Whitehead and China: Relevance and Relationships 9783110328226, 3110328224

Table of contents :
Content:
Part I
IS WHITEHEAD RELEVANTIN CHINA TODAY?∗John B. Cobb, Jr.
Whitehead, China, Postmodern Politics,and Global Democracy in the NewMillenniumDavid Ray Griffin
The Tao of Postmodernity:Process, Deconstruction, and PostcolonialTheoryCatherine Keller
Process Thought in Chinese TraditionalArtsMeijun Fan and Ronald Phipps
Process Thought and Confucian ValuesJoseph Grange
Education•s Myths and Metaphors:Implications of Process Education forEducational ReformGeorge E. Derfer
The Problem of Transcendencein Chinese Religions:From a Whiteheadian PerspectiveWang Shik Jang
Whitehead and Tiantai:Eternal Objects and the •Twofold ThreeThousand•Brook Ziporyn
Concepts of Creation and Pragmatic ofCreativity1Michel Weber
Part II
Non-sensuous Perception and itsPhilosophical AnalysisWenyu Xie
Can Whiteheadian Process PhilosophyChallenge Western Philosophy? 1Guihuan Huo
The Postmodern Dimension ofWhitehead•s Philosophy and ItsRelevanceZhihe Wang
The Value of Adventure in WhiteheadianThoughtZhen Han
Defining Environmental and ResourceProtection in Process Philosophy*Shiyan Li
Towards a Whiteheadian EcofeminismNini Zhang

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Wenyu Xie • Zhihe Wang George E. Derfer

Whitehead and China Relevance and Relationship

ontos verlag Frankfurt I Paris I Ebikon I Lancaster I New Brunswick

Wenyu Xie • Zhihe Wang • George E. Derfer Whitehead and China

PROCESS THOUGHT Edited by Nicholas Rescher • Johanna Seibt • Michel Weber Advisory Board Mark Bickard • Jaime Nubiola • Roberto Poli Volume 4

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de

North and South America by Transaction Books Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854-8042 [email protected]

United Kingdom, Ire Iceland, Turkey, Malta, Portugal by Gazelle Books Services Limited White Cross Mills Hightown LANCASTER, LA1 4XS [email protected]

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2005 ontos verlag P.O. Box 15 41, D-63133 Heusenstamm www.ontosverlag.com ISBN 3-937202-86-2

2005

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use of the purchaser of the work Printed on acid-free paper ISO-Norm 970-6 FSC-certified (Forest Stewardship Council) This hardcover binding meets the International Library standard Printed in Germany by buch bücher dd ag

Content: Preface

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Part I. Engagements: Can Process Thought and Chinese Thought Be Fused? 1. John B. Cobb, Jr.: Is Whitehead Relevant in China Today?

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2. David R. Griffin: Whitehead, China, Postmodern Politics, and Global Democracy .25 3. Catherine Keller: The Tao of Postmodernity: Process, Deconstruction and Postcolonial Theory .39 4. Meijun Fan and Ronald Phipps: Process Thought in Chinese Traditional Arts .51 5. Joseph Grange: Process Thought & Confucian Values

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6. George E. Derfer: Education’s Myths and Metaphors: Implications of Process Education for Educational Reform .77 7. Wang Shik Jang: The Problem of Transcendence in Chinese Religions from a Whiteheadian Perspective .101 8. Brook Ziporyn: Whitehead and Tiantai: Eternal Objects and the "Twofold Three Thousand" .113 9. Michel Weber: Concepts of Creation and the Pragmatic of Creativity .137

Part II. Perspectives: Process Thought in Chinese Minds 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Wenyu Xie: Non-sensuous Perception and Its Philosophical Analysis .153 Guihuan Huo: Can Whiteheadian Process Philosophy Challenge Western Philosophy? .163 Zhihe Wang: The Postmodern Dimension of Whitehead’s Philosophy and Its Relevance .173 Zhen Han: The Value of Adventures in Whiteheadian Thought.189 Shiyan Li: Defining Environmental and Resource Protection in Process Philosophy .197 Nini Zhang: Towards a Whiteheadian Eco-feminism .205

PREFACE During mid-June, 2002, a conference of international scholars met in Beijing, China. The theme that brought them together was Whitehead and China in the New Millennium. The conference was co-sponsored by the China Project of the Center for Process Studies, Claremont, California, and the Center for the Study of Values and Culture, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. More than 180 scholars presented and discussed papers. This volume contains a selection of those papers. The conference aimed at a two-way exploration and exposition: process thinkers in the tradition of Whitehead addressing Chinese thought, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Chinese thinkers addressing Whiteheadian process thought. Of course, many of the papers did not feel neatly into these two categories. The papers we have selected fall into the following two groups: one set of papers addressing the interaction or fusing of the two traditions and another devoted to the contributions of Chinese scholars addressing Whiteheadian process thinking. In Part One we have collected 9 papers, which explore interconnections of Whiteheadian thought and Chinese traditional thought. John Cobb and David Griffin contribute the first two essays. These address issues that Chinese society is now encountering in the fields of religion, politics, and economy. They acknowledge the mistakes that Western modernization has made and express their hope that China will not repeat them. Based on this observation and concern, they suggest that Whitehead’s thought, which is rooted in both Western and Oriental philosophy, may help China not only to be aware of the problems but also to find a different way ahead. In “The Tao of Postmodernity: Process, Deconstruction and Postcolonial Theory,” Catherine Keller picks up the concept of “not yet

8 beginning” in the thought of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu) and shows its connection to Whitehead’s notion of beginning, which refers to irruption out of potentiality. Keller employs this notion in understanding the recent development of postcolonial theory within postmodernism. Meijun Fan and Ronald Phipps, in their presentation, “Process Thought in Chinese Traditional Arts,” begin with the assumption that Chinese traditional thought and Whitehead’s process thinking are alike in many ways. They examine several pieces of Chinese art aesthetically and philosophically and show that they express a sentiment agreeable with the spirit of Whitehead’s thought. Joseph Grange begins with Whitehead’s notion of in solido, in which one’s experience must be felt in the presence of the whole. Based on this notion, in “Process Thought & Confucian Values” Grange defends the view that we should define “good” in light of our knowledge of ecology as nature’s way of pursuing excellence, and that democracy is good because it is closely in agreement with ecological structure. He believes that Confucian values support this position. George E. Derfer’s presentation, “Education’s Myths and Metaphors: Implications of Process Education for Educational Reform,” is about education. In it he asks an existential question: “What motivates us: informs and inspires us?” He then emphasizes Whitehead’s generally ignored concern for and concept of “deeper faith”, which he sees as an essential dimension of cosmic evolution in general and our participation in this in particular. With an assumption that Whitehead and Chinese thought share a common “deeper faith”, Derfer proposes a direction for the reforming of education. Wang Shik Jang’s essay is entitled “The Problem of Transcendence in Chinese Religions: From a Whiteheadian Perspective.” Jang targets a thesis of David Hall and Roger Ames, that the notion of non-transcendence should be emphasized in interpreting Chinese religions. Jang argues that the notion of strict transcendence is also required for an adequate interpretation. He selects Xunzi for analysis and shows that Xunzi’s thought never denies transcendence. Jang concludes that, from the perspective of a Whiteheadian theology, Chinese religious thought has actually been fostering a notion of immanent transcendence. Brook Ziporyn’s lengthy essay, “Whitehead and Tiantai: Eternal Objects and the Twofold Three Thousand,” displays the similarity between Whitehead and Buddhism. Ziporyn compares the Whiteheadian concept of eternal objects and the Buddhist concept of three thousand and finds that

9 they refer to the same things: the totality of actual occasions. Ziporyn exemplifies this similarity by an analysis of the respective treatments of evil. In his conclusion, both Whitehead and Buddhism attempt to demonstrate the value of process in its transient concrete contingency. In his paper “Concepts of Creation and Pragmatic of Creativity,” Michel Weber traces Whitehead’s efforts to understand creation and creativity. Whitehead proposes abandoning substantialism and promoting the idea of creation. To fulfill this program, Weber considers the potential contribution of Chinese Taoism, which advocates spontaneity and pragmatically levels differences among beings. Part Two is a collection of six articles by Chinese writers. In China scholars may have known Whitehead by name for some time, but serious study and discussion of his process thought are just beginning. However, the unexpected registration of 120 Chinese participants demonstrated that there is now a strong interest in contemporary process thought among Chinese scholars. We may call them the first generation of Chinese Whiteheadian scholars. Their perspectives on and interpretations of process thought may shape its future development in China. The first two articles in this division are quite analytical and critical of process thought. Wenyu Xie presents a philosophical analysis of the concept of actual entity in “Non-sensuous Perception and Its Philosophical Analysis.” Actual entity is the fundamental concept in Whitehead’s scheme. After examining the definition of the concept in terms of nonsensuous perception, Xie demonstrates that, to define the concept is to distribute subjectivity among all actual entities. This raises the question of inter-subjectivity, and shows that faith (or emotional prehension) is required in this distribution. Guihuan Huo perceives Whitehead’s philosophy in the scheme of a theory of his own, called “the social individual growing-up theory.” He imposes a question as the title of his paper, “Can Whiteheadian Process Philosophy Challenge Western Philosophy?” His theory emphasizes the development of an individual in a social context on the one hand and, on the other, the impact on society of an individual’s growing up. The dichotomy of subject and object in modern philosophy treats a subject as a static and independent being and therefore ignores the significance of its growing up in its interactions with objects. Huo considers that the concept of process may contribute something to break up the dichotomy. To realize this contribution, however, Huo suggests that a combination of process thought and the social individual growing-up theory may help.

10 Zhihe Wang shifts the tone of the preceding articles and evaluates the contributions of process thought to the movement of postmodern thought in Chinese scholarship. In his paper, “The Postmodern Dimension of Whitehead’s Philosophy and Its Relevance,” Wang suggests that process thought contains an attitude of openness, which may help us overcome the dominant closed mentalities supported by Western cultural imperialism and Chinese Yelangism (self-centralism). Similarly, Zhen Han writes appreciatively of Whitehead’s sentiment of adventure. His paper is entitled “The Value of Adventure in Whiteheadian Thought.” Han believes that human society must retain a spirit of adventure in order to survive. His reading of Whitehead reveals that Whitehead’s thought indeed urges people to pay attention to the potentiality of society and individuals. The last two chapters, contributed by Li Shiyan and Nini Zhang, look for the constructive contributions of process thought to contemporary Chinese thought. In her “Defining Environmental and Resource Protection in Process Philosophy,” Li perceives the agreement between process thought and the current scientific understanding of the evolvement of nature. She then concludes that we should apply process thought in developing projects of environmental and resource protection. Zhang’s article, “Towards a Whiteheadian Ecofeminism,” on the other hand, finds that we need an ecofeminist concept of nature that is complementary to, and interactive with, the male-defined concept of nature. Zhang documents discussions of ecofeminism in the tradition of process thought, and argues that process thought can help establish a Chinese ecofeminism. The conference resulted chiefly from the work of the China Project of the Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California, and especially its executive director, Zhihe Wang. This Project began in 1994 with the translation and publication of The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern proposals (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyishe, 1995), thanks to the efforts of Drs. David Griffin, Wenyu Xie, and Zhihe Wang. This book was surprisingly well received by Chinese scholars. The following story gives evidence of its success. In October of 1996, the Association of the Philosophy of Nature in China held its annual conference in Guangdong. Zhihe Wang was invited to the conference as an honored guest because of his editorship of the Chinese translation of The Reenchantment of Science. Wang was amazed that the book set up the theme of the conference, and its name was mentioned in all the presentations. This encouraging sign paved the way

11 for an aggressive translation project, resulting in a strong presence of process thought in Chinese scholarship. Since the conference from which the essays in this book are derived, publication has continued. This includes both translations of additional works in English and new books by Chinese authors. Notable among these is The Third Metaphysics—Constructive Postmodernism by Prof. Weifu Wu. A group of scholars from the Academy of Social Sciences collaborated with the China Project in publishing the first issue of Chinese Process Studies. The rapid growth of interest in process thought in China is attested by the establishment of eight centers for its study and promotion in Chinese universities, with others under consideration. In collaboration with these centers and universities, numerous conferences have taken place, dealing with a wide range of issues. These have attracted eminent Chinese scholars and considerable attention in the media. Two have dealt with educational reform, and the relation of process thought to education has been of special interest to several of the new centers. The relation of Marx and Whitehead has also been a major concern. The range of topics considered in relation to process thought is shown by the series of international conferences. In Wuhan, at a university devoted to science and technology, the topic was “Science and Spirituality in the Postmodern World.” John Haught, an international leader in the dialogue between science and religion was the keynote speaker. A conference in Suzhou was entitled “Toward a Sustainable Urbanization.” This featured Paolo Soleri, a visionary architect who invented the idea of “architectural ecology” or “arcology,” a city that, among other things, would be self-sufficient in energy. John Cobb gave a keynote address at a conference in Shanghai on “Marxism and the Harmonious Society.” In Beijing a conference was held on “Land and Social Justice in Modernization.” James Brown and Cliff Cobb gave major addresses. Whitehead acknowledged that “the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of...Chinese thought.” Some scholars have attempted to explore this relationship and its implications. The Beijing Conference provided a good forum for interested and engaged scholars to address each other directly, in an atmosphere of mutual regard and respect. The ongoing scholarly work on process thinking in China is impressive. It is the editors’ conviction that the publication of this book in English will promote international discussion of the themes and issues herein set forth. This should contribute significantly to the broader

12 discussion between West and East, so important in this age of cultural globalization. Editors Claremont Summer, 2005

Part I Engagements: Can Process Thought And Chinese Thought Be Fused?

1. IS WHITEHEAD RELEVANT IN CHINA TODAY?∗ John B. Cobb, Jr. (I) I would not be here if I did not believe the answer is emphatically Yes. If I may make some bold, sweeping generalizations, I will claim the following. 1. The religions and philosophies of India and China are full of profound insights badly needed in the contemporary world in both East and West. However, they had their fullest development in an age when science was not an important part of cultural and intellectual life, and technology was not highly developed. They were formulated in less continuity with mathematics than was true of Western philosophy. They do not express a refined historical consciousness. 2. These traditions richly contribute to the interior and daily life of many people in the East, and in recent decades they have attracted much appreciative attention in the West as well. But beyond the very personal sphere, they have more ambiguous effects. For example, they continue to inform much of the attitude toward political authority. ∗

Prepared for presentation at the Fourth International Whitehead Conference, Beijing, June 17-20, 2002.

16 3. Having developed in a context where authority was concentrated at the top, they do little to undergird a more democratic spirit. They assume a traditional society, and do not respond directly to the problems of a modern one. In short, despite the great potential of traditional Asian thought, outside the realm of daily life and religion, its relevance to contemporary problems has not been adequately articulated. 4. Whitehead's thought developed in close relation to science and mathematics and in the context of modern social and political problems. Precisely in that context he came to a view of reality that has remarkable points of contact with traditional Indian and Chinese ideas. His process thought can be greatly enriched by assimilating the wisdom accumulated in those traditions over the millennia. It can also function as a bridge, expanding the application of those ideas and relating them to the issues of our time. Now consider what is happening in the West. 1. Western philosophy as a whole has run dry. The Kantian tradition that has dominated the European mind for two centuries has contributed meanings, but it fails to provide us with a context for private or public life. Deconstructive postmodernism tends toward nihilism whether its practitioners want to go there or not. Most philosophers of science provide little help to scientists themselves as they struggle to make sense of the strange phenomena they encounter. A number of philosophers, such as Richard Rorty, have proclaimed the end of the philosophic tradition. 2. At the deepest level, the problem with Western philosophy is that it has not freed itself from the domination of substance categories. Of course, most philosophers are aware of the difficulties with the idea of substance, and they rarely affirm the reality of substances directly. But because they reject the discipline of metaphysics, they have no way of replacing the substance categories that pervade our Indo-European languages with alternative ways of thinking. This leaves the idea of substance intact in the background of their thought. 3. The same is true for the sciences. Physicists know that traditional categories based on substance thought have broken down. For example, the ether they posited to underlie the light waves does not exist. But because the mathematics developed to describe wave phenomena continued to achieve useful results, they continue to use the idea of wave as if there were something to wave. They often acknowledge that science no longer

17 corresponds with some objective reality, and the resulting science is full of paradoxes. Because, like the philosophers, they eschew metaphysics, they cannot develop an alternative conceptuality that fits their evidence. Science itself suffers from the results. 4. Indian and Chinese philosophies include alternatives to substance thought much more fully than does European philosophy. Hence they have much to offer. But as we saw above, they are not formulated in way that is directly relevant to the concerns of the contemporary world. 5. Whitehead's basic conceptuality is closer to that typical of East Asia than to that typical of Europe. But because he developed it out of a background in mathematics and physics, it has a systematic rigor and relevance to contemporary issues that Asian philosophy usually lacks. Because he was not afraid of metaphysical questions, Whitehead worked out an alternative to substance thinking that fits the evidence of the sciences while differing from their usual formulations. In this way he offers to Asians a bridge to the correction of Western science and its incorporation into their own worldview. Now I will take another tack in making my claim for Whitehead's usefulness. 1. China is committed to modernization. Modernization is nearly equivalent to Westernization. There is no doubt that modernity in the West has brought great advances in knowledge and technology. It has also encouraged democracy and human rights. It has brought about an economic prosperity for masses of people that has no precedent in human history. There is much for which we Westerners, who are heirs of modernization, are grateful. But we are also painfully aware of its limitations. Modernity has been extremely, and damagingly, individualistic. In its later forms it has been preoccupied with gaining wealth and employing competitive means to this end. In the process it has strained the social fabric to the breaking point. 2. Modernity has denied any intrinsic value to the natural world and accordingly we have exploited our environment shamelessly. We now see that we pay a high price for this. The nature that has nurtured us so long is no longer able to do so. We are trying to slow the degradation of nature and preserve bits of it, but much is forever lost. And the policies of modernity continue to eat away at what is left. Modernity has led

18 inevitably to an ecological crisis in which we are already involved but which will become far more acute in the decades immediately ahead. 3. The critique of modernity is now widespread. Most of what is called postmodernism leads to the abandonment of any quest for comprehensive vision. It attacks the idea of a master narrative or a cosmology. It leaves us with local knowledge that is powerless against the continuing advance of the steamrollers of modernity. Although it criticizes brilliantly, it offers few concrete proposals for the way ahead. On the whole, it is as alienated from the natural world as was the modernity it critiques. In some respects it carries dangerous tendencies within modernity to an extreme rather than providing a different point of departure. 4. Whitehead provides an alternative. He, too, was critical of the modern world, and his followers pursue and extend that critique. But he wanted not just to tear down the ideas of the modern world but also to replace them with more adequate ideas. These provide positive proposals for responding to the issues of the day. In this sense his ideas are part of the movement of constructive postmodernism. We need to have our thought checked and corrected by deconstructive postmodernism and enriched and developed through interaction with Asian, communitarian, ecological, and feminist thought as well as that of primal peoples. But there is thus far no indication that encounters with these other positions will undercut or invalidate our basic ideas. Modified and enriched by all these influences, Whiteheadian thought can suggest a way ahead in science, economics, politics, education, and social policy. In the area of religion, China is now at a very interesting place. The traditional culture met the religious needs of people in a variety of ways. But, for reasons I have already indicated, that culture is no longer unproblematic. Partly this is because it was systematically attacked and weakened during the Red Guard period. Partly it is because modernization, by its nature, is in tension with traditional cultures. For a while leaders hoped that Communism would meet the needs that traditional religions once fulfilled. But today this is true for only a few. Accordingly, there is an openness in China for religious teaching of many varieties. Since Whitehead's understanding of reality is so close to that of traditional Chinese thought, the comments above about Whitehead's ability to act as a bridge between traditional ideas and the contemporary world are relevant here. I want to add now a comment about Christianity.

19 1. As a professional Christian teacher, I am happy that Christianity has won many converts in China and attracted interest at a number of levels. Yet my pleasure is not unqualified. In the West we know much that is good to which Christianity has profoundly contributed. We want to share that. I believe that Christianity can make very important contributions in China as well. But we know that many Christian beliefs have done great harm as well. We would like to warn against those. Unfortunately, large-scale movements to Christianity are unlikely to be critical. They are likely to support some of the ways of thinking that have done harm in the West. 2. One of the problems of Christianity in the past has been otherworldliness and an accompanying dualism of spirit and body. This has been connected to patriarchalism and homophobia. I do not know how far that has been appropriated by Chinese Christians, but it stands as a threat to the healthier potentialities of traditional Chinese culture. Another risk is biblicism, a kind of absolutization of the authority of the Bible that leads to irrational beliefs and actions. Another danger is that believers may expect of their faith more than it can deliver, and live in either selfdeception or disillusionment. 3. On the whole, China has dealt with religious diversity, historically, better than did Western Christianity. Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, and others have lived side by side. Indeed, a single individual could participate in all of these traditions. This has not been true of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the West. All of these have tendencies to exclusivism and to the rejection of other communities of believers, but Christianity has the worst record. China does not need that. 4. You will not be surprised to hear me say that I believe that Whitehead can help in this respect as well. Process theology has built on Whitehead's thought and has interpreted the Christian tradition accordingly. It is certainly not the only form of revisionist Christian theology that works against the dualism, biblicism, and false expectations associated with so much of historic and contemporary Christianity. It is certainly not the only way to avoid Christian exclusivism. But, in my biased opinion, it offers the most thorough and systematic way around these problems and encourages a form of Christianity that could make a positive contribution to working out the relationship among the religious communities of China as well as their relations to the prevailing secular society. These sweeping claims will simply have to stand here undeveloped. I hope that by the end of this conference, they will not seem altogether

20 preposterous. I will take the time remaining to me to develop just one claim somewhat more fully. I implied that Whiteheadian thought could bring some traditional ideas to bear on contemporary problems. I believe that among these contemporary concerns, economics is central. Hence I will offer a critique of the dominant economic thinking of modernity and also suggestions for a different way of thinking about economics and also practicing it. My exposition will show how close together are the necessary deconstruction of the modern and the reconstruction of the Whiteheadian postmodern. ( II ) Modern economic theory is based on an understanding of human beings in their capacity as economic actors. We call the resulting model of the human being Homo economicus. No economist supposes that human beings are exhaustively understood as economic actors. Everyone knows that human beings are also political actors, Homo politicus, and religious actors, Homo religiosus. The list can be extended. The features of the human being identified as Homo economicus are abstracted from the complex fullness of human existence. The academic discipline of economics is based on these abstractions. This discipline is unusual among the social sciences in the influence it has on public life. Homo economicus is self-contained in a thoroughly individualistic way. "He" (and I think the male language is appropriate here) relates to others only in market transactions. In these he seeks to gain as much as possible in goods and services for himself at the smallest possible expenditure of money of labor. This is "rational" behavior, and the science of economics depends on the rationality of human actors. Now we must ask, is this an accurate picture of human economic behavior? Certainly, we must agree that much behavior in the market place conforms to this model. People bargain to get what they want for the lowest price possible. When they sell, they try to get the best price they can. Typically they seek the employment that is the best paid. And employers try to get the work they need done as inexpensively as possible. This is the pattern to which economists appeal. It is not, of course, exhaustively accurate. In seeking employment, pay is not the only consideration. People will accept lower pay if the conditions are pleasant and the work interesting. To an employer it is important to have loyalty and good morale in the workforce, and these are not

21 exhaustively a matter of pay. Occasionally economists try to put money values on all of these intangibles, but for the most part, following their model's most apparent implications, they ignore these other factors. Furthermore, unless there is basic honesty and self-discipline, the whole market system breaks down. The government can enforce honesty and self-discipline in some respects, but laws cannot replace internal commitments and character. Unfortunately, the market, especially as economists interpret it, tends to erode these crucial values. In terms of market values, if dishonesty is profitable, there is nothing wrong with it. If employees can persuade their employers that they are doing good jobs, there is no harm in dawdling. For the market to work well, it must be set in a context in which ethical values not characteristic of Homo economicus are nevertheless operative. If the market and its values extend into larger sections of society, as they now do in the United States, the market itself suffers. The clash between market values and concern for justice and the common good is shown by a series of experiments conducted some years ago. Large groups of people were given tokens that they could invest in one of two ways. They could exchange their tokens for one cent each. Or they could put them in a pool that pays 2.2 cents each but distributes the proceeds to all players. Market values dictate that one exchange all one's tokens for money to be paid to oneself. One could then hope that other players would put money in the collective pool from which one would receive additional funds. On the other hand, it is clear that if all players put all their tokens in the collective pool, all would benefit maximally. In fact most people exchanged part of their tokens in one way and part in the other. Overall, the division was roughly half and half. When asked why they did not follow what most economists would call rational practices, they said they thought that exchanging some tokens in the collective pool was only fair. Many said that a truly fair-minded person would put more in the collective pool than they had themselves done. The only group that deviated drastically from the pattern was composed of a group of beginning graduate students in economics. This group contributed only 20% to the collective pool. Clearly their specialization in economics had led them to adopt market values! The power of the market model in the thinking of economists was were conducted today, far more people would act the way the students of economics acted; far fewer would act for the common good.

22 Market values are influencing more and more segments of society. The medical profession has recently, quite publicly and openly, been turned into the medical industry. The educational system is now supported for its service to the market rather than its contribution to citizenship and human values. There is a systematic effort to develop a theory of law based on the application of economic principles. One might suppose that market principles have always dominated business, but, as I have noted, business itself requires the functioning of other values. A popular adage has been that "honesty is the best policy." Today, however, businessmen are sometimes counseled to obey the law only when that is profitable, and to break it when they can thereby earn more money. For example, the punishment for violating regulations protecting the environment is usually a fine. Operating by market principles, the businessman is encouraged to calculate the extra cost of obeying the law and to count against that the cost of penalties likely to levied by the government. If profits are likely to exceed penalties, then the businessman who behaves "rationally" will break the law. Process thought provides a different model of human beings, one that, if accepted, would have quite different consequences for public life generally. Instead of viewing individuals as isolated substances relating to others only through market transactions, Whitehead encourages us to see the individual as largely constituted by relations to others. This makes a huge difference. With the now standard model, the well being of other human beings contributes nothing to mine. Hence, harming others in order to get ahead is quite rational. With the Whiteheadian model, my well being is largely the result of the well being of other people, especially those who are close to me. Rational behavior is that which improves the community of which I am a part rather than that which increases my wealth at the expense of others. A thoroughgoing Whiteheadian, in the experiment of which I have spoken, would calculate correctly that all would benefit most if all put their money in the common pool and act accordingly. The contrast can be stated in terms of the importance of human community. The now dominant economics has no place for community. We are simply collections of individuals, each seeking his or her gain. The application of this model leads systematically to the destruction of given communities. Karl Polanyi's book, The Great Transformation, shows what happened in eighteenth century England. In the United States, in the past fifty years, applying the dominant model to agriculture and to

23 manufacturing has destroyed thousands of rural communities and hundreds of industrial ones. Since World War II most economic development around the world since has followed this individualistic, anti-community, model. The results, in my opinion, have been humanly disastrous. There has been an alternative, associated with the work of Mahatma Gandhi, and pursued by many nongovernmental organizations. It is called "community development." This model, far more congenial to a Whiteheadian, takes existing communities as given and works with them to improve their economic well being. This may entail installing a pump that brings water to the village and that the villagers understand well enough to keep in repair. It may entail introducing solar cookers that reduce the need to go great distances to get firewood. It may entail developing handiwork to be sold to tourists that can be produced when less time is required on the farm. The point is that people are helped to be more productive in ways that keep communities intact. Sadly, villages that have improved their lot in such ways are sometimes wiped out by agribusiness or by flooding caused by a huge dam built to fulfill the goals of standard, top-down, development based on the individualistic model. The model of the individual that underlies this emphasis on community can be formulated as "person-in-community". The theory here is that the values of truly personal existence are achieved only in relation to others, therefore, in community. On the other hand, one is not simply a part of a community. One has one's own individuality and independence. In Whitehead's model, however far we are shaped by the inflowing of the past, there is also a decision in each moment. The more we are able to incorporate from others, the more significant that decision becomes. The image of person-in-community puts equal emphasis on dependence on community and personal self-determination or freedom. The point is that these support one another. The richer the community of which we are a part, the more fully we become persons with our own individuality and freedom. A second feature of the standard economic model is the radical dualism between human beings and the natural world. The only values are the enjoyments or satisfactions of individual human beings. This is thoroughgoing anthropocentrism. Elements in the natural world count for nothing in themselves. Their value is only what human beings will pay for them.

24 What are valued in this way are chiefly the elements of the natural world that are used to produce goods for the market. Oil, of course, is of great value. So are trees and fish. Land is of value as the locus of production and because people will pay for places to live and work. In principle, economists acknowledge that because people enjoy scenery, that also has value. They occasionally attempt to value it by asking people how much they would pay to prevent its destruction. But calculations of this sort play very little role in economic theory and practice. Generally, that which does not actually come into the market is ignored. Nature otherwise is simply omitted from economic theory. A Whiteheadian operates out of a very different model. There are differences between human beings and other creatures, just as there are differences among various species of other creatures. These differences are important. Human beings have a kind of responsibility for the whole that no other creature has. But humanity is still part of the natural world. Our relations are not only with other human beings. They are with other creatures as well. Whether we should extend the idea of community to include these other creatures is uncertain. But our relation to them is like our relation to other human beings in that their well being contributes to ours. A healthy biosphere is important to human well being. Its loss impoverishes our lives. Furthermore, Whiteheadians recognize that human well being is not all that matters. The well being of other creatures is also important in itself and not only for our sake. The suffering of animals is evil in itself. Their contentment and enjoyment of life is good in itself. A Whiteheadian also values variety. The richness of experience is enhanced by the diversity of what is integrated into it. When variety is lost our experience is impoverished. This is true also for God. Biodiversity enriches the life of God. Its reduction by human activity impoverishes God. In these sketchy comments I have tried to indicate that constructive postmodernism of the Whiteheadian variety implies a program for public life, as well as for individuals, that is quite different from the one that our modernist leaders are pursuing. In my opinion, the present program, built on a model that ignores community and ecology, leads to disaster. I profoundly hope that, before it is too late, a different vision, more like that generated from Whitehead's thought, can gain significant influence.

2. Whitehead, China, Postmodern Politics, and Global Democracy in the New Millennium David Ray Griffin In this essay, I argue that modern politics, based on sovereign states, is the culmination of 10,000 years of civilization under the conditions of anarchy, that we now need a postmodern politics in which this anarchy is overcome, that China has a special role to play in this development, and that the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead can also play a helpful role. I develop this argument in terms of 12 theses. 1. What we call, in terms of the Western calendar, the 21st century is not only the beginning of a new millennium. Given the fact that human civilization has existed for about ten millennia, we can consider the present century the beginning of the second ten-millennia period. 2. The history of civilization has been, to a great extent, the history of warfare. This point means that civilization and organized warfare arose at the same time, about 10,000 years ago. It also means that prior to the rise of civilization, the institution of warfare did not exist. We should not, therefore, conclude from the record of the past few thousand years that warfare is part of the human condition, which has always existed and always will exist. It may be that we are living in a brief aberrant interlude, which was preceded by a very long pre-warfare period and will be followed by a very long post-warfare period.

26 To say that the history of civilization has been, to a great extent, the history of warfare means, furthermore, that the needs of the warfare system have increasingly shaped the direction of civilization. These needs have not only motivated new developments in science, technology, communications, and transportation in particular societies. They have also caused these developments to spread to other societies, so that they could compete in the warfare system. The same dynamic, which involves a selection for anything that would increase a society’s military power, lies behind the rise of capitalism, as the need to raise money for increasingly expensive armies and military equipment meant that the market economy, which originally gave an advantage to certain Italian city states, soon spread to the rest of Europe. This same dynamic has also influenced the development of religious ideology. The dominant religious ideologies of the various civilizations have generally been “ideological” in the strong sense of the term, portraying themselves as especially favored by the divine forces of the universe. Some of these ideologies have provided a basis for a global imperialism, declaring that the divine forces have predestined them to win out over all their competitors. These imperialistic ideologies both reflected and promoted the rise of empires, so that to a great extent human history over the past 3,000 years has been the history of successive empires. Some of these empires--those with globally imperialistic ideologies--have sought to extend their rule over as much of the known world as possible. This process has continued until, today, the American neocolonial empire is far more extensive than even the British empire, on which the sun never set. For the most part, only China, a few other Marxist-influenced countries, and parts of the Muslim world remain outside this empire. Except for America itself and its junior partners, most of the countries within this empire have been significantly deprived of their power of self-determination, forced to serve American economic and geopolitical interests, and prevented from forming a more egalitarian society, with the result that a majority of their peoples live in stark poverty. Thanks to the imperialism of the past several centuries, which has culminated in American imperialism, we now have global apartheid, a planetary division between the rich and the poor that is more extreme that the previous apartheid in South Africa, which was almost universally condemned.

27 3. Critics of both war and imperialism have long offered proposals for overcoming them. For any solution to have a chance of success, it must be based on a correct analysis of the basic causes of the problem, with special focus on which of these basic causes can actually be overcome. These analyses of the causes of war have been classified by Kenneth Waltz into three types, which he called first-, second-, and third-image analyses. In a first-image analysis, war is said to be rooted in the nature of human beings. In a second-image analysis, war is caused by a particular type of human society, with some socialists blaming capitalist societies and democratic capitalists blaming socialist dictatorships. According to a third-image analysis, the basic cause of war is international anarchy--the fact that there is no global government over and above the various states that can arbitrate their disputes. In the absence of such a government, the various states can settle their differences only in terms of power--which may involve actual war or only its threat. International anarchy does not directly cause any war; it is not an active cause. But it is the permitting cause of war, the condition that allows almost anything to become an active cause of war. There is an element of truth in each of these analyses, because each one actually points to a permitting cause. The element of truth in the firstimage analysis is that human nature is such that human beings are capable of aggression and have natural sympathy only for a very limited portion of the rest of humanity. Human nature is, therefore, a permitting cause of war. The element of truth in the second-image analysis is that human beings are social animals. We live in a society, become loyal to it, and generally incorporate its ideology and thereby share its perspective in disputes with other societies. The existence of human societies is, therefore, a second permitting cause of war. But these first two permitting causes involve immutable facts about human nature, which we cannot change. International anarchy is the one permitting cause we could overcome. War, and the imperialism to which it gives rise, can be overcome, and can only be overcome, by overcoming global anarchy through the creation of a global government. 4. Unless we do overcome global anarchy, furthermore, there is little chance that human civilization will survive another century, let alone another ten millennia. As critics of the war-system have been saying since the creation of nuclear weapons, the continuation of the war-system is now too dangerous, because it threatens to bring civilization itself, and perhaps even much of the rest of the life of the planet, to an end. The various

28 scenarios through which a nuclear war, leading to a “nuclear winter,” might come about were discussed at great length during the Cold War. Although many people thought that the demise of the Soviet Union, combined with the détente between America and China, put an end to the threat of a nuclear holocaust, wiser heads knew otherwise--that the resulting world would be just as dangerous, perhaps more so. Besides the ongoing threat that disputes between two or more nations could lead to nuclear holocaust, there is now, since September 11, greater awareness of the threat that nonstate terrorists might obtain and use nuclear weapons. Nonstate terrorism, often called the terrorism of the weak, is almost always the result of injustices produced by the anarchical world order, in which differences are settled not in terms of some relatively impartial determination of what would be fair, but simply in terms of the self-interest of the most powerful. Terrorism of the weak is usually a reaction to imperialism, so there is little chance of ridding the world of terrorism apart from overcoming the global anarchy that allows imperialism. The threats posed by war, imperialism, nuclear weapons, and terrorism are, furthermore, not the only threats to the continued existence of civilization for which global anarchy is responsible. There are also the interconnected threats of pollution, overpopulation, and resource shortages. Although there has been serious discussion of the population explosion since the 1960s, very little has been done to stop it. China is one of the few countries to have introduced effective measures to bring a halt to runaway population growth. In most of the rest of the world, the continuation of the population explosion means that already struggling societies will, in the coming decades, be trying to meet the needs of twice as many people with the same resources, or even fewer. Resource wars, meaning wars in which natural resources are the primary cause, will surely become increasingly prevalent. As absolute shortages in food, water, and oil emerge, furthermore, the relative shortages, produced by the world’s highly inequitable allocation of resources, will become even more intolerable to disadvantaged groups, providing additional motivation for terrorism against rich countries. Global apartheid combined with growing resource shortages combined with hatred of imperialism combined with nuclearism makes for a very volatile mixture. As if these scenarios were not frightening enough, modern civilization’s pollution of the planet is now clearly causing global warming, which will produce, among other problems, rises in the sea-level.

29 Even more frightening, climate scientists say that, unless we cut back drastically on our production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, runaway global warming will occur sometime in this century, and once this occurs, the death of civilization will follow shortly. In the face of the almost unanimous opinion of the scientific community, the world’s political and economic leaders, especially in America, have continued with business as usual, thinking only of shortterm advantages. Although there are complex issues involved, some quite technical, the international anarchy lies at the root of the failure of the nations to respond responsibly to this issue. Because there is no global government with the authority to pass laws binding on all nations on the basis of a majority vote, any collective agreement takes the form of a treaty, in which each nation is free to withhold its consent. In practice, this situation means that treaties, for the sake of getting a large number of signatories, get watered down to the point that they are little better than nothing. Thus far, the most powerful nations, which have been responsible for most of the problem, have refused to accept any treaty that recognizes this responsibility. Furthermore, although the Kyoto Treaty, which most of the other nations have accepted, is woefully inadequate for addressing the problem, the United States refuses to accept even it. For a wide number of reasons, therefore, the emergence of a global government seems to provide the only hope for the survival of human civilization. Perhaps even that could not save us. Perhaps it is already too late. But we do not know that. We must proceed on the assumption that it is not too late, that if we take remedial action quickly and decisively, we can avoid a complete catastrophe. And there will be a chance for such action if, and only if, we create a global government, giving it the authority to take such action. 5. Once it is seen that we need a global government, the next questions are: What kind of government do we need, and how will it be created? One possible answer is that one nation would completely subjugate all the rest, incorporating them formally into its empire. The United States has been aspiring to this role for some time, and already acts, to a great extent, as a de facto global government, with NATO, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization serving largely as its surrogates. There are American thinkers who suggest, furthermore, that the United States should play the role of “global sheriff” even more fully, imposing a Pax Americana. Given the

30 record of US global leadership thus far, however, most of the rest of the world will not respond to this prospect with enthusiasm. Global government imposed by America, most other nations rightly fear, would mean a global tyranny. What we need is a global democratic government, created by all the peoples of the world. Such a government would be based on a constitution, with a bill of rights, specifying both the rights of individuals and the rights of nations. Such a government would need legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The nature of the constitution, including the rights of individuals and nations to be safeguarded constitutionally, would be decided democratically, at a global constitutional convention in which all peoples are represented. Multiple democratic safeguards are essential. No person or group can be trusted with absolute power. As Lord Acton famously said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Acton was referring to the Roman Catholic Church, with its self-declaration of infallibility. But his point applies to any institution. As Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” When Niebuhr wrote that, he had the idea of global democracy in mind. 6. The idea of a global democratic government is, however, almost universally rejected, especially in elite circles in which problems of world order are discussed. This is not surprising, of course, because the idea of a global democratic government is a postmodern idea, one that challenges the political foundations of modernity. The modern age began, politically, with the creation of sovereign nation states, generally dated from the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. The modern theory of sovereign states was developed by thinkers such as Bodin, Hobbes, Grotius, and Vattel. For a nation to be sovereign means that there is no authority above it that can tell it how to govern its people, use its natural resources, or decide how its disputes with other nations are to be settled. Sovereignty, therefore, guarantees the right to go to war. The creation of a genuinely postmodern world will require transcending the anarchical system associated with these thinkers, who have the same paradigmatic importance for the modern world order as Mersenne, Descartes, Hobbes (again), Boyle, Newton, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Hegel have for the modern worldview. The reason for creating a global democracy is not, of course, because it would be the postmodern thing to do, but because it is necessary if we are to have a humane and sustainable global civilization. This will be very difficult,

31 however, because the modern system is beloved by the rich and powerful nations that make up the G-7. They love it because, even if it does not quite authorize the principle that might makes right, it definitely allows might to make policy. The idea of global democracy will also be widely opposed simply because of its radical novelty. Even the description of the idea of global democracy as postmodern does not adequately reflect the degree of novelty involved. To say that the idea goes beyond modernity suggests that it merely challenges a fundamental notion embodied in the political structure of the world during the past four to five centuries. However, as I emphasized earlier, civilization has been anarchical from the outset, so modern politics is in this respect simply the culmination of anarchical civilization as a whole. A genuinely postmodern politics, involving the idea of a government at the global level, thereby implies a radically new development in human civilization as such. And like all radically new ideas, this one will be widely rejected, often for irrational reasons. 7. Recognizing this fact, however, does not mean that there are not also objections that must be taken seriously. The idea of global government has been subjected to a threefold critique: that it is unnecessary, undesirable, and impossible. On the basis of this threefold charge, almost all people who write about the problems of world order reject the idea that these problems could be solved through the creation of a global government. Many writers, whether they are talking about the problem of global warming, or nuclear war, or global apartheid, provide an analysis of the problem that shows global anarchy to be the underlying cause of the problem, so that it could be solved only by the creation of a global government. But then, simply assuming that such a government could not be created, they offer some wholly inadequate solution. In light of the fact that many of these authors are both highly intelligent and genuinely concerned about the welfare of the world, these three objections must be answered if the movement for global democracy is to get off the ground. I have already suggested the kind of response that can be given to the charge that global government is unnecessary. The charge that a global government would be undesirable is most often voiced in terms of the fear that it would become a global tyranny, by virtue of some faction seizing control and instituting a global dictatorship. Although this danger could never be reduced to zero, enough safeguards could built in to make having a global government far less dangerous than

32 not having one. The more serious problem is the danger that, while remaining democratic in form, the global government would come to be subservient to the plutocratic class, as is the case in the United States. However, although the US Constitution did not prevent this possibility from becoming the reality in America, this was not because the founding fathers did not know how to prevent it, but because they did not want to-they were plutocrats. A global constitutional convention, having the will to overcome the present plutocratic rule of the planet, would be able to create a system of safeguards that could do so. This point is relevant to the charge that any plan for global democracy would involve imposing “Western-style democracy” on the whole planet. When people in non-Western countries criticize “Westernstyle democracy,” however, the chief feature they have in mind is usually the fact that it is “free-market democracy,” which allows the short-term and narrow interests of the plutocratic class to take control of the government, to the detriment of the long-term general good. A global democracy worth having would not be Western-style democracy in this sense. The charge that the creation of a global democracy would be impossible is sometimes based on the claim that many countries of the world are not yet committed to domestic democracy, so that it is unlikely that they would support democracy at the global level. However, that conclusion does not necessarily follow. Most nations of the world are now left out of the decision-making process with regard to matters of global governance. (Most of the countries whose coastal regions will be flooded as global warming raises the level of the oceans, for example, have little if any say in relation to the policies of the North Atlantic nations that are primarily responsible for this problem.) Most of these left-out countries, whatever their own form of governance, would like a form of global governance in which they all have a say--and that would be to have a global democracy. The charge that a global democracy would be impossible is most often made in terms of the realization that a global constitution, with a bill of rights, would require a consensus on moral values, which, many critics claim, does not exist. This objection can be answered, however, in terms of an ethic of communitarian cosmopolitanism. 8. Although it has widely been thought that communitarianism and cosmopolitanism are necessarily opposed to each other, they are not. On

33 the one hand, an ethic that is intended to be cosmopolitan, or universal, can be limited to those basic principles that are already shared by all the world’s major religious and moral systems, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Marxism, Stoicism, Taoism, and Western Humanism. One such principle is the injunction, Don’t do to others what you would not like done to yourself. Spelling out this injunction would lead to a list of more specific injunctions such as the following: Don’t murder other people. Don’t starve other people. Don’t steal other people’s land or water. Don’t rape other people. Don’t terrorize or torture other people. Don’t humiliate other people. Don’t treat other people as mere means to your ends. It is precisely such principles that are violated in many parts of the world today by the present system of global governance. It is such principles that lie behind the growing protests against US foreign policy, the IMF, the WTO, and, more generally, the present direction being taken by economic globalization. The creation of a global democratic government would allow these cosmopolitan principles to be enforced in all parts of the world. A strictly cosmopolitan ethic, however, would not be adequate as the basis for a global constitution. Although the values of the various cultures of the world are all the same in the sense of embodying a set of universal principles, they are also enormously different in their details. And, as Michael Walzer puts it in his book Thick and Thin, although each culture shares a thin morality with all other cultures, people are primarily constituted by the thick morality embodied in their particular culture. A universal feature of human life, Walzer points out, is that individuals and groups have a commitment “to their own history, culture, and identity,” and this fact implies that one of the basic moral principles is that each culture’s commitment, with its moral thickness, “must always be accommodated.” To accommodate this universal truth about human life, a global constitution would have to include the rights of groups, including nations, as well as the rights of individuals.

