The goal of this thesis is to establish the centrality of the philosophy of art in Schelling's thought from the System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), through the period known as his absolute idealism or identity-philosophy (1801-1806), to the address Uber das Verhaltnis der bildenden Kunste zu der Natur of 1807. One of the central problems of previous interpretations of Schelling's philosophy of art is the lack of clear and comprehensive criteria for establishing the similarities and differences among his various presentations. In order to establish a measure for evaluating the continuity of Schelling's philosophy of art, I focus on demonstrating the structural features that are consistent from 1880 to 1807: (1) What philosophy constructs in the ideal, art produces in the real. Thus artistic activity is the highest human vocation (Bestimmung ) because practical philosophy can only approximate its object, which is the moral law. (2) While both the natural organism and the artwork embody the same identity of real and ideal, of necessity and freedom, the work of art overcomes these oppositions through the identity of conscious and unconscious production, whereas the organism's activity is unconscious. (3) Artistic production has a socio-political task: it aims to overcome the fragmentary condition of modernity through a new mythology and artistic renewal. All of these features are first outlined in the System of Transcendental Idealism and are maintained through 1807. I argue that they can be understood in relation to Schelling's ideas of freedom and nature. The philosophy of art emerges as a solution to the problem of how to show that human activity can be objectified within the real world. For the philosophy of art, the objective result is the artwork. Thus for Schelling, artistic production exhibits an ethic of free activity that was 'more free than freedom,' as freedom was conceived, in Kant and Fichte, as conformity to the moral law. Though he also thinks freedom as an infinite approximation to a regulative ideal, Schelling adds that artistic activity actually produces its own law, as beauty, in the harmony of form and content of the work, which exhibits the identity of freedom and necessity, and the self and nature. Art presents the absolute in the finite world, and makes possible a new mythology that can unify humanity. I conclude by arguing that Schelling abandons the philosophy of art when he shifts his concern to the relationship between freedom, revelation, and theology. Schelling's orientation turns from a hopeful future of humanity, realized in a new mythology, to a focus on Christian revelation, the figure of Christ and the idea of human freedom as positive capacity for good or evil. In this account, Schelling reduces the role of art to the production of a work of nostalgia for a lost connection to nature. Art is reduced to this role because Schelling now conceives of freedom, and virtue, as the highest activity of human being; but this idea of freedom is of an ecstatic or existential nature. Schelling elevates human freedom to the pinnacle of the system when he finally surpasses its conception as an activity that approximates the moral law. In the Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom of 1809, and the Stuttgart Seminars given a year later, freedom is rethought as a positive, ecstatic act of inner law-giving, which is realized as virtue.

Notre thèse tente de porter un éclairage sur la nature du scepticisme existentiel à partir de l'analyse et de la comparaison des métaphysiques montaignienne et rousseauiste. Dans notre premier chapitre, nous examinons d'abord l'essai "Apologie de Raymond Sebond" pour mieux comprendre, à partir des figures de la métaphysique qui s'y dessinent---criticisme, ontothéologie et scepticisme---, la portée du scepticisme réflexif de Montaigne (partie I). Ensuite, nous portons notre regard sur l'essai "De l'expérience" afin de voir, en prenant appui sur les figures de la métaphysique qui s'y voient---expérience, égologie et philosophie de l'existence---, de quelle façon cette métaphysique sceptique s'actualise en une forme de scepticisme existentiel (partie II). Dans notre deuxième chapitre, nous procédons d'abord a l'étude de la "Profession de foi du Vicaire savoyard" de manière à saisir, en articulant les figures de la métaphysique qui apparaissent dans cet écrit---mythologie, ontothéologie et scepticisme---, le scepticisme involontaire de Rousseau (partie I). Ensuite, nous faisons l'analyse des écrits autobiographiques, en particulier des Rêveries du Promeneur solitaire, où l'accent mis sur des figures particulières de la métaphysique---expérience, égologie et philosophie de l'existence---vient montrer comment se concrétise cette métaphysique sceptique en une forme de scepticisme existentiel (partie II). Dans notre troisième chapitre, nous comparons les pensées de Montaigne et de Rousseau sur chacune des figures de la métaphysique relevées dans notre analyse de leur double parcours. Par le biais de cette comparaison nous suggérons que le scepticisme existentiel peut prendre une forme plus inquisitrice ou une forme plus sentimentale selon qu'il est principalement animé par le jugement réflexif (Montaigne) où l'assentiment du coeur (Rousseau).

