Saturday, June 24, 2023

Andrew M. Davis - 10 Ideas in Whiteheadian Thought

"We Put Process Philosophy to Work"
Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr


IDEAS IN PROCESS
10 Whiteheadian Transitions

Partners in Process, on Tuesday, August 23, 10 am PDT, Andrew Davis will share with John Cobb & Friends Ideas in Process–Ten Whiteheadian Transitions.

Dr. Davis, Program Director of the Center for Process Studies, is sharing a presentation he made for Tom Oord’s ORTCON conference in July.

Andrew M. Davis is a philosopher, theologian, and scholar of world religions. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Theology, an M.A. in Interreligious Studies, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Process Philosophy from Claremont School of Theology (CST).

He is a poet, aphorist, and author or editor of four books including How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere: An Anthology of Spiritual Memoirs (2018, with Philip Clayton); Propositions in the Making: Experiments in a Whiteheadian Laboratory (2019, with Roland Faber and Michael Halewood); Depths as Yet Unspoken: Whiteheadian Excursions in Mysticism, Multiplicity, and Divinity (2020, with Roland Faber); and Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (Lexington, Nominated for the International Society of Science and Religion 2022 Book Prize).

For more about Andrew’s work and research interests, visit his website at andrew davis.

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TITLES BY ANDREW M. DAVIS


$8.49

How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere captures for a general audience the spiritual shift away from a God “up there” and “out there” and towards an immanent divine right here. It’s built around the personal journeys of a close-knit group of prominent contributors. Their spiritual visions of immanence, sometimes called “panentheism,” are serving as a path of spiritual return for a growing number of seekers today. Contributors include Deepak Chopra, Richard Rohr, Rupert Sheldrake, Matthew Fox, and Cynthia Bourgeault.

$38.00

Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy is an investigation into the nature of ultimacy and explanation, particularly as it relates to the status of, and relationship among Mind, Value, and the Cosmos. It draws its stimulus from longstanding “axianoetic” convictions as to the ultimate status of Mind and Value in the western tradition of philosophical theology, and chiefly from the influential modern proposals of A.N. Whitehead, Keith Ward, and John Leslie. What emerges is a relational theory of ultimacy wherein Mind and Value, Possibility and Actuality, God and the World are revealed as “ultimate” only in virtue of their relationality. The ultimacy of relationality—what Whitehead calls “mutual immanence”—uniquely illuminates enduring mysteries surrounding: any and all existence, necessary divine existence, the nature of the possible, and the world as actual. As such, it casts fresh light upon the whence and why of God, the World, and their ultimate presuppositions.

Propositions in the Making: Experiments in a Whiteheadian Laboratory (Contemporary Whitehead Studies) Nov 13, 2019
by Roland Faber, Michael Halewood, Andrew M. Davis, James Burton, Brianne Donaldson, Diego Gil, Susanne Valerie Granzer, Matthew Goulish, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, Andrew Murphie, Timothy Murphy, AJ Nocek
$90.48

How do we make ourselves a Whiteheadian proposition? This question exposes the multivalent connections between postmodern thought and Whitehead’s philosophy, with particular attention to his understanding of propositions.

Edited by Roland Faber, Michael Halewood, and Andrew M. Davis, Propositions in the Making articulates the newest reaches of Whiteheadian propositions for a postmodern world. It does so by activating interdisciplinary lures of feeling, living, and co-creating the world anew. Rather than a “logical assertion,” Whitehead described a proposition as a “lure for feeling” for a collectivity to come. It cannot be reduced to the verbal content of logical justifications, but rather the feeling content of aesthetic valuations. In creatively expressing these propositions in wide relevance to existential, ethical, educational, theological, aesthetic, technological, and societal concerns, the contributors to this volume enact nothing short of “a Whiteheadian Laboratory.”

