First Love: A Phenomenology of the One explodes two great myths that remain unquestioned in psychoanalysis and contemporary philosophy: that first love is a love of the mother and, in French philosopher Alain Badiou’s phrasing, ‘the One is not.’ The bold, central argument of the book claims that, with its unprejudiced acceptance of first love as mother love, psychoanalysis is at risk of missing the full potential of its own thought: the existence of an uncounted One as named and held (...) faithful to in the literary tradition. In detailed, sensitive readings of the First Love of Samuel Beckett, Ivan Turgenev, Eudora Welty, John Clare and Søren Kierkegaard, Jöttkandt considers the ways love is conceptually ‘first’ for these writers. With this groundbreaking work, Jöttkandt suspends the contemporary philosophical stricture against every idea of an ‘all’ to unmask the shadowy figure concealed behind the traditional psychoanalytic myth of first love: One that - or perhaps who - is not purely an effect of structure. (shrink)

Background and Aim: Off-label prescribing involves the use of medicines in a manner that has not been endorsed by regulatory authorities. The ethical, epistemic and clinical implications of off-label prescribing have been brought into sharp focus due to its ubiquity, and a series of high profile legal settlements between the US Department of Justice and pharmaceutical companies for purposefully marketing medicines off-label. The objective of this research was to contribute to the debate about off-label drug prescribing by exploring it as (...) a practical quandary that physicians and decision makers regularly face. Methods: This empirical bioethics study was conducted in two phases: an in-depth investigation of three case studies of off-label prescribing and semi-structured interviews with physicians about their prescribing practices. Main Findings: The concept of a medicine being off-label is almost never invoked as a reason for prescribing or not prescribing a medicine. This is not surprising given that medical practice is not purely technical but rather political and deliberative and shaped by numerous intersecting ethical and epistemic concerns. Science as a problem solving strategy will therefore likely fail to resolve disputes about off-label prescribing. As long as regulation is primarily construed as a method for evaluating science, it will fail to address the challenge of off-label prescribing. Eight alternative warrants are identified as justifications for off-label prescribing. Conclusion: The phrase off-label confuses rather than illuminates the issues related to medicines regulation and governance as it conflates practices that are qualitatively different. It also conflates issues of evidence and justification with issues of process. In order to move debates and research about off-label prescribing forward, researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the different rationales that drive off-label prescribing. Whether or not a medicine is being used off-label is far less important than what might be suggested by the dominant discourse on the topic. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies presents a collection of original essays from artists and scholars who have established themselves internationally on the basis of specific and significant new contributions to human-animal studies. It offers a broad interpretive account of the development and present configurations of the field of human-animal studies across many cultures, continents, and times.

The leaders of the Scientific Revolution were not Baconian in temperament, in trying to build up theories from data. Their project was that same as in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics: they hoped to find necessary principles that would show why the observations must be as they are. Their use of mathematics to do so expanded the Aristotelian project beyond the qualitative methods used by Aristotle and the scholastics. In many cases they succeeded.

Juncture : The “Internet of Actual Occasions” Proposition 1: Following on from the emerging Internet of things, someone recently proposed an “Internet of nano-things”. Is this going too far? Maybe this isn’t going far enough. Or maybe this is the wrong question. Now that we can, in very different ways—via technics, via micropolitics, via metaphysics—seem to get near to the very basis of events, what can/should we do? This proposition concerns that which has until now been known, and thought, as (...) “media”, “communication”, “networks”, “algorithms” and related concepts/technics. Start with this speculative-pragmatic proposition: let us assume that we can go as far as possible, that an “internet of actual occasions” is possible. How would it work? Would it be desirable? If we could, should we use it? What difference would it make to think with it, work with it, organize in partnership with it? Do we, in reality, already have it? Is it called the world “as medium for the transmission of influences”, as discussed by the under-recognized media and communications thinker, Alfred North Whitehead? If it is already “there”, what would it’s relationship be to human-designed technics? Juncture: Something like “media”, “communication”, “networks”, “algorithms” and related concepts/technics have been at the heart of power during the last hundred years. A great deal has followed from this. These concepts/technics have always been contested. Yet they have also, in practice, long produced interventions in worlds that are many and major. Thus they perform a particular and important speculative pragmatics. In mainstream culture certain versions of these concepts/technics could even now be said to be “protected” concepts/technics. This protection is almost of a religious order, in that many of these concepts.concepts have become fundamental articles and rituals of a secular faith. The culture energised by this “faith” has been a large factor in what Brian Massumi has discussed as a “becoming-environmental of power”, via the extension of media and communications into more of “world”, and in finer gradations of intervention in “world”, in “bare life”, in geontology and more. This is largely an ecologically destructive extension of power with no limit to it’s appetite. Yet what, really, are communication, media, computing, networks, algorithms? In concept? As ongoing propositions in varieties of speculative pragmatics? As designed technics? As themselves imperfect refractions of world? There is another way to think this. There has recently been what we might simply call a return of the world. This is a world beyond, if still at times working within, the human. This world exceeds the reach of even the extended technics of the human. The “return” to this world is found for example in climate change and other environmental challenges, and has always been accepted in process philosophy and other philosophies tending towards the ecological. It is also found in the increasing acceptance that plants have sophisticated modes of “communication”, and of social networking and action. Such a “return” of the world was also anticipated by Whitehead, in his idea of the “world as a medium for the transmission of influences”, for the vector transmission of feeling. What is now happening at the juncture between these two; the “mediated” becoming-environmental of power and the world as medium? Or, to move away from the bifurcation of the mediating and the mediated, what precisely is this juncture itself, where both have to be considered at once, as on the same plane? How might we approach this juncture with the rigor of attention to immanence it needs? Proposition 2: What would it mean to think/design “media”, “communication”, “networks”, “algorithms” and related concepts/technics without a bifurcation of nature? (shrink)

