Current students - abstracts
Matthew Abbott
Thesis title: "Word, World and Earth: Agamben, Heidegger and the Politics of Poetic Experience"
Giorgio Agamben describes the contemporary political situation in terms of a "devastating experimentum linguae that all over the planet unhinges and empties traditions and beliefs, ideologies and religions, identities and communities". The argument here is that the rapaciousness of globalised capitalism is such that entire socio-political worlds are undermined and uprooted. The real novelty of this claim lies, however, in the supplementary point that this experience is first and foremost a certain sort of experience with language. Here we are faced with something that is perhaps unprecedented: the claim that globalisation could in essence be a poetic phenomenon. My dissertation focuses on both the grounds for and consequences of this strange yet undeniably striking assertion. Its genealogy can be found in Heidegger, who worked for years to investigate the possibility of undergoing an experience with language that would defy the common sense notion of it as a simple tool for the communication of information. His claim is that language has two different and perhaps incommensurable faces; that words can disappear in communication or refuse such transparency to show themselves more essentially as the material things they are. Here we find Heidegger running up against a crucial phenomenological limit (and thus reason to be wary of any too-neat pragmatist or reductive linguistic idealist reading of him), a point at which the world of Dasein – the structured totality of meaning in which it dwells – is disrupted by an experience of exposure to facticity.
Agamben has developed this metaphysic of the word to the point where it is implicitly foundational for his provocative political philosophy. Agamben's question – and mine – is how the poetic experience of non-predicative, non-representational language could bring us face to face with the possibility of a global community that is itself not founded on any particular predicative content: a community for which the exclusion of any individual or set of individuals would quite literally be a logical impossibility.
Sam Baron
Presentism: from now until the end of time
Presentism is the view that only the present exists. In part one I consider three questions close to the heart of many presentists: why be a presentist? What is the best kind of presentism? And is presentism really empirically inadequate? In reply I argue that presentism is best motivated by an appeal to a priori intuition, that the best kind of presentism is what I call extended presentism: the view that the present has some short, real-time duration and, finally, that presentism is not empirically inadequate (at least as far as the Special Theory of Relativity is concerned). In part two I mount an argument against presentism. I argue that presentists cannot draw a distinction between past/future entities and fictional entities and that, as a result, presentism collapses into what I call fictional
presentism: the view that the past and future are fictional, which I take it is anathema to presentism traditionally conceived. In part three I consider a view that has been recently defended by Julian Barbour in “The End of Time” according to which time and motion do not exist. I offer two disambiguations of presentism and argue that perhaps something along Barbour’s lines is what presentists have meant all along.
Jeremy Bell
Thesis: Untitled
My thesis takes as its point of departure an unconventional reading of Spinoza’s Ethics by Richard Kennington, which has so far received little attention from Spinoza scholars. A pupil of Leo Strauss, Kennington reads Spinoza as an atheistic naturalist who purposefully disguised his true beliefs for prudential and pedagogic reasons. Since open atheism was socially unacceptable in 17th century Europe, he couched his teachings in theological language, both to avoid persecution and to get a favourable hearing for his views. Thus, the Ethics begins by treating of God, a being absolutely infinite, who necessarily exists and upon whom all other things depend. However, Kennington argues, Spinoza intended that discerning readers would come to realise that the surface doctrine of the Ethics cannot be taken at face value. Such readers would, he hoped, already be familiar with his two published works (Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy and the Theologico-Political Treatise), whose statements on philosophic method contrast strikingly with the actual procedure of the Ethics. These readers would also perceive that the Ethics contains numerous internal inconsistencies and incoherencies, logical fallacies, surprising omissions, structural flaws and inappropriate illustrations. Ideally, these readers would eventually recognise a pattern in the anomalies of Spinoza’s presentation. This pattern provides the key to determining what in the Ethics is meant seriously and what is not.
In my thesis I will defend Kennington’s reading and fill certain gaps in it. I will also build upon it by analysing its implications for Spinoza’s theory of knowledge. I will argue that the notorious ‘panpsychism’ of the Ethics is not intended seriously and that Spinoza is in truth a materialist, recognising no ultimate reality other than matter and its laws. While on the surface he accepts a modified version of the Cartesian dichotomy between intellect and imagination, in fact he rejects this dichotomy and, in line with his materialism, holds a radically empiricist view of knowledge. As is widely recognised, much of Spinoza’s thought represents a response to the philosophy of Descartes, for whom God is the guarantor of all knowledge. He openly attacks Descartes numerous times in the Ethics. However, explicit engagement on all crucial points would involve declaring his atheism. Consequently, he chooses instead to use Descartes’ terminology when presenting his theory of knowledge, while indicating his true, anti-Cartesian views in the manner outlined above.
Simone Bignall
Thesis title: “Postcolonial Agency: A Theory of Practice”
The process of Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remains an unfinished business. Our transition to postcolonial society requires an appropriate philosophy of transformative action, which will neither reinforce nor reinstate the types of power relations that have become institutionalised as a legacy of our colonial history. Indeed, Reconciliation should introduce a discontinuity or a difference into this history, allowing Australians to ‘exit’ from habitually colonial assumptions and practices of relation, along with a corresponding opportunity to reconstruct modes of social existence upon an alternative and ethical, postcolonial political basis.
