_Process Philosophy_ surveys the basic issues and controversies surrounding the philosophical approach known as “process philosophy.” Process philosophy views temporality, activity, and change as the cardinal factors for our understanding of the real—process has priority over product, both ontologically and epistemically. Rescher examines the movement’s historical origins, reflecting a major line of thought in the work of such philosophers as Heracleitus, Leibniz, Bergson, Peirce, William James, and especially A. N. Whitehead. Reacting against the tendency to (...) associate process philosophy too closely with this last-named thinker, Rescher writes, “Indeed, one cardinal task for the partisans of process at this particular juncture of philosophical history is to prevent the idea of ‘process philosophy’ from being marginalized through a limitation of its bearing to the work and influence of any one single individual or group.” This book will appeal to both students and professors of philosophy. Those teachers who have not been trained in process philosophy will welcome this new text by one one of North America’s foremost philosophers as a perspicuous and informative introduction. (shrink)

Process philosophy is a longstanding philosophical tradition that emphasizes becoming and changing over static being. Though present in many historical and cultural periods, the term “process philosophy” is primarily associated with the work of the philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000). -/- Process philosophy is characterized by an attempt to reconcile the diverse intuitions found in human experience (such as religious, scientific, and aesthetic) into a coherent holistic scheme. Process (...) class='Hi'>philosophy seeks a return to a neo-classical realism that avoids subjectivism. This reconciliation of the intuitions of objectivity and subjectivity, with a concern for scientific findings, produces the explicitly metaphysical speculation that the world, at its most fundamental level, is made up of momentary events of experience rather than enduring material substances. Process philosophy speculates that these momentary events, called “actual occasions” or “actual entities,” are essentially self-determining, experiential, and internally related to each other. (shrink)

Using process philosophy, especially its view of nature and its ethic, we develop a process-based environmental ethic embodying minimalism and beneficience. From this perspective, we criticize the philosophy currently underlying public policy and examine some alternative approaches based on phenomenology and ethnomethodology. We conclude that process philosophy, minus its value hierarchy, is a powerful tool capable of supporting both radical and n10derate changes in environmental policy.

This volume constitutes the first collection of essays exploring the implications of process philosophy for social thought. Process philosophy is a product of the twentieth century, but its Platonic roots relate it to one of the prime initiators of Western philosophical thinking. Alfred North Whitehead originated the style of thinking that subsequently has been termed "process philosophy.".

Botanical illustration combines scientific knowledge and artistic technique. However, whereas illustrated botanical images record static visual qualities, such as form and color, written botanical narratives supply crucial sensory, ecological, historical, and cultural contexts that complement visual representation. Understanding the text-image interface—where images and words intersect—contributes to humanities-based analyses of botanical illustration and illustrators. More specifically, a process philosophy perspective reveals the extent to which botanical representations engage the temporality, cyclicality, and contextuality of the living plants being illustrated. This (...) article takes up these themes through a comparative theoretical study of three female Western Australian botanical illustrators, Georgiana Leake, Emily Pelloe, and Philippa Nikulinsky, whose lives together span the 183 year history of the Swan River Colony and the state of Western Australia. I apply a processist framework to examine the text-image interface of their works. All three illustrators use some form of textuality: marginalia, annotations, written accompaniments, introductory statements, and other narrative materials. In examining their written commentaries and traces, I identify the emergence of a process mode of botanical illustration that represents plants as ecological, historical, cultural, and temporal organisms. (shrink)

