The great monotheistic religions –Judaism, Christianity, and Islam– agree in announcing God’s love for men, while demanding men’s love for God and for their neighbors. However, a brief look at these religions’ praxis leads to doubt whether this love is not a mere statement, while in history and at present were and are still imposed exclusive truth claims exercising violence against the adepts of the own religion (internally”) and, in especial, against the followers of other religions (externally”) in order to attain political power. Now, a distinction between the just sovereign power of God and detrimental violence should be made, asides from the fact that God’s sovereign power and God’s concept is not the same in the three great monotheistic religions. In Judaism God governs with love and as king, in Christianity with love and as servant, in Islam with love and majesty. Nevertheless, sovereign power is exclusive of God and detrimental violence is never desired among men. Only thus is power constitutive of religion’s inner nature, but not of the relation between religions or of religions with the world: There is no coercion in religion”. / Las grandes religiones monoteístas –Judaísmo, Cristianismo e Islam– coinciden en anunciar el amor de Dios a los hombres, y reclaman el amor de los hombres a Dios y al prójimo. Sin embargo, una breve mirada a la praxis de estas religiones hace dudar de si este amor no es una mera afirmación, mientras que en la historia y en el presente se impusieron y se imponen las pretensiones exclusivas de verdad mediante el ejercicio de la violencia en contra de los adeptos de la propia religión (internamente”) y, en especial, en contra de los seguidores de otras religiones (externamente”) para así alcanzar el poder político. Ahora bien, hay que distinguir entre el justo poder soberano de Dios y la violencia lesiva, además de que el poder soberano de Dios, al igual que el concepto de Dios, no es el mismo en las tres grandes religiones monoteístas. En el Judaísmo domina Dios con amor y como rey; en el Cristianismo, con amor y como servidor; en el Islam, con amor y majestad. Aunque siempre el poder soberano es exclusivo de Dios y nunca se desea la violencia lesiva entre los hombres. Solo así el poder es constitutivo de la naturaleza interna de la religión, mas no de la relación entre las religiones o de las religiones con el mundo: No hay coacción en la religión”.

<p> This dissertation argues for Semantic Variance, the thesis that nearly every utterance is such that there is no proposition that more than one languge user takes to be that utterance's truth-conditional content. I argue that Semantic Variance is problematic for standard theories concerning the nature of communication, the epistemic significance of ordinary disputes, the semantics of speech reports, and the nature of linguistic competence. In response to the problems arising from the truth of Semantic Variance, I develop new accounts of the transmission of relevant information, ordinary disputes, and the semantics of speech reports. Towards the end of the dissertation I outline a pluralistic account about the nature of communication and linguistic competence. </p><p>

<p> The primary aim of this dissertation is to investigate the conditions for having a singular thought, a thought directly about an object. For example, if I think about Trump that he is the present U.S. president, I have a singular thought about Trump, while if I simply think that the 45^th U.S. president is the present U.S. president, I only have a descriptive thought regarding Trump. In the dissertation, I defend the trackability condition for singular thought: in order for a subject <i>S</i> to have a singular thought about an object <i>O</i>, <i>S</i> can track down <i>O</i> in principle. Then I address the intimately related questions of whether there is the contingent <i>a priori</i> and whether names are predicates. </p><p> In Introduction, I first clarify what the central topic of this dissertation is by disambiguating the concept of singular thought. I shall make clear that our issue is about the conditions for having object-relative singular thought. Then I introduce two arguments for a substantial constraint on singular thought. </p><p> In Chapter 1, I consider the acquaintance condition for singular thought. I first introduce Russell&rsquo;s strict notion of acquaintance as a condition for singular thought. Then I present Kripke&rsquo;s objections against the Russellian theory of ordinary names and explain what the moderate notion of acquaintance is. Lastly, I argue that there are some intuitive cases for having singular thought that even the moderate notion of acquittance cannot cover. </p><p> In Chapter 2, I criticize the so-called &ldquo;knowing-wh&rdquo; constraint on singular thought, according to which we must know what an object is in order to think about it. I provide the following as a plausible analysis of knowing-wh: &ldquo;<i>S</i> knows who (or what) <i>N</i> is&rdquo; is true in <i>C</i> if and only if for some property <i> P</i>, &ldquo;<i>S</i> knows that <i>N</i> has <i> P</i>&rdquo; is true in <i>C</i> (where <i>P</i> is important for interlocutors&rsquo; interest and purpose). Then I argue that knowing-wh, understood this way, is neither necessary nor even sufficient for singular thought. </p><p> In Chapter 3, I suggest trackability as the condition for singular thought: in order for a subject <i>S</i> to have a singular thought about an object <i>O</i>, <i>S</i> must grasp a certain track of <i>O</i>. In principle, <i>S</i> will encounter the very object <i>O</i> at the starting point of the track if she keeps following the track she grasps. I argue that this tracking idea provides a unified explanation for various cases about singular thought. Then I provide responses to liberalists&rsquo; objections against a substantial constraint on singular thought. </p><p> In Chapter 4, I argue against the possibility of knowing the contingent singular proposition <i>a priori</i>. I first start from clarifying the argument for the contingent <i>a priori</i> and point out one implicit assumption the argument for the contingent <i>a priori</i> hinges on, which is the real issue behind the contingent <i>a priori </i>: the assumption that stipulative linguistic knowledge can play a justificatory role in having extra-linguistic knowledge in question. I argue that this assumption is implausible and, hence, so is the argument for the contingent <i>a priori</i>. </p><p> In Chapter 5, I consider another related issue: predicativism about names, the view that names which occur in argument positions have the same type of semantic contents as predicates. To defend the referentialist view that the semantic content of a name is simply its reference, I present three objections to predicativism&mdash;the modal, the epistemic, and the translation objections&mdash;and show that they succeed even against the more sophisticated versions of predicativism defended by Fara and Bach.</p><p>

