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This thesis deals primarily with metaphysical issues concerning human sensory/ perceptual experiences, and with questions about the formal representation of these experiences. In this respect it is similar to N. Goodman's The Structure of Appearance, which is discussed at some length. I establish a way of des- cribing and formally representing certain structures which must occur in sensory/ perceptual experiences, regardless of how the features of these experiences are categorized in terms of being physical or being mental. A special ("ontological- ly neutral") conceptual scheme which reflects the neutrality with respect to these categorizations, and which is particularistic in the sense of admitting sensory/per- ceptual individuals (sensations), is introduced for this purpose. The choice of a particularistic conceptual scheme in this context is supported by an argument which shows that the so-called adverbial approach is insufficient for describing sensory/perceptual experiences. To achieve the desired formal representation, I introduce an original generalization of the standard formalism for semantic 1st -order predicate theories which involves incomplete models, and a type of structured primitive predicates. Based on a Kantian view of the function of concepts in experience, I then give an account of experiential colour-predicates (like x looks red) in ontologi- cally neutral terms. This account, involving a special class of sensory/perceptual individuals (colour-tokens), has the particular advantage of avoiding the short- comings of both sense-datum theories and the views held by C. Peacocke in Sense and Content. This is followed by an account of experiential intentionality (in ontologically neutral terms) which shows how intentionality, as occurring in the context of sensory/perceptual experiences, can have a relational nature, des- pite the well-known problems of substitutivity and intentional inexistence which are traditionally associated with intentional relations.

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This thesis is an examination of the extant psychological treatises of Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, the ninth century A.D. Arab scholar who was among the first of his race to interest himself in strictly philosophical questions. Al-Kindi's writings were among the first fruits of the translation of Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic. It is under that aspect that this thesis approaches his views on soul and intellect - as an instance of the passage of Greek philosophical ideas to the Muslim Arabs. Apart from his specifically Islamic position on the nature and value of divine revelation, nearly all of al-Kindi's ideas on psychology can be traced to Greek sources, and the version of that philosophy with which he was directly familiar was that of the late Greek schools. This thesis is an attempt to understand and present al-Kindi's psychology in the light of the Greek sources from which it was derived.

It is argued that physical (and not inherently psychical) properties are insufficient to constitute all else. Specifically they cannot constitute an instance (K1) of our knowledge that the number of existing things is at least one. This employs a new version of entry by entailment: Every fact as to the presence of a constituted trope is entailed by facts about the presence of the ontologically basic, where a property is ontologically basic if and only if the fact of its presence is not entailed (even allowing exhaustive definitions of all tropes in terms of their ultimate constituents) by facts about the presence of things non-identical to it. Existence is a mind-independent presence. Things can be present (to mind) as opposed to existing but must be accompanied by the presence of all of their parts and of anything else that their presence might entail. This includes some existing thing in the case that knowledge that something exists is present, since it is analytic that knowledge cannot be of what is not the case. Purely dynamical properties cannot exist apart from instances of some other property kind (on pain of regress as to what moves). Material properties can make a difference to cognitive states only in virtue of differences they can make to dynamical properties. Thus, any cognitive state present in some dynamical and material scenario must be present in an equivalent purely dynamical scenario, which cannot exist. Hence: 1) There can be no knowledge of existence, or thus trope K1, in a purely dynamical scenario. 2) There can thus neither be a trope K1 if only dynamical and material properties (and what they constitute) are present. So because there is a trope K1, there are one or more ontologically basic properties which are not dynamical or material. It is further argued that nothing ontologically basic is per se (directly and non-obscurely) conceivable except as psychicality or a categorical basis of a disposition to change or constancy (respectively, dynamism and materiality). Thus at least one ontologically basic property is either psychical or not per se conceivable. The latter proposition has less merit.

