The so-called ‘hidden curriculum’ is often presented as a counterproductive element in education, and many scholars argue that it should be eliminated, by being made explicit, in education in general and specifically in higher education. The problem of the HC has not been solved by the transition from a teacher-centered education to a student-centered educational model that takes the student’s experience as the starting point of learning. In this article we turn to several philosophers of education to propose that HC (...) can be made explicit in HE when the teacher recognizes and lives his/her teaching as a personal issue, not merely a technical one; and that the students’ experience of the learning process is not merely individual but emerges through their interpersonal relationship with the teacher. We suggest ways in which this interpersonal relationship can be strengthened despite current challenges in HE. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead's first book as a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, Science and the Modern World, is not only a historical treatment of the rise and fall of scientific materialism. It also marks his turn to metaphysics in search of an alternative cosmological scheme that would replace matter in motion with organic process as that which is generic in Nature. Among the metaphysical innovations introduced in this book are the somewhat enigmatic “eternal objects.” The publication of the first (...) and second volumes of Whitehead's Harvard Lectures on the philosophical presuppositions (HL1) and general metaphysical problems (HL2) of science provides students of his corpus with an opportunity to catch the thinker in the act of creating his concepts. In searching through student notes for glimpses of what Whitehead really meant, I have kept in mind his admonition that “no thinker thinks twice” (PR 29). Whitehead never ceased philosophizing, and surely he intended for us to continue thinking with but beyond the letter of his ideas. In this spirit and in light of HL1 and HL2, this article seeks to elucidate the role of eternal objects as a category of existence in Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, with the goal not simply of textual exegesis, but of showing how the meaning of the fifth category of existence (as he refers to eternal objects in PR) is exemplified in the gradual ingression of the idea in Whitehead's imagination. My aim is to sustain the effort at constructive thought he began, making his speculative hypothesis as explicit as possible so as to better prepare it for critical improvement (PR xiv). (shrink)

Philosophy emerged for the first time in ancient Greece and, according to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, it arose decisively with Plato through a triple transformation. Even today, the thought and creation of philosophy still require a triple transformation, despite the fact that the historical preconditions under which a philosopher pursues his or her task have changed since Greek antiquity. In this article, I introduce the concept of the triple transformation, which ensues from my examination of What is Philosophy?, the (...) last jointly authored book of Deleuze and Guattari. Therein they define philosophy as the activity that consists of creating concepts in order to bring forth new events... (shrink)

This article sheds new light on Bruno Latour’s sociology of science and technology by looking at his early study of the French writer, philosopher and editor Charles Péguy (1873–1914). In the early 1970s, Latour engaged in a comparative study of Péguy’s Clio and the four gospels of the New Testament. His 1973 contribution to a Péguy colloquium (published in 1977) offers rich insights into his interest in questions of time, history, tradition and translation. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference, (...) Latour reads Clio as spelling out and illustrating the following argument: ‘Repetition is a machine to produce differences with identity’. However, in contrast to Deleuze’s work (together with Félix Guattari) on the materiality of machines, or assemblages [agencements], Latour emphasizes the semiotic aspects of the repetition/difference process. As in Péguy, the main model for this process is the Roman Catholic tradition of religious events. The article argues that it is this reading of Péguy and Latour’s early interest in biblical exegesis that inspired much of Latour’s later work. In Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar, 1979) and The Pasteurization of France (1988) in particular, problems of exegesis and tradition provide important stimuli for the analysis of scientific texts. In this context, Latour gradually transforms the question of tradition into the problem of reference. In a first step, he shifts the event that is transmitted and translated from the temporal dimension (i.e. the past) to the spatial (i.e. from one part of the laboratory to another). It is only in a second step that Latour resituates scientific events in time. As facts they are ‘constructed’ but nevertheless ‘irreducible’. They result, according to Latour, from the tradition of the future. As a consequence, the Latourian approach to science distances itself from the materialism of Deleuze and other innovative theoreticians. (shrink)

