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Foucault analisa o liberalismo a fim de tornar inteligíveis as relações concretas de poder. Isso porque o liberalismo moderno põe em jogo um determinado regime de verdade, o que significa que seria possível, a partir dele, destacar o sentido que unifica esse período como época moderna. O procedimento adotado por Foucault consiste em delimitar condições de existência, fazendo a metodologia arqueológica prolongar-se na dimensão macrofísica do poder. Todavia, esse procedimento crítico de busca por condições impede a realização de uma história nominalista, única concepção de história que poderia atender aos pressupostos do projeto genealógico. Afinal, o nominalismo em história está em jogo desde que Foucault procura acentuar a contingência e singularidade de todo acontecimento, incluindo aí o nascimento do sujeito moderno. Mas não há conciliação possível entre o acento no método crítico e o acento no pressuposto da diferença, próprio ao nominalismo, o que leva Foucault a uma leitura incomum da modernidade e do sujeito. Essa leitura traz à tona duas consequências incômodas, pois nela toma corpo certo primado do discurso e a criação, como signo da atividade (política) do sujeito, parece não ter lugar. A fim de iluminar essa duplicidade inconciliável e suas consequências, procuro analisar como se define, em Foucault, o sujeito do liberalismo, o sujeito na história e, por fim, o sujeito moral, considerando especialmente seu trabalho posterior a 1976. / Foucault examines liberalism in order to make intelligible the concrete relations of power. That is because the modern liberalism puts into play a certain regime of truth, which means that it would be possible to deprehend, out of it, the meaning which unifies this period as a modern era. The procedure adopted by Foucault consists in delimiting conditions of existence, causing the archeological methodology to extend into the macrophysical dimension of power. Nevertheless, this critical procedure of searching conditions prevents the accomplishment of a nominalistic history, the only conception of history which might comply with the assumptions of the genealogical project. After all, nominalism in history is at play since Foucault endeavours to emphasize the contingency and singularity of every occurrence, including the birth of the modern subject. But there is not a possible conciliation between the emphasis on the critical method and the emphasis on the assumption of difference, proper to nominalism, which leads Foucault to an uncommon reading of modernity and the subject. This reading reveals two disquieting consequences, because a certain primacy of the discourse arises from it, and creation, as a sign of the (political) activity of the subject, seems not to have room. In order to clarify this incompatible duplicity and its consequences, I try to analyse how it is defined, in Foucault, the subject of liberalism, the subject in history and, lastly, the moral subject, considering particularly his writings done after 1976.

I here develop a specific version of the deflationary theory of truth. I adopt a terminology on which deflationism holds that an exhaustive account of truth is given by the equivalence between truth-ascriptions and de-nominalised (or disquoted) sentences. An adequate truth-theory, it is argued, must be finite, non-circular, and give a unified account of all occurrences of “true”. I also argue that it must descriptively capture the ordinary meaning of “true”, which is plausibly taken to be unambiguous. Ch. 2 is a critical historical survey of deflationary theories, where notably disquotationalism is found untenable as a descriptive theory of “true”. In Ch. 3, I aim to show that deflationism cannot be finitely and non-circularly formulated by using “true”, and so must only mention it. Hence, it must be a theory specifically about the word “true” (and its foreign counterparts). To capture the ordinary notion, the theory must thus be an empirical, use-theoretic, semantic account of “true”. The task of explaining facts about truth now becomes that of showing that various sentences containing “true” are (unconditionally) assertible. In Ch. 4, I defend the claim (D) that every sentence of the form “That p is true” and the corresponding “p” are intersubstitutable (in a use-theoretic sense), and show how this claim provides a unified and simple account of a wide variety of occurrences of “true”. Disquotationalism then only has the advantage of avoiding propositions. But in Ch. 5, I note that (D) is not committed to propositions. Use-theoretic semantics is then argued to serve nominalism better than truth-theoretic ditto. In particular, it can avoid propositions while sustaining a natural syntactic treatment of “that”-clauses as singular terms and of “Everything he says is true”, as any other quantification. Finally, Horwich’s problem of deriving universal truth-claims is given a solution by recourse to an assertibilist semantics of the universal quantifier.