The aim of this thesis will be to ask what is the relationship betweeen the concept of plasticity and queer theoretical discourse? Plasticity being, at its most basic level, the idea that difference itself can change form, that it does not just manifest spatially and temporally within acts of inscription, but also within material forms as well. The thesis will attempt to show that what is at work inherently within both discourse (both at the level of logic and objects of analysis) allows for them to speak alongside one another, and even if placed in close enough proximity, to provoke transformations in the other in productive and generative ways. The central claim that will be defended throughout the thesis is that the concept of plasticity has deep and profound implications for queer theory. It will attempt to reveal and explore the ways in which both are committed to thinking change and transformation within a form in ways that implicate the other. The analysis of the relation between the two will be divided into three moments of encounter in which the resonance between both discourses could be seen to be most generative and productive, these staged encounters compromising the three main sections of the thesis: plasticity's relation to the theory performativity, its relation to the anti-social turn within queer thought, and its relation to the affective turn within queer theory. The overall objective will be to demonstrate not only the philosophical underpinnings that animate queer theory, but also the ways in which philosophy itself has been marked and changed by certain interventions of queer thought.

<p> This essay can largely be seen as having two functions: contributing to the philosophical literature on the nature of forgiveness and defending anger as a morally worth class of attitudes. I will begin by sketching out some of the elements of forgiveness before presenting a prominent debate that is found in this domain. Essentially, this dispute focuses on whether or not conditions may be placed on instances of genuine forgiveness. Conditional accounts argue that it is perfectly acceptable or even rationally required that agents attach conditions to their forgiveness (e.g. a change of heart by the wrongdoer). Proponents of unconditional forgiveness, as the name implies, will argue that the placement of conditions on forgiveness are unacceptable and harm the inherent nature of forgiveness to some degree. As I will argue, proponents of conditional views of forgiveness will often fail to provide a full defense of the anger that one maintains when opting not to forgive. Given that my ultimate goal is to provide my own conditional account of forgiveness, I will attempt to provide that very defense by arguing that anger is, at times, an appropriate and morally worthy response to culpable wrongdoing. Ultimately, I will push this even further and argue that anger is morally superior to forgiveness in instances of severe wrongdoing committed by unrepentant offenders.</p><p>

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Independent Living (IL) program targeting foster youths to prepare them for effective adulthood. The study employed a pre-post, two-group comparative research design. The IL group was composed of 49 young adults who participated in the IL or SIL (subsidized IL) program prior to their emancipation from foster care (mean age, 20.6 years). The comparison was made up of 18 young adults who experienced foster care but never participated in the IL or SIL programs (mean age, 20.2 years). Data were collected via a mailed survey that included the Daniel Memorial Independent Living Assessment (DMILA) and an additional questionnaire developed by the researcher. The study also examined: 1) why youth in foster care do not participate in IL programs, 2) how participating youth evaluate IL services and what recommendations they make to improve services, and 3) the internal consistency of the DMILA. Results suggest that the DMILA assessment has mediocre reliability. IL program participation is associated with better educational, employment, income, housing, early parenting-prevention, transportation, anger control, criminal-prevention, and self-evaluation outcomes. However, IL participation is not associated with better social support, perceived parenting competence, substance abuse-prevention, sexual risk-prevention outcomes, increased knowledge in money management skills, job seeking and job maintenance skills, interpersonal skills, or lower depression. Results also suggest that the outreach activities of the IL program may be flawed. IL participants reported the IL program was doing best in educational preparation, criminal involvement prevention, and money management preparation and least well in parenting preparation, housing preparation, employment preparation, and substance abuse prevention. To improve services, youths recommended primarily that IL counselors develop closer relationships with youths, that IL training better address organizational skills, and that monthly subsidy be raised and SIL eligibility requirements softened. The study's political context and limitations are also discussed and implications are derived regarding prevention, intervention, outreach, mentorship, empowerment, cross-systems collaboration, and future research.