The central aim of this thesis is to confront the world-view of positivistic materialism with its nihilistic implications and to develop an alternative world-view based on process philosophy, showing how in terms of this, science and ethics can be reconciled. The thesis begins with an account of the rise of positivism and materialism, or ‘scientism’, to its dominant position in the culture of Western civilization and shows what effect this has had on the image of man and consequently (...) on ethical views. After having shown the basic weaknesses of this world-view, the positivist account of science is criticised and an alternative epistemology is developed in which the aim of disciplined inquiry is seen to be understanding. It is argued on the basis of this epistemology that science and metaphysics are indissociable, and that the materialist conception of being is open to challenge from a different ontology. Having reviewed the various conceptions of being which have been developed in the past, a version of process philosophy is outlined and it is argued that this promises to be far more effective than materialism as a foundation for the natural sciences. In particular it is shown how in terms of process philosophy it is possible to conceive of living, sentient organisms as having emerged from inanimate being. This provides the basis for the development of a conception of humanity as an emergent form of life. The human order is then seen as a process of becoming within nature with its own unique dynamics, irreducible to any other processes, involving both intentional and unintentional processes. It is shown how on the basis of this conception of humanity it is possible to develop an ethical theory and a critical social science, and in this way, to transcend the disjunction between science and ethics. -/- . (shrink)

The review comments and analyses main topics, ideas and theses emphasized in Vesselin Petrov’s new book Elements of Contemporary Process Philosophical Theory of Education and Learning. Describing the structure of the book, the review outlines the author’s analysis of the Process philosophy’ s interpretation of the aims, tasks and elements of the education and learning within the innovative perspectives of internet, computers, the artificial intelligence. The metaphysical principles and notions of the Process Philosophy of A. (...) Whitehead – holism, organism, dynamics, creativity – are applied to the education and learning problems and theories. (shrink)

Provides an ideology-critique of Whitehead's and Hartshorne's metaphysics and demonstrates how their metaphysical principles reflect their personal commitments to the values and norms of the modern liberal political ideology.

A new process philosophy of signs, where process becomes primary, and fixed relation secondary'Behind Red Doors - Signs, Process and the Political' - a post by James Williams on the Edinburgh University Press blogWhat is a sign? We usually think that it is a fixed relation: a red light signifies 'Stop'. In his bold new book, James Williams now argues that signs are varying processes: seeing the red light triggers a creative response to the question, Should (...) I stop?Williams develops this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model, in contrast to earlier structuralist definitions. He draws on the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, criticises earlier work on the sign in biology by Jakob von Uexküll, and connects to contemporary work on process in the philosophy of biology by John Dupré.The process model has wide applications in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and informs their critical debates with science. In defining the sign as essentially political, this radical definition of the sign opens up new possibilities for social and political critique.". (shrink)

Recent discussions, principally among analytic philosophers, concerning the meaning and the validity of the ‘question of life's meaning’ are significant in several ways. They indicate how analytic philosophy, long charged with sterility, can clarify deeply human questions. They suggest useful avenues of discussion between the analysts and the existentialists, phenomenologists and process philosophers. And they offer some illuminating discriminations between theism and naturalism, and between religious and non-religious understandings of life. But an additional consequence of these discussions is (...) the emergence of a series of challenges to most forms of theism, especially Christianity. In this paper we will be concerned with the latter. (shrink)

While some process philosophers have denigrated the emergent theory of mind, what they have denigrated has been ‘materialist’ theories of emergence. My contention is that one of the most important reasons for embracing process philosophy is that it is required to make intelligible the emergence of consciousness. There is evidence that this was a central concern of Whitehead. However, Whitehead acknowledged that his metaphysics was deficient in this regard. In this paper I will argue that to fully (...) understand the emergent theory of mind and its relation to process philosophy it is necessary to recast the whole history of modern philosophy in terms of efforts by philosophers grappling with the relationship between mind and body, or more broadly, consciousness and nature. This will involve granting a central place to Schelling’s philosophy, the ideas that influenced it and how Schelling’s insights were developed by subsequent philosophers. Process philosophy will then be seen as the tradition generated by efforts to transcend the opposition between idealism and materialism, and its promise in this regard, apart from anything else, is what makes it the most promising philosophy for the future. (shrink)

I argue here that, due to the influence of Greek philosophical ideas (such as the depreciation of time and change, and the glorification of independence and unqualified omnipotence), Christianity and Islam developed in directions foreign to the religious vision of their founders, leading ultimately to the present antagonisms between them. A 'philosophy of organism' - which sees time as cumulative, relations rather than substance as basic - can, however, help to reinterpret the insights of Jesus and Mohammed, and show (...) that humanity's primary responsibility is to care for the creatures which the Eternal One has called into being. (shrink)

