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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
551

Patron-Clientism as an anthropological model for understanding Israelite social and economic dynamics in the early Settlement Period

Unknown Date (has links)
Judges 5 contains the Song of Deborah, a hymn celebrating the Israelite victory over Canaanite Hazor. Of the ten tribes called, only five responded. Why did five tribes "remain in the hills"? This thesis proposes Patron-Clientism as a socio-economic model for explaining this breach in Israelite solidarity. Patron-Clientism stresses that social ties must exist between non-cognate societies before economic exchange can occur. All five aberrant tribes had all migrated out from the central highlands into regions which were geographically and demographically hostile. These tribes found themselves residing as aliens within areas of Canaanite dominance. However, through fictive and sacral kinship the northern and trans-Jordan tribes had established the social matrices necessary to protect themselves against social and economic exploitation among their stronger Phoenician and Canaanite neighbors. These "border tribes" farthest from the Israelite central tribes could now enjoy economic benefits from their non-Israelite patrons. But these same tribes had also maintained social ties with their Israelite kin. When the war with Hazor began, these five tribes faced polarized obligations to both Israelite and Canaanite patrons. Unable to satisfy duties to both patrons, these tribes chose neutrality. This choice protected them from immediate reprisals, but consequences to their dichotomous Patron-Clientism would continue well into the Monarchic Period. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: A, page: 3162. / Major Professor: John Priest. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.
552

Ancient Egyptian Philosophy : or a chimaera of the popular significance

Sandström, Christofer January 2019 (has links)
The thesis investigates a continuously held assumption, within the field of Egyptology, that undertakes to derive classical Hellenic philosophy from a previous philosophical tradition, initiated centuries before in ancient Egypt. The study will proceed with an initial clarification of ancient Greek philosophy, and a brief outline of some topics from its main research fields: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of mind. The essential properties that signifies Greek philosophy, and indeed modern philosophy, will be formalised in a model appropriate for textual analysis. The Egyptian texts, that have been characterized as philosophy by the Egyptologists, will then be analysed, and the concluding result will be compared against the model of philosophy, to ascertain if the selected Egyptian texts can be classified as philosophy, or not.
553

Etruscan temples: A study of the structural remains, origins and development

Unknown Date (has links)
In this dissertation the complex problems surrounding the origins and subsequent development of the Etruscan temple are investigated. Emphasis is placed on the temples located in the area of Etruria proper (i.e., the land bounded by the rivers Arno and Tiber to the north, east and south and by the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west). Those temples located outside this region but situated in a city inhabited primarily by a population that was ethnically Etruscan (e.g., Marzabotto) are also emphasized. / The first three chapters form a survey of the twelve Etruscan temples that are well enough preserved to be analyzed and theoretically reconstructed. In order to more easily understand the development of this building type, the temples in the survey are presented in chronological order. Chapter One includes the temples of the Archaic period, Chapter Two includes temples of the Classical period, and Chapter Three included those of the Hellenistic period. With each temple a history of the excavations, a general description of the sanctuary, a detailed account of the structural remains and a theoretical reconstruction are provided. / Chapter Four deals with the origins of the Etruscan temple. In this section it is demonstrated that, rather than the Etruscan temple appearing as the result of a slow evolution based on Etruscan domestic architecture (as has been previously argued), the temple emerged suddenly in a highly developed form based principally on foreign architectural concepts as well as indigenous building traditions. Greek influence is recognized in the form of the peripteral and distyle in-antis plans. In addition, the relationship between the temples in Etruria and the Etrusco-Latin Capitoline Temple in Rome is considered. / Chapter Five concerns the development of the Etruscan temple. Although the primary evidence of the actual structural remains is mainly used to trace this development, secondary evidence, such as ancient literary sources, votive models and tombs, are employed as well. It is shown that the Etruscans basically used two different designs when constructing temples. It is also demonstrated that throughout the development remarkably consistent patterns emerged. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-10, Section: A, page: 3093. / Major Professor: Nancy de Grummond. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
554

