The Philosophy of Organism

[Philosophy Now]

Peter Sjöstedt-H introduces Whitehead’s organic awareness of reality.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Th ... f_Organism

[Impenitent]

not bad, but Gottfried would be disappointed...

-Imp

[Nick_A]

The Philosophy of Organism with its unification of mind and matter at stages of reality reminds me of the ancient idea of the Great Chain of Being which I believe to be accurate.

The philosophy of organism is a form of process philosophy. This type of philosophy seeks to overcome the problems in the traditional metaphysical options of dualism, materialism, and idealism. From the perspective of process philosophy, the error of dualism is to take mind and matter to be fundamentally distinct; the error of materialism is to fall for this first error then omit mind as fundamental; the error of idealism is also to fall for the first error then to omit matter as fundamental. The philosophy of organism seeks to resolve these issues by fusing the concepts of mind and matter, thereby creating an ‘organic realism’ as Whitehead also named his philosophy. To gain an overview of this marvelous, revolutionary, yet most logical philosophy, let’s first look at what Whitehead means by ‘realism’, then at the meaning of its prefix, ‘organic’.

http://faculty.up.edu/asarnow/greatchainofbeing.htm

Among the most important of the continuities with the Classical period was the concept of the Great Chain of Being. Its major premise was that every existing thing in the universe had its "place" in a divinely planned hierarchical order, which was pictured as a chain vertically extended. ("Hierarchical" refers to an order based on a series of higher and lower, strictly ranked gradations.) An object's "place" depended on the relative proportion of "spirit" and "matter" it contained--the less "spirit" and the more "matter," the lower down it stood. At the bottom, for example, stood various types of inanimate objects, such as metals, stones, and the four elements (earth, water, air, fire). Higher up were various members of the vegetative class, like trees and flowers. Then came animals; then humans; and then angels. At the very top was God. Then within each of these large groups, there were other hierarchies. For example, among metals, gold was the noblest and stood highest; lead had less "spirit" and more matter and so stood lower. (Alchemy was based on the belief that lead could be changed to gold through an infusion of "spirit.") The various species of plants, animals, humans, and angels were similarly ranked from low to high within their respective segments. Finally, it was believed that between the segments themselves, there was continuity (shellfish were lowest among animals and shaded into the vegetative class, for example, because without locomotion, they most resembled plants)………………………

The hierarchy of being determined by the relationship between spirit and matter united in various degrees of objective quality forming an objective hierarchy is best avoided since it invites speculation on the dreaded G word at the top of the hierarchy which is a no no. Better to stick with politics. But for those open to impartial contemplation as opposed to blind denial, comparing these two perspectives can be rewarding.

[yiostheoy]

Whitehead’s metaphysics argues that perception involves the partial fusion of object and subject, of the world and the perceiving organism.

This part is pure crap.

Perception is a process of detecting energy such as light or sound. There is no fusion.

You need to be able to pick out the crap really fast and right away.

That's why I usually go first to the last paragraph -- that's where the crap mostly hides.

The rest of the crap is mostly B/S building up the final crap.