Biology as a scientific discipline has relied heavily upon advances in chemistry and physics. An inherent danger in this relationship is the reduction of living phenomena to physico-chemical terms. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism is utilized to examine current methodologies within biology and to evaluate their appropriateness for future research. Hemostatic regulation is employed to illustrate the applications of organistic concepts to biological research. It is concluded that understanding of living entities and their properties as well as possibly life itself will (...) require synthesis of the many analytical elements as informational structures. (shrink)

In Taking Care of Youth and the Generations, Bernard Stiegler develops an account of the pedagogical responsibilities which follow from rhythmic intergenerational flows, involving the creation of milieus which care for and pay attention to the future, toward the creation of nootechnical milieus. Such milieus are defined by their objects of attention: intellectual life, spiritual life, and political life; taken together: noetic life. Such is the claim Alfred North Whitehead makes when arguing that the sole object of education is life (...) and the creation of an art of life which is itself a rhythmic adventure.The purpose of this paper is three-fold. First, to clarify the importance of Stiegler’s reading of Aristotle’s notion of the noetic soul in our thinking about the role, purpose, and function of educational institutions in relation to intellective, spiritual, and political life. In this paper, I will fuse this discussion with a Whiteheadian approach to rhythm, developing what I call a ‘rhythmic nootechnics’ in the service of ‘nootechnical evolution’ as, I argue, Whitehead’s approach to rhythm allows to clarify and enrich Stiegler’s reading of Aristotle. Second, and as indicated, to explore the relationship between Whitehead and Stiegler, insofar as the former has become an increasing reference point for the latter, but this relationship remains unexplored in the literature. Third, to apply this concept of ‘rhythmic nootechnics’ to think about what transformations at the level of pedagogy and politics are necessary to reinvent the university from this Stieglerian and Whiteheadian perspective. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to discuss the topicality of Merton’s thesis with a twofold meaning: as an idea which has its own place in the sociology of science and as an idea which is currently in its area of research. Merton asserts that the development of science in 17th century England was aided by the Puritan ethic. This does not means that science was caused by Puritanism, but only that Puritanism provided major support for the scientific activity. Because (...) secularization and integration were two complementary processes, the relationship between science and religion was not simple. I connect Merton’s thesis with Weber’s thesisabout Protestantism and capitalism and try to see it in the light of the cultural climate of its time. Finally, I argue that Merton offers a unified analysis of scienceas a social institution. (shrink)

In this article we frame a set of important issues in the emerging field of Mind, Brain, and Education in terms of three broad headings: methods, models, and morality. Under the heading of methods we suggest that the need for synthesis across scientific and practical disciplines entails the pursuit of usable knowledge via a catalytic symbiosis between theory, research, and practice. Under the heading of models the goal of producing usable knowledge should shape the construction of theories that provide comprehensive (...) accounts of human learning and development spanning multiple levels of analysis. Under the heading of morality usable knowledge must be put to good use: Its application and dissemination ought to be infused with moral considerations gleaned from dialogue among all those potentially affected. Generally, the field should be shaped not only by its constituent scientific disciplines but also by its applications to education and learning. Thus we argue for the adoption of a kind of pragmatism that would be best actualized by building research-school collaborations between researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

This article argues that certain philosophically devised quality control parameters should guide approaches to interdisciplinary education. We sketch the kind of reflections we think are necessary in order to produce epistemologically responsible curricula. We suggest that the two overarching epistemic dimensions of levels of analysis and basic viewpoints go a long way towards clarifying the structure of interdisciplinary validity claims. Through a discussion of how best to teach basic ideas about numeracy in Mind, Brain, and Education, we discuss what it (...) means for an interdisciplinary curriculum to respect both the minds of students and the complexity of the subject matter. (shrink)

