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ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I occupy two realms of philosophy that have not been commonly associated. On the one hand, I enter into debates about the proper interpretation of Kant, specifically having to do with the very fractured debate on the nature and applications of transcendental idealism. I adjudicate on the matters of the relationship between appearances and things in themselves, i.e. whether it is epistemological or ontological, the way in which TI resolves the antinomial conflict of reason as it thinks the unconditioned in its exploration of cosmological questions, and the way Kant applies TI to articulate the intelligible and empirical characters in his metaphysics of agency. In addition to this historical research, I also turn to contemporary formulations of libertarian freedom. Libertarianism in free will debates is the view that free will is incompatible with determinism (i.e. incompatibilism), and free will exists. Libertarianism is a competitor to compatibilist views that claim that free will is compatible with determinism, i.e. the view that there is a unique outcome given a past and laws of nature characterizing the past. Within libertarianism, there are important differences in terms of the metaphysics of free will. Most contemporary libertarians opt for a reductionist metaphysics, in which causation consists in relationships between events and does not involve underlying grounds or substances. Both event-causal and non-causal libertarianism accordingly ground their views of freedom on the interplay of psychological events conceived of as states of affairs at instants in time. Event-causal accounts locate free will in indeterministic causal series, involve conflicting sets of motivations that resolve themselves probabilistically into a certain kind of action. Non-causal accounts do not attach free will to causality at all, instead associating it with a spontaneously occurring event. ECL and NCL struggle with establishing how the agent actually settles her action. If the action is merely the indeterministic byproduct of a set of psychological processes or process, then what ultimately occurs is not up to the agent but a product of chance. ECL and NCL nevertheless object that even an action settled by chance is done consciously and according to reasons. But these criteria are aligned with compatibilist criteria for free will. Compatibilists deny to the agent the unconditioned power to choose, which is independent of any prior determination but also not subject to chance. They point out, though, that the action is externally unconstrained, or that, if the reasons had been different, the agent would have acted differently. Since contemporary libertarianism deprives the agent of control, and creates a kind of pseudo-agent that acts ultimately according to chance, I explore other metaphysical frameworks for free will. Agent-causal libertarianism involves the agent directly causing her action as a substance. It is not some state of affairs that causes the action—a desire or belief characterizing the agent’s psychology at a certain time—but the agent herself. Agent-causation promises to resolve the problem of control associated with event-causation. The agent-caused action is neither produced deterministically from a prior event, nor is it an indeterministic fallout from probabilistic causation. Instead, it is caused by an agent-substance able to act independently of events. Timothy O’Connor is a well-known and articulate defender of agent-causation, but he also subscribes to the naturalistic framework popular in contemporary metaphysics. Even though he accepts the reality of emergent properties, the agent-cause, which has a special capacity for self-determination, is supposed to be causally united to a microphysical level where there is only passive event-causation. In this dissertation, I seek to frame agent-causation in terms of transcendental idealism. Rather than establishing the level of event-causation as metaphysically fundamental, I explore an idealistic metaphysics in which the empirical world in the spatiotemporal framework of human experience is not an absolute measure of reality. The human person is a hybrid creature, spanning two domains. On the one hand, the person exists in the empirical order in space and time. It is characterized by events subject to a causal law, by which they are accounted for in terms of prior events. On the other hand, there is a deeper level to the person, not encompassed within the limited structures of human experience. On this deep intelligible level, the human person is able to serve as the unconditioned ground of its empirical character. / Philosophy

