Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Empiricism'
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1
Cherry, James. "Psychological empiricism." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0019/MQ47935.pdf.
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Sinclair, Nathan. "Empiricism and Philosophy." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6021.
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Though Quine's argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely disputed, one of the major effects of his argument has been to popularise the belief that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. This thesis begins by distinguishing reductive from holistic empiricism, showing why reductive empiricism is false, refuting the major objections to holistic empiricism and stating the limits on human knowledge it implies. Quine's arguments (and some arguments that have been mistakenly attributed to him) from holism against the analytic-synthetic are considered, and while many of them are found wanting one good argument is presented. Holism does not, however, imply that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy, and indeed implies that the distinction between scientific and philosophical disputes is perfectly sharp. The grounds upon which philosophical disputes may be resolved are then sought for and deliniated.
3
Sinclair, Nathan. "Empiricism and Philosophy." University of Sydney, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6021.
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Doctor of Philosophy(PhD)Though Quine's argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely disputed, one of the major effects of his argument has been to popularise the belief that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. This thesis begins by distinguishing reductive from holistic empiricism, showing why reductive empiricism is false, refuting the major objections to holistic empiricism and stating the limits on human knowledge it implies. Quine's arguments (and some arguments that have been mistakenly attributed to him) from holism against the analytic-synthetic are considered, and while many of them are found wanting one good argument is presented. Holism does not, however, imply that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy, and indeed implies that the distinction between scientific and philosophical disputes is perfectly sharp. The grounds upon which philosophical disputes may be resolved are then sought for and deliniated.
4
Asay, Jamin Roberts John. "Truth in constructive empiricism." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,912.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.Title from electronic title page (viewed Dec. 18, 2007). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Philosophy." Discipline: History; Department/School: History.
5
Dowling, Christopher Michael. "The vindication of aesthetic empiricism." Thesis, University of York, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.485354.
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'This doctoral thesis is an examination, and vindication, of a position that has been identified with the expression 'aesthetic empiricism' and typically captured by the claim that 'what is aesthetically valuable in a painting can be detected merely by looking at it - features that cannot be so detected are not properly aesthetic ones' (Currie, 1989). Such a position continues to be a focus for contemporary discussion (e.g., Davies, 2004, 2006, and Graham, 2006), yet it is far from clear precisely what it entails or even who subscribes to it. All that seems to have been agreed is that aesthetic empiricism is false, demonstrably so in the light of Walton's claims in 'Categories of Art' (1970), and Danto's work on indiscernibles (1981). The lack of theoretical clarity would suffice to motivate a closer look at aesthetic empiricism; however, the more specific target of this thesis is· to show that the received treatment is mistaken - aesthetic empiricism, once clearly identified, can be seen to be both intuitive and beguiling. It earns our philosophical consideration by providing a formidable accoiint ofthe aesthetic and also a valuable contribution to our understanding of art criticism.
6
Gibson, Carlton David. "The new state of empiricism." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.424635.
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Dicken, Paul Edward Trueman. "A defence of constructive empiricism." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.613381.
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Rayment, Nigel. "Empiricism and the nature tradition." Thesis, Loughborough University, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.329478.
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Ross, Ryan D. "In Defense of Radical Empiricism." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1429029776.
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Ott, Walter Richard. "Empiricism and meaning in Locke." Full text, Acrobat Reader required, 2000. http://viva.lib.virginia.edu/etd/diss/ArtsSci/Philosophy/2000/Ott/walterottdiss.pdf.
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David, Kasandra L. ""Feminist Empiricism and the Livestock Industry"." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1396605631.
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Agee, Mary Marshall. "John Sergeant and the 'New' Empiricism." Full text, Acrobat Reader required, 2000. http://viva.lib.virginia.edu/etd/diss/ArtsSci/Philosophy/2000/Agee/sergeant.pdf.
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Bhattacharyya, Bimalendu. "Empiricism and the problem of meaning." Thesis, University of North Bengal, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/50.
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Spash, Clive L. "Policy analysis: Empiricism, social construction and realism." Österreichische Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft (ÖGPW), 2014. http://epub.wu.ac.at/5783/1/Spash_2014_OZP_Policy%2Danalysis.pdf.
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In a recent article Ulrich Brand has discussed how best to perform policy analysis. I reflect upon the paper as an interdisciplinary researcher experienced in public policy problems and their analysis with a particular interest in the relationship between social, economic and environmental problems. At the centre of the paper is the contrast between two existing methodologies prevalent in political science and related disciplines. One is the rationalist approach, which takes on the character of a natural science, that believes in a fully knowable objective reality which can be observed by an independent investigator. The other is a strong social constructivist position called interpretative policy analysis (IPA), where knowledge and meaning become so intertwined as to make independence of the observer from the observed impossible and all knowledge highly subjective. Brand then offers his model as a way forward, but one that he closely associates with the latter. My contention is that policy analysis, and any way forward, needs to provide more of a transformative combination of elements from both approaches. Indeed I believe this is actually what Brand is doing.
