This book examines tradition, the authority of the past, by tracing the process through which emotion and imagination transform everyday experience into an awareness of one's dependence on the work of predecessors.

Modern philosophy in the West has been haunted since Descartes by his ontological dichotomy between extended unthinking substances and thinking unextended substances, which leads to the epistemological problem of whether perceptions by the mind can be judged as truly representing objects external to it. The typical solution has been to reduce one kind of substance to the other: to fashion some version of either idealism or materialism. Attempts at a solution that affirms real differences between physical bodies and conscious minds (...) but allows for their interaction, for each to have an effect on the other, are a characteristic strategy of analytic philosophers. However, Professor Hedrick finds their proposed... (shrink)

This book of twelve essays applies the holistic theories of process philosophy to the educational challenges that teachers face in today's complexly changing world. Topics range from staff development to spirituality, exploring issues of student and teacher motivation, developmental stages of learning, imaginative thinking and writing, nourishing relationships, moral and environmental education, and the development of hospitable learning environments.

Whitehead’s process metaphysics, as developed in Process and Reality, is harmed by the incoherence of his notion of eternal objects as timeless and essentially unrelated entities, which therefore need a primordial agent as their ontological ground and the source of their relatedness and relevance. Such nontemporal entities undermine what is supposed to be a thoroughly temporalist metaphysics. Eternal objects can be understood solely as functions of Creativity, however, as features of a purely temporal process. A notion of God is not (...) required. Whitehead’s Categoreal Obligations specify the necessary conditions for this process, including how the novelty is possible that is needed to account for temporal change and the increased complexity that value enhancement presupposes and makes possible. Adventures of Ideas, especially through the notions of Art and Peace, develops at the level of human civilization this same secular interpretation of the capacity of entities to fashion novel and progressive outcomes. (shrink)

Ferré proposes three criteria for judging whether or not a metaphysical theory is “well made.” Two of the criteria are “adequacy” and “coherence.” For a metaphysical theory to be well made, it must be inclusive, leaving nothing out of its purview. And it must be integrated, bringing together all it includes into a unified whole. Adequacy and coherence apply to metaphysical theories the criteria for any non-trivial logical system: that it be both complete and consistent.

The aim of this essay is to explore similarities between Whitehead’s stages of education and two of the “ultimate notions” he discusses in Modes of Thought. I hope this exploration will shed light on what Whitehead means when he opens the Epilogue of that book by saying: “The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the issue” (171).

A standard account of creativity is that it is a process in which the form of a thing or event is altered—restructured or reinterpreted—in a way that changes fundamentally that thing’s or event’s meaning, its nature or function, its intrinsic or instrumental value. What is created in this manner, however, is only a variation of the initial form. Such processes are creative in a weak sense; the strong sense requires that the old form be replaced by a quite different one, (...) as in reconstructions or metaphors. But creative substitution is not haphazard, not a matter of insight, genius, luck, or divine assistance. It utilizes the generative rules governing a formal structure to make or discover new forms that are transformations, not variations, of the original form. These procedures are teachable and not mysterious, although the possible transforms of the structure are never predictable. (shrink)

HISTORIANS DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE PAST. IT IS ARGUED THAT THIS ACTIVITY CAN BE EXTENDED TO ENCOMPASS FUTURE-REFERRING STATEMENTS WITHOUT BECOMING SOOTHSAYING. DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY TECHNIQUES ARE EXAMINED, AND THE TEST OF THEIR ADEQUACY SEEN TO INVOLVE SPECULATIVE PREDICTION AND PROJECTION. PHILOSOPHERS OF HISTORY ALSO USE SUCH TECHNIQUES, IMAGINATIVELY COMPLETING INCOMPLETE DESCRIPTIVE PATTERNS BY REFERENCE TO THE FUTURE, IN ORDER TO SUGGEST AND EVALUATE EXPLANATIONS OF PAST EVENTS.

This essay responds to Lewis Ford’s “Allan’s Atheism,” in which he assesses a recent essay of mine that finds God an unnecessary and indeed coherence-destroying addition to Process and Reality. I clarify my position by showing how Whitehead’s notions of physical purpose and aesthetic determination adequately account for the novelty required for an actual occasion’s concrescence and for increases in achieved value. I then criticize Ford’s claim that genuine novelties must have a divine origin and that in Adventures of Ideas (...) the Eros of the Universe refers to God. (shrink)

A highly accessible reading of Whitehead's writings on education and their connection to his metaphysics.