As archaeologists, we have to deal with the dead, and as David Clarke once said, we like to keep our archaeology dead. From an epistemological perspective, alienation from the dead seems almost inevitable; otherwise, we would only project today’s conditions onto the past. Therefore, the past must be, and must remain, a foreign country. These alienating processes have ethical implications, however, especially when it comes to the study of human remains. In this article, we analyze the structures within the scientific (...) discipline of archaeology that normalize practices, such as the labeling of human bone material during excavations and the object-like display of skeletons in museums. We argue that archaeologists have an – often rejected – ethical responsibility towards subjects from the past. We, therefore, seek to open up a debate concerning alternative strategies for the treatment of the dead. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

I distinguish Nature from the World. I also distinguish development from evolution. Development is progressive change and can be modeled as part of Nature, using a specification hierarchy. I have proposed a ‘canonical developmental trajectory’ of dissipative structures with the stages defined thermodynamically and informationally. I consider some thermodynamic aspects of the Big Bang, leading to a proposal for reviving final cause. This model imposes a ‘hylozooic’ kind of interpretation upon Nature, as all emergent features at higher levels would have (...) been vaguely and episodically present primitively in the lower integrative levels, and were stabilized materially with the developmental emergence of new levels. The specification hierarchy’s form is that of a tree, with its trunk in its lowest level, and so this hierarchy is appropriate for modeling an expanding system like the Universe. It is consistent with this model of differentiation during Big Bang development to view emerging branch tips as having been entrained by multiple finalities because of the top-down integration of the various levels of organization by the higher levels. (shrink)

This article compares research in neuroscience regarding the right and left hemispheres of the brain, particularly in the work of Iain McGilchrist and Robert Ornstein, with Whitehead’s perception in the mode of causal efficacy and in the mode of presentational immediacy, respectively.

In this introduction, we address some of the complexities associated with the emergence of medicine’s bodies, not least as a means to ‘working with the body’ rather than simply producing a critique of medicine. We provide a brief review of some of the recent discussions on how to conceive of medicine and its bodies, noting the increasing attention now given to medicine as a technology or series of technologies active in constituting a multiplicity of entities – bodies, diseases, experimental objects, (...) the individualization of responsibility for health and even the precarity of life. We contrast what feminist theorists in the tradition of Judith Butler have referred to as the question of matter, and Science and Technology Studies with its focus on practice and the nature of emergence. As such we address tensions that exist in analyses of the ontological status of ‘the body’ – human and non-human – as it is enacted in the work of the laboratory, the randomized controlled trial, public health policy and, indeed, the market that is so frequently entangled with these spaces. In keeping with the recent turns toward ontology and affect, we suggest that we can regard medicine as concerned with the contraction and reconfiguration of the body’s capacities to affect and be affected, in order to allow for the subsequent proliferation of affects that, according to Bruno Latour, marks corporeal life. Treating both contraction and proliferation circumspectly, we focus on the patterns of affects wrought in particular by the abstractions of medicine that are described in the contributions to this special issue. Drawing on the work of A.N. Whitehead, we note how abstractions such as ‘medical evidence’, the ‘healthy human body’ or the ‘animal model’ are at once realized and undercut, mediated and resisted through the situated practices that eventuate medicine’s bodies. Along the way, we touch on the implications of this sort of perspective for addressing the distribution of agency and formulations of the ethical and the political in the medical eventuations of bodies. (shrink)

The essay deals with problems encountered by Western researchers working in the field of Chinese philosophy. It begins with a discussion of intercultural and transcultural methodologies and illuminates some of the most common issues inherent in traditional intercultural comparisons in the field of philosophy. Taking into account the current state of the so-called postcomparative discourses in the field of transcultural philosophy and starting from the notion of culturally divergent frames of reference, it focuses upon semantic aspects of the Chinese philosophical (...) tradition and exposes the need for discursive translations. On this basis, a new postcomparative approach in transcultural philosophical studies of Chinese philosophy is suggested. In this context, the author proposes the application of an innovative principle, based upon what can preliminary be denoted as the method of sublation. (shrink)

En los últimos años, en numerosos países de América Latina, los derechos de la naturaleza se han consagrado en la Constitución. El objetivo principal es tener en cuenta una visión indígena de la naturaleza. En el siguiente artículo examinaremos si los argumentos para conceder derechos a la naturaleza también pueden derivarse de la tradición del pensamiento occidental. Además, se tendrá en cuenta la historia del concepto de «naturaleza viva», desde Aristóteles hasta la actualidad, así como su importancia para el estatuto (...) jurídico de la naturaleza. De particular importancia aquí es la cuestión del valor intrínseco de la naturaleza. (shrink)

