This master's thesis is primarily concerned with the philosophical conditions of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England that encouraged the emergence of periodical literature and perpetuated the birth of the novel. While most connections between periodical literature and the novel are made on how the former created the readership that ensured the latter's success, I focus on how the epistemology unique to the advent of empirical science together with the growing prominence of casuistic thought created a space in which periodical literature could emerge and the early novel could flourish. I investigate the underlying assertion of a particular philosophical amalgam that I call casuistic-empiricism. Such philosophies encouraged the Renaissance trend that devalued letter-of-the-law thinking, which led ultimately to a significant epistemological transformation in seventeenth-century England. Recognizing the immensity of this epistemological shift, I focus on the early seventeenth-century practice of casuistry as an outgrowth fueled by seventeenth-century natural philosophy. By investigating the poetry and prose of John Donne, I emphasize the pervasive threads of casuistic thought that found parallels in empirical epistemology. I proceed in a linear fashion by following the evolution and growing pervasiveness of casuistic culture into its period of culmination marked by the birth of the Athenian Gazette. Readers' prominent attraction to the periodical is shown to run on a parallel with the incipient empiricism. Indeed, the two prominent lines of thought (empiricism and casuistry) form a dynamic binary where each feeds off of and is fed by the other, culminating in a unique epistemology that aided the emergence of the early novel. Extending this discussion of periodical literature's casuistical qualities into Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, I investigate how Defoe's ties to casuistry are reflected in and perpetuated by Crusoe, illustrating how the novel becomes a medium for resolving cases of conscience. The novel as a genre is shown to be more than just a close relative of the periodical, both genres being spurred into prominence by some of the more salient features attendant to casuistic-empirical philosophy. The novel becomes finally a type of culminating product of a unique casuistic-empirical practice that accounts for the full range of experiences involved in reaching justified conclusions.

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American Public Administration (PA) theory and practices have lacked adequately articulated or formalized normative foundations since the formal founding of the American State. Discussions regarding how PA theory derives from individual and collective critical reflection on practices (praxiology) and how that knowledge can inform future actions (praxis) virtually have been absent in all organizations. The recognition of the political legitimacy of PA has been lacking. The placing of a viable and critical social theory that posits conscious, responsible, and committed human practices within the context of the administration of the American Constitutional State, a politically narrow context, has been lacking as well. This dissertation establishes the works of social theorists Orion White, Jr., Michael Harmon, Robert Denhardt and Bayard Catron as the foundation for understanding how individuals do and can contribute to the collective administration of the complex state, including how they operate daily in organizations they join, critique and are capable of changing. These scholars understand the dynamics of human being and present discussions of human actions and practices that are capable of tackling the challenges associated with administering the American State. The work of John Rohr has established the other missing links—the constitutional legitimacy of PA and the clarification of constitutional values to which American administrative actions and knowledge must adhere. This dissertation asserts that it is the placing of human theory and action within the distinctly American theory and practices of the State that constitutes the solid normative foundations for American PA Praxis and Praxiology that constitutes a viable and formal founding of American Public Administration in word and deed. / Ph. D.

Text in English / The inception of psychology as a practicing profession in 1938 brought with it a continuing scientific struggle geared towards cementing its place as a value-adding health service in the form of psychotherapy. Concepts such as Empirically Supported Treatments (ESTs), Evidence Based Treatments (EBTs) and Evidence Based Practice in Psychology (EBPP) arose out of research attempts to scientifically prove the efficacy of psychological treatment versus psychiatric medications or versus no treatment. This focus on evidence in psychotherapy partly stems from, but also influences public policy in the form of practice and training mandates as well as government and insurance funding policies for psychotherapy. At present ESTs, EBTs and EBPP are the source of polarisation among psychologists who argue for either sides of this controversy, raising questions on a practical/policy level as well as an epistemological level. This thesis differentiates between ESTs, EBTs and EBPP as well as the Common Factors approach and continues to critically investigate the advantages, practical/policy implications and epistemological critiques against these approaches. Some of the identified shortfalls resulting from unwarranted epistemological (empirical) assumptions are addressed by proposing a social constructionist model of therapeutic factors based on social constructionist- and eco-systemic theories. The proposed model allows therapists to employ EBT’s in conjunction with various other (excluded) approaches that are available in their arsenal of treatments. Clinical case studies are used to illustrate the model’s practical operation in therapeutic contexts. / Psychology / Ph.D. (Psychology)

