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<p> This project challenged pastors and leadership staff members within the Northeastern Section of the Southern New England Ministry Network of the Assemblies of God to engage in an ongoing ministry of teaching with strong emphasis on the doctrine and history of divine healing. The objective was to equip church leaders and, in turn, their parishioners, to withstand the winds of erroneous teachings on healing as propagated by the Word of Faith evangelists. </p><p> The biblical analysis (chapter 2) centered on four theological themes: sin, the atonement, faith, and grace. The section on the atonement included an exegetical (linguistic) review of Isaiah 53:4-5; 1 Peter 2:24; and Matthew 8:17. The historical-foundational aspect of divine healing in the Word of Faith Movement (chapter 3) included a review of the philosophical-metaphysical-theological teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy. A review of the doctrine of Essex W. Kenyon provided an understanding of how metaphysics influenced the doctrine of divine healing in twentieth-century Pentecostalism. This project is a teaching tool for Pentecostal leaders in the local church; it assists them in refuting Kenyon and his followers' theology of healing. </p><p> The project seminar executed for this study evaluated questionnaire responses of thirty-one attendees regarding their attitudes concerning and understanding of divine healing. On the whole, the project seminar was effective. It affirmed and validated the belief and feelings of the presenter that a need exists in Pentecostal churches to clarify the doctrine of divine healing. </p>

<p> Supposing they exist, what work are value properties supposed to do? What difference do they make? What is the difference between a world in which they exist and a world in which they do not? </p><p> One obvious answer invokes the claim that evaluative properties make a causal difference. While this is an interesting topic, it is well-covered elsewhere by Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon. But there are other possibilities put forth by moral realists that are independent of the question of causal explanation. In my dissertation, I examine a number of alternative possible jobs that value properties are thought to fulfill. </p><p> 1) <i>Reference and supervenience</i> - Some argue that evaluative properties serve as the <i>referents</i> of evaluative <i> predicates,</i> or as the <i>extension</i> of supervening evaluative concepts. I consider arguments from McDowell and others to the effect that our ability to correctly sort evaluative cases into the correct categories requires the mapping of these concepts onto evaluative properties. My arguments show that these considerations alone cannot support evaluative realism, as there are alternative accounts of evaluative language that do not require separate value properties. For instance, a semantics grounded in conceptual-role can adequately account for the ability to think with and use evaluative concepts but nevertheless have natural properties serve as the extension of these concepts. </p><p> 2) <i>Resemblance</i> - One might think that, as Russ Shafer-Landau and David Brink argue, the resemblance of items belonging to the same evaluative category needs to be explained given the manifest differences in their <i> non-evaluative</i> properties. Stealing candy from a baby, cheating on one's spouse, and refusing to tell the police where a perpetrator is hiding all belong to the same moral category (the category of wrong actions), but they share little in common from the view of physically manifested behavior. I offer two alternative methods for explaining evaluative categorization that do not require accepting the existence of distinctly evaluative properties, thus showing the inference that distinct value properties are necessary to explain resemblance to be unwarranted. I claim that the way we <i>think </i> about value is enough to ensure correct categorization &ndash; there need not be some further existent to explain this. </p><p> 3) <i>Qualitative Character</i> - Last, I consider the view that evaluative properties possess a distinctive and irreducible <i> qualitative character.</i> I address the purported qualitative natures that value properties are thought to possess and argue that understood in one way, we would have justification for accepting that they exist. This interpretation has it that evaluative qualities are literally perceptible &ndash; their qualitative characters are of the same general sort as the properties <i> redness</i> or <i>pain.</i> I argue, that there is no need to posit distinct value qualia, at least not if qualia are necessarily representational, since we can have the same phenomenology of value whether or not we are directly perceiving an evaluative episode &ndash; we can have the same phenomenology just by considering or imagining the relevant episode. I offer a model of value perception which captures this important point. </p><p> Though my arguments might appear to push one toward anti-realism, they are all compatible with the truth of (suitably qualified versions of) 1), 2), and 3) after all is said and done. My goal is not to undermine arguments for evaluative realism, but I do intend to show that there is no master argument for it; any argument for realism must delve into thorny and often distinct metaphysical questions. Furthermore, I emphasize the role that metaphysical preconceptions and their implications play in many debates in value theory and the need to be clear and consistent with regard to these implications. </p>

