Evidence based medicine (EBM) offers an established framework for the generation, interpretation, and utilisation of information in medicine and the health sciences. Central to the practice of EBM is, I argue, the notion of causation. This thesis makes an original contribution to the philosophy of EBM through a unique identification of a causal theory in EBM, and then by demonstrating a reconceptualised theory of causation better suited to evidence based person centred care. PART 1 of this thesis demonstrates that a very specific idea of causation can be witnessed within the structure of EBM. This idea is typically Humean. Through a consideration of the structure and textual narrative of EBM, it is proposed that the framework substantiates central and canonical claims. These claims relate to the core activity of EBM being the informing of clinical decision-making through the transference of causal claims from prioritised research methods. I argue that a Humean notion of causation is problematic for the central and canonical claims, thereby presenting a paradox – EBM is structured to inform clinical decision-making about causation but is inhibited from doing so by the way this very structure conceptualises causation. In PART 2 I argue for a reconceptualisation of causation that offers some solutions to the problems identified in PART 1. This theory relates to a dispositionalist ontology and takes causes to be derived from properties of an individual and as being things that merely tend towards an effect. Causes are seen as complex and context-sensitive, and whereby a traditional Humean account sees these factors as challenges to its epistemological reading, causal dispositionalism takes them as its starting point. To present this theory, desiderata are developed from existing narratives on EBM and elements of the theory set against these. In conclusion, I argue that if medicine and health care desire a framework of practice that is both evidence based and person centred, its causal theory must be reconceptualised. Causal dispositionalism offers an encouraging reconceptualisation.

In this thesis I show how the challenges of producing a philosophy of history responsive to the negativity of the world benefits from working through the difficulties of G. W. F. Hegel’s systematic philosophy. By revealing the powerful and intricate ways that Hegel gives an illegitimate primacy to thought (or the concept) we can better appreciate the obstacles that face a philosophy which places new emphasis on the nonconceptual whilst recognising the genuine role of the concept. In the first half of this thesis I reconstruct the important criticisms levelled at Hegel by F. W. J. Schelling and Theodor W. Adorno. I argue that both their criticisms illuminate our understanding of the metaphysical status of Hegel’s thought and expose the surreptitious means by which Hegel overextends the concept. The value of Adorno’s and Schelling’s reading of Hegel is also due to the fact that they do not cast aside Hegel’s ambitions as mere fantasy. Rather, they provide important insight into the goals philosophy should be striving towards—even if we cannot be as confident as Hegel in their imminent achievement. In the second half I reconstruct Schelling’s and Adorno’s philosophies of history in light of their criticisms of Hegel. The core problem addressed is how unwarranted optimism – entailed by the idealistic operation in Hegel’s theoretical philosophy – is to be eschewed whilst also avoiding a lapse into unwarranted pessimism. I argue that, while both Schelling and Adorno make important advances in this direction, Adorno’s philosophy of history is better able to make sense of both the prevalence of unfreedom in history and the ways in which we can respond to this situation.

This thesis explores the discursive environment in which the ‘interdisciplinary self’ is constructed. Interdisciplinarity is part of research policy agendas across the globe; however, there are competing and contrasting discourses about its value. On the one hand, interdisciplinarity is meant to foster innovation and to address contemporary world problems; on the other hand, it represents an intellectual and a professional risk for those who engage in it. Interdisciplinarity has become a research topic in itself, but scholars have not engaged with contemporary literature on ‘the self’ and on expertise. This limits our understanding of the individuals who engage in interdisciplinary research and how they deal with their intellectual and professional challenges. This thesis aims to fill this gap by reviewing literature on expertise and analysing 27 semi-structured interviews with researchers and administrators from a large research-oriented British university. The analysis draws on an approach that focuses on how ‘the self’ is constructed in discourse and biographical narrative, taking up but also resisting widely established meanings (e.g. what is an expert, what is worthwhile professionally, etc.). The analysis identifies in particular four ‘ideological dilemmas’ that the interviewees struggle with in their arguments about their background, their skills, and the value of their careers; namely the dilemmas of ‘openness and rigour’, ‘individualism and collectivism’, ‘disciplinary tolerance and expert prejudice’, and ‘effort and reward’. These dilemmas suggest that the ‘interdisciplinary self’ is performatively and discursively constructed in a rhetorical context in which no position can remain untroubled. Therefore associating interdisciplinary individuals with idealised traits, personalities and ‘virtues’ is not so adequate. It is suggested that ‘interdisciplinary expertise’ consists of the skills of managing these dilemmas, which may be partially but not permanently solved.

