<p> The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "objective relativism," a distinctly American school of metaphysical realism inspired by the works of John Dewey and A.N. Whitehead. Largely forgotten, objective relativism provided a metaphysical framework, based upon an ontology of events and relations rather than substances and discrete properties, that has continued relevance for contemporary metaphysical discussions. In this thesis, I attempt to chart the boundaries and pathways of this ontology, outlining what Dewey calls the "ground-map of the province of criticism." In particular, the ground-map of objective relativism is invoked to situate and analyze the model of psycho-physical emergence outlined in Dewey's <i>Experience and Nature.</i> Because it is a relational ontology, objective relativism avoids problems with emergence common to substantival models. Additional analyses of its ontological premises, both in Dewey's writings and elsewhere, demonstrate how compelling accounts of causation, consciousness, and meaning may be formulated within this model.</p>

<p> The current debate over the metaphysical nature of the mind is dominated by two major philosophical views: property dualism and physicalism. According to property dualism, mental properties are of metaphysically distinct types. There are "phenomenal properties", or "qualia", the properties that constitute conscious experience, and there are the cognitive or functional properties of the mind. According to physicalism, there is one metaphysical type of mental property, though there may be a deep conceptual divide between experience and cognition. </p><p> I challenge both these assumptions. Focusing on two of the most popular anti-physicalist arguments&mdash;the Conceivability Argument and the Knowledge Argument&mdash;I argue that the property dualist's account of the relationship between consciousness and behavior&mdash;the "explanatory irrelevance" of consciousness to sufficient explanations our behavior and how we make judgment about our conscious experience&mdash;make the first argument untenable and the second irrelevant to the metaphysical debate. </p><p> I also present a case against a physicalist conceptual separation between cognition and consciousness by challenging the "Phenomenal Concept Strategy", the most popular argument supporting such a separation. This conceptual separation supposedly allows us to conceive of "philosophical zombies", creature physically identical to human beings but who lack conscious experience. The phenomenal concept strategy aims to explain how we can conceive of zombies while maintaining a physicalist account of the metaphysics of mind. </p><p> For this strategy to succeed, the physicalist must show that we share our epistemic situation regarding consciousness with our "zombie-twins". Zombies make claims about their own phenomenal experience, just as we do, but by definition they have none. I examine the most common physicalist interpretation of the zombies' beliefs about their own conscious experiences and show that this leads to the creation of "inconceivable minds"&mdash;creatures whose mental features would be incompatible with the very interpretation of zombie "phenomenal" belief on which this strategy is based. </p><p> My dissertation has two overarching goals. First, to undermine the plausibility of the two most popular arguments for property dualism, and second, to force physicalists to reconsider both the phenomenal concept strategy and their commitment to the genuine conceivability of zombies.</p>

<p> My topic is the continuity of thought from Descartes' earliest writings to his mature thought as expressed in the <i>Meditations.</i> In the early work, the <i>Rules,</i> Descartes replaces the scholastic form-matter model of the physical world with a quantitative description of the physical as matter in a Euclidian space. </p><p> In the first two chapters I examine the early work showing its break with scholasticism and the structure of his new vision. The <i>Rules </i> was Descartes first major work; it was to consist of thirty six rules. It was neither completed nor published. He stopped working on it in 1628, completing only twenty one rules with commentary on the first eighteen. The first twelve are the philosophically interesting ones. In those he develops a method based on mathematical proofs and introduces a set of basic principles he calls `simple natures' which are intuitively known. This model has the simple principles (natures) analogous to the postulates and axioms of Euclidian geometry. From the principles complex problems are solved by reducing the terms to those of the simple natures and re-constructing the problem in those terms. While the <i>Rules</i> emphasizes material natures as the basis for physical science, he also introduces a definition of mind as thought. </p><p> In the next two chapters I argue that this basic structure of method and simple natures carries over into the <i>Meditations.</i> The goal is different but the tools are the same. The definitions of matter and mind that Descartes sets in Meditation II are the same as in the <i> Rules:</i> mind as thought and matter as extension. Doubt, which is often taken as the new method is shown to be just a part of the early stage of the original method. It is used to reduce a complex to simples by eliminating any uncertainties until an indubitable simple nature is reached: the <i> cogito.</i> </p><p> In the final chapter I examine the problem of apparent contrasting explanations of true and immutable natures in Meditation V and the First Reply. I argue that they are compatible if we understand natures in terms of the principles of the <i>Rules.</i></p>

