Many accounts of Max Weber’s thought would seek to portray him as a theorist of responsibility or “re-enchantment” – as one who can confirm for us the appropriateness of a liberal position given the conditions of life as moderns, thus preserving the possibility of a renewed project of management at every turn. Such a reading may well be comforting today, insofar as it enables a reconciliation to the constellations of technological thinking within which we already find ourselves engaged. Over and against such accounts, this thesis attempts to elaborate an image of Weber as a hunger artist, as one who brings into emphasis a fundamental sense of loss attendant to “modernity”, and who broods upon that loss as the condition of a more faithful reflection upon the character of being. Not only does Weber offer insight into modern conditions of research and the theorization of politics; he is one who thinks such questions in their mournful profundity, gesturing towards what cannot be carried forward within their terms. In the melancholy of his thought, it is suggested, we glimpse the contours of a horizon from which we have still not emerged.

Swedish compulsory school has recently been subjected to a number of political reforms. Between 2011 and 2014, for example, earlier grades, more national tests and a new curriculum plan (Lgr 11) were to be implemented. This thesis aims to examine those changes as they were experienced by teachers who teach history in Swedish upper primary schools. The theoretical framework is in-spired by existential philosophy, primarily as formulated in the works of Martin Heidegger and Hanna Arendt. In this way, the study highlights the teachers’ lived experience by making use of the concepts yearning, appearance, acting and mood. The study comprises of 36 interviews with 26 informants. The interviews were carried out and transcribed during 2014. The questions focus on both the existential being of the teachers’ lives as well as the ideological function of the history subject. This highly renders in the issue of how lived experiences of a specific school reform corresponded to the teachers’ own perception of a mean-ingful history education. Both the yearnings that were expressed by the participants and their de-scriptions of what they have experienced, have been related to the overall educational ideological functions stated by Gert Biesta (socialisation, subjectification and qualification) and Jonas Aspelin (existentialisation). Although the teachers’ narratives were greatly varied in some aspects, their interpretations of the new assignment seemed to be quite homogenous. Most of the teachers portrayed a situation characterised by performativity. Measurable knowledge and more frequent documentation seemed to be prioritised. Some of them stressed that they experienced less autonomy. In terms of history, the new curriculum was associated with more content knowledge, cognitive skills and procedural abilities. From the teachers’ perspective, pure qualification, rather than subjectification and social-isation, characterised the new curriculum. Still, the teachers’ feelings towards the curricular changes showed a great deal of divergence. Some of them embraced most of the new aspects. They claimed that clearly formulated require-ments in the history curricula provided them with security. They declared that their history teaching to some extent became more professional. In line with such beliefs, some teachers asserted that the strengthened focus on analytical skills improved their teaching. Particularly those who ex-pressed that they preferred such analytic procedural approaches described their experience in terms of confirmation and approval. Others appeared to struggle with the changes. While a few teachers even tried to resist the curricular changes, some found themselves forced to endure what appeared to be a totally new situation. They expressed disbelief, frustration and pain. Notably it was those most devoted to the existentialisational function of history teaching that usually seemed to express such alienation. As argued, they appeared to long for a lost possibility to engage their pupils, to bring history alive and to make meaning of the past.

