William G. Lycan undersöker i sin bok Philosophy of Language: a Contemporary Introduction möjligheten att förklara lingvistisk mening utifrån verifikationismen. Han lägger fram en mängd invändningar som tillsammans skall omkullkasta projektet. Då jag läst Lycans argument några gånger slås jag av det attraktiva med verifikationismens idé och av att jag vill syna kritiken lite närmre. Sammanfattningsvis skriver Lycan att verifikationismen utesluter en mängd uppenbarligen meningsfulla satser, inkluderar några som borde vara meningslösa och att den tillskriver satser fel mening.

Entrepreneurial firms face unique challenges in attracting and acquiring human resources due to difficulties associated with resource constraint and organization legitimacy, often described as liabilities of "smallness" and "newness". The aim of this paper is to examine the "smallness" and "newness" challenges met by small entrepreneurial firms, which strategies they apply to counter these challenges, and if these strategies can be explained by the firm's HR philosophy. Since few studies on Human Resource Management (HRM) in small entrepreneurial firms exist, a framework combining theory from the research fields of HRM, entrepreneurship and small firms has been developed. Employing a qualitative case study design of five small Swedish entrepreneurial firms, our findings demonstrate four "smallness" and "newness" challenges and seven strategies that either counteract or prevent them. Furthermore, results showed that the strategies applied seemed to have no significance with regards to the firm's HR philosophy.

The purpose of this comparative study is to investigate if the views of Sayyid Qutb and Tariq Ramadan regarding social structure and religion are possible to unite with western liberal democracy. The basis of the study is the problematizing approaches written by Qutb and Ramadan regarding the possible unity between Islam and democracy. These problematizing approaches are then tested on the political philosophy of liberalism to see if a unity is possible.The result showed that Qutb's view did not meet the criteria of democracy, which wasn't surprising due to his negative views on the system. However, Ramadan's reformist view on Muslim identity did unite with the views of liberal democracy, though questions regarding the possibility of creating and preserving a European Muslim identity in the secular society were immediately brought to attention.The importance in Qutb's view is social equality, unity and submission to God and the importance of Ramadan's view is to create and preserve a European Muslim identity and adapt to the society where you live and participate as a citizen. Qutb's view will not tolerate diversity and one is to keep or convert to the Muslim faith.

The present essay concerns Walter Benjamin´s engagement with the concept of critique in four of his early writings from 1916-1928. It revolves around three main themes, or objects of interest: the critique of language [Sprache], the critique of the work [das Werk] and the critique of history [Geschichte]. The main objective of this study is to show how we can understand Benjamin?s conception of critique and how he develops it in regard to language, the work and history. The essay argues that this is a vital part to understand his philosophy in general as well as his later philosophy of history in particular.

In this thesis I examine how the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger differ with regard to the phenomenological reduction, and in particular why there is no reduction in Sein und Zeit. I examine in what way philosophy is seen as an overcoming of the naïvete of a ?natural? attitude and how this natural attitude is understood, starting with Husserl?s descriptions of the phenomenological reduction, of the natural attitude of our daily lives and of his notion of transcendental subjectivity. By presenting these main aspects, I try to elucidate why, in Husserl?s view, laying the foundation of all knowledge must take form of a phenomenological first philosophy.

This essay aims to show how Clarice Lispector uses a double narrative to wright beyond the rules of representation that are given for all literature. All writing is determined by the social hierarchies that exist in a society, and thus the essay shows how Lispector uses a specific literary strategy in order to give voice to a character that would otherwise be invisible. Using the philosophy of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as a means of contextualization, the essay further discusses the social and political impact of Lispectors novel.Through a thematic close reading of the novel The Hour of the Star the essay aims to deepen the understanding of the unique characterization in the novel and its implications. The first chapter is devoted to an analysis of the first person narrative in the novel and its development into a extra diegetic narrative. The second chapter aims to go further into the narrative with an analysis of the dichotomy between body and thought and its interplay with the two main characters in the novel.

I den här uppsatsen tänker jag reda ut det epistemologiska begreppet a priori. Att det är ett epistemologiskt begrepp innebär att det handlar om kunskap. Den här kunskapen kan uttryckas i satser. Sådana satser är satser som vi har a priorisk kunskap om. Exempel på vad man brukar kalla a prioriska satser är: ?inget kan vara helt täckt av rött samtidigt som det är helt täckt av grönt? och ?om A kommer före B och B kommer före C så kommer A före C? eller mer metafysiska utsagor som ?ett fysiskt objekt kan inte vara på två ställen vid samma tidpunkt? och ?alla effekter måste ha en orsak?, men som främsta exempel brukar man tala om logiska eller matematiska utsagor.

