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1
Banks, Jonathan Edward. "Antirealist essentialism." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/7264/.
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This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for Socrates to be essentially human is for it to be necessary that he be a human if he exists, and for Socrates to accidentally have a beard is for it to be contingent that Socrates has a beard if he exists. According to neo-Aristotelian essentialism, objects have definitions in something like the way words do. For Socrates to be essentially human but accidentally bearded is for it to be part of the definition of Socrates that he is human, but not part of that definition that he is bearded. I argue that both are susceptible to antirealist interpretation. This thesis sets about showing that this is the case. In Chapters One and Two I investigate neo-conventionalist theories of modality, in the hope of using such a position to develop an antirealist modal essentialism. In Chapter Three I discuss the debate between modal and neo-Aristotelian essentialism and conclude that it is by no means settled. In Chapter Four I develop an antirealist neo-Aristotelian essentialism based on the mechanism of one of the neo-conventionalist accounts of modality. In Chapter Five I argue that this account is in a better position to give an essentialist theory of necessity than its realist counterparts. I conclude that, regardless of whether one is a modal or neo-Aristotelian essentialist, antirealist essentialism is a viable theory of essence that is worthy of consideration in contemporary debate.
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Djukic, George. "Essentialism : Paradise lost /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1997. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phd626.pdf.
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Shields, Mona Roxana. "Peter Lamarque's aesthetic essentialism." Thesis, University of Reading, 2017. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/75648/.
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This thesis argues that the aesthetic character of some conceptual works of art can be determined by the possession of essential aesthetic properties. By discussing Peter Lamarque’s account of individual aesthetic essentialism one can suggest that conceptual works can be aesthetically investigated. Chapter I introduces the concept of the aesthetic and discusses Frank Sibley’s account of aesthetic concepts. Chapter II analyses in detail Sibley’s two fold relational character of aesthetic properties. Chapter III introduces Lamarque’s concept of aesthetic properties and it also insists on a distinction between artistic and aesthetic properties. Chapter IV introduces a general account of essentialism and then discusses Lamarque’s new object theory. Chapter V investigates Lamarque’s weaker version of individual aesthetic essentialism and analyses the distinction between essential and inessential aesthetic properties. Finally, Chapter VI considers the aesthetics of conceptual art and argues that some conceptual pieces have essential aesthetic properties. The philosophical discussions are supported by appeal to many different works of art, from traditional works to contemporary works. I conclude that all conceptual works have aesthetic properties but mostly there are inessential properties. My suggestion at the end of this thesis is more radical. A close analysis identified essential aesthetic properties in some conceptual works of art and this contribute to the aesthetic character and value of these works.
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Fulfer, Katherine Nicole. "The Concept of "Woman": Feminism after the Essentialism Critique." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2008. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/36.
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Although feminists resist accounts that define women as having certain features that are essential to their being women, feminists are also guilty of giving essentialist definitions. Because women are extremely diverse in their experiences, the essentialist critics question whether a universal (non-essentialist) account of women can be given. I argue that it is possible to formulate a valuable category of woman, despite potential essentialist challenges. Even with diversity among women, women are oppressed as women by patriarchal structures such as rape, pornography, and sexual harassment that regulate women’s sexuality and construct women as beings whose main role is to service men’s sexual needs.
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Logue, Jessica Wollam. "Context and anti-essentialism a thoroughgoing approach /." Related electronic resource: Current Research at SU : database of SU dissertations, recent titles available full text, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTU0NWQmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=3739.
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Gordon, Alynn Elizabeth. "Egalitarian Essentialism: Practical, Theoretical, and Measurement Issues." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1466158819.
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Bacharach, Sondra Wynne. "Definitions of art : narratives, history and essentialism /." The Ohio State University, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1486402288259281.
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MOTLOCH, MARTIN ADAM. "ESSENTIALISM WITHOUT POSSIBLE WORLDS: OBJECTS, PROPERTIES AND ESSENCES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2014. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=24560@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO
O objetivo desse trabalho é desenvolver um essencialismo sem mundos possíveis. Alegamos que objetos ordinários são entidades complexas constituídas por entidades mais básicas como pedaços de matéria e propriedades instanciadas Os possíveis constituintes são determinados pela realidade, independentes da mente e linguagem humana, mas a constituição é convencional dependente do nosso esquema conceitual e as nossas práticas de nomeação. Consequentemente desenvolvemos uma teoria aristotélica de objetos ordinários como complexos de suas essências e da matéria que instancia essas essências. Em seguida aplicamos essa concepção de objetos para modificar a teoria da referência direta. Nessa teoria resultante, os significados de nomes próprios são as essências dos referentes desses nomes. O quadro da nossa investigação consiste numa teoria plantonista de propriedades segundo a qual as propriedades são partes integrais de uma realidade complexas sendo interconectadas com a parte concreta dessa realidade e na qual algumas propriedades podem participar em relações causais. De acordo com isso, apresentamos uma concepção atualista de modalidades na qual as modalidades ocorrem em virtude de relações de segunda ordem entre propriedades, no caso de modalidades de re em virtude de relações de segunda ordem entre essências de objetos e outras propriedades.
The aim of this study is to develop an essentialist theory without possible worlds. We claim that ordinary objects are complex entities composed of entities that are more basic like pieces of matter and instantiated properties. The possible constituents are determined by reality and mind- and language-independent, the constitution, however, is conventional dependent on our conceptual scheme and our naming practices. In consequence, we develop an Aristotelian theory of ordinary objects as complexes of their essences and the matter which instantiates these essences. We apply this conception of objects in order to modify the direct reference theory. In the resulting theory, the meanings of proper names are the essences of the bearers of the names. The theoretical frame of our investigation consists in a Platonist theory of properties according to which properties are integral parts of a complex reality connected with its concrete partand in which some properties can participate in causal relations. In accordance with this view, we present an actualist conception of modalities in which modalities obtain in virtue of second order relations between properties, in case of de re modalities in virtue of second order relations between objects essences and other properties.
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Toizer, Barbara. "Perceived Essentialism, Group Relative Deprivation, and Collective Action." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1486743133258512.
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Pickard, Matthew. "Diagnostic Overshadowing, Essentialism, and Intellectual Disability| Lay Persons' Perceptions." Thesis, University of Central Arkansas, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10615749.
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This study examined if diagnostic overshadowing occurred with lay people in regard to individuals with an intellectual disability, as well as investigating how lay people essentialize different categories. It was hypothesized that essentialistic thinking could be offered as a partial explanation for diagnostic overshadowing because certain mental health disorders would be categorized as having a strong, unchangeable biological component to them. Three hundred and thirty undergraduate general psychology students from the University of Central Arkansas completed the Essentialism Belief Scale on nine different concepts, read different case descriptions of an individual with or without an intellectual disorder, and gave their impressions of the individual as experiencing anxiety, depression, and if the person had an intellectual disability. Contrary to expectation, lay people did not demonstrate diagnostic overshadowing. Therefore, the relationship between essentialistic thinking and diagnostic overshadowing could not be confirmed and suggests that diagnostic overshadowing may occur for reasons other than essentialistic thinking. Interestingly, when essentialistic thinking was analyzed using a principal components analysis, a three-factor solution for essentialistic thinking was found, accounting for 72.22% of the variance, with the three factors appearing to demonstrate a biological, non-biological, and mental health grouping.
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Fulfer, Katherine N. "The concept of "woman" feminism after the essentialism critique /." unrestricted, 2008. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04202008-093433/.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008.Title from file title page. Christie J. Hartley, Andrew I. Cohen, committee co-chairs; Andrew Altman, committee member. Electronic text (70 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed August 1, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-70).
