For Milan Kundera, the question of identity is one of the essential questions around which a novel is constructed. The novelist attempts to define the issue by exploring the existential themes that are tied to it. These themes are examined from different angles with the aid of what the author calls "motifs". Our study is centered on one of those motifs, that of the mirror, through which the author explores the "enigma of the ego". The typological analysis of this motif in Kundera's ten novels brings out in the characters two fundamental attitudes with regard to their identity. The first consists in clinging to it, which results in the character's disquiet, while the second consists in freeing oneself from it, which leads to a better understanding of reality as well as to a certain form of wisdom.

This thesis examines representations of nation, race and gender in three postcolonial texts: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; Meena Alexander's autobiographical memoirs Fault Lines; and Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi's collection of short stories entitled Imaginary Maps. All three texts reconfigure conventional accounts of nationhood by positing fictions based on what I am calling the poetics of displacement. The diasporic perspective provides Salman Rushdie's novel with the ability to suggest hybrid identities arising from the experience of cultural migration. In Meena Alexander's autobiography, displacement is figured in terms of both a diasporic and feminist vision that allows for the deconstruction of masculinist narratives of identity and nation. Mahasweta Devi's short stories, by contrast, represent displacement in terms of the violences and dislocations suffered by the Indian subaltern as a result of ecological degradation and cultural uprootment. In looking at these differential articulations of displacement, this thesis thus attempts to illustrate that what is often seen as an unified body of postcolonial literature emerges from a heterogeneous set of textual practices which are the products of varying social, cultural, political and economic contexts. In this way, this thesis rethinks the categories of nation, race and gender in order to consider the bases upon which people make claims to identity along with the boundaries of inclusion or exclusion often invoked by such claims.

In this thesis I discuss personal identity (the self) as it relates to authoritative contexts (the sublime). I show how these contexts confer meaning on personal and cultural narratives, which in turn confer meaning on facts and knowledge claims. I outline three conceptions of the self and sublime (Richard Rorty's, Charles Taylor's and Robert Kegan's), and address the implications of these for education. In conclusion I isolate a common product of all three perspectives---unconditional love---and recommend a 'will to positive description' as a necessary and desirable pedagogical goal.

This thesis is about the arguments and the methods that can sustain the epistemic support that comes from intuitions regarding hypothetical cases vis-à-vis theories of intuition. In the past twenty years, philosophical intuitions have received new attention, spurred by fashionable experimental philosophy that empirically tests philosophers’ intuition-engendering hypothetical cases with experimental methods. The results purportedly show that intuitions are unreliable, subject to demographic variation, and error-prone. In response, philosophers have presented various theories of philosophical intuition and explanations of how intuitions are situated in the justificatory apparatus of philosophical methodology. Three types of theories prevail in the literature, each a plausible option for the explanatory sustenance of intuitions’ epistemic efficacy. Selfevidence theories depend on the understanding of the intuited proposition. Intellectual seemings theories depend on the content of the intuited proposition. Judgment theories depend on our normal capacities for making judgments. Judgment theories divide further into disposition-to-believe theories and capacity theories. I argue that, beyond objections and unique epistemic burdens that each theory faces regarding the methodologies underpinning their conception and defense, no one theory of intuition can be reasonably accepted over the others. The centrality of intuitions’ use in philosophical methodology and in philosophers’ ways of thinking and reasoning, giving an argument that supports intuitions as conferrers of epistemic status, which does not itself appeal to intuitions, is a precarious endeavor. I consider various methods to avoid engaging question-begging premises and epistemic circularity. However, none are successful when the theory at hand is characteristically a priori and countenances only intuitions that confer epistemic status. In response to the ill-fated caricature of philosophical intuitions epistemic-statusconferrers, I present my own survey evidence concerning philosophers’ conception of intuition-use in philosophical method. Surprisingly, professional philosophers are more inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of discovery more so than they are inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of justification. The upshot of these survey results motivates my preferred account philosophical intuitions wherein philosophical intuitions are bifurcated into epistemic (justificatory intuitions) and epistemically-related (intuitions of discovery) roles. In the light of the objections I pose regarding the proper grounding of intuitions, revising the standard conception of philosophical intuitions requires two sorts of moves in the debate. First, one must offer a proviso for sources of justification that do not epistemically depend on intuitions for the ability to confer epistemic status. This allows one to justify a theory of intuition without appeal to intuition or epistemic regress. Second, one must give an explanation for and build on the recognition that intuitions are bifurcated into justificatory and discovery roles. The added clarity of filling out the nature of bifurcation allows for a more accurate characterisation of philosophical intuitions in the methods of philosophy. Furthermore, that intuitions operate in discovery roles offers an explanation for philosophical innovation and progress.