As a field of study educational administration has a reputation for talking past one another. In this paper, I endeavour to pick up on some matters raised across the special issue with the explicit intent of advancing the relational research program. Due to the limitations on article length, but also the depth of some of the queries raised, I am unable to attend to all matters raised. I will be thinking through all matters and these will be presented in other (...) forums. For this paper, my attention is limited to: the intellectual project – or social epistemology – that generated this special issue, the notion of productive theorizing, matters of context, what is a relation, and the audience or audiences of educational administration scholarship. (shrink)

The social sciences are paying increasing attention to relations. In contributing to this ongoing dialogue and debate Educational Leadership Relationally articulates a relational research program for the study of educational administration and leadership. This paper provides an overview of the relational program with particular attention to the five central tenets of the methodology. Key aspects of the relational program concern the complicity of the researcher with the ordinary language of the everyday, problematizing the research object, locating activity in spatio-temporal conditions, (...) overcoming binary thinking, and productive theorizing. This paper and the collection of papers in the special issue, continue to dialogue and debate on the merits of the relational program. (shrink)

This article is an effort to dwell with the kinds of writing and thinking practices that we have been developing in our research, especially over the past seven years. This is an approach grounded in an attentiveness to the evolving ways of life of diverse forms of human and nonhuman life and in an effort to explore and perhaps restory the relationships that constitute and nourish them. Our aim is to develop “lively ethographies”: a mode of knowing, engaging, and storytelling (...) that recognizes the meaningful lives of others and that, in so doing, enlivens our capacity to respond to them by singing up their character or ethos. Most of our work in this area has focused on extinction, but this approach might readily be taken up in a range of other contexts. This article alternates between two types of writing. One is expository and lays out an analysis of ethos, liveliness, storytelling, “response-ability,” and becoming witness. The second is performative, offering short ethographic vignettes that enact some of the qualities and approaches we have discussed. Here each of these vignettes is taken from our recent work in Hawai‘i, a deeply generative and often fraught field site that has inspired much of our thinking. (shrink)

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are experimenting with novel ways of engaging with worlds around us. Passionate immersion in the lives of fungi, microorganisms, animals, and plants is opening up new understandings, relationships, and accountabilities. This introduction to the special issue offers an overview of the emerging field of multispecies studies. Unsettling given notions of species, it explores a broad terrain of possible modes of classifying, categorizing, and paying attention to the diverse ways of life that constitute worlds. (...) From detailed attention to particular entities, a multiplicity of possible connection and understanding opens up: species are always multiple, multiplying their forms and associations. It is this coming together of questions of kinds and their multiplicities that characterizes multispecies studies. A range of approaches to knowing and understanding others—modes of immersion—ground and guide this research: engagements and collaborations with scientists, farmers, hunters, indigenous peoples, activists, and artists are catalyzing new forms of ethnographic and ethological inquiry. This article also explores the broader theoretical context of multispecies studies, asking what is at stake—epistemologically, politically, ethically—in learning to be attentive to diverse ways of life. Are all lively entities biological, or might a tornado, a stone, or a volcano be amenable to similar forms of immersion? What does it mean to live with others in entangled worlds of contingency and uncertainty? More fundamentally, how can we do the work of inhabiting and coconstituting worlds well? In taking up these questions, this article explores the cultivation of “arts of attentiveness”: modes of both paying attention to others and crafting meaningful response. (shrink)

Focusing on the work of such artists as Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Rosemary Laing, Dierk Schmidt, Hito Steyerl, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Veronica Tello argues that their practices represent an emergent paradigm of contemporary...

Accordingly, the contributors to the volume are drawn from across the academy. Deleuze's philosophy already anticipated many of the current debates about the non/human.

Accordingly, the contributors to the volume are drawn from across the academy. Deleuze's philosophy already anticipated many of the current debates about the non/human.

Alain Badiou's philosophical project is a genuine system in the traditional sense.

Accordingly, the contributors to the volume are drawn from across the academy. Deleuze's philosophy already anticipated many of the current debates about the non/human.

This thesis critically explores the dominant discourse on Islamic terrorism. Taking the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre as the point of departure, it examines a range of neoconservative literature in order to gain a better understanding of the historical and political conditions that gave rise to the present policy impasse concerning Islamic nations. It critically examines how neoconservative theories and policies shaped and influenced the rationalisation behind the present war on terror and American foreign policy. Based on that (...) understanding, this thesis focuses on whether different theories of dialogue can help us to appreciate adequately the politics of justice that Political Islam seeks, and accordingly a range of such theories are examined. Through critical analysis of a number of neoconservative works, this thesis establishes a formative link between neoconservative theories and the current policy failure. It is also argued that neoconservative theories, perhaps due to their indulgence in the orthodoxies of International Relations ontology, have failed to extend the scope of this debate beyond the narrow discourse effectively captured by the Islamic Other vs. Civilised Us dichotomy. In order to counter adequately conservative explanations and policy discourse, this thesis provides alternative analysis of the development of Islam within the colonial and post-colonial experiences of Muslim communities, particularly in the Middle East. This alternative analysis seeks to broaden the debate and bring within hearing alternative voices that define Islam as both non-monolithic and conciliatory in its practice and outlook. In this context it suggests a formative link between these historico-political experiences and the rise of political Islam. It is further demonstrated that what contributed to the emergence of Islam as a credible and effective political force to challenge political hegemony in the Middle East was indeed the absence of any meaningful political alternative such as nationalism, Western liberalism, or republicanism. Consequently, political Islam nudged the political constituency into greater participation in the public sphere, and initiated a process of political dialogue that the polity of many Muslim states engaged in. Since the justice that political Islam avowedly seeks is dressed in political dialogue, only by thoroughly exploring and mapping out the scope and limits of the politics of dialogue can one expect to understand adequately the nature of this justice and its attendant politics. Accordingly, this thesis examines a range of theories of dialogue, and seeks to redress some of the grave anomalies in the current political framework, in order that readers – politicians, students, community representatives, lawmakers – may look to means of overcoming the current policy impasse. (shrink)

