This project is the search for a room. The search included that which is sensible through tone, and that which is intelligible through line. Tone and color were used to paint the sensible, geometric constructions were used to understand the intelligible. The constructed axonometric drawings became both sensible and intelligible in the way that their very construction is an active reconstitution of the charred contours of a dream. This project began with a glass of Scotch, which is a container of a world; dreamlike, smoky, and ethereal. It ended with drawings of a room; a reconstitution of a dream. / Master of Architecture

Auteurs de la philosophie grecque médioplatonicienne ( Philon le juif, Plutarque, Alkinoos, Maxime de Tyr,l’auteur anonyme du Commentaire sur le Théétète, Longin, Numénius ) et neuf auteurs de philosophienéoplatonicienne ( Plotin, Porphyre, Syrianus, proclus, Damascius, Simplicius, Jean Philopon, Olympiodore,Elias ) ont servi de matière textuelle à ce travail qui a essayé de tracer l’évolution des interprétations de la doctrine platonicienne de la réminiscence : l’expérience à travers laquelle l’âme se souvient des réalités intelligibles qu’elle a oubliées d’une certaine façon devient, chez ces auteurs, l’occasion de considérer l’oubli comme une sorte d’évidence ontologique, de telle sorte que la question n’est pas souvent abordée, contrairement à la place qu’elle prend chez Platon. Le difficile problème du lien entre l’âme et le corps de renverse au bénéfice d’une valorisation du donné sensible, en particulier de la beauté sensible, qui devient le point de départ nécessaire de la réminiscence : c’est donc qu’il y a une trace de l’intelligible et de l’universel dans ce sensible : toute la question de la réminiscence devient, avec ces auteurs, une enquête sur comment l’âme saisit ces objets intelligibles qui avec le Néoplatonisme entrent dans uns structure ontologique de plus en plus complexe. La saisie du sensible par l’âme révèle la possession par l’âme de ce que les Médio platoniciens appelleront les notions communes, dont le statut cognitif est évolutif, savoirs innés a priori, appelées à devenir de vraies connaissances à condition qu’elles soient articulées correctement par l’intellect. Ces philosophes voient ainsi apparaître, dans le champ platonicien, une raison d’établir une concorde philosophique entre Platon et Aristote,afin de réussir à démontrer que la beauté intelligible est l’objet du souvenir de l’âme à partir de la beauté sensible : les Néoplatoniciens en particulier y arrivent en expliquant que l’objet de la réminiscence, le savoir et la beauté intelligible, se déclinent en plusieurs états progressifs ( forme dans le sensible ou universel sensible,universel abstrait) jusqu’à l’état ultime, l’universel intelligible, résultant du fait les formes qui sont dans l’âme convoquent le souvenir des formes paradigmatiques. C’est tout ce processus qui fait la spécificité de la réminiscence dans la pensée tardo-antique, sans compter que par rapport à l’emploi du mythe chez Platon, Plotin,Plutarque et Hermias ont travaillé à rendre cette notion du souvenir en abordant précisément la question du désir par une réflexion sur « Eros » et les formes psychiques (logoï), le coup de foudre ou l’élan de l’âme vers la beauté dont elle se souvient. A l’arrivée, au VI eme siècle après J.C, c’est donc Platon et Aristote réunis qui font la nouvelle doctrine de la réminiscence à travers les lectures qui ont été faites du Ménon, du Phédon, du Phèdre,du Banquet, du Théétète et du Timée. / From Philo of Alexandria to Elias through Alkinoos, Plutarch of Cheroneus, Plotinus, Porphyrus, Syrianus,Hermias, Proclus, Damascius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, twenty eight texts written by sixteen authors of medioand neoplatonician philosophy have permitted us to deal with how these commentators read and understand thePlato’s theory of recollection. Reading Plato was, for them, dealing with how truth is being revealed to thehuman soul; that is to say, how the soul which have known things before entering bodies recollect them, how itovercomes oblivion.It is usually claimed that recollection in Plato is in the Meno, Phaedrus and Phaedo dialogues.Thus, we notice that Theaetetus and Timaeus were visited by commentators whose aim was to show that thetheory of recollection is the way truth is revealed in the soul’s discurse. For Plato, recollection is an a properexperience for human beings, for the tradition, that is the same attitude, except a surprising formula of Proclusthat we can find in an Elias’s text. For Plato, the soul, as it is said in the Meno, possesses knowledge; due to theMedioplatonicians specially, the common notions («koinai ennoiai» ), we have seen that the human knowledgecomes out as the product of recollection, but by a starting step in which these knowledge are need stimulation andclarification. Moreover, as soon as with Plotinus appeared the philosophical concept of forms in the soul, itbecame clearer for Syrianus, Hermias, Proclus, Damascius, Simplicius and others that intelligible forms werepresent in the soul as images. Concerned a lot by philosophical «symphonia» between Plato and Aristotle, theyintroduce the problematic of Universals through Aristotle writings, particularly through Categories. From thenon, recollection became a process which can be divided in various cognitive steps or various attainments ofdifferent types of «logoi». The consider the role of sensible beauty, the important place of abstraction, but finally,for most of them, recollection is specially the crucial moment when the soul recollect the intelligible forms,moving itself, as dynamic as «Eros», and, in its turn, produce forms. As a conclusion, recollection start later thenin Plato’s conception and moreover, it may go trough out and concern the realities above the level of intelligibleforms. Those are variations of the theory according to commentators who were generally convince that theirsearch was strictly truth and only truth, rather than fidelity toward Plato himself.

