All praise is to God who has made everything possible. This thesis has been a truly exciting and intellectually rewarding project. However, it would not have been possible without the help of a number of important people: I would firstly like to express, sincerely and earnestly, my gratitude to Professor Lawrence Hamilton, who has been an incredible supervisor. Not only has he been the victim of my ongoing dilemmas but he has also patiently, supportively, encouragingly and positively contributed to my personal intellectual growth. He has never turned away from my want to initiate a supervision session, no matter how random a place or time, and has always reacted in the same measured and well-thought out way, providing the stimulating feedback every graduate student can only hope for. Secondly I would like to thank my family for their unyielding support, love and concern, at times when I needed it most. They know what they have done individually and collectively and I cannot thank them enough. Thirdly, I would like to especially note the help and guidance ofDr Magnus Ryan, from Peterhouse College, University of Cambridge who, by sharing his expertise and knowledge of Medieval Political thought, illuminated my understanding of the subject. Fourthly, I would like to thank Dr David James for his help and comments on one of my final drafts. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This thesis examines the reception of the works of Adam Ferguson, a major thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment, by a range of German readers in the late eighteenth century. It provides a survey of Ferguson's main political ideas, and argues that many of his prominent German readers did not come to terms with them. The thesis contrasts the political realities and concerns of Ferguson's Scotland with the profoundly different political concerns of his German readers, and their often vague and inaccurate ideas of Scotland, and of the British constitution. Their documented responses to Ferguson's works are brought as evidence for a cumulative and complex case of misreception. The terms in which Ferguson expressed his political ideas can be fruitfully analyzed as a political language, a vocabulary of recognizable and mutually complementing political terms. After a close examination of this particular vocabulary, the thesis proceeds to show in detail how Ferguson's German translators, commentators, reviewers and readers unwittingly dismantled this vocabulary, lost or ignored its republican and activist elements, and sometimes shifted it into other vocabularies which were far removed from the author's political intentions. However, the differences between the individual readers are emphasized, not only with respect to their varied intellectual backgrounds and works, but also touching on their personal profiles as readers and thinkers. The thesis aims especially to highlight three aspects of this Scottish- German encounter: the capacity of Ferguson's texts to be removed from their contexts and misread; the failure of civic humanist ideas to make a serious entry into German political discourse; and the merits of close textual analysis for supporting a type of explanation, which may supplement or counter-balance other explanations, about the limited effect of "imported" political ideas in eighteenth-century German discourse.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-02T11:16:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-03-12Bitstream added on 2014-12-02T11:21:45Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000794975.pdf: 1924548 bytes, checksum: 6aa8a16573b51a46b9a8e9c762b1f57e (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente trabalho analisa algumas concepções sobre a Natureza da Ciência, mostrando que é imprescindível a utilização da História da Ciência no Ensino de Ciências. O caso que estudamos é a pesquisa do químico americano Stanley Lloyd Miller sobre a produção de aminoácidos na Terra primitiva partindo da hipótese de uma atmosfera redutora. A fundamentação teórica nos priniciais autores que influenciaram Miller: Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin e Harold Clayton Urey. Tem-se como objetivo geral analisar a trajetória de vida de Stanley Lloyd Miller e seus experimentos sobre a origem da vida, e o contexto sociocultural, político e econômico que o influenciou. A metodologia baseia-se na análise histórica e documental, fundamentando-se em textos primários e secundários, utilizando a abordagem qualitativa. Também foi verificado, em geral, como o comportamento dos cientistas é mostrado nos livros didáticos: de maneira descontextualizada e fragmentada. Constatou-se que na teoria de Miller e Oparin é possível discutir uma mudança na concepção sobre a origem da vida; antes existia a ideia de que a proteína originou a vida; atualmente acredita-se que a molécula de DNA possa ter uma relação com a origem da vida. A ideia dos coacervatos também não é mais aceita. Isso mostra, conforme já ressaltou Lederman e colaboradores, que o conhecimento científico é provisório, sofre modificações, correlações, e portanto, nunca é definitivo. Outra visão difundida no meio acadêmico, sobre a Natureza da Ciência, é a visão rígida que se tem do método científico. Este seria constituído por etapas que deveriam ser seguidas de forma precisa, apresentando resultados com extrema exatidão, infalibilidade e previsibilidade. O próprio Miller destrói este mito (previsibilidade), pois ao longo de sua pesquisa, realizou vários experimentos para chegar a um resultado satisfatório. Sendo assim pode-se afirmar que é aconselhável... / This paper assesses some ideas on the Nature of Science, showing that the use of the History of Science Education is essential. The case studied is the research of the American chemist Stanley Lloyd Miller into the production of amino acids on the primitive Earth, on the assumption of a reducing atmosphere. The theoretical framework is based on the main authors who influenced Miller: Alesandr Ivanovich Oparin and Urey Harold Clayton. The main objective was to analyze the life trajectory of Stanley Lloyd Miller and his experiments on the origin of life, and the sociocultural, political and economic context that influenced him. The methodology is based on historical and documentary analysis of primary and secondary texts, using the qualitative approach. It was also found that, in general, the scientists behavior is shown in textbooks in a decontextualized and fragmented way. It was found that in Oparin and Miller's theory it is possible to discuss a change in the conception of the origin of life: before there was the idea in whichthe protein originated life; nowadays it is believed that the DNA molecule could have a relationship with the origin of life. The idea of coacervates is no longer accepted either. This shows, as already pointed out by Lederman and collaborators, that the scientific knowledge is provisional. It undergoes changes, correlations and, therefore, is never definitive. Another view on the Nature of Science which is widespread in academia is that the scientific method is very rigid. The scientific method would consist of steps that should be followed precisely, presenting results with extreme accuracy, predictability and infallibility. Miller himpself destroys the myth of predicability when, throughout his research, he conducted several experiments to reach a satisfactory result. Therefore it can be stated that it is advisable to separate the Nature of Science, the History of Science and the Science Teaching

