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gq: Prior to the rally, seven anti-China protestors were arrested in Hanoi after unfurling a banner and shouting "Boycott the Beijing Olympics" through a loudhailer at a market. A Vietnamese American was deported for planning protests against the torch, while a prominent blogger, Điếu Cày (real name Nguyễn Văn Hải), who blogged about protests around the world and who called for demonstrations in Vietnam, was arrested on charges of tax evasion. Outside Vietnam, there were protests by overseas Vietnamese in Paris, San Francisco and Canberra. Lê Minh Phiếu, a torchbearer who is a Vietnamese law student studying in France, wrote a letter to the president of the International Olympic Committee protesting China's "politicisation of the Olympics", citing maps of the torch relay at the official Beijing Olympic website depicting the disputed islands as Chinese territory and posted it on his blog. One day before the relay was to start, the official website appeared to have been updated to remove the disputed islands and dotted lines marking China's maritime claims in the South China Sea.
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Question: How many people protesting China were arrested in Hanoi prior to the rally? Question: How many protesters were arrested in Hanoi prior to the rally? Question: Which blogger calling for demonstrations was arrested for tax evasion? Question: What is blogger Điếu Cày's real name? Question: Though he urged for demonstrations in Vietnam, Nguyễn Văn Hải was charged with what crime? Question: Which torchbearer sent a letter of protest to the president of the International Olympic Committee? Question: What is the name of the torchbearer who wrote a letter to the IOC president about discrepancies on a website? Question: What was removed from the website that Lê Minh Phiếu had written about?
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gq: Hong Kong: The event was held in Hong Kong on May 2. In the ceremony held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, Chief Executive Donald Tsang handed the torch to the first torchbearer, Olympic medalist Lee Lai Shan. The torch relay then traveled through Nathan Road, Lantau Link, Sha Tin (crossed Shing Mun River via a dragon boat, which had been never used before in the history of Olympic torch relays), Victoria Harbour (crossed by Tin Hau, a VIP vessel managed by the Marine Department) before ending in Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai. A total of 120 torchbearers were selected to participate in the event consisting of celebrities, athletes and pro-Beijing camp politicians. No politicians from the pro-democracy camp were selected as torchbearers. One torchbearer could not participate due to flight delay. It was estimated that more than 200,000 spectators came out and watched the relay. Many enthusiastic supporters wore red shirts and waved large Chinese flags. According to Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang, 3,000 police were deployed to ensure order.
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Question: When did the torch arrive in Hong Kong? Question: When was the relay event held in Hong Kong? Question: Where was the torch event started in Hong Kong? Question: Who handed the torch to Lee Lai Shan, the first torchbearer? Question: Who was the first torchbearer in Hong Kong? Question: What was used to get the torch across the Shing Mun River? Question: Where did the torch relay end in Hong Kong? Question: How many torchbearers participated in the relay event in Hong Kong? Question: How many torchbearers carried the torch? Question: The torchbearers included athletes, celebrities and who?
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gq: There were several protests along the torch relay route. Members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, including pro-democracy activist Szeto Wah, waved novelty inflatable plastic Olympic flames, which they said symbolised democracy. They wanted accountability for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the implementation of democracy in Hong Kong. Political activist and Legislative Council member Leung Kwok-hung (Longhair) also joined the protest, saying "I'm very proud that in Hong Kong we still have people brave enough to speak out." Pro-democracy activists were overwhelmed by a crowd of torch supporters with insults like "running dog," "traitor," "get out!," and "I love the Communist Party." At the same time, about 10 members of the Civil Human Rights Front had orange banners calling for human rights improvements and universal suffrage. Onlookers were saying "Aren't you Chinese?" in Mandarin putonghua as they tried to cover the orange banners with a large Chinese national flag. One woman had an orange sign that said, "Olympic flame for democracy", while a man carried a poster with a tank and the slogan "One world, two dreams". A university student and former RDHK radio host Christina Chan wrapped the Tibetan snow lion flag around her body and later began waving it. Several onlookers heckled Chan, shouting "What kind of Chinese are you?" and "What a shame!" In the end, she and some of the protesters were taken away against their will by the authorities via a police vehicle "for their own protection." Chan is currently[when?] suing the Hong Kong government, claiming her human rights were breached. (case number HCAL139/08)
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Question: What did Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China members wave to symbolize democracy? Question: Some people waved plastic inflated flames, saying they symbolize what? Question: This group wanted accountability for what 1989 event? Question: Who was proud that Hong Kong still has brave people speaking out? Question: Who wrapped a Tibetan flag around her body and later waved it? Question: What did radio host Christina Chan wear before waving it? Question: Who removed Chan from the protest? Question: Why is Chan suing the Hong Kong government?
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gq: The Color Orange democracy group, led by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt, originally planned to join the Hong Kong Alliance relay and paint the "Pillar of Shame", a structure he built in Hong Kong to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. However, Galschiøt and two other people were denied entry to Hong Kong on April 26, 2008 due to "immigration reasons" and were forced to leave Hong Kong. In response, Lee Cheuk Yan, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said, "It's outrageous that the government is willing to sacrifice the image of Hong Kong because of the torch relay." Hollywood actress Mia Farrow was also briefly questioned at the Hong Kong airport though officials allowed her to enter. She later gave a speech criticizing China's relations with Sudan in Hong Kong, as there was also a small minority of people protesting about China's role in the crisis of Darfur. Legislator Cheung Man Kwong have also said the government's decision allowing Farrow to enter while denying others is a double standard and a violation to Hong Kong's one country, two systems policy.
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Question: Which group did Jens Galschiøt lead? Question: What group did Jens Galschiøt lead? Question: What did Galschiøt construct in Hong Kong in reference to the Tiananmen Square protests? Question: What structure did Jens Galschiøt build to monumentalize the Tianamen Square protests in 1989? Question: Galschiøt and two fellow protesters were denied to entry to Hong Kong for what reason? Question: Why was Jens Galschiøt made to leave Hong Kong? Question: Which American actress was questioned at the Hong Kong airport? Question: Which actress from America was initially held and then gave a speech about China and Sudan? Question: A legislator said that by allowing Farrow to enter Hong Kong while denying others was a violation to what policy?
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gq: Macao: The event was held in Macau on May 3. It was the first time that the Olympic torch had traveled to Macau. A ceremony was held at Macau Fisherman's Wharf. Afterward, the torch traveled through Macau, passing by a number of landmarks including A-Ma Temple, Macau Tower, Ponte Governador Nobre de Carvalho, Ponte de Sai Van, Macau Cultural Centre, Macau Stadium and then back to the Fisherman's Wharf for the closing ceremony. Parts of the route near Ruins of St. Paul's and Taipa was shortened due to large crowds of supporters blocking narrow streets. A total of 120 torchbearers participated in this event including casino tycoon Stanley Ho. Leong Hong Man and Leong Heng Teng were the first and last torchbearer in the relay respectively. An article published on Macao Daily News criticized that the list of the torchbearers could not fully represent the Macanese and that there were too many non-athletes among the torchbearers. (some of whom had already been torchbearers of other sporting events)
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Question: When did the torch visit Macao? Question: When was the torch relay event held in Macao? Question: Where was the torch ceremony held in Macao? Question: How many torchbearers participated in Macao? Question: How many torchbearers carried the torch in Macao? Question: Which casino tycoon participated in the torch relay event? Question: Who was the first torchbearer in Macao? Question: Who was the first person to carry the torch in Macao? Question: Which publication was unhappy with the amount of non-athlete torchbearers? Question: A newspaper article criticized that there were not enough of what kind of person among the torchbearers?
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gq: A Macau resident was arrested on April 26 for posting a message on cyberctm.com encouraging people to disrupt the relay. Both orchidbbs.com and cyberctm.com Internet forums were shut down from May 2 to 4. This fueled speculation that the shutdowns were targeting speeches against the relay. The head of the Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation has denied that the shutdowns of the websites were politically motivated. About 2,200 police were deployed on the streets, there were no interruptions.
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Question: Who was arrested on April 26 for posting an online message? Question: A Macau citizen was arrested for posting a plea to disrupt the relay on what website? Question: Where was the message posted? Question: In addition to cyberctm.com, what other website was shut down for two days? Question: Who denied the shutdown was motivated by politics?
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gq: China: The torch returned to China for the first time since April. The torch arrived in Sanya, Hainan on May 4 with celebrations attended by International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials and Chinese big names like Jackie Chan. The entire relay through Mainland China was largely a success with many people welcoming the arrival of the torch along the way.
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Question: When was the last time the torch had been in China? Question: After its April departure, when did the torch return to China? Question: When did the torch reach Sanya, Hainan? Question: Who attended the celebrations? Question: What actor attended a torch celebration in China? Question: Which actor also attended the celebrations?
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gq: The coverage of the events by the media came under scrutiny during the relay. Chinese media coverage of the torch relay has been distinct in a number of ways from coverage elsewhere. Western reporters in Beijing have described Chinese media coverage as partial and censored (for example when Chinese media did not broadcast Reporters Without Borders' disruption of the torch lighting ceremony), whereas Chinese netizens have in turn accused Western media coverage of being biased. The French newspaper Libération was criticised by the Chinese State press agency Xinhua for its allegedly biased reporting; Xinhua suggested that Libération needed "a stinging slap in the face" for having "insulted the Olympic flame" and "supported a handful of saboteurs".
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Question: What was under scrutiny? Question: The Chinese coverage of torch relay events has been accused by Western reporters as being what? Question: Coverage in China is reported to be partial and what? Question: What organization interrupted the relay and was not broadcast by the Chinese media? Question: In turn, Chinese supporters have accused Western media of being what in their coverage? Question: Which French newspaper was accused of being biased by Chinese State press agency Xinhua? Question: Chinese State Press said what French newspaper was biased? Question: The Chinese State Press said the French newspaper was supporting a handful of what?
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gq: In response to pro-Tibet and pro-human rights protests, the Chinese media focused on the more disruptive protesters, referring for example to "a very small number of 'Tibet independence' secessionists and a handful of so-called human rights-minded NGO activists" intent on "disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games". However, the Chinese media published articles about crowds supporting the torch relay.
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Question: What did the Chinese media focus on as far as human rights protesters?
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gq: Xinhua and CCTV quoted relay spectators who condemned the protests, to a greater extent than most Western media, but did not quote any alternate viewpoints, providing no coverage of support for the protests by some ordinary citizens in Western countries. It quoted athletes who expressed pride at taking part in the relays, to a greater extent than Western media, but not those who, like Marie-José Pérec, expressed understanding and support for the protestors. The Beijing Organising Committee for the Games mentioned the "smiling faces of the elderly, children and the artists on the streets", of cheering and supportive Londoners. Xinhua said that protesters were "radicals" who "trampled human rights" and whose activities were condemned by "the people of the world who cordially love the Olympic spirit".
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Question: Which publication said that protesters were trampling human rights? Question: Xinhua and CCTV focused on people who what? Question: Which athlete was ignored by media for supporting the protesters? Question: Which athlete showed support for the people protesting? Question: What did Xinhua call protesters?
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gq: Reports on the Delhi relay were similarly distinct. Despite intended torchbearers Kiran Bedi, Soha Ali Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and Bhaichung Bhutia all withdrawing from the event, the official Chinese website for the relay reported "Indian torchbearers vow to run for spirit of Olympics", and quoted torchbearers Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Abhinav Bindra, Ayaan Ali Khan and Rajinder Singh Rahelu all stating that sports and politics should not be mixed.
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Question: Though four withdrew, it was reported that Indian torchbearers vowed to what? Question: Though several torchbearers withdrew from the torch relay, the official website for China stated that Indian torch participants vowed to run for what? Question: What did Ayaan Ali Khan and Manavjit Singh Sandhu say should not be mixed? Question: Several torchbearers said what two things should not be combined?
