The Visionary World of Metaphysician & Mathematician of Alfred North Whitehead. Guest: L. Pia Shaw Ph.D.
This conversation highlights the importance of Alfred North Whitehead’s (1861-1947) process philosophy. Metaphysics gives us a system of ideas that tells us what is real, what is possible, and what is valued. Much of our metaphysical perspective is absorbed through culture as though through osmosis. We find ourselves embedded in a Cartesian metaphysical position that no longer serves. It gives a disenchanted worldview, a valueless cosmos, and privileges humans as special and separated from Nature.
The transition to an ecological way of being is a struggle to disentangle from old Cartesian thinking. However, it becomes more feasible when we are presented with an alternative. Whitehead’s process philosophy offers us a radical relational universe rich in meaning and value at all levels of existence, a universe in which we are intricately involved.
Alfred North Whitehead, a mathematician and logician, turned to philosophy in his later years. He challenged the assumptions on which science was based and offered an alternative. His philosophy emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, champions the primacy of subjective experience, and helps us reimagine our place in the cosmos—a cosmos that aims toward Beauty.