This thesis is concerned with the concept of community in the thought of three French postmodem philosophers-Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy. I contend that anarchism is the best framework for understanding them because they emphasize the importance of community outside of the organization of the state. On their view, community as a unity or totality of social relations is absent in contemporary life, but this is as it should be because it makes possible the emergence of communities that are not premised on unity or totality but difference and openness. Bataille thinks that community requires an experience of sovereignty that is sacred rather than political, and that it is available through myth. Blanchot considers community in terms of the inherent neutrality of relations which cannot be co-opted by political interests. Nancy has an ontological orientation to politics that interprets existence as a community and results in a global law of multiple networks. All three stress the interplay between freedom and order, and seek a heightened sense of responsibility in community. Yet they do not acknowledge that community requires lasting institutions, and despite their attack on totalitarianism, they do not advocate democracy. Their work powerfully questions the concept of community, but it ultimately fails to offer viable alternatives for contemporary political philosophy. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Religious Studies and Arabic / D.Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)

The intellectual world of the late Ming literati was without question one of great richness and complexity. The focus of the present study, however, is limited to an examination of Wang Ken, the man, his key philosophical beliefs, and his role in the founding of the T'ai-chou School of thought. In exploring the genesis of Wang Ken and his school of thought, certain aspects of the social milieu are examined in order to reach a better understanding of how the larger environment and this radical intellectual movement became intertwined. In other words, I have attempted to discern and define the interplay of the most important creative minds of the time, and particularly those of the elite class with this group. As a teacher and thinker Wang Ken exercised a considerable influence on his times, contributing in the process to the new permissiveness so characteristic of the latter half of the Ming dynasty. In this regard, the present study also represents an attempt to discover the basic patterns underlying Wang Ken's thought, as well as the T'ai-chou School's responsiveness to dramatic changes in society. In doing so, we perceive an implication of intellectual autonomy in the form of social and political protest against imperial autocracy. Also, the spread of his faith in an attainable and intelligible sagehood among the lower classes, gradually blurred the dividing line between elite and commoner. Finally, the assertions of Wang Ken and the T'ai-chou School indeed stimulated a new sense of self-awareness and self-worth. Nevertheless, it is because of its radical rejection of the established social, political, and intellectual order that the T'ai-chou School has been branded as heterodox. As a result, the frustration of its aspiration for a more genuine humanity was inevitable, as this intellectual movement fell victim to the forces of orthodoxy and conformity.

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This thesis seeks to provide a political context for the philosophical work of the third earl of Shaftesbury. A biographical framework is adopted which details Shaftesbury's political interests, both inside and outside parliament. In attempting to trace the links between his political life and his philosophical ideas particular attention is given to Shaftesbury's debt to his tutor, Locke, as well as to the importance of his visits to the Netherlands. Shaftesbury's connections with radical whig politicians at the end of the seventeenth century are also investigated: they are an indication of his interest in practical political issues. The main argument of the thesis is that Shaftesbury's published work is fully comprehensible only if this political context is taken into account. By concentrating solely on his importance in the history of moral or aesthetic philosophy scholars have effectively removed the political cutting-edge from Shaftesbury's work. It was precisely because Shaftesbury was aware of the political implications of his moral and aesthetic philosophy that he was such a controversial social critic in his own day. The originality of the thesis lies in the presentation of a more complete biography of Shaftesbury than has previously been attempted. Although the Shaftesbury papers in London are the major source for the thesis, other material has been consulted, including manuscripts in the Netherlands, which gives a fuller picture of the circles in which he moved. Shaftesbury was not an important politician, but his strong political concerns need to be emphasised before his thought can be understood: politics and philosophy were continuous for him.

My PhD thesis, The Flower of Suffering, offers a philosophical evaluation of Aeschylus' Oresteia in light of Presocratic ideas. By examining several aspects of the tragic trilogy in relation to some of Aeschylus' near-contemporary thinkers, it aims to unravel the overarching theological ideas and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions underpinning the Oresteia's dramatic narrative. My aim is to bring to relief those aspects of the Oresteia which I believe will benefit from a comparison with some ideas, or modes of thought, which circulated among the Presocratic philosophers. I will explore how reading some of this tragedy's themes in relation to Presocratic debates about theology and cosmic justice may affect and enhance our understanding of the theological ‘tension' and metaphysical assumptions in Aeschylus' work. In particular, it is my contention that Aeschylus' explicit theology, which has been often misinterpreted as a form of theodicy where the justice of heaven is praised and a faith in the rule of the gods is encouraged, is presented in these terms only to create a stronger collision with the painful reality dramatized from a human perspective. By setting these premises, it is my intention to confer on Greek tragedy a prominent position in the history of early Greek philosophical thought. If the exclusion of Presocratic material from debates about tragedy runs the risk of obscuring a thorough understanding of the broader cultural backdrop against which tragedy was born, the opposite is also true. Greek tragedy represents, in its own dramatic language, a fundamental contribution to early philosophical speculation about the divine, human attitudes towards it, indeed, the human place in relation to the cosmic forces which govern the universe.