<p> This dissertation argues that Karl Barth's revelational and trinitarian language and logic of eternity and time, as found in the <i>Church Dogmatics, </i> gives eternity its own unique and perfect triune temporality. It is argued that Barth presents a continuum between the trinity of God <i> ad intra</i> (termed the Triune Moment) and the election of God <i> ad extra,</i> such that eternity's pure divine time is the archetype and prototype for created world time. Barth's theological treatment is juxtaposed to traditional accounts of eternity as timelessness in philosophical theology and to his earlier <i>Epistle to the Romans</i> (<i>Der R&ouml;merbrief </i>). Plotinus's <i>Enneads,</i> Boethius's <i>Consolation of Philosophy,</i> and the analytic philosophy of Brian Leftow's <i> Time and Eternity</i> are used to exemplify traditional metaphysics. The explanatory power and entailments of Leftow's Quasi-temporal eternity and Barth's trinitarian account are compared regarding divine omniscience and the status of creation in eternity. It is argued that metaphysical accounts of eternity find their methodological justification in an analogy of being (<i>analogia entis</i>) and through notions of a perfect being. It is argued that Barth's dialectical and trinitarian account of eternity in <i>Church Dogmatics</i> II/1, &sect;31.3 <i>The Eternity and Glory of God</i> finds its epistemological justification in Christ's Easter resurrection as detailed in <i>Church Dogmatics</i> III/2 &sect;47.1 <i>Jesus, Lord of Time.</i></p>

<p> One of Carnap&rsquo;s overarching aims was to set philosophy on a firm scientific footing. He relied primarily on two ideas to achieve his ideal of a scientific philosophy: verificationism, according to which only empirically testable or logically determinate sentences are meaningful, and the Principle of Tolerance, which held that we are free to choose whichever system of empirical knowledge is most expedient. The logical empiricism embodied in these views is is widely believed to have been decisively refuted by a variety of objections. </p><p> My dissertation seeks to clarify the content and aims of Carnap&rsquo;s tolerance and verificationism, and to defend the resulting view against some of the most influential objections to logical empiricism. I argue that both tolerance and verificationism are manifestations of Carnap&rsquo;s fundamentally pragmatic conception of scientific language; for Carnap, precise formulations of scientific theory&mdash;&ldquo;languages for science&rdquo;&mdash; are to be viewed as instruments for the derivation of intersubjective observational knowledge. </p><p> Verificationism, on my interpretation, is the decision to narrow one&rsquo;s options for a language for science to those languages in which every sentence is either empirically testable or logically determinate. This decision is motivated by Carnap&rsquo;s pragmatism: any sentence that is neither empirically testable nor logically determinate makes no contribution to the aim with which the pragmatist uses scientific language. </p><p> I use this pragmatist account of verificationism to respond to two objections. The first is Hilary Putnam&rsquo;s version of the argument that verificationism is neither empirical nor analytic, and is therefore meaningless by its own lights. According to Putnam, Carnap&rsquo;s construal of verificationism as significant in a practical, but non-cognitive, sense, in response to the objection, presupposes verificationism. Carnap&rsquo;s response is therefore viciously circular. I respond that Carnap&rsquo;s non-cognitive conception of verificationism presupposes pragmatism, and not verificationism, and thereby avoids Putnam&rsquo;s circularity. Second, there is a widespread belief that verificationism requires a criterion of empirical significance in order to demarcate the empirically testable sentences, but that no such criterion can be formulated. I reply that by adopting the pragmatic conception, the verificationist can select her favored language in the case-by-case manner described by Goldfarb and Ricketts, without a criterion of empirical significance. </p><p> Carnap&rsquo;s pragmatism maintains that the goal of scientific language is the derivation of observation reports. It therefore helps itself to a notion of observation report, of observation language. This notion is another major source of skepticism about logical empiricism. I argue that Carnap&rsquo;s account of observation language in &ldquo;Testability and Meaning&rdquo; is sufficient for the purposes of his pragmatism. On this account, a term is observational to the extent that it can be applied on the basis of minimal observation and inference. A degree of observationality can then be arbitrarily designated sufficient and necessary for a term&rsquo;s being observational in the language. I show that this approach to fixing the observation language is not vulnerable to van Fraassen&rsquo;s objections. </p><p> Finally, pragmatism helps to clarify Carnap&rsquo;s Principle of Tolerance. According to a widely held view, Carnap&rsquo;s tolerance rests on &ldquo;relativity to language&rdquo;: since a language for science provides the rules for inquiry&mdash;be these semantic or evidential rules&mdash;language cannot itself be subject to such rules. So interpreted, the Principle of Tolerance is able to provide a critique of what I call &lsquo;first philosophy&rsquo;, i.e., the doctrine that the choice of concepts or rules in science can be constrained by considerations external to these rules. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