34 9. This communitarian principle, while seeming to be a limitation on the cosmopolitan principle, is actually an implication of it. This is because, as both Marx and Whitehead said, individuals are internally related to their communities, in the sense that their communities enter into them, constituting to a great extent who they are. Whiteheadian process philosophy emphasizes the idea that organisms are internally related to their environments, with human beings as the chief exemplification of this universal characteristic. For example, John Cobb and Herman Daly, arguing that we need a transition “From Individualism to Person-inCommunity,” say: “People are constituted by their relationships. We come into being in and through relationships and have no identity apart from them.” This recognition, they emphasize, would encourage a communitarian way of thinking. Douglas Sturm, likewise, points out that Whitehead’s “principle of internal relations” implies a “communitarian political ethic.” As these thinkers recognize, however, Whitehead’s philosophy leads to a political ethic that is cosmopolitan as well as communitarian. Besides being internally related to those finite beings in our immediate vicinities, we are also internally related to the universe as a whole, which contains what Whitehead calls “a character of permanent rightness” To say that we are internally related to this character means that we directly experience it. We have, in Whitehead’s words, “a direct intuition of a righteousness in the nature of things.” It is this direct intuition, shared by all peoples, that explains why all religions, whether or not they believe in a personal deity, share “the concept of a rightness in things.” This fact explains why all religions and moral systems share a thin set of moral principles. Whitehead’s recognition of the universal truth of internal relations, I have suggested, supports the thick, communitarian side of Walzer’s ethic as well as its thin, cosmopolitan side. Another principle of Whitehead’s philosophy that supports a communitarian version of cosmopolitanism is the principle of creativity, which supports what Walzer calls the principle of self-determination. This principle implies that people, as members of communities, have, in Walzer’s words, “the basic right to govern themselves (in accordance with their own political ideas)--insofar as they can decently do that.” That qualification, about decent self-governance, means that a global constitution should allow communities to govern themselves in terms of their own norms as long as those norms do not violate any of the thin, cosmopolitan moral principles.

35 10. To summarize: Whitehead’s philosophy provides the basis for a constructive postmodern political ethic. It is postmodern by going beyond the kind of purely cosmopolitan ethic associated with modernity, which falsely claimed universal validity for various Western principles. But it is constructively postmodern by avoiding the kind of complete relativism associated with deconstructive forms of postmodern thought. This communitarian version of cosmopolitanism, I am suggesting, provides a viable ethical basis for a global constitution. With a global government based on such a constitution, we would have overcome the most destructive aspect of the modern political order, which is that it provides virtually no opening for morality to play a role at the global level. With a global democracy, we could, besides loudly proclaiming that might does not make right, also prevent might from making policy. 11. Of the terms in my title, I have now discussed postmodern politics and global democracy, and I have introduced my discussion of Whitehead. I now turn to the fourth element: China. Why should I advocate global democracy to a Chinese audience? My answer is that China is in a unique position to help overcome the world’s self-destructive anarchy by taking a leadership role in the movement for global democracy. I have several reasons for saying this. In the first place, China’s cultural heritage does not contain an imperialistic ideology. There was a time, when Chinese civilization was arguably the greatest civilization on earth, when China could have embarked on an imperial course, branching out to try to dominate all the then-known world. But it rather deliberately rejected this course. Although China has always seen itself as rightly exercising leadership in Asia, it has never aspired to global domination. Because of this heritage, China could argue with credibility that the system that makes imperialism inevitable should be overcome. A second factor is that China has already exercised leadership-byexample by dramatically reducing its rate of population growth. This achievement would give enormous credibility to a Chinese argument for the need to create a global government with the power protect the planet’s ecological sustainability. A third factor is that China is now generally expected to become one of the dominant influences of the 21st century. As a saying has it, “China had a couple of bad centuries--but now it’s back.” With its recovered power and prestige, being again recognized as one of the world’s great

36 civilizations, China is now in position to take a leadership role in determining the shape of human civilization as a whole. A fourth factor is that China has had abundant first-hand experience of the destructiveness of imperialism. The fact that China had “a couple of bad centuries” was to a large extent due to intervention by imperial powers. The Chinese people are keenly aware of the anti-imperialist implications of the basic moral injunction, “Don’t do to others what you do not like done to yourself.” They, therefore, should have especially strong motivation to develop a global order that will put an end to imperialism for all time. A fifth factor is that China’s indigenous religious-moral traditions have always been intimately related to political leadership. Moral maxims have been understood, first of all, as maxims for exercising political leadership. It has been understood, furthermore, that the welfare of the people is closely dependent upon whether the political leaders are exercising their rule humanely. And to rule humanely, it is understood, is to rule on the basis of the mandate of heaven--that is, in harmony with the basic moral and aesthetic principles of the universe. The religious-moral heritage of China, therefore, inclines its people to want a form of governance that, by being in harmony with these basic moral and aesthetic principles, produces a human society characterized by justice, harmony, and humaneness. Because the present form of global governance, with its plutocratic imperialism, produces exactly the opposite--massive injustice, massive disharmony, massive inhumaneness--the entire cultural heritage of the Chinese people gives them special motivation to overcome it. These are at least some of the reasons that China is in a unique position to lead a movement toward global democracy. 12. I come now to my final point, which is that Whitehead’s philosophy, by incorporating traditional Chinese values, could provide Chinese citizens interested in promoting global democracy with a framework for relating these values to modern and postmodern modes of thought. The affinity between Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and Chinese thought has received considerable discussion. Whitehead himself stimulated this discussion with his oft-quoted remark that his philosophy “seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought.” Although Whitehead in that context specifies only that the affinity consists in the fact that his philosophy, like Chinese thought, “makes process ultimate,” whereas the

37 other type of thought “makes fact ultimate,” there is much more that is implicit in this point. In rejecting the kind of thought that makes fact ultimate, Whitehead means the idea of a divine being who is “the one ultimate metaphysical fact . . . who decreed and ordered the derivative existence which we call the actual world.” According to this view, the ultimate fact is a divine being who created our world ex nihilo, so that all power belongs to this divine being. According to this notion, which became the standard view in European thought, the world’s order is the result of “the world obeying an imposed rule.” Whitehead’s criticism of this view is not gentle. This view involves, he says, “a barbaric conception of God.” For Whitehead, a barbarian “speaks in terms of power. He dreams of the superman with the mailed fist. …[H]is final good is conceived as one will imposing itself upon other wills.” Traditional Western theology, in other words, has portrayed the divine reality as a cosmic barbarian. This theology, Whitehead adds, involved “idolatry,” because it fashioned God “in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers.” Western thought has thereby had an imperialistic cosmology. Given humanity’s basic religious impulse, which is to imitate the divine reality as we understand it, this imperialistic cosmology has had disastrous consequences. Saying that “the worship of glory arising from power is… dangerous,” Whitehead adds: “I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the bones of those slaughtered because of men intoxicated by its attraction.” Elaborating on this idea, he says that the doctrine of a “transcendent creator, at whose fiat the world came into being, and whose imposed will it obeys, is the fallacy which has infused tragedy into the histories of Christianity and [Islam].” This doctrine has infused so much tragedy because it has led its devotees to imitate their imagined creator by imposing their wills on other peoples. Whitehead’s alternative to this vision, which reveals his affinity with Chinese thought, is based on the idea that a truly civilized people emphasizes “the aesthetic end of all action.” Instead of seeking to impose one’s will on the other, one seeks to persuade, thereby honoring the other’s power of self-determination. In line with this view, Whitehead portrays the divine reality as “the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.” This alternative vision of the divine reality has, of course, political implications. Seeing the divine reality not as a transcendent being,

38 imposing order from without, but as “the indwelling persuasion towards the harmony which is the height of existence,” Whitehead sees the “creation of the world” as “the victory of persuasion over force.” To be in harmony with this vision of reality would mean for us, now, to create a human world in which order is based on persuasion, with the basic rules of the world order having been freely agreed to by representatives of all peoples, and with disputes henceforth settled by the power of the best argument, rather than the power of brute force. Such a world would be a global democracy, in which the order is not imposed by one nation, serving one class, but is based on the shared ideals and values of all peoples. Bringing about a global democracy will require a heroic effort from various countries, various nongovernmental organizations, and all the world’s religious and moral traditions. In this effort, however, I believe that constructive postmodernists and China have special roles to play. I hope we will rise to the challenge

3. The Tao of Postmodernity: Process, Deconstruction, and Postcolonial Theory Catherine Keller This conference announces a bold new beginning: a new international collaboration for a new millennium. But how new is either the People’s Republic of China or the thought of Whitehead? Both are products of the first half of the past century. The Chinese thought to which Whitehead alludes is among the most ancient thought in the world, however renewing it remains for many Western thinkers seeking alternatives to the static categories of our metaphysical heritage. So there is some mystery in this sense of new beginning: what do the organizers imagine that this rather arcane scholarly interchange might begin in the China of the New Millennium? Perhaps there does not yet exist a single or simple solution to that mystery. Nonetheless, every contribution to this conversation offers a clue to its mysterious sense of beginning. I will seek a clue in the concept of beginning itself. “There is a beginning, “ writes Chuang Tzu. “There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning.” 1 Indeed in Chuang Tzu’s notion of beginning we may find clues not only to a certain distant harmony between Chinese and Whiteheadian thought. But we may also get a clue from this “not yet beginning” to the topic, that I have accepted as my “Conference 1

Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, Section Two: “Discussion on Making All Things Equal,” tr. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia, 1964), 38.

40 Theme”: the relation of constructive and deconstructive postmodernism. I propose to mediate this discussion rather oddly through what is called “postcolonial theory.” Postcolonial theory is a recent development within the postmodern continuum on the poststructuralist side. I hope it will unexpectedly disclose a beginning connection — or is it not yet beginning? — to Chinese philosophy and therefore to process thought. Let me start with the binary of process and deconstruction. Both kinds of postmodernism can recognize themselves in Chuang Tzu’s paradox of beginning. For Whitehead, beginning is happening always, here, now—let a thousand actual entities bloom! The freshness of this conference, for example, could not have been predicted from prior events. Yet it emerges out of their womb. “There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning”: there is no absolute origin in Whitehead, no creatio ex nihilo, no single beginning of a timeline. This beginning irrupts out of the potentiality of “not yet beginning.” And it comprises the potentiality of future beginnings. In another translation of the same lines: “there was a time before that beginning”.1 But as the first poem of the Tao Te Ching puts it—“everything in the universe comes from nothing.” 2 But that nameless nothingness is the nothingness of the Tao, the nothing that is visible in everything. Is this the “différance” of French poststructuralism: the “trace” of the Other that fissures the One and the Same? As a movement half a century later than Whitehead it also depends upon the deconstruction of “origin”: for origin is identified with the authority of ontotheology, Heidegger’s term for the deification of a changeless, eternal, self-same Being from which all beings originate. So poststructuralism affirms also only relative beginning—the many and historical beginnings, which resist any narrative of a linear temporality, authored by a single transcendent Word: Jacques Derrida’s “temporizing of space” and “spacing of time” offers instead a perpetual differing/ deferring, in the famous pun of différance. 3 Something like that deferring seems to have been anticipated in Chuang Tzu’s “not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be a beginning.” “There is being,” continues Chuang Tzu in the same passage. “There is nonbeing. There is a not yet beginning to be nonbeing. 1

Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 137. 2 Tao Te Ching, tr. Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer and Jay Ramsay (Rockport: Element, Inc,) 1993. 3 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, tr. Gyatri Chakravorti Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press), 1974.

41 There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be nonbeing.” In other words, already this ancient Chinese text deconstructs both linear temporality and substance ontology: as in Whitehead, where becoming dissolves stable essences; as in Derrida, where any ontological claim is confronted not with nihilism, but with its self-contradiction, its own nonbeing: the difference of the same. I do not however want to imply that these two kinds of Western postmodernism are the “same” as Taoism—for they are not even the same as each other. David Griffin has identified (re)constructive postmodernism with process philosophy. He has analyzed the opposition between the metaphysical realism of Whiteheadian thought and the epistemological antirealism of poststructuralist deconstruction—a term inserted associated with Derrida, whom I will use as my representative of poststructuralism in this paper. I presuppose Griffin’s analysis, for it exposes the ‘différance’ of these two movements.1 He allows no premature synthesis. Griffin has also made it possible for process thought to make its own legitimate and distinctive claim on the ‘postmodern --both as a term used by John Cobb in 1964, before poststructuralism; and as a term that now designates a wide cultural loss of faith in Western modernity. The postmodernism of both process and deconstructive thinkers— whether or not they use this convenient but amorphous term “postmodern”—refers to the moment in which Western thought recognizes the self-deception of its certainties. It thus abstains from determinations of the future: hence the empty “post.” The modern has brought much that is useful, indeed the very tools of self-criticism: but it is failing dangerously in its promise to enlighten and bring a better life to the world. But postmodern thinkers do not declare modernity at an end; rather, knowing that they stand within its condition, they relativize its arrogant certainties. Poststructuralist postmodernism exposes modernism to its own internal contradictions—as between knowledge and power, democracy and plutocracy, individualism and the homogenizing drive of global capital, universal metaphysical claims and their eurocentrism. But where process thought transforms metaphysics, deconstruction finds in metaphysics the fundamental deformation: if metaphysics is the solution in process thought, it is the problem in poststructuralism. 1

Cf. David Griffin, Introduction, in the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought; also Griffin’s introductory essay in Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne (Albany: State University of New York Press), 1993.

42 Whitehead creates a metaphysics, a cosmological ontology, in which stable substances dissolve into fluid webs of differential relations. Derrida, by contrast, reads any metaphysics as ontotheology. He suspects any claims to represent reality “as it is” of this ontotheological authority, this authorship which forgets that it is constructing its meaning in language, and which claims only to mirror the Truth. But deconstruction is not demolition. Derrida does not try to destroy or escape Western metaphysics but to break it open from within. He does not reduce everything to language or text, but attends to the signs themselves, the signifying graphics of our codes. Thus Of Grammatology was inspired by Chinese calligraphy, which makes the materiality of the sign so graphic, and so deconstructs the notion of the merely external sign pointing at an internal or transcendent Truth. Derrida rescues différance from the Same. Whitehead similarly privileges the heterogeneous over the homogeneous, the many over the one: the many retain their differences—even “objectively immortal”—in the “contrast.” Both Whitehead and Derrida develop what we may call a differential relationality. They read any actual being as a becoming. But poststructuralism emphasizes linguistic difference, whereas process stresses ontological relation. Both move beyond the alternatives of idealism and materialism; but deconstruction, focusing on the human signifying process, has no vocabulary for the material world; while process rewrites the material world as brimming with social significance. Some of us feel the lure to shift these contradictions into a contrast—a differential relation of its own.1 We sense that this contrast can be fruitful in the urgent tasks of this millennial beginning. This moment comes enchained in another kind of connectivism: the globally economic, ecological and geopolitical causalities largely but not exclusively emanating from my homeland. These global policies are usefully referred to as neo-imperialism, or neo-colonialism: the instantaneous transmission of liquid capital in this postmodern fluidity is more powerful than the movement of armies (F. Jameson). Our exchange of ideas does not take place in a political vacuum: it follows the new global trade routes. Historically, Chinese texts were brought West as part of the booty of European colonization. Our present rereading of those texts, our reading of Whitehead’s reading of those texts, within the context of China today, takes place in a postcolonial situation: a situation of complex cultural hybridizations subsequent to the expulsion of the colonizing 1

Catherine Keller and Anne Daniell, Process and Difference: Between Cosmological and Poststraucturalist Postmodernisms (Albany: SUNY, 2002).

43 powers (both Western and Japanese). Though Western influence is pervasive—in Marxism, technology and business—Western dominance seems more distant in China than in any nation in the world. Postcolonial theory is born in a related but different situation: it is largely that of a third-world, diversely Asian diaspora in the West. Edward Said, the author of the famous Orientalism was a Palestinian who grew up with an English education and taught in New York, even as he continued to advocate for his people. Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha are from India, also privy to British educations, and teaching literature in the U.S. This trinity of postcolonial innovators shares the particular Asian backgrounds of a global elite belonging to peoples who have suffered from Western forms of colonialism. They also share poststructuralist postmodernism: they began their writing as interpreters of Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan, Foucault. One of Said’s first books is called Beginnings (1975). In it he takes as his methodology the Derridian and Deleuzian critique of origins as ontotheological, as productive of the illusion of vertical depth and uniform truth. Indeed his notion of beginnings seems almost to echo Chuang Tzu’s ancient deconstruction: Whereas an origin centrally dominates what derives from it, the beginning...encourages nonlinear development, a logic giving rise to the sort of multileveled coherence of dispersion we find… in Foucault’s [archeological] investigations.1

The “multilayered coherence” of poststructuralism here counteracts the centrality and ‘dominance’ associated with absolute origins. This absolute origin—unlike relative beginnings—supports a linear sense of time. From those origins emanate structured hierarchies of power, in which totalizing discourses justify homogenizing social practices. The dispersion, like Derrida’s “dissemination,” suggests a field of interrelated signifiers in which one beginning-development ripples through the rest like a wave, without losing its difference. Indeed I hardly need point out the affinity to Whiteheadian causal efficacy. But Said’s Beginnings is written ‘beforethe-beginning’ of postcolonial theory. Orientalism, 3 years later, is far more historical and political.

1

Edward W. Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (New York: Basic Books, 1975 / N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1985), 372f.

44 Yet his project of exposing orientalism as the discourse of the colonial powers remains intensively deconstructive—analyzing how power and knowledge feed on each other, how modern Western discourse is the practice of what Foucault calls “power/knowledge.” “Orientalism” was the self-chosen name of the modern academic discipline which squeezed the study of Muslim cultures into the same specialization with that of India, China, Japan. “Orientalism” for Said also names stories, exoticisms and popular stereotypes about Asia. “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, ‘us’) and the strange (the Orient, the East, ‘them’). This vision in a sense created and then served the two worlds thus conceived.” 1 Said then maps the continuance of orientalist binarism through the decades after European decolonization. He has been recently exposing the effects of orientalism in for instance Samuel Huntington’s influential notion of a “clash of civilizations.” This clash takes place between our freedom loving Western democratic civilization and them— the Other comprised especially of Islam but by implication of all those other inscrutable Asians. The brilliance of Said’s postcolonial theory is that it does not generalize about East or West, but analyzes the textual selfproduction of the orientalist subject. It is, he shows, extraordinarily, voluminously textual: for example, Napoleon brought a shipload of scholarly Orientalists with him for the invasion of Egypt 2 centuries ago; and they produced 23 huge volumes called the Description de l’Egypte between 1809 1828. The first volume was a square meter in size!2 The postcolonial critique of orientalism has recently been applied to the Western passion for the Tao by J. J. Clarke. He notes that early in the 20th century, there was [S]peculation...that Taoism might become the basis of a new world religion, and at the beginning of a new century Taoism still offers for some a Way for the West, a path which might guide us in our current search for enlightenment. ...Others see this path as leading towards a new syncretism, a ‘Eurotaoism,’ as Peter Sloterdijk calls it…or it may be simply condemned as another form of orientalism, feeding the insatiable fantasies of Western consumerism, a product of cultural domination, even a new wave of postmodern colonialism.3

1

Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 43f. Said, 84f. 3 J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist Thought (London and NY: Routledge, 2001), 195. 2

45 I mention this not to discourage our multilayered East-West reciprocities but as a therapeutic suspicion. Such postcolonial analysis of the “articulation of knowledge with power” illustrates the dependence of postcolonial theory upon poststructuralism. (That dependency is not an external or accidental relation.) The British cultural theorist Robert Young locates deconstruction, especially Derrida, within the context of the Algerian war of independence, which was tremendously influential on a couple of generations of French intellectuals. Derrida was born an Algerian Jew. “What is deconstruction a deconstruction of?” asks Young. “The answer would be, of the concept, the authority, and assumed primacy of, the category of ‘the West’….Postmodernism can best be defined as European culture’s awareness that it is no longer the unquestioned and dominant center of the world.”1 Thus in the work of the Asian-American thinkers Bhabha and Spivak there occurs a more explicit transmutation of deconstruction into political analysis: what emerges is the powerful concept of the “postcolonial hybrid.” The hybridity of the colonized Other is produced by colonialism: it is an effect of the attempt to subject the colonials to European culture. But hybridity is not about the mixing of originally pure biological or cultural essences. To translate here into Whiteheadian postcolonial hybridity suggests the way the causal efficacy of the empire produces subjective effects, and becomes objectively immortal among the colonized; it is the site not just of subjection but of subversion —not by returning to a position of the ’pure native’—if there ever was such—but mobilizing the power of this hybridity, its mobility, its mockery: for it mimics and menaces the colonizer, which is also hybridized with that which it colonizes. This ambivalent affirmation of hybridity generates the attractive power of postcolonial theory. For few intellectuals—indeed few peoples--have the option of a purity of identity. This is also the postcolonial vulnerability: for the power to transform seems limited. It lacks the apocalyptic power of revolutionary dualisms. It may work best within the context of Asian or other minority racial diasporas within the West. Yet it has wider resonances, given the hybridizing effects of Western techno-consumerism throughout the planet. To be emancipated from the nostalgia for a native or even a revolutionary purity (an essentialist People, a hoomgenous identity) releases a promising creativity. This avowal of hybridity supports a 1

Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London and NY: Routledge, 1990), 19.

46 different kind of beginning: a counterapocalyptic creativity amidst the chaotic pluralism of cultural forces. Homi Bhabha calls it the ‘third way’: Private and public, past and present, the psyche and the social develop an interstitial intimacy. It is an intimacy that questions binary divisions through which such spheres of social experience are often spatially opposed. 1

This “interstitial intimacy” posits neither pure oppressed or pure oppressor, but a constant negotiation of the complex borderlands of difference. Might this third-way of postcolonial mimesis and hybridity suggest a political analogue to Whitehead’s category of creativity: not a transcendent guarantee of the outcome of any History, but the possibility of continual revolution, rooted in the natural process of continuous, multiple beginnings? These beginnings are syncretistic, hybrid collages of not-yetbeginnings. Still you may wonder: what does postcolonial theory have to do with Whitehead? Nothing direct. I have elsewhere discussed the powerful influence of Whitehead’s notions of event and prehension on Gilles Deleuze and his deconstruction of the authority of the origin. Deleuze was a contemporary of Foucault and Derrida, influential upon Said. This faint trajectory allows me to complete a certain Taoist circle—with the help of another postcolonial theorist, Trinh Minh-ha, the Vietnamese-American feminist and filmmaker. Minh-ha displays the influence of Deleuze—just where Deleuze most clearly echoes Whitehead, in the ‘nomadology’ by which he revises Leibnitz’ ‘monadology’ and in the matter of rhythm: “Meter is dogmatic, but rhythm is critical.” Noting that what Mao calls the “verbal struggle” is endless, Minh-ha moves into a surprising meditation on rhythm in relation to the Chinese Yin and Yang principle: appealing to the oscillation of receptivity and activity—not as a stereotyped complementarity of masculine and feminine but as an alternative to oppositionalisms in which the boundary of self and other is rigid “The simultaneously passive-active process enables one to be tuned by one’s changing environment, while also developing the ability to tune oneself.” She uses the musical metaphor of “tuning” –like a Whiteheadian “subjective aim.” She says: Such movements of receptivity are nothing other than the fundamental movement of inhalation and exhalation that sets into motion and sustains all of 1

Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and NY: Routledge, 1994), 13.

47 life. Also called the Two Ch’i or the Breaths of Heaven and Earth, the Yin and Yang concept is one in which, significantly enough, the two motions inward and outward, or upward and downward, are actually understood as one and the same motion. …The Yin and Yang are visually reproduced in the light and dark halves of the circle, and notably, these are not divided by a straight line, but by a curve, whose S-shape ingeniously depicts the constant ebb and flow, or rhythmic alternation, the forward/renewed and backward/decline movement, that regulates the fabric of life down to its smallest details.1

For her the straight line would be found in the modern boundaries of the nation state or the bourgeois individual, the line that purges difference. The curved dynamism of the Yin Yang tunes readily to the binary nondualism of the “concrescence.” With this audience I hardly need to name the parallel to Whitehead’s sense of rhythm in the binary but nondualist structure of the “actual entity”, as it oscillates between receiving its past and actively composing of it the future, between other and self, public and private, becoming and perishing. Also it suggests the postcolonial perspective: “The named ‘other’ is never to be found merely over there and outside oneself, for it is always over here, between Us, within Our discourse, that the ‘other’ becomes a nameable reality. Thus, despite all the conscious attempts to purify and exclude, cultures are far from being unitary, as they have always owed their existence more to differences, hybridities and alien elements than they really care to acknowledge.”2 Rhythm, she concludes, “sets into motion and sustains all creative processes. It makes all the difference.” Minh-ha’s books persist in this postcolonial Taoism: playing on the epistemological negativity of the Tao—the one which cannot be known or named, even as we persist in the linguistic struggle—she now relates the postcolonial third way to the Taoist ‘third term’—the Void within the full at the heart of the Yin-Yang system, the interval between the Yin and the Yang which enables their difference and their connection. Differential relationalism again! “What is involved, “ she writes, “is a state of alert in-betweeness and ‘critical’ non-knowingness, in which the bringing of reflective and cosmic memory to life—that is, to the formlessness of form—is infinitely more exigent than the attempt to ‘express,’ to judge or evaluate.”3 This critical 1

Cited in Trinh T. Minh-ha, “An Acoustic Journey,” in Rethinking Borders, ed. by John C. Welchman (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 11, 15. 2 Minh-ha, 1. 3 Trinh T. Minh-ha, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1991), 234.

48 non-knowingness, a mystical negativity shared by Asian sages and Western mystics, belongs to the wildest humor of Taoism. So in the passage on beginnings, Chuang Tzu concludes: “But between this being and nonbeing, I don’t really know which is being and which is nonbeing. Now I have just said something. But I don’t know whether what I have said has really said something or whether it hasn’t said something.” The precision of Chuant Tzu’s indeterminism makes me laugh in recognition: language is here deconstructing any possible orthodoxies. This unknowability is not a failure. Indeterminacy is not a mystery to be finally solved: it is in the nature of things. The ineffability names not just a limit to what is know; it names the quality of knowing at the limit. That quality arouses “the state of alert in-betweeness”—in which provisional solutions and strategic clarities yield always and naturally new questions. Process thought shows the strength to enter the new time of the millennium and the new space of China. Itonly benefit from the Tao of this postcolonial in-between. “Life lurks in the interstices...” (Whitehead). The “interstitial intimacy” proposed by Bhabha can in this case lower metaphysical defenses against deconstruction’s epistemological indeterminism without sacrificing any vital insights. And I am claiming that this is worthwhile because it extends our coalitional capacities in the direction of a postcolonial discourse; but process thought, through John Cobb’s leadership, has preceded and exceeded postcolonial theory in the critique of the neo-colonialism of the global economic empire. Perhaps deconstructive postmodernism is closer to the spirit of Chuang Tzu, while process postmodernism is closer to the cosmological intensity of the Tao Te Ching (Chapter 25): Before the world was And the sky was filled with stars… There was a strange, unfathomable Body … It has always been here, and it always will be. Everything comes from it And then It is the Mother of Everything. I do not know its name. So I call it TAO.

49 This something “before”—indeed logically but not chronologically— Whiteheadians also name “creativity.”1 Western and some Asian feminists have embraced this maternity as the seed of a future empowerment of women.2 Its “body” sounds like what liberation theologian Ivone Gebara calls “the Sacred Body.”3 She cites “panentheism,” the process alternative to classical theism. This irreducible, universal sense of embodiment resonates more with process thought then with the deconstructive avoidance of language about nonlinguistic nature, world, matter, spirit. How does one name that from which everything flows? I do not know its name. So in my own work I have called it tehom: the biblical name of the unfathomable matter, the chaos of creation abandoned by Christian theology: darkness was upon the face of te-hom (Gen 1:2). It is “before” the world, logically but not chronologically. 4 Despite my Jewish and Christian context, despite my desire not to appropriate Asian wisdom, I cannot avoid a certain East/West contrast: a Tao Te-hom. Especially in the present context, I do not know “whether what I have said has really said anything.” I can only attend with “critical nonknowingness” to the decolonizations of mind and of matter Chinese thinkers are writing into this mysterious new beginning.

1

Cf. Joseph Bracken on “the Secret of the Tao,” in The Divine Matrix: Creativity as Link Between East and West (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995), 112ff. Bracken also discusses the Chuang Tzu passage on “beginnings,” noting that a distinction between “chronological” and “ontological” priority might have cleared up his confusion. Many process thinkers share this lack of interest in the negative or apophatic aspect of mysticism. 2 Cf. the work of feminist theologians Jean H. Kim and Nam Soon Kang. 3 Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Waters (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). She mourns from the vantage point of her work among the poorest of the Brazilian poor, amidst the degraded environment and assaulted rainforests, “that our hope is ailing, that our Sacred Body is ailing.” See 47. 4 I have developed at length a deconstruction of the creatio ex nihilo, suggesting instead a creatio ex profundis, a creation from the chaotic depths—the creativity in Whitehead, or the chaos of the Hebrew creation texts read through recent chaos and complexity theory. Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (London: Routledge, 2002).

4. Process Thought in Chinese Traditional Arts Meijun Fan and Ronald Phipps We begin with the assumption that Chinese traditional thought and Whitehead’s process thinking are alike in many ways. Our study is in agreement with Whitehead’s persuasion that it is possible to integrate Chinese culture and the deeper Western cultures and philosophic process modes of thought found in strains of Western intellectual traditions. Whitehead’s hope was that such integration would enrich and deepen that which is best in both traditions. Many years have already passed from Whitehead’s time to today. Now, in the face of good and bad phenomena that modernization brings for us, maybe people can pay more attention to the unity between different kinds of cultures than before, when people thought mostly about the diversity between cultures. So now let us begin with Whitehead’s thought, and begin a process of digging deeper and understanding the affinities of his thought with Chinese traditional Arts. It may be that there is much to be revealed about enriching Chinese and Western cultures through integrating our understanding. This paper will discuss the profound fondness in diverse traditional Chinese arts for the concepts of process, relatedness, harmony, the beyond, the infinite and community.

52 I. Process Thought “Process thought” as we employ here is a philosophical perspective proposed by Whitehead. According to Whitehead, process is conceived on the basis of mandates of movement and change. He captures this sense of movement and change in Adventures of Ideas,1 concluding that the very essence of reality is process. Thus each actual thing is only to be understood in terms of its becoming and perishing. There is no bolt in which the actuality is just its static self. The concept is consistently maintained throughout Whitehead’s philosophic works. Chinese traditional philosophers observed the universe in fundamentally the same way as Whitehead. They also thought that process, development, movement, and change are omnipresent in all things. Everything emerges, occurs, interacts with its environment and then yields to its future. The river winds through the mountains, the mist weaves amid the towering mountains, the dew evaporates, the dawn breaks, the flower unfurls, the flower petals fall and decay, the scholar travels amid nature, the boat plies the lake, the bird alights upon the flower, and so on. All is motion, all is change, all is in flux. Everything is process. And therefore the static is illusionary. Li Bai’s ancient poem of the boat racing down the Yangtze River, swiftly passing ten thousand mountains and chattering monkeys, symbolizes the universality of change. As a matter of fact, such an emphasis on movement has been an obvious character of Chinese traditional arts since their earliest ancient beginning. II. Process Thought in the Image of the “Dragon” The image of the “Dragon” in Chinese traditional arts can be often seen. What is the implication of “Dragon” within the context of Chinese art? The “Dragon” is a special kind of animal in Chinese ancient mythology. The dragon does not have determinate shape. According to Shuo Wen, “the dragon is one kind of reptile with scales. It might be long or short, thin or bulky, dim or bright. It ascends to sky in the vernal equinox (about March 21), it dives down deep under the water in the autumnal equinox (September 23 or 24).” 2 But what is its material image? It seems that nobody can explain it. The famous Chinese scholar Yi-Duo Wen said: 1 2

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1961). Shuo Wen (An Etymogical Dictionary). Ed. Hsu Shen (Han Dynasty)

53 Sometimes the dragon looks like the horse, so horse often is called dragon; sometimes dragon looks like the dog, so the dog is dragon. Moreover, one kind of dragon with scales looks like the fish, one kind of dragon with limbs looks like the bird, another kind of dragon with horns looks like deer, (etc,). 1

Here in mythology the dragon has no determinate shape, unlike animals in real life. The fluid dragon is an indeterminate image. Why is this so? The dragon's image evokes and concretizes a sense of adoration about life, movement and process for ancient Chinese people. Life, in its myriad forms and shapes, always moves; movement always changes. It is too hard to generalize movement and change in idiographic images. So the dragon expressed the Chinese ancient people’s sense of the universality to all existence of movement and change. Chinese ancient people did not appreciate static images. They primarily appreciated life and the movement and change that create the life of the universe. In this way, too, Whitehead’s process philosophy and traditional Chinese aesthetics share a profound and unyielding kinship. III. Process Thought in Chinese Calligraphy and Landscape Painting A. Rhythmic Vitality “Qi yun sheng dong” (rhythmic vitality) is the highest value in Chinese traditional painting and calligraphy. Thus people often used expressions such as “things change in countless ways”(qi xiang wan qian) and vigor (pneuma) when they appreciate Chinese traditional arts. “Qi” is the key to understanding “qi yun sheng dong,” “qi xiang wan qian”: so qi is a very important category in Chinese traditional aesthetics. In fact, qi as a category in Chinese traditional arts mandates that true art must express the creative perpetual rhythm of the universe and its omnipresent movement. Qi is the creative fountain and source of the formed and structured universe. It is not static, it is an eternal creative process. It not only produces the universe, but also produces arts within qi’s broad movement. So qi also embraces the fountain of creative energy in Chinese traditional aesthetics. One thousand years ago Zhong Rong, a classic theorist of art, said: “qi inspires the universe, then the universe affects human brings, so 1

Yi-duo Wen, Fuxi Kao (Beijing: China Publishing House, 1956), 25.

54 people’s temperaments are agitated by it, and they began to sing and dance. Singing and dancing were yielded.” 1 Qi is energy to the productive activities and made them vivid. Artistic creativity must combine the expression of qi, eternal creation and vivid process as inherent in the universe; and the “Yun,” creative rhythms and vivid beauty of nature and life. For example, the scholar/painter should capture the temperaments of the mountains and the flowing rivers and waterfalls when he/she paints. The essence of a mountain is static and stable, but its mood is lively in numerous ways. Although the temperament of water is flowing, its every wave has shape. Not only mountains and rivers, but also a field of grass and a piece of wood have their own temperaments. The pistil, for example, is present, the leaves stretch, the twig is kissable, and the bole is straight. Among the flowers, some of them are smiling, some are opening, the face of some reaches backwards, some will languish, and some do not languish. Thus, Chinese ancient people said: “The sky has four kinds of qi; spirit does, too. The person who was born in Spring is with Spring qi, harmonious and potential; the person who was born in Summer is with Summer qi, thrifty and lightsome; the person who was born in Autumn is with Autumn qi, limpid and elegant; the person who was born in Winter is with Winter qi, dignified and convergent.”2 Without these aspects of mountains and rivers, paintings cannot obtain qi yun sheng dong. Artistic creation is also the materialization of vital processes within the artists themselves. For example, on the one hand, yuan qi (the primordial qi) of human body, in transferring itself to the silk through the harmonious act of the body as an instrument, creates a painting. On the other hand, the spirit, thought, sentiment, and emotion of the painter infiltrate into the whole process of creating the touch, pattern, temperament, sentiment and verve of an artistic production. With the interaction of these two sides, the artistic life of production is created. Thereby painters make artistic productions with the body and mind, not only using the hands but the hands and brain together. Every expression of pen and ink in the silk is a mark of the painter’s burning vitality.

1

Zhong Rong, the Preface to Shi Pin, in Selected Materials from Chinese Aesthetics History, ed. Philosophy Department at Beijing University (Beijing: China Publishing House, 1980), 212. 2 Shen Zhongqian (1781), Jie Zhou Xue Hua Bian, vol. 4.

55 Traditional painters in China had a series of formal procedures for using brush pen, wrist, paper and qi. For example, the fingers must hang on to the brush, while the palm should release, with the wrists functioning horizontally. Holding the brush should follow a definite style; sitting and standing should follow a definite attitude; the fingers, wrists, elbow, arm and the whole body should cooperate in mutual coordination. The breath should be even. And qi should penetrate the lower part of the abdomen. The artist should gather him/herself together in a happy mood, aspiring for the best physiological and mental environment. The artistic creation should occur within an environment with a clean window and table, the best weather and the best silk and ink. Painters utilize their whole body and mood when they create, and drive the quill together with the rhythm of nature. The artists release their individual life into the living river of the universe, surrendering to the flow of the universe. Many ancient painters in China enjoyed a long life because of their creative life in harmony with qi. Their creation is not expending qi, but fostering qi. Ancient artists in China loved life and emphasized process in their effort to harmoniously integrate body and mind within the broader flow of the universe! B. Action Occurs Within Wholeness Whitehead considered that appreciation of the relation of the whole and the part is central to understanding reality. According to his thought, it is impossible to understand human experience (the perception of beauty included) without referring to relations of relations and classes of relations or classes of classes of relations. Relatedness is fundamental. “Nothing is in isolation.” 1 Perception always involves the aggregation and understanding, sensing the relation of the perceived to the large whole of temporal and spatial realities of which it forms a part. Hence, throughout his writings he opposes any thought that separates wholeness and its parts, the individual and its environment, since life is active not only to adapt to the environment, but also to change and create the environment, while the environment adapts to the mandates and “Eros” of life. While individual life in isolation is helpless to act on environments and vulnerable to its threat, life in the community of society, nonetheless, enables individuals to interact more with environments, and attain purposeful existence yearning for harmony and beauty. 1

Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (The Macmillan Company, 1929), 122.

56 Accordingly, to truly value wholeness is to value collaboration and balance, while rivalry often leads to the destruction of wholeness. Therefore, “survival of the fittest,” as suggested by Darwin, should be replaced with “survival of the harmonious,” because the individual can exist and develop only within wholeness, with harmony. Chinese traditional aesthetic thought honors the qualities such as wholeness, community, and harmonious relatedness are essential. Tu Fu (a Tang Dynasty poet) expressed the poignancy of the absence of community in his poem “the Lone Wild Goose.” The lone wild goose, separated from the flock, calls for his fellow geese and mistakenly believes he has found his flock, deceived by the echoes of his own plaintive calls. In Mao Zedong’s twentieth-century poem “Ode to the Plum Blossom,” this prevalence of community persists through the ages. The lone plum blossom as harbinger of Spring blooms on the high, sheer ice-clad rock but later resolves itself in magnanimity, content and smiling in the midst of the mountain flowers in their full bloom. The essential sense of community in Chinese traditional aesthetics is both intra-species and inter-species, both mental and material. The bird alights upon the flower, the scholar wanders lost in contentment amid mountain, valley, mist and river. This traditional sense of wholeness in Chinese aesthetics is mirrored in Whitehead’s process thought which emphasizes, (1) Harmony, (2) The broad beyond with the infinite background of being, and (3) The profound interdependencies inherent in all existence. c. Harmony Chinese culture and aesthetics call for relations of compatibility, stimulation, and growth. Harmony-seeking expresses the Chinese traditional ideals of eternal peace and heavenly beauty. In the Whiteheadean terminology, actual entities must exist, function, and develop within open environments that promote mutual realization of the positive potentials of all beings, which are in community with one another. All entities have dwelling within them multiple potentials, both good and bad. Hence, the quest for harmonies, mutual benefit, mutual stimulation and mutual challenges cannot be separated from disunity and diversity. Two thousand years ago, a Chinese philosopher, Bo Shi, already declared: “Harmony creates all things in the universe, while sameness

57 cannot.”1 It means that the universe can continuously be created only from harmonious relationships. Bo Shi’s thinking parallels Whitehead’s view of the creative advance of this universe. The Monkey King (Sun Wukong) in Chinese mythology has made it enter books, paintings, folk art and legend. The Monkey King is an impetuous, impish, impatient and adventurous creature who participates in the arduous journey to India over the Himalayas Mountains to bring to China the traditional sacred Buddhist texts. The Monkey King, filled with awesome powers, is able to break up deceptions. His defiance of established conventions represents the power to challenge those authorities reactionary and inhibiting to progress and advance of civilization. Sun Wukong is the hero of progressiveness. When Whitehead stresses that the pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the universe, he is not writing of the Monkey King of Chinese mythology. The Monkey King is pure adventuresomeness. And yet, the Monkey King does not exist outside of limits or discipline. A Chinese saying reminds that, no matter how fast Sun Wukong may move, he cannot escape the hand of the Buddha. Furthermore, around the Monkey King’s forehead is an iron band which tightens, provoking pain whenever the Monkey King goes beyond the boundaries of goodness and compassion. The Monkey King is a Whiteheadian hero, because Whitehead’s process thought requires rhythmic exchanges between adventure and discipline. Adventure without discipline provokes anarchy, destruction, disjunctiveness and chaos. Discipline without adventure is lifeless, joyless, sterile and frozen. The endearing Monkey King of traditional Chinese aesthetics synthesizes Whitehead’s mandate that purposeful and progressive existence synthesizes discipline and adventure as the condition for harmonious community. The ideal of harmonious community has given Chinese traditional arts a large and far-reaching influence in world culture. Chinese aesthetics seeks harmony of being. Chinese traditional artists sought to capture and enjoy wholeness, and always thought that “wholeness is beauty” and “harmony is beauty.” Meanwhile, they pay attention to the individual, part and detail, as did western artists. In their eyes, the sky, the soil, and the human being represent wholeness imbued with vitality. The mission of art is to represent this harmony and realize it in life. Such a mission is in conformity with the Whiteheadead thought that the very perception of beauty derives from the perception of conformal and harmonious 1

Guoyu, in Selected Materials from Chinese Aesthetics History, 8.

