1,864 research outputs found
A critical comparison of William James and Søren Kierkegaard on religious belief
No full textThis thesis is a critical comparison of the accounts of religious belief proposed byWilliam James and Søren Kierkegaard. Both James and Kierkegaard greatly emphasizethe subjective aspects of religious belief. In view of this fact, surprisingly littlecomparative work has been done in this area. I contribute to this literature in two ways.Firstly, I make a brief assessment of what James knew of Kierkegaard’s work.Secondly, I draw four comparisons between Kierkegaard and James. In Chapter One Iexamine the claim that Kierkegaard proposes a pragmatist account of faith of the kindthat James sets out in his essay The Will To Believe. I argue that this claim rests on amisunderstanding of Kierkegaard’s argument that to have faith is to take a risk. In thefollowing chapter I discuss James’s and Kierkegaard’s views on formal proofs for theexistence of God. Both philosophers reject the notion that faith can be based on suchproofs. I distinguish between their positions, and argue in favour of Kierkegaard’s. Inthe third chapter I compare Kierkegaard’s and James’s accounts of religious experience.James views religious experiences as a special kind of evidence for the existence ofGod. For Kierkegaard it is a mistake to view religious experiences as evidence. Suchexperiences should be understood in relation to the concept of religious authority. In thefinal chapter I examine Kierkegaard’s conception of faith as a life-view. I argue that forKierkegaard a life-view is a fundamental perspective on one’s existence. I compare thisconception with James’s concept of philosophical temperament and in relation to hisdiscussion of the sick soul
‘Decolonisation’ in China, 1949-1959
No full textIn this chapter Jonathan Howlett adopts perspectives and models from wider literatures on decolonisation to explore the Chinese Communist Party’s elimination of the British semi-colonial presence from China after the revolution of 1949 and to place it within its global context. He focuses in particular on the CCP’s attempts to address the economic, cultural and human legacies of semi-colonialism within a comparative context. In so doing, the author seeks to complicate our understanding of the Sino-British relationship by exploring one of its most dramatic phases and to further illuminate this neglected period in Chinese history
German, Joyce, Ulysses
No full textIn the case of languages, English was James Joyce's native language but he was also an accomplished polyglot understanding Latin, Italian, French, Norwegian, some Irish-Gaelic and German. I intend to examine in greater detail the German used in Ulysses and see what connection it has with Joyce. Joyce was fluent in German but I believe that he utilized these Germanic references to complement his characters and themes as well as his highly allusive narrative style. This paper will be divided into two parts. The first part will consist of sections dealing with Joyce's connection to the German language and culture. The second part will consist of a list of all his German allusions in Ulysses.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes summaryby Jonathan A. Parke
Molecular Control of Lens Development in Xenopus Laevis
No full textThe formation of the embryonic lens is a classic system for the study of tissue interactions, termed inductive interactions. Chapter 1 will present an overview of lens formation, focusing on the inductive interactions involved in lens formation, including the presentation of a model of lens induction, and recent work examining the molecular control during embryonic lens formation. In the anuran, Xenopus laevis, there is an alternative lens-forming process termed cornea-lens transdifferentiation. Considering that both lens-forming processes result in the same ultimate outcome, it begs the question: How related are the molecular events involved in the embryonic and regenerative processes? Chapter 2 will examine gene expression during cornea-lens transdifferentiation and establish that the suite of gene expression involved in embryonic lens formation is also involved in cornea-lens transdifferentiation. These results support the idea that the transdifferentiating cornea could prove to be a useful source of material in producing a library of genes generally involved in lens formation. A subtracted library was constructed from 1--4 day transdifferentiating corneas in order to isolate novel genes involved in lens formation. This approach was found to be successful for identifying new genes, which are expressed during embryonic lens development. Chapter 3 will discuss a screen of genes isolated from this subtracted library. The inductive events regulating the expression of one of there genes will be discussed. The results of this screen and the results of the second chapter will be used to analyze the question: Can temporal patterns of gene expression be correlated to the particular properties of competence, bias, specification, commitment, and differentiation? There may be other properties that have not yet been identified in either a developmental or experimental context, which could be revealed by examining a broad panel of gene expression. Chapter 4 will examine the temporal patterns of gene expression during embryonic lens formation and assess the model of lens induction presented in Chapter 1.Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-28T15:17:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2002Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 87926
Lift date: Forever
Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDsRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDsU of I Only111 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002
PACE REFIT building archetype load curves
No full textDescription: This dataset was generated as part of the PACE REFITS project. Contract number SI/501883-01. This data is a sample dataset. The complete data for all retrofit cases is used in the MANGOret Optimisation Framework.
