Roland Faber John R

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 Gerhold K. Becker Michael Krausz 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 civilization, 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: explore the connections between Whitehead and contemporary Con tinental philosophy, especially sources, like Heidegger, or contemporary streams like poststructuralism, 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 philosophic concepts or as a matter of engagement in areas that have excluded Whitehead, explore creative East/West dialogues facilitated by Whitehead’s work, 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, 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, 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 philosophy 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 PREFACE In the spring of 1998 I took a course called “Advance Process Thought” taught by Professor David Ray Griffin. Some of the students in that course (myself included) saw us as carriers of the process flame. Whitehead had giv- en us a wonderful and encompassing system, but there remained, we were aware, some inconsistencies. As self-appointed carriers of this flame, a group of us saw it as our call to clear these up.1 As with any graduate course, we wrote papers. What was unusual about Griffin’s courses was that we read each other’s works and discussed them as part of the class. This presented an opportunity to see how those of us intent upon improving Whitehead’s system went about it. Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of these papers also revealed just how hard it is to clear these issues up. Tweak one technicality and it has unintended consequences someplace else. Trying to improve Whitehead’s system taught us respect for the complexity of Whitehead’s work. As more and more attempts fell short of their intended goal, including some of our professor’s attempts, I started to reflect on the progression of Whitehead’s works. If Process and Reality was to be seen as the pinnacle of Whitehead’s metaphysics, then why (since he himself recognized several of its inconsistencies and limitations) didn’t he, in his later works, seek to rethink and re- solve these issues within the context of his “system” as my classmates and I were trying to do? Instead of

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