15
Roberts, Thomas M. "Life beyond bounds : experiments in transcendental empiricism." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.687682.
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In recent years, geography and the wider social sciences have been animated by a conceptually reinvigorated concern for materialist thought. Within cultural geography, this emerging movement - which is often referred to as a 'new' or 'vital' materialism - has sought to understand the materiality of human life in relation to the lively capacities of a more-than-human world. Contrary to entrenched humanist narratives, these new materialist trajectories refute the anthropocentric assumption that humans are metaphysically exceptional beings, defined by their capacity to transcend nonhuman nature. The following thesis contributes to these debates through an experimental engagement with the notion of a 'transcendental empiricism,' as defined in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. My contention is that, whilst current materialist trajectories accept the critique of anthropocentrism at a superficial level, they often do not go far enough in considering the implications of this critique for social science; the most radical of which is that we can no longer approach human life from the Kantian position of a transcendental subject. With Deleuze, I argue that a materialism worthy of the name must begin from the supposition of a transcendental field, that is, a plane of nature that admits of neither subject nor object. My concern, then, is to explore the implications of transcendental empiricism for contemporary materialist thought. Venturing beyond Deleuze, I find resonances of this strange empiricism in the conceptual landscapes of A.N. Whitehead, Gilbert Simondon and Felix Guattari. Taking each in turn, I show how these three renditions of nature's transcendental field generate new kinds of questions regarding the materiality of human life. I achieve this task through a range of empirical lenses, which include singular objects, technical ecologies and aesthetic encounters. I conclude the thesis by affirming the capacity for transcendental empiricism to radicalise materialist thought through its commitment to immanence.
16
Fotheringham, Heather Anne. "Van Fraassen, constructive empiricism & problems concerning modality." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.434236.
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Rhode, Conny. "Dialogical empiricism : the burden of proof upon metaphysical methods." Thesis, University of York, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/19576/.
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Drawing on Douglas Walton’s typology of dialogues, I analyse a representative sample of philosophical dialogues, finding that over 95% of them instantiate a type of dialogue aimed at persuading one’s opponent. I then argue that this goal entails the prudential requirement that any assertion questioned in philosophical dialogue be either supported or else retracted, and that no assertion is privileged over the burden of proof imposed by its questioning. This in turn renders it prudent to avoid the employment of premises that, if questioned, could never be supported. Such unsupportable premises in particular include bridge premises across inference barriers (e.g. Hume’s is/ought separation). Dialogical Empiricism is the resultant thesis that any assertion questioned in philosophical dialogue must prudently be supported by the asserting party without crossing any inference barrier. I focus on the inference barrier between psychological or linguistic content and the world beyond such content, arguing that much common philosophical evidence consists of psycho-linguistic content (e.g. intuitions) and thus cannot prudently be employed in support of hypotheses expressing claims about the world beyond such content. Since many philosophical dialogues, from metaphysics through to ethics, rely upon such psycho-linguistic evidence for claims about the world beyond content, these dialogues prudently can no longer be conducted. In closing I consider avenues of escape from the foregoing prudential restrictions that remain open.
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Avilés, Cuauhtémoc. "Scientific realism and empiricist antirealism." Thesis, McGill University, 1990. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60434.
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This dissertation consists of a defence of scientific realism and a critique of empiricist antirealism. Strict empiricism is discussed in Chapter 1, in which it is argued that this variety of empiricism adequately describes only the initial stages of scientific research. Bas van Frassen's empiricist antirealism is then discussed in Chapter 2. Here, it is argued that this new position, although more sophisticated than earlier forms of empiricist antirealism, fails to constitute a genuinely acceptable alternative to scientific realism. The two main constituents of scientific realism--scientism and critical realism--are then defended in Chapters 3 and 4. Lastly, the superempirical virtues and their role in theory evaluation is discussed in Chapter 5, wherein they are presented as a nonempirical source of quality control on our theorizing.
19
Moore, Margaret. "Recycling of Russian empires /." Title page, abstract and table of contents only, 1999. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09armm823.pdf.
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梁璟珩 and King-hang Liang. "John McDowell and the problem of conceptualized experience." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1999. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B42575291.
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Totten, Gary. "The eyewitness in American specular narrative : empiricism, representation, and the gaze." Virtual Press, 1998. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1117105.