Process Cosmology: New Integrations in Science and Philosophy (Palgrave Perspectives on Process Philosophy) Dec 13, 2021
by Andrew M. Davis, Maria-Teresa Teixeira, Wm. Andrew Schwartz
$100.87

This book newly articulates the international and interdisciplinary reach of Whitehead’s organic process cosmology for a variety of topics across science and philosophy, and in dialogue with a variety historical and contemporary voices. Integrating Whitehead’s thought with the insights of Bergson, James, Pierce, Merleau-Ponty, Descola, Fuchs, Hofmann, Grof and many others, contributors from around the world reveal the relevance of process philosophy to physics, cosmology, astrobiology, ecology, metaphysics, aesthetics, psychedelics, and religion. A global collection, this book expresses multivocal possibilities for the development of process cosmology after Whitehead.

Nature in Process: Organic Proposals in Philosophy, Society, and Religion Feb 28, 2022
by Andrew M. Davis, Maria-Teresa Teixeira, Wm. Andrew Schwartz
Paperback
$24.00
More Buying Choices
$23.80 (10 Used & New offers)





by Roland Faber, Andrew M Davis
Hardcover - $62.00
More Buying Choices - $50.86 (10 Used & New offers)
Paperback - $34.92
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0:27 / 59:28
Ideas in Process: Ten Whiteheadian Transitions
by Dr. Andrew Davis |  Cobb Institute
September

Sep 6, 2022Presenter: Andrew Davis Recording Date: August 23, 2022 Introduction: 00:00:00 - 00:02:35 Presentation: 00:02:36 - 00:59:28

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COMMENTARY by LISTENERS


From María Guadalupe Llanes to Everyone 01:02 PM
hi Jay. 😊

From Meijun/CPS & IPDC to Everyone 01:04 PM
hi prof. gunna, glad to see you here.

From Thomas Jay Oord to Me (Direct Message) 01:05 PM
Good to "see" you, Russ!

From Russ Slater to Thomas Jay Oord (Direct Message) 01:05 PM
You too Tom!

From Richard Livingston / Cobb Institute to Everyone 01:11 PM
Check out our full vision statement with 14 transformations here: https://cobb.institute/about/

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 01:16 PM
So serious as a young man! Who knew Norm McDonald is such a deep thinker?!

From dennis hargiss to Everyone 01:22 PM
Nietzsche considered such abstract thought and “the emptiest concepts” as “the last smoke of evaporating reality.”

From dennis hargiss to Everyone 01:50 PM
Cf. Gregory of Nyssa’s notion of Epektasis (the doctrine of unceasing evolution in eternal happiness and the unceasing love of God).

From Ronald Hines to Everyone 01:51 PM
We’ll follow your chat comments and “raised hands" to carry forward a conversation in response to Andrew’s presentation.

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:06 PM
Beautiful Andrew!! So compelling!

From Mary Elizabeth Moore to Everyone 02:07 PM
Andrew, that was an exceptional presentation. Thank you!

From Howard Pepper to Everyone 02:07 PM
Great presentation... organization and concepts, etc.

From Douglas Tooley to Everyone 02:07 PM
A waterfall of verbs

From Pates to Everyone 02:07 PM
This was a beautiful presentation! Thank You!

From Ellen Livingston to Everyone 02:07 PM
encouraged

From bruce hanson to Everyone 02:08 PM
You provide a wonderful opening and invitation to a creative life. Many Thanks!

From Al Gephart to Everyone 02:08 PM
Whitehead clarified

From Jeanyne Slettom/Process Century Press to Everyone 02:08 PM
brilliant

From Lupe to Everyone 02:08 PM
great presentation! thank you!

From Eliyas Reddy Kasu to Everyone 02:08 PM
Presentation is Creative and definitely Novelty has burst forth

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:08 PM
Inspiring!

From Betty Hale to Everyone 02:08 PM
beautiful

From marcus ford to Everyone 02:08 PM
Andrew, thank you so much for this stimulating presentation

From Timothy Eastman to Everyone 02:08 PM
A brilliant summary of key process concepts - congratulations! An enhancement of possibility for all!

From Daryl Anderson to Everyone 02:08 PM
eye-opening thoughts on christianty

From Michael Witmer to Everyone 02:08 PM
Advance to decadence in the realm of aging

From dennis hargiss to Everyone 02:08 PM
Inspiring! 💓

From John Fahey / Claremont CA USA to Everyone 02:08 PM
Andrew makes Whitehead accessible

From Rolla Lewis to Everyone 02:08 PM
Great presentation. Fantastic references. Can we have them? Thank you.

From Bill McClellan to Everyone 02:08 PM
Andrew has polished the jewel, the facets shine

From George Strawn to Everyone 02:08 PM
Excellent

From David Stoney to Everyone 02:08 PM
Marvelous coalescence

From Jeff Brockman to Everyone 02:08 PM
Summary

From Zhihe Wang -IPDC to Everyone 02:08 PM
Terrific lecture !

From Richard Saville-Smith to Everyone 02:08 PM
basileau du thou

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:09 PM
With a great future ahead of him!!

From John Pohl to Everyone 02:09 PM
Thank you for the wonderful lecture.

From iPhone to Everyone 02:10 PM
I appreciate the idea of creativity in this context, and find it motivating both philosophically and artistically.

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:11 PM
I'd love to hear more about what the evidence is saying may be true, other than the Big Bang.

From Pates to Everyone 02:12 PM
Is this lecture and power pt going to be available somewhere? Thanks.

From Ronald Hines to Everyone 02:16 PM
Today’s presentation will be accessible in our "meeting recordings” YouTube channel.

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:16 PM
Great! I'll want to let Doug King take a listen in preparation for our class together!

From Al Gephart to Everyone 02:16 PM
On the surface some of the transitions appear to be value-less. Even creativity and possibilities can be understood as outside of value. How do you see value in the becoming of the universe? Ilia Delio speaks of love as the dynamic lure of evolution / becoming. How do you understand value, in particular love, in the flow of the universe

From Richard Livingston / Cobb Institute to Everyone 02:17 PM
Pates, the recordings of our meetings are typically made available here: 

From Mary Elizabeth Moore to Everyone 02:21 PM
Andrew, do you think Whitehead, in Aims of Education, is bifurcating wisdom and knowledge, as in applying (or doing) knowledge, or something more nuanced?

From Richard Saville-Smith to Everyone 02:24 PM
Andrew, How far do you think of the 10 transitions as manifestation of one state of consciousness or experiential journey?

From Jay McDaniel to Everyone 02:24 PM
John Cobb on Whitehead's Theory of Value:

From Mary Elizabeth Moore to Everyone 02:24 PM
Andrew, I also appreciated your nuances in relation to the transitions from, e.g., coercion and passivity. How do you see the nuances as important to public policy and social-ecological activism, e.g., in relation to ecological or racial justice?

From Betty Hale to Everyone 02:24 PM
I call myself a "pancompassionist" : )

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:25 PM
I like that Betty! Maybe from meaninglessness to value?

From bruce hanson to Everyone 02:29 PM
Brilliant work Andrew! I am particularly struck by the role of solitude in organism. Perhaps the fear and responsibility spurs us forward and provides dynamism? I would love to hear more about the roles of seemingly negative phenomena in the life in process.

From Howard Pepper to Everyone 02:31 PM
We need some new, organic and interconnected structures in our governance processes... from local to national (ultimately international)

From Howard Pepper to Everyone 02:37 PM
... continued from above.... structures OF process... that of informed deliberation with the aim of coming to concensus on solving of all kinds of problems. This is done somewhat here and there already. But there is a distinct "movement" toward this called "deliberative democracy". The core elements of it are involved in the vision expressed at:

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:37 PM
Peace, Harmony, Beauty

From Al Gephart to Everyone 02:39 PM
I just finished The Book of Joy, about the last coming together to the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, and facilitated by someone who describes himself as a secular Jew. A non-theist and a theist affirming joy as a fundamental reality / possibility within all human "becomings”.

From David Stoney to Everyone 02:42 PM
I wonder how appropriate it is to meld the God concept to mental capabilities of the most successful hominid species, Homo erectus? I believe that their radically participatory mode of consciousness integrally interconnected them to the creative heart of the universe, but I’m not at all clear that they would have had a notion of a high God, even if God is indeed the aboriginal source of creativity.

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:43 PM
One of the reasons Whitehead thought God was necessary is that he saw God as ordering possibilities for actualization, making possibilities relevant to each particular moment as it arises. If God is not doing that, what is?

From Eliyas Reddy Kasu to Everyone 02:49 PM
possibilities provided by Creativity?

From Howard Pepper to Everyone 02:55 PM
Cheri, on God as "ordering possibilities..." It does seem we need SOME name or title for that aspect of ultimate oneness. without it, we have pantheism, seems to me.

From Daryl Anderson to Everyone 02:57 PM
To tie Sheri's question to Eliyas's observation... is god not the "force" or source of the ordering of possibilities ?

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:57 PM
Exactly Howard. That function is also interested in every moment's highest good, and so is "personal" in that sense.

From Andrew Davis to Everyone 02:58 PM
Friends, I would love to stay in touch with all of you: andrewmdavis.info

From Johnny to Everyone 02:59 PM
In Unificationism also God is fellow sufferer, with the fundamental impulse to give love and the sorrowful frustration of love not received-and=passed-on.

From Sheri D. Kling to Everyone 02:59 PM
Dennis, I LOVE that little guy!!

From Rolla Lewis to Everyone 02:59 PM
Thank you very much. This was lovely.

From Meijun/CPS & IPDC to Everyone 03:01 PM
Here: Everyone is equal in the face of GOD. In China: All things are equal in the face of Dao.

From Jay McDaniel
Six ways to think about God in Whitehead, offered by the Cobb Institute:

From Timothy Eastman to Everyone 03:02 PM
In my work Untying the Gordian Knot (2020), I hypothesize two fundamental logical orders (indeed, metaphysical orders that underly the 'world’) based on the quantum physics distinction of Boolean logic (of actualization) and non-Boolean logic (of potentia, or possible relations). In turn, as I argues (along with semiotics, systems thought, physics, etc.) here is a route to re-thinking these fundamental questions, and tying in with Whitehead's discussion of aesthetics, values and meaning, inter-being, wholism, etc. This philosophic approach can also be used to re-think the difficult God question. Tim Eastman

From dennis hargiss to Everyone 03:02 PM
What a wonderful presentation! So thankful to be a part of this community! Thank you, Andrew, and thank you all! 🙏🏼

From Russ Slater to Everyone 03:03 PM
Thank you Andrew and all in attendance for their thoughtful comments.


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Whitehead - Process Philosophy + Biology



Whitehead - 
Process Philosophy + Biology


I didn't have time to pursue the google articles below but wanted to list them for those of you who read my past recent articles on process philosophy/theology and biology (most recently the two articles below). The "Related Resources" section are past articles of mine in which Whiteheadian Thought is further distinguished, examined, and expanded for our time.

As philosophic-theology doesn't excite anybody except people like myself trained in theology but not trained in my inherited theology's philosophical basis... I began this very important CHRISTIAN project in 2011 after writing a number of poems (unpublished) and finding I had come to the end of my epistemological foundation. I needed a more up-to-date approach to the postmodern (now metamodern) era I was finding myself in.

More simply, I needed a better philosophical foundation than the one I had inherited by my Westernized (American) BAPTIST faith once founded in Calvinistic Dispensationalist and later to evolve in college and seminary to a Calvinistic Covenant Reformed theology. After years of teaching this strain of enculturated Evangelical Christianity and by happenstance fell into  Evangelical Emergent Christianity (a bible-church form of mainstream progressive Christianity). It left me with a lot of questions and no way to answer them with my present background.

It took some time to understand Emergent Christianity which made the reasonable argument that one's faith in Jesus in nothing but empty if it doesn't also demand works of Jesus across all stratas of society. In past ministries not one aspect of church ministries had not seem by time and effort placed into people and community. And in my 40s I next participated with my public school system, youth sports, and politics from a serving citizen perspective for several decades in addition to church ministries.

But in this newer stream of Christian emphasis of FAITH + WORKS with equal emphasis on each, I also noticed that Reformed Calvinized Covenant theology was unequal to the works of Jesus at hand. Its definition of God and godly faith seemed to fail in all the wrong places. Hence, after some disruption to my existential spirituality and took my next step from personal poetic examination to strategic faith examination.