This practice-based research project is an exploration of two things: first of the ‘bodiliness’ of vision – around the relationship between the eye, the mind and the body – and second, of relational modes of interactivity within new media art. The presence and movement of the body is central to both of these concerns, as are the notions of relation and interplay between a body and its surroundings; the perceptual interplay between a person and their environment and the emergent interplay (...) between a participant and an interactive artwork. Although I have drawn on a range of thinkers from the fields of systems theory, cybernetics, embodied cognition and process philosophy, my aim has been to think these things primarily with the body. The three artworks I am presenting consist of a single channel video, audit, and two interactive works, closer: eleven experiments in proximity and metacognition. By focusing on small fragmentary moments of everyday life, these works seek to foreground life’s immediacy and to bring attention to the moment-by-moment ways in which we inhabit and make sense of ‘the world’. My thesis argues, as explored in my artworks, that vision is thoroughly entangled with other, especially tactile and kinaesthetic, sensory modalities, and with the active and skilful movement of the body. I have discussed the interactive works as ‘responsive video’, a phrase that reflects a rethinking of interactivity towards an approach that is deliberately simple, understated and subtle. Central to the experience of the interactive artworks is the bodily process of discovering their responsivity, and the relational interplay that might subsequently unfold between a participant and an artwork. The participant and the artwork are not predetermined but co-emerge immanently from their performative encounters within a relational ecology. (shrink)

‘Practical Contextualism’ is a multifaceted concept which, I will argue, permeates various ancient Chinese texts. The central focus of practical contextualism is to be aware of, and sensitive to, the contextual environment or situation, including the relationships involved in those contexts. On an individual level, this has important implications for one’s daily engagement with others and the world. On a socio-political level, this is essential to creating and implementing well-functioning social and political institutions and policies. Practical contextualism means, among other (...) things, that one must be prepared for possible changes that might occur in these contexts, and calls for the fostering of optimal and timely responses and solutions. In this light, the cultivation of the self is an arduous process whereby one develops epistemic cognition and skills in order to be able to detect and deal with exigent situations. This thesis studies four pre-Qin Chinese texts: the Yi Jing, the Han Fei Zi, the Zhuang Zi, and the Analects. Each of these arguably exemplifies the particular tradition or practical field it represents, and has received extensive and long-term scholarly attention. The current study unveils practical contextualism as a common theme that exists in the four texts, but with different philosophical emphases. The Yi Jing is one of the earliest texts abundant with contextual and practical ideas that are not necessarily limited to any particular philosophical discipline. In the Han Fei Zi, practical contextualism constitutes an overt theme in political discourse. The Zhuang Zi is ideal for examining practical contextualism in Chinese epistemology. The Analects explores how practical contextualism is played out in human societies. The current study proposes a theoretical framework to describe ‘practical contextualism’, which does not appear specifically in ancient Chinese texts, and has yet to be studied systematically. The framework identifies six distinctive dimensions of contextualism and four different types of practice. It could serve as a viable interpretive framework for reading other Chinese philosophical texts on their own terms. (shrink)

The perennial question concerning the origins of language goes “Why is there language now when there wasn’t any before?” A bolder ambition, only recently formulable, is to understand why it’s this kind of language that exists. The design question now seems within reach owing to the last sixty-odd years of research in generative syntax which has laid bare some of the basic structuring principles of human language. The speculative face of contemporary generative linguistics—sometimes called biolinguistics—assumes an innate biological endowment, unique (...) to human cognition, is at least partially responsible for the linguistic capacity of the human species. The biolinguistic perspective thus invites the conjecture of a nearing resolution to the origin and design questions in the form of an evolutionary explanation. The task of this thesis is to make clearer the logical structure of evolutionary explanations in relation to the boundary conditions placed on them by the demands of language design. Its first concern is that of determining the type of causes sufficient for explaining biological design generally. Epistemological, empirical, and—most significantly—metaphysical considerations lead us to the conclusion that a “proper causal analysis of language as a biological feature” can only be of a particular sort. Any satisfactory explanation of language design will be a developmental one involving causes internal to the organism. A practical next step is to evaluate the coherence of different kinds of developmental explanation. The subsequent question is: a change in what resulted in language? The “grain problem” posed in evolutionary psychology supposes the sui generis natural kinds of evolutionary explanation are genes. Contra the grain problem, I argue that the natural kinds in an explanation of language design ought to be the kind terms of linguistic science. Finally, I consider the inherently historical character of evolutionary explanation. As a historical science, the operative question is that of how we can recover information about the past. Assessing the “evolutionary plausibility” of the Minimalist Programme in generative linguistics as a heuristic for inferring past causes of design, I conclude that the desiderata of parsimony and simplicity are of appreciable value to a theory of language evolution. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the role of contemporary art in a world of extreme global inequality. It proposes that visual art can address issues of global inequality firstly through a practice of redistributing wealth and secondly through the means of awareness and advocacy. The research comprises various examples of art practice addressing global inequality including: a performance in which I sell everything I own and give it to the poor as an expression of philosophical and theological moral teachings on the subject; (...) a video installation capturing the voices of both Australian’s and Zambian’s giving different perspectives on wealth and poverty; works that investigate consumerism and the link between our identity and our possessions; and a video piece that examines inequalities in the right to freedom of movement and asylum. The thesis concludes that art practice holds great potential for addressing the exacerbating issues of global inequality, a context the art world should intentionally seek to inhabit to a greater degree both for the sake of the vulnerable and for the sake of creating powerful and meaningful art. (shrink)

