My thesis is a novel titled Vanishing. It is a work of speculative fiction set in Western Australia. The setting is contemporary, although in a departure from history, the state of Western Australia has seceded from Australia and exists as an independent nation. The government has evolved into a liberal model of tolerance and invited the maligned races of folklore to immigrate. To the world’s astonishment, the Snitches emerge from the wilderness and settle in their new homeland. Their unique mind-reading powers are pressed into service as the government strives to eradicate offensive speech and offensive thought. The novel’s protagonist is Hunter Jones, an average guy with an irreverent attitude towards the government’s social engineering agenda. His ordinary life is rocked when twin brother Sean is abducted after a night out with their parents. Hunter’s search for his missing brother is stymied by the loss of anything to do with Sean—personal effects go missing and memories are erased. The unbreakable bond shared by twins means that Hunter is the only person who remembers Sean ever existed.

This thesis is an interrogation of the viability of transitive production, which I associate with the Aristotelian term hylomorphic. The central axiom of hylomorphic production that will be targeted for critique is that the agent of production must be distinguished absolutely from the product. The thesis follows the thought of production primarily-but not exclusively-in its characteristically modem instantiation in the Kantian transcendental. The argument seeks to demonstrate that the productive aspect of the operator of transitive production is incompatible with the transcendental element, and that Kant was himself increasingly aware of this problem. The Third Critique, under the rubric of an aesthetics, it will be argued, manifests this awareness in its problematic of a manifold of empirical laws. That this constitutes a difficulty for transcendent idealism means that the transcendental operators of the First Critique have failed to constitute experience in a relevant and important way. Furthermore, it is possible to see in some of the famous slogans of the Third Critique, an indication of another mode of production which is immune to the difficulties of the axiom of transitive production. In conclusion I suggest that the consequences of this new mode of intransitive production, associated with materiality, is destructive of the thought of the axiomatic otherworldliness of production operators. Production is not operated at all. Some suggestions are then made as to the explanation of the error embodied in the axiom of transitivity.

Jaegwon Kim (1998a, 2005) claims that his exclusion problem follows a priori for the non-reductive physicalist given her commitment to five apparently inconsistent theses: mental causation, non-identity, supervenience, causal closure and non-overdetermination. For Kim, the combination of these theses entails that mental properties are a priori excluded as causes, forcing the non-reductive physicalist to accept either epiphenomenalism, or some form of reduction. In this thesis, I argue that Kim’s exclusion problem depends on a particular conception of causation, namely sufficient production, and that when causation is understood in interventionist terms, the non-reductive physicalist can avoid the exclusion problem. I argue that Woodward’s (2003, 2008a, 2011a) version of interventionism not only provides an account of mental causation that avoids the exclusion problem, but argue that it also upholds all of the minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism, thereby providing a successful non-reductive physicalist solution to the exclusion problem. In Chapter 2, I argue that all five theses are minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism that cannot be rejected in order to avoid the exclusion problem. Chapter 3 identifies the assumptions that I take to underlie the exclusion problem. Chapter 4 introduces and outlines the central features of Woodward’s (2003) interventionism and Chapter 5 argues that Woodward’s interventionist account of mental causation provides a solution to the exclusion problem. I examine two alternative interventionist accounts of mental causation[1] that fail to provide satisfactory solutions to the exclusion problem and conclude that Woodward’s account therefore provides the only satisfactory account of mental causation and solution to the exclusion problem. Chapter 6 addresses some challenges proposed by Michael Baumgartner (2009, 2010) and argues that the interventionist is able to defend her position against these objections and uphold the interventionist solution to the exclusion problem outlined in this thesis. [1. Proposed by List and Menzies (2009) and Campbell (2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010).]

