An examination of existential faith in the writtings of Søren Kierkegaard

This thesis takes seriously the proposition that existentialism is a lived philosophy. While Descartes' proof for the existence of God initially sparked my interest in philosophy, the insights of existentialism have allowed me to appropriate philosophy as a way of life. I apply the insights of Kierkegaard's writings to my spiritual and philosophy development. Philosophy is personal, and Kierkegaard's writings deal with the development of the person in his aesthetic, ethical and religious dimensions. Philosophy is a struggle, and this thesis, reveals the existential struggle of the individual in despair. The thesis argues that authentic faith actually entails faith. The existential believer has this faith whereas the religious believer does not. The subjectively reflective existential believer recognizes that a leap of faith is needed; anything else, is just historical, speculative knowledge. The existential believer or, the Knight of Faith, realizes that a leap of faith is needed to become open in inwardness to receive the condition to understand the paradoxes that faith presents. I will present Kierkegaard's "Analogy of a House" which is in essence, the backbone of his philosophy. I will discuss the challenge of moving from one floor to the next. More specifically, I will discuss the anxiety that is felt in the very moment of the transition from the first floor to the second floor. I will outline eight paradoxes that must me resolved in order for the individual to continue on his journey to the top floor of the house. I will argue that Kierkegaard's example of Abraham as a Knight of Faith is incorrect, that Abraham was in fact not a Knight of Faith. I will also argue that we should find our own exemplars in our own lives by looking for Knight of Faith traits in people we know and then trying to emulate those people. I will also discuss Unamuno's "paradoxical faith" and argue that this kind of faith is a strong alternative to those who find that Kierkegaard's existential faith is not a possibility.

Predicting performance on fluid intelligence from speed of processing, working memory, and controlled attention

Fluid inteliigence has been defined as an innate ability to reason which is measured commonly by the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM). Individual differences in fluid intelligence are currently explained by the Cascade model (Fry & Hale, 1996) and the Controlled Attention hypothesis (Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999; Kane & Engle, 2002). The first theory is based on a complex relation among age, speed, and working memory which is described as a Cascade. The alternative to this theory, the Controlled Attention hypothesis, is based on the proposition that it is the executive attention component of working memory that explains performance on fluid intelligence tests. The first goal of this study was to examine whether the Cascade model is consistent within the visuo-spatial and verbal-numerical modalities. The second goal was to examine whether the executive attention component ofworking memory accounts for the relation between working memory and fluid intelligence. Two hundred and six undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 28 completed a battery of cognitive tests selected to measure processing speed, working memory, and controlled attention which were selected from two cognitive modalities, verbalnumerical and visuo-spatial. These were used to predict performance on two standard measures of fluid intelligence: the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) and the Shipley Institute of Living Scales (SILS) subtests. Multiple regression and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to test the Cascade model and to determine the independent and joint effects of controlled attention and working memory on general fluid intelligence. Among the processing speed measures only spatial scan was related to the RPM. No other significant relations were observed between processing speed and fluid intelligence. As 1 a construct, working memory was related to the fluid intelligence tests. Consistent with the predictions for the RPM there was support for the Cascade model within the visuo-spatial modality but not within the verbal-numerical modality. There was no support for the Cascade model with respect to the SILS tests. SEM revealed that there was a direct path between controlled attention and RPM and between working memory and RPM. However, a significant path between set switching and RPM explained the relation between controlled attention and RPM. The prediction that controlled attention mediated the relation between working memory and RPM was therefore not supported. The findings support the view that the Cascade model may not adequately explain individual differences in fluid intelligence and this may be due to the differential relations observed between working memory and fluid intelligence across different modalities. The findings also show that working memory is not a domain-general construct and as a result its relation with fluid intelligence may be dependent on the nature of the working memory modality.

Agrarian revolution in Central America : a comparison of Nicaragua and Honduras using Jeffery Paige's theory of Agrarian revolution

ABSTRACT In 1979 Nicaragua, under the Sandinistas, experienced a genuine, socialist, full scale, agrarian revolution. This thesis examines whether Jeffery Paige's theory of agrarian revolutions would have been successful in predicting this revolution and ln predicting non-revolution in the neighboring country of Honduras. The thesis begins by setting Paige's theory in the tradition of radical theories of revolution. It then derives four propositions from Paige's theory which suggest the patterns of export crops, land tenure changes and class configurations which are necessary for an agrarian and socialist revolution. These propositions are tested against evidence from the twentieth century histories of economic, social and political change in Nicaragua and Honduras. The thesis concludes that Paige's theory does help to explain the occurrence of agrarian revolution in Nicaragua and non-revolution in Honduras. A fifth proposition derived from Paige's theory proved less useful in explaining the specific areas within Nicaragua that were most receptive to Sandinista revolutionary activity.

