Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Humanities and religion - History and philosophy subjects'

Syftet med föreliggande doktorsavhandling i teknikhistoria är att öka kunskapen om varför, men framförallt hur och under vilka villkor den första elektrifieringen av en statsägd järnväg genomfördes i Sverige. Arbetet med Riksgränsbanans elektrifiering pågick 1908-1917 och var på många sätt ett unikt pionjärprojekt. Två stora tekniska system skulle där komma att sammankopplas med varandra; artonhundratalets mogna järnvägssystem med nittonhundratalets nya elkraftsystem. Riksgränsbanan, den omkring 130 km långa nordligaste delen av Malmbanan mellan Kiruna och Riksgränsen, var världens dittills nordligaste järnväg att elektrifieras och det subarktiska klimatet ställde stora krav på utförandet av tekniska komponenter. Den geografiska lokaliseringen innebar dessutom att de långa avstånden till beslutsfattare inom statsförvaltning och företag måste hanteras. Därutöver genomfördes projektet i en tidsperiod präglad av protektionism, nationalism och internationella konflikter, yttre faktorer som alla också påverkade projektets utformning och genomförande. Att det var Riksgränsbanan som blev den första statliga järnvägslinje att elektrifieras i Sverige berodde på att staten 1907 gått in som hälftenägare i gruvbolaget LKAB och att nya avtal fastställde en ökad brytning och transport av järnmalm, från 1,5 miljoner ton årligen 1908 till 3,85 miljoner ton 1918. Denna mängd kunde inte transporteras inom befintligt system med ångdrift utan omfattande investeringar, vilket innebar att en systemomvandling till elektrisk drift ansågs vara ett bättre alternativ. I maj 1910 beslutade riksdagen anslå 21,5 miljoner kr till projektet som skulle drivas av Järnvägsstyrelsens byrå för elektrisk drift i samverkan med företagen Siemens och ASEA. Kontraktsskrivningen ställde hårda krav på företagen gällande prestanda och utförande och Järnvägsstyrelsen kunde när som helst, senast två år efter övertagandet av driften av banan, besluta att upphäva kontraktet och kräva att företagen återställde anläggningen till ursprungligt skick.Det var en mängd tekniska subsystem och komponenter som skulle färdigställas och sättas samman för att det tekniska primärsystemet ”den elektrifierade Riksgränsbanan” skulle fungera. Speciellt färdigställandet av loken och isolatorerna till ledningssystemet omgärdades av problem som kom att försena projektets färdigställande. Problemen var både organisatoriska och tekniska till sin natur men kunde efterhand åtgärdas genom att det utarbetades bättre rutiner vid korrespondens och annan kontakt mellan aktörerna samt genom att det togs större hänsyn till lokala klimatologiska förhållanden i samband med teknikutveckling. I sin roll som byrådirektör för byrån för elektrisk drift skulle Ivan Öfverholm visa sig vara en stark representant för beställaren och han spelade en central roll för projektets genomförande. Öfverholm kan i detta sammanhang kategoriseras som en offentlig systembyggare som med fast hand styrde projektet. Ibland innebar detta att Öfverholm hamnade i direkt konflikt med företagens representanter men ofta fungerade han också som medlare i de konflikter som ideligen uppstod mellan Byråns och företagens lokala representanter vid anläggningen. Den tvååriga garantitiden inleddes den 1 oktober 1915 och i slutet av 1917 hade nästan samtliga kvarstående arbeten vid anläggningen fullföljts och SJ kunde ta över anläggningen. Slutomdömet om Riksgränsbanans elektrifiering var överlag positivt och 1919 beslutade riksdagen att elektrifiera resterande del av Malmbanan, vilket var genomfört från Narvik till Luleå sommaren 1923. Det banbrytande arbetet i den norrländska ödemarken med att elektrifiera Sveriges nordligaste järnväg var därmed avslutat.

