School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe Victorian charity network in the 1890's(University of Melbourne, 1976)
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ItemOstia and Trade Associations( 1976)
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ItemKnowledge and intentionality : an essay in philosophical anthropology( 1976)Although the central concern of the work which follows is the nature of knowledge, I became during my research increasingly fascinated by the processes of perception. This fascination has led me into areas and methods of research not typical in philosophy. Most notably, it has led me into pursuing the implications of discoveries and creating the web of their conceptual interdependence where others might have sought to establish them more thoroughly. Rather than seek to establish points in great detail in an already well mapped conceptual terrain, I have pushed into what I believe to be uncharted territory. I have outlined a program for research rather than completing a defined topic within such a program. The test of my success will be the interest generated rather than the problems solved. I owe much thanks to Dr. Mary McCloskey who, as supervisor of my work, gave me much encouragement while curbing the unacceptably bold leaps of speculation that I was prone to. Dr. Charles Langley of the Psychology Department at Melbourne University read an earlier draft of chapter six and offered many constructive comments which have been of help to me.
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ItemIdentity, necessity, and reference( 1976)The project out of which this thesis grew was originally conceived of as finding an analysis of the logical form of sentences containing modal operators to show how certain puzzles could be solved (e.g. the so-called 'Morning Star' Paradox). The fruits of the project as thus originally conceived are now, for the most part, to be found in Chapter 3. In the face of argument that such an analysis was at best a formal logical curiosity unless the phenomena and distinctions on which it rested for its interpretation, were realised in the actual speech situation and were to be involved in giving an account of what has to be grasped in speaking a language, attention turned to these matters. The question to be faced was how the reference of a proper name is determined. This matter is touched on in Chapter 2 and in Chapter 4 two alternative accounts of how the reference of a name is determined are considered. In this way the centre of gravity of the project shifted from what it was taken to be at the beginning. I am conscious that much of what I say has an air of incompleteness about it and that more details have to be added to the argument. In particular a more thorough going philosophy of language remains to be spelt out. But I believe that the argument given allows us for the time being to keep the formal analysis alive even if only as the basis for further work along the same lines. In my thinking about matters dealt with here I have benefited from illuminating discussions with a number of people including John Burgess and Michael Harold. But above all I wish to acknowledge my intellectual indebtedness to my successive supervisors, Dr. (now Professor) J.L.C. Chipman and Dr.B.M.Ta.ylor They provided invaluable instruction and inspiration. The work was typed by my mother Mrs. Marjorie Astley to whom I am especially grateful for her patience and encouragement.
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ItemMetaphysics and the consciousness of individuals( 1976)The aim of this thesis is to examine the metaphysical question of the identity of individuals; that is, what are the criteria for securing adequate individuation of an object? Since this itself is a metaphysical question, it is necessary to raise the problem of the status of metaphysical arguments as such and the applicability of a metaphysical approach to philosophic problems in general. This is in the face of fairly recent criticism of the practice of metaphysics especially from the linguistic analyst and logician who both claim.:that there is something defective about the study of metaphysics today. Thus, a secondary task of this thesis is to show why it is justifiable to practice metaphysics, since I use this approach in solving a particular question - the proposing of adequate criteria for individuation If I am to fully validate the claim I make about individuals, I believe that it is necessary to follow this course of argument, for a critic may easily object to my claims saying that they are based on unjustifiable premisses arising from metaphysics. The critic may then proceed to attack metaphysics and so defeat my approach on those grounds. A further point is to demonstrate the validity of the methodology of phenomenology, as developed by Edmund Husserl. This is necessary because one 0f my main claims is that the act of individuation is best analysed through the phenomenological concept of 'intentionality'; accounting for its operation is then important, for there would be no value in proposing a criterion if it did not work in practice. I spend some time, then, in discussing the prerequisites of the proposing of criteria since this gives weight and support, I believe, to the acceptance of the criteria. This is part of the demand in phenomenology not to work from presuppositions of any kind and so I feel that if I did not press the points relating to metaphysical systems and the methodology of the working of ,for example, intentionality, I would be using presuppositions that were unsupported. The thesis breaks up into the following points: a) that metaphysics generally and phenomenology in particular are defensible theses about experience. b) that identity criteria can be proposed for the individuation of perceptual objects using the system of phenomenology, as validated in a). c) that the concepts of 'consciousness' and 'intentionality' are central to b).
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ItemPersonal identity( 1976)