58 integration of the positive potentials inherent in the perception of events comprising the world: “The perfection of Beauty is defined as being the perfection of Harmony.” 1 In fact, to emphasize the role of harmony in aesthetics is to emphasize relationship and, in this, to emphasize the interdependence pervading the universe. The nature and destiny of a thing is dependent upon other beings and other moments of time. Family life, village life, national life and international life are webs of interdependencies. A Chinese saying speaks: “How many stars in sky, how many people on the earth.” The earth itself is interdependent with the heavens, and the heavens with other cosmic epochs within infinite space-time. Let us move to Chinese music. There is a sense of the interdependence among the past conditioning the present, and the present remembering the past, and the future being anticipated to its satisfactions. Chinese music theory considers that “the inner being of music was harmony.” The ancient Chinese musician felt that music can communicate not only the political and moral but also the sky and soil, heaven and earth. People could tell the political and moral tenor of society by the character of music. Music that expressed and cultivated high moral character fulfilled the real purpose of music. So music should and must express, diffuse, and cultivate morality. Moreover, music also expressed a deeper harmony between sky and soil: “Music was harmony between sky and soil.”2 The atmosphere connecting sky and soil is mutually stimulating and mutually challenging; a thunderbolt is powerful, its companions are wind and rain. As the seasons change, the sun and moon radiate, everything ascends, there is harmony between sky and soil. The ancients said: “Music was created by the sky” and “real music is as harmonious as the sky.” 3 Music is to provoke and stimulate broader harmony within existence. First, music can harmonize the relationships between the different psychological tendencies vying with each other within the individual, and prevent one kind of emotion from becoming too strong. The mission of music is to harmonize heart. Music makes human beings feel peaceful, and people can feel happy only in a peaceful life. Music gives human being a unique kind of happiness based upon peace. Secondly, music can harmonize relationship among human beings. It is said: 1

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1961), 252 Yueji, in Selected materials from Chinese Aesthetic History, 61. 3 Ibid., 61. 2

59 When Music is played in the ancestral temple, and monarch and liegeman listen to it together, then they will become to respect and love each other. When music is played in a village, and the old and the young listen to it together, then they will come to love each other. When music is played in the family, and father and brother listen to it together, then they will come to love each other. 1

Finally, music harmonizes relationship between the sky and soil, between the heaven-sky that sustains the earth and soil that nourishes life. In a word, that music is harmony means a lot of things. It relates to politics, ethics, heaven and earth. We want also to point out that Chinese traditional poetry, too, emphasizes harmony in a profound sense. Yi-xiang (literally imagery idea or intentional idea) is a very important category in Chinese traditional aesthetics. It is the entrance to understand Chinese traditional poetry. Yi-xiang mandates wholeness so a poem should never leave out subjective emotion and objective scenery, but should combines them. Poems contain various different relationships between emotion and scenery. To create a yi-xiang, a poem must be in a harmonious relationship between emotion and scenery. There are several kinds of harmonious relationships sustaining yixiang. When a poem attains a most harmonious and natural relationship, it is called xing, in which scenery profoundly affects human beings and excites them. Zhong Rong delivers this observation: “Qi inspires the universe, the universe affects the human being, so the human being’s temperment is agitated by it, and there arises a dance.”2 In this way, the scene first touches the poet, and then affects the poet’s emotion. First Scenery, and emotion follows. Before the scenery touches a human being’s heart, there is no rational arrangement or speculation, no self-conscious purpose and no mental process. His/her emotional reaction is absolutely immediate and no speculative purpose between. This is totally flawless fusion of scenery and emotion. It thus creates a natural yi-xiang, thoroughly and innocently. Let us cite a poem from Wang Changling: At Hibiscus Inn Too young to have learned what sorrow means, 1 2

Ibid., 167. Zhong Rong, Shi Pin, in Selected Materials from Chinese Aesthetic History, 212.

60 Attired for spring, she climbs to her high chamber… The new green of the street-willows is wounding her heart – Just for a title she sent him to war. The poem describes a young woman, who lives in a boudoir, who was light-hearted, happy to make herself up. She goes upstairs to appreciate the spring scenery. All of a sudden, the fresh green color of poplar and willow on the street reminds her that her husband has left her to go to war for long time. Now she is alone. This loneliness suddenly destroys the happy mood of the beautiful spring scenery and its blooms, and she regrets that she has allowed her husband to leave her. Before, she was essentially happy. However, the fresh green color of the trees made her feel unhappiness, and her emotion was affected by the green color of the willows. She thought about how quickly her short life was passing. This was xing (literally, awakening). Obviously, the poem presents a yi-xiang in which emotion and scenery spontaneously and totally combine in xing. This is one example of a most harmonious relationship between emotion and scenery. The Chinese were satisfied in the harmony of intensity of contrasting feelings of spring’s freshness and silently formed loneliness. Therefore, whatever form harmony took there was no epic and tragedy in Chinese ancient poetry. This fact is a consequence of the effort to achieve yi-xiang. Yi-xiang emphasizes an integration of emotion and scenery, without conflict and contradiction. In contrast, epic and tragedy require conflictive forces to fulfill the theme. This is the sentiment of harmony over conflict in Chinese philosophy. Confucianism honors “the middle of the way;” Taoism advises accommodating and yielding to natural movements and wu-wei (inaction to nature); and in enlightenment, Buddhism let-goes purposes and desires. Obviously, they all see conflicts to be unnecessary and avoidable and have no place for violence. Confucius said: "Wu (an ancient musical composition) is beautiful, but not good. Sou (another musical composition) is beautiful and good." 1 Wu followed a story about a king in the Zhou dynasty who always advocated violence. D. Emphasize the Infinite Beyond 1

Confucius, Lun Yu, in Selected Materials from Chinese Aesthetic History, 13.

61 For Whitehead, all finite events, large or small, are immersed within and interact with the beyond. All finite reality develops within and is embraced by a broader context, an environment through the interactions with which the characters, nature, and life of finite beings are determined. The subjects of traditional Chinese landscape paintings are the mountains shrouded in mist, suggesting the infinite and processes beyond the fixation of time and place. A few exceptions, such as Da Vinci’s drawings of clouds and mountains, this suggestiveness of the beyond is absent in Western paintings, with its traditionally sharp delineation of the finite. The Infinity of Being is fundamental to Whitehead. Amid diversity is unity, since all beings engage in processes, emerging from and remembering the past, while seeking future harmony and community. Thus again, the Chinese have a saying: How many stars in the heavens, how many people on the earth. The sense of the infinite – unbounded space, unbounded time, unbounded potential – is central to Whitehead. The sense of the infinite beyond coupled with a quest for the infinite, eternal harmony and peace are themes of Chinese aesthetics calling us all to endeavors. The beyond (“Yuan”) remains one of most important categories in Chinese traditional aesthetics. The beyond is relevant to the Tao. In Taoist thought the Tao has two sides: beyond and vicinity. The Tao is the combination of beyond and vicinity. Beyond expresses the infinity of Tao, and vicinity implies the finite in Tao. It is in respect to local and finite reality that the infinite has meaning. The finite loses its reality without the aggregation and accumulation of the infinite. For Taoism, the infinite and the finite are but two “polar-opposites” whose existence is bonded to each other. However, infinity is more important to Taoism than the finite because infinity reflects the essence of the Tao. Landscape painting should express the Tao. Therefore, it is not enough for landscape paintings to express only the finite. The beyond of a landscape paintings leads to yi-jing (a field full of meanings), which is the beauty in the most profound sense. What is yi-jing? A famous ancient poet, Liu Yuxi, commented: “Yi-jing comes from something beyond appearance, beyond image.”1 Most Chinese traditional aesthetic theorists are in agreement that the beyond is the important point of yi-jing. To add a point in it, I would quote a Guo Xi’s words: 1

Liu Yuxi, Dongshi Wulingji Ji, cited from Ye Lang, An Outline of Chinese History of Aesthetics (Shanghai: Shanghai People Press, 1985), 268.

62 Mountain has three kinds of beyond: high beyond, deep beyond, and flat beyond. High beyond is seeing the top of a mountain from its foothill. Deep beyond is seeing the back of the mountain from the front of the mountain. Flat beyond is seeing the distant mountain from a neighboring mountain. These kinds of “beyond” are very different in their colors and situations, and evoke in the observer different senses of beauty. 1

In fact, Chinese traditional artists always sought the beyond when they drew. They thought that landscape paintings must exceed the mountain and river themselves, and stretch to and yearn for the beyond. To express the beyond is to express the Tao. In the concluding sections of Process and Reality, Whitehead writes: “However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision.” 2 In classic Chinese landscape painting, the scholar meanders amid the mountains through which the mist, both obscuring and evoking the beyond, weaves. The waterfall tumbles and the river flows. The scene in myriad forms suggests and evokes the beyond in all its infinity. Whitehead’s sense of the vital importance of the beyond vividly finds a parallel expression to the same sense in Chinese aesthetics as he writes: “In the future, if human nature loses its most precious quality, it is robbed of its sense of things beyond, unexplored and yet insistent.” The Chinese landscape painters wander searching for the evocation of that insistent reality of the beyond. Humanity is moved by this genre of traditional Chinese art precisely because the generic craving for curiosity is universal and omnipresent in civilized life. The beyond provokes and appeals to human nature’s need to partake in journeys of curiosity and journeys of discovery. Chinese aesthetic emphasized the infinite not merely quantitatively but also qualitatively. In Chinese aesthetics there is the belief in the infinite qualitative variety exhibited in the world. Where Western thought has tended to seek strict dichotomies such as good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly, heaven and hell, starkly contrasted colors of Cubism and Abstract western painting, Chinese thought has tended to see polar contrasts infinite shadings, continuities of quality and “betweenness.” In Chinese mythology, there are the nine heavens, numerous levels of officials and scholars, the subtle sophisticated and succulent shading and 1

Guo Xi, Lin Quan Gai Zhi, cited from Ye Lang, An Outline of Chinese History of Aesthetics, 288. 2 Whitehead, Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, ed. David Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 342.

63 gradations of the same color in a landscape painting. Chinese aesthetics considers not merely the beyond in space-time but also “betweenness” among the qualities exhibited in the cosmos. It evokes the beyondness of the infinite. To understand the universe quantitatively we need the sense of the beyond of the infinite and the sense of the betweenness of the infinite; in other words, the sense of qualitative variety and the sense of qualitative continuity. E. Community Like Whitehead, Chinese traditional aestheticians have never liked to talk about individuals without considering community. They talk about individuals in a community, as individuals could exist and grow up only in a community. Chinese aesthetics focuses on relatedness, and only community can manifest relatedness. We will analyze some poems by Tu Fu and Mao Zedong to show this aesthetical sense. One of Tu Fu’s great poems, The Lone Wild Goose, is depicting the poignancy of the calls of the lone goose separated from its flock, deceived as it mistakes the echoes of its own calls for its lost companions. Mao Zedong’s poem Ode to the Plum Blossom, praises the courage of the plum blossom blooming as the harbinger and precursor of spring, blooming after the snows welcome spring’s return, blooming on the ice-clod sheer and steep cliff, yet resolving itself content to smile in the midst (the community) of mountain flowers. This sense of the necessity of community is expressed in interspecies community of birds and flower. It is expressed in the bipolar reality of the mental, depicted by the artists, and the objects, depicted by mountains, mist, clouds, rivers. This sense of community among and within species of life, the mental and the material, is a sense of the universality of community. These two poems, written in the 8th and 20th centuries respectively, speak to this profoundly Whiteheadian sense of community, which contrasts with the separate and independent entities of ancient Greek “atomism;” and contrasts with the false ideal of the self-sufficient lone cowboy who acts with unilateralism or individualism. Such action is in defiance of the pervasiveness of community, thus in its disharmony it is ultimately destructive of the community, upon which all life inevitably depends. Let us read some words from Guo Xi:

64 Water is the blood of the mountains, grass and wood are its hair and wool, smoke and cloud are its appearance. The mountain becomes alive because of water, it blooms because of wood, becomes graceful because of smoke and cloud.1

A landscape painting may deliver the sense of community with many different things, such as mountains, water, flowers, grasses, wood, smoke and clouds. These things are interdependent. They have their own stations and functions in the community and therefore are happy in the community. Such an ideal is penetrating into other fields. The garden design is another example, as it seeks the community and harmony between buildings and their environment. The essence of designing is to place window, gloriette, balcony, dais, cockloft and veranda of buildings in harmony and balance with the environment, and to match properly the inside and outside, with the window communicating the bamboo or the mountain outside. We would pick up the example of Le Shou in the Summer Palace in Beijing, which has the windows in its four sides facing the Kun Ming Lake. Feng Shui, a traditional art of choosing a good location for a building, embodies this essential mandate to integrate the house, temple, palace, or school with its environment. It is a living, vital integration. It perceives the external environment entering the internal being and beauty of the house, a conception we may find in Whitehead’s theory of becoming, in which prehension or perception of external events enters the very concrete being of an event. There is another way of preserving the sense of community in Chinese aesthetics: Manifesting itself in the absence of subjects. The subject melts into the objective scenery, as it points to community and wholeness, and presents no abstract relationship between objects. A Chinese aesthetician, Zong Baihua, captured this essence by saying: Chinese landscape paintings are the most impersonal art form. Artists, exceeding the subjectivity of the individual method of far and near, draw mountains and rivers in extension of thousands of miles as if distance are not significant factors. And the infinite universe as the background is only evoked by pieces of clouds and mountains.2

1 2

From Selected Materials from Chinese Aesthetic History, 16. Baihua Zong, Aesthetics Wandering (Shanghai: Shanghai People Press, 1981),124.

65 Chinese traditional painters master this evocation of the beyond and the infinite. The unity of the void and existence is the focus here. We may see that the interactions between scenery and void constitute the vitality of the universe. Chinese artists believe that the world is alive from the unity of the void and existence. And the void, shrouded in mystery, is more important and more dynamic than objective existence. It is akin to the “dark matter,” the fields of gravity, and electromagnetic radiation, which pervade the universe and order the relations among visible existence. The void is not perceived in everything by a casual glance of human eyes. Chinese traditional painters like to draw the bamboo shadow under the moon which flutters in front of the window while they drew the bamboo. A painter, Ma Yuan in the Song dynasty, was called “Corner Ma,” because he often liked to draw only one part of the corner of his painting on his thin silk. Even though other parts of his landscape painting were blank, it is not non-existence or absolute nothing. The blank places in the landscape are the sea or sky and the emptiness expresses the vitality of the universe more than objects do. For Whitehead, there is no empty space since energy and events pervade space and time, the causal future of each event inexorably spreads through space and time, intersecting with the causal future of other events thereby generating new events, realizing and frustrating potentials. Emptiness is not to be found, only dynamic and changing processes. IV. Conclusion To summarize, there are numerous and profound ideas common to process thought and the traditional arts of China. Whitehead himself said that his philosophy has a strong kinship with eastern philosophy.1Hence he hoped to stimulate unity between western culture and eastern culture. This essay envisions a more dynamic interactive philosophical relationship between east and west to foster a new philosophy. However, Chinese scholars did not zealously pay attention to this idea of Whitehead. This essay endeavors to engage in such an interaction, in an expectation to stimulate and enhance each other as the causal futures of each culture respectfully and creatively intersect to create a new 1

The modern Chinese philosopher, He Lin, acknowledges this as well. See his book, Lectures on Western Modern Philosophy (Beijing: People’s Publishing House),103

66 worldview. The kinship between Whitehead’s process theories and Chinese traditional arts arrests our attention. People have paid more attention to the conflict between the two cultures [within science and literature], but nowadays we are entering an era and millennium during which humanity in these two great cultures of people pays attention to elements of unity and cooperation between these embodied – rehumanized – traditions. The Chinese and western people face many common problems, for example, ecological pollution, energy sources, ultra specialization, militarization, rational use of resources, economic and social justice, peace, advances in knowledge, and development of the full human potential. These and others are global issues that require global solutions. For example, specialization in production becomes stronger and stronger in the modern world. It may be necessary sometimes, but Whitehead challenges: This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a groove. Each profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. Now to be mentally in a groove is to live in contemplating a given set of abstractions. This groove prevents straying across country, and the abstraction abstracts from something to which no future attention is paid. But there is no groove of abstraction which is adequate for the comprehension of human life.1

Ultra specialization has caused the bifurcation between the sciences and the arts and humanities. Whitehead thought that bifurcation was a major tragedy for humanity and harmful to the future of society. The world today faces the threat of alienation and separation. Alienation creates, first, a huge obstacle for people, nations and cultures, inhibiting communication. Second, human beings will become slaves of the specialization. Other parties of human beings will be obliterated. Third, the leaders of the intelligentsia can see only that part of reality which is relevant to their own specialty and not the whole. Mediocre talents who cannot be “No.1” in their specialty will lead humanity and in doing so, human beings will lose the right way. As highly specialized and abstract theory progresses, and broader ideographic comprehension retrogresses the psychic, cultural and physical domain. So the whole is disharmonious and disjunctive to the interests of the parts as they respectively are destroyed and the whole itself 1

197.

Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967),

67 disintegrates. So, Whitehead's insistence that not only sciences, but also literae humaniores are very important, is a voice which we should heed. In this “heeding,” art and aesthetic education have great importance. Whitehead was critical of modern education because it pays attention to only one part of the educational process and left out other parts of it, leaving them to decay and degenerate. He says: That there is a positive need to attend to the development of the aesthetic… When you understand all about the sun and all about the atmosphere and all about the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset. There is no substitute for the direct perception of the concrete achievement of a thing in its actuality. We want concrete fact with a high light thrown on what is relevant to its preciousness. 1

He continued with respect to art and aesthetic education: “What I mean is that they are very important for human life because the soul would wither without fertilization from its transient experiences.”2 This fertilization of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art. A static value, however serious and important, becomes unendurable by its appalling monotony of endurance. The soul cries aloud for release into change. It suffers the agonies of claustrophobia. The transitions of humor, wit, irreverence, play, sleep, and ---above all---of art are necessary for it. Great art is the arrangement of the environment so as to provide for the soul vivid, but transient, values, human being's require something which absorbs them for a time, something out of the routine which they can stare at.3 Accordingly, the great art is more than a transient refreshment. It is something that adds to the permanent richness of the soul's self-attainment. It justifies itself both by its immediate enjoyment, and also by its discipline of the inmost being.4 The troubles Whitehead saw looming on the horizon almost a century ago are worse and worse today. These dangers exist not only in western society, but also have spread to eastern society. Fashioning solutions to these problems really needs the creative input of scholars from the west and the east united in a great human effort. 1

Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 202. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 201. 3 Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 202. 4 Ibid. 2

68 Community exists in diversity and diversity expresses itself in change. The diversity inherent in nature may involve conflict and resistance as a river winding through the mountain erodes and sculpts the mountain and the mountains in turn bend and twist in the river’s path. But the interaction and resistance within the community of being resolves itself in harmony, beauty and creation. Chinese traditional aesthetics finds “process in harmony” and “harmony in process.” Whitehead had said in a famous and cryptic remark that all western philosophy is but “a series of footnotes to Plato." 1 We hope that this paper is also but a footnote to Whitehead's equally cryptic remark in Process and Reality concerning the kinship between his philosophic ideas and eastern thought. We also hope it is a stimulus to further cooperation among civilizations—rehumanized and personalized faces.

1

Whitehead, Process and Reality, 39.

5. Process Thought and Confucian Values Joseph Grange It is the brooding presence of the hills which haunts him. His theme is nature in solido, that is to say, he dwells on that mysterious presence of surrounding things, which imposes itself on any separate element that we set up as an individual for its own sake. He always grasps the whole of nature as involved in the tonality of the particular instance. That is why he laughs with the daffodils, and finds in the primrose thoughts ‘too deep for tears.’ 1

Modernization brings in its wake three enemies of human culture: the cult of the expert, the triumph of objectivity, and the professionalizing of experience. The expert tells us what is happening. Objectivity, however defined, reduces truth to quantitative measurement. The value of experience is handed over to the normative judgment of experts. The results of this cultural juggernaut are by now well known: Alienation of the human self from its environment, alienation of humans from each other and alienation from a sense of the value of the whole. Experience is diminished and a feel for the value of things—ordinary and extraordinary—is lost. In what follows, I wish to inquire into a very peculiar fact about human nature. It is the case that human beings are only happy when they achieve what they take to be excellence. No one would tell one’s parents about a new relationship that was delightful precisely because the beloved 1

Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Free Press, 1925), 83.

70 was such a loser. Both Plato and Aristotle stressed this distinctive trait of human nature and built their ethics on it. Plato made excellence the very pivot around which human action revolves. 1 And Aristotle said that the good “has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.” 2 My argument is straightforward. What passes for the good today must be reshaped in the light of what we now know about ecology as nature’s way of pursuing excellence. From that perspective I will argue a second point. Democracy is the best form of government precisely because it most closely approximates nature’s ecological structure. These points of view fly in the face of modernism’s endorsement of market capitalism as the best way to pursue the good. They also stand opposed to all forms of imperialism that presently mark the political landscape. I wish in other words to fill out what Whitehead meant by “in solido.” Nature is made of sets upon sets of entwined events. Each one of them is suffused with the presence of the others. The phrase “in solido” means the togetherness of things within the presence of a sustaining whole. What gives events their distinctive character is the way in which each weaves its net of relations from the stuff of the world and the world echoes back its approval. Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum. The reason for this is clear. Bad connections eventually tear up the fabric of nature, leaving only shards of experience where once intensely felt experiences reigned. Whitehead meant to say something truly important when he used esthetics as the ur-discipline by which to understand nature. He spoke of nature’s values in terms of the trivial, the vague, the narrow and the wide. Each term limns a felt experience of the surrounding environment. The trivial shows no connections. That is why it is trivial. The vague suggests the possibility of connections. The narrow intensifies connections. The wide establishes connections that echo through broad space-time regions. Ecology tells us the fundamental aim of these connective events. It is always the same: nature directs itself toward balance. It is the attainment of equilibrium that makes things excellent. So when ecologists speak of climax regions, they are describing maximum connections supportive of all the events making up that region. Nature has an indefinite set of ways of attaining such excellence. I believe that is the essential meaning of the category of the ultimate, creativity. Becoming-and-perishing is the way of 1

I am of course referring to the discussion of the good in Books VI and VII of the Republic. 2 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1094.

71 nature. As nature’s Dao, creativity is the singular force that allows the myriad things to come into existence.1 Field and focus provide a useful model for interpreting the various levels of connection available in a process universe.2 It is also an effective tool for dissolving problems inherent in the dialectic between an individual and its environmental surroundings. Instead of seeing these aspects of reality as opposed, the field/focus model allows them to be understood as tensile values that depend upon the particular type of order needed for retaining equilibrium in different situations. The components of excellent environmental equilibrium also need to be looked at through the lens of temporal experience. Thus the past, present and future are different modes of value that shape environmental excellence in different ways. Powerful empirical proof of the value of such analyses can be found in the recent work of Mike Davis, whose Late Victorian Holocausts bears witness to the shattering impact of the conjunction of meteorological and political forces. One hundred years ago, China, India, Brazil and Northern Africa suffered through horrific drought, famine and poverty brought on by the el nino effect and the policies of laissez faire capitalism. It is estimated that between 25 and 62 million human beings died during the years 187679 and 1896-1902. Only 100 years ago (1896-1900) in China itself, some 10 million human beings starved to death. It seems nothing was learned from the Great Hunger of the Irish famine 50 years before.3 I am old enough to remember the way in which the great Chinese famine was used by Pearl Buck to form the background of her presentation of life in China. Even more present to my mind are the shadowy images of the movie made from that work. I still sense the darkness of the Asiatic landscape as it lay in the backdrop of that movie. The past is really effective in the present —even in memories drawn from early youth. When uncontrollable environmental events meet rigid doctrinaire political ideologies, the bodies of human beings litter the roadside. If an analysis of

1

Tao Te Ching, 1. See the volumes co-authored by Roger Ames and David Hall, Thinking Through Confucius: Anticipating China and Thinking from the Han (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987, 1995, 2001) for breakthrough comparative analyses of Chinese and Western thinking. Also invaluable is Robert Neville’s Boston Confucianism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), a work that brings a normative approach to the systematic analysis of Chinese and American philosophy. 3 Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts (London: Verso, 2001), 1-17. 2

72 the past reveals such tragedy, then surely the present can begin to imagine ways of avoiding its repetition. Democracy is the political equivalent of ecological excellence. This is the logical extension of my environmental philosophy (pace Plato). Human reality is inescapably social. We learn this from the Analects, where the full force of human excellence is yoked to the goodness of social institutions. Ren is not given at birth. It must be achieved through the cooperation of many forces. Chief among these is learning (xue). To learn means to be able to use one’s tradition wisely. Learning is an invitation to creative interpretation. It is not to be confused with what Dewey called “the problems of philosophers.” In fact, learning is the way in which human beings author themselves into effective being. Using this understanding of learning we can take a look at the central claims of modernization. • It is claimed that market capitalism maximizes free choice and thereby liberates the human person. In fact recent studies demonstrate that market capitalism unfolds according to its own logic and diminishes the importance of social institutions and the environment in order to further its own interests. It is no neutral mechanism whereby the consumer decides what she wants free of any deleterious consequences. 1 • It is also claimed that human happiness is increased with the accumulation of better goods and services. But again, recent studies argue that family and social relations are the first casualties of market democracies.2 • Finally, it is asserted that there is a natural evolutionary symbiosis between market capitalism and democracy, since the individual has the right to choose between different political parties. On the other hand, there is very good evidence that the opposite has occurred. Wealth determines policies.3 What emerges from this brief critical review is a sense of the cultural mindlessness affecting public discussion of the achievement of excellence in democratic societies. Excellence in ecological terms is the achievement 1

See Andrew Bard Schmookler, The Illusion of Choice (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998). 2 See Robert Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 3 See Greg Palast Polast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (London: Pluto Books, 2000).

73 of equilibrium within different sets of environmental events. Excellence in political terms would be the formation of democratic constituencies that truly reflect the will of the people. This does not seem possible within the dominating regime of contemporary market capitalism. The pivot around which discussion revolves is the accumulation of wealth. The policies of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization offer ample proof. At this point, one feels at a loss for recommendations. The power of wealth does seem all-consuming and nothing in the present political regimes seems to promise anything but more of the same. And yet there do appear signs of hope on the horizon. They revolve about recasting the meaning of tradition and a search for a unifying vision that can effectively challenge the theologies of the present age. To do this, we have certain very powerful resources. Specifically, we have the values upheld by the Confucian and Taoist traditions and process philosophy. What would such a reconstruction look like? It would primarily involve a singular change in our fundamental values. Instead of prizing the individual above all else, real respect for the common good would have to be built up.1 This is where the doctrine of ren would be of great assistance. Imagine a social order that educated its citizens to view themselves as their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. By ren I mean that sense of community respect that persons earn through their conduct in that community. Authority flows to such persons by reason of deeds rather than wealth. It is a matter of shifting perspectives. Such a feat involves altering the symbolic code by which a community lives. What is honored is what the community feels to be important. The second move needed to reconstruct human reality would therefore involve our feelings. Here is a matter of major importance. Modernization has effectively reduced our capacity to feel the values present in our world. The task of restoring our ability to feel intelligently is therefore a primary task. It is precisely here that a wedding of Whitehead’s esthetic sense of order and the Chinese insistence on the importance of the particular can produce significant results. Li can be understood as the set of social actions that bring the best out of each situation. It is normative to the degree that balance is restored to unstable relations. Harmony here means the achievement of significant intensity of feeling by reason of due emphasis being given to each element in human social relations. Such excellence cannot be carried out by the intellect alone. What is needed is 1

Herman E. Daly, and John B. Cobb, Jr. For the Common Good, revised edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994) remains the best source for undertaking this task.

74 the fusion of thought and feeling. I take such an alloy to be the outcome of the proper use of xin, the human heartmind. When Whitehead wrote his celebrated chapters on “The Order of Nature” and “Organisms and Environment,” he chose to cast them in terms of feelings.1 I believe he was looking for something very much like the idea of xin, the human heartmind, as the pivot of his exposition. Unfortunately he did not have such a concrete symbol at his disposal and therefore was forced to settle for the categoreal scheme we presently have. What a difference the addition of xin would make to contemporary process thought! Consider the ways in which the critique of feelings could take on fleshly resonance in the presence of such an image. Triviality is that which leaves no mark on the heartmind. Vagueness would set the heartmind moving in the direction of particular forms of value. Narrowness’s gift of intensity would be balanced by the warning “not to overdo it.” And width would embrace everything the human heartmind is capable of feeling — Tiendao — a way of being that seeks to achieve the broadest set of interlocking patterns conceivable. There would be little cultural room for the individual’s search for personal wealth. Nor would it be esteemed. Human excellence that which makes us happy would quite obviously lie elsewhere. In solido. I conclude with a meditation on this theme. Excellence in terms of human social reality begins and ends with feelings of solidarity. Such sentiments are won through hard work and the persistent pursuit of ideals. What attracted me to Whitehead in the first place was his insistence on the fundamental importance of first-hand experience. Comparative philosophy must also be rooted in first-hand experience. If it wishes to be effective, it cannot remain on the level of intellectual analysis. What must be uncovered is some common experiential ground between Chinese philosophy and process thought. I suggest that just such a ground can be found in the experience of meditation. In solido means the suffusion of our experience by the felt presence of the whole. Now this is the goal of all the forms of meditation with which I am familiar. Whether it be Vipissana, Chan, Zen, or Christian Lectio Divina (to name but a few), the goal is always the same: To come into direct contact with The Source. 1

Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978). I have sought to develop these insights in two books Nature: An Environmental Cosmology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997) and City: An Urban Cosmology (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000). Both books use Whitehead’s aesthetic orders and the semiotics of C. S. Peirce to argue for a continuum between the natural and the human worlds.

75 The nature, essence and meaning of that source is not of immediate concern. In fact, many traditions regard it as unnamable. What is important are the shared feelings of different cultural representatives. From such first-hand experience there can arise the sense of solidarity with the whole that underlies nature in solido. I am speaking of real, direct experience unmediated by cultural assumptions.1 Such shared experience would be a strong antidote to the disease of conceited wealth that characterizes modernization. Its efficacy would result from the very quality with which I began these remarks, a feeling of excellence. But this excellence would far outdo any other excellence, since it would be the feeling of an unbounded whole bound to the particulars of our experience. Spinoza tells us that “the more we know about particulars the more we know about God.” The source has been given many names: Tien, Tao, the Primordial Nature of God, the Creator ex nihilo, Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, and the One. At this point in our human evolution I believe it is more crucial to feel this experience intelligently than it is to name it precisely. In fact, one condition for experiencing it appears to be the clearing of concepts and images from our mind and the stilling of our hearts. Surely this can be understood as an attempt to bring fully into our consciousness the widest and most intense possible xin, heartmind. As Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan discovered during their mutual meditations and discussions, the result of these experiences is the same: the call to prophetic action.2 Philosophers are not prophets, although some seem to claim the title. Philosophers, however, can be witnesses. The witness needed here is twofold: • The sense of the value of the whole infusing every event is the first experience that needs witnessing. This is required to overcome the subversive nihilism that affects our planet.

1

I am aware of Steven Katz’s well-known argument that all mystical experience is mediated by cultural factors. However, I am more convinced by the arguments of Robert K. Forman that such experience is directly given and can be shared by members of many different cultural communities. His careful phenomenological and logical analyses deserve far more attention than they have so far received. See his Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998). 2 See Robert H. King, Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh (New York: Continuum, 2002), and Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan, The Raft Is Not the Shore (New York: Orbis Books, 2002).

76 • The second is the call for an engaged spirituality that is not afraid to give witness to the fact that there is normative value in the world. This is required to defeat the sense of selfishness that has replaced our more primordial sense of being part of something greater than ourselves. Let me conclude by noting a certain ambiguity in Hegel’s famous remarks on philosophy and action: When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then a configuration of life has grown old, and cannot be rejuvenated by this gray in gray, but only understood; the Owl of Minerva takes flight only as the dusk begins to fall.1

Note that the Owl of Minerva does take flight, even if at twilight. Some would say there is dusk on the planet. Now it is time for philosophy to do its work.

1

G. W. F. Hegel, Preface, Philosophy of Right.

6. Education’s Myths and Metaphors: Implications of Process Education for Educational Reform George E. Derfer [The] Philosophy of Organism seems to approximate more to some strains of…Chinese thought.1 [Given] the importance of...education...and [its] failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage.2

Introduction: In the first initial quotation, I recognize Whitehead’s respect for China’s wisdom tradition. This respect engages the wisdom of Confucius and Lao Tzu: today, in the ongoing debates within China. This wisdom tradition lives, known for its patience, creativity, and harmony-within-change, between people and nature. The second quotation reveals the intensity of Whitehead’s feelings about educational philosophy and practice gone awry in the West, i.e. 1

Whitehead, A. N. Process and Reality (The Macmillan Company, 1929), 11. Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: The Free Press; 1957), 14. 2

78 “frivolous inertia [provoked] savage rage [barely restrained].” I take seriously his concern about human understanding and education, and, granted this, his judgment about “frivolous inertia” and, as well, his “barely restrained rage.” For example, what is the origin and nature of this tempered “concern”? And this “rage [somehow] restrained”? In short, whence the motivation that informs and inspires both his understanding and, then his ongoing undertakings? By grappling with these kinds of concerns, I am responding to Dr. Kang Ouyang’s plea for an acknowledgment of “hope” and, yes, “transcendence”: “Very little has been written about ‘hope’ and ‘transcendence’ in Chinese education.”1 A growing number of United States citizens share his concern: I intend to explore and expound a generally over-looked concept glaringly obvious in Whitehead’s literary corpus: my intuition is that this over-sight stems from an acculturated fear, if not anxiety, of having to deal with “faith” in a context other than the conventional customs tolerate: “objectivity.” There is, as well, the rather simplistic deduction, while invalid, that “faith” – being only one dimensional (as in “belief” or “leap of faith”) – is not essential to understanding Whitehead existentially in general, or, granted the sheer magnitude of his literary corpus, are unaware of having overlooked what seems to me a central and crucial concern and concept: human existing-experiencing, educating within the individual and the body politic in-and-about reality. My overall intention is twofold: first, to explore a plausible locus of “hope” in the human saga of existence-experience and education; second, to educe – or to illuminate – a reform, even revolution, regarding human understanding: its origin and nature, its implications and ramifications. Both aspects of my intention are inherent in Whitehead’s life and thought, e.g. in his concern for and concept of “deeper faith” – not only in the context of “reason” but in an entirely, more radical dimension having to do with everything we aspire to understand: What do we ‘stand-under’ or more vigorously, ‘live-within’? Again, What motivates us: informs and inspires us? Granted these questions, all of a sudden “hope” or some equally powerful and promising felt need for an answer, arises without exception: motivating “questing for meaning.” I entertain no pretenses that this exploration will resolve the complexity of the theme and its issues. Superficially, my theme “education’s myth and metaphors” entails a basic paradox. Simply stated, I 1

Kang Ouyang, “Contemporary Marxism in China and Process Thought.” (unpublished manuscript, presented at Center for Process Studies, August 21, 2001).

79 intend to illuminate the relevance of Whitehead’s “deeper faith”: its implications for immediacy. I. Traditional or Conventional Education: Western and Eastern testimonies: What is wrong with us is...the detachment of these forms of experience (art, religion, science and the rest) from one another; and our cure can only be their reunion in a complete and undivided life... [But] today we can be as artistic, as philosophical, as religious, as scientific as we please, but we cannot even be real people at all. We are wrecks and fragments of people, and we do not know where to take hold of life and how to begin looking for the happiness which we know we do not possess.1 The organic wholeness-consciousness that both Whitehead and the ancient Chinese thinkers convey is significant to our lives, in that it helps us overcome the fragmentation of modern living, to overcome the division between humanity and nature, individual to individual, male to female, soul to body, as well as other.2

In these testimonies of a Western and an Eastern scholar three generations and two continents apart: an historian and male from England (R. G. Collingwood), an aesthetician and female from China (M. Fan), it is clear that they share a common concern. In short, we are being encouraged to overcome our human—personal—interpersonal—curricular—cultural— fragmentations, our divisions among persons, disciplines, nature, and reality. Conventional wisdom, if not an oxymoron, is no longer acceptable. Reform is no distant option.3

1

R. G. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis or the Map of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 36ff. 2 Meijun Fan, “Organic Wholeness and the Overcoming Divisions” (unpublished manuscript, presented at Center for Process Studies, 1999). 3 Collingwood, in fact, wrote an essay entitled “Reason Is Faith Cultivating Itself,” in Collingwood, Speculum Mentis or the Map of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).

80 II. “Whitehead’s Way”: An illuminating metaphor and its implications Victor Lowe wrote about Whitehead’s philosophy of education, 1 noting that his “Way” had these characteristics: first, he created a process philosophy – a philosophy of organism; second, he conceived reality as being in process of creating an advance to novelty; third, his interest in generalities about experience, provoked a critique of reductionism; fourth, although he appreciated conceptual abstractions, he underscored the centrality of relations and feelings as central to life, learning, growth, and change. Lowe further noted that Whitehead used, among other metaphors to describe his process thinking, “a tree.” While sometimes oversimplified, you and I know that trees have roots, trunks, branches, limbs, twigs, leaves; that trees bear some kind of seed for species survival: its roots and leaves need and seek nutrients from earth and sky: an organic whole, never isolated parts. Thus, a true-to-life characterization and explanation of a tree is a holistic one, not a fragmented one. Yet such “an explanation” would still be partial! As my thesis emerges, aspects of Whitehead’s “Way” will be identified and related to, among other very specific and critical concerns, e.g. the integrating of motivation, methodology, meaning: too often, this unity in the drama of human life-and-understanding is acknowledged but separated and fragmented in contemporary educational theory and practice. While methodology is routinely discussed among educational theorists, the integration of motivation and meaning is often neglected. I will redress this neglect and its implications. I will do so, positively, by attending to the language used in acknowledging events, opportunities, relationships per se, and, negatively, by discussing the dehumanizing of learning, noting some of the many metaphors and myths used to identify, describe and rationalize teaching, learning and understanding. That is, the overuse of “rote memory.” The probable result is the tendency to discourage individual curiosity and creative, critical thinking. I am mindful of several existential contentions: first, that it is we (you and I) who create all words and, as well, we create all metaphors and myths: moreover, we always possess an “interiority” in our relative individuality and contingent interdependence to make distinctions, affirming, albeit clumsily, the ideal unity of motivation, methodology, 1

Victor Lowe, Understanding Whitehead (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968).

81 meaning. No language is perfect: there can be plausible misrepresentations; there can, as well, be appropriate, functional representations, if not identical understandings, between and among people. I remind us, second, that our evolved brain[s] and emerging mind[s] (with consciousness/conscience) are not disembodied “things living outthere.” 1 Reifying (creating words) and hypostatizing (attributing to our creations, human qualities, values, and virtues) are both helpful and, without careful attention, can be a constant, distorting temptation. III. A typical student’s experience in formal education: an initial glimpse I invite you to identify the central metaphor used to describe the formal, conventional educational manner which was described to me during the preparation of this paper: Teachers, students and parents know that homework is given for one reason: to instruct the student in preparation for “the exam.” Parents and teachers hope that students will become, as it were, “studying-machines”: the teachers “machine-operators,” and the parents “machine-mechanics.” Indeed, the metaphor “machine” comes all too easily to mind. And about this metaphor something more needs to be explored. It is to be noted that often one hears or reads expressions such as “the brain is wired” or “the book tells us [X]”; “that science teaches us”; that “history informs us”; all presume the appropriateness of the machine metaphor, even though the subtle effects of de-humanizing go un-noticed. The fact is that all such claims are metaphorically rather sloppy human creations and linguistic short cuts. They are awkward ways for some people to share something of supposed worthiness. Maybe! In any case, these “short cuts” are not ends in themselves: they must be understood in a subtle – more rehumanized/personalized – manner, context and drama. To ignore this awareness is to participate in creating, providing and reproducing the context for “inert ideas.” Moving beyond the immediate boundaries of the machine metaphor (i.e. “the brain as wired”), it becomes all too clear upon further reflection that in the United States we, too, call this form of teaching – and implied learning – “teaching to the Exam.” It lends itself to technological innovations and to machine induced metaphors and myths. But such 1

See George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge Western Thought (Basic books, 1999).

82 teaching, while more often than not dehumanizing, has become the primary way to identify and assess good teaching and, personal and professional accountability. At least, so goes the rationalization! Such teaching seems to be, as well, the dominant, administratively accepted and encouraged, manner of teaching – and, by implication, the content of learning – in China and in the United States. My theme and its thesis, negative and positive aspects, make the claim that some vital dimension of human presence and nurturing is too often misplaced, even over-looked, and ignored: That the above identified metaphors and the implied governing acculturated myths are a distortion and a corruption of human existing and experiencing, of learning: of reality. Such is one of the implications of our negative thesis. Not with standing, my positive thesis envisions a kind of reform. No: maybe, a radical reconstituting, sometime in the near or not too distant future. IV. Whitehead’s “Philosophical Attitude”: embodying a critical understanding Granted Whitehead’s sense of humor, it is helpful to remind our selves of his philosophic attitude. We need only read carefully his Modes of Thought1 to realize that his philosophical attitude attempts to enlarge the understanding of the scope of application of every notion which enters into our thinking. Moreover, endeavoring to understand, we take every word and phrase, and self-consciously ask, “What does it mean?” This “asking” challenges deeply ingrained emotions and cherished beliefs: all crucial to one’s inherent integrity, maturing identity and sense of meaning in the world. Whitehead, appropriately, added, the philosophic attitude “is always assaulting the boundaries of finitude.” 2 As already noted above, this motivation to ‘assault the boundaries of finitude’” is directly related to “immediacy” and, perhaps, “instinct.” Several insights can be quickly identified and clarified: first, the philosophical attitude embodies real people seeking meaning and significance in living, in dying, and everything in between. Secondly, education is “a current notion” whose themes and issues pervade our aspirations and achievements, our hopes and fears; thirdly, his “savage rage” was, in fact, restrained while leaving aside for a moment the unexplored theoretical and practical relevance of “deeper faith,” (which, 1 2

Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Free Press, 1938), 234f. Ibid., 172.

83 my positive thesis will contend, might well be the primal motivation for seeking meaning, for hope, for “assaulting the boundaries of finitude,” e.g. religion); and, fourthly, while we are called upon to “assault the boundaries of finitude,” I suggest that “boundaries” are our own creations, the result, in part, of creating metaphors and myths which are often selfdefeating, socially destructive, ecologically disastrous, and reality, even life-understanding stultifying. V. Conceptual distinctions: education, educating, and instruction All languages are human constructions. In speaking English, I can, for example, make important distinctions among “education,” “educating,” and “instruction.” I do not mean simply to play recklessly with words. No, there are distinctions that have about them significant differences and, in some cases, significant similarities. Education, for instance, might intend to impart knowledge impersonally, whereas, with great subtlety, educating identifies a process in which one’s native inclinations are nurtured, encouraged to grow: lyrically “to blossom.” Still, “education” and “educating” may intend the same meaning. Lastly, instruction, too often, implies “piling on”: it entails obedience to external authority and rote memory of information “piled on” already obtained information – itself already a product of subtle forms of rote memory, of sustaining and blandly accepting inert ideas. Education – disembodied and, hence, often institutionalized, portends dehumanized authority, e.g. “The Local Board of Education requires that [X] be taught and learned.” Embodied educating, however, humanizes and personalizes, certainly socializes, the authoring as a result of natural curiosity, creating insights and interests, accepting responsibility and accountability. This is possible because there is, in fact, an actual agent: someone who is responsible and accountable. The authorizing person participates in creating standards for positive and negative criticism, e.g. “I encourage your curiosity about [this or that].” Or, “May I join you in acting upon your curiosity.” “Instruction,” too often, presupposes an external, de-personalized authority that, by its apparent “objective” pretense and power, entails both belief and acceptance, e.g. “The assigned story must be true because the Bible (or whatever) authorized text and this information is, therefore, invaluable. You are advised to learn it.” The informal fallacies of reifying and hypostatizing, do indeed, cast a long shadow.

84 The differences? Dehumanized education might, conceivably, appeal to external authority: the result is resignation, e.g. “History teaches [X].” Instruction, plausibly, equally dehumanizing, creates passivity: “The Laws of Physics state [X].” Embodied humanizing educating nurtures natural and emerging motivation in general and, in this, inherent curiosity and aspiration. Embodied educating, always personalized, stirs one’s moral imagination in the teachers, parents, students, (et al.) – and, in this, invites interpersonal empathy: “Copernicus imagined the Sun as the center of our universe, what is your thinking about his daring, his creative, critical thought?” Educating, in this dramatic arena, is engaging. There is no room here for “inert ideas”: no, only interactive learners-as-persons, excited about communication, for community, for communities-withincommunities. VI. Myths and metaphors Joseph Campbell noted that no human society has been found in which mythic motifs have not been created and rehearsed: In the Orient – in China – the tendency of the philosophical movement was to retain the atmosphere of myth employing its symbols and rites as adequate means by which to ready the mind for intuitive insights into the ineffable mystery of the universe: There the eye goes not; Speech goes not, not the mind. We know not, we understand not How one should teach it. For it is other, indeed, than the known, 1 And moreover above the unknown.