abstract: Systems biology studies complex biological systems. It is an interdisciplinary field, with biologists working with non-biologists such as computer scientists, engineers, chemists, and mathematicians to address research problems applying systems’ perspectives. How these different researchers and their disciplines differently contributed to the advancement of this field over time is a question worth examining. Did systems biology become a systems-oriented science or a biology-oriented science from 1992 to 2013? This project utilized computational tools to analyze large data sets and interpreted the results from historical and philosophical perspectives. Tools deployed were derived from scientometrics, corpus linguistics, text-based analysis, network analysis, and GIS analysis to analyze more than 9000 articles (metadata and text) on systems biology. The application of these tools to a HPS project represents a novel approach. The dissertation shows that systems biology has transitioned from a more mathematical, computational, and engineering-oriented discipline focusing on modeling to a more biology-oriented discipline that uses modeling as a means to address real biological problems. Also, the results show that bioengineering and medical research has increased within systems biology. This is reflected in the increase of the centrality of biology-related concepts such as cancer, over time. The dissertation also compares the development of systems biology in China with some other parts of the world, and reveals regional differences, such as a unique trajectory of systems biology in China related to a focus on traditional Chinese medicine. This dissertation adds to the historiography of modern biology where few studies have focused on systems biology compared with the history of molecular biology and evolutionary biology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Biology 2016

In recent years, philosophers of social science have drawn attention to the contributions of suggestive models or metaphors to political understanding. In doing so, they have suggested a distinction between models or archetypes of great scope and generality — politics seen as mechanical or organic relations, for example — and the individual metaphorical utterances in which they are presented. Historians of political thought have made a similar distinction between 'languages' or 'ideologies' which prescribe norms and conventions for political argument, and the expression and development of these languages and ideologies in texts. This dissertation shows these two developments to be complementary by investigating the extent to which political languages or ideologies are themselves made up of suggestive models of political activity. Taking our point of departure from Max Black's suggestion that a metaphor be seen as "the tip of a submerged model," we shall look for such models in groups of political metaphors sharing the same theme. Analysis of the concept 'metaphor' shows that understanding a metaphorical utterance is conditional upon a reader recreating a context in which the ground of the metaphorical identification is rendered intelligible by the point of the utterance. This distinguishes political metaphors from metaphors used in explanatory' or literary contexts. The principled strategies which authors and audiences use to produce and comprehend metaphors in political contexts are then shown to utilize existing conceptual classifications in the form of 'metaphorical fields' embedded in political discourse. These fields bring together abstract metaphor themes and concrete political doctrines to create political metaphors. In a field, the political value of 'imagery' — medicine, theatre, parts of the body or family relations — remains relatively fixed. Using illustrations mainly from metaphorical fields in which politics is seen as a therapeutic activity, political metaphors are shown to functions as maps, orienting men in a political world that is their own creation. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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My dissertation tracks an emergent theory of character in the wake of the ecological turn in the mid-Victorian period. It identifies the connection between changing representations of character in the popular sensation novel and developments in contemporary psychology. “The Social Ecology of Character” tells the story of how the idea of character fundamentally changed as a result of the development and popularization of the theory of ecology, the burgeoning notion of organisms as plastic and dynamic, given form by the precarious balance between internal physiobiological expression and external social forces. Rather than an innate quality or the result of “blank slate” impressions, character was conceptualized as a dynamic nexus of internal and external pressures in constant adjustment to its physical and social environment. This, what I call, “ecology of character” is intelligible in the sensation novel, a genre born out of a complicated overlap between the perceived physiological effects on readers and the scandalous storylines and infamous for its complex relationship between character and plot. I demonstrate how the sensation novel dramatizes the dynamic interplay between the internal and external forces that determine psychological development. Drawing on an interdisciplinary combination of literary theory, history of psychology, philosophy of science, theories of realism, gender studies, and novel and periodical theory, my dissertation argues that the sensation genre brings to the foreground the effects of the mid-Victorian ecological turn on literary character and incubates a distinctly mid-Victorian British determinism that anticipates late nineteenth-century naturalism. / English

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