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In this dissertation, I investigate American specular narrative which displays a significant level of visual empiricism and examine the implications of the eyewitness perspective such narrative assumes. Based on the epistemological assumption that "to see is to know," specular narrative imagines an empirical access (via visual processes of the gaze) to a knowable reality, and uses the figure of the eyewitness (by way of narration, focalization, and narrative technique) to render a supposedly transparent relation between narrative and reality. This study draws upon theories of narrative, realism, subjectivity, and the gaze to explore this narrative eyewitness, tracking how the impulse to construct an authentic American identity, which materializes during American colonization, influences early American discourse and recurs as a specular realism in later American narrative. I examine how the illusion of the eyewitness sustains Realist ideology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century narrative (William Dean Howells' A Hazard of New Fortunes, Henry James' The Spoils ofPoynton, and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth); how new spatial and temporal paradigms created by automotive technology affect the eyewitness (and a particular vision of America) in the American road book, specifically Theodore Dreiser's A Hoosier Holiday, and how the specular fetishism of the nonfiction novel, particularly Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, problematizes narrative objectivity and sutures the reader into the narrative as eyewitnessDepartment of English
22
Thorsson, Elisabeth Maria Louise. "Between empiricism and Platonism : the concept of reason in Locke's philosophy." Thesis, University of York, 2018. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/20476/.
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Locke has long been read in the light of the ideas of Hobbes, that is, as a materialist philosopher, endorsing a conventional view of morality. Hobbes does this through an instrumentalist interpretation of the human reason and Epicurean naturalism (i.e. the hypothesis that everything is made of atoms). Even though Locke’s writings are replete with expressions of his Christian thought, scholars have suggested that Locke is committed to an empirical stance underwritten by these ultimately Epicurean commitments. There is, therefore, a tension in Locke’s philosophy between three divergent thought complexes: his empiricism, his commitment to Christianity, and what seems to be a form of scepticism. This tension poses an interpretative problem, especially concerning Locke’s claims about morality and theology, and the sincerity of his commitment to God. The Hobbist interpretation of Locke has gained ground in recent years, and as a result, Locke’s religious philosophy has been criticised for being either irrelevant or inconsistent. The purpose of this thesis is to engage in and refute that line of criticism by demonstrating that it is possible to give an alternative and richer account of Locke’s intellectual background. By focusing on Locke’s conception of reason, I trace new sources through an overlooked history of ideas from the ancient Platonic tradition, the Stoics, and the Jewish Neo-Platonist philosopher Philo of Alexandria, to the so-called Cambridge Platonists. In particular, I reinterpret Locke’s definition of reason in the light of the Platonist tradition, as containing certain metaphysical and universal traits that are inherently Platonist, and not as something instrumental. The Cambridge Platonists were prominently engaged in a debate against Hobbes, aiming to refute his materialism and arguing for the retainment of a classical understanding of the concept of reason in order to save Christian ethics from Epicureanism and atheism. With this thesis, I show that this debate was very much alive and present to Locke, which he also crucially partook in, and that he in fact sides with the Platonists more so than with Hobbes.
23
Womack, Catherine A. "The crucial role of proof--a classical defense against mathematical empiricism." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12678.
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Garratt, P. J. E. "The aesthetic of empiricism : self, knowledge and reality in mid-Victorian prose." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29113.
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Focusing on the mid-nineteenth century, this thesis argues that far from initiating or undergirding a crude representationalism, empiricism predicated its search for knowledge on a profound instability, one embodied within the textual language through which it sought its articulation. That instability stemmed from the dominant view that the self was constructed in and through experience, and perforce restlessly alterable or unfinished, while also being central to the methodology of observation underlying in the empiricists’ view of the world. In the work of John Ruskin, G. H. Lewes, George Eliot, Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer the principle of relationality consistently shapes their view of reality and their epistemological drive. By considering a variety of their writing – philosophical, literary, psychological, scientific, critical – it will be argued that ‘empiricism’ provides a useful rubric for their common, primary, deep-seated epistemological impulse. In various self-conscious ways, their arguments unfold in destabilising narrative forms, dramatising the principles of limitation and provisionality so crucial to their meaning. Rather like the reality they attempt to describe, works like Bain’s The Senses and the Intellect (1855) or Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind (1874-9) adopt a sprawling, proliferating structure which seems to register a restless struggle to unify knowledge, and by dramatising this resistance to the synthesising will they acknowledge in and through narrative itself the impossibility of some perfect (and therefore fixed) organisation. To this extent, these texts incorporate the theme of multiplicity at a narrative level. Novels like Middlemarch (1871-2) not only make connective structures (networks, webs, tangles) a way of describing the morphology of communal life, they assimilate this logic of association into their narrative method. After historically retracing these questions to the figure of David Hume, subsequent chapters explore different aspects of narrative and knowledge in these writers: the aesthetic of realism, the problems of perception, the knowing body, and the negotiation of relativism.
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Stotts, Alexandra Lynn. "Giving birth to feminist pragmatist inquiry : a Deweyan alternative to Quinean empiricism /." view abstract or download file of text, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3095276.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-225). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Simpson, Tom. "The role of the environment in cognitive development : implications for the nativist/empiricist debate." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369916.