This thesis explores how young resisters and desisters in their teenage years maintain their resistance to and desistance from offending and asks to what extent they are agentic in the process. The term 'resister' refers to those who, according to a self-report survey, have never offended, and the term 'desister' to those who have offended and then ceased for at least twelve months. By situating desisters analytically adjacent to resisters, I have moved towards conceptualising desisters as current non-offenders. Desisters may have shared a past with persisters, as they have both offended. However, desisters share their current experience, that of maintaining non-offending, with resisters. It is this obvious, yet largely ignored, link between young resisters and desisters which underpins the thesis. Two qualitative methods, both of which elicited young people's own perspectives, were employed between 2003 and 2005. Secondary analysis of 112 qualitative interviews with resisters and desisters in their teenage years was conducted and peer led focus groups (in which a young peer, rather than an adult researcher, acted as the facilitator) were held with 52 teenage resisters. Young people's resistance to offending does not feature prominently in the literature. When it does, it is often associated with a state of innocence or passivity, while young desisters are said to 'grow out of' offending. This emphasis on an absence of offending, rather than on actively attained resistance, reflects an adult oriented view. The thesis challenges this by drawing on the sociology of childhood, a theoretical perspective which has not previously been applied to young people's resistance to and desistance from offending and which emphasises young people as agentic. Their agency is evidenced by the findings. Chapters Four and Five report how young people employ numerous strategies of resistance and desistance and Chapter Six how that they face trials and tribulations in maintaining their nonoffending, while Chapter Seven focuses on the 'being' rather than the 'doing' of sustaining non-offending. It is the work of Derrida that enables the argument to be taken a step further. Derrida's (1981) assertion is that binary oppositions are rarely neutral, but that one is the dominant pole. For example, in Western society the first of the following binary oppositions are usually regarded as the dominant or privileged pole: white/black, masculine/feminine, adult/child. In respect of the binary opposition at the heart of the current thesis, namely offender/non-offender, the non-offender is - from an adult perspective at least - the dominant pole and the non-offender is hailed as the norm. By contrast, several findings in the thesis point to the fact that the dominant pole in the binary opposition for young people is the offender rather than the non-offender. First, the discourse of young resisters and desisters suggests a view of the offender rather than non-offender as the norm. Secondly, many resisters and desisters face trials and tribulations, such as bullying, relating to their nonoffending status. Yet, if it were the case that the non-offender was the dominant pole and was privileged by young people (as it is in the adult population), resisters would not be penalised in such ways for not offending. Thirdly, some of the strategies used by resisters, such as involvement in anti-social behaviour, signify an attempt to compensate for their non-offending status. Again, if the non-offender was the dominant pole in the binary opposition, far from resorting to mechanisms to compensate for their non-offending behaviour, this behaviour would be encouraged, as it is by adults. This inverted world has implications for young resisters and desisters. Their resistance is to be understood in the context of an expectation of offending, rather than non-offending. Contrary to the notion of the pull of normality bringing desisters back to a non-offending state, the pull of normality among young desisters - and many resisters - is better understood as being towards offending. Resistance, evidenced by the strategies and trials and tribulations of resisters and desisters, is against this pull. Moreover, as non-offending is the modus operandi in the adult world, to be an adult non-offender requires less effort. For a young person, being a non-offender is more challenging than it is for adults and maintenance of resistance constitutes a struggle not previously reflected in adult representations. Adults, not having taken account of the different modus operandi of the young person's world, have not attributed agency to resistance and have underestimated young people's struggle to maintain resistance. The strategies demanded of resisters and desistcrs to maintain non-offending and the trials and tribulations which they face when they do have heretofore been overlooked.

