Kant's later writings on physics, collected in the Opus postumum, project a theory of body-formation similar to the wave mechanics proposed by Schroedinger over a century later. Kant's theory, when refined by modern wave mechanics, implies a reconstruction of both, the general doctrine of understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason and the doctrine of inorganic nature in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. / As a whole, the Metaphysical Foundations was not successful, notwithstanding the basic plausibility of its architectonic and the cogency of certain critiques of Newtonian physics--the critiques, for example, of atomism and absolute space. It did not clearly show physics to be a mode of thought which exhibits the basic features of understanding as such. This defect can be remedied through the metaphysical articulation of a physics of body-formation. Such an articulation will amount to a reconstruction of the Metaphysical Foundations as an ontology of inorganic nature, and it will demonstrate wave mechanics to be a genuinely intelligible mode of interpretation. / Chapter I of the dissertation determines the essential features of modern wave mechanics. Although further elaboration and confirmation of my thesis will require a treatment of Dirac's revision of wave mechanics, Schroedinger's work is considered representative. / In Chapter II the physics of Kant's Opus postumum is investigated in some detail. Its basic compatibility with the Critical doctrine of synthesis and with Schroedinger's wave mechanics is affirmed. / Chapter III examines in more detail the similarity between Kant's wave mechanics and Schroedinger's wave mechanics. / Chapter IV is devoted to a study of recent literature on Kant's physics. I argue here that the Metaphysical Foundations and the physics of the Opus postumum constitute a unitary, though incomplete, doctrine of physics which tends to agree--and, when refined by modern physics, does agree--with the synthetic nature of our understanding. / In Chapter V I criticize the Uebergang-doctrine of the Opus postumum insofar as it is construed by Kant as a doctrine of schematic mediation between the Metaphysical Foundations and physics proper, and I outline a plan for the reconstruction of the Metaphysical Foundations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-02, Section: A, page: 0513. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The thesis explores the formation of the first official Islamic jurisprudential body in North America—the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA)—as it attempts to respond to the needs of Muslim minorities. The research examines whether the FCNA's legal methodology (minhaj) takes into consideration the development and use of Islamic legal theory, or whether the legal body employs contemporary legal approaches in navigating the intricacies of legal rulings (fatawa). The FCNA and its fatawa, in accommodating legal change, presents a unique object of analysis in order to contextualize the dynamics related to Islamic legal theory and practice in the North America context. The thesis intertwines two academic disciplines: legal institutional history and legal theory history. The theoretical legal background and foundation of the thesis is established in the introductory stages including the parameters of Islamic legal theory. Part I discusses the FCNA as a legal institution, its Fiqh Councilors, and its legal methodology, including the realization of fiqh of minorities (fiqh al-aqalliyyat). Part II engages in a circumspect examination of the fatawa, the FCNA's epistemological and methodological legal foundation, and a critical analysis as well as an evaluation of the status of the FCNA and its fatawa. The FCNA's historical and legal experience illuminates the evolution, history, and path of Islamic legal theory and practice in North America. The thesis concludes that the FCNA, a pioneering institution in North America, engages Islamic legal theory, while at times challenging the existing legal paradigm by way of contemporary legal approaches, in order to address the needs and concerns of Muslim minorities. From Islam's rich legal heritage, the Fiqh Councilors of the Fiqh Council of North America have shaped a contemporary legal body to meet the demands of its context, one that will continue to evolve in the years ahead. / Cette thèse explore la formation du premier organisme officiel de jurisprudence islamique en Amérique du Nord—le Conseil de Fiqh de l'Amérique du Nord (CFAN)—et ses tentatives de répondre aux besoins des minorités musulmanes à travers l'émission de fatawa (décisions judiciaires), ainsi