Andrew Davis
Rolla,
Love these! Thank you for sharing. You may know that Whitehead read the romantic nature poets religiously and found their intuitions of a nature suffused with value fully agreeable. Here’s some of my own poems from throughout the years…years becoming and perishing and living on:
https://www.andrewmdavis.info/poems
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Charles,
Thanks for bring out some clear resonances between Whitehead and Schelling. Good work is being done on both thinkers in this way. I think in particular of Matt Segall’s work in Physics of the World-Soul which uses Whitehead and Schelling as a philosophical base. Segall also has a forthcoming book titled Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead . The expansive work of Iain McGilchrist is also deeply indebted to both Whitehead and Schelling. His recent work in the two volume opus The Matter With Things is truly amazing–and right up your alley!
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Gardiner, a great post demonstrating your progression of thought via some direct quotes. I’m with you as regards “exceptional exemplification.” This is another way of naming God as “chief exemplification.” As Hosinski and Whitehead state, God is to be understood analogically with other events, but even analogues allow for uniqueness. I love in particular the last Hosinski quote you cite.
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Jace, a fantastic post–itself an “epochal wave.” I’m curious as to what you think the most consistent move is with respect to the debate between God as a single and everlasting, non-perishable event (as in Whitehead) or a everlasting series of divine events (as argued by Hartshorne, Griffin and others).
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Great resources provided here friends, thank you.
A.H. Johnson also produced several great texts that are (unfortunately) hard to find. Charles mentioned Whitehead’s Theory of Reality, which is excellent, but I would also encourage all to read Whitehead’s Philosophy of Civilization. In the optional reading for our last session, I’ve include a chapter from this great text. Johnson also produced a book of Whitehead quotes on various topics titled The Wisdom and Wit of Whitehead. It’s hard to find, but a gem–and could be expanded greatly (a project I may endeavor at some point). Lastly, as Eric rightly mentioned, Johnson was close to Whitehead as a student and spent much time digesting his thought. See especially his interview titled “Some Conversations with Whitehead on God and Creativity.”
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Friends,
This is beautifully deep conversation and truly captures the reason for the discussion forum. Just a few thoughts from me. On Power and Love: If any of you are in Sonoma County this weekend, I’d love for you to join the “Power and the God of Love” conference, which I’ve organized with Tom Oord. We will be addressing the constellation of questions you’ve raised here in this post, and hear from a variety of process-open-relational perspectives. Here is the link:
One the major criticisms of process-open-relational thought is that while the problem of evil may be “solved” (admittedly, not my claim. I would instead speak of the problem being “greatly lessened”) in the near-term since God is persuasive and never coercive, deeper doubt is necessarily cast on the eschaton, and the ultimate end of evil. Much has been written on this, but more needs to as well. See Majorie Suchocki’s landmark text, The End of Evil and Joseph Bracken excellent edited volume, World Without End: Christian Eschatology from a Process Perspective. Both are great resources. It is my conviction, that process thought needs to undergird eschatological hope to truly take hold among a wider Christian public. Whitehead has an eschaton (at the end of PR) the elements of which some of you have pointed to, but it is “realized eschatology” that is happening moment by moment within God.
A final thought regarding criticisms of Whitehead’s approach to theodicy. Some has argued anew that Whitehead’s God is not Good and in fact that there is a “dark side” to his God. I completely disagree. Whitehead is very clear that God is to be understood in terms of goodness, but that goodness works with the world as it is to bring it to where it can be. The “dark side” is not a part of God, but a part of the conditions of existence as such. I’ll be defending the goodness of Whitehead’s God in the upcoming International Whitehead Conference in Germany.
Again, great, great conversation.
Dr. Davis
Thanks Thomas!
I’ll add one more for now:
FHL – “Fist Harvard Lecture”
Dr. Davis
Good question, Elizabeth! The struggle may be due to the way in which the chapter was scanned. I hope you’ve found a solution!
Dr. Davis
Friends,
It’s hard to add further to Kent’s comments. Feel free to pursue your interests in light of the readings and the various questions brought up during out time together. Think of it not as a burden, but an opportunity to digest the material in ways suitable to you. Of course, if you do quote, please do cite.
Looking forward,
Dr. Davis
Great post, Kent!