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Yilmaz, Zeliha Burcu. "How Does Consciousness Exist?a Comparative Inquiry On Classical Empiricism And William James." Master's thesis, METU, 2001. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12607646/index.pdf.
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William James denies consciousness as an entity and this rejection lies in the background of my thesis. I searched the main reasons for this rejection in his philosophy. Throughout this search, I perceived two modes of existence of consciousness, that is active and passive. As James improves his thoughts on consciousness over the main arguments of classical empiricists, I explained his radical empiricism and pragmatism in relation to them. It is difficult to answer whether we are completely active or passive in the ways of our thinking and behaving. However, although it includes some problems and inconsistencies, James&rsquos philosophy presents a more plausible explanation of our thinking than rationalism and empiricism, since it can appreciate the changes of our life in an unfinished world of pure experience. Therefore, my inquiry into the existence of consciousness in James depends on this plausibility of the main characteristics of radical empiricism in connection with the classical empiricists.
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Beidler, Paul Gorman. "From empiricism to Bohemia, the idea of the sketch from Sterne to Thackeray." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ27603.pdf.
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Yilmaz, Zeliha burcu. "How does consciousness exist? a comparative inquiry on classical empiricism and william james." Master's thesis, METU, 2006. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12607658/index.pdf.
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William James denies consciousness as an entity and this rejection lies in the background of my thesis. I searched the main reasons for this rejection in his philosophy. Throughout this search, I perceived two modes of existence of consciousness, that active and passive. As James improves his thoughts on consciousness over the main arguments of classical empiricists, I explained his radical empiricism and pragmatism in relation to them. It is difficult to answer whether we are completely active or passive in the ways of our thinking and behaving. However, although it includes some problems and inconsistencies, James’
s philosophy presents a more plausible explanation of our thinking than rationalism and empiricism, since it can appreciate the changes of our life in an unfinished world of pure experience. Therefore, my inquiry into the existence of consciousness in James depends on this plausibility of the main characteristics of radical empiricism in connection with the classical empiricists.
30
Grande, F. D. "Empiricism and rationalism in Ernst Mach's and Albert Einstein's conceptions of scientific method." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.371542.
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Scott-Baumann, Alison Frances. "Only connect : empiricism and hermeneutics in the intellectual autobiography of a teacher educator." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369796.
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Gittings, Megan McGonigle. "The lived experience of patients with psoriasis." Thesis, Montana State University, 2005. http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2005/gittings/GittingsM0805.pdf.
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Klein, Alexander Mugar. "The rise of empiricism William James, Thomas Hill Green, and the struggle over psychology /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3274251.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Philosophy, 2007.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2976. Adviser: Elisabeth A. Lloyd. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 28, 2008).
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Volioti, Georgia. "Tradition agency and the limits of empiricism : perspectives from recordings of Grieg's piano music." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.538302.
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Algaier, IV Ermine Lawrence. "William James's Early Radical Empiricism: Psychical Research, Religion, and the "Spirit of Inner Tolerance"." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2015. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/331881.
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ReligionPh.D.
In December of 1896 William James (1842-1910) penned the preface to The Will to Believe & Other Essays in Philosophy, announcing his novel philosophy of radical empiricism. Nearly one hundred and twenty years later, the metaphysical themes of his mature radical empiricist writings (e.g., his 1904-05 writings posthumously published as Essays in Radical Empiricism) continue to dominate the interpretations of the secondary literature. “William James’s Early Radical Empiricism: Psychical Research, Religion, and the ‘Spirit of Inner Tolerance’” offers a revisionist reading that prioritizes the epistemic, moral, and social elements of James’s early radical empiricism in light of his concerns expressed in the 1896 preface. By focusing on a close textual analysis that aims to historically and thematically re-situate James’s radical empiricism within the context of his major and minor work in the 1880s through the late 1890s, I argue for a supplemental interpretation that emphasizes James’s epistemic sensitivity to the plight of the perceived “irrational” other. This project demonstrates that not only is James’s early radical empiricism concerned with epistemological matters of fact and perspective, but also their social and moral implications. It suggests that an alternative narrative is uncovered if we attend to particular historical, philosophical, and religious themes that reveal themselves as focal points of James’s work in the 1890s, particularly in the year 1896. By historicizing his 1890s defense of the epistemic underdog I develop the narrative that James’s early radical empiricism embraces all experience and that this is illustrated by his genuine interest in the point of view of the believer, the marginalized, and the “irrational” other.
Temple University--Theses
36
Wong, Ka Keung. "An information-theoretic analysis of phonotactic language verification /." View abstract or full-text, 2007. http://library.ust.hk/cgi/db/thesis.pl?ECE%202007%20WONG.
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Liang, King-hang. "John McDowell and the problem of conceptualized experience." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 1999. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B42575291.
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Magnus, P. D. "Underdetermination and the claims of science /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC IP addresses, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3091335.
