Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1947. / Bibliography: p. 139-142.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, Ill., 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-124).

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 2008. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [136]-140).

Univ., Diss.--Vaux-sur-Seine, 2007.

No abstract available / Systematic Theology and Ethics / D. Th.(Systematic Theology)

The study is an examination of the quest motif as it occurs in the Tarot and two dramatic works, King Lear and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The development of the quester is traced from his naivete, through a series of trials, to the consummation of his quest.The hero's quest is essentially to achieve an integration of polar opposites: light and dark, good and evil, the conscious and unconscious. Both the Fool of the Tarot and Lear seem to achieve that harmony, and, thus, I treat the Tarot and King Lear in separate sections of the first chapter. I begin with the Tarot also because of its enormous suggestiveness for elucidating the quests of Lear and Faustus. The archetypal nature of the quest is ultimately what unites the three works, and the Tarot provides a repository for the symbols and primordial images that inform quest literature.The second chapter deals with Dr. Faustus. Unlike the Fool and Lear, Faustus never seems to attain the hero's vision of light and harmony (however, the conclusion is ambiguous); indeed, he inverts the quest to its diabolical opposite and becomes the trickster in league with the demonic forces that form the negative corollary to the hero. Faustus' quest is the coexisting opposite of Lear's and the Fool's, and, as such, is the other pole that must be seen to experience the whole.

Orientador: Karin Volobuef / Banca: Helmut Paul Erich Galle / Banca: Juliana Pasquarelli Perez / Banca: Luís Fernandes dos Santos Nascimento / Banca: Márcio Suzuki / Resumo: Recentes pesquisas sobre a obra literária de Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) retomaram a famosa "crise-kantiana" do autor como fator de grande relevância no estudo de seu universo literário. Tim Mehigan, por exemplo, em seu livro Heinrich von Kleist: writing after Kant (2011) nos apresenta uma nova faceta de interpretação desta crise ao considerá-la como o ponto de partida para o desenvolvimento de Kleist como um grande colaborador da filosofia pós-kantiana, pois suas cartas (a partir de 1800), ensaios e obras literárias refletem o embate entre a teoria do conhecimento de Kant e os limites a que a autoconsciência pode chegar na apreensão dos dados da realidade empírica. O trabalho de Kleist, neste ponto de vista, pode ser entendido como "pós-kantiano" na medida em que vai além da escola kantiana e discute novas questões culturais, estéticas e filosóficas abertas pelo próprio Kant. Essas conclusões nos permitem avançar a discussão empreendida por estes pesquisadores para a abordagem de uma temática frequente nas obras de Kleist: a quebra de limites entre os conceitos de maldade (Das Böse) e bondade (Das Gute) desenvolvidos durante a Aufklärung. Essa quebra nos parece estar fortemente associada a uma subversão do conceito de realidade extraído por Kleist da noção kantiana de apreensão da realidade pela razão e ao ceticismo muito característico da filosofia de Hume. Assim, nesta pesquisa, procuraremos demonstrar em que consiste essa quebra de limites do bem e do mal e como a com... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Recent researches on the Heinrich von Kleist's literary works (1777-1811) recovered the author's famous "Kant crisis" as a factor of great relevance in the study of his literary universe. Tim Mehigan, for example, in his book Heinrich von Kleist: writing after Kant (2011) presents a new facet of interpretation of this crisis by considering it as the starting point for Kleist's development as a great contributor to post- Kantian philosophy, because his letters (from 1800), essays and literary works reflect the clash between Kant's theory of knowledge and the limits to which self-consciousness can arrive at the apprehension of the data of empirical reality. Kleist's work, from this point of view, can be understood as "post-Kantian" in that as long as it goes beyond the Kantian school and discusses new cultural, aesthetic and philosophical issues opened by Kant himself. These conclusions allow us to advance the discussion undertaken by these researchers towards an approach of a frequent theme in Kleist's works: a break in the boundaries between the concepts of badness (Das Böse) and goodness (Das Gute) developed during the Aufklärung. This break seems to us to be strongly associated with a subversion of the concept of reality drawn out by Kleist from the Kantian notion of apprehension of reality by reason and the very characteristic skepticism of Hume's philosophy. Therefore, in this research, we will attempt to demonstrate what this break of the limits between good and evil con... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