que le minhaj (méthodologie) qui en sert de base. Tenant compte du développement et de l'application des usul al-fiqh dans la période pré-moderne, ce travail de recherche analyse comment le CFAN emploie les principes d'usul al-fiqh en faisant face aux complexités de la fatwa contemporaine. Cette recherche vise à découvrir si oui ou non les fatawa reflètent la théorie du droit islamique, ou bien si le CFAN a dû mettre à point de nouvelles approches jurisprudentielles. Le CFAN et ses fatawa, tout en s'adaptant aux changements juridiques, offrent un objet d'analyse unique qui sert à mettre en contexte les dynamiques liées à la jurisprudence islamique en Amérique du Nord.La thèse recouvre deux disciplines académiques, à savoir: l'histoire des institutions juridiques et l'histoire de la théorie du droit. L'Introduction jette les fondations et l'arrière plan théoriques et judiciaires de notre enquête. La première partie traitent du CFAN en tant qu'organisme judiciaire, ainsi que de ses Conseillers en Fiqh et de sa méthodologie judiciaire, y compris la mise en pratique d'un fiqh des minorités (fiqh al-aqalliyyat). La deuxième partie examine de près les fatawa émis par le CFAN, ainsi que les fondations épistémologiques et la méthodologie judiciaire de cet organisme, suivi d'une analyse critique ainsi que d'une appréciation du statut accordé au CFAN et à ses fatawa.L'expérience historique et juridique du CFAN sert à éclairer l'évolution, l'histoire et le trajet du droit islamique en Amérique du Nord dans ses deux dimensions théoriques et pragmatiques. La thèse en arrive à conclure que le CFAN, une institution judiciaire pilote en Amérique du Nord, cherche en permanence à mettre en opération les principes de la théorie du droit islamique traditionnelle, tout en se montrant prêt à défier le paradigme existant en faisant appel à des approches judiciaires contemporaines. En puisant dans le riche patrimoine juridique de l'Islam, les Conseillers en fiqh du Conseil de Fiqh de l'Amérique du Nord en sont arrivés à mettre sur pied un conseil de fiqh contemporain apte à répondre aux exigences de son ambiance et qui, certes, ne cessera d'évoluer et de se développer aux cours des années à venir.

The subject of this study is Hanshan Deqing's (1546-1623) Commentary on the Daodejing (laozi daodejing hanshan zhu ), a work which contains his syncretic view of the Three Teachings (i.e., Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism) as well as his Buddhist interpretation of the Daodejing. The central argument of this study is that Hanshan's Commentary on the Daodejing reflects his syncretic character and his unique Buddhist understanding. I argue that each syncretist's interpretation or misinterpretation contributes to the variety and complexity of syncretic activity. Taking Hanshan as a case study, this study explores how an individual participates in the discourses of syncretism through interpretation. I propose that Hanshan tried to integrate the Three Teachings under the frame of the Buddhist concept of Mind and he adopted many Buddhist concepts in his interpretation of the Three Teachings. In addition, I propose that Hanshan's discourse of syncretism of the Three Teachings was one of his responses to the challenge of adaptation of Chinese Buddhism, which also reveals Hanshan's Buddhist position and syncretic view. In order to support my argument, this study shows that Hanshan adopted an inclusive attitude to all the teachings and interpreted all the teachings based on his Buddhist understanding. To serve as the background for understanding Hanshan's interpretation, Chapter 2 demonstrates that both Hanshan's life and thought reflected his syncretic character and his status as a Buddhist monk; Chapter 3 discusses the intellectual context of late Ming Buddhism and the responses of the Four Great Masters. In order to show how Hanshan's syncretic view and his Buddhist understanding impacted on his interpretation, the last two chapters demonstrate that Hanshan's syncretic view of the Three Teachings and his interpretation of the Daodejing all reflect his syncretic view and Buddhist understanding. This study demonstrates that Hanshan tried to find a satisfying interpretation as well as harmonizing with the established tradition while promoting the excellence of Buddhism. He also employed a new approach and hermeneutic method to respond to the challenge of Buddhism of the late Ming. In order to find a satisfying interpretation, Hanshan treated all the teachings as the manifestation of the Mind in terms of "shadows and echoes of the Mind." Based on this inventive term, Hanshan adopted an inclusive attitude to the Three Teachings.

