| 1. |
- Kristensen, Kasper, 1985-
(författare)
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Spinoza on Ethical Cultivation : An Analysis of Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Early Modern Cultura Animi
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation concerns Benedict Spinoza’s (1632–1677) account of ethical life, emphasising the role of techniques and exercises for achieving greater power to control one’s thoughts, emotions, and actions. The study aims to show that Spinoza offers a much more coherent and ambitious ethical theory than what is commonly acknowledged, involving both theoretical and practical considerations.The primary focus of the dissertation is to trace the influence of the early modern cultura animi (cultivation of the soul) tradition on Spinoza’s moral philosophy and to explore the novel use to which he puts it. Chapter One relates the central aims of Spinoza’s philosophy to a conception of philosophy as the art of living, connecting the Renaissance humanist revival of cultura animi tradition to Spinoza’s own attempt to construct a scientific ethics. Chapter Two analyses how Spinoza’s theories of imagination, judgment, and emotions explain the deep-rooted habits and prejudices that present key obstacles to ethical progress. Taking this diagnosis of human nature as a point of departure, Chapter Three explores the difficulties involved in trying to attain adequate knowledge and argues that Spinoza constructs his philosophical method to remedy the natural weakness of human understanding. Chapter Four explains Spinoza’s account of the central moral concepts of good and evil, articulating and defending an objectivist reading of his value theory. Chapter Five considers the extent to which a rational understanding of good and evil can alter habits and guide action given that passions are often more powerful than reason. Building on the weakness of reason to control the passions, Chapter Six shows that spiritual exercises are necessary components in Spinoza’s proposed remedy insofar as they fortify rational understanding by producing firm habits of character. The concluding discussion underlines that Spinoza’s ethical cultivation should not be seen as a linear process that secures stable happiness. Rather, people are and remain subject to the power of illusory beliefs and passions, and the ethical struggle is ongoing. By cultivating understanding, modifying one’s desires, reforming vicious habits and performing virtuous actions, however, the individual can learn to live with his or her vulnerability more happily and virtuously.
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| 2. |
- Ljungberg, Johannes
(författare)
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Toleransens gränser : Religionspolitiska dilemman i det tidiga 1700-talets Sverige och Europa
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Var går gränsen för vilka avvikelser från samhällets grundvalar som kan tolereras? När så kallade pietister framträdde i Sverige vid 1700-talets början uppstod en ny problematik kring toleransens gränser i Sveriges historia. Till skillnad från i övriga Europa hade dessförinnan religiösa avvikare inte funnits i någon större omfattning. Pietisterna uppfattades som ett hot mot den gemensamma religionsutövningen, ordningen och samhället i stort. Med utgångspunkt i statliga utredningar analyseras i denna bok diskussioner och förhandlingar om toleransens gränser för umgängesliv, avvikande beteende och yttranden i tal och skrift. Dessa tre teman blev föremål för storpolitik och vardagliga konflikter med inslag av hedersföreställningar, censurärenden och enhetspolitik, ständigt med frågan om vad som utgjorde oönskade rubbningar av samhället hängande i luften.
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| 3. |
- Karlsson, Mattis, 1986-
(författare)
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From Fossil To Fact : The Denisova Discovery as Science in Action
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From Fossil to Fact: The Denisova Discovery as Science in Action is a study of the (actor) networked relations that make and shape science through the case of the discovery of the Denisova human.In 2010, Nature published the article “The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia”, the article revealed the results of mtDNA sequencing of a fossilised finger bone excavated from the Denisova Cave in Siberia, showing that the fossil belonged to an individual of a previously unknown type of humans, the Denisovans. This thesis identifies, describes and analyses how a set of actors and actions – a network – made the Denisovan’s transformation(s) from fossil to fact happen. The study relies on materials regarding the Denisovan from multiple types of sources, such as scientific journals, news articles and Wikipedia entries, which make it possible to describe a collective process of knowledge production that surpasses a science community autonomy, and to highlight the diverse, multidimensional and sophisticated mesh of people, places and things that came together in the making of the Denisova human (as a) fact.Drawing on methodological guidelines and theoretical premises from actor network theory and Bruno Latour’s principles for science in action, this thesis deals with the Denisova discovery as a case of science in the making. The thesis traces actions of significance for the Denisovan’s representation, analysing them as part of a materialisation, to illustrate how the Denisova human was made, and made to fit the major paradigms and narratives of (a)DNA and evolutionary science. The thesis actualises questions about social influence in science, problematising imaginaries of science/non-science divides, and highlights how the authority of genetic science is subject to and dependent on dramatisation.This thesis lists actors and actions that were central to the discovery and the making of the fact. This list includes actors from various fields, showing how the Denisova human was designed to hold in accordance with the rules and cultures of a heterogenous network that includes scientists, experts, journalists and Wikipedia editors.This complicated network made the Denisova human through transformations and drove it to become a fact, allowing it to be written into the history of human evolution. Mapping this network provides an answer to how the Denisova human has been made and remade, but also provides insight into the relationship and roles of science, science news and Wikipedia in the representations of scientific results.
