On Whitehead’s Ontological Principle

In “On Whitehead’s Ontological Principle,” Robert Hanna states Whitehead’s notion of “passing on” or “the activity” does not imply “mere flux;” instead, “it is to be taken as the reference to that which involves production or genius.” For Hanna, the “productivity-in-activity” is Whitehead’s underlying notion behind creativity. He refers to Whitehead’s Process and Reality: “It [...]

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Whitehead’s Expansive Expanse…

Whitehead ideas, similar to Bohm’s, are expansive, sometimes abstract, and intimidating to address. I most certainly detect a physicists mind behind observations on the “pulse” and how it draws from converging threads/syntheses of energy to create infinite and unique effects, which then pay a role in becoming sources for new effects. But this sort of [...]

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A little on Bohm, albeit a little late…

My experiences with Bohm have been multi and mani-fold. I first encountered his work when I began to interest in wholistic philosophies/perspectives on consciousness. In reading “On Creativity” and parts of “The Ending of Time” with Krishnamurti, I suddenly realized that a book that had affected me tremendously, “The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way of [...]

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Whitehead

I apologize to my fellow classmates and Professor Brown for not being present last week. I feel I must preface this post by stating point-blank that I have never had the pleasure of being enrolled in a formal course on Philosophy. I have been in courses wherein the heavy hitters (Foucault, Rousseau, Nietzsche, etc.) were [...]

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Whitehead & Bohm

While considering Whithead today, it occurred to me that there an interesting similarity to the Blackfoot Philosophy that we read about in Bohn’s, On Creativity. Whitehead sees the “unity, which underlies all things as a unity of process, that is, as a temporally continuous whole which is self-unfolding, open-ended, and essentially incomplete.” Whitehead’s unity of [...]

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Whitehead & Buddhism

While I found the Whitehead readings extremely difficult to understand with zero prior knowledge of his work, or Process Theory, our discussion last Thursday night prompted me to examine what seems like similarities between several Buddhist concepts  and Whiteheads theories. Perhaps the most obvious similarity between Whitehead’s philosophy and Buddhist doctrines is that both view [...]

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Bohm On Creative, Sankalia on Problems

Bohm makes some interesting points early on in the book, but later I felt, as a whole, the book became a bit too exaggerated and indulgent. Especially in relation to art he uses counterpoints with clear holes to use to prove his own ideas. I agree that beauty stems from order. This is clear just [...]

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Socially Robust Knowledge and Expertise

Well, it’s been far too long since I’ve blogged. My apologies to all and sundry. Tonight I will try to sum up where we’ve been the last few weeks and how the readings for tomorrow relate to the issues from the previous week. Lately we’ve winded our way from Heather Douglas’s new book, Science, Policy, [...]

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Heather Douglas responds…

We spent the last three weeks of class discussing Heather Douglas’s new book, Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. In the course of our discussions, a number of burning questions came up. I sent some of those questions to Professor Douglas, and she kindly agreed to answer our questions. Q: Are there not more compelling [...]

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Douglas v. Bending Science

By way of both further discussion of Heather Douglas’s book and introductory remarks on Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research, I’d like to raise a few questions about McGarity’s and Wagner’s approach on the basis of some of the distinctions given to us by Douglas. In particular, I’m concerned that McGarity and [...]

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