Modern critical and transformative social theory has been dominated by a tradition of dialectical thought. History represents the gradual unfolding of a rational organization of society; social agency consists in the collective effort to describe and realise this rational end. On this view, progressive transformative action moves society towards an ideal state of perfect and rational consensus, reflected in social organization. The ideal functions as a transcendent, final cause of social action, which draws history inexorably towards completion, and society towards agreement and unity. In this schema, difference has a critical function, since it signifies where and how the social ideal of unity is failing. It describes a certain lack of coherence, which makes it the critical force of transformation; difference compels the process of history by negating the perfection of the present. However, social unity is realised when the contesting or negating difference is able to be assimilated within a greater unity; the dialectic of history progresses by eliminating and assimilating difference.
I draw from an alternative philosophical tradition including Spinoza, Nietzsche and Deleuze, to present an alternative philosophy of transformative action. On this view, progressive history does not realise a given ideal order, which operates as a transcendent final cause. Rather, social organization is the result of a spontaneous, creative and open-ended process of actualisation, in which social forms emerge and transform as an effect of the shifting relations of power that bodies enter into. Social agency consists in the effort to understand and organise one’s relations in ways that actualise preferred forms of collective society. This alternative philosophy supports a critical and constructive agency, which has a creative, positive and ethical relation to difference. These qualities suggest how this philosophy of transformation can usefully inform practical critiques of colonialism and the reconstruction of postcolonial societies. In particular, the notion of agency carried within this tradition of philosophy describes a form of reflexive subjectivity that can be receptive to the kinds of possibilities and ethical responsibilities faced by agents in sustaining multicultural, postcolonial societies.
Matthew Boss
Thesis title: “Time and Interpretation”
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) does not regard the philosophical theme of time as one problem among others but the central problem of philosophy pure and simple. His interpretations of the history of Western philosophy are intended to provide confirmation of the general thesis of his Sein und Zeit (1927) that time is ‘the possible horizon for any understanding of being in general’, which places the concept of time at the centre of ontology. In this history Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) stands out as exceptional, Heidegger argues, for having explicitly seen the relationship between being and time which traditional philosophy had implicitly presupposed.
Byron Clugston
"Hegel’s Treatment of Religious Imagery in Relation to Kant’s Moral
Theology"
This project investigates various of aspects of G.W.F. Hegel’s idealism. Broadly, Hegel is read as a post-Kantian philosopher with unique and valuable answers to Kantian problems. The topical focus for elucidating this relationship is the notion of epistemological morphology; Kant understood knowledge to be composed of two distinct forms of representation (concepts and intuitions) and Hegel offers a
reworking of this morphological distinction. This allows for the transformation of a whole host of Kantian problems. In one case, for Hegel, there is a transformation of the Kantian question of how “unconditional” conceptually articulated moral laws, such as the categorical imperative, can play a role in the practical reason of a
“conditioned” finite subject. For Kant, this is what allows for a type of theology linked to practical philosophy as, effectively, a resource for moral psychology. However, the question of how to link the “unconditional” to the “conditioned” is obscure. For Hegel, the rejection of transcendental idealism in favour of Absolute idealism allows for the relationship between so-called “unconditioned” and
“conditional” phenomena to undergo modification. One virtue of this is that Hegel’s non-realist idea of “God” can take on an alternate form of intelligibility assimilable to the role of ideals in the regulation of linguistic practice.
Mairead Costigan
Thesis Title: “The Interrelated Functions of Justice and Justification in Platonic Dialectic: A Noetic Overview”
I will seek to present a noetic overview of the various accounts of justice in the ‘Republic’. There have been many attempts in the literature to highlight interrelations between these accounts, both through interpreting them in terms of a developing sequence, and by seeing how the early accounts constrain, and are constrained by, later ones. These two interpretations are importantly linked, and I will give a brief outline of each before turning to consider a couple of major problems that they pose for Plato’s treatment of justice. These problems concern whether the early accounts of justice (reflecting the conventional Greek conceptions) are relevant to, and/or are entailed by, the latest account (reflecting the Platonic conception). I will argue that the early accounts are both relevant to, and entailed by, the latest account, and that, in accordance with Plato’s methodology, a just rendering of all the accounts necessitates interpreting them in terms of each other, ‘rubbing them against one another’ like fire-sticks, in the hope causing the spark of justice to flash forth’ (Rep 434e). This method of comparison is necessary for ascending towards a noetic overview of one’s subject, and can be employed in demonstrating how conventional accounts of justice are relevant to, and entailed by, Plato’s account. In developing this thesis, a close interrelation will emerge between the function of justice and the function of justification in Platonic dialectic. In order to give a just(ified) rendering of this dialectic, it will be argued that active comparison is required not only between the various accounts of justice, but between these accounts and the various accounts of justification in the dialogue.