This dissertation grows out of the collapse of traditional Christian justifications for evil in the wake of Enlightenment critiques of religion and the atrocities of the twentieth century. Skeptical of teleological narratives that sought to domesticate suffering as part of a necessary plan - whether God's plan, or some more secularized ideal of progress - a generation of Critical Theorists adopted the concept of contingency as their central tool for political critique. Defined as the realm of chance, change, and the unnecessary, contingency serves for most contemporary thinkers to remind us that even seemingly natural categories, such as sex, race, and religion could have been otherwise. Yet in using contingency to make sweeping statements about the nature of history, scholars often overlook how contingency is understood on the ground by those who feel their bodies and identities abruptly made unstable. This project seeks to reground contingency in the specificity of human experience by returning to a neglected Christian tradition that understood contingency as a state of finitude, defined in contrast to the necessary, impassive God. For such thinkers, contingency was experienced most acutely in the sense of touch as it renders the body vulnerable to the external world and the passions as they ambush the soul. Accordingly, this work picks up at one of the last junctures before questions of history swept away the tactile, affective understanding of contingency: the end of the eighteenth century with the influence of Pietism on the Early German Romantics. This work draws this particular moment into conversation with the history of science, literature, and the anthropology of the senses, asking questions about the influence of shifting medical theories on the cultural understanding of touch; the historical ties between this version of contingency and theories of psychological pathology; and the relationship between literature and theology within this intellectual tradition. To focus those conversations, each chapter centers on a different situation in which a given thinker experiences contingency through touch or the passions. The opening chapter looks at Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling's 1813 philosophical fable, Ages of the World, which locates contingency in the uncaused, unconditioned - and ultimately pathological - desire for companionship of an omnipotent will at the beginning of time. The chapter argues that Schelling's depiction of the contingency of desire offers a phenomenology of loneliness that grows out of a broader engagement with the problem of evil. The second chapter turns to the argument of the poet Novalis (1772-1801) that we experience contingency as a form of wonder that connects us to a divine whole we can only asymptotically approach. This wonder, he thinks, is experienced most clearly through our physical contact with books that impress on us our inability to ever do more than touch upon fragments of knowledge, given the proliferation of texts in the wake of the printing press. The third chapter reads together Eugène Minkowski's phenomenology of lived space for the mentally ill with Jean Améry's essay on torture during the Third Reich. This chapter pushes against the optimism and revelatory nature of contingency in Novalis by following cases where contingency is experienced as violation through unwanted touch. The final chapter asks whether contingency is solely disruptive, or if it can be incorporated into lasting social structures, by exploring the work of Michel Serres (1930-present). It argues a model of contingency as "common tangency" underlies his environmentalism, leading him to urge the creation of a "natural contract" where humans combat global warming from recognition that they are in co-implicated contact with nature, much like lovers during sex.

People of late antiquity were subjected to the universal and perennial human woes - injustice, affliction, adversity and pain - that cause suffering. The experience of suffering is subjective. There are however, common sources of and expressions of suffering in humans. The fourth century was a period of significant cultural and social changes which drew responses from pagans that not only reflected traditional knowledge but also engaged with new sets of ideas. This thesis examines the problem of evil and suffering as experienced by pagans of the fourth century of the Common Era. Having received imperial sanction from the emperor Constantine after his conversion in 312, Christianity was gaining momentum in both membership and strength. The Graeco-Roman world had become one where Christianity, it seemed to some, had effectively surpassed pagan state cult Against this backdrop of religious change, pagans had taken on a self-consciousness that engendered a rethinking of many traditional ways of coping with and explaining the evils of the world and the suffering that could result from them. Some rules and conditions had changed, so how and where could pagans seek explanation for, protection from or alleviation of their suffering? The study addresses this question by posing and responding to further questions. Firstly, how did pagans understand the presence of evil and suffering in the world? Secondly, from what sources, natural or supernatural, could they draw hope in the face of evil and suffering? And thirdly, what degree of autonomy could pagans claim in approaching the problem? Religion and philosophy might be perceived by pagans to contain the answers to why there was evil and suffering in the world. The addition of science and the occult to religion and philosophy offered further ways through which pagans might seek to deal with the problem. By drawing primarily on extant literary evidence from the period as well as selected material evidence (predominantly pagan, but including some Christian), the research will trace the evolution of ideas regarding evil and suffering that pagan thinkers were bringing to the contemporary debate. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2008

<p><strong> </strong></p><p> </p><p>The concept of outsiders has been argued to be one of the main themes in childhood fairy tales in general and in J.K. Rowling's <em>Harry Potter</em> novels in particular. Severus Snape is one of the most evident outsider characters in the novels, described as an unpleasant, ugly man presented as a double agent with uncertain allegiances. When the truth is revealed, in the very last pages of the series, he is discovered to have been an undercover spy for the good side all along. This essay examines Snape as an outsider, and analyzes his effect on the novel, especially his relation to the three characters with whom he interacts most: Dumbledore, Voldemort and Harry. All three of these characters are main characters and are also outsiders themselves in different ways. Examining the relations between good and evil and showing that these concepts are closely tied to choices and reactions towards being an outsider, the essay argues that the analysis of Snape as an outsider helps distinguish between aspects of good and evil in the novel. By focusing on Snape and the concept of the outsider, different dimensions of the novels become visible. Snape is here an instrumental character on his own, and may well be seen as the main character. Although the series in some aspects has been described as a fairy tale, the complex character of Severus Snape gives the novels a further depth appealing not only to children, but to adults as well.</p>