The papers included in the thesis, and summarized in this covering document, were selected, in discussion with my supervisor, Dr. Roessler, from papers I have published in the philosophy of psychiatry. In parallel to this philosophical work, I have worked clinically as a psychiatrist and academically as a research psychiatrist. My clinical work has largely been working with Early Intervention Services, both in South London and in Coventry and Warwickshire, and this work has been acting as a psychiatrist in clinical teams who work with young people who may either be at risk of developing a psychotic illness, or are in the earliest stages of such an illness. My empirical work has been in the same clinical group and has used functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuropsychology to characterize those at risk of psychosis and to chart the onset of psychosis and the formation of delusions. As required by the university guidelines, a full list of publications, both empirical and philosophical, is detailed in appendix 1. The papers included in the thesis hence parallel many of these clinical and empirical interests: papers 2 and 4, in particular, examine the role neuroimaging may play in studying delusions and relate the prodromal phase of psychosis to both the neurodevelopmental and continuum models of psychosis. Paper 3 is one of two papers written with Lisa Bortolotti drawing on Richard Moran’s work and examining delusions. Paper 1 is perhaps the paper least connected to my empirical and clinical work as has a wider focus and tries to examine what mental illnesses are and to begin to describe a position Lisa Bortolotti and I later expanded on and referred to as ‘psychological realism’, with Paper 2 being a case example of this account being applied to a particular area of psychopathology, namely delusions. The papers form a progression with Paper 1 outlining a general conception of mental disorder, Paper 2 being a case study of this approach specifically in the area of delusion. Paper 3 takes the example of thought insertion and develops ideas from Paper 2 that reason giving is a crucial feature that helps highlight what is pathological about certain experiences. Paper 4 brings together the philosophical concerns regarding a wholly neuroscientific conception of psychopathology, and how this is of clinical and scientific relevance when we use psychopathology to demarcate the various stages of psychotic experience and illness.

What can cinema as an industry and medium teach us about the roles and parameters that define a “body” within a contemporary and globalised climate of interwoven flows of exchanges and practices? How does cinema make visible and tangible otherwise invisible transsensorial and affective modes of interactions that a body actively engages with other bodies, to create meanings beyond the limitations and capacities of a single body’s subjectivity and materiality? I address these areas of inquiry by examining four case studies of film examples produced from Singapore, Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and America that feature ethnic “Chinese” bodies on screen. This thesis sets out to illustrate how meaning is easily imposed on bodies—whether tied to the ethnic, visual, or tangible—rendering them passive where they are mere products of social construction with no individual agency or autonomy. However, contemporary practices of filmmaking and new ways of thinking about film experiences reveal that the body is in fact an active-affective producer of meanings. As such, the body can no longer be approached as a passive central locus where its meaning is defined solely by transnational, transcultural, or other grand narratives. This thesis posits a “transsensorial” object-oriented, and new-materialist approach within the field of transnational Chinese cinemas studies that regards bodies on-screen beyond audiovisual signs to consider the materiality and immateriality of their production and productivity. Bodies are reframed as “body-without-organs” to consider the affective processes that produce them within specific ecologies—and their productive affective potentials to interrelate and encounter other bodies not-yet-formed. Through which, this thesis makes a case for cinema’s potential to produce thinking active-bodies and how bodies make sense of the worlds they are part of beyond subjective notions of lived experiences whether construed through different various inflections of social constructed identities based on trans-national, or trans-cultural discourses.