abstract: In this dissertation, I argue that the original development of Natural Law Theory (NLT) by the Stoics of the second and first centuries B.C. was not merely an outpouring or natural byproduct of an earlier philosophic achievement in Plato and Aristotle, but a <italic>reaction</italic> to it, specifically, an effort to correct certain problems that had surfaced as a result of discussion within and challenges to the broader eudaimonistic tradition. Prior to Cicero's writings in particular, the term "natural law" appears only occasionally in the philosophic texts, and never as a term signifying a coherent and developed moral theory. A central part of my argument will be to demonstrate the negative thesis that neither Plato nor Aristotle defended a version of NLT - a claim that current scholarship does not universally accept. The primary reason for my claim, I argue, is that neither Plato nor Aristotle accepted a conception of nature (<italic>physis</italic>) that contained a normative element that could be understood in terms of law (<italic>nomos</italic>) and its accompanying notions of command and obligation. This negative thesis is important because it clarifies the central modification the Stoics make on the eudaimonistic tradition, namely, the advancement of a distinct theory of nature, one in which they identify <italic>physis</italic> with "Divine Reason." The "theological conception" of <italic>physis</italic>, as I shall call it, entails a breakdown of the <italic>nomos-physis</italic> dichotomy that had been central to Greek thought for centuries prior and thereby makes possible the birth of NLT. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Philosophy 2014

<p> This dissertation begins by addressing a puzzle that arises in academic analytic interpretations of Kierkegaard&rsquo;s Concluding Unscientific Postscript. The puzzle arises when commentators try to paraphrase the book&rsquo;s philosophical thesis &ldquo;truth is subjectivity.&rdquo; I resolve this puzzle by arguing that the motto &ldquo;truth is subjectivity&rdquo; is like a joke, and resists and invites paraphrase just as a joke does. </p><p> The connection between joking and Kierkegaard&rsquo;s philosophical practice is then deepened by giving a philosophical reconstruction of Kierkegaard's definition of joking as a way of responding to contradiction that is painless precisely because it sees the way out in mind. Kierkegaard&rsquo;s account of joking and his account of his own philosophical project are used to mutually illuminate each other. The dissertation develops a phenomenology of retroactive temporality that explains how joking and subjective thinking work. I put forward an argument for why &ldquo;existential humorism&rdquo; is a valuable approach to life for Kierkegaard, but why it ultimately fails, and explain the relationship between comedy as a way of life and faith as a way of life, particularly as they both relate to risk. </p><p> In the final chapter three peculiar features of Kierkegaard&rsquo;s writing practice are addressed: his use of indirect communication, pseudonyms, and revocation. I explain the function of these methods to his philosophical project as I have described it in the previous chapters and conclude with a close reading of the graveyard scene in the Postscript and an analysis of how it serves to implicate the reader in existential thinking. Finally, I offer some reflections about the implications of Kierkegaard&rsquo;s account of humor and subjective thinking for human self-understanding. I argue that an implication of Kierkegaard&rsquo;s account is that philosophy is a risky, vulnerable, interpersonal activity, just as joking is.</p><p>

<p> This paper emphasizes the central role of the Formula of Humanity in Kantian ethics. It focuses mostly on Kant&rsquo;s <i>Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals</i>, with hypotheses being tested on Kant&rsquo;s <i> Metaphysics of Morals</i> as well. It starts with an analysis of the argument Kant offers for the Formula of Humanity in <i>Groundwork II </i>, explicating the meaning of this formula and its distinction from the Formula of the Universal Law. It further develops on comparing all the formulations of the categorical imperative, and it argues that not all formulations are equivalent. It concludes that the categorical imperative is exhausted by the Formula of Humanity, insofar as the latter generates all Kantian duties.</p><p>

Since the debate about the nature of scientific theories has been held in the context of the scheme-content dualism, philosophers from the most different traditions have had to face, sooner or later, the dilemma between realism and relativism. I shall argue that following Davidson's criticism against the so-called third dogma it is possible to find a way-out of this dilemma. This paper is an attempt to look at the meaning of the scientific language from the point of view of radical interpretation. The radical element of interpretation will join the conception of scientific theortes in order to supersede false alternatives in the light of a definitton of science in a radical sense. / Dado que el debate sobre la naturaleza de las teorías científicas se ha sostenido en el contexto del dualismo esquema-contenido, los filósofos de las más distintas tradiciones han tenido que enfrentar, tarde o temprano, el dilema entre realismo y relativismo. Argumentaré que, siguiendo la crítica de Davidson en contra del así llamado tercer dogma, es posible encontrar una salida a este dilema. Este ensayo es un intento por examinar el significado del lenguaje científico desde el punto de vista de la interpretación radical. El componente radical de la interpretación será unido a la concepción de las teorías científicas para eliminar las falsas alternativas a la luz de una definición de la ciencia en un sentido radical .