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Nixon, David Mitsuo. "Perceptual knowledge : explorations and extensions of the Sellarsian framework /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/5710.
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Charak, Gregory Scott. "Between soul and precision Ernst Mach's biological empiricism and the social democratic philosophy of science /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2007. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3274584.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed October 2, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-345).
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Grace, Andrew. "Documents of Culture, Documents of Barbarism: Gothic Literature, Empiricism, and the Rise of Professional Science." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/13010.
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The trope of the discovered manuscript, in which a narrator or character finds a document and presents it to the readers or other characters, has been a part of the Gothic genre since its inception. The discovered manuscript trope persists, despite criticism and satire, in part because it enables Gothic stories to situate their readers. In the nineteenth-century, as the presence of lawyers, doctors, scientists, journalists and other experts grew in society, Gothic novelists drew upon their methodologies and their records to revise the discovered manuscript trope. This project examines the trope of the discovered manuscript throughout Gothic literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to discuss how the Gothic functions as a literature of terror and how its techniques evolved in response to the epistemologies espoused by empiricist philosophers and professional scientists.
I draw upon Jacques Rancière's theories about the representative and aesthetic regimes for the identification of the artistic image to support three central, interrelated claims about the role, and evolution, of the discovered manuscript trope within Gothic fiction: 1) Gothic literature responds to an epistemological problem in the empiricist tradition revolving around the connections between sensory uncertainty and linguistic gaps; 2) reading and interpreting documents play vital roles in the Gothic tradition; and 3) examining documents in Gothic fiction as image operations illuminates how they participate in a story's epistemological drama. In order to support these claims, this project presents four chapters that discuss a broad range of Gothic texts from Walpole's
42
Liu, Bin. "Conventionalism and Necessity." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16603.
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I argue that conventionalism is a promising doctrine by defending it against the following four major objections. (1) Quine’s objection to truth by convention. (2) Quine’s objection regarding the definition of analytic, and regarding the distinction between the analytic and synthetic. (3) The objection from the necessary a posteriori. (4) The contingency problem. Some of the objections apply to analytic propositions, whereas some of them apply to necessary a posteriori propositions. I take Ayer’s doctrine as a typical version of Traditional Conventionalism. I develop my Revised Conventionalism about analytic propositions based on Ayer’s doctrine. The main revisions I argue for include that analytic propositions are a model constructed from our use of language, and that the necessity of analytic propositions can be given up. I take Sidelle’s doctrine as a typical version of Neo-Conventionalism. I develop my Revised Conventionalism about necessary a posteriori propositions based on Sidelle’s view. The main revision I argue for is that purportedly unrestricted necessary a posteriori propositions are only restrictedly necessary. I argue that my Revised Conventionalism can withstand the above four major objections. Conventionalism opens up a new line of thought for resolving philosophical problems. That is, conventionalism proposes explanations by virtue of our use of language, rather than by virtue of objective reality or by the nature of our thought. Given my defence of conventionalism, it follows that we can use the conventionalist line of thought to resolve a wide range of philosophical problems.
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Lee, Moon Kyo. "Deleuze et Whitehead : une étude comparative de leur métaphysique, empirisme transcendantal et empirisme spéculatif." Thesis, Toulouse 2, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015TOU20011/document.
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Cette recherche est une comparaison des métaphysiques de Deleuze et de Whitehead. Deleuze et Whitehead ont en commun une approche philosophique où un certain empirisme, qu’il soit « transcendantal » ou « spéculatif », cherche à élucider la nature de l’expérience en tant que telle. Dans les deux cas il s’agit de rendre compte de l’expérience réelle en elle-même, pas seulement de ses conditions de possibilité. Les tâches de l’empirisme transcendantal comme de l’empirisme spéculatif peuvent être définies comme un essai pour expliquer la genèse de l’expérience ou d’une nouvelle sorte de subjectivité, qui remonterait bien plus haut et qui serait bien plus universelle que celle du sujet kantien. Ainsi, dans les philosophies de Deleuze et de Whitehead, ce n’est pas plus un sujet transcendantal et conscient qui est placé au fondement ou au commencement de toute expérience réelle, car chez l’un comme chez l’autre l’expérience humaine n’est plus qu’un cas qui peut être dérivé d’un processus beaucoup plus général, qui est le processus de la réalité elle-même. Pour Deleuze et Whitehead, ce qui est important devient alors d’expliquer la genèse ou l’individuation, par laquelle une expérience se produit. Empirisme transcendantal et empirisme spéculatif peuvent être caractérisés tous deux, chacun à sa façon, d’ « ontologies univoques », où l’intensité est liée à l’individuationThis research is a comparative study of the metaphysics of Deleuze and Whitehead. Deleuze and Whitehead share a common philosophical approach in which a certain empiricism, whether "transcendental" or "speculative", tries to elucidate the nature of