The heroic ideal and Greek tragic women

Unknown Date (has links)
This dissertation examines the transformation of the heroic ideal from the literary, quasi-historical standards of Homeric society, in which the self-interested desires of the individual, male warriors are paramount, through the Archaic period, when the heroic ideal shifts its emphasis toward cooperative, communal interests, stimulated by the nascent growth of the city-state, until the classical period of fifth-century B.C. Athens, when the ideal begins to degenerate, primarily as a result of changing philosophical and political influences upon the Athenians, as well as the devastating physical and psychological consequences of the Peloponnesian War. / Primarily, though, the investigation revolves around the activities of literary, and historical, women as they relate to the changing criteria of the heroic ideal. In Homer, I have a brief overview of his treatment of women. In Chapter 3, I thoroughly explore the social perceptions of Greek women in both the Archaic and Classical periods, including views of early Greek writers, problems of modern methodology in this subject area, the question of the seclusion of Athenian women, their social separation from men in the public arena, and contemporary opinions on the character and intelligence of Athenian women. The main focus will eventually become the Greek tragic heroine in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. / After a brief overview of political life in fifth-century Athens, the functions of tragedy, and the characterization of women in tragedy, in Chapters 4-6 I engage those plays of the three tragedians whose female characters act according to the dictates of the older, heroic code. The tragic result attests the destructive dichotomy between the basically, communal-oriented women and the dictates of the fundamentally self-centered male warrior code, which is less a negative reflection upon Athenian women than upon the anti-social nature of the heroic code itself. Finally, in Chapter 7 I look at how Vergil faced the same problems of an older, destructive, heroic ideal (symbolized in Dido, a latter day Ajax) in conflict with the peaceful, unifying ideals of collective effort (symbolized in Aeneas, the precursor of Augustus). / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-01, Section: A, page: 0182. / Major Professor: Justin M. Glenn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
555

Providence and Pedagogy in Plotinus:

Ellis, David January 2017 (has links)
Thesis advisor: Gary M. Gurtler / This dissertation examines Plotinus’ pedagogy. I argue that his pedagogy aims at teaching students how to think and be attuned to their own unity, both of which have ethical ramifications. I identify six techniques he uses to achieve these aims: (1) using allusions, (2) leading readers to an impasse (aporia), (3) using and correcting images, (4) self-examination and ongoing criticism, (5) treating opposites dynamically, and (6) thought-experiments. I also explain why and how these techniques are not applied to passive recipients but require their active involvement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.
556

Rectangular Cows or Another Bad Tragedy? An Aristotelian Solution to the Incommensurability of Mathematics and Material Things

