La dissertation philosophique est un manuel qui traduit la nécessité de la maîtrise de la méthodologie et répond aux attentes des apprenants par rapport à cet exercice qu'est la dissertation. Il se présente aux yeux de l'auteur, le Dr Salif Coly, comme un moyen de partager avec les élèves, les étudiants, les enseignants et les intellectuels férus de philosophie un certain nombre de réflexions sur la dissertation philosophique. Au-delà des conseils pour éviter certains pièges, l'auteur passe en (...) revue les points essentiels de la dissertation philosophique et procède à une petite révision du programme à travers quelques dissertations complètes. (shrink)

The four dissertations which Andrew Millar accepted for publication had probably been composed between 1749 and 1751, after David Hume's return from Turin and before he plunged into active composition of the _History_ in the spring of 1752. The first, so coyly alluded to as ‘that which Allan Ramsay mentioned’, and again, as containing ‘a good deal of Literature’, is ‘The Natural History of Religion’. ‘Of the Passions’ is a brief reworking of Book II of the _Treatise_. ‘Of Tragedy’ is (...) a short essay on the aesthetic problem of why grief in art is enjoyable. The fourth dissertation, ‘Some Considerations previous to Geometry & Natural Philosophy’ was presumably a reworking of Book I, Part II, of the _Treatise_. This fourth item was never actually set in type. Its history is summed up by Hume in a letter of January 25, 1772 to William Strahan, who had in the meanwhile succeeded Millar in the publishing business. (shrink)

Tom Beauchamp presents the definitive scholarly edition of two famous works by David Hume, both originally published in 1757. In A Dissertation on the Passions Hume sets out his original view of the nature and central role of passion and emotion. The Natural History of Religion is a landmark work in the study of religion as a natural phenomenon. Authoritative critical texts are accompanied by a full array of editorial matter.

In this book G. W. Leibniz presents not only his reflections on predestination and election but also a more detailed account of the problem of evil than is found in any of his other works apart from the _Theodicy_. Surprisingly, his _Dissertation on Predestination and Grace_ has never before been published in any form. Michael J. Murray's project of translating, editing, and providing commentary for the volume will therefore attract great interest among scholars and students of Leibniz's philosophy and theology. (...) Leibniz addresses such topics as free will, moral responsibility, divine causation, justice, punishment, divine foreknowledge, and human freedom, revealing crucial aspects of the genesis of his mature metaphysics and the theological motivations behind it. (shrink)

Dissertation without tears By Joseph Agassi Tel-Aviv University 1. Perfectionism is the loss of the sense of proportion. 2. Perfectionism in education is pedantry and obstruction. 3. Pedantry expels traditional writing techniques. 4. There are many ways to write a scientific study. 5. The best and easiest writing formula is the dialectic. 1. Perfectionism is the loss of the sense of proportion.

Although these essays are usually read apart from their original context, Hume clearly intended the four works -- The Natural History of Religion, A Dissertation on the Passions, Of Tragedy, and Of the Standard of Taste -- to stand together as a unified whole, showcasing his psychology of the passions and demonstrating its applications to both religion and aesthetics. This edition also includes Hume's extended Dedication, a passionate endorsement of intellectual and artistic freedom which has been out of print (...) since the original publication in 1757. (shrink)

Schächter completed his dissertation Kritische Darstellung von N. Hartmanns „Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis“ in 1931. Schächter’s grandson remembers (see Chap. 13 of Vol. 2) that this dissertation topic was proposed to Schächter by his supervisor Moritz Schlick. Nicolai Hartmann’s book was a very obvious subject for a critical investigation in the spirit of the Vienna Circle. Not only was metaphysics one of the main targets of the Vienna Circle, Hartmann was also one of the leading exponents of (...) this discipline. In an introductory book to Hartmann’s philosophy, one reads: „Das Erscheinen der Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (1921) machte Hartmann mit einem Schlag berühmt. Er genoß großes Ansehen bei seinen Fachkollegen und hatte, wie die zahlreichen Publikationen über seine Philosophie zeigen, eine beachtliche Breitenwirkung“. The second edition was published as early as 1925, the third in 1941. Schlick did not dedicate a book or paper to Hartmann, but he mentions him in his writings and they also met in person. One might say that Schlick and Hartmann were equal players in rival directions of philosophy at the time. For Schächter, on the other hand, Hartmann seems to be of little importance apart from the dissertation. (shrink)

