The objective of this article is to show that Whitehead had a very important philosophy of education both on the formal level. The consistency found is well worth noting. I researched many of Whitehead's major works for his formal views and Lucian Price's Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. In my opinion Price's book is the best available for the purpose of getting Whitehead's candid informal view of education. The paper is divided into sections according to the particular subject matter. Since (...) Whitehead describes education as the study of life and all of its manifestations . It is appropriate to cover some of these areas: the purpose of education, the role of science and speculation, education and civilization, and both the process of education and process education are reviewed. Whitehead's philosophy of education is sweeping in scope. In his philosophy we find the importance of experience, imagination, speculation, generalization, factual knowledge, specialization, relevance, intuition, novelty, curiosity, theory, practice, pleasure, harmony, freedom, discipline, technical and liberal education and unification. He, in fact, unifies all these seemingly different areas into a coherent philosophy of education. (shrink)

This article provides a novel inroad to the field of process philosophy and its application. It does this by elucidating the relationship between two modes of thought—static and process thinking—as a key to cocreating ecological civilization. Static and process modes of thought are conceptualized in terms of five “basic orientations”: abstract and context, closed and open, isolating and relational, passive and generative, one-dimensional and multidimensional. Inspired by the work of Alfred North Whitehead, Arran Gare, and Julie Nelson, these dynamic dualisms (...) are resolved by nesting static perspectives within process-relational contexts. This article argues that “hegemonic static thinking” is guiding decision-making at root of global crises. While also avoiding “dualistic process thinking,” “encompassing process thinking” that includes and transcends static thinking is posited as a mode of thought conducive to more ecological and community-oriented decision-making across multiple scales. This article establishes the philosophical consistency of this nested “static-process framework,” using it to show how process metaphysics underpins interlinking shifts in worldviews, politics, and economics for moving from industrial to ecological civilization. (shrink)

In this paper I try to elucidate the differences between theoretical and practical endeavors in philosophy, and then to show that in a sense philosophy has to be theoretical, but— if it claims to be viable—it must be practical as well. First I consider the meaning of the terms theoretical, practical, abstract, and concrete. Then, with the help of Whitehead’s ideas on this topic, I briefly reflect on the method, aims and role of philosophy. I hold that a properly established (...) philosophical approach should have its roots in concrete experience and should include concrete applications. Thus, abstract ideas can be (and indeed often are) transformed into our daily life practices, being applied to solve real problems—personal, social, environmental, etc. The ideas are conveyed from the sphere of philosophy to that of ordinary life. In the next stage I demonstrate this principle using a concrete example, Whitehead’s philosophical system and how it can be fruitfully applied to the sphere of deep ecology. There are many other examples that could be mentioned, but giving a proper demonstration of this application principle requires more space and so I concentrate only on one of these examples. (shrink)

Globalization consists of global interculture strengthening local cultures as it depends on them. Globality and locality are interdependent, and “universal” must be replaced by “inter-versal” as existence inter-exists. Chinese thinking thus must be Chinese, not Western, as Western thinking must be Western, not “universal”; China must help the West be Western, as the West must help China be Chinese. As Mrs. Tu speaks English in Chinese syntax, so “sinologists” logicize in Chinese phrases. English speakers parse her to realize the distinctness (...) of English; Chinese thinkers parse Western “sinologists” to realize the distinctness of China. Inter-versal parsing toward cultural inter-enrichment occurs in three stages. This is intercultural globalization. (shrink)