This dissertation is designed to discuss central issues raised by two of the evolutionary behavioral sciences, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Both sciences purport to be able to explain the origins of human behavioral and cognitive adaptations respectively and give us some insight into "human nature." My purpose is to go some way towards determining how well these two sciences do as means of determining human evolutionary origins, both by examining some of the central issues that they face, and by examining (...) several case studies in which their methods have been applied to specific human behaviors. ;Sociobiology in particular has had a bad reputation, at least in part because s few of its proponents have used the project as a forum for pushing conservative social values. It has attracted a lot of criticism: in particular for being unwarrantedly adaptationist, and for addressing its explanations at behavior, rather than at psychology. Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, has been better received; there is some belief that it is a more appropriate, less "behaviorist" project than sociobiology. I spend the first part of the dissertation examining some of these criticisms; however, I believe the charge adaptationism to be founded on the practices of individuals rather than being a central commitment of the project; I also conclude that the claim that behaviors cannot be adaptations to be unfounded. Furthermore, far from being a better project than sociobiology, I conclude that evolutionary psychology relies on a flawed central commitment to universal domain-specificity to establish its psychological conclusions, and its models rely on an unanalyzed notion of good design. ;In the second part of the dissertation I evaluate three well known and controversial studies that use sociobiological or evolutionary psychological methods to try to account for some bard to understand elements of human behavior: namely infanticide, art and altruism, and rape. Although the quality of this work is rather mixed, I conclude there is reason to think that natural selection is implicated to some degree in the origins of some of these behaviors. (shrink)

: This article critiques Elizabeth Grosz's understanding that queer theory is unproductive insofar as it disrupts the specific identities of gay and lesbian. Reconsidering ideas about desire, the body, and identity that Grosz takes from Gilles Deleuze's work on Friedrich Nietzsche and Baruch Spinoza, this essay argues that, despite her productive reworking of homophobia in terms of "active" and "reactive" forces, Grosz's application of Spinoza is only partial. Focusing on Spinoza's evaluation of bodies, the essay both critiques Grosz's approach to (...) experimental desire and observes Spinozist preoccupations in order to talk about the experimental body. It concludes that if Grosz were to attend more seriously to the Spinozist imperative to analyze a body in terms of its capabilities—that is, its power to be affected—the epistemological basis of her argument would change. It would be difficult to dismiss the plurality and sensibility of a queer body or its challenge to lesbian and gay as the source of a primary identity. (shrink)

This article critiques Elizabeth Grosz's understanding that queer theory is unproductive insofar as it disrupts the specific identities of gay and lesbian. Reconsidering ideas about desire, the body, and identity that Grosz takes from Gilles Deleuze's work on Friedrich Nietzsche and Baruch Spinoza, this essay argues that, despite her productive reworking of homophobia in terms of “active” and “reactive” forces, Grosz's application of Spinoza is only partial. Focusing on Spinoza's evaluation of bodies, the essay both critiques Grosz's approach to experimental (...) desire and observes Spinozist preoccupations in order to talk about the experimental body. It concludes that if Grosz were to attend more seriously to the Spinozist imperative to analyze a body in terms of its capabilities—that is, its power to be affected—the epistemological basis of her argument would change. It would be difficult to dismiss the plurality and sensibility of a queer body or its challenge to lesbian and gay as the source of a primary identity. (shrink)

A dearth of literature focuses on the relationship between acculturation, power distance and liminality for migrant nurses entering foreign workplaces. Expectations are for migrant nurses to be practice‐ready swiftly. However, this aspiration is naïve given the complex shifts that occur in deeply held cultural beliefs and practices and is dependent on an organisational climate of reciprocal willingness to adapt and learn. This exploratory study identified that although a plethora of literature addresses challenges migrant nurses face, there are limited data that (...) link these transitional processes to concepts that might usefully guide transitions. This study draws from the overarching concept of acculturation, together with Hofstede's (2011) notion of power distance and the theory of liminality to explore the experiences of eight migrant nurses. Data highlighted that adjusting to altered hierarchical relationships took many months because negotiating power distance challenged deeply held beliefs and assumptions about professional and organisational hierarchies. Migrant nurses’ accounts indicated a paucity of organisational processes to address these difficulties; therefore, they navigated this liminal space of adjustment to power distance differences in an ad hoc manner. Their acculturation experiences, arguably unnecessarily prolonged, indicate the value in workplace commitment to exploring a collaborative, critically reflective approach to optimise transitions. (shrink)

