https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/101443 2026-04-04T20:00:54Z 2026-04-04T20:00:54Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/102223 2022-10-03T09:59:27Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The disease concept of addiction : a philosophical evaluation Abstract: Addiction has always been a topic of discussion among the world’s general population. No matter when or where, it has always been an issue that society faced and thus, information about it had to be taught to the individuals in society to be able to learn about it. Addiction has often been thought to be a disease. An in-depth analysis of the disease concept of addiction is researched and evaluated in the second chapter of this dissertation. However, when taking into consideration only the disease concept of addiction it seems to raise other complications. In fact, Herbert Fingarette criticises the disease concept of addiction and every aspect that has to do with it and his analysis is presented in the third chapter of this dissertation. This dissertation aims to make aware that, when considering addiction to only be a disease, one is completely excluding any external or internal factors that might have an effect on the individual and why he/she arrived at that point in his/her life. It can also complicate the recovery process of such individual who has finally found the courage to get help because, if the individual believes that addiction is a disease, then he/she might well feel as if none of it his/her own responsibility and thus he/she cannot do anything in particular to make himself/herself better. Hence, the aim of this dissertation is to create awareness of how addiction is far more complex than just a disease because it is not only medical but also emotional, psychological, social and spiritual. Description: M.A.(Melit.)

2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/102021 2022-09-26T08:17:30Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: An exchange of hearts : Meister Eckhart and Jacques Maritain on the nature of human-divine ‘oneness’ Abstract: What, exactly, does it mean to become ‘one’ with God? Is such an act possible? And how, if at all, does such an act contribute to self-flourishing? This dissertation shall attempt to grapple precisely with the nature of such questions, particularly in light of the incisive reflections produced by Jacques Maritain and Meister Eckhart. Both thinkers acknowledge and emphasise the possibility and the valuable nature of the mystical life. Both affirm that the mystical life is, ultimately, the culmination of self-flourishing. Still, although the positions of both thinkers complement each other, they also depart significantly. Although both thinkers uphold a ‘trinitarian’ (i.e. ‘relational’) notion of Self, although both thinkers also affirm that true freedom and true Selfhood can be realized only through a radical apophaticism of Self – in which Self and God become “one” – in certain respects, the manner in which Eckhart and Maritain conceive of “mystical union”, “Self”, and “God”, starkly differs. Whereas, throughout, in a Personalist fashion, Maritain emphases more the primacy of “love” and “personality”; because of his more Neo-Platonic framework, Eckhart gives more primacy to “apophasis” and “detachment”. It is to this point of divergence specifically that this thesis shall be primarily directed. Here, the questions become: in mystical theology, what, if any, is the relationship between “love” (agape) and “nothingness” (apophasis)? Are they, in any way, complementary? And can they, in some way, substantiate each other? Description: M.A.(Melit.)

2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/102015 2022-09-26T08:14:24Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Statism as the state ideology of a global hegemony : an analysis of international politics Abstract: Underpinned by a Lacanian understanding of ideology, the research asks why notions of statehood remain unmoved by their own failure to provide radical humanitarian and environmental solutions. Althusser’s theory of a State Ideology upheld by rituals in State Apparatuses is first applied to the global level to envisage statism as a global State Ideology. Via Gramscian philosophy, it is demonstrated that the political-civil distinction framing international politics as a system of free-acting sovereign states is an ideological fantasy of the hegemonic global integral ‘State’. Hegemony is further revised with Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of polysemy, and the study argues that since classes or states are unfixed signifiers, the global State Ideology reproduces itself as a hegemony without a hegemon. Therefore, state-actors are identified as fetishes meant to absorb the subjects’ guilt of interpellation. Statism is identified as an ideology comprising fantasy elements concealing its contradictions and symbolic deadlock, due to which the subjects remain interpellated in a symbolic security dilemma of citizenship that materialises state-actors as ‘gated communities’. This makes rivalling world powers codependent parties in a global bodiless hegemony, and a gap is identified in international relations theories which do not account for the fetish value of statehood. Applying Žižek’s account of revolution, the dissertation finally proposes a way towards a counter-hegemony which overturns the security dilemma by embracing the Real symbolic gap; this is conducted through political overidentification with the universal symptoms (rather than particular casualties) which are conventionally obscured by the same ideological fantasies of statism. Description: M.A.(Melit.)

2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/101978 2022-09-26T08:11:44Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Knowledge, truth, post-truth and the postmodern worldview : assessing Lyotard’s postmodern stance as a vehicle to explore truth and knowledge in contemporary times Abstract: Contemporary times are prosperous with confusion and social unrest, having multiple causes that include the digital age, time-space compression and liquid society. In parallel, one can observe the phenomenon of post-truth, which in an umbrella interpretation both encourages and allows for the spread of narratives, without regard for their truthfulness. At some levels, these narratives contradict the “mainstream”, and as such there exists a parallel between this conflict and postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives”, as defined by Jean-François Lyotard. I take it upon me in this paper to summarize, expose and critique the postmodern solution as described and argued for by Lyotard, in order to decide if the parallel is warranted. This is done by accepting the same tools Lyotard uses in his argumentation, namely Wittgensteinian language games. While analysing the postmodern position, I am also investigating and concluding on an appropriate stance to address post-truth. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2022-01-01T00:00:00Z