Godkänd; 2012; 20120221 (roiwik); DISPUTATION Ämnesområde: Teknikhistoria/History of Technology Opponent: Dr Mats Fridlund, Institutionen för filosofi, lingvistik och vetenskapsteori, Göteborgs universitet Ordförande: Biträdande professor Kristina Söderholm, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik och samhälle, Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Fredag den 20 april 2012, kl 10.15 Plats: A1547, Luleå tekniska universitet

Swedish child-care institutions - day nurseries, kindergartens - did not until the 1930s become a concern of the Government. In 1943 the Swedish Riksdag for the first time passed a bill that gave child-care institutions a Government subsidy. This thesis deals with the Government's and the parliamentary commissions' attitudes to child-care institutions. Which type of institution ought to receive a subsidy? And for what reasons? The main argument for child-care institutions has always been that they could stimulate a sound development, for the child's own good and for society's. From the 1930s and into the 1950s most participants in the child-care debate stated that the kindergarten or part-time institutions for the pre-school child from the age of three and upwards was the preferable type. Day nurseries for children, even infants, of families were both parents had to work might be necessary but were to be seen as an emergency solution. From the mid-60s the attitu-de changed. Step by step full-time day nurseries became the institutions that were given priority by the Government. This change in attitude presupposes that the notion of the child changed as well. But it did not change in a vacuum. Borrowing an explanatory model from sociologist Johan Asplund, the thesis treats the child as a "figure of thought", placed between a super-structural discourse on child-care and society's basic, material conditions. Important changes at the level of discourse have been the attitude to modern, industrial society, e.g. the necessity of learning to live and work in a society which is complex, highly specialized and in constant change, and the debate on women's emancipation. At the level of material conditions, the most conspicious change is that more and more women have entered the labour market. The changing notion of the child can be understood as the effect of an influence from discourse and base on the "figure of thought". At the same time, the "figure of thought" in-fluenced the discourse. Thus, a child-care system for the benefit of child and woman and labour market could be established, and harmony could be created, at least in the discourse.

