School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe naturalisation of phenomenology: phenomenology meets philosophy of biology( 2015)The project of naturalising phenomenology faces a seemingly insurmountable hurdle. If, as is commonly held, phenomenology consists of the search for the transcendental structures of consciousness, and naturalism consists in the reductionistic explanation of consciousness in terms of psychology, biology and ultimately physics, then one simply can't have a naturalised phenomenology because it is a contradiction in terms. The simple answer to this is yes, when speaking in these terms a naturalised phenomenology is a contradiction in terms; but that doesn't mean we should continue speaking in such terms. There is more to phenomenology than that which Husserl had to say, and moreover, naturalism is not invariably reductionism. One could say that these two positions represent two poles of a continuum, with transcendental phenomenology at one end and reductive physicalism at the other. There are, evidently, a swathe of positions in between these two extremes. This has not gone unnoticed. In a review of this research program Shaun Gallagher notes that there is more than one fruitful, not to mention justified, interpretation of phenomenology, and moreover that naturalism need not be thoroughly reductionistic. Indeed in finishing he (tentatively) suggests that the unification of phenomenology and naturalism might come after we have redefined both. In pursuit of this point I have set out to identify a brand of naturalism that can accommodate a brand of phenomenological psychology. By way of results, I have found that a position known as pragmatic naturalism can be the naturalistic framework within which the phenomenologico-psychological posits of neurophenomenology are perfectly legitimate scientific artefacts. In summary, this view of nature, which is championed by the prominent philosopher of science Philip Kitcher, and which draws on Quine's radical empiricism and John Dupré’s promiscuous realism, begins by denying that there is a privileged way of investigating the world. Taking the failure of reductionism in biology as his point of departure, Kitcher argues that there are a number of legitimate ways in which the world can be structured and that physics is only one of them. From this it follows that the ontological structures posited by the higher order sciences, such as biology and psychology, do not need to be corroborated by physics; all that matters is that they are empirically verifiable. And all this, he argues, is entirely consistent with a perfectly reasonable brand of realism about scientific knowledge. I want to propose that in this context the structures posited by phenomenological psychologists could count as legitimate scientific artefacts, and therefore that pragmatic naturalism could serve as an overarching naturalistic framework for neurophenomenology. To this end my paper will proceed as follows. I will begin by characterising neurophenomenology as a brand of phenomenological psychology, after which I will establish the need for a novel naturalistic framework. With this motivation in place I will outline and briefly motivate Kitcher’s pragmatic naturalism, and then finish by clarifying how neurophenomenology could count as a legitimate scientific activity within such a framework. Neurophenomenology being a rather attenuated instance of phenomenological philosophy (at least insofar as I define it), what I aim to achieve evidently falls short of naturalising phenomenology; however, I would like to think that, if successful, my project might gesture toward future avenues to the kind of naturalism that would be consistent with a broader cross section of phenomenological philosophy.
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ItemThe career of Licinius Mucianus( 2015)This thesis constitutes a close examination of the political career of an ancient Roman historical figure from the first century AD – the general, statesman and writer Gaius Licinius Mucianus. The study utilizes a chronological structure to elucidate the origins and cursus honorum of Mucianus before 69 AD, his role in the planning and execution of the Flavian uprising in 69 AD as well as his subsequent political career in the Roman Senate – as both de facto temporary head of state in early 70 AD and as suffect consul in 70 and 72 AD. In addition to establishing a chronology of Mucianus’ life and career, this thesis also examines several specific facets of Mucianus’ career, including his relationship with Titus and Vespasian, both prior to, during and following the ‘Year of the Four Emperors’, the nature of Mucianus’ own political ambitions and the extent to which Mucianus’ ambitions were ultimately fulfilled by the Emperor Vespasian. The primary methodology which will be used in the course of this thesis will be a close examination of primary source material. The sources which will be utilised in this thesis can broadly be divided into two categories – literary and archaeological. Belonging to the former category are five central historical works from antiquity – the Historia Romana of Cassius Dio, the Historiae and Annales of the senator and historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, the Bellum Judaicum, composed by the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, and Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. These works will, in turn, be supplemented by further accounts derived from later commentators as well as other contemporaries – including Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus’ De Vita Caesarum, the Epitome Historiarum of Ioannes Zonaras, the Epistulae of the Younger Pliny and the Stratagemata of Sextus Julius Frontinus. The latter category – archaeological sources, includes a substantial corpus of material evidence derived from military and civil structures as well as Roman coinage, papyri and inscriptions – preserved in expansive collections such as the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, compilations such as Mattingly and Sydenham’s ‘Roman Imperial Coinage’ as well as more explicitly pertinent works such as Homer Newton’s 1901 dissertation ‘The Epigraphical Evidence for the Reigns of Vespasian and Titus’ and McCrum and Woodhead’s ‘Select Documents of the Principates of the Flavian emperors including the year of revolution AD 68-69’.