The notion of the organism has a somewhat ambiguous status in Kant’s philosophy. On the one hand it belongs to natural science, on the other hand it is based on an analogy with the structure of reason. Biology therefore has a peculiar place among the sciences according to Kant: it is a natural science constituted by the use of a regulative maxim. The present study places Kant’s views on biological teleology in the larger context of transcendental idealism. It consists of five essays. The first one treats the notions of things in themselves and appearances, arguing for an interpretation in terms of two aspects or perspectives rather than two worlds. The importance of the discursivity of our cognitive capacity is stressed, as well as the need to separate Kant’s various reflective perspectives. In the second essay this interpretation is applied to the third section of the Groundwork, arguing that this text does not belong to theoretical metaphysics, but rather to the articulation of a specifically practical perspective. The third essay discusses similarities and differences between Kant’s a priori conditions for cognition and conceptions of innate ideas in the rationalist tradition. Kant’s comparison of the system of categories with the biological theory of epigenesis is considered in connection to eighteenth century theories of generation. The comparison is viewed as an analogy rather than as a naturalistic theory of the a priori. In the fourth essay Kant’s account of functional attribution in biology is explicated in the context of the present day debate of the issue. It is claimed that Kant’s neo-Aristotelian approach avoids some of the difficulties in the dominant naturalistic accounts of today. Kant’s view differs from the Aristotelian in that it involves a distinction of levels, making it possible to take functional attributions on the one hand as objective from the standpoint of biology but on the other hand as having a merely regulative status from a philosophical point of view. In the fifth essay an interpretation of the antinomy of teleological judgment in the Critique of Judgment is offered. The antinomy is taken to consist in the dialectical tendency to treat the regulative maxims of teleology and mechanism as constitutive principles. The difference between the discursivity of the human understanding and the idea of a non-discursive understanding, an important theme in Kant’s solution of the antinomy, puts the question of biological teleology in relation to central tenets of transcendental idealism.

