School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe borders of nationalism( 2008)Given the primacy of the nation state the nationalism debate remains contentious. With interstate ties becoming stronger, unique regional pacts being formed and globalisation bringing us ever closer, a number of salient questions arise. Much research has been conducted into nationalism, addressing in particular a number of empirical matters. This paper considers the ethical permissibility of moderate nationalism, under a modified form of Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency. In the spirit of the work of Sidgwick (1874) the paper acknowledges that individuals observe conflicts in basic principles. The paper contends that a departure from a posited ideal is permissible in pursuit of a functional end state. The paper establishes the functional polity formed under a moderate nationalism as not merely permissible but desirable when compared with other select social architectures because it operates as a superior co-ordination point. The paper contends that nationalism beyond the moderate form offers little additional benefit to group co-ordination, as much of what is afforded is supererogatory. The paper argues that nationalism beyond the moderate form is unjustifiable. The paper asserts that the social architecture established under moderate nationalism, may encourage greater intra-state prosperity and wellbeing than a minarchist state architecture. The paper also responds to a number of contemporary accounts of Nationalism that infer that nationalistic partiality is a fait accompli purporting that much of this work is founded in reductionist and overly simplistic definitions of rationality. The most significant proposition of this paper is that moderate nationalism is more desirable than minarchist structures and immoderate nationalism because it best enables the subsequent satisfaction of universalist ends, a notion 1 term functional universalism.
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ItemThe placebo mystique : biomedical implications( 2005)The 'placebo effect' is a medical enigma. It lies at the heart of modem medical research but remains an amorphous concept; used either as a weapon to dismiss the subjective successes of alternative therapies or to bolster medical claims to scientific 'truth'. In a paradoxical fashion, mainstream medicine overtly rejects the significance of the placebo effect, whilst simultaneously using its existence as justification for the use of placebos in clinical trials. This study aims to explore the complex relationship between biomedicine and the 'placebo effect'. Specifically, I aim to understand how dispute about the meaning of the 'placebo effect' developed and how it currently impacts upon clinical and research work. The study is structured in two parts; the first part contains a discussion of the historical background to confusion about placebos; the second part contains a report on a survey conducted to assess current understanding(s) of the placebo effect amongst Australian medical practitioners. The survey demonstrates that confusion persists amongst clinicians and researchers as to the nature of placebos and the placebo effect. There is disagreement about when placebos should be used, when placebo effects are involved and what conclusions should be drawn from the studies that are performed. The survey made it clear that many doctors are uncertain about the indication for placebo use in clinical trials; many doctors were under the mistaken impression that placebos are essential to control for the placebo effect. I argue that this misconception may well have its origins in Henry Beecher's incorrect assertion that the placebo effect makes placebos an essential component of randomised controlled trials. I discuss the implications of this, mostly particularly in influencing researchers to use placebo controls in situations where they are not methodologically essential.
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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.
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ItemMulti-domain incommensurability( 2000)Interesting instances of Incommensurability sometimes arise in the mental health sciences that cannot be accounted for with our currently available understanding of that phenomenon. I focus on what happens when there is ambiguity between a methodological-value use of a term and a theoretical-entity use of the same term. I call the kind of Incommensurability that can arise in such cases multi-domain Incommensurability. I propose that an interpretation of taxonomic Incommensurability offered by Howard Sankey represents "the sententialist current state of play" and that it may be used as the standard within the semantic/analytic tradition. I contend that Sankey's analysis fails to accommodate multi-domain Incommensurability in social sciences. I diagnose this failure and explore several possible reactions. This diagnosis highlights important features of social sciences that suggest reasons why this particular sort of Incommensurability will be so difficult to accommodate within the semantic/analytic tradition. We may be tempted to either reject social sciences or reject sententialism as a way to make the problems seem to disappear. I find neither of these alternatives satisfactory. The road that suggests rejection of the scientific status of social sciences is pyrrhic, self-defeating, and ultimately begs the question of multi-domain Incommensurability. The road that suggests rejection of sententialism simply abandons valuable insights and tools of investigation before having fully gone down the road. A form of argument extracted from the controversy in social science over dual relationships points to three constraints on a semantics capable of addressing multi-domain Incommensurability. I show why both intentional (roughly Fregegn - description views) and extentional ( roughly Kripkean - Essentialist views) solutions must fail to adequately resolve multi-domain Incommensurability. S suggest a hybrid analysis, consistent with many proposed alternatives to sententialism, that expands upon the current state of sententialist analysis of Incommensurability and draws upon a pragmatic, naturalised approach to semantics.
