Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Philosophy, March 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-156) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-318).

No description available.

No description available.

Cette recherche est une comparaison des métaphysiques de Deleuze et de Whitehead. Deleuze et Whitehead ont en commun une approche philosophique où un certain empirisme, qu’il soit « transcendantal » ou « spéculatif », cherche à élucider la nature de l’expérience en tant que telle. Dans les deux cas il s’agit de rendre compte de l’expérience réelle en elle-même, pas seulement de ses conditions de possibilité. Les tâches de l’empirisme transcendantal comme de l’empirisme spéculatif peuvent être définies comme un essai pour expliquer la genèse de l’expérience ou d’une nouvelle sorte de subjectivité, qui remonterait bien plus haut et qui serait bien plus universelle que celle du sujet kantien. Ainsi, dans les philosophies de Deleuze et de Whitehead, ce n’est pas plus un sujet transcendantal et conscient qui est placé au fondement ou au commencement de toute expérience réelle, car chez l’un comme chez l’autre l’expérience humaine n’est plus qu’un cas qui peut être dérivé d’un processus beaucoup plus général, qui est le processus de la réalité elle-même. Pour Deleuze et Whitehead, ce qui est important devient alors d’expliquer la genèse ou l’individuation, par laquelle une expérience se produit. Empirisme transcendantal et empirisme spéculatif peuvent être caractérisés tous deux, chacun à sa façon, d’ « ontologies univoques », où l’intensité est liée à l’individuation / This research is a comparative study of the metaphysics of Deleuze and Whitehead. Deleuze and Whitehead share a common philosophical approach in which a certain empiricism, whether "transcendental" or "speculative", tries to elucidate the nature of experience as such. In both cases what matters is to explain the real experience for itself, not its conditions of possibility. The tasks of their empiricism, be it transcendental or speculative, may be defined as an essay to explain the genesis of experience or of a new kind of subjectivity which could be traced back to a much higher and universal stand than the Kantian subject’s one. Thus, in the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, neither are a transcendental subject nor a conscious subject which is situated at the foundation or the start of any real experience, since, for both of them as well human experience is but a case or a result which can be derived from a much more general process, which is the very process of reality itself. For Deleuze as well as Whitehead, what was thus important was to explain the genesis or the process of individuation, by which experience is produced. Both transcendental empiricism and speculative empiricism can be characterized, each one in its own way, as "univocal ontologies", wherein intensity is linked to individuation.

A presente dissertação tem o objetivo apresentar e refletir o modo como a metateoria estruturalista realiza análises filosófico-metacientíficas. Tal empreitada manterá o foco principal na relação entre teoria científica e experimento. Isto nos permitirá o embate com questões cruciais à filosofia da ciência, tais como a impregnação teórica do teste empírico e a distinção teórico/observacional. Tanto no decorrer quanto ao cabo de nossas reflexões ficará claro o avanço promovido pela metateoria estruturalista no que diz respeito à riqueza de análises metacientíficas possibilitadas pelo seu aparato conceitual. / The purpose of this dissertation is to present and reflect on how the structuralist metatheory performs metaphysical-philosophical analysis. This endeavor will maintain the main focus on the relationship between scientific theory and experiment. This will allow us to tackle issues crucial to the philosophy of science, such as the theoretical impregnation of the empirical test and the theoretical /observational distinction. Both in the course and in the end of our reflections will be clear the advance promoted by the structuralist metatheory with respect to the wealth of metascientific analyzes made possible by its conceptual apparatus.

The trope of the discovered manuscript, in which a narrator or character finds a document and presents it to the readers or other characters, has been a part of the Gothic genre since its inception. The discovered manuscript trope persists, despite criticism and satire, in part because it enables Gothic stories to situate their readers. In the nineteenth-century, as the presence of lawyers, doctors, scientists, journalists and other experts grew in society, Gothic novelists drew upon their methodologies and their records to revise the discovered manuscript trope. This project examines the trope of the discovered manuscript throughout Gothic literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to discuss how the Gothic functions as a literature of terror and how its techniques evolved in response to the epistemologies espoused by empiricist philosophers and professional scientists. I draw upon Jacques Rancière's theories about the representative and aesthetic regimes for the identification of the artistic image to support three central, interrelated claims about the role, and evolution, of the discovered manuscript trope within Gothic fiction: 1) Gothic literature responds to an epistemological problem in the empiricist tradition revolving around the connections between sensory uncertainty and linguistic gaps; 2) reading and interpreting documents play vital roles in the Gothic tradition; and 3) examining documents in Gothic fiction as image operations illuminates how they participate in a story's epistemological drama. In order to support these claims, this project presents four chapters that discuss a broad range of Gothic texts from Walpole's <italics>The Castle of Otranto<italics> to Stoker's <italics>Dracula<italics>.

