It is shown that the simultaneity of distant events is taken for granted by some major thinkers, most notably Leibniz and Newton, preceding Einstein. However, in 1905, the STR's examination, and subsequent reconstruction, of this assumption, engendered two types of simultaneity: intra-frame and inter-frame. The former is the focus of this investigation and deals with the simultaneity of distant, yet relatively stationary, events. The latter involves the simultaneity of distant, yet relatively moving, events. Einstein glossed over the former, briefly claiming that distant clocks are synchronized according to a definition. Reichenbach interpreted this as illustrating that the STR supports a conventionalist reading. The synchronization of distant clocks within the same inertial frame is only possible according to a convention. This is known as the conventionality of simultaneity, not to be confused with the relativity of simultaneity which deals with the setting of clocks in different inertial frames. Grunbaum follows Reichenbach's view and argues further that inter-frame relativity of simultaneity must be understood on the basis of intra-frame conventionality of simultaneity. It is argued that Grunbaum occupies a middle position between the two major approaches to the philosophy of space-time. Grunbaum's defence of the conventionality of simultaneity is the main concern of this investigation. Reichenbach's a priori, inter-theoretical conventionalism is clearly separated from Grunbaum's a posteriori, intra-theoretical conventionalism. This is done because the two thinkers are often misleadingly equated. They are linked simply because a particular argument, which connects conventionality and light signals, is shared. The moral of this chapter is not only that shared conclusions do not entail shared premises, but more importantly, shared arguments do not entail shared approaches. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In the dissertation, I propose to consider the vicissitudes of Thomas Kuhn's historical approach to science with an eye to clarifying his controversial notion of incommensurability. Although the notion of incommensurability, one of the most significant results of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, has been much criticized in recent Anglo-American philosophy, I argue that it incorporates insights that are still worth reviving and defending. Moreover, since these insights derived from Kuhn's syntheses of the ideas of thinkers such as L. Fleck, A. Koyre, L. Wittgenstein, N. Hanson, M. Polanyi, H. Gadamer and P. Feyerabend, my defence of Kuhn's concept of incommensurability provides a review of some profound issues in recent Anglo-American philosophy. Also in this connection, I assume that the"Kuhnian Revolution" in philosophy of science in the 1960s did not occur by chance in the avenue of contemporary American philosophy. Rather, the appearance, the reception and the subsequent criticism of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, including Kuhn's later conversion to the "analytical tradition", must be interpreted in their respective philosophical contexts. I maintain that the debate between the Kuhnian school and its opponents should be examined historically in the light of the deeper and broader cultural and philosophical issues involved, issues that even Kuhn seems not to have fully appreciated. Through investigating the debate, I argue that the critiques of Kuhn's original ideas, including his own later objections to the ideas, presuppose as well as impose the analytical standard of legitimatization that underlies present-day Anglo-American ways of reasoning. It is this standard, however, that presupposes the very requirement whose feasibility Kuhn's notions of paradigms and incommensurability put into question. More specifically, I defend Kuhn's historical approach to philosophy of science in 1962 against those criticisms which are guided merely by ahistorical and linguistic requirements of analyzability, and criticize Kuhn's acceptance of the precepts of the analytical tradition since 1969. Central to this research is the view that there are phenomena of incommensurability in the process of communication and understanding and that no account of rationality is valid unless it recognizes the development of reason in history. In light of this, I hold, the analytical approach should always allow a historically-oriented vision in order to detect the real picture of our everyday thinking. To understand different rationalities in history and culture, philosophy must go to the history of sciences and to the real process of our everyday thinking. Methodologically, I approach the vicissitudes of Thomas Kuhn's notion of incommensurability in two ways: in Part I by historical case studies of Kuhn's changing views, and in Part II by philosophical reflections on those consequences of the historical case studies. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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This thesis shows that Coleridge's philosophical work is more than merely a compilation of other thinkers' ideas and more than merely a collection of fragmented or incoherent thoughts. Coleridge's work from the poetry of his early years to the theological treatises of his final days gives evidence of the progress of an intelligent, vigorous mind striving toward a unified system of thought that incorporates the diverse aspects of human art, thought and faith. This thesis explores one instance of how Coleridge's thought on human endeavors forms a coherent body by tracing the role he assigns to the will throughout his work. I have chosen the will as the vehicle through which to explore Coleridge's work, not only because it is central in his particular thought, but also because, in Coleridge's view, it is an essential power of the human mind that operates in all thought. As he himself said: "Unless... we have some distinct notion of the will and some acquaintance with the prevalent errors respecting the same... our reflections on the particular truths and evidence of a spiritual state will remain obscure, perplexed and unsafe."