Panentheism, a frequently discussed view in recent theological debate, claims that the world is ‘in God’ but that God is ‘more than’ the world. Different theories of the structure of the world produce distinct panentheist views. According to the hunky structure, the world is composed of an infinite number of layers and lacks an ungrounded level. To depict this model, I employ the concepts of ‘grounding’ and ‘emergence.’ The outcome is that if the world is hunky and material reality emerges (...) from such a structure, the world can be in God, but the model of God the Creator is dismissed. (shrink)

Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2017, Page 429-432.

The Politics of Orientation provides the first substantial exploration of a surprising theoretical kinship and its rich political implications, between Gilles Deleuze's philosophy and the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Through their shared theories of sense, Hannah Richter draws out how the works of Luhmann and Deleuze complement each other in creating worlds where chaos is the norm and order the unlikely and yet remarkably stable exception. From the encounter between Deleuze and Luhmann, Richter develops a novel take on (...) postfoundational ontology where subjects and societies unfold in self-productive relations of sense against a background of complexity. The Politics of Orientation breaks and rebuilds theoretical alliances by reading core concepts and thinkers of Continental Philosophy, from Leibniz to Whitehead and Marx, through this encounter. Most importantly, the book puts Luhmann and Deleuze to work to offer urgently needed insight into the rise of post-truth populism. In our complex democratic societies, Richter argues, orientation against complexity has become the ground of political power, privileging the simplistic narratives of the populist right. (shrink)

The concept of continuous creation is now widely used in the context of reflections on the dialogue between science and religion. The first part of this research work seeks to understand its meaning through a twofold elaboration: (1) the historical setting of the three philosophical trends in which this concept was developed: scholastic (conservation), Cartesian (conservation through repetition of the creative act at each instant), and dynamic (interpreting the emergence of radical and contingent novelty in nature as a sign of (...) the continuity of creation); (2) a philosophical and theological critique of the concept of continuous creation regarding the question of the relationship between change and creation, in the light of its highly polymorphous contemporary use, and, in opposition, its absence within the Catholic Magisterium. This work opens the field a further step toward reflection on a renewed concept of continuous creation. (shrink)

The renewal of the concept of continuous creation follows two steps: (1) an establishment of the concept of novelty in an exercise of philosophy of nature, as a means of interpreting the scientific discourse concerning the evolution of life; (2) starting out from philosophical and theological critiques and from the concept of novelty, this work proposes a reformulation of the concept of continuous creation in its dynamic perspective. If the universe of possibilities of creation proceeds from the Divine Word by (...) the will of the Father, as the first timeless ex nihilo creative moment, the Holy Spirit allows, in a second creative moment, the universe of possibilities to proceed continuously through a creative partnership in which all creatures are involved. Created novelty is the expression of a procession of one possibility among others, which has been selected by creatures during the evolutionary process, due to the interdependence of constitutive interactions and the propensities in which creatures are situated. (shrink)

In this article I present the extracts and summary of heuristic and speculative observations on various aspects I feel are problematic in the practice of modern physics, the definitions and methods of which are the premise for the whole of Science. The illustrations will be fully developed in a later, more extensive and in-depth work in which some theoretical solutions will also be put forward; therefore in the interests of brevity all assertions will not be demonstrated fully in this article. (...) I will initially discuss the problem with thinking of Reality as basically being made up of ontologically autonomous “parts”; I will recall how the existence of the vacuum is demonstrated through the thermodynamic experiments about heat capacities run by W. Nernst and the experiments of W. Lamb and H. Casimir ; the vacuum will be defined as an object that precedes matter and space, and actually illustrated as an evolving singularity, which all existence draws from; the non-isolability... (shrink)

Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2017, Page 427-429.

