B.A. (Winnipeg) M.A. (Brock), Ph.D. (Trent)
Thesis: The Transcendental Turn: Kant's Critical Philosophy, Contemporary Theory, And Popular Culture
Examining Committee:
Alan O'Connor (Supervisor), David Holdsworth and Liam Mitchell
External Examiner: Ted Gournelos, Rollins College, Florida
Internal Examiner: Michael Epp
Chair: Jonathan Bordo
Abstract
This dissertation traces the concept of transcendentalism from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) to Michel Foucault's historical a priori and Pierre Bourdieu's field and habitus, with implicit reference to Deleuze's `transcendental empiricism,' and the influence this trajectory has had on contemporary theory and culture. This general conceptual framework is used as the basis for a critical analysis of a series of examples taken from popular culture to highlight their transcendental conditions of possibility and the influence this conceptual paradigm has had on today's theory. The examples include the NFL `concussion crisis,' South Park's problematization of the discourse surrounding it, as well as the literature of Charles Bukowski, as an exemplification of an immanent writer-written situation. It is further suggested that, not only is transcendentalism an epistemological framework for thought, but it also doubles as an ontological principle for the emergence of a constitutively incomplete and unfinished reality.