En depit de l'epaisseur de la bibliographie sur L'Utopie de Thomas More, touchant a toutes les disciplines, de l'analyse literaire a l'analyse religieuse, en passant par, l'analyse politique, le texte reste enigmatique; les lecteurs les plus rigoureuses ont echoue a rendre compte de maniere exhaustive d'une pensee en apparence incoherente, renforcant, ce faisant, la croyance en une pensee "renaissant", bouillonnante et brouillonne, incapable de formuler des theses autour d'une theorie rationnel le et consistante. Parmi les entreprises les plus interessantes, citons les recherches d'Andre Prevost qui a fait apparai tre une partie de la structure hypothetico-deductive de L'Utopie; George Logan qui a mis en valeur la critique originale morienne de l'ideal politique grec et Quentin Skinner qui a demontre l'originalite d'une oeuvre inaugurant la pensee theorique politique moderne. Mais aucun de ces auteurs n'est alle jusqu'a conclure que L'Utopie exprime une philosophie a part entiere, acceptant l'hypothese qu'il s'agit d'un texte charniere entre la pensee medievale et la pensee moderne. L'enigme viendrait de la confusion due a cette dualite d'appartenance. La presente these veut demontrer que la confusion tient au lacunes des lectures du texte; que nous nous trouvons en fait devant un texte philosophique d'une haute coherence qui redefinit de maniere originale et inedite les rapports du champ de conscience et du monde; que cette revolution s'est operee en prenant appui, d'une part sur les espaces epistemologiques prepares par le debat sur le negotium et l'otium et, d'autre part, sur une synthese originale de la philosophie d'Epicure et du dogme chretien; que Thomas More a cree, ce faisant, de nouveaux outils epistemologiques, utilisant un raisonnement hypothetico-deductif sans faille; que les procedes rhetoriques, notamment la litote et la metaphore font partie de la demonstration; enfin, que la dissolution de l'ontologie fixiste au profit d'une logique du movement fonde directement l'utilitarisme moderne passant outre le "je" universel cartesien. Nous avons donc reconstitue le processus du discours de la L'Utopie en decrivant tout d'abord l'interaction de ses conditions d'intelligibilite, des demandes pratiques et des experimentations epistemologiques de la Renaissance. Nous avons effectue ensuite une analyse serree du texte afin d'en degager les contenus auxquels nous avons donne sens en devoilant la logique "cachee" de L'Utopie. Cette recherche devrait permettre de developper une theorie de la modernite a partir d'une relecture de la Renaissance. Elle devrait conduire egalement a une lecture comparative renouvelee de L'Utopie et des oeuvres de Machiavel, Bodin, Hobbes et Descarte.

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Concern for the environment is a theme which has gained much currency in popular and academic discourse. The normative assumptions, however, which underlie the field of environmental politics, are far from univocal. The exclusion of normative considerations from much environmental literature and many environmental projects, therefore, is an indication of our general failure to see environmental issues as ethical issues demanding resolution. This study aims at examining how the critical theory of Herbert Marcuse contributes to an ecological perspective that does treat the natural environment as a domain of ethical inquiry. Drawing from the Romantic tradition, Marcuse treats nature as sensuousness and spirituality with immanent value. His theory of nature is concerned with the reconciliation of human subjectivity as rational, moral will with external nature. What emerges is an ethics of aesthetic community in which nature is more than an object of contemplation, but the purveyor of immanent value, the grounds for ethical, creative and "playful" activity. This notion of aesthetic community does not emerge without its own internal tension and ambiguity which, we argue in this work, remain unresolved as a synthesis of subjective aesthetic judgment and collective reason. In spite of the tension, we conclude that the Marcusean spiritual sensitivity and rational interest could more fruitfully serve as a more solid foundation for contemporary environmentalism and ecological theory.

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