This essay sets forth the decisive notions and postulates of process philosophy in Process Philosophy and Social Thought, edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and W. Widick Schroeder. After commenting on the circumstances in which process philosophy came to be a major option among philosophical theologians, I provide some amplification of those notions and postulates. Then, selecting material from the eighteen articles in the volume, I offer several critical assessments of the process viewpoint (...) and its relation to science and to the contemporary call for liberation. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has been compared to a bicycle brake on an international jet airliner; it is ineffective. Here I show how and why an ecological ethics based on process philosophy could be effective against the forces driving global environmental destruction. However, this will involve a radical transformation in what are taken to be the problems of ethics and how ethical philosophy is understood. Ethics needs to be centrally concerned with the virtues required to develop and sustain desirable (...) social forms. To address global environmental problems ecological ethics must concern itself with the virtues required to develop and sustain democracy. Developing these virtues, it is argued, will involve reversing the growing fragmentation of work to revive a feeling of responsibility for creating a better world. Such an ethics must not only provide guidance for action, but also provide people with a sense of their place in and role in history and nature and an inspiring vision to motivate them to work for a better world. Process philosophy can provide such an ecological ethics not only because it can justify respect for all living beings, but also because it is a revolt against the fragmentation of intellectual, cultural, and social life which led to the trivialization of philosophy in the first place. (shrink)

Whitehead and Hartshorne are considered the founding fathers of process philosophy as a fully worked out metaphysic. Both believe that the basic stuff of the world is experience, which comes into being in what William James called ‘drops of experience’ or ‘momentary experiential wholes’. Both believe that each such momentary whole prehends earlier such wholes, and makes itself into a unitary reality with these prehended past wholes as its raw material. They also believe that creativity is a basic (...) feature of reality. Their views on process theology, proofs of God’s existence, and ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher’s way of understanding process philosophy reflects the ambitions of his own philosophical project and commits him to a conceptually ideal interpretation of process. Process becomes a transcendental idea of reflection that can always be predicated of our knowledge of the world and of the world qua known, but not necessarily of reality an sich. Rescher’s own taxonomy of process thinking implies that it has other variants. While Rescher’s approach to process philosophy (...) makes it intelligible and appealing to mainstream analytic philosophy, it leaves behind the more daring ideas of Bergson, James, and Whitehead, all of whom envisioned the primordial reality of process in a radical ontology of becoming. This variant of process thought can be construed as coherent and self-consistent, but not without relinquishing the correspondence theory of truth and embracing challenging ideas that bring us in close proximity to existentialism, apophatic theology, and Buddhism. (shrink)

This paper assesses teachers’ and students’ self-perception as global citizens in the context of Alfred North Whitehead Process Philosophy. The aim of the paper is to identify the potential for global citizenship within pedagogy and learning. One hundred students and 50 teachers from Peaceland College of Education, Enugu, in Nigeria, were selected systematically and examined on their belief that an action in situ could pose global consequences or benefits. Respondents were also assessed on other dimensions of globalization. Results (...) showed that although more teachers believed themselves to be global citizens, there was little tendency to stimulate students in this regard. Students conversely exhibited their potential for global citizenship by listening more to foreign media than their teachers. For students, however, knowledge of current affairs and interaction with foreigners were significant determinants of self-perception as global citizens; for teachers, it was the motivation to teach and the level of education. The study concludes that adopting process philosophy in schools has much promise for skills, values, attitudes and dispositions needed to live in a global society. (shrink)

