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Hi George and Nelson, I’m just across the state line in Takoma Park, MD. I teach courses at George Mason! We should start a little East Coast Washington-area Process meet up thing. -Christie

Hi George, I appreciate this provocative proposition. When I first started reading Process and Reality a couple of years ago, I remember having a lot of trouble keeping up with all of the abstract categories he had developed and was presenting to the reader immediately, with scant examples from real experience – so, as you say, a model. He was elucidating a kind of system or map of categorical (categoreal) concepts pertaining to a metaphysical reality that he had been thinking about and studying for some time. I remember thinking I could never start a book that way and expect readers to continue!

As a science teacher, and science teacher educator, I understand how important it is for students to have actual experiences with reality – real materials in a real context with real bodies (bodying, or becoming) before trying to name particular aspects of that directly-experienced processual experience (the naming of which afterward then becomes an act of abstraction from that experience – inadequate to the fullness of the actual experience). For that reason, I would have appreciated Whitehead starting with stories of his own or other’s experiences before naming the categories. Or perhaps he could have asked the reader to perform some act, like looking out the window or something.

That said, if I turn to my own experience, after now having spent quite a bit of time trying to grasp Whitehead’s elaborate and complex speculative thought, I think I can say that I do experience what I think he is naming an actual entity, as an occasion of our human experience is one example of an actual entity. For example, this morning I stepped on a sharp object poking out of the stairs in my home that made a cut in my foot that hurt and led to some early morning expletives. This was a real thing that happened, and my foot still hurts. This actual occasion, or actual entity will forever be a part of my story, or historic route of human becoming.

I think it is indeed tricky that the only tool in the philosopher’s toolbox is language, and because of that, it is already a representation of reality. Maybe?

I hope this sort of gets at what you are wondering? Thank you for the amazing opportunity to dig into that line of thought.

Thank you for this offering, Mark. Beautiful.

Hi te’a – what a wonderful experience reading your feels. Thank you for sharing the Deligny cinema – I have long wanted to learn more about him and his work! I also come to Whitehead by way of Erin Manning (and her partner Brian Massumi) and I love love love Bayo Akomolafe; his words and storytelling are beautiful notes to hold on to, or waves to ride as we navigate stormy seas. I have also found myself frustrated by the question and answer exchanges so far in these first two sessions – and my take is it has little to do with our levels of, or experiences with, education. I am so glad you are here, and I hope you will stay <3.