Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1956. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-136).

This dissertation analyzes moments in which presidents interact with transnational audiences, identifying and explaining their rhetorical strategies for developing a global imaginary. Specifically, I first consider how George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev negotiate geo-political and spatial metaphors leading up to their joint press conference, symbolically ending the Cold War. Second, I discuss how Bill Clinton and George W. Bush universalize the trope of “democracy” in their speeches before the United Nations General Assembly. Third, I explain how Barack Obama figures transnational citizens and himself as a global leader in his transnational town hall meetings. Together, these case studies show the ways contemporary presidents call forth particular understandings of “the global” through speech. Politically, this study is significant because it broadens our understanding of the institution of the presidency from the framework of a national institution to that of a global one. Rhetorically, this study illuminates the relationship between presidential speech, transnational audiences, and the rhetorical imaginary of the global sphere.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In this dissertation, I defend the claim that realism – that is, a theory committed to an ontology of universals and particulars – is a more viable theory than any of the others adopted in order solve to the problem of universals. I begin in chapter 1 by setting out a method for comparing the various theories offered as solutions to this problem that is based primarily on a preference for those theories that exhibit greater ontological parsimony. In developing this method I endorse rather than reject (as is standard for realists to do) Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. In chapter 2, I utilize the aforementioned method of theory comparison to argue for the greater comparative viability of realism over each of its primary competitors. In chapter 3, I set out and offer a solution to the “problem of instantiation”, which has traditionally been taken to be the most difficult problem for realists to solve. Finally, in chapter 4, I discuss two remaining issues that face the sort of “Quinean” realism that I prefer: (1) the ability of this version of realism to accommodate the traditional realist distinction between universals and particulars, and (2) the ability of this version of realism to account for “relational facts” while maintaining its greater comparative viability over its competitors. / text

I defend a naive conception of material objects, according to which there are such things as stones, statues, cats and their tails, but no "strange fusions" of such things as my nose and the Eiffel Tower. Virtually everyone in the literature rejects the naive conception in favor of some revisionary theory of material objects. Eliminativists (e.g., Unger, van Inwagen, Merricks) deny that there are such things as statues and stones and, in some cases, cats as well. Universalists (e.g., Lewis, Rea, Sider) hold that for any objects you like--even my nose and the Eiffel Tower--there is a single object composed of those objects. These revisionary theories are manifestly counterintuitive, but there are powerful arguments for preferring them to the naive conception. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to showing how these arguments can be resisted. First, I assess the charge that, given the correctness of the naive conception, it would have been a miraculous stroke of luck for us to have hit upon the privileged conceptual scheme. Second, I examine the Lewis-Sider argument from vagueness for unrestricted mereological composition, Third, I show that the grounding problem for coincident modally discernible objects can be solved. Fourth, show that the causal exclusion argument as applied to ordinary objects can be resisted without either systematic overdetermination or epiphenomena. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that the prima facie conflict between revisionary theories and our ordinary discourse, beliefs, and intuitions about material objects proves to be an insurmountable problem for those theories. First, I argue that existing attempts to reconcile revisionary theories of material objects with folk discourse are unsatisfactory, Second, I provide a perspicuous statement of the "challenge from folk belief" and argue that the standard strategies for meeting the challenge are unsatisfactory.

vii, 216 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Philosophy, 1979

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Philosophy, 1979.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 366-373. / by Alec Paul Marantz. / Ph.D.

In Re realism is the two-pronged view that, first, when this and that have the same color, this color and that color are identical. There is just one color, the universal. Second, on the view, this color exists just in case something has it. Say my cat has the same color as the dog I owned when I was a child. Since the dog existed before the cat, and precedence being irreflexive, it seems plausible to infer that the dog and the cat are distinct. Now take the colors. Since the colors are allegedly in re, and thus perhaps somehow elements of the cat and dog, it seems plausible to infer that the dog's color also preceded the cat's color. And therefore that the cat's color cannot be identical with the dog's. Finally, since the in re realist understands the sameness of properties in terms of identity, it follows that the cat's color cannot be the same as the dog's. The problem generalizes: What is the relationship between universals and time? Ignoring the temporality of that which constitutes time, to be temporal is to have a temporal "feature." These "features" are of three kinds: precedence, times, and being present, past, etc. The fundamental question in each case is whether universals have the feature. Do universals precede? Are they at times? Are they present? Time, I argue, is essentially the field in which things happen. To happen, I argue, is for one thing to do something. For one thing to do something is for the thing to exemplify a property. Such exemplifications of properties by objects I call "states of affairs." Only states of affairs precede, are at times, or are present. Universals, not being states of affairs, are not temporal. But, by the same argument which shows that running is not temporal it can be shown that Jack is not, even though Jack's running obviously is. So far I have defined what it is to be temporal; primitive temporality. But since Jack is a constituent of something temporal, he may be justly thought of as derivatively temporal.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ruhr Universität Bochum, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.