"Reading this fascinating piece – for which so many thanks – I couldn’t help feeling that, though I am not a thorough Whitehead scholar by any means, and don’t know Stengers’ book, so many themes here are central from hemisphere theory, and are of course central theses of The Matter with Things: the nature of scientific knowledge; the reconsidering of objectivity as the coming together of multiple viewpoints; the need for waves and particles, and in general for both ‘both/and’ AND ‘either/or’, not either ‘both/and’ OR ‘either/or’ – and certainly not just ‘either/or’; the essentially embodied and feeling-endowed nature of experience; the fact that the concrete becomes before the abstract, which is a subsequent derivative; organicity preceding mechanicity, which is a particular way of looking at a complex and organic whole in some circumstances for some purposes; habits, not laws; nested organisms or holarchies at different levels; numbers as essentially dynamic and relational, not static and isolated; no fact or existent entity being ever isolated, but ultimately connected to everything else; the need for difference and union, but the difference enriching the union, not jeopardising it; that nothing is without value; that values always guide decisions; that there is always necessarily ‘togetherness’ (what I call ‘betweenness’); that all our relations are reciprocal or reverberative, including those with the ‘inanimate’ world; the need to avoid idealism or materialism, but not by a mere compromise position; the central place of analogy in understanding, as opposed to logic in explaining a mechanism … I won’t go on. Anyone reading this who had not read The Matter with Things would question how these philosophical points could be illuminated by hemisphere theory, but those like yourself who have read it will know, I hope, why I say this.
Since I largely reached my conclusions from science, rather than the pages of Whitehead, I ask myself was Whitehead intuiting hemisphere differences in scrutinising his own thought processes – at least to some extent? (Hemisphere theory also helps us understand many other issues as well, of course, that are not central to the discussion of Whitehead’s philosophy.) What do you think? Or perhaps it is not a helpful question to ask. -Iain"
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My reply:
"Thank YOU, Iain, for reading a post with so many typos, which I’ve only just caught upon re-reading this morning : ) As you could probably tell, I was working from a transcript of my lectures on Stengers’ book.
Indeed, there are of course many examples of hemispheric polarity in Stengers’ Whiteheadian treatment of the contemporary politicization of science. One might point out the left-hemisphere imbalance operative in upholding the “myth of the isolated fact,” but also in the rigid adherence to linear linkages of select facts meant to prove a causal relation between this and that (eg, sodium causes heart disease) when in fact there are many confounding variables (I know you discuss this particular issue in TMWT!).
I do find that Whitehead is very often trying to “have it both ways” when it comes to the dualistic disputes typical of modern philosophy. But usually his way of having both is not symmetrical, but privileges, eg, aesthetics over logic (logic as a subset of aesthetics), vague but meaningful bodily feelings over clear but superficial visual impressions, concrete actuality over abstract universality, etc."
I don't know if hemispheric polarity is a current topic for neurologists, but maybe the idea of an "imbalance" (imbalances are bad, right?) could help the hard science folks become more comfortable with the idea that their feelings are indeed influencing their ideas.
I only had time to skim this article, but I continue to find explanations of Whitehead's philosophy here to resonate with my own experience from paying attention to how I think and live my life. The inclusion of religion or spiritual curiosity of some sort or another seems to enable a wider understanding of our minds.
I think one reason our society is in crisis is that people are desperately searching for meaning in a culture that has cut off all the ways humans used to do this. You can only get so far being "objective" and "rational." The Whitehead circles that I come across give me hope for the long term.
Speaking of circles, glad to have awareness of Stengers. Haraway's When Species Meet was a delightful and sensible approach to inter-species ethics.
A lot of this touches on the ontologies and onto-epistemologies that people experience in contact with ETs and other NHI (non-human intelligences) in expanded states of consciousness. Some experience a singular mind or field of consciousness akin to David Bohms philosophy. Are there any works that dialogue Whitehead and Bohm? As far as linguistics (in the most broadly metaphysical understanding of it) and phenomenology (including phenomenology of perception), are there any works that you would recommend as top of your list that integrate those philosophers with process-relational philosophers like Whitehead and Hartsorne for the study of extraordinary experiences in expanded states of consciousness (of meditators)?
The more we walk in the woods, the more sense Whitehead makes. And as for meeting the eyes of our fellow creatures: that's a meditation in itself, or a philosophical exploration, or both.
