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Peter Sjöstedt: Notes on Process Philosophy

1 points by devinjon 3y ago

jmkr 3y ago
A while ago I took a course on Process Philosophy, and have wanted to read more Whitehead since, but more so because of his involvement in analytic philosophy, like co-authoring the principia. I remember not really enjoying Process Philosophy. Some things that bothered me were "God," panentheism as pantheism++, and panpsychism. To refresh my memory a bit I decided to visit https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy. A quick skim mentions William James, John Dewey, and Heidegger, all of whom I've read but don't remember process philosophy from any of them. > As Nietzsche put it (when discussing Heraclitus), if we observed nature at different time scales, we could see trees pop up and wither away, the sun could look like a ‘luminous bow across the sky’; contrariwise at slower speeds, we could observe a flower as being as permanent as a mountain. Everything is in flux, permanence is merely an illusion of timescale. Being is Becoming, as Nietzsche claims. It's been a while since I've read Nietzsche, but these two ideas don't seem to go together. Sure Being is Becoming, but comparing it to a tree pop up and wither kind of reminds me more of teleology. I want to say Heidegger's Being and Time is more about the human condition, or at least humans, dasein. And for Nietzsche I seem to remember the `will to be,` `the will to become,` `the will to x` to be more about Beings that are able to will. Though I suppose someone in Process Philosophy would say that all things have some kind of will because of the whole panpsychism thing. To be honest I'm kind of surprised to see process philosophy pop up. I could see it being interesting as an exercise in some Comp Sci discussion like OOP/FP, events, or AI.
- devinjon 3y ago
  I thought process philosophy's emphasis on dynamic interactions and transcendent organization might be of interest to HN. Like you, I suspect it could make for an fruitful exercise or two. Regarding James, Heidegger, Dewey: I don't think it's so much the willing or teleology as an inclination to emphasize process and becoming over being and permanence. That and a penchant for fusing subject and object. Nietzsche is maybe a stretch, I agree. The author of the piece is a fan. Perhaps that goes some way towards explaining his inclusion?

1 points by devinjon 3y ago

jmkr 3y ago

A while ago I took a course on Process Philosophy, and have wanted to read more Whitehead since, but more so because of his involvement in analytic philosophy, like co-authoring the principia. I remember not really enjoying Process Philosophy. Some things that bothered me were "God," panentheism as pantheism++, and panpsychism. To refresh my memory a bit I decided to visit https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy. A quick skim mentions William James, John Dewey, and Heidegger, all of whom I've read but don't remember process philosophy from any of them. > As Nietzsche put it (when discussing Heraclitus), if we observed nature at different time scales, we could see trees pop up and wither away, the sun could look like a ‘luminous bow across the sky’; contrariwise at slower speeds, we could observe a flower as being as permanent as a mountain. Everything is in flux, permanence is merely an illusion of timescale. Being is Becoming, as Nietzsche claims. It's been a while since I've read Nietzsche, but these two ideas don't seem to go together. Sure Being is Becoming, but comparing it to a tree pop up and wither kind of reminds me more of teleology. I want to say Heidegger's Being and Time is more about the human condition, or at least humans, dasein. And for Nietzsche I seem to remember the `will to be,` `the will to become,` `the will to x` to be more about Beings that are able to will. Though I suppose someone in Process Philosophy would say that all things have some kind of will because of the whole panpsychism thing. To be honest I'm kind of surprised to see process philosophy pop up. I could see it being interesting as an exercise in some Comp Sci discussion like OOP/FP, events, or AI.

devinjon 3y ago
I thought process philosophy's emphasis on dynamic interactions and transcendent organization might be of interest to HN. Like you, I suspect it could make for an fruitful exercise or two. Regarding James, Heidegger, Dewey: I don't think it's so much the willing or teleology as an inclination to emphasize process and becoming over being and permanence. That and a penchant for fusing subject and object. Nietzsche is maybe a stretch, I agree. The author of the piece is a fan. Perhaps that goes some way towards explaining his inclusion?