I agree with much that Charles has written in response and I would point you to Whitehead’s sustained treatment of these transcendentals (and more) in his book Adventures of Ideas. Ultimately, they are not isolatable and are woven into the life of God as “poet of the world…leading it by his vision of truth, beauty and goodness.” Usefulness or utility certainly has its value, but its value is not upmost, nor intrinsic in nature. How we approach utility in light of the reality of intrinsic values is an eminently ethical/moral affair. Recall that Whitehead agrees with you as to the the preeminence of Beauty. Aesthetic value is the widest and most inclusive form of value that is applicable to the universe. It is this that allows Whitehead to say that “the moral order is merely certain aspects of the aesthetic order” realized in human life. For a valuable treatment of the transcendental in an evolutionarily cosmos, see the chapter by Steve Macintosh in the optional reading (he’s deeply indebted to Whitehead too). He speaks of “value gravity”–which I like.
Best,
Dr. Davis
Ben,
A great post, and I’m glad the reading has been helpful. In short, you are thinking in the right direction with respect to “providence.” All the metaphysical ingredients are in place for a development of “soft providence” as you say (I like that name by the way). Whitehead in fact spoke of “particular providence for particular occasions” at the end of Process and Reality and process theologians have developed this in important ways (eg, see Marjorie Suchockie’s book God-Christ-Church). I also liked your language of “metaphysical guardrails” which is certainly a part of Whitehead’s understanding of God’s function as “limiting” infinite abstract possibility (providentially) so that something of value can actually emerge. Whitehead is rather explicit about this. God and providence in Whitehead would be a great paper (if you are writing one).
Cheers,
Dr. Davis
Thomas,
Thanks for following up on this question. You are right to complicate this discussion and I agree that there is not any easy bridge from E=mc2 and eternal objects. I will likely adjust these statements in the book. You’ll notice that I have not given any attention to “propositions” either, which is a weakness, certainly; but I continue to struggle with what’s appropriate for an introductory text. I’m re-reading PR now and have just arrived at the chapter on “propositions.”
Thanks for the help.
Dr. Davis
Charles,
You are really speaking my language, here. I’ve appreciated Weinberg’s work throughout the years, but was always puzzled by his fundamentally tragic view of the human condition (which he did not hide). One of the main reasons I was puzzled was due to his clear intuition of the aesthetic sense of nature and experience. Consider his recent statement from one of his last book’s: To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science, 14:
“There remains a poetic element in modern physics. We do not write in poetry; much of the writing of physicists barely reaches the level of prose. But we seek beauty in our theories, and use aesthetic judgments as a guide in our research. Some of us think this works because we have been trained by centuries of success and failure in physics research to anticipate certain aspects of the laws of nature, and through this experience we have come to feel that these features of nature’s laws are beautiful. But we do not take the beauty of a theory as convincing evidence of its truth.”
Why not extend this aesthetic experiential sense all the way down in nature? He has suggested this with respect to beautiful colors, birds, and sounds, etc. but he ultimately explains it away through his own reductive understanding of evolution as oriented (purely?) toward survival and not value. Extending experience all the way down would witness not only to Whitehead’s “panexperientialsim” but also to his “pan-valuism.” They are part and parcel of each other and essential to overcoming Weinberg’s ultimate nihilism. There remains a book to be written on Whitehead and Weinberg–a dialogue perhaps.
Dr. Davis
Charles,
Yes, absolutely. Completely agree. Applied to religious pluralism as Griffin/Cobb have espoused, multiple ultimates allow one to say that differing religious systems can grasp something of ultimacy that is really there in the nature of things, but also that they do not grasp the *whole* of ultimacy. To the extent they believe they have grasped the whole of ultimacy, they have fallen into the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. While I don’t recall seeing this “fallacy” overtly applied to discussions of ultimacy and religious pluralism, I think it should. Roland Faber’s work is an exception, however. His “polyphilic pluralism” assumes such a framework precisely because the true ultimate of ultimates in Whitehead is “mutual immanence”–indeed, a gestaltic ultimacy of relationality.
I wonder what you think about this?
Dr. Davis
Leslie,
A great initial post generating some valuable responses. My thought immediately went to Whitehead’s refrain which Thomas cited: “The many become one and are increased by one” and how this might be applied in the ways you mention. This is a great paper topic too: Whiteheadian organizational leadership. I’ve decided that I will be added a fourth chapter to part I of Whitehead’s Universe which focuses on “togetherness” and the different ways in which one and many mutually relate. Extending this to the workplace and society in general is natural. As was indicated above, Whitehead applies “individual” and “society” metaphysically such that we can generalize in very fruitful ways to our own social contexts.
Looking forward to the paper.
Dr. Davis