Swedish compulsory school has recently been subjected to a number of political reforms. Between 2011 and 2014, for example, earlier grades, more national tests and a new curriculum plan (Lgr 11) were to be implemented. This thesis aims to examine those changes as they were experienced by teachers who teach history in Swedish upper primary schools. The theoretical framework is in-spired by existential philosophy, primarily as formulated in the works of Martin Heidegger and Hanna Arendt. In this way, the study highlights the teachers’ lived experience by making use of the concepts yearning, appearance, acting and mood. The study comprises of 36 interviews with 26 informants. The interviews were carried out and transcribed during 2014. The questions focus on both the existential being of the teachers’ lives as well as the ideological function of the history subject. This highly renders in the issue of how lived experiences of a specific school reform corresponded to the teachers’ own perception of a mean-ingful history education. Both the yearnings that were expressed by the participants and their de-scriptions of what they have experienced, have been related to the overall educational ideological functions stated by Gert Biesta (socialisation, subjectification and qualification) and Jonas Aspelin (existentialisation). Although the teachers’ narratives were greatly varied in some aspects, their interpretations of the new assignment seemed to be quite homogenous. Most of the teachers portrayed a situation characterised by performativity. Measurable knowledge and more frequent documentation seemed to be prioritised. Some of them stressed that they experienced less autonomy. In terms of history, the new curriculum was associated with more content knowledge, cognitive skills and procedural abilities. From the teachers’ perspective, pure qualification, rather than subjectification and social-isation, characterised the new curriculum. Still, the teachers’ feelings towards the curricular changes showed a great deal of divergence. Some of them embraced most of the new aspects. They claimed that clearly formulated require-ments in the history curricula provided them with security. They declared that their history teaching to some extent became more professional. In line with such beliefs, some teachers asserted that the strengthened focus on analytical skills improved their teaching. Particularly those who ex-pressed that they preferred such analytic procedural approaches described their experience in terms of confirmation and approval. Others appeared to struggle with the changes. While a few teachers even tried to resist the curricular changes, some found themselves forced to endure what appeared to be a totally new situation. They expressed disbelief, frustration and pain. Notably it was those most devoted to the existentialisational function of history teaching that usually seemed to express such alienation. As argued, they appeared to long for a lost possibility to engage their pupils, to bring history alive and to make meaning of the past.

This study investigates certain existential themes found in the work of Austrian director Michael Haneke. As such the focus is on the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger, specifcally Heidegger’s notion of Being as always being-towards-death. There are six flms under discussion – the three flms comprising his Vergletscherung-trilogie (Der Siebente Kontinent, Benny’s Video and 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls), and his later flms Funny Games, La Pianiste, and Caché. Michael Haneke has been lauded as “Austria’s most esteemed and most controversial active flmmaker” (Frey 2003:1), a director whose work transgresses the boundaries of mainstream flm in terms of both its form and content. In fact, the director argues, he is responsible for “rap[ing] the spectator to independence”. Haneke’s work features a solid measure of existential themes, examining the alienation and isolation of the individual, the despair brought on by the monotony of modern society, and the seeming meaninglessness of man’s existence. This study aims to show that much of Haneke’s existential thought can be drawn back to Heidegger’s concept of Being, and the various ways in which Being is constituted. Focusing particularly on the notion of Being as being-towards-death, two other constitutive elements are also included – Being as always being-in-the-world and Being as always being-with-others. Being-in-the-world is examined on two fronts, looking at Haneke’s treatment of the public space, and of the domestic setting of the home. Beingwith- others is likewise elucidated in terms of the perspective Haneke offers on society as Heidegger’s Das Man, and the more intimate relationships within the family unit. By coupling these elements with Heidegger’s notions of thrownness, anxiety and the nothing, this study thus investigates how Haneke’s rendition of being-in-the-world and being-withothers inevitably, and fundamentally, means being-towards-death. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

Doctoral dissertations: Philosophy of Education and Hermeneutics of the Chorismos Author: Zbyněk Zicha ABSTRACT: The dissertation addresses two areas of philosophical thinking, philosophy of education and an area of thinking of chorismos. The task of this dissertation is to indicate the possibility of rethinking their mutual concurrence. The work explores the philosophy of education as idiosyncratic ground of thought capable of receiving inspiration coming from thinking of chorismos. The author was inspired by interpretations of chorismos written with regard to Jan Patocka's thinking. The dissertation starts with an opening (the first chapter.) and with an introduction to problems (2nd ch.). The next chapter focuses on searching for the the meaning, essence and basic opportunities of philosophy of education (3rd ch.) that is followed by preliminary inquiry of hermeneutics of chorismos in relation to the philosophy of education (4th). There is a key section reflecting on the importance of hermeneutics of chorismos for philosophy of education (4.4) in the 4th chapter. Hermeneutics of chorismos is not perceived not only as an interpretation of chorismos, but foremostly as a philosophical inquiry of essential problems of philosophy and philosophy of education thought with regard to problem of chorismos. The...

