Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, August 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Philosophy, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The study is concerned with some aspects of the philosophical development of Russell and Wittgenstein in the period in which their doctrines interacted closely with each other. The questions investigated -nay be summarised as follows: (i) What does it mean to say that language represents reality in an isomorphic manner ? (ii) How is it possible for language to represent reality isomorphically and yet be related to it in such a way that the relation it has in virtue of its sense is independent of the relation it has in virtue of its truth? In answering these questions, particular attention has been paid to Russell's unpublished Manuscript Epistemology (1913) because of the impact it had on Wittgenstein, who severely criticised it. These criticisms began to emerge, as an alternative to Russell's views, in 'Notes on Logic' and in the other pre-Tractarian writings. It is in the Tractatus, eventually, that the two-fold relation between language and reality, which Russell's position left unexplained, is accounted for, by virtue of the distinction form/structure. The following are the central theses of this study: (a) Although Russell and Wittgenstein share the assumption of linguistic isomorphic representation, their isomorphisms are totally different, since Wittgenstein makes the distinction form/structure and Russell does not; (b) Wittgenstein's development from the earlier writings to the Tractatus may be viewed in terms of the emergence of distinctions such as, the world as substance/the world as fact, possibilities/ actualities, form/structure, which lie at the heart of the Tractatus and serve to substantiate its central semantic doctrine concerning the language-reality relation of representation; (c) since the Tractatus maintains the principle that 'sense is independent of the facts' (i.e., that there is an independence or priority of sense over truth) then a proposition's relation to reality cannot be accounted for by means of ostension, for such an account involves the denial of the principle; (d) the divergence between Russell and Wittgenstein as regards the main concern of the Tractatus, centres on the divergence of their views concerning the vagueness of ordinary language; (e) a central aspect of the unity of Wittgenstein's entire philosophy, as regards the internal relation- ship between language and reality, lies in his conception of form.

Neuroscientific data may be usefully invoked in the arbitration of debates concerning the scope of representational theories of the mind. Contemporary cognitivists (e.g. Fodor) tend toward theoretical imperialism in that they argue that all types of intelligent behaviour, including perceptual-motor skills, can be explained within the framework of representationalism. Phenomenologists (e.g. Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Dreyfus) argue that the scope of cognitivism is not as vast as its proponents suppose. They claim that perceptual-motor skills are non-representational and thus fall beyond the purview of cognitivism. I argue that this debate can be resolved in favour of the phenomenologists by citing the neuroscientific evidence for the claim that there are two distinct neural memory systems: (1) a hippocampal system which operates over neurally realized Fodorian representations and subserves rational thought and action and (2) a non-representational striatal system which subserves perceptual-motor skills.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Philosophy, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation - Freie Universität, Berlin, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

M.Tech. / This research investigates how private, urban gardens in Johannesburg can be regarded as self representations under the ambit of visual culture. Based on the premise that private, urban gardens represent sites where subjective and cultural realms intersect, I employ discourse analysis based on a qualitative, interpretative paradigm to formulate a frame useful to an investigation of gardens. The frame is applied to two private, urban gardens in Johannesburg created by Jean Patchitt and Karel Nel. They are drawn from a single socio-economic class in order to reveal differences in the culturally constructed identities of the gardeners. I use the frame to examine artworks by artist and gardener Nel and artworks comprising my practical research, where gardens form the subject matter, to a similar end. Utilising a phenomenological approach, I argue that since gardens and artworks rely on sensory-perceptual experiences, an aesthetic that negotiates differences in value and pleasure informed by culture plays a determining role. By exploring the link between gardens and artworks as part of a larger signifying practice, my research contributes to the discourse of visual culture in general and to a South African context in particular.

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No description available.

This thesis, The Arab as Spectacle, is about representation. It is about the limits and the contradictions of representation. It is about the burden and the violence of representation. It is about the persistence of Orientalism and how the hierarchies of race and gender intersect with discourses on sexuality to inform and inflect the representation of Arabs in contemporary literary and media spheres of Australian popular culture. This thesis comprises two sections. Part One is a research dissertation that explores the strategies, devices and parameters of the representation of Arabic culture and identities through close readings of specific texts. This theoretical project inaugurates the second part of my study which takes up the question of the contradictions of representation through a collection of ficto-critical writings. Through these satirical narratives, I seek to expose and disrupt the hegemony of Orientalist representations that proliferate in English language literature and news media by bringing into focus the inherent paradox of representation, working within and against Orientalist representational traditions. In so doing, it is not my aim to 'correct' the Orientalist logic and imagery that I theorise in the first part of this thesis, but rather to undermine the spurious truth-value of Orientalist representations by deploying the literary weapons of satire, parody and irony. In this way, my fiction works to engage creatively and critically with the very tropes that I theorise in my research dissertation.