This essay critically discusses the rising interest in process philosophy in recent years. I argue that the appeal of process philosophy lies in its ability to circumnavigate the binary dichotomies pervasive in European philosophy and defend an interpretation of process philosophy in terms of relationality, difference, and change. After outlining the central tenets of process philosophy, Graham Harman’s critique of a relational account of process philosophy is examined, particularly his (...) assertion that this type of philosophy cannot fully explain genuine change. Despite the merits of Harman’s critique, I will show that his object-oriented ontology faces similar limitations. Turning to Graham Priest’s dialethism I suggest that philosophy, instead of striving for a consistent representation of fundamental metaphysics, must embrace paradox to some extent. This leads the philosophical discipline to understand itself as a transformative process. This essay critically discusses the rising interest in process philosophy in recent years. I argue that the appeal of process philosophy lies in its ability to circumnavigate the binary dichotomies pervasive in European philosophy and defend an interpretation of process philosophy in terms of relationality, difference, and change. After outlining the central tenets of process philosophy, Graham Harman’s critique of a relational account of process philosophy is examined, particularly his assertion that this type of philosophy cannot fully explain genuine change. Despite the merits of Harman’s critique, I will show that his object-oriented ontology faces similar limitations. Turning to Graham Priest’s dialethism I suggest that philosophy, instead of striving for a consistent representation of fundamental metaphysics, must embrace paradox to some extent. This leads the philosophical discipline to understand itself as a transformative process. (shrink)

Book Information Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. By David Ray Griffin. Cornell University Press. Ithaca. 2001. Pp. viii + 426. Hardback, US$55.00. Paperback, US$24.95.

Argues for political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy as a politically liberal view Daniel A. Dombrowski brings together the thought of the 20th-century philosophy's greatest political liberal, John Rawls, with the thought of the great process philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. He shows that political liberalism is intimately linked with process philosophy, renaming it 'process liberalism'. He justifies this process liberalism in contrast to four potentially troublesome (...) sources or influences: metaphysics, religion, right-wing politics and left-wing politics. Dombrowski engages a series of interlocutors and alternative positions including Franklin I. Gamwell, Timothy D. Snyder, Martin Heidegger and Karl Marx. In conclusion, he offers a compelling, intricate and resourceful argument for nonhuman animal rights based on Rawlsian principles, which in turn forms the basis of a future environmental ethics. (shrink)

The subject of the present exposition is namely the discussion of the question when and how process philosophy has entered into the European cultural tradition. We could approach this question in two ways: the philosophical and the historical perspective. We shall focus of our attention on both perspectives, which concern the return of process philosophy in Europe after its original moulding as a contemporary philosophical trend by Whitehead and his immediate followers. If we trace and systematize (...) chronologically the acts of influence of Whitehead’s works on eminent scientists and philosophers in Europe, we can provisionally outline three stages. The paper evaluates the manner in which process philosophy became so attractive for the European philosophical thought. At the present time we can definitely conclude that it is confirmed the existence of “a school” of representatives of process philosophy in Europe. (shrink)

Digital media seem to be marked by process. The digital image itself is produced by software processes and the constant flux of code. Further this, interaction with digital systems involves a constant process by which a so-called 'user' comes into contact with various machinic occasions. It seems that in light of these processes it is impossible to maintain an aesthetic or media theory that pictures a self-contained and psychologised subject interacting with a static and inert object. How then (...) can we begin to think about digital aesthetics through a process philosophy rather than the traditional and reductive subject/object distinction found in so much aesthetic theory? This paper seeks to address this problem by enacting Alfred Whitehead's process philosophy, informed by Gilles Deleuze, Isabelle Stengers and Steve Shaviro and work it through several examples of recent manifestations of interactive media art, including work by Martin Wattenberg, Dennis Del Favero, Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel. I work Whitehead's process philosophy through these artworks to illustrate the performative nature of software processes and the manner in which these processes affect the aesthetics of interaction. I also use these works to illustrate a concept of interaction that privileges process and events rather than a concept that focuses upon an individual human user. In this paper I propose to view the 'user' as a set of occasions – as a particular condition that is produced by various user-initiated actions – rather than an enduring subject that is able to distance herself from the object of aesthetic contemplation. By doing this I move toward a theory in which user-occasions, machine-occasions and their interpenetration actualise the aesthetics of media art. Whitehead allows me to think outside of the binary oppositions that divide the world into knower/known or subject/object relationships. Throughout the argument I unpack Whiteheadian concepts such as actual entities, the unison of immediate becoming and, in general, the primacy of the event, bringing these concepts to bear on individual case studies of interactive media art. Whitehead's general thesis is that materiality and permanence are created by a continual process. Viewing the digital encounter through this theoretical framework I position the aesthetic experience of interaction as that which emerges from the fluctuations of process. The event of interaction is a necessarily hybrid process in which human occasions become supplemented by technology and the aesthetic event becomes innately coupled to the processes of the machine. In this paper I am not interested in any notion of consciousness or a psychologised human 'user', rather I am interested in a particular condition that takes place as user-initiated processes work with machine-initiated processes. This is because, for Whitehead, process comes before consciousness; it is the process of actual entities that prompt the consciousness into being. In this paper I thus propose interaction with digital systems as the commingling of contemporary actual occasions, shifting emphasis from a conscious human user and instead focusing on the process of the encounter that precedes this conscious experience. (shrink)