My thesis is that the say-show distinction is the basis of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy in both the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the Philosophical Investigations (1953).Wittgenstein said that the Investigations should be read in conjunction with the Tractatus. To understand the Tractatus we must understand the say-show distinction: the principle that "what can be shown, cannot be said". A correct interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophy will explain the significance of the say-show distinction for the Investigations. I evaluate three available readings of the say-show distinction which fail to meet this challenge. I argue that Wittgenstein's main purpose throughout his career was to replace traditional philosophy with an alternative conception of philosophy, which can only be understood through the say-show distinction. The Tractatus and the Investigations are different attempts to present the same conception of philosophy. I describe how, in both cases, they present a distinctive account of the nature of philosophical problems, the appropriate methods of philosophy, the end result of a philosophical task and the overall aim of philosophy. I argue that my interpretation provides a correct view of the significant continuities and discontinuities between the Tractatus and the Investigations. The failure of the Tractatus was not a flaw in the conception of philosophy presented in it, nor a flaw in the say-show distinction, hi the Tractatus, Wittgenstein failed properly to implement his proposed conception of philosophy, as he remained in the grip of traditional philosophical presuppositions. The Investigations presents the same conception of philosophy, but freed from the presuppositions of the Tractatus. The say-show distinction remains the basis of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy in the Investigations.

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There is little question that Hobbes's Leviathan and Behemoth are largely responding to the civil conflicts that were tearing seventeenth-century England apart, but scholars disagree in their interpretations of Hobbes's diagnosis and prescription for the civil war. Complementing previous interpretations, my MA thesis suggests that Hobbes also traces the source of the civil conflicts to Western philosophical tradition (WPT) itself both methodologically and substantially. Methodologically, ancient Western philosophers do not start their ratiocination process with definitions of the terms used, and Hobbes argues that this lack of adequate method leads to all kinds of absurdities and consequently a whole false reference world. This critique is largely based on Hobbes's materialist accounts of philosophy and mind. Substantially, Hobbes suggests that Aristotle's natural, moral and civil philosophies in particular contribute to the chaotic opinions and the civil conflicts. After detecting this source, Hobbes undertakes perhaps the most ambitious endeavor to exorcise the demon of the tradition in Western history, by radically scientizing the philosophical tradition and establishing a science of politics.

Neo-liberal political-economic ideology, theory and practice have had an immense influence on public and private life across the world, including the delivery of health care, and neo-liberalism has become the dominant economic paradigm. Market practices, business management theories and practices, and private enterprise have become increasingly significant in health care, as the welfare state and public health services have been challenged by factors such as rising costs, economic efficiency, globalisation and increasing competitive demands. The question of how, and to what extent, neo-liberalism has influenced contemporary health care is, however, deserving of more critical attention. This thesis examines the neo-liberal approach to, and effect on, contemporary health care, in the context of Western developed countries, and offers a conceptual analysis of the theoretical and ideological framework of neo-liberalism, especially regarding its ethical and moral underpinnings. Additionally, this thesis is concerned with the moral nature of health care. The objectives of this thesis are to articulate and analyse the neo-liberal interpretive framework, moral values and language; and to articulate and analyse the neo-liberal approach to, and effect on, contemporary health care. Thus, it is the intention that this thesis will provide a framework for reflection on the context of contemporary health care in Western developed countries and the influence of neo-liberalism. To achieve these objectives, the research strategy of this thesis is that of philosophical inquiry, additionally drawing on political philosophy; and the research is, therefore, basic, theoretical research. This thesis finds that neo-liberalism, and the neo-liberal approach to health care, is a highly complex theory and ideology, constituted of several intricate concepts and moral underpinnings. It is found that the neo-liberal approach affects the nature and purpose of health care, for example by making health care part of the free, competitive market, by commodifying health care, and by replacing the notions of the common good, social justice and public health care with an emphasis on the rational, self-interested consumer, individual responsibility and self-sufficiency. Another essential aspect of the neo-liberal approach is that it emphasises the ability to pay (user-pays system), rather than health care need, as the dominant determinant in health care. Furthermore, this thesis finds that the neo-liberal ideology excludes the ontological complexity and reality of the human condition, and in health care this has consequences in relation to, for example, interdependency, interrelationships, vulnerability and need. In essence, this thesis finds that there are several pragmatic and moral problems with applying a neo-liberal approach to health care, and that the complexities, irregularities, and unpredictability of health care make a neo-liberal approach difficult to realise in health care. The neo-liberal approach undermines the moral purposes of health care, and it is concluded that the neo-liberal approach offers no well-founded moral alternative to the universalistic, solidarity based approach common in most Western developed countries (except in the United States). This thesis seeks to add to the knowledge and literature concerning neo-liberalism, especially as regards its moral underpinnings and normative framework, and, furthermore, concerning the neo-liberal approach to, and effect on, contemporary health care in Western developed countries. Additionally, this thesis seeks to contribute to the knowledge of philosophical inquiry by documenting the method of 'doing' philosophical inquiry. Based on the research in this thesis, it is clear that there is a need for more empirical research into the pragmatic consequences of applying neo-liberal policies and practices to health care, and the analysis in this thesis could favorably serve as a basis for empirical inquiry.

