School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 12
-
Item
-
ItemExistence and the ontological proof( 1951, 1955)In the lines, 'This was the Noblest Roman of them all All the Conspirators save onely hee, Did that they did, in envy of great Caesar:' occur expressions the functions of which, though distinct, are often confounded. In the first line, the word 'this' is used to point something out; in the third, the word 'that' refers to an action. These words may be used to point out or refer to any thing, event, quality, state or relation you choose. Other words and expressions have similar functions: 'there' may be used to point out a place, and 'thither' a direction; 'here' to refer to where the speaker is, 'hither' to the direction in which he is. 'How' and 'then' are used in analogous ways. Such uses have been felt to pose various problems. How can an expression point out now one thing, now another, without changing in meaning? This question reveals a confusion between the meaning of an expression and what it is employed to do on a particular occasion.
-
ItemRealist epistemology in Christian philosophy( 1953)I propose in this thesis to show that the Idealist Epistemology does not allow for the essentials of Christianity and that, on the contrary, a Realist epistemology does make it possible to accept Christianity without any contradiction being involved. To achieve this, I shall first state the philosophy of John Caird who attempted to start with Idealism and end with a philosophy of religion; then I shall examine the conclusions and implications of Caird, comparing them with the writings of other Idealist thinkers, and show wherein they fail to meet the needs of Christian thinkers. This, of course, is no proof of the falsity of their thinking but I shall, after a short section on the historical change from Idealism to Realism, follow with a statement of the Realist epistemology which I hold to be necessary to describe and clarify our experience. The position which I will advocate will be that generally described as. Critical Realism but it will include a section on our knowledge of persons which is relevant in any religious thought which takes account of a personal God, as well as some account of error and the occurrence of error which is relevant to the question of the place of evil in our experience. Finally I shall make a statement of the points of Christian doctrine which I consider to be vitally affected by epistemology and I shall endeavour to show that, under Realism, both Christian needs and our experience can be adequately stated. This is not to say. that Christianity is a necessary conclusion but only that Christianity does not preclude one from being a realist and that realism does not preclude one from being a Christian.
-
Item
-
Item
-
ItemA history of the Royal Melbourne Hospital( 1954-11)This thesis covers the following: the hospital movement in Port Philip, the care of patients, the hospital and the University, the hospital and the community and the hospital at Parkville.
-
ItemA history of the Australian paper making industry 1818-1951( 1953)The most outstanding feature of the Australian paper industry is the rapid expansion which has taken place since 1936. Before the First World War, Australia’s population totalled about 4,000,000. By 1939 the population had risen to about 7,000,000. This increase in population, coupled with a rise in the per capita consumption of paper and boards, led to a considerably enlarged domestic market. At the same time new fields for the use of paper and board opened up, particularly in the packaging field. (From introduction)
-
ItemThe overseas mail service of the colony of South Australia 1836-1901( 1951)Introduction: Before the first contract was made with a steamship company for the carriage of mails between England and Australia in 1852, no attempt was made by the British Government to provide a regular mail service to each of the Australian colonies. A contract was signed in 1843 for a monthly service of sailing ships to carry the mails to Sydney and back, but no provision was made for the other colonies, and the official packet service was usually slower than the service given by private vessels carrying mails. The colonies were therefore dependent upon the traders and transport sailing vessels calling at their ports, and forwarded their mails by them direct, or else to neighbouring colonies for onward transmission. Their mails were received in a similar manner. Opportunities were not very frequent in South Australia during the first few years after its settlement, but they increased during the forties, and by the turn of the half century opportunities were most frequent. Arrangements were made in 1842 for mails to be forwarded from and to England from South Australia via India and Suez by the P. and O. Company, or between Bombay and Suez by the East India Company, various persons in India acting as forwarding agents. This route, which was subsequently improved by the mails being forwarded across France between Marseilles and Calais, took longer that the direct all-sea route. The Sydney packet service, after a three year trial, also proved unsatisfactory for South Australian mails. So that the carriage of mails between Adelaide and England and the continent was entirely subject to the vagaries of the shipping traffic of traders and transports, all of which were compelled by law to accept and deliver mails, but whose movements were uncontrolled and unreliable. The average time taken for transporting mails to or from England between 1840 and 1850 was about 158 days; towards the end of the forties the usual time taken was from 120 to 130 days. The voyage out was on average quicker than the voyage home. During the forties, agitation, both in Australia and England, for the inception of a steamship mail service, grew with increasing vigour until the British Government was finally induced to contract with the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company in 1852 for the carriage of mails to the Australian colonies. The discovery of gold in Australia, and the repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1850, doubtless influence the decision of the authorities, but in any case it would not have been possible for them to have withstood the demands voiced both in England and Australia for what was obviously a most essential requisite for England’s relationship, social, economic, and administrative, with Australia, viz. a regular steamship mail service.