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Mackie, P. "How things might have been : A study in Essentialism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.234316.
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Ross, Allison. "Making sense of ʺessenceʺ : a critical examination of the adequacy of the modern philosophical conception of ʺessenceʺ." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002850.
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The idea that some sub-set of the properties of an object captures what it is to be that thing i.e. that it has an essence which is there to be discovered and about which we can be mistaken - is a commonsense assumption that we use all the time. However, philosophers of this century have regarded the realism about essence with skepticism, arguing that we impose essences on things by the way we define our concepts as opposed to discovering them. Essences are supposedly characteristics of our concepts rather than of objects in the world. This was the orthodox view until a group of philosophers of language developed the theory of direct reference. They claimed that proper names and certain other words refer non-connotatively which entails that the real properties of objects are crucial to the establishment of the reference of such terms. It can be shown that the properties involved in reference determination must be all and only the necessary properties of those objects. This discovery has been taken to mark the rehabilitation of the notion of essence, with an object’s essence being taken to be that set of properties which it must have in all possible worlds in which it exists. I will argue that the theory of direct reference is correct up to the point at which it assimilates the necessary properties of objects to their essences. I will show that the set of an object’s necessary properties cannot fulfill the role reserved for the concept of essence in metaphysical hypotheses concerning the nature of objects. I will go on to show that a sub-set of a thing’s necessary properties can fulfill this role and I will suggest that we identify the members of this sub-set by testing their ability to furnish the kinds of explanations we expect from essences. I will demonstrate how this can be done using the Aristotelian idea that the notion of essence is required in order to explain how it is that objects can persist through change.
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Porter, Keshia. "The Relationship Between Essentialism, Religious Beliefs, and Views of Change." TopSCHOLAR®, 2012. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1172.
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In this study, the relationship between essentialism, religious beliefs, and views of change was investigated. Participants were given surveys containing three sets of items and a demographic questionnaire. Item sets included the Intrinsic/Extrinsic-Revised Scale of Religiosity, the Essentialist Belief Scales, and the Change Vignettes. Results indicated those with gradualist religious views were not more likely to endorse essentialist views when compared to those with conversionist views. Those who essentialized at high levels were not less likely to endorse the possibility of change in comparison to those who essentialized at lower levels. Participants with high levels of extrinsic religiosity were not more likely to demonstrate essentialist beliefs as compared to those with low levels of extrinsic religiosity. In addition, individuals did not view change as more plausible as they were determined to be more intrinsically religious. No relationship was found between religious affiliation and views of change or measures of essentialist thought. Those belonging to Fundamentalists and Liberalist denominational groups were found to be similar in regard to beliefs about change, and essentialism, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Those classified as Others were significantly different from Fundamentalist and Liberalists, excluding ratings of the importance of good deeds.
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Heyes, Cressida J. "'Back to the rough ground!' : Wittgenstein, essentialism, and feminist methods." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ36981.pdf.
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Gould, Wren. "Implicit essentialism : genetic concepts are implicitly associated with fate concepts." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42870.
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Genetic essentialism is the tendency for people to think in more essentialist ways upon encountering genetic concepts. The current studies assessed whether genetic essentialist biases would also be evident at the automatic level. In two studies, using different versions of the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), we found that participants were faster to categorize when genes and fate were linked, compared to when these two concepts were kept separate and opposing. In addition to the wealth of past findings of genetic essentialism with explicit and deliberative measures, these biases appear to be also evident with implicit measures.
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Campbell, Niamh Frances. "Sacred weather : atmospheric essentialism in the fiction of John McGahern." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2018. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/sacred-weather(f7dff6df-0f26-4c11-9c13-4f4a4dd10d1c).html.
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Is there such a thing as essential Irishness, something which can be encountered, on the one hand, as affect, and standardised on the other by political economy? A considerable number of artists, writers, theorists, critics, and citizens think so – even if they do not always phrase it in this way – and ‘Sacred Weather’ takes this possibility seriously. It also presents this possibility literally, in the sense of proposing an objective correlation for national feeling in national Stimmung, configured here as what Gayatri Spivak has called a ‘strategic essentialism’ in the rhetorical economy of postcolonial nationalism. All ideological edifices, including nationalism, require a measure of affection to appeal to the would-be national subject: such a reliance on enjoyment leaves this edifice vulnerable to both the excessive play of enjoyment as a force which evades stable signification, and, paradoxically, to the ossification of affectionate identification as kitsch. Atmospheric essentialism is imagined literally as meteorology and metonymically as that which presents in cultural production as ‘ambient poetics’; Stimmung as affective and enjoyable encounter. Jouissance, or pure enjoyment, is the site of the decoupling of affect and ideology, and I am interested in exploiting this moment of decomposition, wherein the undertow of affection licensing an ideological position develops in excess of it. This theoretical position is outlined in Chapter One. With this project, I propose to make a persuasive intervention in Irish literary and cultural studies by analysing the work of the novelist John McGahern (1934-2006) as it reacts with this libidinal investment in aesthetic Irishness. Subsequent chapters stage experimentally ambient and psycho-analytic readings of McGahern’s work to this end.
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Spinelli, Nicola. "Husserlian essentialism revisited : a study of essence, necessity and predication." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/79543/.
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Husserlian Essentialism is the view, maintained byEdmundHusserl throughout his career, that necessary truths obtain because essentialist truths obtain. In this thesis I have two goals. First, to reconstruct and flesh out Husserlian Essentialism and its connections with surrounding areas of Husserl's philosophy in full detail – something which has not been done yet. Second, to assess the theoretical solidity of the view. As regards the second point, after having presented Husserlian Essentialism in the first two chapters, I raise a serious problem for it in Chapter 3. In the remainder of the thesis I endeavour to solve the problem. In order to do so, I propose to amend both Husserl's theory of essence and his theory of predication. The bulk of the emendation consists in working out an account of essence and an account of predication that do not presuppose, or in any way imply, the claims that: 1) for a universal to be in the essence of an object, either the object or one of its parts must instantiate the universal; 2) for a universal to be truly predicated of an object, either the object or one of its parts must instantiate the universal. These claims, notice, apart from being what gets Husserl in trouble, are well entrenched not only in Husserl's, but in most theories of essence and predication (at least in those that feature universals). It is thus interesting to see what an alternative option may be – even regardless of the Husserlian setting in which I work it out.
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Sattler, Wolfgang. "Essentialism in Aristotle, Kripke and Fine : differences in explanatory purposes." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15633.
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In this dissertation I compare the different forms of essentialism that we find in Aristotle, Saul Kripke and Kit Fine. I argue that there is a clear difference in explanatory purpose between Aristotle's essentialism on the one side and Kripke's and Fine's essentialism on the other, while the last two have closely connected explanatory purposes. Aristotle's essentialism is mainly concerned with questions of substance, in particular in what sense essences are substances. In contrast, Kripke's ‘modal essentialism' and Fine's ‘definitional essentialism', as I dub them, are both primarily concerned with questions of modality, in particular where metaphysical necessity has its place or source. Both associate metaphysical necessity closely with essence, though in different ways. While Fine claims (implicitly) that his essentialism is broadly Aristotelian in spirit, I argue that there are substantial differences between them, in particular with respect to their conceptions of real definition and related notions. And it is exactly the difference in explanatory purpose between fine's and Aristotle's essentialism that explains these substantial differences. I show how closely Fine's and Kripke's essentialism are connected, despite clear differences with respect to their conceptions of essential properties; and further where and why Aristotle's essentialism differs from Kripke's and Fine's essentialism with respect to the kinds of properties that count as essential (apart from differences in that respect between Kripke and Fine). I further argue for a systematic (though imperfect) correspondence between the kinds of properties of individuals considered to be essential in Kripke and Fine, and certain kinds of causal relations in the broad Aristotelian sense. I conclude that there is good reason to hold, that Aristotle's essentialism has basically a different subject matter than Kripke's and Fine's essentialism, contrary to a widespread assumption. And I identify several issues for future research to complete my comparison.