We argue that the concepts of `human equality' and `inequality' play an important role in the structure of science and philosophy. When the value of `human inequality' predominates, scientific categories are formed in accordance with the principle of `hierarchical differentiation' and concepts remain closely tied to the objects they are referring to. Following Mirowski we define this as the `anthropometric stage' of human thought and development. Contrary, Mirowski's `syndetic stage' refers to societies where the value of `human equality' prevails. Here (...) concepts appear that are universally applicable. However, because of their conventional nature these concepts cannot be `grasped' any longer by human intuition. Between the `anthropometric' and `syndetic' stages, a `lineamentric stage' appears, a period of transition from `human equality' to `human inequality'. Being both a bridge and gap between the two other stages, the `lineamentric' stage contains many contradictions between an `abstract attitude' and `concrete categories'. In this paper we examine the anthropometric, lineamentric and syndetic stages and discuss several examples taken from philosophy, logic, mathematics and physics. (shrink)

Environmental thinkers often suppose that the natural world (or some parts of it, at least) exists in its own right, independent of human concerns. The arguments developed in this paper suggest that it is possible to do justice to this thought without endorsing some form of metaphysical realism. Thus the early sections look to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception to develop an anti-realist account of the independent reality of the natural world, one, it is argued, that has certain advantages over the (...) accounts proffered by 'environmental realists'. The concluding sections draw upon certain of Merleau-Ponty's later works to defend a rather bolder claim: that the conceptions of realism endorsed by environmental thinkers are not just ill equipped but, in fact, unable to acknowledge what may be provisionally referred to as the more-than-human dimension of reality. (shrink)

: Green consumerism is on the rise in America, but its environmental effects are contested. Does green marketing contribute to the greening of American consciousness, or does it encourage corporate greenwashing? This tenuous ethical position means that eco-marketers must carefully frame their environmental products in a way that appeals to consumers with environmental ethics and buyers who consider natural products as well as conventional items. Thus, eco-marketing constructs a complicated ethical identity for the green consumer. Environmentally aware individuals are already (...) guided by their personal ethics. In trying to attract new consumers, environmentally minded businesses attach an aesthetic quality to environmental goods. In an era where environmentalism is increasingly hip, what are the implications for an environmental ethics infused with a sense of aesthetics? This article analyzes the promotional materials of three companies that advertise their environmental consciousness: Burt's Bee's Inc., Tom's of Maine, Inc., and The Body Shop Inc. Responding to an increasing online shopping market, these companies make their promotional and marketing materials available online, and these web-based materials replicate their printed catalogs and indoor advertisements. As part of selling products to consumers based on a set of ideological values, these companies employ two specific discursive strategies to sell their products: they create enhanced notions of beauty by emphasizing the performance of their natural products, and thus infuse green consumerism with a unique environmental aesthetic. They also convey ideas of health through community values, which in turn enhances notions of personal health to include ecological well-being. This article explicates the ethical implications of a personal natural care discourse for eco-marketing strategies, and the significance of a green consumer aesthetic for environmental consciousness in general. (shrink)

En este artículo se expone el lugar de Hannah Arendt en el contexto de la Guerra Fría. La historia de las ideas reinantes durante las primeras décadas del siglo XX fue asumida por los estudiosos de la historia de la filosofía y, desde ahí, elaboraron sus explicaciones en torno a la crisis de occidente. Este es el caso de Hannah Arendt quien, además, adoptó la concepción idealista de la historia de la ciencia de los años 50, representada por Alexandre Koyré.

Despite an attempt to break with the hierarchical picture in traditional emergentist thought, non-standard accounts of emergence are often still committed to a premise that ontology is prior to epistemology. This paper aims to topple this last remnant of the traditional hierarchy by explicating a pragmatic view of emergence based on John Dewey’s work. Dewey argued that the traditional notion of ontology is premised on a view of existence as complete. Through a discussion of Dewey’s work it is argued that (...) this premise results in a process of reification that unduly excludes from ontology many precarious and indeterminate aspects involved both in everyday life and in philosophic and scientific inquiry. Building on a recent explication of transformational emergence the paper proposes a diachronic and non-hierarchical account of emergence, called pragmatic emergence. According to that account the relation between ontology and epistemology is a temporally reciprocal one. This means that ontological and epistemological features co-determine each other over time. Determinacy and continuity become historical features of a multitude of unfinished processes that we view from within. (shrink)