In his defense of negative freedom, Isaiah Berlin&rsquo / s main target is the political voluntarism of enlightenment rationalism which has paved way to totalitarian and authoritarian political regimes of the 20th century which brought the sacrifice of individual freedom. For Berlin, in contrast to Platonic realism of enlightenment rationalism in which there is a substantial belief in reason&rsquo / s capacity for giving us the knowledge of the supreme good, the nominalist foundations of negative freedom can provide us a secure grounding in the justification of the rights over the goods. By declaring the inviolable rights and relying on the principle of neutrality, negative freedom eliminates the risk of political voluntarism stemming from enlightenment rationalism or scientism. Since the 1980s, in Turkey, political and social oppositions to Rousseauian enlightenment of the Turkish state have deployed the epistemic and political tools of negative freedom. This appeal has aimed to open a legitimate space for the language of freedom as non-intervention under which each individual chooses his personal values without the fear of state intervention. In contrast to the interventionist claims of state, negative freedom, it has been believed that, has provided a secure grounding for the rights of individuals. Besides, the meta-ethical thesis of the incommensurability of human goods has also been employed for delegitimizing the substantial belief in the monism of the republican regime which relied on the assumption presenting the republican way of life as the supreme good. This missionary zeal for the re-construction of the republic on the premises of negative freedom has not, however, gone unchallenged. Against such identification of democracy with free-market and value pluralism, the republican front defends the restoration of the foundational ideals of the republic by returning to the substantial understanding of national sovereignty under the formulation of &lsquo / militant democracy&rsquo / . In this study, even though I agree with the nominalist epistemology of negative freedom which manifests a skeptic and agnostic attitude toward the power of reason and the insistence of negative freedom on the necessity of the priority of right, I have demonstrated the reasons behind the failure of negative freedom in justifying the priority of the right over the goods. Actually, my analysis has already displayed that concerning the radical consequences of the thesis of incommensurability, it is doubtful whether negative freedom can provide political conditions even for the cause of peace without the presence of absolute sovereign as suggested in Hobbes&rsquo / s political theory. At this point, I have argued that we should take into consideration the achievements of the ideal of autonomy in grounding the priority of the right over the good. Contrary to Berlin&rsquo / s distorted representation of autonomy, I believe that the critical rationalism of autonomy and its understanding of law will protect us not only from the metaphysics of enlightenment rationalism and scientism, but also from the metaphysics of historicism envisaged by Berlin&rsquo / s version of negative freedom.

Foucault analisa o liberalismo a fim de tornar inteligíveis as relações concretas de poder. Isso porque o liberalismo moderno põe em jogo um determinado regime de verdade, o que significa que seria possível, a partir dele, destacar o sentido que unifica esse período como época moderna. O procedimento adotado por Foucault consiste em delimitar condições de existência, fazendo a metodologia arqueológica prolongar-se na dimensão macrofísica do poder. Todavia, esse procedimento crítico de busca por condições impede a realização de uma história nominalista, única concepção de história que poderia atender aos pressupostos do projeto genealógico. Afinal, o nominalismo em história está em jogo desde que Foucault procura acentuar a contingência e singularidade de todo acontecimento, incluindo aí o nascimento do sujeito moderno. Mas não há conciliação possível entre o acento no método crítico e o acento no pressuposto da diferença, próprio ao nominalismo, o que leva Foucault a uma leitura incomum da modernidade e do sujeito. Essa leitura traz à tona duas consequências incômodas, pois nela toma corpo certo primado do discurso e a criação, como signo da atividade (política) do sujeito, parece não ter lugar. A fim de iluminar essa duplicidade inconciliável e suas consequências, procuro analisar como se define, em Foucault, o sujeito do liberalismo, o sujeito na história e, por fim, o sujeito moral, considerando especialmente seu trabalho posterior a 1976. / Foucault examines liberalism in order to make intelligible the concrete relations of power. That is because the modern liberalism puts into play a certain regime of truth, which means that it would be possible to deprehend, out of it, the meaning which unifies this period as a modern era. The procedure adopted by Foucault consists in delimiting conditions of existence, causing the archeological methodology to extend into the macrophysical dimension of power. Nevertheless, this critical procedure of searching conditions prevents the accomplishment of a nominalistic history, the only conception of history which might comply with the assumptions of the genealogical project. After all, nominalism in history is at play since Foucault endeavours to emphasize the contingency and singularity of every occurrence, including the birth of the modern subject. But there is not a possible conciliation between the emphasis on the critical method and the emphasis on the assumption of difference, proper to nominalism, which leads Foucault to an uncommon reading of modernity and the subject. This reading reveals two disquieting consequences, because a certain primacy of the discourse arises from it, and creation, as a sign of the (political) activity of the subject, seems not to have room. In order to clarify this incompatible duplicity and its consequences, I try to analyse how it is defined, in Foucault, the subject of liberalism, the subject in history and, lastly, the moral subject, considering particularly his writings done after 1976.