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Deng, Duen-Min. "A theory of essence : an Aristotelian notion reconstructed." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.607781.
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Tonkin, Cameron C. "'We must learn to': the institutional essence of learning as an anthropocentric praxis following Heidegger." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1899.
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This thesis begins from the belief that it is currently essential for us to relearn the essence of learning. To commence this task, this thesis works with the assumption that the essence of learning lies in the way learning can be ontological, changing the essence of what is, and instituting a new ‘what is’. This thesis is thus an attempt to take account of the radical constructivism that is the unavoidable anthropocentrism of such essential learning. The philosophical teachings of Martin Heidegger are brought to bear on this question concerning learning. This thesis suggests that on the one hand, the way in which Heidegger teaches, teaches us that learning is a process of instituting, a formative projection of necessities that metaleptically installs what is essential; on the other hand, what is thereby learned with and from Heidegger clarifies that this process of learning is a reflexively finitudinal praxis, a thingly effort that must be performed anew every time and can never be taken-as-finished. This means that the ‘freedom’ to change the essence of ‘what is’ by learning is never merely available to us because essential learning involves making-necessary in a sustained manner over-and-against what currently has been learnt-as-necessary, that is, ‘what presently is’. This thesis therefore learns that learning is an avowed act of willing, but one which cannot and must not be represented as a technical economy under the control of a humanist subject. The latter misrepresentations can in fact be understood as manifestations of the current withdrawal of essential learning. In the end, to try to capture what is being learned in this thesis, the process of essential learning is called ‘design’ as understood in relation to the current concern for sustainability
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Grouev, Ivaylo. "Beyond essentialism Bulgarian inclusive nationalism: The case of the Turkish minority." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/29218.
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In the following pages I try to present my interpretation of the enigma behind the successful co-existence between the two largest ethnic groups in Bulgaria---the Bulgarian majority and the Turkish minority---by offering a new theoretical rationalization of this atypical phenomenon in the context of the Balkans. My hypothesis is that the Bulgarian national project was defined as a manifestation of a political attachment. With this element as the common denominator/anchor, which resulted in the supremacy of common citizenship over ethnic and religious loyalties, I argue that the Bulgarian national vision clearly contradicted other South-eastern European nationalisms known to emphasize a populations cultural heritage and its ethnic continuity. I argue that in the case of Bulgaria we are dealing with a political, civic, inclusive nationalism. Using L. Greenfeld's situational constraint theory I assess those critical variables/factors of the Bulgarian nation-building process, which, I argue, enabled the emergence of a political and inclusive national project. This path contrasted other Balkan states, where this process emphasized ethnicity and religion, rather than citizenship, as major criteria for establishing a persons membership in the national "imagined community." Hence the Bulgarian liberation movement was atypical in terms of the pattern of regional nation building where the subordination of citizenship rights to the principle of statehood was generally the norm. Yet, while this may be attributed in part to the absence of certain conditions (religious or ethnic fervour, for example), Bulgaria's national project seems to have been the result of a conscious adoption of political universalism.
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Hudson, Michelle L. "Beyond Self: Strategic Essentialism in Ana Mendieta's "La Maja de Yerba"." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/art_design_theses/72.
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Artist Ana Mendieta frequently conjoined the female body with nature to express her search for personal identity and support for feminist topics. Her last intended and least scholarly examined work, La Maja de Yerba (Grass Goddess), continues specific visual and thematic elements of her previous Silueta Series (Silhouette) yet also presents an aesthetically unique creation. Despite its incompletion as a result of her premature death, the preserved maquette directly stipulates a female form to be planted in grass on the Bard College campus grounds. This alignment of women and nature garners criticism for its reliance on universalism and categorizations of women’s experiences; however, Mendieta’s use of essentialism in public art contributes to circulating feminist discourse to a wider audience. This paper considers the artistic influences, thematic concepts, and employment of strategic essentialism in Mendieta’s La Maja de Yerba.
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Farnetti, Tobia. "The blur of modernity : essentialism, affect and everyday life in Tokyo." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2018. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10054898/.
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This thesis explores the constitutive role that cultural essentialism plays in the everyday life of Japanese urban modernity. Starting from the ethnographic observation that essentialised ideas of “Japan” and “the Japanese” are not only fruit of an orientalising anthropological gaze but also a prime indigenous concern, I aim to place my analysis as a “third way” between those ethnographies that employ essentialism as method and those who handle it as an object of critique. The experiment is to re-frame essentialism as the ethnographic object under scrutiny - as a living and breathing presence in the lives of people in Tokyo The main argument guiding the thesis is that looking at essentialised social categories one does find its essentialised version – e.g. family structure understood as timeless and constitutively Japanese – but also, together with it, what is understood as its negative – e.g. a fluid changing family structure moving with history, migration to the urban centres, Westernisation and the life of the city. One does find strong binaries – e.g. old and new, Japanese and foreign, traditional and modern – and yet it is not through one of its extremes that essentialised social forms are lived and understood, but in between them. While this may appear paradoxical, in the thesis I show that it is through a dynamic of “blurring” of the terms of the opposition - in the ephemeral moments (sometimes transfixed in stone) when the two terms overlap and become undistinguishable - that the engagement with these forms is most strongly felt. This blurring carries a strong affective and aesthetic charge and can thus be in turn essentialised as something constitutively “Japanese”. Based on two years of fieldwork in eastern Tokyo the thesis aims to understand this indigenous logic in its own right, seeking to find it in different fragments of metropolitan life.
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Cortes, Brezo. "Looking for conditions leading to infra-humanization." Université catholique de Louvain, 2005. http://edoc.bib.ucl.ac.be:81/ETD-db/collection/available/BelnUcetd-07062005-141342/.
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Throughout the present dissertation, we have intended to present and understand better a particular form of prejudice, namely, infra-humanization. Indeed, before being able to act upon prejudice reduction, we need to understand it. Infra-humanization is the tendency to perceive members of outgroups as less human than members of the ingroup. Infra-humanization is a process that has been largely studied in the last few years, however, a number of questions remained unclear. Specifically, we concentrated our work on the search of potential variables and conditions that could influence the process.
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Dar, Nimrod Ilan. "Genetic attributions and gender differences the effect of scientific theories and evaluations of sexual behaviors." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2437.
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Much scientific and media attention has been devoted to the growing body of research into the genetic correlates of human phenomena. However, many of the resulting reports lead to a deterministic interpretation of the role of genes, and involve fundamental misunderstandings of genetics and heredity. Hence, questions arise regarding the ways in which people make sense of the behavioural genetics research they encounter in everyday life. Furthermore, essentialist accounts are often embedded within popular understanding of politically sensitive topics, such as eugenics, race, and sex, and therefore it is important to examine how people comprehend genetic influences on behaviour.