This thesis is concerned to argue for a metaphysical approach to notions of personhood in contradistinction to the alternative positivist approach and this by way of a deployment of the as yet vastly under utilised resources found in the Central European metaphysical tradition. This thesis is organized into three parts. Firstly, it describes the notion of personhood that is drawn from the positivism of the British analytic tradition which can be demonstrated not to have fulfilled the criteria required for an anthropology that accepts a concept of a finite self. The positivist notion of the self is seen to be reductionist, determinist and ultimately nihilistic in its apprehension of human freedom, dignity, and value. Secondly, it canvasses an alternative and specifically metaphysical anthropology found in the Western philosophical tradition as a challenge to this positivist anthropology in German modernism and idealist developments in American personalism. It examines the personalism inherent in the faith-philosophers of the post-Enlightenment and also in Schelling, Schleiermacher and Dilthey. Symbolism and story found in supernatural fiction relating to Fries and Otto’s phenomenology of religion emphasize the significance of the philosophy of the imagination in restoring the metaphysical tradition. Further investigation of phenomenology of the self in Husseri and Scheler unveils a neglected Christian personalism which is traced further in later continental modernists. Thirdly, Polish personalism, typified by its 19th Century instantiation of messianism, significantly demonstrates the profundity and diversity of this neglected tradition. The personalist metaphysics of Mickiewicz and Cieszkowski, together with its Russian and French counterparts represents an ongoing development within metaphysical anthropology which is still to achieve its apogee. This tradition maintains a foundational faith in the imago Dei quite antipathetic to its positivist competitor. The originality of the thesis, resides in a treatment of this system of ideas – little examined in the West.

The aim of the thesis is to consider the position of phenomenology in contemporary thought in order to argue that only on its terms can a political ontology of difference be thought. To inaugurate this project I being by questioning Heidegger's relation to phenomenology. I take issue with the way that Heidegger privileges time over space in "Being and Time". In this way, the task of the thesis is clarified as the need to elaborate a spatio-temporal phenomenology. After re-situating Heidegger's failure in this respect within a Kantian background, I suggest that the phenomenological grounding of difference must work through the body. I contend that the body is the ontological site of both the subject and the object. I use Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty to explore the ramifications of this thesis. I suggest first of all that architecture should be grounded ontologically in the body, and as such avoids being a 'master discourse'. Secondly, by theorising the body and world as reciprocally transformative, my reading of Merleau-Ponty emphasises the ways in which his thinking opens up a phenomenology of embodied difference. It is on the basis of these themes that I develop this thinking in the direction of race, exploring the dialectics of visibility and invisibility in the work of Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin. I argue that embodied difference attests to variations in the agent's freedom to act in the world. If freedom is understood through Merleau-Ponty as being the embodied ground of historicity, we must ask after unfreedom. I suggest that the "flesh" ontology of a pre-thetic community should be rethought as a regulative ideal, the ideal of a justice that can never be given. In this light, phenomenology becomes as much as poetics. Beyond being though of as conservative, phenomenology henceforth unleashes the possibility of thinking a transformative embodied agency.

The thesis critically analyses the dominant foundationalist tendency of modern philosophy, with special reference to the sophisticated antifoundationalist critiques of foundationalism formulated by G.W.F. Hegel and Gilles Deleuze. It begins by outlining a general methodological aspect of foundationalism, regarding the necessity of radical self-critique in philosophy, which directly connects contemporary thought with Cartesianism, via classical German philosophy. In the philosophies of Kant, Fichte and Schelling, this self-critical project is transformed: they undertake to show that reason can, by examining itself, give an account of experience that is systematic, or consistent with itself. However, each of these thinkers fails to accomplish this, and indeed, the commitment to a priori foundations is itself undermined in Schelling's work; where a philosophical crisis of meaning (a 'trauma of reason', philosophical nihilism) emerges. Deleuze and Hegel's contrasting critiques of foundationalism, and their positive reconstructions of the standpoint of philosophy, are then interpreted as non-foundationalist attempts to overcome this internal crisis of foundationalist thought as inadvertently exposed by Schelling. Both criticise certain subjective presuppositions common to foundationalist philosophies, which they consider constitute a dogmatic 'image' of philosophy, a kind of transcendental illusion that is the guiding force behind foundationalism. Both also aim to replace this with a genuinely philosophical image. The thesis provides an original historical contextualisation of Deleuze's thought in relation to German Idealism, and Schelling in particular, with whom, it is argued, Deleuze has much in common. Deleuze's conception of pure difference is treated in this regard as a kind of 'absolute knowledge'. This contextualisation also allows the sometimes crudely understood antipathy between Hegel and Deleuze to be addressed in a more penetrating fashion, which shows that they have more in common in terms of their critical orientation than is usually supposed. The thesis concludes with a critical comparison of these thinkers, which argues that, although both succeed in their own terms, in relation to a criterion of self-consistency, Hegel's philosophy offers a more satisfactory treatment of the ontological and historical conditions of philosophical activity.