IN RECOVERY OF THE MEASURE: INTERPRETATION AND NATURE, Robert Cummings Neville develops a philosophy of nature and theory of interpretation as centerpieces for his projected three-volume Axiology of Thinking. This emerging ontology of value is impressive for both its originality and complexity. Neville's claims about meaning, truth, objectivity, and knowledge are deployed in explicit opposition to the relativism, historicism, and subjectivism currently so popular among philosophers. His critique is formidable because neither polemical nor defensive; it is rather the expression of (...) a coherent metaphysical vision. (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

AN OBVIOUS FEATURE OF OUR EXPERIENCE is the constant perishing of what we value. Persons we love, objects we treasure, ideals we revere, desires that enthrall us, groups to which we pledge allegiance, projects in which we are engaged, systems that command our respect, accomplishments before which we stand in awe, memories we cherish, hopes to which we cling—they all are eventually lost to us. They abate, explode, crumble, die, erode, fade; they are deformed, eviscerated, torn apart, vanquished, made to (...) disappear. They gang always, not merely aft, a-gley. The perishing may be cataclysmic or gradual, the devastation wreaked by hurricane-force winds and pandemic plagues or the unnoticed pressures by which tectonic plates shift and species adapt. So pervasive are these perishings that folk wisdom assigns as deepest truth the observation that of anything it can be said: “this too shall pass away.”. (shrink)

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE in the Critique de la raison dialectique, develops a theory of praxis which extends the anthropology of L'être et le néant while simultaneously claiming to correct and complete Marxism. Central to Sartre’s argument are two assertions: that dialectic is fundamental to human action, and that all historical development is rooted in the praxis of individual persons. These twin assertions, by insisting upon the existential element in social change, do not merely correct Marxism. They fundamentally alter it. In affirming (...) the dialectical structure of praxis, Sartrean Marxism is compelled to deny a dialectic of history. It modifies the Marxian dialectic by radically constricting its scope, denying a becoming of the dialectic by insisting upon a dialectic of becoming. (shrink)

Steroid hormone receptors are ligand‐inducible transcription factors that exhibit potent effects on gene expression in living cells. Precise dissection of their mode of action at the molecular level can best be carried out in functional cell‐free systems. This article will describe the benefits of such systems and review their development up to the recent establishment of steroid receptor‐dependent in vitro transcription. Subsequent advances in our knowledge of receptor function arising from the exploitation of this powerful experimental tool will be described. (...) Particular emphasis will be placed upon two key problems: the role of steroid hormone in receptor action and the mechanisms by which steroid receptors activate gene transcription. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the essential task of a university is not teaching students to be experts in some field of endeavor but educating them, so they might learn how to act in accord with the basic moral constraints governing any endeavor. With the help of ideas from Plato, Aristotle, and Michael Oakeshott, this argument is developed by distinguishing actions from practices and prudential from moral practices. Our moral practices, which comprise our character, cannot be taught, but they can be (...) learned—through conversations and similar educational contexts in which possible actions are imaginatively explored and critiqued in an open-ended manner, with the focus not on what we think or do but how. The difficulty for universities, amid so many practical pressures to do otherwise, to keep this essential educational task as their primary concern is acknowledged. Nevertheless it is the right thing for them to do. (shrink)

Hartshorne's "neoclassical metaphysics" rests implicitly on five metaphysical axioms: discontinuity, Asymmetry, Sociality, Creativity, And dipolar divinity. The first four axioms entail ethical norms crucial to democracy: non-Reducibility of individual to community, Primacy of present achievement over potential future value, Non-Reducibility of communal to individual, The importance of risk. The fifth axiom undercuts these norms, However. The notion of God as guarantor of achieved value should be dropped from hartshorne's philosophy to make it ethically consistent.

An original philosophical treatise on form and the foundations of social value.

In this work he focuses on human effort, concrete action, realization of the future through creative activities--as beginning points for the search for a foundation to values. Paper edition (unseen by Book News), $18.95.

This collection of original essays explores the connections between the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and the classical American pragmatists.

This book argues that Whitehead’s introduction of God into his process metaphysics renders it incoherent. Replacing roles assigned to God with the powers inherent in finite entities, George Allan recovers a coherent presentation of the truth of time’s primacy, using Whitehead’s major writings.

Metaphysical realism, as Rockmore defines it, is the claim that "under the proper conditions it is possible to know independent objects and the world as it is". Its canonical version is Platonic realism, which includes the ontological claim that this objective reality is a "permanent ahistorical matrix or framework". Foundationalism is an epistemological strategy for validating the realist claim by identifying something as absolutely true, true "beyond skepticism, hence beyond doubt of any kind", then deducing from it objective "knowledge of (...) the mind-independent real as it is". (shrink)

In order to begin constructing a postmodern metaphysics, Ferré argues, it is first necessary to recall how the modern metaphysical worldview emerged and why it needs to be replaced. Since for Ferré the problem with modern thought is its denial that values have objective reality, his survey of the tradition from Thales to the present emphasizes the "value commitments," especially the "standards of cognitive success," embraced explicitly or implicitly by each philosopher. For example, completeness and consistency are thought by some (...) to be paramount; others give more credence to applicability and adequacy. Ferré paints in broad strokes, avoids technical vocabulary as much as possible, and rarely refers to any of the secondary sources that may have informed his thinking. What he has to say is by no means ground-breaking, but it is consistently clear, and that clarity is consistently illuminating. (shrink)

Ever the restless thinker, Weiss has once more revised his metaphysical system, introducing the Dunamic-Rational as one of the five ultimate conditions to which Being gives rise and identifying emphatics as the way by which particular beings and such other pivotal realities interrelate. These systemic adjustments give needed prominence to the dynamic features of reality.