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Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for its Contemporary Relevence
Examines the postmodern implications of Whitehead's metaphysical system.
Hardcover
First published March 1, 2007
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About the author
David Ray Griffin
70 books86 followersDr. Griffin, a retired emeritus professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology at the Claremont School of Theology, has published over 30 books and 150 articles. His 9/11 books have been endorsed by Robert Baer, William Christison, William Sloane Coffin Jr., Richard Falke, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts and Howard Zinn.
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July 15, 2022Whitehead (1861-1947) is accepted as the father and main theorist of what is called process philosophy, which, in essence, is the modern version of the 'flow' side in the pre-Socratic debate on flux versus stasis as the basic state of nature. What follows is all the more intriguing when put in the context of his early fame as a mathematician and logician, writing with his student Bertrand Russell one of the 20th century's most important analytic works, Principia Mathematica.
Process philosophy came later, and Griffin provides us with a Whitehead who suggests some interesting ramifications from that basic foundation. First, Whitehead totally accepts Descartes as the father of modern philosophy-the only problem being that he failed to take his creative intuition that all knowledge was based in subjective experience far enough. For Descartes, 'I think' is relegated to the human mind, isolating it from the human body and everything else, creating the famous dualism the plagues philosophy to this day. Whitehead wants to eliminate that dualism, not by making the subject, especially the transcendental subject, responsible for the rest of the world, but by making everything responsible for itself; that is, everything, truly everything, has some degree of experiencing capacity. Whitehead's ontology is simple: the actual world consists exclusively of occasions of experience. Descartes realized this for conscious beings, then fell back into the substance-quality analysis for the rest of the world. Whitehead accepts the experiencing event all the way down-rocks have it, as do molecules and atoms. The only reaction that seemed possible at first was that this is freaky or a form of pantheism. Griffin tries to show that neither reaction is accurate and I did grow less freaked out and was pretty sure it wasn't a form of pantheism.
This partly follows from a more detailed description of what the experiencing event is all about. At this point, I am not attempting to be diligent to the text, which is Griffin's, of course, but rather state how I came to terms with it. So let me suggest that it is something like an arc of excitation (bad word) that spreads through a network (not bad, there), maybe resulting in a modification, or further influence at another level. Example-the flow of protoplasmic fluid in an amoeba (this would take many experiencing events, of course.) With this description, it is most realizable with live organisms that can react, or, at the opposite extreme, at the atomic level. Indeed, one of the disciplines most receptive and confirming of process philosophy is quantum physics. The other is religion studies, and that is Griffin's main concern.
One interesting development form this "experiencing event' ontology is the return to a most common- sense realism. Needles to say, as Descartes indeed showed, the experiencing subject can be very mistaken about the stimulation it attends to. However, as the Whitehead argument goes, we simply can't ignore that the datum of our experience always includes other objects. In fact, it is foundational for Whitehead that any philosophy that goes against common sense is wrong. Many qualifications are given for what constitutes common sense, the main one being if everyone 'behaves that way', no matter what they say, then it is deep common sense. Still, it is difficult to accept common sense as a platform, being myself more ready to accept cultural determinism at every level, including the behavioral. And even if the common sense argument might be somewhat applicable in this example-natural realism-it is difficult to see how it applies to any of Whitehead's more developed arguments.
Another interesting Whiteheadian development is the emphasis on prehension. This concept has been turning up in many of my reading sources for some time, with research demonstrating that perception as usually understood is a very late cognitive state, dependent on some receptive ability below what we usually consider a sense. For example, entirely blind people have learned to discriminate between different visual symbols given certain cues even though, of course, they have no ability to 'see' them. This is important to Whitehead's experiencing event, since it is initiated much before any cognitive reaction, such as seeing or hearing. In fact, it is perhaps hard to say where this experiencing begins, as it is surely subliminal and certainly not direct. As Griffin puts it:
' What appears to be an independent substance, such as a proton, is in reality a pattern
of social relations, with perhaps a billion such relations occurring in each second. Each
occasion, however, does not simply arise out of its predecessor in the temporally ordered
society to which it belongs. Each occasion is also influenced, even if less significantly,
by other past occasions. In fact, each occasion is influenced, to some slight degree, by
the whole past universe. '(p.77)
This sense of interconnectedness is one of Whitehead's defining attributes, and, as Griffin makes clear, results in a very benign attitude toward ecology and animal rights (and obviously in distinction to Cartesian dualism).
Griffin obviously wants to present Whitehead as 'postmodern', surely to try and make him relevant to current readers. I found this aspect of his presentation unnecessary and unconvincing. What Whitehead appears to be is a thinker enmeshed in certain philosophical issues of his time, influenced and influencing writers like Henri Bergson and William James, and trying to deal with the science of his time. That's catchy enough.