This thesis argues that Western feminist theoretical models of identity can be productively complicated by the insights of postcolonial feminisms. In particular, it explores ways that Western feminist theory might more adequately sustain a focus on 'women' while keeping open a space for differences such as race and nation. Part One identifies a number of themes that emerge from recent Indian feminist scholarship on the intersections of sex, gender, race, nation and community identities. Part Two uses these insights to look critically at the work of four Western theorists, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway and Luce Irigaray. I argue that strategies which privilege sexual difference as primary cannot deal adequately with differences such as race and nation. But I also argue that strategies which privilege destabilizing identity can be equally constrained by the logic of dualisms which has made it so difficult for feminists to sustain a focus on women and their differences. Part Three discusses how the insights to be drawn from Indian ferninisms might be taken on board by Western ferninisms in order to develop more complex models of power, identity and the self. Throughout the thesis I draw on a Foucauldian understanding of power as productive, and on Foucault's insight that subjects and identities emerge, not through the imperatives of a single symbolic system, but through the intersection of multiple networks of discourses, material practices and institutions. I argue that, by attending to women's complex location within intersecting landscapes of gender, nation, race and other community identities, feminist models of identity can dispense with a logic of dualisms in order to redefine, and not only destabilize 'women' as the subject of/for feminism. This requires working against purity on three levels. First, it requires a model of power that gives up on the search for pure, power-free zones and works instead with the instabilities power produces as it both enables and constrains women. Second, it requires seeing 'women' as a complex, impure category that bleeds across the apparently coherent borders of identity categories such as gender, race and nation, and contesting discursive constructs of 'Woman' as the pure space of origin upon which these apparently discrete categories stand. Third, it requires the development of alternative models of the self that take these complex, impure spaces as a valid and valorised position from which to act and to speak.

As early as 1958 John McCarthy stressed the importance of formulating common sense knowledge, and common sense reasoning, in a rigourous manner. Today, this is considered to be the central problem in Artificial Intelligence (AI). A strong advocate of this view is Patrick Hayes, who in 1974 argued that fuzzy logic was not a useful mechanism for representing vague terms, and suggested a better formalism could be developed using Zeeman's Tolerance Geometry. Five years later, Hayes complained about AI's emphasis on toy world's and suggested that a suitable project would be to formalise our common sense knowledge of the (everyday) physical world. A project now known as Naïve Physics (NP). In this project, Hayes discussed his attempts at describing the intuitive notion of objects touching using topological techniques, and indicated that Tolerance Geometry would be a better framework for capturing this notion. This thesis investigates Hayes' suggestion of developing Tolerance Geometry into a formal framework in which one can capture such intuitive terms as bodies touching, and characterising such vague terms as being tall. The analysis in this thesis begins with a (formal) investigation of the Sorites paradox. This puzzle is singled out because it clearly illustrates the problems raised by any formal analysis of vagueness in any language. The analyses of vagueness indicate that vague predicates possess continuous interpretations, and thence demonstarte the need for a spatial structure to be incorporated into the formalised metalanguage. This metalanguage then provides the framework for the proof that the Sorites is insoluble in a logic with a truth-set given by {0,1}, but consistent in a logic with truth-set given by {0,u,1}. Furthermore, this investigation reveals that Zadeh has confused the notions of continuity and the continuum, and therefore his theory of fuzzy sets rest on a mistaken assumption.

This thesis seeks to establish a connection between abstract thought and material practice. It does so by focusing on the relation between the transcendental philosophy of time and the socio-technics of time-keeping practices. The thesis begins with a discussion of Kant's philosophy of time as outlined in the Critique of Pure Reason. It argues that Kant's discovery of the transcendental coincides with the development of an entirely new conception of time. This new conception overturns classical thought by making a distinction between the abstract form of time and the empirical phenomena of movement and change. The second chapter maps the transcendental philosophy of time on to the history of capitalist time-keeping. This history includes: the invention and development of the mechanical clock, temporal standardization and the increasing importance of the equation 'time = money. The aim in bringing these two spheres together is to show, both that Kant's philosophy of time owes much to his empirical surroundings, and also that capitalist time can only be understood through the temporal abstraction of transcendental thought. This link between Kant and capitalism is blocked, however, by a dividing line which separates the philosophical nature of time from the empirical changes of history. In order to surpass this problem the thesis turns to the work of Deleuze and Guattari whose 'transcendental materialism' connects the abstract production of time with empirical innovations. This is accomplished by replacing the classical conception of a transcendent eternity with the immanent materiality of an exterior plane. This plane - which they call Aeonis composed of thresholds, or singular events which make no distinction between time and that which occurs in time. The final chapter explores the dawn of the third millennium - or Y2K - as constituting one such Aeonic event.