This thesis situates the three-vow texts written by the founders of the new (sarma) schools within the broader processes of school-formation during the "Tibetan Renaissance" (950 to 1250 CE). The texts of focus are authored by Atiśa, Gampopa, Drakpa Gyeltsen, and Drigung Jikten Gönpo. In order to expand our understanding of these under-studied texts I examine them from three perspectives, with each perspective defined by a different set of goals that guided the authors. First, I explain how these texts describe and arrange the three sets of vows (the prātimokṣa, bodhisattva, and tantric vows) in order to clarify the commitments of a vow holder. Second, I show how the positions taken in these texts are connected to the process of monastic institutionalization. Third, I show how some of the texts engaged in public polemics in order to assert the supremacy of the author and his school. / Ce mémoire situe les textes sur les trois voeux composés par les fondateurs des nouvelles (sarma) écoles comme faisant partie du processus plus large de la formation des écoles durant la "renaissance tibétaine" (950 à 1250). Les textes examinés ont été composés par Atiśa, Gampopa, Drakpa Gyeltsen et Drigung Jikten Gönpo. Afin d'étendre notre compréhension de ces textes négligés, je les examine selon trios perspectives, dont chacune est définie par les objectifs différents que visaient les auteurs. Premièrement, j'explique comment ces texts décrivent et organisent les trois types de voeux (du prātimokṣa, bodhisattva, et tantrique) afin de clarifier les engagements du détenteur des voeux. Deuxièmement, je démontre comment les positions défendues dans ces textes sont reliées au processus d'ordination monastique. Troisièmement, je démontre de quelle façon certains des textes prenaient part à des polémiques publiques afin de promouvoir la supériorité de l'auteur et de son école.

This dissertation examines the problems that religious and moral diversity raise in public bioethics, both in the historical development of the field and in our contemporary situation, and is an attempt to develop the foundations of a bioethical methodology that is able to adequately address the issues of pluralism without losing sight of the fact that bioethics emerged out of the need for shared moral guidelines and rigorous ethical analysis of novel medical technologies. It has been my intention to contribute new insights into the processes of bioethical inquiry, deliberation and policy formation through the development of a dialogical method of public ethics that is able to quest for consensus while simultaneously maintaining a respect for, and making possible the accommodation of, incommensurable moral and ontological differences amongst religious traditions and philosophical systems. The aim is to implement modes of deliberation that can adequately cope with the reality of pluralism and to help produce bioethical policies suited for our multicultural and religiously diverse society. / Cette thèse examine les problèmes que la diversité religieuse et morale soulèvent dans la bioéthique publique, à la fois dans le développement historique de la discipline et dans la situation contemporaine; de plus, elle constitue une tentative pour développer les fondements d'une méthodologie bioéthique qui est en mesure d'aborder les enjeux du pluralisme sans perdre de vue le fait que la bioéthique a émergé du besoin de lignes directrices morales partagées et d'une analyse éthique rigoureuse des nouvelles technologies médicales. Il a été mon intention de jeter un nouveau regard sur les processus d'enquête et de délibération bioéthiques et d'élaboration de politiques bioéthiques par le développement d'une méthode dialogique d'éthique publique qui puisse permettre simultanément la recherche du consensus ainsi que le respect et l'accommodement des différences morales et ontologiques incommensurables entre traditions religieuses et systèmes philosophiques différents. L'objectif est d'implémenter des modes de délibération qui puissent faire face à la réalité du pluralisme et d'aider à développer des politiques bioéthiques adaptées à notre société multiculturelle et multiconfessionnelle.

