence can replace the liberal tenet of individualism as the basic assumption on human nature. Finally, I ground these abstract reflections in the concrete reality of the community of Badolato, in southern Italy, where locals and immigrants alike seem to understand and organize their relationality outside of a paradigm of liberal toleration. I present the results of the ethnographic research that I conducted in Badolato and I characterize that experience of encounter with the other as an example of the practices of hospitality envisioned by the late Jacques Derrida. / Committee in charge: Deborah Baumgold, Co-Chair; Leonard Feldman, Co-Chair; Dennis Galvan, Member; Craig Parsons, Member; Massimo Lollini, Outside Member

This thesis is about the reasonable agreement principle, a principle which holds that the exercise of political power must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens in order to be morally legitimate. Though this principle has become popular in contemporary political philosophy, it has been formulated and defended in a variety of often conflicting ways. I argue first that a successful defence of the principle will have to meet three conditions. First, it must explain who reasonable citizens are. Second, it must offer a compelling a rationale for tying the legitimacy of the exercise of political power to what these citizens accept. Third, it must show that the rules or principles that would be acceptable to reasonable citizens are not implausible. In the first part of the thesis, I examine some of the most significant ways in which the principle has been formulated and defended, and argue that none meets these three conditions. In the second part of the thesis, I develop an account of the reasonable agreement principle which can meet these three conditions. I argue that reasonable citizens should be understood as agents in circumstances where their powers of moral judgment operate free of distortions, offer an account of what these circumstances consist in, and suggest that a compelling rationale for the principle can be given when they are understood in this way. I then go on to consider what citizens in such circumstances would accept, arguing that they would accept principles of political morality that express a commitment to the fact that they are fallible choosers of their final ends.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-27Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:03:54Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 lima_efs_dr_assis.pdf: 743694 bytes, checksum: 2844ca3de23f7b058327c41223567892 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese visa a mostrar como o protestantismo brasileiro, através de um grupo de intelectuais, inseriu-se culturalmente no tecido social urbano na primeira parte do século XX. A participação desses intelectuais protestantes deu-se na esteira de um modelo anterior, praticado por lideranças importantes da igreja evangélica no Brasil, como o pastor Eduardo Carlos Pereira (1855-1923), que foi também professor de ginásio e reconhecido gramático. Tais lideranças detinham uma postura religiosa conservadora que se refletiu em sua produção científica, voltada para a manutenção da sociedade brasileira nos padrões desejados pelas oligarquias rurais do país. Diferentemente da geração anterior, os intelectuais protestantes, que também eram líderes religiosos – a maior parte deles ligada à Igreja Presbiteriana Independente do Brasil, a mesma a qual pertencia Eduardo Carlos Pereira – assumiram o mesmo espírito de transformação e de modernização social que estava presente na burguesia urbana ascendente. Primeiramente, aspiraram a uma re-elaboração do protestantismo brasileiro, que julgavam muito aquém das necessidades no estabelecimento de um diálogo com a cultura brasileira. Em segundo lugar, desejavam que esse transformar da mentalidade protestante permitisse a evangelização das “classes cultas”, ou seja, das elites dirigentes brasileiras e da burguesia urbana. Fechadas as portas a eles, por lideranças conservadoras, das igrejas e de suas estruturas internas de poder, decidiram usar o expediente das revistas de cultura religiosa para falar ao universo protestante sem serem impedidos pelas lideranças das igrejas. Os principais articuladores dessas revistas foram os pastores presbiterianos Epaminondas Melo do Amaral, Miguel Rizzo Júnior, Othoniel Motta e Erasmo Braga. As revistas lançadas – Revista de Cultura Religiosa, Lucerna... / This thesis aims to show how Brazilian Protestantism, by a group of intellectuals, entered into the social fabric of urban culture in the first part of the twentieth century. The involvement of these Protestant intellectuals took place in the wake of a previous model, practiced by leaders of the mainline evangelical church, such as Pastor Eduardo Carlos Pereira (1855-1923), who was also a gym professor and a recognized Portuguese grammar teacher. These religious leaders held a conservative religious posture that was reflected in their scientific production, dedicated to the maintenance of Brazilian society in the patterns desired by the rural oligarchies of the country. Unlike the previous generation, the Protestant intellectuals, who were also religious leaders – most of them linked to the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPIB), the same denomination to which Eduardo Carlos Pereira belonged to – took upon themselves the same spirit of transformation and social modernization that was present in the upcoming urban bourgeois. First, they aspired towards a re-elaboration of Brazilian Protestantism which they judged to be far short of establishing a dialogue with Brazilian culture. Second, they desired that the transformation of the Protestant mentality would permit an evangelization of the “educated and cultured class” of society; that is, of the Brazilian ruling elite and of the urban bourgeois. Since the doors were closed to them by the conservative leadership of the churches and their internal structures of power, they decided to use as a means of communication the journals of religious culture to speak to all Protestants without being prevented to do so by the Protestant leadership of the churches. The main speakers of these journals were the following Presbyterian pastors: Epaminondas Melo do Amaral, Miguel Rizzo Junior, Othoniel... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Antonio Celso Ferreira / Banca: José Carlos Barreiro / Banca: Andrea Lucia Dorini de Oliveira Carvalho Rossi / Banca: Luiz Alexandre Solano Rossi / Banca: José Adriano Filho / Resumo: Esta tese visa a mostrar como o protestantismo brasileiro, através de um grupo de intelectuais, inseriu-se culturalmente no tecido social urbano na primeira parte do século XX. A participação desses intelectuais protestantes deu-se na esteira de um modelo anterior, praticado por lideranças importantes da igreja evangélica no Brasil, como o pastor Eduardo Carlos Pereira (1855-1923), que foi também professor de ginásio e reconhecido gramático. Tais lideranças detinham uma postura religiosa conservadora que se refletiu em sua produção científica, voltada para a manutenção da sociedade brasileira nos padrões desejados pelas oligarquias rurais do país. Diferentemente da geração anterior, os intelectuais protestantes, que também eram líderes religiosos - a maior parte deles ligada à Igreja Presbiteriana Independente do Brasil, a mesma a qual pertencia Eduardo Carlos Pereira - assumiram o mesmo espírito de transformação e de modernização social que estava presente na burguesia urbana ascendente. Primeiramente, aspiraram a uma re-elaboração do protestantismo brasileiro, que julgavam muito aquém das necessidades no estabelecimento de um diálogo com a cultura brasileira. Em segundo lugar, desejavam que esse transformar da mentalidade protestante permitisse a evangelização das "classes cultas", ou seja, das elites dirigentes brasileiras e da burguesia urbana. Fechadas as portas a eles, por lideranças conservadoras, das igrejas e de suas estruturas internas de poder, decidiram usar o expediente das revistas de cultura religiosa para falar ao universo protestante sem serem impedidos pelas lideranças das igrejas. Os principais articuladores dessas revistas foram os pastores presbiterianos Epaminondas Melo do Amaral, Miguel Rizzo Júnior, Othoniel Motta e Erasmo Braga. As revistas lançadas - Revista de Cultura Religiosa, Lucerna... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This thesis aims to show how Brazilian Protestantism, by a group of intellectuals, entered into the social fabric of urban culture in the first part of the twentieth century. The involvement of these Protestant intellectuals took place in the wake of a previous model, practiced by leaders of the mainline evangelical church, such as Pastor Eduardo Carlos Pereira (1855-1923), who was also a gym professor and a recognized Portuguese grammar teacher. These religious leaders held a conservative religious posture that was reflected in their scientific production, dedicated to the maintenance of Brazilian society in the patterns desired by the rural oligarchies of the country. Unlike the previous generation, the Protestant intellectuals, who were also religious leaders - most of them linked to the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPIB), the same denomination to which Eduardo Carlos Pereira belonged to - took upon themselves the same spirit of transformation and social modernization that was present in the upcoming urban bourgeois. First, they aspired towards a re-elaboration of Brazilian Protestantism which they judged to be far short of establishing a dialogue with Brazilian culture. Second, they desired that the transformation of the Protestant mentality would permit an evangelization of the "educated and cultured class" of society; that is, of the Brazilian ruling elite and of the urban bourgeois. Since the doors were closed to them by the conservative leadership of the churches and their internal structures of power, they decided to use as a means of communication the journals of religious culture to speak to all Protestants without being prevented to do so by the Protestant leadership of the churches. The main speakers of these journals were the following Presbyterian pastors: Epaminondas Melo do Amaral, Miguel Rizzo Junior, Othoniel... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