This paper discusses problems associated with the use of optimality models in human behavioral ecology. Optimality models are used in both human and non-human animal behavioral ecology to test hypotheses about the conditions generating and maintaining behavioral strategies in populations via natural selection. The way optimality models are currently used in behavioral ecology faces significant problems, which are exacerbated by employing the so-called ‘phenotypic gambit’: that is, the bet that the psychological and inheritance mechanisms responsible for behavioral strategies will be (...) straightforward. I argue that each of several different possible ways we might interpret how optimality models are being used for humans face similar and additional problems. I suggest some ways in which human behavioral ecologists might adjust how they employ optimality models; in particular, I urge the abandonment of the phenotypic gambit in the human case. (shrink)

Deux étapes dans la construction de corpus scolaires : problèmes récurrents et perspectives nouvelles L’article met en perspective des recherches qui ont pour objectif commun la constitution de corpus scolaires recueillis dans des conditions écologiques. Il expose les questions méthodologiques qui se sont posées au départ concernant le choix et l’organisation des données, la définition d’une unité d’observation, les différentes possibilités de transcription. Les limites rencontrées dans l’exploitation de transcriptions non annotées ont conduit à l’identification de problèmes récurrents : la (...) caractérisation des genres scolaires, genres dialogiques et multi-auctoriaux, la tension entre normalisation et prise en compte de la textualité des écrits. L’analyse d’un sous corpus numérisé et transcrit montre comment les décisions méthodologiques prises pour l’exploitation du corpus Ecriscol prennent acte de ces difficultés. (shrink)

I belong to a generation of cultural studies researchers for whom Stuart Hall was not the primary voice defining the field as I first encountered it. He was not even among the first wave of writers that I read or heard discussed as doing ‘cultural studies’. Instead, I came to Hall’s work from a distance defined by the history of cultural studies as a discipline; first by the diffusion of some of its most important interventions through other fields, so that (...) it was not only people who said they were doing cultural studies who were taken up as key to the field, and second by the institutionalisation of a cultural studies canon in which Hall became only one voice, however influential. Nevertheless, by the time Hall died I had come not only to an enthusiastic appreciation of his work but to strongly feel my own indebtedness to it. I want to reflect here on how teaching cultural studies brought me to a close engagement with Hall’s work, and how teaching keeps Hall’s work and ideas alive when the exigencies of academic publishing might relegate him to citational history. (shrink)

Most attempts to define culture as used in the cultural evolution literature treat culture as a single phenomenon that can be given a single nondisjunctive definition. In this article I argue that, really, cultural evolutionists employ a variety of distinct but closely related concepts of culture. I show how the main prominent attempts to define a culture concept fail to properly capture all the uses of “culture” employed in cultural evolutionary work. I offer a description of some of the most (...) important culture concepts used by cultural evolutionists. (shrink)

Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths (Sterelny 1992, Sterelny and Griffiths 1999) have argued that sociobiology is unworkable because it requires that human behaviors can be adaptations; however, behaviors produced by a functionalist psychology do not meet Lewontin's quasi-independence criterion and therefore cannot be adaptations. Consequently, an evolutionary psychology which regards psychological mechanisms as adaptations should replace sociobiology. I address two interpretations of their argument. I argue that the strong interpretation fails because functionalist psychology need not prevent behaviors from evolving independently, (...) and it relies on too strong an interpretation of the quasi-independence criterion. The weaker interpretation does not undermine sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology would be vulnerable to the same criticism. Finally, I offer reasons to think that both mental mechanisms and behaviors can be adaptations. (shrink)

