Browsing Philosophy (Theses and Dissertations) by Date of Publication

Now showing items 21-40 of 41

    • Ideas, relations, and signs : 'intuition' and 'symbolic substitution'in Berkeley's theory of knowledge of nature 

      Nakano, Yasuaki (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2014)
      The chief aim of this thesis is to develop an interpretation of Berkeley's theory of knowledge of nature through clarification of two prominent motifs which underlie it 'intuition' and 'symbolic substitution'. I regard ...

    • What does it mean to say that truth is plural? 

      Antonsen, Paal (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2014)
      This essay is an attempt to make sense of idea that truth is plural. I begin with presenting some motivations for pluralism about truth. I then move on to discuss the standard objections, and give some arguments for why ...

    • The argumentative unity of Plato's Parmenides 

      Horan, David (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2014)
      The purpose of this thesis is to make the case that Plato's dialogue Parmenides constitutes an argumentative unity whereby certain philosophic difficulties presented in the first part of the dialogue are resolved by the ...

    • Chomsky Quine and naturalistic philosophy 

      King, David (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2015)
      [Exerpt from Introduction, page 6] I will argue that while Chomsky's claims about language acquisition have been tested over the last fifty years and have not all stood up to critical scrutiny, Quine's views have not been ...

    • A deliberative account of causation: How the evidence of deliberating agents accounts for causation and its temporal direction 

      Fernandes, Alison (Columbia University, 2016)
      In my dissertation I develop and defend a deliberative account of causation: causal relations correspond to the evidential relations we use when we decide on one thing in order to achieve another. Tamsin’s taking her ...

    • Duality and opposition in Heraclitus and modern philosophy of language and linguistics 

      Begley, Keith (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2016)
      Aim: To investigate the phenomenon of Duality, that is, opposition in its many forms. In particular, as it appears in Heraclitus’ philosophy and his reaction to his predecessors, in the form of the thesis, apparently ...

    • The role of Kinêsis and Statis in Plato's Sophist : an inquiry into the two forgotten Megista Genê of the Sophist 

      Sabrier, Pauline (Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). Philosophy Department, 2017)
      This dissertation addresses the general question of the relation between the problem of being and the theory of the five great kinds (megista genê) in Plato’s dialogue the Sophist. In contemporary scholarship, the two ...

    • A Kantian Reconciliation of Moral Realism and Moral Supervenience 

      LYONS, MICHAEL (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2018)
      The 'Moral Supervenience' thesis is a deeply intuitive and popular one within philosophy, and can be defined as follows: "There can be no changes in any moral properties without at least some kind of change in non-moral ...

    • Berkeley's Analyst: Rigour and Rhetoric 

      Moriarty, Clare (King's College London, 2018)
      Consider the following puzzle: in 1732, Berkeley published Alciphron, and with it a sweeping pragmatic vindication of concepts whose terms fail to represent clear ideas. In that pragmatic semantics, he uses mathematical ...

    • Akrasia: Plato and the limits of Education? 

      SHANAHAN, COLM (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2018)
      In this dissertation I shall argue for the following main claim: (1a) the motivational neutrality of reason. I will show that this concept reveals that, for Plato, (1b) reason is itself a necessary condition of the possibility ...

    • Seeking Spinoza: The Spinozistic Origins of Early Psychological Theory in Wundt, James and Freud 

      KENNEDY, LAURA (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2019)
      This thesis investigates the previously unexamined convergence between Spinoza's monistic philosophy of psychology and early psychological theory. It argues that the three 'founding fathers' of the field of psychology, ...

    • Removing Rubbish and Laying Foundations: Berkeley's Solution to the Sceptical Problem 

      WEST, PETER (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2020)
      In this dissertation, I argue that while Berkeley can and should be characterised as an idealist, an immaterialist, and an anti-abstractionist, he is, above all, an anti-representationalist thinker. My contention is that ...

    • The Relation between the What-It-Is and the Why-It-Is in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, On the Parts of Animals, and Metaphysics 

      GE, TIANQIN (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2020)
      In this dissertation, I wish to examine the relation between the what-it-is and the why-it-is in Aristotle’s three treatises. The main conclusions I will defend in this thesis can be formulated as follows. In the Posterior ...

    • Rorty On Religion 

      NUR, ABDULLAH SELMAN (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2020)
      This thesis aims to explore Rorty's pragmatic approach to religion and critically engage with it. In the core of this approach lies his distinction between private and public projects, and his plea for the privatization ...

    • Abstract objects and semantics: An essay on prospects and problems with abstraction principles as a means of justifying reference to abstract objects 

      GNATEK, ZUZANNA (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2020)
      The aim of this thesis is to reconsider the role that abstraction principles play, for neo-Fregeans, in establishing reference to abstract objects, in a way that brings to light both their significance and ...

    • Simple Bodies and Aristotle's Explanation of Change: De Caelo and De Generatione et Corruptione 

      Zhang, Jiayu (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2021)
      Why does Aristotle commit to the existence of simple bodies? Why does Aristotle conduct an investigation into simple bodies as part of his his natural philosophy? These are the two questions I want to focus on in this ...

    • A Pragmatic Bishop: George Berkeley's Theory of Causation in De motu 

      Oda, Takaharu (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2022)
      In this doctoral thesis, I will argue that in his De motu (1721, 'On motion'), Bishop George Berkeley (c.1684-1753) develops a pragmatist theory of causation regarding mechanical theories outlined previously with Newtonianism. ...

    • A reliabilist-teleological account of Plato's theory of knowledge based on the Timaeus, the Republic and the Theaetetus 

      Jiao, Liming (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2023)
      Whether, in Plato's epistemology, the Forms can be grasped without using the inferior epistemic capacities, and whether the inferior epistemic capacities contribute to one's grasp of F-ness and the Form F - These are the ...

    • Hannah Arendt's Unwritten Theory of Political Judgment 

      Fazekas, Samantha (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2023)
      This project develops a new reading of Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic reflective judgment. The aim of this project is to justify Arendt’s claim that she brings Kant’s unwritten political ...

    • The Structure of Forms in Plato's Theory of Forms 

      Toth, Robert (Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Philosophy, 2023)
      The overall aim of this PhD dissertation is to consider and examine the relations between Forms in Plato?s theory of Forms. Undertaking this task does not require a full account of Plato?s theory of Forms, rather it requires ...