Stackle, Erin January 2010 (has links)
Thesis advisor: Arthur Madigan / Since at least Galileo, not only the technological abilities of natural science but the meaning of science's claims have been shaken to their very foundations, according to Edmund Husserl. We know what scientists say, but we do not know what they mean. Nor, Husserl claims, do they know what they mean. They do what works. They measure, they tabulate, they calculate. But they do not thereby really know the world. And since they are the standing authorities of knowledge in our culture, we do not have a reliable referent to which we can turn for an appropriate standard of meaning. At some level we realize that this piece of paper in my hand is not precisely a geometrical rectangle, in which all four angles are exactly ninety degrees and both sets of sides are exactly parallel to each other, but for the most part we simply identify it as a rectangle and move on. In our everyday experience, Husserl would say, we tend to conflate geometrical space and experiential space. We do not, however, have any real idea why we can do so effectively, even if we are engineers or physicists. Geometrical shapes are categorically different from the shapes we daily experience in our interactions with the world. No matter how carefully I draw lines or cut edges, I can never make a piece of paper (or, for that matter, a cow) that exactly meets the requirements of a geometrical rectangle. Even the fact that geometrical rectangles are, by definition, plane figures, which means they only have two dimensions, rather than the (at least) three that structure any perceptible thing, prevents perceptible things from ever meeting the strict requirements of geometrical figures. Given this basic disparity, what is it that justifies our using these geometrical figures to describe the perceptible world in which we live? If we want to know the world, Husserl tells us, we need to know what our scientific claims mean. This, he claims, is the only way we can meaningfully ground our increasingly science-governed lives. Plan of the Dissertation In this dissertation, then, I undertake the project of identifying more precisely what this problem is and offering some solution to it. My argument will have three steps. I shall argue first that to solve the problem Husserl so helpfully lays out, we need to go back to Aristotle's Metaphysics; second, that although Aristotle proposes a solution for the metaphysical problems implied by using mathematics to know perceptible things, this solution fails to answer the questions as he presents them, even if it is broadly interpreted; and, finally, that there are within Aristotle's metaphysical thought implicit resources for constructing this missing metaphysical justification, and that these can be found explicitly in his way of thinking about the distinction between actuality and potency, in his discussion of the metaphysical implications of knowing, and in his discussion of material causality. The basic problem is that mathematical objects and perceptible things are different kinds of things. We would not say that `Joe's idea is hungry' in anything other than a very metaphorical way, because we recognize that ideas are not the kinds of things that get hungry. Hunger is the province of animals. Ideas are not animals. Ideas, then, cannot be hungry. Mathematical objects and perceptible things, though, while also different kinds of things, are regularly combined. We do say, `This piece of paper is rectangular', although it would seem that pieces of paper (or cows) are not the kinds of things that could be rectangles. In this dissertation, I begin in chapter one with a careful recapitulation of Husserl's articulation of this problem of thoughtlessly conflating mathematical and experiential things. Husserl takes this to be the root of the crisis, not only of the meaning of the sciences, but also of all human meaning. I use Husserl's articulation, rather than simply explaining the problem as I understand it and moving directly to Aristotle's Metaphysics, where I see the roots of its solution, in part because Husserl's work was so influential in shaping my own understanding of the problem. More importantly, though not unrelatedly, Husserl helpfully contextualizes the problem both culturally and historically. He tells us why this matters, and he tells us how it seems to have happened. Both of these seem to me to be crucial to any ultimately successful resolution to the problem. In Husserl's articulation of the problem, he identifies Galileo as responsible for taking it as `obvious' that the `universally valid' shapes of geometry constituted the objectively real component of all things. He argues that Galileo inherits a tradition in which our approximations to `limit shapes' and the increased precision in replicating these made possible by technological advances gradually meld together, such that we learn to take the world to be fundamentally a mathematical manifold. In taking over this tradition, Galileo simply presumes that the world is fundamentally mathematizable and sets about developing methods by which even the concrete sensory plena through which any experienced shape is necessarily presented can be mathematized. Since we take as `given' these assumptions, whose origin Husserl attributes to Galileo, and which remain unjustified metaphysically, Husserl's tracing of the development of these assumptions can help us notice and evaluate them. This will be helpful in recovering the meaning of our mathematical scientific claims, and, ultimately, in recovering the meaning of our non-scientific claims. While Husserl helpfully identifies the problem and begins the historical tracing he proposes with his analysis of Galileo's assumptions, he does not complete the latter project, in part because he died so soon after beginning it. His project in the Crisis, as with many of the projects he undertook as a scholar, gets developed in many different directions, without any of these being completed. He proposes a philosophical-historical retracing of the assumptions of geometry, from its earliest inception through the present. He proposes a simultaneous careful consideration of the metaphysical assumptions at work in mathematical science and the justification necessary for it. He proposes transcendental phenomenology as the way to correctly understand the correlation between mathematical claims and the perceptible world they describe. While the development of transcendental phenomenology and the ways that it can help us come to understand more correctly our interaction with the world are fascinating, in this dissertation I want to focus on Husserl's other proposals toward a solution, namely the philosophical-historical retracing of assumptions and the metaphysical analysis. Specifically, I want to focus on the metaphysical analysis that Aristotle performs on the problems generated by presuming that one can use mathematical objects to know perceptible things. In chapter two, then, I explain more thoroughly the first two proposals toward a solution that Husserl proposes, and defend my claim that this metaphysical analysis in Aristotle is an appropriate continuation of Husserl's project. For completeness, Husserl's project needs, in addition to his tracing of the historical sources of lazy assumptions, an Aristotelian metaphysical analysis of what material and mathematical things are, to clarify whether and how mathematics could be appropriately (or inappropriately) applied to material things. In chapter three, I turn to Aristotle's Metaphysics and cull from its pages, primarily from Books III and XIII, the basic metaphysical questions and problems that arise in Aristotle's discussion of the use of mathematical objects to know perceptible things. I organize these into six central questions: 1) What exactly are the mathematical objects Aristotle discusses? 2) Are these mathematical objects substances? 3) Are these mathematical objects separable from perceptible things? 4) Are these mathematical objects constituents of perceptible things? 5) Are these mathematical objects principles or causes of perceptible things? 6) Is knowledge of these mathematical objects somehow knowledge of perceptible things? From these six questions, the basic problem that emerges is that knowledge of mathematical objects requires these objects to be exact, unchangeable, and indivisible, whereas the perceptible things of which they are supposed to provide knowledge are less determinate, changeable, and divisible. It seems like the mathematical objects would have to be separate from these perceptible things to be objects of mathematical knowledge, but if they were so, it is unclear how knowledge of them could be taken to also be knowledge of the perceptible things. These mathematical objects would have to somehow be part of the causal structure of these perceptible things for knowledge of them to be knowledge of these perceptible things. In chapter four, I take up the solution that Aristotle proposes for these difficulties, the `insofar as'/ `qua' (hêi) structure of knowing. Various attributes belong to a given perceptible thing in virtue of various ways of its being. Being green belongs to a plant, for example, insofar as it is a surface. The method of abstraction (aphairesis) allows us to separate out in thought the relevant way of being of the thing, so as to make the appropriate attribution to it. We can know a thing as something, even if that `something' is not itself actually separable. This proposal of Aristotle's begins to resolve some of the metaphysical problems that chapter three articulated. It is not itself, however, metaphysically justified. While it seems that we do regularly make these kinds of claims about perceptible things, it is not clear what justifies us in separating in thought what is not separate in fact, nor just how these various ways of being belong to the unified perceptible thing such that knowledge of them provides knowledge of the thing. This difficulty in giving a metaphysically coherent account of Aristotle's model of abstraction pervades the scholarly literature. Aristotle, it seems, does not have a satisfactory solution to the troubling metaphysical problems he raises about using mathematical objects to know perceptible things. In my fifth, and final, chapter, I undertake to construct from other texts in Aristotle's corpus a metaphysical justification for his model of abstraction that can, in fact, resolve the metaphysical problems that he and Husserl have raised. I find this metaphysical justification in an implicit claim of Aristotle's, to be found in the same section where he proposes his model of abstraction as a solution (Met XIII.3): the claim that mathematical objects are potential substances. I examine what these potential substances are, how they are related to their own actualizations and how they are related to the perceptible things of which they are supposed to provide knowledge, relying primarily on Metaphysics VIII and IX. I consider how knowledge of these could be possible, using texts from De Anima III, and then explore a connection between these potencies and the material cause of perceptible things in Physics II.9. I conclude at last that we are, in fact, justified in using mathematical objects to describe perceptible things. These objects, however, are mathematically describable only insofar as they are material, by which Aristotle means, insofar as they are potential, rather than actual. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.
557

