Why does the air-target and its associated practices matter? This special section is about the politics, practices and ethics surrounding the target and efforts to subvert or circumvent them. Since Eyal Weizman’s groundbreaking essay on the ‘politics of verticality’ in 2002, there have been numerous attempts to critically open up the aerial gaze, but rarely have they come together for sustained analysis and critique, to explore the implications of the air-target’s techniques, processes, visual cultures and aesthetics for politics and life (...) itself. This special section brings together leading international experts in order to open out a fuller and more complete analysis of the kinds of tensions of verticality that lie at the heart of today’s warfare, security and politics. This introduction outlines three dominant problematics of the air-target, which the articles in the section will go on to explore in more detail. (shrink)

‘Hoplites are troops who take their name from their shields’. ‘The individual infantryman took his name, hoplites, from the hoplon or shield’. Such is the orthodox view. This paper will endeavour to show that its basis is inadequate. Rather, we shall argue, hoplites took their name from their arms and armour as a whole, their hopla in that all-encompassing sense; so that the original and essential meaning of the word hoplite was nothing more than ‘armed man’.

Two studies examined the use of think aloud (TA) protocol as a means for collecting data of cognitive processes during performance in golf. In study 1, TA was employed to examine if different verbalisation (Level 2 or Level 3 TA) instructions influence performance of high and low skilled golfers. Participants performed 30 putts using TA at either Level 2, Level 3, or no verbalization condition. Although Level 3 verbalization produced a higher volume of verbal data than Level 2, TA at (...) either level 2 or 3 did not impair putting performance compared to no verbalization. Study 2 examined the congruence between data collected via TA at Level 3 and cued retrospective recall of cognitive processes during golf performance. Experienced golfers performed six holes of golf whilst engaging in Level 3 TA. After performance, three semi-structured retrospective interviews were conducted (ten minutes after performance, 24 hours after performance and 48 hours after performance). A comparison of the themes identified large discrepancies between the information reported during TA and at interview, with only 38-41% similarity in variables reported to influence decision making on each hole. Both studies suggest TA is a valuable method for recording cognitive processes of individuals during task performance. TA provides richer verbal data regarding decisions than cued retrospective recall, and TA does not negatively impact performance. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the coherence and applicability of Whitehead's philosophy of organism insofar as that speculative scheme functions as a viable metaphysical basis for his philosophy of civilization. In short, what is offered is an inquiry concerning the metaphysical foundation of Whitehead's theory of civilized society. ;Overall, the metaphysical ground of civilized society is rooted in two tenets fundamental to Whitehead's philosophy: the paradigm of organism, exemplified in the becoming of an actual entity, and two, the essentially (...) social character of order, exemplified in the occurrences of natural events. Of the first, the primary ontological status of actual entities, each a self-creative process of many things in disjunction immanently related into one novel individual, sets the standard in terms of which all other existent things, human beings and civilized societies alike, are ultimately referent. Accordingly, the concepts of prehension and concrescence are most pertinent to the genesis and character of human experience, and thus to the advent of civilized society. The principle of creativity-one-many is likewise essential to the derivation of civilized society, inasmuch as the process of 'many' creatively united into 'one' is a universal archetype of Whitehead's philosophy, whether applied to cosmology or sociology. ;Equally fundamental to the metaphysical foundation of civilized society is Whitehead's conception of a composite organism, i.e., a "society" of actual entities, for it is upon this basis that the hierarchical social order of nature is established, and thereby the civilized order of human society. The occurrence of civilized society is, in this context, simply a highly specialized and unique form of social order made manifest by the impelling drive of creativity, actualized by way of the radical novelty of human mentality and the freedom of individual effort. Civilization is, as Whitehead so aptly puts it, an "adventure of ideas." So too, the question concerning the metaphysical status of civilized society, as an existent thing, as one or many, finds its resolution in conformity with the principles germane to the constitution of any such social organism. (shrink)

This article deploys Whitehead's systematic metaphysics as the basis for a philosophical hermeneutics. Whiteheadian hermeneutics are then compare and contrasted with Schleiermacher's own hermeneutics.