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gq: Some Western media have reported on Chinese accusations of Western media bias. The Daily Telegraph published an opinion piece by the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, Fu Ying, who accused Western media of "demonising" China during their coverage of the torch relays. The Telegraph also asked its readers to send their views in response to the question "Is the West demonising China?" The BBC reported on a demonstration in Sydney by Chinese Australians "voicing support for Beijing amid controversy over Tibet" and protesting against what they saw as Western media bias. The report showed demonstrators carrying signs which read "Shame on some Western media", "BBC CNN lies too" and "Stop media distortion!". One demonstrator interviewed by the BBC stated: "I saw some news from CNN, from the BBC, some media [inaudible], and they are just lying." Libération also reported that it had been accused of bias by the Chinese media.
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Question: Some Chinese have accused Western media of what in their reportings? Question: Which United Kingdom newspaper published a Chinese ambassador's opinion that Western media had demonized China with torch coverage? Question: Which newspaper published these accusations? Question: Who was the Chinese ambassador to the U.K.? Question: What French newspaper did the Chinese media accuse of bias? Question: What other newspaper was accused of bias?
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gq: On April 17, Xinhua condemned what it called "biased coverage of the Lhasa riots and the Olympic torch relay by the U.S.-based Cable News Network (CNN)". The same day, the Chinese government called on CNN to "apologise" for having allegedly insulted the Chinese people, and for "attempting to incite the Chinese people against the government". CNN issued a statement on April 14, responded to China over 'thugs and goons' comment by Jack Cafferty.
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Question: Who did Xinhua accuse of biased reporting on April 17? Question: Who was accused of bias on April 17 by Xinhua? Question: Who wanted CNN to apologize for its insult to Chinese people?
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gq: On April 19, the BBC reported that 1,300 people had gathered outside BBC buildings in Manchester and London, protesting against what they described as Western media bias. Several days earlier, the BBC had published an article entitled "The challenges of reporting in China", responding to earlier criticism. The BBC's Paul Danahar noted that Chinese people were now "able to access the BBC News website for the first time, after years of strict censorship", and that "many were critical of our coverage". He provided readers with a reminder of censorship in China, and added: "People who criticise the media for their coverage in Tibet should acknowledge that we were and still are banned from reporting there." He also quoted critical Chinese responses, and invited readers to comment.
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Question: How many people gathered in protest at these two buildings? Question: What article did BBC put out about China just days earlier? Question: Who stated that Chinese people could access the BBC news website after years of not being able to? Question: Who commented that Chinese people can look at the BBC news site for the first time? Question: Where is BBC banned from reporting?
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gq: On April 20, the People's Daily published a report entitled "Overseas Chinese rally against biased media coverage, for Olympics". It included images of Chinese people demonstrating in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. One picture showed Chinese demonstrators holding a sign which claimed, incorrectly, that the BBC had not reported on Jin Jing. The People's Daily quoted one protestor who claimed the "BBC on some of the recent events has misled the British public and the rest of the world by providing intensive untruthful reports and biased coverage."
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Question: Who published "Overseas Chinese rally against biased media coverage" on April 20? Question: Which publication published a report about the Chinese rallying against media bias?
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gq: On April 4, it was reported that the Chinese government appeared to be running an anti-CNN website that criticizes the cable network’s coverage of recent events. The site claims to have been created by a Beijing citizen. However, foreign correspondents in Beijing voiced suspicions that Anti-cnn may be a semi-government-made website. A Chinese government spokesman insisted the site was spontaneously set up by a Chinese citizen angered over media coverage.
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Question: What was the Chinese government reported running on April 4? Question: Who supposedly created the site? Question: Who takes credit for creating the site? Question: Who felt that the government was involved in the website?
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gq: The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee sent out a team of 30 unarmed attendants selected from the People's Armed Police to escort the flame throughout its journey. According to Asian Times, sworn in as the "Beijing Olympic Games Sacred Flame Protection Unit" during a ceremony in August 2007, their main job is to keep the Olympic flame alight throughout the journey and to assist in transferring the flame between the torches, the lanterns and the cauldrons. They wear matching blue tracksuits and are intended to accompany the torch every step of the way. One of the torch attendants, dubbed "Second Right Brother," has developed a significant online fan-base, particularly among China's female netizens.
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Question: How many attendants accompanied the flame during it's travels? Question: How many attendants were used from the People's Armed Police for the flame's entire journey? Question: When were the 30 team members sworn in? Question: When were these 30 sworn in? Question: What were their official team outfits? Question: What did these 30 attendants wear? Question: Which team member has his own fan following? Question: What is the attendant who has a large fan base called?
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gq: In China, a call to boycott French hypermart Carrefour from May 1 began spreading through mobile text messaging and online chat rooms amongst the Chinese over the weekend from April 12, accusing the company's major shareholder, the LVMH Group, of donating funds to the Dalai Lama. There were also calls to extend the boycott to include French luxury goods and cosmetic products. Chinese protesters organized boycotts of the French-owned retail chain Carrefour in major Chinese cities including Kunming, Hefei and Wuhan, accusing the French nation of pro-secessionist conspiracy and anti-Chinese racism. Some burned French flags, some added Swastika (due to its conotaions with Nazism) to the French flag, and spread short online messages calling for large protests in front of French consulates and embassy. Some shoppers who insisted on entering one of the Carrefour stores in Kunming were blocked by boycotters wielding large Chinese flags and hit by water bottles. Hundreds of people joined Anti-French rallies in Beijing, Wuhan, Hefei, Kunming and Qingdao, which quickly spread to other cities like Xi'an, Harbin and Jinan. Carrefour denied any support or involvement in the Tibetan issue, and had its staff in its Chinese stores wear uniforms emblazoned with the Chinese national flag and caps with Olympic insignia and as well as the words "Beijing 2008" to show its support for the games. The effort had to be ceased when the BOCOG deemed the use of official Olympic insignia as illegal and a violation of copyright.
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Question: Which French company was boycotted? Question: Carrefour was boycotted because of which shareholder? Question: Who was accused of helping the Dalai Lama? Question: Who was the LVMH Group accused of supporting? Question: Boycotters accused France of being pro-seccessionist and what? Question: What was burned during these boycotts?
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gq: In response to the demonstrations, the Chinese government attempted to calm the situation, possibly fearing the protests may spiral out of control as has happened in recent years, including the anti-Japanese protests in 2005. State media and commentaries began to call for calm, such as an editorial in the People's Daily which urged Chinese people to "express [their] patriotic enthusiasm calmly and rationally, and express patriotic aspiration in an orderly and legal manner". The government also began to patrol and censor the internet forums such as Sohu.com, with comments related to the Carrefour boycott removed. In the days prior to the planned boycott, evidence of efforts by Chinese authorities to choke the mass boycott's efforts online became even more evident, including barring searches of words related to the French protests, but protests broke out nonetheless in front of Carrefour's stores at Beijing, Changsha, Fuzhou and Shenyang on May 1.
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Question: Who removed Carrefour boycott comments from some websites? Question: The Chinese government did not want a repeat of what protests? Question: The Chinese government tried to tamper the boycott, trying to avoid a similar outcome to which protests in 2005? Question: Which newspaper urged citizens to protest peacefully? Question: Which newspaper asked the Chinese people to protest peacefully? Question: Which website had mentions of the Carrefour boycott removed by the government? Question: When did protests in front of Carrefour's stores occur in China? Question: What day did protests occur in front of Carrefour stores?
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gq: In Japan, the Mayor of Nagano, Shoichi Washizawa said that it has become a "great nuisance" for the city to host the torch relay prior to the Nagano leg. Washizawa's aides said the mayor's remark was not criticism about the relay itself but about the potential disruptions and confusion surrounding it. A city employee of the Nagano City Office ridiculed the protests in Europe, he said "They are doing something foolish", in a televised interview. Nagano City officially apologized later and explained what he had wanted to say was "Such violent protests were not easy to accept". Also citing concerns about protests as well as the recent violence in Tibet, a major Buddhist temple in Nagano cancelled its plans to host the opening stage of the Olympic torch relay, this temple was vandalised by an un-identified person the day after in apparent revenge,
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Question: Who was the mayor of Nagano? Question: Who was the mayor of Nagano? Question: How did Washizawa refer to the city having the torch relay? Question: What did he call the opportunity for Nagano to host the torch event? Question: What was vandalized after a relay event was cancelled there? Question: Where was the inital opening ceremony to be held in Nagano?
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gq: The Olympic Flame is supposed to remain lit for the whole relay. When the Torch is extinguished at night, on airplanes, in bad weather, or during protests (such as the several occasions in Paris), the Olympic Flame is kept alight in a set of 8 lanterns.[citation needed]
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Question: The torch is put out at night, on aircraft, during storms and what else? Question: In what is the torch flame kept lit when the torch must be off?
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gq: A union planned to protest at the relay for better living conditions. Hong Kong legislator Michael Mak Kwok-fung and activist Chan Cheong, both members of the League of Social Democrats, were not allowed to enter Macau.
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Question: Who was Michael Mak Kwok-fung?
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gq: Chinese media have also reported on Jin Jing, whom the official Chinese torch relay website described as "heroic" and an "angel", whereas Western media initially gave her little mention – despite a Chinese claim that "Chinese Paralympic athlete Jin Jing has garnered much attention from the media".
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Question: Which athlete did the official website call an angel? Question: Which media outlets gave Jin Jing little notice?
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gq: Two additional teams of 40 attendants each will accompany the flame on its Mainland China route. This arrangement has however sparked several controversies.
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Question: How many additional teams will help with the Mainland China route? Question: How many members are on each of these two teams?
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gq: The ultimate substantive legacy of Principia Mathematica is mixed. It is generally accepted that Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem of 1931 definitively demonstrated that for any set of axioms and inference rules proposed to encapsulate mathematics, there would in fact be some truths of mathematics which could not be deduced from them, and hence that Principia Mathematica could never achieve its aims. However, Gödel could not have come to this conclusion without Whitehead and Russell's book. In this way, Principia Mathematica's legacy might be described as its key role in disproving the possibility of achieving its own stated goals. But beyond this somewhat ironic legacy, the book popularized modern mathematical logic and drew important connections between logic, epistemology, and metaphysics.
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Question: What is the general consensus of the axioms and inference rules declared in Principia Mathematica? Question: Who discovered the incompleteness theorem of 1931? Question: When was Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem? Question: What did the incompleteness theorem of 1931 indicate regarding Principia Mathematica? Question: What did Kurt Godel's theorem demonstrate about axioms and the inference rules? Question: Why was Gödels finding ironic? Question: Godel couldn't have come to his conclusion without what book? Question: Despite its imperfection, what are now considered valuable achievements of Principia Mathematica? Question: Besides logic and epistemology, what else did Principia Mathematica connect?
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gq: Whitehead's most complete work on education is the 1929 book The Aims of Education and Other Essays, which collected numerous essays and addresses by Whitehead on the subject published between 1912 and 1927. The essay from which Aims of Education derived its name was delivered as an address in 1916 when Whitehead was president of the London Branch of the Mathematical Association. In it, he cautioned against the teaching of what he called "inert ideas" – ideas that are disconnected scraps of information, with no application to real life or culture. He opined that "education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful."
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Question: When was "The Aims of Education and Other Essays" published? Question: What year was The Aims of Education and Other Essays published? Question: What was the Aims of Education and Other Essays comprised of? Question: During what periods of time were the essays and address contained in "The Aims of Education and Other Essays" composed? Question: What is the origin of the title of the book? Question: What teaching did Whitehead caution against teaching? Question: How did Whitehead define "inert ideas"? Question: What was Whitehead's criticism of the use of inert ideas in education?