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ItemThe evolution of Wittgenstein's views of meaning( 1999)The problems of meaning and language play a crucial role in Wittgenstein's philosophy. Wittgenstein believes that philosophical problems are rooted in language, and that they can be understood and resolved when questions about linguistic meaning and the way language relates to reality are properly addressed. During his philosophical development Wittgenstein held different approaches to the problem of meaning and language. A clear view about his view about meaning is necessary in order for us to be in position to understand assess his philosophy. The aim of my thesis is to explore different accounts of meaning in different periods of the development of Wittgenstein's thought. In his first account of meaning, known as the Picture Theory of Meaning in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein developed a highly sophisticated and complex picture-theory which is the basis of his contention that language is a mirror of reality. At this early stage Wittgenstein had been influenced by the thoughts of Frege and Russell. In the Picture Theory of Meaning the notion of logical form plays a crucial role. Just as each proposition must share its logical form with the state of affairs it depicts, so language, the totality of propositions, must share logical form with what it depicts the. The harmony between language and reality which makes representation is - possible is logical-pictorial isomorphism, the structural identity between what represents and what is represented. Just as the elements in a picture correspond to a possible arrangement of objects in reality, so sentences contain names, which correspond to objects in the world; and the arrangement of names in the sentence corresponds to a possible arrangement of objects in the world. Meaning is possible because language mirrors reality in this way: from the structure of language we can read off the structure of reality. In other words we can learn about the structure of reality from sentences of language. In his early view, Wittgenstein believed that fact-stating discourse is really all the meaningful discourse there is. But in the later works it turns out that fact-stating discourse is just one type of discourse among many other types, just one type of language game along with a countless number of other types of language-game. So in his later works, Wittgenstein abandoned the picture theory of meaning in favour of a use account of meaning. He urges us to think of words as tools, think of sentences as instruments. To get a correct account of language and meaning we need simply to look at how it functions in real life; we need to look at what people do with words. Whereas the Tractatus envisioned a logical structure as the essential form and link of language and world, in the later works there are flexible constraints connected with human activities, with language-games and forms of life as the basis and structure of language. A shift has occurred from a pictorial structural approach to use-activity approach. Language is not just words and rules but words and rules in the practice of use. Meaning is understood as a social phenomenon. The meaning of words should be found in the practical context of everyday life, in the stream of thought and activity, in which a given use of words is embedded.
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ItemAesthetics, subjectivity and the sublime( 1999)Three main issues will be addressed in this thesis. The first is the status of aesthetics; what is the relevance and scope of a contemporary philosophical aesthetics?; Can philosophy be distinguished from philosophy of art?; Is philosophy of art different from aesthetics?; Can philosophy be distinguished from art or aesthetics?; If so can any of these be distinguished from other philosophy such as epistemology or metaphysics. The second issue is the question whether any particular aesthetic concept such as beauty or the sublime can have any contemporary philosophical relevance. Thirdly, the sublime will be considered as a possible aesthetic concept that might preserve Kant's original concern to provide a transcendental aesthetic theory which demonstrates the obdurately essential element of aesthetic judgement in any experience. Notwithstanding Kant's prioritising of the aesthetic, and "feeling" in the Critique of Judgement, it is argued that Kant's theory remains pertinent because it maintains a critical, qua transcendental, position, and its insights should not be ignored by metaphysical, analytic, phenomenological or hermeneutic philosophy. Kant's sublime is explored, as are other aesthetic issues, by examining Kant 's theory of judgement. The Critique of Judgement will be presented as a theory of judgement which prefigures much contemporary philosophy and provides both support and interesting edification of the advanced views of Quine, Derrida and Wittgenstein. The concept of the sublime is presented as particularly prophetic of the contemporary complexities regarding self-consciousness, subjectivity and meaning.
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ItemLaws of nature( 1994)
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ItemA defence of formalism( 1998)
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