For more information contact Ivalin Petkov - [email protected]
Publications:
Ivalin Petkov, Georgios Mavromatidis, Christof Knoeri, James Allan, Volker H. Hoffmann
MANGOret: An optimization framework for the long-term investment planning of building multi-energy system and envelope retrofits. 2022
Authors: James Allan, Portia Murray, Ivalin Petkov, Georgios Mavromatidis
Source Data: OpenSteetMap; Gebäude und wohnungsregister, BFS; STATENT, BFS; swissBoundaries3D, SwissTopo)
Contents:
Name:annual_simulation_summary,
Details: Aggregated annual space heating, cooling and electricity demands.
Name:centroid_details,
Details: Details about each centroid/archetype and their percentage assignment to the building stock of Switzerland
Name:regional_boundaries_with_canton_name
Details: An ESRI Shapefile containing the boundaries of the climatic zones used for simulation
Name: profiles
Details: Daily and hourly demand profiles for each centroid/archetype listed in the annual_simulation_summary.
The name convention for each file is based on the fields in the annual simulation summary.
profiles//____ where demand
resolution is either daily or hourly. The rest of the fields are explained in the accompanying field_descriptors.csv.
Institute: UESL, EMPA
Corresponding author: James Alla
'Pure and undefiled religion': the function of purity language in the Epistle of James
No full textWhereas commentators frequently restrict the categories for purity language in James
to either ritual or metaphorical (and uniformly conclude the language is a metaphor
for personal morality) this is overly restrictive and ignores how purity language was
used in the first-century. Current research of purity language in ancient Israel calls
into question the rigid either/or categorization of purity language in James. Such
descriptions are not only unjustifiably restrictive, but they also fail to account for the
function or meaning of the purity language within the rhetorical goals of the
composition.
The central argument of this investigation is that purity language both articulates and
constructs the composition's worldview and thus serves as an important theme in the
text. Chapter two discusses the different methods of analysis of purity and offers a
taxonomy of purity language. This taxonomy provides a more precise approach to
understanding the function of purity language. Chapter three argues for several
important aspects of the structure and strategy of the text. Specifically the three
interdependent characteristics of 1) an epistolary structure; 2) a coherent rhetorical
argument based on polar oppositions; 3) and the special function of James 1: 2-27 as
an introduction are suggested.
While attuned to the textual issues argued in chapter three, the categories developed in
the taxonomy were applied as a heuristic guide to understand the function of purity
and pollution in chapter four. This analysis demonstrated four specific things: 1)
though purity language occurs relatively infrequently, it is used at crucial points of the
composition (1: 26-27; 3: 6,17; 4: 8); 2) that the use of purity and pollution specifically
functions within the overall strategy of contrasts which leads readers to a decision; 3)
that the majority of the time purity language labeled the world (and by extension those
associated with it) as set against the implicit purity of God; and therefore, 4) the
readers of James must be separate from the impure world ("pure") in order to be
wholehearted in devotion to God ("perfect").
Because the purity of the audience is directly related to their proximity to the world,
chapter five asks what kind of separation is envisioned by the use of purity language.
While purity is indeed boundary language, the cultural stance of James is complex.
The author shows signs of acculturation, yet this acculturation is employed to call the
audience to specific points of separation from surrounding culture, namely separation
from patron-client relationships with the "rich" and use of inappropriate and deceitful
speech. Thus the composition is not calling for sectarian separation from the
surrounding culture, but rather is a complex document demonstrating cultural
accommodation while calling forth specific socio-cultural boundaries between the
readers and the world
The author as actor: a defense of Quentin Skinner
No full textIn this thesis, I defend Quentin Skinner's work against some criticisms raised by three of his interlocutors: John Keane, Kennet Minogue, and Joseph Femia. All three of these critics take issue with Skinner's author-centered approach to the historical interpretation of texts. Femia, invoking Roland Barthes 'death of the author' thesis, argues that Skinner's attempt to recover the intentions of authors is impossible. While Minogue and Keane do not dispute the possibility of recovering an author's intentions, they question the unity of such an enterprise. In order to answer Femia's criticism of Skinner, I draw an analogy between Skinner's figure of the author, and Arendt's figure of the political actor. I argue that just as it is possible for someone to know what a political actor is doing in performing a political act, it is similarly possible for an intellectual historian to understand what political acts an author was doing in writing his or her text. To refute Minogue's and Keane's claims that a Skinnerian approach to intellectual history is of no use to the political theorist, I point to three examples of how Skinner's recovery of forgotten political discourses have been applied to contemporary debates in political theory.Graduat
Paranoia and irony in the Anglophone dectective narrative and the novels of Umberto Eco
No full textThe thesis provides a reading of Umberto Eco's three novels, The Name of the
Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Island of the Day Before, that, while it
acknowledges the importance of the Italian literary tradition in which they stand, also
seeks to explain why their author appeals so frequently to literary models outside
Italy, and in particular the Anglo-American detective genre.
