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Process Studies

Volume 39, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2010

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Displaying: 1-20 of 22 documents


1. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Dan Dombrowski

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articles

2. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Arran Gare

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Chinese environmentalists have called for an ecological civilization. To promote this, ecology is defended as the core science embodying process metaphysics,and it is argued that as such ecology can serve as the foundation of such a civilization. Integrating hierarchy theory and Peircian semiotics into this science,it is shown how “community” and “communities of communities,” in which communities are defined by their organization to promote the common good of theircomponents, have to be recognized as central concepts not only of ecology, but of life itself. This perspective is used to defend Lovelock’s “Gaia” hypothesis and the call of Prugh, Costanza, and Daly for strong democracy. An ethics and political philosophy is sketched based on “eco-poiesis” or “home-making,” which is equated with augmenting the life of communities, both human and non-human.
3. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

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Widespread acceptance of Hartshorne’s “correction” of Whitehead’s notion of God inhibited continuing exploration of Whitehead’s own vision of God as a single entity in which the physical and mental poles are reversed. As a result, the implications of this reversed concrescence have been paid scant attention. Whitehead himself did little more than hint at the consequences. My thesis is that consideration of a reversed concrescence highlights the essential dynamism of God as a whole, including the primordial nature, and has implications for the provision of initial aims for the world.
4. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Robert J. Valenza

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Materialism, epiphenomenalism, dualism, idealism, and dual-aspect theories may all be represented by an appealing abstract mathematical devicecalled a commutative diagram. Properties of the components of such diagrams characterize and, to some extent, even parameterize these systems and attendant metaphysical concepts (such as causal closure and supervenience) in a unified framework; process thought is of particular interest in this connection. In many cases we can even exemplify the theories typified by these diagrams in explicit graphical models. All of this tends to clarify the relationships among key philosophical positions and to sharpen our sense of the effective domain and principal limitations of each. Systematic variation of these abstract diagrams may even suggest cogent metaphysical systems yet to be examined.
5. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Edgar A. Towne

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G.H. Mead and A.N. Whitehead agree that all causation occurs in a present, that the self is social, and that philosophical description of the new physics of relativity and quantum mechanics is a complicated task. I explore this complexity in relation to the knowledge of events unable to be observed here and now, especially past historical events. The integration of the two philosophers’ views is shown in reference to Whitehead’s criteria of respect for facts and coherence. By reference to the work of Palmyre Oomen I show the inconsistency of Whitehead’s treatment of the prehensibility of God’s consequent nature with his claim thatGod is not an exception to the metaphysical principles. The integration of Mead’s and Whitehead’s views permits plausible talk about past, present, and futureconsisent with our scientific knowledge.
6. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Joseph A. Bracken, S.J.

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In God, Chance and Purpose, David Bartholomew uses probability theory to show how Divine Providence can be active in a world governed by chance and necessity. At the micro-level of Nature God uses a statistical formula to control the outcome of seemingly random events; at the macro-level God influences but does not control the outcome of events. From a Whiteheadian perspective “the common element of form” of a society could be seen as the equivalent of Bartholomew’s statistical formula but generated in each case from the bottom-up rather than imposed from the top-down. Yet Bartholomew’s insistence that statistical formulas only work with large groups of entities suggests that more attention should be given by Whiteheadians to the workings of Divine Providence onsocieties as opposed to individual actual entities.
7. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Yoshihiro Hayashi

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Modern technology has radically altered the conditions for human action, endowing us with tremendous power to affect the future. Patterns of action that appear positive in their short-term effects must sometimes be judged unsustainable. Hans Jonas and Thomas Berry are among those who emphasize the necessity of transforming ethics in light of these considerations. In a Whiteheadian framework, this needed transformation is rooted in the nature of things.

special focus section: eternal objects and future contingents

8. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
George W. Shields, Derek Malone-France

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9. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Derek Malone-France

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The doctrine of inerrant divine “middle knowledge” of future contingent events, first developed by the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, has resurfaced as a prominent position within contemporary debates over divine foreknowledge, creaturely freedom, and the ontological status of possibilities. As yet, the only substantive response to the new Molinism from a process perspective has come in a brief section on “Hartshorne and the Challenge of Molinism,” in an essay on Hartshorne’s view of “The Logic of Future Contingents” by George W. Shields and Donald W. Viney, in Shields’ edited anthology Process and Analysis.Shields and Viney offer an insightful critique of Molinism. However, their use of Hartshorne’s understanding of possibility presents problems for those, like me, who prefer Whitehead’s more robustly realist notion of eternal objects. Here, I defend Whitehead’s Platonism from the main lines of criticism leveled against itby Hartshorne, while demonstrating that a “thick” conception of the objective content of the possible within the context of the divine understanding need not crossover into a deterministic conception of God’s foreknowledge, à la Molina.
10. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
George W. Shields

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In this essay I argue that Malone-France’s anti-realistic interpretation of the Hartshorne-Peirce theory of possibles can be challenged in a number of ways. While his interpretation does suggest that there are in fact two distinct accounts of possibility in Hartshorne’s philosophy, one that is vulnerable to an antirealistic interpretation and one that is not, Hartshorne does have a consistent and defensible doctrine of possibles. I argue that Whitehead’s contrasting “nonprotean”theory of possibles or “eternal objects” has its own set of conundrums to face, including problems with the coherence of the notion of the completeness of eternal objects and problems with infinite regresses. Whether Whitehead’s or Hartshorne’s account of possibles is correct, I concur with Malone-France that the Molinist doctrine of divine knowledge of future contingents is flawed.
11. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Derek Malone-France

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12. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Donald Wayne Viney

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reviews

13. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
John W. Lango

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14. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Qing Huang

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15. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Daniel Dombrowski

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16. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Phil Jenkins

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17. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Pauline Phemister

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18. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Jerry D. Korsmeyer

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19. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Roland Faber

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20. Process Studies: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Hui Dong

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