Friedrich Nietzsche thought that philosophers were deeply mistaken about the nature and sources of philosophical activity. Where others took themselves to be motivated by a desire to know the truth, Nietzsche charged that his fellow philosophers, motivated by a pathological set of psychological and physiological characteristics, did little more than sublimate and rationalize their own prejudices. In this thesis, I sketch out in further detail and defend the plausibility and significance of this Nietzschean diagnosis of philosophers. I argue that since Nietzsche’s view of philosophers both offers a compelling explanation of some phenomena in contemporary philosophical practice and, were it true, would have significant upshot for how and even whether philosophy should be practiced, we philosophers ought to begin taking it seriously.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The archive as mnemonic device and taxonomic structure plays a significant role in the visualisation of identity. This thesis draws on the example of the personal photographic archives of three trans men to suggest ways of understanding archives as discursive and visual practices through which fluctuating narratives of self can be uncovered, traced, erased, renegotiated and fictionalised. This thesis considers how these participants negotiate the roles of author, archivist and photographer in the creation of their personal photographic archives, and how such archives intersect with discourses on the social, somatic and political. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die argief speel as beide ‘n mnemoniese apparaat en ‘n taksonomiese struktuur ‘n beduidende rol in die voorstelling van identiteit. In hierdie tesis word die fotografiese argiewe van drie trans mans bespreek om maniere voor te stel waarop argiewe as diskursiewe en visuele praktyke funksioneer waardeur veranderlike narratiewe van self ontbloot, nagespoor, uitgewis, heroorweeg en verbeel kan word. Hierdie studie oorweeg die manier waarop hierdie deelnemers die rolle van outeur, argivaris en fotograaf onderhandel tydens die skep van hul persoonlike fotografiese argiewe, sowel as die wyse waarop hierdie argiewe as kruispunte dien waar diskoerse rondom die sosiale, liggaamlike en politiese bymekaarkom.

Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis examines how selected Ugandan literary texts portray constructions and negotiations of national identities as they intersect with overlapping and cross-cutting identities like race, ethnicity, gender, religious denomination, and political affiliation. The word “negotiations” is central to the close reading of selected focal texts I offer in this thesis for it implies that there are times when a tension may arise between national identity and one or more of these other identities (for instance when races or ethnic groups are imagined outside the nation as foreigners) or between one national identity (say Ugandan) and other national identities (say British) for those characters who occupy more than one national space and whose understanding of home therefore includes a here (say Britain) and a there (say Uganda). The study therefore examines the portrayal of how various borders (internal and external, sociocultural and geopolitical) are navigated in particular literary texts in order to construct, reconstruct, and perform (trans)national identity. The concept of the border is crucial to this study because any imagining of community is done against a backdrop of similarities (what the “us” share in common) and differences (what makes the “them” distinct from “us”). Drawing from various theorists of nationalism, postcolonialism, transnationalism and gender, I explore the representation of key events in Uganda’s history (for instance colonialism, decolonization, expulsion, and civil war) and investigate how selected writers narrate/sing these events in their constructions of Ugandan (trans)national identities. My analysis is guided by insights drawn from the work of the Russian literary theorist, Mikhail Bakhtin, particularly his concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia. His proposition that the novel is a site for the dialogic interaction of multiple languages (say of authorities, generations and social groups) and of speeches (say of narrators, characters and authors) each espousing a particular worldview or ideology enables me to create a correlation between literary texts and the nation (which contains a multiplicity of identities like races, ethnic groups, genders, religious denominations and political affiliations with each having its own interests and ‘language’), and to argue that Ugandan national identity is constituted by the existence of these very identities that overlap with it. By paying attention to the way selected literary texts portray how these disparate identities dialogue with the larger national community in different situations and how the national community in turn dialogues with other nations through cultural exchanges, migration, exile and diaspora, this study aims at unravelling the dynamics involved in the negotiation of (trans)national identities both within the nation and outside it. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek hoe geselekteerde Ugandese literêre tekste vorms, hervormings en onderhandelings van nasionale identiteite – na mate hulle deurvleg word deur oorvleuelende en dwarssnydende identitite soos díe van ras, etnisiteit, gender, godsdienstige denominasies en politieke affiliasies – uitbeeld. Die term “onderhandelings” staan sentraal in die diepte-lesing van geselekteerde fokus-tekste wat ek in hierdie tesis aanbied, want dit impliseer dat daar tye is wanneer ‘n spanning mag onstaan tussen nasionale identiteit en een of meer van hierdie ander identiteite (byvoorbeeld wanneer rasse of etniese groepe gekarakteriseer word as buite die nasie, m.a.w. as vreemdelinge), of tussen een nasionale identiteit (bv. Ugandees) en ander nasionale identiteite (bv. Brits) vir daardie karakters wat meer as een nasionale ruimte beset of wie se begrip van hul tuiste dus inbegrepe is van ‘n hier (bv. Brittanje) sowel as ‘n daar (soos bv.Uganda). Om hierdie rede ondersoek die studie die uitbeelding van maniere waarop verskeie soorte (interne en eksterne, sosio-kulturele en geo-politiese) grense gehanteer word in partikulêre literêre tekste ten einde (trans)nasionale identiteite te konstrueer, omvorm, of uit te beeld. Die konsep van ‘n grens is die belangrikste idee in hierdie studie, want enige konseptualisering van ‘n gemeenskap gebeur teen die agtergrond van gemeenhede (wat die “ons” in gemeen het) en verskille (wat “hulle” onderskei van “ons”). Met behulp van verskeie teoretici van nasionalisme, post-kolonialisme, trans-nasionalismes en gender, ondersoek ek die uitbeeldings van kern-gebeurtenisse in die geskiedenis van Uganda (byvoobeeld kolonialisme, dekolonialisering, verbanning van sekere mense en groepe en die burgeroorlog) en analiseer ek hoe sekere skrywers hierdie gebeurtenisse uitbeeld of verhaal in hulle konstruksies van Ugandese (trans)nasionalisme/s. My analises word gelei deur insigte verleen aan die oeuvre van die Russiese literêre teoretikus Mikhael Bakhtin, veral sy konsepte van dialogisme en heteroglossia. Sy voorstel dat die roman die ruimte is vir die interaksie van verskeie ‘tale’ (byvoorbeeld díe van outoriteite, ouderdoms- en sosiale groepe) en van diskoerse (bv. díe van vertellers, karakters en skrywers) wat elkeen ‘n partikulêre wêreldbeeld of ideologie aanbied of aanhang, stel my in die posisie om ‘n korrelasie te skep tussen die literêre tekste en die nasie (wat self ‘n oorvloed van identiteite soos díe van rasse, etniese groepe, genders, godsdienstige denominasies of politieke affiliasies bevat) en om te kan argumenteer dat die Ugandese nasionale identiteit konstitueer word deur die bestaan van presies hierdie (ander) identiteite wat daarmee saamval of oorvleuel. Deur aandag te gee aan die manier waarop geselekteerde literêre tekste die dialoë tussen hierdie onderskeie identiteite uitbeeld, elk waarvan hul eie belange en ‘tale’ behels, en hoe die nasionale identiteit op sy/haar beurt in gesprek is met ander nasies deur middel van kulturele uitruiling, migrasies, eksiel of diaspora, mik hierdie studie daarna om die dinamika van onderhandelings van (trans)nasionale identiteite beide binne asook buite die nasionale raamwerk uit te lig.

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Recent research on psychotherapeutic outcome has highlighted cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) as the preferred psychotherapeutic approach for most psychological problems. There is however considerable evidence supporting the comparative effectiveness of approaches alternative to CBT. Central to this alternative evidence base is the notion that ‘personal styles’ are influential in determining individual preferences for different psychotherapeutic approaches. This study examined the effect of the combination between the ‘personal style’ of the client and the type of psychotherapeutic approach they receive (more or less directive) on the client’s experience of therapy. A second aim of this study was to explore similarities and differences in the way clients with different 'personal styles' construe therapy through analysis of repertory grid data. Thirty participants with diagnoses of anxiety and/or depression were recruited from mental health charities and a local NHS community team. Participants completed a questionnaire measuring the direction of interest element of personal style, a self-report questionnaire rating their experience of psychotherapy and a repertory grid exploring their construing of psychotherapy. The study found that the fit between an individual’s ‘personal style’ and the type of therapeutic approach they received was predictive of therapy experience. Analysis of the repertory grids revealed few differences in the construing of participants with different ‘personal styles’. The use of a global measure of therapeutic experience was original in research looking at the helpful aspects of psychotherapy. The strengths and limitations of the study are discussed and ideas for future research are recommended.