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ItemThe Flying Electric Generator: evaluating the claims of a largely ignored proposal for generating electricity from high-altitude winds( 2015)This thesis concerns the Flying Electric Generator (FEG), a technology proposed to generate electricity from winds several kilometres high in the sky. Airborne Wind Energy (the generation of electricity from high altitude winds) is an emerging field of research, with several technological approaches under development. High altitude winds are attractive for this purpose because they are generally much faster than surface level winds, and because power is a cubic function of wind velocity. Winds are fastest within the subtropical jet stream, located about 25–30 degrees north and south of the equator, at an altitude of 10–12 km. The FEG is a device consisting of multiple rotors attached to a frame, which is tethered to the ground. The rotors work as autogyros to provide lift; additional energy extracted from the wind is converted to electricity and conducted to the ground via the tether. The FEG would operate kilometres high in the atmosphere, up to jet stream levels. Papers about the FEG were first published in 1979, and in 2002 a company was founded to commercialise the FEG. So far, this has not happened, and many details of how the technology would operate remain uncertain, despite three decades of research literature. Only small test craft (rotors of up to 24 feet in diameter) have flown at low altitudes (up to 100 feet). Many of the claims in the literature, which are optimistic about the FEGs performance at high altitude, are experimentally untested. FEGs have never operated at the altitudes described in the corresponding literature, and the project has not been commercialised or attracted much if any recent research funding. Other, newer entrants to the Airborne Wind Energy field have seen success in research funding and commercialisation. This thesis addresses two problems: first, it tests some of the claims in the FEG literature and second, it attempts to fill in details not provided. The particular claims concern the power density available in high altitude winds over Australia and its seasonal variation, the amount of time a hypothetical FEG setup would be "grounded" due to insufficient wind speeds to keep it aloft, and expected capacity factors of a hypothetical FEG setup. Claims about the magnitude of the wind power resource were tested using reanalysis data (the ERA-40 dataset was used, and was validated against Bureau of Meteorology upper air statistics). Power density and wind speeds at different altitudes above Australia were calculated and analysed. The reanalysis wind data in conjunction with a model of FEG operation (based on lifting rotor theory detailed in the FEG literature) were used to calculate downtime and capacity factors. The results showed a clear seasonal variation in power density over Australia, which was most pronounced at 30 degrees south of the equator (although winds above Tasmania showed much less variation). Winter had the strongest winds, and summer the weakest. The highly skewed distribution of power density meant that median power densities (unreported in the FEG literature) were more appropriate than means. Downtime calculations showed that a particular FEG setup rated at 240 kW operating at a pressure level of 600 hPa would be landed for at least 20% of the year at all locations in Australia, and for at least 40% of the year north of 20°S. Annual capacity factors for the same FEG setup were calculated to vary between 0.1–0.4 over Australia, no different from conventional ground-based wind turbines. Capacity factors for the summer months were substantially lower than the annual values. These results support the main contention of the thesis, that the FEG is far more limited in its potential as source of energy from the wind than the literature claims.
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ItemFeeling sorry?: An examination of apologies given for civil war atrocities in Lebanon (1975-2014)( 2015)This thesis tackles the recent bout of political apologies to occur in post-war Lebanon. In order to do this, it traces the origins of Lebanon's sectarian conflict and what specifically needs to be apologised for. It then goes on to trace and analyse the main apologies to occur since 2000, providing information as to how these apologies have been received and whether or not they have brought about effective change in Lebanon's post-war society.
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ItemSublime flesh: a Merleau-Pontian alternative to Deep Ecology( 2015)In this thesis, I bring the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to bear on Deep Ecology, arguing that Merleau-Ponty enables us to abandon Deep Ecology’s problematic emphasis on identity and the self while remaining faithful to its overarching commitment to a biospherical moral community. I begin by showing that despite the laudable commitments that underpin Deep Ecology’s program for improving humans’ relationship with nature, the conceptual schema it embraces in articulating that program is inadequate. This is because Deep Ecology relies on and so reinforces the very account of human behaviour – according to which we are inherently self-centered agents – that it admirably seeks to overcome. This emphasis, I suggest, is motivated by Deep Ecology’s failure to articulate our being in a community with others in a way that can accommodate both sameness and difference. Merleau-Ponty’s description of the body/world and self/other dialectics provides a means for doing just this. His description of our relationship with nature would do better at promoting the kind of comportment towards it that Deep Ecology seeks to precipitate. While an environmental ethic consistent with the Merleau-Pontian framework would enable us to remain true to the spirit of Deep Ecology, it would represent a serious departure from and improvement to Deep Ecology – calling us to abandon concern with the self and pay an ever-renewed, respectful attention to that which is other. This vision of ethical agency, which I elucidate via a Merleau-Pontian reading of the sublime, opens up new and attractive possibilities for approaching contemporary environmental issues – possibilities that are not, moreover, available to the Deep Ecologist.