Rob Dennis
Thesis title: The Changing Concept of Reason
The transition from medieval worldviews toward outlooks increasingly characterized by secular and scientific values marks the most significant transformation of western culture since the emergence of Christendom out of Greco-Roman civilization. Many contemporary accounts of this shift uncritically adopt a particular Enlightenment-based narrative according to which this transition was the inevitable outcome of an increase in reasoning and rationality. Implicit in these accounts is the notion that reason ideally operates independently of one's historical and social situation, and is neutral with respect to any ordering of values which might be shaped by that situation. The task of this thesis is a threefold one: first, to call into question this particular conception of reason-especially its portrayal of neutrality, independence of tradition, impartiality and objectivity–by examining it in light of its emergence in early modern thought, particularly within the contexts of religious issues and debates; second, to inquire whether a more plausible account of reason and its history can be defended which acknowledges reason's dependence on community and tradition, without entailing a relativistic notion of truth; third, to point out some of the implications which this inquiry might have for contemporary philosophical frameworks, particularly those based on naturalism and an autonomous conception of the individual.
According to the view of reason defended in this thesis, all philosophical frameworks are the products of some philosophical tradition. And tradition, as Alisdair Macintyre has described it, is a 'historically extended, socially embodied argument.' An adequate defence of a philosophical framework cannot be completely separated from the chain of socially and historically contingent debates in which that framework originated. Consequently, the authority and superiority of the dominant contemporary frameworks are more dependent on a defence of the outcome of early modern debates over what constitutes reasonableness and rationality than is often recognized.
Peter Evans
Thesis title: “An Examination of Retrocausality in Quantum Mechanics”.
Backwards in time causal processes have been hypothesised as a possible solution to some the interpretational problems of quantum mechanics. Most prominently, the hypothesis of retrocausal processes sheds welcome light on Bell's analysis of the nonlocal behaviour displayed by entangled quantum systems, as well as providing some insight to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. While some progress has been made in various attempts to embrace this hypothesis as a serious physical possibility, it remains an outstanding analytical problem whether it is possible for retrocausality to be a consistent physical and metaphysical phenomenon. This project is an analysis of this possibility.
The project proceeds as a case study examination of retrocausal models of quantum mechanics. The examination is not only an analysis of the ontology of these physical theories, but also of the associated metaphysics of retrocausality itself and of the epistemological constraints of quantum mechanics.
Alison Fernandes
Thesis title: 'Analytic approaches to existence: what sense can be made of the claim that the world exists independently of our practices in coming to know it?'
I will be considering challenges to the common sense realist position, and attempt to develop an account of what we mean by existence that is sensitive to the way in which our practices and interests shape the theories we develop about the world. I will argue that in order to understand the nature of these debates, one must clarify fundamental terms such as ‘world’ and ‘exist’ and that without investigating these concepts, the nature of the debate will be misunderstood. Through developing a coherent analysis of existence, I will consider what sense can be made of the realist claim that the world exists independently of our practices in coming to know it.
Julie Germein
Thesis title: “Psychoanalysis as an Interpretive Science”
My thesis is that psychoanalysis is an interpretive, human science. This science cannot be causal, because the mental is anomalous (Davidson) and inner states need outer criteria (Wittgenstein). From both of these, which support each other, it follows that inner states are not substantive objects; therefore a causal framework is inappropriate. The relationship between mental states and their outer criteria is normative, and therefore psychoanalysis is a normative theory, belonging within the domain of second nature (McDowell). Mental states are derived from the external world of practice, and must therefore be explained in terms of the rules and norms of external practice, both material and linguistic. Therefore, psychoanalysis requires a philosophical framework which is normative, external and based on social practice.
Mental states can be analysed into dispositions and the experiential episodes that express them according to rules. Dispositions are only implicitly mental; they can be expressed both in behavioural episodes, verbal and non-verbal, and in symptoms. Symptoms express rule-governed hypotheses. Irrational episodes are behavioural expressions of inferences from rule-governed hypotheses. They occur according to the rules of grammar operating in perception; in particular, according to the rules governing prototypes, basic-level categories, gestalt perceptions, metonymy and metaphor. The behaviours are irrational because the subjects’ hypotheses are false within the contexts in which they are made. Hypothesis is an essential element in any scientific method. Therefore, there is no good reason to suppose that psychoanalysis is not a science.
The practice of psychoanalysis is the safe testing of hypotheses. Its aim is the increase in objective, rational self-awareness based on increased self-acceptance. Self-awareness is a moral end in itself. (What the patient does with this increased self-awareness, whether they are happier with it or not, is not the concern of psychoanalytic practice.) The method of testing is by interpretation of behaviour, mainly but not only verbal behaviour, within the therapeutic relationship. Therefore, psychoanalysis is an interpretive science.
Heather Gilbert
Title: 'Numerical Identity'
An evaluation of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, including an examination of the extent to which the principle is (i) true; (ii) trivial; (iii) necessary or contingent.
