alfred north whitehead

Living continuity is something that matters, an important aspect of our experience. But the way it matters is not a given on which we would be authorized to lean, in order to organize everything else. In other words, the task of philosophy is to interpret common sense, not to follow any commonsensical claim in particular, because as soon as it is given doctrinal authority it will lead to the repression of other commonsensical claims.

~Isabelle Stengers, “Thinking with Deleuze and Whitehead” in Deleuze, Whitehead, Bergson: Rhizomatic Connections, 37-8.

It is the task of speculation to urge observation beyond the boundaries of its delusive completeness, and to urge the doctrines of science beyond their delusive air of finality.

Horizontal-izing the Vertical, Eradicating the Extremes: Scales of Value

Posted on February 1, 2013

When we think we think in bifurcations. Up/down. Left/right. Right/wrong. This way of thinking causes either/or mentality. It indicates that one is right, and the other is wrong.

But what would happen if we flatten it out? We make what is vertical thinking horizontal? What if we said that in order to have one, you need the other? That it is relationally intertwined so that if one does not exist, the other does not?

Now what if we got rid of the extremes altogether? Instead of right and wrong, just or unjust, we have scales of lesser or greater value. You see, what is absolutely right, absolutely wrong? When we incorporate culture, education, values, race, class, etc., etc., all the categories (if we can break ourselves down to categories), or better yet, when we know ourselves, we develop values that shape our world.

Religious Experience in the Profane?

Posted on November 4, 2012

I am reading Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. His premise is interesting: there are two modalities of experience, the sacred and the profane. The profane exists in the secular, the day-to-day; its space, homogenous and neutral. The sacred breaks into the profane allowing the worlds constitution, creating a fixed point for future orientation. The profane mulls on, with no destination, vague and relative, while the sacred as that which breaks, provides a focal point to some direction. To be more descriptive, Eliade writes,

Properly speaking, there is no longer any world, there are only fragments of a shattered universe, an amorphous mass consisting of an infinite number of more or less neutral places in which man moves, governed and driven by the obligations of an existence incorporated into an industrial society.

Eliade he is speaking in reference to space, those locations where one lives ,works, plays, and even makes memories. What makes a space sacred or profane? Eliade text continues to discuss the sacred and profane from various other perspectives, but I found this to be intriguing and important to take some time and consider the perspective both Whitehead and David Ray Griffin. How can one separate the sacred space and the profane? Eliade speaks of thresholds, the boundaries which move one from one space to the other, the open window above or gate in which one has access to God to receive the religious experience. Signs encompass the event.

The Function of Reason: Promoting the Art of Life

Posted on October 27, 2012

I am reading Alfred North Whitehead’s The Function of Reason, and am moved by his notion of reason. Whitehead is careful not to fully define reason, for it turns it into a phrase. Yet he does give an initial, poetic understanding: The function of reason is to promote the art of life.

If one were to take the notion that God is the cause of all things (which brings in its own issues), or, if one states that all causes in the world are the result of natural, physical causes, does not provide the function of reason. These are but efficient causes. An efficient cause is the primary source of the change. For example, my hand moves the water bottle from one place to another. My hand X is the efficient cause of the movement of the water bottle Y. It is an efficient cause since what we see is the hand moving the bottle. This is useful in the world of science, when we look to describe how things come to be. Here, reason is used as an immediate method of action (11).

But can this be used to describe a complete understanding of why things are the way they are? Whitehead doesn’t believe so. In fact, he agrees with Plato that there is another cause, a final cause, which is a necessary component for why things are the way they are. If physics describes the efficient cause for why things happens, it doesn’t get to the more difficult reason of why it was even done in the first place. The final cause is its aim.

A Women’s Meditation

Posted on July 10, 2012

I took this from my colleague Leanne Dedrick’s post. Her post can be found here.

I tie this to one of my favorite texts, Alfred North Whitehead’s Religion in the Making. It goes beyond the tribal notions of God as king, father, mother, to God as much deeper, wider, and more mysterious than we can imagine. God goes beyond anthropological notions of being. Here it goes.

‎’A Woman’s Meditation’
by Ruth F. Brin

When men were children, they thought of God as a father;
When men were slaves, they thought of God as a master;
When men were subjects, they thought of God as a king.

But I am a woman, not a slave, not a subject,
not a child who longs for God as father or mother.

I might imagine God as teacher or friend, but those images,
like king, master, father or mother, are too small for me now.

God is the force of motion and light in the universe;
God is the strength of life on our planet;
God is the power moving us to do good;
God is the source of love springing up in us.
God is far beyond what we can comprehend.

Richard Swinburne’s notion of moral truths, God and human obligation

Posted on February 18, 2012

I am reading Richard Swinburne’s Is There a God?, and came to a bump on the road. Swinburne states,

Some moral truths are clearly moral truths, whether or not there is a God: it is surely wrong to torture children for fun whether or not there is a God…if theism is true, we owe our existence from moment to moment to the conserving action of God;…One of the most fundamental human obligations (i.e. duties) is (within limits) to please our major benefactors–to do in return for them some small favour which they request in return for the great things they have given us…Hence if God tells us to do certain things, it becomes our duty to do them.

All in all it seems feasible that what he is saying makes sense. In response to a God who is a generous benefactor, one would desire to grant them a request. But is that even possible? Continue Reading

Lorax and the Voice of Ecology

Posted on January 6, 2012

What does the remade animation “The Lorax” and Lynn White’s article “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis” have to say to the church? Plenty! A look at the lost role of the church as listeners and actors for our planet.

Book Review: Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism : A Process Philosophy of Religion

Posted on November 25, 2011

Griffin, David Ray. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism : A Process Philosophy of Religion. Vol. Cornell studies in the philosophy of religion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001.

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