Category: Process Philosophy

In 1991 Charles Hartshorne wrote an “Open Letter” to Carl Sagan that was published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Hartshorne’s letter follows in this Post, followed by Sagan’s Reply and Hartshorne’s Reply to Sagan. This is followed in turn by an “Open Letter” to Hartshorne by Yale University professor John. E. Smith and Hartshorne’s… Continue reading Charles Hartshorne’s Open Letter to Carl Sagan

1897, June 5: birth of Charles Hartshorne in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, to Francis Hartshorne, an Episcopal minister, and Marguerite Hartshorne. He had five siblings: an older sister and four younger brothers, two of whom were identical twins. 1909: The family moved to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 28 miles from Philadelphia. 1911-15: attended, from his fourteenth to eighteenth years,… Continue reading Charles Hartshorne Timeline

To discuss how God and the world interact, in Whitehead’s view, it may be helpful to first say a few words about creativity. Creativity is so fundamental an idea in process thought that David Griffin argues that there are two ultimates: God and creativity. Process denies the idea that only God is creative, or that… Continue reading God and the World

The general, or popular, notion of “process” goes back at least as far as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who declared that all things flow, and who came up with an analogy so memorable that it has become part of our common vocabulary: you can’t step into the same river twice. Process philosophy, however, as conceived… Continue reading A Brief Introduction to Process Philosophy

In his book Being and Value, philosopher Frederick Ferré acquaints us with a beautiful idea that he names with a beautiful word: kalogenesis. “Kalós” is the Greek word for “beauty” and “genesis” of course refers to “generating” or “bringing into existence.” And so kalogenesis means the creation or coming to be of beauty. The adjectival… Continue reading A Kalogenic Universe

For Whitehead the universe is not a competitive arena for rugged individualists but a close-knit web of intimate social relationships, so close-knit, in fact, that every item in the universe is involved in the concrescence of each actual entity. In the initial phase of concrescence, an actual entity takes account of, or prehends, all other… Continue reading A Holographic Universe

Another feature that Whitehead found in his analysis of experience was its essential dipolarity. Imagine pausing for a moment to look at yourself in a mirror, and become aware of the double perspective—you see your body as others see you, but you are also aware of your own inner experience. Your body, from without, is… Continue reading A Dipolar Universe

During the 300-year reign of science over which the analytical spirit of Sir Isaac Newton presided, the universe was viewed as a gigantic clockwork machine, ticking away in timeless perfection, a perfection created once and for all by God, who then stepped back, according to that view, to dispassionately contemplate his handiwork for all eternity.… Continue reading A Panexperiential Universe

“I sing the body electric.” —  Walt Whitman Whitehead derived his metaphysics, in part, from a keen observation and analysis of his own everyday experiences as a human subject. Much of the time we tend to ignore the body, or to take it for granted. But for Whitehead the human body is “the starting point… Continue reading The Body Electric

Whitehead’s magnum opus, the magisterial Process and Reality, began as the Gifford Lectures he presented at the University of Edinburgh. Process and Reality is a book of legendary difficulty but it repays the considerable exertions required to come to terms with its neologisms, and to come to an understanding of the speculative metaphysics in this… Continue reading Book of Many Happy Returns: “Process and Reality”