Myth. Ineffable mystery. But whence “hope”? “Myth” and “ineffable mystery” are often interpreted as a holding-action awaiting objective, dehumanized, and value-free endeavor to explain the “un-explainable.” Campbell affirmed the ineffable mystery of the universe; however, he did not mean that the cosmos or universe – or reality – was unavailable or unapproachable: knowable; he meant that in our experiencing of reality and our seeking of meaning, we are, at times, aware of an awful silence in which, paradoxically, our awareness of the “unknown” is intensified and 1

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God (Pinquine-Putnan, 1959), 5.

85 by this “intensifying,” our presence is immediately confirmed “beyond [the power of] words,” our “understanding” (or “standing-under”) humbled. “Awe-filled” is personally felt. Herein is experienced a paradox, not a problem to be solved or a predicament to be redressed and overcome. Herein, may well be, among other human species-specifics, the origin of the non-verbal arts, e.g. dance, sculpture, painting, and so on. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson developed a theory of root metaphors or primary metaphors allowing them to claim: first, these basic metaphors are inherent in our physical, emotional, imaginative participation in the world. Second, human reason is not purely literal, but largely imaginative and metaphorical. (“Largely” but not exhaustively or preemptively.) 1 I do not share Lakoff’s contention that the human capacity for creating and projecting metaphors creates reality. No, to the contrary, while “reality” is a human word-concept, the intended claim’s predisposition and presupposition identify the drama (“reality”) in terms of which we not only create but correct our relative ongoing understanding: theoretically and practically, i.e. what we are predisposed to and, granted this, what we presuppose and appeal to in making sense: albeit not necessarily the whole of “reality.” The significant question addressed then is, do our knowledge-claims resonate coherently and consistently with ongoing experience? Our “questioning” presupposes “answering.” And our acknowledged checkout criteria, e.g. consistency, coherence, correspondence, “concern,” and “compassion,” sustain practical knowledge by which we continue to seek meaning. But whence do these “check-out criteria” come? They are certainly human creations but, still, how so? And how are they themselves validated? Regarding “reality,” while acknowledging the word and concept are human creations, an operational definition may constructively have the following characteristics: • is [being-and-becoming]; • is presupposed and appealed to “seeking meaning and understanding” • is presupposed and appealed to in the creation, criticism, adjudication of knowledge-claims; 1

George Lakoff, & Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (Basic Books, 1999).

86 • is presupposed and appealed to posing problems and in solving them. What then is a “metaphor”? A metaphor is our brain’s activity, imaging information (interior and exterior to the brain); and, thereby, nurturing our propensity for seeking meaning and significance. By creating words and concepts, one dimension of our existing experiencing is compared to another aspect of the world: events in experiencing are illuminated by comparison to perceived objects in the environment, personal or nonpersonal. Metaphors, among other qualities, affirm emotional levels of meaning as we attempt to clarify and describe conceptually actualities in our experiencing in our world. “Emotions are essential to living, to understanding,” contends Antonio Damasio.1 VII. Revisiting our student’s experience: institutionalized myth and metaphor Being philosophical respecting Whitehead’s encouragement, I identify “machine” as the pivotal and crucial metaphor in our student’s experience as described to us. In turn, this metaphor identifies the implied myth which provides reasons for a certain rationalized and institutionalized form of teaching and learning: of understanding, or standing-under, or livingwithin. The presupposed myth is called by several formal names: naturalistic materialism, scientific rationalism, and mechanism. All have dominated educational theory and practice in the West for more than 300 years; and in China for, at least, 50 years. Materialism, as is any “ism” or ideology, is a worldview in which the claim is made or presupposed that physical matter in its movements and modifications is reality: complete and total. Everything in the universe can be explained in terms of physical laws. Materialism is for some people the only worldview, the Truth: a metaphysical Absolute, or an implied Standard. Peter Senge’s observation is instructive: In many ways the industrial age had its roots in the fascinations of Kepler, Descartes, Newton with the clock as a model for the cosmos. Kepler is quoted as saying: “My aim is to

1

Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions in the Making of Consciousness (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1999), 57.

87 show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clock-work.” 1 Descartes, according to Senge, made the clock his prototypical machine: and a sort of myth of the mechanical universe became, for many people, dogma. The true believer simply “knew so.” Some kind of faith or acculturated belief was at work. And “Newton assigned to God a twofold function as ‘Creator of the universal clock-work, and as its Supervisor for maintenance and repair.’” 2 Senge, again, notes (paraphrased): It became natural, to conceive of the world as made up of discrete components, which fit together like the parts of a machine. The behavior of atoms was conceived as tiny bouncing balls whose behavior could be predicted, as could be the behavior of more complex objects assembled from them. VIII. From “machine-thinking” to “chain of command education” According to some historians, the Machine Age became an historical epoch. This manner of thinking became the basis for organization and management-style. Under the leadership of Frederick the Great, the 18th Century Prussian ruler, reforms were instituted in the army to make it become a “machine” with interchangeable parts, standardized equipment, and strict regulations. The army was an organization of men-as-soldiers: automata (Latin: “machines” or “robots.”) Those in leadership roles in education were impressed by such efficiency: Educators explicitly borrowed their new designs for teaching and learning from the factory builders, and “products” they so much admired. And, hence, from the disciplined army that seemed so invincible. In fact, Senge insists, “school may be the starkest example in modern society of an entire institution modeled after the assembly line (i.e. discrete stages, segregated ages, stage by stage progressing, rote-memory, specified periods for classes, drills for authorized information distribution, learning and testing, grades, [etc.].” He deduced, “The whole school was designed to run at a uniform speed, complete with bells and rigid daily time schedules.” 3 1

Peter Senge, Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Field book for Educators, Parents, and Every One Who Cares About Education (New York: A Currency Book, 2000), 29f. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 30f.

88 But choices have consequences: the industrialized model – its underlying metaphor and myth as interpreted and applied – did not merely change how students learned, it changed what was taught: they were taught about the world (natural and social), and how to “fit” themselves into it. Side-tracked was the fuller depth of the drama of being/becoming human by existing in and experiencing the fuller drama of living: the humanity of curiosity and asking awkward questions about oneself and others in the world. Missing was the humanity of knowing. Missing was imagination, critical thinking, risk-taking, personal responsibility and accountability. Missing, as well, was what some today would claim to be the crucible of “the entrepreneurial spirit.” Much, however, was memorized with precision about prescribed roles and rules, regulations and protocols. Every one knew his/her appointed place. The industrial model – metaphor and myth – soon had an extensive influence, i.e. the “banking account” concept of education emerged. IX. The “banking” metaphor: dehumanizing farther the vitality of education? Paulo Freire, while underscoring the desperate need for humanizing our educating processes, declared his grievances with dehumanization: Dehumanization marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it: It is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human.1

Among Freire’s several strategies for reform was the awakening of all people to the “banking metaphors” and myth used as the rationale for pedagogy. His criticism (paraphrased) was: Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the student to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, the narrative turns the students into receptacles to be filled by the teacher: The more a receptacle is filled, the better the teacher is. And the more meekly the receptacle permits him/herself to be filled, the better the students is with respect to learning, knowing, understanding. Such is the dubious rationalization. Such, too, is the suspected “teaching/learning” condition in which Whitehead’s “inert ideas” were, as it were, bred.

1

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ana Maria Freire ed. (London: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998), 75.

89 Freire’s argument is that education has been corrupted and distorted by the metaphors “depositing” and “banking.” While paraphrased yet accurate to his meaning, “[The] students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.” Instead of interpersonal communication, “the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students receive, memorize, and repeat.” Information is simply presented; it is not processed through the student’s emotional experience. Whether we are teachers or students, we participate in our own dehumanization, “filing ourselves away through the denial of our natural curiosity, our inherent motivation for transformation.”1 So it would seem: first, information; second, collecting the information-as-if-it-were-knowledge. That is, data transformed into information and, then, becoming “knowledge.” Wrong! “Frivolous inertia” posing as the process of knowing. Right! But “restrained rage” is felt! So are the depths and heights of reality (as described and defined earlier). “Knowing” is a human process informed by genetic and emergent factors of the evolving brain: we process data and additional information, turning data into information through our existing-experiencing, imparting values and priorities to the information, organizing information into knowledge, into knowledge-claims. “For,” according to Freire, “apart from inquiry – apart from praxis [Greek: “action”] – individuals cannot fully be human.” Knowing, at some dimension of existing, and knowledge, even knowledge-claims, are human activities requires imaginative, emotionally informed and inspired play. “Knowing emerges only through invention an reinvention by way of hopeful inquiry by human beings in the world, with the world, with each other.” Hopeful inquiry! Curiosity evoked! Friere taunts the banking metaphor: “It is bankrupted!” He warns: The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop their critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as informed transformers of the world. Moreover, the more completely they accept the passive role of imposed upon them, the more they tend to uncritically adapt to the world as it is taught or presented and to the fragmentary view of reality deposited in them.2

And if the “banking metaphor” is shallow, if not “bankrupted,” then one has reason to suspect the very real possibilities that any rationale for 1 2

Ibid. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 75.

90 globalization built upon such a metaphor and its myth, is seriously in trouble, i.e., it should be challenged and radically changed.1 X. A dominant dichotomy is challenged The “banking” concept assumed a dichotomy between humans and the world: when challenged and clearly seen to be otherwise, a radical change takes place and positive ramifications become evident: • A person is never merely in the world but with others within the world: reality, in some manner, evolves in all aspects; • Individuality is never an isolated spectator but an interacting and interrelating creator and re-creator; • Authentic learning is understanding and re-humanizing communion; • Authentic thinking is constant interaction, affirming people in their relations with emerging world of hope, of possibilities becoming actualities. In his own way, Freire embodied and lived “process thinking-educating.” And, in his contentions, my initial concern about motivation as related to methodology and meaning has now some context, some content. The intimate interaction is clearer. And new questions arise: How does Whitehead’s thinking address this integration? How relevant and illuminating is his concern for and concept of “deeper faith”? XI. Whitehead’s “deeper faith” Throughout my discussion, I have used the word “faith” and “deeper faith” in different guises. I want to make it clear that using “deeper faith” (Whitehead somehow substitutes it with “instinctive faith” or “intuitive faith”) is not without the risk of confusion for many; it is not, however, for most people: the root word faith, like many words and concepts, has been vulgarized, debased and caricatured. Such is the possibility of all human 1

I want to point it out once again, my “should” is part and parcel of the very subtlety and insistence of “paradox” as I have defined it.

91 conceptualizations! But “vulgarization” does not deter our inherent motivation (e.g., paradoxically “deeper faith”) to seek understanding. More positively stated, I – an American scholar with an avid interests in languages – have discovered that in both English and Chinese language traditions in general and in their respective wisdom traditions in particular, there exists ideas and insights that stand as interchangeable concerns, concepts, and convictions. Depending on the context, cultural languages have differences, too. “Deeper faith” might be an exception, at least superficially: it is a rather unusual concept. While many people use the metaphor “depth” or “deep,” few stop to think about the plausible characteristics and preconditions that prompt such ascriptions.” For this concept is not exhausted nor preempted by any singular tradition. I invite your patience as I venture into an exposition of “deeper faith,” on the one hand; on the other, a modest endeavor to explore several of the applications of the concept of process in exploring, expounding and envisioning of a new educational theory: “process education.” At least, I will have initiated the first awkward steps that specifically address as central Whitehead’s “deeper faith.” What is “deeper faith”? Risking oversimplification by calling attention to the Chinese wisdom tradition’s respect for the nature of “Qi” in aesthetics, I suggest that Whitehead’s “deeper faith” has within it refrains of “Qi.” Below is his text: Faith in reason is the trust that the ultimate natures of things lie together in a harmony which excludes mere arbitrariness. It is the faith that at the base of things we shall not find mere arbitrary mystery. The faith in the order of nature, which has made possible the growth of science, is a particular example of a deeper faith. This faith cannot be justified by any inductive generalization. It springs from direct inspection of the nature of things as disclosed in our own immediate present experience. There is no parting from your own shadow. To experience this faith is to know that in being ourselves we are more than ourselves: to know that our experience, dim and fragmentary as it is, yet sounds the utmost depths of reality: to know that detached details merely in order to be themselves demand that they should find themselves in a system of things; to know that this system includes the harmony of logical rationality, and the harmony of aesthetic achievement: to know that, while the harmony of logic lies upon the universe as an iron necessity, the aesthetic harmony stands before

92 it as a living ideal molding the general flux in its broken progress towards finer, subtler issues. (Emphasis added)1

Rhetorically noted, we may wonder what informed and inspired Whitehead’s contention in Process and Reality that “the philosophy of Organism seems to approximate more to some strains of...Chinese thought.” This passage and its underscoring of “deeper faith,” “inspection of the nature of things,” “our own immediate present experience,” “sounding the utmost depths of reality,” and, finally, “the aesthetic harmony stands...as a living ideal molding the general flux,” should give one pause for further reflection, granting him/her both a careful examination and the integrity of his claim: respectful of “strains of...Chinese thought.” Whitehead’s integrity is, however, not at issue: my central concern is the deciphering of or distilling from his “deeper faith” a vision of human existing-experiencing which acknowledges that reality, via evolution, has an interiority that informs and inspires, among other sentient creatures, human brains and, in this, moral imagination and creative-critical thinking. In this context, it is not surprising that Whitehead’s philosophy of education is not “packaged,” not easily institutionalized. Parsing his description of “deeper faith,” we discern these affirmations: • Our own immediate experiencing is an informing process involving something akin to genetic information and, yet, different, there is a kind of primal knowing; there is informing and inspiring motivation. • In being ourselves we are more than ourselves: a radical break between reality, certainly evolution in life – human life and its aspirations – is denied; what might be noted is the reach of what is anticipated; immediacy of awareness and some level of transcendence are part and parcel of our “being more than ourselves.” • Our experiencing sounds the depths of reality: we participate in reality and reality participates in us (interiority-and-exteriority) instantly united; the question is not whether there is “purpose” in 1

Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World (New York: A Mentor Book. 1925), 19f.

93 reality, the question is the extent of this “purposeful” anticipation and contingent achievement. • The collecting of information demands integrative thinking and integrating knowing, based on value-informed-transforming of data into facts, and facts into knowledge-claims and actions. • Aesthetic harmony [lures] the general flux of informing, inspiring, aspiring and emerging actualities towards subtler possibilities. Whitehead never claimed to the sole creator of “process” / “organic” thinking and he suggested, in passing, that “subtler issues (if not possibilities)” can emerge. In short, to grapple with Whitehead is to seriously engage meaning and implications “deeper faith;” it is crucial and central to understanding of his literary corpus: his living and thinking. Yes, his embodiment of “deeper faith.” Yet the question remains to tease and haunt us, how does his “deeper faith” illuminate human existing-experiencing-and-process educating? Herein is the inescapable paradox of the human condition: to struggle to frame questions is to find oneself embodying, lyrically stated, the very concern – and conceptualizing – at issue! What is presupposed? To what does one appeal? How, as it were, approached and used? XII. “Processing towards Life” and “Trusting Life”: Implications for process education/educating Whitehead’s “deeper faith” is not alone an epistemological theme; it is equally an ontological, axiological, and cosmological engagement that has radical implications for creating process educating. In a word, we are always “in process” or “processing.” Charles Birch specifically addressed this processing: We are always ‘processing towards life’ [in that, an understanding of cosmic evolution had to be informed by a concept of what Life is. The concept of ‘what life is’ proposes that the individual entities of existence...are [processing] occasions of experience.”1

1

Birch, Charles, “Processing Towards Life” (unpublished manuscript, presented at Center for Process Studies, Claremont, 1998).

94 Responsive to Birch’s insight, as I acknowledge “living-within” as an alternative rendering of “understanding” or “standing-under” reality, we are processing towards that which we are able to anticipate, and, plausibly, achieve, i.e., the immediacy of “deeper faith” within existing-experiencing, educating. If we have understood Birch’s “Processing Towards Life” correctly, “deeper faith” and “lure” within/of immediate knowing are then factors in existing- experiencing – in conceptualizing Life in general and, given this, process educating in particular. Yet, note again, this caveat: we do not intend to address all of the intertwined connections of a process educating theory and practice. It is enough in this paper to try to envision “process educating” and, in this, to identify some of its major qualities and characteristics. In The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the Community,1 there is a chapter entitled “Faith in Life.” It is almost literally the central chapter of the book. The authors, ironically, begin their exposition of “faith” by citing Charles Hartshorne and Paul Tilllich, but not one word from Whitehead’s opus. In any case, the operational definition of “faith” presented is “Trusting Life.” Birch and Cobb do not intend their discussion to set forth a philosophy of education, even a philosophy of experience per se, never the less a vision of sorts is discernible. For example, each person, even student, is encouraged to ask more deeply than ever before “what life is really for?” Educating is living: creating its future in relation to “the Lure of new possibilities.” Such is their rationale paraphrased. In this example, the contrast of the new insight with the old understanding was the occasion for the widening and the deepening our student’s thought: A way of thinking and understanding emerged which assimilated the new through the transformation, and not the rejection, of the old. Such is the “the working of Life.” To trust Life is to allow the challenging and threatening elements in our world to share in constituting our experience. It is to believe that they can enter into a creative interchange with what their past experience brings into the situation. It is to trust that the outcome is allowing the tension of the old and the new to be felt [and in being so] can be a creative synthesis that cannot be predetermined or planned. Yet, “deeper faith” is not itself “a leap.”

1

C. Birch & John Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life: from Cell to the Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

95 “Life,” for Birch and Cobb, accordingly, is the central religious symbol that distinguishes “life” as a mundane concept within the old cosmology to a new religiously based cosmology. Regarding “faith” and “process education,” I will concentrate our attention again on a clue to a strategy found in Birch’s and Cobb’s phrase “Faith in Life,” i.e. the drama about “a man of faith” within traditional educational theories and practices. The point is, “a man of faith” encounters a way of thinking that inspires assimilating new ideas and insights through transformation, not rejection, of the old. As described by Birch and Cobb, to trust Life is to allow the challenging and threatening elements in our world to share in constituting our experience. In every moment there is...a new possibility arising out of the totality of the multifaceted / many dimensional moment. And “immediacy” attends “every moment.” XIII: The integrity of “deeper faith,” “motivation” and “process educating”: “Deeper faith,” while not discussed by our authors,1 motivates and nurtures what might be described as embodied awareness, anticipation, affirmation, adventure, achievement: all of the qualities that describe living “hope” and “perseverance.” Certainly, such values and virtues of immanencetranscendence are anticipated, as well as moral imagination and creativecritical thinking as adventures in ongoing transformations, i.e., attentive to the old but not preempted nor exhausted by the past. While my paper’s thesis has, at times, substituted “process educating” for stereotypical education dominated by the metaphors of “machine,” “banking,” even “competition,” and the myth of “materialism,” I embrace aspects of experience and “emerging possibilities” identified and extolled by Birch and Cobb. Distinct in my thesis, however, is the integrity of “deeper faith” and motivation. In this integrity, for instance, there is no “seeking understanding” that does not presuppose, or is not predisposed to, quite literally a kinship between “seeking” and “understanding.” While risking over simplification in envisioning this integrity, I am rhetorically asking: Under what does the brain stand in seeking understanding? My contention is that seeking cannot be neutral. It, too, has an integral, even essential, 1

It seems that process scholars ignore the issue; or at least we cannot find discussion of the issue in their respective book indexes.

96 connection to understanding or “living-within.” Seeking is itself an informed and inspiring testimony to “deeper faith.” Nathan Rotenstreich, a Hebrew scholar, who has read Whitehead, suggests that in the Hebrew Bible, faith is the dimension of human agency in terms of which an evolving and emerging self-consciousness is aware of possibilities and seeks to actualize one or more of these. Faith, it seems, has about it intentionality and faith intends transcendence. My claim is that the evolution of the brain and the evolution of “deeper faith” are one: a unity. In short, the human brain-mind has about it, as it were, because of “deeper faith,” an active presence: informing, inspiring, affirming, anticipating, and hopefully achieving. Thus I find both teasing and haunting Cobb’s testimony in Christ in a Pluralistic Age: “…Faith is ‘the appropriate primal response to what the divine is and does.’” 1 His idea contains a germinal insight. However, he declines to make this “faith” a universal dimension of our becoming human. My claim is more radical: I envision this “deeper faith” as being an essential dimension of cosmic evolution in general, of our evolving a speciesspecific brain in particular, characterized by an interiority-exteriority with, at least, these qualities: deeper faith-faith, infinite-finite, general-specific, and immediacy of reality (via evolution and emergence; immanencetransformation-transcendence). Evolution is not something out there. And motivation is not something without an interiority-exteriority in existing-experiencing, in educating. Yes, there are knower and known. Yet “interiority-exteriority,” is often misconceived as something in polar-contention, tempting metaphors and myths to suggest opposition, separation, estrangement, hostility, and incompatibility. This need not be the case. Moreover, there is mounting evidence in some of the work of neuroscientists that there is more going on in and around us than our modern – Enlightenment – forebears assumed and presupposed. One such obvious problematic, if not paradox, were their personal and vocational aspirations and anticipations. Yes, their “deeper faith.” In any case, granted my understanding of Whitehead’s “deeper faith,” it is not something that one can lose. What might be lost are one’s acculturated beliefs. And since such beliefs nurture one’s emerging consciousness and conscience, they become a potent factor in creating contingent, cherished beliefs and in shaping personal identity and integrity. 1

John Cobb, Jr., Christ in a Pluralist Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), 88.

97 “To attack a cherished belief is to attack the believer.” The opposite is true as well: “To support a cherished belief is to support the believer.” Neither cultural nor moral relativism are justified: the subtle point remains, i.e., concepts are motivating human constructions! Most interesting is the fact that some conceptual constructions are sustained by their resonance – through ongoing experiencing – with reality. “We really know!” Yet, as M. Polanyi noted, “We may know more than we can say.”1 Let us not lose sight of my basic contention: “deeper faith” is essential to the primal motivation that informs and inspires what Birch described as the spectrum from “protons to people.” He preferred to call this spectrum “Life.” I prefer some modest, yet radical, contextual meaning: “Life within Reality.” And “primal motivation” – “deeper faith” or “instinctive faith” – is the informing and inspiring unitary action of reality and, in this case, our embodied brain-mind. It is what embodied educating knows as nurturing and worthy of extolling and celebrating: “Life within Reality” and “Reality within Life.” XIV. Further thoughts on a revitalized “process education/ing” It is not surprising to read that several Process Philosophers of Education have called for “a total revolution in educational theory.” Politically sensitive and appropriately nuanced, I call for creative, radical action: a reconstitution of human existing-experiencing-understanding and, hence, of seeking meaning. Hence, too, of education: its philosophy and practice. My thesis contends that “deeper faith,” construed, in part, as an informing and inspiring primal motivation, is central to process educating. In going about creating culture in general and curricula in particular, it is easy to uncritically accept as definitive and normative the stereotypes of a “business-for-profit” lifestyle and worldview, reinforced constantly by suitable metaphors. The myth becomes pervasive: penetrating and powerful. Particularly vulnerable are those who profess to “educate.” My thesis argues for a radical change in how, and why, we go about nurturing self-social learning and understanding. We take seriously the question, “What is it we “stand-under” or, appropriately nuanced, live-within? Our concern for the presence and contingent promise of Whitehead’s “deeper faith” is not merely a personal prejudice or shared professional 1

Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1957), 95.

98 bias. No, there is emerging in the United States a concerted and disciplined effort to explore Whitehead’s theme: a move in the neurosciences to address “faith.” Typical in this regard is The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Science Meet. 1 In this book, a chapter entitled “A Neurobiology of Faith: The Primal Urge to Know and the Primal Urge to Relate” points suggestively to our thesis: to the drama of process educating. Another work is worth mentioning, that is, Howard Gardner’s Intelligence Reframed: Multi-Intelligences for the 21st Century. 2 The author struggles, personally and professionally, with the spirit as a proper intelligence. He cautiously settles for “existential intelligence.” That is, he is concerned that we do not overlook a person’s imperative capacity to locate oneself with respect to the utmost reaches of the cosmos. Gardner struggles with spirituality but settles for existential intelligence! With the infinite and infinitesimal – and the related capacity to locate oneself with respect to such existential features of the human condition: As the significance of life, the meaning of death, the ultimate fate of the physical and psychological worlds, and such profound experiences as love of another person or the total immersion in a work of art. 3

In this same book, Gardner does not hesitate to implore us that there is a species potential to engage in transcendental concerns. The list of scientists now involved staggers belief. Notwithstanding, there is a hesitancy to address education. We, as now noted, are addressing the task of pushing the parameters of process educating: • Process educating focuses on “existing-experiencing”: responsible. • Process educating is neither defined by nor delimited to formal instruction, or to institutionalization: its arena is ongoing human existing-experiencing; its participants are of all ages, genders, and multi-intelligences.

1

J. B. Ashbrook & C. R. Albright, The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Science Meet (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997). 2 Howard Gardner’s Intelligence Reframed: Multi-Intelligences for the 21st Century (Basic Books, 1999). 3 Ibid., 60.

99 • Process educating celebrates and extols the humanization of teaching and learning, of understanding; it intends personal testimonies, autobiographies, biographies, and/or histories whereby there is acknowledged the larger and grander drama of Life and, in this, underscoring the role and responsibilities of personal-social living and dying, of “hope” by way of anticipation and achievement; • Process educating acknowledges, in this exposition, the fallacies of reifying and hypostatizing. • Process educating entails a number of paradoxes (distinguished from “problems,” “predicaments,” etc.), which need attention, e.g., freedom/responsibility; is/ought; fact/value, etc. • Process educating criticizes and transcends any formal economic theory and practice, and acknowledges more positively economics and ecology as creating and sustaining a living-home-environment. In summary, process educating anticipates, affirms and articulates a process living-thinking, and, with this, creative and critical thinking in the drama of some of the qualities of process thinking: • Process thinking is, as Whitehead observed, a refrain within Chinese wisdom-traditions: I underscore the need to undertake a substantive conference on the manner and means of implementing process educating, or, at least, an engaging, constructive critique, which holds itself accountable for the implied motivation in general, for the checkout criteria in particular; • Process thinking entails a deeper awareness and anticipation within human existing and experiencing that resonates with reality: theology is neither exhaustive nor preemptive of that resonating. • Process thinking exposes the evolutionary origin and nature of critical thinking, especially attending to the levels of awareness, e.g. propositions, assumptions, presuppositions (relative and absolute), and, now, propensities.

100 And so goes the identification of what might well specify and approximate basic concepts and functional descriptions only suggested here and yet, in the future, may be more fully addressed and made applicable. Ideally, “deeper faith” sets forth a new, perhaps a radical, reformation: a call for reconstitution. There is no present extant model. At best, there is a dawning awareness and, in this, an informed and inspired “moral imagination” at work and play. Indeed, a potent combination! Nevertheless, contingent questions arise: How does one apply this deeper faith? How would the application per se make a significant difference in learning, understanding, and teaching? Our response to where and how is that, deeper faith is not a something found now, as if it were some thing lost! If anything, what was “lost” was the concept, not the motivational factor which deeper faith attends and affirms. What changes is not our human condition per se but our appreciation of immediacy, presence, power, and promise within each and everyone’s existing-experiencing educating: our way of communion, of community. My intention has been to explore the role of metaphors and myths in education. Reform by the way of “process educating” disclosing “deeper faith” and, in this, immediacy of reality’s presence and, as it were, promises and lures us on to new possibilities.

7. The Problem of Transcendence in Chinese Religions: From a Whiteheadian Perspective Wang Shik Jang 1. The Problem: Chinese Religions without Transcendence: David Hall and Roger Ames Some philosophers of Chinese religions have argued that there is no transcendence in Chinese religions. This argument may sound strange to some people because it is obvious that there have existed many kinds of transcendence in Confucianism and Taoism, such as Shangti (上帝), Tian ( 天), Taichi (太極), Dao (道), and Li (理). Then, given that such kinds of transcendence have existed in Chinese religions, what do Hall and Ames mean by saying that “there is no transcendence in Chinese religions”? What they really mean is not that there is no kind of transcendence, but that there is no “strict” transcendence. Here, by the term “strict transcendence,” they mean that “A is transcendent with respect to B if the existence, meaning, or import of B cannot be fully accounted for without recourse to A, but the reverse is not true.”1 If we apply this principle to the relationship between God and the world, then it follows that God is strictly transcendent with respect to the world, as far as the existence of the world 1

David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking through Confucius (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 13.

102 cannot be accounted for without recourse to God, even though the existence of God can be fully accounted for without recourse to the world. Only in this case, according to Hall and Ames, can it be said that God is transcendent in a “strict” sense. We know that this kind of strict transcendence can be discovered only in traditional God-talk (or theology) in the West. This kind of strict transcendence is hardly discoverable in Chinese religions, if we consider the fact that Chinese religions always favor the correlative thinking of YinYang, in which the existence of transcendence cannot be accounted for without recourse to what it transcends. Based on this, Hall and Ames emphasize that since strict transcendence does not exist in Chinese religions, all we can find in them is immanent transcendence, which means that transcendence in Chinese religions exists only in relationship with what it transcends. However, Hall and Ames do not stop here. What they really want to argue is not so much that strict transcendence does not exist in Chinese religions, but rather that the notion of transcendence itself is irrelevant in interpreting Chinese philosophy.1 Therefore, they argue as follows. We have victimized classical Chinese thinking, therefore, first by giving it an inappropriate theistic interpretation and secondly by giving it an inappropriate secular interpretation--both interpretations attributing to Chinese philosophy a sense of transcendence that has not been a part of the cultural narrative in its classical tradition.2

In order to demonstrate how such a resorting to the concept of transcendence has seriously distorted aspects of Confucian and Daoist thoughts, they attempt to make the following arguments. First of all, they claim that Chinese philosophy does not entail a dualistic worldview. That is, whatever might be regarded as transcendent in classical Chinese thought, it is not independent of the natural world. And, moreover, the notion of world order in Chinese religions is altogether “this worldly.” According to Hall and Ames, Tian (天, heaven) is both what our world is and how it is. The myriad things are not the creatures of

1

David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking from the Han (Albany: State University of New York Press. 1998), 219. 2 Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 193.

103 Tian or disciplined by Tian, that is, independent of what is ordered; rather, they are constitutive of it. Tian is the field of creatures.1 Based on this understanding of transcendence, Hall and Ames go on to argue that one of the most serious examples of distortion has involved the translation of Chinese terms by the use of Western concepts of transcendence. For instance, according to them, the Confucian terms such as Tian 天 and the Daoist Dao 道 have been interpreted theologically. Tian was translated as “Heaven” and Dao translated as “the Way” or even “God,” indicating that Western notions of transcendence were imported into Chinese tradition. Translating Tian as capital-H “Heaven” is distorting what Chinese religions really mean. 2 Hall and Ames also insist that since Chinese spiritual sensibilities are human-centered, there must be a rejection of any notion of radical otherness or ontological disparity between the immanent and transcendent. Therefore, they insist that we have to affirm the continuity between humanity and Tian. 3 Given that the continuity between Tian and the human being is significant in Chinese religions, tianming (天命: the order of heaven), they argue, should not be interpreted in a Western way. In other words, it has been conventionally rendered as “fate” or “destiny” by many scholars. Since, according to Hall and Ames, such language depends upon a notion of strict transcendence familiar in the Western philosophical tradition, we have to paraphrase the term, coming up with the concept of tianming that surrenders the underlying metaphor of command and emphasizes, instead, the relational aspect of Tian (heaven) and ming (order).4 To sum up, what Hall and Ames really want to argue is that the religion of non-transcendence has been the mainline tradition in Chinese religions. However, it seems to me that their argument is distorting. As we have noted above, we know that there are many concepts of transcendence in Chinese religions. Then, why did they want to argue that the religion of non-transcendence has been the mainline tradition in Chinese religions? One of the significant reasons why they argue that way is that they want to construe Chinese religions as clear-cut contrasts to Western

1

Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 242. Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 193. 3 Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 224. 4 Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 234. 2

104 religions. In other words, Chinese religions can, they assume, function as a real alternative to dominant cultures and religions in the West.1 Here, it seems to me a problem arises. The problem lies in the fact that wishful thinking makes them misconstrue Chinese religions. In other words, what is really at risk in their preference for the tradition of nontranscendence in Chinese religions is that it easily overlooks the importance of another tradition in which the notion of transcendence has been prominent. Of course, I agree with the idea that by contrasting the non-transcendent tradition of Chinese religions with the theologically anchored Western model the Chinese worldview will be able to solve some Western cultural problems caused by the notion of radical otherness of the transcendence, or the ontological dualism of God and the world. However, we must be cautious here. Making such a strong contrast may lead to the neglect of another equally significant tradition. My point here is that while it is true to say that the notion of immanent-transcendence has been dominant in Chinese religions, it is also fair to say that a sort of strict transcendence has been still salient in them. In order to argue that the notion of non-transcendence is preferred in Chinese religions, Hall and Ames tend to emphasize the classical texts of the Chinese tradition, the texts in which the notion of non-transcendence is stressed strongly. That is why they say, “we have argued that the notion of transcendence is irrelevant in interpreting classical texts in China.”2 This means that they intentionally neglect other traditions such as NeoConfucianism of Chu Hsi ( 朱 熹 ), which emphasizes the notion of transcendence. Furthermore, as we know, in Shijing (詩經) and Shujing (書經), both of which were the texts of ancient Chinese philosophy, it is easy to discover even the notion of theistic transcendence. It is fair to say that the philosophy of Shijing and Shujing, as well as Neo-Confucianism, has played a significant role in Chinese religion. It can be imagined that Hall and Ames are also well aware of this fact. Then, why do they intentionally try to ignore the tradition of theistic transcendence? The reason is simple. As we have already pointed out, they assume that such an interpretation can contribute to making Chinese philosophy an alternative to Western culture. Therefore, we know that the point of Hall and Ames’ argument is not that we cannot find the notions of transcendence in the history of Chinese tradition, but that the 1 2

Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 228. Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, 219.

105 transcendence in any Western sense of the term is philosophically not recommendable in the interpretation of Chinese tradition—by Hall and Ames. However, the point that I am trying to make is that neither their assumption nor their argument is persuasive. That is to say, the argument that transcendence in any Western sense of the term is philosophically not recommendable in the interpretation of Chinese tradition is not plausible. For, it seems to me, if it is true to say that the tradition centered on the notion of non-transcendence in Chinese religions can be a real alternative to a Western tradition, it is equally fair to say that the Western tradition based on an “ideal” notion of transcendence, as the case of Whiteheadian process theology, can make a contribution to Chinese religions too. That is to say, I will insist that the claim that the notion of non-transcendence should be emphasized in interpreting Chinese religions must not lead to the claim that the notion of strict transcendence is not required in interpreting Chinese religions. I believe that if a religion can be regarded as an ideal religion, it needs the notion of a sort of strict transcendence. In what follows, I will explain why and how this is so in the Chinese case. II. Xunzi’s Philosophy and the Problem of Transcendence My argument here is that as far as a religion wants to function as an ideal one, it needs a sort of strict transcendence. This argument will proceed as I lift up the case of the philosophy of Xunzi (荀子). Xunzi is noted as a naturalist. For him, tian (天, heaven) is the continuation of nature. It does not go beyond nature. For Xunzi, therefore, heaven operates mechanistically so as to be construed as impersonal. In this way, he does not posit any kind of transcendence. Following this line of Xunzi’s thought, therefore, some Chinese philosophers have translated heaven as nature, since, for them, tian (天) is not differentiated from nature. The assumption that there is no such thing as transcendence in nature is also reflected in Xunzi’s interpretation of human nature (hsing, 性). Xunzi argues that human nature is evil in the following way. Mencius said, “Man learns because his nature is good.” This is not true…Man’s nature is evil. Therefore the sages of antiquity, knowing that man’s nature is evil, that it is unbalanced and incorrect, and it is violent, disorderly, and undisciplined, established the authority of rulers to govern the people, set forth

106 clearly propriety and righteousness to transform them…so that all will result in good order and be in accord with goodness.1

The argument that hsing (性, human nature) is evil is extremely heretical in the tradition of Chinese philosophy. As we know, traditionally, hsing has been portrayed as heaven-endowed capacity. As The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) says, “What Heaven (Tian) imparts to man is called Human nature (Hsing). To follow our nature is called the Way (Dao). Cultivating the Way is called education”2 Hsing is the center of human mind by means of which the human self can perform one’s spiritual power to become a sage. Since hsing is the locus where the way of tian pervades the human person, being immanent in the person, it connotes transcendence (in a sense). In a word, hsing is the place where the Way (Dao) of transcendence is immanent. It can be said, therefore, that hsing is something like imago dei in Christian theology. However, Xunzi claims that human nature is evil. Then, it seems to me that the claim brings about a logical problem. To say that human nature is evil is nothing else than to say that human beings inherently have the destiny to be in slavery to sin. This implies that when one’s will gives in to its subroutines and acts in slavery to sin, then the authorship of the person over his or her own actions is lost. Here, sin itself, with its evil consequences, becomes the author. What is left of the person is merely the law of evil, which is doomed to let the person do evil things all the time. If this is the case, then, how is it possible for us to condemn the person when he or she sins, depending on the nonpersonal authorship? In order for a person to be charged with what the person did wrong, the person must be the author of his or her own behavior. For this reason, it is hardly possible for us to say that human nature is inherently evil. One lesson we can learn here is that human nature must be defined in its close relationship with a transcendent ultimate that is good as such. For only such a definition can lead us to believe that human nature is not inherently evil. At best, human nature may be construed as being surrounded, and therefore, corrupted, by evil. Or, it may be interpreted to be between good and evil. But, as we have seen, it is logically inappropriate to say that human nature is to be construed as inherently evil. 1

Xunzi, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 131. 2 The Doctrine of the Mean, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 98.

107 We cannot imagine that Xunzi was never aware of this problem. In fact, he was also well aware that this serious problem arises when human nature is said to be inherently evil. For this reason, in some other places, he alludes to the fact that all human beings have their own positive power to cultivate themselves: to become a sage, since human nature is rooted in transcendence. Therefore, Xunzi says: He (Mencius) did not know the nature of man and did not understand the distinction between man’s nature and his effort. Man’s nature is the product of heaven; it cannot be learned and cannot be worked for.1

With reference to the nature of man, it is the same in (sage-emperors) Yao and Shun, (wicked king) Chieh, and (robber) Chih. It is the same in the superior or inferior man. If propriety and righteousness are products of accumulated effort and to be regarded as (inherent) in man’s nature, then why are Yao and (sage-king) Yu highly honored, and why is the superior man highly honored? Yao, Yu and the superior man are highly honored because they can transform nature and arouse effort.2 Here, it is clear that Xunzi does not give up the fact that all human beings, whether sage or wicked, possess their own capacity to transform themselves. It is also clear that, in fact, Xunzi concedes that human nature is the product of heaven, leading him to be in the agreement with the traditional Chinese idea that hsing (human nature) comes from Tian. In this way, Xunzi alludes to the fact that human nature needs a transcendent power that can overcome the power of evil. For this reason, we have to say, it seems to me, that what Xunzi really wants to claim is not so much that human nature is inherently evil, but rather that it has a tendency to become so vulnerable as to entail evil possibilities and, therefore, consequences. However, in order to emphasize the fact that human nature is always menaced by evil power and, therefore, to caution us against the optimism that tends to neglect the vulnerability of human nature, Xunzi had to insist that the evil power is so immanent in human nature that it arises easily. And in the process of emphasizing the evil tendency of human nature too strongly, Xunzi was overstating the case, entailing such a confusing statement that human nature is evil. In a word, Xunzi mistook automatism for the easiness of the evil tendency in human nature. When we say that human nature is evil, this logically entails that human nature is 1 2

Xunzi, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 129. Xunzi, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 132-133.

108 doomed to do evil automatically. By contrast, when we say that human nature is rooted in a transcendence that is good as such, this entails that even if nature is so surrounded by the evil power as to do wrong “easily,” it does not have to do so “automatically.” My point here is simply that the role of transcendence was never denied in Xunzi. Or that it is logically impossible for Xunzi to deny the distinction between the area of transcendence and what is transcended. The human nature which possesses the capacity to cultivate one’s self must be said to be able to transcend the immanent, i.e., the bodily power which is full of selfish desire. As far as it is said to be imbued with such an evil power inherently, it cannot be condemned when it commits something sinful. This is why the Chinese notion of hsing must be interpreted as going beyond, and being differentiated from, the physical embodiments as human beings. As we have seen, in order to avoid the problem of evil, there needs to exist a dimension of transcendence in human nature. Hsing is the very locus where such transcendence is present. Even though it is sometimes threatened by selfish human desire, it must, logically, be construed as being pure and not imbued with an evil tendency inherently. Furthermore, it must be said to be differentiated from the physical structure “causally.” If this transcendent area is not causally independent of the immanent area, we fall into the problem of evil again. I agree with the argument that the notion of immanenttranscendence has been salient in Chinese philosophy. However, I am really critical of the assumption that the positing of strict transcendence is irrelevant in interpreting the texts of Chinese religions. What I am saying is that there are two kinds of notions available in talking about immanent-transcendence, as far as Chinese religions are concerned. One is the notion of “naturalistic” immanent transcendence in which the transcendence is merely a continuation of what it transcends. The other is the notion of “theistic” immanent-transcendence in which the transcendence is causally independent of what it transcends, even if it’s meaning and existence are internally dependent upon what it transcends. Only in the latter case can we avoid the danger of reductionism. My suggestion is that a Whiteheadian theology can offer the latter notion of immanent transcendence.

109 3. A Whiteheadian Interpretation of Immanent Transcendence As we have seen above, an ideal religion needs the notion of transcendence. And, the notion of transcendence should be seen in terms of immanent transcendence. However, merely with the notion of immanenttranscendence, we cannot solve the problem of evil. Therefore, the notion of immanent-transcendence must be supplemented by the notion of a strict transcendence, which is causally independent of what it transcends. In other words, we need a concept of “immanent-strict transcendence.” Without the notion of strict transcendence, we easily fall into the danger of reductionism. However, we have to be cautious here. When transcendence, in its strict sense, is said to exist outside of humans, it easily becomes a radical “Other,” regarded as being totally unrelated to humans. Strict transcendence, as existing outside of humans, may sometimes turn out to function negatively, as if it functions like a tyrant emperor who suppresses the freedom of human beings. This is the reason why some people, especially in the East Asian religions, do not favor the Western concept of “theistic” transcendence. An ideal alternative to such a notion of transcendence would be the notion of transcendence that is still strictly transcendent, but at the same time does not suppress the freedom of human beings. How is such an alternative available? My suggestion is that Whitehead’s idea of theistic transcendence can be such an alternative. Another reason why we need to consider a Whiteheadian interpretation of transcendence, both immanent and strict, can be explained by employing the matter of the dichotomy between nature and history. For many human beings, nature is sometimes a friend. However, it sometimes turns out to become an enemy as well. It is the religions in the East, especially Daoism, that have emphasized that humans have to consider nature as a friend. Some people say that the Eastern emphasis on the nondualism between nature and history leads to a harmonious relationship between human and other natural beings, so that there are fewer ecological problems. Notwithstanding, it is also pointed out that the non-dualism between nature and history sometimes has made people in the East easily ignore their historical responsibility to transform the status quo. By contrast, people in the West have emphasized that nature is to be controlled by

110 human beings, since otherwise, it sometimes puts terrible calamities on human beings through natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. Some people have said that since the West has emphasized the historical role of human beings, Western civilization has been successful in achieving technological development. However, this has led to the problems of progressivism in which nature was quite often exploited as an instrument for human cultures, bringing about the problem of the ecological crisis. In this way, both the East and the West have had their own problems with respect to the matter of nature and history. Is there any methodology to consider nature as a friend, and, at the same time, to continue to create human civilization out of nature? An ideal option is to keep the balance between the notion of nature as a friend and the notion of nature as an object for human historical development. For the sake of this option, we need a worldview by means of which we can go beyond nature while being harmonized with it in an ideal manner. First, we need a transcendence that goes beyond nature, the transcendence that provides us with historical consciousness, calling us to participate in the transformation of nature, which is sometime savage and wild. Secondly, however, we need a transcendence that enables us to be in harmony with nature. How is it possible for us to have such a notion of transcendence? This is why I want to suggest, again, Whitehead’s concept of theistic transcendence. Whitehead’s concept of God enables us to say how God can be both transcendent and immanent. In Whitehead’s philosophy, both the primordial and the consequent natures of God are immanent and transcendent. The primordial nature is transcendent in the sense that it is eternal, infinite, and absolutely unconditioned. But it is also immanent in the sense that it is present in every occasion as the ultimate ground of possibility, order and value. The consequent nature is transcendent in several ways. Unlike every temporal occasion, it is everlasting in the sense that every occasion exists forever in this nature as it prehends all the experiences of the occasion. God is immanent due to God’s “superjective” nature. For instance, through religious experiences, God’s redemptive love enters into the world, indicating that God as an actual entity is immanent in the world. So far, we have seen how Whitehead’s God is both transcendent and immanent. How is it possible for Whitehead to provide us with the concept of God who can be strictly transcendent, without suppressing the freedom of human beings?