The role of a minor party : a comparative study of the British Liberal Party and the Australian Country Party since 1918

and the Australian Country Party since 1918. 2. The thesis examines the proposition that the role of a minor party is determined, not by its total strength expressed as a percentage of the national vote, but by how its strength is concentrated. Australia and Britain were chosen for the comparison because of the many similarities in political culture and in the extent of class voting. Each country has a party - the Country Party in Australia and the Liberal Party in Britain - which has had a distinct impact on the political scene in their respective countries. In the period from 1918 to the present day neither party, at the national level, has ever held the largest number of seats in parliament let alone a majority of seats, and it is in this sense that they are herein defined as minor parties. In the thesis the constitutional background of and differences between Australia and Britain are reviewed, followed by a brief historical picture of each of the two parties being studied. The sources of supporc of the two parties are analysed and it is here that real differences emerge. The Country Party in Australia is a deliberately sectional party with a narrow rural base, whereas the British Liberal Party is more broadly based than either the Labour or Conservative Parties in Britain. 3. Party leadership and organisation are then discussed. Both parties have had outstanding leaders, Earle Page and McEwen for the Country Party; Asquith, Lloyd George and Grimond for the Liberal Party. Both parties have had relatively fewer leaders than their major party opponents. However, whereas the Country Party has been free of serious splits the Liberal Party was shattered on the leadership struggles of Asquith and Lloyd George. Both parties have been identified with decentralisation of state power, the Country Party through its support, albeit sometimes lukewarm of the New States Movement; the Liberal Party through its espousal of a federal system for Britain with separate Welsh, Scottish and regional assemblies. Unfortunately for the British Liberal Party the beneficiaries of their policies in this area have been relatively new nationalist parties in both Wales arid Scotland. The major part of the thesis is devoted to a study of how the electoral systems in the two countries have, in practice, worked to the advantage or disadvantage of the Country Party and the British Liberal Party. The Country Party has been as consistently over-represented in the House of Representatives as the Liberal Party has been under-represented in the British House of Commons. With the even distribution of its support the introduction of the single transferable vote, in itself, would bring little benefit to the British Liberal Party in terms of seats. Multimember urban constituencies combined with some type of list system are the only way the Liberals are likely to obtain House of Commons seats in proportion to their votes. 4. Finally, the relations of the two minor parties with their respective major parties are considered. In the conclusion the future of the two parties is reviewed. In general terms it appears that the Country Party is faced with a slow decline. Although the British Liberal Party made a major breakthrough, in terms of votes, in the February 1974 election, they were unable to maintain this momentum in the October election, even though they lost very little ground. In the long term they must make an inroad into Labour held seats if they are to progress further.

Behavioural and neural correlates of emotion recognition as a function of psychopathic personality traits

Psychopathy is associated with well-known characteristics such as a lack of empathy and impulsive behaviour, but it has also been associated with impaired recognition of emotional facial expressions. The use of event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine this phenomenon could shed light on the specific time course and neural activation associated with emotion recognition processes as they relate to psychopathic traits. In the current study we examined the PI , N170, and vertex positive potential (VPP) ERP components and behavioural performance with respect to scores on the Self-Report Psychopathy (SRP-III) questionnaire. Thirty undergraduates completed two tasks, the first of which required the recognition and categorization of affective face stimuli under varying presentation conditions. Happy, angry or fearful faces were presented under with attention directed to the mouth, nose or eye region and varied stimulus exposure duration (30, 75, or 150 ms). We found that behavioural performance to be unrelated to psychopathic personality traits in all conditions, but there was a trend for the Nl70 to peak later in response to fearful and happy facial expressions for individuals high in psychopathic traits. However, the amplitude of the VPP was significantly negatively associated with psychopathic traits, but only in response to stimuli presented under a nose-level fixation. Finally, psychopathic traits were found to be associated with longer N170 latencies in response to stimuli presented under the 30 ms exposure duration. In the second task, participants were required to inhibit processing of irrelevant affective and scrambled face distractors while categorizing unrelated word stimuli as living or nonliving. Psychopathic traits were hypothesized to be positively associated with behavioural performance, as it was proposed that individuals high in psychopathic traits would be less likely to automatically attend to task-irrelevant affective distractors, facilitating word categorization. Thus, decreased interference would be reflected in smaller N170 components, indicating less neural activity associated with processing of distractor faces. We found that overall performance decreased in the presence of angry and fearful distractor faces as psychopathic traits increased. In addition, the amplitude of the N170 decreased and the latency increased in response to affective distractor faces for individuals with higher levels of psychopathic traits. Although we failed to find the predicted behavioural deficit in emotion recognition in Task 1 and facilitation effect in Task 2, the findings of increased N170 and VPP latencies in response to emotional faces are consistent wi th the proposition that abnormal emotion recognition processes may in fact be inherent to psychopathy as a continuous personality trait.

Letter to S.D. Woodruff from John F. Day

Letter to S.D. Woodruff from John F. Day stating that it is impossible for him to go into the woods regarding the pine in dispute. He says that Mr. Woodruff appears to ignore (or forget) that the inspection could be made by Mr. Day’s son and that proposition was agreeable to Mr. Woodruff. He says that he will (with Burton and Bro.’s consent) appoint someone who is unknown to both Mr. Woodruff and Burton and Bro. This is a 1 page handwritten letter written on a letter which was previously sent by S.D. Woodruff on May 8. This is accompanied by an envelope, July 26, 1880.