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gq: Rather than teach small parts of a large number of subjects, Whitehead advocated teaching a relatively few important concepts that the student could organically link to many different areas of knowledge, discovering their application in actual life. For Whitehead, education should be the exact opposite of the multidisciplinary, value-free school model – it should be transdisciplinary, and laden with values and general principles that provide students with a bedrock of wisdom and help them to make connections between areas of knowledge that are usually regarded as separate.
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Question: What did Whitehead believe regarding the variety of subjects in education? Question: Whitehead's education style was to teach what? Question: How did Whitehead propose that students would expand their knowledge beyond the subjects taught in school? Question: What should Whitehead's students organically link due to his teaching methods? Question: What was Whitehead's general opinion of what the school model should be? Question: Whitehead believed education should be the opposite of what? Question: What was Whitehead's opinion on the inclusion of values and general principles in education?
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gq: Whitehead did not begin his career as a philosopher. In fact, he never had any formal training in philosophy beyond his undergraduate education. Early in his life he showed great interest in and respect for philosophy and metaphysics, but it is evident that he considered himself a rank amateur. In one letter to his friend and former student Bertrand Russell, after discussing whether science aimed to be explanatory or merely descriptive, he wrote: "This further question lands us in the ocean of metaphysic, onto which my profound ignorance of that science forbids me to enter." Ironically, in later life Whitehead would become one of the 20th century's foremost metaphysicians.
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Question: What was the extent of Whitehead's education in philosophy? Question: What is the highest Whitehead was trained in philosophy? Question: What did Whitehead consider himself as a philosopher? Question: What is the relationship between Whitehead and Russell? Question: With what friend and former student did Whitehead correspond regarding the goals of science? Question: What was Whitehead's opinion of his own knowledge of metaphysics in that correspondence? Question: How did Whitehead eventually become regarded in the field of metaphysics? Question: What was Whitehead considered as a metaphysician?
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gq: Whitehead was unimpressed by this objection. In the notes of one his students for a 1927 class, Whitehead was quoted as saying: "Every scientific man in order to preserve his reputation has to say he dislikes metaphysics. What he means is he dislikes having his metaphysics criticized." In Whitehead's view, scientists and philosophers make metaphysical assumptions about how the universe works all the time, but such assumptions are not easily seen precisely because they remain unexamined and unquestioned. While Whitehead acknowledged that "philosophers can never hope finally to formulate these metaphysical first principles," he argued that people need to continually re-imagine their basic assumptions about how the universe works if philosophy and science are to make any real progress, even if that progress remains permanently asymptotic. For this reason Whitehead regarded metaphysical investigations as essential to both good science and good philosophy.
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Question: What quotation of Whitehead's was noted by a student in 1927? Question: What do philosophers do, in Whitehead's view? Question: What was Whitehead's opinion of basic assumptions in metaphysics? Question: Assumptions of how the universe works are difficult to see precisely because of what? Question: What did Whitehead feel was necessary regarding basic assumptions in metaphysics? Question: What did Whitehead ask people to reimagine in order for philosophy to make progress? Question: What was Whitehead's opinion of metaphysical investigations? Question: What did Whitehead regard as essential to good science and good philosophy?
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gq: Perhaps foremost among what Whitehead considered faulty metaphysical assumptions was the Cartesian idea that reality is fundamentally constructed of bits of matter that exist totally independently of one another, which he rejected in favor of an event-based or "process" ontology in which events are primary and are fundamentally interrelated and dependent on one another. He also argued that the most basic elements of reality can all be regarded as experiential, indeed that everything is constituted by its experience. He used the term "experience" very broadly, so that even inanimate processes such as electron collisions are said to manifest some degree of experience. In this, he went against Descartes' separation of two different kinds of real existence, either exclusively material or else exclusively mental. Whitehead referred to his metaphysical system as "philosophy of organism", but it would become known more widely as "process philosophy."
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Question: What idea states that reality is fundamentally constructed of bits of matter? Question: What Cartesian concept did Whitehead believe to be erroneous? Question: Whitehead rejected the Cartesian idea in favor of what? Question: What theory did Whitehead prefer to the Cartesian concept? Question: Whitehead believed instead of matter existing independently of each other, it did what? Question: Whitehead believed that reality should be regarded as what? Question: How did whitehead define "experience"? Question: How did Descartes' distinguish types of existence? Question: How did Whitehead identify his system of metaphysics? Question: Whitehead's system as "philosophy of organism" became widely known as what term?
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gq: In Whitehead's view, then, concepts such as "quality", "matter", and "form" are problematic. These "classical" concepts fail to adequately account for change, and overlook the active and experiential nature of the most basic elements of the world. They are useful abstractions, but are not the world's basic building blocks. What is ordinarily conceived of as a single person, for instance, is philosophically described as a continuum of overlapping events. After all, people change all the time, if only because they have aged by another second and had some further experience. These occasions of experience are logically distinct, but are progressively connected in what Whitehead calls a "society" of events. By assuming that enduring objects are the most real and fundamental things in the universe, materialists have mistaken the abstract for the concrete (what Whitehead calls the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness").
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Question: What basic concepts did Whitehead believe were questionable? Question: What concepts overlook the experiential nature of basic elements? Question: Why did he believe those concepts were inaccurate? Question: What are the concepts quality, matter, and form considered? Question: Concepts such as quality, matter, and form fail to account for what? Question: How did Whitehead classify what is usually seen as an individual person? Question: Instead of being a single person, what does Whitehead view a person as? Question: How did Whitehead refer to the combination of a person's separate experiences? Question: What does Whitehead call experiences that are progressively connected? Question: How did Whitehead define the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness"?
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gq: To put it another way, a thing or person is often seen as having a "defining essence" or a "core identity" that is unchanging, and describes what the thing or person really is. In this way of thinking, things and people are seen as fundamentally the same through time, with any changes being qualitative and secondary to their core identity (e.g. "Mark's hair has turned gray as he has gotten older, but he is still the same person"). But in Whitehead's cosmology, the only fundamentally existent things are discrete "occasions of experience" that overlap one another in time and space, and jointly make up the enduring person or thing. On the other hand, what ordinary thinking often regards as "the essence of a thing" or "the identity/core of a person" is an abstract generalization of what is regarded as that person or thing's most important or salient features across time. Identities do not define people, people define identities. Everything changes from moment to moment, and to think of anything as having an "enduring essence" misses the fact that "all things flow", though it is often a useful way of speaking.
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Question: Regarding the idea that individuals or objects don't fundamentally change, what terms can be used to describe what an object or individual actually is? Question: The idea that people are unchanging and stay the same even through changes is considered what? Question: In that line of thinking, how are changes described? Question: What did Whitehead believe were essentially the only things that truly exist? Question: In Whitehead's cosmology, what are the only things that fundamentally exist? Question: Where do occasions of experience overlap? Question: In Whitehead's view, identities do not define people, but what? Question: Instead of having an enduring essence, what does Whitehead believe?
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gq: Whitehead pointed to the limitations of language as one of the main culprits in maintaining a materialistic way of thinking, and acknowledged that it may be difficult to ever wholly move past such ideas in everyday speech. After all, each moment of each person's life can hardly be given a different proper name, and it is easy and convenient to think of people and objects as remaining fundamentally the same things, rather than constantly keeping in mind that each thing is a different thing from what it was a moment ago. Yet the limitations of everyday living and everyday speech should not prevent people from realizing that "material substances" or "essences" are a convenient generalized description of a continuum of particular, concrete processes. No one questions that a ten-year-old person is quite different by the time he or she turns thirty years old, and in many ways is not the same person at all; Whitehead points out that it is not philosophically or ontologically sound to think that a person is the same from one second to the next.
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Question: What did Whitehead believe was one of the biggest reasons materialistic thinking endured? Question: Why couldn't each moment of each person's life be given a different proper name? Question: What did Whitehead believe was a culprit in maintaining a materialistic way of thinking? Question: Why did Whitehead think people continued to subscribe to materialistic thinking? Question: Whitehead's main philosophy on humans changing is what? Question: What did Whitehead believe regarding factors that limit people's understanding of his concepts? Question: What did Whitehead state about the belief that a person is exactly the same from moment to moment?
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gq: A second problem with materialism is that it obscures the importance of relations. It sees every object as distinct and discrete from all other objects. Each object is simply an inert clump of matter that is only externally related to other things. The idea of matter as primary makes people think of objects as being fundamentally separate in time and space, and not necessarily related to anything. But in Whitehead's view, relations take a primary role, perhaps even more important than the relata themselves. A student taking notes in one of Whitehead's fall 1924 classes wrote that:
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Question: What obscures the importance of relations according to Whitehead? Question: What is another issue that Whitehead had with materialism? Question: What is the materialistic view of matter in relation to other objects? Question: What does Materialism see each object as? Question: What is the general materialistic view of an object? Question: How is each object related to other things? Question: How the fundamental concept of matter influence people to view objects? Question: What is Whitehead's belief regarding the importance of relations?
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gq: In fact, Whitehead describes any entity as in some sense nothing more and nothing less than the sum of its relations to other entities – its synthesis of and reaction to the world around it. A real thing is just that which forces the rest of the universe to in some way conform to it; that is to say, if theoretically a thing made strictly no difference to any other entity (i.e. it was not related to any other entity), it could not be said to really exist. Relations are not secondary to what a thing is, they are what the thing is.
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Question: How does Whitehead characterize anything that exists? Question: Whitehead believes any entity is in some sense what? Question: What makes up the sum of relations to an entity? Question: How does he describe what makes something real? Question: A real object forces the universe to do what? Question: In Whitehead's thinking, what could be said about something that has no effect on any other person or object? Question: If an object made no difference to any other entity, what could be said about it? Question: What did Whitehead believe about the concept of relations in the context of defining an entity? Question: If relations are not secondary to what a thing is, what is it?
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gq: Isabelle Stengers wrote that "Whiteheadians are recruited among both philosophers and theologians, and the palette has been enriched by practitioners from the most diverse horizons, from ecology to feminism, practices that unite political struggle and spirituality with the sciences of education." Indeed, in recent decades attention to Whitehead's work has become more widespread, with interest extending to intellectuals in Europe and China, and coming from such diverse fields as ecology, physics, biology, education, economics, and psychology. One of the first theologians to attempt to interact with Whitehead's thought was the future Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. In Temple's Gifford Lectures of 1932-1934 (subsequently published as "Nature, Man and God"), Whitehead is one of a number of philosophers of the emergent evolution approach Temple interacts with. However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that Whitehead's thought drew much attention outside of a small group of philosophers and theologians, primarily Americans, and even today he is not considered especially influential outside of relatively specialized circles.
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Question: According to Isabelle Stengers, what are unifying factors in diverse practices (like ecology and feminism) that have become interested in Whitehead's work? Question: In what areas of the world has interest in Whitehead's work spread in recent decades? Question: What other fields have shown more recent interest in Whitehead's work? Question: Who was one of the first theologians to try to interact with Whitehead's ideas? Question: What was the basis for "Nature, Man and God"?
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gq: Early followers of Whitehead were found primarily at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, where Henry Nelson Wieman initiated an interest in Whitehead's work that would last for about thirty years. Professors such as Wieman, Charles Hartshorne, Bernard Loomer, Bernard Meland, and Daniel Day Williams made Whitehead's philosophy arguably the most important intellectual thread running through the Divinity School. They taught generations of Whitehead scholars, the most notable of which is John B. Cobb, Jr.
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Question: Where were the first followers mainly found? Question: Who began the interest in Whitehead at Chicago's Divinity School? Question: What professors established the importance of Whitehead's work? Question: Who id the most well-known Whitehead scholar?