Possibilities divide into two kinds. Non-qualitative possibilities are distinguished by their connection to specific individuals. For example, the possibility that Napoleon is a novelist is non-qualitative, since it is a possibility for a specific individual, Napoleon. In contrast, the possibility that someone—anyone at all—is a novelist is a qualitative possibility, since it does not depend upon any specific individual. Haecceitism is a thesis about the relation between qualitative and non-qualitative possibilities. In one guise, it holds that some maximal possibilities—total ways the world could be—differ non-qualitatively without differing qualitatively. It would, for example, be only a haecceitistic difference that distinguishes actuality from a maximal possibility where Napoleon and Nefertiti swap all of their qualitative properties and relations. According to this alternative possibility, things are the very same qualitatively, but which individuals occupy which qualitative roles differs: Nefertiti would be a stout conqueror, while Napoleon would be a beautiful consort. This dissertation is an examination of the nature of haecceitism, the arguments in its favor, and the consequences that follow from it. In Chapter One, I distinguish various conceptions of haecceitism and related theses concerning maximal possibilities, possible worlds, the identity of indiscernibles, and non-qualitative properties. In Chapter Two, I develop and defend conceivability arguments for haecceitism in the face of various anti-haecceitist challenges. In Chapter Three, I consider the relation between haecceitism and the Humean approach to plenitude, which aims to characterize the space of possible worlds in terms of combinatorial principles. In Chapter Four, I examine the distinction between qualitative properties like redness and non-qualitative properties like being Napoleon and argue in favor of fundamental non- qualitative properties. In Chapter Five, I present a novel version of non-qualitative counterpart theory, which employs bare particulars to reconcile modal realism and haecceitism. In Chapter Six, I clarify and defend quidditism, the property-theoretic analogue of haecceitism. I conclude in Chapter Seven by defending the modal view of essence.

<p> The evolving complexity of our engagement with the world and the many challenges we now face as a numerous and technologically advanced species require us to develop a vision of reality and a way of participating within it that honors its dynamic complexity, creative potentiality, and ecological sensitivity. Drawing on the thought and vision of three inspiring and transformative thinkers who each sought to bridge the growing gap between the richness and complexity of lived experience and the barrenness and disconnection of scientific materialist philosophy&mdash;Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred North Whitehead, and Rudolf Steiner&mdash;this dissertation seeks to elaborate a relational, participatory, and evolutionary vision of reality and human existence in which individuality, relationality, and creative expression are understood as interdependent dimensions of a paradoxically single and manifold spiritual reality and evolutionary process. It then examines some of the essential implications of this emerging vision, with particular emphasis on the importance of the aesthetic, moral, and spiritual dimensions of human creative participation, including the existential participation that is inherent in thought and experience. This vision thus also suggests a fundamental shift in epistemological perspective, so that thinking and knowing are understood as inherently relational and creative acts, which both reflect and transform the realities they engage, and which are characterized by the moral, aesthetic, and spiritual consequences that accompany all influential action.</p>