David Hume (1711-1776) is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, religion, and aesthetics; he had broad interests not only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. The Clarendon Hume Edition will include all of his works except his History (...) of England and minor historical writings. It is the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition (which has been in preparation since the 1970s) offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions--advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. In this volume, Tom Beauchamp presents two essays from Four Dissertations (1757), the last philosophical work written by Hume, which was subsequently revised by the philosopher in the remaining years of his life. Whilst the bulk of A Dissertation on the Passions was extracted from passages in A Treatise of Human Nature, The Natural History of Religion was an original work when published in 1757, as well as the only major work devoted exclusively to the subject of religion that Hume published in his lifetime. Together with Hume's earlier work on religious topics, this essay drew considerable philosophical commentary from his contemporaries.The last edition of the two works in this volume seen through the press by Hume himself appeared in 1772. It provides the copy-text for this critical edition. The Editor's primarily historical Introduction discusses the genesis, revision, and reception of these two dissertations, which went into ten editions at the author's hand. It will appeal to scholars across many disciplines. General Editors of the Clarendon Hume: Professors T. L. Beauchamp (Georgetown University, USA), D. F. Norton (McGill University, Canada), M. A. Stewart (University of Lancaster, England). The Edition comprises (or will comprise): Vols. 1 and 2: A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by D. F. Norton Vol. 3: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Vol. 4: An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Vol. 5: The Natural History of Religion and A Dissertation on the Passions, edited by T. L. BeauchampVols. 6 and 7: Essays, edited by T. L. Beauchamp and M. BoxVol. 8: Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and other posthumous publications, edited by M. A. Stewart. (shrink)