Throughout much of the twentieth century, early modern metaphysical literature has been interpreted as an upholder of traditional morals and cosmic unity. By re-examining the early critical reception of these works in connection with current theories of cultural reproduction, we can develop a new understanding of how metaphysicality undermines, in particular, an ideology of "natural" desire and identity. Focussing on desire, metaphysical authors produce a dissident knowledge of the cultural contingencies of normative thought, identity, and behaviour. Taking a philosophical approach to the subject, Edward Herbert reveals the impact of personal desires on the development of mental concepts. Christopher Marlowe, meanwhile, demonstrates the way definitions of natural gender identity inhibit sexual expression between men. Elaborating on women's same-sex desire, John Donne and Andrew Marvell contest heteronormative narratives of growth, while Aemilia Lanyer offers a vision of love between women as a homoerotic state of grace and alternative to men's violence. In his thoughts on martyrdom and political allegiance, Donne denaturalizes absolute authority and carves a space for liberty of conscience, an endeavour that corresponds to the desire for personal freedom that each of the other writers also expresses.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate Hegel's attempt to resurrect metaphysics in the Phänomenologie des Geistes. Chapter 1 sets forth Hegel's general strategy for the resurrection of metaphysics: to justify knowledge of reality as a whole through epistemology or the critique of knowledge. Chapter 2 then examines why Hegel thinks that the resurrection of metaphysics is necessary after its destruction by the Kantian critique of knowledge. Chapter 3 turns to Hegel's argument for the necessity of a critical justification of metaphysics. It reconstructs his arguments in behalf of the critique of knowledge, and it analyses his polemic against Schelling's postulate of intellectual intuition. The task of chapters 4 and 5 is to explain how Hegel resolves the problems that confront his ambition to justify metaphysics through the critique of knowledge. Chapter 4 considers the objections raised by the meta-critical campaign of Hamanm, Herder, Schulze, Schlogel and Reinhold, and it examines how Hegel attempts to re-establish tho programme of the critique of knowledge after the meta-critique. Chapter 5 discusses the problem of solipsism, and interprets the dialectic of chapters IV and IV.A of the Phänomenologie as Hegel's reply to the solipsist. Finally, chapter 6 is a historical study of Hegel's development toward the Phänomenologie in Jena. It describes the stages by which Hegel came to conceive his programme for the critical resurrection of metaphysics.

<p> I wanted to see if there were points of overlap between the various accounts of creation found in folklore, philosophy and physics. In order to justify such a project, I initially considered literature from each of these disciplines regarding the necessity of interdisciplinary dialogue generally and specifically the need for both intuition and logic when considering how anything actually exists. Through my research and casual observation, I hypothesized that opposition seemed to be a universal characteristic of nature. I then looked at how each discipline has described fundamentally opposing pairs and created a list of primary features that those accounts had in common. Finally, I demonstrated (in my study <i>The Symmetry of God</i>) the utility of an interdisciplinary approach to myth by showing how science and philosophy can improve our understanding of myth and conversely how folklore (myth in particular) may suggest meaningful and potentially <i>revolutionary</i> relationships not yet considered by science.</p>

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