The concept of the Anthropocene draws attention to human activity's impact on the planet at the geological scale. It is tempting to reason that like evolution, a heliocentric solar system or quantum mechanics, climate science compels us to accept as real a radical new ontology, the 'anthroposphere', with far-reaching social and political consequences. I wish to argue that this temptation should be resisted. The Anthropocene cannot be understood entirely as a natural scientific phenomenon, although it can be treated as such (...) for certain purposes. It is also an irreducibly social phenomenon. This is not to say that it is a socially constructed concept like nationhood, but that it is constituted by natural causal processes that are irreducibly entangled with social causal processes. Adopting the Anthropocene as a working concept therefore requires that we understand the causal processes involved in bringing it about as social causal processes, while also viewing these processes as objectual, open to public scrutiny and capable of compelling public assent. Social causes are not, however, easily subjected to such a naturalistic treatment. I conclude that the Anthropocene is not currently a suitable candidate for inclusion in a naturalist ontology. (shrink)

In a scientific discussion of the processes which we designate “vital,” attention is concentrated on an interpretation of that which happens within a relational system of physical influence. In a scientific discussion of the processes which we reflectively distinguish as “mental,” attention is directed to what occurs in a relational system of psychological reference. We should seek to distinguish each from the other in any given context where both are in evidence.

EMERGENT EVOLUTION- THE GIFFORD LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

In Process and Reality Professor A. N. Whitehead formulates a Cosmology which embodies a resolute attempt to combine in one philosophical synthesis a scientific account of Concrescence with a metaphysical explanation thereof in terms of Creativity.

A method of developing a relational semantics and relational proof systems for many-valued logics based on finite algebras of truth values is presented. The method is applied to Rosser-Turquette logic, logics based on symmetric Heyting algebras with operators and a Post-style logic.

The word “emergent” was suggested by George Henry Lewes for specialized use in contradistinction to “resultant.” Little came of the suggestion, so far as I know, for some forty years. All that Lewes had to say on the matter is comprised within half a dozen, or at most eleven, pages, at the close of a long-winded, but at that time not negligible, discussion of Force and Cause, and is preceded by a section on Hume's Theory of Causation. This leads up (...) to the statement: ‘There are two classes of effects markedly distinguishable as resultants and enter gents.’ Even here there was nothing new save in the adoption and adaptation of the word ‘emergent’ in place, let us say, of John Stuart Mill's ‘heteropathic effects.’. (shrink)