This doctoral dissertation develops a novel account of fragmented epistemic justification. It departs from and expands on the literature on fragmented accounts of belief, and develops a theory where not belief, but the justification of belief, is fragmented. This account is novel, and an addition to the already existing literature on fragmented accounts of belief. It will also shed light on and help to develop answers to some underdiscussed and unsolved questions in the existing literature on fragmentation, such as (...) questions about the rationality of fragmentation. -/- In a nutshell, what it means for justification to be fragmented will be that some piece of evidence might justify a certain proposition relative to some mental fragment, whereas that same piece of evidence might not justify that same proposition relative to a different mental fragment. The epistemic and non-epistemic circumstances, such as differences in accessible information, or different perspectives, focus, or practical goals etc., of the agent can vary across fragments, which is why these circumstances will be the parameters distinguishing fragments from each other. What exactly this means will become clear throughout this dissertation. -/- For the first qualitative part of the dissertation, justification will be modelled to be a non-monotonic justification relation that holds between pieces of evidence and the propositions they justify, which will be indexed to fragments. Fragments, here, will be modelled by using total plausibility pre-orders over possible worlds. -/- Later on, within a quantitative account of fragmented justification, there will be a variety of ways to spell out the concept of justification. Here, fragments will be modelled by using (subjective) probability functions or credence functions. -/- After an introductory chapter, there will be a chapter focusing on an overview over relevant literature that is being discussed or worked with in this dissertation. Then, chapter 3 presents a skeleton of a qualitative (non-probabilistic) account of fragmented justification and shows how this account is able to provide a novel and attractive solution to the preface paradox (Makinson, 1965), one of the central paradoxes of epistemology. -/- Then, chapter 4 develops a more full fledged account of qualitative fragmented justification, using this time not the preface paradox but a scenario from climate science as a motivating example for the account. Here, a scientific expert about climate science seems to be justified in believing an overall inconsistent set of propositions. The chapter explains how the toolkit of orthodox epistemology is limited in dealing with situations like this, and argues that fragmentation is a more appropriate strategy than existing approaches to deal with (seemingly rational) inconsistent doxastic states. The chapter provides a formalisation of this example, as well as a number of justifying reasons for why fragmentation can be rational. It, also, develops some precautionary norms of fragmentation. It concludes by explaining how fragmented justification relates to belief, and argues that fragmented justification provides a novel rationality argument for accounts of fragmented belief, and, furthermore, how one should go about de-fragmenting in light of practical rationality. -/- Chapters 5 and 6 turn to a probabilistic or quantitative account of fragmented justification -- fragmented Bayesianism. Chapter 5 presents a very general version of fragmented Bayesianism, much more general than the existing accounts of fragmented Bayesianism that already exist. The basic idea is that the doxastic state of an agent will be represented not by one credence function, but by a set of credence functions, corresponding to different fragments. The focal point of this chapter is a list of parameters, such as background knowledge, algebra, confirmation measure, or ur-prior, that are part of the orthodox Bayesianism machinery, which, each, can be chosen to be either fragmented or global within a fragmented account of Bayesianism. Depending on which and how many of those parameters are chosen to be kept global or to render fragmented, the resulting account of fragmented Bayesianism will be more or less severely fragmented. The chapter provides motivations and arguments for why Bayesianism in general, and each of the parameters in particular, deserve fragmented versions. It also provides a brief comparison between the qualitative account of fragmented justification developed in the previous chapters with fragmented Bayesianism. -/- Lastly, chapter 6 compares fragmented Bayesianism with another framework, imprecise Bayesianism. Imprecise Bayesianism aims to model agents who do not have enough information to form precise credences. Fragmentation, on the other hand, aims to represent agents with fragmented doxastic states, where fragments are individuated via differences in the agent’s epistemic and non-epistemic circumstances. The formal models underlying these two accounts are strikingly similar. In both frameworks, the agent's doxastic state is represented not via one but via many different credence functions. The literature on fragmentation and imprecision do not comment on the striking similarity between these two different accounts. This is why chapter 6 is devoted to presenting and comparing their similarities and differences. -/- The dissertation closes with a conclusion and some remarks on potential avenues for further work. (shrink)

Tom Beauchamp presents the definitive scholarly edition of two famous works by David Hume, both originally published in 1757. In A Dissertation on the Passions Hume sets out his original view of the nature and central role of passion and emotion. The Natural History of Religion is a landmark work in the study of religion as a natural phenomenon. Authoritative critical texts are accompanied by a full array of editorial matter.

This thesis was a critique of Hegel from a Heideggerian standpoint focusing on the role of action in community. It argues, first, that Heidegger has a more highly developed account of the present of action than does Hegel on account of his theory of temporality. On the basis of a discussion of the nature of action and its site, I examine the way in which action functions in community in both Hegel and Heidegger. For Hegel, action is essential to community; (...) intersubjective relations and mutual recognition depend upon it. For Heidegger, it is precisely the non-acting moment, the moment of vision (Augenblick), which forms the basis for community. Community, for Heidegger, would thus be prior to action, issuing from a place proper to Dasein which precedes all action in the world. I argue that the existence of a moment, the moment of vision, which would initially seem to refuse community in Heidegger actually provides a rich sense of the intersubjective because it allows for the experience of that which is totally Other. On the basis of this experience, Dasein -- the being that each and every one of us is -- would thus be capable of recognizing the essential alienness of the everyday communal world to it. Dasein would thus be able to recognize its difference and thus the difference of others from how their actions are taken up in the communal sphere. Action would thus not be the basis for community. For Hegel, action is essential to mutual recognition, which is the fabric of community. The radical otherness that is found in Heidegger when he articulates the authentic moment would be dismissed by Hegel as an affront to the possibility of community (Hegel’s beautiful soul). For Hegel, we are what we do and we are recognized exclusively on the basis of our actions. Consequently, I argue that Heidegger has a deeper and more radical sense of community than Hegel. This dissertation was inspired by the work of Maurice Blanchot. (shrink)

