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This book collects several essays on diverse aspects of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy. Ranging from comparative and historical studies to explorations of contemporary influence to possibilities for transforming future inquiry, the topics covered here first and foremost point to the relevance of Whitehead’s philosophy for our time. From this core, the essays in this volume highlight a range of issues to which process philosophy speaks profitably. These include philosophical questions surrounding motion, the notion of life, and aesthetics, as well as the conjunction of process philosophy with political science and with neuroscience.
When Reschers Process Metaphysics (1996) was published, it was widely acclaimed as a major step towards the academic recognition of a mode of thought that has otherwise been confined within sharp scholarly boundaries. Of course it is not an easy book: despite its stylistic clarity, it remains the complex outcome of a lifes work in most areas of philosophy. The goal of the present volume is to systematically unfold the vices and virtues of Process Metaphysics, and thereby to specify the contemporary state of affairs in process thought. To do so, the editor has gathered one focused contribution per chapter, each paper addressing specifically and explicitly its assigned chapter and seeking to promote a dialogue with Rescher. In addition, the volume features Reschers replies to the papers.
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.
This is a synoptic, compact, and accessible exposition for readers who want to inform themselves regarding this influential and interesting sector of twentieth-century American philosophy.
Process thought is the foundation for studies in many areas of contemporary philosophy, theology, political theory, educational theory, and the religion-science dialogue. It is derived from Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, known as process theology, which lays a groundwork for integrating evolutionary biology, physics, philosophy of mind, theology, environmental ethics, religious pluralism, education, economics, and more. In Process-Relational Philosophy, C. Robert Mesle breaks down Whitehead's complex writings, providing a simple but accurate introduction to the vision that underlies much of contemporary process philosophy and theology. In doing so, he points to a "way beyond both reductive materialism and the traps of Cartesian dualism by showing reality as a relational process in which minds arise from bodies, in which freedom and creativity are foundational to process, in which the relational power of persuasion is more basic than the unilateral power of coercion." Because process-relational philosophy addresses the deep intuitions of a relational world basic to environmental and global thinking, it is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy, educational theory and practice, environmental ethics, and science and values, among others. Process-Relational Philosophy: A Basic Introduction makes Whitehead's creative vision accessible to all students and general readers.
The Allure of Things: Process and Object in Contemporary Philosophy contests the view that metaphysics is something to be overcome. By focusing on process and object oriented ontology (OOO) and rejecting the privileging of human existence over the existence of non-human objects, this collection explores philosophy's concern with things themselves. Interest in Latour, Stengers, Whitehead, Harman and Meillassoux has prompted a resurgence of ontological questions outside the traditional subject-object framework of modern critical thought. This new collection consequently proposes a pragmatic and pluralist approach to 'modes of existence'. Drawing together an international range of leading scholars, The Allure of Things fully covers the similarities between OOO and process philosophy, and is an essential addition to the literature on metaphysics.
Marx and Whitehead boldly asks us to reconsider capitalism, not merely as an "economic system" but as a fundamentally self-destructive mode that, by its very nature and operation, undermines the cohesive fabric of human existence. Author Anne Fairchild Pomeroy asserts that it is impossible to appreciate fully the impact of Marx's critique of capitalism without understanding the philosophical system that underlies it. Alfred North Whitehead's work is used to forge a systematic link between process philosophy and dialectical materialism via the category of production. Whitehead's process thought brings Marx's philosophical vision into sharper focus. This union provides the grounds for Pomeroy's claim that the heart of Marx's critique of capitalism is fundamentally ontological, and that therefore the necessary condition for genuine human flourishing lies in overcoming the capitalist form of social relations.
This book provides a survey of key process-philosophical approaches that, in conversation with selected concepts across the biological and physical sciences, help us to think about living processes, or ‘lived time,’ at different scales of functioning. The first part is written from an opening perspective on the question of the differing scales of analysis provided by Alfred North Whitehead. In particular, his interest in questions arising from the quantum mechanical reconciliation with classical mechanics informs the first two chapters that address problematic categorizations of life as variously ‘despotic,’ ‘invasive,’ or as primitive (in the radically more-than-human case of micro-organisms), whose potential recategorization relies on our willingness to acknowledge changes in value depending on the scale at which we view them. The second part of the book concerns methodologies, in the light of works by Henri Bergson, whose intertwining concerns with epistemology and ontology in his theories of mind and life serve as a model for a process philosophy of biology. The chapters focus on techniques used across philosophy and the sciences to visualize processes that are otherwise unavailable to us due to the limitations of our perceptual faculties, no matter how sophisticated the tools for analysis, from microscopes to telescopes, have become. This book concludes with a consideration of the relations between parts and wholes in process, panpsychist, and ecological terms. It revisits the question of ecological balance and the place of human activities in relation to it, with reference to works of Charles Hartshorne and William James.
In Whitehead's Radically Temporalist Metaphysics: Recovering the Seriousness of Time, George Allan argues that Whitehead’s introduction of God into his process metaphysics renders his metaphysics incoherent. This notion of God, who is the reason for both stability and progressive change in the world and who is both the infinite source of novel possibilities and the everlasting repository for the finite values, inserts into a reality that is supposedly composed solely of finite entities an entity both infinite and everlasting. By eliminating this notion of God, Allan draws on the temporalist foundation of Whitehead’s views to recover a metaphysics that takes time seriously. By turning to Whitehead’s later writings, Allan shows how this interpretation is developed into an expanded version of the radically temporalist hypothesis, emphasizing the power of finite entities, individually and collectively, to create, sustain, and enhance the dynamic world of which we are a creative part.