This project is driven by omissions at the intersection of ecological game studies and media-ecology. Although authors have studied videogames from a variety of ecological approaches, few have attempted to develop a holistic methodology, embracing videogames' specific attributes while recognising their role within larger physical systems. This thesis is an attempt to address this, reading videogames as simultaneously about and functioning as ecologies. My methodology draws on the agential-realist philosophy of Karen Barad whose theory of 'intra-activity' is abundant with ecological ramifications. Adapting Barad's 'intra-active' framework for use with contemporary videogames, I read them as assemblages of hardware, software and their human players. I explore three significant aspects of game studies: interaction, aesthetics and affect. Focusing on interaction, I analyse the game Shelter. Emphasising the role of hardware and software, I read these processes in conjunction with an understanding of gameplay. This encourages a shift away from seeing gameplay as 'interaction' as it is defined within human-computer-interaction, and instead promotes a view that is 'intra-active'. Siding with Barad, play is radically reframed as a phenomenon that produces the apparent objects of its inception. In the second study I approach a series of more experimental games illustrating how an agential-realist worldview influences aesthetics. Analysing high-concept puzzle games Superhot, Antichamber, and Manifold Garden, I suggest that these games place a focus on aspects of ecology often over-shadowed in so-called 'natural' imaginings of our world, such as time, space and their entanglement. Finally, bringing my focus to the role of the player in my ecological understanding of games I analyse a number of short, human-centred or biographical games. Seeing the role of the player in an ecological manner, designers deviate from traditional methods of generating pathos and affect. Rather than developing empathetic relationships between player and avatar through immersion, viewing the player as only a part of an ecological system demands a posthuman response from players. These designers ask players to empathise while acknowledging their role is small and not central. This thesis presents a novel point of view that draws attention to the ambitious design practices of artists while suggesting new avenues in the future.

This thesis aims to throw an illuminating light on the as yet neglected concept of nothing in Kant’s system, a concept which is taken into consideration, by Kant, in accordance with the guiding thread of the categories of the understanding. My main argument is that Kant has a fourfold division of nothing and each has a transcendental function in his system. This function is basically a limiting one; setting up negative determinations without which Kant’s system would have never been constituted as it is now. It is shown in the thesis that the concept of nothing is divided basically into four: first, nothing as ens rationis that limits and thereby protects knowledge, secondly nothing as nihil privativum that defines the boundaries of phenomenal reality, thirdly nothing as ens imaginarium that makes possible the unity of experience and finally, nothing as nihil negativum that draws the lines of logical thinking. All make, in the last resort and by being the concepts of the opposite, experience possible. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is an exposition of all four divisions of nothing, the second is the display specifically of the concepts of ens rationis and nihil negativum, and the third is of the concepts of ens imaginarium and nihil privativum. The auxiliary argument of the thesis is that while Hegel makes a strong charge of externality against and thereby severely criticizes the Kantian concept of the thing-in-itself, - the concept of which I propose to be contained under the concept of ens rationis- Kant has equally convincing arguments against such a charge. This is the topic of the fourth and final chapter which has an implicit aim of creating the image of a powerful critical Hegel but on the other hand an equally enduring and war-like Kant. Kant is presented as a philosopher who has powerful responses to institute a balance between himself and his opponent. When Kant’s differing concepts of nothing are taken into account, Hegel’s attack of externality, it is maintained, appears not to have taken into account the full measure of the resources of the Kantian position. Even when it is said that the attack is against one specific concept of the thing-in-itself alone, Kant still seems to have enough resources for toleration and defence indeed.