John Hadley
Thesis title: “Nonhuman animal property rights: reconciling ecological holism and species-blind liberalism”
I outline and defend a theory of property entitlements for free-roaming nonhuman animals. The framework is offered as a pragmatic solution to the debate between communitarians and liberals in environmental ethics. Roughly, the former prioritize ecological “wholes” like ecosystems, whereas the latter consider psychological individuals as ethically prior. Both camps, however, oppose human intervention in natural areas that is destructive of habitat. Thus, a property entitlement, demarcated along territorial behaviour patterns, and administered on the animals’ behalf by a guardian, ought to be acceptable to those who value either wholes or parts. Such a right is a force for promoting ecosystem stability and a constraint against harming animal interests.
Benjamin Herscovitch
In my thesis I argue that the coordination problem of normative political philosophy is best solved by means of an account of political justice that takes institutions to be politically just insofar as they embody the substance of the overlapping consensus of normative commitments of the relevant subjects. The claim that something approximating equilibrium between competing interests and conceptions of the good can be reached by means of this meta-normative account of political justice will be made on the basis of an appropriation and extension of the general meta-normative thesis that undergirds John Rawls’ political justification of the liberal principles of justice. In making use of Rawls’ argument for political liberalism in this way I will advance an unorthodox (and some would say manifestly incorrect) conventionalist reading of Rawls, which has him concerned exclusively with existing practices. Despite the fact that this Rawls-inspired meta-normative account of political justice takes institutions to be politically just relative to the substance of the overlapping consensus of normative commitments of the relevant subjects (i.e. it entails a qualified form of moral relativism), I argue that it is able to provide everything that we want from a theory of justice. Drawing on the Pufendorfian and Althusiusian federalist tradition, I will argue that (con-)federalist architecture (i.e. a federal system with a weak federal government) best maps political justice and, as such, provides us with the best possible solution to the coordination problem of normative political philosophy.
Jane Johnson
Thesis title: "An Ideal Justification of Punishment"
Legal punishment is frequently regarded as a cornerstone of the legal system yet (surely to its detriment) it is a practice which lacks a firm philosophical foundation. In spite of exercising many extremely capable legal and philosophical minds (particularly during the twentieth century) no generally agreed upon justification of punishment has been found. The nub of the problem has however been acknowledged as the inability of either of the major candidate theories (utilitarianism or retributivism) to provide an account able to address all the relevant parties. Whilst utilitarianism is often regarded as competent to the task of justifying punishment to society in term s of the attainment of some greater good, it seems entirely inadequate when it comes to formulating a justification to the criminal to explain why he has been singled out for punishment. And in the case of retributivism the situation is reversed. To the criminal it can be put that through punishment he is treated in accordance with what has done, but in the matter of justifying punishment to society, the key principle of desert is unable to be properly grounded. Thus the central motivation of this thesis is to attempt to redress this shortcoming in the philosophical literature and to formulate a viable justification of legal punishment.
Ultimately it will be argued that the accounts of both Kant and Hegel offer a way of resolving the dilemma of punishment, and in particular it is their idealist orientation over and above their more widely acknowledged characterization as retributivists which allows them to fulfil this role. In Kant’s case his contribution is derived from a reworked and more sophisticated version of his retributivism than is generally found in the literature. Following Susan Meld Shell’s lead Kant’s construction of justice is explored and found to both enhance and support the traditional justification of punishment he can offer to the criminal, and to furnish an otherwise elusive justification of punishment to society more broadly. A reading of Hegel on punishment is also developed by taking seriously his theory of recognition and aspects of his logic, particularly regarding negation and contradiction. His account then addresses quite neatly and straightforwardly the three audiences for whom a justification of punishment is sought – the criminal, the victim and society itself.
Not only does the thesis address the problem of punishment but it has further implications for Kant and Hegel scholarship as well as philosophy more broadly. One of the key points to come out of this thesis is that Kant and Hegel (if given adequate intellectual consideration) seem potentially able to offer up significant contributions to contemporary problems and issues beyond just the one argued for here regarding punishment. Their work is not merely of historical interest but has real and wide ranging possibilities which provide a rich resource for future research.
Mark Kelly
Thesis title: “Power/Resistance: Michel Foucault's Political Ontology”
My thesis is an attempt to thoroughly, philosophically understand Michel Foucault’s concepts of power and resistance, which are taken up by any number of authors, but have never been exposed to rigorous analysis. I attempt to understand the epistemological and ontological bases of Foucault’s development of these concepts, to analyse the concepts themselves as they develop through his corpus, in the light of his biography, and to cash out the consequences of his view for political practice, particularly left-wing activism.
My argument is that Foucault’s ontology is objectivist. His understanding of power is social scientific and systems theoretic, and his understanding of resistance is hence also from the perspective of the social system: resistance is the ‘intransigence’ of people’s unpredictability and thus behaviour in ways which inevitably escape the control of the strategies of the ensemble of power relations. However, since resistance is nothing more than unpredictability, resistance per se constitutes an insufficient basis for the attainment of political goals. While revolutions are possible at the level of power, there is no possibility of abolishing power since it is a necessary feature of social systems, thus these revolutions must occur by radically changing the ensemble of power relations, rather than destroying them. This is not to reduce all change to reform, however, but rather to recognise the need for radical change, but radical change that must occur a the level of power itself. Hence, revolution becomes a matter of intervening at the level of power by forming a counter-power, not by demanding unmitigated liberation.
