I present a thorough metaphysics of causal overdetermination, which yields new insights into mental causation, our world's counterfactual structure, and properties of moral responsibility. I investigate causal overdetermination in three related papers.In "Overdetermination Underdetermined," I show that overdetermination has been underspecified in the literature, leading to a conflation of several important questions: (i) what is overdetermination?, (ii) is overdetermination physically possible, and if so, how ubiquitous is it?, and (iii) is overdetermination a problem?I diagnose the source of confusion as the following definition implicitly used in the literature:(OD) Causes c1 and c2 overdetermine an effect e if c1 and c2 are (i) distinct, (ii) they occur, and (iii) they are each sufficient to cause e in the way that it occurs.I hold that this is not in fact a definition, but a schema with several open definienda: distinctness, occurrence, causation, and precision in the way that the effect occurs. Different satisfiers yield different notions of overdetermination. Answers to the central questions regarding overdetermination are sensitive to the kinds of overdetermination in play. Once we are clear on what overdetermination is and to which sorts we are ontologically committed, we can also be clear on what is at stake for each debate--and it typically is not acceptance or denial of causal overdetermination per se.In "Overdetermination and Counterfactual Sensitivity," I show that the counterfactual structure of the world is richer than previously thought. I introduce a novel class of events that are insensitive to the additive force of multiple causes. They do not covary counterfactually with the multiplicity or force of their causes. They are to be contrasted with sensitive effects, which counterfactually covary according to the number and sorts of causes they have.In "Moral Overdetermination", I examine causal overdetermination in the context of moral responsibility. I use cases of moral overdetermination to introduce puzzles about the relationship between causal responsibility and moral responsibility that deserve further exploration. Along the way, I consider the instrumental value of various reductive theories of causation as guides to moral assessment, and I unearth interesting consequences for moral luck and for collective responsibility.

This dissertation provides a particular Marxian class analytical political economy critique of post-Marxism. The dissertation demonstrates the ways in which different positions within post-Marxism continue to essentialize the conceptualizations of class and capitalist economy. What distinguishes this dissertation from other dominant critiques of post-Marxism is the anti-essentialist epistemological and ontological position it adopts. By adopting an anti-essentialist epistemological position the dissertation is able to demonstrate the discontinuities and continuities between post-Marxism and the Marxian tradition. The dissertation does this by reading the heterogeneous and disparate post-Marxian approaches as so many different ways to "resolve" the central tension of the Althusserian mode of production debate of the 1960s and 1970s: The tension between the desire to think the overdetermination of social reproduction and transformation and the effort to explain the stability of class domination . The dissertation argues one of the effects of this tension to be the lapse of the Althusserian mode of production problematic into reproductionism .Drawing extensively on the scholarship of Ernesto Laclau and Étienne Balibar, the dissertation substantiates the ways in which the post-Althusserian post-Marxism has developed a critique of the reproductionist tendency of this problematic and constructed a theory of the social that allows for conceiving social reproduction to be both provisionally stable and overdetermined. The dissertation argues, however, that such "resolutions" have failed in different ways to dislodge the constitution of class and capitalist reproduction from essentialist narratives, with the effect of restaging the ontological duality of the mode of production problematic (i.e., overdetermination vs. determinism qua reproductionism ) in a new form: The contingency of politics and the necessity of class and capitalist reproduction. After showing the limitations of some of the prominent positions within post-Althusserian post-Marxism, the dissertation concludes with an alternative post-Althusserian Marxian perspective, initially developed by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff, that provides an overdetermined understanding of social and economic reproduction from the entry point of class qua surplus.

Employing a wide range of theoretical and methodological tools, practitioners within an array of disciplines have attempted to gain new understanding about the structural changes in the agricultural system in the United States and around the world. From Agricultural Economists to Sociologists, quantitative and qualitative research has attempted to shed light on structural change in agriculture and its implications for the real lives of farmers, their families, and consumers of their goods. The current research adopts a comparative-historical approach to examining the particular affects of structural change in six counties in central Nebraska. The general theoretical frame on which this project is based is Human Ecology, as developed by Robert E. Park. It examines the importance of four environmental orders, the natural-biological, the economic, the political, and the moral-cultural. In order to ameliorate some perceived problems with Park’s stance, including a level of rigidity, his model is modified through the use of the Marxian concept of “overdetermination,” which recognizes the complex relations among a range of social processes. Overdetermination is defined in terms of the recognition of the mutually constitutive nature of all social processes, with the character of each process determined by its relationships with all other social processes. Results suggest a very complex reality in which farmers and their families live in the 21st century. Relations were found among factors and processes both within and between Park’s environmental orders. Farm families have developed and deployed a wide range of strategies in response to structural change within each of the environmental orders. For example, some farmers invest in technology as a means to remain more competitive. Others choose production types that are more labor-intensive and less technologically based. Some farm family members seek off-farm employment or become involved in local political processes while others are involved in civic or religious organizations as a means of coping with the changes they have experienced. Social and geographic isolation impact the strategies adopted, as do natural conditions and processes, such as dominant soil type. Ultimately, this project, while it reveals a wealth of information, also raises many questions that can only be answered by the farm families themselves.