<p> Supposing they exist, what work are value properties supposed to do? What difference do they make? What is the difference between a world in which they exist and a world in which they do not? </p><p> One obvious answer invokes the claim that evaluative properties make a causal difference. While this is an interesting topic, it is well-covered elsewhere by Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon. But there are other possibilities put forth by moral realists that are independent of the question of causal explanation. In my dissertation, I examine a number of alternative possible jobs that value properties are thought to fulfill. </p><p> 1) <i>Reference and supervenience</i> - Some argue that evaluative properties serve as the <i>referents</i> of evaluative <i> predicates,</i> or as the <i>extension</i> of supervening evaluative concepts. I consider arguments from McDowell and others to the effect that our ability to correctly sort evaluative cases into the correct categories requires the mapping of these concepts onto evaluative properties. My arguments show that these considerations alone cannot support evaluative realism, as there are alternative accounts of evaluative language that do not require separate value properties. For instance, a semantics grounded in conceptual-role can adequately account for the ability to think with and use evaluative concepts but nevertheless have natural properties serve as the extension of these concepts. </p><p> 2) <i>Resemblance</i> - One might think that, as Russ Shafer-Landau and David Brink argue, the resemblance of items belonging to the same evaluative category needs to be explained given the manifest differences in their <i> non-evaluative</i> properties. Stealing candy from a baby, cheating on one's spouse, and refusing to tell the police where a perpetrator is hiding all belong to the same moral category (the category of wrong actions), but they share little in common from the view of physically manifested behavior. I offer two alternative methods for explaining evaluative categorization that do not require accepting the existence of distinctly evaluative properties, thus showing the inference that distinct value properties are necessary to explain resemblance to be unwarranted. I claim that the way we <i>think </i> about value is enough to ensure correct categorization &ndash; there need not be some further existent to explain this. </p><p> 3) <i>Qualitative Character</i> - Last, I consider the view that evaluative properties possess a distinctive and irreducible <i> qualitative character.</i> I address the purported qualitative natures that value properties are thought to possess and argue that understood in one way, we would have justification for accepting that they exist. This interpretation has it that evaluative qualities are literally perceptible &ndash; their qualitative characters are of the same general sort as the properties <i> redness</i> or <i>pain.</i> I argue, that there is no need to posit distinct value qualia, at least not if qualia are necessarily representational, since we can have the same phenomenology of value whether or not we are directly perceiving an evaluative episode &ndash; we can have the same phenomenology just by considering or imagining the relevant episode. I offer a model of value perception which captures this important point. </p><p> Though my arguments might appear to push one toward anti-realism, they are all compatible with the truth of (suitably qualified versions of) 1), 2), and 3) after all is said and done. My goal is not to undermine arguments for evaluative realism, but I do intend to show that there is no master argument for it; any argument for realism must delve into thorny and often distinct metaphysical questions. Furthermore, I emphasize the role that metaphysical preconceptions and their implications play in many debates in value theory and the need to be clear and consistent with regard to these implications. </p>

<p> This dissertation argues that Karl Barth's revelational and trinitarian language and logic of eternity and time, as found in the <i>Church Dogmatics, </i> gives eternity its own unique and perfect triune temporality. It is argued that Barth presents a continuum between the trinity of God <i> ad intra</i> (termed the Triune Moment) and the election of God <i> ad extra,</i> such that eternity's pure divine time is the archetype and prototype for created world time. Barth's theological treatment is juxtaposed to traditional accounts of eternity as timelessness in philosophical theology and to his earlier <i>Epistle to the Romans</i> (<i>Der R&ouml;merbrief </i>). Plotinus's <i>Enneads,</i> Boethius's <i>Consolation of Philosophy,</i> and the analytic philosophy of Brian Leftow's <i> Time and Eternity</i> are used to exemplify traditional metaphysics. The explanatory power and entailments of Leftow's Quasi-temporal eternity and Barth's trinitarian account are compared regarding divine omniscience and the status of creation in eternity. It is argued that metaphysical accounts of eternity find their methodological justification in an analogy of being (<i>analogia entis</i>) and through notions of a perfect being. It is argued that Barth's dialectical and trinitarian account of eternity in <i>Church Dogmatics</i> II/1, &sect;31.3 <i>The Eternity and Glory of God</i> finds its epistemological justification in Christ's Easter resurrection as detailed in <i>Church Dogmatics</i> III/2 &sect;47.1 <i>Jesus, Lord of Time.</i></p>