Plato's critique of injustice in the Gorgias and the Republic

Culp, Jonathan Frederick January 2008 (has links)
Thesis advisor: Christopher Bruell / No rational decision can be made concerning how to live without confronting the problem of justice—both what it is and whether it is good to be just. In this essay I examine Plato’s articulation of these problems in the Gorgias and the Republic. Through detailed analyses of Socrates’ exchanges with several interlocutors, I establish, first, that despite some real and apparent differences, all the interlocutors share the same fundamental conception of justice, which could be called justice as fairness or reciprocal equality (to ison). The core of justice lies in refraining from pleonexia (seeking to benefit oneself at the expense of another). Second, according to this view, the practice of justice is not intrinsically profitable; it is valuable only as a means to the acquisition or enjoyment of other, material goods. This conception thus implies that committing successful injustice is often more profitable than being just. Third, the critics of justice recognize and openly acknowledge this fact; hence, their position is more coherent than common opinion. Fourth, the core of the Socratic defense of justice lies in the claims that the practice of pleonexia is incompatible with the possession of a well-ordered soul and that the possession of a well-ordered soul is necessary for happiness. Thus, despite appearances to the contrary, Socrates does not argue that justice, as it is commonly conceived, is intrinsically profitable. He is able to refute the critics of justice because the latter lack a coherent understanding of the human good. Finally, Socrates’ defense of justice nonetheless remains incomplete because he deliberately refrains from giving a sufficient account of the nature of the soul and its good. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.
558