111 Based on God’s primordial nature, transcendence has eternally had perfect and unchanging knowledge of all the possibilities for the world. From among these possibilities, God urges us to adopt the best options. God’s “initial aim” for us is always the ideal aim to be considered among options. However, according to Whitehead, God’s ideal aim can be influential only in the initial phase of the “concrescing” process. For this reason, it can be said that the world has a real kind of “freedom.” Since the world has real freedom to choose between those possibilities, freedom is an inherent feature of reality in Whitehead’s philosophy. The universe is the becoming of events that are self-creative, from quarks to human beings. In this sense, freedom is simply a brute fact about the world that even God cannot destroy. In this way, God, according to Whitehead, is strictly transcendent, but does not suppress the freedom of human beings. How about the concept of God that enables us to consider nature as a friend, and, at the same time, to continue to create human civilization out of nature? This question is to be raised especially in the manner of East Asian religions in the following way. There is no disagreement as to the fact that human beings should continue to create human civilization out of nature. In this sense, we need the notion of transcendence that can invite us to make an effort to achieve human civilization. However, from the East Asian point of view, there is one reason why we have to be careful about the notion of God as Transcendence. As we saw above, with the notion of theistic transcendence, nature has usually been exploited as an instrument of progressivism. Therefore, such a kind of theistic transcendence needs to be rejected here. How, then, is it possible for Whitehead’s process theology to talk about the theistic notion of transcendence that considers nature as a friend, and at the same time to continue to create human civilization out of nature? Given the primordial nature of God, we can say that Whitehead’s God is causally transcendent with respect to the world in the sense that God’s primordial nature is absolutely unconditioned by it. In this primordial nature, God is said to experience all possibilities, including the possibilities of novelty. Owing to this nature, it can be said that God functions as transcendence that enables us to have historical consciousness, by means of which we can participate in the transformation of nature. Here, God as transcendence can encourage us—“lure us”—to have a form of human existence in which history and historicity can be given centrality, since God always calls us to create new things. In this sense, God is the telos of the history of human beings.

112 It is true to say that the telos of universe is God in Whitehead’s metaphysics. However, for Whitehead, “the teleology of the Universe is also directed to the production of Beauty.”1 Now, we are in a position to understand how Whitehead’s philosophy recommends the aesthetic way of thinking with respect to the issue of the advancement of civilization. In this philosophy, the final goal of the human history is Beauty, which is identical with God’s aim. Therefore, all the individuals are bound to be oriented toward Beauty when they want to achieve their historical value. In this system, an individual’s activity can be called valuable only when it is directed toward Beauty. With this notion of God, it is possible to say that progress itself should be conceived as the enhancement of harmony. It goes without saying that Process Theology demands that we stop regarding the happiness of human beings as the sole purpose of God’s existence and creative activity. We have to respect all the members in nature, the members with whom we are sharing this world, for they also have their enjoyments and they also have made some contribution to the world.

1

265.

Whitehead, Alfred North, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1933),

8. Whitehead and Tiantai: Eternal Objects and the “Twofold Three Thousand” Brook Ziporyn The similarities between Whitehead's process philosophy and the Chinese Buddhist schools of Tiantai and Huayan have often been noted. In a recent study, for example, Li Rizhang calls Whitehead's philosophy a "western version of the doctrine of dependent co-arising and Emptiness." These two Buddhist schools and Whitehead agree, he says, on the following points: the denial of simple location, the denial of the independence of objects, and the denial of the absolute division of subject and object. More essentially, both assert that every object is "in a sense everywhere at once." But then he points out what he considers the two greatest differences, for there are two points found in Whitehead which, he feels, have no corresponding notion in the Chinese Buddhist schools: Whitehead's notion of God and his idea of "eternal objects." 1 The latter is regarded by Li as a holdover from the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, a connection Whitehead himself makes as well. The implication is that the Buddhist versions, having no such antecedent in their traditions, find no reason for recourse to this notion. I will argue in this paper that, while this may be true of Huayan thought, which would seem to see no use for the eternal objects, the Tiantai philosophy of Siming Zhili (960-1028) has its own doctrine corresponding to that of Whitehead's 1

Li Rizhang, Foxue yu dangdai ziranguan (Taipei: Dongda, 1998), 234

114 eternal objects, which forms an integral and central part of his metaphysics and philosophy of praxis. From a Huayan perspective, or one primarily focused on it,1 the eternal objects are indeed a useless holdover from Plato, perhaps representing a regrettable obsession peculiar to the occidental mind. From Zhili's perspective, however, Whitehead's problem is not that he posits the eternal objects, but that he does not pursue this idea far enough. For the difference between Whitehead's eternal objects and Zhili's "Three Thousand as Inherent Principle" (liju sanqian) is that while the former form a realm of their own distinct from the actual occasions into which they may ingress, the latter are simply an alternate way of referring to the "Three Thousand as transforming and created" – they are the totality of actual occasions themselves. I. Whitehead defines the eternal objects perhaps most clearly in Chapter 10 of Science and the Modern World. The realm of eternal object, according to this exposition, is that by reference to which an actual occasion of experience is "diversified.” They transcend that immediate occasion in that they have analogous or different connections with other occasions of experience. For example, a definite shade of red may, in the immediate occasion, be implicated with the shape of sphericity in some definite way. But that shade of red and that spherical shape, exhibit themselves as transcending that occasion in that either of them has other relationships to other occasions.2

The particular shade of red and the spherical shape are here basic examples of eternal objects. A particular experience of a sphere of this color is "prehending" these two eternal objects, among other things (i.e., actual occasions in the history of events leading to the actual production of this experience). In addition to these "positive prehensions" of eternal objects, there are also "negative prehensions" of other eternal objects, which are excluded from this experience:

1

As is the case for Li, whose analysis of Tiantai leans heavily on the Dasheng Zhiguan, regarded by many as a late text deeply influenced by Huayan thought. 2 Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 160.

115 Also, apart from the actual occurrence of the same things in other occasions, every actual occasion is set within a realm of alternative interconnected entities. This realm is disclosed by all the untrue propositions which can be predicated significantly of that occasion. It is the realm of alternative suggestions, whose foothold in actuality transcends each actual occasion.1

These negatively prehended eternal objects express the "great refusal," which is the primary characteristic of an occasion's aesthetic achievement. In the case of the experience of the red sphere, a particular shade of blue and cubicity would be examples of such negatively prehended eternal objects. It is notable that in the case of both the positively and the negatively prehended eternal objects, it is precisely the same object that is apprehended in various events. This is what Whitehead refers to as their "transcendence." These eternal objects, he tells us, are what previous philosophy has referred to as "universals." In Western thought from Plato to Kant and beyond, the primary model underlying the idea of a genuinely reiterable object, which remains the same in spite of its various instantiations, derives from mathematics. The existence of eternal objects is inferred and extended from a consideration of the nature of mathematical truths, such as the Pythagorean theorem. This is something that is "so" of any right triangle whatsoever, and whether or not any "actual" triangle happens to exist. It is a property which is the same in the case of each right triangle, in addition to the different properties that may pertain to actually existing right triangles; this one is made of chalk, that one of toothpicks, this one is red, that one is blue, but all of them are such that the Pythagorean theorem can be truly stated of them. Indeed, if we take Whitehead at his word that eternal objects transcend their relationship to any actual occasion to mean that they transcend their relationship to any determinable finite set of such relationships, such that, in all cases, no matter how many actual occasions we may know this eternal object to be related to, it presents itself as possessing necessarily other relations with other occasions. This means that no finite set of relations or instantiations can exhaust them, nor can they be derived in their entirety from any such a temporally finite set of instantiations. This is what qualifies them as "eternal"--and indeed, as we shall see, this also makes them more than merely empirical, in a way that bridges over to the kind of necessary pre-existence and universal applicability 1

Ibid.

116 associated with Kantian a priori categories, rather than mere universals. "Eternal objects are thus, in their nature, abstract. By 'abstract' I meant that what an eternal object is in itself—that is to say, its essence—is comprehensible without reference to some one particular occasion of experience. To be abstract is to transcend particular concrete occasions of actual happening.” The Pythagorean theorem, on this view, is comprehensible without reference to any particular existing right triangle. It is so, and remains the same, whether there are none, one or a million such triangles in experience. Whitehead is quick to balance this claim, stating that "to transcend an actual occasion does not mean being disconnected from it. On the contrary, I hold that each eternal object has its own proper connection with each such occasion, which I term its mode of ingression into that occasion." 1 Each eternal object ingresses into each actual occasion: prehended either positively (with some particular degree of emphasis) or negatively. Whitehead's exposition continues with the following assertion: Thus an eternal object is to be comprehended by acquaintance with (i) its particular individuality, (ii) its general relationships to other eternal objects as apt for realization in actual occasions, and (iii) the general principle which expresses its ingression in particular actual occasions.2

What is crucial to note here is that, while this specification is consistent with Whitehead's claim that eternal objects are transcendent to each actual occasion (i.e., can be comprehended without reference to any of them), they are not transcendent to one another, nor to actual occasions as a whole and as such (i.e., the total set of all actual occasions). That is, they can be understood only in relation to each other (as a particular mathematical theorem can only be grasped by seeing how in is interrelated with other mathematical theorems), and also in relation to its manner of ingression into (any and every) actual occasion. In short: An eternal object, considered as an abstract entity, cannot be divorced from its reference to other eternal objects, and from its reference to actuality generally; though it is disconnected from its actual modes of ingression into definite actual occasions. This principle is expressed by the statement that each eternal object

1 2

Ibid., 161 Ibid.

117 has a 'relational essence.' This relational essence determines how it is possible for the object to have ingression into actual occasions.1

This is Whitehead's way of salvaging the "unchanging essence" of universals, the fact that each "is what it is," as he says, in spite of the number of actual ingressions, while maintaining its "relational essence" as entailed by the general premises of process philosophy. Whitehead tells us that each eternal object adds it own unique contribution to each occasion, and that this contribution is identical in each case. However, the "mode of ingression" in each case is what is different in each case.2 This relation between identity and difference is further specified by saying that the essence of an eternal object has a determinate relationship to every other eternal object, but an indeterminate relationship to particular actual occasions. This is because each eternal object ingresses into each actual occasion in a graded scale of actualization – it may stand as a possibility realized or rejected in that actualization, or realized to a particular degree in relation to other (eternal objects) possibilities. This means, however, that although the relation of the eternal object to the occasion is indeterminate (it may ingress in a variety of different ways), the reverse relation of the occasion to the eternal object is determinate (it is prehended in some particular way in this occasion). "Accordingly the relationship between [an eternal object] A and [an actual occasion] a is external as regards A, and is internal as regards a." 3 This asymmetry is crucial for Whitehead's establishment of the identity of the eternal objects in every differing occasion. An actual occasion is "a limitation" or better, "a gradation," by which Whitehead means that "an indeterminateness stands in the essence of any eternal object (A, say). The actual occasion a synthesizes in itself every eternal object; and, in so doing, it includes the complete determinate relatedness of A to every other eternal object, or set of eternal objects. This synthesis is a limitation of realization but not of content. Each relationship preserves its inherent self-identity. But grades of entry into this synthesis are inherent in each actual occasion, such as a. These grades can be expressed only as relevance of value."4 In this connection, Whitehead tells us of the double aspect pertaining to the prehension of eternal objects into actual occasions: 1) each eternal object has a determinate relatatedness 1

Ibid., 161-2. Ibid., 161. 3 Ibid., 160. 4 Ibid., 162. 2

118 to each particular occasion (i.e., with regard to a, the relationship to A is internal); and 2) each eternal object has an indeterminate relatedness to occasions generally, or as a whole.1 But recall also that Whitehead has claimed that the relationship of A to a is indeterminate (A can be understood without reference to any particular a), while on the other hand the relationship of A to all of actuality is determinate (A cannot be understood apart from the general principle of its ingression into actual occasions as such; its relation to actuality as such is internal). Thus on the one hand it is the relation to the particular occasions that is determinate and to the totality of occasions that is indeterminate, while on the other hand it is also just the reverse. The crucial distinction seems to be whether the relationship between A and a is seen, as it were, from the side of A or from the side of a. But is this one relationship or two? It is really possible for the same bond to be both definite and indefinite? It is Whitehead’s doctrine of the transcendence of eternal objects that is supposed to make an affirmative answer to this question possible. If so, must we not redefine what it means to be definite and indefinite? This is a crucial question for Whitehead, given the central role definiteness plays in his philosophy, and his need to keep it absolutely distinct from indefiniteness for his value theory to make sense. For definiteness is of the essence of the process of actualization, the emergence of actual occurrences which is the creative advance of the universe. An actual occasion is constituted by its exclusion of ambiguity, its being simply what it is, period. "An actual entity has a perfectly definite bond with each item in the universe. This determinate bond is its prehension of that item." 2 Process, greatly simplified, may be described as a transition from appetite to emphasis (or exclusion, negative prehension and selection of modes of positive prehension) and finally to the satisfaction of definiteness, in which the superject is at last fully formed and at once perishes. This actuality, however, does not only perish; it is also enjoys an "objective immortality"-that is, it may and must be prehended by further occasions, for each of which it will present a possibility of relevance. Hence its actuality is in one sense limited to the moment of its active appetition, selection and satisfaction; henceforth, this particular entity can be actual only through its being prehended by further, novel occurrences. Hence we have two distinct forms of eternity: the eternity of the eternal objects, which transcends the definite bond with any particular occasion, and the eternity of a past actual 1 2

Ibid., 163. Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 66.

119 occasion, which exists only in its differing prehensions in posterior events. The difference between these two forms of eternity is that the former is transcendent to each particular occasion (though not to occasions generally), while the latter is not. The question we wish to raise here is whether this difference is really coherent. For we may ask, is a past occasion, in its objective immortality, really in a different ontological position from the eternal objects? Does it not remain the same in just the sense that an eternal object does, and transcend particular occasions in the same way? How we answer this question depends on how we answer the previous one about the relation of determinateness to indeterminateness. If these two can really be kept separate, as Whitehead wishes in spite of his doubling of the bond between eternal objects and actual occasions, a genuine difference can exist between these two modes of immortality, since a special transcendence will pertain to the eternal objects which cannot be found for the objectively immortal past occasions. If not, is there any difference between "eternal objects" and "past events"? The crucial underpinning of this difficulty is the question of the determinacy/ambiguity dichotomy in Whitehead. For the eternal objects are what "diversify" actual occasions, an essential part of what makes them determinate. And yet they are diverse, identical in all instances, and categorical, i.e., all of them are operative in every actual occasion. There is a tension here that Whitehead wants to solve with his doctrine of differing degrees and modes of ingression, the aesthetic harmony achieved between them in each actual occasion's determinateness. But if we rethink the relation between determinateness and ambiguity, there is perhaps another way of combining genuine categorical universality, anti-transcendentalism, real diversity, and thoroughgoing reversibility--one which has very intriguing consequences, especially for value theory. II. It is here that we can look for help to the Tiantai tradition, in particular Zhili's notion of the "twofold Three Thousand quiddities.” For here we will find a different approach to the relation between determinacy and indeterminacy, and hence a different conclusion about transcendence, applying to a different field of putative objects. The Tiantai version of the doctrine that "everything is everywhere at once," that all things pervade all other things, develops in Zhiyi, the de facto founder of the school, as an

120 exfoliation of the "Three Truths": the fact that all determinate entities (actual occasions, in Whitehead's language) are dependently co-arisen (yuanqi). That is, in every case they appear in experience "together with" other such occasions, upon which they depend for their existence. This observation is developed into the assertion of the Emptiness, Provisional Positing and the Mean (kong, jia, zhong) of each entity. Provisional Positing means they are dependently co-arisen, necessarily arise together with othernesses, i.e., with something which is qualitatively different, with an alternate determinateness. The othernesses which necessarily arise with a particular determinacy are either 1) its components (which are qualitatively other); 2) its antecedents in time or efficient causes; or 3) its conceptual or perceptual concepts, the background of "not-this" which makes any "this" experiencable as such. Its coherence is dependent on these othernesses as conditions, but if all othernesses whatsoever are taken into account, as they would have to be if this same consideration were now applied to these othernesses (they have their own necessary othernesses), the original coherence is effaced; it is coherent as such only locally, in relation to a limited set of such conditions. Their Emptiness means that such arising is therefore never the arising of an unambiguous particular entity with a uniquely decidable nature. That is, every putatively determinate "this" arises together with its "not-this," but the interface separating and joining these two discrete entities cannot be construed coherently in any unambiguous terms, or as a particular determinate existent. We may restate this by noting that what is only locally coherent is thereby globally incoherent. It is what it is only because the horizon of relevant contexts has been arbitrarily limited, but the fact that all being is necessarily contextualized (arises-with qualitative othernesses) means that any such limit is ultimately arbitrary, and there are more relevant contexts which can be brought to bear in every case. "The Mean" signifies that these two are merely alternate statements of the same fact, which necessarily appears in these two contrasted ways. We may rename it the Intersubsumption of coherence and incoherence, or of determinateness and indeterminateness, entailing their necessary mutual reducibility. That is, the Mean signifies that determinateness, thought through to the end, turns out to be ambiguity, and vice versa. This means ambiguity and determinateness are not longer "other" to one another, and hence each is itself, just as it is, "absolute," i.e., free of dependence on a relationship to an outside. Therefore "determinateness" is a synonym for "ambiguity," and either, further, is a synonym for "the Mean" itself. Any of

121 these always signifies all three aspects: determinateness, ambiguity, and absoluteness. If anything is determinate, it is therefore also ambiguous and absolute, and, moreover, its determinateness is its ambiguity and its absoluteness, and vice versa. It is from the Mean that the Zhiyi deduces interpervasion, the claim that all things are everywhere at once. For if to be definitively X and notto-be definitively X are merely alternate ways of stating the same fact about X, the contrast between the absence and presence of X is annulled, and X is no more present "here and now" than it is present "there and then.” It is "simply located" at neither locus, but "virtually located" at both. It pervades all possible times and places to exactly the extent that it is present here at all. It can be read into any experience, and is here and now only because it has been so read into the here and now. X, in other words, is eternal and omnipresent, but only as "canceled," divested of the putative opacity of its simple location. A startling conclusion ensues: It turns out not only that being = determinacy-finitude = ambiguity = indeterminacy, but also that determination or "finitude" as such, i.e., the quality of being-bounded, of having borders, equals "being this shade of red" as such, but also equally "being the French Revolution" as such, and so on for any possible determinacy (whether an "eternal object" or an "actual occasion"). That is, not only is the shade of red one example among many of being-bordered, so that it both has borders as such and also, in addition or more specifically, the particular borders that made it red rather than blue; but also, that to have borders, any borders, is to have just these borders. To be "provisionally posited," in Tiantai terms, is, since it is identical to Emptiness and the Mean, also "to be provisionally posited as this shade of red, as this woman's toe, as the French Revolution, and as their mutual inclusion, as all Three Thousand quiddities." This is because the argument just advanced applies equally to the particularity of the borders or determiners themselves, as putative existences (which they must be to have any efficacy at all; that is, to experience these boundaries as particular is to experience their particularity, and this particularity is itself then a particular entity which must arise in tandem with othernesses, and there must be a border between "particularity" and "non-particularity"). That is, take the borders that divide the inside of being-red from its outside, which define it as red. Do these exist or not? If not, they don't define red. If so, what are their defining borders? That is, what separates "defining-as-red" from "defining as not-red" or “failing to define as red”? What is the

122 borderline between "the determining as red" and "the failure to determine as red"? These borders too prove to be incoherent, and the borders defining any other thing, in contrast to which they were defined as just these borders, as just this act of determination and no other, turn out to be outside-as-inside this mode of determination in the same way. All the borders are equally ineluctable and impossible. Hence if there is any defining border at all (and there must be, since being = presence = determination = finitude), it must be none other than this border, this particular operation of limiting, this particular mode of determination. If there is any determinacy at all, it must be being-red, and being-red must be being-the-French Revolution, etc. In other words, nothing is just "determinate-as-such." Being-determined must be further determined as being-determined-as-red, etc., at which level the same argument applies. In technical Tiantai terms, this important point is addressed in Zhiyi's comments and Zhanran's subcomments on the crucially mistranslated line from the "Upaya" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which in the Kumarajiva version states: "This dharma dwells in the dharma-position, and all the characteristics of the world dwell eternally." Zhiyi says: [Deluded] sentient beings and the perfect enlightenment [of the Buddha] are but one Suchness, not two. None are outside Suchness, and it is this being-Such of all dharmas which is thus their "position.” "All the characteristics of the world dwell eternally," because given that Suchness is the position in which transmundane perfect enlightenment dwells, Suchness is also its characteristics. Both the position and the characteristics dwell eternally. Similarly, Suchness is also the position in which the mundane deluded sentient beings dwell, and is also their characteristics. How could they not also dwell eternally?1 Suchness is not only the "position" in which dharmas dwell – i.e., that beyond which they never go no matter how they change, what is constant to them, that in which they have their being. Suchness in this sense is a way of indicating the Emptiness of all dharmas, the one universal trait that is always “so, such” of them no matter what modifications they may undergo. Suchness itself is also their mark, their particular characteristics, just as Emptiness is also Provisional Positing, and is, indeed, every particular Provisional Posit. This is because "Suchness" simply means the Suchness-of-dharmas, i.e., being exactly as they are, the fact that dharmas are "such" unto themselves. This is what never fails to be so of them, that they are always just as they are and exactly like 1

T34.58a.

123 themselves, they are always "Such.” To be such is to be "just like this," and hence the "this" is the "such.” The difference between "what it is to be this" and "this" simpliciter on which the traditional metaphysical establishment of essence and universals depends is here annulled. As A.C. Graham has noted, the term ru, as a translation of “Suchness,” suggests “being as (not what) it is,” comparable to Being in the sense of a predicative adjective (“He is tall” in Graham’s example) rather than Being as existence (“There is a man”). 1 Zhiyi’s understanding of the term is consistent with this implication. As we put it above, to be is to be determinate, and to be determinate means not just to be determinate as such, but to be particularly determinate, Such, “just like this.” Zhanran comments: Dharmas never go outside of Suchness, so Suchness is their "position.” Deluded sentient beings are just this in principle, the Buddhas have realized just this [so "just this" is what never changes in either case]--this is what is meant by "dwelling." ...Sentient beings and Buddhas are the dharmas that dwell, and the tainted and pure Suchness is what they dwell in. Because it is limited, differentiated, fixed and determined, it is called a position. In all cases, they are said to have a "position," and hence we posit the one Suchness. They never leave Suchness, so they are limited to just this [state of "having a position," i.e., being finite, determinate, and thus apparently simply located]. This limitation is identical to interpenetration, since it pervades everywhere. It is the utmost finitude, and at the same time the fullest interpenetration. It is like the "position" of a king in the mundane world. A person occupies this position, and the position is also the nature of this person, because it is unchangeable [as per the Tiantai definition of "the nature"], as a person's royal nature remains unchanged whether he is clad in rough cloth or is ascending his throne. The "characteristics" may differ, but the nature is what remains the same.2

According to Zhanran, "position" means finitude, determination, and it is "being determined and limited" (and therefore "limited in this particular way") which is meant by "being-Such.” By the argument rehearsed above, this being finite and determined is identical to being allpervasive and infinite, precisely by virtue of being finite, of having borders. That is, the position of all things, which they never leave, their constant nature, is the state of "having a position which is finite, simply 1

A.C. Graham, “‘Being’ in Western Philosophy Compared with Shih/fei and yu/wu in Chinese Philosophy,” in Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986), 348. 2 T34.247a-b.

124 located, and hence can never be dwelt in constantly." One thing that is determinate and particular about them is that they are determinate and particular, but this particular determinate characteristic is true of any contrasting determinacy as well. Their unchanging nature is, in more traditional Buddhist terms, to change. The state of being finite is the Suchness (just like this, some specific way) which they never leave, which is thus unchanging, is the case, no matter what specific "position" they may inhabit, which is thus applicable everywhere, is universal, is infinite. Being as such is being Such is being finite is being everywhere and everywhen. Suchness is finitude, and finitude is infinity. This "being-finite" is the unchanging nature of all dharmas. Up to this point we still have changing characteristics contrasted to an unchanging nature. But this is not all. Zhanran continues: "The characteristics of the world dwell eternally.” "Characteristics" means what can be outwardly flagged (i.e., distinguished). "The position" means what can be dwelled in enduringly. But the characteristics are none other than the position, whether of enlightenment or of delusion. When delusion is made explicit, it is seen to be precisely principle, and principle is precisely what dwells eternally. The Buddhas have already realized eternity, while sentient beings are identical to [principle] in principle. Hence both the characteristics and the position of sentient beings and Buddhas dwell eternally. Since the pure and tainted characteristics and positions are all one Suchness, the principle of characteristics and the principle of positions must be equivalent. The Buddhas cultivate and realize the supreme principle in accordance with the mundane world, which shows that the mundane world originally possesses this principle. Q: The position may be one [unchanging] Suchness. But how can the characteristics also be equal [and thus eternal]? A: The position refers to the principle or Nature, which absolutely can never change. The characteristics refer to the following of conditions, which differ as to taint and purity. Although the conditions may differ, they are all instances of what is called "dependent co-arising.” It is like clear and muddied waves; their wetness is no different in either case. Since they are the same in that it is just the wetness that is deemed to be the waves, we say Suchness is their characteristics. Since they are the same in that it is just the waves that are deemed to be the wetness, we say that Suchness is their position. Thus the characteristics also participate in the eternity [of the position]. Although they have the same name, since they differ as to

125 taint and purity, it is necessary to make a distinctions concerning Suchness and the position as well. The point is that it is not only the "position" or "Suchness" or "the wetness," i.e., "the Nature" that is equal, eternal, unchanging, but also the characteristics, the waves. In other words, not just “being-such” is constant, but, since being-such can only mean being finite and limited and determined in this particular way, the specific characteristics disclosed in all possible experience are also eternal. Conversely, Suchness itself is also differentiated. Zhili comments on this metaphor: The muddied water represents the tainted mind in delusion. The clear water represents the pure mind after the attainment of Buddhahood. The waves represent the fact that the Three Thousand are all function. The wetness represents the fact that the Three Thousand are all Substance (Principle, the Nature). It must be understood that although the water is muddied in the case of the tainted mind, there too the entire wave is nothing but wetness; when the water is clarified, how could this be some other wave or some other wetness?1

Wetness is the unchanging nature of the changing, differing waves. But the presence of waviness (or "motion and function," as Zhili puts it, or finitude, or determinateness) is also the same, whether the water is muddied or clear. The universality of wetness is adduced, Zhili says, merely to illustrate what the universal presence of a single attribute is like, what a universal is: the real point is to the universality of waviness, which is harder to see because of the difference in the shape and muddiness of the waves. But the wetness is precisely the waviness, and both remain the same everywhere, both pervade the entire sea. This is because to be a wave is to be moving, to be always different, and it is only in this sense that the clarified waviness is the same waviness as the muddied waviness it used to be. To be a particular wave is to be wetness is to be waviness is to be nondwelling, unrestrictable to any simple location, equally discoverable in any location. Hence Zhili says clearly that both sameness and difference apply to both the wave (i.e., the waviness) and the wetness. This means that even Suchness is only "the same" in this attenuated sense, as we shall see in more detail below: the "one nature" can equally well be described as "the Three Thousand Nature," as "no fixed single nature." It is functionality, motion, change, finiteness, being-bounded itself that is substance, which is the wave, which is the waviness, which is the 1

T46.716b-c.

126 position, which is Suchness. Because what is unchanging about things is, according to the pan-Buddhist tenet, conditionality as such, finitude (nonself, having the ground of its being outside itself or any single determinate self), and hence necessary change, unchangingness is not an abstract single one which excludes diversity, and any dharma can be spoken of either in terms of its conditionality, difference and changeability, or its oneness, universality and eternity. Motion, waviness, is the nature of a wave (i.e., its intrinsic characteristic which identifies it as a wave, which is always so of it no matter what changes it may undergo). As Zhanran says elsewhere, using the same metaphor: Whether the water is clear or muddied, it is the same wave and the same wetness. Although the clarity or muddiness is determined by conditions, the muddiness has been there from the beginning. Although the muddiness has been there from the beginning, its entire substance is clear, because the principle of the two different kinds of waves interpenetrates, and the entire substance is the entire function. Thus all the causes and effects of the Three Thousand are called dependent co-arising, and the dependent co-arising of delusion and enlightenment are not separate from any given moment of experience. The nature of this moment is eternal, the principle of dependent coarising is one, but within this one is the division between the pure and the defiled. In terms of their differences, the six realms are defiled and the four realms are pure, but in terms of their interpenetration, all ten realms are defiled and all ten realms are pure. Thus we know that the tainted substance of each moment is itself pure.1

Both difference and sameness are applicable at every level here – both purity and taint, both mutability and constancy. The muddiness is there from the beginning, but, as Zhili says, muddiness is not the nature of water. This is not because the nature of water is rather purity or unchangingness, a single pure nature, but because its nature is to be nondwelling as either muddy or clear, its nature is finitude as interpenetration, determinacy as indeterminacy as the interchangeability of the two – the Three Truths. All the waves are both defiled and pure, because any single wave has the nature of moving, from muddy to clear and from clear to muddy. It is the "same" (different) wave that is muddy or is clear. Hence to be is to be determined, is to be finite, is to be indeterminable, is to be this particular thing and every particular thing as such, which is to say, as Such. In terms of praxis, this was to be realized in 1

T46.703c.

127 the contemplation of "the Three Thousand Quiddities" as each moment of experience. Not in each moment, not born from each moment, but as each moment. The Three Thousand are neither prior nor posterior to this experience; they are this determinate experience itself, as the characteristics of a thing, in particular the characteristics of its arising and perishing, are precisely that thing itself. Zhili asserts that the Three Thousand must be understood in two different senses, or levels, and that this alone expresses Zhiyi's original meaning: You should understand that the categories "whole" and "part" each apply to both the Three Thousand as Principle and the Three Thousand as phenomenal functions. Only when these two (i.e., the totalizing whole and the differentiated parts of the Three Thousand-as-principle, on the one hand, and both of these for the Three-Thousand-as-phenomenal, on the other) are seen as identical is the Wondrous Contemplation accomplished...1

The "Three Thousand" means all possible determinacies, with all their specific differences, divided according to various levels of greed, anger and delusion, suffering and pleasure, transcendence, compassion and comprehension, and also the copresence of all these specific different determinacies in one another, as experienced from all possible perspectives.2 Each of these 3000 is to be simultaneously construed in two different ways, as principle and as phenomena. Whether we are speaking in 1

Siming Zhili, Sibuermen zhiyaochao, T46.708b. Specifically, Zhiyi pulls ten "realms" or conditioned states of sentient beings from the scriptures: purgatory, hungry ghosts, animals, Asuras (belligerent egotistical titans), humans, gods, ascetic Buddhist disciples of the sravaka vehicle who attain transcendence of life and death through renunciation, independent cultivators who attain transcendence of life and death through contemplation of conditionality, Bodhisattvas who re-enter life and death out of altruistic compassion, and Buddhas, who are beings who are aware that their wisdom, liberation, eternity, freedom, bliss and beauty transcend the categoies of finitude which define them, and hence pervade all times and places and express themselves in the other nine realms. These ten are multiplied by the ten "Suchnesses" from the Lotus Sutra: Such appearances, Such natures, Such substances, Such powers, Such activities, Such causes, Such conditions, Such effects, Such responses, and Such equality from beginning to end. We now have one hundred types of determinacy. These are further multiplied by three: each of these in terms of components of the sentient being in question, in terms the illusory sentient being himself, and in terms of his specific environment. Note that already each sentient being has been counted twice, as a whole and as its constituent parts… So we have hell as hell, hell as animal, hell as hungry ghost, and so on, up to hell as Buddha. 2

128 terms of principle or of phenomena, there is interpervasion such that all the different parts are subsumed into each other part, the latter serving as the unifying whole. When these two types of interpervasion are seen as one and the same interpervasion, when these 3000 are seen to be the selfsame 3000, enlightenment is accomplished. Zhili goes on to define how these terms are to be understood: Above the "differentiated parts" were specified in accordance with the fact that all the dharmas retain their own essences [when they are unified into a "whole"]. Now we specify the "unified whole" by virtue of the fact that [all these parts] converge as a single instantaneous moment of experience. They unceasingly maintain their own essences, and yet are unceasingly converging as some single moment. Thus the unified whole and the differentiated parts are mutually subsumptive, in terms of both all dharmas as the Nature [i.e., as eternal and omnipresent], and all dharmas dependently co-arising [as simply located in time and space]. This does not mean that the differentiated parts are the phenomena and the unified whole is the Principle. Moreover you should understand that the "unifying whole" for both all-dharmas-as-Principle and alldharmas-as-phenomena is a single phenomenal moment of experience....1

It is not the case the Principle refers to what the identical, the undifferentiated, the Universal or the whole, as opposed to Phenomena as the diverse, the differentiated, the Particular or the parts. Rather, Principle means all particular things as eternal and omnipresent, as universal and necessary, but still retaining their own identities, inasmuch as, by the Three Truths, their particularity is precisely their non-particularity, which is precisely their all-pervasion. In the metaphor of the waves, Principle is represented by the wetness of the water, which is divided into muddy wetness and clear wetness, representing entangled Suchness and disentangled Suchness. Differentiation is thus inherent to principle as such; principle is differentiated. Phenomena means these same occasions viewed as having simple location, as having a definite beginning and end in time (arising at moment X and perishing at moment Y) and in space (whether physical or "conceptual"--i.e., as filling only the expanses between certain definite borders which determinate it). This means both necessary mutation or process, and also necessary finiteness. These are the waves, muddy and clear. The oneness, sameness, or unity of these differentiated particulars is in both cases, in Buddhist practice, to be found in one phenomenal moment of experience, that is, one particular quiddity conceived as having a 1

Ibid., T46.708b-c.

129 definite beginning and end, fluent and finite, contingently encountered, occurring right now, at this particular time and place — a particular muddy waviness. For Zhili, principle means inherence, categoricality. This means the inescapability, all-pervasion, unchangeableness of the thing, and its unattainability, undecidability, ambiguity, and the identity between these two. This means both what unifies things (they are all everywhere, and have the same nature) and what differentiates things (this nature is inherently differentiated into the 3000, none of which can be blurred out of existence, all of which are always present everywhere), and ensures that the unification and the differentiation are one and the same act. This is opposed to shi, phenomena, which means transformations, creations, conditioned co-arisings. This refers to things qua or in their becoming, their conditionality, their contingency, as de-centered and impermanent, as substanceless, as done by some partial agent, as created, as intended, as owned, as local-context determined, as simply located – not as differentiation or particularity as such, but as partiality; it means what appears as something which could also not be, and hence is bound up with attachment, delusion, desire and suffering. Principle is inherence, i.e., these same things qua their unchangingness, their readability as all others and vice versa, their ambiguity, their ineradicability, their inescapability/unattainability, hence their necessity, and their universality in the literal sense. This literal universal reverses into ineradicable division. This is all things seen under the category of categoricalness, not unity or coherence per se. The identity of principle and event means here not only that the whole is the parts, and each part is the whole, i.e., each one is all others as it, but also that their conditionality/becoming per se is their necessity per se. If we look at a particular quiddity as a phenomenal, simply located event, all things are unified as this event because they are what is being excluded from it, its necessary accompanying outside – they are part of its pragmatic concern, umwelt, background. That means also, they are presentwith-it as its opponents, as what threatens it, as what is avoiding, as what it is seeking, as negative prehensions, as vague horizons, as explicitly excluded. It is interested, attached, partial, and hence "takes a stance" on all other entities. If we look at this same occasion as omnipresent and eternal, having thought through the implications of the necessary outside in terms of the

130 Three Truths, this very event is thus readable as all other events and vice versa. The identity of the two "totalities" thus means that taking an exclusionary or opposed stance on all the other X's, or being full of anxiety about their loss, attached to them, taking a stance toward them, is the very mode of their being readable as X and X being readable as them. To experience or confront X as an other is to be opposed to or attached to X, and to be opposed to X or attached to X is to be readable as X. And this means simply to be X – for even "X" is X merely to the extent that it is "readable as X." Zhili's point is thus that contingency as such is necessity as such, not merely that the contingent is always also necessary. We may say, that it is the contingency, finiteness, partiality, greed-hatred-delusion that accomplishes the unification of all, the all-pervasiveness. This allpervasiveness is necessity, value, etc. So the merit of unifying things goes to the phenomenality, finiteness, as such. But once this merit is seen in finiteness, this finiteness is seen as principle. So in this sense the merit goes to principle. This almost brings us back to the notion that principle is precisely merit, which is the Shanwai position, no? But the crucial point here is the Moebius strip function of the contemplation of principle and phenomena. To contemplate phenomena qua phenomena ends up being the contemplation of principle. To contemplation of principle qua principle ends up being the contemplation of phenomena. To dwell in is to be free from it, and vice versa, as Zhili says elsewhere. So at every level they do break apart again, and the accomplishment of interpervasion goes to the "principle" side, or equals this going to the principle side. For Principle simply means "the fact that this Moebius strip structure necessarily always applies. III. Let us now return to Whitehead, and see where all this leaves us. Do we still need the eternal objects? The answer is yes. For the 3000 as eternal and omnipresent are more than just the 3000 as "objectively immortal.” The difference is that, like a mathematical law or a particular shade or red, every particular discovery of an object comes with a sense that it is not new, that it has always been there, that it would have always been there whether or not it came about in this particular contingent situation. It could only appear if it transcended all appearance, and yet appeared in all

131 appearance. This is because the act of determination of any possible X would always be the act of determination of this particular object as its necessarily included/excluded outside, and hence this determination is accomplished no matter what determination is made. It transcends any particular determination. It could only be here as a finite temporal appearance if it had always been here, was eternal and omnipresent, beyond this finite appearance, as long as there is any finite appearance (and there is always some finite appearance). This is the cash value of the claim that "only because X is inherently eternal and omnipresent can it be conditional and finite.” But are there a separate set of eternal objects, apart from the objective immortality of occasions? No. Actual occasions are just extremely complex eternal objects. This also means that the eternal objects are not exempted from process; they too must "differ" with each instantiation as much as the objective immortality of actual occasions does. Difference and sameness applies to both the level of principle (equivalent to eternal objecthood) and the level of actual phenomena (equivalent to actual occasions), and these two are seen to be ultimately identical (and thus different!). The two levels of 3000 each pervades all times and places, but in two distinct ways. As principle, they pervade transcendentally, with 1) an indeterminate relation to any particular occasion, but with 2) determinate relations to each other and 3) to occasions in general. As phenomena, they pervade contingently, adopted variously into various other occasions, with an indeterminate relation to future occasions and a determinate relation to past relations. From this we can clearly see the Tiantai conclusion: all things are eternal object and all things are actual occasions. With this goes the more radical claim that the "indeterminate" bond, the partial particular way that each content integrates all contents, thereby revealing them to be categories, is itself the only type of "determinate" bond which exists between the categories as such, and between each category and the totality of possible contents. Whitehead sees these two types of interpervasion, but assigns them to differing sets of objects. Huayan sees only the latter type of interpervasion, of the contingent and phenomenal among one another, the "non-obstruction of phenomenon with phenomenon," which is grounded on a Principle of interpervasion (Emptiness), which however does not itself truly interpervade. The phenomena are the phenomena, the principle is the principle, and their "interpervasion" (Huayan's "Third Dharmadhatu") is not thoroughgoing enough to allow the two to change places. The specific

132 determinate qualities do not share all the characteristics of the principle – grounding all existence, being the foundation of all appearances; especially, they do not share the character of being "that by virtue of which all things interpervade," as in the Tiantai case. Principle remains that on which interpervasion depends, while phenomena are what, depending on their putative identity to this principle, interpervade. But these two do not interpervade in the Tiantai sense, where they converge as a single moment of experience. An asymmetry remains in the Huayan relation between principle and phenomena, so that "eternal objects" never enter the picture. There is just the eternal objectlessness which manifests and grounds and allows the interpervasion of all objects (Emptiness, Principle), and the contingent "objective immortality" of mutually interpervading occasions. In Tiantai, we have both senses of interpervasion, but both simultaneously apply to all objects. When these two senses are seen to be intersubsumptive, the contemplation has been achieved. When the contingent interpervasion is the necessary interpervasion, the truth has been realized. We may also note that the Tiantai doctrine rewrites the notion of the "givenness" of eternal objects, much as it rewrites the Kantian assertion that the categories are never experienced. It will be recalled that for Tiantai the categories are in fact experienced, in just the same way anything else is experienced – abstractly, deludedly, one-sidedly, in contrast to an outside which turns out ultimately not to be an outside but rather to be another instance of the same category. Since we have the word "space," space must have been experienced, for example, in empty space as opposed to filled space, or further as space as opposed to time or another category. But upon examination it was seen that this contrast could not hold, and the contrasting category--e.g., filled space--was just another form of spatiality. Similarly, it is not true to say that the eternal objects are somehow not actual occasions. Whitehead, to be sure, is careful to stress that "the total multiplicity of Platonic forms is not 'given.' But in respect of each actual entity, there is givenness of such forms. The determinate definiteness of each actuality is an expression of a selection from these forms. It grades them in a diversity of relevance."1 It would not be fair to say that Whitehead is merely equivocating here; the distinction he makes is quite crucial. It is not quite true to say that the eternal objects are not "made," that they are exceptions to the general law of creativity and the exclusive actuality of occurrences; nonetheless, it 1

Process and Reality, p. 69.

133 would seem that they are "made" just once, and are never henceforth truly novel. From a Buddhist perspective, at least, the eternal objects thereby certainly enjoy a considerable degree of relative givenness, a nonnegotiability vis-a-vis any non-God actual entity which relates directly to their putative definiteness. They pertain to what Whitehead calls the primordial nature of God, which is to be sure an actual occurrence in its own right, but certainly one which has a unique position among all occurrences. In the Tiantai version, this special status is repealed. When someone first experienced the abstract mathematical quality of "triangularity," it was an occurrence. This occurrence turned out to have a content which by its nature could never have begun or ended. The same, however, is true of every occurrence, for to be a content is to be a category. All eternal objects are actual occurrences, and all actual occurrences are eternal objects. It is for this reason that we said above that the Tiantai doctrine of "inherent entailment" and the pre-existence of all possible quiddities, which appears to be a perfect example of the "narrow stuffy" doctrine of unfoldment of pre-existing contents, criticized by Whitehead, and an obstacle to any understanding of true creativity, is in fact just the opposite, i.e., the most radical possible doctrine of truly creative novelty. For what the Tiantai doctrine means is that the "creative advance of the universe" is not only a succession of constantly new occasions which are perpetually coming forth, as opposed to certain primary categories, eternal objects, or God remain the same (as is the case for Kant, Whitehead and Huayan in various ways), but is simultaneously the constant emergence of new categories. This means that every experience is a disclosure of a new universe, with a new set of rules, new categoreal obligations, and even new a priori categories of experience and understanding, new ways of unifying all previous unifying conditions of experience. The Principle of Emptiness is not "a single, same principle," as in Huayan, nor is there a fixed set of categories of understanding as in Kant, or of Reason as in Hegel, nor even the "primordial nature of God" which possesses a certain set of eternal objects and no others, as the basic overall activity of creativity, the general activity which is not an occasion but rather analogous to Spinoza's substance, assuming a primal determinateness, as in Whitehead. Rather, in a very real sense, as in the Lotus Sutra doctrine of universal Buddhahood, there is in Tiantai a new God, a new foundation and new telos of all possible activity, with each moment of experience.