Background:Clinical investigation is a growing field employing increasing numbers of nurses. This has created a new specialty practice defined by aspects unique to nursing in a clinical research context: the objectives, setting, and nature of the nurse–participant relationship. The clinical research nurse role may give rise to feelings of ethical conflict between aspects of protocol implementation and the duty of patient advocacy, a primary nursing responsibility. Little is known about whether research nurses experience unique ethical challenges distinct from those experienced (...) by nurses in traditional patient-care settings.Research objectives:The purpose of the study was to describe the nature of ethical challenges experienced by clinical research nurses within the context of their practice.Research design:The study utilized a qualitative descriptive design with individual interviews.Participants and research context:Participating nurses self-identified as having experienced ethical challenges during screening. The majority were Caucasian, female, and worked in outpatient settings. Approximately 50% had > 10 years of research experience.Ethical considerations:The human subjects review board approved the study. Written informed consent was obtained.Findings:Predominant themes were revealed: the inability to provide a probable good, or/do no harm, and dual obligations. The following patterns and subthemes emerged: conflicted allegiances between protocol implementation, needs of the participant, desire to advance science, and tension between the nurse–patient therapeutic relationship versus the research relationship.Discussion:Participants described ethical challenges specific to the research role. The issues are central to the nurse–participant relationship, patient advocacy, the nurse’s role in implementing protocols, and/or advancing science.Conclusion:Ethical challenges related to the specialized role of clinical research nurses were identified. More research is warranted to fully understand their nature and frequency and to identify support systems for resolution. (shrink)

In order to explain why cultural traits remain stable despite the error-proneness of social learning, Dan Sperber has proposed that human psychology and ecology lead to cultural traits being transformed in the direction of attractors. This means that simple-minded Darwinian models of cultural evolution are not appropriate. Some scientists and philosophers have been concerned that Sperber’s notion of attractors might show more than this, that attractors destroy subtle cultural variation and prevent adaptive cultural evolutionary processes from occurring. I show that (...) Sperber’s view does not have this consequence—that even if there are attractors, cumulative cultural evolution can still occur. (shrink)

Why is it that we watch _Mad Men_ and think it represents a period? Flashes of patterned wallpaper, whiskey neat, babies born that are never mentioned, contact lining for kitchen drawers, Ayn Rand, polaroids, skinny ties, Hilton hotels, Walter Cronkite, and a time when Don Draper can ask ‘What do women want?’ and dry old Roger Sterling can reply ‘Who Cares?’ This essay explores the embrace of period detail in _Mad Men_ finding it to be both loving and fetishistic, and (...) belonging, like all period film, to the politics of the present. (shrink)

The collective Tiqqun’s 2001 tract, Raw Materials for a Theory of the YoungGirl, in which they stress the way modern girl culture represents the triumph of capitalism, has recently drawn fresh attention. Here I consider the argument about girls made in this text and its perhaps surprising relevance to contemporary feminist accounts of girlhood and girl culture.

This paper tries to explain how individuals manage adaptive individual choice (i.e., the decision to acquire a fitter than average behavior or idea rapidly and tractably) in cultural evolution, despite the fact that acquiring fitness information is very difficult. I argue that the means of solving this problem suggested in the cultural evolution literature largely are various types of decision rules employing representations of fitness correlated properties or states of affairs. I argue that the problem of adaptive individual choice is (...) best solved where some of these learning rule representations are socially transmitted and some are biologically transmitted. (shrink)

The purpose of this text is to tell the story of the implementation of the _Act Respecting End-of-Life Care,_ referred to hereafter as _Law 2_ (Gouvernement du Québec, 2014) with an emphasis on the ambiguous role of ethics in the Interdisciplinary Support Groups (ISGs), created by Quebec's _Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux_ (MSSS). As established, ISGs provide “clinical, administrative and ethical support to health care professionals responding to a request for Medical aid in dying (MAiD)” (Gouvernement du (...) Québec, 2015). It is suggested that their composition includes the participation of a person with an expertise in ethics. These ISGs represent an important innovation for stakeholders involved in MAiD. To date, no scientific research has specifically addressed ISGs and little research has been conducted in other jurisdictions on the roles, operations and practices of MAiD support structures, especially the implication of ethics. Several ISGs have certainly developed promising practices that could benefit all stakeholders in the wider field of ethics and end of life. We will explore the development of ISGs in Quebec as a support structure for MAiD by highlighting the role that ethics has played (and should play) in these morally and humanly challenging situations. (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent of residents identified as (...) being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent of residents of whom 38 per cent were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia. The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

