'This is not the truth’: A methodological inquiry into the classical Greek origins of political realism

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The Source of Some Paradoxes from Social Choice and Probability

This paper offers a powerful, simple method for understanding many "paradoxes" in social choice and probability theory. The approach is a geometrical one; the underlying principle emerges from a wide variety of examples ranging from elections and agenda manipulation to gambling and conditional probabilities

Becoming-other in time: the Deleuzian subject in cinema

Through an engagement with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of the cinema, this thesis explores how the notion of labyrinthine time is represented differently in movement- and time-images. Part I contrasts the different types of subject that are created in the narratives of the two types of image. This begins with an exploration of the philosophical conceptions of time behind the two images and the subjects they create. Chapter two focuses on the role of memory in the creation of these subjects, drawing on the works of Henri Bergson, and using films by Hitchcock and Fellini. The third chapter delves into the recent re-emergence of the debate over spectator positioning, and questions what Deleuze can offer this field. Here the thesis most comprehensively negotiates its place within the field of film studies, through its interaction with psychoanalytical theories of the subject, and the debate over what exactly constitutes suture. Part II focuses on the movement-image. In particular it explores characters' attempts to perform their present identities differently, by falsifying their past and taking a new direction through the labyrinth of time. Chapters four and five analyse the way in which this performativity is represented in, Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, The Talented Mr Ripley and Memento. These recent films are seen to draw a broad distinction between female performativity, which is sanctioned, but only for a brief while, and male performativity, which is represented as getting away with murder. Movement-images are thus found to uphold a very traditional gender binary, by reterritorializing the labyrinth's subversive potential into a legitimizing straight line and its marginalized, labyrinthine other. This is a conclusion that had already been suggested in chapter three

Vers des modes de scrutin moins manipulables

We study coalitional manipulation of voting systems: can a subset of voters, by voting strategically, elect a candidate they all prefer to the candidate who would have won if all voters had voted truthfully? From a theoretical point of view, we develop a formalism which makes it possible to study all voting systems, whether the ballots are orders of preference on the candidates (ordinal systems), ratings or approval values (cardinal systems), or even more general objects. We show that for almost all classical voting systems, their manipulability can be strictly reduced by adding a preliminary test aiming to elect the Condorcet winner if there is one. For the other voting systems, we define the generalized Condorcification which leads to similar results. Then we define the notion of decomposable culture, an assumption of which the probabilistic independence of voters is a special case. Under this assumption, we prove that, for each voting system, there exists a voting system which is ordinal, shares certain properties with the original voting system, and is at most as manipulable. Thus, the search for a voting system of minimal manipulability (in a class of reasonable systems) can be restricted to those which are ordinal and satisfy the Condorcet criterion. In order to allow everyone to examine these phenomena in practice, we present SVVAMP, a Python package of our own dedicated to the study of voting systems and their manipulability. Then we use it to compare the coalitional manipulability of various voting systems in several types of cultures, i.e. probabilistic models that generate populations of voters equipped with random preferences. We then complete the analysis with elections from real experiments. Finally, we determine the voting systems with minimal manipulability for very low values of the number of voters and of the number of candidates, and we compare them with the classical voting systems of the literature. In general, we establish that Borda's method, Range voting, and Approval voting are particularly manipulable. Conversely, we show the excellent resistance to manipulation of the system called IRV, also known as STV, and of its variant Condorcet-IRV.Nous étudions la manipulation par coalition des modes de scrutin: est-ce qu'un sous-ensemble des électeurs, en votant de façon stratégique, peut faire élire un candidat qu'ils préfèrent tous au candidat qui aurait été vainqueur si tous les électeurs avaient voté sincèrement? D'un point de vue théorique, nous développons un formalisme qui permet d'étudier tous les modes de scrutin, que les bulletins soient des ordres de préférences sur les candidats (systèmes ordinaux), des notes ou des valeurs d'approbation (systèmes cardinaux) ou des objets encore plus généraux. Nous montrons que pour la quasi-totalité des modes de scrutin classiques, on peut réduire strictement leur manipulabilité en ajoutant un test préliminaire visant à élire le vainqueur de Condorcet s'il en existe un. Pour les autres modes de scrutin, nous définissons la condorcification généralisée qui permet d'obtenir des résultats similaires. Puis nous définissons la notion de culture décomposable, une hypothèse dont l'indépendance probabiliste des électeurs est un cas particulier. Sous cette hypothèse, nous prouvons que, pour tout mode de scrutin, il existe un mode de scrutin qui est ordinal, qui partage certaines propriétés avec le mode de scrutin original et qui est au plus aussi manipulable. Ainsi, la recherche d'un mode de scrutin de manipulabilité minimale (dans une classe de systèmes raisonnables) peut être restreinte à ceux qui sont ordinaux et vérifient le critère de Condorcet. Afin de permettre à tous d'examiner ces phénomènes en pratique, nous présentons SVVAMP, un package Python de notre cru dédié à l'étude des modes de scrutin et de leur manipulabilité. Puis nous l'utilisons pour comparer la manipulabilité par coalition de divers modes de scrutin dans plusieurs types de cultures, c'est-à-dire des modèles probabilistes permettant de générer des populations d'électeurs munis de préférences aléatoires. Nous complétons ensuite l'analyse avec des élections issues d'expériences réelles. Enfin, nous déterminons les modes de scrutin de manipulabilité minimale pour de très faibles valeurs du nombre d'électeurs et du nombre de candidats et nous les comparons avec les modes de scrutin classiques. De manière générale, nous établissons que la méthode de Borda, le vote par notation et le vote par assentiment sont particulièrement manipulables. À l'inverse, nous montrons l'excellente résistance à la manipulation du système appelé VTI, également connu par son acronyme anglophone STV ou IRV, et de sa variante Condorcet-VTI

