This thesis examines the role of History and Nostalgia in shaping the modern Tea Party movement, which emerged across the United States of America in early 2009. Inspired by the seminal work of Professor Jill Lepore, The Whites of Their Eyes, this thesis attempts to further investigate the Tea Party movement and their unique relationship with the past: from the social movement’s links with other conservative historical organisations such as the John Birch Society, to the Tea Party movement’s adoption and exploitation of the history of the American Revolution as a means of gaining political legitimacy. This thesis contextualises as well as details the historical origins, organisations, and ideologies behind the social movement. In the process of this task, the thesis has employed an experimental methodology which attempts to fuse together the philosophy of History with the discipline of History – an idea that was inspired during the experience of carrying out the thesis research at the time. This thesis highlights: the influence of the Internet over Tea Party movement, the Tea Party movement’s historiography of the American Revolution, as well as the similarities and differences of historical experiences shared by the Tea Party movement and the generation responsible for the American Revolution.

When observers’ own face is stroked in synchrony, but not in asynchrony with another face, they tend to perceive that face as more similar to their own and report that it belongs to them. This “enfacement effect” appears to be a compelling illusion and also modulates social cognitive processes. This thesis further examined the effect of such synchronous multisensory stimulation on physical and psychological aspects of the self. Chapter 2 explored whether multisensory facial stimulation can reduce racial prejudice. White observers’ faces were stroked with a cotton bud while they watched a black face being stroked in synchrony. This was compared with a no-touch and an asynchronous stroking condition. Across three experiments, observers consistently reported an enfacement illusion after the synchronous condition. However, this effect did not produce concurrent changes in implicit or explicit racial prejudice. Chapter 3 explored whether a similar enfacement effect can be elicited with a novel gaze-contingent mirror paradigm. In this paradigm, an onscreen face either mimicked observers’ own eye-gaze behaviour (congruent condition), moved its eyes in different directions to observers’ eyes (incongruent condition), or remains unresponsive to the observers’ gaze (neutral condition). Observers experienced a consistent enfacement illusion after the congruent condition across two of three experiments. However, while the mimicry of the onscreen face affected observers’ phenomenological experience, it did not alter their perceptual self-representations. A final experiment, in Chapter 4, further investigated the cognitive locus of the enfacement effect by using ERPs. Observers were exposed to blocks of synchronous and asynchronous stimulation. ERPs were then recorded while observers were presented with images of (a) a synchronously stimulated face, (b) an asynchronously stimulated face, (c) their own face, (d) one of two unfamiliar filler faces and (e) an unfamiliar target face. Observers consistently reported an enfacement illusion after the synchronous condition. However, this enfacement effect was not evident in ERP components reflecting early perceptual encoding of the face (i.e., N170) or subsequent identity- and affect-related markers, such as the N250 and the P300. Altogether the results of this thesis show that it is possible to enface a face, even when it belongs to a different ethnic group to that of the observer. This effect is such that observers report that the enfaced face belongs to them. Interestingly, a similar phenomenological enfacement experience can be obtained with gaze-contingent mirror paradigm. However, this enfacement effect seems to be too short-lived to be reflected in ERP components.

The purpose of this research paper is to analyze a historical, theological subject concerning the rationale for the transition from a Puritanical view of God at Harvard in the early seventeenth century to a Utilitarian perspective in the first part of the nineteenth century. The Puritans had a profound effect on Harvard, bringing with them severe discipline and an authoritarian view of God. As a result, many of the first Harvard students left the college never to return,[1] and the school had significant difficulties in maintaining an enrollment in its early years. Puritanism viewed students as being essentially depraved and only allowed to live by the grace of God. The Cambridge community portrayed the Lord as being an almost heartless, judgmental father, whose main concern was the discipline of the wayward children. This perspective led to regular beatings, cruelty, and a lack of concern for scholarship that encouraged the pursuit of multiple points of view. However with the coming of Romanticism and Unitarianism to Massachusetts in the early part of the nineteenth century, there was an emerging, change in the nature of truth with respect to God. The people envisioned the Lord, as a kindly parent, who was primarily concerned with the happiness of the individual and the community. With this perspective came a drastically different view of theology, wherein all points of view had to be examined and understood. The rigidity of Puritanism gave way to the more liberal Unitarianism, and God became part of a joyous experience of living. This paper examines the change that occurred at Harvard with respect to the University’s view of God and its impact on the academic curricula. It considers the reasons for the charge and the view of the students, faculty, and administration. It a analyzes how changes within a community can have a profound influence on changes within a college, and it provides a basis for academic freedom that is the basis for academic freedom—a concept that was alien to the Puritans. The key question is whether it has been successful in shaping the development of academia or whether it has caused more chaos than success? [1] George M. Marsden. The Soul of the American University (Oxford: Oxford, 1994) 33-5.