This collection of essays, drawn from the latest generation of Whitehead scholars, explores how, in the deconstruction of certain concepts, an unceasing invitation of possibility and change is released, both in relation to ongoing philosophical conversations, and as applied to lived experience. The essays make a significant intervention in the field of Whiteheadian scholarship by creating new intersections and paths that extend Whitehead's thought in novel, and often unexpected, directions. The philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead proposes a (...) radical reconceptualization of experience-one in which we, and all other things, are composed of mutually implicated series of events in an infinite universe of interaction, generating and regenerating experience. Far from indicating a new superlative of holistic integrity, Whitehead prefers the always incomplete movement of all realities, which is the source of vitality for every new generation. This volume applies Whitehead's philosophy to superlatives-those valued concepts that limit and define our categories amid the flux of experience. The first half of this book probes the superlatives that have historically defined philosophical method in the West. These essays trace the adventures of concepts like substance, novelty, system, and truth. Ossified oppositions that define these superlatives are fractured, indicating new directions for growth. The essays in the second half of the book reflect on the influx, fragility, and impossibility of superlatives like care, tragedy, love, and loss in human experience, generating new matters of philosophical discourse. Superlatives abound. But Whitehead cautions us to attend to their multiplicity. The mutual immanence of events constantly generates new constellations of importance, and so superlatives, because they are contingent upon unstable modes of togetherness, cannot be taken for granted. Any of these concepts may have a particular significance today, but as events coalesce into new constellations, those ideals will continue to take on new meaning. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead and Emmanuel Levinas are not often considered together in the contemporary philosophical literature. There are clearly sensible reasons for this. While Whitehead is a systematic thinker who explicitly engages in metaphysical philosophy within the tradition of process thought and who does not focus primarily on ethics, Levinas is resistant to systematic metaphysics and works within the phenomenological tradition in order to argue that ethics is first philosophy. Despite these significant points of contrast between Whitehead (...) and Levinas, in this paper we argue that the two might stand as resources for each other in various ways. Since this paper is meant to be explorative and suggestive rather than comprehensive and conclusive, we argue for just two possible points of resonance between these important philosophers: (1) Both Levinas and Whitehead develop an account of selfhood that is intrinsically relational and concerned with responsibility—we term this account “Ethical Subjectivity;” and (2) Both Levinas and Whitehead operate according to what we call a “Hermeneutics of the Other” that stresses epistemic humility and dialogical openness. (shrink)

Philosophical hermeneutics provides a model of interreligious dialogue that acknowledges the interpretive variability of truth claims while maintaining their relation to a preinterpretive reality. The dialectic and tensive structure of philosophical hermeneutics directly parallels the tension between the diversity of belief and the ultimacy of the sacred. By placing philosophers like Gadamer, Ricoeur, Peirce, and Whitehead in conversation, J. R. Hustwit describes religious truth claims as coconstituted by the planes of linguistic convention and uninterpreted otherness. Only when we recognize (...) that religious claims emerge from a dalliance back and forth across the limits of the understanding can we appreciate the engagement between religions. In terms of dialogue, this approach treats religious truth claims as tentative hypotheses, but hypotheses that are frequently commensurable and rationally contestable. Interreligious dialogue goes beyond facilitating bonhomie or negotiating tolerance; dialogue can and should be a disciplined space for rationally adjudicating claims about what lies beyond the limits of human understanding. (shrink)

This paper explores one means of connection between Whitehead and Deleuze through an investigation into the figure of the ‘beautiful soul’. I first examine Deleuze’s claim that a philosophy of difference risks a ‘new’ version of the beautiful soul, situating this figure in its historical context in Hegel. I then consider why Whitehead may initially appear to fall into the trap of the beautiful soul before arguing that this is not the case. Seeing how brings Whitehead and (...) Deleuze closer together by showing that their respective insistences on the risks, dangers, and adventures integral to speculative thinking highlight the importance of the intersection between the existential and the metaphysical. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

Addressing 1) the problem of nihilism in Nietzsche and his response with the advocacy of self-creation; 2) Heidegger's response to Nietzsche's culmination of Western metaphysics by means of being as will to power in his later works; and 3) whether a remedial position occurs in the works of A.N. Whitehead.

The paper is an attempt at a definition of a common ground with its immanent potency as the founding force of various forms of the world common to all people. Its first part gives a brief outline of the conceptions of this common ground in the history of European thinking, such as Plato's case. Cusanus' community or joined unity and Whitehead's creativity. The second part derives from these conceptual schemes, reflecting on the domain of potency as the dynamics of (...) being and the ground of the original continuum, as the ultimate determination, in which the founding force of social forms of being has its roots. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt at a definition of a common ground with its immanent potency as the founding force of various forms of the world common to all people. Its first part gives a brief outline of the conceptions of this common ground in the history of European thinking, such as Plato's case. Cusanus' community or joined unity and Whitehead's creativity. The second part derives from these conceptual schemes, reflecting on the domain of potency as the dynamics of (...) being and the ground of the original continuum, as the ultimate determination, in which the founding force of social forms of being has its roots. (shrink)

