My thesis examines work by Antonin Artaud, Henry Darger, Marcel Duchamp, and Pablo Picasso, with the intention of subjecting specific works by these artists to critical tests employing the idea proposed by Antonin Artaud's subjectile, that is a paradoxical fusion of both subject and object. As a critical device the subjectile is useful both for discussing art and making it, enabling me to explore my own practice, which seeks to articulate problematic aspects of subjective status and the end limits of the subject. Artaud describes in his writing and depicts in his drawing how his body is in a state of fusion with objects. Or, he adopts a creative process that presents subjective integrity as if it overlaps and is contiguous with objects. The first, rational and empirical direction determines there is no sensation and no animation in objects, so they do not retain in their material mass any attributes of subjectivity. The second direction proposes that objects are hybrid and metamorphic: sensation, and attributes of the subject are contiguous with the material properties of objects. The poetics of corporeality Artaud develops in his works maintains a consistent attitude to extension, proposing that sensation and substantial material qualities of the human body are discovered in objects, especially in art. I argue that the subjectile deploys paranoid devices to understand subjective difficulties. I discuss paranoia and the subjectile in relation to Deleuze and Guattari's understanding of Artaud's 'Body without Organs', and Derrida's essay 'Maddening the Subjectile'. I also draw upon Melanie Klein's object relations theory, which discusses split up parts of the subject that are ambivalent, projected and expelled, enabling discussion of subjectiles as partial attributes of the subject that form part of a broader culture, through the engagement of aesthetic, formal, and historical registers in art.

This thesis investigates rationales behind Live Art documentation, by examining the work of British artists working under the banner of ‘Live Art' since the 1990s. My aim has been to write an account of Live Art's history and major themes that incorporates primary research, analysis and criticism of recent research on documentation. Works by Live Artists are not discussed chronologically, but so that they might function as points of departure for discussions about Live Art's relationship to documentation and its relevance as a contemporary cultural form. The thesis starts with an introduction setting out definitions of Live Art and documentation and contextualising Live Art's relationship to Performance Art. The rationales for documenting Live Art are grouped into three categories: documentation as pragmatic, documentation as memorial and documentation as holistic. The main text is divided into three parts, each part discusses issues relating to one of the above categories. Part 1 addresses practical reasons why artists working under the banner of Live Art document their work. The section includes an exploration of the infrastructure for the development of Live Art in the UK as well as an analysis of the market for Live Art and its documentation. Part 2 interrogates perspectives from the discipline of performance studies on the relationship between live action and documentation, exploring how these issues have been interpreted in Live Art's history. In particular, this section will assess how writers and artists have approached discussion of Live Art in oral and written form. Part 3 proposes models of rethinking documentation based on works by British Live Artists that develop documentation in tandem to live action and enjoy a privileged relationship to technology.

This thesis explores the implications of the work of Michel Foucault for the Enlightenment project. Specifically, it asks whether and how the modern drive to explain the world so as to guide political action and promote progressive change, can be defended in the light of Foucault's critique of Western philosophy, his reconceptualisation of power relations and his account of the subject. Firstly, it is shown how Foucault's genealogy, a hybrid and polemical approach, aims to call into question the theories and practices which underpin the present. Genealogy problematizes what we have come to take for granted, and in so doing it requires that we rethink not only the nature and history of Western philosophical thought but also the role of intellectuals. To attempt to write a history of truth is to ask what one can know of a concept which structures the very limits of our knowledge. It is to become aware of the forces and constraints involved in our production of truth, and thus to bring to light the complex relationship between knowledge and power. Secondly, Foucault argued that, since ancient times, forms of knowledge and relations of power, characterised by individualising and totalising tendencies, have steadily but discontinuously integrated into disciplinary technologies which have been instrumental in constituting the sovereign human individuals which philosophy assumes as given. Following Foucault's lead in focusing not on what power is, but on how it operates historically and in concrete ways, it is shown how Foucault reconceptualised relations of power as strategies of governance which depend on the existence of free subjects capable of resistance. Thirdly, the spotlight falls on the role of relations of power and knowledge, especially the human sciences, in manufacturing subjectivity (from souls and bodies to individual actors), which is in turn related to Foucault's call to irreverently question the limits of philosophy and to engage in aesthetic stylistic experimentation upon ourselves within and against the bounds imposed on us by our present. The thesis concludes by arguing that Foucault's iconoclastic genealogy of our limits and our possibilities leaves us with a rich set of analyses and strategies with which we might render modernity unfamiliar and available for refabrication. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, 1997.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-107). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

