La presente these tisse un lien entre la tradition philosophique humaniste du XVIIIe siecle de Rousseau, la relation qu'entretiennent aujourd'hui les humains avec leur milieu naturel et consequemment les discours varies composant le debat ecologique actuel. Cette recherche verifie d'abord l'interpretation du philosophe Luc Ferry qui affirme que Rousseau introduit dans la pensee moderne une conception anti-nature de l'humanisme. Il semble que Rousseau ait un lien avec les environnementalistes modernes beaucoup plus complexe que celui decrit par Ferry. L'analyse des propos tenus par Rousseau, Ferry et certains environnementalistes contemporains tels Murray Bookchin et Michel Serres menera a un eclaircissement du debat ecologique actuel ct determinera quels rapports culture-nature sont vehicules aujourd'hui par les diverses philosophies de l'ecologie. Cette analyse contribuera aussi determiner si une autre forme d'humanisme, autre que celle proposee par Ferry, est effectivement possible actuellement, dans un environnement qui semble voguer de plus en plus a la derive.

Abstract Not Available.

The research collected texts in which ancient authors wrote of issues having to do with the sceptical notion of isostheneia. The collection finds its beginnings under the auspices of Calliope, the muse of fine speaking, and in the tendency to produce accounts in antithetical terms or in opposition to one another. In the Classical period anticipations of the development of the notion are found in the thinking of the physicists and the speculation of the physicians. Most significant for the development of the notion seems to have been the emergence of some of the differences between rhetoric and dialectic, the one elaborated under the pressure of the practice of the Sophists and Isocrates, the other isolated by Socrates and detailed by Plato as a philosophical method. The medical communities seem to have produced a paradigm of balance between opposed elements as the foundation of vitality and health. At the end of the Classical period, Aristotle appears to have provided some model for the sceptical notion in his practice of arguing in utramque partem, and to have anticipated it in his description of perplexity. Both Plato and Aristotle were familiar with some of the modes which were later collected by Aenesidemus. In the Hellenistic period it appears to have been in the ad hominen argument of Arcesilaus that the sceptical notion first became articulate as the basis of suspension of judgment. With Carneades the practice of arguing both for and against any proposition and relying heavily on rhetoric appears to have been the model on which the sceptical way was being fashioned. A controversy between Epicureans and Stoics over how to decide between acts of assent founded on equally reliable sense perceptions is suspected to be at the basis of the articulation of the notion of isostheneia. In the Hellenistic period the development of the notion seems also to have been assisted by the requirement for some therapeutical intervention by means of which health might be restored. With the Imperial period the sceptical notion first became apparent in the literature: Greek words from the root $\iota\sigma\sigma\sigma\theta\epsilon\nu$--which would be later used to name it seem to have begun to find their way into texts from its beginning. Some evidence is introduced to indicate that Philo Judaeus had knowledge of the subject of this study. By the time that Plutarch wrote Adversus Colotem the notion had become fully articulate. Later in the second century authors of the second sophistic also appear to have been comfortable with the notion at the basis of the sceptical way. Galen used the word on many occasions to describe anatomical and physiological details and a passage is included to indicate that he had knowledge of the notion. Sextus Empiricus compiled the arguments of the Pyrrhonians sometime around the end of the second century, and used words from the root $\iota\sigma\sigma\sigma\theta\epsilon\nu$--to identify the notion. Late in the Imperial period and reflecting what was to occur in the Medieval Latin west, Augustine seems to have been unaware that the equal persuasiveness of incompatible accounts was the basis for withholding assent. In the Greek east the notion continued to appear in some literature produced after the end of the texts known as ancient philosophy.

This dissertation is on prudence and its role in child-rearing. More specifically, it is on how Thomas Aquina's Treatise on Prudence (S.T. IIa IIae QQ 47-56) can with profit be used to help parents today in the task of raising their children well. It is the author's conviction that Aquinas has a unique and important contribution to make to the contemporary debate on 'parenting', so-called, and the dissertation is a defense of that conviction. The paper is divided into three Parts, with each Part consisting of two chapters. The overall logical structure of the paper is that of chain argument which runs as follows. Employing the modern notion of 'proactivity' as a framework within which to speak of child-rearing practices, it is argued that: If proactive parent, then practical, provident, and equitable; If practical, provident, and equitable, then prudent; If proactive parent, then prudent. The thesis is that: It is not possible to be a proactive parent without the intellectual virtue of prudence. Each Part of the paper is dedicated respectively to one of the three qualities mentioned: practicality, providence, and equitability. Proactivity is a comprehensive theory of effective living; it is an approach to life and to problem-solving which has its origins in the fields of business and motivational psychology. Its principal proponent is the immensely popular author, lecturer, and leadership specialist, Dr. Stephen R. Covey. The use made of the notion of proactivity in the paper is twofold. First, in particular, it is used to focus the discussion of prudence and its role in conscientious parenting. The author noticed several fundamental and undeniable similarities between the notions of proactivity and prudence and has sought to exploit these similarities as a way of better understanding what it means to be an effective parent and to raise children well. Second, in general, the notion of proactivity is used to re-enter into the modern debate on child-rearing the figure of Thomas Aquinas. Parallel to the debate concerning public education, there arose a debate as to the 'private education', the upbringing, that children receive from their parents at home. And this debate--about which parenting style is most effective in raising children of responsible character--while certainly more focussed and closer to resolution today, is by no means overwith. It is into this debate that the author attempts to re-enter Thomas Aquinas and his Treatise on Prudence: under the auspices, that is, of the theory of 'proactivity'. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The thesis investigates normative justifications for any particular division of the world into political units; it investigates the moral considerations which arise when changes to political frontiers are proposed. It is argued that the right of individuals to associate with whom they please is the moral factor which determines the moral legitimacy of political boundaries. Groups of individuals occupying a contiguous territory have a moral right to secede from any existing political unit for any or no reason other than the fact that the majority wishes it, unless it can be demonstrated that such an action would violate someone's rights. Such factors as culture, language, historical accident, etc., are morally irrelevant; they may account for psychological motivations but carry no moral weight. The argument would countenance the secession of Quebec from Canada, the partition of Quebec, or the expulsion of Quebec from the federation by other Canadians.

