1 Abstract This doctoral thesis focuses on the analogies between Virginia Woolf's "personal philosophy" and Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, or in his own words "philosophy of organism." The thesis does not claim that Whitehead's thought directly influenced Woolf's fiction, rather, it makes use of a zeitgeist model. The two contemporaries shared the rejection of long-established dualisms, particularly the Cartesian mind-body dualism, the binaries of subject and object, animate and inanimate matter, the human and the nonhuman, and last but not least the individual and the community. Interested in the philosophical enquiry into the problem of reality and the visible world, Woolf redefines the notion of "things" in her fiction and adopts the processist view that objects may be defined as clusters of events, which are not separate from the perceiving subject but interrelated with it. Moreover, Woolf illustrates her interest in the natural world in most of her works and often suggests that what we normally think to be inert and lifeless matter, may, in fact, also have some proto-conscious, or proto- experiential, qualities like Whitehead's "actual occasions." The second part of the thesis focuses on Woolf's attempt to overcome one's individual identity in favour of adopting a more inclusive and...

The focus of this thesis is on Actual Entities, a concept created by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and how the concept can be applied to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as a behavioral control method. Actual Entities are vector based, atomic units that use a method called prehension to observe their environment and react with various actions. When combining multiple Actual Entities a Colony of Prehending Entities is created; when observing their prehensions an intelligent behavior emerges. By applying the characteristics of Actual Entities to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, specifically in a situation where they are searching for targets, this emergent, intelligent behavior can be seen as they search a designated area and locate specified targets. They will alter their movements based on the prehensions of the environment, surrounding Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and targets.

ABSTRACT Imaginative storytelling offered as an invitation to learning dovetails with the notion of Romance in cyclical, organic learning. It is upon the theme of rhythmic storytelling and its relationship to Alfred North Whitehead’s cycle of Romance/Freedom of “The Wood between the Worlds” that I concentrate in this thesis. The thesis proceeds in four chapters to facilitate such understanding. Chapter One reawakens the childlike wonder of the stories my father related to me when I was young; my personal academic trajectory traces out the Whiteheadian pattern of the overlapping tri-cycle of Romance/Freedom, Precision/Self-Discipline, and Generalization/Freedom. Chapter Two introduces the enchanted Narnian “Wood between the Worlds” envisioned by Clive Staples Lewis with reference to the literary and sensory forests I have known. Chapter Three presents the Voices of the Children from my Grade Two class over a period of one year, based upon my memories and personal anecdotal notes of their stories as well as their creative use of storytelling. I also explore Antonio Machón’s consideration of children’s drawings as storytelling. In conclusion, Chapter Four describes my journeys with First Nations pilot programs Math Warriors (Saskatoon Catholic School Board) and Indigenous Knowledge in Science (Saskatoon Public School Board), leading me to better appreciate Indigenous educational philosophy. In the process I consider insights shared by Verna Kirkness (Cree), Jo-ann Archibald (Stó:lö and Coast Salish), and others. Finally, I interpret “The Wood between the Worlds” from a Whiteheadian perspective, reflecting upon contrasts and commonalities Whitehead may share with Aboriginal thought.