Ethics is of vital importance to the Swedish educational system, as in many other educational systems around the world. Yet, it is unclear how ethics should be dealt with in school, and prior research and evaluations have found serious problems regarding ethics in education. The field of moral education lacks clear and widely accepted definitions of key concepts, and these ambiguities negatively impact both research and educational practice. This thesis draws a distinction between three approaches to ethics in school – the descriptive ethics approach, the value transmission approach, and the inquiry ethics approach – and studies in what way (if at all) they are prescribed by the national curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school, how they relate to students’ moral reasoning about technology choices and online behaviour, and what pedagogical merits and disadvantages they have. Hopefully, this both contributes to reducing the ambiguities of the field, and to answering the question of how ethics should be dealt with in education.The descriptive ethics approach asserts that school should teach students empirical facts about ethics, such as what views and opinions people have. The value transmission approach holds that school should mediate some set of predefined values to the students and make sure the students come to accept these values. The inquiry ethics approach is the view that school should teach students to reason and think critically about ethics and to engage in ethical inquiry.The role of ethics in the curriculum has not been studied in light of the above distinction, in prior research, and such an investigation is undertaken here. The results suggest that ethics has a prominent, but complicated, role in the Swedish national curriculum. Although no explicit distinction is drawn or acknowledged in the curriculum, all three approaches are prescribed throughout the curriculum, albeit to different degrees. In the general section of the curriculum, the value transmission and inquiry ethics approaches are more extensively prescribed than the descriptive ethics approach. It was found that most of the syllabi contained explicit references to ethics, while some only contained implicit references to ethics, and two syllabi lacked references to ethics altogether. In the syllabi, the inquiry ethics approach is the most dominant, both in the sense of being present in the most syllabi, and in the sense of being more strongly prescribed in many of the syllabi where several approaches occur. The value transmission approach has the weakest role in the syllabi. In total, the inquiry ethics approach is the approach most strongly prescribed by the curriculum. But prior research has shown that inquiry ethics is very rarely implemented in the classroom. In this thesis, it is found that the inquiry ethics and the value transmission approaches are incompatible, given certain reasonable interpretations, which makes the finding that inquiry ethics is rarely implemented less surprising, since value transmission is practiced in schools.The students, in their moral reasoning about technology choices, reasoned in accordance with several classical normative theories – including consequentialism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics – and in doing so, they expressed reasoning that in the discussion is found to be in conflict with the values of the value foundation in the curriculum. These findings complement earlier findings, for example that students in their actions contradict the value foundation, by adding that such conflicts also exist in their reasoning. The existence of these conflicts is found to be problematic for a value transmission approach.Many of the students defended very restrictive views on disclosing personal information online, and prior research as well as the present data has shown that adults typically hold views that are very similar to these, concerning how they think that young people ought to act online. On the other hand, youths’ actual online behaviour, as reported in earlier studies, differs considerably from this. In line with this, the students also seemed to endorse a form of private morals view, according to which moral choices are simply up to one’s own taste, which would yield an escape exit from the restrictive views mentioned above, and permit any behaviour. In the discussion, it is argued that this is the result of an attempt at value transmission from the grown-up community, probably including teachers, which might seem to work, since the students claim to hold certain views, but which likely instead constitutes a false security, since these values are not actually accepted, but only paid lip service to, and the adults are therefore wrong in their belief that the students are protected by a certain set of values (that they think the students are upholding), since the students in fact do not uphold, and therefore do not act based upon, these values. This situation risks making the students more vulnerable than had no value transmission attempt been taken in the first place. Hence, the attempted value transmission runs the risk of counteracting its purpose of helping the students acquire a safe online behaviour.Throughout the moral reasoning mentioned above, extensive variations in the students’ reasoning were found, both interpersonally and intrapersonally, both in the decision method and in the rightness criterion dimensions, as well as in between the dimensions. The existence of such variations is a novel finding, and while possible applications in future research are discussed, it is also noted that this existence constitutes a reason to question the successfulness of both the value transmission and the inquiry ethics endeavours of the educational system.The results and discussions described above highlight the importance of investigating the merits of the different approaches. Several arguments that arise from the material of this thesis are presented, evaluated and discussed. The ability of each approach to fulfil some alleged key aims of ethics education is scrutinised; their abilities to educate for good citizenship, to educate for quality of life of the individual, and to facilitate better educational results in other subjects are all investigated, as well as the ability of each approach to help counteract the influence from online extremist propaganda aimed at young people and to promote safe online behaviour in general.It is concluded that the inquiry ethics approach has the strongest support from the material of this thesis. Some consequences for school practice are discussed, and it is concluded that changing the role of ethics in the curriculum would be beneficial, downplaying the role of value transmission and further increasing, and making more explicit and clear, the role of inquiry ethics. It is also shown that there are strong reasons for the inclusion of a new subject in the Swedish compulsory education with special focus on ethics. Some possible causes, and some consequences, of this is discussed.
Godkänd; 2016; 20160518 (vikvik); Nedanstående person kommer att disputera för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen, Namn: Viktor Gardelli Ämne: Pedagogik / Education Avhandling: TO DESCRIBE, TRANSMIT, OR INQUIRE Ethics and technology in school Opponent: Gudmundur Frimannsson, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Akureyri, Akureyri, Island, Ordförande: Professor Eva Alerby Institutionen för konst, kommunikation och lärande Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Fredag den 2 september 2016, kl. 10.00 Plats: D770, Luleå tekniska universitet

I have for my one year master's thesis worked on arranging and cataloging the archives from the missions stations of Musana, Congo-Brazzaville and Sundi-Lutete, Congo-Kinshasa, belonging to the Swedish Missions Church (Svenska Missionskyrkan). The archives contained records written in Swedish, French and Kikongo, from primarily the years 1910 until 1961. Records have though been found that adhere from both prior to and after these years. These archives are deposited at the Swedish National Archive and it was therefore important to take the opinions and regulations of both parties into consideration, as well as relying onto archival theory.

The archives were initially scattered and had in some parts been organized by an archivist without formal schooling. The major difficulties in this work has therefore been to establish the provenance – to which creator the documents belonged to, and also to decide to which degree the principle of the original order should play a part. After considering different theories, I decided to respect the secondary order for the correspondence, since rearranging it would disrupt the concordance in the work already done by researchers.

To still make the archives accessible for the users in its existing order it required me to be aware of whom the user of the archive is, probable areas of research and how these archives are used. This information was then used when writing the archival description and the scope notes in the inventory. I have also taken decisions based on what is practically possible; it has because of regulations not been possible to physically bring the archive to one unit. Also, the circumstances of a shared custody of the archives also determined, in practice, how the inventory could be written.

This is a one year master's thesis in Archival Science, at the university of Uppsala, Spring semester of 2010.

