Arlette Poland
TagCan Prehension Lead to Truth?
By Arlette Poland
The actual occasion, as it is becoming actual, prehends information from the past. It determines what to eliminate or keep or ignore. It is as if the occasion matches the energy of the past and thus decides what to accept or not into its becoming. It is like an emotional resp..
Process Thought as Source for Ethics
By Dr. Arlette Poland
In Judaism, community and ethical behavior go hand in hand. We are told that our community is our life and our life is best when it is ethical. To be ethical, of course, involves following the mitzvoth (commandments/good deeds). Added to that, however, is the underlying re..
L’Chaim: To Life and Impermanence
by Dr. Arlette Poland
There is a continuousness about existence that Whitehead recognized. One event, life, thing even memory flows into another. First there is this and then there is that. If there is no this, as we say in Buddhism, then there is no that. Simple. Not easy – but simple, yes. S..
The Meaning of Making Meaning and Time
By Dr. Arlette Poland
Humans make meaning. That is what we do. We decide if we like a color, a person, an object, a country – or not. We make meaning by our words and deeds. Meaning comes from our thoughts. Feelings follow thoughts and thoughts make meaning. The meaning of our making meaning i..
Is the Mitzvah of Memory Possible in Whitehead’s Process Model?
By Dr. Arlette Poland
Judaism is nothing if it is not its history. That is what I teach my students. One of the first things they hear and likely one of the main things they remember: Jewish history. All of the experience of the history of the Jews is in every prayer, every service, every line ..
PEACE? BAH HUMBUG – OR NOT
By Arlette Poland
What is peace, anyway? Is it even real or possible? Is it the opposite of war? Or is it the opposite of life?
I suspect that Whitehead believed that peace should not be any more concrete than war. In other words, when we use a term, practice a system, there must be some f..
FACTS AND FALLACIES
By Arlette Poland
Years ago, as an attorney, I had to use ‘facts’ in evidence. Now, as a Professor and Whiteheadian philosopher, I teach that we humans, in our drive to give meaning to things, tend to make our meanings too concrete. We decide what a ‘fact’ is with certainty and then proceed as ..
CARE AND CONNECTION: THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME
By Dr. Arlette Poland
Whitehead taught that every becoming occasion or moment is filled with all of the past. For him, when he waxed religious, that past included information from a deity. Some Process Theists argue that the deity is in front of the becoming moment luring it to its best result…