In this dissertation, I review current findings regarding the effects of genetic attributions on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours in the context of the social world. Particular attention is paid to such effects in the context of gender issues. Specifically, in three studies I examine the effects of exposure to scientific theories concerning human sexuality on attitudes towards and evaluations of men’s dubious sexual behaviors. The results indicate that among men exposure to evolutionary psychology arguments leads to more lenient evaluations and judgments of an array of dubious sexual behaviors, compared with exposure to social constructivist arguments. It also seems that men implicitly hold nativist perceptions with regards to male sexuality and promiscuity. The findings were less conclusive among women, with some indication that women are less affected by such exposure as well as less likely to naturally hold a nativist perspective in the context of human sexuality. This empirical research has direct implications for previously suggested intervention programs and adds to the incurrent resurgence of interest in the effects of genetic theories. Finally, I identify areas where further exploration is needed, suggest potential solutions for specific problems, and evaluate related individual and social implications.
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Lucas, Peter. "Aspect-fascination." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.268006.
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Blass, JoEllen. "Effects of an Essentialism Manipulation on the Neural Processing of Racial Minorities." W&M ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1516639580.
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Racial minorities are increasingly growing in the United States and the racial category “multiracial” is one of the fastest growing racial minorities. Racial essentialism is the belief that race has an underlying property and is innate and biological. Many people with essentialist beliefs do not normally categorize individuals with a multiracial background as multiracial. The current study assessed how an essentialism manipulation affects the neural processing of minority race targets by White participants. Participants completed a categorization task and passive task looking at ambiguous and monoracial faces while connect to EEG. For the passive task, results revealed gradient by race by condition interactions for the N170, P2, and N4 components as well as race by gradient interactions for the P1, N2, P3, N3, and LPP components. Additionally, the category chosen for the target affected neural processing in the N3 component for the categorization condition. These findings demonstrate the need for continued research of the perception of multiracial individuals and continued attempts to reduce attentional bias.
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Thommen, Tristan. "Slurs in speech and thought." Thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE), 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018PSLEE013/document.
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Cette thèse s'intéresse à la structure, aux fonctions, et aux bases cognitives des termes d'offense (tels que le terme "boche"). Les termes d'offense, ainsi que leurs équivalents psychologiques, posent des problèmes intéressants et possiblement fondationnels à propos de la nature de la signification, de l'expressivité dans les langues naturelles, du rôle des émotions dans la catégorisation. Ce travail discute de ces questions - ainsi que de nombreuses autres - en s'intéressant à différentes théories existantes ou originalesdu phénomène. De nouvelles données linguistiques sont mises en avant qui remettent en cause des théories linguistiques telles que les visions vériconditionnelles ou présuppositionnelles du phénomène, et de nouvelles théories non-linguistiques du phénomène sont développées, invoquant les concepts de qualité seconde ou la notion d'essence. Les propriétés linguistiques particulières des termes d'offense, telles que la projection ou l'expressivité, apparaissent dans ce travail être des conséquences linguistiques d'un phénomène essentiellement psychologique : la possibilité d'une composante émotionnelle ou évaluative dans la structure même des conceptsThe present work investigates the structure, function and cognitive underpinnings of slurring terms (such as "boche"). Slurring terms, and the mental correlates that I posit they have, raise interesting and possibly foundational issues about the nature of meaning, about expressivity in natural language, about the role of emotions in categorization. I discuss these questions - among many others - by studying different existing or original accounts of the phenomenon. I present novel linguistic evidence against linguistic views such as truth-conditional or presuppositional accounts, and develop new psychological (i.e. non-linguistic) theories of the phenomenon based on a connection with responsedependent concepts, or with essentialist concepts. The interesting linguistic properties of slurs, such as projection and expressivity, appear to be the linguistic consequences of the essentially mental fact that concepts may be loaded with emotional or evaluative content
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Ganesan, Asha. "Understanding Essentialist Beliefs through the Cultural Evolutionary Framework." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/20007.
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This research applied a cultural evolutionary framework in addressing two essentialist beliefs related to health and gender. The first part of the thesis focused on whether genetic essentialist cognition translates to biased transmission of genetic etiological information, using a generational learning experimental method. The second study extended this question to include individual factors (e.g., perceived vulnerability to diseases) that may influence the retention and transmission of genetic-based etiological information. Both studies showed that disorder framing affected which etiology is recollected and transmitted, with the recollections of genetic etiology demonstrating stronger sensitivity to the type of disorder, particularly those that were self-relevant. The second part of the thesis examined gender essentialist cognitions in the context of gender inequality and social influence. First, findings regarding gender essentialist cognition and social status in the long-term maintenance of gender inequality were reviewed. Then, in three studies of diverse samples, the effects of gender on whether individuals preferred to socially-learn from expert women versus men was tested. In Study 3 (when given a choice), a female expert was chosen more often but this did not translate to more social learning, unlike when the expert was a man when social learning was higher (particularly when the learners were men). In Study 4 (when assigned a model), expertise and gender cues played important roles in the social learning of women compared to men, especially when the role model was a man. In sum, the studies examined whether genetically-based essentialist beliefs are preferentially transmitted and whether social status of male and female experts influenced social learning. The findings provide novel insights into cultural transmission and social learning, which in turn has potential to impact the transmission of cultural mores of large-scale cooperative groups.
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Okazaki, Hiroki. "La critique du despotisme à l’époque de la Nahḍa arabe : de la spécificité à l'universalité." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCA083.
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L’objectif de cette thèse est d’examiner en détail le concept de despotisme présenté par « la deuxième génération de la Nahḍa » - des penseurs actifs de la fin des années 1870 au début du XXème siècle - ainsi que d’éclaircir l’importance historique de leur effort intellectuel. En outre, l’objectif secondaire est de démontrer que cette génération, tout en tenant compte de l’esprit de la liberté comme norme politique, a développé une connaissance plus universelle qu’auparavant vis-à-vis du mécanisme du despotisme et des moyens d’y résister. Les intellectuels arabes du XIXème siècle commencent à utiliser le mot al-istibdād dans le sens de « despotisme », en entendant que ce concept, différent de celui de « tyrannie » qui est traditionnellement l’objet de condamnations, est un système oppressif qui bloque le développement de la société et qui cause la ruine de la communauté. Notamment depuis la révolte de ‘Urābī, les penseurs utilisent le « despotisme » comme un mot-clé pour lutter contre les régimes autoritaires et élargissent leurs débats non seulement au domaine politique mais également au domaine social avec des combats tels que la libération des femmes ou encore l’éducation, sans oublier le domaine culturel avec l’écriture de romans et l’activité théâtrale. Dans ce contexte historique, le réformiste musulman Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) contribue au développement du concept de despotisme, notamment à travers l’idée du « despote juste », et à la connaissance du système oppressif. Tout en gardant une conception platonicienne qui attribue la prospérité de l’État à la qualité et aux vertus de son dirigeant, il approfondit tout de même l’analyse sur le système de propagation du pouvoir qui transmet l’oppression des élites alliées avec les puissances européennes aux classes populaires et pauvres, par l’intermédiaire des classes moyennes.Les contributions des autres intellectuels à la critique du despotisme se diversifient. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1838/9-97) et Khalīl Ghānim (1846-1903) insistent sur le rapport idéologique entre l’impérialisme et le despotisme oriental. Adīb Isḥāq (1856-1884), inspiré par les Lumières européennes telles que Montesquieu et Rousseau, explique que la liberté et le despotisme forment un couple de concepts interdépendants qui se réfléchissent comme en miroir, ce qui rend d’autant plus aisé la substitution du couple de concepts politiques traditionnels que sont la justice (‘adl) et l’injustice (ẓulm). Par ailleurs, alors que Shiblī Shumayyil (1850-1917), darwiniste arabe, critique le despotisme du point de vue de l’organicisme social, ‘Abdullāh Nadīm (1845-1895) met en question, à travers ses fictions, la domination des privilégiés économiquement, culturellement et linguistiquement, sur les populations défavorisées. Enfin, Qāsim Amīn (1863-1908) et ‘Abdul Raḥmān al-Kawākibī (1855-1902) essayent quant à eux de concilier la connaissance de leur propre tradition avec les sciences modernes : ils mettent en lumière le rôle du pouvoir despotique dans l’ordre hiérarchique entre hommes et femmes, et replacent le despotisme oriental dans le contexte de la monopolisation des capitaux par les puissances coloniales au sein du système économique mondial. En somme, les penseurs de cette génération multiplient les efforts pour approfondir leurs analyses du despotisme indigène, pour construire un esprit commun, pour reconnaître sans concessions les défauts de leur propres sociétés, pour rendre prioritaire l’éducation du peuple aux dépens des intérêts du dirigeant et des privilégiés, et pour émanciper à la fois l’État et la société. Ainsi, nous montrons que ces auteurs ne tombent pas dans le piège d’une théorie soulignant les spécificités des sociétés arabo-musulmanes et aboutissant à défendre l’inévitabilité du despotisme dans cette partie du monde, mais qu’ils poursuivent au contraire leur quête de la conciliation de leur propre tradition avec une inspiration universalisteThe objective of this dissertation is to examine in detail the concept of despotism as presented by the second generation of Nahḍa – Arabic thinkers active from the late 1870s to the early twentieth century - as well as to clarify the historical importance of their intellectual efforts. In addition, the secondary objective is to demonstrate that this generation, while taking into account the notion of freedom as a political norm, also developed a far more universal understanding of the mechanisms of despotism (and the means to resist them) than had hitherto existed.Arab intellectuals of the 19th century began to use the word al-istibdād as an equivalent to "despotism", understanding this concept, in contradistinction to traditional notions of “tyranny”, as an oppressive system that impedes the development of society, and which brings about the eventual ruin of the community. Particularly following the ‘Urabi Revolt (1879-1882), Arabic thinkers began to use the term "despotism" as a slogan in their fight against authoritarian regimes, and extended its use not only from the political field to the social field, notably with regard to the struggle for the liberation of women and the education of the people, but also to the cultural field, including through the writing of novels and plays. In this historical context, the Islamic reformist Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) made a particularly noteworthy contribution to the development of the concept of despotism, especially through his idea of the "just despot", and his analysis of the systems of oppression. While retaining the Platonic principle that the prosperity of the State depends upon the qualities and virtues of its leader, he simultaneously analyzed the ways in which the power system reproduced itself, transmitting oppression from elites allied with the European powers, via the middle classes, down to the lower classes and the poor. Many other intellectuals also contributed to the development of the concept of despotism. Jamal al-Dīn al-Afghani (1838/9-1897) and Khalīl Ghānim (1846-1903) emphasized the ideological relationship between imperialism and Oriental despotism. Adib Isḥāq (1856-1884), inspired by European Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau, explained that the despotic state does not repress the people in the name of “repression” but creates -by giving the illusion of freedom to the public- a triangular system of fear, jealousy, and mutual suspicion. Moreover, while Shibli Shumayyil (1850-1917), an Arab Darwinist, criticized despotism from the perspective of social evolution, Abdullaah Nadim (1845-1895) questioned, through his fiction, the economic, cultural, and linguistic hegemony of the privileged classes over the masses. Finally, Qāsim Amīn (1863-1908) and ‘Abdul al-Raḥmān Kawakibi (1855-1902) attempted to reconcile their own traditional knowledge with modern science. They highlighted the role of despotic power in hierarchical relationships between men and women, and reexamined Oriental despotism in the context of the monopolization of capital by the colonial powers within the global economic system. In sum, the thinkers of this generation made every possible effort to deepen their analysis of indigenous despotism, to recognize the faults of their own societies, to prioritize the education of the people over the interests of the leader and privileged, to emancipate both the state and society from the yoke of autocratic tradition, and to evolve a common sprit or vision. Thus, these authors did not fall into the trap of emphasizing the specificities of Arab-Muslim societies, and thus defending the inevitability of despotism, but rather persevered in their quest to reconcile their own traditions with universal visions
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Murray, T. M. "Thinking straight about being gay : natural law theory and the new homosexual essentialism." Thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.579521.
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This thesis traces the historical demoralization of homosexual activity as it developed in Christian naturalist ethics from the beginnings of Christianity until modem times. The focus of the thesis is not an exhaustive study of all variants of Christian prohibitionist attitudes towards homosexual activity. Rather I am looking at the role of natural law ethical reasoning and how this philosophical approach to ethics has evolved alongside our changing understanding of biological aspects of human sexual behaviour. In chapter one my aim is to historicise 'nature' to demonstrate that a variety of anthropological archetypes have held sway at various times in the history of Western thought, each with different answers to the question of how human nature relates to the rest of the natural world and the causal laws that govern it. I wish to suggest that there is a long standing controversy over whether a human ethical ideal can rest upon a biological understanding of our nature, or whether moral ideals must rest upon voluntary aspects of behaviour. Misrepresentations of the relationship between the natural and the normative have resulted in ethical confusion. The purpose of this thesis is to dismantle several misinterpretations of this relationship that have been deployed in Christian discourse, both past and present, to stigmatise or demoralise homosexual behaviour. In Chapter two I move out from a general historicization of human nature to a specific instance of how the relationship between the natural and the 'good' was misrepresented within Christian teaching. I argue that St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, Chapter 1, established a particularly pernicious precedent, as he was not merely arguing from ignorance of homosexual orientation, but establishing a form of naturalism that actively promoted it. In spite of this, Paul's reasoning did not prevent the Roman Catholic Church from adapting its doctrine in 1975 to new empirical research in sexology and psychology. While Persona Humana tentatively accepted the distinction between homosexuality as transitory behaviour and homosexuality as definitive of the person, it pathologized the homosexual's innate sexual orientation in the same stroke, calling it "incurable" and "intrinsically disordered". The church's reasoning was that non- procreative sexual activity represents a misuse of the sexual faculty and act. Following revisionist Catholic theologians Curran, Fuchs, McCormick, et. al., this thesis argues that Christian sexual ethics, especially in Catholic doctrine, have given disproportionate emphasis to involuntary biological functions in the moral assessment of sexual conduct. Chapter four presents a range of arguments to demonstrate that the 'new natural law' approach to Christian sexual ethics (advanced by Grisez, Finis and their followers) not only fails to overcome the problems that beset the traditional version of natural law, but adds several more of its own. Both represent attempts to ground positive law or normative ethics in a reified theological naturalism. As research methods improved, a new 'gay science' emerged in the nineteen nineties, strengthening the case for homosexual essentialism. Geneticists even suggested the possibility of a so-called 'gay gene'. This set the Christian prohibitionist's assertions that homosexual orientation is an 'objective disorder' in tension with traditional understandings of 'health' as acting in accordance with one's given nature (unless there are good other-regarding reasons not to). It seemed the new 'gay science' of the late twentieth century threatened to destabilize the Christian demoralization of homosexual activity. The 'preceptive' natural law ethic that had become established in Church doctrine exhorted Christians to 'read the language of the body in truth'. With the genetic code being metaphorically described as 'the book of life' and with scientists implying that homosexuality might be found hidden in one of its chapters, the preceptive model appeared to fail on its own terms. I contend that Christian ethicists needed, but failed, to explain why homosexuality is 'disordered' in terms extrinsic to the homosexual person (ie. in terms of the 'harmful' behaviour to which it leads). I stress that failure to do so makes the moral case against