Religion, science, and naturalism -- Perception and religious experience -- Panexperientialism, freedom, and the mind-body relation -- Naturalistic, dipolar theism -- Natural theology based on naturalistic theism -- Evolution, evil, and eschatology -- The two ultimates and the religions -- Religion, morality, and civilization -- Religious language and truth -- Religious knowledge and common sense.

RECENT THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION ON THE TRINITY HAS CONCEIVED THE DIVINE NATURE AS AN INTERPERSONAL PROCESS. WHITEHEADIAN PHILOSOPHY MAY POSSIBLY BE USEFUL HERE. ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT NOT ONLY ACTUAL ENTITIES, BUT LIKEWISE WHITEHEADIAN SOCIETIES POSSESS AN ONTOLOGICAL UNITY AND EXERCISE AN AGENCY PROPER TO THEMSELVES, THEN THE TRINITY MAY BE VIEWED AS A DEMOCRATICALLY ORGANIZED STRUCTURED SOCIETY WITH EACH OF THE DIVINE PERSONS AS A SUBORDINATE PERSONALLY ORDERED SOCIETY OF ACTUAL OCCASIONS.

Using process philosophy, especially its view of nature and its ethic, we develop a process-based environmental ethic embodying minimalism and beneficience. From this perspective, we criticize the philosophy currently underlying public policy and examine some alternative approaches based on phenomenology and ethnomethodology. We conclude that process philosophy, minus its value hierarchy, is a powerful tool capable of supporting both radical and n10derate changes in environmental policy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 119-122 [Access article in PDF] The Lotus Sutra and Process Philosophy Philip E.Devenish Rissho Kosei-kai In 1994, Rissho Kosei-kai began to sponsor an annual summer conference to which international scholars were invited to discuss and explore the Lotus Sutra. Some of the earlier conferences focused on themes such as "The Lotus Sutra and Ethics" and "The Lotus Sutra and Social Responsibility." These conferences (...) have encouraged a more widespread understanding of the Lotus Sutra among Western scholars and, as a result, a greater exposure to the Lotus Sutra on the part of students in the universities where these scholars teach. An additional feature of the conferences is the exposure of these scholars to Rissho Kosei-kai as a significant religious organization in modern Japan.This year's conference involved eleven scholars, six from the United States and five from Japan. It was held at Bandaiso, Rissho Kosei-kai's retreat center, about four hours north ofTokyo by bus. Its theme was"The Lotus Sutra andProcess Thought." Process thought is a kind of philosophical thinking developed primarily in America over the last century that shares certain features with the basic point of view expressed in the Lotus Sutra.The Lotus Sutra is not primarily a philosophical or theological text, but rather a religious one. It focuses less on analyzing reality than on coming to terms with it, responding to it, and also on changing it. However, a religious text always presupposes concepts and ideas that it employs in order to express its intuitions about what is important in life. Professor Gene Reeves, the organizer of this and the previous conferences in the series, has shown in his writings that Lotus Sutra Buddhism shares with process thought several basic commitments. One is to what he calls "a philosophy of integration" of teachings and practices, of people with nature, and of wisdom, compassion, and practice. Another is their shared "philosophy of becoming," according to which everything that exists depends on the basic process of causal relations, which makes it possible for anything at all to exist. Lotus Sutra Buddhism and process philosophy also agree that all individual realities exhibit a basic character of creativity and that creativity characterizes ultimate reality, whether this is understood in some sense as "the Buddha" or as "God." Moreover, both movements teach the possibility of religious salvation for all people as well as an ethics grounded in universal respect and compassion.Many of the participants in the conference expressed their conviction that process [End Page 119] thought, as it is developed particularly in the writings of the philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), Charles Hartshorne (b. 1897), and John Dewey (1859-1952), provides an especially clear and rich articulation of these themes