This thesis concerns the relation between the fundamental properties and the powers they confer. The views considered are introduced in terms of their acceptance or rejection of the quiddistic thesis. Essentially the quiddistic thesis claims that properties confer the powers they do neither necessarily nor sufficiently. Quidditism is the view that accepts the quiddistic thesis. The other two views to be considered, the pure powers view and the grounded view reject the quiddistic thesis. The pure powers view supports its denial of the quiddistic thesis with the claim that properties consist in conferring the powers they do; the possession of a property just is the possession of a power. The grounded view, the positive view of this thesis, rejects the idea that properties are constituted by conferring the causal powers they do. Rather on the grounded view, it is the natures of the fundamental properties that metaphysically explain why they confer the powers they do.

The project of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the question of Being posed by Heidegger, to identify problems with Heidegger's formulation of the question, and ultimately suggest a way in which these problems can be overcome. The analysis begins by laying out Heidegger's initial attempt to formulate the question presented in Being and Time and the work immediately following it. The real concern here is to get clear about the constraints Heidegger places upon the formulation of the question, and how these structure the inquiry projected in his early work. This focuses on the importance of the question of the structure of questioning in relation of Being, and the status of the question as a question of meaning. This involves examining the origins of the question in Aristotle, and providing a detailed account of Heidegger's theory of meaning and interpretation. The thesis then examines the way in which this initial formulation of the question evolves during the 1930's, moving from the meaning to the truth of Being. This involves providing a detailed account of Heidegger's theory of truth and the way this develops after Being and Time. After this, the thesis moves on to assess Heidegger's attempts to formulate the question in relation to the constraints just outlined. This reveals several insurmountable problems in both Heidegger's later approach, and a number of serious problems with his earlier approach, the worst of which undermines the very aim of the project. The thesis concludes by showing that there are resources for overcoming this within the way that Heidegger's approach develops after Being and Time, once this development is understood in terms of Heidegger's account of metaphysics. This leads to the outline of an alternative formulation of the question.

No description available.

William Molyneux raised the following question: if a congenital blind person is made to see, and is visually presented with a cube and a globe, would he be able to call the shapes before him a cube and a globe before touching them? Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, and Reid presented their phenomenological view of shape perception, i.e. their view as to what it is like to perceive shape by sight and touch, in responding to Molyneux’s Question. The four philosophers shared the view that visual perception delivers no solid shape. This view would provide a premise for an argument for immaterial objects. The purpose of my thesis is to reject that argument. Kant’s view and John Campbell’s externalist account offer a way to reject the premise of the argument in question. However, my strategy is not to adopt their view. I pursue Reichenbach’s view that the there is no congruence or incongruence involved in the visual phenomenology. I develop his view, and propose the view that visual perception delivers no flat or solid shape. Although my view endorses the premise in question, I can offer a way to reject the argument. This is because my view is compatible with a form of externalism about perception (which differs from Campbell’s). My view can also do full justice to the phenomenological views presented by the four philosophers.