Point of View: In Praise of Process Pluralism

Greg Moses

Brisbane, Australia

 

 

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This short paper is inspired by a suggestion emanating from one of the sessions at the recent Process conference in China that with the computer and information revolution we have finally got to the point where we can model a Whiteheadian society![1]  It is well known that Alfred North Whitehead started in Mathematics.  He moved from there to theoretical Physics, beyond that to Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Science, and beyond that to Speculative Cosmology or Metaphysics.  What is less well realized is that in Whitehead�s view the last move constitutes not further abstraction but a move in the direction of greater concreteness, beyond the abstractions of science, striving to avoid the �fallacy of misplaced concreteness�.  Unfortunately, or perhaps for this very reason, this gave rise to a system which is in many respects very technical and very difficult, particularly for outsiders.  However, it may be that what Whitehead was about in the first half of last century has finally come of age.  It is the point of view of this paper that this may indeed be so, but with some provisos.

 

In his effort to model reality in the concrete, as well as in respect of the difficulty, Whitehead reminds one of Hegel, except that Whitehead�s system is self-consciously very much a construction, and self-consciously always provisional, not at all the final word written in necessary steps by Absolute Spirit.  One starts with some element of experience and always checks one�s constructions afterwards in respect of applicability and of adequacy to the totality of our experience in its various forms.  The famous aeroplane has to land, and sometimes this may mean taking off in a somewhat different direction.  The first proviso then would be that in this time of late modernity or postmodernity or whatever, it may be to the good that we do take seriously this constructive and this provisional character of the initial project, regarding this as a virtue of this particular research program rather than just being cautious. (This insight is derived from a paper by the Leuven philosopher Andre Cloots at the same China conference.[2])  

 

In the chapter on God in Science and the Modern World, there is a move in the direction of something else that may be needed, namely a sensitivity and respect for what might be called domain diversity.  As Jan Van der Veken and his colleague Andre Cloots from the University of Leuven have carefully noted, in chapter on God in Science and the Modern World[3] Whitehead makes a distinction between what can reasonably be said about God on the basis of generally available experience, versus what can be said on the basis of particular experiences of particular people.  According to Van der Veken and Cloots themselves, about all that can be said on the basis of generally available experience is that 'the primordial qualification of Creativity' or something like that is intelligent.  Even the skeptic Hume can't quite resist this much.  But that this is a Lure to goodness, truth and beauty, or Gracious, or Compassionate or Holy, that can only be said on the basis of particular experiences of particular (See Van der Veken, 1981, 1990, and Van der Veken and Cloots 1992.)[4]  According to Van der Veken and Cloots, this rendition is well to be preferred to the position taken by Whitehead in the last part of Process and Reality.  In Part V of Process and Reality  Whitehead is himself overtly dependent on the particular experiences of particular people, namely the brief Galilean vision.   In Process and Reality Whitehead goes too far, much further than is legitimated by his own speculative cosmology.

 

Going along with the earlier Whitehead and the University of Leuven philosophers rather than the later Whitehead, one may introduce a certain qualification to the reach of �speculative cosmology� even as it strives to model reality in the concrete.  It strives to model reality in the concrete as much as can be done from the point of view of generalized reason.  This may well be quite a lot, a good way further in the direction of avoiding �misplaced concreteness� and useful for application in all kinds of spheres, but it is not everything.

 

It is also already an indication of sensitivity and respect for domain diversity between e.g. philosophy and religion or philosophy and theology, and for something like particularized reasonable believing if not for particularized tradition, domain and research program dependent rationalities.[5]  

 

In the latter half of last century, Whitehead�s process thinking and the partially independent variant produced by the just as useful for theology Charles Hartshorne were very quickly taken up by theology.  In practice and in respect of content produced this usually happened in a manner which reflected as much the starting tradition of the theologian as the process background theory being adopted, a fact made increasingly evident as more and more Catholics, and also feminist and third world theologians entered the fray.  It is probably time we acknowledged this, and without too much in the way of apology. 

 

Something similar could be said in respect of application to various other domains.  Process thinking is sometimes thought to have undergone something of a lull in the 1970�s, 80�s and early 90�s.  Whatever about this, it seems to be very much on the boil again, across all kinds of disciplines and in all kinds of places (i.e. not only the US, but parts of Europe, Japan, Korea and now China, and even Australia).  It has been applied in biology and ecology and with good and lasting effect in the field of environmental ethics.  It has been and is being applied in psychology, sociology, economics, increasingly in education theory, back once again in physics and in mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics. 

 

In respect of all this, however, one might distinguish at least three different strategies of application.  Firstly there are people who for the sake of avoiding eclecticism and in the interests of clarity and definiteness strive to be more or less strict Whiteheadians or Hartshorneans.  This has certain obvious advantages and might be regarded as a sort of default option: to quote someone quoting his grandmother (Jerome Gellman, Religious Studies 36, 4 December 2000, pp. 401ff.), why oil the wheel if it�s not squeaking?

 

Secondly, and particularly with people in university settings who need to be seen to be staying close to the mainline, one can be more pragmatic in one�s strategies.  One may set about using Whiteheadian or Hartshornean ideas and hypotheses to inspire and provoke solutions for mainline problems, joining these with other ideas and inspirations as seems appropriate.  This can get to the point of borrowing with only a minimum of acknowledgement � depending, of course, on the context of utterance.

 

An interesting variant on this second strategy, which moves it a little back towards the first, might be the following, once again inspired by the paper in Beijing.  One treats the Whiteheadian system in all its complicated detail of actual entities, prehensions etc. almost in the manner of an uninterpreted formal system, capable, like the propositional calculus in PM, of differential interpretation in different domains.  The difference from the propositional calculus of course is that here we have a kind of verbal mathematics of the concrete rather than just certain abstract features thereof.  More or less what one would expect, anyway, from one of the master mathematicians of last century.  (Here I am being at least half serious!)

 

To take a totally made up example from a field about which I know absolutely nothing, in order to make the point: say we were trying to model a traffic system in all its complexity, e.g. in LA.  What are the �actual entities� here?  Well, who or what are the deciders in the system, which is what �actual entities� do after all?  Presumably the drivers of the various vehicles, the computer driven traffic signals and whatever.  What do they take account of, what are the �physical� and �conceptual� and �hybrid� prehensions in the various cases?  What are the lures, the attractors in the process in the midst of what sometimes looks like chaos? What kinds of Whiteheadian societies are being constituted?  And so on.  Of course, people into traffic systems may not need this, they may be perfectly happy with their presently existing maths and their presently existing species of computer modelling.  But the example may be sufficient to make the point.  (On the other hand, it may be that not even Whitehead could model LA traffic!)

 

A third strategy is to more or less drastically re-interpret the system or to go beyond this into up-front renovation or re-conceptualization in order to make it work better in the domains one is interested in.

 

What the second strategy in its two variants and the third strategy have in common is that in both of them the bottom line is that one�s procedure is to be driven by the discipline itself with its problems and research programs and the exigencies of its pre-existing problematics, rather than by the background theory.  On the other hand, this can be one of the ways in which the background theory is in turn developed and progresses.  They are, in a manner, various landings of the aeroplane after all.

 

Something similar can be said about applications to various problems in the home discipline or domain, namely ontology.  Here again, in the course of continuing application to various specific problems, the general theory may undergo re-interpretations, developments and renovations.  The Problem of the Compound Individual in Whitehead and beyond might make a good example here.   On the other hand, with some problems a purely Whiteheadian solution might work quite well.

 

What I�m suggesting, then, is that the presently manifesting diversity and flexibility, and even the diversity of strategy, may in fact be a sign of life.  Nor need there be any in principle problems with broadening the process tradition backwards to include e.g. Bergson, or even Schelling, and forwards to include e.g. Deleuze.  This gives Whitehead and Hartshorne the strength of a tradition to be part of, as well as opening up new possibilities for application in various diverse domains. Nor of course are there any in principle problems with following the indications of both Whitehead and Hartshorne and the example of John Cobb and goodly numbers of others towards a mutually fruitful dialogue across religions and across cultures, such a dialogue as is already occurring, with some interesting results.[6] 

 

So �Process Thought� looks to be more and more a �family resemblance� concept with Whitehead and Hartshorne and their Chicago and Claremont CA successors more as a focal point than as the source of delimitation, with already plenty of respect in practice for its constructive and provisional character and for domain diversity.  Even so, in spite of its plurality and diversity for which I suggest we don�t need at all to apologise, process thinking still provides a broad interdisciplinary (and intercultural and interreligious) matrix, within which people across disciplines and across cultures can and do meet for productive and fruitful dialogue, including in China.  In these troubled and discordant times, this continues to be one of its great advantages, and something to make Whitehead, Hartshorne and both their more orthodox and their sometimes heterodox disciples proud.

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[1] Cary C.K. Weng, �Information Management Systems and Whitehead�s Views of Constructed Reality�, International Conference on Whitehead and China in the New Millenium, Beijing Normal University, 17th � 20th June 2002.

[2] Andre Cloots, �Whitehead�s Late-Modern Conception of Speculative Philosophy�, International Conference on Whitehead and China in the New Millenium, Beijing Normal University, 17th � 20th June 2002.

[3] Whitehead, Alfred North,  Science and the Modern World, Cambridge University Press, 1926, pp. 213-214.

[4] See Jan Van der Veken,  "Whitehead's God is not Whiteheadian Enough", Whitehead and the Idea of Process, edited by Harald Holz and Ernest Wolf-Gazo, Verlag Karl Alber, Frieburg/Munchen, 1981 pp. 300-311; Jan Van der Veken and Andre Cloots,  "Creativity as General Activity", in Metaphysics as Foundation: Essays in Honor of Ivor Leclerc, edited Paul A. Bogaard and Gordon Treash, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1992, pp. 98-110; and Jan Van der Veken, "Creativity as Universal Activity", in Whitehead's Metaphysics of Creativity, edited by Friedrich Rapp and Reiner Wiehl, SUNY Press, Albany, 1990, pp.178 -188.

[5] By the same token, of course, it is all right for theologians to allow themselves to be inspired by Whitehead�s adventure in theology, provided they realize that that is what it is!

[6] For example, the clear distinction between the metaphysical and religious ultimates, which Cobb elaborates in the course of his dialogue with Buddhist scholars, building on Whitehead�s distinction between God and the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact, namely Creativity, but with a greater sense of balance achieved.  A similar distinction is elaborated by the Leuven philosophers already mentioned, in their case via a meditation on the likes of Heidegger and Levinas, part of their main-line bread-and-butter.