In a recent review article published in this journal, Hansen and Schaltegger discuss the architecture of sustainability balanced scorecards. They link the architecture of SBSCs to the maturity of the value system of a firm as well as to the proactiveness of a firm’s sustainability strategy. We contend that this argument is flawed and that the architecture of SBSC does not matter since—irrespective of their architecture—SBSCs are ill-suited to achieve substantive corporate contributions to sustainability. First, we assess the SBSC against (...) three fundamental conditions for an effective management of corporate sustainability—the generation of positive outcomes at the societal level, the consideration of complexities and tensions, and the integration of heterogeneous and competing logics—to show that the SBSC is diametrically opposed to the complex and multi-facetted nature of corporate sustainability and ill-suited to achieve transformational change of for-profit organisations towards sustainability. Second, we address the question whether architecture of the SBSC matters and find that it is a fallacy to believe that the architecture of SBSCs can address this fundamental misfit. Rather, our argument reveals that irrespective of its architecture the SBSC is not a suitable tool for achieving strategic change for sustainability beyond incrementalism because it is deeply rooted in the idea of aligning sustainability with established core business routines. We propose that the emerging integrative view on corporate sustainability offers a more promising route for scholars and practitioners who are truly concerned with a deep transformation of private firms towards more sustainability. (shrink)

This paper discusses the emergence of science education in the seventeenth century with the influences of Joseph Priestley on the Dissenting Academies. Primarily, this paper analyses Priestley’s ideas from some of his letters to scientists during his time and his ideas from his books Miscellaneous Observations Relating to Education and the Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life. As an expository essay, analysis shows that the inclusion of experimental science education dates back from the Dissenting (...) Academies when they explicitly aligned science education for practical life. With Priestley’s advocacy on experimental learning in science, his idea of hands-on science education encouraged other dissenters to seek and understand the changing natural world. His advocacy states that knowledge and understanding of the natural world builds the foundation for rationally evaluating the developments derived from permissible scientific theories. Not setting aside religious studies, Priestley promoted a radical education which ended the restrictions to the privileged and powerful few so that it opened up the access of learning for everyone whose capacity may range from scientific, religious, political, or educational propensities. (shrink)

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. -/- Whether and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study is that this (...) debate is given comprehensive coverage – presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. -/- In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. -/- Using context as “bridge” this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe – both East and West – with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)

Suicide as a form of political protest is a little studied social phenomenon that cannot be dismissed simply as being irrational or patholognomic. We consider protest suicide to be a meaningful social action as purposive political act intended to change oppressive policies or practices. This paper synthesizes theoretical propositions associated with suicide in general, and protest suicide in particular, so as to construct a general explanatory model of protest suicide as a social phenomenon. Then, it analyzes protest suicide as a (...) meaningful social action. People considering protest suicide have to discern the logic of the situation in which such action is to take place. This involves answering two fundamental questions: Is suicide an acceptable course of social action? Is the envisaged protest suicide likely to achieve their hopes, aspirations and goals? How these questions are answered gives rise to a set of protest suicide archetypes. Our analysis generates a more sophisticated understanding of the potential reasons for, and motivations behind, protest suicide as a social phenomenon. (shrink)

The postmodern enterprise, with its foundationlessness, fragmentariness, constructivism, and neopragmatism challenges interdisciplinarity. This paper discusses functional specialization and interdisciplinary method which provides a basis for interdisciplinary collaboration. In functional specialization, successive stages in the process of coming to know are distinguished. These stages correspond to Lonergan’s four levels of consciousness, namely experiencing the data, coming to understanding through addressing questions which arise from the data, and judgment about which hypothesis best fits the data. Authenticity, which involves genuine attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, (...) and responsibility, guides the appropriate attitude in interdisciplinary work. (shrink)