The question of how to interpret the role of providence in the New Science of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is one of the most vexing problems of interpretation surrounding Vico's magnum opus. In this essay I come at the problem by attempting to understand Vico's theory of knowledge and how it comes to bear upon his interpretation of history. In chapter one I offer a phenomenology of the historical world according to Vico. I consider the problem of historical knowledge as such and attempt to show that Vico makes an original contribution by his insistence that we need to critically appropriate the historical texts from the past. In chapter two I explore some of the main features of Vico's epistemology. I then attempt to get more deeply into Vico's view of history by looking at him through important interpretations. In chapter three I discuss the interpretation of Leon Pompa. In chapter four I discuss the interpretation of Vichian epistemology found in the work of Donald P. Verene. In a fifth and final chapter I attempt to then make some determination of how providence functions in the NS. I seek to interpret Vico's providence doctrine as requiring a transcendental referent or God, based on the verum-factum principle as the central epistemic model. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Abstract not available.

This study concerns a significant but hitherto undeveloped concept in the thinking of Saint Thomas Aquinas regarding man; a concept which is rich in implication for modern psychology, dynamic and developmental particularly. St Thomas Aquinas is well known for his solution to the problem of mind-body duality in man; what has been little appreciated is that solving this problem as he did, in terms of Aristotelian hylomorphism, was for St Thomas an intermediary step towards solving a more pressing cognitional problem affecting the basic integrity of the human mind: the problem of the duality of sense and reason. His answer to this further problem is found in his concept of the mind as a totum potentiale, or reflective totality. In this concept, not only the integrity of the human mind but the reality of man himself is presented, not as a given of nature, but as a challenging possibility only. The explanation, development and evaluation of the human mind as a totum potentiale is the subject of this present thesis. A totum potentiale, considered generally, is a totality or complexity of power, a dynamic totality, made up of part-powers. Its peculiar significance is that each part-power shares in the capacity of the whole but, while one power possesses that capacity in its fulness, the others share in it only in a decreasing series of less perfect ways. St Thomas' application of this concept to man's mind leads to certain conclusions whose significance for human life and living this thesis explores. First, the human mind is a complex totality; a complexus of powers, all deriving from a single dynamic source, intellect or understanding, the distinctive characteristic of man. These manifold powers are ramifications of intellect and, without them, intellect, which begins as a possibility only, could not achieve actualization. Secondly, the human mind is a reflective totality; it constitutes itself as an actual understanding through a return to itself, having posited itself in sensibility in its effort to understand reality. Thirdly, self-awareness likewise is not a given but a goal; it derives progressively through consciousness of the other; the human mind comes to know itself only through positing itself in sense. Fourthly, there is no exteriority of sense and intellect. Intellect exists within sensibility; it always permeates and is permeated by sensibility. While it is clear, as this study claims, that the potential or reflective totality concept was central to St Thomas' view of man's mind, its capacities, functioning and growth, St Thomas nowhere presents a developed body of theory on the subject. The present study attempts, by presenting and examining the major texts and their contexts, to uncover the image of the human mind as St Thomas envisioned it and to describe it, not structurally nor statically, but from the viewpoint of a dynamic and humanist psychology and in line with the approach of modern Hermeneutics, one of whose basic principles is that earlier concepts need to be periodically re-examined in the light of later developments within the same or related disciplines and so be made applicable and relevant to the needs of later times. It is the contention of the writer that the implications of the psyche for today's psychology lie in St Thomas' concept of mind as a totum potentiale. In support of this contention, four major areas of application of the concept are selected and considered: its application to the notion of subject; to the role and responsibility of society; to psychotherapy; to human sensitivity. To the extent that modern psychology is seen and recognized to be in need of a concept of mind which is both profound and adequate to encompass all of the human reality, the writer suggests that such a concept is available in St Thomas' presentation of mind as potential totality; potential spirit and subject, source and seat of autonomy, spontaneity and inviolability.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.