Empowering development: capabilities and Latin American critical traditions

This thesis theoretically and critically examines the move towards people-centred approaches to development. It offers a critical examination of the work of Amartya Sen using theoretical resources emerging from Latin American traditions. Amartya Sen’s calls to understand Development as Freedom (1999) have significantly influenced mainstream development thinking and practice, constituting the clearest example of people-centred approaches to development today. Overcoming the limitations of previous state-centred notions of development articulated around ideas of economic growth, in Sen’s Capability Approach (CA) development is seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. In this understanding, the agency of development shifts from the state to individuals and the analytic focus moves from economic growth to individual capabilities. In this manner, this framework is structured towards the central goal of empowerment, wherein the expansion of capabilities is seen both as the means and end of development. Since its inception, the widespread support for the CA has allowed for the expansion of ethical considerations within mainstream development thinking. Even while the remarkable advances offered by Sen’s work should be praised, this thesis argues that these have come with new limitations. These limitations stem from, what is termed here, a “Paradox of Empowerment” that effectively encloses Sen’s approach within Western notions of development. While Sen’s approach is poised to provide a theoretical framework that is built on the expansion of freedom and individual agency, there is little agency here to move beyond the ideas of development fundamentally linked to liberal democracies and market economies. This thesis engages with several critical traditions from Latin America, recovering their often undervalued insights for development thinking. Crucially, this engagement provides the critical framework to illustrate the aforementioned paradox and explore multiple dimensions of empowerment central for contemporary development thinking and practice. In this, the thesis engages Sen’s work with the Liberation Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez, with Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy and with the contemporary discussions of ‘Buen Vivir’ associated with Indigenous philosophies of the Andean region. Throughout its chapters,it uncovers the conceptual baggage within the Paradox of Empowerment in Sen’s work and examines the ethical challenges and boundaries of this approach in relation to the collective dimension of development processes, the possibilities for structural transformation and concerns for sustainability. Progressively engaging the different dimensions of this paradox, this thesis advances the recovery of the transformative potential of the ideas of empowerment for development

Romantic Ken : time and perspective in the poetry of Coleridge and Wordsworth

This dissertation focuses on the connection between representations of time and representations of sight in the poetry of Coleridge and Wordsworth. These poets often use descriptions of their narrators\u27 views as means of marking and measuring time\u27s progress.This study argues that the technique of perspective depiction allows both poets to demonstrate the reconciliation of the philosophical tensions which are imbedded in their poetry.When speaking of Coleridge and Wordsworth, one might generalize about two of their chief concerns as follows. First (and as many critics have observed), the poetry of each of these men reflects an inconsistency regarding the relationship between the external and internal realms. For Wordsworth, this issue is manifested in his ambivalence about the degree of nature\u27s influence (or lack thereof) on the mind. For Coleridge, a similar dilemma appears in his constant wavering between a Hartleian materialism and a Berkeleyan Idealism. Second, it is also generally acknowledged that the art of each poet often seems to alternate between two different conceptions of time: one is objective and successive, and the other is subjective and durational. Throughout the works of both poets, one may recognize the tensions that arise due to frequent dalliances within conflicting epistemological and temporal schemes.Numerous critical studies have considered the issues of perspective and time in this poetry; often, these topics appear in slightly modified form in discussions of landscape and memory, respectively. However, few have touched on the interactive relationship between sight consciousness and time consciousness. This thesis argues that these poets utilize the connection between one\u27s visual field and one\u27s conception of time. Through ingenious narrative presentations of temporal and visual data, each author is sometimes able to mediate between his conflicting philosophical tendencies. Surprisingly, both Coleridge andWordsworth achieve this by grounding their narrators in landscapes that contain particularistic time-space details. One finds that such dense fields of vision allow for the convergence of divergent strains within their epistemological and temporal systems

Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, author of nine collections of poetry and three volumes of influential essays, is regarded by many as the greatest Irish poet since Yeats. Passage to the Center is the most comprehensive critical treatment to date on Heaney\u27s poetry and the first to study Heaney\u27s entire body of work (including his recent volumes, Seeing Things and The Spirit Level ). It is also the first to examine the poems from the perspective of religion, one of Heaney\u27s guiding preoccupations. According to Tobin, the growth of Heaney\u27s poetry may be charted through the recurrent figure of the center, a key image in the relationship that evolved over time between the poet and his inherited place, an evolution that involved the continual re-evaluation and re-vision of imaginative boundaries. In a way that previous studies have not, Tobin\u27s work examines Heaney\u27s poetry in the context of modernist and postmodernist concerns about the desacralizing of civilization and provides a challenging engagement with the work of a living master. South Atlantic ReviewA thorough analysis of Heaney’s oeuvre to date, one that avoids the limitations of formalism and sectarian ideology. -- Irish Studies Review World Literature TodayA valuable contribution to modern Irish literary scholarship. . . . Invigorating and commendable. -- Modern Language Reviewhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_ireland/1000/thumbnail.jp

Satirical Legal Studies: From the Legists to the \u3cem\u3eLizard\u3c/em\u3e

In Part I, I expand on the distinction between the Horatian and the Menippean forms of satire and then suggest that a similarly bold division can be used to map satirical legal studies. In support of that argument, I use the example of the earliest surviving satirical legal poem within the Western tradition. My analysis of this exemplary satirical legal artifact delineates four principal modes of legal satire that will organize the ensuing discussion of more contemporary examples of the genre. In Part II, I will address the currently popular and yet somewhat novel mode of ad hominem or nominate legal satire. I will argue that the last century was witness to a change in the prevalence and the significance of satirical legal studies and that we are only currently coming to appreciate the implications of those changes. The ad hominem satirical sally engages authors in a much more direct manner than is usual in academic discourse. It calls to account, it names and exposes, it removes the mask of abstracted prose from the face of tellurian legal studies. That leads very neatly into Part III where I will examine the theatrical forms of legal satire and particularly the increased use of dialogue, fiction, and drama in the critique of legal studies. Satire has generally been a force for formal innovation and the style of contemporary satirical legal studies bears this out. Whether maintaining boundaries or overturning the norm, satirical legal studies plays upon the law of genre as it governs the genre of law. Part IV looks to the combination of the ad hominem and the thespian or dramatic in the genre of trashing. Part V elaborates the theme of satirical advocacy by taking up one surprising but persistent figure of critique both ancient and modem. Part V elaborates the theme of satirical advocacy by taking up one surprising but persistent figure of critique both ancient and modem. It is that of the bad man - Moriarty, as it were, to Sherlock, I mean Oliver Wendell Holmes, the judge. The various possibilities and permutations upon the bad in contemporary legal studies are explored and dissected. The bad man or, in more contemporary work, the bad woman, or for that matter the bad hermaphrodite, is a marker of the incursion of difference, of body, voice, and diversity of experience into the cloistered domain of law. It is a dangerous and fertile theme, so in Part VI, I outline the philosophical significance of the bad man, of the body and satirical laughter, by reference to traditions of anomaly and upbeat cynicism. From the earliest satirical poems, through the gay science of the fifteenth century, through Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud - the unholy trinity - to postmodern and retro-legal studies, law and economics, and complaint jurisprudence, there is a theme of humor, playfulness, and provocation. The Conclusion retraces the path of the argument and intimates that conclusions are either futile or funny because all good things, even a satire, have to come to an end, whatever their author intends