School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemOn politicizing philosophy : a reading of Plato's Apology of Socrates( 2002)Our time is characterized both by a reliance upon institutions founded upon concepts of reason, and by widespread doubts that reason is the sovereign guide to individual and communal life. Our dilemmas may be clarified by an examination of the richer understanding of reason and the greater awareness of the limits of politics to be found in certain works of pre-Enlightenment thought. An exemplary text is Plato's Apology of Socrates. Socrates was charged and condemned by Athens for not believing in its gods and for teaching that disbelief to others. The Apology shows that the meaning of this is that Socrates. is on trial essentially for philosophizing: the genuinely philosophical search for answers to the most important questions is in tension with that commitment to communal standards which makes possible and can ennoble political life. Socrates' defence 0f the philosophical way of life thus constitutes an oblique examination of the possibility of enlightenment. Socrates pays tribute to the fact that political life furnishes the horizon within which the most important questions become visible, and he attempts, so far as possible, to secure what is decent in that life. However, he refuses to put philosophy in service of the city's ends, or to provide a political science at the cost of reducing philosophical to quotidian ends. However, to preserve philosophy Socrates must make at least partially visible the tension between philosophy and the city. He does not so much defend his philosophizing as articulate the aporias and deficiencies of the claims of the political community. The centre of this defence is the attempt to show that these claims are legitimized and can find fulfillment only in philosophy. The value of Plato's treatment lies in its delineation of the problem of the relation between reason and human affairs. It provides us with a model for correcting the modern tendency to nihilism from exaggerated expectations from politics, and for the intransigence required for genuine human excellence.
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ItemBeauty and function( 2002)This thesis asks 'what is beauty?' and proceeds to look at two ways of answering the question. Firstly, it critiques the 'quality approach' toward understanding beauty. This approach defines beauty as a quality of an object. In doing so it tries to secure the essence of the term 'beauty'. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy, it attempts to circumscribe the definitional criteria that will validate the use of the word beauty in referring to a particular quality of an object, allowing us to identify the quality of beauty. This approach is found to be ineffective by this thesis. Using a Wittgensteinean analysis of 'family resemblance', it shows that there cannot be one quality of an object that can be considered its essence in regards to its 'beauty'. Rather, there is a family of resemblance of characteristics amongst objects that are commonly considered beautiful that allow us to call them all 'beautiful'. The thesis then formulates a positive argument concerning the function beauty maintains in people's lives. It shows how beauty can be considered a locus of human interaction and behaviour. People require objects and surround themselves with them. They desire these objects, and use them to create the conditions through which they may interact socially - a mechanism dubbed world-creation. A reason for such behaviour is the pleasure gained in relation to beauty that is a common trait of human beings. Such behaviour is grounded by the psychological mechanisms of sublimated desire and visual projection. We also see that certain structural arrangements apparent in the object make it more conducive to being seen as beautiful. This thesis looks at the structural arrangements of form, colour, accuracy, and also the context in which the object is situated. All four factors contribute greatly to the perceived beauty of the object. In conclusion the thesis finds that beauty is not a quality of an object. Rather it is a locus for human interaction that is psychologically projected and structurally conditioned by the object.