A presente dissertação tem o objetivo apresentar e refletir o modo como a metateoria estruturalista realiza análises filosófico-metacientíficas. Tal empreitada manterá o foco principal na relação entre teoria científica e experimento. Isto nos permitirá o embate com questões cruciais à filosofia da ciência, tais como a impregnação teórica do teste empírico e a distinção teórico/observacional. Tanto no decorrer quanto ao cabo de nossas reflexões ficará claro o avanço promovido pela metateoria estruturalista no que diz respeito à riqueza de análises metacientíficas possibilitadas pelo seu aparato conceitual. / The purpose of this dissertation is to present and reflect on how the structuralist metatheory performs metaphysical-philosophical analysis. This endeavor will maintain the main focus on the relationship between scientific theory and experiment. This will allow us to tackle issues crucial to the philosophy of science, such as the theoretical impregnation of the empirical test and the theoretical /observational distinction. Both in the course and in the end of our reflections will be clear the advance promoted by the structuralist metatheory with respect to the wealth of metascientific analyzes made possible by its conceptual apparatus.

L'objet de cette thèse est de proposer une position originale dans le débat sur le réalisme scientifique, l'empirisme modal, et d'en démontrer la fructuosité quand il s'agit de tirer des enseignements du contenu cognitif des théories scientifiques. L'empirisme modal est une position empiriste, suivant laquelle le but de la science n'est pas de produire des théories vraies, mais des théories empiriquement adéquate. Cependant, il propose d'adopter un cadre plus large que les versions traditionnelles d'empirisme pour penser l'expérience, en incorporant un engagement envers les modalités naturelles, ou l'idée qu'il y a du possible dans la nature, et des contraintes sur les possibles. Nos théories sont empiriquement adéquates si elles délimitent correctement l'étendue des expériences possibles. Cette position s'appuie sur une conception située et pragmatique des modalités naturelles et de la confrontation empirique. Nous prétendons qu'elle est à même de rendre justice au succès empirique des sciences, sans pour autant faire face au problème du changement théorique qui mine le réalisme scientifique. Nous expliquons comment les contraintes de nécessité sur les phénomènes peuvent être connues à l'issue d'une induction, et en quoi cette façon de voir s'accorde avec la pratique scientifique. Enfin, nous affirmons qu'un engagement envers les modalités naturelles offre une richesse interprétative à même de renouveler, dans un cadre pragmatiste, plus ouvert que le réalisme, certaines questions métaphysiques tout en les ramenant à l'expérience. / The aim of this thesis dissertation is to propose a novel position in the debate on scientific realism, modal empiricism, and to show its fruitfulness when it comes to interpreting the cognitive content of scientific theories. Modal empiricism is an empiricist position, according to which the aim of science is to produce empirically adequate theories rather than true theories. However, it suggests adopting a broader comprehension of experience than traditional versions of empiricism, through a commitment to natural modalities. Following modal empiricism, there are possibilities in nature, and constraints on what is possible, and a theory is empirically adequate if it correctly delimits the range of possible experiences. The position rests on a situated and pragmatic conception of natural modalities and of empirical confrontation. We claim that it can do justice to the empirical success of science, while not falling prey to the problem of theory change that undermines scientific realism. We explain how constraints of necessity on phenomena can be known by induction, and how this modal epistemology fits with scientific practice. Finally, we claim that a commitment to natural modalities allows for a rich interpretation of the cognitive content of theories. Modal empiricism could renew some metaphysical debates within a pragmatist framework, by tying them to experience and not being constrained by realist prejudices.