David Buller and Valerie Hardcastle have argued that various discoveries about the genetics and nature of brain development show that most ?central? psychological mechanisms cannot be adaptations because the nature of the contribution from the environment on which they are based shows they are not heritable. Some philosophers and scientists have argued that a strong role for the environment is compatible with high heritability as long as the environment is highly stable down lineages. In this paper I support this view (...) by arguing that the discoveries Buller and Hardcastle refer to either do not show as strong a role for the environment as they suggest, or these discoveries show that the brain's developmental process depends in many cases on input from the environment that is highly stable across generations. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how to understand the relationship between Cultural Evolutionary Science and the social sciences, given that they coexist and both study cultural change. I argue that CES is best understood as having a unificatory or integrative role between evolutionary biology and the social sciences, and that it is best characterized as a bridge field; I describe the concept of a bridge field and how it relates to other non-reductionist accounts of unification or integration used in (...) the philosophy of science literature. (shrink)

This paper critiques the competing “Grandmother Hypothesis” and “Embodied Capital Theory” as evolutionary explanations of the peculiarities of human life history traits. Instead, I argue that the correct explanation for human life history probably involves elements of both hypotheses: long male developmental periods and lives probably evolved due to group selection for male hunting via increased female fertility, and female long lives due to the differential contribution women’s complex foraging skills made to their children and grandchildren’s nutritional status within groups (...) provisioned by male hunting. (shrink)

In “Out of Eden” David Barash argues that humans are naturally polygamous, in that they have innate polygamous preferences. In particular, Barash argues that human males have preferences and other psychological states designed to support aggressive polygynous sexual competition, and that the resulting behavior has driven the selection of various other psychological and behavioral traits in humans. This is controversial, since the prevailing view of the human mating system in our recent evolutionary history was that it was choice-based and only (...) mildly polygynous. In this review I evaluate Barash’s arguments and conclude that he has not made his case for the stronger view. (shrink)

In this paper I argue the best examples of the methods in the evolutionary social sciences don’t actually resemble either of the two methods called “Adaptive Thinking” or “Reverse Engineering” described by evolutionary psychologists. Both AT and RE have significant problems. Instead, the best adaptationist work in the ESSs seems to be based on and is aiming at a different method that avoids the problems of AT and RE: it is a behavioral level method that starts with information about both (...) the trait in question and knowledge of the EEA. I describe some examples from the literature, and suggest how a behavioral level ESS might still contribute to the discovery and understanding of human psychology. Finally, I describe some remaining problems for adaptationist reasoning of this kind. (shrink)