Although leadership has been extensively researched in relation to the emergence and effectiveness of leaders, there is a deficiency in our understanding of how a persons leadership approach develops. Research has demonstrated that genetics and environment play a limited role in predicting leadership effectiveness or emergence with only some environmental factors correlating to the type of leadership approach that emerges. This dissertation addresses this shortcoming by investigating the role that societal, political, ethical and spiritual environmental factors play in the development (...) of a person’s leadership approach. These environmental factors will be shown to consist of the influences from political, social, moral and religious philosophy. It will be demonstrated that the influence from these philosophical areas has an impact on the formation of a person’s understanding of the social relationship and that this in turn impacts their approach to leadership. An exploration of the relationship between philosophy and contemporary leadership theory demonstrates the relevance of philosophical influences on the resultant leadership approach. This research uses the prosopographical method to analyse the backgrounds of a select group of leaders known as soldier statesmen through an investigation of the biographical material of their early lives. For this analysis, two soldier statesmen from each of the 18th and 20th centuries have been selected as suitable subjects: George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte from the former, and Dwight D Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle from the latter. The extent to which the philosophical influence act upon these soldier statesmen is analysed to demonstrate the role that they play in the formation of their leadership approach. The dissertation concludes by evaluating the role that the proposed environmental factors play in relation to existing environmental factors in determining a person’s leadership approach. The research indicates that the Great Man theory of leadership is inadequate for explaining great leadership and that the socio-historical context plays an important role in the emergence and success of great leaders. (shrink)

Building machines like us, machines with minds like ours, has been a goal of Artificial Intelligence since its inception. Unfortunately, the greater part of research in traditional AI has ignored work in neuroscience and the philosophy of mind. At the same time, traditional AI systems have generally been brittle, difficult to engineer and, most importantly, have lacked the same nature and essential properties as human cognitive systems. The objectives of this research are: 1) to justify and motivate research in computational (...) neuroscience as an alternative path to understanding and engineering human cognitive systems, 2) to construct a software system for “wiring” and simulating brains at the functional level, and 3) to obtain a better understanding of higher cognitive function based on a study of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, and current models and theories, of the cerebral neocortex. The thesis embraces a multi-disciplinary approach combining work in the philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and computer science. Although preferring to reverse engineer the brain, this work does attempt to balance this analysis with the synthesis of systems and theories. Results include a resolution of the dispute between the classical cognitivists and connectionists about the nature of mind which argues that to build cognitive systems with minds like ours requires they be built at the functional level, a justification for the analysis of the brain to guide the construction of human-like cognitive systems, the construction of a novel software system for “wiring” and simulating cognitive systems at the functional level, a review and analysis of the structure and function of the cerebral neocortex, a review and analysis of models and theories of, and systems inspired by, the cerebral neocortex, the preliminary aspects of a new architecture and learning strategy for the cerebral neocortex, and the construction of a powerful robot and environment simulation system. This thesis has taken initial steps to demonstrate that an appropriate simulation system, theory based on the human brain, and test environment can be constructed, that may indeed make it possible to build cognitive systems with the same nature and essential properties as ours. An alternative AI may succeed. (shrink)

Moral diversity is often dismissed as being something to explain away en route to discovering the correct answers to moral questions, particularly by those who adopt a realist metaethical perspective. In this thesis I argue that moral diversity is actually far more interesting than this perspective might suggest, and that understanding the causes and dynamics of moral diversity can tell us something about the nature of morality itself. I draw on the tools of evolutionary biology, game theory and moral psychology (...) to give an account of the existence and variation of moral and norms, and how they change over time. I argue that morality can be seen as a kind of cultural technology, the function of which is to help solve the problems of social living in order to facilitate prosocial and cooperative behaviour. However, the optimal solutions to the problems of social living depend on the state of the physical and social environments in which those solutions operate. As such, few, if any, norms or attitudes optimally satisfy the function of morality in every environment. Furthermore, the existence of other norms or attitudes within an environment effectively alters that environment such as to impact the success of other norms and attitudes, introducing another element of dynamism to moral systems. I call this phenomenon “moral ecology.” I also argue that these dynamics have influenced the evolution of our moral psychology, introducing another source of diversity into moral attitudes. This picture of morality suggests that moral diversity is not just an artefact of ignorance, error or bias but is a by-product of the inherent complexity of social living in a wide range of physical and social environments. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the proposition that music plays a crucial role in human existence. More so than the other creative arts, music has been overlooked as a proper subject of philosophical investigation. Philosophy’s hesitation before music can be mainly attributed to the significant challenge posed by music’s seemingly indefinable nature or what Theodor Adorno terms its “enigma”. Unlike the analytic philosophy of music, which tends to view music as an abstract object of knowledge, my thesis investigates music’s remarkable ability to (...) transform and enrich human existence. I do this by examining music in terms of a dynamic lived experience. This thesis demonstrates how music’s transformative effect stems from its intertwining with the interrelated corporeal, affective, intersubjective, temporal and spatial dimensions of existence. With recourse to Adorno’s philosophical aesthetics, this thesis begins with an analysis of why music’s enigma poses problems for traditional philosophical frameworks which seek to define it. Chapters two and three then examine how Schopenhauer and Nietzsche give music an elevated place amongst the creative arts through their claim to its ability to embody the metaphysical foundations of existence. I argue that the early Nietzsche improves Schopenhauer’s account by claiming not so much that music alleviates human suffering but that it provides the means of affirming life. Chapters four and five move beyond dependence on a metaphysics of Will to conceptualise music’s transformative power in terms of lived experience through Alfred Schutz and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological philosophies. Schutz’s philosophy examines how music is based on the intersubjective and temporal dimensions of existence. However, I identify a problem with Schutz’s privileging of the mind over the body in the musical experience. My analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression addresses this limitation by emphasising how music draws its creative power from the corporeal and affective aspects of experience. By investigating music in ways that emphasise its integral place in existence, this thesis thereby provides a potential starting point from which to redress music’s diminished presence in the philosophical literature. (shrink)

