Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Seminary, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-112).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1999. Graduate Programme in Political Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [479]-489). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ56242.

My dissertation has two main parts. In the first half, I draw out an underlying presupposition of Descartes' philosophy: what I term "atomism of thought." Descartes employs a radical procedure of doubt in order to show that the first principle of his philosophy, the cogito, is an unshakeable foundation of knowledge. In the dialogue that follows his dissemination of the Meditations, Descartes reveals that a whole set of concepts and rational principles innate in our minds are never doubted. These fundamental units of thought are indivisible, distinct, and isolated, and enable the possibility of any rational demonstration. Atoms of thought are perfectly individuated because God has created them as such. Likewise, our minds have been fashioned such that we necessarily have a clear and distinct perception every time we alight upon these simple notions. In the second part of the dissertation, I take up critiques of Descartes' view given by Nietzsche and Heidegger. In the chapter on Nietzsche, I attempt to fill a lacuna in scholarship about Nietzsche's commentary on Descartes. More specifically, I argue that once the foundation of God is displaced, the basis for accepting atomism of thought dissolves. In the final chapter, I analyze Heidegger's critique of Cartesian atomism. I first look at Heidegger's critique of classical truth as correspondence from Being and Time, and show how it is relevant to a critique of atomism. Then I show how the early Heidegger's holistic philosophical framework can provide an alternative that avoids the pitfalls of atomism. While I limit the scope of my analysis to Descartes' particular formulation, atomism of thought was an influential doctrine throughout modern philosophy. This aspect of Cartesianism has persisted and continues to be a significant theoretical underpinning of many contemporary views. It is my contention that Nietzsche and Heidegger have important contributions to make to this area of thought, and the relative neglect of their work in recent scholarship is a detrimental oversight.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Arts

Denna uppsats kretsar kring teologins behov av ett universellt sanningskriterium, och den motsägelse ett sådant skapar i en postmodern pluralism. Vidare presenteras och analyseras två svenska teologers sätt att behandla denna problematik. Båda teologerna formulerar ett etiskt universellt sanningskriterium men bemöter den motsägelse som det skapar på två olika sätt. Ann-Louise Eriksson förklarar varför motsägelsen tillåts genom att övertrumfa den med ett paradigmatiskt etiskt paradigm som hon hämtar från sin feministteologiska övertygelse. Jayne Svenungsson bemöter i sin tur motsägelsen genom att istället lyfta fram en motivering som hon hämtar inom det postmoderna tänkandet hos filosofen Lévinas. I hans filosofi finner hon en placering av etiken på en förontologisk nivå vilket gör att det etiska kravet både föregår den pluralistiska verkligheten och blir en förutsättning för den.

Proceduralists about practical rationality and reasons for action argue that practical rationality is only capable of criticizing our reasons for action when, through deliberation, they are reachable through our current beliefs and desires. Using this model of practical rationality, proceduralists also typically argue that the only reasons for action we have are instrumentally valuable ones. Substantivists disagree, however, and argue that practical rationality is capable of criticizing our actions despite our desires, preferences and interests. Substantivists argue that although we have instrumental reasons for action, there are also other reasons for action we have, specific non-instrumental ones, which we are required to act for on pain of irrationality. In this thesis I argue that a substantivist model of practical rationality and reasons for action is correct, and that understanding practical rationality and reasons for action in this way has surprising consequences for moral theory.

This work is dedicated to the development of a unified account of both theoretical and practical rationality. I adopt a particular view of evaluative properties, according to which entities are evaluated as good or bad according to how well they fulfill the constitutive functions of their kinds. I argue that the function of belief is to accurately represent reality, while the function of action is to satisfy the agent’s desires. These functions fix the goodness- or success-conditions of belief and action. With these functions in place, I adopt a reliabilist conception of reasoning which evaluates reasoning processes by how well they allow us to achieve the constitutive aims of belief and action. Moreover, I argue that the process of determining which action will best satisfy our desires is a cognitive matter – non-cognitive states like desire do not actually provide the agent with reasons.

Early Buddhists undisputably considered Nirvana to be the ultimate goal of their practice. However, not only was the meaning of Nirvana disputed, but so were the means (e.g., right view and no view) conducive to its achievement. The thesis proposes to examine the controversial status that scholars have accorded to faith and reason as elelments of the path. In this respect, the Buddha's attitude toward tradition, reasoning and experience is examined, along with the epistemological foundations of Pali canonical thought. Related issues such as identifying the ultimate criterion of reality advanced by Buddhism are also discussed. Moreover, since the Buddha suggested various ways leading to Nirvana, an attempt is made to discover how the paths of sila, samadhi and panna relate to each other and to the final goal.

Jürgen Habermas is widely considered one of the most influential living philosophers and social theorists, whose work has spanned sixty years of academic writing. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, he began to engage more explicitly with questions of religion in his work, helping to popularize the term “post-secularism,” and offered leading analysis on the problem of religion in the public sphere, expanding and innovating John Rawls’s idea of the “public use of reason.” While this shift in Habermas’s work is significant, he has long been interested in questions relating to religion, dating back to his doctoral dissertation in 1954. To date, very few scholars have traced the idea of religion in Habermas’s work as a whole, and none have developed an analysis of how his conception of religion changes in relation to shifts in his broader theoretical ideas, and to significant changes in politics, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. My dissertation thus offers the first English-language critical investigation of the social construction of Habermas’s theory of religion. More specifically, I provide a critique of his theory based on ideas generated within the critical study of religions, and revisit the controversy between “deconstruction” and “rational reconstruction” in contemporary critical theory. Ultimately, I aim to expand Habermas’s model of reason and rationality to include elements of myth, ritual, and symbols, along with their various iterations in contexts of interaction, and as they are expressed in cultural narratives about religion within the public sphere.

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.