In addition to my thesis, I have been working on building a Foucauldian account of imperialism, based on Foucault’s accounts of biopower and racism.
Annette Larrea
Thesis title: ’Ready to respond’: Philosophy and the concept of responsibility after Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida
Jurgen Lawrenz
Thesis title: “Leibniz versus the Cartesians”
The philosophy of Leibniz is anti-Cartesian in its fundamentals. But the deficient publications record has seen scholars struggling for centuries to derive a true and consistent picture of its metaphysical underpinnings. Recently many papers have come to light which enable us to fill in many of the blanks and urge on us a reconsideration of all its tenets. In particular, these writings put an altogether unsuspected slant on Leibniz’s ontology. They suggest a reorientation of his philosophy in two directions simultaneously: backward, for the wholly new slant thrown on the nature of his relations to Cartesianism; and forward, insofar as his ideas reveal an unexpected propinquity with many trends in present-day fundamental research. Accordingly this thesis is devoted to a re-interpretation of Leibniz’s philosophy in light of these recent discoveries, with particular emphasis on its relevance in those areas where he elaborated alternatives to the predominantly materialistic theories which are a principal characteristic of the legacy of Cartesianism then and now.
James William Ley
Thesis title: “On the Relation of Narrative and Scientific Cognition in Aristotle”
A number of contemporary scholars agree that Aristotle outlines a cognitive role for mimetic poetry in the Poetics. That is, he claims that humans by nature learn something by way of mimesis and the evolved forms of mimetic poetry. What it is that Aristotle thinks they learn about, and exactly how they learn, are though uncertain matters. My thesis argues that Aristotle’s outline of poetic, essentially narrative, cognition can be better understood if it is compared with the passages in other works in which he carefully spells out natural scientific cognition and human learning in general. While readings of the Poetics do not usually involve matters of theoretical reason I argue that the language of that work invites this comparison and that there is something useful in considering what is obvious about the Poetics – that it is a book about narrative poetry written by a philosopher and scientist.
Some ideas from my thesis are outlined in my paper 'On the likely form of "autobiographical memory" for Aristotle' in Scan V.2 No.2 September 2005.
Raamy Majeed
Thesis title: 'Qualia: The Intrinsic Nature of Experience
Current philosophy of mind is riddled with obstacles to a scientific study of phenomenal consciousness or qualia. These obstacles take shape in the form an explanatory gap between experiential truths; truths we know experientially and nonexperiential truths; truths we know via other means, such as via scientific observation. This gap is problematic not only because it means that we can’t fully account for our experiences in scientific terms, it is also indicative of an ontological gap between the nature of our experiences and the physical nature of our world.
A possible way to remove such obstacles and bridge the gap would be to show or point towards an adequate scientific account of conscious. This task however in the context of our philosophical setting is problematic because current scientific accounts of consciousness, even with their ever-increasing amounts of detail, fail to get rid off the obstacles posed by philosophers of mind.
Accordingly, I will take a different approach to determine whether we can give a scientific account of phenomenal consciousness. I will start by giving as much credence to these obstacles as possible. Therefore, to do this, I won’t be focusing on the details of various scientific theories nor the details science-friendly philosophical theories such as functionalism and connectionism. Instead, I will focus on the background theories that give rise to the scientifically problematic conceptions of qualia. Once we have a better understanding of these conceptions, I will readdress the obstacles and aim to determine whether there are good philosophical replies to them. I hope to show that the current obstacles are themselves problematic and therefore shouldn’t give us reason to doubt that we can, someday, scientifically study the phenomenal nature of our experiences.
Qualia: The Intrinsic Nature of Experience
Current philosophy of mind is riddled with obstacles to a scientific study of phenomenal consciousness or qualia. These obstacles take shape in the form an explanatory gap between experiential truths; truths we know experientially and nonexperiential truths; truths we know via other means, such as via scientific observation. This gap is problematic not only because it means that we can’t fully account for our experiences in scientific terms, it is also indicative of an ontological gap between the nature of our experiences and the physical nature of our world.
A possible way to remove such obstacles and bridge the gap would be to show or point towards an adequate scientific account of conscious. This task however in the context of our philosophical setting is problematic because current scientific accounts of consciousness, even with their ever-increasing amounts of detail, fail to get rid off the obstacles posed by philosophers of mind
Accordingly, I will take a different approach to determine whether we can give a scientific account of phenomenal consciousness. I will start by giving as much credence to these obstacles as possible. Therefore, to do this, I won’t be focusing on the details of various scientific theories nor the details science-friendly philosophical theories such as functionalism and connectionism. Instead, I will focus on the background theories that give rise to the scientifically problematic conceptions of qualia. Once we have a better understanding of these conceptions, I will readdress the obstacles and aim to determine whether there are good philosophical replies to them. I hope to show that the current obstacles are themselves problematic and therefore shouldn’t give us reason to doubt that we can, someday, scientifically study the phenomenal nature of our experiences.