Below I am sharing Iain McGilchrist's comment in reply to this post on my blog (https://footnotes2plato.com/2024/09/24/making-sense-in-common-a-reading-of-whitehead-in-times-of-collapse-by-isabelle-stengers/#comment-148003), followed by my reply to him:
McGilchrist:
"Reading this fascinating piece – for which so many thanks – I couldn’t help feeling that, though I am not a thorough Whitehead scholar by any means, and don’t know Stengers’ book, so many themes here are central from hemisphere theory, and are of course central theses of The Matter with Things: the nature of scientific knowledge; the reconsidering of objectivity as the coming together of multiple viewpoints; the need for waves and particles, and in general for both ‘both/and’ AND ‘either/or’, not either ‘both/and’ OR ‘either/or’ – and certainly not just ‘either/or’; the essentially embodied and feeling-endowed nature of experience; the fact that the concrete becomes before the abstract, which is a subsequent derivative; organicity preceding mechanicity, which is a particular way of looking at a complex and organic whole in some circumstances for some purposes; habits, not laws; nested organisms or holarchies at different levels; numbers as essentially dynamic and relational, not static and isolated; no fact or existent entity being ever isolated, but ultimately connected to everything else; the need for difference and union, but the difference enriching the union, not jeopardising it; that nothing is without value; that values always guide decisions; that there is always necessarily ‘togetherness’ (what I call ‘betweenness’); that all our relations are reciprocal or reverberative, including those with the ‘inanimate’ world; the need to avoid idealism or materialism, but not by a mere compromise position; the central place of analogy in understanding, as opposed to logic in explaining a mechanism … I won’t go on. Anyone reading this who had not read The Matter with Things would question how these philosophical points could be illuminated by hemisphere theory, but those like yourself who have read it will know, I hope, why I say this.
Since I largely reached my conclusions from science, rather than the pages of Whitehead, I ask myself was Whitehead intuiting hemisphere differences in scrutinising his own thought processes – at least to some extent? (Hemisphere theory also helps us understand many other issues as well, of course, that are not central to the discussion of Whitehead’s philosophy.) What do you think? Or perhaps it is not a helpful question to ask. -Iain"
---------
My reply:
"Thank YOU, Iain, for reading a post with so many typos, which I’ve only just caught upon re-reading this morning : ) As you could probably tell, I was working from a transcript of my lectures on Stengers’ book.
Indeed, there are of course many examples of hemispheric polarity in Stengers’ Whiteheadian treatment of the contemporary politicization of science. One might point out the left-hemisphere imbalance operative in upholding the “myth of the isolated fact,” but also in the rigid adherence to linear linkages of select facts meant to prove a causal relation between this and that (eg, sodium causes heart disease) when in fact there are many confounding variables (I know you discuss this particular issue in TMWT!).
I do find that Whitehead is very often trying to “have it both ways” when it comes to the dualistic disputes typical of modern philosophy. But usually his way of having both is not symmetrical, but privileges, eg, aesthetics over logic (logic as a subset of aesthetics), vague but meaningful bodily feelings over clear but superficial visual impressions, concrete actuality over abstract universality, etc."
I don't know if hemispheric polarity is a current topic for neurologists, but maybe the idea of an "imbalance" (imbalances are bad, right?) could help the hard science folks become more comfortable with the idea that their feelings are indeed influencing their ideas.
I only had time to skim this article, but I continue to find explanations of Whitehead's philosophy here to resonate with my own experience from paying attention to how I think and live my life. The inclusion of religion or spiritual curiosity of some sort or another seems to enable a wider understanding of our minds.
I think one reason our society is in crisis is that people are desperately searching for meaning in a culture that has cut off all the ways humans used to do this. You can only get so far being "objective" and "rational." The Whitehead circles that I come across give me hope for the long term.
Speaking of circles, glad to have awareness of Stengers. Haraway's When Species Meet was a delightful and sensible approach to inter-species ethics.
A lot of this touches on the ontologies and onto-epistemologies that people experience in contact with ETs and other NHI (non-human intelligences) in expanded states of consciousness. Some experience a singular mind or field of consciousness akin to David Bohms philosophy. Are there any works that dialogue Whitehead and Bohm? As far as linguistics (in the most broadly metaphysical understanding of it) and phenomenology (including phenomenology of perception), are there any works that you would recommend as top of your list that integrate those philosophers with process-relational philosophers like Whitehead and Hartsorne for the study of extraordinary experiences in expanded states of consciousness (of meditators)?
The more we walk in the woods, the more sense Whitehead makes. And as for meeting the eyes of our fellow creatures: that's a meditation in itself, or a philosophical exploration, or both.
Thanks for sharing some of your insights from your walk : )
Yes, there's a great book on Whitehead and Heidegger by Olav Bryant Smith called "Myths of the Self": https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739108437/Myths-of-the-Self-Narrative-Identity-and-Postmodern-Metaphysics