When I did I found I needed to abandon Calvinism altogether BUT KEEP the Covenant theology I had learned (with or without Reformed theology, whatever that means now-a-days). Thus my historical Baptist roots in Arminianism came to the surface to remove the Cal-Minism (Calvinism+Arminianism) I was taught. Next, Arminianism led quite naturally to a more open and relational faith to which process theology was added later.

This latter I also stumbled across while I was examining Continental philosophical thought. Little to I realize how significant it would become... not as a third Barthian way of Continentalism + Evangelicalsim but a deeply ancient organic philosophy spoke to by many in the past all the way back to ancient civilizations. More recently, we may blame Hegel for unearthing processual thought before he quickly left it to attend to other beliefs and statements in his day.

And then a master mathematician who was interested in the early quantum sciences by the name of Alfred North Whitehead retired from the University of London's Imperial College, and came overseas to America, and was hired by Harvard University at the ripe old age of 63. And for the next six years (68) Whitehead wrote out his treatise of "Process and Reality" among many other tracts and articles. The University of Chicago picked it up in the 1950s under Charles Hartshorne whose student John Cobb and other Generation-2 luminaries brought process thought to universities on the East and West coasts (Clairmont, Drew, Duke, Wilmington, etc).

It was here that I finally found a significant philosophical tradition to re-root my Westernized Christianity based in Hellenistic Platonic thought with all it's corollaries of Augustianism, Aristotilianism, Scholasticism, and Christianized Modernism. I had found an organically open and relational theology on which I might revisualize the God I knew in the bible but had become muddied by nonnatural westernized philsophic-theology.

Hence my deep labor to give to Relevancy22 readers all the tools they will need to continue our present need to once again preach Jesus and to assert a Theology of Love as versus all the other non-loving theologies which have become politically disruptive, eschatologically unhealthy, and foreign to the nature and being of man and nature.

Below are your tools. Use them. Try to understand their flavors and approaches. And ignite the chaff in today's Trumpian churches burning up the chattel that Jesus may be lifted up as a loving God who is deeply present with us, sustaining, burdening, filling us by His Spirit in good and humane ways of loving outreach and community building across all cultures, beliefs, religions, and responsibilities.

Amen,

R.E. Slater
June 24, 2023
*unedited






Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy,[21] which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology.

In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. He wrote the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), with his former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb.


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RELATED RESOURCES


Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe, Part 4 - Andrew Davis' Response to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology











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GOOGLE SEARCH on
Process Philosophy + Biology

 process ontology for biology

The Physiological Society
https://www.physoc.org › magazine-articles › a-proces...
This ontology of things and their properties is articulated at a higher level through the concept of mechanism, the arrangement of things into structures that, ...

A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology

Oxford University Press
https://academic.oup.com › book › chapter
We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We ...
‎Empirical Motivations · ‎Philosophical Payoffs · ‎Biological Consequences

Process Philosophy

Stanford University
https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › process-philosophy
by J Seibt2012Cited by 342 — Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any ...

Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of ...

PhilPapers
https://philpapers.org › archive › NICEFT-3
by DJ Nicholson2018Cited by 312 — A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology. 3. John Dupré and Daniel J. Nicholson. Part II. Metaphysics. 2. Processes and Precipitates.
403 pages

Life As Process and other Issues in the Philosophy of Biology

3-16am.co.uk
https://www.3-16am.co.uk › articles › life-as-process-a...
The process view of life, at least, derives from the fact that everything is more or less connected, ecologically or symbiotically. The unity of science is a ...

A Process Ontology for Biology

The Philosophers' Magazine
https://archive.philosophersmag.com › Blog
John Dupré on the view of living things as deeply intertwined processes. ... Process philosophy of biology has powerful resources for challenging the ...

Process philosophy

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Process_philosophy
Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach in philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as ...

Wheeler and Whitehead: Process Biology ...

National Institutes of Health (.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › ...
by D Sölch2016Cited by 7 — Based on his studies of the behavior of social insects, Wheeler developed a concept of superorganisms that paved the way for a theory of emergent evolution.

Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology | Reviews

University of Notre Dame
https://ndpr.nd.edu › reviews › processes-of-life-essay...
Sep 25, 2012 — John Dupré, Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology, Oxford University Press, 2012, 320pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199691982.
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