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the biosemiotic work of Jakob von Uexküll and of various theories on biological holism, this article takes a look at the question: what is the status of a semiotic approach in respect to a holistic one? The period from 1920 to 1940 was the peak-time of holistic theories, despite the fact that agreement on a unified and accepted set of holistic ideas was never reached. A variety of holisms, dependent on the cultural (...) and disciplinary contexts, is sketched here from the works of Jan Smuts, Adolf Meyer-Abich, John Scott Haldane, Kurt Goldstein, Alfred North Whitehead and Wolfgang Köhler. In contrast with his contemporary holists, who used the model of an organism as a unifying explanatory tool for all levels of reality, Jakob von Uexküll confined himself to disciplinary organicism by extending the borders of the definition of “organism” without any intention to surpass the borders of biology itself. The comparison reveals also a significant difference in the perspectives of Uexküll and his contemporary holists, a difference between a view from a subjective centre in contrast with an all-encompassing structural view. Uexküll’s theories are fairly near to J. S. Haldane’s interpretation of an organism as a coordinative centre, but even here their models do not coincide. Although biosemiotics and holistic biology have different theoretical starting points and research-goals, it is possible nonetheless to place them under one and the same doctrinal roof. (shrink)

One reason for the problematic status of the social sciences is that their claim to legitimacy has been undermined by two opposite models of inquiry: the nomothetic idea of science, with its emphasis on universal laws, and the idiographic conception of history as a record of particular events. It can be argued that both of them excluded the temporal dimension of socio-historical reality; more precisely, they were ill-equipped to analyze the unstable structures which emerge and undergo transformations over varying periods (...) of time. This previously excluded middle has been rediscovered by pioneering scientists on both sides of the divide; the paper compares Prigogine's critique of Newtonian natural science with Braudel's reorientation of history. The former line of argument privileges time, the latter duration, but they lead to similar conclusions. (shrink)

For many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins. In its most commonly cited form, scientism consists in claiming that science is the only source of real knowledge and, therefore, that what science does not discover does not exist. Because the charge of scientism is frequently levied, it is important to be clear about what exactly is being claimed in its name. I argue that scientism can best be understood as a fallacy, specifically as a kind (...) of category mistake. Being clear about this requires an examination of the relationship of scientism to the question of demarcation between science and nonscience, a question that has potential implications for theology. (shrink)

Each type of learning is proposed as being a three-stage process, composed of: (i) recognition of a perceptual situation and performance of an action corresponding thereto; (ii) observation of a deviation of the action result from an expected outcome; (iii) re-arrangement of the conceptual framework of reasoning to meaningfully assimilate the observed deviation. In order to evaluate a general, systemic significance of the concept of learning proposed hereby, the latter is assessed from perspectives that correspond to diverse levels of organizational (...) complexity of Nature. Thermodynamic concepts, constructivist and autopoietic frameworks of analysis of cognitive phenomena, and the aspects of social sciences are intertwined so as to support the all-encompassing meaning of the general pathways of learning proposed herein. Numerous ethical consequences, with a particular emphasis on educational approaches, are derived from accepting such a general nature of learning and development. Naturally implied dialectical form of evolution, according to which prosperous and favorable features of human creativity arise solely from problem-solving situations, is further discussed. (shrink)