experience as such. In both cases what matters is to explain the real experience for itself, not its conditions of possibility. The tasks of their empiricism, be it transcendental or speculative, may be defined as an essay to explain the genesis of experience or of a new kind of subjectivity which could be traced back to a much higher and universal stand than the Kantian subject’s one. Thus, in the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, neither are a transcendental subject nor a conscious subject which is situated at the foundation or the start of any real experience, since, for both of them as well human experience is but a case or a result which can be derived from a much more general process, which is the very process of reality itself. For Deleuze as well as Whitehead, what was thus important was to explain the genesis or the process of individuation, by which experience is produced. Both transcendental empiricism and speculative empiricism can be characterized, each one in its own way, as "univocal ontologies", wherein intensity is linked to individuation
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Prenzler, Timothy James, and n/a. "Ideology and Narrative Realism : a Critique of Post-Althusserian Anti-Realism." Griffith University. School of Humanities, 1991. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20051116.101351.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis defends the potential of the realist form of narrative for contesting, as well as reproducing, ideology. The common form of realism consists of a loose ensemble of conventions. The key components are omniscient, evaluative narration; an empiricist objectivism; the construction of individuals as agents of action and bearers of natural attributes; cause and effect sequencing; conflict leading to resolution; mystery leading to disclosure; and the effacement of these techniques in the interests of illusion. In one critique of realism post-Althusserian anti-realism - these practices constitute ideology both in a general sense - as manipulation - and a specific sense - as transmitters of capitalist presuppositions. A 'social realism' or critical realism, which attempts to invalidate ideology by the presentation of countervailing data, is said to be undercut by its encoding within this alleged inherently ideological form. This critique of realism is based on an unsustainable, formalist, reduction of content to form. The role of observation in knowledge production and the significance of inductively generated propositions are replaced by a sophisticated, but ultimately reductive, discursive determinism. From its conventionalist epistemological premises, post-Althusserian anti-realism ignores the capacity of empiricism to break with preconceptions. By dismissing the convention of accountability to evidence, the critique is forced back onto criteria of internal consistency - a position even more vulnerable to prejudice than empiricism. The thesis then argues that the concomitant view of the subject of narrative realism as a construct of liberal-individualism ignores how realist texts have questioned ideas of autonomy and a fixed human nature. Anti-realist methods have usefully exposed some of the means by which constructions of freedom and self-determination mask the subordination of labour in free -market economies. However, this frequently entails undervaluing gains made under a rubric of human rights. The replacement of human subjectivity with discursive or economic determinism tends to expel dialogue, volition and human needs as factors in the ideational and practical repudiation of ideology. A narrow approach to realism is therefore inadequate for determining the relation of realism to ideology. The alternative position defended here is that realisms relation to capitalism - like that of liberalism and empiricism - is tangential, not homologous. The variability of content in realism makes realist techniques - as abstract form - politically neutral (but claimed by anti-realists to be intrinsically authoritarian). Realist conventions which construct a point of view are open options for making judgements that will vary in empirical rigour and opposition to different ideologies. The thesis sets the authoritarian aspects of realisms attempted manipulation of the reader against the potential in realism for a dialogic plurality of perspectives, the possible defensibility of a point of view, the need for coherence and judgement in political dialogue and action, and the frequency of content-based reader resistance. The realist form is not an absolute of representation, but nor is it a mere reflex of capitalism. By the same token, the anti-realist concept of the anti-ideological function of anti-realist texts imposes a reverse, homogeneous, inherently oppositional role onto politically heterogenous cultural forms. The thesis argues, furthermore, that by rejecting empiricist modes of substantiation and adopting a mechanistic view of ideology, the post-Althusserian critique of realism fails to engage adequately with the theoretical defence of capitalism. The harmony thesis of free enterprise can only be given a pejorative label ideology on the basis of comparative and historical considerations of the performance of capitalism. In practice, the natural tendency of the market to cyclical instability with attendant unemployment, impoverishment and the compounding of class-based inequalities has only been mitigated by extensive government intervention. The thesis concludes then with a case study of Dickenss Hard Times as an example of the above, more effective, approach to capitalist legitimation. Hard Times employs empiricist, semi-fictional, realist techniques to demonstrate the ideological nature of theories of free enterprise. The critical edge of this novel is blunted by a liberal-romanticism that is ambivalent about legal-institutional solutions to social problems. Despite this fault, Hard Times shows some of the possibilities offered by the realist form for viable social critique.
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Romualdo, José Ricardo. "Metateoria e realidade: a relação entre teoria científica e experimento segundo a metateoria estruturalista." Universidade de São Paulo, 2018. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-18022019-142709/.
