School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemGeorge Eliot as historian : the social and political background to Middlemarch( 1974)Since its first publication in 1871-2, George Eliot's Middlemarch, has been studied and re-studied by literary critics of all castes and in the course of their resulting assessments many extreme statements have been made about its factual and historical veracity. This thesis has attempted to modify and rationalize such statements by the use of historical rather than literary criteria and to balance extravagant assertions about Eliot's ability as historian and social observer. From an historical point of view, Middlemarch contains a wealth of material for the scholar to study, covering as it does the period of agitation leading up to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and comprehending the whole stratum of provincial society at that time. For the purpose of this thesis, it was impossible to cover all of the diverse elements included in the novel and many aspects which could well have found a place have of necessity been omitted. Some of these are the phenomenon of the successful Businessman of Evangelical leanings embodied in Mr. Bulstrode, the concept of early nineteenth century philanthropy as developed through the characters of Dorothea, Mr. Brooke and Mr. Bulstrode and the suggestion of an element of "women's liberation" in the outspokenness of the elder Miss Brooke. The aim of this thesis has been to discover, by means of a comparison with contemporary materials, whether Middlemarch may with Justice be used by the historian as a piece of documentary evidence and, following on this, whether any novel may be used in this way.
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ItemConflict and cooperation in Hobbes' "Leviathan" : a study of the state of nature( 1982)In Leviathan, the book which is the culmination of his political philosophy, Hobbes develops a form of Social Contract theory to explain the nature of a properly constituted Commonwealth. The institution of the Commonwealth through the Social Contract supposedly delivers people from the State of Nature, a time when they live without common political authority, which is depicted by Hobbes as a period of chaotic insecurity. This thesis is primarily an examination of the State of Nature and the role it plays in Hobbes' system in Leviathan. The notion of the Social Contract as a contract is taken seriously. For parties to contract together they need to be describable in ways which make them suitable as contractual partners; many of their actual characteristics will be irrelevant to such a description. In the first two chapters of the thesis I try to show bow the State of Nature can be used as a way of isolating those features of agents which are relevant to their role as potential contracting parties. In the first chapter I ask whether the Hobbesian State of Nature can be understood as a pre-political condition, and argue that it cannot. In the second chapter I argue that the State of Nature can be seen as an abstract version of specifically political relations; it is a device by which the nature of these relations can be understood. The State of Nature displays the essential nature of the contractual parties: they are anonymous beings with certain faculties. Using these sparse elements Hobbes derives the nature of the Commonwealth in great detail. In the third and fourth chapters of the thesis I examine some of the ways in which the Hobbesian Commonwealth is so derived. In Chapter 3 I examine Hobbes' notion of authority, and argue that he uses a clear and consistent account of the nature of authority in various contexts throughout Leviathan. Ultimately political authority demands obedience not because it is contrary to individual self-interest to disobey it, but rather because it establishes the order which makes possible meaningful calculation about future action. In Chapter 4 I examine Hobbes' use of the fear of death as the common factor on which to build a political science, and point to the tensions between the description of the contracting party and the actual nature of the individual faced with choice of action.
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ItemRichard Sibbes: a moderate in early seventeenth century puritanism( 1978)Preface: The following study was undertaken after the realisation that Richard Sibbes, although a widely recognised and oft-quoted puritan member of the Church of England, has been strangely neglected by historians. Not neglected in the sense of overlooked, but rather the subject of negligence and unwarranted confidence. He has all too easily been compartmentalised as a practical puritan, a pietist, a mystic, a moderate, whose sermons, swiftly designated as merely devotional and uncontroversial, were rarely considered worthy of detailed study. This thesis is, consequently, an attempt to provide the authentic context of Sibbes' sermons, to reanalyse his distinctive themes in the wider context of early seventeenth century religious and political history. Just as importantly the career of Sibbes the puritan minister and preacher, the friend of the puritan gentry, needs to be related to his theology. If Sibbes was truly the theologian of inward-looking piety, then how does one, for instance, explain his association with the reputedly subversive Lay Feoffees? Moderate puritanism has long been a popular descriptive concept, but has seldom been analysed in terms of individual puritans. This analysis of Richard Sibbes is thus offered as a conscious contribution to the sorely needed study of puritans rather than puritanism.