process studies articles @ religion online...
Volume 17 (1988)
- Number 1, 1988
- Mudddleheadedness and Simplemindedness - Whitehead and Russell by George R. Lucas, Jr.
- The Brightman-Hartshorne Correspondence, 1934-1944 by Robert A. Gillies
- The Square Dance of Eternal Objects by Patricia Mazzarella
- Varieties of Temporal Experience by Jonathan P. Strandjord
- Whitehead and Russell: Origins of Middleheadedness, Simplemindedness by Paul G. Kuntz
Bertrand Russell has more process thought in his philosophy than most give him credit. Nevertheless, there is a conflict between Russell’s hard logic and Whiteheads process thought-- analytic versus continental; logical and linguistic versus the systematic and metaphysical; conceptual elucidation and clarification versus historical study and phenomenological description.
The author follows the correspondence between Edgar S. Brightman and Chalres Hartshorne over a number of years. They tried to converge on fundamental issues, but there were some basic differences. In particular in their epistemology, the two were separated by the ancient perspectives of monism and dualism.
The author uses the square dance as an analogy of Whitehead’s eternal objects -- the primary structure by which experience is unified. The nature of being is to be found in the ideal patterns which Whitehead indicated with this term ‘eternal object.’
There is real promise in Whitehead’s philosophy of organism which makes sense of our experience of time and its apparently variable rate.
The deepest tragedy of our age is the division between ideologies represented by Whitehead’s national loyalty in World War I versus Russell’s pacifism.
- Number 2, 1988
- A Critique of Process Theodicy from an African Perspective by Thomas H. Graves
- A Month Before Christmas and a Day After Darwin by Ronald Settle
- How Is Process Theology Theological? by Joseph M. Hallman
- Land Ethics, Animal Rights, and Process Theology by Jay B. McDaniel
- Minjung and Process Hermeneutics by A. Sung Park
- The Promise of a Process Feminist Theory of Relations by Nancy B. Howell
- Women, Power, and Politics: Feminist Theology in Process Perspective by Lois Gehr Livezey
There is a gap between the vocabulary of process thought and the mindset of traditional culture, but this is certainly not grounds for a rejection of Whitehead and his influence. The author looks at process theodicy (the problem of evil) in the context of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
The author writes a parody on "The Night Before Christmas" with a bit of process interjection.
Most, if not all, process theologians are basically philosophical theologians rather than systematic theologians who interiorize the understandings within the Christian Church community. This calls into question, for example, whether the eucharist is essential, whether scripture is normative, and whether the resurrection is optional. Process theologians need to distinguish between the requirements and objectives of philosophical and systematic theology.
Creation consciousness is a needed attitude on the part of Christians if, in relation to the abuse of nature, Christians are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Process theology provides a perspective for integrating the truths of these movements, thereby encouraging creation consciousness.
The author examines the hermeneutics of process and Minjung theologies by comparing their major problems, goals, and methodologies. Minjung theology is concerned with Han -- the compressed feeling of suffering caused by injustice and oppression. Han helps us understand the necessity of active involvement in the world for maximizing the intensity of experience.
When God generates an initial aim for each event, God’s aim is toward the richest possible experience for each moment. If the universe is understood in this sacramental perspective, our relative decisions about the value of all events in the world will be less dependent upon hierarchical formulas.
The author concludes that a concept of God as Holy Advocate, calling us and empowering us to advocacy for justice and peace, can only strengthen the bond between process theology and feminism.
- Number 3, 1988
- An Enduring Self: The Achilles’ Heel of Process Philosophy by J.P. Moreland
- Deconstruction and the Philosophy of Culture by Joseph Grange
- Hartshorne and Utilitarianism: A Response to Moskop by Thomas A. Nairn
- Imaginative Generalization as Epogoge by Gregory Reichberg
- The Plight of Cosmology by Fatima Pinar Goktan Canevi
- The Relevance of An Introduction to Mathematics to Whitehead’s Philosophy by Christoph Wassermann
The Achilles’ heel of process metaphysics is in the epistemological argument which shows that the denial of an enduring self is guilty of self-referential inconsistency.
Dr. Grange examines George Allan’s Importances of The Past. Allan shows that the past provides the present with spheres of relevance from which prevalent feelings of importances can be derived. Otherwise, we cannot hope to redeem their worth or beget their children.
One cannot do justice to Charles Hartshorne’s ethical system without taking seriously his particular understanding of experience as creative synthesis and his demand that one constantly confront the question of God.
Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, where the particular, actual entity is universal, resolves the epistemological problem of how to bridge the gap between the two orders -- existence and knowledge. Whitehead’s approach is unique among modem philosophical systems because he attempts to resolve a long-standing epistemological difficulty by an appeal to ontology, which is the inverse of the nominalist approach of most moderns.
It is time we realize that the basic problem with cosmological theories lies not with the powers of explanation of the philosophers who have proposed them, but the incompatibility of the two fundamental components of cosmological analysis -- logic and fact.
We must see in Whitehead's mathematical publications not only pre-figurations of later thoughts, but also part of the coercive force that caused him to develop his metaphysics the way he did. To him mathematics was a guarantee for the reality and significance of eternal objects and their ingression into nature.
- Number 4 1988
- Narrative Teaching: An Organic Methodology by Mary Elizabeth Moore
- On the Formation of Ontological Concepts: the Theories of Whitehead and Piaget by Reto Luzius Fetz
- Postliterate Humanity by William S. Hamrick
- Robert Brumbaugh: Towards a Process Philosophy of Education by Brian Hendley
- To and Fro: Education for the Art of Life by Kathleen Gershman
The author writes about the power of the story in history and in imaginative construction of future possibility, and points out that narrative does not now occupy a central place in the school curriculum. She suggests the kind of narrative methodology that is needed in order to teach organically.
The author compares Piaget’s genetic theory of cognition with Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. He discusses Whitehead’s metaphysical theories versus Piaget’s naturalistic theory, genetic ontology versus genetic epistemology, "organism" versus "thing."
Dr Hamrick relates process thought to issues unknown in Whitehead’s day, such as those revolving around the crisis schools face in competing with the information environment in an electronic age.
The author shows that Brumbaugh deals with what is one of the central difficulties of modern pedigogy, what Whitehead calls the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, where abstractions or excerpted aspects of the fuller deeper occasions are treated as actual.
Whitehead’s life was steeped in mathematics and philosophy, but he has insights of importance in two other areas of thought: 1. The teaching/learning process is a rhythmic occasion, not a skill. 2. None of our educational goals can claim a position of ideal completeness.