In this thesis, I examine questions concerning personal identity from the point of view of the spatiality of the self. In order to investigate this aspect of self, I draw mainly on carefully selected texts from the Continental tradition. The literature and choices are vast, and so, for the purposes of this thesis I examine specific texts from the work of Heidegger and Husserl. I analyse the relevant sections of Heidegger's Being and Time---sections 22--24 and 70---as well as some of his later work, focussing on "Building, Dwelling, Thinking"' and "The Origin of the Work of Art." The first chapter critically examines Heidegger's underestimation of the spatial aspect of the self as Da-sein in Being and Time. Chapter Two examines Heidegger's later philosophy which can be read as a turning towards the spatial. I investigate whether this later picture of the self and its relations with the spatial complement the views found in Being and Time, or whether there is an unavoidable tension in his thought. From Husserl, I examine the spatiality of the self as found in Ideas II, the Cartesian Meditations, and some of Husserl's later meditations on space: "Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature", and "The World of the Living Present and the Constitution of the Surrounding World External to the Organism." Here, I use Husserl as a "corrective" to the gaps in Heidegger's thought, showing that in Husserl's thought, self, space and body are interwoven, interdependent concepts. Finally, I move out of the Continental tradition to examine one more philosophical perspective---that of modern Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro. The role of space in the concept of self is critically examined as found in two of his major works---Climate and Culture, and Ethics. Here, I show how Watsuji critically appropriates both Heideggerian and Husserlian reflection. In the final chapter I attempt to articulate some elements for a new philosophical discourse, one which amalgamates temporal and spatial as well as Eastern and Western aspects of the self, providing a fuller response to questions of the self than the picture currently available.

Inspired by Richard Rorty's attempt to exploit both pragmatism and philosophical hermeneutics in support of his own end of epistemology project, the dissertation presents a comparative study of William James' pragmatic theory of truth and Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutic account of human understanding. Chapter 1 examines Rorty's end of philosophy project and his critique of truth as correspondence. It identifies three fundamental orientations of his thought, namely, the rejection of: representationalism, the ideal of transcendence, and scientism. It examines his claim that the pragmatic theory of truth and philosophical hermeneutic account of understanding are best understood as thorough repudiations of the representational intuition and the ambition for transcendence that inform the traditional meaning of philosophy and truth. It identifies the two aims of the thesis: first, to compare William James' pragmatic theory of truth and Hans-Georg Gadamer's account of human understanding, and second, to critically reflect on Rorty's general deconstruction of truth in light of the findings. Chapter 2 presents a straightforward interpretation of William James' pragmatic theory of truth bearing Rorty's three orientations in mind. It employs three questions as interpretive guides: How does James' concept of truth stand in relation to the representational intuition? How does it stand in relation to the ideal of transcendence? How does it challenge scientism? Chapter 3 compares Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutic account of understanding to James' theory of truth. It demonstrates their agreement concerning the primordial, interpretive structure of thought and the temporal, situated nature of truth. This chapter reveals that Gadamer, like James, wants to correct false thinking about science and truth. Both reject scientism. Consequently, they propose a more primordial and universal account of human understanding and truth than is circumscribed by science and scientific method per se. Both understand the breach between scientific consciousness and aesthetic, moral and religious consciousness to be the central problem of modern thought. Chapter 4 presents a critical reflection on Rorty's general deflation of truth in light of the comparative reading of James and Gadamer. It argues that Rorty remains entrapped by Cartesian metaphysical doubt and the identification of truth with certainty and that this leads to the extremity of his incoherent repudiation of the traditional notion of truth informed by the representational intuition and the ambition for transcendence. This chapter attempts to make clear how non-negotiable are the ambition for transcendence and the representationalist intuition, in contributing to the coherency of theoretical inquiry as such. It also argues that the essence of the liberal ironist society that Rorty promotes is entirely dependent upon the conception of inquiry that he denies. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Abstract Not Available.

Traditionally, philosophers have recognized three types of moral actions: the obligatory, the permissible and the prohibited. But this classification cannot account for acts of saintliness or heroism--or indeed of any self-denying good actions which are not obligatory to perform. These actions are termed supererogatory--they are more than duty requires and are accompanied by some specific features, notably that they are done in the interests of others than the moral agent and that they involve costs or risks. If supererogatory acts are accepted as a category of moral action, then the traditional tripartite classification needs to be revised: the categories of obligatory and permissible acts are redistributed in terms of duties, morally neutral actions, offenses, and acts of supererogation. Morally neutral actions are rejected as a separate category of moral value. Duties are divided into those which can be legitimately enforced (imperfect duties) and those which cannot be matched by rights (imperfect duties). Justice involves both types of rights and duties. An account of the full spectrum of moral action recognizes internal and external aspects and justifies the use of aretaic and deontic methods. It includes five types of moral actions: prohibited acts, offenses, perfect duties, imperfect duties and acts of supererogation. This account is relevant to the facts of moral experience. It is compatible with the major theoretical frameworks in ethics, and it is formulable in terms of manageable complexity.

This thesis endeavours to articulate a socialist feminist critique of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action through an examination of the conception of domination and the possibilities of emancipation elaborated in this theory. It argues that the example of women's domination in late modern societies reveals shortcomings that significantly challenge Habermas's conception of domination as the systemic and cultural reification of communicatively-structured contexts of everyday life. The thesis locates these lacunae in Habermas's reading of the concept of labour in Hegel and Marx, conducted within the terms of a distinction between labour and interaction. Utilizing the socialist feminist categories of the gender division of labour and of patriarchy, the theory of communicative action is demonstrated to be markedly ambivalent with respect to its capacity to systematically identify forms of women's oppression. Consequently the notion of emancipatory practice as the communicative rationalization of everyday life is likewise constrained.