In this contribution, I will argue for an ontological understanding of time as temporality. This, however, implies that in a certain sense being is temporality, by which I mean that on an ontological level temporality is nothing but the process of change, i.e. the dynamic aspect of being in its becoming, changing, and perishing, and that concrete beings are not merely in time, but they are temporal. This leads to the conclusion that actual time is the process of change that (...) becoming beings are, as well as the conclusion that reality is fundamentally temporal as argued by process metaphysicians like Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Gilles Deleuze. The investigation begins with first establishing the methodological difficulties involved in thinking temporality as an ontological feature. In a second step, dynamic ontologies are introduced as the conceptual background best suited to think ontological temporality and their difference to event-ontologies is explained. Finally, the distinction between temporality and linear time is clarified. This introduction of temporality ends with some arguments for the existence of temporality that are inspired by Aristotle’s famous investigations into the nature of time. After having thus introduced temporality as an ontological feature and argued for the existence and relevance of it, its implications for our understanding of the dimensions of time and especially for anticipation are discussed. (shrink)

Central among problems in cosmology is the crucial question of the articulation of natural and historical time: how is human history related to natural processes described by science? A deterministic world view in which natural processes are reversible, as emphasized by classical Western science, is obviously not the answer. Recent research in fields such as far‐from‐equilibrium thermodynamics and statistical mechanics reveals irreversibility in natural processes and allows us to explore new forms of dialogue between science and the humanities.

The contemporary info-proliferation is taking the ideal of a solid technological rationalism to its extreme point: the depletion of all bodies into 'informational cuts’, orderable bits and pieces of data fabric. The present contribution will discuss this process of datafication, trying to avoid any polarization along the ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ dualism, and any consequent excess of enthusiasm or critique. For this purpose, the essay will take the form of a stroll across post-digital culture, alternatively under the effects of a ‘red (...) and a blue pill’ as the two main points of view already exemplified, in 1999, by Morpheus in the famous sci-fi movie The Matrix. To these two points of view, respectively identifiable as digital critique, or digital potential, a yellow one will be added, which can be recognized as that of ‘hacker culture’, at the same time suggesting that, instead of a dialectical contraposition between two different perceptual and cognitive modalities, post-digital culture can be more easily discussed through a multiplication of possible perspectives. (shrink)

We classify two of Bertrand Russell's theories of events within the point-free ontology. The first of such approaches was presented informally by Russell in ‘The World of Physics and the World of Sense’ (Lecture IV in Our Knowledge of the External World of 1914). Based on this theory, Russell sketched ways to construct instants as collections of events. This paper formalizes Russell's approach from 1914. We will also show that in such a reconstructed theory, we obtain all axioms of Russell's (...) second theory from 1936 and all axioms of Thomason's theory of events from 1989. Russell's work certainly influenced the works of Stanisław Leśniewski, his student Alfred Tarski, and Czesław Lejewski – prominent members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS). We see our work in the tradition of the research of Leśniewski and Tarski. Building on the technical tools developed in this environment and in the spirit of the traditional research of the LWS, we engage here, in particular, with two classic works by Russell on fundamental ontology. (shrink)

In this paper, we want to present the genesis of Stanisław Leśniewski’s mereology. Although ‘mereology’ comes from theword ‘part’, mereology arose as a theory of collective classes. That is why we present the differences between the concepts of being a distributive class and being a collective class. Next, we present Leśniewski’s original mereology from 1927, but with a modern approach. Leśniewski was inspired to create his concept of classes and their elements by Russell’s antinomy. To face it, Leśniewski had to (...) define the concept of being an element of based on the concept of being part of. Leśniewski showed that in his theory, there is no equivalent to Russell’s antinomy. We will show that his solution has nothing to do with the original approach because, in both cases, we are talking about objects of a different kind. Russell’s original antinomy concerned distributive classes, and Leśsniewski’s considerations concerned collective classes. (shrink)

According to the subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics, the instruments used to measure quantum systems are to be regarded as an extension of the senses of the agent who is using them, and quantum states describe the agent’s expectations for what they will experience through these extended senses. How can QBism then account for the fact that instruments must be calibrated before they can be used to ‘sense’ anything; some instruments are more precise than others; more precise instruments can (...) lead to discovery of new systems? Furthermore, is the agent ‘incoherent’ if they prefer to use a less precise instrument? Here we provide answers to these questions. (shrink)

This article examines a recently discovered unpublished essay by Alfred North Whitehead titled “Religious Psychology of the Western Peoples.” It is the most sustained criticism of religion he would ever make. This essay is put into conversation with a previously published essay by Whitehead titled “An Appeal to Sanity.”.

