Panentheism and process philosophy

Exactly!!!
Whitehead is an extremely fascinatiing philosopher, probably the most fascinating mind to come from American philosophy, one of my personal favorites. Although I should add that I do disagree with his definition of "realness" and I also prefer pantheism to panentheism. But I would definitely agree that Whitehead is a Zoroastrian philosopher. Very much so. Zarathushtra was the first proper process philosopher, Heraclitus was the Greek Zarathushtra, et cetera.
Ushta
Alexander

2009/6/23 Special Kain



Dear friends,

Zarathushtra was the first in a row of process philosophers, such as Heraclitus, Laozi, Gottfried Leibniz, Baruch Spinoza, Henri Bergson, G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles S. Peirce and his pragmatist contemporaries, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, David Hume and Gilles Deleuze. Process philosophy is especially linked with Alfred North Whitehead, whose panentheism seems to be exactly the same as Zoroastrian panentheism (if one favours the panentheist approach).

Here are some of Whitehead's metaphysical claims:
1) The laws of nature have evolved over time and keep evolving.
2) The world is a tangle of interrelated events. Such actual events are the "things" that everything is made of. The same pertains to seemingly solid objects: they're just a bundle of events repeating.
3) Dreams, hopes, fantasies are just as real as chairs, trees, rocks or washing machines. To believe that such solid-as-a-rock entities were more real than our ideas, dreams and desires is wrong. Seemingly solid objects and fleeting ideas are equally real.
4) Everything is striving to live more intensively. To live intensively is the highest value. It is what gives VALUE and MEANING to one's existence. It's about increasing the intensity, complexity and strength of one's experience. This is key in Whiteheadian self-creation.
5) All things are gatherings of events. Seemingly solid objects are nothing but repetitions of the same events (for repetition see Deleuze). Such repetitions create societies, for example. Human societies are nothing but events repeating.
6) The universe is creative. We all are creative. We're constantly creating ourselves and the world we live in, as much as the world is constantly creating itself and us. The guiding principle of all existence is creativity.
7) God is in a constant state of becoming. Even God is a "creature" of universal creativity, co-creating this world with us.
8) What's important about education is giving yourself intellectual style. His approach towards self-creation is purely aesthetic!
9) Thus, Whitehead's approach is holistic and monist.

For further infotainment, please visit:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/w/whitehed.htm
http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/processp.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/

Ushta,
Dino // sticking to a pantheist understanding of process philosophy