<p> One of Carnap&rsquo;s overarching aims was to set philosophy on a firm scientific footing. He relied primarily on two ideas to achieve his ideal of a scientific philosophy: verificationism, according to which only empirically testable or logically determinate sentences are meaningful, and the Principle of Tolerance, which held that we are free to choose whichever system of empirical knowledge is most expedient. The logical empiricism embodied in these views is is widely believed to have been decisively refuted by a variety of objections. </p><p> My dissertation seeks to clarify the content and aims of Carnap&rsquo;s tolerance and verificationism, and to defend the resulting view against some of the most influential objections to logical empiricism. I argue that both tolerance and verificationism are manifestations of Carnap&rsquo;s fundamentally pragmatic conception of scientific language; for Carnap, precise formulations of scientific theory&mdash;&ldquo;languages for science&rdquo;&mdash; are to be viewed as instruments for the derivation of intersubjective observational knowledge. </p><p> Verificationism, on my interpretation, is the decision to narrow one&rsquo;s options for a language for science to those languages in which every sentence is either empirically testable or logically determinate. This decision is motivated by Carnap&rsquo;s pragmatism: any sentence that is neither empirically testable nor logically determinate makes no contribution to the aim with which the pragmatist uses scientific language. </p><p> I use this pragmatist account of verificationism to respond to two objections. The first is Hilary Putnam&rsquo;s version of the argument that verificationism is neither empirical nor analytic, and is therefore meaningless by its own lights. According to Putnam, Carnap&rsquo;s construal of verificationism as significant in a practical, but non-cognitive, sense, in response to the objection, presupposes verificationism. Carnap&rsquo;s response is therefore viciously circular. I respond that Carnap&rsquo;s non-cognitive conception of verificationism presupposes pragmatism, and not verificationism, and thereby avoids Putnam&rsquo;s circularity. Second, there is a widespread belief that verificationism requires a criterion of empirical significance in order to demarcate the empirically testable sentences, but that no such criterion can be formulated. I reply that by adopting the pragmatic conception, the verificationist can select her favored language in the case-by-case manner described by Goldfarb and Ricketts, without a criterion of empirical significance. </p><p> Carnap&rsquo;s pragmatism maintains that the goal of scientific language is the derivation of observation reports. It therefore helps itself to a notion of observation report, of observation language. This notion is another major source of skepticism about logical empiricism. I argue that Carnap&rsquo;s account of observation language in &ldquo;Testability and Meaning&rdquo; is sufficient for the purposes of his pragmatism. On this account, a term is observational to the extent that it can be applied on the basis of minimal observation and inference. A degree of observationality can then be arbitrarily designated sufficient and necessary for a term&rsquo;s being observational in the language. I show that this approach to fixing the observation language is not vulnerable to van Fraassen&rsquo;s objections. </p><p> Finally, pragmatism helps to clarify Carnap&rsquo;s Principle of Tolerance. According to a widely held view, Carnap&rsquo;s tolerance rests on &ldquo;relativity to language&rdquo;: since a language for science provides the rules for inquiry&mdash;be these semantic or evidential rules&mdash;language cannot itself be subject to such rules. So interpreted, the Principle of Tolerance is able to provide a critique of what I call &lsquo;first philosophy&rsquo;, i.e., the doctrine that the choice of concepts or rules in science can be constrained by considerations external to these rules. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

<p> This psychobiographical study explores the research and conclusions of Michael Murphy's theories on evolutionary panentheism and metanormal human potential. Murphy's diverse oeuvre renders it impossible to produce a comprehensive study without accounting for Murphy's integrality; multiple ways in which separate personal and professional events unite to create a whole. The current literature on Murphy appears as segmented overviews which inhibit thorough chronicling of his work. This lacuna contributes to a resistance to attend to Murphy's philosophy within an academic schema. By addressing his achievements as components within the totality of his worldview, the researcher demonstrates that Murphy deserves stronger academic recognition. </p><p> This qualitative study incorporates features of psychobiography, hermeneutics, and narrative analysis. Psychobiology emphasizes biographical and psychological development, allowing the researcher to use these aspects of Michael Murphy's activities to provide additional insight into his motivations, philosophies, and work-product. </p><p> This psychobiography uses Michael Murphy's literary and nonliterary works, as well as data obtained from interviews with Murphy, as representative constituents of his philosophical totality. Murphy's works integrate his (1) theory on evolutionary panentheism, which proposes a God that not only desires humanity within Its consciousness, but also "cares" for Its creations, residing within and evolving with them, (2) faith in the theories of involution&ndash;evolution, which maintain the existence of accessible levels of advancement, (3) innate trust in the interrelationship of all things, (4) evidence that advanced human potential has been part of humanity's development since the origins of contemplation, (5) conviction, stemming from data-driven research of metanormal occurrences, that humanity can evolve and transmute, (6) commitment to overcome the divisiveness of science and religio-mysticism, as well as the disparities of religious tenets, (7) humanist efforts to mitigate problems of the disenfranchised, persecuted, diasporic, and powerless factions of humanity; and finally, (8) trust in the inherent value and possibilities of human life. These components reflect Murphy's overarching goal: building a bridge between science and religion in order to facilitate an intelligent, integrated understanding of the natural and cosmological order--and the future it portends.</p>

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong Baptist University, 1998. / Thesis submitted to the Dept. of Chinese Language and Literature. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-156).