I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the tiny pthesiss that make up the soul leave the body and are dispersed at the moment of death, leaving behind no subject to experience any evil that might be associated with death. Although informed by millennia of further scientific discovery, this is the strain picked up on by contemporary atheistic, technologically advanced mankind. My primary goal is to demonstrate that philosophy has an often-overlooked alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. Although both thinkers arise from the Christian tradition, they clearly react to Epicurean insights about death in their work, thereby prescribing a peculiar way of living with death that the Christian tradition seems to have forgotten about. Despite the association of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, there is a fundamental difference between them on the subject of death. In Being and Time Heidegger seems to rely on the phenomenology of death that Kierkegaard provides in texts such as "At a Graveside." It is interesting to notice, however, that this discourse, especially when seen in the light of Kierkegaard's more obviously religious works, might only be compelling to the aspiring Christian. If so, then perhaps there is a tension in both Heidegger's "methodologically atheistic" appropriation of Kierkegaard's ideas about death, and Heidegger's attempt to make these ideas compelling to the aspiring human. My secondary goal is to determine whether Heidegger takes the "existential philosophy of death" too far when he incorporates it into his early ontological project.

Ämnesdidaktiken kräver kunnande i både ämne och pedagogik och en god förankring i praktisk verklighet. Varför, hur och vad brukar betecknas som de grundläggande didaktiska frågorna. Varför skall man lära sig filosofi? Hur - Vilka alternativa undervisningsstrategier finns? Vilka viktiga vägval ställs filosofiläraren inför? Hur stimulerar man elevernas intresse för ämnet filosofi? Hur väljer man ut ur filosofins stora skattkammare, ett stoff för undervisning i ämnet?

Syftet med denna uppsats är

• diskutera de didaktiska frågorna i filosofiämnet utifrån ”Hur-frågan”.
• genomföra arbetsformer inom det problembaserade lärandet under ämnesblocket ”Etiska frågor”.
• analysera hur elevernas intresse för filosofi stimuleras och eventuella negativa attityder till ämnet förändras inom det problembaserade lärandet.

Uppsatsförfattaren har senare bytt efternamn först till "Nilel" och sedan till "Högman".

My dissertation lays out some of the chief philosophical precursors to Jonathan Israel's Radical Enlightenment. It investigates the principal question of Will Durant's The Age of Voltaire: "How did it come about that a major part of the educated classes in Europe and America has lost faith in the theology that for fifteen centuries gave supernatural sanctions and supports to the precarious and uncongenial moral code upon which Western civilization has been based?" The aim of this project is both broad and specific: the first is to provide a general history of the philosophical precursors to the Radical Enlightenment up until the early modern period, and the second is to highlight one of these precursors in detail, which I do in the large Spinoza part. With the assistance of a great deal of scholarship in philosophy of religion, history of philosophy, theological analysis, biblical criticism, and historiography, my dissertation contends that the major philosophical precursors against orthodox faith in revelation and for the Radical Enlightenment have been derived primarily from several forces. I present some of the general arguments of some of the pre-Socratics and Greek philosophers, especially Socrates and Plato, emphasizing their rationalist and non-theological thinking. Then I point out how some of this Greek philosophical literature led to new philosophical and theological elements in some of the teachings of the Church Fathers, some of the medievals, and some of the scholastics, up to the early modern period. The core of my argument, however, begins to pick up steam at the Renaissance. With the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the early Enlightenment New Philosophy, everything changes. Renaissance textual criticism of ancient texts leads to the beginnings of some genuine biblical criticism. The explosion of naturalist-leaning explanations of nature via Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and many others in the Scientific Revolution leads many to wonder if God is needed. The rejection of Aristotelian and Scholastic metaphysics by the New Philosophers, most notably, Descartes, undermine what for many provided the philosophical underpinnings for the Church and theology. And then "the most unkindest cut of all," the revolutionary historical and textual criticism of the Bible (by many early Enlightenment philosophers, especially Spinoza) which utterly undermines and refutes Judaism and Christianity.

