Thesis advisor: Peter J. Kreeft / Thesis advisor: Ronald K. Tacelli / This thesis explores and defends the compatibility of divine involvement and human freedom. It argues that, far from determining human actions, divine foreknowledge and providence stand in a unique metaphysical relationship to human free will. This relationship is explored through a creative appropriation of St. Thomas Aquinas' theory of participation. Divine knowledge and causation transcend ordinary models of knowledge and causation, operating on a different metaphysical plane than human speculative knowledge and created causation. Ultimately, the compatibility of God and human freedom rests upon an understanding of divine causality as creative and constitutive. Rather than overpowering genuine human causality, divine involvement grounds the very possibility of free human choice. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / This dissertation is a reading of Schelling's influential <italic>Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom</italic> (1809), focusing on the meaning of "grounding" and the principle of sufficient reason (called the "principle of ground" in German philosophy). One of the contributions of my dissertation is to show how Schelling's treatise frames the traditional debate about "freedom vs. determinism" in terms of system. The connection with system provides a context for the claim of determinism and shows what is at stake in denying it. I argue that the principle of ground underlies the difficulties in integrating freedom within a system. Schelling is able to resolve these difficulties by distinguishing a deterministic from a non-deterministic sense of ground. Schelling uses the non-deterministic sense of ground (ground as condition of the possibility) to connect the parts of the system without jeopardizing freedom. At the same time, Schelling reserves the deterministic sense of ground for the ultimate act of freedom, by which individual human beings determine themselves. Beyond this core argument, the dissertation contributes to Schelling scholarship by interpreting the <italic>Freedom Essay</italic> in continuity with the texts leading up to and following its publication, most of which have not yet been translated. I show how these texts help to clarify some of the most difficult passages in the <italic>Freedom Essay</italic>. In particular, I draw on Schelling's correspondence to correct a widespread misreading of the fundamental distinction between that-which-exists and the ground of existence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: James Bernauer / Michel Foucault's account of power does not foreclose the possibility of ethics; on the contrary, it provides a inescapable framework within which ethics becomes possible. A clear elaboration of both the general features common to all kinds of power relations (Chapter One), as well as the evolution of particular modes of modern power (discipline and biopower, Chapters Two and Three) demonstrates how power relations both frame and require other, ethical relations. Foucault's articulation of these ethical possibilties (Chapter Four) follows several trajectories--some rooted in contemporary politics, others in ancient ethical practices--that begin with "bodies and pleasures," and move through the communal practice of friendship, to caring for oneself and others as a critical attitude. At the core of these interconected ethical trajectories are the interwoven concepts of critique and freedom, which give Foucault the resources to articulate a provisional but sufficient justification of ethical norms and values, thus answering his most incisive and significant critics. Foucault is thus a critical theorist whose work calls us not to despair but to hope in an ongoing struggle for the good and the just. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Vanessa Rumble / The aims of my dissertation are 1) to explicate what I take to be the philosophical foundations of Freudian psychoanalysis with the aid of Schelling’s contributions to the development of the unconscious and the nature of human freedom and 2) to make use of certain fundamental discoveries of psychoanalysis in order to reinterpret Schelling’s dynamic and developmental vision of reality. My claim is that Schelling’s philosophy not only offers an important historical moment in the development of the psychoanalytic account of the unconscious, but also gives us a vision of human development—and indeed the development of Being as such—that is grounded in the unconscious and the activity of the drives. Where Freud is often viewed as a determinist, through a closer examination of the connections Schelling makes between the unconscious ground of existence and human freedom we can begin to open up the space for a more complex Freudian subjectivity. Furthermore, the advances Freud makes in terms of the structure of the unconscious, his work on the altered temporality (most notably Nachträglichkeit, or “afterwards-ness”) of trauma and repression, also serve to bring some of Schelling’s most abstract and speculative work to both a more practical and philosophically relevant level. In the work of both Schelling and Freud, the relationship between the human subject and the reality such a subject “confronts” is radically transformed. In Schelling, we find that the developmental phases of Being, of the Absolute and of Nature are also manifested in the structure of human becoming; that is, the catastrophic divide between subjective experience and objective reality is bridged by reinterpreting both as dynamic processes. Although Freud himself often has recourse to a more static view of “objective” reality, his work also speaks to a deep and disturbing revision of such a view. Indeed, Freud’s continued questioning of the boundaries between fantasy and reality, between the internal and the external, suggest that the irreducible otherness of the unconscious extends beyond the individual. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

‘Academic freedom’ in the Twenty-First Century is a contested concept and there exist many interpretations, or versions, of academic freedom, a number of which have been identified through a review of the literature. Some scholars now claim that academic freedom no longer exists in academia, or that it has become a second order value that competes with other priorities more appropriate to the now competitive business of higher education. In this context, the philosophical and legal responsibilities that Vice-Chancellors have in protecting academic freedom can no longer be taken as unproblematic, and their views may not be clear to themselves or to the staff and students in their institutions. This thesis explores the views Vice-Chancellors have on the concept of academic freedom, how they manage academic freedom and the extent to which they believe academic freedom is practised in their university. The Vice-Chancellors interviewed, of a regional and representative sample of English universities, included those from leading pre-1992 universities and new post-1992 universities as well as one private university. Vice-Chancellors were found to have paid little, or no, attention to academic freedom. They implied that academic freedom was a matter for individual subject departments, but they were resolute that they were the arbiters whenever academic freedom became an issue. Some thought that the concept of academic freedom had been misused by individual academics who raised issues motivated by political and ideological beliefs, and those who conflated it with the civil liberty of free speech. In summarising the Vice-Chancellors’ ‘version’ of academic freedom, a key finding was that they had neglected academic freedom. Consequently, one important proposal was that Vice-Chancellors in English universities should review the nature of academic freedom and consider the implications at governance and managerial levels, at departmental level and in practice. As one Vice-Chancellor admitted: “…we’ve never said to, or proven to, the outside world that academic freedom is important”.