Razão e sensação no Teeteto de Platão / Reason and preception in Plato\'s Theaetetus

Borges, Anderson de Paula 25 September 2009 (has links)
Neste trabalho argumento que o Teeteto é um diálogo sobre a relação entre o conceito de razão, entendido como uma potência específica da alma, e a sensação, compreendida como um processo inconsciente do corpo. No primeiro capítulo examino a análise platônica da epistemologia protagoreana. Tento mostrar que nesta seção Platão não está argumentando uma tese platônica sobre o mundo sensível. Ele está explicando e criticando os princípios fundamentais da epistemologia protagoreana. No final da seção Platão explica a distinção entre razão e sensação. Na análise da segunda parte defendo que a massa de argumentos dessa seção formula uma tese platônica sobre a essência do conhecimento. Por fim, no comentário da terceira definição examino o conceito de logos da teoria do sonho e o significado da tese de que os elementos são perceptíveis. / In this work I argue that the Theaetetus is a dialogue about the relation between the concept of reason, understood as a kind of power of the mind, and perception, viewed as an unconscious process of the body. In the first chapter I examine Platos analysis of Protagorean epistemology. I try to show that in this section Plato is not arguing his own view about the sensible world. He is, rather, explaining and criticizing the fundamental principles of the protagorean epistemology. At the end of this section Plato explains the distinction between reason and perception. In my analysis of the second part, I argue that the mass of arguments of this section formulates a platonic thesis about the essence of knowledge. Finally, in my commentary of the third definition, I examine Dreams concept of logos and the meaning of the thesis that the elements are perceivable.
559

Elemental analysis of ancient pottery and study of sputtering phenomena by means of 14 MEV and reactor thermal neutrons.

January 1986 (has links)
by Li Ping-wah. / Title in Chinese: / Includes bibliographical references / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1986
560

The South Stoa at Corinth : design, construction and function of the Greek phase

Scahill, David January 2012 (has links)
The focus of this dissertation is the design, construction and function of the South Stoa at Corinth in its initial phase. The South Stoa was first published in a monograph by Oscar Broneer in 1954.1 In addition to dealing with the Greek and Roman phases of the building, Broneer’s study also dealt with the “pre-stoa” remains. Certain aspects of the architecture of the stoa, however, were either treated only briefly or were entirely left out of the publication. While it was one of the first attempts at a full study of a secular Greek building, several conclusions deserve re-evaluation, including the date of construction and the design of the building in its initial phase, which has an impact on subsequent phases of remodeling, the function of the building, as well as its place in the historical development of stoas. Re-evaluation of the in situ remains of the stoa combined with newly identified architectural fragments of the building, particularly from the superstructure, provide important evidence to suggest an alternative reconstruction to that previously put forward. This new reconstruction is presented as the most likely solution, in awareness of the possibility that future finds may give rise to modification. As will be shown, the staircases inside the first and last front rooms of the stoa do not belong to the initial building phase as previously thought, but instead date to the Roman period, while evidence in the form of foundations and cuttings for a staircase inside the colonnade at the west end of the stoa, dated prior to 146 B.C., belongs to the initial phase of the building and calls for an entirely different interior reconstruction. The date of the stoa, which has fluctuated from sometime after the middle of the fourth century B.C. (340-320 B.C.) to the early decades of the third century B.C., can now be more precisely determined in view of recent examination of pottery deposits from beneath the stoa terrace, which was built prior to the stoa’s construction. These deposits have been dated between 300-290 B.C., which would push the date of the stoa’s construction to the beginning decades of the third century B.C. This has considerable bearing on the early development of Hellenistic stoas and on the stylistic chronology of several other buildings built around the end of the fourth century B.C. Having resolved aspects of the reconstruction and situated the stoa chronologically, the focus of this study moves on to design considerations, including examination of the proportions and of the ancient foot unit used in the design of the building. Construction and statics of the building are also considered.

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