254f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-11T15:47:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Denise Maria Limaseg.pdf: 1545311 bytes, checksum: be86347654890e0c904a294674d15f39 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-05-26T10:47:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Denise Maria Limaseg.pdf: 1545311 bytes, checksum: be86347654890e0c904a294674d15f39 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-26T10:47:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Denise Maria Limaseg.pdf: 1545311 bytes, checksum: be86347654890e0c904a294674d15f39 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / O presente trabalho estabelece um diálogo interdisciplinar entre as ciências sociais e a psicanálise e visa a analisar os mecanismos sociais e psíquicos que constituem, moldam e aprisionam o ser humano. Para explicitar esse diálogo, recorreu-se à teoria da complexidade como paradigma epistemológico para justificar que não há um déficit em nenhum dos campos do conhecimento, mas uma colaboração recíproca necessária para a compreensão e explicação de um objeto complexo, o qual tem, como contraponto, a sobredeterminação. A sociologia e a psicanálise foram tratadas como “campos”, à luz da teoria dos campos de Pierre Bourdieu, e assim delimitados. Para a sistematização do diálogo entre o campo da psicanálise e o campo das ciências sociais e das possibilidades de novas interpretações a partir desse diálogo, recorreu-se a uma ilustração exemplar encontrada na obra de Sergio Paulo Rouanet, através de seis de seus livros. Pretendeu-se, por fim, dar uma colaboração a esse diálogo, recorrendose aos conceitos de habitus, de Bourdieu e de Norbert Elias, para a análise dos condicionamentos sociais do indivíduo e aos conceitos freudianos de inconsciente e de identificação para a análise das determinações psíquicas do sujeito. Feita a articulação do objeto complexo indivíduo/sujeito, foi sugerida a margem de liberdade, de emancipação e autonomia do ser humano diante dessa sobredeterminação, bem como de sua responsabilidade pelos seus atos. / Salvador

254f. / Submitted by Ana Portela (anapoli@ufba.br) on 2013-05-10T12:37:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese definitiva para cd - Mari pdf.pdf: 1531567 bytes, checksum: 1991616ba5ea9dbb2f6e0c1ba0399c1c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná(dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-06-06T18:09:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese definitiva para cd - Mari pdf.pdf: 1531567 bytes, checksum: 1991616ba5ea9dbb2f6e0c1ba0399c1c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-06-06T18:09:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese definitiva para cd - Mari pdf.pdf: 1531567 bytes, checksum: 1991616ba5ea9dbb2f6e0c1ba0399c1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / CAPES / O presente trabalho estabelece um diálogo interdisciplinar entre as ciências sociais e a psicanálise e visa a analisar os mecanismos sociais e psíquicos que constituem, moldam e aprisionam o ser humano. Para explicitar esse diálogo, recorreu-se à teoria da complexidade como paradigma epistemológico para justificar que não há um déficit em nenhum dos campos do conhecimento, mas uma colaboração recíproca necessária para a compreensão e explicação de um objeto complexo, o qual tem, como contraponto, a sobredeterminação. A sociologia e a psicanálise foram tratadas como “campos”, à luz da teoria dos campos de Pierre Bourdieu, e assim delimitados. Para a sistematização do diálogo entre o campo da psicanálise e o campo das ciências sociais e das possibilidades de novas interpretações a partir desse diálogo, recorreu-se a uma ilustração exemplar encontrada na obra de Sergio Paulo Rouanet, através de seis de seus livros. Pretendeu-se, por fim, dar uma colaboração a esse diálogo, recorrendose aos conceitos de habitus, de Bourdieu e de Norbert Elias, para a análise dos condicionamentos sociais do indivíduo e aos conceitos freudianos de inconsciente e de identificação para a análise das determinações psíquicas do sujeito. Feita a articulação do objeto complexo indivíduo/sujeito, foi sugerida a margem de liberdade, de emancipação e autonomia do ser humano diante dessa sobredeterminação, bem como de sua responsabilidade pelos seus atos. The present work establishes an interdisciplinary dialogue between the Social Sciences and the Psychoanalysis and intends to analyse the social and psychic mechanisms that constitute, mold and imprision the human beings. The Theory of Complexity was used as an epistemological paradigm to provide the basis that there is not a deficit in the fields of knowledge but a necessary and reciprocal collaboration among them in order to comprehend and explain a complex object, which has, as a counterpoint, the overdetermination. The Social Sciences and the Pschycoanalysis were treated as “fields”, in light of Pierre Bourdieu´s fields theory, and then delimited. An illustration from Sergio Paulo Rouanet’s work was used to systematize the dialogue between the psychoanalisys and the social science fields and the possibility of new interpretations coming from this dialogue. It was intented, finally, to give a collaboration to this dialogue, using Bourdieu and Norbert Elias´s concepts of habitus, in order to analyse the social conditioning of the individual. It also uses Freud´concepts of unconscious and identification to analyse the psychic determinations of the subject. After the articulation of the individual/subject complex object, it was suggested the margin of liberty, emancipation and autonomy of the human being in face of this overdetermination, as well as his responsability for his acts. / Salvador