Self, person, and identity are among the concepts most central to the way humans think about themselves and others. It is often natural in biology to use such concepts; it seems sensible to say, for example, that the job of the immune system is to attack the non-self, but sometimes it attacks the self. But does it make sense to borrow these concepts? Don’t they only pertain to persons, beings with sophisticated minds, and perhaps even souls? I argue that if (...) we focus on the every-day concepts of self and identity, and set aside loftier concepts found in religion, philosophy, and psychology that are applicable, at most, to humans, we can see that self and identity can be sensibly applied widely in biology. (shrink)

There is an evident lack of rigorous frameworks for making sense of the role and status of spirituality and religion in organizations and organizing, in particular from the perspective of spiritual philosophies of the social. This paper suggests that the philosophy of Plato and his modern follower, political theorist Eric Voegelin could offer a viable perspective for understanding organizational spirituality in its metaphysical, political and ethical contexts. Essential for such a philosophical reflection is the postulation of the transcendental realm as (...) the ultimate reality that provides the fullest templates for order, knowledge and ethicality. It is argued, in the footsteps of Voegelin, that modern organizations and modern organization theory should seek to re-awaken the lost experiences of the divine Beyond by re-animating religious symbols and myths of transcendence as devices for a spiritually opened consciousness. (shrink)

The extent of harm and suffering caused by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted a debate about whether the epidemic could have been contained, had the gravity of the crisis been predicted earlier. In this paper, the philosophical debate on predictive reasoning is framed by Hume’s problem of induction. Hume argued that it is rationally unjustified to move from the finite observations of past incidences to the predictions of future events. Philosophy has offered two major responses to the problem of induction: (...) the pragmatic induction of Peirce and the critical rationalism of Popper. It is argued that of these two, Popper’s critical rationalism provides a more potent tool for preparing for unanticipated events such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Popper’s notion of risky predictions equips strategic foresight with clear hypotheticals regarding potential crisis scenarios. Peirce’s pragmatic induction, instead, leans on probabilities that are slower to be amended as unexpected events start unfolding. The difference between the two approaches is demonstrated through a case study of the patterns of reasoning within the World Health Organization in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. (shrink)

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and (...) cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness. (shrink)

As machines have become increasingly smart and have entangled human thinking with artificial intelligences, it seems no longer possible to distinguish among levels of decision-making that occur in the newly formed space between critical reasoning, logical inference and sheer calculation. Since the 1980s, computational systems of information processing have evolved to include not only deductive methods of decision, whereby results are already implicated in their premises, but have crucially shifted towards an adaptive practice of learning from data, an inductive method (...) of retrieving information from the environment and establishing general premises. This shift in logical methods of decision-making does not simply concern technical apparatuses, but is a symptom of a transformation in logical thinking activated with and through machines. This article discusses the pioneering work of Katherine Hayles, whose study of the cybernetic and computational infrastructures of our culture particularly clarifies this epistemological transformation of thinking in relation to machines. (shrink)

This article uses Whitehead's process ontology and epistemology to propose Aesthetic Experience as a theory that can be used in organizational studies. The article starts from the intersections of ludic theory and aesthetics, to formulate a theory of Aesthetic Experience that improves and promotes enjoyment, creativity, satisfaction, and productivity in the workspace. Located in a process ontology and epistemology, we propose a simple approach for theory evaluation, using thought experiments to identify issues in the formulations of extant theories, and formulate (...) the theory of Aesthetic Experience using grounded methods, visual mapping, and process modeling. The broader purpose of the paper is to revive the study of Whiteheadian process philosophy within organizational studies. (shrink)

Policymaking carries an intrinsic problem in the measurement of the effectiveness of policy. Stafford Beer proposed in 1975, to measure the eudaemonia generated by the implementation of a policy in a society to determine its effectiveness. To achieve this end, he devised a system that compares differential rates of change in eudaemonia. Despite the effectiveness of Beer’s idea, policies regarding highly subjective issues, such as the complex case of symbolic inequalities pose a new challenge. In this article, the author sets (...) to update Beer’s model, using A.N.Whitehead’s concept of experience, to improve the possibility of measuring the eudaemonia resulted from implementing a policy. The article uses management cybernetics and process philosophy to propose a model that absorbs the complexity of the case of symbolic inequalities. The model shows increased society’s involvement on the evaluation of policies; It offers the possibility for a more technical management concerned with optimization of policy and resources, and a more autonomous organization in general. The involvement of A.N.Whitehead’s experience as a measure of eudaemonia allows a system to handle higher levels of subjectivity in policy design, and implementation. Beer’s idea found many problems to set in practice, but the advent of modern technologies facilitates the implementation of new forms of measuring satisfaction and wellbeing in cooperatives societies. The ideas in this paper could serve as a base to create a more democratic, participative, and satisfactory administration of a cooperative society, and a more technical management. (shrink)