The aim of this thesis is to examine reproductive technologies and infertility from the perspective of Orthodox Jewish ethics, law and culture. Treating infertility is a complex process; individuals vary in their course of treatment, taking into account their medical situation, religious beliefs, prevailing cultural norms, reproductive policy in their jurisdiction, financial constraints, and their community context. For Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews, this context includes a religious and cultural imperative to procreate, as well as religious law and social preference dictating the most preferred types of family. Judaism is a particularly pronatalist religion, and has a large body of halakhic text on reproductive technologies. Jewish people living in North America may also be influenced in their infertility experience by the policies and cultural norms of the society in which they live. This thesis examines the aspects of halakha (Jewish law), Quebec policy, Orthodox Jewish ethics, and ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish culture that are likely to influence the experience of infertility for Hasidic Jewish women in Quebec. Orthodox Judaism has a strong legacy of opinion defining the nature of family and the importance of genetics. This paper examines the aspects of Judaism and Hasidic culture that might strongly influence this experience, and also examines aspects of Quebec's history and current policy that may also influence this experience, albeit from a different angle. / L'objectif de cette thèse est d'examiner les technologies de reproduction et de traitement de l'infertilité au point de vue de l'éthique, du droit et de la culture juive orthodoxe. Le traitement de l'infertilité est un processus complexe; les individus changent en cours de traitement. On doit tenir compte de leur dossier médical, de leur croyance religieuse, des normes culturelles en vigueur, de la politique de la reproduction dans leur juridiction, des contraintes financières et du contexte de leur communauté. Pour les juifs orthodoxes et ultraorthodoxes, ce contexte comprend un impératif religieux et culturel de procréer. Aussi, la loi religieuse et la préférence sociale dictent les types de familles les plus privilégiées. Le judaïsme est une religion prônant la natalité, et qui possède un grand corps de texte halakhique sur les technologies de reproduction. Les Juifs vivant en Amérique du Nord peuvent également être influencés dans leur expérience de l'infertilité par les politiques et les normes culturelles de la société dans laquelle ils vivent. Cette thèse examine les aspects de la Halakha (loi juive), la politique du Québec, l'éthique juive orthodoxe, et les cultures juives ultraorthodoxes et hassidiques qui sont susceptibles d'avoir une influence sur l'expérience de l'infertilité pour les femmes juives hassidiques au Québec. Le judaïsme orthodoxe possède un fort héritage quant à l'opinion qui définit la nature de la famille et l'importance de la génétique. Ce document examine les aspects du judaïsme hassidique et la culture qui pourraient influencer fortement cette expérience, et étudie également les aspects de l'histoire du Québec et de la politique actuelle qui peuvent aussi influer sur cette expérience, mais à partir d'un angle différent.

Metaphysical aesthetics has re-emerged in contemporary aesthetic literature. It goes by the name of the philosophy of art, and Arthur C. Danto, who openly proclaims an ontological approach to art, is its most obvious proponent. Nelson Goodman is also in this camp in the sense that his general views in the philosophy of art are determined by his answer to the question of what there is. The first chapter defines the term "metaphysical aesthetics" by considering four early twentieth century aestheticians, Benedetto Croce, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and R. G. Collingwood. These aestheticians are classified as metaphysical aestheticians because they write within a classical tradition that assumes a relationship between aesthetics and metaphysics. This chapter also considers early twentieth century criticisms of "metaphysical aesthetics," and suggests that as the twentieth century develops, the mainstream of aesthetic thought moves away from metaphysics altogether; thus, during the middle of the century, aesthetics is taken to be independent of metaphysics. The second chapter introduces Arthur C. Danto as a metaphysical aesthetician. It considers Danto's early articles, "The Artworld," "Reflections Upon Randall's Theory of Language," and "Artworks and Real Things" with respect to their metaphysical character. The third chapter analyzes Danto's most substantive work in aesthetics, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981). This analysis demonstrates that Danto's metaphysical views impinge upon his definition of art, his theory of imitation, and his concept of the structure of an artwork. The fourth chapter examines Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art with respect to its metaphysical character. Goodman's conclusions in the philosophy of art, like Danto's, are determined by ontological commitments, in this case the ontological economy of a nominalist. Goodman thus stands as a further example of a philosopher working within contemporary analytical aesthetics whose aesthetics are based on ontological rather than strictly empiricist foundations. The final chapter formulates the nature of contemporary metaphysical aesthetics against the background of metaphysical aesthetics in its traditional form, that of the classical aestheticians and that of the early twentieth century aestheticians.

