Beyond Metaphysics?: Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead's Late Thought. (Value Inquiry Book)

348 Pages·2010·2.02 MB·English

by  Roland Faber

BEYOND METAPHYSICS?
VIBS
Volume 220
Robert Ginsberg
Founding Editor
Leonidas Donskis
Executive Editor
Associate Editors
G. John M. Abbarno Steven V. Hicks
George Allan Richard T. Hull
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Raymond Angelo Belliotti Olli Loukola
Kenneth A. Bryson Mark Letteri
C. Stephen Byrum Vincent L. Luizzi
Robert A. Delfino Adrianne McEvoy
Rem B. Edwards J.D. Mininger
Malcolm D. Evans Peter A. Redpath
Daniel B. Gallagher Arleen L. F. Salles
Roland Faber John R. Shook
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Eddy Souffrant
Francesc Forn i Argimon Tuija Takala
William C. Gay Emil Višňovský
Dane R. Gordon Anne Waters
J. Everet Green James R. Watson
Heta Aleksandra Gylling John R. Welch
Matti Häyry Thomas Woods
Brian G. Henning
a volume in
Contemporary Whitehead Studies
CWS
Roland Faber and Brian G. Henning, Editors
BEYOND METAPHYSICS?
Explorations in Alfred North
Whitehead’s Late Thought
Edited by
Roland Faber
Brian G. Henning
Clinton Combs
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010
Cover Art: Kevin Scott Hailey, Diary of Lightness, ink on paper
Cover Design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3121-0
E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-3122-7
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010
Printed in the Netherlands
CONTENTS

The Contemporary Whitehead Studies ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvi

Abbreviations xvii

INTRODUCTION: Whitehead’s Other Copernican Turn
ROLAND FABER and BRIAN G. HENNING 1

Part One:
Complexities of System, Life, and Novelty

ONE: Toward a Metaphysics of Expression
VINCENT COLAPIETRO 13

TWO: Renewing Speculation: The Systematic Aim of
Whitehead’s Philosophic Cosmology
CHRISTOPH KANN 27

THREE: Beyond Metaphysics?—A Historiographical
Approach to Whitehead’s Speculative Philosophy
DENNIS SOELCH 45

FOUR: Citing the Paradox: Probing the Systematization
of Whitehead as Philosopher Subject
DEENA LIN 61

FIVE: Before Metaphysics: Modes of Thought as a
Prequel to Whitehead’s “Trilogy”
CLINTON COMBS 77

SIX: Immanence and Incompleteness: Whitehead’s
Late Metaphysics
ROLAND FABER 91
vi Contents

Part Two:
Depths of Nature, Order, and Organicity

SEVEN: The Organism of Forms in Later Whitehead
ROBERT J. VALENZA 111

EIGHT: Beyond Dogmatic Finality: Whitehead and
the Laws of Nature
JEREMY DUNHAM 125

NINE: Alfred North Whitehead’s Receptacle
JOACHIM KLOSE 147

TEN: Contingency and Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Experience
HELMUT MAAßEN 165

ELEVEN: The Web of Life and the Constitution of Human Identity:
Rethinking Nature as the Main Issue of Whitehead’s Late
Metaphysics
REGINE KATHER 181

Part Three:
Evocations of Value, Beauty, and Concern

TWELVE: Re-Centering Process Thought: Recovering Beauty in
A. N. Whitehead’s Late Work
BRIAN G. HENNING 201

THIRTEEN: The Self-Evidence of Civilization
STASCHA ROHMER 215

FOURTEEN: Fact, Values, Individuals, and Others: Towards a
Metaphysics of Value
MICHAEL HALEWOOD 227

FIFTEEN: Self-enjoyment and Concern: On Whitehead and Levinas
STEVEN SHAVIRO 249

SIXTEEN: Provocative Expression: Transitions In and From
Metaphysics in Whitehead’s Later Work
JUDE JONES 259
Contents vii
SEVENTEEN: The Dream of Solomon
ISABELLA PALIN 281

