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Colombia's protracted civil war between Marxist insurgencies and the state has brought grave consequences for the civilian population and the prospects for constructing a viable political community in the country. With up to 5 million internally displaced people, rampant impunity for perpetrators of crimes against humanity and human rights and International Humanitarian Law violations, dozens of politicians and countless members of the armed forces linked to paramilitary organizations, along with increasing social injustices and inequalities, Colombia presents a troubling social-political panorama that has led to what is often referred to as a profound social and institutional 'moral crisis'. Much discussion has centred on the question of achieving some degree of minimal moral and political consensus and 'collective conscience' to humanize and slowly transform the conflict at local, regional and national levels. However, the philosophical and political parameters of this discussion have been and continue to be set firmly within variants of the liberal tradition which, it is argued, does not provide the necessary resources for adequately conceptualizing the problem and conceiving the task of addressing conflict, constructing moral consensus, and seeking social and political coexistence. The thesis argues that the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre can provide such resources. MacIntyre provides a convincing account of the philosophical problems that underlie ongoing intractable disagreement and the conflicts it breeds, offering a philosophy that can inform and underpin efforts at social transformation, resistance, and coexistence as well as aiding the necessary task of social scientific research and analysis of the conflict. The thesis analyses the moral dimensions of the conflict in light of MacIntyre's philosophy but also critically explores the adequacy of his politics of local community for the Colombian context. MacIntyre argues that a rational political community can only be constructed through the praxis of local communities engaging in shared moral-political deliberation. Through an empirical case study of a Constituent Assembly process in a rural community that has suffered the impacts of armed conflict for decades, the thesis explores an attempt at constructing peaceful social and political coexistence in light of MacIntyre's moral-sociological framework. / Economic and Social Research Council

Alasdair MacIntyre argues in favor of a historicist Thomism in ethics and political philosophy. In his theory, sociological categories take up much of the space traditionally occupied by metaphysics. This peculiar feature of MacIntyre's Thomism, and its merits and demerits, is already a subject that has been taken up by many critics. In this thesis, these criticisms are supplemented and unified by identifying what is perhaps the most fundamental difficulty with MacIntyre's ethics: his version of Thomism is problematic because it treats epistemology as first philosophy. This misstep compromises MacIntyre's ability to provide a defense of moral objectivity, while also undermining his theory's usefulness in deriving moral rules. The result is an ethics of doubtful coherence. If Thomism is to offer a viable alternative to Enlightenment morality and Nietzschean genealogy, it must defend the priority of metaphysics with respect to epistemology.

What is political philosophy? Aristotle pursues that question by asking what the good is. If Nietzsche's postmodern diagnosis that modern philosophical rationalism has exhausted itself is true, it is unclear if an answer to that question is possible. Yet given the prevalence of extremist ideologies in 20th century politics, and the politically irresponsible support of philosophers for these ideologies, there is an urgent need for an answer. This thesis examines how, in these philosophical circumstances, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and Alasdair MacIntyre conclude that a key resource in the recovery of political philosophy, and in showing its contemporary relevance, lies in the recovery of Aristotle's political philosophy. This thesis contends that how and why Arendt, Strauss, and MacIntyre turn to Aristotle, and what they find in Aristotle, depends on their varying critiques of modernity. Convinced that the philosophical tradition is shattered irreversibly after the events of totalitarianism, Arendt argues for a retrieval of Aristotle and his understanding of politics from the fragments of that tradition. Strauss is impelled to turn to the political philosophy of Aristotle because of the crisis of radical historicism, to recover classical rationalism’s answer to what the good is. MacIntyre turns to Aristotle to find the moral justification for rejecting Stalinism that contemporary philosophical traditions fail to provide; he reconstructs an Aristotelian tradition that can answer the question of what the good is better than his contemporary rivals. Although these thinkers may appear disparate, this thesis argues that each addresses the question of what the good is by offering a vision of political philosophy as a way of life, which Aristotle helps form. This way of life probes the relationship between philosophy and politics as permanent problem for human existence. In recovering this tradition of thinking with Aristotle about the character of political philosophy, this thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of each of these thinkers, as well as to the practice of political philosophy in modern, post-Nietzschean times.

This thesis considers and critically analyses literary representations of what I have called “alternative masculinities” within a selection of texts by male writers from the turn of the millennium. The novels chosen for this analysis are Last Drinks by Andrew McGahan (2000), World of Chickens (2001) by Nick Earls and Sushi Central by Alasdair Duncan (2003). The work of R.W. Connell, Doreen Massey and Bruce Bennett will inform a framework blending theories of masculinities, spatiality theories and critical regionalism, providing the tools to conduct a reading of the spaces fictional representations of alternative masculinities engage with. Applying Connell’s hierarchy of masculinities (1995) I examine the emerging textual constructions of alternative masculinities that correspond with the changing cityscape of Brisbane. Within the above texts I argue there is a strong emphasis on the connections between identity and place. This is expressed through references to Brisbane’s social and historical identity and the gendered alignment of Brisbane spaces with particular masculinities.

The tradition of classical Christology, understood in a MacIntyrean sense as an historically extended and socially embodied argument, is facing an epistemological crisis due to the fact that, at each stage in its complex development, it has failed to resolve the problems arising out of the articulation of the classical interpretation of the Incarnation. This failure on the part of the tradition is due to the unsatisfactory and intractable metaphysical dualism at its heart. This dualism, highlighted in each successive attempt to explain the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, is to be understood as a symptom of a more fundamental God-world dualism, entailed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, and informing the traditional Christian conceptual scheme. Failure to recognise and address the God-world problematic has led to one-sided Christological solutions that reflect and reinforce this original and most basic dualism. An alternative view of God is needed to inform Christology if the problematic dualism at the heart of the classical model is to be overcome and the epistemological crisis resolved. Pan(en)theism is such an alternative model of God that offers resources for a non-dualistic Christopraxis.

The tradition of classical Christology, understood in a MacIntyrean sense as an historically extended and socially embodied argument, is facing an epistemological crisis due to the fact that, at each stage in its complex development, it has failed to resolve the problems arising out of the articulation of the classical interpretation of the Incarnation. This failure on the part of the tradition is due to the unsatisfactory and intractable metaphysical dualism at its heart. This dualism, highlighted in each successive attempt to explain the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, is to be understood as a symptom of a more fundamental God-world dualism, entailed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, and informing the traditional Christian conceptual scheme. Failure to recognise and address the God-world problematic has led to one-sided Christological solutions that reflect and reinforce this original and most basic dualism. An alternative view of God is needed to inform Christology if the problematic dualism at the heart of the classical model is to be overcome and the epistemological crisis resolved. Pan(en)theism is such an alternative model of God that offers resources for a non-dualistic Christopraxis.