Geoffrey Miller argues that we can account for the evolution of human art and altruism via the action of sexual selection. He identifies five characteristics supposedly unique to sexual adaptations: fitness indicating cost; involvement in courtship; heritability; variability; and sexual differentiation. Miller claims that art and altruism possess these characteristics. I argue that not only does he not demonstrate that art and altruism possess these characteristics, one can also explain the origins of altruism via a form of group selection and (...) traits with the five characteristics in terms of a process I call "cultural sexual selection.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HERMENEUTICS OF HISTORY IN THE THEOLOGY OF EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX AGNIFICANT UNDERLYING issue in recent.discussions of the writings of Edward Schillebeeckx, whether in academy or church, is the fundamental question of theological method. In his contemporary work, Schillebeeckx has shifted clearly from dogma to human experience a:s the starting point for theological investigation, a move in which he is certainly not unique. The growing " consensus in theology " 1 (...) which views the theological task as a critical correlation between the Christian tradition and contemporary experience takes a unique shape, however, in each theologian's work. How is Schillebeeckx's developing theological method to be characterized and evaluated? Is his new approach to theology hermeneutical or political or both? 2 Has Schillebeeckx abandoned the earlier metaphysical and phenomenological foundations of his thought or is Thomas Aquinas still the secret mentor of his contemporary writings? 3 Does Schillebeeckx 1 See Consensus im Theology?, ed. Leonard Swidler (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980). 2 David Tracy's distinction of hermeneutical from political theologies is inadequate in describing Schillebeeckx's " hermeneutics of history " since Schillebeeckx's designation of the theological task a.s hermeneutical includes an explicit political-critical dimension. See Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith (New York: Seabury, 1974), esp. ch. 6-7. See also "Theologisch Geloofsverstaan Anno 1983 " (Baa.rn: H. Nelissen, 1983). For Tracy's distinction see The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 74-75. a In his review of Schillebeeckx's Ghrist, Leo O'Donovan observed that " Schillebeeckx's real master here is still probably Thomas Aquinas, whose theological realism he is transposing into a critical and practical historical language." (" Salvation as the Center of Theology," Interpretation 36 (1982), p. 196). The transportation from metaphysical to historical categories does involve, however, a major philosophical shift as Schillebeeckx notes in Jesus: 97 98 MARY CATHERINE HILKERT, O.P. implement the narrative-practical theology he applauds or does he remain a theoretician? 4 How does dogma fit into his present theological method, if at all? That last question has been of particular interest to Schillebeeckx 's critics. More than one author has contrasted his contemporary writings with his earlier dogmatic works. Jean Galot, an outspoken critic of Schillebeeckx's recent theological writings, acclaimed Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God as an outstanding work of sacramental theology in accord with the traditional doctrine of the church.5 Similarly, Leo Scheffczyck praised a "pre-critical phase of Schillebeeckx's theology " prior to his hermeneutical writings while describing the latter as " critically turned against the dogma of the church." 6 An Experiment in Christology, trans. Hubert Hoskins (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 619. The question remains whether a theological realism grounded in creation faith and eschatological hope does not ultimately require some sort of philosophical explanation of "the idea of anticipation of a total meaning amid a history still in the making" (Jesus, pp. 618-619). William L. Portier suggests that even in order to negotiate his theological appropriation of ideology critique successfully, Schillebeeckx must retain at least a minimal, fundamentally negative, realist metaphysics from his Thomist past. ("Edward Schillebeeckx as Critical Theorist: The Impact of Neo-Marxist Social Thought on his Recent Theology," The Thomist 48 (July 1984), pp. 361-63). 4 The critique of Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 79, n.5: "None of the important modern Christologies take this practical structure of Christology as their point of departure. In this sense, they are all idealistic and characterized by a non-dialectical relationship between theory and praxis." Metz includes Rahner, Kiing, and Schillebeeckx specifically in his charge. 5 Jean Galot, "Schillebeeckx: What's He Really Saying About Jesus' Ministry?" The Catholic Register, October 1983, p. 1. 6 Leo Scheffczyk, "Christology in the Context of Experience: On the Interpretation of Christ by E. Schillebeeckx," The Thomist 48 (July, 1984), p. 389. See also The Schillebeeckm Case, ed. Ted Schoof (New York: Paulist, 1984). While the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith drew no definitive conclusions regarding Schillebeeckx's theological method in their investigation of his Jesus book and granted that his Christology could be interpreted as compatible with the doctrine of Nicea and Chalcedon... (shrink)

To date, the business ethics movement has mainly concentrated on reaching the troops, not the generals. But the issue that will determine how well this movement succeeds in the opening decades of the new millennium is not how we drive ethics andcompliance programs down an organization, but how we integrate considerations of ethics and values up in an organization. We mustbroaden the present group of business ethics advocates by enlisting influential policymakers, opinion leaders, the media, boards ofdirectors, CEOs, investment bankers, (...) international economic experts, and others who comprise what we might call the International Club of Thinkers and Doers. The key to ethical health in the future is a process that will drive integrity-based leadership and governance to the top of our global business organizations, with a goal to achieving global and universal standards of fundamental ethical values. (shrink)

Discusses mental processes, the role of humans in nature, experience, and the connection between myth, religion, and science.

