HSP442M Seminar: Process Philosophy: History and implications
Spring semester 2024.
Throughout the history of Western philosophy process philosophy has been a consistent but minority position. Process philosophy starts with the ideas that change is more fundamental than being, difference is primary to identity, and that rather than things or substances the world really consists of a multitude of constantly ongoing and interacting processes.
This seminar will give an overview of the history of process philosophy from Heraclitus to Whitehead and Deleuze, but also highlight some of the practical implications of this way of seeing the world: for example, process philosophy is becoming increasingly relevant in fields of biology and ecology, and in a world characterized by climate change which involves many interacting processes leading to unpredictable outcomes as the social and natural world is in a state of becoming rather than being. Process thinking is also relevant in theoretical physics which is abandoning the search for fundamental substances in favour of interacting forces. We will also examine how process thinking is part of several non-European traditions such as Daoism, Hinduism, and native American cultures. Finally, we will ask whether Iceland – an island that is in a constant state of becoming – is particularly suited for process thinking.
Course material: Texts from process thinkers such as Heraclitus, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, Conrad H. Waddington, and John Dupré, as well as some contemporary texts highlighting debates in biology and environmental science relating to process thinking.
https://ugla.hi.is/kennsluskra/index.php?tab=nam&chapter=namskeid&id=71192920240