134 These differences have important practical consequences for ethics and value theory in all three cases. Whitehead defines determinacy, disambiguity, as a value, in a certain sense as Value itself. The adjustment of occasions to a harmony of aims is of the essence of process, and each occasion reaches "satisfaction" when it has become fully determinate, establishing a self-justifying value of beauty and harmony in unifying the totality of all existences in just this graded harmony. Then it perishes into objective immortality. In Huayan, the contemplation of interpervasion itself is seen as somehow salvific; whatever experience arises is to be seen as bringing with it all other occasions. Value resides in seeing that both determinacy and indetermination are aspects of the arising of occasions-both their formation into particulars and the openness of these particulars. But these two are seen in Huayan as two conceptually separable aspects; occasions are determinate because they are indeterminate, and indeterminate because they are determinate, but these remain two separate aspects both of which point to the tertium quid of pure, undefiled principle, which manifests as these two interlinked aspects. In Tiantai, the interpenetration of determination and indetermination is more radical. For all our reflections about universally applicable categories are directed, in the Tiantai case, not toward the solution of logical, epistemological or mathematical problems, but as a solution to the basic existential problem of Buddhism – the problem of suffering. It is an inquiry into value above all. To be a universally instantiated category is here to be an absolute value. This is surely surprising, for universality as such would seem to be axiologically neutral; after all, "redness" does not seem to imply any necessarily positive value, much less general concepts like "evil" or "decay" or "disharmony" – quite the contrary. The reason categorical universality is identical to value in Tiantai, however, derives from the primitive Buddhist problematic of impermanence and suffering. Very much simplified, for Buddhism, the determinate is the conditional, and the conditional is necessarily suffering. This is true whether we are speaking of the positive presence of a state which could be otherwise, or its absence, and it applies to all possible objects of knowledge and experience. Ipso facto, it applies to all possible objects of desire. Whatever can be desired is a determinate object, which therefore is conditional. But in the Tiantai understanding, whatever is conditional is also therefore not only determinate, but also, as such, ambiguous, indeterminate. As such, it will always fail to satisfy any single desire for a determinate result, which every desire must, by definition, be. The

135 determination of things is their indetermination, their indetermination is their determination. To be truly valuable, an object of desire would have to be able to sustain itself in being, to be free, to be its own master, to be able to sustain an unambiguous determinacy. But this is impossible for any finite, phenomenal, simply located thing in time, and thus, it would seem, for any content whatsoever. For to arise and perish at a particular point in time ipso facto shows that an object is conditioned, has its being only under the specific condition of this time and place. But in Tiantai, as we have seen, the finite simple location of things is precisely their all-pervasion and vice versa. Their necessary/impossible omnipresence is their contingent appearing and vice versa. Value here is conceived of as the freedom, eternity, bliss and beauty of this all pervasion qua contingency, i.e., the freedom of any quiddity to manifest as all other quiddities, which is precisely its inescapable compulsion to depend on them, and their inescapable presence in it, whatever they are. But this means also that value is not just the transparent determinate realization of a transparent goal, as in some of Whitehead's pronouncements, where value is the achieved determinacy of a subjective aim, accomplished through the harmonization of graded prehensions of all these other quiddities. Value in Tiantai contains a certain ineluctable element of opacity. This accords closely with the Lotus Sutra idea that one always accomplishes more than the aim one consciously embraced, something qualitatively other. The sravakas in the sutra say that they attained Bodhisattvahood "without seeking it.” (buqiu zide). This does not mean they were not seeking anything at all; on the contrary, they were seeking something else (sravaka-nirvana), and indeed something which specifically excluded the aim of Bodhisattvahood. Further, it was precisely by this exclusion of Bodhisattvahood from the conscious aim that the aim was in fact achieved. This accords with Whitehead's more developed theory of value, for example, in the notion of "Peace" developed in the last chapter of Adventures of Ideas: The experience of Peace is largely beyond the control of purpose. It comes as a gift. The deliberate aim at Peace very easily passes into its bastard substitute, Anaesthesia [True Peace] …results in a wider sweep of conscious interest. It enlarges the field of attention. Thus Peace is self-control at its widest,--at the width where the 'self' has been lost, and interest has been transferred to coordinations wider than personality. Here the real motive interests of the spirit

136 are meant, and not the superficial play of discursive ideas... Peace is the understanding of tragedy, and at the same time its preservation.1

I submit that, even with the qualification that the "motive interest of the spirit" and "not the superficial play of discursive ideas" is meant here, this wider notion of value which goes beyond purpose and self, is in severe tension with Whitehead's generally teleological notion of process, conceived in terms of the achievement of determinacy which is ultimate difference absolutely distinguishable from indeterminacy. It is this same irreversible distinction which also undergirds Whitehead's separation of the realm of eternal objects from the realm of actual occasions. We can suggest that the Tiantai picture of actual occasions as eternal objects, of determinacy as indeterminacy, allows for an expanded notion of "purpose as purposelessness," and hence "each purpose as all other purposes," which provides a firmer metaphysical ground for this notion of Peace. Whitehead's final words in this citation are especially apt in the Tiantai case. Buddhahood in Tiantai entails precisely the "understanding and preservation of tragedy"—this is what is referred to by the distinctive Tiantai doctrine of the evil inherent in the Buddha nature, which can never be destroyed. As Zhiyi says, the Buddha comprehends the evil nature (the understanding of tragedy) but does not eradicate it (the preservation of tragedy). But given the doctrines just outlined, this assumes a very definite and clear meaning which is perhaps harder to grasp in its practical implications in Whitehead's own exposition. That is, to "understand" evil and tragedy – disharmony, partiality, anger, greed, delusions of simple location and misplaced concreteness, etc. – means to see it as both principle and phenomenon, as an eternal object which pervades and expresses itself in and as all other objects, including the good, precisely by "dwelling in its own position" – being fully itself, fully finite, fully impermanent, fully evil. But it is only thus that the overcoming of evil is truly accomplished. Evil is both a content and a category, a condition of all experience, instantiated as all experience and as all other categories. As a content, it is conditioned, transient, painful and disharmonious, but precisely by being a content it is also a category, and as such, it is free, eternal, blissful and harmonious. Process itself, in its transient concrete contingency, is value.

1

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1956), 285-6.

9. Concepts of Creation and Pragmatic of Creativity1 Michel Weber In all philosophical theories there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed “creativity”; and God is its primordial, nontemporal accident. In monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed “The Absolute.” In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, “eminent” reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.2

What is the hermeneutic weight of such an epigraph? Our contribution to this cross-cultural volume takes the form of an interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead’s (1861–1947) philosophical development. 3 It aims to 1

The author wishes to acknowledge the decisive editorial help by Dr. Anderson Weekes. 2 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), the corrected Edition by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 7. 3 For a more systematic and general introduction to Whitehead’s development, one could consult Michel Weber, “Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)” in Stuart Brown

138 show how his radical understanding of the concept of creativity made him drift away from the standard Western concept of creation qua production, thereby bringing him closer to a Taoist pragmatic of creativity. Two main conceptual bipolarities are used as tools: the concepts of poiesis/praxis and the concepts of liberty/spontaneity. The first two deserve an immediate introduction. Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics systematize the use of the bipolar poiesis/praxis in the following manner: the former names transitive action, i.e., an action that terminates in a product exterior to the agent (like the production of a vase by the potter); the latter names immanent action, i.e., an action in which principle (arche) and goal (telos are one (this being typical of life in general). The paradigm of poiesis is the craftsman’s work and its limit exemplification in demiurgical creation; the paradigm of praxis is practical wisdom, and its extremum is the concept of theoria, i.e., inactive contemplation of the Truth. The crux of the matter is that, although poiesis is the lowest form of action, it defines the conceptual premises of praxis because of the substance/attribute ontology it embodies: in other words, the ontological difference established between the craftsman and his work bifurcates as well the intended immanence of practical life (and especially of theoretical life). So much so that, in the Nichomachean Ethics, all examples of praxis are actually examples of poiesis.1 Our thesis can thus be formulated quite simply: On the one hand, Whitehead’s most daring conceptual attempts take place in Process and Reality (thereafter as PR) and they show a strong will to depart from substantialism and the poiesis of creation it sustains. On the other hand, he did not entirely fulfill his program. It is therefore advisable to propose a path towards such a fulfillment, and exciting to see that it could give to his vision a significant Taoist ring.

(General Editor), Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Philosophers. 2 vols. (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, June 2005). For a historic-speculative assessment of the notions of process, see Michel Weber, “Introduction: Process Metaphysics in Context”, in Michel Weber (ed.), After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics (Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster: ontos verlag, 2004). For the overall background of this presentation, see Michel Weber, La dialectique de l’intuition chez A. N. Whitehead: sensation pure, pancréativité et contiguïsme (Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster: ontos verlag, 2005). 1 Besides of course the repeated and self-explanatory example of “life itself qua pure praxis”. Cf. Pierre Aubenque, La prudence chez Aristote. Avec un appendice sur La prudence chez Kant (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963).

139 The paper proceeds in the following steps. First, it sketches the concept of “creation” present in Whitehead’s two earlier Harvard works, Science and the Modern World (thereafter as SMW)1 and Religion in the Making (thereafter as RM).2 Secondly, it proposes a sharp analysis of the concept of “creativity”, core of the “Category of the Ultimate”, which is itself the focal point of the categoreal scheme, the shimmering jewel of Process and Reality. Third, it shows how Adventure of Ideas advocates a “creative creation”. Fourth, it unfolds the implications of Section Two from the perspective of the “co-creation” of the World and God. We conclude with a short assessment of the proximity existing between Whiteheadian cocreation and Taoist eventfulness. I. Creation The Preface of RM highlights the fact that SMW and RM constitute two independent, yet cross-elucidating, works. In both we find the same Aristotelian overtone in a Platonic landscape: the discussion of the concept of God occurs in a dispassionate context, i.e., independently of ethical and religious normative concerns. This is especially true of SMW, which has no direct roots in these spheres and does not develop such consequences. Whitehead’s goal is a speculative frame apt for understanding how relative permanence and genuine flux, potentiality and actuality, are interrelated. His founding intuition is twofold: on the one hand, the ontological priority of flux over permanence; on the other, the grounding of actuality in a “sea” of potentiality. His analysis is transcendental in the sense that he is looking for the conditions of possibility of the transition from the possible to the actual, from being to becoming, from the Many to the One. SMW opens the transcendental field with two arguments proceeding from the same root: actualization is a process of restriction (or selection) of potentialities. Accordingly, a threefold “principle of limitation” is introduced: there is a limitation among the pure potentialities that are the eternal objects; there is a limitation imposed by past events; and there is a general restriction due to the cosmic epoch in question. This “limitation of antecedent selection” or “triple envisagement”, strictly immanent to the World (i.e., performed by its actualities), constitutes the conditions of possibility of any mundane occurrence. 1 2

Science and the Modern World (1925) (New York: The Free Press, 1967). Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan, 1926).

140 However, two problems are still pending: value and order. On the one hand, everything has, by virtue of its very limited existence, some value— but there cannot be value without “antecedent standards of value.” On the other hand, the limitation of antecedent selection does not provide the conditions of compossibility of events (the problem is here, as we shall soon see, that in coming into existence, new events must necessarily be independent of each other). Hence he needs a “Principle of Concretion” that grounds antecedent standards as well as active compossibilization. Although Whitehead called it “God”, the Principle serves as a bare servomechanism, distinct from the World yet operating in it. RM names the three “formative elements” implicit in SMW: creativity or substantial activity, eternal objects or pure possibilities, and God or the Principle of Concretion constitute together the conditions of compossibility of mundane eventfulness. With the expression of these elements, the emphasis falls on the Principle of Concretion, de facto obliterating the principle of limitation and thereby down-valuing the strictly speaking mundane inner activity. All this makes it clear that the Timaeus’ categories (creation is a making) were then still haunting his mind.1 II. Creativity Let us now see how the categoreal scheme of PR (based on the Gifford Lectures of 1927-1928) redistributes the roles in the creative dialectic uniting the World and the formative elements. The enunciation of the “Category of the Ultimate” rebalances Whitehead’s ontology by claiming that the ultimate is what is named by the concept of “creativity”: neither the World nor God is ultimate. The ultimateness of the concept makes its technical peculiarity—an intrinsic polysemiality—necessary. With the result that a proper understanding of Whitehead’s worldview is impossible without the distinction of the various layers of meaning of the concept and the subsequent reconstruction of their dynamic interlocking. 1

See his confession at RM, 104. Further analysis would of course be needed to do justice to both Plato and Whitehead, but we have time only for two quick remarks: one, the status of the eternal objects, however tricky, cannot be reduced to the one Plato confers upon his Ideas—the eternal objects, to say the least, are bare abstractions localized in God’s primordial nature—; two, as we will soon discover, the proper elucidation of the formative elements’ interconnection occurs only with the organic categories of PR.

141 Qua ultimate, creativity is all-embracing, omnipresent; nothing escapes its grip—and the power of suggestiveness of the concept lies precisely in the tight synergy created by its polychromatic facets. One can organize these according to two main axes. First of all, creativity is dipneumonous: God and the World constitute the two specular loci of the creative rhythm; they are the “contrasted opposites” in unison with each other's becoming. Secondly, creativity is bifunctional: on the one hand, it is agent, fundamental inclination; on the other, it is reticulated, partial goals, i.e., instantiated (in actualities-subject) or characterized (in actualities-object). Before specifying these facets, let us already remark cautiously that neither creativity nor its factors function in addition to the actual occasions (Whitehead’s “windowed monads”), but through the contrasted opposites, whose osmotic co-belonging and symmetric bifunctionality it ensures. It is only the intertwining of these two threads that can approximate Whitehead's intuition. The claim that creativity is dipneumonous aims at underlining two complementary points. One, although there are significant differences between the “World” and “God”, there is neither ontological primacy nor bifurcation (i.e. disparity) between them. Two, Whitehead does not replace the strict hierarchy of classical theism by a panentheism (this is Hartshorne’s use of Whitehead to postmodernize Plato). Qua agent, it names the spontaneity that dwells in the Whole. It is, so to speak, a principle of unrest pushed up to the hilt: not only does it account for the perpetual flux of “things”, the constant renewal of features Nature makes us familiar with, but it also designates the radical novelty that defines genuine eventfulness. To differentiate bare repetition from the bursting forth of the unprecedented, one can speak of novation versus innovation. Creative advance is the result of the mutual support of these two fundamental processes. Technically speaking, Whitehead equates this principle of novation with the (mundane) principle of limitation; and the principle of innovation with the (divine) Principle of Concretion. In other words, in contradiction to his intuition that creativity is a rebalanced and internalized creation, he ends up arguing that “innovation” comes solely and directly from God. This complex interpretative issue will be treated later with the help of PR’s concept of “subjective initial aim”. We need to specify the ontological atomism that shapes the creative reticulum. Qua reticulated, creativity is either instantiated or characterized. Actual entities (subjects) are the “instances” of creativity. The question that that concept answers is the metaphysical puzzle par excellence: the

142 coming into existence of events themselves, i.e., how do totally new mundane (or divine) features occurs? Following mainly Zeno and James (as well as nascent quantum mechanics and special relativity), Whitehead argues that an ontology of atomic (in the sense of epochal) event is required to do justice to the facts of experience (understood in a radically empiricist way). Creative advance asks for the possibility of innovative occurrences within the novative—or continuous—cosmic structure. These occurrences require some sort of “elbow-room” and generate discontinuity. The coming into existence of a new actuality happens in a bud-like manner for two more reasons, both linked with this innovatory dimension: it involves an atemporal process framed by a free decision. The next section will further explore this durational existence. Suffice it to say for now that the actuality-subject is a drop of subjective experience. But the subjectivity involved here has to be taken cum grano salis: by virtue of the “reformed subjectivist principle”, Whitehead allows himself (simply because we have no other choice, as he repeatedly says) to generalize the main characteristics of his own experience to all possible experiences. It has been opportunely argued that his system is a panexperientialism: everything that exists or is is constituted by experiences. Let us underline that this speculative insight has nothing to do with any sort of panpsychism: to be subject is to experience in the deep and primordial sense of the word, i.e., to enjoy the immediacy of one’s own prehensions of the world, not to be animated in the etymological sense. A twin distinction needs to be introduced: every actual entity (subject) can be analyzed into two poles, the physical pole, which indicates the causal impact of the past on the actuality in the making (or in concrescence in Whitehead’s terminology), and the mental pole, which refers to the moment of self-determination of the concrescence. When analyzed, the bursting forth of a new existent displays thus, on the one hand, the influence of its past world and of God’s “initial subjective aim”; and, on the other, an autonomic position of itself for itself (“immanent decision”) and for others (“transcendent decision”). The first decision determines what the actuality prehends; the second determines how it “plans” to influence its successors. Now, from the perspective of the World, the actuality-subject exists only for a short period of time (a temporal paradox that needs more development); when it has reached its synthetic goal, it topples into objectivity, i.e., loses the vivid immediacy that is its prehensive

143 enjoyment. “Character” stands for actualities-object; they no longer “exist”, but “are”. To be object is to be experienced, to exert causal efficacy on actualities-subject. Actualities-object sediment in, so to speak, layers of reticular (or “ashy”) creativity. However, this is not the end of the story. The vanishing of the actuality’s emotional core has a twofold creative impact. On the one hand, as we have just seen, there is an objective immortality embodying the determining power of past. On the other hand, there is a subjective immortality that requires for its proper introduction a quick presentation of the development of the concept of God in PR; it will act as an appropriate link with our concluding section on co-creation. The concept of God receives in PR further specifications (actually already adumbrated in RM) in terms of the “distinction of reason” of the primordial nature (a character of creativity) from the consequent nature of God (an instance of creativity). The primordial nature is the Principle of Concretion, i.e., of compossibilization. Principle of unison operating through the conferral of the initial subjective aim already evoked, it enables the existence of a cosmos housing the highest intensities of experience possible. The consequent nature acts as a Principle of Everlastingness: qua consequent, God saves the marrow of all mundane experiences by transmuting the enjoyment of the satisfied actualities into a harmony of subjective harmonies. In other words, God values the World, integrates the value of the World—not the World itself. III. Creative Creation The result of our heuristic is so far mitigated: although it has been claimed that Whitehead’s speculative goal is to realize a daring re-balancing of the World-God relationship, his technicalities appear still theistically biased, if not poiesis-oriented. There is, in other words, an internal tension within PR: on the one hand, it introduces categories possessing a hugely subversive (eventful) potential; on the other, it still endures the gravity of traditional (substantialistic) theism. In Adventures of Ideas (thereafter as AI), Whitehead claims: “Plato moves about amid a fragmentary system like a man dazed by his own penetration.”1 —It might be the case that this applies, mutatis mutandis, to Whitehead himself. It will be the purpose of our next section to push the subversive side of PR to the hilt; for the time being, it is instructive to see what happened after the Gifford Lectures. 1

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1961), 146-7.

144 One should remember first that SMW and RM were (and still are) very well sold books. Because of the topics they address and the type of treatment these are given, they were usually acclaimed by the critics. PR, on the contrary, was poorly received (even the Gifford Lectures themselves were a debacle), and this must have had a deep impact on the philosopher: the synthesis of a life’s reflection1 had been at best ignored and at worst denigrated. Certainly, the tragic death of his son must have left the unfortunate man disconsolate… Hence the following hypothesis: with AI and MT, Whitehead tried, in all humility, to renew with the library success of his first philosophical works by adopting again a style less “categoreal”. Whereas SMW and RM were conceptually shy because his system was still looking for its coherence, AI and MT are somewhat elusive because PR had demonstrated that the reader was not willing to dive point-blank into a full ontological renewal. The more straightforward sign of this is perhaps the place Plato takes again in AI. In SMW and RM, Plato’s presence is strong but subliminal. When he is cited, it is mainly in reference to the mathematical realm of ideas. For its part, PR makes an extensive use of the Timaeus’ cosmology2 . Its basic argument is twofold: yes, the philosophy of organism needs a realm of Forms; no, heavenly perfection is not possible because of (i) the dynamic bipolarity within God and (ii) the typology of eternal objects (see the distinction between the objective and the subjective species). There is a further reference to the “creation of a cosmic epoch”,3 but, on the whole, Whitehead cautiously distances himself from Plato.4 Out of the constant reference to Plato that characterizes AI,5 three important concepts crystallise: (i) the creation of the world qua “victory of persuasion over force”;6 (ii) the definition of being as “power”;7 and (iii) the appeal to the “superior metaphysical subtlety” 8 of the concept of Receptacle. Here lies the puzzling novelty: the concept of creativity— nothing less than the key to PR—is very discreet in AI. Its sole occurrences9 are rather intuitive, barely technical, whereas the Receptacle See PR, xiv. See PR, xiv, 42, 82-83, 91, 93-96. 3 PR, 96 4 PR, 39, 44. 5 See AI, viii. 6 AI, 25. 7 Ibid., 120. 8 Ibid., 122. 9 PR, 177, 179, 212, 236-7. 1

2

145 acquires an all-embracing speculative presence (as far as the writer knows, it does not occur anywhere else in the corpus). The categoreal drift is accentuated in Modes of Thought (thereafter as MT): although no references are made to the Timaeus or the Receptacle, there is a punctual emphasis on the Platonic intuition of the importance of mathematical system 1 and a reminder that “not-being is a sort of being”. 2 Again, creativity is barely evoked, and when it is invoked it is only in purely general terms.3 In conclusion, it can be said that Whitehead’s last books pull back on the conceptual and stylistic front. It is very doubtful that he ever changed his mind on the ultimacy of creativity, but he chose an easier path (actually quite an old-fashioned substantialistic one) to present his views. Perhaps, “creative creation” is apt for depicting this hybrid: Whitehead does not agree with Plato’s cosmology (as it is set out by A. E. Taylor),4 but he conveniently adopts its demiurgical metaphors to suggest his ademiurgical worldview. Following the entire Western tradition, he uses transitive action to name immanent action. IV. Co-Creation

Let us now envisage how one could improve the general coherence of Whitehead’s categories and their adequacy to his intuition of the creative advance. By doing so, one will necessarily depart not only from the “vicariage atmosphere” allegedly haunting Whitehead,5 but also from his poetic bias. A full replacement of the Thomistic concept of ontological dependence by an ontological co-dependence indeed requires two things: the explicit operationalization of the principle of limitation within PR’s framework; and the categorialization of the initial aim delivered by the World to God. If we take seriously not only that God constitutes a necessary condition of the mundane existence, but also, symmetrically, that the World itself plays an essential constitutive role in God’s existence, then we are led to four possible valences of the concept of initial subjective aim: God delivers an

1

Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 2, 76. Ibid., 53. 3 Ibid., 117, 154. 4 See AI, 168. 5 Bertrand Russell, Autobiography (London: Routledge, 1991), 130. 2

146 initial aim to each mundane actuality and to Itself; and the World delivers an initial aim to itself and to God as well. Whitehead’s theorization of the conferral of an initial aim by the World to the mundane concrescing entity (SMW’s principle of limitation and PR’s transcendent decision) is contemporaneous with the theorization of the initial aim delivered by God to the mundane concrescing entity (SMW’s Principle of Concretion and PR’s initial subjective aim per se). When PR articulates the two divine natures, it further argues that the completeness of the primordial nature grants the perfection of the subjective aim presiding over the becoming of the consequent nature. The only unfulfilled valence is thus the conferral of an initial aim by the World to God. In the same way that the principles of limitation and of Concretion work hand by hand in the World, we have to look for the co-principle of the Principle of Concretion with regard to God’s concrescence. If it is expedient to use a derivative meaning of the concept of transcendent decision qua principle of limitation, the question of the modus operandi remains, all the more so since the basic difference between the World and God—the World is primordially many (but one), whereas God primordially one (but many)—affects the issue: it goes without saying that God’s primordial oneness makes the understanding of the coherent conferral of initial aims very straightforward. Moreover, it is precisely because the principle of limitation offers only a polymorphic “antecedent selection” that it needs to be complemented by a “primordial selection” that has both the universal ring of the all-embracing divine lure and the particular overtone suitable for precisely that actualization. In conclusion, the primordial manyness of the subjective aim delivered by mundane actualities to the divine concrescing entity asks for speculative developments less than its oneness. And one cannot but think about the twin theological concepts of evil and kenosis. Limitations of time unfortunately lead us to conclude with these points undeveloped. V. A Comparative Discussion We have seen that Whitehead’s philosophical development has reached its acme with PR: the move from a concept of creation to the concept of creativity is fundamental and is intrinsically pregnant with the concept of

147 co-creation. One of his last papers—“Immortality” 1 —makes this completely obvious. The unreceptivity of his peers led him, however, in the direction of an apparent compromise between creation and creativity: creative creation. As a result, assessing the proximity between Whiteheadian and Taoist philosophies requires the questioning of the possible similarity between the co-creation advocated (in absentia) by the former and the eventfulness of the later. One very simple point is striking: with the dipneumonousness of the ultimate, PR renounces the mono-principial and adopts a biprincipial ontology so characteristic of Chinese thought: remember that PR does not advocate dualism but operationalizes two archai that are both independent and interdependent.2 Before going further, let us say a quick word on the possible impact of non-Western thought on Whitehead’s philosophical development. There are not many signs to indicate that Whitehead had a deep, direct acquaintance with Indian, Chinese or Japanese thought. But Whitehead had various opportunities to meet Buddhist-inclined scholars—let us think only of his colleagues Hocking and Needham.3 Although he might have been interested in the peculiarities of Buddhist logic, the field developed only later. 4 In the Dialogues, he confers about China with Walter B. Cannon and later refers to Confucius.5 Since the vast majority of his papers 1

Delivered on April 1941 and reprinted in Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1947), 77-96. See also his radical understanding of the theological disaster (and of religion in general) in the Dialogues, recorded by Lucien Price. Introduction by Sir David Ross (Boston: Little, Brown & Company; London: Max Reinhardt Ltd., 1954). 2 See Francois Jullien, Procès ou création. Une introduction à la pensée chinoise. Essai de problématique interculturelle (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1989). 3 Cf., e.g., Rouner, Leroy S. (ed.), Philosophy, Religion and the Coming World Civilization: Essays in Honor of William Ernest Hocking (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1966); and Joseph Needham, The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963); and Joseph Needham, The Pattern of Nature-Mysticism and Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science: Third Century B. C. China, Tenth Century A. D. Arabia, and Seventeenth Century A. D. Europe, in Science, Medicine and History. Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice written in honour of Charles Singer, collected and edited by Edgar Ashworth Underwood, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1953). 4 Cf. F. Theo Stcherbatsky’s Buddhist Logic (1930/1932, New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1962). 5 Lucien Price, Dialogues of A. N. Whitehead, op. cit., 72 and 145.

148 were burned after his death, it is doubtful that any certainty will ever be gained here. There have been actually a few good inquiries, but often the authors lack knowledge in one of the two fields that are brought together.1 When Whitehead appropriates the demiurgical narrative, he is trying to go beyond the poetic understanding of creation and to install a true praxis of creation, a praxis that would free itself from the bifurcation of nature. It is precisely here that the power of the concept of creativity lies. On the contrary, when he advocates a creative creation instead of an explicit cocreation, his hybrid is closer to poiesis than to praxis. Indeed, AI still appears prisoner of the poetic pattern of thought: “the mere word Creativity suggests Creator, so that the whole doctrine acquires an air of paradox, or of pantheism.” 2 Furthermore, since the substance/attribute ontology is intrinsically correlated to the subject/predicate pattern of thought embodied in language, the question of the stylistic expression of Whitehead’s intuition is far more important than it might look at first sight. In other words, the use of the old-fashioned narratives is definitively an impediment. To cut a long story short, they refer to the wager on the rationality of the cosmos: human rationality and cosmic rationality match (strong version) or at least fit (weak version). Historically speaking, the concept of logos expressed the strong version of that worldview and it still haunts Western philosophy. Ontologism implies that speculative attitude. Hence Whitehead’s linguistic optimism: even PR exploits the richness of its reformed categories to “make the event speak”. Here is the parting of ways with Taoism—a discipline that does not admit ontologism and that replaces linguistic optimism by a linguistic skepticism welcoming paradoxes. 3 The controlling poiesis is totally discarded and carries along praxis with it. This can be easily understood from the perspective of the liberty/spontaneity bipolarity: poiesis and 1

Cf. Joseph A. Bracken, S. J., “Whiteheadian Creativity, the Tao, and the Thomistic Act of Being”, Pacifica 6, 1993, 179-188; Chung-yuan Chang, Creativity and Taoism. A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art and Poetry (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963); Linyu Gu, “Time as Emotion vs. Time as Moralization: Whitehead and the Yi Jing”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 25 (1998), 209-236; David L. Hall, “Process and Anarchy: A Taoist Vision of Creativity”, Philosophy East and West, Vol. XXVIII (1978), 271-285; and Charles Hartshorne, “Process Themes in Chinese Thought”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. VI (1979), 323-336. 2 AI, 236. 3 Cf., Edward T. Ch'ien, “The Conception of Language and the Use of Paradoxes in Buddhism and Taoism”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 4 (1984), 375399.

149 praxis are representative of the hegemony of conscious rationality in Western thought. Poiesis is the condition of possibility of techne whereas praxis conditions proairesis, in both cases we see that rational choice is the cornerstone of action. Only the one who follows reason is free. For its part, Taoism advocates spontaneity, which does not belong either to the rational or the irrational realm. It is just a matter of being at unison (a concept, interestingly enough, not foreign at all to Whitehead’s prose) with the Whole. The achieved harmony is no more the product of a reflective standpoint; it is a pure pragmatic that levels differences between beings. Philosophy is a matter of deconstructing—in order to achieve a pragmatic of creativity—habits of thoughts that secure the poetics of creation. And conceptual redundancy is barely suited to formulate that living paradox.

Part II Perspectives: Process Thought in Chinese Minds

10. Non-sensuous Perception and its Philosophical Analysis Wenyu Xie Whitehead recognized “non-sensuous perception” in his experience, in which he conceived a subject in terms of actual entity. In explaining his metaphysics, Whitehead treats the concept of actual entity as the fundamental concept. 1 Following this thinking, David Griffin in his proposal of pan-experientialism, too, appeals fundamentally to “nonsensuous perception.”2 It seems that, if I read it correctly, the recognition of non-sensuous perception is the starting point of process thought. It is clear that there is a distinction between non-sensuous perception and senseperception. Historically, sense-perception has endured intensive scrutiny and detailed analyses since it has established its status as the foundation of modern philosophy. Comparatively, non-sensuous perception receives too little philosophical critique. The following will provide some philosophical analysis of nonsensuous perception. I shall follow Whitehead’s witness to the existence of non-sensuous perception, differentiate its existence from sense-perception, and trace its conceptual implications in the context of inter-subjectivity 1

See Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1978). Whitehead places the concept of actual entity in the first of twenty-seven categories of explanation (his metaphysical scheme): “That the actual world is a process, and that the process is the becoming of actual entities” (22). 2 See Griffin’s introduction to Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993).

154 explicated by modern phenomenology. My analysis will demonstrate that Whitehead’s intent to establish the inter-subjectivity among actual entities can be justified only by a faith, in which an individual feeling of nonsensuous perception is universally distributed. In this way, I disagree that Whitehead has offered a rationalist account of cosmology. I. In his Adventures of Ideas, Whitehead describes the existence of nonsensuous perception in these words: In human experience, the most compelling example of non-sensuous perception is our knowledge of our own immediate past…Roughly speaking, it is that portion of past lying between a tenth of a second and half a second ago. It is gone, and yet it is here.1

Such an experience contrasts with sense-perception in many respects: First, it does not require sense organs. Our senses divide our observation into two parts, i.e., an observer (subject) and the observed (object). When we see something, there is a thing as an object to be seen. Meanwhile there is a thing as a subject to see. The distinction between subject and object in modern philosophy has been prompting reflections on “object”.2 Within this distinction people presume that an object presents itself in two states: in original form and in subjective form. Such an assumption receives a theoretical expression in Locke’s empiricism. According to Locke, epistemologically, to know is to understand objects. Objects are external as independent beings. In the beginning of knowing, the human mind (as subject) is like a blank wax board. When it observes external objects, it conveys distinct perceptions of the objects into the board (mind) and produces simple ideas. Simple ideas are the basis of our knowledge. With a certain amount of simple ideas in mind, a knowing subject will perform operations on these materials (simple ideas) to create complex ideas. We then have knowledge about external objects. In this scheme, object determines subject, and our knowledge of external objects, if it is true knowledge, must conform to their original states. 1

Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 232-3. Beginning with Descartes’ cogito, modern philosophers take for grant that subject as a thinking being is the foundation of the knowledge; and that knowledge is about objects. See Descartes, Meditation (1641), trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, Inc., 1979). 2

155 Such an understanding of objects, however, is deconstructed by Berkeley’s and Hume’s analyses of object. Kant’s concept of objects is a good demonstration of this deconstruction. Kant discerns that there is no original state of objects in knowledge. He identifies two things, one is called the thing-itself, which is external yet cannot be the object of knowledge. The other is called object, which must be framed by subject, first by forms of sensibility (time and space) and then by categorical forms. Only these subjectively framed objects are real objects of our knowledge. The subjectivist concept of object, as proposed by Kant,implies a Hegelian solution. According to Hegel, if subjective forms, which are a priori, frame objects, we may question the origin of this a priori. Since this a priori is a subject itself, the question in fact is about the absoluteness of subject. Indeed, the absoluteness of the subject is presumed when Descartes proposes the cogito. However, Hegel feels that we need a theoretical explanation of this absoluteness. Urged by this feeling, Hegel demonstrates the absoluteness of the subject in terms of the Absolute Spirit. The Spirit motivates our knowing activities and conceives objects in dialectics. In the final stage it objectifies itself and begins to know itself. This knowing process produces an equation: ‘I’ = ‘I’. He says: But this ‘I’ = ‘I’ is the movement which reflects itself into itself…In other words, the ‘I’ is not merely the Self, but the identity of the Self with itself; but this identity is complete and immediate oneness with Self, or this Subject is just as much Substance.1

It is clear that modern philosophy concentrates on the object. Even though Hegel’s dialectics offers a theory of the absolute subject, his focus is still on objects (the presentations of the Spirit). The reason for this situation comes from the epistemological assumption that to know is to know objects. Nothing is known to us unless it first becomes an object. Hegel shows his deep insight into the issue. He realizes that the Spirit as the absolute subject, if not objectified, cannot be known. Therefore, the Spirit must be known through its objectification in presentations. This is the indirect knowledge of the absolute subject. And the direct knowledge of it comes in the equation ‘I’ = ‘I’. Namely, in reflecting upon itself, the subject will gain direct knowledge of itself.

1

Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 489.

156 II. However, the equation at the same time reveals the epistemological impasse of modern philosophy. Epistemologically, in objectifying the subject, there must be a subject to objectify. Hegel proposes that the one to objectify is identical with the one to be objectified. It is an illegitimate identification. Why? Simply put, when the objectified “I” is known, it must be known by a subject. Since this subject is not an object, it remains unknown to us. As to the one that has been objectified, it has become an object, that is, it cannot sustain its status as a subject anymore. Since the knowing implies a subject, which exists each time the event of knowing occurs and escapes from being objectified, we have no ground to determine that these two “I”s in the Hegelian equation are identical. Yet, based upon non-sensuous perception, Whitehead addresses this epistemological impasse with a focus shift from object to subject. According to his analysis, modern philosophy considers that our knowledge of objects may develop and change, for example, knowledge of the cosmos may increase. However, a subject itself never changes in terms of its absoluteness. This may be true in sense-perception, in which subject and object must be divided. Since a subject is always beyond being objectified in knowing, it cannot be known; yet its existence must be assumed, otherwise sense-perception cannot sustain itself. Obviously, such an assumption maintains the oneness and sameness of the subject, as it always remains unknown to us. Therefore, as one and the same, this subject cannot afford any change. Of course, its presentations (or its objectifications) may be changed, as Hegel reveals. But this change belongs to the object and has nothing to do with the subject’s absoluteness. When we apply this scheme to understanding the subject, we are bound to encounter the epistemological impasse demonstrated in the Hegelian equation of “I” = “I”. Whitehead’s concept of non-sensuous perception alters this modern worldview. His inferences may run as following. Non-sensuous perception does not require a division of subject and object. In recognizing our immediate past, we do not objectify ourselves. Rather, it presents our existence as a unifying entity, including past, present, and moving forward. More accurately, at this moment we do not divide our experience into past, present, and forward. We are experiencing ourselves. Here, “we” and “ourselves” are not subject and object, but are identical. Whitehead uses a new term to refer to it: “superject”. He says: In such an experience, we are

157 “at once the subject experiencing and the superject of its experiences.”1 In a word, non-sensuous perception presents the superject, which can never be revealed in sense-perception. Whitehead has no intention to deny sense-perception or modern philosophers’ analyses of it. 2 However, it is a fact that the failure to recognize the subject in modern philosophy prevents us from justifying sense-perception. With the revelation of the subject in non-sensuous perception, Whitehead is able to discuss its function in sense-perception. According to Whitehead, we can observe that a subject allows itself to be objectified in sense-perception, such as when we examine ourselves and treat us as object. In this objectification, the subject becomes something else and therefore its subjective status perishes. Whitehead calls this situation as subjects “perpetually perish subjectively, but are immortal objectively”.3 In the objectification of myself, this “myself” is no longer a subject. As “myself” becomes an object, it can never return to its subjective status. Whitehead calls this the change of subject and emphasizes it as the fundamental difference between his philosophy and modern philosophy.4 A brief comparison may help. Hegel had perceived this change. However, in order to maintain the oneness of the subject, he explains that the Spirit changes its presentations. Whitehead sees these presentations in terms of eternal objects, as the results of the subjects’ change. In Whitehead’s terminology, the subject is referred to as an “actual entity”. Based on the revelation of non-sensuous perception, he infers that the superject should not be limited to human persons who are experiencing it (for instance, Whitehead’s own personal experience of it). Rather, all things (organic and inorganic included) should be assumed to have the same non-sensuous perception and to be able to experience superjects in themselves. Therefore, he claims that all things are subjects in terms of actual entities. He says: 1

Process and Reality, 29. He says: “[T]he philosophy of organism entirely accepts the subjectivist bias of modern philosophy. It also accepts Hume’s doctrine that nothing is to be received into the philosophical scheme which is not discoverable as an element in subjective experience.” Process and Reality, 166. 3 Ibid., 29. 4 “It is fundamental to the metaphysical doctrine of the philosophy of organism, that the notion of an actual entity [i.e., subject] as the unchanging subject of change is completely abandoned.” Ibid., 29. 2

158 Actual entities are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real.1

As a subject, each actual entity has its life to produce its changed past through objectification. Having considered this, Whitehead calls his scheme the philosophy of organism. Logically, the transition from an individual human experience to universal non-human existence is very questionable. Whitehead did not spend much energy on this issue. It seems that he feels the difficulty in defending such a transition.2 Griffin attempts to justify this transition in terms of analogy.3 The method of analogy, in a general definition, is taken as referring to the same species; such as I may assume other human beings may feel a feeling of mine in a similar situation. When I come to a different species, unless I want to personalize this different species, I may not apply the method of analogy in understanding it. For instance, the pain felt in breaking my bone may be empathized into another human being’s experiencing a similar situation; but it does not make much sense if I empathize it into a piece of stone which is being crushed. 4 However, Whitehead wants to assume that all actual entities (subjects) contain the same subjectivity. That is, a subject (an actual entity) can apply its own non-sensuous perception (as its subjective experience) universally and assume its similarity to other actual entities’ non-sensuous perceptions. As Whitehead’s scheme asserts that all things (or societies) of different categories are constituted by actual entities, to follow Whitehead is to claim that, the non-sensuous experience of an individual actual entity in my consciousness is applicable to all other actual entities which 1

Ibid., 18. For example, in his proposing two meanings of organism (microscopic and macroscopic), Whitehead demonstrates his awareness of this difficulty. Briefly, the microscopic meaning refers to the existence of the subject (“a process of realizing an individual unity of experience.”); and the macroscopic meaning refers to the Kantian concept of object (“the givenness of actual world”). And he does not intend to defend the assertion that the interconnection between these two meanings can be justified logically. Rather, he avoids the issue by pointing out that, if we have the assumption of organism, namely, starting with the concept of subject sustained by non-sensuous perception, we will be able to address properly all crucial notions concerning subject and object formulated by modern philosophy. See his discussions in chapter IV, ibid., 110-129. 3 Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy, 22. 4 Here we encounter the much-discussed issue of inter-subjectivity in modern philosophy. I will try to address the issue in the next section of this paper. 2

159 constitute things of different categories, including human beings and nonhuman beings, as well as living things and non-living things. If so, the method of analogy is not enough for justifying the transition as Whitehead proposes. III. I would like to go a bit further into this Whiteheadian transition. Let us examine first some efforts of analyzing inter-subjectivity provided by modern philosophers. Based upon the Cartesian cogito, modern philosophy understands a knowing process as a process of objectification. When a subject observes the world, it objectifies each thing it is observing. As a subject, it gives subjectivity to an objectified thing. Yet, no matter how much an object may receive the subjectivity from the subject’s giving, it cannot be a subject. Otherwise, the distinction between subject and object will be erased and the cogito as the foundation of knowledge will be removed. Let us move on. When a subject objectifies itself in reflection, it may mistakenly (or illusively) identify the objectified self (as an object in reflection) with itself (as a subject who reflects). This is the mistake that Hegel commits. Further, in observing other human beings, the subject may expand this mistake to make the objectified self (as an object) identical with other human beings in observation (based upon their similarity of appearances). With these two identifications, the subject carelessly gives in its subjectivity and assumes that some objects (i.e., the human beings in observation) contain the same subjectivity as its own. From this analysis, inter-subjectivity is a psychological illusion. Indeed, the modern concept of subject, if we maintain it strictly in logic, must result in solipsism. First, epistemologically, my subjectivity can never be made identical with the objectified “myself.” However, in my actual consciousness I do give in my subjectivity, as I livingly recognize that the objectified “myself” is identical with the I as the subject. Otherwise, my identity cannot be maintained. Secondly, in endowing my subjectivity to other human beings, I need a psychological leap, in which I may commit a mistake. In other words, my endowment does not have a logical ground.1 1

The discussion may never cease. Here I would refer to Simon Blackburn’s discussion of the Zombie possibility in his book, Think (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 52-58.

