Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

This thesis tries to give a critically considered view of what New Age thought is about, where it came from, and where it takes education and the scientific quest for truth. The interest of this study lies in exposing the underlying New Age beliefs and premises so that the implications that New Age thought has for truly meaningful human development and the educational and scientific quest for truth can be determined. A historical investigation which proceeds from the assumption that New Age thought is a phenomenon with philosophical underpinnings that lie in Western historical dynamics is utilised in order to extract and give context to the beliefs and premises in which New Age thought is anchored. Firstly, the movements in the West's alternative mystical and magical spiritual tradition from which current New Age spiritual approaches issue are scrutinized. This is followed by an exploration of mainstream Western history. Foundational premises and central ideas concerning New Age anthropology, morality, cosmology, and epistemology which issue forth from theories in Western philosophy, psychology, and science are identified and critically analysed. From these analyses, the meaning and direction that New Age thought circumscribes for human development and learning are fully explored and evaluated. It is found that New Age thought upholds a magical worldview in which the objective existence of truth is denied. Because New Age thought does not create educational space in which the quest for truth as obedience to truth can be learnt and practised, emotional, moral, and cognitive development is arrested and the real, educational value in scientific inquiry is defeated. This study is concluded with suggestions that are personal yet grounded in the findings of this research as to the defense and upholdment of the idea of objective truth in moral and intellectual education. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (History of Education)

Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

This dissertation makes the argument that the Franklin Roosevelt administration (1933-1945) embarked upon a global hegemonic project to transform the United States into a world empire and bring about the "New World Order." In addition, the expansion of U.S. commercial and military air routes was seen as instrumental to the realization of this project.

It is natural to suppose that mental and physical properties are importantly distinct. Yet whatever this difference is, it has to be compatible with interaction between the mind and the body. Satisfaction of these desiderata leads to a paradox. If you make the mind strongly separate from the body, then there is the problem of bringing them together. If you unite them, then there is the problem of preserving their distinctiveness. It is the aim of this thesis to resolve the paradox. From the outset, it is assumed that the nature of interaction is most satisfactorily explained by an account of mental properties in monistic terms. For reasons for space, the arguments of Materialism are concentrated upon at the exposure of Idealism. Three strategies are examined, and found wanting. First, an instance of a non-reductive account provided by Davidson's 'Anomalous Monism'. Here, mental properties seem to be left with no role in influencing behaviour. Second, a review of reductionist accounts, ranging from Identity Theories to Representationalism. Criticism focuses upon the failure of reductionism to explain the connection between the function of a conscious state and its particular character. A Materialist treats mental states as if they were part of the physical universe. This implies that the nature of these states may be understood through scientific investigation, in the same manner as all other phenomena. The third strategy is to deny the above implication: that is, deny the assertion that, by existing, all aspects of an object are thereby knowable. The ideas of Colin McGinn are discussed as an example of this position. Since his arguments are equally suitable for non-Materialist purposes, they do not constitute an exclusively Materialist solution to the above paradox. This thesis offers an alternative way of pursuing the above strategy. It argues that the relation between mental states and our ways of understanding phenomena, is such that we should not expect our theories about the nature of 'mind' and the 'physical world' to employ the same terms. These properties appear distinct, not because they are different substances, but because they occupy different sides of the ‘process of understanding’ - ‘thing understood’ relationship. For convenience, this position is referred to as ‘Agnostic Materialism’. As interaction between the mind and the body is compatible with the mind having no influence upon our behaviour, it is incumbent upon the thesis to defend Materialism against the claim that mental properties are epiphenomenal. This is achieved by teasing out two ways in which such properties are considered inert: either because the workings of the mind are independent of the body; or because the mind’s processes are irrelevant to those of the body. The first claim is seen arise from the difficulty of seeing the mind as part of the physical world - a difficulty removed by the arguments in the previous paragraph. The second claim gains plausibility through a mistaken adherence to certain models of scientific explanation.