homosexual activity so weak as to be redundant in modem liberal democracies. The recent convergence of reproductive technology and genetic research makes the demand to decide the role that biology ought to play within a proper understanding of the human subject ever more urgent. Constructionists cannot deny that there has been ample discussion, even if misguided or fantastical, about whether gay identity can be 'mapped' onto a set of genetic or biological markers. In chapter five, this thesis presents an unprecedented survey of Christian bioethical responses to this possibility, showing how Christian ethical thinking evolved and transformed alongside the new 'gay science' by emphasizing how biotechnology might facilitate human interventions into creation in order to 'restore' it to 'its full glory'. I maintain that this tacit reversal of the 'preceptive' natural law approach has not been openly acknowledged, nor critically assessed. The authors I examine not only suggest, implicitly or explicitly, that homosexuality represents the kind of pathology that would be an acceptable target for reprogenetic modification, but they also play influential roles in shaping public policy on these issues, in both the United States and the UK. I emphasise how Christian conservatives have laid the discursive groundwork for a eugenic age. In chapters five and six I demonstrate how they anticipate a future in which they will have at their disposal a means of avoiding the dilemma between the desire to promote their own theological versions of public morality and the dominant liberal injunction to protect the sovereignty and liberty of the individual. The final chapter shifts to a discussion of 'liberal eugenics'. In the past, liberals worried about the intrusion of the state into the private lives of individuals. Today, I am suggesting that they may have to worry about the opposite: personal reproductive decisions made in the privacy of a consultant's office could have an irreversible impact on public life and future generations. 'Liberal eugenics' leaves eugenic decisions to the market, driven by the demands of consumers and regulated only by the discretion of parents. This thesis builds upon and expands existing arguments against liberal eugenics (eg. Habermas, Sandel, Fukuyama). It also goes beyond the existing critics by stressing how 'liberal eugenics' diverge from Mill's classic liberal values in several respects, and urges that a principled line can and should be drawn between beneficial therapeutic and illegitimate eugenic uses of biotechnology. I conclude that homosexuality falls on the illegitimate eugenic side of that line, as do any biological targets perceived to influence the behavioural patterns of the subject/patient. Like Pauline soteriology, a eugenics aimed at correcting or improving human behaviour from without threatens to demolish the modem concept of human beings as autonomous agents, possessing both biological urges and the ability to learn, choose and take responsibility for their actions. I stress that the attenuation of our collective belief in human beings' autonomy and responsibility poses a threat to the human rights that are their logical corollary.
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O'Reilly, Michelle. "'Disabling essentialism' : accountability in family therapy : issues of disability, complaints and child abuse." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2004. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/22288.
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The thesis reports a discursive investigation of family therapy talk Using discourse and conversation analysis, family therapy data was transcribed and analysed in order to examine participants' concerns in such a context. Video taped data was used in order that non-verbal communication could be captured. Fundamental issues of disability, accountability and therapy ran through the sessions and participants' constructions and versions of these are considered. Following full consideration of methodological and ethical issues two specific themes are examined: complaints and child abuse. In all four analytical chapters a reported concern for the parents was the presence of professional bodies, with many specific references to social services. In the analysis of the therapy data a number of empirical observations were made from the data (i) In the first section of the thesis I demonstrate how this professional attention is constructed and narrated by the clients examining the ways in which complaints are constructed by the parents. I examine the felicity conditions in place to construct it as a complaint. Secondly I address the ways in which these complaints are received by the therapist in a way that orients to their unhelpful nature within the remit of therapy. (ii) The second analytical aspect of the thesis deals with the reported reasons for the professionals' presence by examining issues of reported risk from, and reported instances of child abuse. It is shown that therapy is the normative business of providing an arena for clients to discuss their troubles, and produces difficulty when this is deviated from. The thesis shows how issues of accountability are managed in therapy and demonstrates how parents manage stake and accountability when child abuse is reported. The analyses from this thesis are of particular interest for both discursive research and disability research as it adds to the growing literature on discourse and therapy and considers the critical approaches that have been forming in disability research. The analysis presented in this thesis demonstrates the benefits of using qualitative techniques with delicate data and contributes to our understanding of arguments surrounding issues like child abuse.
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Johnston, Spencer C. "Essentialism, nominalism, and modality : the modal theories of Robert Kilwardby & John Buridan." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7820.
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In the last 30 years there has been growing interest in and a greater appreciation of the unique contributions that medieval authors have made to the history of logic. In this thesis, we compare and contrast the modal logics of Robert Kilwardby and John Buridan and explore how their two conceptions of modality relate to and differ from modern notions of modal logic. We develop formal reconstructions of both authors' logics, making use of a number of different formal techniques. In the case of Robert Kilwardby we show that using his distinction between per se and per accidens modalities, he is able to provide a consistent interpretation of the apodictic fragment of Aristotle's modal syllogism and that, by generalising this distinction to hypothetical construction, he can develop an account of connexive logic. In the case of John Buridan we show that his modal logic is a natural extension of the usual Kripke-style possible worlds semantics, and that this modal logic can be shown to be sound and complete relative to a proof-theoretic formalisation of Buridan's treatment of the expository syllogism.
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Earles, Jennifer. "TERF Wars: Narrative Productions of Gender and Essentialism in Radical-Feminist (Cyber)spaces." Scholar Commons, 2017. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6696.
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This dissertation concerns how activists preserve particular feminisms in everyday life, particularly in this postmodern moment as advances in technology create virtual spaces, as feminism experiences generational shifts, and as notions about gender and bodies influence the discursive and political construction of contemporary activism and communities. The particular feminists at the center of this study are self-described radical feminists. While original theories allowed members to question the essentialism of bodies (i.e., sex class), this study focuses on the movement trajectory in which members critique how people assigned male at birth learn masculinity as inextricably tied to the oppression of women (i.e., sex caste). Using data from a historical newsletter and two current micro-blogs, I provide a textual analysis to understand how public narratives of gender and essentialism circulate in and are challenged by feminist (cyber)spaces. The results of this project suggest four important findings. First, in print and online, people use imagined and essential understandings of bodies where actual bodies are not present in order to exclude. Second, when text reflects the personal, lived experiences of community members, logic and emotion are better connected in the everyday. On the other hand, when lived actuality is abstracted, storytellers rely almost exclusively on logic to make claims. Third, while lesbian newsletter-writers of the past constructed a sexual identity, they did not take on the radical-feminist mandate to talk about sexual desire. Online, only the radical identity of the movement’s predecessor’s has persisted, while any discussions of sexual identity or pleasure are missing. Lastly, while radical and trans-identified feminists often find themselves at odds, this study suggests that perhaps their consciousness-raising practices are more similar than can be seen from the everyday. Both groups use poetry and creative writing as a way to make sense of their coming-out and being-out experiences amid cis- and hetero-normativity.
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Raley, Kristin Nicole Blashfield Roger K. "Essentialist beliefs about homosexuality structure and implications for prejudice ; a replication of Haslam and Levy, 2006 /." Auburn, Ala., 2008. http://repo.lib.auburn.edu/EtdRoot/2008/SUMMER/Psychology/Thesis/Raley_Kristin_2.pdf.
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Straker, Alison. "Pushing at the limits : reconstructing cross-cultural exchange in education." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/1589.
