This analysis examines the theme of divine activity as found in the literature of religion and science over the past quarter century. After a brief historical chapter, reflections on divine action from authors in the philosophy of religion are considered. In chapters 2 and 3, concepts such as intervention, deism, master act and subacts, primary and secondary causation, double agency and the causal joint are outlined. Following this, chapters 4 and 5 concentrate on the work of Whitehead. The amount of space devoted to the treatment of process thought in this investigation reflects the attention it has given to the topic of divine activity. / The focus then turns to scientific subjects and how they may inform the question of divine action. Some of the themes highlighted in the case of the large-scale world (chapter 6) include natural laws, evolution, the anthropic principle and the implicate order. Those concepts more appropriate for the small-scale world (chapter 7) involve quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and chaos theory. The positioning of process thought between the two fields of science and the philosophy of religion is strategic in the sense that process thinking claims to have built a bridge between science and religion, physics and metaphysics. / In the concluding chapter, the various positions are plotted on three graphs. This approach illumines their relation to the others as well as the facet each can be expected to bring to the overall discussion of divine activity. A resolution to the issue, if any, will likely exhibit Whiteheadian and/or Bohmian contours.

No description available.

In this thesis, I consider the problem of relating science and religion, and search for a solution that will provide a useful model both for individual believers as well as professional scientists and theologians. In this search, I take up the works of three of the most influential thinkers to write on the subject: Andrew Dickson White, Alfred North Whitehead, and Ian G. Barbour. I survey each of their texts and evaluate the philosophy of science and religion that they present. In the end, I conclude that the version of process philosophy adopted by Ian Barbour offers the most promising solution to the problem of relating science and religion.

Thesis (PhD) - Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2009. / Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology - 2009. Typescript. Bibliography: p. 310-314.

The major focus of this thesis is the role of feelings and emotions in moral thinking/knowing, ethical conduct and, in particular, moral distress in nursing. Research has consistently found that the moral decisions nurses must make can sometimes lead to distress. However, such experiences are overly individualised in the literature. An alternative view of the person, drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (e.g. 1927-8/1978) and the recent work of Paul Stenner (e.g. 2008), sees human subjectivity or mind as processual and always embodied and in-the-world. The emphasis upon the body draws attention to the role of felt experiences this thesis views feelings as integral to both sense-making knowing and thinking and sensibility or emotionality. The emphasis in-the-world highlights that subjectivity is embedded within social contexts, which include relations of power and organisations of material and symbolic capital aligned with those relations. Influenced by deep empiricism (e.g. Stenner, 2011a), this thesis develops a novel bricolage methodology based on a metaphor of diffraction to explore nurses experiences of moral distress. Nurses feelings of discomfort, a particular form of feelings of knowing , appear to be the seeds of moral distress. Various situations seem to be important antecedents for these seeds to bloom into full moral distress, including certain clinical issues, ethical conflict with colleagues, and issues of competency. Nurses also experience some aspects of their job as systemic barriers to high standards of care, which can also be morally distressing. Such distress sometimes affects nurses relationships, their physical health, and their mental health. Participants have found several strategies useful in coping with their distress. It is argued that these strategies are about altering one s feelings through changing one s activities and/or environment. Additionally, past distress may remain a dormant part of a person s subjectivity and re-emerge or become (re)enacted in the narrations of those past distressing experiences. It is suggested that subjectivity entails an organisation of past experiences in the present, for present purposes and in anticipation of the future. Six dominant thematic patternings, which recurred throughout the analyses, are discussed: (i) the centrality of feelings; (ii) the relationality of felt experiences; (iii) the complexity of morality, moral conduct, and moral distress moral/ethical issues become entangled with identity, power, professional competency, and social relations; (iv) the prominence of power and interest; (v) nurses' lives as afflicted by moral distress; and (vi) life-as-process. Discussion of these motifs leads to a rethinking of moral distress. Implications for nursing practice, moral distress research and the study of feelings, emotions, and affect are discussed.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-49).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, March 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "objective relativism," a distinctly American school of metaphysical realism inspired by the works of John Dewey and A.N. Whitehead. Largely forgotten, objective relativism provided a metaphysical framework, based upon an ontology of events and relations rather than substances and discrete properties, that has continued relevance for contemporary metaphysical discussions. In this thesis, I attempt to chart the boundaries and pathways of this ontology, outlining what Dewey calls the "ground-map of the province of criticism." In particular, the ground-map of objective relativism is invoked to situate and analyze the model of psycho-physical emergence outlined in Dewey's Experience and Nature. Because it is a relational ontology, objective relativism avoids problems with emergence common to substantival models. Additional analyses of its ontological premises, both in Dewey's writings and elsewhere, demonstrate how compelling accounts of causation, consciousness, and meaning may be formulated within this model.

