Date of Award
Spring 1995
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Vater, Michael
Second Advisor
Prindergast, Thomas L
Third Advisor
Anderson, Thomas L.
Abstract
Perhaps it is impossible to finish any lengthy project with the same enthusiasm and innocence that one started. At best, one can hope to look back on what he has said and find a general agreement with the approach and some sympathy with the conclusion, despite the misgivings and second guessing which always accompany hindsight. If this is taken as the proper measure of a dissertation's.worth, I can happily approve of this one, which is not to say that I would approach the topic in exactly the same way if starting all over again. When nearing completion of this dissertation, in fact, while writing the last few pages, it finally became clear to me why the topic had originally attracted my attention. I have always been fascinated, or rather, dominated by the idea that all causation must be mechanical and that all events must ultimately form a coherent and comprehensive system which admits of no unexplainable events. The shifting sands of my religious belief never interfered with this belief. I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not think of the world as being rigidly mechanistic and strictly determined in its behavior, nor could I imagine how humans might be exceptions to this. Finally, though, I became convinced that this view must be wrong...