School days are organised on a whole day and or a shift basis in different countries. When the school day is arranged on double shift basis, two sets of pupil attend the same school in a given day. This thesis is based on a phenomenological research which examined how the education of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) was addressed in shift primary schools in Jamaica. A case study was undertaken with a view of understanding the day-to-day experiences of the issues of how shift primary schools constructed and managed the SEN of pupils and sought to understand the ‘why’ in operation. In addition, a survey (using questionnaires) was carried out in 10 shift primary schools (including the case) in several parishes of the island which targeted administrators (n=26) and teachers (n=205) to further explore some of the issues which were picked up on in the case study such as understandings of the concept of SEN, the challenges they encountered in their attempts to cater for pupils‟ SEN and how pupils‟ SEN impacted on the school system. An interview was also conducted with an official from the Ministry of Education (MOE) which investigated the philosophical orientation which guides the education of pupils with SEN and the how they are catered for in Jamaican schools. Grounded Theory, ably assisted by the tool of Thematic Analysis, was used to explore this complex research context to help to unpack dilemmas and tensions which existed. One of the major insights gained from the data is that the Jamaican primary shift school context is ‘resource famished whilst being simultaneously ‘SEN dense’. The main research findings revealed that the shift system and its resultant time constraint were major inhibitors to the effective meeting of pupils‟ SEN. The complexity and challenges of this educational context were further exacerbated by factors such as limited understanding of the concept of SEN, inadequate resources in general and more so with specific focus on catering for pupils with SEN, low teacher efficacy for meeting pupils‟ SEN, large classes and inadequate parental support. Administrators reported concern for impact of pupils‟ SEN on their schools in ways such as lowering examination passes and the overall performance of schools. One of the main concerns of teachers was how pupils‟ SEN disrupted lessons and how this impacted on other learners without SEN. In addition, the most commonly manifested SEN of pupils were reading and behavioural difficulties. The role of the Guidance Counsellor was re-defined as the main school personnel for the management of pupils’ SEN in shift primary schools. From the point of view of the MOE the practice and provision for pupils with SEN were governed by the concept of ‘Least Restrictive Environment’ and not the current concept of inclusion that is in wide usage in the field of special education. Importantly, not only were schools experiencing difficulties in satisfactorily providing resources for the meeting pupils‟ SEN, but this is also experienced at the level of the MOE. The chief implications highlighted based on of the research findings was the dire need for the reconstruction of teacher training in Jamaica with a specific aim of equipping teachers to effectively cater for pupils‟ SEN and the dire need for legislation to safeguard the education of pupils with SEN. In addition, recommendations were made to promote improvements of pupils with SEN in general and particularly those being educated in shift primary schools. Finally, several suggestions for future research were put forward.

This thesis examines in four parts a collection of philosophical arguments dealing with war. The conclusions drawn are that war is a definable and applicable concept, that above the level of biological reactions war is the result of beliefs, that an objective distinction exists between aggressive and defensive actions, and that war is only justifiable in the protection of core rights. The first part analyses competing definitions of war. It is argued that the concept of war is philosophically appropriate and captures the conceptual common denominator between particular wars. The essence of war is defined as “a condition of open-ended violence”. Part Two explores the causal relationships between metaphysical and epistemological beliefs and war. It is held that war cannot be explained away as an unalterable fact of the universe, hence deterministic explanations fail in favour of the conclusion that wars are the product of ideas and ideas are volitionally obtained. The third part continues an exploration of determinist accounts of war and examines how various theories of human nature attempt to explain why war occurs. For methodological purposes human nature is trisected into biological, cultural, and rational aspects. Theories that attempt to interpret war using only a single aspect are inadequate, for each aspect must logically presuppose the existence and hence the influence of the others. It is concluded that human wars are the product of ideas, but ideas are distinguishable between tacit and explicit forms. Tacit forms of knowledge evolve through social interaction and sometimes have unintended consequences; war on the cultural level can be the product of human action but not of human design (Ferguson), hence attempts to abolish war by reason alone are bound to fail. Part Four assesses the application of ethical and political reasoning to war. It is argued firstly that morality, in the form of universalisable core rights and socially generated general rules of conduct, must not be removed from the sphere of war. Secondly it is concluded that the ideal just government exists to protect rights, from which it will follow that defensive wars and wars of intervention to protect rights are morally supportable.