Theists in general and Christians in particular have good grounds for affirming divine action in relation to twenty-first-century science. Although humans cannot perceive with their five senses the causation—both divine and creaturely—at work in our world, they have reasons to believe God acts as an efficient, but never sufficient, cause in creation. The essential kenosis option I offer overcomes liabilities in other kenosis proposals, while accounting for a God who acts personally, consistently, persuasively, and yet in diversely efficacious ways. We (...) can reasonably infer that the love, beauty, and truth expressed in creation derive from divine and creaturely causation. (shrink)

‘‘Adaptive radiation’’ is an evocative metaphor for explosive evolutionary divergence, which for over 100 years has given a powerful heuristic to countless scientists working on all types of organisms at all phylogenetic levels. However, success has come at the price of making ‘‘adaptive radiation’’ so vague that it can no longer reflect the detailed results yielded by powerful new phylogeny-based techniques that quantify continuous adaptive radiation variables such as speciation rate, phylogenetic tree shape, and morphological diversity. Attempts to shoehorn the (...) results of these techniques into categorical ‘‘adaptive radiation: yes/no’’ schemes lead to reification, in which arbitrary quantitative thresholds are regarded as real. Our account of the life cycle of metaphors in science suggests that it is time to exchange the spent metaphor for new concepts that better represent the full range of diversity, disparity, and speciation rate across all of life. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of evidence, with specific focus on the problem of evidence in Husserl's phenomenology. How this problem was dealt with and resolved by philosophers such as Plato, Descartes and Kant is compared and contrasted with Husserl's approach, and the implications of the solution offered by Husserl discussed. Finally, in light of the issues outlined, it is assessed whether or not Husserl can be said possibly to have been philosophically inclined towards notions such as idealism, empiricism, solipsism (...) and scepticism. (shrink)

This article takes its inspiration from Jacques Derrida to consider how deconstructionism can be done inadvertently. This possibility is underscored when one considers how a very significant phrase in Ifá texts— “A díá fún...” has been construed away from its transliteration as “Ifá divination was performed for...” by each of Oluwole and Karenga. Oluwole justifies her “deconstruction” on the grounds that such transliteration does not capture the philosophic cogs gravid within Ifá verses. Karenga, through his Kawaida methodology, “improvises” to suit (...) the ethical inferences he seeks to deduce out of the corpus. On this showing, this research infers that each of these scholars have engaged in a reflective activity that passes, on Derrida’s reading, as deconstruction, unbeknownst to them. Would they admit that their intellectual drudgeries amount to postmodern philosophy? This is the primary research question that this disquisition interrogates. (shrink)

What is the relation of an earlier being to a later such that given the earlier there is or will be a later? I call this the question of material continuation. To answer, I offer a review of several philosophers’ thoughts, including those of Zeno, Aristotle, Descartes, Bertrand Russell, Henri Bergson, and Alfred North Whitehead. While there is considerable variety among the ontological views of these philosophers, and indeed some direct opposition of both method and assertion, my review suggests that (...) material continuation may be explained by reference to a principle of continual creation. This principle is reflected in Aristotle's unmoved mover, in Descartes's account of God's activity in persistence, in Bergson's concept of la durée, and in Whitehead's principle of creativity. It disappears from view in objective methodologies first emerging in pre-Socratic thought, made rigorous by the development of science by the modern philosophers such as Descartes, and realized in the scientist philosophy of Russell. I include some consideration of whether the creative principle might be ideal or divine. (shrink)