160 The issue attracts many phenomenological discussions. Husserl in his Cartesian Meditations (Fifth meditation) analyzes the issue in a title of inter-subjectivity and gives a phenomenological account in terms of “analogical apperception” and “pairing” to justify this subjectivity sharing.1 It is worthy noting, however, that Husserl does not consider such an “analogical apperception” as an inference. 2 Merleau-Ponty follows Husserl’s phenomenology and proposes a genetic interpretation. 3 Both Husserl and Merleau-Ponty begin with the first identification of subject and object, and therefore commit the same mistake as the one in the Hegelian equation of “I” = “I”. In recognition of the difficulty in understanding inter-subjectivity, we may question the epistemological legitimacy of the Whiteheadian transition. We have witnessed that modern philosophy’s impotence in handling the issue of inter-subjectivity. The failure to establish intersubjectivity in modern philosophy comes from the illegitimacy of identifying subject and object in self-reflection, while it lays its epistemological foundation on the distinction between subject and object. Whitehead wants to apply inter-subjectivity to all things. Will he fall into the same impasse as modern philosophy does? With an awareness of the impasse modern philosophy encounters, Whitehead emphasizes the existence of the subject in non-sensuous perception. In an experience that I am “at once the subject experiencing and the superject of its experiences,” I do not objectify “myself” in the sense that my non-sensuous perceptions do not involve senses. The only thing that is present in my consciousness in this experience is a subject, which is moving past present and forward. The non-sensuous perceptions do not introduce the distinction between subject and object. Indeed, the term “subject” is borrowed from modern philosophy, as Whitehead attempts to dialogue with modern philosophers. In his own terminology, however, Whitehead uses “actual entity” and “organism”.4 Whitehead does talk about the relationship between subject and object but in different terminology, as he says: subjects “perpetually perish subjectively, but are immortal objectively”. An actual entity is a subject and therefore contains within itself subjectivity, yet it perishes subjectively 1

See Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960). Ibid., 111. 3 See M.C Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), Ch. 7. 4 See Process and Reality, Chapter V, VI, and VII. 2

161 and results in eternal objects. For example, I study myself and objectify myself. Such a subjective act produces an object, namely, an objectified “myself”. However, as a subject, my existence does not depend on objects. Objects are only products from subjective activities.1 The ignorance of non-sensuous perception leads modern philosophy to understand the subject through the objectified subject. Therefore, according to Whitehead’s analysis, modern philosophy fails in its mission of revealing subjectivity because of this ignorance. In non-sensuous perception, a subject (an actual entity) presents itself in itself. This presentation is not a process of conceptual knowing. Whitehead treats knowledge as a later developed mentality. In its primary form, human understanding is a kind of feeling, or in his terminology, prehension. As in the case of understanding myself when I prehend myself in a non-sensuous perception, I may not yet develop out any knowledge of myself. Nevertheless, I perceive my existence and contain a certain understanding of it. Such an understanding is called immediate prehension. If there is no need to introduce object in understanding subject, then conceptually we do not categorize subject. As our analysis showed, modern philosophy conceives subject through objectified subject and categorizes subject in forms of human being. In this conceiving, it makes the subject identical with its objectified subject, and then the objectified subject identical with other similar beings (human beings). Such a conceiving excludes subjectivity from all other beings except human beings. However, Whitehead argues, the primary prehension of subjectivity does not require objectification of subject. Rather, it is an intuitive prehension. Consequently, a subject will not have an obstacle from objective world in applying its prehension of its subjectivity to all other beings. Therefore, it can be justified in terms of feeling, and in feeling a subject may assume that all things contain the same subjectivity in terms of actual entity. Whitehead is very emphatic that such an application is emotional. He says:

1

Whitehead perceives four relationships between actual entities (subject) and eternal objects (object) in the philosophy of organism. He says: “There are four modes of functioning whereby an eternal object has ingression into the constitution of an actual entity: (i) as dative ingression, (ii) in conformal physical feeling, (iii) in conceptual feeling, (iv) in comparative feeling.” (Process and Reality, 164).

162 We prehend other actual entities more primitively by direct mediation of emotional tone, and only secondarily and waveringly by direct mediation of sense.1

I may not say that Whitehead’s concept of actual entity is a logical inference. As he asserts that we primitively prehend the world in emotion, he has no intention to provide a logical defense for the concept. Indeed, the concept does not need a defense, as it is defined by an emotion or feeling. Its meaning is given when the emotion occurs. The above comparison with the treatments of inter-subjectivity in modern philosophy allows us to discern an epistemological impasse that modern philosophy runs into. In other words, in the scheme of subjectobject, modern philosophy will never find a way to justify intersubjectivity, which is assumed in our practical thinking. Whitehead’s proposal suggests an emotional shift, in which the block of intersubjectivity is removed. However, the emotion per se is the crucial point. Can we establish an emotion that will lure us to distribute subjectivity among actual entities so that we are able to define the concept of actual entity? If you do have it, you have it for no reason. If you do not have it, maybe you should foster one. Either way, we do not offer any logical inference. This is matter of faith.

1

Ibid., p. 141.

11. Can Whiteheadian Process Philosophy Challenge Western Philosophy? 1 Guihuan Huo

The problem of the relationship between fact and value is not merely an issue about how one can deduce value from fact; it is also a dimension through which we may examine various philosophical approaches. For example, one difference between Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy is said to be that the former focuses on value, while the latter focuses on fact.2 Whitehead attempts to combine both. In this paper, I will look into Whitehead’s process philosophy in terms of the fact-value dichotomy and other dichotomies related. By taking the methodological perspective of the social individual growing-up theory I myself am currently constructing,3 I will analyze into some fundamental issues this

1

I wish to express my deep gratitude to Drs. Ping Tian, Peimin Ni, Zhihe Wang, He Li, Wenyu Xie, and Keping Wang for their constructive suggestions and kindly help. 2 Of course, this is a very sweeping generalization, which inevitably admits exceptions. 3 I am working on the so-called Social Individual Growing-up Theory. To sustain the discussion in this paper, I would outline the following as basic features of the theory:

164 philosophy must go through before it can drive with full steam to challenge mainstream philosophical thoughts. I. The Destructive and Constructive Aspects of Whitehead’s Process Philosophy Take a metaphor. A cicada would be restricted to a plant branch and cannot fly until it completes its course of exuviating its slough. When it completes this course and flies up, however, its existential situation and perspective will be totally different and transform to a higher realm. In my view, Whitehead’s process philosophy is quite similar to the becoming of this cicada. Like the development of other philosophical theories in the history of Western philosophy, the establishment of Whitehead’s process philosophy is not only a gradual course of maturation, but also carries with it the basic intention of destruction and construction. As for the destructive aspect, it aims mainly at analytical philosophy, psychologism, the Aristotelian division of subject and predicate, the Humean theory of discrete and distinct perceptions, and Kantian doctrine of transcendental schema, etc.1 The principal purpose of his critique is to completely resolve the predicaments, derived from the dichotomy of subject and object, and of fact and value, which has existed since Greek philosophy. In other words, Whitehead attempts to construct a philosophical system, which centers on the concept of value and the notion of process that bears certain features of becoming, and hopes to fuse the gap between Anglo-American analytical I. Every actual social individual (including those who are academic scholars, politicians, artists, etc. in the social world) is always in a growing-up process which happens in concrete social and cultural settings. II. There are two aspects of this process: On the one hand, every actual individual may get and play more and more social roles through social interactions, and on the other, the spiritual world of this individual may reach higher and higher realms owing to these interactions. III. Every aspect of human social life (including academic research) is the result of such a growing-up process, and is constructed by such different individuals through these interactions without exception. IV. This theory is completely different from and in contradiction with the tendencies of pre-formation in the various kinds of significant Western philosophies, as it sublates these tendencies with the growing-up process. 1

See A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan, 1929), viii.

165 philosophies and European speculative philosophies. By means of this philosophical system, he wishes to provide a resolution to the metaphysical problems of noumena and phenomena, one and many, motion and still, permanence and flux, being and becoming, mind and matter, determinism and voluntarism, etc. This task is no doubt very arduous, and in my view, it embodies the strong inclination of his philosophy to make a significant breakthrough in the historical tradition of Western philosophy. It requires him not only to overturn various kinds of philosophical traditions in the West, but also to establish a philosophical theory that can really sublate these philosophies and resolve their problems fundamentally. What, then, has he done towards this task? Whitehead defines philosophy this way: “Philosophy is the selfcorrection by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity,”1 and hence a philosopher should “retain the balance between the individuality of existence and the relativity of existence.” 2 The crucial point in this definition is, a philosopher must be vigilant and conscious of his or her excess of subjectivity in critical reflection; meanwhile, should appeal to process metaphysics in order to maintain a basic intention to break through the old stereotype of object-subject. But what does the phrase “retain the balance” mean? It seems to me that, in order to retain the balance, we must recognize the existence, and then present both individuality and relativity of this existence in the same spatial-temporal phase or on the same level. Even granted that the word “balance” here means dynamic and not static (or dynamic harmony) of individuality and relativity, it still cannot escape its spatial-temporal phase. It is observable that, only in the context of both individuality and relativity co-existing in the same spatial-temporal phase, can we perceive that they are in contact with each other, in a kind of relationship, and therefore exist in a dynamic balance and harmony. With this observation, we find out that Whitehead’s treatment of the issue of “retain the balance,” as it tends to make things relevant in the spatial-temporal phase, contains a character of depicting existence in a two-dimensional plain, which may also be called a complanate dimension. Such a research is synchronic, rather than diachronic. 1

Ibid., 20. See P. A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (New York: Tudor Publishing, 1951), 680. 2

166 Let us analyze another point in Whitehead’s definition of philosophy. As we can see, Whitehead seems to over-emphasize on the correction of “excess of subjectivity,” as he deeply fears of the subjective arbitrariness of an actual subject. This leads him to stick to a position of seeking pure objectivity. In return, his discussions overlook some important issues of the subjective world, in which every actual social individual lives. The ignorance further distances him from studying the growing-up of a subject in a certain cultural and social tradition. As a result, Whitehead indeed misses a point in which he would lay a ground for discourses with other philosophers who are all growing-up subjects. I will return to this issue later to discuss the importance of the growing-up of subject in the light of theoretical constructions endeavored by contemporary philosophers. II. Characteristics of Whitehead’s Way of Articulating Process Philosophy Here, I will take Process and Reality as the representative work of Whitehead’s mature outputs. Whitehead puts forward 27 explanative categories as the framework of his process philosophy. 1 He wrote the following to articulate their importance: This chapter contains an anticipatory sketch of the primary notions which constitute the philosophy of organism. The whole of the subsequent discussion in these lectures has the purpose of rendering this summery intelligible, and of showing that it embodies genetic notions inevitably presupposed in our reflective experience...2

By examining these 27 categories, which constitute Whitehead’s process philosophy, I am able to identify two characteristics of this philosophy. I may name the first one as “state-with-no-actual-subject.” I am not to say that Whitehead does not take the issue of subject to be a prerequisite for his philosophical research; nor that he does not take pains in overcoming the dichotomy of subject-object innate in Western philosophy. I want to point out that his pursuit for pure objectivity leads him to treat the issue of subjectivity with an excluding attitude. Among 27 categories, we cannot read an item to explain the subjective world, in 1 2

See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 30-35. Ibid., 27, 42-45.

167 which social and cultural dimensions of actual subjects reside. And he seems not caring about offering explanations for this omission. It is true that he is concerned with the subjective aspects of his research projects. However, he takes them to be the same as objective objects, and explains them in the same pattern used for these objective objects. I consider this omission reflects his excluding-attitude treatment of subjectivity in social and cultural contexts. The other characteristic is his “static-complanate perspective,” which follows from his excluding-attitude treatment of subjectivity. Each philosopher is first a living being, and then a thinker. He or she must live in a constant growing-up process. Whitehead seems to disregard the subjective perspectives of a philosopher. As a consequence, his explanations and theory are limited in a perspective constructed by a closed-door and self-satisfied approach. When it is proposed, it become static. Such a complanate perspective may allow a construction of abstractness and lifelessness. These two characteristics are evident in his way of articulating 27 categories of his philosophy. Whitehead whole-heartedly expresses in these categories that the purely objective formulations of his research objects must be pursued. Yet, the following questions seem to have escaped his attention: Does this perspective itself, which is being proposed by him as a philosopher and subjective thinker, belong to a subjective viewpoint? What kinds of subjectivity may it contain? Such ignorance causes his failure to offer any analysis into cultural traditions and social situations upon which Whitehead himself as an actual subject has been fostering his subjectivity. Let us exam 27 categories to support my claim. For the convenience of our discussion, I may regroup them as following: A. Categories about essential types of entities, that is, eternal objects and actual entities, functions, unity and diversity of actual entities, and relationships between the course of becoming and the “immediacy” and “subject” of these entities (categories v, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, etc.). Here, Whitehead is concerned mainly with definitions, descriptions, and explanations of eternal objects and actual entities. There is no discussions get involved with the spiritual world of actual subjects, as well as their social and cultural dimensions.1 1

Ibid., 30-34.

168 B. Categories about the world and actual entities as processes and as courses of becoming. Actual entities’ ways of becoming determine what these entities are (“the principle of process”) and how to describe them, etc. (categories i, ix, xiv, viii, and xviii). While the world and its actual entities are defined as processes, Whitehead doesn’t intend to indicate that the world includes actual social individuals. The relationship between actual social individuals and actual entities is not defined here either. It then leaves out the issue of such individuals’ growing or process.1 C. Categories about potentiality and actuality of actual entities (“the principle of Relativity”), potentiality and its relationships with concrescence and eternal objects, etc. (categories iv, ii, vi, x). Since the relationship between actual entities and actual social individuals is not defined, I would question how Whitehead understands potentiality and actuality an actual individual in a certain social context. I do not read related discussions.2 D. Categories about unity, multiplicity, and objectification or selfcreation (categories xvi and xxiv).3 In handling the issue of multiplicity and unity, Whitehead does not anticipate following questions: What kind of actual subject is capable of discerning multiplicity and unity? For example, can an immature child do that? Further, if actual entities are selfcreative, then, how about an actual social subject (individual)? Is such a subject self-creative, too? Whitehead’s employing the phrase self-creation reveals his overlooking social and cultural dimensions of an actual subject. From terminological point of view, self-creation of a social individual must be understood in terms of metaphor. An actual individual’s process of becoming is a process of social interaction, a process bearing rich social and cultural contents. An individual cannot carry on such a process alone. We can read that Whitehead does understand self-creation of an individual in the context of interaction; however, we still want to see self-creation of an actual social individual. E. Now Whitehead comes to the aspects of subject after the descriptions of prehension, composition and species, (categories iii, xi, and xii). 4 In these categories, we are able to see clearly that, when Whitehead explains subjective aspects, he is referring exactly to that of objective entities. And

1 2 3 4

Ibid., 30-33. Ibid., 30-31. Ibid., 32-35. Ibid., 30-32.

169 his treatment of subjective aspects defines subjects in terms of objective entities, without growing-up of their social characteristic. F. In these categories (categories xiii, xv, xvii, xxv),1 Whitehead, apart from descriptions of propositions, offers some analyses of various kinds of subjective form, including emotion, valuation, feeling, and satisfaction. It is noted that, even though purely subjective aspects are involved here, Whitehead discusses them in terms of utter objectivity, intending to evade subjective course of self-determination of actual subjects. The reader may be confused by such an approach when come to appreciate actual subjects (individuals) and their subjective aspects. G. Finally, we are informed about the courses of concrescence, which are the integrations of previous prehensions and the satisfactions of feelings (categories xxvi, xxvii).2 According to Whitehead, every element plays its self-consistent role in the genetic process of an actual entity; every new prehension arises by integration of prehensions in antecedent phases; and feelings contribute their subjective forms and data to the formation of novel integral prehensions in these integrations. The process ends up with all these prehensions becoming components in a determinate integral satisfaction. However, in my understanding, the crux of the matter is: What kinds of subject do these prehensions and satisfactions of feelings indeed belong to? Particularly, I am thinking of this either/or: a general person pursued by realism in Western philosophy, or an actual social individuals living in a concrete social and cultural settings? I fail to trace Whitehead’s answer to the issue. Now we take all these categories merely as a case of study. We of course have not detailed Whitehead’s articulations of the subject matter. However, it seems to us that the mentioned characteristics of the statewith-no-actual-subject and the static-complanate perspective of his process philosophy are clearly demonstrated. I have no intent to lessen the significance of Whitehead’s ordering these 27 categories in Process and Reality. He might have deliberately wanted to appeal to this project to break away from the tradition of Western philosophy. My reading did not reveal the apparent logical order in the sequence of them and my foregoing classification of them does not follow Whitehead’s original order in Process and Reality. On the contrary, I attempt to classify them in light of the prevalent object-subject pattern in Western philosophical tradition since Greek philosophy. I understand that 1 2

Ibid., 32-33, 35. Ibid., 35.

170 doing so would conceal the cutting edge of Whitehead’s critique of this tradition. However, the issue of subject-object must be engaged and I endeavor to engage Whitehead in dialoguing with the mainstream of Western philosophy in this issue. While the mentioned characteristics of Whitehead’s process philosophy have their origin in western intellectualism, his emphasis on process and value shows his intention to depart from this tradition. One clear example is his exposition of “the fallacy of the perfect dictionary.” 1 Let us read these words: There is an insistent presupposition continually sterilizing philosophical thought. It is the belief, …that mankind has consciously entertained all the fundamental ideas which are applicable to its experience. Further it is held that human language, in single words or in phrases, explicitly expresses these ideas. I will term this presupposition, the Fallacy of the Perfect Dictionary.2

Here, the phrase “the fallacy of the perfect dictionary” is used to criticize mainly the so-called “critical school,” which repudiates speculative philosophy with the presupposition of a fixed specification of the human mind.3 Let me summarize foregoing discussions. Whitehead realizes the impasse that Western philosophy has encountered in its handling with the issue of dichotomy of subject/object and endeavors to sublate it in his process philosophy. However, he did not complete the job because his philosophy contains characteristics of the state-with-no-actual-subject and the static-complanate perspective. We may depict Whitehead’s process philosophy as on the halfway to sublate Western philosophy, just like a cicada is freeing itself from its slough. I would pose a question like this: Can we find a standpoint to propel this philosophy to complete the course of exuviations? III, A Proposal for The Social Individual Growing-up Theory That Whitehead’s process philosophy contains the characteristics of no actual subject and the static-complanate perspective is the crucial block to its criticizing and sublating the subject/object thinking in Western 1

See Whitehead, Modes of Thought, New York: Macmillan, 1936, 235. Ibid. 3 Ibid., 236. 2

171 philosophy. My sense of it is that once it overcomes the block, it will make a significant contribution to Western philosophy. Some kind of transformation must be conducted. The problem of the fact/value dichotomy is a fatal methodological weakness in some Western philosophical traditions, which are somehow blind to the existence of actual living social individuals. That is, they ignore the actual subjective world and the course of growing-up of a real individual within a certain cultural tradition and social situation, in which the individual as an ordinary person makes a living in practical matters (and as a philosopher, engages in theoretical reasoning). Such ignorance prevails in the mainstream of Western philosophy as to the 20th century. Conducting philosophical research this way, i.e., without considering the impacts of the individual’s actual activities and growing-up in a certain concrete social settings on his/her mind, we would fail to take into account the thinker’s subjectivity as well as his/her methodological perspective in our philosophical reflection. Consequently, we will misrepresent the objects of our philosophical investigation – the actual world that contains both objective and subjective dimensions. As pure objectivity and universal validity have been pursued in forms of abstract conceptual construction in Western philosophy, the spiritual world of the actual individual has been put aside in this pursuit. It makes Western philosophers impossible to turn away from so-called fact and abstract truths about this fact to the realm of value. It follows that no convincing solution can be reached as to the metaphysical problems such as the splits of noumena and phenomena, one and many, motion and still, eternal and flux, being and becoming, mind and matter, determinism and voluntarism, and so on. It is perceivable that these philosophers’ basic standpoints and methodological perspectives have pre-restricted their research activities to a designated sphere, which share the characteristics of no actual subject and the static-complanate perspective stated above. As a result, these philosophers can only stick to their fact and its abstract representational “truth,” without any awareness of the importance of subjective growing-up in their philosophical investigation. In other words, the subjective world of actual subjects in the real social life seems to them plays no role in their thinking. In my judgment, Whitehead’s process philosophy will be able to overcome this crucial block if in its philosophical reflection it will take the social individual and his/her subjective world as the course of dynamic growing-up, consider that all kinds of subjective world, their courses of

172 growing-up, and their cultural traditions and social situations have the same significance and important status as those granted to the objective entities. When it has done so, it will then transform Western philosophy. However, it is quite fair to say that, until this point, neither Whitehead nor any other contemporary Western philosopher has realized this task.

12. The Postmodern Dimension of Whitehead’s Philosophy and Its Relevance Zhihe Wang The purpose of this paper is to reveal the postmodern dimension of Whitehead’s philosophy, which can be helpful for both the West and China to overcome the dominant closed mentalities such as the “imperialistic attitude” and Yelangism.1 The paper is divided into three main parts: The first part defines "postmodern" in terms of openness to otherness. It is within this perspective that we regard Whitehead as a postmodern thinker. The second part looks more closely into the major postmodern features of Whitehead's philosophy. And the third part suggests the relevance of Whitehead’s postmodern philosophy to both contemporary China and West. I. A Relevant Proverb: Some Implications for Understanding Whitehead’s Thinking 1

This term derives from a Chinese story: There was a small country named Yelang in the Han Dynasty of ancient China. It was located at the southwest border area of China. Once the King of Yelang, who had been conceiving of his country as the center of the world, asked the diplomatic envoy from China: Which one is bigger, China or Yelang?” This story brought about a new Chinese idiom “Yelangzida,” carrying a meaning of ludicrous conceit and parochial arrogance.

174 “As there are 1000 Hamlets, there are 1000 readers.” Granted this proverb, it is not unusual to find that different process scholars have different understandings of Whitehead. The richness and diversity of Whitehead’s thought make this more evident. It is true that Whitehead has been treated as a “modern thinker” by most scholars, except for a few, such as John Cobb and David Griffin. As Pedraja rightly points out, “ Most postmodern thinkers ignore Whitehead as a potential source for postmodern thought”.1 The implications are far reaching: among other things, posing a problem for both “ relevance” and “ instructive insight.” That means “the presence of postmodern views in Whitehead’s writings still remains largely ignored in most of the works that trace the development of postmodern and deconstruction. Having considered this, I think it is necessary to reveal the postmodern stance and its plausible dimension in Whitehead’s works. To call Whitehead “ a postmodern thinker” is by no mean an easy or a safe undertaking. It is a risky enterprise that will engage the danger of limiting his thought, as labeling him as a “modern” thinker, plain and simple. But labeling him as a postmodern thinker does help us understand and highlight some very important aspects of his thought that have strong relevance to the current situation. What we need to do is not to be too concerned with labels—and, in this, stereotypes. There is in Chinese thought an instructive term, “Deyuwangquan” (得鱼忘筌), which means “forgetting the fishnet after having gotten the fish. II. Towards a Functional Defining “ Postmodernism” In order to examine Whitehead’s postmodern dimension, we need to give our understanding of “postmodernism”. Without a doubt, there are many ways to characterize postmodernism. Although “it is a mistake,” as Lawrence Cahoone points out, “to seek a single, essential meaning applicable to all the term’s instances,”2 there are still some important clues

1

Luis G. Pedraja, “Whitehead, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism”, in Process and Difference: Between Cosmological and Poststructuralist Postmodernisms, ed. Catherine Keller and Anne Daniell (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 73. 2 Lawrence Cahoone (ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 1.

175 and assertions that identify postmodernism and postmodern sensitivities in Whitehead’s literary corpus. In The Reenchantment of Science (1988), David Ray Griffin uses the term “postmodernism” to refer to “a diffuse sentiment rather than to any common set of doctrines,” e.g., “the sentiment that humanity can and must go beyond the modern.”1 He also characterizes four features of postmodern spirituality. One is its emphasis on internal relations; one is its organism; one is its new relation to time; one is its postpatriarchal vision.2 In 1991, David Hall states: “the postmodern enterprise aims at the development of a philosophy of difference. Our purported inability to think difference and otherness in their most general senses threatens the entire metaphysical project of western thought.” 3 . In 1993, Cobb spelled out Whitehead's postmodern dimension by pointing out the turn Whitehead made from substance with attributes to events in relation", "from subject and objects to subject-object", "from conceptual relativism to correspondence", "from the segregation of Religion to its Pervasiveness."4 I myself have categorized postmodern thought in eleven strains: irrationalism, post-humanism, perspectivism, anti-foundationalism and decentering, deconstruction, pluralism, etc. 5 In From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (1996, 1997, 1998), Cahoone summaries “five prominent postmodern themes”: the rejection of presence origin, unity and Transcendence of norms and the use of the idea of constitutive “otherness” in analyzing any cultural entity.6 All of these characterizations are helpful for us in understanding postmodernism in all of its guises. They help us understand the complexity and richness of postmodernism.

1

David Ray Griffin, The Reenchantment of Science (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), x. 2 See David Ray Griffin, Spirituality and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988). 3 David L. Hall, “Modern China and the Postmodern West”, in Culture and Modernity: East-West Philosophic Perspectives, ed. Eliot Deutsch (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 67. 4 John B. Cobb, "Whitehead", in Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). 5 See Zhihe Wang, The Postmodern Philosophical Movement (Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation Publishing House, 1993, 1996, 1998). 6 Lawrence Cahoone, “Introduction,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998).

176 Nevertheless, all of them naturally discuss or define postmodernism vs. modernity from a purely Western perspective. There is nothing wrong in doing so because both modernity and postmodernity originally are the products of an historical period in Western culture. However, due to the fact that it is easier to see the role of ideas in a foreign culture rather than in one's own, 1 it becomes meaningful to examine postmodernism from alternative vantage points. In this paper, as suggested in the Introduction, I intend to view modernity and postmodernity from Chinese perspectives. III. Regarding a Feasible Thesis: “An Open Attitude to Otherness.” Regarding a feasible thesis, from my point of view, the most significant feature of postmodernism, “spiritual” or otherwise, is an open attitude to otherness. I call it an “oceanic mentality,” an attitude that welcomes difference. Accordingly the most valuable thought resource postmodernism can offer is an “open mentality’ and thus, negatively, its rejection of the closed mentality of modernity such as the “imperialistic attitude” in the West and Yelangism in China. On the contrary, a common feature of modernity is a closed attitude toward “the other” or “otherness.” Both the “imperialistic attitude” and Yelangism are common manifestations of modernity. The “imperialistic attitude” designates an arrogant mentality toward otherness. Yelangism refers to a self-aggrandizing, self-closed way of thinking. In my understanding, the turn from modernity to postmodernity is a shift of attitude, a shift of mentality: from a closed to an open mentality. It must be pointed out that “the other” not only indicates the other cultures and nations. It also refers to Nature in general and women in particular. That is why the ecological movement and feminism to some extent find theoretical support in Whiteheadian process philosophy. However, limitations of space limit my focus to the relationship between East and West. I acknowledge that these terms—East and West—are not absolute, only contingently helpful. The typically dominant attitude of Western modernity toward “the other,” including other nations, other people, other cultures and other species, is an “imperialistic attitude”,2 which is deeply rooted in European1

F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1949), 10. 2 John B. Cobb, Transforming Christianity and the World (Orbis Books, 1999), 31.

177 centrism. On the contrary, the postmodern attitude toward the others is openness. I call it “oceanic mentality.” IV. The Oceanic Mentality and Its Several Versions: the Role of “Difference” The oceanic mentality is a primary characteristic of postmodern philosophy. For Charles Lermert, Postmodernism is a culture that believes there is a better world than the modern one. In particular it disapproves of modernism's uncritical assumption that European culture (including its diaspora versions in such places as South Africa, the United States, Australia, and Argentina) is an authentic, self-evident, and true universal culture in which all the world's people ought to believe.1

Almost all postmodern thinkers put an emphasis on openness to otherness. In Cobb’s word, “Postmodernists allow difference to stand.” 2 Derrida’s stress on difference, absence and trace, in fact, is on openness to the other. He says: “The critique of logocentrism is above all else the search for the ‘other’.” 3 More importantly, the "respect for the other" is viewed by Derrida as “the only possible ethical imperative.” 4 Derrida’s personal background significantly affects his thought. Derrida once acknowledged that his childhood experience of extreme isolation as the child of a Jewish family during a period of persecution and racial violence strengthened his sense of belonging to a marginal and dispossessed culture: I felt an impatient distance with regard to various Jewish communities, when I have the impression that they close in upon themselves, when they pose

1

Charles Lermert, Postmodernism Is Not What You Think (Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, 1997), 22. 2 John B. Cobb, Postmodernism and Public Policy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 50. 3 J. Derrida, “Back from Moscow, in the USSR,” in A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, ed. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). 4 Derrida, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 95-96.

178 themselves as such. From all of which comes a feeling of non-belonging that I have doubtless transposed.1

Derrida admits, "It's an experience which leaves nothing intact; something you can never again cease to feel. The Jewish children were expelled from school." 2 “The other” and “being expelled” are subtle and interactive factors in human living and feeling/thinking. Although Derrida emphasizes that the early experience has no causal relationship to his philosophy, the experience undoubtedly produced a profound influence on the formulation of his thought. In the first place, the special experience made him have strong feelings and sympathy for the marginal and dispossessed cultures. And in the second place, the early experience made Derrida feel the importance of interrelatedness. This also explains why Derrida puts emphasis on intertext in his philosophy. Richard Rorty once placed great emphasis on the importance of increasing our sensitivity to unfamiliar sorts of people to prevent marginalizing them. The conception of otherness also plays a very crucial role in another important postmodern thinker, Levinas. He asks: “Which will be stronger: the self or the other, self-interest and self-centeredness or openness toward the other?” In contrast to his conception of “metaphysics of the other’s face,” Levinas describes the Western ontological vision of freedom this way: It is hence not a relation with the other as such but the reduction of the other to the same. Such is the definition of freedom: to maintain oneself against the other.3

In addition, process scholar Buchler's concept of "alescence," which refers to the admission of new or novel traits into a complex, also contributes to this train of thought, namely “openness to otherness.” In such an understanding, postmodernism may be characterized in terms of openness to otherness. Openness, according to Heidegger, means "something that does not block-off.” It does “not block-off” because it does not set bounds. “The 1

Le Nouvel Observateur, "An Interview with Derrida," in Derrida and Difference, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 75. 2 Ibid., 74. 3 Levinas, Totality and Infinity, see Hans Dirk Van Hoogstraten, Deep Economy (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2001), 146.

179 open is the great whole of all that is unbounded. It lets beings…draw on one another and draw together without encountering any bounds."1 This is to say, that the core of openness is no blocking off. Postmodernism helps break the closed mentality and calls for a new kind of attitude: An oceanic attitude. What Northrop wrote in late 1940s expressed the attitude: We must open our intuitions and imaginations, even our souls, to the possibility of insights, beliefs and values other than our own, and we must bring scholarship to bear upon the world's problems as a whole, seeing local provincial factors in their relations to another and this whole.2

Marjorie Suchocki contributes significantly to the conception of “openness”. She defines openness as “the orientation of existence to evernew forms of value.”3 Here I would like to add that openness indicates not only being open to new values, but also to different values, cultures and people, in short, to otherness. What John Cobb stated in 1982 further made the postmodern “open attitude to otherness” evident. “Today, ” he wrote, “we are more ready to learn from other cultures since the assumption of the superiority of European culture over others no longer grips us." 4 According to Cobb, “one principle of postmodern thought … is to be inclusive and to give voice to diverse groups and interests.”5 In fact, the effort of "putting ourselves in the shoes of the other" and "seeing the world through the others' eyes" has been appreciated by all postmodern thinkers. In this sense, postmodernism is allied with pluralistic thinkers and their respective thoughts. This is, in Cobb’s assertion, to be postmodern is to be pluralistic. It is clear that it is postmodernism that makes it possible for Westerners to cross over to a strange world of thought and life and enables Westerners to view the two worlds as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Both parties will learn something from others. When Cobb emphasizes in his response to 9-11 that “We must recognize that the 1

Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, trans. A Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 106 2 F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West, 10. 3 Marjorie Suchocki, “Openness and Mutuality in Feminism and Process Thought and Feminist Action,” in Feminism and Process Thought, ed. Sheila Greeve Davaney (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1981), 63. 4 Cobb, Transforming Christianity and the World, 31. 5 Cobb, Postmodernism and Public Policy, 190.

180 perspectives of other nations are just as valid as our own”, without a doubt, he is a typically postmodern thinker. That is why he stresses that a postmodernist must be a pluralist. V. Reflections on Postmodernisnistic and Pluralistic Themes: Some Insights Granted Cobb’s contention, is Whitehead’s process philosophy postmodern from such a criterion? My answer is positive. Cobb is aware of the fact that Whitehead never used the term “postmodern,” yet “the way he spoke of the modern has a definite postmodern tone.” 1 In my opinion, the postmodern dimension of Whitehead’s philosophy lies partially in the fact that he never regards his own philosophy as a final truth. Furthermore, in his emphasis on complexity, and in reminding us of avoiding the “narrowness inherent in all finite systems”,2 he underscored his empathy for postmodern thinking. Again, even more importantly, in his rejection of the conception of substance and the rejection of “simple location”, and his emphases on interrelatedness, he rather consistently supported the intellectual ground for a postmodern worldview. All of these rejections and emphasis laid the foundation for “openness to otherness.” a) Rejection of the Notion of Substance Substance has been an underlying assumption in modern Western philosophy. According to this assumption, there is an independent, unchanging ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is an enduring substance. Substance can exist by itself. Substance thinking has been dominant in Western thinking since the time of ancient Greek philosophy. When Democritus stated that the universe is composed of tiny, indestructible, unchanging, and indivisible elements, he called "atoms", he actually initiated one kind of the substance thinking. Although there are a number of philosophical schools among traditional metaphysics, some of them suggested that there are two substances, such as mind and matter (as in Descartes' dualism), some said there is only one substance, such as matter (as in the modern materialism). But these schools converge in conceiving of substance as something 1 2

Cobb, "Whitehead", in Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy, 165. Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Capricorn Books, 1938), 2.

181 independent and unchanging. The influence of substance thinking on modern western thought is enormous, due to which a thing is thought of as self-contained and self-sufficient. This substance thinking, to some extent, fosters the modern closed “imperialistic attitude.” Whitehead offers a substantial analysis of substance thinking. He perceives a major difficulty of substance thinking by revealing its failure to explain the interconnectedness among actual entities. Substance thinking views relations as external. An actual entity, understood as a substance, is what it is independently of relations and then enters into relations. These relations do not affect its fundamental nature or existence. Whitehead rejects the “notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change.”1 His non-substance thinking focuses on relations, and treats relations as internal constituents of an actual entity. According to this view, nothing exists in itself. The existence of an actual entity is a function of the existence of others. That means that there is no separated and isolated substance, and there is no self-contained and self-closed substance. The “imperialistic attitude” dominant in modernity is strongly supported by the underlying assumption of independent substance. It is the notion of substance that leads directly to this attitude because treating one’s culture or nation or people as substance in substantialist terms necessarily leads to conceive a culture or nation as self-contained and independent. Through introducing the conception of interrelatedness, Whitehead deconstructs the modern worship of substance. b) Whitehead's Rejection of “Simple Location” Associated with the rejection of substance, is Whitehead’s rejection of the “fallacy of simple location.” Whitehead insists that his theory involves “the entire abandonment of the notion that simple location is the primary way in which things are involved in space-time."2 In exploiting what he meant “simple location”, Whitehead wrote: To say that a bit of matter has simple location means that it is in a definite region of space, and throughout a definite finite duration of time, apart from any essential reference… of that bit of matter to other regions of space and to other durations of time.3 1

Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 29. Whitehead, Science and Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1953), 91. 3 Whitehead, Science and Modern World, 58. 2

182 Whitehead also realized that the conception of simple location is deeply rooted in the West mind. He wrote: The difficulty really arises from the unquestioned acceptance of the notion of simple location as fundamental for space and time and from the acceptance of the notion of independent individual substance as fundamental for a real entity.1

Against this train of thought, Whitehead's philosophy places insists that every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location.2 He said: “In a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all time.”3 The postmodern implication of Whitehead’s rejection of simple location lies in the call for openness to other spaces and other times. c) Emphasis on Relatedness Behind the rejection of substance thinking and “simple location” is Whitehead’s emphasis on relatedness. Whitehead’s process philosophy is essentially a relational philosophy, according to which all enduring things are interrelated to each other, influence each other, and act upon each other. As individuals we are interrelated with other individuals. No one can exist apart from others, and no one can exist apart from relationship. That is to say, we are constituted by relationships. We can find that the pervasive interrelationship of all beings is prevalent in Whiteheadian philosophy, in which "relatedness is dominant over quality". 4 For Whitehead, there are internal relations. Relations are constitutive of an actual entity, or an event itself. He says: The internal relatedness is the reason why an event can be found only just where it is and how it is, that is to say, in just one definite set of relationships. For each relationship enters into the essence of the event; so that, apart from that relationship, the event would not be itself. This is what is meant by the very notion of internal relations.5

1

Ibid., 156. Ibid., 91. 3 Ibid., 91. 4 Whitehead, Process and Reality, xiii. 5 Whitehead, Science and Modern World, 123 2

183 The notion of “mutual independence” promoted by Suchocki in the light of process philosophy is helpful in understanding Whitehead’s notion of relation, especially the relationship with the other. Suchocki claims: “Interdependence is universal. …The well-being of one depends in some sense on the well-being of all.”1Our interdependence is our mutual reliance upon one another. In her words, “We are not fortuitously interdependent, but necessarily so.” In this sense we can say, “interdependence is the very stuff of life.”2 The postmodern implication of an emphasis on relations and interrelatedness lies in that it deconstructs various modern dualisms such as subject and object, I and thou, the East and West. Moreover, it lays the foundation for openness to the other. Being an organic whole, humankind has no reason to be exclusive from each other, to be hostile to each other. d) Pluralistic Thinking Pluralism is a distinguished trait of the postmodern dimension of Whitehead’s philosophy. For Whitehead, “ the universe as a totality is essentially plural.”3 This explains the reason why Whitehead discourages the desire to build a single metaphysic to synthesize the discernment of all and to "correct all their exaggerations and distortions."4 According to Cobb, “the vision of myriads of complexity interrelate events in the foundational feature of process metaphysics.”5 In my understanding, Whitehead’s famous saying “the many become one and are increased by one”6 can be conceived as an important principle of pluralism. The new emerging “one” is itself one of many new events that participate in becoming one in the next new events. In Whitehead, there is no only one actual entity, isolated in reality. He emphasizes the plurality of different actual entities. As Alston summarizes: It is evident that Whitehead holds to pluralism in that he is emphatic in denying that there is any all-inclusive act of experience, or any other all-inclusive

1

Suchocki, The Fall to Violence, 72. Suchocki, The Fall to Violence, 69. 3 Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 184. 4 John B. Cobb, "Metaphysical Pluralism," unpublished manuscript collected by the Center for Process Studies, Claremont, California. 5 Cobb, "Metaphysical Pluralism.” 6 Whitehead, Process and Reality, 21. 2

184 actuality of a comparable grade of unity, which embraces all finite experiences as component parts.1

Whitehead holds that the conditions of aesthetic experience make it impossible that there should be an all-inclusive experience. There are always “others,” which might have been and are not. For Whitehead, This finiteness is not the result of evil, or of imperfection. It results from the fact that there are possibilities of harmony which either produce evil in joint realization, or are incapable of such conjunction. This doctrine is a commonplace in the fine arts.2

Whitehead believed that the true philosopher should seek to examine as much human experience as possible. “The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence.” 3 The pluralist character of Whitehead has been noted by a few non-process thinkers, such as Alston, who points out that pluralism is “central to Whitehead’s system.”4 f) Promoting Openness to the Other As to the relationship with the other, Whitehead sees that different traditions can “learn from each other, borrow from each other...”5 Behind what he said above is his notion of difference. Difference plays a very essential role in Whitehead's philosophy. For him, the differences provide the condition for higher development. More importantly, Whitehead says: A diversification among human communities is essential for the provision of the incentive and material for the Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbors something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues. We should even be satisfied if there is something odd enough to be interesting.6 1

William P. Alston, “Internal Relatedness and Pluralism in Whitehead,” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol.V.No.4 (June 1952). 2 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1961), 276. 3 Whitehead, Process and Reality, 337. 4 Alston, “Internal Relatedness and Pluralism in Whitehead.” 5 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 220 6 Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), 207.

185 VI. The Relevance of Whitehead’s Postmodern Philosophy Whitehead's postmodern philosophy paves the way for appreciating and affirming openness to other cultures, ever radically different ideas and insights. It provides a new forum from which Chinese philosophy can creatively engage in solving the core issue we face today with its own thought resources. In this process, we must be cautious of cutting the feet to fit the shoes. I would take the misreading of Zhuang Zi as an example. Some Western scholars see Zhuang Zi as the ancient Chinese equivalent of Jacques Derrida because of “his skepticism, relativism, and distrust of language.”1 Some propose that when Zhuang Zi asks us to consider the fact that very big things from one perspective might be very small from another, then “we have perceived the laws of difference.”2 In this oversimplifying of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy, these scholars cloth Zhuangzi with deconstructive postmodernism. At some point, for instance, “relativism” becomes an issue. Yes, there is little doubt that there is a relativistic element in Zhuang Zi philosophy, but two points must be pointed out: one is that Zhuang Zi's relativism is radically different from western relativism. There is no room for something absolute in western relativism, which holds that every set of beliefs is as good as every other set. By contrast, in Zhuang Zi, "relativism" is the means to reach an ideal personality. That means there is still something absolute in Zhuang Zi's philosophy. Secondly, the positive implication of Zhuang Zi's philosophy is ignored, i.e., Zhuang Zi's rejection of Yelangism. In “Autumn flood", through the self-mockery and self-reflection of the Lord of the River, who had been thinking that "he is better than anyone else", Zhuang Zi criticizes Yelangism: I sit here between heaven and earth as a little stone or a little tree sits on a huge mountain. Since I can see my own smallness, what reason would I have to pride myself. …Compare the area within the four seas with all that is between heaven and earth—is it not like one little anthill in a vast desert? Compare, too, the

1

Nicholas F. Gier, Spiritual Titanism (New York: State University of New York, 2000), 215. 2 Ibid., 216.

186 Middle Kingdom with the area within the four seasons, is it not like one tiny grain in a great storehouse?” 1

In my opinion, these openness aspects of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy and its rejection of closed Yelangism embody importantly and significantly the postmodern dimension of his philosophy. These “aspects” also explain the reason why postmodernism and premodernism may share some affinity, because "they share the same enemy,”2 namely the imperialistic attitude and Yelangism. According to David Hall, postmodern reflection on modernity can benefit China because “the values underlying the postmodern critique of modernity resonate more profoundly with the dominant cultural interests of the Chinese than ever did interests and values of the modern West.”3 Today China is marching toward reform: something akin to modernization. One of major obstacles on its way to modernization is Yelangism. In the past century, China has not only witnessed the drawbacks of the imperialistic attitude. It also has been a victim of this attitude. Although the closed mentality is still powerful, both in China and the West today, the quest for openness has increasingly become a irresistible tide on the whole level under the influence of postmodern thinking. As Hoogstraten rightly states, “If we are to continue to make history, we must change our attitude toward the other.”4 This remind us of what Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well being is dependent on the well-being of other nations, far away.” I want to conclude with one painful recent event, one crucial lesson: the 9/11 event may well reveal to us that the postmodern oceanic attitude to otherness is no longer a distant and abstract plausibility; it is now extremely necessary. The rejection of the closed mentality of modernity still has a long way to go. In this sense, we can say that Whitehead's postmodern philosophy still has significance. When Cobb challenged people after 9/11 to “try to see the world through bin Laden" and be 1

Burton Watson (ed. and tr.), The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 176. 2 Cahoone, Lawrence, From Modernism to Postmodernism, 19. 3 David L. Hall, “Modern China and the Postmodern West”, in Culture and Modernity: East-West Philosophic Perspectives, ed. Eliot Deutsch (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 67. 4 Hans Dirk Van Hoogstraten, Deep Economy (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2001), 142.

187 cautious of self-righteousness, 1 we see the necessity of the presence of postmodernism. Just in this sense, I agree with David Hall’s paradoxical claim that “classical China is in a very real sense postmodern.”2 But I don't totally agree with his definition of postmodernism, because of its strong color of deconstructive postmodernism. And it fails to note the constructive postmodernism based on Whitehead’s philosophy. The emphasis of Chinese classical philosophy on the oceanic mentality, based on the notions of organic system, interrelatedness, and mutual interdependence, is indeed an anticipation of postmodern thinking, which is very necessary today. Facing the powerful modern worldview and modern way of thinking, postmodern thinkers not only need to form coalitions with others, but also need to take advantage of traditional thought resources from different traditions and cultures. A postmodern open “ocean mentality” can challenge us to open ourselves to other cultures and welcome a different voice on which a mutual enrichment and a creative transformation then become possible.