The article begins at the intellectual fissure between many statements coming from neuroscience and the language of faith and theology. First I show that some conclusions drawn from neuroscientific research are not as firm as they seem: neuroscientific data leave room for the interpretation that mind matters. I then take a philosophical-theological look at the notions of soul, self, and freedom, also in the light of modern scientific research (self-organization, neuronal networks), and present a view in which these theologically important (...) notions are seen in relation both to matter (brain) and to God. I show that religious insights expressed with soul and free will bear a remarkable resemblance to certain insights from neuroscience and the science of complex, self-organizing systems, including emphasis on corporeality and emphasis on organization as a form of that corporeality, and that they also show an interesting parallel --- albeit described in different terms --- concerning the crucial role of a valuation principle that generates attraction. With that, the common-sense idea that freedom simply is the same as indeterminism is refuted: freedom primarily means self-determination. I bring to the fore that the self is not a static thing but a “longing.‘ Such longing springs from something, and it is the relationship to this source that constitutes the self. The main concern is to point out the crucial role of attraction with respect to being and to life, and to draw attention not only to the astonishing parallel on this point between Thomas Aquinas and Alfred North Whitehead but also to a surprising --- albeit more implicit --- analogy between these philosophical-theological views and scientific theories of self-organization (such as those concerning neuronal networks). In short, being attracted toward what appears as “good‘ is what constitutes us as selves and what thereby signifies the primary meaning of our freedom. (shrink)

All’inizio del secolo XX, tre filosofi di Cambridge, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, e Charlie Dunbar Broad, sostennero un’ontologia basata sugli eventi che si riteneva fosse compatibile con la recente teoria della relatività . Gli eventi, perciò, rimpiazzavano le sostanze aristoteliche in veste di componenti primari dell’universo – essi erano concepiti come unità di spazio-tempo che si estendevano spazio-temporalmente e che si sovrapponevano al campo elettromagnetico. Via via che la fisica moderna progrediva, le ontologie basate sugli eventi sembrarono guadagnare ulteriore (...) supporto dal comportamento inaspettato delle particelle elementari descritte a livello quantistico. Dall’espansione dell’universo alle traiettorie delle particelle subatomiche, sembrava che tutto potesse essere sistematicamente interpretato in termini di eventi. (shrink)

A crucial question for a process view of life is how to identify a process and how to follow it through time. The genidentity view can contribute decisively to this project. It says that the identity through time of an entity X is given by a well-identified series of continuous states of affairs. Genidentity helps address the problem of diachronic identity in the living world. This chapter describes the centrality of the concept of genidentity for David Hull and proposes an (...) extension of Hull’s view to the ubiquitous phenomenon of symbiosis. Finally, using immunology as a key example, it shows that the genidentity view suggests that the main interest of a process approach is epistemological rather than ontological and that its principal claim is one of priority, namely that processes precede and define things, and not vice versa. (shrink)

El concepto de razón dominante en la modernidad ha resultado insuficiente para dar una respuesta satisfactoria al sentido de la vida, y tampoco se ajusta al camino seguido por el progreso científico. En este artículo trato de mostrar cómo la identificación de la razón con su dimensión científico-positiva ha sido algo decretado a priori, y no sigue la dinámica natural de la razón. La investigación histórica y el testimonio de muchos científicos sobre su actividad, ponen de manifiesto que la ciencia (...) remite a quien la cultiva a algo más allá de lo empírico. La invitación de Benedicto XVI a dilatar los espacios de la razón, reabriéndolos a las grandes cuestiones de la verdad y del bien, puede encontrar en la misma actividad científica un lugar adecuado. (shrink)

Life is a constant search for meaning, and reflective minds need to find deeper and more comprehensive meaning than that normally proffered by the orthodox teaching of any creedal religion. When this book was initially published in 1964, religion had begun to recognize the importance of psychology and psychology had considered a spiritual principle in man. Miss Isherwood’s purpose in writing this book is to relate science and religion more closely. Her theme is that the evolution of consciousness from protozoa (...) provides a link which not only gives grounds for faith in life and an inspiration for carrying development forward, but which reveals that, as we continuously work at deepening our insight into the realms of spirit, the life process appears to us as steadily more meaningful. Her engaging writing style makes this a fascinating glimpse at a philosophy of religion starting to engage with science. (shrink)