Cette étude se propose de rendre compte du conflit qui opposa Plotin aux Gnostiques. Uneintroduction met en scène les protagonistes et décrit les circonstances de leur l’affrontement.Une première partie étudie la forme de cette polémique exceptionnelle dans les traités dePlotin, la rapproche de celle des hérésiologues chrétiens à l’encontre de ces mêmesGnostiques et fait l’hypothèse qu’elle ne fut pas ignorée de Plotin. Les parties suivantesprésentent la philosophie de Plotin pour l’opposer à la doctrine gnostique dans les domainescosmologique, théologique et anthropologique. Elles présentent et étudient, en chacun de cesdomaines, les critiques de fond que Plotin adresse aux thèses de l’adversaire, lui reprochant deméconnaître la nature des réalités dont il traite, de tenir des discours dépourvus de logique, dene proposer aucune méthode pour réaliser ses objectifs (le salut). Les critiques de Plotin àl’encontre des Gnostiques constituent une défense du platonisme et de la philosophie elle-même,ainsi que de toutes les valeurs sur lesquelles se fonde toute la pensée de Plotin. / This study accounts for the conflict between Plotinus and the Gnostics. The introductionportrays the protagonists, and describes the circumstances of their confrontation. The first partstudies the form of this exceptional controversy in the treaties of Plotinus, draws a parallelwith the controversy between the Christian Heresiologists and the Gnostics, and hypothesizesthat the later was not unknown to Plotinus. The subsequent parts explain the philosophy ofPlotinus and contrast it with the Gnostic doctrine in the cosmological, theological andanthropological domains. They present and analyse, in each of these areas, the fundamentalcritiques that Plotinus addresses to his opponents, accusing them of misunderstanding thenature of the realities that they deal with, of making speeches devoid of logic, and ofproposing no method to achieve their aims (salvation). The critiques of Plotinus against theGnostics constitute a defense of Platonism and of philosophy itself, and also of all the valuesthat underlie the thought of Plotinus.

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Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Opsomming In hierdie verhandeling word die ontologie van Eriugena in oënskou geneem, met spesifieke verwysing na sy negatiewe ontologie, oftewel sy opvatting van nie-syn. Ter inleiding word daar na die Latynse en Griekse agtergrond van sy ontologie verwys. Dit word opgevolg deur `n bespreking van die verskillende wyses van syn en nie-syn waarvan Eriugena in die Periphyseon gebruik maak. Klem word geplaas op sy negatiewe ontologie, wat meer gevorderd is as enigiets in die Westerse denke tot heelwat na sy leeftyd. Die historiese konteks van Eriugena se lewe en denke word geskets, met inbegrip van die invloede wat op hom ingewerk het en sy eie nawerking. Sy viervoudige verdeling van die werklikheid word vervolgens bespreek, met aanduiding hoedat die ganse werklikheid gesien kan word as `n wisselwerking tussen syn en nie-syn. `n Dinamiese ontologie word dus deur Eriugena voorgehou, eerder as die statiese ontologie wat kenmerkend van veel Judaïsties-Christelike denke is. Summary In this dissertation the ontology of Eriugena is reviewed, with specific reference to his negative ontology, in other words his concept of non-being. By way of introduction the Latin and Greek background of his ontology is pointed out. It is followed by a discussion of the various modes of being and non-being that Eriugena employs in the Periphyseon. Emphasis is placed on his negative ontology, which is more advanced than anything in Western thought until much later than his time. The historical context of Eriugena's life and thought is sketched, including the influences acting on him and the influence he exerted on others. His fourfold division of reality is then discussed, indicating how the whole of reality can be viewed as an interaction between being and non-being. Eriugena thus postulates a dynamic ontology, rather than the static ontology that is characteristic of much of Judaistic-Christian thought. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Religious Studies)

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Opsomming In hierdie verhandeling word die ontologie van Eriugena in oënskou geneem, met spesifieke verwysing na sy negatiewe ontologie, oftewel sy opvatting van nie-syn. Ter inleiding word daar na die Latynse en Griekse agtergrond van sy ontologie verwys. Dit word opgevolg deur `n bespreking van die verskillende wyses van syn en nie-syn waarvan Eriugena in die Periphyseon gebruik maak. Klem word geplaas op sy negatiewe ontologie, wat meer gevorderd is as enigiets in die Westerse denke tot heelwat na sy leeftyd. Die historiese konteks van Eriugena se lewe en denke word geskets, met inbegrip van die invloede wat op hom ingewerk het en sy eie nawerking. Sy viervoudige verdeling van die werklikheid word vervolgens bespreek, met aanduiding hoedat die ganse werklikheid gesien kan word as `n wisselwerking tussen syn en nie-syn. `n Dinamiese ontologie word dus deur Eriugena voorgehou, eerder as die statiese ontologie wat kenmerkend van veel Judaïsties-Christelike denke is. Summary In this dissertation the ontology of Eriugena is reviewed, with specific reference to his negative ontology, in other words his concept of non-being. By way of introduction the Latin and Greek background of his ontology is pointed out. It is followed by a discussion of the various modes of being and non-being that Eriugena employs in the Periphyseon. Emphasis is placed on his negative ontology, which is more advanced than anything in Western thought until much later than his time. The historical context of Eriugena's life and thought is sketched, including the influences acting on him and the influence he exerted on others. His fourfold division of reality is then discussed, indicating how the whole of reality can be viewed as an interaction between being and non-being. Eriugena thus postulates a dynamic ontology, rather than the static ontology that is characteristic of much of Judaistic-Christian thought. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Religious Studies)