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ItemThe foundation of Newman College: Victorian Catholic identity, 1914-1918( 2015)This thesis examines the foundation of Newman College within the University of Melbourne, 1914-1918. Newman opened during a period when Catholicism was considered by many in the Victorian community to be synonymous with radicalism and anti-imperialist Irish nationalism. This identity was heavily constructed, and far from natural. Indeed, Newman College represented a dynamic site of contention in the ongoing process of identity formation within the Catholic community of Victoria during the early twentieth century. Its foundation became both emblematic of these cultural characteristics, and contributed to them. Throughout its development, clerical and lay leaders engaged in vigorous debate about what it meant to be Catholic: Conservative or progressive? Loyalist or radical? British or Australian? Rich or poor? Integrated or separated? Their various visions for Newman College reveal a web of complex conflicts over ethnicity, class and politics. Within the crucible of these often acrimonious disputes, Victoria’s Catholic identity as one that was distinctively Irish was shaped and consolidated. As an elite tertiary institution, the foundation of Newman College also provides a unique insight into the aspirations of middling and elite lay Catholics, so often forgotten in Church histories. Contributing to recent scholarship on the Irish diaspora, it challenges assertions of entrenched Catholic disadvantage by examining the lives of prominent laymen responsible for the Newman project. In addition to safeguarding religious principles, these Catholics wanted to cultivate a class of gentlemen who would raise the moral and intellectual standard of the community as a whole. In the early stages of the building project, secularism was considered the most potent threat to the Catholic community. Newman was envisaged as a religious shelter from the free-thinking university environment. Yet the enemy would shift in 1916 following the outburst of sectarian tensions which accompanied the Easter Rising and Archbishop Daniel Mannix’s political position on conscription and the efficacy of the Great War. In the face of wider community hostility, Catholics closed ranks and came together in spectacular displays of group solidarity, of which the opening of Newman College, an event attended by some 40,000 people, is an example. In this context, Newman came to be seen as a Catholic fortress, producing champions of the Faith numerous enough to resist sectarian discrimination wherever it was encountered in the professions. The thesis will, however, conclude by showing that such an outcome dismayed many prominent Catholics, whose political and cultural sensibilities often differed greatly from those of their Archbishop.
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ItemLooking again at Maya Deren: how the 'Mother of Avant-Garde Film' was a socially conscious 'Judaised Artist'( 2015)Russian-Jewish filmmaker, Maya Deren, known as the ‘mother of avant-garde film’, lived and worked in Greenwich Village, New York, from the 1930s until her death in 1961. Deren produced experimental films, wrote for a variety of magazines on her philosophy of art and civilisation, lectured around the United States, Canada and South America and established the Creative Film Foundation, a pioneering organisation that supported independent film-makers in America. Beyond being an educator and interested in film-art, Deren’s oeuvre revealed a strong social conscience. Leading up to her career in film, Deren’s poetry, photography, her Masters Thesis in English Literature, and her role as assistant to anthropological dancer Katherine Dunham and to prominent political activist and writer, Max Eastman, all evinced strong social components. I argue therefore that Deren is more than an experimental film-maker; she is a socially conscious artist. Following Deren’s immigration to New York with her family at age five, to escape anti-Semitic pogroms, she continued to spend her childhood and teenage years both escaping forms of anti-Semitism and on a continuous search for belonging. Deren’s work was coloured by this search and desire to navigate social and cultural alienation, resulting in an endeavor to create and promote morally responsible art that enabled civilisational progress and, most significantly, unity. This was to be created by the morally responsible ‘artist’, who Deren established as being a self-constructed and socially reflective figure that evolved with the socio-cultural context. By exploring Deren within her early to mid twentieth century American environment, I reveal that Deren’s use of ‘the artist’ parallels the use of ‘the Jew’ as a cultural symbol, through which ideas of inclusion or exclusion from social and cultural life can be navigated. Deren, I therefore argue, must be read within the wider context of ‘Judaised’ discourse in America, in which ‘the Jew’ was a symbol through which to approach larger ideas of integration, assimilation and Americanisation. My study explores the history of ‘Judaised’ discourse in America in the twentieth century, its use by an array of artists, including Deren, as well as closely analysing Deren’s theoretical texts and films in order to understand Deren and her oeuvre in a nuanced manner and to cement a place for Deren within both ‘Judaised’ history and twentieth-century America.