The concept of causation is essential to ascribing moral and legal responsibility since the only way an agent can make a difference in the world is through her acts causing things to happen. Yet the extent and manner in which the complex features of causation bear on responsibility ascriptions remain unclear. I present an analysis of four aspects of causation which yields new insights into different properties of responsibility and offers increased plausibility to certain moral views. Chapter I examines the realist assumption that causation is an objective and mind-independent relation between space-time located relata – a postulate meant to provide moral assessment with a naturalistic basis and make moral properties continuous with a scientific view of the world. I argue that such a realist stance is problematic, and by extension so are the views seeking to tie responsibility attributions to an objective relation. Chapter II combines the context sensitivity of causal claims with the plausible idea that responsibility ascriptions rest on the assessment of causal sequences relating agents and consequences. I argue that taking context sensitivity seriously compels us to face a choice between moral contrastivism and a mild version of scepticism, viz. responsibility is not impossible, but ultimately difficult to identify with confidence. I show why the latter view is preferable. Chapter III explores the concern that group agents would causally (and morally) overdetermine the effects already caused by their constituent individuals. I argue that non-reductive views of agency and responsibility lack a coherent causal story about how group agents impact the world as relatively independent entities. I explain the practical importance of higher-order entities and suggest a fictionalist stance towards group agency talk. Chapter IV analyses the puzzle of effect selection – if causes have infinitely many effects, but only one or a few are mentioned in causal claims, what determines their selection from the complete set of consequents? I argue that the criteria governing the difference between effects and by-products lack clarity and stability. I use the concerns about appropriate effect selection to formulate an epistemic argument against consequentialism.

It has often been argued that John Searle’s theory of mind, biological naturalism, due to its commitment to mental irreducibility amounts to no more than disguised property dualism. I suggest that a thorough analysis of Searle’s somewhat unusual views on the nature of reduction reveals this irreducibility to be not a metaphysical relation between mental properties and physical but one concerned only with the semantics of the respective terms used to refer to these. As a result, I argue, irreducibility in his sense is insufficient to support a metaphysical conclusion like property dualism. Finally, to reinforce this point I give a concrete example of a potential physicalist view which is compatible with the analysis of irreducibility as semantic but not as metaphysical and hence on my reasoning remains open to Searle.

This study is intended to provide researchers with empirically derived guidelines for conducting factor analytic studies in research contexts that include dichotomous and continuous levels of measurement. This study is based on the hypotheses that ordinary least squares (OLS) factor analysis will yield more accurate parameter estimates than maximum likelihood (ML) and principal axis factor anlaysis (PAF); the level of improvement in estimates will be related to the proportion of observed variables that are dichotomized and the strength of communalities within the data sets. To achieve this study's objective, maximum likelihood, ordinary least squares, and principal axis factor extraction models were subjected to various research contexts. A Monte Carlo method was used to simulate data under 540 different conditions; specifically, this study is a four (sample size) by three (number of variables) by three (initial communality levels) by three (number of common factors) by five (ratios of categorical to continuous variables) design. Factor loading matrices derived through the tested factor extraction methods were evaluated through four measures of factor pattern agreement and three measures of congruence. To varying degrees, all of the design factors, as main effects, yielded significant differences in measures of factor loading sensitivity, agreement between sample and population, and congruence. However, in all cases, the main effects were components of interactions that yielded differences in values of these measures that were at least medium in effect size. The number of factors imbedded in the population was a component in six interactions that resulted in medium effect size differences in measures of agreement between population and sample factor loading matrices. of factor loading sensitivity, general pattern agreement, per element agreement, congruence, factor score correlations, and factor loading bias; in terms of the number of interactions that yielded at least medium effect size differences in measures of sensitivity, agreement, and congruence. The number of factors design factor exerted a larger influence than any of the other design factors. The level of communality interacted with the number of factors, number of observed variables, and sample size main effects to yield at least medium effect size differences in factor loading sensitivity, general pattern agreement, per element agreement, congruence, factor score correlations, factor loading bias, and RMSE; in terms of the number of factors that included communality as a component, this design factor exerted the second largest amount of influence on the measures of sensitivity, agreement, and congruence. The level of dichotomization, sample size, and number of observed variables were included in smaller numbers of interactions; however, these interactions yielded differences in all of the outcome variables that were at least medium in effect size. Across the majority of interactions among the manipulated research contexts, the ordinary least squares factor extraction method yielded factor loading matrices that were in better agreement with the population than either the maximum likelihood or the principal axis methods. In three of the four measures of congruence, the ordinary least squares method yielded factor loading matrices that exhibited less bias and error than the other two tested factor extraction methods. In general, the ordinary least squares method yielded factor loading matrices that correlated more strongly with the population than either of the other two tested methods. The suggested use of ordinary least squares factor analytic techniques represents the major, empirically derived recommendation derived from the results of this study. In all tested conditions, the ordinary least squares factor extraction method identified common factors with a high degree of efficacy. Suggested studies for future would incorporate the limiting constraints associated with this dissertation into methodological studies to extend the generalizability of conclusions and recommendations into areas that are beyond the scope of this dissertation.

