Within linguistics, the dominant truth-conditional approach to semantics belongs to the Tarskian, model-theoretic tradition. Theories in this tradition offer an abstract, mathematical description of the truth conditions of natural language expressions in terms of their correspondence with the world. This thesis takes issue with existing modeltheoretic accounts of quantification on the basis that the specific abstract relations that they describe could not plausibly be models of natural language-to-world relations. Recent decades have seenmuch philosophical interest in naturalistic theories of reference and mental content. In one sense, these theories address the above concern by trying to identify something naturalistic for semantic correspondence to consist in, such as causalhistorical chains or ceteris paribus laws. In another sense, they fail to address the problem, since no account is given of either the semantic structure or the truth conditions of even the tiniest fragment of a natural language. Crucially, it is far from clear that modeltheoretic semantics, in anything like its present form, can accommodate the solutions proposed by naturalistic theories of content. If correspondence truth and naturalism are both to be retained, a new theory is needed. I begin by arguing that the class nominalism underlying model-theoretic semantics is unsuited to this naturalistic project, and propose that a variant of Armstrong’s realist metaphysic, incorporating Donald Baxter’s theory of aspects, provides the ideal ontology. I revise and extend Baxter’s theory for a more complete and precise account of the instantiation of properties and relations, and show that the theory of aspects allows for an appealing treatment of both numbers and general facts. Against the background of this realist metaphysic, and drawing on insights from naturalistic theories of mental content, I propose an original theory of mentally represented semantic structures and their truth-conditional analysis. Within this framework, I treat the core semantic phenomena of predication, negation, conjunction, and disjunction, and devote considerable attention to relations. I also develop a detailed theory of quantification, which includes a fully naturalistic account of both universal quantification and numerals.

This thesis explores the origins and evolution of European integration through the lens of classical realism. Classical realism, as an approach to International Relations, has had little to say about one of the most fascinating and politically important developments in the post-war international system, namely the effort by Western European states to integrate economically from the 1950s onwards. Grounded in classical realism’s ontology of power and the desire by states to secure autonomy and exert influence in the international system the thesis argues that a combination of military power, economic power, and power over opinion can explain the main contours and dynamics of integration. At the core of the argument is the idea of ‘Three Europe’s’ – Protected Europe, Confederated Europe, and a Europe of States – which have coexisted in a stable equilibrium for most of the post-war era. Protected Europe is grounded in both the military power and capacity of the United States and the national interest of the United States, remarkably static from 1945 onwards, to play a hegemonic role within the European military and security sphere. It was Protected Europe that created the military security and stability necessary for Western European states to pursue economic integration. It altered the guns versus butter trade-off and permitted Western European states to invest more in their welfare states. Most importantly if resolved the security dilemma that had existed between the most powerful states on the continent, France and Germany, and created a context in which their interaction shifted to one of intensive cooperation. The product was Confederated Europe. The logic at the core of Confederal Europe was a desire by France to bind Germany, and consent by the Germans to be bound. This was done for a variety of reasons. Internally the concern was to exert as much control over Germany as possible and Germany’s long-term national interest – to secure normalisation, independence, and reunification – complemented this urge. Externally the concern was to secure autonomy in the global economic system and to project power and influence within that system. But the components of the confederation remained distinct nation states and thus a Europe of States existed in an often uneasy tension with Confederal Europe. The fault line between a supranational economic structure and a political structure still tied to the states created intermittent tensions and political earthquakes that have punctuated the history of post-war Europe. However, throughout the period the European masses formed a permissive consensus vis-à-vis integration and, given the rather limited and technical nature of the confederation, this minimised the inherent tension between Confederal Europe and the Europe of States. All three Europe’s are, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in a state of flux. The decline in the relative power of the United States, and the rise of new challenges in the Asia-Pacific, has triggered a strategic pivot away from Europe and a weakening of the commitment to Protected Europe. How Europe will manage this shift remains unclear but a more prominent European leadership role in NATO or a rejuvenated and more focused European security and defence policy seem necessary. The historical balance between a France that wished to bind and a Germany that consented to be bound has shifted palpably. More willing to act as a ‘normalised’ power in the European system, Germany has emerged as a clearly dominant actor and this will require a shift in the diplomatic practices of a European system that has become used to France leading and Germany both following and supplying the supporting economic power. If Confederal Europe is to survive it must accept stronger German leadership. Finally the permissive consensus at the mass level is being eroded as European integration touches upon ever-more salient policy spheres. This means that the power of the idea of Europe has to be strengthened and entrenched more firmly, thus diluting the prominence of the Europe of States, or integration must retrench to bring its competences back into line with its legitimacy.

The following text constitutes an attempt to present the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon's genetic ontology through an account of his reconfiguration of the problem of individuation in his doctoral thesis from 1958, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme, information, potentiel, métastabilité. The intention is to show how Simondon through this reconfiguration of a classical philosophical problem – in which concepts and schemas from contemporary physics and technology is utilised in a critique of the bi-polar hylomorphic schema as its traditional, substantialistic solution – becomes able to articulate an anti-substantialistic and anti-reductionistic ontogenesis as first philosophy. A systematic philosophical conception that according to Simondon precedes every critical investigation of the subject as well as every scientific ontology – not by establishing a pre-critical position, but by exceeding Kant's critical position: that is, through a displacement toward a conception of the transcendental conditions for the genesis of being and thought as real conditions, rather than conditions of mere possibility. A displacement that in turn appears to respond to the question that frames this basic account of important concepts and schemas in Simondon, namely: in what sense and to what extent is it necessary for philosophical thought to be thought and developed in relation to other forms of thought?