La question de l’influence primordiale de Carlyle sur Proust n’a jamais été abordée de manière profonde. Cette thèse a pour objet de combler cette lacune. Nous analysons en particulier le dialogue continu que tient Proust avec Les Héros et Sartor Resartus. Nous identifions à quel point ses réflexions sur ces lectures carlyliennes - dont le sujet principal est la recherche d’une nouvelle foi ou mythe créateur pour ces temps modernes et incroyants - sont présentes dans le portrait de l’artiste, et du monde, qu’il nous offre dans À la recherche du temps perdu. Le parcours du Narrateur qui se termine avec la redécouverte de « la foi dans les lettres » se construit dans un tissage dialogique où, (souvent s’inspirant de Ruskin), Proust réécrit les événements historiques, biographiques, et éthiques qui préoccupent Carlyle dans sa recherche de la « vérité », en leur donnant une plus grande valeur esthétique. S’inspirant du coté expérimental de Sartor Resartus, ainsi que des essais carlyliens sur l’histoire et la biographie, Proust refait de manière imaginaire le parcours littéraire de Carlyle même dans la construction de son Narrateur, qui ressemble par plusieurs aspects à un Carlyle transplanté dans un pays qu’il considérait, comme l’épitomé de la décadence. Ainsi, Proust peut réhabiliter l’aspect « romancier manqué » de Carlyle, qui s’est refugié dans les vies des « grands hommes » et l’histoire des « grands événements », quand le Narrateur prend conscience de la réconciliation entre la vie et l’art. Toutefois, c’est la justesse et la profondeur des observations carlyliennes sur l’art et sur la nature de l’artiste ainsi que l’incitation donnée par la description du développement d’une conscience artistique dans Sartor Resartus avec son ambigüité, son ironie, son dédoublement de la voix narrative et son affirmation que « l’idéal » se trouve « dans le méprisable actuel » qui inspire Proust le plus dans sa présentation du « portrait de l’artiste » qu’est À la recherche du temps perdu. / In this thesis we attempt to treat for the first time the hitherto largely overlooked question of the primary importance of Carlyle as an influence on Proust. Basing our research on the dialogical relationship which Proust has continually with Heroes and Sartor Resartus, we trace the presence of his reflections on Carlyle’s writings, which are essentially concerned with the search for a new faith or creation myth in modern secular times, in the portrait of the artist in the world which is the subject of À la recherche du temps perdu. The Proustian Narrator becomes reunited with his faith in literature which he has lost over the years and eventually reconciles life and art. His journey to this point has been largely constructed on rewritings (inspired very often by Ruskin) of Carlylean texts dealing with History, Biography, and Ethics, where Proust redresses the importance of the aesthetic element which Carlyle increasingly renounces. Taking his inspiration from the experimental nature of Sartor Resartus, and from Carlyle’s historical and biographical writings, Proust also rewrites Carlyle’s personal trajectory in his portrait of his Narrator who bears a strong resemblance to a virtual Carlyle transplanted into a country which he considered, rather playfully, as the epitome of decadence. Proust can therefore, by purely literary methods, show that a writer’s reservoir of impressions comes not from the constant pursuit of “Truth”, or by writing the lives of others, but from having lived life, familial, intimate, and indeed social life. Even if Carlyle can be considered as a failed novelist, it’s the impact of his profound and heartfelt writings on what art is and on the nature of the artist, along with his innovative Sartor Resartus with its constant ironic undertones, its doubling of the narrative voice, its affirmation of the ideal in the everyday, which most inspires the imitative and spiritual portrait of an artist which is À la recherche du temps perdu. .