As the twentieth century dawned in the western world, there were voices both inside and out of the Christian Church that began to question religion's central place in man's daily life. Had humanity finally progressed to the point where religion was no longer necessary? Had we at long last developed the characteristics and perspectives that religion had attempted to engrain within us? Or were the rules and regulations of religion still needed to ensure the continued advancement of civilization? This is a study of two opposing voices in that debate: theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and ethicist Paul Ramsey. What follows is my attempt to examine, explain, and expound upon the philosophies of both men in an endeavor to more fully understand their perspectives and the implications each has for civilization and religion as we move now firmly into the twenty-first century and beyond.

INTRODUCTION: THE SEARCH FOR THE GOD OF ABRAHAM TEXT AND HISTORY: THE FORMATION OF THE ABRAHAMIC DEITY Recent years have seen substantial changes in the study of ancient Israelite religion. These changes have created ample work for scholars of religious studies and related fields as virtually all disciplines have something to say about recent archaeological and scholarly developments concerning Yahwism and its early development. In this scholarly milieu, it is difficult to present anything that is wholly new, but certainly possible to enter a spirited discourse about ancient questions. To discuss the origins and evolution of the Abrahamic deity—as I shall—necessitates drawing from many disciplines because discussion of this deity pervades all discourses on ancient Israelite religion. Accordingly, I will draw from scholarly tools characteristic of the disciplines of history, linguistics, and archaeology. The bulk of my argument, however, will be centered around the biblical texts themselves. Though the historicity of these texts is highly suspect, they nevertheless provide valuable historical information that, if engaged with carefully, can aid in understanding the origin and evolution of one Yahweh of Canaan.

This report is based on a field study that was carried out in India. The aim of this field study is to find out how the religious education is carried out at Jiva Public School in Faridabad. The questions that are tried to be answered are if the teachers at this school integrate religious education in some of their subjects, if they see any problems performing this kind of education and what attitudes teachers’ have towards religious education.

In the presentation of previous research, opinions of several international researchers regarding religious education and their thoughts about how a good religious education can be designed will be made.

The empirical material has been assembled by doing qualitative semi-structured interviews with teachers at the school mentioned above. This kind of method suits well the aim and questions since the focus will be on trying to understand these teachers way to reason and act. When describing the methods, other problems that can occur during a field study are presented.

The results are presented in text but also in diagrams, so that the reader can get a good overview. In the analysis and discussion the results will refer to the previous research.

While analysing the empirical material a result was that a majority of the teachers did not integrate religious education in some of their subjects. They did not see it as their task and they meant that it is less important to get absorbed about people’s different beliefs since India is a secular state. You should not give any religion preference so why should you discuss about religions in your teaching? The focus should instead be on acceptance and to teach the pupils to respect each other no matter what. The teachers that did integrate religion in their subjects did this by celebrating religious festivals within the school. Only two teachers practised “ordinary” lessons when teaching about religions.

Denna uppsats baseras på en fältstudie som har utförts i Indien. Syftet med fältstudien är att undersöka hur religionsundervisningen ser ut på Jiva Public School i Faridabad. Frågeställningarna som ska försöka besvaras är hur lärare på denna skola integrerar religionsundervisning i något av sina ämnen, om de kan se några problem med att utföra denna typ av undervisning och hur lärarnas inställning till religionsundervisning ser ut.

I avsnittet Tidigare forskning redovisas flera internationella forskares syn på just religionsundervisning och hur de tycker att bra religionsundervisning kan vara utformad.

Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare på ovannämnda skola. Denna metod passar syftet och frågeställningarna bäst eftersom fokus kommer att ligga på att försöka förstå dessa lärares sätt att diskutera och agera. I metodavsnittet kommer också andra relevanta problem man som forskare kan ställas inför då en fältstudie skall utföras att tas upp.

Resultatet presenteras i löpande text, men också med diagram för att göra det hela mer överskådligt samt lättförståeligt. I analys- och diskussionsavsnittet kommer resultatet att knytas till den tidigare forskningen.

Vid analysen av det empiriska materialet visade det sig att de flesta lärare inte integrerar religion i något av sina ämnen. Detta på grund av att de ansåg att det inte var deras uppgift. De menade också att det var mindre viktigt att fördjupa sig i vad andra människor har för trosuppfattning eftersom Indien är en sekulär stat. Ingen religion skall ha företräde och varför skall man då diskutera religion i sin undervisning? Istället borde fokus ligga på acceptans och att lära eleverna att bara respektera varandra utan vidare. De lärare som däremot integrerade religion i sina ämnen gjorde detta genom att fira olika religiösa högtider på skolan. Endast två lärare använde sig av ”traditionella” lektioner då de undervisade om religion.