ABSTRACT INVERSE PROBLEMS FOR A SEMILINEAR HEAT EQUATIONS WITH MEMORY Kaya, M&uuml / jdat Ph.D, Department of Mathematics Supervisor: Prof. Dr. A. Okay &Ccedil / elebi Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Varga Kalantarov May 2005, 79 pages In this thesis, we study the existence and uniqueness of the solutions of the inverse problems to identify the memory kernel k and the source term h, derived from First, we obtain the structural stability for k, when p=1 and the coefficient p, when g( )= . To identify the memory kernel, we find an operator equation after employing the half Fourier transformation. For the source term identification, we make use of the direct application of the final overdetermination conditions.

Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O presente trabalho objetiva discorrer sobre como a psicanálise considera o processo de constituição do sujeito na neurose, para, a partir de então, examinar o motivo pelo qual Freud empregou o termo escolha nesse processo. A pesquisa inicia-se com a análise das contribuições de Freud e de Lacan acerca dos fatores que causam uma neurose. Para isso, será examinada a relação entre trauma, pulsão e fantasia no processo de estruturação subjetiva e será avaliado de que forma o trauma possibilita culminar nas diferentes classes de neurose. Logo em seguida, o trabalho parte para a pesquisa acerca da entrada do organismo vivo na linguagem e sobre a constituição do sujeito. Será realizado um percurso sobre a subversão da ordem instintual quando se é constituído pelo significante, além de se discorrer sobre as especificidades da estrutura neurótica, como a dinâmica do recalque, a constituição da fantasia, a formação dos sintomas e a relação do sujeito com a linguagem e com o seu desejo. Para isso, considerou-se necessário abordar sobre o decurso das primeiras relações da criança com o outro, sobre a inauguração do psiquismo e o advento do sujeito. A partir disso, estabeleceu-se como problema verificar como é possível haver um mecanismo de escolha de estrutura, isto é, de ação seletiva do sujeito em sua constituição, em um contexto em que o autor aproximou a causa da neurose de fenômenos sobredeterminados, definidos por outras circunstâncias que independem do posicionamento subjetivo. Buscou-se questionar como é possível ao sujeito agenciar um mecanismo eletivo em um contexto no qual o próprio sujeito é efeito dessa eleição. Assim, problematizou-se até que ponto há sobredeterminação e participação subjetiva na constituição de uma neurose. / This study aims to analyse how the psychoanalysis considers the process of constitution of the subject in neurosis, to then examine why Freud used the term choice in this process. The research begins with the analysis of the contributions of Freud and Lacan about the factors that cause a neurosis. For this, will be examined the relation between trauma, drive and fantasy in the process of structuring subjective and will be evaluated how the trauma enables culminate in different classes of neurosis. Shortly afterwards, the work starts to research about the entrance of the living organism in the language and about the constitution of the subject. There will be a path about the subversion of the instinctual order when it is constituted by the significant, in addition to discuss the specifics of the neurotic structures, as the dynamics of repression, the constitution of fantasy, the formation of the symptoms and the subjects relation with the language and with his desire. For this, it was considered necessary discuss about the dynamics of the first childs relationship with the other, about the inauguration of the psyche and about the advent of the subject. From this, it was established as a problem analyze how there can be a mechanism of choice of structure, of a selective action of the subject in your constitution, in a context where the author approached the cause of neurosis with overdetermined phenomena, defined by other circumstances that are independent of the positioning of the subject. We sought to question how it is possible for the subject establish an elective mechanism in a context in which who chooses is effect of this election. Therefore, it was questioned until that point there overdetermination and subjective participation in the constitution of neurosis.