My dissertation argues that the writings of Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence are animated by a shared belief that the way human beings experience and understand their worlds needs to be radically transformed. Their works expose how human experience is canalized by habits reinforced through education and custom, and they explore the ways people might overcome these limitations to expand the receptive possibilities of their experience, illustrating more fruitful ways their readers might engage their worlds. Their novels offer a radical recasting of the human subject and its situation in the environment, one that valorizes a turn away from the fixity of conceptual certainty and an embrace of experiences that trouble clean distinctions between the human being and its world. Reading through the lens of radical empiricism, this project makes the case that Woolf and Lawrence are together engaging in a similar project: they are working from a shared interest in intensive explorations of the seemingly ineffable qualities in concrete human experience and in bringing those accounts into language to suggest the relational constitution of the human being with other people and the environment. They are working experimentally to discern the extent to which the human being can know first-hand its place in the extensive world. In doing so, the authors come to understand such a human being differently, as simultaneously discrete and non-discrete. By examining the methodological and philosophical intersections of these two authors, this project serves as a first step in suggesting a radical empirical British modernism. Woolf’s and Lawrence’s approaches to experience have philosophical implications that become more apparent when read in conjunction with William James’s philosophy of radical empiricism and the related philosophies of Henri Bergson and A. N. Whitehead. While “radical empiricist” is not a common moniker for these philosophers, my project makes the case for the consideration of several of their works as reflective of a line of confluent thought that illuminates the concerns of some modernist literature with developing a new understanding of the human situation through an inclusive attention to lived experience. The project is organized into four chapters. In the first chapter, I establish the radical empirical philosophical situation of Woolf’s and Lawrence’s writing, revealing in their novels how the dispositions of the characters facilitate different worlds, and elaborating the attentive approaches that they valorize through their novels. In the second chapter, I explore their critiques of abstraction, elaborating their concern with fixed abstract forms while countering readings of their work as anti-intellectual or apophatically mystical. In the third chapter, I examine how in and through their novels they engage the difficulty of articulating preconceptual experience, and I explore how they productively use ambiguity towards this end. In the fourth and final chapter, I examine the relational situation of the human individual that their novels disclose and the sort of self-understanding that they champion through their work.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The focus in this thesis is on sensemaking in organisations and the aim was to offer an interpretation of the thought of Karl E. Weick. The interpretation subsequently consists of a description and discussion of concepts, underlying theories and paradigmatic perspectives that are integrated into and deployed in Weick's sensemaking framework. After a description and definition of sensemaking terms and concepts, it is argued that a process cosmology forms the ground theory in Weick's sensemaking framework. In order to elucidate this interpretation, the organic model of the world of Bergson and Whitehead is introduced. Special attention is given to pragmatism's underlying process ontology and themes which social consructionism, symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology share in common with pragmatism. The aim is to show how these perspectives and themes are taken up in Weick's sensemaking in organisations and organisational theory. A failure to make sense is both consequential and existential. This aspect of Weick's thought is discussed in the context of Bergson's process cosmology. It is followed by a description and discussion of Weick's use of systems theory with special attention given to Weick's concept of 'enactment' . How and why does an organisation becomes what it becomes? This question is addressed in the context of a description and discussion of complexity theory. A core concept in both complexity theory and Weick's thought is self-organisation. The aim is to show how sense making appears on systems level. Finally, this thesis attempts to addresses the question of the relationship between organisation and organising and how both terms is to be understood in terms of Weick's ontological view of the world. This aim is to show that Weick's understanding of "the" organisation (noun) can be conceived of as an abstraction and organisation (verb - 'organising') in terms of relating and as process in becoming and how he thereby gives social construction an ontological twist. The conclusion reached is that, in the type of world Weick describes, it makes sense to make sense. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis fokus op 'sensemaking' in organisasies - om die dubbelsinnige, onduidelike en onverwagse meer duidelik, begryplik and redelik te maak vir persone om te weet wat besig is om te gebeur en gepaste aksies te neem. Die doel was derhalwe 'n interpretasie van die denke van Karl E. Weick. Die interpretasie omvat gevolglik 'n beskrywing en bespreking van konsepte, teorieë en paradigmatiese perspektiewe wat Weick in sy sensemaking raamwerk integreer en ontplooi. Ná 'n definiëring en beskrywing van terme en konsepte word geargumenteer dat 'n proses beskouing van die werklikheid Weick se sensemaking raamwerk onderlê. Hierdie interpretasie word toegelig met 'n bespreking en beskrywing van die organiese model van Bergson en Whitehead, sowel as die proses ontologie onderliggend aan pragmatisme. Gevolglik kom pragmatisme, sosiale konstruksionisme, simboliese interaksionisme en etnometodologie aan die orde. Verskeie temas word beskryf en bespreek in die konteks van sensemaking en organisasie-teorie. 'n Mislukking in sensemaking het newe gevolge en is dit ook eksistensieël van aard. Hierdie aspek van Weick se denke word beskryf en bespreek in die konteks van Bergson se proses kosmologie en word die interpretasie opgevolg met 'n bespreking van sisteem-teorie. Hoe en waarom verander organisasies wanneer hulle verander? Die antwoord op hierdie vraag kom aan die orde in die konteks van 'n bespreking van kompleksiteits-teorie. 'n Kern konsep in beide Weick se sensemaking en kompleksiteits-teorie is self-organisasie. 'n Baie belangrike doel is om aan te dui hoe sensemaking voorkom en plaasvind op sisteem-vlak. Ten slotte poog die tesis om die verband tussen organisasie en organisering in Weick se denke meer verstaanbaar te maak. Die argument hier is dat Weick se verstaan van "die" organisasie (selfstandige naamwoord) as 'n abstraksie en organisasie (werkwoord) in terme van relasies en proses in wording geïnterpreteer kan word, en Weick sodoende 'n ontologiese kinkel in die verstaan van sosiale konstruksionisme teweeg bring. Die slotsom tot waartoe in hierdie studie gekom word is dat, in die wêreld wat Weick beskryf, maak dit 'sense' om 'sense' te maak.