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gq: But while Claremont remains the most concentrated hub of Whiteheadian activity, the place where Whitehead's thought currently seems to be growing the most quickly is in China. In order to address the challenges of modernization and industrialization, China has begun to blend traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism with Whitehead's "constructive post-modern" philosophy in order to create an "ecological civilization." To date, the Chinese government has encouraged the building of twenty-three university-based centers for the study of Whitehead's philosophy, and books by process philosophers John Cobb and David Ray Griffin are becoming required reading for Chinese graduate students. Cobb has attributed China's interest in process philosophy partly to Whitehead's stress on the mutual interdependence of humanity and nature, as well as his emphasis on an educational system that includes the teaching of values rather than simply bare facts.
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Question: Where is interest in Whitehead's work growing the fastest today? Question: What challenges are China using Whitehead's ideas to help manage? Question: What types of traditions are China blending with Whitehead's "constructive post-modern" philosophy? Question: What philosphers' writings are becoming required reading for graduate students in China? Question: Why does John Cobb believe China has become interested in process philosophy?
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gq: Deleuze's and Latour's opinions, however, are minority ones, as Whitehead has not been recognized as particularly influential within the most dominant philosophical schools. It is impossible to say exactly why Whitehead's influence has not been more widespread, but it may be partly due to his metaphysical ideas seeming somewhat counter-intuitive (such as his assertion that matter is an abstraction), or his inclusion of theistic elements in his philosophy, or the perception of metaphysics itself as passé, or simply the sheer difficulty and density of his prose.
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Question: What is the general opinion of Whitehead in most philosophical schools? Question: what is an example of Whitehead's ideas being counter-intuitive? Question: What is a common opinion of metaphysics? Question: Why do some people believe Whitehead's writings may have restricted his influence?
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gq: One philosophical school which has historically had a close relationship with process philosophy is American pragmatism. Whitehead himself thought highly of William James and John Dewey, and acknowledged his indebtedness to them in the preface to Process and Reality. Charles Hartshorne (along with Paul Weiss) edited the collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the founders of pragmatism. Noted neopragmatist Richard Rorty was in turn a student of Hartshorne. Today, Nicholas Rescher is one example of a philosopher who advocates both process philosophy and pragmatism.
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Question: What philosophy is closely related to process philosophy? Question: What pragmatists did Whitehead acknowledge in the preface to "Process and Reality"? Question: What founder of pragmatism's collected papers did Charles Hartshorne ans Paul Weiss edit? Question: What important neopragmatist was Harthorne's student? Question: Who is a philosopher that promotes process philosophy and pragmatism currently?
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gq: In physics, Whitehead's thought has had some influence. He articulated a view that might perhaps be regarded as dual to Einstein's general relativity, see Whitehead's theory of gravitation. It has been severely criticized. Yutaka Tanaka, who suggests that the gravitational constant disagrees with experimental findings, proposes that Einstein's work does not actually refute Whitehead's formulation. Whitehead's view has now been rendered obsolete, with the discovery of gravitational waves. They are phenonena observed locally that largely violate the kind of local flatness of space that Whitehead assumes. Consequently, Whitehead's cosmology must be regarded as a local approximation, and his assumption of a uniform spatio-temporal geometry, Minkowskian in particular, as an often-locally-adequate approximation. An exact replacement of Whitehead's cosmology would need to admit a Riemannian geometry. Also, although Whitehead himself gave only secondary consideration to quantum theory, his metaphysics of processes has proved attractive to some physicists in that field. Henry Stapp and David Bohm are among those whose work has been influenced by Whitehead.
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Question: How was Whitehead's theory of gravitation received? Question: What affect did the discovery of gravitational waves have on Whitehead's theory? Question: What are gravitational waves? Question: How must Whiteheads cosmology now be considered? Question: What physicists in the field of quantum theory have been influenced by Whitehead?
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gq: This work has been pioneered by John B. Cobb, Jr., whose book Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology (1971) was the first single-authored book in environmental ethics. Cobb also co-authored a book with economist Herman Daly entitled For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (1989), which applied Whitehead's thought to economics, and received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Cobb followed this with a second book, Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy (1994), which aimed to challenge "economists' zealous faith in the great god of growth."
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Question: What was the first book on environmental ethics by an individual author? Question: On which economics book did Cobb collaborate with Herman Daly? Question: What award did Cobb and Daly receive for the book? Question: What other economics book did Cobb go on to author? Question: What was the goal of Cobb's second book on economics?
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gq: Another model is the FEELS model developed by Xie Bangxiu and deployed successfully in China. "FEELS" stands for five things in curriculum and education: Flexible-goals, Engaged-learner, Embodied-knowledge, Learning-through-interactions, and Supportive-teacher. It is used for understanding and evaluating educational curriculum under the assumption that the purpose of education is to "help a person become whole." This work is in part the product of cooperation between Chinese government organizations and the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China.
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Question: Who established the FEELS model in China? Question: What does "FEELS" stand for? Question: What is the purpose of the FEELS model? Question: What entities are working together to promote the FEELS model?
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gq: Whitehead has had some influence on philosophy of business administration and organizational theory. This has led in part to a focus on identifying and investigating the effect of temporal events (as opposed to static things) within organizations through an “organization studies” discourse that accommodates a variety of 'weak' and 'strong' process perspectives from a number of philosophers. One of the leading figures having an explicitly Whiteheadian and panexperientialist stance towards management is Mark Dibben, who works in what he calls "applied process thought" to articulate a philosophy of management and business administration as part of a wider examination of the social sciences through the lens of process metaphysics. For Dibben, this allows "a comprehensive exploration of life as perpetually active experiencing, as opposed to occasional – and thoroughly passive – happening." Dibben has published two books on applied process thought, Applied Process Thought I: Initial Explorations in Theory and Research (2008), and Applied Process Thought II: Following a Trail Ablaze (2009), as well as other papers in this vein in the fields of philosophy of management and business ethics.
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Question: What business fields has Whitehead influenced? Question: What prominent business professor has been heavily influenced by Whitehead? Question: What does Dibben call his philosophy on management and business administration? Question: According to Dibben, what are the benefits of applying process metaphysics to examining management and business administration as a component of social science? Question: In what fields has Dibben published two books and other papers?
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gq: Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.
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Question: During which decade did Whitehead's focus start shifting away from mathematics? Question: What did Whitehead first study? Question: After moving away from mathematics, what subjects did Whitehead explore? Question: What was Whitehead's second area of study? Question: What was Whitehead's final area of study? Question: What type of system did he develop? Question: As opposed to physical objects, what did Whitehead believe reality is composed of? Question: What did Whitehead argue reality consists of? Question: What was the predominant theory of reality that Whitehead opposed? Question: What book of Whitehead's is now considered a primary source of process philosophy?
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gq: Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England, in 1861. His father, Alfred Whitehead, was a minister and schoolmaster of Chatham House Academy, a successful school for boys established by Thomas Whitehead, Alfred North's grandfather. Whitehead himself recalled both of them as being very successful schoolmasters, but that his grandfather was the more extraordinary man. Whitehead's mother was Maria Sarah Whitehead, formerly Maria Sarah Buckmaster. Whitehead was apparently not particularly close with his mother, as he never mentioned her in any of his writings, and there is evidence that Whitehead's wife, Evelyn, had a low opinion of her.
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Question: Where was Alfred North Whitehead born? Question: Where was Alfred North Whitehead born? Question: In what year was Whitehead born? Question: What year was Whitehead born? Question: What was Whitehead's father's profession? Question: What was Whitehead's father's profession? Question: Who founded Chatham House Academy? Question: Who was Whitehead's mother? Question: What was Whitehead's mother's name? Question: What was Whitehead's wife's name?
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gq: In 1918 Whitehead's academic responsibilities began to seriously expand as he accepted a number of high administrative positions within the University of London system, of which Imperial College London was a member at the time. He was elected Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of London in late 1918 (a post he held for four years), a member of the University of London's Senate in 1919, and chairman of the Senate's Academic (leadership) Council in 1920, a post which he held until he departed for America in 1924. Whitehead was able to exert his newfound influence to successfully lobby for a new history of science department, help establish a Bachelor of Science degree (previously only Bachelor of Arts degrees had been offered), and make the school more accessible to less wealthy students.
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Question: When did Whitehead accept administrative positions? Question: In which educational system was Whitehead employed in the late 1910s? Question: Where did Whitehead accept administrative positions? Question: What was Whitehead's title at the University of London in late 1918? Question: What was he elected at the University of London? Question: What was Whitehead's last position before he traveled to America? Question: In which year did Whitehead relocate to America? Question: When did Whitehead go to America? Question: What degree program did Whitehead contribute to establishing at University of London?
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gq: The two volume biography of Whitehead by Victor Lowe is the most definitive presentation of the life of Whitehead. However, many details of Whitehead's life remain obscure because he left no Nachlass; his family carried out his instructions that all of his papers be destroyed after his death. Additionally, Whitehead was known for his "almost fanatical belief in the right to privacy", and for writing very few personal letters of the kind that would help to gain insight on his life. This led to Lowe himself remarking on the first page of Whitehead's biography, "No professional biographer in his right mind would touch him."
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Question: How many volumes is the biography of Whitehead? Question: Who authored Whitehead's biography that is considered to be the most reliable description of Whitehead's life? Question: Who wrote the biography of Whitehead? Question: Why was no Nachlass left behind after Whitehead's death? Question: What was Whitehead's wish upon his death for his family? Question: What was Whitehead's opinion on privacy? Question: What did Whitehead believe in so profusely that it was difficult to write a biography on him? Question: What did the author of Whitehead's biography comment on the first page regarding the difficulty of obtaining information about Whitehead?
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gq: In addition to numerous articles on mathematics, Whitehead wrote three major books on the subject: A Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898), Principia Mathematica (co-written with Bertrand Russell and published in three volumes between 1910 and 1913), and An Introduction to Mathematics (1911). The former two books were aimed exclusively at professional mathematicians, while the latter book was intended for a larger audience, covering the history of mathematics and its philosophical foundations. Principia Mathematica in particular is regarded as one of the most important works in mathematical logic of the 20th century.
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Question: What did Whitehead publish numerous articles about? Question: How many books on mathematics did Whitehead write? Question: What was Whitehead's first published book on mathematics? Question: When did Whitehead write his first book? Question: With what mathematician and philosopher did Whitehead collaborate to write Principia Mathematica? Question: Who co-wrote Principia Mathematica with Whitehead? Question: What was Whitehead's final book on mathematics? Question: Who was the intended audience of Whitehead's first two mathematics books? Question: Which of Whitehead's books is known as one of the most important works in mathematical logical? Question: What is the significance of Principia Mathematica currently?
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gq: At the time structures such as Lie algebras and hyperbolic quaternions drew attention to the need to expand algebraic structures beyond the associatively multiplicative class. In a review Alexander Macfarlane wrote: "The main idea of the work is not unification of the several methods, nor generalization of ordinary algebra so as to include them, but rather the comparative study of their several structures." In a separate review, G. B. Mathews wrote, "It possesses a unity of design which is really remarkable, considering the variety of its themes."
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Question: What did Lie algebras and hyperbolic quaternions demonstrate a need for? Question: Lie algebras and hypobolic quanternions drew attention to the need for what? Question: How did Alexander Macfarlane summarize the relationship between different methods in "A Treatise on Algebra" in his review? Question: Reviewer Alexander Macfarlane believed that the main idea of the work is a comparative study of what? Question: What was G.B. Matthew's opinion of "A Treatise on Algebra"? Question: What did reviewer GB Mathews say algebraic structures possessed?
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gq: Whitehead and Russell had thought originally that Principia Mathematica would take a year to complete; it ended up taking them ten years. To add insult to injury, when it came time for publication, the three-volume work was so massive (more than 2,000 pages) and its audience so narrow (professional mathematicians) that it was initially published at a loss of 600 pounds, 300 of which was paid by Cambridge University Press, 200 by the Royal Society of London, and 50 apiece by Whitehead and Russell themselves. Despite the initial loss, today there is likely no major academic library in the world which does not hold a copy of Principia Mathematica.