1

John B. Cobb, “A War Against Terrorism”, Creative Transformation (A Special Edition: September 11: A Process Response) 2 Hall L. David, “Modern China and the Postmodern West,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism, ed. Lawrence Cahoone (Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 701.

13. The Value of Adventure in Whiteheadian Thought Zhen Han The universe in Whitehead’s thought is an infinite, open, dynamic, and becoming process, full of diversity, creativity, and life. As part of such a universe, human society contains all these characters. Conceiving the universe in term of process, Whitehead perceives adventure as a fundamental theme in his cosmology. It follows that human civilization is a creative process – or adventure, as I prefer – with abundant potentiality. This paper will trace Whitehead’s sentiment of adventure with an emphasis on the potentiality of society and individuals, and defend a thesis that adventure is the essence of human society. 1. Is Adventurousness Necessary? To this question, Whitehead’s answer is affirmative. Joining in process in the cosmos, both individual growth and social development must be creative and therefore adventurous. From this perspective we may appreciate that adventure is inherent in human life and civilization. Whitehead points out: “Each individual embodies an adventure of existence. The art of life is the guidance of this adventure.”1 All human 1

A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education & other Essays (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), 61

190 beings inevitably experience some valuable adventures in their life. It is these adventures that accelerate their growth. The most adventurous people tend to achieve much more than others. Accomplished by the adventure of individuals, the development of civilization necessitates diversity and constant change of its forms. Change and innovation are of first importance to the culture. “Change” means altering the previously familiar forms, while “innovation” means venturing into the unknown field whose future cannot be predicated. On this account, in his Adventures of Ideas, Whitehead writes: “Adventure belongs to the essence of civilization.” 1 Whitehead has penetrated into and profoundly grasped the fundamental character of human civilization: Without healthy adventure, there would be no human evolution and social progress. A living civilization requires learning, but it must continue and move beyond. In other words, while inheritance is necessary, it is not sufficient for the survival of civilization. Only when human beings get out of the woods they have been in and venture into a vast plain, can they engage in and produce a new civilization in a full sense. When people venture into a new land and create a new settlement in the land, they distance themselves from their old life in the woods, and so diversify their life, which results in a new, though continuing, culture. Perceiving all the achievements in the past this way, we may say that adventure is the essence of cultural development. To a large extent, adventurous people created history. Looking forward to our future: no adventures, no new happenings. The value of adventures lies in its leading to happening, which further open possibilities and stimulate creativity. For Whitehead, the historical progress is embodied in new models being introduced into conceptual experiences to get a different transcendental perspective. When we gain a new perspective transcending reality, we will be able to merge into a creative historical process. This advises us not to blindly imitate what we have learnt from others and our past, but give free reign to our imagination and creativity, constantly stepping into the unknown field. Here, though physical wandering is important, greater emphasis must be put on the power of human spiritual adventures. New adventures in thought, fresh experiences in emotion, and diversification in the aesthetic experiences – all of these will function as stimuli to one’s enthusiasm and creativity.

1

380

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1947),

191 We may agree that science and technology are the primary productive forcs in modern society. Science and technology are actually spiritual adventures. Whitehead writes: Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skills to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.1

Science and technology themselves are adventures, because they seek to probe the unknown and understand the universe within a certain framework, and further reshape the objective world accordingly. It is obvious that they are liable to bringing dangers to human beings, and therefore we must keep vigilant of the development of science and technology and endeavor to avoid such a situation. Education also requires adventurousness. Whitehead says: “Education is discipline for the adventure of life; research is intellectual adventure.”2 Education, to be successful, should aim at helping youth experience fun in adventure and exploration. The key task of all kinds of education is to vitalize knowledge. So, schools, especially “universities should be homes of adventure shared in common by young and old.”3 Today, education is exceedingly important because education, in which “adventure of action is met the adventure of thought”,4 can greatly promote social prosperity and progress. Metaphysics is a spiritual adventure as well. “Apart from metaphysical presuppositions there can be no civilization.”5 Metaphysical understanding can guide one’s imagination and provide a basis for one’s thought and action. Metaphysics is a kind of spiritual innovation. Every time metaphysics ventures, it ends the past discoveries and calls for future adventures. According to Whitehead, one shouldn’t be fettered by one’s ideal. Ideals, like flowing water, keep moving on and on without ever reaching finality. We must constantly promote our ideals. An ideal is 1

Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 258-259 2 Whitehead, The Aims of Education & other Essays, 147 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 143 5 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 164

192 actually a wish to innovate, and so brings adventure. From the historical point of view, all the great innovations exclusively begin with metaphysical adventures. Only through spiritual adventures can we fully develop our imagination and move into the more valuable goal and future. 2. How to Maintain Adventurousness? As adventurousness is the source of civilization, it is important to maintain it. To maintain it is to reserve energy to venture, rather than to restrain us from action. First of all, one shouldn’t be steeped in the past success. Real success requires innovation. If you do not move on, you will be pushed back. Indeed, even if an innovation fails, it is still far more beneficial than lingering around the same place. In the natural world, evolution is incarnated in the rupture and transformation of the order. The essence of life is embodied in the failure of the present order. The evolution of life is an adventure, in which the forms of life unceasingly change and regenerate. Adventure enables life to gain possibilities of renewing itself into the future. In human society, change and innovation are even more important and necessary. We are witnessing that even those so-called ideal and magnificent things, when they fall into repetition, will be deprived of their life energy and move towards death. Following the beaten track will blunt the function of systems. Submitting to the convention will erode one’s creativity. When the conventional rules and authorized ideology suppress adventurousness, our imagination and creativity will be forfeited, and our society will then lose its vigor. Referring to literature, Whitehead makes the following comment: “in its day, the literature of the past was an adventure.”1 Literature needs to break through the established norms. Dull imitation will greatly decrease the attraction of an artwork. We can see that love is adventure, for lovers frequently have to refresh their relationship in order to keep their love alive. Even morality must be regenerated from time to time; otherwise it will degenerate into mechanical and anti-life regulations. To state it in Whiteheadian words, “morality consists in the aim at the ideal …[S]tagnation is the deadly foe of morality.”2 Stagnant morals may hinder or even disintegrate a civilization. 1 2

Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 360 Ibid., 346

193 A civilization needs adventure to renew itself, otherwise it lose its dynamic. About a society that lacks of creativity, Whitehead says: “there remains the show of civilization, without any of its realities.”1 A society deficient in adventurousness, like a corpse without soul, may appear to contain civilization, but it has lost its reality as a civilization. In order to keep a civilization alive, people should go out and venture into as many fields as possible, instead of seeking safety in closed castles. The tortoise has lost motivation to evolve because of its hard shells. As observation has revealed, in some areas, deer have become weaker after the wolves were annihilated. The civilization of China provides a lesson: When the Great Wall had been built to resist the northern barbarians, it was supposed to give a protection. However, the nomadic tribes had continued to swarm into the inland across the Great Wall. When there is no adventure, there is no protection. Historically, the Hellenes were motivated to pursue perfection, which helped create a distinguished life-style, a glorious form of art, and an influent mode of thought. Unfortunately, when they had achieved what they were aimed at, they lost their inspiration. Conservation and repetition replaced exploration and creativity. Together with this replacement, they finally lost their leading role in the world civilization. As Whitehead laments: “without adventure civilization is in full decay.”2 In Science and the Modern World, Whitehead observes that in the 19thcentury Europe: the dull atmosphere of the middle class dominated the whole society, and people placed an excessive value upon placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by new knowledge.3

This situation was far from maintaining a prosperous civilization; instead, it allowed for a stagnant society. Eventually, the First World War broke this placidity: in Whitehead’s opinion, “there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.”4 The key point here is that in great 1

Ibid., 359 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 360 3 Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 259 4 Ibid., 259 2

194 ages civilization will by no means be led by uncontrollable destructive powers, but by sound adventures. Secondly, in order to maintain adventurousness, we ought to tolerate or even create a diversified society. We shouldn’t persistently aim for purity and unity, which are as dull as ditch water and will lead to decay. In fact, only in diversification can a person keep his/her thought active: diversity is essential to adventurousness. Diversity can promote curiosity, which in turn arouses thought. Whitehead says, “A diversification among human communities is essential for the provision of incentive and material for the Odyssey of the human spirit.”1 The multiplicity of cultures is not the obstacle of civilization, but the prerequisite for its development. For the sake of keeping diversification, we must learn to admit imperfections. Any perfection is a comparative matter. In this sense, Whitehead writes: There are in fact higher and lower perfections, and an imperfection aiming at a higher type stands above lower perfections… Progress is founded upon the experience of discordant feelings. The social value of liberty lies in its production of discords. There are perfections beyond perfections. All realization is finite, and there is no perfection which is the infinitude of all perfections. …Thus the value of Discord is a tribute to the merits of Imperfection.2

Discords and imperfections will arouse desires to improve, which will stimulate to venture and innovate, and open the possibilities of developing. Indeed, in discords and imperfections, there is always a sense of frustration. “But even Discord may be preferable to a feeling of slow relapse into general anesthesia, or into tameness which is its prelude. Perfection at a low level ranks below Imperfection with higher aim.” 3 There are discords and imperfections in the universe just because of the diversity of beauty and perfection. So, the pursuit of perfections tends to cause discords, which will bestir to venture and innovation. Finally, to maintain adventurousness, we must cherish drives to innovate, and thus requires some lofty ideals. Once a person possesses them, he or she will gain impetus to advance unceasingly. Without ideals, 1

Ibid., 258 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 330-331 3 Ibid., 339 2

195 one is prone to be self-complacent and conservative, liable to be fettered by some trivialities and to become too cautious to do anything great. 2. What sort of adventurousness do we need? Sometimes adventure is acting within limits. It can then calculate its end, and reach it. Such adventures are the ripples of change within one type of civilization, by which an epoch of given type preserves its freshness. But, given the vigor of adventure, sooner or later, the leap of imagination reaches beyond the safe limits of the epoch, and beyond the safe limits of learned rules of taste.1

What Whitehead emphasizes here is that adventurousness in not kind of foolishness, but a union of zest and peace. An action with only zest will lead to rashness and panic, while peace by itself will cause people to lose creativity. Later on, he continues: The unity of adventure includes Eros which is the living urge towards all possibilities, claiming the goodness of their realization… At the heart of the nature of things, there are always the dream of youth and the harvest of tragedy. The adventure of the universe starts with the dream and reaps tragic Beauty. This is the secret of the union of Zest and Peace--That the suffering attains its end in a Harmony of Harmonies.2

I understand “tragic Beauty” as indicative of a dauntless spirit, which is usually gained after one has possessed a lofty goal of life. The establishment of such a goal will give one “a sense of the worth of life,”3 freeing him or her from being bothered by trivialities, and the unpredictable future. As Whitehead says: “Apart from some transcendent aim the civilized life either wallows in pleasure or relapses slowly into a barren repetition with waning intensities of feeling.”4 Adventure shouldn’t be destructive; its unique purpose is to create the future. However, the creation of the future gets involved with both deconstruction and construction. Any deconstruction should aim at new construction. But can we secure this process of deconstructionconstruction? To answer this question, I would consider the role of university. 1

Ibid., 359 Ibid., 381 3 Ibid., 125 4 Ibid., 108 2

196 The major activities at a university are thought engagements or adventures of ideas. To adventure in thought is to explore possibility. In regard to providing various possibilities of creating the future, the university has become very important, even necessary. As a special community engaging in studying and research, a university is abundant in adventurousness, through which new modes of thought are constantly invented, new laws of nature are discovered and formulated, new technologies are explored, and novel ways of life are discussed and practiced. Besides storing archives and documents from old experience and knowledge, a university is an experimental ground for creating the future. Consequently, university provides power for social progress. Of course, adventure is not a thing to be accomplished in one move. It is a process of constant impetuses to innovate. The innovation in action comes out of the adventures of ideas, which depend upon the emancipation of the mind, or an open mind receptive to new intuitions and insights and ready for creativity. In a word, to revitalize our civilization, we ought to reconsider our educational ideas and methods in alignment with adventuring in thought. We should also endeavor to create a new educational environment in the system, with a purpose not to train the youth as merely knowledgereceivers, but to stimulate their interest and their curiosity about new ideas, and to evoke and provoke their desires for adventure. The future of our society depends on innovations and constructive adventures.

14. Defining Environmental and Resource Protection in Process Philosophy* Shiyan Li We human beings are encountering serious ecological crises, which make environmental and resource protection very necessary. Different perspectives may have different versions of such protection. The Chinese environment law defines the environment as “all factors in nature …that affect survival and development of humankind.” Even if we may follow this definition, we still find difficulty in environmental protection. The difficulty lies in that we have no uniform answer as to the issue of ecological crises, which have been brought about by human activities. Therefore, we should explore new approach to the definition of environment, applicable to diverse nations and cultures. In this exploration, I find the relevance of process philosophy to the issue at stake. We have witnessed process of universe formation, process of life evolution, process of technology development. As we investigate these processes from the viewpoint of process philosophy, we are able to conceive that process is essential and relevancy is ubiquitous. In this paper, I want to discuss process philosophy in a context of ecology, examining the relevance of process philosophy to ecological crises and environmental protection. And further, I want to argue that process philosophy provides a

*

The article is a translation from Chinese and therefore some footnotes refer to Chinese resources. The author and the editors participated in the translation.

198 new viewpoint to the definition of environment, and to the issues of ecological crises and of protecting environment and resources. 1. Rethinking Nature, Environment, and Resources Process of universe formation attests that process is essential and relevancy is ubiquitous in nature. Tracing back process of cosmogony, the starting point in our ideation is the Singularity, according to the Big Bang hypothesis. At the Singularity, time is zero, space is zero, and no matter. Quantum mechanics defines the Singularity as consisting of events in process. To think the Singularity as events conforms to the understanding of things as events in process philosophy. Let us perceive into these events: From the beginning of the Singularity exploding, the universe is natal and begins to have its age: time. It also begins to have its space: after 10-32 second of Big Bang, the universe increases 1050 times in space, and produces substance and evolves into the phase of fundamental particles. All kinds of fundamental particles are violently interacting with each other at this time. With the temperature declining, different kinds of fundamental particles have different interacting relations. Free neutrons and free protons begin to come into being in the new relations. After neutrons and protons have formed, the fundamental particles find themselves in a different environment and have therefore different internal relations from what they had before. With the same reason free protons and free neutrons now have different relations from what they have in nucleosytheis. We can say atomic nucleus is only a combinatorial relation of protons and neutrons. After 10,000 years in the universe, temperature declines to 105K. Free electrons are captured by nucleus to form atoms. So atom is an event of relation within protons, neutrons, and electrons. With the forming of atom, the universe evolves into real substance phase, nebulae begin to evolve, planets appear, and the Earth comes into being. Process of life evolution makes ubiquitous relevancy develop into high complex stage. The Earth forming makes natural evolution into biology process. Tracing back life evolution from the Earth, we cannot exclude that the same or similar process occurs on other planets. We can trace the process of lives coming into being from simple inorganic substance. That inorganic substances produce and turn into organic substance proves that inorganic relations of atoms can develop into advanced organic relations. Forming big organic molecules means that chemistry process advances

199 into high levels. Organic substance is the basis for lives, but not vital. How do organic substances develop into vital biomacromolecules? A scientific answer is, when organic amino acid is phosphorylated, that is, hydroxy in amino acid is replaced by phosphor, then phosphorylated amino acid is produced. It is vital. It can grow up itself and actively connect with other molecules, or make other molecules connect each other. The molecules with it then have activity and continue to connect, and finally, biomacromolecules are produced. At this point, we have protein and nucleic acid, which are substance matter of lives. This is the process of concrescence, if I take a process terminology. Biomacromolecules recombine to produce primitive lives. From acellular primitive lives evolving into cellular one, and developing into a rich and colorful lives world, all these are determined by different genetic information in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). On the basis of eucaryon, living things of single cells develop into multicellular things; following this, plants and animals emerge, and finally humankind. We may continue to be with process perspective in depicting technology development. Technology evolves together with human life and human society. A living individual contains events in which cells evolve and split to constitute an organic life. These events of course are high complex relations. Just as the development of single cell is unbalanced and evolves into high levels to sustain the life, a living individual is very difficult to maintain its existence. Consequently, it must have new relations with other living individuals to form an ecological system. Therefore, nature is ecological. And technology is developed within this ecological system. With the development of technology, human beings are able to interact with nature and create an environment for suitable for themselves. This evolves into a society. Clearly, nature, technology, and society have comprehensive ecological relevancy. We have observed that, within the universe, ecology, lives, an individual human being, and human society, evolving processes in nature are fluent without any rupture. All things are fluent in process, and no actual things are static. Furthermore, relations are ubiquitous. Each individual is constituted by events of its constituents, and constituted by other things in events. None are excluded. Let us take look again at the Singularity in Big Bang theory, which does not share mechanistic tradition. The traditional notion of the smooth and flat space-time becomes irrelevant in the Singularity, which is in the infinite curvature of space-time. According to this theory, events before the

200 Big Bang cannot determine events after the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang do not have consequences, and therefore those events cannot constitute any part of the universe we perceive in our scientific universal model.1 Determinism is valid only after the Big Bang. In other words, the Singularity is not a mechanistic point or a spot; rather, it may be a plane, containing a lot of events. That is, a lot of events constitute the Singularity. The singularity is invisible. Our human intelligence has no capacity to know what happens in and below this plane. It is observable that each individual in nature, too, is constituted by relations and takes part in relative constitutions with other individuals, and therefore devotes itself to the whole world. Thus conceived, environment must be inter-dependent, and resources must be treated as a kind of energy for every being. Each time when a resource has been used, it must go somewhere in process for other uses. In this consideration, human beings may make use a certain technology to change events of energy into resources for themselves. However, we should place the used resources back to ecological fluent process and allow it to become resources for other beings. A used resource for us may be energy for other beings in forms of interaction. From this perspective, resources actually are the forms of energy for different subjects. If so, to maintain ecological process is to restrain ecological crises. Cobb says: “The mental and the physical are inextricably bound together and intermixed in all events. There is no pure matter and no pure mind.” 2 Evolving causes for everything are internal; each individual is determined by itself. Our human beings are kin of everything in the universe, especially kin of other animals. Human society is also part of evolving nature. In cherishing nature we can make use of nature. The mechanistic notions of controlling nature inevitably bring about crises of environment and resources. 2. Magnanimous Space: Understanding Process We have two concepts of process. One refers to the course of time in terms of past, present and future. This concept depicts process as continuity in time, in which we see transitions of things in change. Time is the essence 1

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, Chinese trans. Mingxian Xu and Zhongchao Wu (Changsha: Hunan keji chubanshe, 2001), 61. 2 John B. Cobb, Jr., “Process Thought and Its Application” http://www.ctr4process.org/mbrs-only/default.htm

201 in this concept. The other refers to dynamic concrescence. The process of concrescence does not need time. It occurs at the same time, if we want to mention time. I see the concept of timeless concrescence as the most distinguished character in process philosophy, to which no other concept of process can compare.1 The timeless concrescence is possible in magnanimous space. According to Cobb and Griffin, for individuals of realities that constitute temporal process, the occasion itself is process, a very short process of creating itself. Observing it as an outsider in time, we may see an event abruptly emerging. However, deeply in their existence they are produced in concrescence within an ultra short time.2 There is no time for concrescence to occur. Meanwhile, this does not mean at all that the picture is static. The past is constituted by events in which concrescence have taken place, the present is that concrescence is taking place, and every moment in the future is brand-new and dynamic concrescence. Concrescence means to produce the concrete. Hegel’s concept of process is worthy considering here. Hegel does not have a concept of concrescence. His understanding presents a process in time. In this scheme, negation creates concretion, absolutely without concrescence. Nature is understood as that in which Idee negates itself, making itself be a negative force to nature. He calls this the death of Idee. Here, Idee finds itself not fitting in nature, and therefore cannot act freely upon nature. Being in such a situation, Idee will crush its crust (which is the nature resulting from Idee’s negation), and return to its original as the Spirit.3 Hegel’s negation of negation as a process can be realized through time. Such a process is like a cartoon movie, in which we are able to see that one static picture is followed by another one. Here, it demands very limited space. Hegel's process develops in time, but not in magnanimous space. The later may know the previous through inheritance; but no one can know any juxtaposition and coexistence, as Feuerbach points out. 4 Juxtaposition and coexistence demands space. However, in Hegel’s 1

See Shiyan Li, “Process Philosophy and Ecological Crisis”, Natural Dialectics Studies, Beijing, 2002(3). 2 John B. Cobb, and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology, Chinese trans. Yuehou Qu (Beijing: Central Compilation & Translation Press, 1999), 4. 3 Zenggu Quan, A History of Western Philosophy (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), 251. 4 See Waiguo zhexue yuanzhu xuandu, ed. Beida Waizhesuo (Beijing: Shangwu chubanshe, 1982), 449.

202 thought we have no free space. As each individual strives to exist, competition causes global tensions and crises. In this field, process philosophy makes contributions to address global crises. According to process philosophy, enjoyment allows each unit to have subjective immediacy and intrinsic value, and so coexistence in space becomes reality. In Hegel’s scheme, process always means overcoming extrinsic and objective things. However, process philosophy conceives process in terms of unification of outside occasions and inside enjoyments. The term enjoyment in English expresses subjective immediacy in process, which can be applied to all beings, living and non-living. For all living things, enjoyment is a characteristic, though capacities of enjoyment may be different. But for non-living things, such as radioactive rock, sand, and water may have very poor capacities of enjoyment. 1 Enjoyment makes intrinsic value to be confirmed, and provides reasons to respect other things. Clearly, in such a scheme, ecological consideration is encouraging and justifiable. Evidently, Hegel’s notion that nature is the alienation of Idee provides no ground for our ecological consideration. Nature in this understanding is regarded as something occasional and disorder. And therefore, according to Hegel, nature is inept and cannot realize things that require rules. It must be conquered and ruled by subject, which is being-for-itself yet alien to nature. 2 Indeed, historically, Hegel's understanding of process reflects those bourgeois’ hope to conquer nature through developing sciences and technology, and accelerating capital economy. The notion of conquering nature has contributed a great deal to environmental crises. Environment, resources, and human beings constitute a closely related life community in nature. Process philosophy advocates consideration on this life community. Doing so will lead us to define environment as a coexisted, not anthropocentric, relationship of three elements mentioned above. Such a definition of environment, in my opinion, is significant for our resolving ecological crises. 3. Technology Alienation: a Process Analysis Process philosophy understands nature, technology, and human society in terms of comprehensive relevancy. In this relevancy, technology is the mainstay. On the one hand, it connects human beings to nature. Our 1 2

See Cobb and Griffin, 158. Waiguo zhexue yuanzhu xuandu, 433.

203 knowledge of nature is introduced by technology. Meanwhile, our knowledge of nature advances technology. On the other hand, as technology depends upon specialization, it demands communicative and complementary collaboration among human beings. And therefore human beings become more closely connected and interdependent. It is clear that each human being holds a role in this relevancy. According to H. Sachsse, a German philosopher, since highly advanced technology is based on mechanism, it is inevitable for us humans to bring up the notion of controlling nature and cause the so-called technology alienation. Sachsse points out, in this colossal industry world, which is brought up by technology, people become strange to each other, and each feels unsafe and lack of protection in living in this big system.1 With technology advancing, technology alienation begins to pollute and destroy environment and resources. The modern understanding of nature as presented by Newton's mechanism pursues technology with a unique purpose, i.e., to satisfy increasing human needs and to establish more comfortable environment for human life. However, people pay no other consideration to ecological needs, and ask no question about where technology is to go. As a result, technology alienation is inevitable and ecological crises become reality. Indeed, the simple action such as throwing rubbish to nature will terminate ecological process of nature, and in return, destroy human environment and squander natural resources. However, process is fundamental and permanent. The consequence of technology will proceed after its satisfying human needs, namely, it is polluting environment and depleting resources. Environment is the inter-dependent community with nature. It is observable that learning from ecological nature, adopting ecological technology, devising ecological process of technique, and eliminating all wastes should be the new strategy in resolving our ecological problems, and overcoming technology alienation. Ecological natural system, as a whole, can decline wastes to the least. Our knowledge shows that almost all things an organism produces as wastes can be supplies for other organism. All plants and animals and their wastes may be foods at different levels. Microbes decompose wastes, then they are eaten by other creatures

1

4.

See H. Sachsse, Ecological Philosophy (Beijing: Dongfang Chubanshe, 1991), 3-

204 in the net of foods. In this marvelous natural system, matter and energy are flowing in a big circulation through a series of dependent organism.1 Ecological industry does not prevent from producing rubbish. However, we can learn from ecological natural system and considers how to connect various industrial process in which rubbish, especially harmful rubbish is being produced, and how to change rubbish of some technologies into resource of other technologies, in order to eliminate the total rubbish. In the process of ecological industry, all resources will go somewhere. The definition of Resource indeed has a new meaning by process philosophy, that is, resource is an energy form existing for different subjects. Environment is an inter-dependent life community. Your wastes are my materials, or vice versa. In this unbroken process, hopefully, we will be able to resolve technology alienation, which brings about crises of environment and resources. Technology alienation will then dissolve itself in the process of ecological industry. As a conclusion, I want to point out that it is wise for us to base our environment laws upon process philosophy. We have demonstrated the merits of process philosophy in addressing different ecological issues. We should resort to it in regulating our environment. This may be a slow process. However, the real process does not need time. When it comes, it comes in concrescence.

1

Robert A. Frosh, “Ecological Industry in 21st Century”, Science (Chinese edition), 1996 (1).

15. Towards a Whiteheadian Ecofeminism Nini Zhang Ecofeminism represents the union of the deep ecology and feminism. ‘Ecology’ is a science that deals with the mutual relations and actions between creatures and their environments. It examines how these natural communities function to sustain a healthy web of life and how they become disrupted. Since human intervention is obviously one of the main causes of such disruption, ecology began to combine with socio-economic study from the late 1960s. It is the very orientation that deep ecology has taken. Deep ecology, however, examines the symbolic psychological and ethical patterns of destructive relations of humans with nature and how to replace this with a life-affirming culture. As to ‘feminism’, it is a complex movement with many layers. It could mean only a movement trying to gain a political and economical rights for women in a democratic society, an ideology that aims at transforming the patriarchal socio-economic system, or a cultural study of male monopolization of resources and controlling power. The last layer of feminism connects closely with deep ecology, and it may be said what they think and express are just the things that deep ecology want to say. 1 Ecofeminism, emerging in 1970s, is a reasonable

1

See Rosemary Radford Reuther, “Ecofeminism”, 1, in www.spunk.org/library

206 union of these two trends. Many of them assert that there is a historical, political and symbolic relation between inferiority of women and nature. The philosophical base of ecofeminism is the radical nonduality that is opposed to modern dualistic ideology. Being different from deconstructionism or postconstructionism, which embraces relativism and fragmentation, intending to deconstruct everything determined, ecofeminism criticizes modernity in a constructive attitude of holism. It is not only a resistance to modernity, but also an open action to pursue alternative ways of knowing.1 With the active and constructive attitude in their critiques of modernity ideology, ecofeminism demonstrates a new understanding of nature and brings us to the real world. As it lines up with constructive postmodernism, it employs and extends the organic theory of nature proposed by Whitehead. Because of its interests in metaphysics, Whitehead’s process thoughts have not been appreciated correctly for a long time within the Anglo-American philosophy.2 When John Cobb, Jr. and other constructive postmodernists interpreted the philosophy of Whitehead in a new way in early 1990s, the movement is titled as “neo-Whiteheadian.” 3 This term reminds us of seeing the succeeding and developing relation between them, including between ecofeminism and the Whiteheadian. In this paper I attempt to examine the relationship between ecofeminism and process thought, focusing on an ecofeminist concept of nature. 1. The mechanistic version and the male-defining version of nature It is noteworthy that the modern concept of nature is the focus of reflection both in process philosophy and ecofeminism. They realize that the concept of nature has been distorted and, accordingly, nature has been unfairly treated in modern world. This distorted concept prevents us from rightly accessing nature, upon which our human lives depend. Whitehead in his Science and the Modern World offers some analyses into the modern concept of nature. He points out that the notion of simple location is the key principle in the modern concept of nature. Modern science in 17th and 18th century perceives nature in terms of material, 1

See Charlene Spretnak, The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), 64-78. 2 George R. Lucas, Jr., The Rehabilitation of Whitehead (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), xi. 3 Ibid., 132

207 occupying space and time, and therefore possesses the property of simple location. He says: Material can be said to be here in space and here in time, or here in space-time, in a perfectly definite sense which does not require for its explanation any reference to other regions of space-time.1

He continues to claim: This idea is the very foundation of the seventeenth century scheme of nature. Apart from it, the scheme is incapable of expression.2

Such an idea of nature leads us to perceive objects as divided materials in spatial-temporal relation, and then develop a mechanist concept of nature. In this concept, nature is full of passive and inactive materials, which do not have their own perspective as well as the ability of their own decision. Their relations and movements then are determined by outside power, i.e., natural laws, which are active and initiative. As a result, material has been arranged in some order by something alien to itself. It is interesting to note that Whitehead felt a similarity between “rationalized faith” in the Medieval Ages and “reason based upon faith” in 17th and 18th centuries. When material is lifeless and inactive, natural laws would become the object of faith instead of empirical. “The clergy were in principle rationalists, whereas the men of science were content with a simple faith in the order of nature.”3 Whitehead was not satisfied with the mechanist concept of nature in modern science. Ecofeminism, on the other hand, analyzes into the modern concept of nature in a way to expose symbolic relations of women with nature, and of male and culture, in western history. With the dominance of patriarchy in western society, women’s inferiority in social status brought a similar situation to nature. Patriarchy secures male elites as representatives of human beings and sees their conquest of land, resources, women and slaves as a development of civilization. Man is culture and the others all belong to nature; the former is an active conqueror and the later are all passive conquerees. 1

Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1964), 50 2 Ibid., 57 3 Ibid., 52-53

208 With the emergence of modern science, human reason becomes the cultural mark of male. Here, nature is regarded as an object of conquest in human reason, another mark of male. Both Cartesian dualism and Newtonian physics understand nature in terms of matter, moving obediently according to mathematical laws knowable to a new male elite of scientists. Passivity, obedience, and objectivity are ascribed to female, while activeness, disobedience and subjectivity belong to reason and Man (male). Such a mentality encountered the first challenge by Germen idealism in th 19 century. German idealism itself is a human reason dominant system, which concerns questions only the minds of male may ask. It then creates a situation in which the reason of male plays as judge and nature as witness. Consequently, natural laws are given by human reason, through which nature has been created along human history and decided by human powers. Man always controls nature. However, dialectically, it is illogical to assume a completely obedient object as an opponent. Obviously, human reason must depend upon object. If object were its opponent, human reason would then treat it as something erasable. However, it would lose its own existence should it have erased object. The arrogance as expressed by human reason thus engages human reason in a logical impasse which reason finds itself unable to run away. Indeed, unless we abandon male’s treatment of nature as passive and lifeless, we will have no way to get rid of this impasse. Here, I would propose an ecofeminist treatment of nature to resolve the problem. 2. Disconnection is the basis of the modern concept of nature Before I discuss ecofeminism, I am going to examine the basis of the modern concept of nature, that is, its underlying assumption of disconnection. In Whitehead’s judgment, the key mistake that the concept of nature in 17-18th centuries commits is the concept of “simple location.” It does not conform to our experience and our study of organism.1 In our experience, things are grasped together to form unities, while “simple location” is only an abstract concept in our mind. Man of mechanism understands the real in terms of abstract concept; in other words, apprehend the material in space1

See Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work, ed. J. B. Schneewind (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 111.

209 time location without innate relations and no unity. Such an apprehension frames things in an over simplified way. Whitehead analyzes furthermore into another category, i.e., substance and quality. Although substance does not mean pure passivity, it surely means absolute and independent entity. In a substance-quality presupposition, we would see nature full of isolated beings sitting side by side. These things certainly contain qualities as we perceive in our senses, but qualities obtain meanings only when they cling on a certain substance. This substance-quality thinking pattern is accepted by modern physics in 17th century to understand material in spatial-temporary location. Therefore, material substance represents not only absolute, but also passive things, and the concept of simple location presumes disconnection of isolated material. With the assumption of disconnection modern science becomes powerless to explain organism. As a result, mechanist propositions like “animal is a machine” or “human being is a machine” emerged as attractive slogans. These propositions are certainly ridiculous. But we may ask, is it ridiculous to claim that the cosmos is a machine? The following question would be about where the order of the cosmos comes from. A machine must be designed and produced by somebody, and its running, too, must be controlled by somebody. We may ask: Who made the cosmos such a vast size machine? Who inserts order into the cosmos? No matter who is, it must be an outside force, rather than inside, as the cosmos is understood as composed of isolated material bits. Accordingly, organisms of animals and human beings must be made and inserted the order by someone outside, too. Disconnection between material bits implies a disconnection between material and form (order). Mediaeval thought perceived that God inserts order, while modern science sees that reason determines laws. Based on such frameworks, the disconnection between material and form (order) implies a disconnection between God and material, or human reason and material. We then must assert a dualism. While sharing with Whitehead’s analysis of modern concept of nature, ecofeminism has its own emphasis in analyzing into the disconnection. Ecofeminists penetrate into deeper level of the issue as they realize this historical fact: human mind as represented by males separates itself from nature from the very beginning, which sees human being as living above nature, but not in it. Such a treatment sees nature as inferior and as an alien force to be conquered, thus refuses to see nature as a context in which human beings are inseparably embedded. Historically, it has been

210 producing civilizations based on exploiting and subduing nature, in which every progress indicates a further alienation from nature. The world in disconnection is not a real world, as we are witnesses to ecological crises on the earth, which are indeed indicators of nature’s resistance to the hyper-unreal world. For nearly one century, our subduing nature has been more intensive, which results in creating disasters for human life. For example, the medical conquest of disease has created a population explosion, which rapidly outruns food supply. People may be anxious about and appeal to the development of technology, which may, against people’s will, deepen the crisis. Ecological crisis also creates a gap between the rich and the poor, resulting in conflicts and wars. The dominant male-mentality based upon disconnection seems optimistic in solving these social and ecological troubles through increasing wealth and continuing to rob nature. It defends that the high-speed development of material production is the key solution to the problems we are facing. It also believes that our welfare will be realized in this progress. Unfortunately, the price for such a progress is the destruction of all natural resources human life depends upon. Evidently, the progress per se is the destruction of human race itself. As an ecofeminist, I think it is the time to esteem nature. To establish such an attitude, we have to adjust our methodology towards nature. That is, we should reject the assumption of disconnection. 3. The way to the real Under the assumption of disconnection, our understanding of nature is a hyper-unreal world. The crucial step for us to be in touch with nature (the real world) is to remove this assumption. I want to defend this assertion: To be real is to be holistic, and to accept radical non-dualism. In Whitehead’s scheme, space and time mean not only limitation but also prehension. That is, material in spatial-temporary location should be thought as a thing containing in itself infinite components, gathering in inter-relation and constituting as a grasped unity. Every thing is a unity of a prehension: This unity of a prehension defines itself as a here and a now, and the things so gathered into the grasped unity have essential reference to other places and other times.1 1

Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 68.

211 This is a significant difference of Whitehead’s thought from mechanism in regard to nature. Whitehead quotes the following Bacon’s words: For when one body is applied to another, there is a kind of election to embrace that which is agreeable, and to exclude or expel that which is ingrate”.1

The quotation comes from Francis Bacon’s Natural History. 2 Bacon wanted to talk about “perception of bodies.” According to Bacon, a body may have its perception when it encounters other bodies. However, for Whitehead: All (actual) objects were once subjects, and all subjects become objects. …Subjects and objects are not two types of actual entities, but the same entities considered in different ways.3

All things played, is playing, or will play a role of subject in encountering the world and get their “occasions of experience.” Things could make decisions in their perceptions, choosing agreeable ones, embracing them in themselves, and grasping them to construct a prehended unity. Nature is conceived in this scheme as a complex of prehensive unifications. Space and time only represent the general form of the prehension, and nothing should be torn out of its context. He says: Each one of them within its context has all the reality that attaches to the whole complex. Conversely, the totality has the same reality as each prehension; for each prehension unifies the modalities to be ascribed, from its standpoint, to every part of the whole. …Thus nature is a structure of evolving processes. The reality is the process.4

Nature in Whitehead’s thought is the nature of an organic whole, which is possessed of innate vitality and needn’t get any laws from alien force.

1

Ibid., 44. Ibid., 43-44，67. 3 John B. Cobb, Jr., “Alfred North Whitehead”, in Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 174. 4 Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 70. 2

212 Understanding nature in this way, we are able to perceive that material and human reason are inter-connected. Ecofeminism adopts this Whiteheadian concept of nature, though we conceive nature with our theoretical characteristic. We emphasize that the dualism, supported by the assumption of disconnection between lifeless nature and male’s reason, should be removed first of all. We must recognize that we are the latecomers to the planet, a natural location where plants and animals have existed far long before we human race emerges on the earth. Nature does not need us to rule over it, and it runs itself very well without human intervention. We are the parasites on the food chain of life, consuming more and more. In return, we contribute too little to the restoration and maintenance of the life system that has been supporting us. We human beings should recognize that the planet is a great life-producing matrix, out of which we come into existence. We are embedded in it and cannot exist without it. Having considered our reality as such, we should abandon the arrogant claim that we human beings stay in the top of nature, and correctly locate our existence in the context of inter-connection with others beings. This is the way to the real nature. We ecofeminists have a new issue now. Unlike Whitehead, who was covered by the triumphs of rationalism in 17-18th centuries without exposure to its impotence and failures as revealed in 20th century, we are driven by deconstructive postmodernism to experience the limit of modern reason. The deconstructionists confirm that we cannot conceive any conception outside a social context, and conclude that human reason cannot find any objective conception. They claim that our conceptions exist only in a certain time and place of a certain society. Knowledge is constructed by social power. 1 Human reason is a paradox: On the one hand, reason is the sole tool we may appeal to in understanding nature, as no other way may enable us to appreciate nature; on the other hand, reason alone cannot enable us to conceive an objective conception of nature, as reason limits itself by itself. Human reason, as understood in the context of male-dominant mentality, has disappointed us. Ecofeminism is to shoulder the task to restore our faith in nature and human, and leads us towards the real world. It endeavors to abandon the mechanist notion of nature, and further challenge the male-defining reason 1

See Spretnak, The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World, 64-65.

213 (which is in fact also shared by deconstructionism). With our female sensitivity, we ecofeminists are able to feel that male-defining reason cannot embed us human race into the real world. An ecofeminist approach should be adopted, that is, we should recognize a few things symbolizing female. These things have not been respected in the past and we consider it is the time to respect them. I may list them as following as a framework of constructing an ecofeminist concept of nature: —A metaphor of the female body. —An experience of being absorbed in nature. —A world of children’s image. —A sense of nondualism which emerges suddenly in our mind. —Various native unified worldviews. —Different methods of speculation. 1 In a word, ecofeminism follows the notion of organic nature as articulated in process philosophy. As Nancy R. Howell points out: “A constructive feminist cosmology may be based on the relational philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.”2 Meanwhile, we have to move on to explore ways to resolve the impasse encountered by male-defining reason. We believe such an endeavor will lead us to the real world or nature in genuine sense.

1

See Charlene Spretnak, “Radical Nonduality in Ecofeminist Philosophy”, in Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, ed. Karen J. Warren (Indiana University Press, 1997). 2 See Nancy R. Howell, A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics (Humanity Books, 2000), 129

215

Whitehead’s Publications: • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

(1898) A Treatise on Universal Algebra, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1906) On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World, London: Dulau. (1906) The Axioms of Projective Geometry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1907) The Axioms of Descriptive Geometry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1910, 1912, 1913) (with Bertrand Russell) Principia Mathematica, 3 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Second edition, 1925 (Vol. 1), 1927 (Vols 2, 3). Abridged as Principia Mathematica to *56, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962. (1911) An Introduction to Mathematics, London: Williams and Norgate. (1919) An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1920) The Concept of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1922) The Principle of Relativity with Applications to Physical Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1925) Science and the Modern World, revised edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932. (1926) Religion in the Making, New York: Macmillan. (1927) Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect, New York: Macmillan. (1929) The Aims of Education and Other Essays, New York: Macmillan. (1929) The Function of Reason, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (1929) Process and Reality, New York: Macmillan. (1933) Adventures of Ideas, New York: New American. (1934) Nature and Life, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1938) Modes of Thought, New York: Macmillan. (1947) Essays in Science and Philosophy, New York: Philosophical Library. (1947) The Wit and Wisdom of Whitehead, Boston: Beacon Press.

216

Contributors’ Profiles: John B. Cobb, Jr.: Emeritus Professor, The Claremont Theological School and The Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA David R. Griffin: Emeritus Professor, The Claremont Theological School and The Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA Catherine Keller: Professor of Constructive Theology, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, USA Fan, Meijun, Professor of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Visiting Scholar, Center for Process Studies, Claremont, Californian, USA Ronald Phipps: Freelance writer, residence in New York, USA Joseph Grange: Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine, USA George E. Derfer: Emeritus Professor, Cal Poly Pomona University, Pomona, California, USA Wang Shik Jang: Professor of Theology, Methodist Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea Brook Ziporyn: Professor of Religion, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA Michel Weber: Researcher at the Institut supérieur de Philosophie, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium Wenyu Xie: Professor of Philosophy, Shandong University, Jinan, China; Special Guest Professor of Theology, International Theological Seminary, El Monte, California, USA

217 Guihuan Huo: Professor of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China Zhihe Wang: Executive Director of China Project at Center for Process Studies, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA Zhen Han: Professor of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Shiyan Li: Professor of Philosophy, Shenyang Polytechnic University, Shenyang, China Nini Zhang: Professor of Philosophy, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China

Process Thought Edited by Nicholas Rescher • Johanna Seibt • Michel Weber Advisory Board Mark Bickard • Jaime Nubiola • Roberto Poli

Volume 1

Volume 2

After Whitehead Rescher on Process Metaphysics

Process and the Authentic Life Toward a Psychology of Value

Michel Weber (Ed.)

Jason W. Brown

ISBN 3-937202-49-8 Hardcover, 339 pp., EUR 89,00

ISBN 3-937202-73-0 Hardcover, 700 pp., EUR 119,00

When Rescher's Process Metaphysics (1996) was published, it was widely acclaimed as a major step towards the academic recognition of a "mode of thought" that has otherwise been confined within sharp scholarly boundaries. Of course it is not an easy book: despite its stylistic clarity, it remains the complex outcome of a life's work in most areas of philosophy. The goal of the present volume is to systematically unfold the vices and virtues of Process Metaphysics, and thereby to specify the contemporary state of affairs in process thought. To do so, the editor has gathered one focused contribution per chapter, each paper addressing specifically and explicitly its assigned chapter and seeking to promote a dialogue with Rescher. In addition, the volume features Rescher's replies to the papers.

The thesis advanced in this book is that feeling and cognition actualize through a process that originates in older brain formations and develops outward through limbic and cortical fields through the self-concept and private space into (as) the world. An iteration of this transition deposits acts, objects, feelings and utterances. Value is a mode of conceptual feeling that depends on the dominant phase in this transition: from desire through interest to object worth. Among the topics covered are subjective time and change, the epochal nature of objects and their temporal extensibility and the evolution of value from inorganic matter into organic form. The theory of microgenesis informs this work. According to this theory, acts and objects evolve in milliseconds through phases that replicate patterns in forebrain evolution. The progression in the actualization of the mind/brain state is from archaic to recent in brain formation, from unity to diversity, from past to present and from mind to world. An account is given of the diversity of felt experience avoiding the reductionist moves characteristic of biological materialism and the inherent dualism of psychoanalytic and related theories. This book is intended for any reader interested in the psychology of the inner life and philosophy of mind, including philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists and others with an interest in problems of value and moral feeling.

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