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This dissertation critically reconsiders the dichotomy drawn in modern philosophy between faith and reason, especially as formalized by the German Idealists. The latter, I suggest, continue to influence how the philosophy of religion is conceived and what it is considered to be capable of accomplishing. Though originally used to reconcile religious faith with the philosophical reason that had animated forceful skepticism, this dichotomy also underscores a tension between the conceptualization of a rational public good and private religious values within pluralistic societies. I focus on the efforts of Kant, Hegel, and F.W.J. Schelling to develop a philosophy of religion that distinguished philosophical reason and religious faith as distinct sources of theory while nevertheless establishing meaningful dialogue between each. The first chapter surveys Kant's and Hegel's philosophy of religion and argues that they struggled to maintain the otherness of religious faith relative to philosophical interpretation. The subsequent chapters each focus on a period of Schelling's intellectual development — his early criticisms of Kant, his mature rejection of German Idealism's subjective metaphysics, and his late philosophy of religion — as he developed an alternative philosophical approach to religion. This provides a means of exploring the challenges that a philosophy of religion must navigate to move beyond the problematic opposition of faith and reason. I conclude by considering the university as a promising context for reformulating this problematic dichotomy central to the philosophy of religion. The professional division of faculties embodies the abstract delineation of faith and reason and indicates the social and political dimension of such academic efforts. I argue that Schelling's contributions to the philosophy of religion point to the idea of the university as a vital framework for both reconsidering the opposition of faith and reason and moving beyond this schema in order to conceptualize effectively the contemporary conflicts between rational and religious authority within pluralistic societies.

I trace the concept of nothingness in twentieth century philosophical theology from the work Paull Tillich through that of Martin Heidegger and Keiji Nishitani toward Robert Neville and Ray L. Hart all of whom have taken up the challenge of nothingness. As a specific metaphysical concept or category, these philosophers and theologians would undoubtedly disagree on a specific definition of nothingness; however, I argue they would agree on the vague function of nothingness, which is a relief or contrast to being. Tied up with existence contra nothingness are the possibilities of existence or meontic nothingness. At stake in the encounter with or exposure to nothingness is the ability to refund or redeem one’s ownmost potential and possibilities. How one responds to the specter of nothingness makes nothing matter (or not) in the way one turns from nothingness back to existence. In other words, the stakes are not merely the metaphysical (non)status of nothingness, but the desire to find meaning and value in human, finite existence in the face of radical contingency and the specter of nihilism.

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze and discuss the individual experience of cultural legacy and inheritance, intended as the transmission of an immaterial product, from the perspective of continental philosophy, and especially through the lens of phenomenology. In particular, I discuss why the conventional way of approaching the matter in terms of tradition is unsatisfying when faced with the deeply personal nature of the Inheritance/Legacy phenomenon. I analyze the concept of `content' as the intellectual object to be transmitted and received in the process, and define it in terms of fragmentability and inclusiveness: what is the minimal notion that we can still inherit? What is the largest conglomerate of ideas that we can approach as one content? I introduce the fundamental notion of cultural density, as an alternative to culture in the discussion of the individual approach to contents. In particular, I define cultural density as the sum of all possible contents potentially available to an individual at any given time. Then, I move to the analysis of the moment of attention, as the locus of actualization of the contents, which are available in one's cultural density and, through attention, move into the interpretative space of inheritance. I also distinguish between attention and attentiveness. The core of my dissertation focuses in turn on Inheritance (the process of receiving a content from a previous author and making it ours) and Legacy (the creation of cultural contents in the perspective of a future receiver). I analyze their temporal relation and their complex interaction with our perception of time. I show how they are interconnected and how they both rely on narration (and specifically on self narration as a form of re-presentation) to be brought into actuality. Finally, I deal with their co-dependence and show how the reliance of Inheritance and Legacy on each other (with each needing the other to come first) gives rise to an apparent paradox. I suggest the notion of a saturated phenomenon (elaborated by Marion) to solve it, with an invitation to conceive the inconceivable (following Derrida and Levinas).

It is commonly held that Augustine’s Confessions provides an early source for the modern “turn to the self.” But as many critics of modernity note, along with this accentuated sense of self has come a decreased sensitivity to the value and significance of the other. Perhaps the thinker credited (or blamed) for being the source of the modern notion of the self can also be a source for the postmodern retrieval of the other. This dissertation examines the understandings of the self presented in Augustine’s Confessions and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to highlight and challenge structures latent in standard modern conceptions of the self derived from these very works. Despite their many similarities, these models differ fundamentally due to the fact that one arises from within an ideology of radical autonomy and freedom while the other arises from within an ideology of radical heteronomy and givenness. Sartre rejects givenness and leaves us with a system which asserts that the human self “is a useless passion,” and “Hell is other people;” Augustine assumes givenness and presents a model in which a fully-integrated self is possible only in becoming inseparably bound to the other. By examining how their contrasting ideologies contribute to constituting the stark difference in their conclusions about the similar selves they detail, I explore how structures of a religiously constituted self can preserve the possibility for communion in human relationships that are precluded by a worldview based on an atomistic and autonomous self as exemplified by Sartre. Closely examining the ways in which the self is experienced, expressed, and actualized in these two works, I highlight the fact that their opposing modes of engaging alterity are in fact entailed by their respective religious and modernist orientations. In exploring the role of religion in holding open possibilities for integration and communion between self and other, this work contributes to the contemporary conversation about the “turn to religion” as being a potentially productive response to the failure of modern and even postmodern notions of self to secure a basis for meaningful human experience.

This dissertation is a work of multidisciplinary comparative philosophy of religion. It comprises a philosophical analysis and evaluation of Western traditions of philosophy and theology around the issue of religious anthropomorphism. More specifically, this study focuses on the tradition of Neoplatonic onto-theology in Western thought, and the divide in this tradition over the question of religious anthropomorphism and the divine nature. The dissertation frames this divide in terms of the distinction between an “anti-anthropomorphic” conception of the divine nature on the one hand, and an “attenuated anthropomorphic” conception of the divine nature on the other. Chapters two and three analyze key figures and texts from the “attenuated anthropomorphic” and “anti-anthropomorphic” traditions of Neoplatonic onto-theology. The fourth chapter considers a significant critique of this tradition as a whole leveled by Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger, among others, namely, that the onto-theological project as such constitutes a form of conceptual anthropomorphism. The fifth chapter provides an overview of the multidisciplinary scientific field known as the “bio-cultural study of religion,” which has yielded compelling evidence that anthropomorphic religious ideas are maturationally natural, culturally adaptive in certain past cultural contexts, and thus may reflect human cognitive limitations. The final chapter incorporates evidence from the BCSR (bio-cultural study of religion) in a comparative philosophical evaluation of the debates within and around the traditions of Neoplatonic onto-theology. The central philosophical thesis of this dissertation is that evidence from the BCSR negatively impacts—without decisively undercutting—the plausibility of the “attenuated anthropomorphic” tradition relative to the “anti-anthropomorphic” tradition. It does so by demonstrating that the anthropomorphic attributions inherent to the attenuated anthropomorphic view are undergirded by hypersensitive cognitive mechanisms, which are prone to misfiring. However, the BCSR also indicates several important weaknesses of the anti-anthropomorphic tradition of Neoplatonic onto-theology with regard to the social viability of this tradition. The BCSR also erodes the plausibility of the critique that onto-theology is itself a form of gross conceptual anthropomorphism. It does so by demonstrating that abstract onto-theological concepts lack the conceptual and cognitive liabilities inherent to the type of religious anthropomorphism advocated by Barth and Heidegger.

This work provides a detailed account of the historical role of the distinction between the potential and actual infinite in a variety of debates within natural philosophy and mathematics. It then connects these historical positions to modern debates over the possibility of pluralism within philosophy of logic and mathematics. In particular, it defends a view under which theories of the infinite and logic are justified abductively, and it argues that this abductive methodology provides space for an interesting pluralism about both the infinite and logical consequence. This argument relies on a detailed and thorough historical investigation into ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern views of the infinite, revealing a range of background metaphysical and epistemological commitments that motivate different abductive criteria for sophisticated philosophical positions on the infinite. It then suggests that charitable interpretations of the historical positions on the infinite should lead one to endorse a logical pluralism.