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Question: How long did Whitehead and Russell expect to spend creating Principia Mathematica? Question: How long did Whitehead and Russell think it would take them to complete Principia Mathematica? Question: How long did it actually take to complete Principia Mathematica? Question: How long did it actually take Whitehead and Russell to complete Principia Mathematica? Question: Why was there a funding shortfall for the publishing of Princpia Mathematica? Question: How many volumes was Principia Mathematica? Question: How many pages was Principia Mathematica? Question: Who supplied the funding to cover the shortfall? Question: Who paid to publish Principia Mathematica? Question: How prevalent is Principia Mathematica today?
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gq: This is not to say that Whitehead's thought was widely accepted or even well-understood. His philosophical work is generally considered to be among the most difficult to understand in all of the western canon. Even professional philosophers struggled to follow Whitehead's writings. One famous story illustrating the level of difficulty of Whitehead's philosophy centers around the delivery of Whitehead's Gifford lectures in 1927–28 – following Arthur Eddington's lectures of the year previous – which Whitehead would later publish as Process and Reality:
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Question: What is the general opinion of the difficulty level of Whitehead's work in philosophy? Question: In all of the western canon, what is Whitehead's work considered? Question: Who also struggled to follow Whitehead's writings? Question: What lectures did Whitehead present in 1927-28? Question: When did Whitehead delivery the Gifford lectures? Question: Under what name were those lectures later published? Question: Following Arthur Eddington's lectures, what did Whitehead publish?
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gq: However, Mathews' frustration with Whitehead's books did not negatively affect his interest. In fact, there were numerous philosophers and theologians at Chicago's Divinity School that perceived the importance of what Whitehead was doing without fully grasping all of the details and implications. In 1927 they invited one of America's only Whitehead experts – Henry Nelson Wieman – to Chicago to give a lecture explaining Whitehead's thought. Wieman's lecture was so brilliant that he was promptly hired to the faculty and taught there for twenty years, and for at least thirty years afterward Chicago's Divinity School was closely associated with Whitehead's thought.
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Question: What affect did Matthews' opinion of the difficulty of Whitehead's works have on his interest in them? Question: Who was frustrated in Whitehead's books but still interested? Question: What school recognized the importance of Whitehead's work? Question: How did many philosophers and theologians at Chicago's Divinity School view Whitehead's work? Question: When was Henry Nelson Wieman invited to the Chicago Divinity school? Question: What expert on Whitehead delivered a lecture at the school to explain Whitehead's ideas? Question: Who was invited to the Chicago Divinity school as one of Whitehead's only experts? Question: What was the result of that lecture? Question: What happened after Henry Nelson Wieman gave a lecture about Whitehead?
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gq: Wieman's words proved prophetic. Though Process and Reality has been called "arguably the most impressive single metaphysical text of the twentieth century," it has been little-read and little-understood, partly because it demands – as Isabelle Stengers puts it – "that its readers accept the adventure of the questions that will separate them from every consensus." Whitehead questioned western philosophy's most dearly held assumptions about how the universe works, but in doing so he managed to anticipate a number of 21st century scientific and philosophical problems and provide novel solutions.
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Question: Which publication is considered the most impressive metaphysical text? Question: How has "Process and Reality" been described? Question: What did Isabelle Stengers say is the reason that "Process and Reality" is not commonly read and understood? Question: Who thought Process and Reality was little-read because the reader has to separate them from normal thought? Question: What philosophy in the west was challenged by Whitehead? Question: What effect did Whitehead have on the future of metaphysics? Question: What was Whitehead's philosophy able to anticipate for the 21st century? Question: What was the outcome of anticipating the scientific and philosophical problems Whitehead proposed?
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gq: It must be emphasized, however, that an entity is not merely a sum of its relations, but also a valuation of them and reaction to them. For Whitehead, creativity is the absolute principle of existence, and every entity (whether it is a human being, a tree, or an electron) has some degree of novelty in how it responds to other entities, and is not fully determined by causal or mechanistic laws. Of course, most entities do not have consciousness. As a human being's actions cannot always be predicted, the same can be said of where a tree's roots will grow, or how an electron will move, or whether it will rain tomorrow. Moreover, inability to predict an electron's movement (for instance) is not due to faulty understanding or inadequate technology; rather, the fundamental creativity/freedom of all entities means that there will always remain phenomena that are unpredictable.
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Question: Other than the combination of its relations, what else defines an entity? Question: An entity is a sum of relations, a valuation of them and what else? Question: What did Whitehead believe regarding creativity? Question: Not being able to predict what any entity is going to do is what principle b Whitehead? Question: What did Whitehead believe about an entity's relation to other entities? Question: Most entities do not have what? Question: All entities, being unable to predict behavior, are because of what?
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gq: Since Whitehead's metaphysics described a universe in which all entities experience, he needed a new way of describing perception that was not limited to living, self-conscious beings. The term he coined was "prehension", which comes from the Latin prehensio, meaning "to seize." The term is meant to indicate a kind of perception that can be conscious or unconscious, applying to people as well as electrons. It is also intended to make clear Whitehead's rejection of the theory of representative perception, in which the mind only has private ideas about other entities. For Whitehead, the term "prehension" indicates that the perceiver actually incorporates aspects of the perceived thing into itself. In this way, entities are constituted by their perceptions and relations, rather than being independent of them. Further, Whitehead regards perception as occurring in two modes, causal efficacy (or "physical prehension") and presentational immediacy (or "conceptual prehension").
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Question: What term did Whitehead describe that perception is not limited to the living? Question: What is the origin of the word "prehension"? Question: What language does the term "prehensio" come from? Question: What does the word "Prehensio" translate into? Question: What is prehension used to define? Question: What entities does the term prehension apply to? Question: What is a basic description of the theory of representative perception? Question: What does the term "prehension" signify regarding an entities perceptions and relations? Question: How many modes does perception occur in according to Whitehead? Question: What did Whitehead state are the two types of perception?
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gq: Whitehead describes causal efficacy as "the experience dominating the primitive living organisms, which have a sense for the fate from which they have emerged, and the fate towards which they go." It is, in other words, the sense of causal relations between entities, a feeling of being influenced and affected by the surrounding environment, unmediated by the senses. Presentational immediacy, on the other hand, is what is usually referred to as "pure sense perception", unmediated by any causal or symbolic interpretation, even unconscious interpretation. In other words, it is pure appearance, which may or may not be delusive (e.g. mistaking an image in a mirror for "the real thing").
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Question: What is the term for the experience dominating primitive organisms that have a sense for fate? Question: How does Whitehead define causal efficacy? Question: How do the senses affect causal efficacy? Question: What is the other term for "pure sense perception"? Question: What is it called if you mistake a reflection in a mirror for the real thing? Question: How does Whitehead define presentational immediacy? Question: What can be said about the accuracy of presentational immediacy?
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gq: In higher organisms (like people), these two modes of perception combine into what Whitehead terms "symbolic reference", which links appearance with causation in a process that is so automatic that both people and animals have difficulty refraining from it. By way of illustration, Whitehead uses the example of a person's encounter with a chair. An ordinary person looks up, sees a colored shape, and immediately infers that it is a chair. However, an artist, Whitehead supposes, "might not have jumped to the notion of a chair", but instead "might have stopped at the mere contemplation of a beautiful color and a beautiful shape." This is not the normal human reaction; most people place objects in categories by habit and instinct, without even thinking about it. Moreover, animals do the same thing. Using the same example, Whitehead points out that a dog "would have acted immediately on the hypothesis of a chair and would have jumped onto it by way of using it as such." In this way symbolic reference is a fusion of pure sense perceptions on the one hand and causal relations on the other, and that it is in fact the causal relationships that dominate the more basic mentality (as the dog illustrates), while it is the sense perceptions which indicate a higher grade mentality (as the artist illustrates).
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Question: What is Whitehead's term for the two modes of perceptions combining? Question: What is the purpose of symbolic reference? Question: What does symbolic reference link appearance with? Question: How does Whitehead describe the process of a typical person noticing a chair? Question: How might an artist view a chair differently than a typical person? Question: How does Whitehead say a dog may interpret the presence of a chair? Question: Which concept does Whitehead state is more dominant in a lower mentality? Question: What dominates more basic mentality in symbolic reference? Question: What does having sense perceptions conclude about a person?
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gq: Whitehead makes the startling observation that "life is comparatively deficient in survival value." If humans can only exist for about a hundred years, and rocks for eight hundred million, then one is forced to ask why complex organisms ever evolved in the first place; as Whitehead humorously notes, "they certainly did not appear because they were better at that game than the rocks around them." He then observes that the mark of higher forms of life is that they are actively engaged in modifying their environment, an activity which he theorizes is directed toward the three-fold goal of living, living well, and living better. In other words, Whitehead sees life as directed toward the purpose of increasing its own satisfaction. Without such a goal, he sees the rise of life as totally unintelligible.
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Question: What observation did Whitehead make about life? Question: Whitehead observes that life is deficient in what? Question: What was Whitehead's response to questions about why complex life evolved? Question: What did Whitehead state was the biggest indicator of a higher form of life? Question: What are higher life forms actively engaged in? Question: How many goals of living is there? Question: What did Whitehead believe are the goals f life? Question: What did Whitehead believe was the fundamental purpose of life? Question: Whitehead sees life as directed towards what purpose? Question: Without Whitehead's proposed purpose, life would be what?
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gq: Whitehead's idea of God differs from traditional monotheistic notions. Perhaps his most famous and pointed criticism of the Christian conception of God is that "the Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar." Here Whitehead is criticizing Christianity for defining God as primarily a divine king who imposes his will on the world, and whose most important attribute is power. As opposed to the most widely accepted forms of Christianity, Whitehead emphasized an idea of God that he called "the brief Galilean vision of humility":
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Question: What is Whitehead's most well-known critical statement regarding the Christian notion of God? Question: What qualities dis Whitehead state that Christians attributed to their version of God? Question: What was Whitehead's description of God?
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gq: It should be emphasized, however, that for Whitehead God is not necessarily tied to religion. Rather than springing primarily from religious faith, Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system. His system required that an order exist among possibilities, an order that allowed for novelty in the world and provided an aim to all entities. Whitehead posited that these ordered potentials exist in what he called the primordial nature of God. However, Whitehead was also interested in religious experience. This led him to reflect more intensively on what he saw as the second nature of God, the consequent nature. Whitehead's conception of God as a "dipolar" entity has called for fresh theological thinking.
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Question: What was Whitehead's belief about God in relation to religion? Question: Why did Whitehead view the existence of God as a necessity for his metaphysical system? Question: In what did Whitehead believe that those concepts existed? Question: What did Whitehead view as the second nature of God? Question: What type of God did Whitehead believe existed?
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gq: God's consequent nature, on the other hand, is anything but unchanging – it is God's reception of the world's activity. As Whitehead puts it, "[God] saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved." In other words, God saves and cherishes all experiences forever, and those experiences go on to change the way God interacts with the world. In this way, God is really changed by what happens in the world and the wider universe, lending the actions of finite creatures an eternal significance.
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Question: How does Whitehead define he consequent nature of God? Question: How does Whitehead describe the judgment of God? Question: What does Whitehead say that God does with all experiences? Question: What effect does Whitehead claim that experiences have on God? Question: What conclusion does Whitehead draw about God's treatment of humans' experiences?