The central objective of my research is to underline the central element which allows us to provide a unified understanding of the otherwise diversified parts of Hans Jonas' work. This central element is the notion of dualism. I will demonstrate that, according to his interpretation of the history of philosophy, both related to his study of Gnosticism and modern philosophy, and according to his own philosophical reasoning, that is his philosophical biology and his ethics of responsibility, dualism is the main theme of Jonas' thought, and that such a perspective has intrinsic interpretative value. I will thus underline the value of Jonas' philosophical thesis for contemporary philosophical reasoning, partly by showing the foundation of his ethics of responsibility, starting with his analysis of dualism and the philosophical anthropology which it produces.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the development of Russell's theory of cognition in the period from 1910 to 1926. Russell's theory of cognition consists of a set of principles that explain how our cognitive faculties of sensation, perception, memory, imagination, introspection, etc., contribute to our knowledge of the external world. At the core of the theory of knowledge lie the four experiential cognitive faculties of sensation, perception, memory and imagination. I am interested in these cognitive faculties since I believe that the theory of cognition, which has been overlooked in the scholarship, is an integral part of Russell's epistemology and deserves to be a part of the analysis of Russell's epistemology of the stipulated period. The period from 1910-1926 includes what is known as the acquaintance period (1910-1918), and the neutral monist period (1919-1926). I argue that in the acquaintance period Russell believes that the foundation of the theory of knowledge is the theory of experiential knowledge. For him experiential knowledge is grounded in acquaintance and this notion implies a theory of the cognitive faculties - sensation, perception, memory and imagination, and their sub-types. Through knowledge by acquaintance Russell hopes to explain the conditions of the most certain knowledge there is, and distinguish it from knowledge by description which is derivative, conceptual, complex, and dubitable. The theory of cognition under the acquaintance theory of knowledge faces challenges, such as distinguishing between certain cognitive faculties, or explaining how memory, and especially immediate memory, works, difficulty in accounting for our knowledge of the existence of the subject of cognition, etc. Another issue which Russell faces with in the theory of cognition from the acquaintance period is that it could turn out that the most certain knowledge is confined to knowledge of the specious present only. This possible outcome made scholars question the cognitive status of knowledge by acquaintance. In 1918 Russell expresses doubts that the theory of knowledge by acquaintance explains our knowledge of the external world. In 1919 he gives up his theory of knowledge by acquaintance and embraces a new one based on the principles of neutral monism. An initial attraction of the theory of neutral monism is that it made the picture of knowledge simpler by abolishing, or perhaps, by explaining it in new terms, a crucial distinction in the model of knowledge by acquaintance - the distinction between act of cognition (which is mental), and object of cognition (which is physical), and thus, dispensed with certain entities, such as the subject of cognition, which Russell was hesitant about from the very beginning. The central claim of the theory of cognition according to neutral monism is that all knowledge, experiential knowledge included, is derivative or mediated, and therefore, subject to error and skeptical doubt. Thus, even the most certain knowledge (perceptual knowledge) is subject to error. This puts an end to the distinction between direct and derivative knowledge which Russell viewed as important in the acquaintance period, and in a sense, makes the account of knowledge simpler. This, however, comes at the price of exposing all knowledge to skeptical doubt a lot more than it was possible in the acquaintance theory. Whatever the challenges of the new theories of sensation, perception, memory, and imagination, the textual evidence clearly shows that, despite all the changes surrounding the theory of knowledge in both periods, Russell's interest in the theory of cognition was growing and the theory of cognition was becoming increasingly complicated, of which The Analysis of Mind (and the later neutral monist texts) is evidence. I believe that there is a lack in the scholarship of a comprehensive analysis of the development of Russell's ideas about the main experiential cognitive faculties in both periods.

This thesis deals with abstract models of propagation (especially, self—replication). As some of these reflector borrow from nature, a summary of biology's current understanding of natural reproduction (mitosis) is provided for background. However, the predominant concern is with entities realized in uninterpreted symbolic systems, and associated philosophical and design problems. Thus the comparison that is made between artificial and natural modes of propagation is intended primarily to enhance conception of the former. Automata constitute one type of formal model. With a simple Turing Table the concept of a self-replicating string is illustrated. The idea of a logical universe in which propagating "virtual" entities emerge and interact is explored with reference to cellular automata. A formal system called Typogenetics provides the centerpiece of this thesis. The system, first presented in an incomplete form in Hofstadter (1979), is here fully developed (augmented with a useful program for personal computers). A Typogenetics string ("strand," in analogy to a DNA strand) codes for operations that act to transform that very strand into descendant strands. Typogenetics strands exhibited include, among others, a pallindromc self-replicator coding for operations sufficient to replicate itself; a "self-perpetuator" deforming and then reforming itself through fully compensatory operations; and an "infinitely fertile" strand bearing an infinitude of unique descendants. Meta-logical proofs establish certain general propositions about the Typogenetics system, e.g. that for every strand there is a mother strand. Redactio reasoning, of potential general is ability beyond Typogenetics, shows how a hypothetical strand can be ruled out by establishing the incommensurability of its two identities qua packet of operations and qua operand. A Russellian—type paradoxical strand that has all and only the non—self-replicating strands for offspring is considered (is it a self—replicator?), spurring discussion of the Theory of Types and Hofstadter's "strange loops." / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

In the past few years, the claim that meaning is normative has grown increasingly suspect and many powerful arguments have been developed against its interpretation in terms of (1) conditions of correct use, (2) prescriptions and (3) rule-following. In the first essay of my thesis, I discuss the precise arguments that have been invoked by Paul Boghossian and by Kathrin Glüer and Asa Wikforss against the latter interpretation. In the second essay, I turn towards the two other interpretations of the normativity of meaning, as they are discussed by Anandi Hattiangadi and by Daniel Whiting. My main strategy in both of these essays is to show that the possibility of following a rule, like the existence of conditions of correct use, depends on our ability — and our willingness — to adopt a normative stance. That is to say, I defend the normativity of meaning by showing (i) that we (as human beings) are not indifferent as to how things are done or how words are used and (ii) that the notions of “rule-following” and of “conditions of correct use” are ways to express that fact. In the first essay, I attempt to clarify what I mean by adopting a normative stance — and following a rule — by linking them with the notions of understanding and of intelligent behaviour. In the second essay, I rather insist that conditions of correct use can be explained in terms of appropriateness or of fittingness with the circumstances. As such, I put myself in a position to criticize the traditional unfolding of that notion and to further articulate my idea of a normative stance.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.