The danger with architectural appropriations of Deleuzian concepts is not only that of being too literal or superficial, but also too limited in scope. This work will argue that Deleuze’s thought has a lot more to offer the field of architectural practice and can be used as a catalyst to resist and transform the striating and stagnating forces that dominate contemporary architectural thinking, practice and production. Deleuze’s rich conceptual matrix is underpinned by a combination of an affirmative creative experimental ethos (...) and a challenging orientation to the material world, including the nature of spaces, materials and sensations that this entails. Deleuze’s unique position can be used as a platform to explore how architecture can creatively experiment in ways that resist the forces of organization and control that prevent it from inventing new architectural responses to life. If Deleuze is understood as committed to the ongoing search for thought without image by using philosophy as the art of creating concepts, then what might the implications of this approach be in an architectural context? Against this background, this thesis will proceed to investigate the following key concepts. It commences by looking at the paradox of the New, why this is important for architecture and how Deleuze’s concept of itineration might contribute to a series of revised architectural responses in the future. The problem of architectural design itself is reworked in conjunction with an analysis of Deleuze’s concepts of Immanence and the diagram. I then seek to deepen the existing discussion of space in Deleuze’s work by tracing how his concepts of the line and war machine lead us to a redefinition of materiality and suggest an alternate way for architects to experiment according to the traits of matter and the processes of metallurgy. The question of metallurgy leads to the exposition of Deleuze’s theory of sensation in an architectural context via his concepts of the monument and the House. Drawing all of these themes together allows me to argue for not only a reorientation to the processes and products of the architectural endeavour, but also a reinvention of architectural practice itself. To innovatively experiment requires a radical rethinking of the nature of the material world, of how space, matter and sensation combine via the architectural act and how to remain open to the vitalizing metamorphic vagaries of difference itself. (shrink)

This thesis develops an account of Giorgio Agamben's political ontology of sovereignty and his diagnosis of the dissolution of the Twentieth Century state, which he outlines in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life and State of Exception. I read these aspects of Agamben's thought in light of his early work on language, and an analysis of the political theoretical strategy guiding his engagement with the political tradition. The first half of the thesis examines the ontological grounds of Agamben's political (...) analysis. Chapter one illustrates Agamben's analysis of the human capacity for language; his critique of the metaphysical tradition for presupposing language as a negative and ineffable foundation; and his attempt to conceive the existence of language without presupposition. Chapter two elucidates the structural parallels Agamben draws between law and language, and between the sovereign exception and linguistic potentiality. I identify that, for Agamben, law and state are founded not on a presupposed social bond, but a juridical void that is manifest in exile, civil war, and revolution. In the second half of the thesis I examine Agamben's analysis of the crisis of the state through the lens of nihilism. Chapter three illuminates the parallels between Agamben's diagnoses of ontological nihilism and contemporary politics, and argues that his thought attempts to open space for new possibilities of political thought and praxis that respond to nihilism. Agamben does this by analysing particular political problems as a hollowing out of the concepts of the political tradition, as well as the coming to light of their problematic conceptual presuppositions. Chapter three illustrates this through a reading of Homo Sacer's account of the relation between the Nazi concentration camps and the nation-state. Chapter four argues that State of Exception's diagnosis of the crisis of parliamentary legality caused by the use of emergency powers is limited as an account of security politics. However, I find that the central stake of the work is the argument that contemporary politics brings to light the groundlessness of law and of human action. (shrink)

This thesis is a review of some of the published literature on the determinants of music preference, and an exploration of the nature of music preference among a sample of university students in Sydney, Australia. The review initially gives the reader a picture of a cross-section of the literature, followed by a focus on complexity as the single most important determinant of music preference. It is concluded that although complexity may be a relevant factor in shaping preferences, considered alone, it (...) is most likely a minor issue. A range of other factors is also responsible for shaping our musical tastes. The empirical research is an exploratory study on the effects of training, age, and gender on patterns of preference for styles of music. Patterns of preference for 12 styles of music were examined, and the effects of gender, age, and training investigated. Subjects responded by indicating their preference on a ten-point rating scale, and information on gender, training, and age was collected. Analysis of variance revealed significant main effects for training and style. In addition, the style by training, style by age, and style by age and training interactions were all significant. Results broadly support findings in the mainstream literature regarding the effects of age and training on preference; however, the lack of effect of gender does not correspond to the popular perception regarding the importance of gender influences. (shrink)

This report contains papers presented to the National Social Policy Conference held at the University of New South Wales from 5-7 July 1989. The overall theme of the Conference was, 'Social Policy in Australia: What Future for the Welfare State?' The Conference was structured around the following five specific themes: i) The Ideology, Philosophy and Political Environment of Social Policy ii) The Economic Environment of Social Policy iii) Income Maintenance and Income Security iv) Community Resources and Services v) From Policy (...) to Practice Six reports of the conference proceedings were published in the Social Policy Research Centre Reports and Proceedings series with the following numbers and titles: No. 79 Volume 1: Plenary Sessions edited by Peter Saunders and Adam Jamrozik. No. 80 Volume 2: Concurrent Sessions. Contributions form the Social Policy Research Centre. edited by Peter Saunders. No. 81 Volume 3: Concurrent Sessions. The Ideology, Philosophy and Political Environment of Social Policy, edited by Adam Jamrozik. No. 82 Volume 4: Concurrent Sessions. Social Policies in Australia and New Zealand, edited by Russell Ross. No. 83 Volume 5: Concurrent Sessions. Income Maintenance and Income Security, edited by Peter Whiteford. No. 84 Volume 6: Concurrent Sessions. Community Services: Policy and Practice, edited by Sara Graham. (shrink)