The question of drug policy is a controversial and much debated issue in the political sphere. It is my view that any judicial policy has to be based in an ethical idea about the individual, and that the connection and analysis between ethical perspectives on the individual and the enforcing of laws with regards to the actions of individuals has to be a well-established one. In this paper I will start from the assumption that this is not the case when it comes to drug laws, and I will therefore review two popular ethical theories about the individual, and then argue that philosophical liberalism, rather than communitarianism, is the superior ethical theory because of the inherent problems of relativism within communitarianism. I will then review some common arguments for and against the prohibition of drugs, to see how well they will fare, in terms of being compatible with philosophical liberalism. I will then return to communitarianism to look at its most valuable critique of the liberal position, to then offer a compromise position between the two theories that is fully compatible with philosophical liberalism, but that also takes into account the most valuable objection from communitarianism. It is my hope that the solution I offer will be grounded in ethical theories about the individual, and in fact, manages to be based in philosophical liberalism while also incorporating the strongest objection from the communitarianist position, thereby taking the strengths offered by both theories into account.

The liberal and republican traditions of political thought are commonly treated as divergent political-philosophical doctrines which existed in a state irreconcilable opposition in late eighteenth-century France and America. The present study challenges this notion through examining the concept of political neutrality as discussed and expounded in the political and constitutional writings of James Madison and Benjamin Constant. In seeking to account for not only why, but also how, both thinkers endeavoured to construct political systems geared toward securing the production of neutral laws, this thesis explores and highlights the complex interdependent relationship between the liberal and republican philosophical traditions in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century political theory. It is argued that in their desire to construct political-constitutional systems tailored toward guaranteeing the materialisation of neutral laws, Madison and Constant incorporated republican, or ‘Real Whig’, concepts into their respective constitutional strategies. Their shared objective, it is shown, was to form limited and neutral states through exploiting the diversity of public opinion in such a way that would render popular sovereignty self-neutralising. More specifically, this thesis suggests that both Madison and Constant placed considerable emphasis on de-legitimising particular justifications for legislative action, and that their respective efforts in this area were motivated by a desire to restrict the legislature to the promotion of objective, and impartially-conceived, accounts of the public good. Thus through examining Madison’s and Constant’s attempts to form neutral states, this thesis challenges the traditional account of the development of modern liberalism through pointing to the existence of an autonomous liberal-republican philosophy in post-revolutionary French and American political thought. It is argued that this hybrid political philosophy – which underpinned the constitutionalisms advanced by both Madison and Constant – had as its principal objective the reconciliation of the practice of popular governance with the restoration and maintenance negative individual liberty. Both thinkers, in other words, exploited republican concepts and institutions in order to realise the distinctly liberal end of forming limited and neutral states.