This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.
Bachelors
Arts and Humanities
History

This work is a comparative study of the theological and historical development of the early Christian (pre-Nicene) and Mormon doctrines of God. For the Christian tradition, I follow a detailed study of the apostolic period, followed by the apologetical period, and then conclude with the pre-Nicene up to around 250 C.E. For the Mormon tradition, I cover the period beginning with the establishment of the Mormon Church in 1830 and conclude with its official doctrinal formulation in 1916. I begin this work with a chronological examination of the development of the Mormon doctrine of God, commencing with Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon and concluding with his revelations and additional translations of those books that make up the Pearl of Great Price. I then examine Brigham Young's single theological contribution, followed with the speculative contributions of Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, John A. Widtsoe, B.H. Roberts, and concluding with James E. Talmage. This section covers chapters two through four. In chapters five through seven, I examine the theological contributions of Ignatius of Antioch, then Theophilus of Antioch, and conclude my study with the theological contributions of Origen of Alexandria. For the Christian tradition, I trace the development of the pre-Nicene theologians' struggle to explicate the theological and philosophical implications regarding the divinization of Christ within the context of monotheism.. At the end of chapters five through seven I include a succinct, comparative study of each father's doctrine with Mormon doctrine. This work will also address the major theological and historical factors that influenced both the Mormon and traditional Christian doctrines of God. Further, I contrast both theological systems and discuss their basic differences and similarities. My conclusion is that the fundamental difference between these two theological systems rests upon their foundational conceptions of reality as absolutist or finitist. The Mormon theological system rests upon a materialistic and monistic conception of reality, whereas traditional Christianity's system rests upon a dualistic conception of reality. In Mormon materialism, the Trinity is divided as individuated Gods; in Christian transcendence, the unity of God may only be maintained, while acknowledging the separate existences of the Persons of the Godhead, if the nature of God is understood as an incorporeal substance.

Meditation, med ett ursprung från yoga, har blivit allt vanligare i friskvården mot fysiska stressymptom exempelvis för att minska muskelspänningar men även som ett verktyg för den egna personliga utvecklingen. Samtidigt som forskningsresultat visar på meditationens betydelse för fysisk kropp och det mentala finns rapporter från forskare som varnar för överdriven tilltro till undersökningar som inte verifierats eller varit undermåliga. Uppsatsens syfte har varit att studera meditation utifrån jungianskt och klassisk yogafilosofiskt perspektiv. Med detta som bakgrund har en intervjuundersökning gjorts för att få meditationsutövares svar på frågor om varför de börjat meditera, vilken effekt på den fysiska och mentala kroppen man upplever i samband med meditation och hur man vill beskriva meditationens betydelse för sin personliga utveckling. Metoden som använts är inspirerad av fenomenografi. Resultaten tyder på att de intervjuade från början fokuserat på meditationens betydelse för att minska stress, spänningar med mera, men efterhand även blivit intresserade av meditation för sin personliga utveckling. De intervjuade beskriver meditationen som ett led i att lära sig förstå dynamiken mellan det medvetna och det omedvetna och få förståelse för sin egen utveckling. Studien visar på betydelsen av god kvalitet på forskningen för att kunna påvisa effekten av meditation och dess möjligheter.

Denna uppsats består av en studie av en dialog mellan vetenskap och religion hos den amerikanska filantropiska John Templetonstiftelsen. Syftet har varit att utreda värdet av denna dialog och att få en uppfattning om värdet av dialoger mellan vetenskap och religion i allmänhet i fråga om aktualitet och fruktbarhet för deltagarna, publiken och den allmänna debatten. Den studerade dialogen visade brister i definition och riktlinjer, val av deltagare och diskussionsämne. Argumentationen utgick ifrån deltagarnas personliga tro eller icke-tro och inte utifrån deras kompetensområden inom vetenskap eller religion. Dialogens olika bidrag visade inte på någon större grad av nytänkande, med undantag för två korta essäer som diskuterade nya Gudsdefinitioner. Dessa resonemang fördes dock inte vidare till de debatter som också ingick i dialogen. Trots många brister, där många borde ha kunnat undvikas, visade den studerade dialogen på en vilja till möte mellan oliktänkande och på ett intresse från allmänheten. Med tydliga definitioner och riktlinjer och ett mer aktuellt ämnesval borde därför dialoger mellan vetenskap och religion ha en framtid.