and that Lotus Sutra Buddhists have much to gain from the study of this philosophy. At the same time, there was equally deep appreciation for the type of Lotus Sutra Buddhism given social and religious expression in Rissho Kosei-kai and, in particular, for its stress on the practice of "appropriate" or "skillful" means (upaya).Professor Joseph Grange, of the University of Southern Maine, drew attention to the overall consonance of the Lotus Sutra and Whitehead's later writings in overcoming dualism in thought and life. Professor Steve Odin, of the University of Hawai'i, discussed the ways both Lotus Sutra Buddhism and Whitehead formulate an interrelational vision of reality wherein each event is a microcosmic reflection of a macrocosmic whole, especially in the doctrine of the Lotus Sutra tradition of ichinen sanzen, or "three thousand realms in one thought." The present author, an independent scholar, focused on the convergence of the two movements of thought in the religious and ethical notions of peace and compassion.Professor Yoshitaka Goh, of the Japan Biblical Seminary, stressed the specifically historical character of human salvation, in which the past shapes the possibilities for our lives in the present. Professor Warren Frisina, from Hofstra University, New York, analyzed the relations between knowledge and action in the Lotus Sutra and the thought of John Dewey, showing that each... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop a Christian doctrine of the Incarnation in the light of a process philosophy of the type expounded by A. N. Whitehead and E. S. Brightman. Rather than offer at this time a detailed defence either of the idea of incarnation or of process philosophy, I wish to show that the two can be coherently related in such a way that each receives a greater degree of completion and clarity. (...) Of course risks are unavoidable in any attempt to make Athens and Jerusalem respond to one another. But the risks and losses would be even greater if the way of isolation and of mutually ignoring one another were accepted. (shrink)

The virtuous character and the ethical agent represent mutually inclusive terms, neither of which independently, in the Aristotelian tradition, is considered an innate quality. Virtues, if not innate, are contingent; but what makes each instantiation recognisably general? Normative ethics in this sense is a dynamic process and similarly process philosophy is based on the principle that existence is dynamic and that it should be the primary focus of any philosophical account of reality. I argue that the transformative (...) process is equally as important as the end result of realising the virtuous dispositional traits. An important criticism of virtue ethics is the focus on character and not rules such as industry practices and codes found in the professions. The criticism however is less worrisome than usually accepted. The reasoning herein developed to overcome this criticism rests on the presupposition that no one exists in isolation and virtues are developed in a social context and not simply given. Using process philosophy as a methodological approach to examine virtue ethical agency and the transformative process involved in its realisation elicits insights that allow the conceptual development of a more robust account of virtue ethics. I extend this nuanced rendition, in ways already commenced by others, into areas of organisational, environmental and intergenerational ethics. (shrink)

To combat the ecological crisis, fundamental change is required in how humans perceive nature. This paper proposes that the human-nature bifurcation, a metaphysical mental model that is deeply entrenched and may be environmentally unsound, stems from embodied and tacitly-held substance-biased belief systems. Process philosophy can aid us, among other things, in providing an alternative framework for reinterpreting this bifurcation by drawing an ontological bridge between humans and nature, thus providing a coherent philosophical basis for sustainable dwelling and policy-making. (...) Michael Polanyi's epistemology can further help us understand these environmentally-oriented tacit processes of knowing, and also provide a basis for the political and educational implementation of process-philosophical insights, particularly via the nudging of mental models. (shrink)