Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy

Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy
Author: David Ray Griffin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0791480305

Postmodern philosophy is often dismissed as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and as a passing fad with no contribution to make to the problems faced by philosophers in our time. While this characterization may be true of the type of philosophy labeled postmodern in the 1980s and 1990s, David Ray Griffin argues that Alfred North Whitehead had formulated a radically different type of postmodern philosophy to which these criticisms do not apply. Griffin shows the power of Whitehead's philosophy in dealing with a range of contemporary issues—the mind-body relation, ecological ethics, truth as correspondence, the relation of time in physics to the (irreversible) time of our lives, and the reality of moral norms. He also defends a distinctive dimension of Whitehead's postmodernism, his theism, against various criticisms, including the charge that it is incompatible with relativity theory.

Without Criteria

Without Criteria
Author: Steven Shaviro
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2012-08-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262517973

A Deleuzian reading of Whitehead and a Whiteheadian reading of Deleuze open the possibility of a critical aesthetics of contemporary culture. In Without Criteria, Steven Shaviro proposes and explores a philosophical fantasy: imagine a world in which Alfred North Whitehead takes the place of Martin Heidegger. What if Whitehead, instead of Heidegger, had set the agenda for postmodern thought? Heidegger asks, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” Whitehead asks, “How is it that there is always something new?” In a world where everything from popular music to DNA is being sampled and recombined, argues Shaviro, Whitehead's question is the truly urgent one. Without Criteria is Shaviro's experiment in rethinking postmodern theory, especially the theory of aesthetics, from a point of view that hearkens back to Whitehead rather than Heidegger. In working through the ideas of Whitehead and Deleuze, Shaviro also appeals to Kant, arguing that certain aspects of Kant's thought pave the way for the philosophical “constructivism” embraced by both Whitehead and Deleuze. Kant, Whitehead, and Deleuze are not commonly grouped together, but the juxtaposition of them in Without Criteria helps to shed light on a variety of issues that are of concern to contemporary art and media practices.

Process and Difference

Process and Difference
Author: Professor of Constructive Theology Catherine Keller
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2002-05-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780791452875

Leading scholars explore the relationship between deconstructive theory and process thought.

Time and the Digital

Time and the Digital
Author: Timothy Scott Barker
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2012
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1611683017

An original consideration of the temporal in digital art and aesthetics

Whitehead's Philosophy

Whitehead's Philosophy
Author: Janusz A. Polanowski
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0791484831

This volume explores the range of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy and his relevance to contemporary philosophical traditions. While philosophers and theologians with only a passing acquaintance with Whitehead might think that his philosophy is unconnected to our Western philosophical tradition, the contributors prove that nothing could be further from the truth. The most respected scholars in the field—George Allan, Lisa Bellantoni, John B. Cobb Jr., Frederick Ferré, David L. Hall, William S. Hamrick, Robert Cummings Neville, Janusz A. Polanowski, Patrick Shade, and Donald W. Sherburne—illustrate points of connection between Whitehead's ideas to the following: Descartes, the so-called "Father of Modern Philosophy"; classical American thought; several contemporary American thinkers, including Richard Rorty and Alasdair MacIntyre; aspects of European philosophy; and current reflections upon the environment and technology.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers in America

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers in America
Author: John R. Shook
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 1105
Release: 2016-02-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472570553

For scholars working on almost any aspect of American thought, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia to Philosophers in America presents an indispensable reference work. Selecting over 700 figures from the Dictionary of Early American Philosophers and the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, this condensed edition includes key contributors to philosophical thought. From 1600 to the present day, entries cover psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology, education, theology and political science, before these disciplines came to be considered distinct from philosophy. Clear and accessible, each entry contains a short biography of the writer, an exposition and analysis of his or her doctrines and ideas, a bibliography of writings and suggestions for further reading. Featuring a new preface by the editor and a comprehensive introduction, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia to Philosophers in America includes 30 new entries on twenty-first century thinkers including Martha Nussbaum and Patricia Churchland. With in-depth overviews of Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Noah Porter, Frederick Rauch, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, this is an invaluable one-stop research volume to understanding leading figures in American thought and the development of American intellectual history.

Beyond Whitehead

Beyond Whitehead
Author: Jakub Dziadkowiec
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-08-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498554695

As with any rich philosophical tradition in a period of intensive growth, process philosophy may seem confusing to the uninitiated, or even to the initiated. There is simply so much going on that one may, so to speak, lose the forest for the trees. The purpose of this book is to organize and arrange selected examples of contemporary work in process philosophy, with opening commentaries by leading Whiteheadian scholars, to give the reader a taste of the global vision of process currently expressed within this field of philosophy. This book is split into two parts: the first discussing the historical roots of and future perspectives for basic concepts of process thinking, and the second presenting original contemporary work in extending and re-interpreting the basic metaphysical structure of process.

The Epochal Nature of Process in Whitehead's Metaphysics

The Epochal Nature of Process in Whitehead's Metaphysics
Author: F. B. Wallack
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 1980-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 143842311X

"While my book attempts to reflect the full range of scholarly debate, I have also attempted to make it useful to anyone interested in Whitehead. To this end, I have introduced the Whiteheadian terms one by one, explaining each in the light of my interpretation, and I have used examples wherever possible. I try to show that Whitehead intended his philosophy have a place in our lives by reshaping our common conceptions, and that he did not intend it to be relegated to purely abstract or esoteric application." — F. Bradford Wallack The twentieth century has seen the greatest innovations in philosophical cosmology since Newton and Descartes, and Alfred North Whitehead was the first and greatest of the philosophers to work out these innovations in systematic ways. In a book that will be controversial in the philosophical community, F. Bradford Wallack argues that interpretations widely accepted by Whiteheadians need revaluation because these interpretations are based on materialist and substantialist assumptions that Whitehead sought to replace. Specifically, she proposes a thorough revision of accepted interpretations of Whitehead's concept of the actual entity. Wallack then elucidates Whitehead's ideas in order of their increasing dependence upon other basic Whiteheadian terms to complete the study of Whiteheadian time and to clarify its purpose within the cosmology of Process and Reality. Whitehead's philosophy then emerges as more intelligible and cohesive than is generally believed.

The Big Bang and God

The Big Bang and God
Author: Chandra Wickramasinghe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2015-09-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1137535032

As advanced by astronomer-cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomy, biology, astrobiology, astrophysics, and cosmology converge agreeably with natural theology. In The Big Bang and God, these interdisciplinary convergences are developed by an astronomer collaborating with a theologian.