This essay is a study of a dialogue between science and religion at the John Templeton foundation. The aim has been to investigate the value of this specific dialogue and also to get an understanding of the value of dialogues between science and religion in general regarding actuality and fruitfulness for the participants, the audience and the public debate. The study of the Templeton dialogue revealed shortcomings regarding definitions and guidelines, choice of participants and of topic. Furthermore, the argumentation was based on the individual participants belief or non-belief rather than their professional competence areas. The different contributions to the dialogue did not show any higher degree of fresh ideas, apart from two short essays describing new definitions of God. These thoughts were, however, not brought to the debates that were also a part of the dialogue. Despite the shortcomings, where many should have been possible to avoid, the studied dialogue showed willingness from people of different perspectives to meet and the dialogue also gained an interest from the general public. The conclusion of this study is that with clear definitions and guidelines and a well-considered choice of topic, the dialogue between science and religion should have a future.

From the distribution of religious tracts at Ellis Island and Billy Sunday’s radio messages to televised recordings of the Billy Graham Crusade and Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, American evangelicals have long made a practice of utilizing mass media to spread the Gospel. Most recently, these Christian evangelists have gone online. As a contribution to scholarship in religious rhetoric and media studies, this dissertation offers evangelistic websites as a case study into the ways persuasion is carried out on the Internet. Through an analysis of digital texts—including several evangelical home pages, a chat room, discussion forums, and a virtual church—I investigate how conversion is encouraged via web design and virtual community as well as how the Internet medium impacts the theology and rhetorical strategies of web evangelists. I argue for “persuasive architecture” and “persuasive communities”—web design on the fundamental level of interface layout and tightly-controlled restrictions on discourse and community membership—as key components of this strategy. In addition, I argue that evangelical ideology has been influenced by the web medium and that a “digital reformation” is taking place in the church, one centered on a move away from the Prosperity Gospel of televangelism to a Gospel focused on God as divine problem-solver and salvation as an uncomplicated, individualized, and instantaneously-rewarding experience, mimicking Web 2.0 users’ desire for quick, timely, and effective answers to all queries. This study simultaneously illuminates the structural and fundamental levels of design through which the web persuades as well as how—as rhetoricians from Plato’s King Thamus to Marshall McLuhan have recognized—media inevitably shapes the message and culture of its users.

The aim of this one-year master thesis in archival science was to examine how municipalities take regulations concerning public records into account when they use Facebook. Another aim was to examine the involvement of archivists, registrars or similar staff in the management of the regulations. Since Swedish archival theory and practice has a close connection to the application of these regulations, such an examination was hopefully going to reveal tendencies of importance for archival science. The method used to collect information was a web questionnaire and the result was based on answers from 21 municipalities with an official Facebook page. The questionnaire showed that six of the municipalities regarded documents originating from their Facebook page as public records. Three did not, and a large group had not yet decided how to treat these documents. Only three municipalities did archive documents from Facebook. The involvement of archivists, registrars and similar personnel was generally very small, even though regulations concerning public records had more often been taken into account in the municipalities that had informed this personnel about the use of an official Facebook page. The difference in management between the municipalities was together with the demand for national guiding principles indicating difficulties in applying the regulations to social medias like Facebook. The fact that most of the municipalities that had taken the regulations into account had come to the conclusion that Facebook generated public records, together with the fact that national guiding principles presented during the work with this thesis had the same interpretation, indicated that documents originating from Facebook will be a part of Swedish public records in the future. The difference in management and the demand for guidance also indicated a need for better division of responsibilities and a more active approach in the future, to ensure that the regulations concerning public records are taken into account early and correctly when authorities starts to use new medias.

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity that has been ongoing for decades. This thesis will show why that conversation is essential for the church and necessary for Hip-Hop artists to express themselves fully. This paper will show rap and Hip-Hop culture to be a complex institution with its own theology, history, and prophets – that uses its own voice to express how urban youth view not only their lives but also how God and the church are present in their lives.