This study maintains that philosophical reflection on religion can avoid consigning the significance of religion to the secret of faith or sacrificing its significance at the threshold of intelligibility. Such reflection involves the unsettling of a traditionally respected heterogeneity between faith and knowledge---an unsettling announced by recent Continental philosophers yet still lacking rigorous exploration. Specifically in the context of the debates describing contemporary Continental philosophy of religion, an argument is needed to clear the space for thinking the interpenetration of faith and knowledge by becoming aware of the hyperbole that plagues these debates beholden to an inflated alterity. The task of this study, then, is to pull back from hyperbolic claims that have rendered the religious amazing in order to clear the space to think through this amazement as it finds expression. The effort to witness this possibility inhering in the Continental reflection on religion finds motivation in the recent reconsiderations of the phenomenon of art. The engagement with the artwork as enigmatic, possessing significance beyond the confines of the philosophical discipline of aesthetics, presents a model for thinking through the alterity of religious themes and phenomena. Pushing the philosophy of art to respond to the recent theological preoccupation with alterity offers a model for consideration of otherness in Continental philosophy of religion. Harnessing the kind of reflection suited to the artwork, I criticize and back away from the more enthusiastic, overstated, and indefensible claims of postmodern philosophy and theology---claims of either extracting the "'pure' and proper possibility" of religion or ones insisting upon a theological surpassing of critical or reductive philosophical thought.

"Being and Nonbeing" is a historical contextualization of Emmanuel Levinas' claim that his thinking is a "meontology," centered around the concept of to me on, nonbeing. It argues that: (a) meontology refers to the interweaving of nonbeing with being, and is thus not a whole-hearted rejection of ontology, and (b) meontology opens up a thinking of the future, which medieval and modern Jewish philosophers have used to justify messianic anticipation. The first two chapters defend Levinasian meontology. Although Levinas sees meontology as rooted in the Platonic notion of the good beyond being, Levinas never addresses the question of why Plato rejects this idea in later dialogues. Plato's Sophist supports reading to me on as the other being, not the transcendent other-than-being. Thus, Emil Fackenheim rightly associates meontology with the Hegelian dialectic that Levinas associates with violence. Levinas' misreading is saved by turning to Husserl's Logical Investigations, and delineating the relationship between being and nonbeing as a non-independent one, entailing an unnamable larger whole. The other being ineluctably refers to the other-than-being. The next two chapters deal with the theme of nonbeing in Maimonides, Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Levinas. Maimonides deduces a teleological arc of existence from Greek accounts of to me on: nonbeing is recast as not-yet-being. The modernists highlight the ethical consequences of this teleology: the unveiling of the ethical core of the self which lies in correlation with the divine achieves messianic redemption. In this meontological interpretation of messianic anticipation, the Messiah is every ethically responsible Jewish individual. However, in Maimonides, Rosenzweig, and to a lesser extent Cohen, ethics risks becoming merely an instrument of messianic anticipation; only in Levinas, for whom the revelation of teleology is written on the body of the Other, does ethics bear an intrinsic goodness. The final chapter shows that the meontological slippage between the responsible Jew and the Messiah is found in a rabbinic text, Pesikta Rabbati 34, and that this text can be used to critique recent writings of Derrida.

Only an interpretation of Reinhold Niebuhr which consistently adheres to the ideal/real dialectical structure intrinsic to his hermeneutics of myth does justice to the tensions inherent in his thought. The failure to preserve this dialectical tension results in one group of scholars regarding his christology as determinative and a larger group giving his anthropology this position. Therefore, the structure of his thought is better illustrated as an ellipse having two foci rather than a single-centered circle. Niebuhr's characterization of the ideal/real nature of this dialectical tension, however, implies that the truth of the former member is perspectival and the latter established upon more empirical grounds. The absence of metaphysical assertions about the ideal member of the dialectic ultimately requires that Christianity be interpreted from a relativistic perspective without criteria for asserting Christianity as unique in any but a personal existential fashion.