Avec la question de l’acrasie pour fil rouge, ce travail tend à dessiner les contours de l’éthique de Pierre de Jean Olivi (1248-1298). Il a ainsi pour finalité de comprendre les solutions que le Franciscain envisage pour décrire ce qui motive l’homme a parfois mal agir et ce en toute liberté et en toute connaissance de cause. Après avoir déterminé le rôle de la volonté et de son rapport avec l’intellect dans la liberté et avoir défini les diverses significations de la conscience dans l’œuvre d’Olivi, cette thèse démontre que la notion de personne que propose Olivi en tenant compte des diverses occurrences, tant juridiques que théologiques, qui ont cours à son époque est essentielle dans la question du choix volontaire pour le mal. Enfin, après avoir déterminé si une norme éthique est présente en l’homme, notamment par la notion de goût spirituel, ce travail s’attachera à montrer que la volonté de pouvoir sur autrui et l’orgueil sont pour Olivi la source de tout péché. Nous conclurons cette thèse par l’analyse des causes de la chute des démons, principalement de Lucifer, afin d’illustrer l’ensemble de notre propos. / With the question of akrasia as a central thread, this thesis tries to outline the ethics of Peter of John Olivi (1248-1298). More specifically, the objective is to understand the solutions the Franciscans consider to describe what motivates the human being to sometimes act in an evil way and this on the assumption of total liberty and of the knowledge of reasons. After definition of the role of the will as well as it’s connection with the intellect in freedom and having specified the diverse significations of consciousness in the work of Olivi, this thesis demonstrates that the notion of person suggested by Olivi, considering the different juridical and theological occurrences, which are applied at his epoch, is essential in view of the question of the deliberate choice of the evil. Finally, after having determined if an ethical norm exists in the human being, especially through the notion of spiritual taste, we want to show that the will of power on the others as well as the pride are, from the perspective of Olivi, the source of all sins. We conclude this thesis by the analysis of the reasons of the fall of the demons, primarily Lucifer, to illustrate the entirety of our aim.

Vita. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

La liberté décisionnelle du médecin est une condition nécessaire de la pratique médicale, qui permet au praticien d’orienter sa pratique toute entière vers l’intérêt du patient. Cette orientation ne doit pas masquer l’asymétrie native de la relation médicale, déséquilibrée par la détention exclusive du savoir et du savoir-faire par le médecin. Le pouvoir médical issu de la connaissance est cependant borné par les droits dont le patient peut se prévaloir. C’est selon les termes de cette relation que se manifeste la liberté décisionnelle du médecin. La procédure de décision permet d’en assurer l’acceptabilité et de garantir le patient contre l’arbitraire, via les exigences de concertation et de motivation. Elle s’envisage dans une dimension plurielle conduisant à une décision systémique. Le contenu même de la décision s’analyse en termes de finalité et de pertinence. Elle a pour finalité la nécessité médicale, qui, au gré de désirs socialement consacrés et reconnus par le législateur, voit son champ d’élargir bien au-delà de la protection de la santé, au risque d’une instrumentalisation de la médecine. Sa pertinence est fondée sur la mobilisation d’outils de standardisation, dont les effets sont ambivalents sur la liberté décisionnelle, et qui constituent pour le juge un moyen privilégié de contrôle du bien-fondé de la décision. / The doctor's decision-making freedom is a necessary condition of medical practice, which allows the practitioner to direct his practice to the whole interest of the patient. This must not mask the native asymmetry of the medical relationship, unbalanced by the doctor’s exclusive possession of knowledge and expertise. However, the patient’s rights limit the medical power derived from knowledge. This is according to the terms of this relationship that the doctor's decision-making freedom comes out. The decision procedure ensures its acceptability and protects the patient against its arbitrariness, via the requirements for consultation and motivation. It is considered in a plural dimension leading to a systemic decision. The content of the decision is to be analysed in terms of purpose and relevance. Its purpose is medical necessity, which, at the option of socially devoted desires recognized by the law, sees its scope expanded beyond the protection of health, with a risk of instrumentalisation of medicine. Its relevance is based on the mobilization of standardization tools whose effects are ambivalent about the decision-making freedom, and which are a preferred means of control of the merits of the decision for the judge.

“Being with oneself in the other” is Hegel's famous definition of freedom, and, I argue, it is also the key topic of his entire Science of Logic. Hegel's Logic is an ontological analysis of the underlying relational structure of everything: the structure of thinking as much as the structure of the world. Hegel proposes at the beginning of the Logic that this structure must display the form of “being with oneself in the other”, i.e. consist in a relation of identity and difference between a totality and its elements. After presenting the different forms of “being with oneself in the other” developed in the Logic, I will offer a new interpretation of the Philosophy of Right and the Philosophy of History in the light of my interpretation of the Logic. This serves to show how exactly Philosophy of Right is the exposition of the existence of freedom and how it is grounded in the Logic. While the connection between Hegel's Logic and social philosophy has often been taken to have authoritarian and anti-individualist implications, I will show that this is not the case and that this connection instead highlights the republican aspects in Hegel's theory.

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