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Cross-cultural exchange between individuals, both through face-to-face encounter and, more recently, electronic media, has been widely promoted as a means of educating against prejudice. Through the integration of structured field study, practical experience, educational and social theory, and contemporary philosophy, this thesis challenges the very foundations upon which such initiatives are built, and develops an alternative basis from which to approach cross-cultural exchange. An exploration of social categorisation posits the foundations of prejudice in essentialist conceptualisations, whether under the umbrella of universalism or relativism. The historical propensity for antiracist and multicultural education to reify group difference and reinforce such essentialist conceptualisations of identity thus presents an interesting conundrum. The fact that similar tendencies are noted in contemporary practice, educational resources, and official guidance, gives this more than an academic interest. Despite the apparent advantages of abandoning essentialist categorisations, studies of communication and identity formation reveal contradictory evidence - the need to locate others socially and to predict their behaviour accordingly, both in face-to-face and electronic communication. Thus, the challenge for educators is to develop innovative pedagogical approaches that translate contemporary, non-essentialist, understandings of group categorisation into workable practices to overcome inequality. While, within such a programme, cross-cultural exchange might be seen to have a valuable role to play alongside structural reform, it is clear that alone it cannot provide a panacea for prejudice. In the light of the above, the thesis addresses guidance for good practice in crosscultural exchange, and the related complexity of programme evaluation, alongside the training of future facilitators of such projects. A particular emphasis is placed upon the use of participatory arts and the unique tools this medium can bring to inclusive, cross-cultural collaboration. The thesis demonstrates, that cross-cultural exchange has the potential to provide valuable and significant learning experiences, some of which have previously been given little recognition.
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Pedersen, Soeren Hviid. "Natural law and good polity." Thesis, University of Essex, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285853.
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Bosäter, Kindwall Emelie, and Rebecca Vikström. "Etnicitet i samhällskunskapsläromedel : En läromedelsanalys av hur etnicitet framställs i samhällskunskapsläromedel för gymnasiet." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik, didaktik och utbildningsstudier, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-217954.
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I denna uppsats har vi undersökt hur etnicitet framställs och beskrivs isamhällskunskapsläromedel för gymnasiet. Vi har också haft för avsikt att undersöka ometnicitetsbegreppet problematiseras i relation till dess komplexitet. Vi har genomfört enkvalitativ textanalys av tre nyutgivna läromedels beskrivning och diskussion kring etnicitet irelation till två framstående perspektiv inom etnicitetsforskningen, essentialism ochkonstruktivism. Etnicitet kan genom dessa perspektiv antingen ses som biologiskt och statiskt(essentialism) eller som socialt konstruerat och föränderligt (konstruktivism). Detessentialistiska perspektivet anses i dagens forskning vara föråldrat medan detkonstruktivistiska anses vara mer nyanserat och därmed att föredra. Vår teoretiskautgångspunkt om individens meningsskapande genom distansering till andra har genomsyratuppsatsen. Genom att systematiskt ställa frågor till texten och utgå från de centralaståndpunkterna inom respektive perspektiv har vi genomfört vår analys och som sedanmynnat ut i vårt resultat. Studiens resultat visade att i de samhällskunskapsläromedel viundersökt framträder företrädesvis ett konstruktivistiskt perspektiv i förklarandet av etnicitet.Vi har dock även funnit vissa tendenser på essentialistiska inslag i läromedlen. Viktigt attpoängtera är att framställningen i läromedlen inte alltid gått att placera inom ramen för någotav dessa två perspektiv. Vidare förklarar vi i uppsatsen vikten av att läromedel är nyanseradeläromedel eftersom innehållet i läromedlen styr vad eleverna lär sig och bär med sig.
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Shanahan, Colin P. "Essentialist and Existentialist: Two Visions of Authenticity." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton15331374568137.
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Chan, Ka-wo, and 陳嘉和. "What if natural kind terms are rigid?" Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2009. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B41633878.
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Frasser, Lozano Cristian Camilo. "Essays on liquidity-based asset classification and illegal means of payment : an economic and philosophical approach." Thesis, Paris 1, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020PA01E014.
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La thèse vise à répondre à deux questions principales concernant certaines caractéristiques de la classification des actifs fondée sur la liquidité. Une première question porte sur la validité d'une telle classification : la classification des actifs fondée sur la liquidité identifie-t-elle un type naturel ? Je soutiens que le type «actifs liquides» est uni par la propriété fonctionnelle de la liquidité qui peut être réalisée de deux manières véritablement différente : les opérations monétaires et les opérations de crédit. Je soutiens également que le type « actifs liquides » gagne son accréditation de type naturel en jouant un rôle épistémique dans les modèles économiques. Je souligne enfin que la dépendance à l’esprit ne menace pas le réalisme sur le type «actifs liquides». La deuxième question concerne l'extension des catégories résultant de la classification des actifs fondée sur la liquidité : existe-t-il une frontière nette entre les catégories d'actifs classées en fonction de leur liquidité ? J'utilise le cas de «monnaie» pour discuter s'il est possible de trouver une distinction sans ambiguïtés entre les catégories de «monnaie» et de «non-monnaie». Je soutiens qu'un tel point de vue ne peut réussir que si, à la suite de l'essentialisme traditionnel, il existe un ensemble de propriétés intrinsèques qui sont nécessaires et suffisantes pour appartenir au type naturel désigné par le terme «monnaie». Cependant, d'après la connaissance actuelle en économie monétaire, il n'y a ni ensemble de propriétés intrinsèques ni caractéristiques nécessaires et suffisantes que l'on pourrait utiliser pour séparer sans ambiguïtés «monnaie» de «non-monnaie»The thesis aims to address two main questions regarding certain features of liquidity-based asset classification. A first question is about the validity of such a classification: Does liquidity-based asset classification pick out a natural kind? I use the case of the category ‘liquid assets’ to show that liquidity is a functional property that can be realized in two genuinely different ways: monetary trades and credit trades. Accordingly, ‘liquid assets’ can be regarded as a functional kind with multiple realizations. I also argue that the kind ‘liquid assets’ earns its credential of natural kind by playing an epistemic role in explanatory economic models. I finally point out that mind-dependence does not threaten realism about the kind ‘liquid assets’. The second question is about the extension of the categories resulting from liquidity-based asset classification: Is there a sharp boundary between categories of assets that are classified based on their liquidity? I use the case of ‘money’ to discuss if it is possible to find an unambiguous distinction between the categories ‘money’ and ‘non-money.’ I argue that such a view can be successful only, if following traditional essentialism, there is a set of intrinsic properties that are necessary and sufficient for membership in the natural kind designated by the term ‘money.’ However, based on what is currently known by monetary economists, there is neither set of intrinsic properties nor necessary and sufficient characteristics that one could use to separate ‘money’ unambiguously from ‘non-money.’
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Karlsson, Micael. "Ekofeministiska perspektiv på kvinnor och miljö. : Elin Wägners Väckarklocka och Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Herland analyserade ur ett ekofeministiskt perspektiv." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-152796.
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In this thesis the Swedish author Elin Wägner’s debate book Alarm clock and the American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland are analysed and compared from an ecofeminist perspective. Since the use of an ecofeminist perspective can be perceived as anachronistic as the term ecofeminism was drafted far later than the literary works in question I have chosen to distinguish between empirical and analytical concepts to approach their texts. In order to interpret their texts in their intellectual and historical contexts, concepts such as ecofeminism, matriarchy, utopia, vision and science have been of significance. This as the authors’ theoretical approaches in matriarchal theories, utopic perception, vision and science shaped their literary point of departure. The sociologist Lester Frank Ward’s theories on social planning had a huge impact on Gilman’s ideas as had the influence of the Darwinian movement focusing on evolution and eugenic, theories that at the time around the turn of the 19th century influenced social science, history and psychology. Elin Wägner found her inspiration in works by Johan Jakob Bachofen, Rosa Mayreder and Mathilde Vaerting, anchored in the Central European literacy discourse of her time; ideas significant for her civilization-critical thinking focusing on the relationship between women’s subordination and the environment, where the ruling of the earth is understood by the same logic that drives men’s dominion over women. Wägner and Gilman follows a line in the eco-feminist theorem, based on the statement that women are more responsive than men to nature and environmental issues, a biological determinism, conceptual essentialism and universalism, based on women’s different experiences in a gender society.