Replete with insightful historical commentary on the life of Ghanaian-German Enlightenment philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, this fascinating volume by Stephen Menn and Justin Smith offers a detailed study of two of Amo's most important works. In addition, the book offers a careful study of both the intellectual and political context in which Amo wrote and the reception of his work in the centuries following. The book is divided into four parts. The first part houses a substantial introduction, while the second (...) part is devoted to notes on the texts and translations of Amo's dissertations. The third part contains the Latin text alongside MS's English translations of Amo's Inaugural Dissertation on the... (shrink)

This bibliography of Ludwig Wittgenstein is limited to the doctoral dissertations submitted in North American Universities. It covers almost all aspects of Wittgenstein's thought. Compared with K.T. Fann's "Wittgenstein Bibliography", published in the International Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 7 1967 pp. 311-339, where there are only seventeen references to Ph.D. dissertations, this present list cites more than one hundred and twenty five. Further, the dissertations which have been published are indicated.

Writing an academic text within institutions of higher education and research generally responds to two concerns. First, the immediate motivation to publish and possibly been recognized by their respective academic peers. Second, satisfying a training requirement widely recognized by the academic community and by society. In both cases, the epistemic and cognitive value of the text content varies in function on the referring ones from which its object of study were conceived, and on which it rests the design, the structure (...) and the organization of its writing. This paper deals with the epistemological problems that goes with the development of the doctoral dissertation in social sciences, and proposes a methodological strategy to be applied to an ongoing research, whose objective is to examine the contribution of doctoral dissertation to the development of the field of social and educational research. Escribir un texto académico en el marco de establecimientos de educación superior e investigación responde generalmente a dos inquietudes: a la motivación inmediata de publicarlo y, en la medida de lo posible, ser acreedor del reconocimiento de los respectivos pares académicos, o bien, cumplir con un requisito de formación como lo es el presentar una tesis y obtener un título o un grado universitario ampliamente reconocido por la comunidad de académicos y por la sociedad. En ambos casos, el valor epistémico y cognitivo del contenido del texto varía en función de los referentes a partir de los cuales fue concebido su objeto de estudio, y sobre los cuales descansa el diseño, la estructura y la organización de su escritura. En este artículo se aborda la problemática epistemológica que acompaña a la elaboración de la tesis doctoral en ciencias sociales y se propone una estrategia metodológica para ser aplicada a una investigación en proceso, donde el objetivo es analizar la contribución de las tesis doctorales al desarrollo del campo de la investigación social y educativa. (shrink)

The Organizations and the Natural Environment Division of the Academy of Management, like most Academy divisions, has an annual dissertation competition to recognize and honor exemplary work in the field. This article, kindly invited by the Editor of Business & Society, provides an overview of the winner and runners-up of that competition, insights into the process for selecting this work, and some reflections on future dissertations in the area.

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

Taxonomy is undeniably central to science — indeed, some see taxonomy as prerequisite to scientific theorizing. But what are taxonomies about? Are taxonomies discoveries or inventions? Has the world an objective, monistic structure — natural kinds or, to use Plato’s metaphor, joints along which true scientific theories carve? Controversy surrounding these issues has been at the heart of important debates in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language.