Chapter One explains Eco's relationship to the development of Italian literature
through his lifetime. It is noted that Eco is beginning, both in his semiotics and his
fiction, from a position where post-structuralism has been extensively explored by
neo-avant-gardew riters. Eco positions himself alongsides uchw riters as Italo Calvino
and Jorge Luis Borges, who wish to explore the ludic possibilities of working within
structures, while all the time acknowledging the epistemological limitations of so
doing. Eco's chosen structure, more often than not, is the highly defined genre of
the detective story.
From here, the following chapters engage in close readings of the three novels,
with particular emphasis on The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum,
demonstrating that they explore problems of interpretation central to the detective
narrative. In doing this, they display an intimate knowledge of generic developments
within the detective tradition, and of the philosophical and aesthetic uses made of the
genre by other writers. The embedding of intertextual references to other detective
narratives within Eco's novels is an important factor, as they come together to form
a narrative of epistemological inquiry that itself follows Eco's philosophical progress
through the years. In short, the novels, inter alia, map a systematic inquiry into the
possibility of systematic inquiry. They reserve the space to engage in such an ironic
and self-referential project precisely through their fictionality
10-05 "The Macroeconomics of Development without Throughput Growth"
No full textSerious discussion has begun of policies to promote the goal of increasing well-being without material growth. Moving towards this goal requires a profound reorientation of macroeconomic theory. Importantly, the call by ecological economists to move away from traditional growth-oriented models comes at a moment when standard macroeconomics is in considerable turmoil. The financial crisis of 2008/2009 seriously undermined the basis for mainstream macroeconomics and brought renewed attention to various forms of Keynesian analysis and policy previously regarded as outdated. There is a close complementarity between new Keynesian and ecological perspectives. While older Keynesian analysis was oriented towards promoting growth, a true Keynesian analysis of the relationship between investment and consumption does not depend on a growth orientation. What this analysis has in common with an ecological perspective is the rejection of market optimality assumed in classical models. Moving away from the neoclassical goal of inter-temporal utility maximization allows for different, pluralistic economic goals: full employment, provision of basic needs, social and infrastructure investment, and income equity. These goals are compatible with environmental preservation and resource sustainability, whereas indefinite growth is not. But they require a revitalization of the sphere of social investment, seriously neglected (indeed often omitted completely) in standard models. Reintroducing this perspective allows the development of an economic theory suitable for the transition to a stable-population, low-carbon, resource-conserving global economy. The barriers to this transition are primarily political and institutional, not economic. Specifically, an eco-Keynesian perspective emphasizes new macroeconomic categories including: * human-capital-intensive services * investment in energy-conserving capital * investment in natural and human capital The expansion of these categories provides a basis for growth in wellbeing without growth in throughput, while preserving full employment and economic stability. This paper explores some of the implications of this altered macroeconomic perspective for development in both the global "North" and "South". It is suggested that the problems following the global financial crisis cannot be resolved by a return to traditional growth patterns, and will require large-scale practical policies based on eco-Keynesianism.
The sentiments of a Church-of-England man : a study of Swift's politics
No full textThis contextualist study re-examines the contested critical
question of Jonathan Swift's political character. It is
concerned with the historical meaning of Swift's texts
and attempts to recover their original political impact.
Politically-literate contemporaries claimed to read Jacobite
Tory politics in Swift's texts. Rather than dismiss the
judgement of Swift's contemporaries, this study asks whether
there is anything about Swift's political writing in polemical
context that could have led contemporaries to construe
the politics of his texts as Jacobite Tory. The conclusion
this study reaches is that aspects of Swift's political
rhetoric are consonant with Tory and Jacobite polemic.
While contesting current conceptions of Swift as a Whig,
this study offers a partial revision of that scholarship
which describes Swift as a non-Jacobite Tory.
The thesis is based on an analysis of Swift's prose, poetry
and correspondence and contemporary (mainly printed) sources
books, pamphlets, poems on affairs of state and newspapers.
Some new or neglected polemical contexts and analogues
for Swift's works are suggested. Chapter 1 considers some
of the problems and contested issues in interpretation
of Swift's political biography and writing. Chapter 2
witnesses Swift's combination of High Church attitudes
with a radical political critique of Whig establishment.
Swift is read in juxtaposition with Jacobite Tory authors
such as George Granville, Lord Lansdowne. Chapter 3 relocates
A Tale of a Tub in historical context to reveal the satire's
relation to High Church Tory polemical languages. Chapter
4 discusses the disaffected Tory aspect of Gulliver's
Travels. Chapter 5 attempts to register the complexity
of the textual evidence of Swift's attitude to Jacobitism.
Detailed attention is given to his politically-revealing
attitudes to the Dutch. A coda briefly describes Swift's
discontent with the Revolution settlement, examines this
Church-of-England Man's sentiments on the crucial ideological
issue of resistance, and suggests the importance of Hugo
Grotius in Swift's political thought
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