Works Cited 293

About the Authors 315

Index 319
CONTEMPORARY WHITEHEAD STUDIES

Philosophy today is in a state of transition. The old philosophical divisions
appear increasingly worn and dowdy to new generations of students who find
themselves confronted with a complex, uncertain, and often-dangerous world.
Though it still maintains its disciplinary dominance, the Anglo-American
tradition has abandoned the philosophical projects—such as positivism, ordi-
nary language analysis, or the linguistic turn—that once provided a coherent
programmatic center. Similarly, the deconstructionist and poststructuralist
projects on the Continent take many new faces moving beyond their initial
iterations. It is in this fertile, if shifting, context that a revival of Whitehead
scholarship is taking place, facilitated through the multifaceted work of the
scholars of the Whitehead Research Project and its Contemporary Whitehead
Studies series.
The Whitehead Research Project (WRP) is dedicated to the research of,
and scholarship on, the texts, philosophy and life of Alfred North Whitehead
(see whiteheadresearch.org). It explores and analyzes the relevance of White-
head's thought in dialogue with contemporary philosophies in order to unfold
his philosophy of organism and its consequences for our time and in relation
to emerging philosophical thought. Of particular interest is the investigation
into the emergence of Whitehead's philosophy in the context of British and
American pragmatism, its complicated relation to Continental philosophy and
the analytic tradition, the relevance of his thought in the discourse of postmo-
dern paradigms of deconstruction and poststructuralism, and its creative im-
pulse for developing process philosophies. Additionally, following White-
head's own inclination to reach beyond European modes of thought, WRP
seeks to extend its horizon of research by fostering similar conversations with
strains of Indian and East Asian thought, thereby exhibiting de facto mutual
influence—e.g., with the Kyoto School of Buddhist philosophy.
In encouraging a fresh and bold approach towards the ever-expanding
possibility suggested by Whitehead's written material, both published and
unpublished, WRP is committed to the continuing adventures of his ideas
across disciplines. In doing so, the mission of WRP follows Whitehead's im-
pulse to understand the distinct endeavor of philosophy “to conceive the infi
nite variety of specific instances which rest unrealized in the womb of nature”
(PR 17) and “to maintain an active novelty of fundamental ideas illuminating
the social system” (MT 174). In its broader aim to understand and further civi-
lization, philosophy “is seeking, amid the dim recesses of [our] ape like con
sciousness and beyond the reach of dictionary language, for the premises
implicit in all reasoning.” This endeavor is “dangerous, easily perverted. So
is all Adventure; but Adventure belongs to the essence of civilization” (AI
295).
x Series Introduction
Seeking to embody the adventure and promise of Whitehead’s work,
Contemporary Whitehead Studies (CWS) is an interdisciplinary book series
that publishes manuscripts from scholars with contemporary and innovative
approaches to Whitehead studies (see whiteheadresearch.org/research/cws).
CWS focuses on Whitehead’s philosophy and Whitehead's text (as a whole)
by giving special focus to projects that:
(cid:2) explore the connections between Whitehead and contemporary Con
tinental philosophy, especially sources, like Heidegger, or contempo-
rary streams like poststructuralism,
(cid:2) reconnect Whitehead to pragmatism, analytical philosophy and phi
losophy of language, as a matter of source and recourse for an under-
standing of the tradition out of which Whitehead formulated his phi-
losophic concepts or as a matter of engagement in areas that have
excluded Whitehead,
(cid:2) explore creative East/West dialogues facilitated by Whitehead’s
work,
(cid:2) explore the interconnections of the mathematician with the philoso
pher and the contemporary importance of these parts of Whitehead's
work for the dialogue between sciences and humanities,
(cid:2) reconnect Whitehead to the wider field of philosophy, the humani
ties, the sciences and academic research with Whitehead's pluralistic
impulses in the context of a pluralistic world,
(cid:2) address Whitehead’s philosophy in the midst of contemporary prob
lems facing humanity, such as climate change, war and peace, race,
and the future development of civilization.
By publishing innovative and adventurous approaches to Whitehead’s philos-
ophy that engage with the problems, promise, and ideas of the twenty-first
century, Contemporary Whitehead Studies creates a vital and dynamic space
for scholarly engagement.

Roland Faber Brian G. Henning
Series Editor Series Editor
Claremont School of Theology & Gonzaga University
Claremont Graduate University