The introduction (§§1-33) to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is the key to the work’s structure, its argumentative strategy and it functions as a foundation for Hegel’s practical philosophy in general. Its explanatory potential is best realised by situating it within the systematic context of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences and the Science of Logic. This interpretative strategy reveals that for Hegel, the true site of agency is ‘the concept’ and that particular individuals and their arbitrary activity are at best the concept’s ‘appearance’. This does not render their activity ‘false’ but describes how willing and freedom are ‘for us’ as self-conscious subjects that confront an external world. For Hegel, ‘true’ freedom in the sense of ‘self-determination to itself’ resides with the universal and singular concept that negatively unites itself with its objectivity to form what he calls the ‘Idea of the will’ or ‘right’. This interpretation contradicts the mainstream of contemporary Hegel scholarship since its proponents either deny the reality of the universal concept as agent or absolutely differentiate between the concept’s activity (subjective action) and its objective reality (norms, institutions). This prevents the interpreter from appreciating that it is Hegel’s concept that is manifest in form of particular willing subjects and their socio-political context. Since most commentators associate ‘activity’ or ‘freedom’ primarily with particular subjects, their notions of freedom are, by Hegel’s standards, either empty and fail to describe actual willing or they fall short of the standard of ‘true freedom’, viz. ‘self-determination to itself’ because their agents’ freedom depends on something that differs from the agents.1 The present commentary argues that such a dilemma can be avoided by an interpretation that attributes agency to Hegel’s concept. By determining itself to be Idea, the universal concept determines itself (as subject) to itself (as object) and rational agency and rational institutions are grasped as aspects of the same entity. This is what Hegel calls the unconditioned Idea of right or ‘objective freedom’.

Comment la critique hölderlinienne de la raison ouvre-t-elle la possibilité d'une habitation poétique de l'homme sur terre ? Quel est le rôle de la parole poétique et quelle est sa signification pour la modernité ? Ce sont pour nous deux faces de la même question chez Höderlin. Nous disons que la critique hölderlinienne de la rationalité est la plus radicale qui soit, tout simplement parce qu'il a quitté le chemin de la raison. Dans un premier temps de ce travail, nous examinerons la spécificité de la critique hölderlinienne de la raison en marge de l'idéalisme allemand, surtout sa différence d'avec Schelling et Fichte, à partir du texte "Urteil und Sein" ; dans un deuxième temps nous verrons la question de la poésie, à l'exemple de la spécificité de la poésie hölderlinienne, et le concept d'intuition intellectuelle dont il parle vaguement ; ensuite nous traiterons le rapport entre le temps et le langage poétique, plus généralement l'art, à l'aide du concept hölderlinien du souvenir, et poser la question de la possibilité d'une habitation poétique de l'homme à l'ère de la technologie. / How does Hölderlin's critique of reason open up possibility of a poetical dwelling of man on earth? What is the role of poetical language and what is its significance for the modernity? These are for us two sides of the same question by Hölderlin. We say that Hölderlin's critique of rationality is the most radical, simply because he left the path of reason. As a first step of this work, we shall examine the specificity of Hölderlin's criticism of reason in the relationship with German idealism, especially its difference from Schelling and Fichte from text "Urtheil und Seyn"; secondly we will consider the question of poetry, with the example of the specificity of Hölderlin's poetry, and the concept of intellectual intuition of which he spoke vaguely; and then we will discuss the relationship between time and the poetical language, or of art more generally, using help of Hölderlin's concept of "memory", and finally ask the question of the possibility of a poetical dwelling of man in the middle of the era of technology.