The philosophy of early Deleuze is the main subject of this dissertation. Concretely, it will be treated with regard to distinctive and singular individuation of a man: this essay tries to present his relationship to the ultimate horizon of Being in Deleuze's work. The first chapter constitutes a starting point which can be determined in criticism of the image of thought, closely related with Deleuze's transcendental empiricism. The second chapter is devoted to its culmination, to the metaphysical description of the virtual field of Ideas, of transcendental conditions of our experience. The next chapter shows how Ideas condition, that Ideas actualise themselves insofar as something develops itself within its intensive field of individuation. The fourth chapter takes us back to our starting point: it concerns a phenomenon, this time sufficiently explained, and we are again obliged to confront us with the image of thought which covers this explanation. This is the reason why our interpretation has to continue. The description of distinctive and singular individuation of a man wants to explain the way by which the image of thought, based on common sense, is established. Even though our experience is constructed on this image, there are still some "small islands" of difference, places where the virtual...

Le fait même de nous engager dans un projet explicatif, que nous nommons canoniquement philosophique, nous convoque à ce présupposé de l’affinité entre langage et monde. Nous proposons dans l’introduction une approche cohérentiste des systèmes philosophiques, définis comme des visions du monde où ontologie et épistémologie se doivent un support mutuel. Les positions épistémologiques de Locke, définies par son empirisme, sont juxtaposées à une conception corpusculaire de la réalité. Nous montrerons que les tensions qui existent entre ces deux positionnements sont consolidées par une attitude doxastique profondément réaliste, aboutissant à la fameuse thèse de la ressemblances des qualités primaires réelles et perçues. La science de l’époque est ainsi promue par une ligne rationaliste d’une affinité profonde entre ces catégories qui nous rendent intelligible notre environnement et la réalité même. Le naturalisme contemporain s’appuie quant à lui tout entier sur l’intelligibilité que nous avons du réel au travers de l’activité scientifique, fondant dès lors une résurgence de l’ontologie comme cet idéal d’une accessibilité rationnelle du réel, par le biais de procédures largement a priori, que nos sciences affleurent. Si les prétentions des métaphysiciens à pouvoir remplir cet objectif au moyen de préconceptions ontologiques doivent être déçues, il paraît plus juste de valoriser l’a priori mathématique qui, pace le modèle du réseau holiste de Quine, semble empiriquement incorrigible. Son efficacité ‘déraisonnable’ dans l’heuristique de nos sciences fondamentales le place en première ligne dans la constitution des différentes strates d’objectivation de notre environnement. / The very fact of being engaged in an explicative program, canonically called philosophical, calls us to this presupposition of an affinity between world and words. We propose in the introduction a coherentist approach to philosophical systems, defined as worldviews where ontology and epistemology are in charge of mutual support. In Locke’s empiricism, the epistemological line defined by his empiricism is coupled to a corpuscularist conception of reality. We’ll show that the lines of tension existing between those two positions are consolidated by a deeply realistic doxastic attitude, bringing to the famous thesis of the likeness between real and perceived first qualities. The science of that time is thus promoted by a rationalist line of a deep affinity between the categories that make our environment intelligible and the very reality. Today’s naturalism leans entirely on the intelligibility that we have of reality through scientific activities, so founding the reappearance of ontology as this ideal of rational access to reality, by means of largely a priori procedures, that our sciences flush. If the pretentions of the metaphysicians to meet those objectives have to be deceived, it seems more judicious to value the mathematical a priori which, pace Quine’s model of the seamless web of belief, seems empirically incorrigible. It’s unreasonable effectiveness in the heuristics of our fundamental sciences places effectively it in the very first line in the constitution of the different strata of objectivation of our environnement