Once largely ignored, the speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead has assumed a new prominence in contemporary theory across the humanities and social sciences. Philosophers and artists, literary critics and social theorists, anthropologists and computer scientists have all embraced Whitehead’s thought, extending it through inquiries into the nature of life, the problem of consciousness, and the ontology of objects, as well as into experiments in education and digital media. _The Lure of Whitehead_ offers readers not only a comprehensive (...) introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy but also a demonstration of how his work advances our emerging understanding of life in the posthuman epoch. Contributors: Jeffrey A. Bell, Southeastern Louisiana U; Nathan Brown, U of California, Davis; Peter Canning; Didier Debaise, Free U of Brussels; Roland Faber, Claremont Lincoln U; Michael Halewood, U of Essex; Graham Harman, American U in Cairo; Bruno Latour, Sciences Po Paris; Erin Manning, Concordia U, Montreal; Steven Meyer, Washington U; Luciana Parisi, U of London; Keith Robinson, U of Arkansas at Little Rock; Isabelle Stengers, Free U of Brussels; James Williams, U of Dundee. (shrink)

Process philosophy is a longstanding philosophical tradition that emphasizes becoming and changing over static being. Though present in many historical and cultural periods, the term “process philosophy” is primarily associated with the work of the philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000). -/- Process philosophy is characterized by an attempt to reconcile the diverse intuitions found in human experience (such as religious, scientific, and aesthetic) into a coherent holistic scheme. Process philosophy seeks a return to a neo-classical (...) realism that avoids subjectivism. This reconciliation of the intuitions of objectivity and subjectivity, with a concern for scientific findings, produces the explicitly metaphysical speculation that the world, at its most fundamental level, is made up of momentary events of experience rather than enduring material substances. Process philosophy speculates that these momentary events, called “actual occasions” or “actual entities,” are essentially self-determining, experiential, and internally related to each other. (shrink)

Chapter Introduction Henry Sidgwick is one of the most influential and least remembered philosophers of the and 20th centuries....

Many of the selections included are readily available, but the editor has earned our gratitude for reprinting the series of seven papers read before the Aristotelian Society from 1915-1923, and for making readily accessible the 1927 essay, "Time." The somewhat lengthy introduction adds little to the value of the book, and is occasionally inaccurate. --B. J. H.

The paper addresses three main issues drawing on Husserl’s writings on logic. First, what gives the logical objects their objective status, given the fact that these are intimately connected with human mental processes? Second, if logical objects are objective then how is logical knowledge at all possible? The answer to this question leads to a transcendental foundation of formal logic. Third, how do the principles of logic apply to the real world? This question can be addressed by positing a formal (...) ontology. Against Russell and Whitehead, it has been pointed out that even if logical implication does not in any way depend on human mind, inference is definitely mind-dependent. But this thesis does not necessarily lead to psychologism, as has been pointed out by contemporary Indian logicians. Indian theories of inference deal with the question of truth and falsity but lack a formal ontology. Both pure logic and modern physics claim to be independent of human existence. This claim becomes evident in the conversation between Heisenberg and Tagore. Husserl had distinguished between logical grammar and logic of consequences. The notions of truth and falsity are relevant only in the context of logic of consequences. However, none of the well-known theories of truth, correspondence, coherence or pragmatic theory is free from defects. Following in the footprints of the Advaita Vedantins, it has been maintained that falsity is more fundamental than truth. In the process of cognitive history, a proposition is taken to be true, unless its falsity is proven. Hence the conclusion: since Philosophy is search for the truth, all Philosophy—infinitely—is a gradual rejection of all claims to truth and finally, destroys itself. (shrink)

This is a moving human record of a quiet sage reflecting in the almost lost art of conversation upon the eternal topics of the human condition—history, science, religion, personality—ending with the frank admission: ‘This awareness of worth in human beings develops very early. Most attempts to formulate it in words fail... one always knew it when encountered. Truly, I may say to you that this is the only thing of any importance that I know; and, as you see, I cannot (...) communicate it.... Words do not express our deepest intuitions. In the very act of being verbalized they escape us’. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Consciousness as Self-Description in Differences” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: The first part of Gasparyan’s article usefully shows how problems must arise if consciousness is approached as if it were a phenomenon separate from the observer. The second part suggests a change of approach from first- to second-order cybernetics will solve these problems. While this, too, is helpful, it is, in essence, an epistemological device that requires something else in order to engage with the fundamental (...) aspect of consciousness, namely, qualia. This is an ontological shift towards panpsychicism, as found in Whitehead, Peirce and Eastern traditions. (shrink)