This thesis examines the theories of action, decision-making and human nature in the Xunzi, an ancient Chinese text from the Warring States period. It focuses in particular on Xunzi’s concept xin. The discussion begins with a challenge to a widely-accepted but often unsupported assumption in the literature that human desires are sometimes set in tension against the heart/mind As a corollary of this view, it is also often suggested that yu is associated with a lack of morality, while xin is (...) the moral capacity. This thesis proposes an original understanding of yu, that is, that yu is causally inert and hence does not stand in opposition to xin, as if yu and xin belonged to two separate human capabilities or areas of function. The discussion then proceeds to investigate the nature of xin. It is proposed that xin has a natural preference for certain objects and may, in that light, initiate action to pursue or even modify the pursuit of these objects. On this view, the basis upon which xin deliberates is not necessarily a moral one. For Xunzi, making the right decision, and doing the right thing, is the result of xin being properly trained to know Dao. On this account, both desirable and undesirable behaviours are attributed to xin. The latter occurs because xin does not fully or appropriately know Dao. An underlying assumption is that once xin knows Dao, it simultaneously understands the importance of abiding by it and will set out to do so. An important implication of this way of understanding Xunzi’s conception of xin is that it also bears on the way we understand Xunzi’s theory of human nature. (shrink)

The aesthetics of digital art seem to be inextricable from time and process. Surprisingly though, interaction with digital systems has traditionally been marked by spatial concepts and metaphors, positioning the aesthetics of interaction as a convergence of spaces where data and agents 'meet'. This preoccupation with space has placed restrictions on aesthetic theories that seek to represent interaction with digital systems. Within this dissertation, I argue that questions of time and the more specific questions of the temporal and 'temporalising' nature (...) of interaction have been neglected. Through a process-oriented investigation of interactive digital art works, produced by a range of artists such as George Legrady, Jeffrey Shaw, along with Dennis Del Favero, Peter Weibel and Neil Brown and Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, I address this problem and propose a temporal aesthetic theory of interaction. I thus offer a specific understanding of digital aesthetics in which the process of interaction is foregrounded. I work towards this aesthetic theory of interaction by firstly enacting particular tenets of A. N. Whitehead's process philosophy and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of time, informed by Brian Massumi, Manuel DeLanda and Michel Serres. These thinkers are used to develop a theoretical framework that centres on an understanding of time, process and the event. Directed by this framework, I firstly investigate several non-interactive works by David Claerbout, Bill Viola and the installations of Dan Graham. This investigation of non-interactive works provides the grounding from which I argue that the digital re-presentation of events produces a particular type of time. Thus, particular processes, such as the technological mediation of events, exemplified in the work of Claerbout, Viola and Graham, can be thought to produce their own type of time. From here I propose that, when the process of interaction is introduced into the aesthetic event, time is both produced by digital re-presentations and also encountered in interaction. As a user comes into contact with a database of information, they encounter a particular type of time. In this event, the database enacts a temporal aesthetic in the sense that it archives various sections of the past, and then these are made available again for the user in the present. A user is able to navigate through these sections of past, experiencing them simultaneously, or in a nonlinear fashion, or re-sorting them into a temporal order. Motivated by this Whiteheadian approach and by investigating a set of artworks that utilise archives, such as those of the Atlas Group, Armin Linke, George Legrady, Luc Courchesne and Masaki Fujihata, I develop a temporal aesthetic theory that accounts for the multiple modes of temporality immanent to digital interaction. My understanding of Whitehead's conception of time is modulated by Deleuze's philosophy of the virtual. Enlisting what Steven Shaviro would term Whitehead's "pursuit of univocity" or an object-oriented philosophy, I focus upon the event as a processual encounter. Using the paradigm established by Whitehead's panexperietialism, I view all the digital actants as processes. These processes ¬– software, archiving, visualisation or the physical processes of interaction ¬– all transpire over different scales of time, producing different temporal rhythms. Informed by Whitehead, Deleuze and supplemented by Serres, I thus propose a type of time that is scalar. Here, digital temporality can be seen to yield nonlinear and chaotic temporalities, produced by, and encountered in, interactive events. User-generated occasions are sequential, software occasions are asynchronous, and the temporality of the archive nests within it various levels of the past. The interactive event is the coming together of these occasions – an event in which we encounter multiple scales of the temporal; an event that I will describe as multi-temporal in nature. (shrink)

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was a close connection between natural philosophy and theology. However, this connection was neither essential nor intrinsic, but was open to discussion and negotiation, and natural theology played an important role in these negotiations. While there is already a great deal of literature concerned with natural theology from two distinct academic disciplines—history of science and history of religion—neither set of literature has adequately grasped the nature of the tradition, leading to conflicting claims (...) about its historical origin. In addition, the close connection between natural and revealed theology evident in the works of orthodox Christians in early modern England has been frequently overlooked. This thesis, then, is a contribution to discussions of the relations between theology and natural philosophy in early modern England. Its main purpose is to develop and test a theoretical model of natural theology, designed to overcome some of the limitations of existing approaches. According to this model, a tradition of natural theology only emerged in England in the seventeenth century, due to the theological and natural philosophical turmoil of the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, although it was not without precedents. This tradition of natural theology was apologetically focused, providing arguments in favour of religious doctrines originally derived from revelation. Natural theology was a dynamic discourse, which may be represented by the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, in which resources chosen from natural philosophy and theology were combined and refracted according to the pre-existing views of the practitioner as well as the contextual challenges to which he was responding. By employing a variety of resources from both natural philosophy and theology, natural theology could function as a kind of mediator between these two neighbouring traditions. This model will be tested against a range of historical case studies that represent the moments in the historical trajectory of natural theology at which output of the discourse became more concentrated, due to renewed upheaval within and between theology and natural philosophy. (shrink)