This thesis drew upon the resources of philosophical hermeneutics to construct a conceptual framework for understanding the process of educational change. The experience of a particular case of change was then analysed from the perspective of the hermeneutic change agency framework. The conceptual framework for the thesis was developed from the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer and also from writers who engaged with Gadamer, most notably, Paul Ricoeur and Jurgen Habermas. The retrieval orientation in Gadamer's hermeneutics was balanced by the critical analyses of Ricoeur and Habermas. Gadamer's notion of the 'fusion of horizons' was presented as the culmination of the change process: a fusion between the horizon of the change text, and the horizons of the change process participants. The thesis explored the potential of hermeneutic strategies such as play and conversation as a means to animate a hermeneutic form of change agentry. The case investigated in this thesis was a change process comprised of four strategies conducted over the years 1980 to 1996 at a Jesuit school located on the east coast of Australia. The change strategies aimed to promote the Jesuit ethos of the school and hence have been described in this thesis as 'ethos strategies'. The purpose of the thesis was not to evaluate the success of the ethos strategies, it was to explore how insights derived from philosophical hermeneutics could illuminate an analysis of the lived experience of a particular case of change. The subject matter of this thesis is timely because many Catholic schools are currently in a period of transition from a leadership exercised by Religious (nuns, brothers or priests) to a leadership exercised by lay people. The thesis situated the ethos programs in their theological and demographic contexts by presenting relevant theological developments from the Second Vatican Council and by describing the sharp decrease in the numbers of Religious personnel available to work in the schools. The teacher response to the ethos programs was considered in the context of the many practical difficulties associated with the scheduling of teacher development programs in fast-moving and busy schools. Although this thesis was particularly focused on change strategies that were conducted in the context of Jesuit education, the thesis is more generally situated in the research literature on educational change. The hermeneutic orientation of this thesis highlighted the elements of understanding, interpretation and meaning, and these elements are given some prominence in the more recent research literature on the change process. The complexity of change and the cultural dimension of the change process has been emphasised in the most recent educational change research literature and these themes have also found expression in this thesis. Participant observation, document analysis and qualitative interviews were used as data collection strategies for the case study in this thesis. The researcher was actively involved in the events investigated in the case study, and a case narrative was developed from the researcher's experience as a change agent responsible for implementing one of the change strategies at the case site. The case narrative was written in the first person and from the perspective of the researcher as a change manager. The methodology of the research was grounded in the hermeneutic insight that understanding and tact lies at the heart of the research process, rather than procedure and method. Hermeneutic research relies upon a capacity to identify and respond to the question that is presented by the expression of life being understood. Change agentry was presented in this thesis as unfolding in a middle space between the familiarity of current practice and the unfamiliarity of the new world that a change process seeks to open up. Hermeneutics has long understood that that interpretation would be impossible if the expressions of life were totally alien and unnecessary if there was nothing alien in them. A hermeneutic approach to change agentry seeks to discover points of commonality and points of challenge between the world of current practice and the world that the change process would open up. This thesis points to the tactful and dialogical dimensions of change agency when it is considered from the vantage point of philosophical hermeneutics.