Se fondant sur l'ambivalence du rapport entre representation du temps et mode d'etre d'une societe, rapport qui peut s'averer developpant ou non-developpant, voire sous-developpant, l'auteur formule, par une interpretation nouvelle des philosophies du temps chez Aristote, Saint Augustin, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger et dans la pensee africaine, la these suivante: toute societe soucieuse de son developpement, devrait socialiser ses membres dans la conscience d'une perception du temps "vectorielle" et projective, unitaire, continue, cumulative et dialectique, appropriee au niveau de la conscience individuelle et sociale, articulee a la notion de temps de plenitude et de temps comme lieu de socialite. Un livre qui apporte une contribution scientifique, par une analyse nouvelle des philosophies classiques du temps, une definition du rapport entre conception du temps et developpement, une articulation des diverses categories du temps chez cinq philosophes au concept de developpement, la formulation d'une theorie du temps comme condition d'un developpement integre, et une etude de la conception africaine du temps dans une perspective de la problematique du developpement.

The goal of this thesis are, firstly, to critically explicate the role of the understanding in making experience possible (where experience is defined as 'empirical knowledge of objects'), and, secondly, to argue that Kant's conclusion regarding the possibility of experience is not tenable. My argument is essentially that the schematism of the pure concepts does not succeed in bridging the gap between sensibility and understanding. I suggest that not only does the schematism not succeed in providing the pure concepts with sensible content, but that nothing could provide them with such content.

Ce travail est surtout une confrontation systematique des deux principales conceptions de la rationalisation sociale que sont celle de Max Weber et celle de Habermas. Dans ce cadre, il a fallu d'abord relever les problemes de la critique de Weber par Habermas, problemes qui semblent avoir echappe jusqu'a present aussi bien aux commentateurs de Weber qu'a ceux de Habermas. Ensuite, partant des travaux de la sociologie des religions de Weber, il tente de montrer comment il faut rectifier certaines des conclusions de la theorie habermassienne de la modernisation de la societe; en l'occurrence que les donnees de la sociologie des religions ne permettent pas de confirmer la these de la rationalisation synchrone des trois complexes universels de rationalite en Occident, cette these qui se trouve au centre meme de la theorie de l'activite communicationnelle. Bien evidemment, un tel examen, qui n'est somme toute qu'une reevaluation de l'interpretation habermassienne de Weber, ne saurait constituer a lui seul une critique suffisante de Habermas. Cependent, parce qu'il l'avantage d'examiner dans le detail l'argumentation qui sert de fondement a la critique habermassienne du paradigme de la rationalite instrumentale, il a un interet qui, bien qu'essentiellement negatif, n'en n'est pas moins non negligeable. Car il permet en effet d'etablir: Premierement, que l'on ne peut pas faire deriver la these du changement de paradigme de l'argument conceptuel qui constitue le fond de la pensee de Habermas: a savoir qu'il est principiellement impossible de rendre compte de la modernisation sociale a partir d'un modele comme celui de Weber. Deuxiemement, que pour cette raison on ne peut pas soutenir, comme Habermas, que le paradoxe de la modernisation, a savoir la critique des effets pervers resultant de la rationlisation capitaliste, est une simple consequence du caractere limite du concept de rationalite instrumentale. Et enfin que, partant des theories de Weber et Habermas, il est possible de construire une typologie plus precise des actions sociales, laquelle permet d'eviter les limitations de chacune d'elles, et par consequent de nous doter aussi d'un instrument plus adequat pour l'analyse empirique des phenomenes de transformation sociale.

Le mecanisme qu'implique le determinisme suggere que nos decisions ne nous appartiennent pas. Strawson repond que nous sentons qu'elles sont les notres parce qu'elles sont ce que nous sommes, comme nos attitudes reactives expriment ce que nous sommes. Cet argument suffisant ne suscite pourtant pas une adhesion generale, et ce, en raison de prejuges quant au dualisme esprit-matiere. Or, le "physique" n'est que l'image mediatisee et externe, necessairement superficielle, de l'etre que nous sommes, alors que l'experience interne est cet etre dans sa plenitude immediate et intrinseque. En distinguant l'etre vecu de l'etre vu, nous pourrons identifier une dualite de valeurs epistemiques desquelles nous pourrons degager le statut et le role respectifs des perspectives objective et subjective et les criteres normatifs qui pourront justifier le maintien des attitudes subjectives, dites morales.

Et celui qui, dans chaque ordre de recherche, adopte une attitude philosophique et ne se borne pas a considerer le cote pratique des choses, a pour caractere distinctif de ne rien negliger ni omettre, mais au contraire de mettre en evidence la verite en chaque cas. Aristote, LA POLITIQUE On a dit d'Aristote que pour l'etudier, il fallait faire appel a une certaine dose d'intuition. Le probleme est que quand on a une intuition, que ses observations semblent encourager, mais que l'on ne trouve pas de commentateur qui voit d'oeil a oeil avec soi, on se dit qu'il faut fouiller encore plus qu'on pensait devoir le faire a l'origine pour chercher a denicher quelqu'un qui soit au moins partiellement de son avis. A moins de plonger dans les textes memes d'Aristote, et de fouiller la pour son argumentation. Et c'est la que la limitation de langue, le manque de formation en etudes anciennes et en philosophie deviennent des obstacles lourds, difficiles a surmonter et, j'admets, minusculisants. Cet exercice de recherche, de lecture, et de reflexion en est un qui aura d'ailleurs donne a cet etudiant-ci un sens nouveau au mot "humilite". (Abstract shortened by UMI.)