In light of the long-lived, on-going debate surrounding the Aristotelian doctrines of prime matter and the four simple bodies (or 'elements'), the general message of this thesis is surprising: that Aristotle's theory is centred on neither. I argue that Aristotle does in fact have a substantial prime matter, but not the single, featureless, immutable prime matter of tradition. / More particularly, the thesis defends three main points: / Firstly, Aristotle’s discussion of pre-Socratic and Plato’s philosophies of nature reveals a commitment to finding elements in the sense of the most fundamental things knowable. These elements apply to not just matter, but to the whole of nature. The evidence for Aristotle’s commitment to absolute fundamentals is in his word usage: he speaks of the various kinds of elements (roots, first principles, etc.) as absolute fundamentals, and uses the terms interchangeably. The evidence for his interest in nature (rather than only matter) is found within his argument, where the assumptions give away his motives. / Secondly, since Aristotle considers nature to be, as he puts it, a principle of change, his elements turn out to be his familiar three elements of change: form, privation, and substratum. While change is the focus of this framework, the approach allows matter to be analysed, leading Aristotle to a substantial substratum underneath each change. Thus, he confirms the existence of the four simple bodies (earth, water, air and fire), and deduces, from the premise that they change, that there is another substratum beneath them. / And thirdly, since this substratum underneath the four simple bodies is known only by deduction, Aristotle cannot sense its features, and his three-element framework is powerless to analyse it any further. That last substratum is therefore at the edge of his knowledge, and in a purely epistemic sense, it is featureless and prime. / This epistemically prime matter is of no great importance to Aristotle - its primality is not even important enough to warrant extended discussion, and he certainly leaves the way open for further analysis, if ever that substratum turns out to suffer sensible change. In the hands of scholars focussed on the elements of matter, this last knowable substratum was perhaps the inspiration behind the traditional prime matter. / Many recent works deny Aristotle’s support for traditional prime matter. There is a danger that refutations of traditional prime matter refute also my epistemically prime matter, and thus attack the heart of this thesis. However, because they focus on matter rather than on change and nature more generally, those refutations in fact prove harmless, their analysis indeed often agreeing with mine in the course of their discussion.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This research explores the possibility of a phenomenology of religion that is ontological, founded on Martin Heidegger’s philosophical thought. The research attempts to utilise Heidegger’s formulation of phenomenology as ontology while also engaging in a critical relation with his path of thinking; as a barrier to the phenomenological interpretation of the meaning of Religion. This research formulates Religion as an ontological problem wherein the primary question becomes: how are humans, in our being, able to be religious and thus also able to understand the meaning of ‘religion’ or something like ‘religion’? This study focuses on the problem of foundation; of whether it is possible to provide an adequate foundation for the study of religion(s) via the notion ‘Religion’. Further, this study also aims to explore the problem of methodological foundation; of how preconceptions of the meaning of Religion predetermine how religion(s) and religious phenomena are studied. Finally, this research moves toward the possibility of founding a regional ontological basis for the study of religion(s) insofar as the research explores the ontological ground of Religion as a phenomenon. Due to the exploratory and methodological/foundational emphasis of the research, the thesis is almost entirely preliminary. Herein, the research focuses on three main issues: how the notion of Religion is preconceived, how Heidegger’s phenomenology can be tailored to the phenomenon of Religion, and how philosophical thought (in this case, Pre-Socratic philosophy) discloses indications of the meaning of Religion. Pre-Socratic thought is then utilised as a foundation for a preliminary interpretation of how Religion belongs-to humans in our being. This research provides two interrelated theses: the provision of an interpretation of Religion as an existential phenomenon, and an interpretation of Religion in its ground of being-human. With regard to the former, I argue that Religion signifies a potential relation with the ‘originary ground’ of life as meaningful. Accordingly, the second interpretation discloses the meaning of Religion as grounded in being-human; that for humans in our being, the meaning of life is an intrinsic question/dilemma for us. This being-characteristic, I argue, can be called belief.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2092. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-253).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 24, 2008). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-179)