Full textAbstract:
A presente dissertação tem o objetivo apresentar e refletir o modo como a metateoria estruturalista realiza análises filosófico-metacientíficas. Tal empreitada manterá o foco principal na relação entre teoria científica e experimento. Isto nos permitirá o embate com questões cruciais à filosofia da ciência, tais como a impregnação teórica do teste empírico e a distinção teórico/observacional. Tanto no decorrer quanto ao cabo de nossas reflexões ficará claro o avanço promovido pela metateoria estruturalista no que diz respeito à riqueza de análises metacientíficas possibilitadas pelo seu aparato conceitual.The purpose of this dissertation is to present and reflect on how the structuralist metatheory performs metaphysical-philosophical analysis. This endeavor will maintain the main focus on the relationship between scientific theory and experiment. This will allow us to tackle issues crucial to the philosophy of science, such as the theoretical impregnation of the empirical test and the theoretical /observational distinction. Both in the course and in the end of our reflections will be clear the advance promoted by the structuralist metatheory with respect to the wealth of metascientific analyzes made possible by its conceptual apparatus.
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Prenzler, Timothy James. "Ideology and Narrative Realism: a Critique of Post-Althusserian Anti-Realism." Thesis, Griffith University, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/368111.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis defends the potential of the ‘realist’ form of narrative for contesting, as well as reproducing, ideology. The common form of ‘realism’ consists of a loose ensemble of conventions. The key components are omniscient, evaluative narration; an empiricist objectivism; the construction of individuals as agents of action and bearers of natural attributes; cause and effect sequencing; conflict leading to resolution; mystery leading to disclosure; and the effacement of these techniques in the interests of illusion. In one critique of realism – ‘post-Althusserian anti-realism’ - these practices constitute ideology both in a general sense - as manipulation - and a specific sense - as transmitters of capitalist presuppositions. A 'social realism' or ‘critical realism’, which attempts to invalidate ideology by the presentation of countervailing data, is said to be undercut by its encoding within this alleged inherently ideological form. This critique of realism is based on an unsustainable, ‘formalist’, reduction of ‘content’ to ‘form’. The role of observation in knowledge production and the significance of inductively generated propositions are replaced by a sophisticated, but ultimately reductive, ‘discursive determinism’. From its conventionalist epistemological premises, post-Althusserian anti-realism ignores the capacity of empiricism to break with preconceptions. By dismissing the convention of accountability to evidence, the critique is forced back onto criteria of internal consistency - a position even more vulnerable to prejudice than empiricism. The thesis then argues that the concomitant view of the subject of narrative realism as a construct of liberal-individualism ignores how realist texts have questioned ideas of autonomy and a fixed human nature. Anti-realist methods have usefully exposed some of the means by which constructions of freedom and self-determination mask the subordination of labour in ‘free’ -market economies. However, this frequently entails undervaluing gains made under a rubric of human rights. The replacement of human subjectivity with discursive or economic determinism tends to expel dialogue, volition and human needs as factors in the ideational and practical repudiation of ideology. A narrow approach to realism is therefore inadequate for determining the relation of realism to ideology. The alternative position defended here is that realism’s relation to capitalism - like that of liberalism and empiricism - is tangential, not homologous. The variability of ‘content’ in realism makes realist techniques - as abstract form - politically neutral (but claimed by anti-realists to be intrinsically authoritarian). Realist conventions which construct a point of view are open options for making judgements that will vary in empirical rigour and opposition to different ideologies. The thesis sets the authoritarian aspects of realism’s attempted manipulation of the reader against the potential in realism for a dialogic plurality of perspectives, the possible defensibility of a point of view, the need for coherence and judgement in political dialogue and action, and the frequency of ‘content’-based reader resistance. The realist form is not an absolute of representation, but nor is it a mere reflex of capitalism. By the same token, the anti-realist concept of the anti-ideological function of ‘anti-realist’ texts imposes a reverse, homogeneous, inherently oppositional role onto politically heterogenous cultural forms. The thesis argues, furthermore, that by rejecting empiricist modes of substantiation and adopting a mechanistic view of ideology, the post-Althusserian critique of realism fails to engage adequately with the theoretical defence of capitalism. The harmony thesis of free enterprise can only be given a pejorative label ‘ideology’ on the basis of comparative and historical considerations of the performance of capitalism. In practice, the natural tendency of the market to cyclical instability with attendant unemployment, impoverishment and the compounding of class-based inequalities has only been mitigated by extensive government intervention. The thesis concludes then with a case study of Dickens’s Hard Times as an example of the above, more effective, approach to capitalist legitimation. Hard Times employs empiricist, semi-‘fictional’, ‘realist’ techniques to demonstrate the ideological nature of theories of free enterprise. The critical edge of this novel is blunted by a liberal-romanticism that is ambivalent about legal-institutional solutions to social problems. Despite this fault, Hard Times shows some of the possibilities offered by the realist form for viable social critique.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Humanities
Division of Humanities
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Crawley, Katherine Rosemary. "Aim-oriented empiricism and the 'Father' of the scientific revolution : metaphysics and method in the work of Galileo." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.314304.