What can be assumed to be a general understanding of personal identity, is that it is constituted by a fixed and unchanging core of every self-conscious being that remains the same over time. This view could be traced to the notion that a perfect copy of you would not be you since you constitute the original and not the copy. But maybe it's not that simple, maybe a copy of you can also be you, while existing as your "original"?In this essay I will explore a functionalist argument as well as a self-constructed thought experiment that challenges the traditional view of personal identity as a fixed and unchanging core, inextricably linked to a single body. This exploration will lead to the idea of "metasurvival". Metasurvival is understood as the possibility that a person can survive through another person. The idea of metasurvival thus challenges the dichotomy between life and death. / Vad som kan antas vara en allmän uppfattning om personlig identitet, är att den utgörs av en fast och oföränderlig kärna i varje självmedveten varelse som förblir densamma över tid. Denna uppfattning skulle kunna härledas till föreställningen att en perfekt kopia av dig inte skulle vara dig, eftersom du utgör originalet och inte kopian. Men kanske är det inte så enkelt, kanske kan en kopia av dig också vara dig, samtidigt som du existerar som ditt ”original”?I denna uppsats kommer jag att utforska ett funktionalistiskt argument, samt ett eget konstruerat tankeexperiment som ifrågasätter den traditionella synen på personlig identitet som en fast och oföränderlig kärna, oupplösligt knuten till en enskild kropp. Denna utforskning kommer att leda fram till idéen om ”metaöverlevnad”. Med metaöverlevnad förstås möjligheten att en person kan överleva genom en annan person. Idéen om metaöverlevnad utmanar därmed dikotomin mellan liv och död.

According to natural class trope nominalism, properties are natural classes of tropes, where the "naturalness" of natural classes is taken to be primitive and unanalyzable. In this thesis I defend natural class trope nominalism from two objections: i) that the naturalness of natural classes is analyzable, and ii) that natural class trope nominalism cannot account for certain modal facts (namely, that there could have been more or fewer tropes of any given type), an objection raised by Nicolas Wolterstorff. I defend natural class trope nominalism from (i) indirectly by presenting several putative analyses (namely, those of D. M. Armstrong, Keith Campbell, and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereya) of natural classes and arguing that they are all deficient, thereby undermining the claim that natural classes are analyzable. Douglas Ehring has recently defended natural class trope nominalism from (ii) by developing a counterpart theory for types of tropes. However, counterpart theory is not universally accepted. So I present three non-counterpart-theoretic alternatives. The natural class trope nominalist can meet Wolterstorff's objection a) by positing existent, but uninstantiated, tropes, b) by accepting modal realism, and c) by accepting a thesis called 'transworld property exemplification'. / October 2005

According to natural class trope nominalism, properties are natural classes of tropes, where the "naturalness" of natural classes is taken to be primitive and unanalyzable. In this thesis I defend natural class trope nominalism from two objections: i) that the naturalness of natural classes is analyzable, and ii) that natural class trope nominalism cannot account for certain modal facts (namely, that there could have been more or fewer tropes of any given type), an objection raised by Nicolas Wolterstorff. I defend natural class trope nominalism from (i) indirectly by presenting several putative analyses (namely, those of D. M. Armstrong, Keith Campbell, and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereya) of natural classes and arguing that they are all deficient, thereby undermining the claim that natural classes are analyzable. Douglas Ehring has recently defended natural class trope nominalism from (ii) by developing a counterpart theory for types of tropes. However, counterpart theory is not universally accepted. So I present three non-counterpart-theoretic alternatives. The natural class trope nominalist can meet Wolterstorff's objection a) by positing existent, but uninstantiated, tropes, b) by accepting modal realism, and c) by accepting a thesis called 'transworld property exemplification'.

According to natural class trope nominalism, properties are natural classes of tropes, where the "naturalness" of natural classes is taken to be primitive and unanalyzable. In this thesis I defend natural class trope nominalism from two objections: i) that the naturalness of natural classes is analyzable, and ii) that natural class trope nominalism cannot account for certain modal facts (namely, that there could have been more or fewer tropes of any given type), an objection raised by Nicolas Wolterstorff. I defend natural class trope nominalism from (i) indirectly by presenting several putative analyses (namely, those of D. M. Armstrong, Keith Campbell, and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereya) of natural classes and arguing that they are all deficient, thereby undermining the claim that natural classes are analyzable. Douglas Ehring has recently defended natural class trope nominalism from (ii) by developing a counterpart theory for types of tropes. However, counterpart theory is not universally accepted. So I present three non-counterpart-theoretic alternatives. The natural class trope nominalist can meet Wolterstorff's objection a) by positing existent, but uninstantiated, tropes, b) by accepting modal realism, and c) by accepting a thesis called 'transworld property exemplification'.

In the last 30 years there has been growing interest in and a greater appreciation of the unique contributions that medieval authors have made to the history of logic. In this thesis, we compare and contrast the modal logics of Robert Kilwardby and John Buridan and explore how their two conceptions of modality relate to and differ from modern notions of modal logic. We develop formal reconstructions of both authors' logics, making use of a number of different formal techniques. In the case of Robert Kilwardby we show that using his distinction between per se and per accidens modalities, he is able to provide a consistent interpretation of the apodictic fragment of Aristotle's modal syllogism and that, by generalising this distinction to hypothetical construction, he can develop an account of connexive logic. In the case of John Buridan we show that his modal logic is a natural extension of the usual Kripke-style possible worlds semantics, and that this modal logic can be shown to be sound and complete relative to a proof-theoretic formalisation of Buridan's treatment of the expository syllogism.