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| 4. |
- Mehrabi, Tara
(författare)
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Making Death Matter : A Feminist Technoscience Study of Alzheimer's Sciences in the Laboratory
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a contribution to feminist laboratory studies and a critical engagement with the natural sciences, or more precisely research on the biochemical workings and deadly relations of Alzheimer’s disease emanating from a year of field work in a Drosophila fly lab. The natural sciences have been a point of fascination within the field of gender studies for decades. Such sciences produce knowledge on what gets to count as nature and natural, healthy or sick, normal or not, and they have done it with great societal authority and impact throughout European modernity. However, feminist technoscience scholars argue that science and knowledge is socially produced, and political too. Concepts such as nature, animal, human, body, sex, and life itself are not simply given natural realities but phenomena processed through the naturecultures of the laboratory. Situated within such theoretical and methodological approaches, this thesis wonders how scientific facts about Alzheimer’s disease are made in the lab today. What kinds of realities, bodies and ethico-political concerns are enacted? Who gets to live and who gets to die in everyday laboratory practices? Theoretically, the thesis is grounded, particularly, within Karen Barad’s agential realism and posthumanist performativity, and as such it accounts for human and nonhuman entanglements through which AD is performed in the lab in relational ways. In other words, the thesis explores how AD is enacted in the bodies of transgenic fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), as these flies embody the disease, live and die with it. Last but not least, the thesis explores the materialities of death, dying, embodiment and biological waste in a biochemistry lab as constitutive parts of the produced knowledge about AD.
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| 5. |
- Hallengren, Anders, 1950-
(författare)
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The code of Concord : Emerson's search for universal laws
- 1994. - 1
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this work is to detect a pattern: the concordance of Ethics and Aesthetics, Poetics and Politics in the most influential American thinker of the nineteenth century. It is an attempt to trace a basic concept of the Emersonian transcendentalist doctrine, its development, its philosophical meaning and practical implications. Emerson’s thought is analyzed genetically in search of the generating paradigm, or the set of axioms from which his aesthetic ideas as well as his political reasoning are derived. Such a basic structure, or point of convergence, is sought in the emergence of Emerson’s idea of universal laws that repeat themselves on all levels of reality.A general introduction is given in Part One, where the crisis in Emerson’s life is seen as representing and foreshadowing the deeper existential crisis of modern man.In Part 2 we follow the increasingly skeptical theologian’s turn to science, where he tries to secure a safe secular foundation for ethical good and right and to solve the problem of evil.Part 3 shows how Emerson’s conception of the laws of nature and ethics is applied in his political philosophy.In Part 4, Emerson’s ideas of the arts are seen as corresponding to his views of nature, morality, and individuality.Finally, in Part 5, the ancient and classical nature of Concord philosophy is brought into focus.The book concludes with a short summary.
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| 6. |
- Roderick, Noah, 1979-
(författare)
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Gods, Grammars, and Genres : Towards an Ethics of English Studies in Imperial Sovereignty
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation, the author argues that the post-process movement towards genre-based writing pedagogies is reproducing the logic of neoliberal or free-market ideology. By analyzing the relationship between three paradigms of sovereignty (feudalism, the nation-state, and globalization) and institutionalized language, the author demonstrates that teaching writing as multiple and genred as opposed to teaching it as a single, abstract skill is no a more rational approach, but rather a differently rational approach.