La « philosophie de l’histoire » de l’idéalisme allemand, si l’on entend par là un ensemble de thèses permettant de découvrir un sens de l’histoire, a fait l’objet de nombreux travaux, en particulier celle de Hegel. Mais la réflexion des penseurs idéalistes sur l’histoire ne s’est pas limitée à l’interprétation des événements historiques passés. Une large part a consisté au contraire à élaborer un concept d’histoire dont l’extension ne se limite pas aux transformations sociales et politiques des groupes humains (mais qui concerne l’ensemble des productions humaines, voire la nature elle-même), et dont la compréhension ne recoupe pas l’usage de cette notion dans la conscience commune. Il nous a semblé que l’originalité de Hegel et de Schelling résidait notamment dans la richesse qu’ils attribuent à ce sens ontologique de l’histoire (conçue comme Geschichte et non comme Historie). Notre travail a consisté à interroger précisément la manière dont Hegel et Schelling ont élaboré un tel concept, qu’il vaudrait mieux qualifier d’événementialité ou d’historicité, pour le distinguer de la connaissance ou du récit de ces événements. Nous avons proposé ainsi de clarifier le sens du concept d’histoire par une comparaison des différentes formes de temporalité (temps naturel, temps de la conscience, histoire, durée, éternité) et de leur rôle respectif dans les systèmes de Hegel et de Schelling, de façon à souligner le caractère central du problème de l’historicité au sein de ce corpus, et à suggérer de quelle façon sa compréhension a déterminé le positionnement ultérieur des philosophes « post-idéalistes » (de Marx et Kierkegaard à l’idéalisme britannique ou à l’École de Francfort). / Many scholars have treated the “philosophy of history” developed by German idealists as a set of arguments designed to find a purpose in history. Yet the idealist thinkers did not limit their investigation to the interpretation of past historical events. On the contrary, a significant part of their work is dedicated to outlining a concept of history that is not limited to social and political transformations affecting human groups, but instead includes the totality of humanity’s creations, and even nature itself. This concept of history differs, sometimes radically, from how the term “history” is, and has been commonly understood. The source of the difference is Hegel and Schelling’s focus on such a rich ontological meaning of the notion of history (taken as Geschichte, as opposed to Historie). This thesis traces how Hegel and Schelling developed this concept, which might be more aptly characterised as historicity, to distinguish it from the knowledge or the chain narration of past events. It thus clarifies the meaning of the concept of history by comparing different forms of time (natural time, psychological time, history, duration, eternity) and their respective roles in Hegel’s and Schelling’s systems. This comparison is intended to underline the centrality of the problem of historicity in German idealism, and to suggest how its understanding has shaped the development of “post-idealist” European philosophy (from Marx and Kierkegaard to British idealism or to the Frankfurt School).

Hegel führt die traditionelle formale Logik, wie sie in Kants Konzept der reinen allgemeinen Logik ihre für ihn abschließende Gestalt erfahren hat, innerhalb seiner Systematik auf die Psychologie der produktiven Einbildungskraft und des Denkens zurück. Kants Konzeption der transzendentalen Logik, und mit ihr die neuzeitliche Erkenntnistheorie, wird aus gesamtsystematischer Hinsicht in der Philosophie des subjektiven Geistes verortet, und insbesondere in der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Psychologie der Anschauung und Vorstellung. In logischer Hinsicht leistet Kant nach Hegel nur eine Übersetzung phänomenologischer Inhalte der psychologischen Vorstellung in relativ unterentwickelte und isolierte objektivlogische Strukturen (reine Reflexions- und wesentliche Verhältnisbestimmungen), wodurch er über den psychologischen Reflex des Begriffs nicht hinauskommt. Der logische Inhalt bzw. der objektive Gedanke dagegen basiert in seiner formalen Dimension auf die Realisierung des Begriffs im Prozess der endlichen Teleologie, aus deren Perspektive auch phänomenologische und logische Dimensionen von Struktur- und Verhältnisbestimmungen differenziert werden können (Inhalte der kontemplative Erwägung der Konstruktionsbedingungen des unausgeführten subjektiven Zwecks im ersten Fall, Funktionalität von Strukturverhältnissen im Prozess der Ausführung des subjektiven Zwecks im zweiten Fall). Der logische Inhalt ist konkret im Vergleich zum phänomenologischen Inhalt der psychologischen Vorstellung und abstrakt im Vergleich zum realsystematischen Inhalt als Korrelat der absoluten Methode. / Within his system Hegel relegates traditional formal logic, as it found its fulfillment in Kant´s concept of pure general logic, to the psychology of productive imagination and thought. Kant´s conception of transcendental logic, and with it a modern epistemological standpoint more generally, is also allocated in the philosophy of subjective spirit, and more specifically in the phenomenology and the psychology of intuition and representation. From a logical standpoint Kant does not, according to Hegel, go beyond translating phenomenological contents of the psychological representation into the relatively simple structures of the determinations of reflection and essential relations, thereby staying within the realm of the mere psychological reflex of the concept. Determinate logical content or objective thought on the contrary is based in its formal dimension on the actualization of the concept in the process of finite teleology. From this perspective it is possible to coherently distinguish between phenomenological and logical dimensions of structural and relational determinations (contents of the contemplative assessment of the conditions of construction of the yet unexecuted subjective finite end on the one hand, functionality of structural relations in the process of executing this end on the other). The logical content is concrete compared to the phenomenological one and abstract compared to the content of the real parts of the system as the correlate of absolute logical method.