Nicolas Bourriaud's concept of 'relational aesthetics' has proved an influential framework for understanding discipline cross overs in art of the 1990s. This paper traces precedents in aesthetic philosophy, both Kantian and Marxist that inform Bourriaud's account of the relational aesthetic of contemporary art. In the process it registers a number of points of disagreement with the liberal view of democratic social bonds, and the links between aesthetics, ethics and politics that Borriaud propounds. The critical terms of my response to relational (...) aesthetics are derived from a Neo-Marxist thinking of democracy, and the relation between aesthetics and politics developed by philosopher Jacques Rancière. This questioning of Bourriaud's claims about the democratic incline of relational aesthetics is fleshed out by an examination of the cross disciplinary art of Mark Dion. Dion is known for producing performative, site-specific events and installations that incorporate the discourses and professional protocols of natural science and archaeology. Bourriaud situates Dion's practice within a sub-set of relational aesthetics, namely art production that is modelled on the professional procedures of non-art disciplines, and which emulates the "relational world" that such disciplines suppose. While acknowledging some affinities between Dion's art and relational aesthetics, this paper draws a distinction between the kinds of social and disciplinary interaction that Bourriaud endorses, and the role that the aesthetic plays in Dion's archaeological dig projects of the late 1990s. (shrink)

The thesis develops a comprehensive account of human political ontology through the discussion of Plato, Rousseau, Lacan, Lyotard, Hugo, Conrad, Tolstoy and Nietzsche. At the heart of this account lies the dialectical struggle between an individual's need to belong and their fidelity to an intuitively recognisable, yet difficult to define good, that has, over the millennia, been conceptualised as, amongst other things, the form of the good, self interest, compassion, love, friendship, the event, conscience, reason and truth. Through the development (...) of this account of human political ontology the thesis will elucidate the stakes involved in emancipatory acts, be they broad social movements or individual transformations. Its most important argument is that people almost always fail to recognise that to which they belong; the consequence of this being that they mistake the acts which function to reaffirm their belonging for acts that are indicative of their sovereign being. This phenomenon becomes particularly troubling once we recognise that the acts which function to reaffirm an individual’s belonging can depend upon the individual sacrificing both themself and others. (shrink)

This thesis examines the epistemological and metaphysical aspects of consciousness or sentience, and how they relate to standards of scientific practice. Historically, orthodox science has denied that there are any real problems of sentience because there is no scientific evidence to support claims regarding its nature and existence. In recent years, however, new approaches to sentience have entered into scientific debate that can be classified by metaphysical frameworks that vary in their conceptions of scientific evidence. In this thesis, four such (...) frameworks are considered and compared: Ordinary Materialism, Property Dualism, Type-F Monism and Phenomenal Representationalism. Many sentience theorists adopt an Ordinary Materialist framework that conceives of scientific observation as the interaction of our physical sensory apparatus with the surrounding physical world. Sentience-friendly theories in this framework fail to present supporting evidence that is acceptable by ordinary scientific standards. There are also contradictions in their claims that we know of conscious events via naturalised introspection, and their claims that these events create no publicly observable physical effects. Theories proposed within Property Dualist and Type-F Monist frameworks suffer from similar problems to Ordinary Materialist theories, especially contradictions between claims of knowledge by direct acquaintance and how this knowledge is stored and processed by publicly observable physical systems. Phenomenal Representationalism is advocated as the most consistent and complete way for science to deal with questions of sentience. In this framework, questions of sentience are part of wider epistemological concerns that provide presumptions for scientific practice, rather than subjects for scientific investigation. (shrink)

This thesis examines the relation between two contrasting approaches to justice: the constructive and reconstructive projects of Rawls and Habermas on the one hand, and the deconstructive projects of Levinas and Derrida on the other. First, I identify the central difference between the two projects, reconstructing each account of justice as it develops in relation to Kant’s practical philosophy. I then argue that the two projects are complementary. [New Paragraph] Whilst Rawls and Habermas emphasise the possibility of objectively realising Kant’s (...) idea of an impartial standpoint among autonomous persons, Levinas and Derrida defend the impossibility of determining the content of justice. Rawls and Habermas subscribe to the “art of the possible”, rendering Kant’s impartial standpoint by means of the “original position” or the “procedures of discourse ethics”. By contrast, Levinas argues for justice’s failure, discovering, in Kant’s moral law, a principle of responsibility for the particular other which conflicts with impartiality. Distinguishing himself from both the reconstructive tradition and Levinas, Derrida affirms, in part through his readings of Kant, the “undecidability” of the critical function of justice. Committed to the possibility of justice, Derrida also acknowledges its impossibility: no local determination can reconcile responsibility before the other with impartiality among all. [New Paragraph] Having identified the central difference between the two traditions, I then defend their complementarity. “Reasonable faith” in the possibility of justice must be supplemented by the acknowledgment of its impossibility. Conversely, attesting to justice’s failure is unsatisfactory without commitment to the possibility of constructing just social forms. Distancing myself from the liberal critique whereby deconstruction withdraws from the political, I instead add my voice to a dissenting group which affirms that deconstruction can productively engage with the constructive tradition. Deconstruction is at home in Rawls’ view that “the ideal of a just constitution is always something to be worked toward”. (shrink)

This thesis examines Judith Butler's account of performative agency in relation to its critics, in particular, the question of whether Butler's thesis disavows materiality and thereby agency. These questions are answered by reading Butler's work through the work of Merleau-Ponty, in particular, by comparing Butler's account of performative agency to Merleau-Ponty's account of bodily intentionality. It is argued that a common ground underlies these featured concepts. I identify this common ground through the institution of the concept "simultaneity" to express a (...) relationship of reciprocity between meaning and materiality through which ontological and epistemological significance is, reciprocally, sedimented and transformed; stabilised and destabilised. (shrink)