The collapse of quantum states is analyzed in terms of a breakdown into two generic phases: Phase I, in which the field of potentialities that the quantum state represents undergoes a discontinuous and unpredictable change into one of the base states which corresponds to the measurement performed, and phase II, in which a transition from the level of potentialities to the level of actualities takes place. Phase I is discussed in relation to a comment about collapse, made by Dirac in (...) conversation with the author, “Nature makes a choice.” An analysis of phase II leads to the suggestion that it occurs only through and as an act of experience. This postulate is shown to elucidate basic questions regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics, such as the elusive demarcation line between the classical and quantum domains, and the controversy of the ontological vs. epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Energy concepts in theology and natural science are studied to see how they may aid the science‐theology dialogue. Relationships between divine and human energies in classical Christology and energy ideas in process theology are significant. In physics, energy has related roles as something conserved and as the generator of temporal development. We explore ways in which God and the world may interact to produce evolution of the universe. Possible connections between the double role of physical energy and the bipolar character (...) of God in process theology are noted. Energy helps to describe God's relationship with the world in both theological viewpoints and, thus, may bridge them. (shrink)

A Constructivist Foundation of the Objects of Scientific Empirical Theories. The following considerations are guided by the assumption that the objects of any scientific empirical theory are constructs as well as the theories themselves, the construction of these object-constructs being fundamentally dependent on the theories' functioning in the provision of practically relevant empirical explanations. The relevance of these explanations consists in their contribution to the improvement of at least one practical capacity through enabling the invention of at least one improving (...) kind of practical actions. In an excursus on the origination and the development of the notion of theory within human history the view is held, in contrast to Aristotle, that theorization has always aimed at practical relevance, however in a broader sense of "practical" than that in which Aristotle uses the term "πρακτικός", and that only the practical functions of theory-construction have changed over the times, and their object-constructs correspondingly. The latest form of theory with the above-mentioned function in the development of social practice is the scientific explanatory empirical theory with the descriptive empirical theory now no longer fulfilling a practical function of its own, but only a service-function of data acquisition for the explanatory theory. The object-constructs of strictly scientific empirical theories in the sense of explanatory theories for the improvement of practical capacities are here considered to be empirical quasi-actions, those of the dependent descriptive empirical theories either quasi-instruments or quasi-products or quasi-materials of the respective kind of quasi-actions of the explanatory theory. The empirical quasi-action is here conceived as the latest in a sequence of developing object-constructs that have resulted from different and successively more effective attempts at better survival of human beings and even from prehuman stages of evolution. The author envisages a differentiation of empirical quasi-actions into further sub-categories to provide the conceptual bases for the construction of objects of new kinds of scientific explanatory empirical theories that might become practically relevant for the improvement of new kinds of practical capacities to be preferably improved for the advancement of social practice: Beside the already relevant category of empirical processes (as I named it) are here proposed the further categories of empirical originations of meaning and of empirical originations of practical actions as conceptual bases for object-constructs of future scientific empirical theories. (shrink)

I examine the abstraction/representation theory of computation put forward by Horsman et al., connecting it to the broader notion of modeling, and in particular, model-based explanation, as considered by Rosen. I argue that the ‘representational entities’ it depends on cannot themselves be computational, and that, in particular, their representational capacities cannot be realized by computational means, and must remain explanatorily opaque to them. I then propose that representation might be realized by subjective experience (qualia), through being the bearer of the (...) structure of abstract objects that are represented. (shrink)

Convergences and conflicts in the dialogue between Buddhism and modern science occasionally find precedent in historical sources and encounters, some of which have set the stage for scenarios that are commonplace in the current dialogue. This paper brings recent scholarship and Tibetan sources on astronomy and geography in Tibet into conversation with the ongoing Buddhism and science dialogue. In response to a lack of context in the dialogue, the paper gives attention to how two contexts in particular, namely, the contemplative (...) and historical, inform currents in the Buddhism and science dialogue about cosmology. The paper challenges claims made that Tibetans did not encounter European science until the twentieth century and that Tibetans were unaware of scientific cosmological ideas, and therefore have not updated the Buddhist Mount Meru cosmology. To address tensions inherent in the binary discourse on science vs religion, this paper asks, does the Mount Meru cosmology represent a domain wherein Buddhism or science hold more appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution about its existence? (shrink)