Fabien Medvecky
Thesis title: "Long Term Decisions, the Environment, and Ethics"
As a tool in assisting the decision making process, especially complex economic and social decisions, mathematical theories of decision (or simply “decision theory”) have become increasingly important. Formal decision models focus on the outcomes of actions as a basis for assessing which action an agent ought to perform. An essential part of the process is that the decision maker must assign a preference ordering over the possible outcomes. While there are well known issues stemming from the fact that not everybody shares the same preference ordering, environmental decisions, especially those extended in time such as sustainability and conservation, have specific problems of their own. Of particular interest to me is the fact that preferences change over time. Given that many evironmental decisions are substantially extended in time, how do we accomodate for the possible change of preferences in our decision making process? This also raises ethical issues such as whether we have any moral obligation to consider possible future preferences. This in turn raises practical issue such as how to best incorporate future preferences in our decision making.
Matthew Minehan
Thesis title: “Properties and Morality: An Examination of the Role of Universals in Moral Ontology, and the Development of a Trope Ethic.”
The broad aim of my thesis is to help ensure that developments in metaphysics flow through to those other areas of philosophy that depend on metaphysics. In particular, I wish to look at moral properties and rights, from the perspective of the debate between universals and tropes. My thesis has two specific tasks: 1) To argue that many ethical theories presuppose, or seem committed to presupposing, the existence of universals, and; 2) To see what the consequences would be for ethics if trope theory were true. Central to my study is the relationship between value properties and non-value properties, which I assume to involve the former supervening on the latter. My conclusion will be that while many different ethical theories appear consistent with universals, certain deontological ethical theories are more compatible with trope theory than are consequentialist ones.
Andrew Minney
Thesis title: “Loving the Other: Radical Feminist Theory and Heterosexual Practice”
Radical feminist theory is premised on the idea of a universalised hegemony which oppresses the autonomy of all women and subsumes their will to the will of men. It is in this structuralistic and deterministic context that cultural practices such as prostitution, pornography, aesthetics, heterosexual sexual intercourse, romantic love, marriage, the family, and theistic conceptions of ‘God’ are considered morally problematic for each conforms to, reinforces and perpetuates the patriarchal construct. My thesis critiques contemporary radical feminism from a philosophical perspective and in particular discusses the theoretical complexities of universalising the essentialist paradigms and simplistic dichotomies which are its feature. The central radical feminist argument appears to stall at this point against obvious liberal-relativist criticisms, principally under the weight of purging the forced/free, child/adult, first-world/third-world, and consensual sex/rape distinctions. Notwithstanding my critical analysis of radical feminist theory, I hope to argue that radical feminisms general conception of patriarchy is a salient one for it provides a meaningful basis with which to sensibly comprehend misogynistic practices and other forms of tyranny.
In contrast to a rigorously analytical comprehension of radical feminist theory I will introduce a number of discussions from feminist philosophy on love, virtue, sentimentality, desire, passion, emotion and attachment and will discuss the antithetical relationship of these to suffering, death, dogma, reductionism, longing and existential loneliness. I will also introduce an application of decision theory to the ethics of care into the project. Naturally I will draw from radical feminist theorists such as McKinnon, Dworkin and Jeffreys; but also philosophers such as Kant (categorical imperative, deontological moral theory, objectification), Schopenhauer (suffering, love as the agency via which the noumenal enters the phenomenal world), Foucault (sexual fluidity, power and perversion) and Mill (Utilitarianism, On the Subjugation of Women).
Gerry Nolan
Thesis title: “An Analysis of the World as a Process Ontology”
Heraclitus postulated a constantly changing world, one that is always in flux, while A N Whitehead postulated an ontology of a process of becoming and Graham Nerlich argues convincingly that ‘space is a real concrete thing’. Now, it is generally accepted that at the Planck scale space is a quantum foam, a field of random events. Does the world have an event ontology organised according to an ontological principle into the dynamic pattern of space? If it did have such an ontology, what would be the implications for the laws of nature, time, causation, identity and freewill?
In four steps my thesis analyses and develops a process philosophy of the ontology of the world; first, to analyse it in the light of modern physics; second, to develop grounds for postulating an ontology of the world that is an event ontology organised according to an ontological principle into the dynamic pattern of space;third, to assess the philosophical implications of a world with such an ontology for the laws of nature, time, causation, freewill and identity and, finally, to evaluate the success of such an ontology in the unification of ideas about the world and defend the ontology with regard to its internal coherence.
Stuart Palmer
Thesis title: “ Teleosemantics and the Stigma of Accidental Minds”
Teleosemantics seeks to illuminate the representational content of thought and language; to illuminate what in the world our thought and language is about. Teleosemantics claims that this content is fixed by the natural selection of thinkers and language users, including by the feedback they receive through the operation of (selected) learning processes.
There is a variety of formulations of teleosemantics (e.g. Millikan, Dretske, Papineau, Neander), which are plagued by both their own specific as well as shared technical objections. Whilst I give these objections some attention, my main interest is in the basis of more general motivations for, and more general challenges to, teleosemantics.