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gq: Whitehead thus sees God and the world as fulfilling one another. He sees entities in the world as fluent and changing things that yearn for a permanence which only God can provide by taking them into God's self, thereafter changing God and affecting the rest of the universe throughout time. On the other hand, he sees God as permanent but as deficient in actuality and change: alone, God is merely eternally unrealized possibilities, and requires the world to actualize them. God gives creatures permanence, while the creatures give God actuality and change. Here it is worthwhile to quote Whitehead at length:
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Question: How does Whitehead view the relationship between God an the world? Question: How does he define entities' need for God? Question: How dis Whitehead believe God provided permanence to entities? Question: In what way did Whitehead view God as deficient? Question: What did Whitehead claim God would be without the world?
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gq: For Whitehead the core of religion was individual. While he acknowledged that individuals cannot ever be fully separated from their society, he argued that life is an internal fact for its own sake before it is an external fact relating to others. His most famous remark on religion is that "religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness ... and if you are never solitary, you are never religious." Whitehead saw religion as a system of general truths that transformed a person's character. He took special care to note that while religion is often a good influence, it is not necessarily good – an idea which he called a "dangerous delusion" (e.g., a religion might encourage the violent extermination of a rival religion's adherents).
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Question: What did Whitehead believe was the basis of religion? Question: What is Whitehead's most famous statement on religion? Question: How did Whitehead define religion? Question: How did Whitehead define "dangerous delusion" as it relates to religion?
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gq: However, while Whitehead saw religion as beginning in solitariness, he also saw religion as necessarily expanding beyond the individual. In keeping with his process metaphysics in which relations are primary, he wrote that religion necessitates the realization of "the value of the objective world which is a community derivative from the interrelations of its component individuals." In other words, the universe is a community which makes itself whole through the relatedness of each individual entity to all the others – meaning and value do not exist for the individual alone, but only in the context of the universal community. Whitehead writes further that each entity "can find no such value till it has merged its individual claim with that of the objective universe. Religion is world-loyalty. The spirit at once surrenders itself to this universal claim and appropriates it for itself." In this way the individual and universal/social aspects of religion are mutually dependent.
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Question: In what state did Whitehead believe religion began? Question: What realization did Whitehead believe religion made necessary? Question: What did Whitehead believe was necessary for an entity to have meaning and value? Question: How does Whitehead describe religion as world-loyalty? Question: What did Whitehead believe was the relationship between the individual and social aspects of religion?
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gq: Overall, however, Whitehead's influence is very difficult to characterize. In English-speaking countries, his primary works are little-studied outside of Claremont and a select number of liberal graduate-level theology and philosophy programs. Outside of these circles his influence is relatively small and diffuse, and has tended to come chiefly through the work of his students and admirers rather than Whitehead himself. For instance, Whitehead was a teacher and long-time friend and collaborator of Bertrand Russell, and he also taught and supervised the dissertation of Willard Van Orman Quine, both of whom are important figures in analytic philosophy – the dominant strain of philosophy in English-speaking countries in the 20th century. Whitehead has also had high-profile admirers in the continental tradition, such as French post-structuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who once dryly remarked of Whitehead that "he stands provisionally as the last great Anglo-American philosopher before Wittgenstein's disciples spread their misty confusion, sufficiency, and terror." French sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour even went so far as to call Whitehead "the greatest philosopher of the 20th century."
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Question: Where are Whitehead's works primarily studied in English-speaking countries? Question: Where has interest outside of those areas mainly come from? Question: Who are two of Whitehead's students that have gone on to become renowned in the field of analytic philosophy? Question: What did Gilles Deleuze say about Whitehead? Question: What French sociologist and anthropologist stated that Whitehead was "the greatest philosopher of the 20th century"?
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gq: Historically Whitehead's work has been most influential in the field of American progressive theology. The most important early proponent of Whitehead's thought in a theological context was Charles Hartshorne, who spent a semester at Harvard as Whitehead's teaching assistant in 1925, and is widely credited with developing Whitehead's process philosophy into a full-blown process theology. Other notable process theologians include John B. Cobb, Jr., David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, C. Robert Mesle, Roland Faber, and Catherine Keller.
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Question: In what field of study has Whitehead's work been most influential in the United States? Question: Who was the most important early supporter of Whitehead's work in the context of theology? Question: What advancement of Whitehead's process philosophy is attributed to Charles Hartshorne? Question: Who are some other distinguished process theologians?
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gq: Process theology typically stresses God's relational nature. Rather than seeing God as impassive or emotionless, process theologians view God as "the fellow sufferer who understands", and as the being who is supremely affected by temporal events. Hartshorne points out that people would not praise a human ruler who was unaffected by either the joys or sorrows of his followers – so why would this be a praise-worthy quality in God? Instead, as the being who is most affected by the world, God is the being who can most appropriately respond to the world. However, process theology has been formulated in a wide variety of ways. C. Robert Mesle, for instance, advocates a "process naturalism", i.e. a process theology without God.
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Question: What aspect of God is usually emphasized in process theology? Question: How is God usually perceived by process theologians? Question: Why did Hartshorne feel that God must be affected by people? Question: Why would God being substantially affected by the world be beneficial? Question: What type of process theology does C. Robert Mesle promote?
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gq: In fact, process theology is difficult to define because process theologians are so diverse and transdisciplinary in their views and interests. John B. Cobb, Jr. is a process theologian who has also written books on biology and economics. Roland Faber and Catherine Keller integrate Whitehead with poststructuralist, postcolonialist, and feminist theory. Charles Birch was both a theologian and a geneticist. Franklin I. Gamwell writes on theology and political theory. In Syntheism - Creating God in The Internet Age, futurologists Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist repeatedly credit Whitehead for the process theology they see rising out of the participatory culture expected to dominate the digital era.
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Question: Why is there difficulty in defining process theology ? Question: What subjects has John B. Cobb, Jr. written books on other than process theology? Question: What theories do Roland Faber and Catherine Keller combine with Whitehead's ideas? Question: What was Charles Birch's profession besides theologian? Question: Who authored "Syntheism - Creating God in the Internet Age"?
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gq: Whitehead also described religion more technically as "an ultimate craving to infuse into the insistent particularity of emotion that non-temporal generality which primarily belongs to conceptual thought alone." In other words, religion takes deeply felt emotions and contextualizes them within a system of general truths about the world, helping people to identify their wider meaning and significance. For Whitehead, religion served as a kind of bridge between philosophy and the emotions and purposes of a particular society. It is the task of religion to make philosophy applicable to the everyday lives of ordinary people.
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Question: What was Whitehead's technical definition of religion? Question: What did Whitehead believe religion did with strong emotions? Question: What purpose did Whitehead believe religion served? Question: What did Whitehead believe was the job of religion regarding philosophy?
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gq: Margaret Stout and Carrie M. Staton have also written recently on the mutual influence of Whitehead and Mary Parker Follett, a pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior. Stout and Staton see both Whitehead and Follett as sharing an ontology that "understands becoming as a relational process; difference as being related, yet unique; and the purpose of becoming as harmonizing difference." This connection is further analyzed by Stout and Jeannine M. Love in Integrative Process: Follettian Thinking from Ontology to Administration
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Question: What is Mary Parker Follett known for? Question: What do Margaret Stout and Carrie M. Staton view as commonalities between Whitehead and Follett? Question: What book did Stout and Jeanine M. Love author that further examines the on between Whitehead and Follett?
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gq: Moreover, a conflict of interest between professional investment managers and their institutional clients, combined with a global glut in investment capital, led to bad investments by asset managers in over-priced credit assets. Professional investment managers generally are compensated based on the volume of client assets under management. There is, therefore, an incentive for asset managers to expand their assets under management in order to maximize their compensation. As the glut in global investment capital caused the yields on credit assets to decline, asset managers were faced with the choice of either investing in assets where returns did not reflect true credit risk or returning funds to clients. Many asset managers chose to continue to invest client funds in over-priced (under-yielding) investments, to the detriment of their clients, in order to maintain their assets under management. This choice was supported by a "plausible deniability" of the risks associated with subprime-based credit assets because the loss experience with early "vintages" of subprime loans was so low.
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Question: What led to bad investments by asset managers in over-priced credit assets? Question: Who is compensated based on the volume of client assets they have under management? Question: What is the incentive for asset managers to expand their assets under management? Question: What did many asset managers decide to do to the detriment of their clients? Question: What rationale did asset managers who continued to invest in over-priced investments to the detriment of their clients use?
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gq: The first visible institution to run into trouble in the United States was the Southern California–based IndyMac, a spin-off of Countrywide Financial. Before its failure, IndyMac Bank was the largest savings and loan association in the Los Angeles market and the seventh largest mortgage originator in the United States. The failure of IndyMac Bank on July 11, 2008, was the fourth largest bank failure in United States history up until the crisis precipitated even larger failures, and the second largest failure of a regulated thrift. IndyMac Bank's parent corporation was IndyMac Bancorp until the FDIC seized IndyMac Bank. IndyMac Bancorp filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in July 2008.
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Question: Which financial institution was the first one visible to run into trouble in the United States? Question: Who was Southern California-based IndyMac a spin-off of? Question: Before its failure, which savings and loan association was the seventh largest mortgage originator in the United States? Question: On what date did IndyMac fail? Question: Who was IndyMac's parent corporation?
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gq: IndyMac reported that during April 2008, Moody's and Standard & Poor's downgraded the ratings on a significant number of Mortgage-backed security (MBS) bonds including $160 million of those issued by IndyMac and which the bank retained in its MBS portfolio. IndyMac concluded that these downgrades would have negatively impacted the Company's risk-based capital ratio as of June 30, 2008. Had these lowered ratings been in effect at March 31, 2008, IndyMac concluded that the bank's capital ratio would have been 9.27% total risk-based. IndyMac warned that if its regulators found its capital position to have fallen below "well capitalized" (minimum 10% risk-based capital ratio) to "adequately capitalized" (8–10% risk-based capital ratio) the bank might no longer be able to use brokered deposits as a source of funds.
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Question: When did Moody's and Standard & Poor downgrade a significant number of IndyMac's MBS bonds? Question: What was one of the agencies that downgraded a significant number of IndyMac's MBS bonds in April 2008? Question: What was the value of IndyMac's MBS bonds retained in its MBS portfolio that were downgraded in April 2008? Question: If IndyMac's downgraded MBS bond ratings had been in effect at March 31, 2008, what would the bank's capital ratio have been? Question: What is a well capitalized ratio?
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gq: Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) would later point out that brokered deposits made up more than 37 percent of IndyMac's total deposits and ask the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) whether it had considered ordering IndyMac to reduce its reliance on these deposits. With $18.9 billion in total deposits reported on March 31, Senator Schumer would have been referring to a little over $7 billion in brokered deposits. While the breakout of maturities of these deposits is not known exactly, a simple averaging would have put the threat of brokered deposits loss to IndyMac at $500 million a month, had the regulator disallowed IndyMac from acquiring new brokered deposits on June 30.
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Question: Who is the Senator that asked FDIC if it had considered ordering IndyMac to reduce its reliance on brokered deposits? Question: What does the abbreviation FDIC stand for? Question: How much of IndyMac's total deposits of $18.9 billion on March 31, 2008 were considered brokered deposits? Question: How much was the threat of brokered deposit losses per month to IndyMac? Question: Had the FDIC disallowed IndyMac from acquiring new brokered deposits on this date, the threat of brokered deposit losses would have been $500 million a month?
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gq: When home prices declined in the latter half of 2007 and the secondary mortgage market collapsed, IndyMac was forced to hold $10.7 billion of loans it could not sell in the secondary market. Its reduced liquidity was further exacerbated in late June 2008 when account holders withdrew $1.55 billion or about 7.5% of IndyMac's deposits. This “run” on the thrift followed the public release of a letter from Senator Charles Schumer to the FDIC and OTS. The letter outlined the Senator’s concerns with IndyMac. While the run was a contributing factor in the timing of IndyMac’s demise, the underlying cause of the failure was the unsafe and unsound manner in which the thrift was operated.