Avec la phénoménologie, naît une nouvelle idée de la raison qui, au-delà de l’alternative du rationalisme et de l’irrationalisme et contre sa réduction kantienne à une faculté, est redéfinie à l’aune de l’expérience qu’elle permet de décrire. Mais la difficulté survient lorsqu’il s’agit d’atteindre la raison de l’expérience sensible elle-même, en son irréductibilité à toute exigence rationnelle - en son caractère particulier, complexe, lacunaire ou indéterminé. Dès lors, à quelles conditions peut-on penser une logique du sensible, sans aussitôt trahir le sensible ou perdre la raison ? Le projet husserlien d’une « logique-du-monde » exige en sa compréhension comme en son renouvellement, une réévaluation des concepts de « raison » et de « sensibilité ». Notre travail consiste donc en l’étude problématique et critique de ces concepts, depuis deux moments de leur déploiement :leur inauguration husserlienne et leur radicalisation lévinassienne. Le choix de ces deux oeuvres a pour intérêt historique de mesurer l’ampleur de l’élargissement phénoménologique de la raison – d’une conception« intellectualiste » de la sensibilité chez Husserl à sa profondeur lévinassienne ; et pour intérêt problématique de mener le problème à son terme et dans ses dernières contrées, là où le sensible n’apparaît plus comme pétri de sens mais dans son irrationalité même, là où la sensibilité n’est plus la saisie perceptive d’une identité mais l’expérience affective radicale d’une exposition à l’altérité. C’est donc en sa fondamentale équivocité que la sensibilité doit se faire le lieu d’une épreuve renouvelée de la raison, le principe critique de la rationalité mobilisée par sa description. / A new idea of reason was born with phenomenology. Beyond the opposition between rationalism andirrationalism, and against its Kantian reduction to a faculty, reason is redefined in the light of the experiencethat it enables to describe. But the difficulty arises when we attempt to reach the rationality of the sensibleexperience itself, in its own irreducibility to the demands of reason - in its irreducible peculiarity, complexity,lack and indetermination. Under which conditions can we think a logic of the sensible without betrayingsensibility or compromising reason? Husserl’s project of a “logic-of-the-world” requires, in its understandingas in its renewal, a reevaluation of the concepts of “reason” and “sensibility”. This dissertation consists in acritical study of these concepts, from these two main moments of their unfolding: their Husserlian inaugurationand their Levinassian radicalization. From a historical point of view, this choice enables us to assess thisphenomenological extension of reason - from an intellectual conception of sensibility in Husserl, to itsLevinassian depth. From a problematical point of view, this choice enables us to lead the problem to its finalterms, where the sensible is not made of meaning anymore, but appears in its very irrationality - whensensibility is not the perceptive grasp of an identity, but an affective exposure to otherness. Thought in itsfundamental equivocity, sensibility must be the place of a renewed challenge of reason, the critical principle ofthe rationality used by its description.

This thesis explores ways in which the reality of Kantor’s existence at a key moment in occupied Kraków may be read as directly informing the genesis and development of his artistic strategies. It argues for a particular ontological understanding of human being that resonates strongly with that implied by Kantor in his work and writings. Most approaches to Kantor have either operated from within a native perspective that assumes familiarity with Polish culture and its influences, or, from an Anglo-American theatre-history perspective that has tended to focus on his larger-scale performance work. This has meant that contextual factors informing Kantor’s work as a whole, including his happenings, paintings, and writings, as well as his theatrical works, have remained under-explored. The thesis takes a Heideggerian-hermeneutic approach that foregrounds biographical, cultural and aesthetic contexts specific to Kantor, but seemingly alien to Anglo-American experience. Kantor’s work is approached from Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian perspectives that read the work as a world-forming response to these contexts. Read in this way, key writings, art and performance works by Kantor are revealed to be explorations of existence and human being. Traditional ontological distinctions between process and product, painting and performance, are problematised through the critique of representation that these works and working practices propose. Kantor is revealed as a metaphysical artist whose work stands as a testament to a Heideggerian view of human being as a ‘positive negative’: a ‘placeholder of nothing’, but a ‘nothing’ that yet ‘is’ …