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| 7. |
- Aydin, Sami, 1979-
(författare)
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Sergius of Reshaina, Introduction to Aristotle and his Categories, Addressed to Philotheos : Syriac Text, with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There are two related texts extant in Syriac written by the physician and commentator Sergius of Reshaina (d. 536) about the philosophy of Aristotle. This book provides a critical edition and a facing English translation of the shorter of these texts. The edition is based on the single preserved manuscript of the text (Berlin, Petermann I 9). An introduction to Sergius’ life and works, and an analysis of the text in its intellectual context, is also provided. His writing is one of the earliest analyses on Aristotelian philosophy in the Syriac language and presents concepts that were taught at the Neoplatonist school of Ammonius Hermeiou (d. 517-526) in Alexandria.Sergius received his philosophical and medical education in Alexandria and was active in the city of Reshaina as one of the first translators of profane Greek material into Syriac. He translated chiefly medical works by Galen, especially those that were studied in the Alexandrian school, but also the theological corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius. Sergius composed some original works on Aristotle’s philosophy as well. Through his translation work and literary activity, he paved the way for the later engagement in medicine and Aristotelian philosophy among Syriac writers. His importance and influence is acknowledged by the historical testimonies to him, as well as by the numerous ways in which his works were read and used.The text of Sergius, edited here, treats themes that are primarily found in Aristotle’s Categories. After a preface, in which the author refutes potential criticism and justifies his writing, he begins his work with a traditional division of the philosophy into theory and practice with their respective subdivisions. He also presents the Platonist notion of universals, before introducing the ten categories of reality into which, according to him, Aristotle had arranged all existing things. However, Sergius discusses the categories of substance, quantity, quality, and relatives more extensively, since these four were considered to be the main categories. Many problems related to these categories are presented together with proposed solutions. Other topics described by Sergius are such as what is a distinctive property, the natural philosophers’ view of the four elements, the modes of opposition and its difference from contrariety, and the five kinds of priority. Moreover, Sergius provides a relatively lengthy discussion of the nature of space and whether it belongs to the category of quantity. This discussion is based on the Alexandrian commentators’ interpretations of Aristotle’s Physics rather than the Categories. In the commentary section of this edition, Sergius’ line of thought is clarified and compared to some Greek commentaries from the same tradition.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Falk, Hjalmar, 1978
(författare)
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Det politisk-teologiska komplexet. Fyra kapitel om Carl Schmitts sekularitet
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 1922, the German jurist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) wrote that “all significant concepts of modern state theory are secularized theological concepts”. He qualified this statement by describing the connection between theology and state theory as being both historical – signifying a process of transition and transmission – and structural-systematic – signifying a structural likeness. How are we to understand Schmitt’s particular version of the secularization thesis, and what is the meaning of the concept of “political theology” in his work? This dissertation answers that question through a critical-hermeneutical contextualization of Schmitt’s work. Specifically, what is investigated is the way Schmitt himself relates his project to contemporary theology and strands of social theory he designates as inherently politico-theological. A major premise of this study is that earlier studies of Schmitt have treated his secularization thesis within a pre-understanding formed by ideological secularism. They have tended to regard Schmitt’s thought as properly belonging to either a modern political sphere, or a religious sphere, the latter most often characterized as antimodern. This way of reading measures Schmitt against standards formed out of modern liberal preconditions that he intended to critique. This dissertation argues, from a postsecularist view, that Schmitt’s politico-theological project is better read in terms of a both-and structure. To properly grasp Schmitt’s way of thinking, we need to pay greater heed to his own way of constructing the categories he employs throughout his writings on politico-theological themes. The dissertation is divided into four chapters, mapping Schmitt’s thought on political theology in a combination of themes and chronology. It follows Schmitt’s writings from the late Wilhelmine period, through the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s totalitarian regime and the postwar era, basically covering Schmitt’s work from 1912 to 1978. One important finding in this study of Schmitt’s thought is that he pursues his investigation of secularity in two registers. First, he discusses the impacts of secularization especially within the field of jurisprudence and law. Second, he discusses the impacts of secularization generally in Western culture. I have called this the special and the general theory of secularization in Schmitt’s work. Another finding is that Schmitt locates his theory of modern law and jurisprudence in a position “in-between” the holy and the profane, a Zwischenlage between theology and technology. The traditional European theory of state was created in an attempt to escape the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but this in turn opened up for a process of profanation. With the decline of theological authority, European thought turned more and more to technology. Eventually, Schmitt claimed, technological rationality is closing down the relationship between jurisprudence and theology. Schmitt’s secularity, therefore, is to be viewed as a declining modern position between theology and technology. It names a science and a way of thinking that has been “secularized, though not yet profaned” in Schmitt’s words. In this way, Schmitt’s secularity challenges established preconceptions of “the secular”, presenting it as a complex of interacting tendencies, combining features of historical continuity as well as breaks.
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| 10. |
- Johansson, Kaj, 1971
(författare)
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Den torgförda biologin. Studier i populärvetenskapens problem och tematik : Biology in the agora. Studies on problems and themes in popular science
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The chief aim in this work is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of Ludwik Fleck’s philosophy of science for stimulating a number of new viewpoints in the study of popular science and popularisation from the vantage point of history of ideas and science. Taking its point of departure in the question, ”What is popular science?”, the present work articulates a comprehensive theoretical framework for addressing problems regarding the place of popular science and its multiple functions, as well as necessary preconditions needed for popularisation. In addition to this historical examples are taken from popular biology texts, both ones that were produced by Swedish authors and foreign works in Swedish translation. These are meant to illustrate and in part problematise a common understanding of the form and function of popular science as a literary genre. In my study I also argue that popular science should be regarded as a topic highly relevant for a historiography of science that seeks to paint a broader and slightly different picture of the development of the sciences and their significance.
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