La question de la réalité, de la nature et du rôle de la relation entre science de l'univers et spiritualité dans l'oeuvre de connaissance scientifique, plus généralement dans l'histoire de la pensée, motive le présent travail. Afin de traiter cette question, l'auteur a choisi d'étudier la pensée de deux savants spiritualistes : Isaac Newton et Georges Lemaître, qui façonnent deux moments majeurs de l'histoire des sciences, celui de la fondation de la mécanique céleste, creuset de la science moderne, et celui de la fondation de la cosmologie moderne, lieu d'une définition radicalement nouvelle de l'univers et de la place de l'homme en son sein. Ces deux moments, newtonien et lemaîtrien, s'apparient l'un à l'autre, d'une part en raison de l'objet d'étude commun : le tout, et d'autre part en termes de succession et d'avancées dans l'histoire des sciences, puisqu'ils nous entraînent de la science du ciel en l'absolu newtonien, à la science du commencement et de l'évolution cosmologique en la relativité générale. La relation entre science de l'univers et spiritualité se révèle, sur la base de l'étude détaillée des deux pensées, comme une relation dynamique à double sens : de la science à la spiritualité et inversement, et une dimension cruciale de l'histoire conceptuelle, plus généralement de l'histoire de la pensée. Chez Newton et Lemaître, la recherche et les résultats scientifiques entraînent réflexion et conclusion spirituelles. Inversement, la recherche spirituelle représente une motivation de l'étude scientifique, conçue comme étude de l'ordre, de l'arrangement divin du monde. La présente thèse procure par conséquent des éléments de synthèse et de comparaison des deux pensées et permet d'asseoir plus largement, aux plans historique et philosophique, le choix du sujet. Celui-ci en ressort étayé. Mais au-delà des termes mêmes de l'histoire de la pensée, la démarche première de l'auteur a consisté à comprendre des acteurs éminents de celle-ci, comprendre, à travers leur démarche de pensée, l'être, l'esprit, par la lettre de l'histoire. Ce travail, le premier en son genre, en traitant de certains ressorts essentiels de la dynamique de l'esprit et de l'histoire de la pensée, traite des fondements de la connaissance.

Cette thèse prend pour point de départ l'exploration de quelques pratiques chimiques contemporaines en vue d'identifier certains réquisits que devrait satisfaire un concept d'émergence pour être mis en relation avec la chimie. Cette épistémologie distribuée prend appui sur l'histoire de la chimie. Dans cette perspective seront mis en évidence : la dépendance mutuelle des niveaux d'organisation ainsi que celle des relations et des relata, et le rôle constitutif des modes d'intervention dans la définition, toujours ouverte et provisoire, de ce à quoi les chimistes disent avoir affaire. Un détour par l'histoire de la philosophie est alors envisagé pour étudier comment les émergentistes britanniques ont mis en relation la chimie avec l'émergence. L'étude attentive de ces textes est l'occasion d'une mise au banc d'essai de mon étude préliminaire. Nous revenons ensuite aux définitions formelles de l'émergence, et en particulier aux analyses de Kim, en montrant que la clause ceteris paribus sur laquelle elles s'appuient prend un autre sens en métrologie chimique. Cette étude nous permet d'insister sur le rôle et l'importance de deux types de méréologie pour penser l'émergence d'un point de vue formel en tenant compte de la spécificité du travail des chimistes. La thèse envisage enfin de prolonger son enquête en explorant les travaux en chimie quantique et la façon très particulière avec laquelle ils entre-définissent un tout, ses parties et le milieu qui leur est associé. Une mise en relation est alors tentée et ouvre plusieurs pistes : une approche ontologique et pragmatique adaptant à la chimie le concept d'habitude de Peirce repris par Claudine Tiercelin ou celui d' " affordance " proposé par Rom Harré ; une approche pragmatique et transcendantale inspirée des travaux menés par Michel Bitbol en philosophie de la physique quantique ; et, enfin, une approche qui prend en charge les conséquences des transformations chimiques sur les humains et les non-humains, en réintégrant les conditions pragmatiques, socio-politiques, institutionnelles et technologiques de la chimie dans le débat à propos de l'émergence.