In this thesis, my purpose is to determine why Augustine’s theory of knowledge by illumination was rejected by Franciscan theologians at the end of the thirteenth century. My main methodological assumption is that Medieval accounts of divine illumination must be interpreted in a theological context, or with attention to a scholar’s underlying doctrines of God and of the human mind as the image of God, inasmuch as the latter doctrine determines one’s understanding of the nature of the mind’s cognitive work, and illumination illustrates cognition. In the first chapter, I show how Augustine’s understanding of illumination derives from his Trinitarian theology. In the second chapter, I use the same theological methods of inquiry to identify continuity of thought on illumination in Augustine and Anselm. The third chapter covers the events of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries that had an impact on the interpretation of illumination, including the Greek and Arabic translation movements and the founding of universities and mendicant orders. In this chapter, I explain how the first Franciscan scholars transformed St. Francis of Assisi’s spiritual ideals into a theological and philosophical system, appropriating the Trinitarian theology of Richard of St. Victor and the philosophy of the Arab scholar Avicenna in the process. Bonaventure is typically hailed the great synthesizer of early Franciscan thought and the last and best proponent of traditional Medieval Augustinian thought. In the fourth chapter, I demonstrate that Bonaventure’s Victorine doctrine of the Trinity both enabled and motivated him to assign originally Avicennian meanings to philosophical arguments of Augustine and Anselm that were incompatible with the original ones. In the name of Augustine, in other words, Bonaventure introduced a theory of knowledge that is not Augustinian. In the fifth chapter, my aim is to throw the non-Augustinian character of Bonaventure’s illumination theory into sharper relief through a discussion of knowledge and illumination in the thought of his Dominican contemporary Thomas Aquinas. Although Aquinas is usually supposed to reject illumination theory, I show that he only objects to the Franciscan interpretation of the account, even while he bolsters a genuinely Augustinian account of knowledge and illumination by updating it in the Aristotelian forms of philosophical argumentation that were current at the time. In the final chapter, I explain why late thirteenth-century Franciscans challenged illumination theory, even after Bonaventure had enthusiastically championed it. In this context, I explain that that they did not reject their predecessor’s standard of knowledge outright, but only sought to eradicate the intellectually offensive interference of illumination, as he had defined it, which they perceived as inconsistent with the standard, in the interest of promulgating it. In concluding, I reiterate the importance of interpreting illumination as a function of Trinitarian theology. This approach throws the function of illumination in Augustine’s thought into relief and facilitates the effort to identify continuity and discontinuity amongst Augustine and his Medieval readers, which in turn makes it possible to identify the reasons for the late Medieval decline of divine illumination theory and the rise of an altogether unprecedented epistemological standard.

The majority of people on Earth now live in cities, and estimates hold that 60 percent of the world’s cities have yet to be built. Now is the time for philosophers to develop a philosophy of the city to address the forthcoming issues that urbanization will bring. In this dissertation, I respond to this need for a philosophy of the city by developing a theory of city identity, developing some of the theory’s normative implications, illustrating the theory with a case study, and outlining the nature and future of philosophy of the city more generally. Indeed, this dissertation is only a part of my larger project of founding and institutionalizing this new field of both academic and socially-engaged philosophical activity. Throughout the history of the discipline, other areas such a personal identity have received numerous considerations, along with the concept of identity as an abstraction. For example, there is a bounty of research addressing problems pertaining to how objects and people retain an identity over time and claims about identity in general. While one could argue that cities are not any different than any other object, such an account fails to consider that a city’s dynamic nature makes it dissimilar to other things. To illustrate this point, I develop a position called dynamic composition as identity theory that provides a framework for understanding the identity of a city, exhibiting that views within analytic metaphysics are too narrow to apply to all cases. After establishing a concept of city identity, I use an applied mereology to develop a model of city identity that shows how the parts of a city fit together to form a complete city. This model introduces the normative dimension of my project by providing a way to identify how incongruence between a city’s parts can cause problems for residents’ wellbeing. To understand the moral dimensions of infrastructure, I argue that moral theory alone is ill prepared to adequately demonstrate its full range of effects. Yet, instead of developing another moral theory, we can supplement existing moral theories with the concepts of sustainability and resilience thinking to account for the elements that traditional moral systems neglect. I support this view with a detailed account of transportation infrastructure. Namely, I show that current frameworks for assessing transportation infrastructure are inadequate, and employ the method of complex moral assessment developed earlier to make such assessments. Lastly, I show how the research in this dissertation counts as intra-disciplinary research, a new kind of method for philosophical research.