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The aim of this study is to identify and explicate Nietzsche’s standard of value, that is, the basis upon which he approves of some human phenomena (e.g., moralities, philosophies, artistic and political movements, etc.) and disapproves of others. I argue that this standard is best captured by the concept of “degrees of strength.” Part I undertakes a detailed examination of Nietzsche’s philosophical methodology, which must be understood in order to understand his conception of degrees of strength. I argue that the central tenet of his methodology is his commitment to “historical philosophy,” that is, to the view that absolutely opposite phenomena like soul and body, good and evil, and so on, do not exist as opposites, and that their opposition is only relative. I here engage with what is perhaps the most prominent reading of Nietzsche’s methodology in the Anglophone world today, namely that it is a form of “naturalism,” understood as a commitment to some kind of continuity with the empirical sciences. I show that this reading relies on a definition of “nature” that Nietzsche never gives, and commits him to an ontology that he explicitly rejects, without doing anything to clarify his methodology that is not done by the concept of historical philosophy. Part II examines Nietzsche’s attempt to formulate a “proper physio-psychology” based on historical philosophy, which requires him to conceive of human beings as communities of willing subjects that he calls “drives.” I argue that Nietzsche adopts the notion of the human being as a multiplicity from physiology, and attempts to combine it with the notion of the willing subject that arises from introspective psychology. He believes that the human belief in causality is a result of the psychological experience of willing, and that physiology cannot explain the causal relations among events in the body without appealing to a concept of will. I then show how he extends this insight beyond the body to the world as a whole, arguing that we cannot comprehend causality at all except by means of the concept of “will to power.” This, I claim, is Nietzsche’s main reason for asserting that the world is “will to power and nothing else.” Part III introduces Nietzsche’s concept of the “problem of value,” the solution of which amounts to what he calls “the determination of the order of rank among values,” that is, of which human values contribute most to the enhancement of the power of humanity, and which frustrate such enhancement. I argue that the standard by which Nietzsche determines this is a symptomatology based on the concept of degrees of strength: those “ways of thinking and valuing” that are symptomatic of higher degrees of physio-psychological strength are more valuable for the enhancement of the overall power of humanity, while those that are symptomatic of weakness are less valuable, or even disvaluable, for that end. While the main focus of Part III is to explicate the concepts of physio-psychological strength and weakness, I conclude with an examination of what Nietzsche calls the “great economy of the whole,” according to which even weakness often has value for enhancing the power of humanity, so long as it is kept in its proper place and not valued more highly than strength. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The universe of Star Wars is an ever-expanding transmedia storyworld that comprehends entries in many different media. As it is inevitable for a very expansive universe, different authors contribute to the storyworld across different media. Moreover, each medium imposes changes in the storytelling based on its characteristics. The presence of different authors and the change in media affect how free will is portrayed in the different adaptations. The Force is an entity that characterizes the Star Wars universe and affects the free will of every living being in the storyworld. One of the main characteristics of Star Wars is the constant referencing to fate and prophecy enforced by the Force and how these entities affect free will. The concept of free will and how different boundaries affect it are portrayed differently in each media adaptation. What makes this topic interesting is the presence of a character named Anakin, whose free will is represented differently in each adaptation, and his relation to the Force also changes in the different adaptations.  Anakin is an interesting character to look at because of his constant struggles with his free will. Some of those struggles are caused by the influence the Force has on him. The same character in the same storyworld can take a very different shape in a different medium. This thesis argues that Star Wars as a transfictional transmedia storyworld changes in a way that causes an evolution in the representation of Anakin's free will and a shift in his relation to the Force. Furthermore, I argue that transmedia storyworlds, thanks to their transfictionality, hold the ability to develop significant changes in new works without leaving the original storyworld. Finally, in the conclusion of the thesis I discuss a problematic aspect of the concept of transfictionality.  The thesis is developed mainly through the use of the theory of free will by Graham McFee and with the concept of Force as law by Timothy Peters. The boundaries of the transmedia storyworld and its definition are set by Marie-Laure Ryan and Jan-Noël Thorn. Moreover, this thesis uses the theory on transfictionality as defined by Marie-Laure Ryan to develop the analysis. The primary works selected for the analysis are the movies Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The novels taken into analysis are the novelizations of the same movies. Moreover, the movies belonging to the original trilogy are discussed as a whole and compared to the movies taken into analysis that are part of the prequel trilogy. Finally, the TV series taken into consideration is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The primary sources selected are interesting to analyse because they portray the story of Anakin and his free will in relation to the Force. Moreover, the different media adaptations allow the discussion of the differences between the representation of free will in each media adaptation. / <p>BA thesis opposition seminar conducted in Niagara.</p>

This thesis concerns the subject-reality relationship within the philosophy of the mature Nietzsche. The aim of this thesis is to highlight the interpretative dilemma that arises from apparent inconsistencies in Nietzsche’s analysis of that relationship. The ambivalence in Nietzsche’s ontology and epistemology leads many of his interpreters to endorse different and opposing readings of this relationship. Some interpreters are inclined to read the entirety of Nietzsche’s philosophy in light of his metaphysics. This is not the approach taken here but, it is important to establish common ground with respect to the interpretation of the relationship between us, knowing subjects, and an external reality.

The idea that free will may be an illusion has been a source of great concern. It has led to suggestions that it may be wise to avoid public discussion of this topic lest it lead to a general moral decay. This concern has seemingly been supported by research demonstrating that individuals, when primed with the notion they lack free will, tend to cheat more and prefer less retributive punishment. The current research suggests that these effects can be moderated by the introduction of a second prime. In experiment one, participants believed they were being tested on note-taking and the subsequent recall of the content of two articles when, in fact, the dependent measure was actually the degree to which, after being primed with the articles, they cheated on a math task. It was hypothesized that the cheating effect noted in prior research would be moderated by the introduction of a second prime – one that extends the concept of self beyond our dualistic intuitions. In a second experiment, it was hypothesized that this prime would also moderate the reported reduction of preference toward retributivist punishment. In each experiment, the results trended in the direction hypothesized but in neither case were they statistically significant. The difficulties surrounding methodology and reproducibility in this type of research is discussed and suggestions for improvements in experiment design are offered.

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