Excess, Sex & Elevation is an attempt to understand the desire for truth in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Nothing is said about what truth is, but rather why it is wanted and how it is sought. Despite their different religious beliefs (Levinas a Jew, Nietzsche an atheist, Dostoevsky a Christian), the three thinkers hold remarkably similar conceptions of truth. Truth is an individual pursuit -- upwards. The self experiences a crisis of conscience upon discovering its originary excess, which is sex. The self suffers spiritually for what it is physically through the art of ascesis, turning the lust for sex into the desire for truth. And therein begins the self's elevation to the heights of truth.

The relationship between philosophy and Christianity has, of course, a long history, as do the discussions of that relationship. My own position is not dissimilar to that of many of the early Church Fathers, though of course that position must be elaborated differently for various historical and personal reasons, and hopefully enriched by attention to the history of Western philosophy. As with all such relations, one's understanding of this relation has a lot to do with one's understanding of the terms involved. To promote the possibility of "Christian philosophy" is also to comment on that "and" which might be understood to relate two otherwise distinct and irreconcilable terms. In the end I claim this "and" must be understood as that "love" which defines philosophy as the "love of wisdom" (and finally, the wisdom of love), and does so in terms which (almost) merge-with the surprising assistance of such thinkers as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur-with those of the Church Fathers cited. On the one hand, I intend nothing but the historical, orthodox, and catholic understanding of Christianity, especially with regard to the central figure of Jesus the Christ, the Trinitarian God whom He embodies, represents, and reveals, and the Scriptures given as The Bible. On the other hand, I present the specifically philosophical pertinence of this unique Person as such emerges from the texts of the "philosophers" considered, and in a manner which I claim does not force the issue by reading into their texts what is not there. Attending to a (Christian) philosophical reflection on (Christian) philosophy also offers elaborations of inherited doctrines, both Christian and philosophical, including a way to read and think unique to the outcome. Such is the adventure of this current work.

Artistic meaning via visual art and literary fiction is debated in modern aesthetic thought. Language is a cognitive component in postmodernist aesthetic projects. This thesis investigates Maurice Merleau-Ponty's and Paul Ricoeur's writings on painting and language, respectively, whose phenomenological aim is the revelation of being in works of the imagination in tandem with Lambert Zuidervaart's approach to artistic truth which opens the lifeworld to the biotic context of the earth. For him, imaginative disclosure is integral to techno-scientific and art realms. Embodiment, natality, and expression illuminate the problematic of meaning in forms of postmodern visual art. Metaphoric imagination and metaphor are used for metaphor is a principle of articulation, not a figure of speech. Aesthetic projects connect with the lifeworld in a hermeneutic circle of meaning.

Recent scholarship in biblical interpretation has remained suspicious of the "allegorical" approach to scripture, presumed as common to Medieval Christianity, and Bernard of Clairvaux is often acknowledged as paradigmatic of contemplative exegesis. Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs is often alleged to be an ultimate example of the dangers of monastic "allegorizing," in that such an approach lacks any consistency of method and maintains an ideological stance that is suspicious of and ultimately rejects the nature of bodily existence. This thesis counters these claims by utilizing the work of contemporary medievalists, instead of contemporary biblical exegetes, as a lens in a close reading of Bernard's Sermones Super Cantica, as well as his textual interaction with Peter Abelard and Peter the Venerable. This thesis suggests that Bernard is consistent in his method of performative reading and holds bodily existence as vital to the monastic and broader Christian way of life.

The appropriate relationship between political authority and education/schools as it relates to jurisdictional, procedural and substantive considerations, is highly contested. Several political theorists, including Amy Gutmann, Brian Barry, Chandran Kukathas and Iris Marion Young, have contributed to the debate, each prioritizing one of these considerations over the others. Attempts by other scholars to reconcile the considerations often fail to adequately accept the implications of the theoretical underpinnings of each. A political theoretical orientation that combines a recognition of institutional specificity with an awareness of the multifaceted nature of contested phenomena will enable theorists to address the heretofore intractable points of contention amongst political theorists surrounding issues of jurisdictional/procedural propriety and substantive goodness as they relate to educational practices and institutions. This orientation clarifies the dialogue between the most prominent theoretical approaches to analysis of political authority's just relation to education within modern liberal democracies.

This study examines the theology and social ethics of John Howard Yoder with a view toward how creation and redemption are related in his theology. The first chapter examines Yoder's aversion to certain construals of creation and argues that he is not inherently hostile to creation as such, but is cautious with respect to the possible abuse of creation as a theological and ethical category. The second chapter evaluates the nature of the state in Yoder's theology, examines his view of the Powers in this context, and argues that his view of redemption can be seen as a restoration of an eschatologically open creation. The third chapter compares Yoder's theology and social ethics with those of J. Richard Middleton, arguing that there may be a potential for interconnection between Yoder's Anabaptistic focus on the politics of Jesus and Middleton's Reformational emphasis upon the goodness of the power of creation seen in the imago Dei of Genesis I.

Engaging the work of Barry Allen and Karl Marx, a range of topics come together in an analysis of civilization as the buildup and breakdown of tissues. Life and death are both moments and directions. Death, as a moment in life, is certain. Human life, lived against death at its present scale, doesn't succeed in controlling or securing what it seeks to control and secure. Concerns about human knowledge and economies-civilizational tissue and its behaviours-are contrasted with familiarity and wealth as tissue, which are valuable goods against which their bastardizations can show up. We cannot place blind faith in technology, since it often fails the test of good tissue-life and the means to continued life. We cannot place blind faith in market freedom, as long as economic agents are programmed as they are, and as long as wealth is not understood as good, living tissue.

Traditionally, Rosa Luxemburg has not been understood as a feminist. In the beginnings of her socio-political career she did not align herself with feminism. However, as time progressed, Luxemburg became increasingly weary of male-chauvinistic ideals including Revisionism, opportunism, centralization, militarism, and war. Luxemburg's socio-political theories and her relationships with the women's movement led her to label herself as feminist. This thesis outlines and examines the claim that Luxemburg can be described and labeled a feminist.

Economic rationality refers to the efficient use of resources so as to satisfy human ends as fully as possible. Rationality, taken in this sense, has been a consistent and important theme in the history of economic thought. Only in this century however has rationality been explicitly formulated as a basic assumption of individual behaviour in economic theory. [Partial abstract taken from thesis]

This thesis explores and makes explicit various aspects of Richard Rorty's rhetorical program for shifting our traditional conceptions of reference and truth. Rorty wants to persuade us to adopt verification (coping) semantics in place of correspondence seeking semantics. I argue against his intuition pumps by considering Keith Donnellan's remarks on description and reference and argue for a view of correspondence truth that is based on what the object, whatever the object, permits us to say. Making this point allows us to see a purposeful conflation in Rorty's work. If beliefs are true because they are justified, Rorty's fallibilistic remark that any of our beliefs may not be true (in the cautionary sense) would follow. But truths may pay because they follow (as "attributive representations") from 'unblocked' objects, or they may just pay. Thus, I suggest that Donnellan preserves William James' remark that we desire correspondence truth, an everyday explanatory notion.