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This thesis is concerned with that branch of the history of science which takes as its central problem the question of scientific progress, defined as the growth of knowledge and understanding about the world. It is an area of enquiry which has been suppressed, in recent years, by the development of historical methodologies which eschew all epistemological deliberations and their established ramifications. This thesis, therefore, addresses itself to the following areas. In Chapter One consideration is given to the degree to which the present ascendancy of contextual, social history of science depends upon formulating methodological strategies that deny the very legitimacy of a progress history of scientific ideas. These strategies are shown to depend upon the old definition of internalist, intellectual history of science. which drew upon related areas in the philosophy of science. Some basic arguments in favour of the possibility of progressive histories of scientific ideas, which have been ignored by the discipline as a whole. are rehearsed. Chapter Two is devoted to an account of how a present-day philosophy of science, aim-oriented empiricism, offers a solution to the problem of induction which, by demonstrating that scientific rationality has a historical dimension, provides a suitable historiographic framework for a progress-oriented history of scientific ideas. Chapter Three examines the work of Galileo in the light of this new historiographic framework. Firstly, it is demonstrated to be an option for exegesis, an account of how ideally rational science ought to be which does not rationally , reconstruct the past. Secondly. it illuminates Galileo's work in significantly new ways, demonstrating that by making explicit the metaphysical dimension already implicit in Galileo's methodology. his work can be shown to have an underlying unity - and be part of a progressive tradition - in ways which other interpretations. distracted by the seeming disunity at the methodological level. fail to appreciate. Finally, Chapter Four considers the possibility of a beneficial, reciprocal relationship between developments in the philosophy of science and in progressive histories of scientific ideas.
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Brown, Matthew J. "Science and experience a Deweyan pragmatist philosophy of science /." Diss., [La Jolla] : University of California, San Diego, 2009. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3359062.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 14, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-232) and index.
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Ruyant, Quentin. "L'empirisme modal." Thesis, Rennes 1, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017REN1S117/document.
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L'objet de cette thèse est de proposer une position originale dans le débat sur le réalisme scientifique, l'empirisme modal, et d'en démontrer la fructuosité quand il s'agit de tirer des enseignements du contenu cognitif des théories scientifiques. L'empirisme modal est une position empiriste, suivant laquelle le but de la science n'est pas de produire des théories vraies, mais des théories empiriquement adéquate. Cependant, il propose d'adopter un cadre plus large que les versions traditionnelles d'empirisme pour penser l'expérience, en incorporant un engagement envers les modalités naturelles, ou l'idée qu'il y a du possible dans la nature, et des contraintes sur les possibles. Nos théories sont empiriquement adéquates si elles délimitent correctement l'étendue des expériences possibles. Cette position s'appuie sur une conception située et pragmatique des modalités naturelles et de la confrontation empirique. Nous prétendons qu'elle est à même de rendre justice au succès empirique des sciences, sans pour autant faire face au problème du changement théorique qui mine le réalisme scientifique. Nous expliquons comment les contraintes de nécessité sur les phénomènes peuvent être connues à l'issue d'une induction, et en quoi cette façon de voir s'accorde avec la pratique scientifique. Enfin, nous affirmons qu'un engagement envers les modalités naturelles offre une richesse interprétative à même de renouveler, dans un cadre pragmatiste, plus ouvert que le réalisme, certaines questions métaphysiques tout en les ramenant à l'expérienceThe aim of this thesis dissertation is to propose a novel position in the debate on scientific realism, modal empiricism, and to show its fruitfulness when it comes to interpreting the cognitive content of scientific theories. Modal empiricism is an empiricist position, according to which the aim of science is to produce empirically adequate theories rather than true theories. However, it suggests adopting a broader comprehension of experience than traditional versions of empiricism, through a commitment to natural modalities. Following modal empiricism, there are possibilities in nature, and constraints on what is possible, and a theory is empirically adequate if it correctly delimits the range of possible experiences. The position rests on a situated and pragmatic conception of natural modalities and of empirical confrontation. We claim that it can do justice to the empirical success of science, while not falling prey to the problem of theory change that undermines scientific realism. We explain how constraints of necessity on phenomena can be known by induction, and how this modal epistemology fits with scientific practice. Finally, we claim that a commitment to natural modalities allows for a rich interpretation of the cognitive content of theories. Modal empiricism could renew some metaphysical debates within a pragmatist framework, by tying them to experience and not being constrained by realist prejudices
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Ford, Of The. "Parallel worlds : attribute-defined regions in global human geography /." Thesis, Connect to resource online, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/2004.
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Thesis (M.S.)--Indiana University, 2009.Department of Geography, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Owen J. Dwyer, Jeffrey S. Wilson, Scott M. Pegg. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-168).