In all research, ethical considerations are crucial to reliability and quality and researchers are guided by various national and international documents and ethical committees. Despite different strategies to guide researchers and to ensure quality, there still seems to be uncertainty in educational science about how research ethics should be positioned and handled in practice. The aim of this study is to phenomenologically explore what meanings the phenomenon research ethics are given in Swedish doctoral dissertations in educational research based on how (...) doctoral researchers position, frame and present research ethics in their ethical elaborations. The empirical data consists of 60 doctoral dissertations in educational science at Swedish universities from the past year. The result indicates very different meanings of ethical considerations despite a quite common point of departure in the Swedish Research Council’s guidelines and knowledge of the Ethics Review Act. Some variations can be related to the differences in the studies’ designs, but regardless of such explanations, the conclusion is that consensus regarding ethical considerations in research is largely lacking. (shrink)

Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place (...) of this work among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis. (shrink)

Conducting phenomenological research for dissertations can be an involved and challenging process, and writing it up is often the most challenging part. How to Write a Phenomenological Dissertation gives students practical, applied advice on how to structure and develop each chapter of the dissertation specifically for phenomenological research. Phenomenology is about personal experience and personal experience varies from researcher to researcher. However, this variation is a big source of confusion for new researchers in the social, behavioral, or health (...) sciences. This brief text is written in a simple, step-by-step fashion to account for this flexibility and variation while also providing structure necessary for a successful dissertation. Broken up into chapters that follow each chapter of the dissertation, this text logically addresses the various parts of phenomenological research, starting with ensuring phenomenology is the right method for your research, writing the literature review, going through methods and results sections to analysis and discussion. The author, using experience gleaned from supervising phenomenological dissertations for many years, gives time-tested advice on how structure the dissertation to fit into more common frameworks, using checklists and tables throughout. Each chapter includes a list of helpful resources for students to use alongside this book with specific information on methods and research. Unique to this text is a chapter on creating your own phenomenological method which allows students to expand their viewpoints and experiment in future studies after the dissertation. (shrink)

Introduction.--Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces (selected passages)--On the first ground of the distinction of regions in space.--Dissertation on the form and principles of the sensible and intelligible world.

This section presents, in Latin and English, the entirety of Anton Wilhelm Amo’s 1734 _Inaugural Dissertation on the Impassivity of the Human Mind,_ as well as letters commending Amo by his teacher Martin Löscher and by the rector of the university, Johann Kraus. In this work Amo argues that the mind cannot be acted on, that sensation is a being-acted-on by the sensed object, and therefore that sensation does not belong to the mind, and must belong instead to the (...) body. Amo tries to expose and resolve self-contradictions in earlier philosophers, including Descartes and Sennert, on whether it is the mind or the body that senses. (shrink)

During this period he also published Four Dissertations: The Natural History of Religion, Of the Passions, Of Tragedy, Of the Standard of Taste. These works aroused controversy in the religious community before they became public. Early copies were passed around, and someone of influence threatened to prosecute Hume's publisher if the book was distributed as it was. Hume deleted two essays and removed some particularly offensive passages, then published the book to moderate success. But the larger success of History of (...) England restored Hume's reputation and provided him with the income he needed to live comfortably. (shrink)

This dissertation forum continues the tradition started last year by Business & Society to recognize and recognize the achievements of the finalists of the Academy of Management’s Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division dissertation award. The dissertation forum includes an introductory essay by the chair of the committee. The essay details the procedure behind choosing a winner as well as reflection on the process. The special dissertation forum also includes the three dissertation abstracts by the (...) finalists. The forum includes a description of each of the finalists as well as a critical evaluation of the works. Similar to last year, each finalist was also asked to provide some insights into “for producing exemplary dissertation research.” These insights are also documented at the end of each abstract. (shrink)

