Thesis (M.A.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2001. / Thesis advisor: Richard Bonaccorso. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-66). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Inaug.-diss.--Giessen. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": 2 p. at end.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-87).

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-119).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

The thesis argues for the pertinence of the Kantian 'topography' of the mental faculties and the power of critical thought in assessing the philosophical importance of Georges Bataille' s writing. Such an argument runs counter to the received tradition of interpretation of Bataille's work, which has, given the influence of Derrida, construed these texts as works of phenomenological philosophy. The thesis shows that Derrida's interpretation must, by virtue of its exclusivity, be incorrect. Bataille is concerned with the trajectory of thought - that is with the dynamics or energetics of thought - rather than with the articulation of the logic of representation, an articulation which characterises phenomenological thinking. The thesis argues that Bataille's concern with the energetics of thought represents an extension of Kant's critical project. This relation is borne out by the new uses to which he puts the Kantian terminology of continuity, transcendence, subjectivity and communication. Rather than simply exaggerating the power of critique, which Kant countenanced as an influence on the mental processes, Bataille dissolves the critical difference and fuses the status of all thought with its energetic and thermic trajectory. For Bataille, thought is associated with the free contagions or infections of thermic communication. Thus Bataille's relation to Kojeve and Hegel is -only part of a wider move in designating the energetic nature of critique over and above its restricted and conceptual uses. Critique does not survive this definition. The thesis shows the nature of the critical project as it is articulated by Kant in the critiques of pure reason and judgement and how Bataille's major concepts come to inhabit this terrain whilst subjecting themselves and it to the dissolution which is the result of the rational groundlessness of critique. Bataille's treatment of this topography shows that it can be used to infer the attributes of a philosophy of intensities and change.

1. The nature and scope of this thesis is the meaning and possibility of personal autonomy for the contemporary self embedded in a complex of changing organizations. 2. Its contribution is in relating philosophy to the study of complex organizations. 3. The research is based upon the relevant literature and empirical studies informed by the writer's organizational experience. 4. The thesis is structured in two parts with the following arguments. Part I (The Situated Self of Sensible Reasoning) sets out a checklist for personal autonomy as positive freedom and rejects a universalist concept of autonomy as moral autonomy for its neglect of the self s particularity - its situation, sentiments and contingency. A midway position combines the principle of detachment with an evaluatory understanding of the nested self of cognitive sensibility. The self's coherence and its perspective are embodied in a unique narrative which governs the portfolio of the individual as agent in its relations, roles and aims. The sells portfolio constitutes the choices of its nestedness and its autonomy: it's not here, not there but where I choose to locate it. Part II (Managing Contingency)explores different types of organizations and their members' behaviour to identify those which enable the individual to confront contingency in its own terms. The final chapter examines how the current organizationa disembedding process forces the individual to confront its autonomy in a contemporary world of change. 5. The main conclusions of the thesis are: (i) There is a workable concept of personal autonomy, understood sul generis, ie in terms of its own particularity ; (ii) Those organizations enabling the individual to confront contingency in its own terms offer the best hope of autonomy ; (iii) The architect and the entrepreneur are key in illustrating the role of autonomy in a creative relating of order and contingency; (iv) The demise of the metanarrative of permanent and full employment are Inter alla forcing upon the individual the choices of heteronomy (captured in another's metanarrative as consumer and viewer), anomie (whim or chance) or personal autonomy.

This thesis concerns the unity of consciousness - in particular the phenomenal unity of consciousness. The idea that consciousness is 'phenomenally unified' is the idea that if we attempt to characterise 'what it is like' for a subject just by listing all of the distinct experiences had by that subject at and over time, we will leave something out. We will leave out the unity of those experiences - the way in which those experiences feature together in consciousness. We can distinguish between the unity of consciousness at a time, and the unity of consciousness over time. I do not attempt to provide an account of the unity of consciousness at a time here - I focus instead upon the issue of unity over time. Some theorists - Dainton and Tye for instance - have claimed that it is possible to provide a single account of unity that solves both problems of unity in the same way. My contribution to the issue of unity at a time shall be to argue that such a single account is not possible, due to important differences in the phenomenological constraints that apply to the two problems. I proceed by providing an account of what exactly the constraints on an account of unity over time are, and argue that accounts that commit to the 'Principle of Simultaneous Awareness' (the accounts of Le Poidevin, Tye, Husserl, and Broad) cannot meet these constraints. I then provide a diagnosis of what may have been driving acceptance of such a principle in the first place - I argue that driving such acceptance is a faiiure to identify the metaphysical category of 'Occurrent State'. I propose that we can provide a successful and substantive account of diachronic unity only if we commit to thinking of a subject's phenomenal states as Occurrent States.

This thesis seeks to apply some concepts and theories from predominantly post 1960 research in organisational behaviour to the study of the Arts Council as reflected through its policies, in the belief that few, if any, real attempts have thus far been made by academics to relate some of the profound difficulties of the public administration of the art to this branch of the sciences. The project is based on an examination of the assumption with which the Arts Council historically has justified both its general operations and its particular decisions. A close examination is made of past and recent statements of policy (I am assuming that administrators often make policy and advise in the making of policy and am treating decision making and policy making as synonymous for purposes of this thesis), the main aim being to identify the various ideological and structural determinants which bear upon decision making processes necessary for a subsequent evaluation of the various representative systems. These determinants vary from political pressures to aesthetic preconceptions, and overt to covert hierarchical power structures within the framework. Specific areas of concern have revolved around the problems of co-ordination, accountability and control of public subsidy to the arts and in particular, what model or models of organisational structure and decision-making processes might successfully reconcile traditional cultural criteria and alternative contemporary conceptions of artistic and cultural development and worth, including all current non-art criticism. In particular, the research has focused on what might be termed the Arts Council's 'secondary accountabilities-' (the word 'accountability' is usually only used when explaining its formal relationships with Government), in respect to artistic standards, artists and members of the general public. This is accountability imposed from 'below" the quango, a relatively undeveloped concept which this thesis examines in much greater detail. My points are illustrated by an examination of the policies of the arts agencies in Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, America and Canada. Further comparisons are made between the Arts Council of Great Britain and Sports Council of this country in view of the proposals in New Zealand and Australia for a more integrated policy framework based on concepts of recreation and leisure which could result in a new Department of Recreation, Arts and Sport whose primary function would be to develop a national recreation policy to allow for coordinated development of all aspects of recreation, arts and sport. The examination is made largely from the point of view of organisation theory. For while I believe the cultural debate outlined in chapter one represents the crucial question for arts councils to resolve, organisation theory fortuitously illustrates these larger issues and also suggests some means of resolving the conflict between public accountability and responsibility to the development of the arts.