Panta Rei
In my continuing quest to conceptualize this blog, I figure it is best that I get some more of that eternal tedium introduction, out of the way. In the last post I detailed that Uberty will be ranging over a variety of areas, from politics, to philosophy, art, etc. What I will do in the next few posts is to give an overview of the foundational ideas in my thought. These will hopefully be helpful to anyone trying to gain some perspective on where I come from. On why I think the ways I do. This first article will detail my central philosophical disposition: process philosophy.
Process philosophy is the metaphysical position that things, in the colloquial sense, do not exist. At first this may seem a radical and hopelessly flawed hypothesis. Things obviously do exist, chairs, tables and the like have some sort of existence, even if attenuated. Others in a more scientific mold may think well atoms, or quarks, or fields exist. Unless one is happy with a radical skepticism saying that these things don’t exist is philosophical malpractice. It is too deep a basic premise of reality. And I would certainly agree with this assessment, if everything were as it seems, alas, it is not.
Ever since Aristotle founded Metaphysics[i]it has been an almost unquestioned premise that reality is, ontologically speaking, substantial. That is some substance or other is the most fundamental level of reality. The proceeding 2 millennium had heated arguments on what that substance was; ‘matter’ or ‘ideas’. Apart from a few examples this was the dominant mode in western philosophy[ii] only starting to wane in the 18th century. Though still not the dominant view, process philosophy has been gaining ground especially in the early 21st century[iii].
The main contention of process philosophy is not that ‘things’ the underlying substrate[iv] do not exist but that ‘thing’ the concept is an outmoded and wrong way to understand reality. Things are a time-slice of processes, a particular cut of a temporal and spatial ordering; it is a dynamic rendering between the object and the creature’s perceptual apparatus. Certain parts of this picture are invariant, no matter the smallest organism to the largest, some properties are a product of the fundamental structuring of the ‘object’ but others, shape, color, taste, etc. will vary with the organism perceiving it. A flower is an ultraviolet colored phenomenon to the bee, while to us it is normally colored. Who here has the truth? This fundamental reality has been a stumbling block to philosophers since time immemorial, the process approach is to say that perhaps the problem is not our perceptual system, but our conceptual system. Our ontology crystalizes, constraining both the questions, and more fundamentally, the answers one can have.
One of the ways substance ontologies runs a ‘foul of reality is fairly obvious, why does reality seem in flux when deep down we know it is substance oriented? While rather prosaic this contention is a fundamental problem, a problem however that is accentuated by the hidden assumptions of our ontology. Our metaphysical orientation sets a sort of tacit agenda for the whole project of knowledge. It tells us what knowledge is (a thing! Not, as I would say, a process of self-correction). This hidden axiom, along with others, has deformed the whole geometry of philosophical thinking. Process thought has been deemed so outlandish that W.V.O. Quine said one *couldn’t* think like that. Well I do. It is an adjustment for sure, but if one wishes to chase the truth, then no hypothesis should be deemed to outlandish. All of the above disputation, however, is perhaps still obscure, so before ending this post I will try to give some examples of how this furthers the project of knowledge.
How does one think in process terms and what help is it? Perhaps some of you are still wondering what the fuck a process is! Truth be told I don’t have my own nifty definition, but I have come across a rather detailed if cumbersome one. Before giving it, I wish to caution the reader. Expressing these ideas is rather difficult as language is not a transparent medium. It imposes a sort of structuring on reality that from a process perspective is misleading. Language ‘nounizes’ the world. It transforms dynamic events into reifying words. This is a marvelous innovation, probably the most important in the annals of the Universe, but it also skews our vision. When I say I perceive a rock, this sounds like a static event but really it is a dynamic interaction of my retina, my Occipital lobe, the light, the atmospheric pressures, the rock itself, my motion, and a litany of other environing conditions. All this to say whatever definition we are going to get may seem odd, but this is a feature not a bug. Process thought must constantly stress our caged status, trying to smithy dynamic truth out of static semiologies. “[A] process is a coordinated group of changed in the complexion of reality, an organized family of occurrences that are systematically linked to one another either casually or functionally…”[v] A bit hard to parse sure but the important points are hit. It is a change by various parts that are linked together in some specific manner or other. A holistic event in which inside and outside undergo constant modification.
In future posts I will go more into specific examples of process thought in action. One of the reasons process thought has seen a resurgence is many of the cherished assumption of our metadigm[vi]seem to be challenged by the advancing of the sciences. Geology, Biology and of course Quantum Mechanics seem to be yearning for a more processual foundation. These along with other considerations have contributed to the rising popularity of process thought. Engaging with these disciplines and more will be a reoccurring theme in these posts.
[i] meta in Greek literally just means after because it was the book after the physics
[ii]The eastern traditions tend to be more processual in orientation.
[iii]This will be detailed in subsequent posts. Even many analytics have started to drift in the seamless flow of reality.
[iv]Here is where language gets tricky, most of our words connotating some fundamental reality are Aristotelean, this leaves the process philosopher at a semantic disadvantage, our very words seem to bely our points. All I can do is point out this flaw and hope the reader will extend me his/her charity.
[v]Rescher (1996) Process Metaphysics, SUNY Press.
[vi]My own term for the metaphysical concepts that form the space for paradigms to populate.