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Greetings! My name is Hyatt Carter and I'm your host. On this website you will find essays about process philosophy,
To access the Process Philosophy section, click on the button above. As I add them, you will also find a variety of essays on other
topics
New: Why Can’t a Repub Be More Like a Dem? A new song and dance by Lerner, Loewe, and Carter New Essay:
The Gospel of John: It was only a few weeks ago that I was astonished to learn, for the first time, of the amazing artistry and craftsmanship that the Beloved Disciple lavished on the composition of the Fourth Gospel. Not only are there, throughout John’s Gospel, many chiasmic units nested one within the other, but the book itself, as a whole, is a complex interlocking chiasmus that goes so far beyond the ordinary sense of chiasmus that it must be called a meta-chiasmus. Such consummate artistry suggests a level of inspiration that, in itself, inspires wonder. The structure of the Gospel of John is of such elegance, and such depth, that it seems, indeed, to be a miracle of composition. A Essay in Six Parts:
Chiasmus,
Chaosmos, Chirality, and Complementarity:
Part
One Appendix
One Chiasmus is a rhetorical figure, a linguistic twist or turn that you can use to express a crosswise mode of thought. Chiasmus (ky-AZ-mus) means “a crossing”—from the Greek letter chi, X, a cross. You “cross” the terms of one clause by reversing their order in the next. President John Kennedy made good use of this figure in a famous speech when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” In this essay I extend the idea of chiasmus beyond its rhetorical use and pursue a philosophical exploration that traces its connections with the kindred ideas of chaosmos, chirality, and complementarity. And introducing for the first time . . . the Chiasmic Christ.
Unbeknownst to
some, early in the twentieth century, there was a revolution in metaphysics and
religious thought quite as radical as that in physics. That revolution continues
to unfold with novel implications. This essay critiques some of the ideas of
Religious Science in light of this revolution, especially in terms of Process
Philosophy.
Announcing the publication Thinking Is the Best Way to
Travel:
The adventures of ideas
last for a lifetime. Go to the bottom of this page to see Front Cover of book:
Click on the buttons at the top of this
page to read:
To order from the publisher, call the toll free Book Order Hotline: 888-280-7715 To order a signed copy, contact me: hyattcarter@aol.com Cost: $18.95 + (S & H)
The Moody Blues sing And you can fly
Hyatt Carter I welcome emails at: HyattCarter@aol.com
Note: another new book, The Unity of Being by Charles Hartshorne, edited by Randall Auxier and Hyatt Carter, is forthcoming from Open Court. This is Hartshorne’s Harvard dissertation, presented in 1923 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The picture of the Earth on my Front Cover is the NASA photo known as The Blue Marble. * *
* Readers Comments about
For an appreciation of my book, by the Scottish scholar and scientist David Spooner, please visit the following site: http://members.authorsguild.net/davidspooner/sb/page.php?ID=74513 Here is the first paragraph: The remarkable Hyatt Carter has now shared stations along the way of his intellectual experiences in his Thinking is the Best Way to Travel: Essays along the Journey. With the bedrock of his intellect in Alfred North Whitehead, he makes continual leaps of the imagination via the writings of Ken Wilber and Charles Hartshorne among many others. Carter is that rare creature, an independent polymath, the scarcity of which in the epoch of specialization has severely scarred contemporary life. There are dabblers aplenty and no lack of what ordinary folk title “clever dicks,” but the polymath in full flow is an exciting phenomenon. *** I was pleased to find that UPS had left Thinking Is the Best Way to Travel on my doorstep yesterday. I have started reading it, not front-to-back but in a more random fashion, and will pass along my first impressions. Of course, I recognize many of the themes and ideas from your website. Still, it’s much more satisfying to have them presented in a book that one can kick back with. I was impressed with the production values of your publisher. The binding is good and the layout is attractive. The best thing about the book is that it is enjoyable to read. It proceeds at a measured pace, without tight, convoluted thinking that one has to fight his way through. I like the cadence; it has a nice pace and rhythm. Also, the fact that the chapters are disjoint is good for a person like myself who likes skipping around. You are in fact an excellent writer. I have discovered some of my favorite topics—flow, logic and Zen—and also discovered several new things, mostly of a religious nature or miscellaneous biographical details. Thanks for creating such an interesting book. It gives one the sense of a life spent in thoughtful reading and reflection. I envy you the clarity of your vision. As a would-be phenomenologist, I appreciate the value of personal perspective as our primary unique contribution to this world. Unfortunately, my perspectives never crystallize into something as coherent as yours. W. M., Huntsville, Alabama *** Just a brief note to tell you how much I appreciated your book. It is intelligent and very thought provoking. Reading it did become a “journey”—with several “detours” into some of supplementary work you mention. Others I still hope to explore. My hope is that you will continue to share resources—books, forums, workshops, etc. I truly value your input as I continue alone my spiritual path. D. O., Monrovia, California *** I liken your book to God’s luring us along often surprising and unexpected paths to better destinations than we had dreamed of. You do that with your readers—I suppose especially for those who have no background in process thought. I even liken your book to what I felt when I first stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and felt a grandeur that I couldn’t well express, or perhaps understand. At any rate, your Thinking Is the Best Way to Travel is wonder-full. May it sell well, in addition to enlightening much for many! C. A. A., Spring Hill, Florida *** The day I received your book I sat down and browsed for a
considerable time in your Ken Wilber essay about the Four Quadrants. I recalled
that your essay [which you showed to me when you first wrote it] was more
understandable for me than Wilber’s writings himself. So it was fun to jump into
it again, though I confess I didn’t read it start to finish just yet. I just
sampled here and there and everywhere. I surely do not know the proper words (if there are any) to describe the grand feeling of “well-being” that I have experienced after reading your “work of art”; this book also gives the reader a renewed feeling of hope, realizing that there are a few thinkers yet on our planet who can see things straight and have the ability and the courage to share their blessing with us. To praise your book after having read it, what came to my mind is that: we have not read a book until we have read this book. I will be ready shortly to read this masterpiece a second time, and assimilate it more deeply. My daughter Cornelia from Toronto will visit me this coming September, she has a superb mind, I have chosen her to receive the additional book I obtained from you. Congratulations, Mr. Carter, for your great work and great achievement. F. S. P., Los Angeles, California Some readers of this review may know Hyatt Carter as the creator of that wonderful website dedicated to the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Alas, that site is no more, but more than 100 pages of the best material from it are in this book. Here you have a painless introduction into this revolutionary new view of the world which is congruent with quantum physics and much more. But that covers only a third of this book of essays which sees the world from a unitary and creative perspective and life as an ongoing adventure. Those who know something of New Thought will be intrigued by Carter’s revision of Religion Science which takes it out of the era of Newton into the era of Einstein, without sacrificing its value and impact. I think Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religion Science, would be pleased. So if you want to travel with a companion who can tell you about Goethe’s way of discovery, which you can apply; Ken Wilber’s model of reality, which has practical aspects for our life; the way of Flow, ditto on the practical; juggling as a metaphor for life, and so much more, this book is it. But don’t kid yourself. If you want all this to take, to become part of your character, you’ll need to continue your travels with the many wonderful books quoted and listed here. B. H., Lviv, Ukraine *** |