A process-information approach is examined as a foundation for an environmental philosophy that is dynamic and elastic, with particular emphasis on value, beauty, integrity and stability supporting Aldo Leopold's vision. I challenge one of the basic assumptions of Western philosophy, namely the metaphysical primacy of substance. The classical, medieval and modern metaphysics of substance is presented with particular attention given the paradoxes of substance. Starting from the philosophy of Heraclitus, relatively ignored by the Western tradition of philosophy, a process philosophy is developed as an alternative to standard metaphysical attitudes in philosophy. A possible resolution of Zeno's paradoxes leads to consideration of other paradoxes of substance metaphysics. It is argued that substance metaphysics is incompatible with evidence found in the shifting paradigms of ecology and general science. Process philosophy is explored as a basis for an environmental philosophy, attempting to put the environment back into philosophy.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar as abordagens interpretativa e processual dos Estudos Organizacionais, expressas nas obras de seus principais autores – Karl Weick e Robert Cooper, discutindo sua relação com a filosofia do processo de Henri Bergson. Esta análise é executada no intuito de que, em se verificando uma aproximação entre estas abordagens e a filosofia bergsoniana – seus conceitos pilares e o método intuitivo – seja possível vislumbrar uma teoria do conhecimento em base processual, uma “epistemologia do processo”. A motivação para realização deste estudo deu-se por duas principais razões. A primeira é decorrente do meu próprio estranhamento e interesse, seguido de questionamentos que me levaram ao aprofundamento nas propostas destas abordagens e nas leituras dos seus principais autores. A segunda é que, em executando esta aproximação com a filosofia de Bergson e vislumbrando uma teoria do conhecimento em base processual, a negligência com que estas abordagens são tratadas dentro da área dos Estudos Organizacionais dominantes (mainstream) seja diminuída. A referência utilizada para a execução do trabalho dirigiu-se, em função da sua própria natureza, para a hermenêutica – mais especificamente para a hermenêutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer, que permite uma interpretação geradora de conhecimento político-moral engajado e preocupado. Por fim, o trabalho apresenta as considerações e os resultados da análise das abordagens processuais à luz da filosofia de Bergson, verificando que, embora estas abordagens entendam a realidade como processual, elas carecem de alinhamento ontológico e epistemológico com a filosofia do processo bergsoniana. Entretanto, ao entender e compreender a realidade sob a ótica do processo, denotando uma axiologia processual, ambas as abordagens abrem possibilidades interessantes para o reposicionamento das Teorias Organizacionais. Estas possibilidades permitirão discutir a falácia da centralidade, armadilha positiva e funcional que os Estudos Organizacionais são tentados a assumir quando entendem o processo e o movimento não como algo natural e constante, mas como exceção e hiato. / This study aims to analyze the processual and interpretative approach of Organisational Studies, expressed in the writings of its main authors - Karl Weick and Robert Cooper, discussing its relationship to the process philosophy of Henri Bergson. This analysis is performed in order that, in noting a connection between these approaches and Bergson’s philosophy - his core concepts and the intuitive method - it is possible to envision a theory of knowledge on a processual basis, an "epistemology of the process." The motivation for this study had two main reasons. The first is due to my own amazement, followed by questions that led me to go deeper on the proposals of these approaches and readings of its main authors. The second is that in executing this approach with the philosophy of Bergson, and overlooking a theory of knowledge on a processual basis, the neglect that these approaches are treated within the area of Organisational Studies (mainstream) could be decreased. The reference used for the execution of the study was, on according to its own nature, the hermeneutics – specifically the hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, which allows the generation of a moral-political knowledge, engaged and positioned (Schwandt , 2003). Finally, the study presents the findings of the analysis of the processual approach to the philosophy of Bergson, noting that although these approaches understand reality as process, they lack ontological and epistemological alignment with the process philosophy of Bergson. However, in understanding and comprehending the reality from a process perspective, denoting an axiology of process, both approaches open up exciting and interesting possibilities for the repositioning of Organisational Theories. These possibilities will discuss the fallacy of centrality, the positive and functional trap that Organisational Studies are tempted to fall when understanding the process and the movement as something not natural and not constant, but as exception and hiatus.