In this dissertation I take exception with a widely held philosophical doctrine, according to which agents are only blameworthy for the bad actions they have chosen to bring about. My argument strategy is to present cases in which agents are blamed for involuntary actions that are not in any way connected to their culpable and voluntary choices. These failures correspond, I suggest, to occasions of culpable ignorance where agents have been negligent or careless. More specifically, I claim that violations of natural duties of respect and consideration, and certain acquired role-type duties, are blamed without any voluntary consent. If my examples are persuasive, then the point is reached where a normative principle of 'voluntary consent' does not in fact coincide with people's actual practices and 'considered judgements'. In the final sections of the dissertation, I argue against the plausibility of keeping the principle and revising our judgements. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and other people. In this thesis, I present a new paradigm, the Self/Other Differentiation task, which was designed to assess ToM abilities – specifically, the ability to attribute belief states to the ‘Self' and ‘Other' – in typically developed, healthy adults. By focussing on fully developed ToM abilities, we aimed to increase understanding of how the ToM mechanism is structured and functions in everyday life, and how individual ToM components may differentially relate to executive functioning (EF) abilities. The Self/Other Differentiation task is a computerized false-belief task utilizing a matched- design to allow direct comparison of self-oriented versus other-oriented belief- attribution processes. Using behavioural (response times/error rates) and electrophysiological (EEG) methods, the work presented in this thesis provides evidence of a clear and distinct differentiation in the processing of ‘Self' versus ‘Other' perspectives in healthy ToM. We established a key role of perspective-shifting in ToM, which we hypothesize plays a crucial role in day-to-day communications; shifting from the Self-to-Other perspective was significantly harder (longer and more error prone) than shifting from the Other-to-Self perspective, suggesting that the ‘Self' forms the stem of understanding the ‘Other'. EEG analysis revealed these effects were present across fronto-lateral and occipital-lateral areas of the brain, particularly across the right hemisphere in parietal regions. We provide evidence of these features as universal, core components of the ToM mechanism, with data collected from both Chinese and Western cultures illustrating similar patterns of results. Results regarding the relationship between ToM and EF were mixed, with one study finding that affective EF positively correlates with ToM task performance, whilst non-affective EF does not, and a further two studies finding no such differential relationship. The Self/Other Differentiation task provides the opportunity to establish the features of ‘typical' ToM processes in healthy adults, to further our understanding of how the mature ToM mechanism functions.

At the beginning of 1930, Theodor W. Adorno, who was only 28 years old, was awarded the venia legendi (teaching permission) for philosophy and the academic title “Privatdozent”, after his Habilitationsschrift (on Kierkegaard) had been accepted by the faculty of philosophy on the basis of two positive reviews, by Adorno’s older friend and mentor Max Horkheimer and the prominent theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich. This title traditionally comes without academic position or pay, but is the precondition for applications for the position of professor. In early May, he was obliged to give his inaugural lecture to the academic public, and he chose a rather programmatic subject, “The Actuality of Philosophy”, using the occasion for a rigorous critique of the major trends in current German academic philosophy and a bold statement concerning the possible future of a certain kind of materialist philosophy which he was just about to develop.

The dissertation is about the significance for, and impact upon public administration of the correspondence theory of truth or veridicality, and its underlying epistemological assumptions. The underlying thesis is that, unduly influenced by the success of the natural sciences, and naive in accepting their claims to objectivity, many disciplines have sought to emulate them. There are two principle objections. Firstly, all other considerations aside, the supposedly objectivistic methodologies apparently applied to the explanation and prediction of the behavior of interactions of physical objects, may simply be inappropriate to certain other areas of inquiry; and more specifically objectivist methodologies are indeed inappropriate to understanding of human subjects, and their behavior, relations and interactions, and thus to public administration. The second objection is that it is of course logically impossible for any supposedly empirical discipline, as the natural sciences claim to be, to justify the belief in a supposedly objective realm of things-in-themselves existing outside, beyond, or independently of the changing, interrupted and different 'appearances' or experiences, to which an empirical science is qua empirical, necessarily restricted. Correspondence of any empirical observations or appearances (and the consequent or presupposed theoretical explanations) to an objective realm, upon which the claim to objectivity is based, is unverifiable. In light of the above it becomes evident that far from being objective, the natural sciences themselves, and the empirical observations upon which they are supposedly grounded, are subject to conceptual mediation and subjective interpretation; subjective and inter-subjective coherence replacing objective correspondence as the criterion of veridicality. Consequently it becomes clear that the presuppositions and prejudices of the observers enter, in the forms of concepts and preconceptions, into the very observations, and even more so into the theoretical constructions, or theories, of the natural, and indeed human and social sciences, and their claims to be authoritative and true. Subsequent discussion is then focused on both the coherence of individuals' experiences and understanding, and their inter-subjective coherence - which both rises from and constitutes, a "community". The role of language facilitates such coherence. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The theme of this thesis is "formalism in law" as a concept that permeates an essential part of modern legal thinking. This work shows that it is usually perceived as a critical concept, but without a clear and steady meaning. In recent times, however, the discussion involving this concept changed so that it now includes individuals positively acknowledging themselves as formalists. An overview of this debate (only marginally concerning the Czech environment yet, however) forms the bulk of the thesis. The second essential part of it is a separate rethinking of the place of formalism in law, in all its aspects - in interpretation and application of law, in the creation of law, even in legal education and legal scholarship. This thesis consists of three unequal parts, the first of which is further divided into three sections. The first part deals with the formalism as a topic of discussion in legal philosophy during the entire 20th century, and the intention is to present this debate to Czech readers. Its first section is devoted to a topic typically linked to criticism of formalism in law in Western legal scholarship, as it presents the American legal realism of the interwar period. It shows it as a strong and visible culmination of earlier critical efforts visible on both sides of the Atlantic...

Freie Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2001. / Literaturverz. S. 227 - 236.