-
ItemThe Rocky River goldfield, 1851-1867( 1953)This thesis pretends to be nothing more than a case-history of a relatively minor Australian goldfield during its most productive years. The intrinsic interest of such “histories” may be small, but, for two somewhat similar reasons, I believe that they should be written. In the first place, case-histories of Australian goldfields are few and far between, and generalisations about the goldfields and their effects on the country’s development must remain of doubtful validity until a number of studies of this kind have been made. In the same way, secondly, enquiries into particular aspects of the history of the New England region, New South Wales, have until recently been rarely undertaken, and a satisfactory general account will not be written until its author may draw on many more monographs than are as yet available. The Rocky River goldfield was selected for examination because, though it ranked much below Ballarat, Bendigo and other famous Australian mining areas, it was one of the chief fields, if not the chief field, in Northern New South Wales in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties — and my choice of subject was, at the time, virtually limited to subjects on which the bulk of the material was available in Northern New South Wales. The period chosen begins in 1851, because gold was first discovered in the Rocky River area in 1851, and ends in 1867, chiefly because in no single year since 1867 has the field’s production exceeded 4,000 ounces of gold — indeed, in the best two years, 1868 and 1870, total production was probably not much more than the 3,144 ounces and 3,120 ounces taken by escort to the Mint. A secondary reason for the choice of 1867 as a limit was that detailed information about the field became much less abundant from the beginning of 1868. One would, of course expect the amount of information to decrease as production declined. But, as distinct from this general decrease, there was a sudden drop in the amount of information from January, 1868, because after that date, the Armidale Express (the chief local source) no longer continuously employed a “special correspondent” at the Rocky. No one year could be chosen as marking the point at which the company replaced the small party as the predominant type of organisation; this thesis is chiefly concerned with the work of small parties, but company mining had made its appearance well before 1867; the choice of 1867 as a limit, then, was not determined by organisational considerations, though even in this respect it is probably as convenient a date as any. In Part I the emphasis will be placed on the development of the goldfield — the changes in its population, its production, and the techniques employed in working it. Part II will deal primarily with the men who lived and worked on the field — their social origins, how they lived, and what happened to them afterwards; the Chinese, an important group at the Rocky, will be discussed in a separate chapter; for convenience, though somewhat misleadingly, the other miners will be referred to a Europeans. Finally, an attempt will be made in Part III to assess the more important effects of mining at Rocky River on the district, and particularly on the adjacent township of Uralla and neighbouring town of Armidale.
-
ItemThe Queensland Labour governments, 1915-1929( 1954)This thesis is a study of the first long period of Queensland Labour Governments. It does not attempt, except in brief outline, to review the work of the Governments as a whole. Its purpose is much narrower: to explain why by 1929 Queensland Labour had become so “stale” that it lost even the electoral support of sections of its traditional supporters. It suggests that this may have been due primarily to inability to maintain the distinctive Labour character and the aggressive social-reformism of the earlier years, and that light is thrown on the reasons for this inability by three episodes — failure to secure a London loan i 1920, controversy from 1922 to 1926 over the demand for legislative action to increase the basic wage and shorten the working week, and the railway lockout of 1927. Parts III-V, the main body of the thesis, are devoted to an examination of these episodes and their significance. Parts I and II are by way of introduction. Part IV attempts to relate this Queensland experience to some general problems of social-democracy.