This thesis: Origins and Destinations: Representation in the theatre of Romeo Castellucci, investigates the working methodology of the Italian theatre director, Romeo Castellucci and his company, Societas Raffaello Sanzio. It provides an account of Societas Raffaello Sanzio’s history, working methods, a detailed reading of the thematic and philosophical landscape in their works especially Genesi: from the museum of sleep, and the cycle: Tragedia Endogonidia, and a discussion on the company’s artistic process towards the formation of its compositions and performances. This (...) research and investigation is based on numerous viewings of most of the company’s theatre works created in the last six years, interviews with Romeo Castellucci as well as other participating artists, two privileged periods of observation in Italy of the rehearsal and creation processes of three shows, and the analysis and discussion of some of the key critical and intellectual responses to the work of Romeo Castellucci. The thematic focus of the thesis is the notion of Origins and Destinations, and its relationship with the language of representation in Romeo Castellucci’s theatre. The theoretical discussion in the thesis is organised around Giorgio Agamben’s notion of Potentiality within the composition and content of Castellucci’s theatre. This concept provides a link between the key ideas of Origins, Destinations and Representation. Castellucci’s application of Agamben’s Potentiality deconstructs dramatic structure, narrative and action down to the fundamentals of the act itself, separated from its meaningful context. It is the conclusion of this thesis, that in the instant of this singular act, Romeo Castellucci manages to represent a point where origin and destination meet, or a point where they both are, for an instant, one and the same thing. (shrink)

Legislation in various jurisdictions alters the common law right to control access to one’s land by allowing the imposition of rights of access in favour of one landowner over the land of another. The relevant legislation can be divided into two categories. The first-generation legislation and s 180, Property Law Act 1974 ) permits the creation of easements over servient land to facilitate the development of dominant land. The second-generation legislation permits the creation of temporary rights of access over servient (...) land to facilitate work on dominant land. This thesis examines the extent to which this change in the law can be justified by three modes of ethical discourse: right-based, duty-based, and goal-based reasoning. An examination of the first-generation legislation and the cases in which it has been applied suggests that a form of goal-based reasoning can be used to justify its enactment. The legislation is needed to facilitate the efficient use of land where the existence of a bilateral monopoly and the possibility of strategic bargaining puts at risk the conclusion of a mutually beneficial agreement regarding access. A review of the second-generation legislation and the law reform reports and parliamentary debate that preceded its enactment indicates that the legislation can be justified by a form of duty-based reasoning. The legislation is needed to bring about a proper social ordering by imposing access rights where this would be consistent with the ideal of good neighbourliness. The thesis concludes that although these goal-based and duty-based discourses make an arguable case for the enactment of both generations of the legislation, neither of them, in an unadulterated form, provides a conclusive justification. Rather, an eclectic approach that draws on both discourses is required. It proposes that the legislation’s compensation provisions be amended to reflect the commingling of the ideas of efficiency, a properly ordered society and intensive land use, and to allow the servient owner to share in the benefits generated by the imposition of access. (shrink)

As an alternative to psychoanalysis’s aggressive subject/object relation, Leo Bersani proposes a more modulated, aesthetic subjectivity. This essay explores Bersani’s concept of aesthetic relations through impressionism’s and realism’s competing demands on the artistic object in Henry James’s “Flickerbridge.” I suggest this 1902 short story can be productively read as a theory of the perspectival shift James was exploring in his experiments with literary impressionism in that period.

Walter Pater’s theoretical ‘come-back’ over the past forty years or so has been dominated by the competing claims of the new historicism and deconstruction, both of which discover prescient forerunners of their own, seemingly mutually exclusive, theoretical concerns in Pater’s aesthetic criticism and historical novel, Marius the Epicurean. Yet despite their obvious differences, both critical approaches share one thing in common: the same post-humanist denigration of the trope of metaphor in favor of the seemingly more ethically responsive, because inclusive, trope (...) of metonymy. In this essay, I observe how the new historicism’s and deconstruction’s privileging of this latter figure as the prime trope of difference poses an immediate problem for ethical thought that, largely under the influence of Alain Badiou, has become increasingly cognizant of the need for a workable conception of sameness, traditionally supplied by metaphor. Accordingly, this close reading of the metaphorical dialectic of one of Pater’s surprisingly under-read Imaginary Portraits, “Sebastian van Storck”, explores the basic charge against metaphor, namely, that it is an essentially ‘theological’ trope insofar as it invariably pre-posits the “identity” it modestly claims to have merely discovered. Employing the central figure of Sebastian’s idealism – equation – I venture that, once rethought as a relation not of identity but of equivalence, metaphor is capable of shouldering the rhetorical burden of similarity without relinquishing its ethical claim as a primary producer of new differences in the world and is, hence, deserving of a central place in a post-deconstructive ethics. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary, qualitative study is the first to map the role of spirituality in contemporary art museum education from the educator’s perspective. The thesis makes an original contribution to a spiritual approach to art museum education by acknowledging an interplay between worldview, core values, educational goals, learning theory, and educational practice. Based on a holistic worldview of the profound interconnectedness of all life, spirituality is proposed as a nonreligious and nonsectarian category concerned with an individual’s experiential journey in search of (...) purpose, meaning, and connectedness with self, others, nature, and the transcendent. The case study that underpins this project focused on three significant groups of educators: art museum educators, high school visual art teachers, and prospective visual art teachers studying at university. Data from qualitative questionnaires and semistructured interviews was triangulated among the groups, to map participants’ views about spirituality in teaching high school groups visiting art museums. My analysis of the qualitative data revealed that all participants made a distinction between spirituality and religion. However, in their teaching some used spirituality as a transcendental concept, others as nontranscendental. Further, visual art emerged as a secular field particularly well suited to engaging students with existential and spiritual questions. For example, art museum educators described art museums as places of slowing down—referring to a state of heightened presence and concentration, fruitful for immersive experiences, and for potentially opening to spiritual questions. Another key finding is that all participants were hesitant to embrace a spiritual dimension to art education. One way to encourage more spiritual dialogue would be to clarify the contemporary, secular interpretation of “spiritual” across art museum education, the visual arts syllabi, and teacher training. Greater clarity may inspire educators to integrate spiritual explorations into art museum education. The study concludes that art museums present a potentially powerful learning environment for young people to engage with reflective and existential questions of self and world. In this context, contemplative pedagogies, including the integration of mindfulness and body–mind practices, may provide novel and meaningful strategies to invite young visitors to explore the spiritual. (shrink)