Respect and dignity are central to moral life, and have a particular importance in health care settings such as the intensive care unit (ICU). We conducted 15 semistructured interviews with 21 participants during an ICU admission to explore the definition of, and specific behaviors that demonstrate, respect and dignity during treatment in the ICU. We transcribed interviews and conducted thematic qualitative analysis. Seven themes emerged that focused on what it means to be treated with respect and/or dignity: treated as a (...) person; Golden Rule; acknowledgement; treated as family/friend; treated as an individual; treated as important/valuable; and treated as equal. Participants described particular behaviors or actions that were considered related to demonstrating treatment with respect and dignity: listening; honesty/giving information; attention to body/modesty/appearance; caring/bedside manner; patient and family as an information source; attention to pain; and responsiveness. These behaviors provide a framework for improving experiences with care in the ICU. (shrink)

Figuring Animals is a collection of fifteen essays concerning the representation of animals in literature, the visual arts, philosophy, and cultural practice. At the turn of the new century, it is helpful to reconsider our inherited understandings of the species, some of which are still useful to us. It is also important to look ahead to new understandings and new dialogue, which may contribute to the survival of us all. The contributors to this volume participate in this dialogue in a (...) variety of ways--through personal experience, natural history, cultural studies, philosophical inquiry, art history, literary analysis, film studies, and theoretical imagining, and through a combination of these trains of thought. The essays expose weaknesses in western epistemological frames of reference that for centuries have limited our views and, thus, our experiences of animal being, including our own. (shrink)

Unethical decision-making behavior within organizations has received increasing attention over the past ten years. As a result, a plethora of studies have examined the relationship between gender and business ethics. However, these studies report conflicting results as to whether or not men and women differ with regards to business ethics. In this article, we propose that gender identity theory [Spence: 1993, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology64, 624–635], provides both the theory and empirical measures to explore the influence of psychological (...) gender traits and gender-role attitudes on ethical perceptions of workplace behaviors. Statistical analyses of the data reveal that based on sex alone, no differences occur between men and women in their ethical perceptions. Yet, when a multidimensional approach to gender is applied, results show that expressive traits and egalitarian gender-role attitudes contribute to both men’s and women’s propensity to perceive unethical workplace behaviors as unethical. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are presented. (shrink)

To achieve ethical corporate governance, directors' first priority must be to examine their own structure and operation. If theboard is vulnerable to charges of unethical conduct, it will have little credibility in its oversight role over the corporate culture of theorganization. An examination of a positive model of corporate governance in the mutual fund industry provides an effectiveillustration of several ways to add ethics to corporate governance: 1) legislation; 2) jawboning; 3) peer pressure; 4) regulation; 5) training and reflection. While (...) peer pressure and training are more effective than the others, all those methods taken together cannot solve every ethical lapse. Only individual board members, working together, can influence the conduct of the board and propel themselves and the organization towards a standard of continuing ethical excellence. (shrink)

This paper analyses the ethical performance of foreign-investment enterprises operating in China in comparison to that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises, collectives and private enterprises. It uses both the deontological approach and the utilitarian approach in conceptualization, and applies quantitative and econometric techniques to ethical evaluations of empirical evidences. It shows that according to various ethical performance indicators, foreign-investment enterprises have fared well in comparison with local firms. This paper also tries to unravel the effect of a difference in business (...) culture and competitive market forces on ethical performance by comparing the behavior of foreign-investment enterprises with that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises and collectives on the one hand, and with that of the indigenous private enterprises on the other. (shrink)

My thinking in this essay, written in 1977, reflects the 1968 Wenner-Gren Conference on Conscious Purpose and Human Adaptation, organized by Gregory, about which I wrote Our Own Metaphor, as well as later conversations, but I had not yet worked with Gregory on Mind and Nature. Here, I explore Gregory’s idiosyncratic definitions of evocative terms like “love”, “mind”, and “wisdom” in terms of a cybernetically-based epistemology. The style and context are reflective of his Father-Daughter “metalogues”, composed to explore concepts he (...) was not yet ready to define fully, one of which is quoted as an introduction. Most of the sub-headings have been added. (shrink)