Alexandra McGee
Hello Dennis and Joshua-
I’ve now been reading more of Jorge ferrer’s participatory perspective. I’m hoping to write a paper about his Idea of ontologically real processes of relationship with spiritual entities. That sounds a lot. Like an application of James’s pluralities and whiteheads concrescience to the multiplicity of spiritual traditions and practices in the world. I think Ferrer could accept the understanding of eternal objects, but they would not be as specific as Jung’s archetypes, which Ferrer mentions are too specific to be real for every religious view. So taking in Ferrer’s I take back my idea that Jung’s archetypes could be eternal objects. Though I do think that some of their basic qualities could be eternal objects.
Anyway, as Matt likes to remind us, this is speculative philosophy. Ferrer calls anything outside of human Experience as coming from the Mystery. He purposely is vague about what that might be, as is William, James, and Whitehead. I appreciate that humility and am trying to learn from it.Hi Dennis,
Since Joshua didn’t respond to your comment about Hillman, I thought I would add actuiught.
I have studied a bit of Hillman’s archetypal psychology and I love it. I’m guessing that in Whitehead’s cosmology archetypes are eternal objects in their most basic form. Carl Jung also has this opinion. And then every culture perceives the archetypes slightly differently according to their cultural values and practices. So I happily integrate Hillman’s psychology with Whitehead’s philosophy. I see Psychotherapy as a practical expression of care, found in our Western culture, that can cradle concresient experiences in both the client and the therapist. But I am curious what difference you noticed that you are talking about, as I could be missing something!Thank you for this discussion.
In my use of the whiteheadian philosophy, which at this point I am all in with, in therapy with clients, I use his construct that every moment is a new actual occasion. This means I don’t have to be sure that next year I will agree with Whitehead, rather I can keep making that choice every moment and it may become a habit, but I am still open to a new possibility, changes something. And I think Whitehead would say, “as you should”!Thank you All for these deep thoughts and thank you Joshua for this detailed explanation. I think if there isn’t an article already on this, you have the basis for anacademic article that would be very helpful.
I have copied it into a document so that I can reference you as a personal communication in my final paper of my origins of transpersonal psychology class at CIIS.Thank you Chris,
I am very interested to read this article.
I think if Whitehead can be used to understand indigenous relational ontology and epistemology, This then might turn around and educate the Western World on what’s missing from their materialist, substance cosmology. Sneaky! 😏Hi Christie,
Your summary of the three assumptions in process philosophy makes sense to me.
The Wonder Journal sounds like a beautiful addition to a school day.🙂Thank you all for this post and replies.
Joshua, I have a question: you wrote, “Thus ideas like the good, or justice are actual real possibilities and not just something a single human might just make up one day.” Does God lure us toward these possibilities? I have understood Matt to say that beauty and complexity and intensity are the main goals of God’s creativity. Am I right to include Good and Justice and I think Matt says love as sub sub possibilities under beauty? And the main point of my question is does this mean they are not intrinsic in the ontology of God, but God does have a teleology towards these possibilities, according to Whitehead.?Hi Montgomery,
I appreciate your mention of “. A better translation of God’s self-revealed name, ‘Yahweh,’ would be ‘My-Name-is-the-Sound-of-Human Breathe.’ ‘El Shaddai’ translates into the “Many-Breasted One.’” I had a blast went in my conservative women’s Bible study. The leader mentioned the first name of breath and said that Lord is a bit mistaken as a translation. And then in my inclusive church Sunday sermon the pastor went on about the many breasted one. So Christians are beginning to notice the empire intrusions in our theology.
Bill and Chris, thank you for clarifying a bit about God’s role in concresens. I think I still saw it as a creation, but I think I understand you saying that we come forth from the pretensions every moment changing, but it isn’t that God actually creates us. Is there any sense that the ground of creativity creates us? Or is it just that because creativity is the ground it’s spontaneously has that activity? And my final question is: is God still personal in Whiteheads cosmology? I think he is, in that he lures or I like a more contemporary word: woos us. But if I have understood Matt correctly and other writings, God is also developing alongside with us through Evolution.Hello Enrique and Chris,
Also, I believe that Whitehead holds to William James’s idea that God is finite as well. And he is the creator of all the other entities in the universe. I’m not sure if Whitehead adds the idea of humans being co-creators or if that comes later with Ferrernd others?🙃
Thanks Joshua,
I appreciate the support in my thinking processes. A book I am recently reading has been helpful in making this application: Toward process approach in Psychology (2022) by Paul van Geert University of Groningen Naomi de Ruiter University of Groningen. Cambridge University press.Wow, very cool Bill. You have done a lot of work with Archetypes! I dont remember that story of Dionysus, but it has been a long time since I read those stories intently. (About 45-50 years!). I appreciate that. Dionysus has helped you to live in the present moment and root yourselves in a practical engagement with the world.
As a helper of man, I gladly supported my husband during his first career and raised my children. Now in the afternoon of life and my husband having a career that doesn’t particularly need my support, I am afforded the opportunity to maybe be a helper to all mankind through research. Research. I’m hoping that through research and then teaching I can affect the trajectory of many Odysseus like people who are trying to get home, I mean other therapists who are trying to be the best leaders they can be in their field..🙂
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Thank you Joshua for defining “transmission of feelings” in a practical way. That confirms a lot of what I see as the useful application of Whitehead’s philosophy to my life and for my clients. I will look more into this wording – I have been researching “intersubjectivity”- but there is not quite enough depth to that word.
Bill- I also love to romp with Aslan. Although there is a little bit of misogyny and racism here and there, it isn’t all-prevalent as there are global majority heroes and heroines as well as villains. But yes, I have feeling that spurs me to action, to play, reading these posts and readings and watching videos, just as much as I do when reading Narnia. 🙂 I wrote an MA in Humanities thesis titled, “To Live or To Love: A Discussion of the Heroes Goal in the Science Fiction of C.S. Lewis and Ursula K. Le Guin” (approximately)… in that MA I became a postmodernist. In my Counseling Psychology MA I became a metamodernist and found that you could have both! I love how Whitehead’s idea of Beauty and Complexity and Intensity and the way time is just moment by moment, not determined – begins to answer so many questions around monism, pluralism, theodicy, love, and life. I’m wondering if the movie makers of “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” had some influence from Whitehead?