If process thought, which has generally been used to support liberal Protestant Christianity, is good metaphysics, it should be able to clarify, but not necessarily judge the truth about, particular religious assertions. Using process thought, I attempt to interpret a conservative theological doctrine of the resurrection of the body, including Jesus's resurrection and his empty tomb, while criticizing the metaphysics of those who have generally held this doctrine. By focusing on the critical example of resurrection in Christian theology, I assert (...) that process thought is more adequate to explain orthodox Biblical Christianity than traditional philosophies. (shrink)

If by personal immortality one means that the soul is naturally eternal and passes as a substance through physical death to another life, then the answer to this question is a firm No . Both Alfred North Whitehead and his most famous student Charles Hartshorne disavowed such personal immortality as philosophically incompatible with the basic tenets of process thought. For Whitehead, and all philosophers who claim to follow him, process is the ultimate metaphysical generality describing how actual entities instantiate themselves (...) from the causality of entities in their past to then become objectified as they influence successor actual entities. To claim that there are multiple exceptions to the sway of universal process in the form of eternal souls introduces a radical and unacceptable philosophical incoherence into the Whiteheadian metaphysical system. Hartshorne held that a belief in eternal souls was not only incompatible with process thought but also compromised the philosophy of Berkeley, Descartes and Kant. In addition, he considered such belief bad religion and argued forcibly against it. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead 's treatise Universal Algebra classifies algebras as either non-numerical or numerical according to whether they satisfy the law of idempotency, a + a = a. We undertake a technical critique of this classification scheme and examine how its flaws may reflect certain mathematical and philosophical biases in Whitehead 's outlook. We argue further that Whitehead 's presumption of immutable foundations for mathematics and his early commitment to the priority of objects over relations may in part account for (...) his relative obscurity as a mathematician. (shrink)

Nell sat in the corner, opened the book, and started to read. She did not know all of the words, but she knew a lot of them, and when she got tired, the book would help her sound out the words or even read the whole story to her, or tell it to her with moving pictures just like a cine. (Stephenson, 1995, 135).

This book uses the friendly format of the computing language Prolog to teach a full formal predicate logic. With Prolog, the scope and limits of both logic and computing can be explored and experimented. Students learning formal logic in a Prolog format can begin using their already developed informal abilities in logic to program in Prolog and conversely learn enough formal logic to examine Prolog and computing in general so major fundamental theorems can be demonstrated. Cases such as Church's Thesis, (...) Church's Theorem, Turing's Halting Problem, and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem provide the author with the means to assess some of the philosophical implications of logic and computing. Henry designed the book for undergraduate students, but it is also useful for philosophers and theologians who wish to see how computer programming serves as a probe into philosophical matters. Contents: The Formalization of Logic; Propositional Logic; Predicate Logic; Prolog: Programming in Logic; Logic Machines; The Scope and Limits of Logic and Logic Machines; Philosophical Reflections; Appendix; Bibliography; Index. (shrink)

Despite the importance of knowing the cognitive capabilities of children with neurodevelopmental conditions, less than one-third of children with cerebral palsy participate in standardized assessments. Globally, approximately 50% of people with cerebral palsy have an intellectual disability and there is significant risk for domain-specific cognitive impairments for the majority of people with cerebral palsy. However, standardized cognitive assessment tools are not accessible to many children with cerebral palsy, as they require manual manipulation of objects, verbal response and/or speeded response. As (...) such, standardised assessment may result in an underestimation of abilities for children with significant motor and/or speech impairment. The overall aim of the project is to examine and compare the psychometric properties of standardised cognitive assessment tools that have been accommodated for use with either a switch device or eye-gaze control technologies, with the specific aims to: Examine the psychometric properties of accommodated assessment tools by comparing the performance of typically developing children on six cognitive assessment tools administered via standardised versus accommodated administration; Describe and compare the performance and user experience of children with cerebral palsy on six accommodated cognitive assessments administered via switch or eye-gaze control technologies. Secondary aims are to: Describe the completion rates and time to complete assessments of participants in each group; Within the group with cerebral palsy, examine the effects of condition-specific characteristics and demographics on participation. This protocol paper describes a two-phase validation and acceptability study that utilizes a mixed-model design. This study will collect concurrent data from 80 typically developing children and 40 children with cerebral palsy, who use switch or eye-gaze control technology as alternate access communication methods. The set of instruments will measure receptive vocabulary, fluid reasoning, sustained attention, vision perception, visuospatial working memory and executive functions. Data analyses will be conducted using SPSS v. 25 and R v 4.1.0. SPSS Sample Power 3 was used for power computation and allows for a 10% drop out rate. Quantitative descriptive statistics, measurement agreement data plotting, bivariate and multiple regressions analysis will be conducted using appropriate methods. (shrink)