An ontology of the intelligible world cannot explain the phenomenon of a „free will“, which is able to decide between good and evil. It follows that a Moralontologie also cannot explain an agents freely determining his actions as good or evil.

Diese Arbeit bewertet verschiedene Argumente, die nicht nur leugnen, dass Gehirnzustände und bewusste Zustände ein und dasselbe sind, sondern auch behaupten, dass eine solche Identität unverständlich bleibt. Ich argumentiere, dass keiner der Ansätze einen Physikalismus unterminieren, da sie für ihre stillschweigenden Annahmen über die Verbindung zwischen Arten der Präsentation und ihrer Erklärung keine direkte oder unabhängige Begründung liefern. Meiner Ansicht nach sollte die Intelligibilität psychologischer Identität nicht ausschließlich auf einer Meinungsanalyse basieren. Der Haupteinwand sollt dann sein, warum man annehmen sollte, dass eine vollständig intelligible Erklärung auf Beschreibungen der kausalen Rollen als Modi von Präsentationen beruhen sollte. Ich schlage dazu vor, den Blick auf “psychologische Konzepte” zu werfen. Psychologische Konzepte sind Konzepte, die eine Beschreibung von funktionalen Rollen benutzen aber von Erfahrungsqualitäten handeln. Ich schlage vor, diese in Qualitätsraum-Modellen zu analysieren um aufzuklären, warum von phänomenalen Konzepten erwartet wird, dass diese sich durch Beschreibungen der kausalen bzw. funktionalen Rollen auf etwas beziehen sollten. Der Qualitätsraum soll hier verstanden werden als multidimensionaler Raum, der aus mehreren Achsen relativer Ähnlichkeit und Unterschieden in den Anordnungsstrukturen verschiedener Modalitäten bewusster Erfahrung besteht. In meinem Vorschlag ist es möglich, dass einige Achsen des Qualitätsraumes selbst aus ihrem eigenen Qualitätsraum bestehen, so dass wir in die Beschreibungen der funktionalen Rollen “hinein zoomen” und “heraus zoomen” können und damit klarer sehen, wie die Erklärung eines bestimmten Bewusstseinsaspekts gestaltet ist, wenn man ihn in Begriffen psychologischer Konzepte betrachtet. / This thesis evaluates several powerful arguments that not only deny that brain states and conscious states are one and the same thing, but also claim that such an identity is unintelligible. I argue that these accounts do not undermine physicalism because they don’t provide any direct or independent justification for their tacit assumptions about a link between modes of presentation and explanation. In my view intelligibility of psychophysical identity should not be based exclusively on the analysis of meaning. The main concern then should be why expect that fully intelligible explanation must be based on the descriptions of the causal roles as modes of presentation. To this effect I propose that we examine "psychological concepts". The psychological concepts are concepts that use descriptions of the functional roles but are about qualities of our experiences. I propose to analyze them in quality space models in order to unveil why phenomenal concepts are expected to refer via descriptions of the causal or functional roles. The quality space should be understood here as a multidimensional space consisting of several axes of relative similarity and differences among the structures of ordering in different modalities of conscious experience. On my proposal it is possible that some axes in the quality space consist of their own quality spaces so we could “zoom in” and “zoom out” into the descriptions of the functional roles and see more clearly what the explanation of certain aspects of consciousness looks like when thought of in terms of psychological concepts.