I take the main motivation to be the promise of an account of narrow semantic normativity; an account of what makes a representation of the world in thought or language a true or a false representation. Teleosemantics claims to solve this normativity problem by identifying misrepresentation with malfunctions of cognitive mechanisms which have the selected biological function of representation. I argue that teleosemantics is no better placed to explain semantic normativity than other accounts of content which share a commitment to some sort of realism about representation; a commitment that minds are capable of representing the world in a way which is not completely perspectival or interest relative. (Perhaps teleosemantics need not make this commitment, but in practice at least the two go together.) I argue that teleosemantics’ emphasis on biological function is driven more by its aversion to accidental mental content (see Davidson’s ‘Swampman’) than any unique norm-generating capacity of natural selection.
Which brings me to what I take to be the principal basis of resistance to teleosemantics: a willingness to embrace, sometimes tentatively, the content of an accidental mind like Swampman’s, even though it has no selectional history.
So, amongst representational realists at least, I argue that the main debate over teleosemantics should turn on whether one thinks that certain aspects of the history of use of thought and language are constitutive of its content. I have some things to say about considerations favouring either side of that question (and incidentally about why a mild representational realism might be appealing in the first place).
Margot Priday
'Ethics and Human Genome Interventions'
I propose to consider how the work of two modern philosophers – Robert Nozick and John Rawls – can be brought to bear on ethical worries centred on genetic technology. I consider Nozick’s notion of “self-ownership” in this context, and will find it inadequate to the issues. This is because his foundational notion of "self-ownership" is deeply problematized by that very technology. I will argue further that Rawl’s conception of justice is also problematised by genetic technologies. This is because Rawls account focuses on "external threats" to freedom, not the kind of "internal interventions" genetic technologies offer. I propose to show that the issues in either case are sufficiently different to rule out simply transferring Rawls’ arguments concerning justice and liberty to issues of genetic manipulation.
Danielle Scarratt
Thesis title: “The Protestant Appropriation of Natural Law in England: 1593-1705”
Originally christianised in the work of Thomas Aquinas, natural law became a central part of orthodox Roman Catholic theology. When this theological system was rejected by the protestant reformers, it was inevitable that natural law itself would be brought under scrutiny, and its traditional structure and roles challenged.
This research seeks to examine the directions in which protestant thinkers took natural law in post-reformation England. Against the background of an analysis of natural law in Aquinas and the reformer John Calvin, the thesis looks in detail at natural law in the works of Richard Hooker, William Ames, Thomas Hobbes, and Samuel Clarke. Special attention is paid to the following issues:
- pre- and post-lapsarian conceptions of human nature, including proper human ends, and how this informs the structure of natural law theory, and the epistemic availability of natural law;
- theistic voluntarism, especially in relation to moral law, obligation, and reward;
- the theological role of natural law, particularly in relation to protestant soteriology and its implications for the ongoing role of natural law against the charge of antinomianism;
- the role of natural law in state and church government.
As well as identifying a variety of different natural law theories developed by English protestant philosophers and theologians, the findings challenge a number misconceptions surrounding protestant natural law:
- that protestant philosophers and theologians rejected natural law theory;
- that natural law has no positive role in protestant theology;
- that protestant moral theory is voluntaristic;
- that protestant natural law can be identified with what Richard Tuck has labeled 'modern natural law'.
Dejan Simkovic
'Setting the boundaries to the world of facts: Do problems of contemporary moral epistemology have solutions?'
The aim of the research is evaluation of the position reached in contemporary ethical theory after more than a century of debates in regards of the possibility and the nature of moral knowledge. I will focus on the investigation of the interdependence of cluster of problems: epistemic, semantic, metaphysical, and psychological. The main aim is to analyze the effect that different proposals for settlement of the core issues in metaethics have on the question of what moral knowledge is, what are its objects, or what does it mean to be in an epistemically justified position when making moral claims. The question that will be raised is also whether moral knowledge and moral judgments rest on the same conditions of objectivity as non-moral theories and claims do (scientific theory being the usual candidate for comparison). Even though the thesis focuses on moral theory from 1903 to the present, it will also include relevant works in history of philosophy, like those of Hume and Kant.
Nathan Sinclair
Thesis title: “Constructive Philosophy: What Philosophy Contributes to the Grand Simulation of Everything”
This work provides an explication of Quine's argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction and a purely natural complete account of rationality. In particular it provides a natural account of the exercise of pure reason and its role in the pursuit of knowledge. As well as intrinsic interest in understanding what it is that philosophers do, this exonerates naturalism from Putnam's (and others) charge that it is self-defeating.
Leba Sleiman
Thesis title: “The Nature of Time”
Plato writes about Time: “Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time.” –Timaeus 37c
I take this to mean that everything in the universe is, on one level or other, a moving image of eternity; a multiplicity set in motion which images the nature of eternity; a dialectical net of pairs of opposites which emerge dynamically from the One and comprise the nature of the universe. For Time moves “according to number”, while “eternity itself rests in unity.”
