Process Thought & Science 2024
July 17, 2024 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm PDT
Applying Process Thought Across the Natural Sciences
This course introduces students to Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy by exploring its relevance to contemporary natural science and cosmology. The facilitator will introduce Whitehead’s way of thinking about the philosophical presuppositions of science. The course also includes sessions with guest lecturers offering examples of Whiteheadian and other process-oriented approaches to physics, biology, neuroscience, and consciousness studies.
In light of his protest against the modern bifurcation of nature into separate physical and psychical domains, the course examines the ways Whitehead’s process-relational ontology allows us to understand the knowledge produced by natural science as compatible with human experience, including the presuppositions of ethical social relations and cultural self-understanding. Whitehead’s “organic realism” makes it possible to re-enchant the world without contradicting the latest scientific findings. In fact, his Philosophy of Organism provides us with one of the most promising means of integrating the increasingly fragmented natural and social sciences into a comprehensive and potentially civilization renewing vision.
Students can expect to gain a basic understanding of Whitehead’s cosmology and the major categories of his metaphysical scheme. Students will be introduced to Whitehead’s novel interpretations of relativity, quantum, evolutionary, and complexity theories, and will become familiar with the usually unspoken metaphysical assumptions underlying contemporary physicalist cosmology. Students will also come to appreciate the importance of overcoming the artificial modern divide between natural science and the humanities.
