The Philosophy of Organism: Can anyone provide insight into the basics of the philosophy, especially as it relates to Whitehead's Process and Reality?

Sorry. I don’t know.

For some reason I keep on reading it as the ‘Philosophy of Orgasm’... (if only….)

Care to give more detail about this philosophy of orgas- er… organism? You know, help us to help you?

@Saturated_Brain I read it as orgasm too…I was so confused by the rest of the question! ...Until I reread it and realized I probably think about sex too much.

yep, boys, i was expecting the “orgasm” not “organism” reading :)

i wish i could provide more info. i know that it relates to biology, metaphysics and philosophy. i know whitehead is regarded as a kind of Plato of the 20th century. beyond that, i guess i;m hoping someone who studies or studied philosophy will jump in and provide all of us with more info.

thanks for your reviews and responses nonetheless!

I am so happy (and thoroughly impressed) that you followed up on my recommendation! Philosophy of organism is commonly referred to as process philosophy, because people who take this view think that the world and everything in it (for Whitehead and some others, this includes God) exists in a continual process of becoming-itself – becoming is what existence is. We would not exist as we do unless we were beings that changed, whose “essence” (which is a bad word for what I am trying to describe, because its connotations are more of a gathering-into-itself instead of a growth). Existence is all about interrelations and unpredictable change of individuals based on their capacity for self-determination (which is based on their level of complexity; atoms have a small amount of self-determination, humans a large amount). Wikipedia’s article on process philosophy is somewhat better than the one you were looking at.

I ought to explain a bit about Sherburne’s Key. Process and Reality was a series of lectures made into a book. Sherburne was one of the editors of the book, and he saw the need to make it more accessible. Whitehead would touch on parts of his whole theory in each lecture, so the book reads kind of oddly. He did have a reason for talking about things in the order that he did, but it is very confusing unless you are already a bit familiar with his language. Sherburne sat down with four copies of Process and Reality in front of him, and took sentences from different parts of the book that are about the same topic (like the most important references to actual occasions, for instance) and put them next to each other, and then ordered all the topics in a way that leads you from one to the other in a straight line instead of in an electron cloud the way Whitehead did. So when you read the Key, you are reading Whitehead’s words verbatim, but not in quite the order he intended.

@wildpotato thanks so much for chiming in! I’ll have to consider your response more deliberately before i can respond directly to it, but it seems that the philosophy of organism has some direct relationship to biology or appreciation by biologists. and as you describe the continual process of becoming, it sounds rather like biological evolution. i’m sure it’s more abstract than evolution, but is evolution an example of a concrete expression of the process of becoming in the context of the philosophy of organism?

also, i found the first few paragraphs of the key (and admit i haven’t progressed much beyond them!) very interesting as Whitehead discusses the actual entity or actual occasion. and while i need to of course think more about this, his statement that actual entities are of varying complexity, but in all cases the basic essence (enablers?) of existence, especially hit a chord when he adds that God is every bit an actual entity as is the barest wiff of existence in far off space…takes more thought, but again, hits a chord.

thanks for the clarification regarding the key itself and i will get back to you with more questions on this topic, perhaps via PM if you’re ok with it?

Process philosophy.
More process philosophy.
Whitehead is better known as Russell’s accomplice in Principia Mathematica.

@avalmez sure, but maybe tomorrow night? I don’t know if I’ve lived in NYC long enough to be qualified to say that I hate the subway, but I just went through one of the most hellish commutes I have ever experienced.

@wildpotato: NYC residency for a week qualifies you to hate the subway and posit that God does not exist underground.

Next time, wear a gas mask, or a hazmat suit (see Shilolo’s avatar.)