Au sein de la pensée de Deleuze, la poésie d'Antonin Artaud apparaît comme la ligne de fuite par excellence à partir de laquelle tout le foisonnement conceptuel deleuzien s'articule. Artaud est en effet celui qui brise l'image de la pensée – ou ce que nous voulons dire habituellement par " penser " en philosophie – en refusant son innéité et son universalité, c'est-à-dire la cogitatio natura universalis. Car pour Artaud comme pour Deleuze, le plus souvent, la pensée s'affronte à son problème véritable, qui est son impouvoir ou son impossibilité. Ainsi, la première partie de la thèse s'attaque à la compréhension de la destitution de l'image de la pensée dans Différence et répétition de Deleuze, à partir de l'idée de " génital inné " d'Artaud dans la Correspondance avec Jacques Rivière. Si l'image de la pensée ne dit rien du processus de penser, de quelle logique sommes-nous capables ? Au travers de la découverte de la logique paradoxale déployée dans les paradoxes de Logique du sens de Deleuze, il s'agira de penser le rapprochement entre Artaud et Nietzsche. L'axe principal de cette partie est la critique du jugement menée par Artaud. Enfin, jeté dans les paradoxes de la vie, la troisième partie envisage le grand impensé de la philosophie qu'est le corps : en effet, de quel corps sommes-nous capables ? L'enjeu, de l'impossibilité de penser à la question du corps - rapprochant L'Ethique de Spinoza du corps sans organes d'Artaud - est bien de renouer la pensée avec la vie, selon le projet du Gai savoir de Nietzsche et qu'Artaud ne cesse de reformuler dès ses premiers écrits. L'impossibilité de penser dit non seulement la séparation d'avec la vie, mais aussi l'impensable qu'est le corps : en effet, que dire de notre propre corps, tel que nous le vivons ? Dans quelle mesure la création de concepts en rhizome dans Mille Plateaux de Deleuze et Guattari explore-t-elle le corps sans organes d'Artaud, ce corps vécu qui reste encore mystérieux pour la pensée ? Artaud souhaitait qu'on l'aime non pas pour son œuvre mais pour sa vie, témoignant d'une grande santé contre un monde malade : l'horizon de l'impossibilité de penser est alors la pensée blessée et profonde assumant la vie elle-même dans toute son opacité. / In the thought of Deleuze, the poetry of Antonin Artaud seems like the line of convergence par excellence from which all the Deleuzian proliferation of concepts are developed. Indeed, Artaud is the person who shatters the image of thought – or what we usually mean by " thinking " in philosophy – rejecting its innateness and universality, in other words, the cogitatio natura universalis. Because, for both Artaud and Deleuze, thought is most often confronted by its real problem – its powerlessness or its impossibility. So the first part of the thesis deals with understanding the dismissal of the image of thought in Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, from Artaud's notion of " génital inné " [innate sexuality] in the Correspondence with Jacques Rivière. If the image of thought says nothing about the process of thinking, of what logic are we capable ? Through the discovery of the paradoxical logic deployed in the paradoxes in Deleuze's Logic of Sense, it is a matter of thinking about the connection between Artaud and Nietzsche. The main thrust of this section is a critique of the judgement made by Artaud. Lastly, thrown into the paradoxes of life, the third part considers the great non thought of philosophy, that is the body : indeed, of what body are we capable ? The challenge, the impossibility of thinking about the question of the body - comparing Spinoza's Ethics and Artaud's body without organs - is to reconnect thought with life, in accordance with the intention of Neitzsche's Gai saber [The Gay Science] and that Artaud did not cease to revise from his earliest writings. The impossibility of thought implies not only a separation from life, but also the unthinkable that is the body: indeed, does this mean talk of our own body as we experience it ? To what extent does the creation of a rhizome of concepts in A Thousand Plateaux by Deleuze and Guattari explore Artaud's body without organs, the body experienced that still remains mysterious for thought ? Artaud hoped that he would be loved not for his work, but for his life, testifying to a great health against a sick world: the prospect of the impossibility of thinking is then thought wounded and profound, taking on a life of its own in all its opacity.