Neuroscience has made enormous progress in understanding the brain and its various neuro-sensory and neuro-cognitive functions. However, despite all progress, the model of the brain as well as its ontological characterization remain unclear. The aim in this first paper is the discussion of an empirically plausible model of the brain with the subsequent claim of a neuro-ecological model. Whitehead claimed that he inversed or reversed the Kantian notion of the subject by putting it back into the ecological context of the (...) world, the so-called reformist subjectivist principle. Based on empirical evidence about the experience-dependence of the brain’s spontaneous activity, I argue for an analogous inversion or reversion with regard to the model of brain: empirical evidence is well compatible with a neuro-ecological model which extends beyond and integrates both Humean neuro-sensory and Kantian neuro-cognitive models. I conclude that a neuro-ecological and process-based model of brain and its relationship to the world may offer a novel model of brain that carries major ontological implications as they shall be discussed in the second paper. (shrink)

This article develops a media philosophical framework for addressing the intersection of epigenetics and complex dynamical systems in theoretical biology. In particular, it argues that the theoretical humanities need to think critically about the computability of epigenomic regulation, as well as speculatively about the possibility of an epigenomics beyond complexity. The fact that such a conceptual framework does not exist suggests not only a failure to engage with the mathematics of complexity, but also a failure to engage with its history. (...) Both epigenetics and the application of complex dynamical systems to biology originate in the mid-twentieth-century work of Conrad Hal Waddington. The article demonstrates how this genealogy of epigenetic complexity reveals the need for a speculative conception of epigenomic mediation beyond mathematical complexity. Using Whitehead’s philosophy as a conceptual anchor, the “epimedial landscape” serves as a first pass at a media philosophical revision of the complex dynamical systems view of the epigenetic landscape. (shrink)

This article develops a media philosophical framework for addressing the intersection of epigenetics and complex dynamical systems in theoretical biology. In particular, it argues that the theoretical humanities need to think critically about the computability of epigenomic regulation, as well as speculatively about the possibility of an epigenomics beyond complexity. The fact that such a conceptual framework does not exist suggests not only a failure to engage with the mathematics of complexity, but also a failure to engage with its history. (...) Both epigenetics and the application of complex dynamical systems to biology originate in the mid-twentieth-century work of Conrad Hal Waddington. The article demonstrates how this genealogy of epigenetic complexity reveals the need for a speculative conception of epigenomic mediation beyond mathematical complexity. Using Whitehead’s philosophy as a conceptual anchor, the “epimedial landscape” serves as a first pass at a media philosophical revision of the complex dynamical systems view of the epigenetic landscape. (shrink)

Championed by Whitehead (1979), a process metaphysics has been forwarded as one way of conceptualizing the fundamental nature of our existence. On an applied level, we might use the notion of process within the framework of scientific method to advance our knowledge of how we might take steps to create particular outcomes or states that we desire within organizations. We discuss both forward and backward looking approaches to developing process theory. Ultimately, though, in this paper, we present discussion of the (...) limits of Mohr’s (1982) conceptualization of process theory and show (1) how his discussion focuses on a subset or limited view of process (and would render invisible other alternatives) and (2) how such limitation of view retards the accumulation of knowledge regarding individuals and organizations as a storehouse of process approaches toward achieving specified results. (shrink)

If complexity is a necessary but not sufficient premise for the existence and expression of the living, anticipation is the distinguishing characteristic of what is alive. Anticipation is at work even at levels of existence where we cannot refer to intelligence. The prospect of artificially generating aesthetic artifacts and ethical constructs of relevance to a world in which the natural and the artificial are coexistent cannot be subsumed as yet another product of scientific and technological advancement. Beyond the artificial, the (...) synthetic conjures the understanding of aesthetics and ethics no longer from the perspective of the How? type of question, but rather the Why? Given the current infatuation with synthetic biology (i.e., making life from non-life), there is a practical consequence to such considerations. Synthetic life, as any other form of life, implies the possibility of evolution. Anticipation, which is the underlying factor of evolution, is thus expected. At the level of human existence, anticipation is expressed, for instance (but not exclusively), in aesthetic forms and ethical values. This translates, in turn, into an argument for the role aesthetics and ethics play in the process. Consequently, to qualify as life, the synthesis of the physical and the living will have to efficiently handle ambiguity. Current computational facilities, regardless of their nature or performance, operate exclusively in the semiotic domain of the well defined non-ambiguous. (shrink)