The sensibilities suggested by the notion tianrenheyi have pervaded the Chinese philosophical narrative since, at the earliest, the Spring and Autumn Period, triggering ever novel and enriching interpretations. This paper, far from searching for some ostensible essence of the notion, engages tianrenheyi philosophically from a contemporary perspective. Investigating, inter alia, the kind of unity stipulated by the notion, its moral and spiritual entailments, as well as its relation to transcendence clears the way - now freed from some metaphysical barriers - (...) to a fresh outlook on the interplay of oneness and particularity in Chinese natural cosmology. The relation between oneness and particularity will thereby emerge as necessarily vague and as mutually co-implicative, and resist any assertion of a preference for the one over the other. (shrink)

This paper shows how key aspects of Aristotle’s core concepts of matter and motion, some of which have recently been shown to help make sense of quantum mechanical indeterminacy, align with some important results of the energy-momentum relationship of special relativity. In this conception, mobility and indeterminacy are inherently linked to each other and to materiality. Applying these ideas to massless particles, which relativity tells us move at the maximal cosmic speed, allows us to draw the conclusion that they must (...) be the most basic physical bodies, that is, mobile substances. The most familiar massless particle, the photon, constitutes light. Furthermore, because the photon composes luminous matter but cannot be decomposed into anything else more basic, it fulfills the definition of element. (shrink)

Well-known critics of AI such as Hubert Dreyfus and Michael Polanyi tend to confuse cybernetics with AI. Such a confusion is quite misleading and should not be overlooked. In the first place, cybernetics is not vulnerable to criticism of AI as cognitivistic and behaviouristic. In the second place, AI researchers are recommended to consider the cybernetics approach as a way of overcoming the limitations of cognitivism and behaviourism.

Sewall Wright first encountered the complex systems characteristic of gene combinations while a graduate student at Harvard's Bussey Institute from 1912 to 1915. In Mendelian breeding experiments, Wright observed a hierarchical dependence of the organism's phenotype on dynamic networks of genetic interaction and organization. An animal's physical traits, and thus its autonomy from surrounding environmental constraints, depended greatly on how genes behaved in certain combinations. Wright recognized that while genes are the material determinants of the animal phenotype, operating with great (...) regularity, the special nature of genetic systems contributes to the animal phenotype a degree of spontaneity and novelty, creating unpredictable trait variations by virtue of gene interactions. As a result of his experimentation, as well as his keen interest in the philosophical literature of his day, Wright was inspired to see genetic systems as conscious, living organisms in their own right. Moreover, he decided that since genetic systems maintain ordered stability and cause unpredictable novelty in their organic wholes (the animal phenotype), it would be necessary for biologists to integrate techniques for studying causally ordered phenomena (experimental method) and chance phenomena (correlation method). From 1914 to 1921 Wright developed his "method of path coefficient" (or "path analysis"), a new procedure drawing from both laboratory experimentation and statistical correlation in order to analyze the relative influence of specific genetic interactions on phenotype variation. In this paper I aim to show how Wright's philosophy for understanding complex genetic systems (panpsychic organicism) logically motivated his 1914-1921 design of path analysis. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to provide a rather general answer to Hume's problem, the well-known problem of induction. To this end, it is very useful to apply his differentiation between ``relations of ideas'' and ``matters of fact'', and to reconsider earlier approaches. In so doing, we consider the problem formally, as well as empirically. Next, received attempts to solve the problem are discussed. The basic structure of inductive problems is exposed in chap. 6. Our final conclusions are to (...) the positive, i.e., Hume's problem can be dealt with - solved - in a constructive way. More specifically, bounded generalisations can be justified, and the key to the solution is the concept of information. (shrink)