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Question: What was the value of loans IndyMac was forced to hold when the secondary mortgage market collapsed in late 2007? Question: How much in deposits did account holders withdraw from IndyMac in late June 2008? Question: What percent of IndyMac's deposits were withdrawn by account holders in late June 2008? Question: Who is the Senator that released a letter to the FDIC and OTS that prompted a "run" on IndyMac? Question: What was the underlying cause of the failure on IndyMac?
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gq: On July 11, 2008, citing liquidity concerns, the FDIC put IndyMac Bank into conservatorship. A bridge bank, IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB, was established to assume control of IndyMac Bank's assets, its secured liabilities, and its insured deposit accounts. The FDIC announced plans to open IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB on July 14, 2008. Until then, depositors would have access their insured deposits through ATMs, their existing checks, and their existing debit cards. Telephone and Internet account access was restored when the bank reopened. The FDIC guarantees the funds of all insured accounts up to US$100,000, and has declared a special advance dividend to the roughly 10,000 depositors with funds in excess of the insured amount, guaranteeing 50% of any amounts in excess of $100,000. Yet, even with the pending sale of Indymac to IMB Management Holdings, an estimated 10,000 uninsured depositors of Indymac are still at a loss of over $270 million.
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Question: On what date did the FDIC put IndyMac Bank into conservatorship? Question: What was the name of the bridge bank established to assume control of IndyMac Bank's assets, liabilities and deposit accounts? Question: On what date did the FDIC plan to open IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB? Question: What is the maximum amount of funds the FDIC guarantees in insured accounts? Question: How many IndyMac account holders held funds in excess of the FDIC's insured amount of US$100,000?
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gq: Initially the companies affected were those directly involved in home construction and mortgage lending such as Northern Rock and Countrywide Financial, as they could no longer obtain financing through the credit markets. Over 100 mortgage lenders went bankrupt during 2007 and 2008. Concerns that investment bank Bear Stearns would collapse in March 2008 resulted in its fire-sale to JP Morgan Chase. The financial institution crisis hit its peak in September and October 2008. Several major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover. These included Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual, Wachovia, Citigroup, and AIG. On Oct. 6, 2008, three weeks after Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, Lehman's former CEO found himself before Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Fuld said he was a victim of the collapse, blaming a "crisis of confidence" in the markets for dooming his firm.
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Question: How many mortgage lenders went bankrupt during 2007 and 2008? Question: Who is the investment bank that was feared to collapse in March 2008 and was sold in a fire-sale to JP Morgan Chase? Question: When did the financial institution crisis hit its peak? Question: When did Lehman's former CEO appear before Representative Henry A. Waxman? Question: What firm filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history?
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gq: In September 2008, the crisis hit its most critical stage. There was the equivalent of a bank run on the money market funds, which frequently invest in commercial paper issued by corporations to fund their operations and payrolls. Withdrawal from money markets were $144.5 billion during one week, versus $7.1 billion the week prior. This interrupted the ability of corporations to rollover (replace) their short-term debt. The U.S. government responded by extending insurance for money market accounts analogous to bank deposit insurance via a temporary guarantee and with Federal Reserve programs to purchase commercial paper. The TED spread, an indicator of perceived credit risk in the general economy, spiked up in July 2007, remained volatile for a year, then spiked even higher in September 2008, reaching a record 4.65% on October 10, 2008.
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Question: When did the financial crisis hit its most critical stage? Question: The equivalent of a bank run on which funds occurred in September 2008? Question: What do money market funds frequently invest in? Question: How much was withdrawn from money markets during one week in September 2008? Question: What was the record high for the TED spread on October 10, 2008?
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gq: Economist Paul Krugman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explain the credit crisis via the implosion of the shadow banking system, which had grown to nearly equal the importance of the traditional commercial banking sector as described above. Without the ability to obtain investor funds in exchange for most types of mortgage-backed securities or asset-backed commercial paper, investment banks and other entities in the shadow banking system could not provide funds to mortgage firms and other corporations.
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Question: What was Timothy Geithner's position during the fall of 2008? Question: Economist Paul Krugman explained the credit crisis via the implosion of which system? Question: What is the system with nearly equal the importance of traditional commercial banking? Question: The shadow banking system could not provide funds to mortgage firms and other corporations without the ability to obtain which funds?
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gq: This meant that nearly one-third of the U.S. lending mechanism was frozen and continued to be frozen into June 2009. According to the Brookings Institution, the traditional banking system does not have the capital to close this gap as of June 2009: "It would take a number of years of strong profits to generate sufficient capital to support that additional lending volume". The authors also indicate that some forms of securitization are "likely to vanish forever, having been an artifact of excessively loose credit conditions". While traditional banks have raised their lending standards, it was the collapse of the shadow banking system that is the primary cause of the reduction in funds available for borrowing.
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Question: How much of the U.S. lending mechanism was frozen until June 2009? Question: What institution reported that the traditional banking systems does not have the capital to close the gap in the lending mechanism? Question: As of June 2009, the Brookings Institution reports that traditional banking system does not have enough of what to close the lending gap? Question: What is likely to vanish forever, as a result of excessively loose credit conditions? Question: What is the primary cause of the reduction in funds available for borrowing?
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gq: There is a direct relationship between declines in wealth and declines in consumption and business investment, which along with government spending, represent the economic engine. Between June 2007 and November 2008, Americans lost an estimated average of more than a quarter of their collective net worth.[citation needed] By early November 2008, a broad U.S. stock index the S&P 500, was down 45% from its 2007 high. Housing prices had dropped 20% from their 2006 peak, with futures markets signaling a 30–35% potential drop. Total home equity in the United States, which was valued at $13 trillion at its peak in 2006, had dropped to $8.8 trillion by mid-2008 and was still falling in late 2008. Total retirement assets, Americans' second-largest household asset, dropped by 22%, from $10.3 trillion in 2006 to $8 trillion in mid-2008. During the same period, savings and investment assets (apart from retirement savings) lost $1.2 trillion and pension assets lost $1.3 trillion. Taken together, these losses total a staggering $8.3 trillion. Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth is down $14 trillion.
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Question: How much net worth did Americans lose between June 2007 and November 2008? Question: In November 2008, how much was the U.S. stock index down from its 2007 high? Question: In November 2008, how much had housing prices drop from their 2006 peak? Question: How much was home equity valued in the United States at its peak in 2006? Question: How much was home equity valued in the United States in mid-2008?
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gq: In November 2008, economist Dean Baker observed: "There is a really good reason for tighter credit. Tens of millions of homeowners who had substantial equity in their homes two years ago have little or nothing today. Businesses are facing the worst downturn since the Great Depression. This matters for credit decisions. A homeowner with equity in her home is very unlikely to default on a car loan or credit card debt. They will draw on this equity rather than lose their car and/or have a default placed on their credit record. On the other hand, a homeowner who has no equity is a serious default risk. In the case of businesses, their creditworthiness depends on their future profits. Profit prospects look much worse in November 2008 than they did in November 2007... While many banks are obviously at the brink, consumers and businesses would be facing a much harder time getting credit right now even if the financial system were rock solid. The problem with the economy is the loss of close to $6 trillion in housing wealth and an even larger amount of stock wealth.
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Question: How many homeowners who had substantial equity in their homes two years ago, have little no equity as of November 2008? Question: According to economist Dean Baker, a homeowner who has no equity if this type default risk? Question: What does the creditworthiness of businesses depend on? Question: How did profit prospects for businesses look in November 2008 compared to November 2007? Question: What is one of the major problems with the economy in November 2008?
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gq: Several commentators have suggested that if the liquidity crisis continues, an extended recession or worse could occur. The continuing development of the crisis has prompted fears of a global economic collapse although there are now many cautiously optimistic forecasters in addition to some prominent sources who remain negative. The financial crisis is likely to yield the biggest banking shakeout since the savings-and-loan meltdown. Investment bank UBS stated on October 6 that 2008 would see a clear global recession, with recovery unlikely for at least two years. Three days later UBS economists announced that the "beginning of the end" of the crisis had begun, with the world starting to make the necessary actions to fix the crisis: capital injection by governments; injection made systemically; interest rate cuts to help borrowers. The United Kingdom had started systemic injection, and the world's central banks were now cutting interest rates. UBS emphasized the United States needed to implement systemic injection. UBS further emphasized that this fixes only the financial crisis, but that in economic terms "the worst is still to come". UBS quantified their expected recession durations on October 16: the Eurozone's would last two quarters, the United States' would last three quarters, and the United Kingdom's would last four quarters. The economic crisis in Iceland involved all three of the country's major banks. Relative to the size of its economy, Iceland’s banking collapse is the largest suffered by any country in economic history.
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Question: In 2008, what type collapse was feared? Question: What investment bank stated on October 6 that 2008 would see a global recession lasting for at least two years? Question: What was one of the actions taken by government to fix the financial crisis? Question: On October 16, 2008, how long did UBS predict the United States' recession would last? Question: Relative to the size of its economy, what country's banking collapse was the largest experienced by any country in economic history?
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gq: The Brookings Institution reported in June 2009 that U.S. consumption accounted for more than a third of the growth in global consumption between 2000 and 2007. "The US economy has been spending too much and borrowing too much for years and the rest of the world depended on the U.S. consumer as a source of global demand." With a recession in the U.S. and the increased savings rate of U.S. consumers, declines in growth elsewhere have been dramatic. For the first quarter of 2009, the annualized rate of decline in GDP was 14.4% in Germany, 15.2% in Japan, 7.4% in the UK, 18% in Latvia, 9.8% in the Euro area and 21.5% for Mexico.
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Question: According to The Brookings Institution report in June 2009, how much growth did U.S. consumption account for between 2000 and 2007? Question: Who depended on the U.S. consumer as a source of global demand? Question: What is one reason for the decline in growth around the world in 2009? Question: For the first quarter of 2009, what was the annualized rate of decline in GDP in Germany? Question: For the first quarter of 2009, what was the annualized rate of decline in GDP in Mexico?
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gq: Some developing countries that had seen strong economic growth saw significant slowdowns. For example, growth forecasts in Cambodia show a fall from more than 10% in 2007 to close to zero in 2009, and Kenya may achieve only 3–4% growth in 2009, down from 7% in 2007. According to the research by the Overseas Development Institute, reductions in growth can be attributed to falls in trade, commodity prices, investment and remittances sent from migrant workers (which reached a record $251 billion in 2007, but have fallen in many countries since). This has stark implications and has led to a dramatic rise in the number of households living below the poverty line, be it 300,000 in Bangladesh or 230,000 in Ghana. Especially states with a fragile political system have to fear that investors from Western states withdraw their money because of the crisis. Bruno Wenn of the German DEG recommends to provide a sound economic policymaking and good governance to attract new investors
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Question: What is the growth forecast for Cambodia in 2009? Question: According to Overseas Development Institute, what is one reason for the reduction in growth in developing countries? Question: How much were remittances sent from migrant workers in 2007? Question: How many people live below the poverty line in Bangladesh? Question: What does Bruno Wenn of the German DEG recommend to attract new investors?
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gq: The World Bank reported in February 2009 that the Arab World was far less severely affected by the credit crunch. With generally good balance of payments positions coming into the crisis or with alternative sources of financing for their large current account deficits, such as remittances, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or foreign aid, Arab countries were able to avoid going to the market in the latter part of 2008. This group is in the best position to absorb the economic shocks. They entered the crisis in exceptionally strong positions. This gives them a significant cushion against the global downturn. The greatest impact of the global economic crisis will come in the form of lower oil prices, which remains the single most important determinant of economic performance. Steadily declining oil prices would force them to draw down reserves and cut down on investments. Significantly lower oil prices could cause a reversal of economic performance as has been the case in past oil shocks. Initial impact will be seen on public finances and employment for foreign workers.