A Sceptical Aesthetics of Existence: The Case of Michel Foucault Emmanouil Simos (Hughes Hall) Michel Foucault's genealogical investigations constitute a specific historical discourse that challenges the metaphysical hypostatisation of concepts and methodological approaches as unique devices for tracking metaphysically objective truths. Foucault's notion of aesthetics of existence, his elaboration of the ancient conceptualisation of ethics as an 'art of living' (a technē tou biou), along with a series of interconnected notions (such as the care of the self) that he developed in his later work, have a triple aspect. First, these notions are constitutive parts of his later genealogies of subjectivity. Second, they show that Foucault contemplates the possibility of understanding ethics differently, opposed to, for example, the traditional Kantian conceptualisation of morality: he envisages ethics in terms of self-fashioning, of aesthetic transformation, of turning one's life into a work of art. Third, Foucault employs these notions in self-referential way: they are considered to describe his own genealogical work. This thesis attempts to show two things. First, I defend the idea that the notion of aesthetics of existence was already present in a constitutive way from the beginning of his work, and, specifically, I argue that it can be traced in earlier moments of his work. Second, I defend the idea that this notion of aesthetics of existence is best understood in terms of the sceptical stance of Sextus Empiricus. It describes an ethics of critique of metaphysics that can be understood as a nominalist, contextualist, and particularist stance. The first chapter discusses Foucault's late genealogy of the subject. It formulates the interpretative framework within which Foucault's own conceptualisation of the aesthetics of existence can be understood as a sceptical stance, itself conceived as nominalist, contextualist and particularist. As the practice of an aesthetics of existence is not abstract and ahistorical but the engagement with the specific historical circumstances within which this practice is undertaken, the second chapter reconstructs the intellectual context from which Foucault's thought has emerged (Heidegger, Blanchot, and Nietzsche). The third chapter discusses representative examples of different periods of Foucault's thought -such as the "Introduction" to Binswanger's "Traum und Existenz" (1954), Histoire de la folie (1961), and Histoire de la sexualité I. La volonté de savoir (1976)- and shows in which way they constitute concrete instantiations of his sceptical aesthetics of existence. The thesis concludes with responses to a number of objections to the sceptical stance here defended.

This thesis explores the most basic purpose of education and how it can be advanced. To begin to analyze this fundamental area of concern, this thesis associates notions of education with notions and experiences of truth and authenticity, which vary historically and culturally. A phenomenological analysis, featuring the philosophy of Heidegger, uncovers the basic conditions of human experience and discourse, which have become bent upon technology and jargon in the West. He draws on Plato's account of the 'essence of education' in the Cave Allegory, which underscores human agency in light of truth as unhiddenness. Heidegger calls for ontological education, which advances authenticity as it preserves individuals as codisclosing, historical beings.

This thesis explores the most basic purpose of education and how it can be advanced. To begin to analyze this fundamental area of concern, this thesis associates notions of education with notions and experiences of truth and authenticity, which vary historically and culturally. A phenomenological analysis, featuring the philosophy of Heidegger, uncovers the basic conditions of human experience and discourse, which have become bent upon technology and jargon in the West. He draws on Plato's account of the 'essence of education' in the Cave Allegory, which underscores human agency in light of truth as unhiddenness. Heidegger calls for ontological education, which advances authenticity as it preserves individuals as codisclosing, historical beings.