Grundtanken i deliberativ demokrati är att politiska beslut skall grundas på en fri och förnuftig deliberation mellan fria och jämlika medborgare. Målet med denna deliberation är att nå en rationell konsensus, och kräver att deltagarna sätter sina personliga intressen, värderingar och perspektiv åt sidan, samt fokuserar på det allmänna bästa. I denna uppsats presenterar jag teorin bakom, och framför kritik mot den nuvarande utformningen av deliberativ demokrati. Denna kritik går huvudsakligen ut på att deliberativ demokrati inte fullt respekterar samhällets pluralism, eftersom den antar orimliga normer förhur politisk kommunikation får bedrivas, och därmed riskerar att marginalisera vissa människor. Jag diskuterar också hur en alternativ demokratimodell, som bevarar grundtanken i deliberativ demokrati, skulle kunna vara utformad..

During later years coaching has gained popularity. Coaching offers help to learn rather than to teach and enables optimal performance. The method that builds consciousness, strengthens choices and leads to change in the wanted direction, can deduce to some of history's most successful educationalists. A coaching area steadily increasing is business- and executive coaching. The overall purpose with this paper is to explain what coaching is generally speaking, with specific focus on business- and executive coaching.

This essay attempts to examine whether it is possible to find a mutual understanding of the concept of drive between Spinoza?s philosophy and Freud?s psychoanalytical theory. Former texts on this subject have given a variety of conclusions: from a radical separation between the two authors to a complete identification between the two. The drive, or the desire which is the term Spinoza uses, has in Spinoza?s philosophy its foundation in the concept of conatus.

The purpose of this comparative study is to investigate if the views of Sayyid Qutb and Tariq Ramadan regarding social structure and religion are possible to unite with western liberal democracy. The basis of the study is the problematizing approaches written by Qutb and Ramadan regarding the possible unity between Islam and democracy. These problematizing approaches are then tested on the political philosophy of liberalism to see if a unity is possible.The result showed that Qutb's view did not meet the criteria of democracy, which wasn't surprising due to his negative views on the system. However, Ramadan's reformist view on Muslim identity did unite with the views of liberal democracy, though questions regarding the possibility of creating and preserving a European Muslim identity in the secular society were immediately brought to attention.The importance in Qutb's view is social equality, unity and submission to God and the importance of Ramadan's view is to create and preserve a European Muslim identity and adapt to the society where you live and participate as a citizen. Qutb's view will not tolerate diversity and one is to keep or convert to the Muslim faith.

Metaforen har genom historien fängslat filosofer, och redan på Aristoteles tid fördes en diskussion kring metaforens plats i språket och vad metaforer kan tänkas betyda. Innan man börjar undersöka detta bör man nog först och främst stanna till och fråga sig vad en metafor egentligen är. Det finns ett otal metaforer och variationerna är oändliga, men i regel består en metafor av ett eller flera objekt i ljuset av attribut hos ett annat objekt. Metaforarbete sätter således två entiteter i en relation till varandra, en relation som oftast anses baserad på någon typ av likhet. Ett klassiskt exempel är Shakespares berömda scenmetafor ur As you like it ? ?All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players / They have their exits and their entrances?.

"The Value of Knowledge - Towards a Virtue Epistemological Position" The classical question, first posed in Plato's Meno, concerning the value of knowledge constitutes the starting point of this essay. Value analysis has long been neglected in epistemologist's accounts until its re-emergence with the tradition called ?virtue epistemology?, in particular with scholars following Ernest Sosa. Like virtue ethics virtue epistemological accounts changes the focus from the object to the agent, i.e. from knowledge to intellectual virtue.

Lean Production is used by many manufacturing companies. Companies in process industries do not use Lean Production to the same extent today. This is part of the report's issue to explore how Lean Production can be applied to a company in the process industries.The investigated company is a processing company that manufactures various types of foil. The company wishes to streamline its production and has therefore asked the authors to examine if Lean Production can offer the company improvements in their production. Lean Production value stream mapping tool has been selected to identify and analyze the current state of two of its products in production.

The purpose of this study was to investigate into the praxis based sociocultural tools that are utilized to enhance language development in early childhood education. Four pre-school teachers were involved in this study. Two were recruited from an independent pre-school "Maria Montessori", practicing the pedagogical philosophy developed by Maria Montessori. Two were from a public pre-school herein named "Kvasten", which has no official philosophy but where the teachers (like in many Swedish pre-schools) work in a general alignment with the principles of Reggio Emilia pedagogics. The theoretical fundament of the study lies in the general theories of language development and education of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotskij, and the comparative element mainly concerns the variations in pedagogical praxis between the two pre-schools, and the way the teachers reason about language development.