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ItemAre there unconscious mental processes?: A critique of Searle's dismissal of the Freudian unconscious( 2015)Sigmund Freud has convinced many of us that there are unconscious mental processes. John Searle finds this idea incoherent. He argues that Freud’s theory is inconsistent with what we know about the brain and challenges Freudians to demonstrate that unconscious states are idiosyncratically intentional. After a detailed explication and assessment of Searle’s arguments of incoherence levelled against Freud, the thesis proceeds to answer each argument by appealing to resources elaborated or suggested by recent developments of the Freudian paradigm. A crucial question that emerges is whether contemporary Freudianism can succeed in providing a scientifically acceptable validation of its theory of dynamic unconscious mental processes. The thesis defends a positive answer by recruiting theoretical resources of a recent Bayesian approach in neuroscience and philosophy.
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ItemValues in science: five challenges to normative accounts( 2015)Normative accounts of the proper role of values in science seek to regulate the influence societal values can have on scientific inquiries. Until recently, the most prominent normative account of the role of values in science was the value-free ideal, which seeks to restrict the influence of societal values during the justificatory phases of investigative practice. In the last few decades, the ideal of value-free science has been criticised by philosophers who doubt both the possibility and desirability of value-free science. Some have offered alternative normative accounts. The purpose of the thesis to follow is to expose limitations faced by alternative normative accounts of values in science. I focus primarily on Douglas’ (2009) prominent normative account. I will identify what I take to be five independent, though interrelated, issues that pose a challenge to normative accounts. Existing normative accounts are affected to varying degrees by the limitations I identify. The aim of the thesis is to point to issues that persist within prominent normative accounts. The first chapter focuses on the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Many normative accounts attempt to do away with this distinction. I examine the motivations for abandoning the distinction. I conclude that the distinction is problematic, though its abandonment reduces the scope of application of normative accounts. I focus on Douglas’ account, and argue that in abandoning the epistemic/non-epistemic distinction, Douglas constructs a normative account whose application is limited to only those scientific inquiries that have significant non-epistemic consequences, and which ignores important differences between the sciences. In this sense is fails to be generally applicable. I conclude with a defence of a modified version of the epistemic/non-epistemic distinction, based on Steel’s (2010) criticisms. The second chapter focuses on the prevalent division between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ stages of science. I identify several problematic assumptions associated with the use of the internal/external distinction. I argue that if we continue to assume that the ostensibly external stages of inquiry are epistemically uninteresting, we risk ignorance of an important avenue of value-influence. The third argument I put forward is that many normative accounts do not adequately deal with value influence during heuristic appraisal. I argue that heuristic appraisal is under-recognised as an avenue of value-influence because it is assumed to be a function of the ‘external’ stages of inquiries. I demonstrate that heuristic appraisal involves both epistemic and non-epistemic considerations, and argue that normative accounts ought to supply the guidelines for legitimate value influence here. In the fourth chapter I characterise the conceptual framework of inquiries as an important source of value-influence. The concepts underpinning inquiries are often deeply hidden, and do not feature in the analysis of value-influence on the inquiry. I provide examples of normative components of conceptual frameworks that have influenced the methodoogy and conclusions drawn from inquiries. I argue that it is under-represented in current normative accounts, and requires further analysis. The fifth chapter argues that demarcating legitimate from illegitimate value influence during the analysis of case studies can be ambiguous and interpretive. Given their intepretive nature, I ask what work descriptive case studies can do for the values in science debate. I argue that the best information we can get from case studies is post-hoc, and context-specific. I conclude that while they may have heuristic value, case studies cannot be used to definitively test normative accounts. The neglect of these relevant and important avenues for value influence shows that extant normative accounts typically have a very narrow focus on epistemic justification. I believe that the debate needs to be broadened; that it must widen its focus to incorporate elements of scientific practice other than that pertaining strictly to the justification of theories.
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ItemProtest and patient care: Employing theories of organising and mobilisation to explain the growth of the Victorian Nurses' Union( 2015)After striking for the first time in its history in 1985, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) (ANMF) has experienced consistent and continuous growth in union membership since 1990, a period in which most unions have suffered a decline in membership. Drawing on an analysis of the trade union ‘organising’ model and social movement theories of organisation, mobilisation, leadership and the framing of grievances, this thesis will chart the history of the Branch over this period. It will address three questions. First, how was the union able to grow and flourish in a period characterised by union membership decline? Second, what strategies did the leaders of the Branch employ to ensure this growth and success? Third, how were these strategies developed and how were they applied in industrial campaigns?