Background Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations. Purpose To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations. Methods Analyses of ethical content and complexity of ethical reasoning were performed on 64 Swedish nurses' PhD dissertations dated 2007. Results A total of seven ethical topics were identified: ethical approval (94% (...) of the dissertations), information and informed consent (86%), confidentiality (67%), ethical aspects of methods (61%), use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection (14%). Four of those of topics were most frequently addressed: the majority of dissertations (72%) included 3–5 issues. While many ethical concerns, by their nature, involve systematic concepts or metasystematic principles, ethical reasoning scored predominantly at lesser levels of complexity: abstract (6% of the dissertations), formal (84%) and systematic (10%). Conclusions Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and implications is insufficient. This is partly due to traditions and norms that discount ethical concerns but is probably also a reflection of the ability of PhD students and supervisors to handle complexity in general. It is suggested that the importance of ethical considerations should be emphasised in graduate and post-graduate studies and that individuals with capacity to deal with systematic and metasystematic concepts are recruited to senior research positions. (shrink)

In my dissertation, I argue that groups can be justified in believing a contradiction. I present and motivate a Lockean account of justified individual belief and, on this basis, argue for a mechanism for forming justified group belief which is tailored to peer groups of scientific experts about complex systems such as the climate. Because of the special epistemic circumstances due to, both, the type of groups I consider, as well as their areas of research, justified contradictions on the (...) group level are possible, and sometimes even epistemically beneficial. I conclude by arguing that this result is non-standard, because present accounts of justified group belief do not allow for justified contradictions. (shrink)

Dissertações defendidas no Programa de Mestrado em Filosofia da Universidade Federal do Ceará, no período de 2001 ao primeiro semestre de 2009.

Abstract:Kant's 1770 Dissertation is surprisingly rarely read as a cosmological treatise about the "world." The few commentators who do so invariably claim that, in the fourth section of the work, Kant presents a purely intellectual cosmology, a relic of dogmatic, Leibnizian-Wolffian metaphysics. This article aims to show that attention to some often-overlooked passages yields a very different picture. Key to how Kant conceives of the form of the world is his distinction between the relations of co-ordination and subordination of (...) substances. On the basis of this distinction, the author argues that the "principle of the form of the intelligible world" does not pertain to a transcendent intelligible world. Instead, the principle concerns an intellectual perspective on the world of substances co-ordinated in space and time. This interpretation has various consequences for our understanding of the development of Kant's critical philosophy. (shrink)

The text of Kant’s first dissertation is a translation from Latin from an academic publication of a collection of Kant’s works: Kant, I. Meditationum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio... In: Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed., 1910. Kants Gesammelte Schriften. 1. Abhandling: Werke. Band I: Vorkritische Schriften I, 1747-1756. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1910, pp. 369-384. The publication is available at https://korpora.zim.uni-duisburg- essen.de/kant/aa01/ [Accessed 10 March 2019]. Pagination and illustrations are from the same publication, the page numbers are in square (...) brackets at the beginning of the page. Page footnotes, if indicated, draw on the commentaries of Lewis White Beck, the translator of the dissertation into English from the following edition: Kant, I., 2012. Natur­al Science, edited by E. Watkins, translated by L. W. Beck, J. B. Edwards, O. Reinhardt, M. Schönfeld and E. Watkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 713-714. It was important for the translator to follow the course of Kant’s thought and as far as possible preserve his style, including recurring words. Natural science terminology keeps as close as possible to the dissertation text, so instead of the term “gas”, which Kant does not use, the translator resorts to a loan-translation “elastic liquid,” harking back to the Russian term упругая жидкость which was proposed by Mikhail V. Lomonosov but did not catch on. For the same reason the translator uses the loan translation “moment” instead of the more common “motive force”. “Gradus”, however, is always translated as “degree” for the sake of uniformity. All the translator’s additions to the Kantian text are within square brackets. When the meaning of a word is translated in a form that departs from the original meaning due to context the Latin original is attached within round brackets in the grammatical form used by Kant. To facilitate understanding, long compound sentences of the Kantian text are sometimes broken up into several simple sentences. The structure of the text and title page format have been preserved. The translator would like to express sincere gratitude to Alexei N. Krouglov and Svyatopolk N. Yeschenko for their valuable advice, remarks and help and support in preparing this publication. (shrink)

Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree in Religious Studies and the Degree of Doctor in Theology — Faculty of Theology.