Nous entendons confronter pratique des mathématiques et réflexions sur les mathématiques dans l'œuvre de Weyl. Nous étudierons : (a) ses monographies en analyse complexe, en relativité générale et en mécanique quantique, (b) les articles en lien avec ces ouvrages, (c) certains de ses cours, (d) sa correspondance avec divers scientifiques, principalement A. Einstein, E. Cartan, J. von Neumann. Nous voulons savoir si les théories mathématiques qu'il investit conditionnent ses positions sur les fondements des mathématiques. Inversement, nous montrerons que les philosophies auxquelles il se réfère – essentiellement le criticisme kantien, l'idéalisme fichtéen et la phénoménologie de Husserl – conditionnent ses recherches. Tout d'abord, nous reviendrons sur Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche (première éd. 1913). Nous montrerons qu'il opte alors pour un formalisme mitigé. Il se revendique de deux traditions incarnées par Klein et par Hilbert. Ensuite, nous étudierons les éditions successives de Raum, Zeit, Materie (1918-1923). Nous aborderons le projet d'une géométrie purement infinitésimale qui permet à Weyl de proposer une théorie unifiée des champs, cette dernière étant réfutée par Einstein, Pauli, Reichenbach, Hilbert and Eddington. Nous décrirons aussi la construction et la résolution de son « problème de l'espace » (1921-1923). Nous indiquerons comment la référence aux philosophies de Fichte et de Husserl permet d'éclairer ces deux projets. Enfin, nous commenterons l'article de Weyl sur les groupes de Lie (1925-1926) ainsi que son ouvrage Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik (1928, 1931). Son article sur les groupes de Lie manifeste la voie moyenne entre formalisme et intuitionnisme qu'il adopte en 1924. Son ouvrage en mécanique quantique incarne quant à lui un « tournant empirique » dans son épistémologie qu'il conviendra de comparer \`a l'« empirisme logique ». / Our purpose consists in comparing Weyl's mathematical practice with his philosophical reflections on mathematics. We will study (a) his monographs on complex analysis, general relativity and quantum mechanics, (b) the articles which are linked to these books, (c) some of his lecture courses, (d) his correspondence with different scientists, mainly A. Einstein, E. Cartan, J. von Neumann. We will show that his mathematical research has a strong influence on the different stands he successively takes regarding the foundations of mathematics. Conversely, we will show that the philosophical systems he refers to (mainly kantian criticism, fichtean idealism and husserlian phenomenology) have a real impact on his investigations in mathematics. We will first analyse Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche (first edition 1913). In this book, Weyl seems to take up a formalist point of view, but this is partly true. In fact, he is influenced by two traditions respectively embodied by Hilbert and Klein. Then, we will study the successive editions of Raum, Zeit, Materie (1918-1923). We will describe Weyl's project of a “purely infinitesimal geometry”. Thanks to this geometrical framework, he builds a unified fields theory, which will be disproved by Einstein, Pauli, Reichenbach, Hilbert and Eddington. During this short period, Weyl also constructs and solves the so-called space problem (1921-1923). Weyl's references to Fichte and Husserl have a significant impact on these two projects. Finally, we will comment Weyl's main article on Lie groups (1925-1926) and his monograph on quantum mechanics, i.e. Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik (1rst ed. 1928, 2nd ed. 1931). Weyl's article on Lie groups is in accordance with his compromise between intuitionism and formalism (1924). On the other hand, Weyl's book on quantum mechanics encapsulates an “empirical turn” in his epistemology, which will be compared with the so-called empirical logicism.

The following project will examine the scientific, metaphysical, and aesthetic themes connected to Goethe's vision of Natur during and surrounding the years of his famed Italian Journey. Goethe's progressing conceptualization of the Urpflanze during this period, as witnessed in his autobiographical Italienische Reise and the Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklaren, will be of special concern because of its pertinence to a number of vital natural scientific themes in Goethe's scientific work. I will also trace the progression of these themes over time as seen in Goethe's related theories of the intermaxillary bone and of the morphology of plant organs so as to maintain that the Italian Journey may be seen as a period not only of literary revitalization as commonly cited, but also of scientific progress in connection with Goethe's deepening understanding of Natur as well as its inherent laws and archetypal nature. The first chapter will introduce the project's problem in detail as well as the textual and critical obstructions associated with the project. I will maintain in Chapter II that Goethe's biography during the 1780s shows a systematic progression in the understanding of Natur in his scientific projects and in the Reise, which also helps to demonstrate that Goethe's Journey was a period during which Goethe was able to develop, in greater detail than heretofore, his metaphysical vision of Natur. In Chapter III, I will investigate the primary textual material on Goethe?s notion of the Urpflanze within the Italienische Reise and its resulting extension in his 1790 study of plant morphology, the Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Chapter IV will discuss the topic of the Eins in Nature and anschauende Urteilskraft as detected in Goethe's scientific writings. Chapter V will continue and conclude this argument by linking Richards' argument regarding "Romantic biologists" to Goethe?s natural science during the time of the Italian Journey, thus making a connection between Kunst and Natur in the Italienische Reise and in Goethe's scientific projects during and surrounding the Journey.