Pour résoudre un problème de mathématiques ou comprendre une démonstration, une figure bien choisie est parfois d’un grand secours. Ce fait souvent remarqué peut être vu comme un cas particulier d’un phénomène plus général. Utiliser une figure plutôt que des phrases, reformuler un problème sous la forme d’une équation, employer telles notations plutôt que telles autres : dans tous ces cas, en un sens, on ne fait que représenter sous une nouvelle forme ce qu’on sait déjà, et pourtant, cela peut permettre d’avancer. Comment est-ce possible ? Pour répondre à cette question, la première partie de cette thèse étudie ce qu’apporte un changement notationnel précis introduit par Leibniz à la fin du XVIIe siècle. La suite de ce travail analyse, et confronte à l’exemple précédent, plusieurs manières de penser les différences représentationnelles proposées dans la littérature philosophique récente. Herbert Simon, étudié dans la deuxième partie, s’appuie sur le modèle informatique des structures de données : deux représentations peuvent être « informationnellement » équivalentes, mais « computationnellement » différentes. Les logiciens Barwise et Etchemendy, étudiés dans la troisième partie, cherchent à élargir les concepts de la logique mathématique (en particulier ceux de syntaxe et de sémantique) aux diagrammes et figures. Enfin, certains philosophes des mathématiques contemporains, comme Kenneth Manders, remettent en cause la notion même de représentation, en soutenant qu’elle n’est pas éclairante pour comprendre l’usage de figures, formules ou autres supports externes en mathématiques. C’est à ces critiques qu’est consacrée la quatrième et dernière partie. / When solving a mathematical problem or reading a proof, drawing a well-chosen diagram may be very helpful. This well-known fact can be seen as an instance of a more general phenomenon. Using a diagram rather than sentences, reformulating a problem as an equation, choosing a particular notation rather than others : in all these cases, in a sense, we are only representing in a new form what we already knew; and yet, it can help us make progress. How is this possible? To address this question, the first part of this thesis explores the benefits afforded by a specific notational change introduced by Leibniz in the late seventeenth-century. The rest of this work analyses, and puts to the test of the preceding case study, several ways of understanding representational differences which have been put forward in the recent philosophical literature. Herbert Simon, studied in the second part, relies on a comparison with the notion of data structures in computer science: two representations, he writes, can be “informationally” equivalent yet “computationnally” different. The logicians Barwise and Etchemendy, studied in the third part, try to broaden the concepts of mathematical logic (in particular those of syntax and semantics) to cover diagrams and figures. Finally, some contemporary philosophers of mathematics, for instance Ken Manders, argue that the notion of representation itself is not helpful to understand the use of diagrams, formulas or other external reasoning tools in mathematics. Such arguments are the focus of the fourth (and last) part.

Orientador: Leticia Bicalho Canedo / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadudal de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-11T21:10:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ferreira_DanielaMaria_D.pdf: 45748697 bytes, checksum: 50dc2526e20f286475f6afa4ea938bb7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: O objetivo desta pesquisa é contribuir para a compreensão do campo filosófico brasileiro, por meio do estudo de um grupo específico de filósofos, cuja formação escolar e socialização se deram no Brasil e no exterior (Roma e Louvain), graças à Igreja Católica. O estudo procura também suprir uma lacuna bibliográfica, ao abordar os aspectos históricos e sociais da institucionalização da Filosofia no Brasil. Para tanto, tomando como ponto de partida a instauração do primeiro curso universitário de Filosofia (FFLCH-USP), o trabalho apresenta: 1) a reconstituição do espaço filosófico brasileiro e a transformação ocorrida nesse espaço, em especial, com a inserção de um grupo de intelectuais, os filósofos de origem católica; 2) a descrição e a análise da trajetória social desses agentes ex- seminaristas, ex- religiosos e militantes católicos (17 no total), visando compreender a forma pela qual se deu o seu processo de entrada no campo filosófico. / Abstract: Not informed. / Doutorado / Educação, Conhecimento, Linguagem e Arte / Doutor em Educação

Deleuze&#039 / s Struggle Against Transcendence and Criticisms About It TIBIK, Kamuran M.S., Department of Philosophy Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Yasin Ceylan December,2006, 128 pages In this study, I first studied the undecidability of transcendence and immanence. Then, I studied the demarcation problem between transcendence and immanence with its results in philosophy. Thirdly, I touched on the idea of the death of philosophy in relation to this demarcation problem. Fourthly, I tried to present Deleuze&#039 / s dualist approach to concepts and I also studied Hume&#039 / s effect on the emergence of this dualist approach. As the fifth, I tried to relate the demarcation problem to ethics, concepts and the future of philosophy. Finally, I presented questions and criticisms about both Hume&#039 / s and Deleuze&#039 / s views on immanence and ethics.

In this work, I scrutinize Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic and Callicott&rsquo / s interpretation of it both from normative and meta-ethical perspectives by making textual and conceptual analyses. Leopold suggests that an ethic which makes us responsible for the protection of whole nature is evolutionarily possible and ecologically necessary. Callicott tried to buttress Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic by developing a nonanthropocentric axiology and some meta-principles. Moreover, in his view, Leopold&rsquo / s views are not only compatible with nonanthropocentric axiology but also imply it. I show that Leopold did not build the land ethic on nonanthropocentrism and he did not enforce attribution of intrinsic value to nature and its constituents. I argue that weak anthropocentrism is quite compatible with Leopold&rsquo / s views, and it provides a way to maintain normative power of land ethic without being ecofascistic. Furthermore, I discuss that Leopold might not have objected attribution of intrinsic value to nonhuman beings although he primarily referred to instrumental values of nature. Moreover, I argue that Leopold preferred a middle position between the concepts of preservation and conservation. As a man of practical wisdom Leopold has always tried to find middle and practicable ways between opposing extremes to harmonize human realm with nonhuman one and to grow the embryo of the conservationist movement. Finally, I argue that Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic is a human ethic which requires human moral agents to accept responsibility for protecting whole nature in order to attain good life.