Alfred North Whitehead's theory of propositions offers a new approach to the postmodern debate over realism and antirealism. Because it combines elements of both a "coherence" and a "correspondence" theory of truth, the Whiteheadian approach can allow for genuine relationship between mind and extramental process, while at the same time affirming the importance of intersubjectivity and shared practice as contributing factors in what counts as truth. Philosophical ideas can be recognized, not only as "optional glosses" or "rhetorical flourishes" for social (...) practices, but as "critics of abstraction" that play a constitutive role in social practices. (shrink)

The biblical image of Wisdom as the power who “orders all things well” in nature and in human life can be read in the light of contemporary information theory. Some current scientific speculation offers an interpretation of reality as a vast information‐processing system, in which informational situations are continuously transformed through algorithmic operations. This interpretation finds a metaphysical counterpart in the distinction between “nature natured” and “nature naturing” in the philosophical theology of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This confluence of religious, metaphysical, (...) and scientific imagery suggests a picture of the world in which the processes of “nature naturing,”“human humaning,” and “God Godding” inform and recur in each other. (shrink)