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Lorentsson, Lars. "he Dual Theory och teorin om psykologisk essentialism : en empirisk utvärdering av två teorier om kunskapsrepresentation." Thesis, University of Skövde, Department of Computer Science, 2000. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-468.
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Utgångspunkten för rapporten är två snarlika teorier om hur begrepp är strukturerade; The Dual Theory och teorin om psykologisk essentialism. Teorierna säger att en egenskap som är definierande (eller åtminstone väldigt central) för ett begrepp har högre kausal status, alternativt, är perceptuellt identifierbar i en mindre grad, än en egenskap som endast är karakäristiskt för begreppet. En allmänt vedertagen uppfattning är att det är lättare att lära sig kunskaper och färdigheter som stämmer överens med de tidigare erfarenheter man har, än sånt som strider mot de erfarenheter man har sedan tidigare.I enlighet med detta antas i denna rapport att om teorierna stämmer så bör det vara lättare att lära sig skilja positiva instanser från negativa instanser av ett nytt (artificiellt) begrepp när begreppets struktur är förenligt (kongruent) med The Dual Theory och teorin om psykologisk essentialism, jämfört med när begreppets struktur är oförenligt (inkongruent) med teorierna. Två experiment med syfte att testa denna hypotes utfördes. Det första experimentet gav inga signifikanta resultat, vilket förklaras med inverkan av en störande variabel. Det andra experimentet, som tog hänsyn till den störande variabeln, gav signifikanta resultat. Detta tolkades som att teorierna kunde ges empiriskt stöd.
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Pettersson, Martin. "Grundfilosofiska ideér och pedagogisk verklighet : En jämförelse mellan behöriga och obehöriga lärare." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Pedagogiskt arbete, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-3074.
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I min uppsatts så undersöker jag om det finns någon uppenbar pedagogisk skillnad mellan behöriga och obehöriga lärare. I undersökningen så deltog två outbildade och två utbildade lärare. Jag gör undersökningen genom grundfilosofiskt perspektiv. Jag börjar med att ge lite statistik på hur fördelningen har varit mellan behöriga och obehöriga lärare från 1990-talets början till en början in på 2000-talet. Redovisar sedan fyra grundfilosofier essentialism, perennialism, progressivism och rekonstruktionism. Efter detta redovisar jag mina intervjuer och filminspelningar samt tolkar och redovisar dessa. Jag kommer framtill att jag inte kan se någon uppenbar skillnad i min intolkning av de olika lärarna vare sig de är utbildade eller inte.
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Wetherbee, James M. "An analysis of Plantinga's ontological argument." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1987. http://www.tren.com.
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Cameron, Jonathan. "Some philosophical refections on the "essentialist" v/s "constructivist" debate as it stands to the philosophical analysis of mystical experience." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2010. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=165861.
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‘Essentialism’ and ‘constructivism’ are two epistemological perspectives that have been used in the philosophical analysis of mystical experience. ‘Essentialism’ attempts to establish mystical experience as a distinct category of experience, cutting across cultural boundaries. ‘Constructivism’ attempts to establish mystical experience as unique to its various cultural contexts. The two viewpoints are variously held in opposition. ‘Constructivism’ often appears as something of an assumed perspective and is rarely, if ever, defended (in any depth) by the individuals whose views it apparently represents. Recent ‘essentialist’ thinkers (‘non-constructivists’) have taken issue with this tendency to assume ‘what is to be proved’, and have reasoned in attempts to establish ‘constructivisim’ as inappropriate to certain experiences that appear to be found recurring in reports of mystical experiences across cultures. However, those analyses have been concerned to recommend their own (‘essentialist’ / ‘non-constructivist’) position and have, therefore, operated with a certain amount of bias, despite elements of commendable intent. Indeed it is in virtue of these commendable elements i.e. by exploring the epistemological assumptions of authors who attempt to make mystical experience culture specific, that ‘essentialists’ posit and provide justification for the classification of ‘constructivism’ as a distinct philosophical approach to the data of enquiry. ‘Constructivists’ (so-called), on the other hand, tend to emphasise the importance and role of context in their discussions, and in some cases reject the classification of their views as particularly ‘constructivist’. The thesis examines the reasonable defensibility of ‘nonconstructed’ mystical experience from three perspectives: ‘essentialist’, ‘constructivist’ and ‘contextualist’ – outlining considerations for anyone approaching the material via each, and addressing the relevant issues of diversity at tension between these recognisable philosophical viewpoints.
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Thörnlund, Persson Maria. "Identitet i religionskunskapsämnet : Olika tolkningar och dess implikationer i förhållande till styrdokumenten." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Religionsvetenskap, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-22543.
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Syftet med litteraturstudien är att göra en begreppsanalys av begreppet identitet samt att diskutera detta i relation till styrdokumenten för religionskunskapsämnet i åk 7-9 och gymnasiet. Detta har gjorts utifrån fyra frågeställningar. Vilka olika innebörder, synonymer och asymmetriska motbegrepp kan identifieras i primärkällorna? Vilka andra begrepp finns i samma semantiska fält som begreppet identitet i primärkällorna? Hur har författarna i samtida forskning använt begreppet identitet i sin forskning? Vad implicerar de olika tolkningarna och användningarna av begreppet identitet i förhållande till aktuella styrdokument? Metoden för undersökningen har varit begreppsanalys där både samtida forskning och deras primärkällor har analyserats. Detta mot en teoretisk utgångspunkt som utgjorts av socialkonstruktionism och essentialism. Undersökningen visar att en essentialistisk tolkning av identitet är problematisk som utgångspunkt för lärare i religionskunskapsämnet.
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Cooke, Nicole Lynn. "Feminist Dystopias and Ecofeminist Representation: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power." University of Toledo Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=uthonors154481823575487.
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Moussa, Imèn. "Paroles et écritures des femmes au vingt-et-unième siècle dans les trois pays du Maghreb l'Algérie, le Maroc et la Tunisie." Thesis, CY Cergy Paris Université, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020CYUN1080.
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Sous le titre « Dire les femmes, paroles et écritures de femmes au XXIème siècle dans les pays du Maghreb : Algérie, Maroc et Tunisie » notre réflexion montre comment les mots des femmes sur les femmes dépassent l’ordre normatif, phallocratique et sexiste pour annoncer de nouveaux rapports entre le féminin et le masculin. À travers l’étude du discours et de l’image des personnages féminins, nous montrons dans ce travail comment les normes incorporées par les sociétés maghrébines contemporaines, installent encore les femmes sous contrainte et donnent naissance à des individus en semi-liberté et particulièrement « inquiets »« Tell women, words and writings of women in the 21st century in the Maghreb countries: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia ». Our reflection shows how women’s words about women go beyond the normative, phallocratic and sexist order to announce new relationships between the feminine and the masculine. Through the study of the discourse and the image of female characters, we show in this work how the standards incorporated by contemporary Maghreb societies, still install women under duress and give birth to individuals in semi-freedom and particularly “worried”