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Question: What area of the world was less severely affected by the credit crunch according to The World Bank report In February 2009? Question: What does the abbreviation FDI stand for? Question: Arab countries entered the financial crisis in exceptionally strong positions giving them a cushion against this? Question: What will have the greatest impact on the global economic crisis? Question: What is the single most important determinant of economic performance?
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gq: The output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States—decreased at an annual rate of approximately 6% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, versus activity in the year-ago periods. The U.S. unemployment rate increased to 10.1% by October 2009, the highest rate since 1983 and roughly twice the pre-crisis rate. The average hours per work week declined to 33, the lowest level since the government began collecting the data in 1964. With the decline of gross domestic product came the decline in innovation. With fewer resources to risk in creative destruction, the number of patent applications flat-lined. Compared to the previous 5 years of exponential increases in patent application, this stagnation correlates to the similar drop in GDP during the same time period.
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Question: What was the annual rate of decrease for the output of goods and services produced by labor and property in 4Q 2008 and 1Q 2009? Question: What was the U.S. unemployment rate in October 2009? Question: The U.E. employment rate was 10.2% in October 2009, which was the highest rate since what year? Question: What was the average hours per work week in October 2009? Question: The decline of gross domestic product also caused a decline in innovation, evidenced by the flat-lining of what?
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gq: European regulators introduced Basel III regulations for banks. It increased capital ratios, limits on leverage, narrow definition of capital (to exclude subordinated debt), limit counter-party risk, and new liquidity requirements. Critics argue that Basel III doesn’t address the problem of faulty risk-weightings. Major banks suffered losses from AAA-rated created by financial engineering (which creates apparently risk-free assets out of high risk collateral) that required less capital according to Basel II. Lending to AA-rated sovereigns has a risk-weight of zero, thus increasing lending to governments and leading to the next crisis. Johan Norberg argues that regulations (Basel III among others) have indeed led to excessive lending to risky governments (see European sovereign-debt crisis) and the ECB pursues even more lending as the solution.
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Question: What did European regulators introduce to increase the oversight of banks? Question: What was increased by Basel III regulations? Question: Critics argue that Basel III doesn't address which problem? Question: What term describes creating risk-free assets out of high risk collateral? Question: Who argued that regulations led to excessive lending to risky governments?
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gq: The U.S. recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009, according to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the financial crisis appears to have ended about the same time. In April 2009 TIME magazine declared "More Quickly Than It Began, The Banking Crisis Is Over." The United States Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission dates the crisis to 2008. President Barack Obama declared on January 27, 2010, "the markets are now stabilized, and we've recovered most of the money we spent on the banks."
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Question: When did the U.S. recession that began in December 2007 end? Question: When did the financial crisis appear to have ended? Question: What was the name of the article that appeared in TIME magazine in April 2009 declaring the crisis over? Question: When does the United States Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission date the crisis to? Question: On what date did President Barack Obama declare that the markets are stabilized?
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gq: Advanced economies led global economic growth prior to the financial crisis with "emerging" and "developing" economies lagging behind. The crisis completely overturned this relationship. The International Monetary Fund found that "advanced" economies accounted for only 31% of global GDP while emerging and developing economies accounted for 69% of global GDP from 2007 to 2014. In the tables, the names of emergent economies are shown in boldface type, while the names of developed economies are in Roman (regular) type.
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Question: What economies led global economic growth prior to the financial crisis? Question: What relationship between advanced and emerging/developing was completely overturned by the financial crisis of 2007? Question: Who led global economic growth after the financial crisis? Question: How much global GDP did "advanced" economies account for from 2007 to 2014? Question: How much global GDP did emerging and developing economies account for from 2007 to 2014?
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gq: Krugman's contention (that the growth of a commercial real estate bubble indicates that U.S. housing policy was not the cause of the crisis) is challenged by additional analysis. After researching the default of commercial loans during the financial crisis, Xudong An and Anthony B. Sanders reported (in December 2010): "We find limited evidence that substantial deterioration in CMBS [commercial mortgage-backed securities] loan underwriting occurred prior to the crisis." Other analysts support the contention that the crisis in commercial real estate and related lending took place after the crisis in residential real estate. Business journalist Kimberly Amadeo reports: "The first signs of decline in residential real estate occurred in 2006. Three years later, commercial real estate started feeling the effects. Denice A. Gierach, a real estate attorney and CPA, wrote:
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Question: Who believed that the growth of the commercial real estate bubble indicated that U.S. housing policy was not the cause of the crisis? Question: When did Xudong An and Anthony B. Sanders issue a report about commercial mortgage-backed securities? Question: What are CMBS? Question: According to most analysts, what crisis took place after the crisis in residential real estate? Question: According to business journalist Kimberly Amadeo, when did the first signs of decline in real estate occur?
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gq: In a Peabody Award winning program, NPR correspondents argued that a "Giant Pool of Money" (represented by $70 trillion in worldwide fixed income investments) sought higher yields than those offered by U.S. Treasury bonds early in the decade. This pool of money had roughly doubled in size from 2000 to 2007, yet the supply of relatively safe, income generating investments had not grown as fast. Investment banks on Wall Street answered this demand with products such as the mortgage-backed security and the collateralized debt obligation that were assigned safe ratings by the credit rating agencies.
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Question: How much was invested worldwide in fixed income investments? Question: In the 2000s, investors were seeking higher yields than those offered by this investment? Question: How much did the pool of money invested worldwide in fixed income investments grow in size from 2000 to 2007? Question: What is an example of a product Wall Street invented to answer the demand for income generating investments? Question: What is one investment assigned safe ratings by the credit rating agencies?
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gq: The collateralized debt obligation in particular enabled financial institutions to obtain investor funds to finance subprime and other lending, extending or increasing the housing bubble and generating large fees. This essentially places cash payments from multiple mortgages or other debt obligations into a single pool from which specific securities draw in a specific sequence of priority. Those securities first in line received investment-grade ratings from rating agencies. Securities with lower priority had lower credit ratings but theoretically a higher rate of return on the amount invested.
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Question: What is the name of the securities that enabled financial institutions to obtain investor funds to finance subprime? Question: What was the outcome of collateralized debt obligations? Question: What type pool do collateralized debt obligations place their payments from mortgages into? Question: What type ratings did securities first in line receive from rating agencies? Question: What securities had lower credit ratings but potentially a higher rate of return?
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gq: By September 2008, average U.S. housing prices had declined by over 20% from their mid-2006 peak. As prices declined, borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages could not refinance to avoid the higher payments associated with rising interest rates and began to default. During 2007, lenders began foreclosure proceedings on nearly 1.3 million properties, a 79% increase over 2006. This increased to 2.3 million in 2008, an 81% increase vs. 2007. By August 2008, 9.2% of all U.S. mortgages outstanding were either delinquent or in foreclosure. By September 2009, this had risen to 14.4%.
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Question: How much had average U.S. housing prices declined by September 2008? Question: When was the peak of U.S. housing prices? Question: How many foreclosure proceedings were initiated by lenders in 2007? Question: What was the percentage increase on foreclosure proceedings from 2007 to 2008? Question: How many U.S. mortgages were either delinquent or in foreclosure by September 2009?
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gq: Lower interest rates encouraged borrowing. From 2000 to 2003, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate target from 6.5% to 1.0%. This was done to soften the effects of the collapse of the dot-com bubble and the September 2001 terrorist attacks, as well as to combat a perceived risk of deflation. As early as 2002 it was apparent that credit was fueling housing instead of business investment as some economists went so far as to advocate that the Fed "needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble". Moreover, empirical studies using data from advanced countries show that excessive credit growth contributed greatly to the severity of the crisis.
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Question: What encouraged borrowing from 2000 to 2003? Question: Was was the federal funds rate target lowered to by the Federal Reserve in 2003? Question: What is one reason the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate target to 1.0% in 2003? Question: In the early 2000s, what type bubble did some economists believe the Fed needed to create to replace the Nasdaq bubble? Question: What contributed greatly to the severity of the financial crisis of 2007?
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gq: Bernanke explained that between 1996 and 2004, the U.S. current account deficit increased by $650 billion, from 1.5% to 5.8% of GDP. Financing these deficits required the country to borrow large sums from abroad, much of it from countries running trade surpluses. These were mainly the emerging economies in Asia and oil-exporting nations. The balance of payments identity requires that a country (such as the U.S.) running a current account deficit also have a capital account (investment) surplus of the same amount. Hence large and growing amounts of foreign funds (capital) flowed into the U.S. to finance its imports.
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Question: Per Bernanke, how much did the U.S. current account deficit increase between 1996 and 2004? Question: What percentage of GDP was the U.S. current account deficit in 2004? Question: What emerging economies did the U.S. borrow money from between 1996 and 2004 to finance its imports? Question: What type account is needed by the U.S. to balance an account deficit? Question: Where did the U.S. obtain capital to finance its imports?
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gq: The Fed then raised the Fed funds rate significantly between July 2004 and July 2006. This contributed to an increase in 1-year and 5-year adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) rates, making ARM interest rate resets more expensive for homeowners. This may have also contributed to the deflating of the housing bubble, as asset prices generally move inversely to interest rates, and it became riskier to speculate in housing. U.S. housing and financial assets dramatically declined in value after the housing bubble burst.
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Question: Beginning in July 2004, what did the Fed do to make ARM rates more expensive for homeowners? Question: When did the Fed begin raising Fed funds rate significantly? Question: What does ARM stand for: Question: How do asset prices generally move in relation to interest rates? Question: How did U.S. housing and financial assets react to the housing bubble burst?
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gq: Testimony given to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission by Richard M. Bowen III on events during his tenure as the Business Chief Underwriter for Correspondent Lending in the Consumer Lending Group for Citigroup (where he was responsible for over 220 professional underwriters) suggests that by the final years of the U.S. housing bubble (2006–2007), the collapse of mortgage underwriting standards was endemic. His testimony stated that by 2006, 60% of mortgages purchased by Citi from some 1,600 mortgage companies were "defective" (were not underwritten to policy, or did not contain all policy-required documents) – this, despite the fact that each of these 1,600 originators was contractually responsible (certified via representations and warrantees) that its mortgage originations met Citi's standards. Moreover, during 2007, "defective mortgages (from mortgage originators contractually bound to perform underwriting to Citi's standards) increased... to over 80% of production".
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Question: Richard M. Bowen III testified to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission regarding his tenure at which financial institution? Question: How many underwriters was Richard M. Bowen III responsible for at Citigroup? Question: What percent of mortgages purchased by Citigroup in 2006 were defective? Question: In 2006, how many mortgage companies were contractually responsible to meet Citi's standards? Question: During 2007, what was the percent of defective mortgages not underwritten to Citi's standards?
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gq: In separate testimony to Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, officers of Clayton Holdings—the largest residential loan due diligence and securitization surveillance company in the United States and Europe—testified that Clayton's review of over 900,000 mortgages issued from January 2006 to June 2007 revealed that scarcely 54% of the loans met their originators’ underwriting standards. The analysis (conducted on behalf of 23 investment and commercial banks, including 7 "too big to fail" banks) additionally showed that 28% of the sampled loans did not meet the minimal standards of any issuer. Clayton's analysis further showed that 39% of these loans (i.e. those not meeting any issuer's minimal underwriting standards) were subsequently securitized and sold to investors.
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Question: Who was the largest residential loan due diligence and securitization surveillance company? Question: How many mortgage loans did Clayton Holdings review in their analysis? Question: According to Clayton Holdings, how many mortgages issued from January 2006 to June 2007 met underwriting standards? Question: How many investment and commercial banks were included in Clayton Holdings' analysis of January 2006 to June 2007 loans? Question: Per Clayton's analysis of loans issued from January 2006 to June 2007, what percent of loans did not meet minimal standards of any issuer?
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