Process philosophy came later, and Griffin provides us with a Whitehead who suggests some interesting ramifications from that basic foundation. First, Whitehead totally accepts Descartes as the father of modern philosophy-the only problem being that he failed to take his creative intuition that all knowledge was based in subjective experience far enough. For Descartes, 'I think' is relegated to the human mind, isolating it from the human body and everything else, creating the famous dualism the plagues philosophy to this day. Whitehead wants to eliminate that dualism, not by making the subject, especially the transcendental subject, responsible for the rest of the world, but by making everything responsible for itself; that is, everything, truly everything, has some degree of experiencing capacity. Whitehead's ontology is simple: the actual world consists exclusively of occasions of experience. Descartes realized this for conscious beings, then fell back into the substance-quality analysis for the rest of the world. Whitehead accepts the experiencing event all the way down-rocks have it, as do molecules and atoms. The only reaction that seemed possible at first was that this is freaky or a form of pantheism. Griffin tries to show that neither reaction is accurate and I did grow less freaked out and was pretty sure it wasn't a form of pantheism.
This partly follows from a more detailed description of what the experiencing event is all about. At this point, I am not attempting to be diligent to the text, which is Griffin's, of course, but rather state how I came to terms with it. So let me suggest that it is something like an arc of excitation (bad word) that spreads through a network (not bad, there), maybe resulting in a modification, or further influence at another level. Example-the flow of protoplasmic fluid in an amoeba (this would take many experiencing events, of course.) With this description, it is most realizable with live organisms that can react, or, at the opposite extreme, at the atomic level. Indeed, one of the disciplines most receptive and confirming of process philosophy is quantum physics. The other is religion studies, and that is Griffin's main concern.
One interesting development form this "experiencing event' ontology is the return to a most common- sense realism. Needles to say, as Descartes indeed showed, the experiencing subject can be very mistaken about the stimulation it attends to. However, as the Whitehead argument goes, we simply can't ignore that the datum of our experience always includes other objects. In fact, it is foundational for Whitehead that any philosophy that goes against common sense is wrong. Many qualifications are given for what constitutes common sense, the main one being if everyone 'behaves that way', no matter what they say, then it is deep common sense. Still, it is difficult to accept common sense as a platform, being myself more ready to accept cultural determinism at every level, including the behavioral. And even if the common sense argument might be somewhat applicable in this example-natural realism-it is difficult to see how it applies to any of Whitehead's more developed arguments.
Another interesting Whiteheadian development is the emphasis on prehension. This concept has been turning up in many of my reading sources for some time, with research demonstrating that perception as usually understood is a very late cognitive state, dependent on some receptive ability below what we usually consider a sense. For example, entirely blind people have learned to discriminate between different visual symbols given certain cues even though, of course, they have no ability to 'see' them. This is important to Whitehead's experiencing event, since it is initiated much before any cognitive reaction, such as seeing or hearing. In fact, it is perhaps hard to say where this experiencing begins, as it is surely subliminal and certainly not direct. As Griffin puts it:
' What appears to be an independent substance, such as a proton, is in reality a pattern
of social relations, with perhaps a billion such relations occurring in each second. Each
occasion, however, does not simply arise out of its predecessor in the temporally ordered
society to which it belongs. Each occasion is also influenced, even if less significantly,
by other past occasions. In fact, each occasion is influenced, to some slight degree, by
the whole past universe. '(p.77)
This sense of interconnectedness is one of Whitehead's defining attributes, and, as Griffin makes clear, results in a very benign attitude toward ecology and animal rights (and obviously in distinction to Cartesian dualism).
Griffin obviously wants to present Whitehead as 'postmodern', surely to try and make him relevant to current readers. I found this aspect of his presentation unnecessary and unconvincing. What Whitehead appears to be is a thinker enmeshed in certain philosophical issues of his time, influenced and influencing writers like Henri Bergson and William James, and trying to deal with the science of his time. That's catchy enough.
December 20, 2021
All book reviews say as much if not more about the reviewer than they say about the book. And this reviewer didn’t get what he hoped for from this book. I hoped for greater insight into Whitehead’s process philosophy but what the author delivered was targeted was not targeted at me. Philosophy seems to attract a very pedantic and other-philosophies-referent crowd. This book was a play by play defence against critics and would-be critics of Process philosophy which I found very boring.
October 11, 2019
This is awesome. Whitehead's own work can be challenging, but Griffin has a way of making technical ideas quite clear, and these ideas can change how you see life.
The biggest problem is really when you want to talk to someone about them. Try explaining prehension without going into lecture mode!
Or you can point them to this book.
The biggest problem is really when you want to talk to someone about them. Try explaining prehension without going into lecture mode!
Or you can point them to this book.
October 18, 2024
The core of the argument felt overly semantic, and thereby arguably even missing some of Whitehead's ideas (though I'm not sure if Whitehead himself wasn't similarly so). An interesting, though dense, defence of an interpretation of process philosophy as exactly postmodernism but exactly not. Weird book overall
September 6, 2013
The content of this book is full of riches from philosophies past, present, and beyond. This book encompasses a vast expanse of thoughts on topics I have often overlooked in my life. I may need to reread this to ensure I never lose track, when explaining the strong conclusions it offers. It has peaked my interest to read: Process and Reality; thereby helping me become further acquainted with Whiteheads Process philosophy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews