This thesis aims to critique three leading advocates of a particular strand of post-positivism, which has become influential in contemporary international theory, and which is characterized by three defining features: the idea that a proper understanding of the world requires taking into account the intrinsically contingent character of that world, which is developed in opposition to the positivist philosophy of science; the attempt to conceptualize the contingent coming about of identities and practices as an ongoing and open process of intersubjective (re-) constitution; and the aim to understand this ongoing intersubjective constitution in a way that excludes normative judgements. The main purpose of the thesis is to point out a tension between these three features. What it argues is that the conceptualization of practices as intersubjectively constituted stands in tension with both the aim to account for the contingent character of these practices and the aim to understand these practices in a way that excludes normative judgements. In particular, the thesis attempts to point out three problems that arise from the combination of these three aims: first, it argues that the notion of intersubjective constitution entails a particular kind of determinism, which undermines the post-positivists' aim to account for the contingent character of practices; second, the thesis argues that this notion inevitably entails a normative stance by the theorist, which undermines the post-positivists' aim to understand intersubjective process of in a way that excludes normative judgements; third, it argues that, in the post-positivist empirical analyses, this normative stance is never defended and, as a result, entails the arbitrary privileging of particular moral attitudes over others. The main implication of this critique suggest the need for a fundamentally different notion of social scientific understanding, which explicitly recognizes and grounds the role of moral judgements. A minor implication is that contemporary cosmopolitan agendas in world politics seem inherently flawed.

Some three decades ago, post-positivists working in International Relations rejected the positivist separation of the knowing subject and the object known. In doing so, they established a new ‘critical’ paradigm in which truth has been understood primarily in terms of social and political practices and norms rather than the Archimedean detachment of the scientist. This new paradigm is typically thought to have brought a new theoretical pluralism to IR. However, focusing on the work of Critical Theorists and poststructuralists, this thesis shows that the work of post-positivist IR scholars has in fact been defined by responses to a specific set of questions which emerge from the ‘socialisation’ of truth. It demonstrates, moreover, that both Critical IR Theorists and poststructuralists have addressed these questions by understanding truth as a matter of intersubjective epistemic practices and idealisations about the conditions in which they take place. This ‘epistemic’ understanding of truth is the source of significant problems for Critical Theorists and poststructuralists in IR, especially in their accounts of political practice and proposals for international political transformation. The thesis considers whether the work of Critical Realists in IR, who have advocated the scientific pursuit of objective truth, might offer a solution. However, whilst they rightly reintroduce the subject-object relationship to critical IR, Critical Realists lapse into a scientism as a result of which they reject legitimate post-positivist claims about the inherent normativity and practicality of truth. The thesis introduces Theodor Adorno’s materialist theory of truth as a way of combining post-positivists’ normative concerns with the realists’ emphasis on the subject-object relationship. On this view, truth is a matter of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity because it is matter of the needs and practices of partly objective human subjects. It is, therefore, both objective and normative.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1983. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-223).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1983. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-223).

It is widely agreed that some concepts can be possessed only by those who have undergone a certain type of phenomenal experience. The orthodox view among contemporary philosophers of mind that these phenomenal concepts provide the key to understanding the dispute between physicalists and their opponents. I reject the orthodox view; I defend an externalist conception of mental content according to which there are no phenomenal concepts. But the fact that there are no phenomenal concepts should not worry the physicalist: there are better accounts of the data that phenomenal concepts are used to explain. / text

Louis Sullivan’s “form ever follows function” had a profound influence on architecture. Although often confused as synonymous with modernism, functionalism is more closely related to positivism in its bias toward science and its rejection of introspective knowledge. This dismissal of the superfluous (such as aesthetic form or ornamentation) diminished the intuitive “human” in architecture by assuming universal rationality. This thesis re-examines functionalism in a contemporary setting: a vertical Buddhist temple set in between two tenement buildings within a New York City plot. Influenced by the work of Lars Lerup and the early work of Diller and Scofidio, the design explores the poetic tensions and obsessions between the profane world of the inhabitants and the sacred world of the temple through abstraction without any attempt to resolve them.

The thesis is based on the assumption that reasoning functions in its context. The locus of this context is the subject-in-act. The subject-in-act observes, wonders, asks questions, judges and makes justifications. In the functioning of reasoning, she uses the basic set of these cognitional operations rather than pure logical form or the empirical content alone to reach conclusions. Our contention is that logic cannot function on its own without the subject-in-act. Hitherto, efforts have been made to show that any knowledge system is based on either purely axiomatic and mathematical formulations or deductive tautologies and inductive reasoning or empirical convictions based on probability. The thesis attempts to argue that reasoning is not possible without the interventions of the set of cognitional operations. In the thesis we take as an example the early Wittgenstein's attempt to give a foundation for our knowing or the identity of what can be known, using atomic or elementary propositions. Wittgenstein' s own later repudiation of this introduces the idea that logic, and language are relative to social context. In Wittgenstein's second phase, we focus on the analysis of understanding in terms of "following a rule." This idea is later taken up by Winch in relation to his point of inter-cultural learning but he does not give us the method of how to achieve that learning. Lonergan introduces the idea of "self-appropriation" which we interpret by the idea of the "subject-in-act." It is this subject-in-act that forms a foundation for all possible understanding, explaining and knowing. Barden picks up from Winch and addresses precisely the issue of traditions and cultural differences. We want to argue that traditions and context are important in a sense that they serve as a starting point in our search for knowledge but in themselves, are not ultimately foundational. What is ultimately foundational is not a set of propositions, or rules to be followed, or social practice, but the subject-in-act. / Thesis (Ph.D)-University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [261]-267).

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-171). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.