Time is, in fact, a multiplicity of movements nestled within one another, comprising a complex, whole, dynamic Cosmos: the “moving image of eternity.”
On a metaphysical level, there is the movement of the Forms being instantiated in many particulars, which in turn try to emulate the original Form which they represent.
On an ethical level, there is the dialogue between vision and recollection which is the foundation of knowledge and simultaneously moves towards knowledge, which is virtue itself.
On a physical level, there is the movement and revolution of the stars and heavenly bodies which gives rise to the hours of the day and the seasons.
One could possibly situate a philosophy of physics in this context by considering that the movement of light, itself having a dual nature (particle/wave), gives rise to the existence of living creatures – self-moving organism
Phillip Taig
Can the conflicting drives and desires of life ever be accommodated, to every relevant person's satisfaction, by a political sphere intent on guaranteeing equal freedom to all? Or will the rigours of life forever condemn us to Thucydides' assessment that, 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must'? Can we avoid the vulgar relativism of a contemporary biopolitics that resists the violence of subsumption under universal descriptions, arguing for the unlimited development of all particulars, regardless of values, yet demands the enforcement of universal rights for the sake of justice? Using Arendt's reflections on the political and philosophical tradition of the West, and the momentous political phenomena of totalitarianism and revolution in modernity, as a foil, I shall rethink these political categories in relation to the global political climate that has developed since September 11th. I shall look at Arendt's work in relation to Benjamin and Agamben, and examine how history can be written and read as a tool of philosophical and political critique. Through clarification of Arendt's conceptual understanding of the work of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Heidegger, I hope to reconcile Plato's removal of thinking from the murky pool of human affairs with Arendt's advocacy of thinking in the political sphere. Apart from my basic aim of becoming a sound philosopher who can make incisive and helpful commentary on political matters, I hope to examine the influence upon Arendt of the phenomenological projects of Heidegger and Jaspers, suggesting that another influence must be cited for a fuller account of what Arendt attempted to achieve (namely, Husserl's attempt to unify all western sciences on a common rational ground).
Nandi Theunissen
The two papers that comprise this dissertation are connected by an interest in what is at stake in cases where a subject or domain is falsified – by which I mean mischaracterised – by a person. It would not meet my concerns to characterise this as an issue about what is going on when we form false beliefs about a given thing; the concern is rather with judgement as a whole. The thesis is motivated by a conception of human beings as prone to distortion in the way of their representation of a given domain, and I am primarily interested in how we might think of the philosopher in particular as so prone. The first of the papers, “The Function of Truth: On Friction and the First Person”, takes the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, as he is read by so-called resolute interpreters, to foreground this conception of the philosopher; and the second, “Redescribing the Animals”, takes the view of animal life to emerge from John McDowell’s Mind and World to instantiate it. Thus motivated, the two papers are interested in how cases of the sort of falsification at issue bring into relief a distinctive role for truth and for realism, respectively. In the first paper, I take Wittgenstein to provide a context for a distinctively first-personal role for truth, and I consider whether that role can be properly captured by a recent theory of truth; that of the contemporary pragmatist Huw Price. To bring out the first-personal role for truth I consider the relationship between truth and sincerity, and while I find their relation to be stronger than Price allows, I argue that sincerity is insufficiently robust to handle the concerns I take Wittgenstein to be speaking to. That these concerns call for an ethical notion of truth is brought out, finally, by a discussion of a recent biography of Iris Murdoch by A. N. Wilson. The second paper is concerned to make out the right terms in which to criticise McDowell’s view of animal life. This involves some substantial engagement with McDowell on his own terms on both the issue of animal perception and animal sensation, the upshot of which is that McDowell is shown to be committed to a view of animals as radically different from, or alien to, human beings. I diagnose this outcome as a failure of realism, to characterise which I turn to examples from the novelist J. M. Coetzee. To the extent that realism is basic to quietism – the methodology McDowell claims for his project – I argue that McDowell’s project fails on its own terms.
Andres van Toledo
Title “Nietzsche: Amor Fati and the Will to Art”
The central focus of my thesis is to explore Nietzsche’s doctrine of Amor Fati in relation to the will to art (i.e. will to art as a means to love fate). In the Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche contends that existence is justified only as aesthetic phenomenon. Although Nietzsche’s thought is often categorised into three periods (romantic, positivist, mature), this general concern for the problem of (the meaning of) existence can be seen to animate his thought throughout. The solution for the romantic Nietzsche is to justify existence by means of “other-worldly” art, while the later Nietzsche affirms existence by means of “this-worldly” art. It is ultimately the latter “this-worldly,” life affirming or Dionysian art I am concerned with.
My investigation will draw on numerous sources (at this point esp. Plato, Aristotle, J.L. Austin and Wittgenstein). In particular I see a useful affinity between Austin’s notion of “performatives” and Nietzsche’s “will to power.” This would provide a general pragmatic framework within which to explore Nietzsche’s thought. Recently I have also become very interested in Thucydides and his tragic portrayalof power (and the hubris-nemesis dynamic in general), which is relevant to Nietzsche’s tragic conception of life.