"Michel Weber and Will Desmond, (eds.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought X1 & X2, 2008. (695 p. + 726 p. ; ISBN 978-3-938793-92-3 ; 398 €) Gathering 115 entries written by 101 internationally renowned experts in their fields, the Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought aims at interpreting Whitehead secundum Whitehead, at canvassing the current state of knowledge in Whiteheadian scholarship and at identifying promising directions for future investigations through (internal) cross-elucidation and (external) interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary development. Table of Contents Introduction I. Aesthetics II. Anthropology III. Ecology IV. Economy V. Education VI. Ethics VII. Gender Studies VIII. History IX. Language X. Mathematics and Logic XI. Metaphysics XII. Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind XIII. Public Policy XIV. Science XV. Sociology of Science XVI. Theology and Religion XVII. Theory of Knowledge XVIII. Urbanism & Architecture XIX. Biographical entries XX. Critical Apparatus Authors : A Sister of St-John, Adam Scarfe , Albert C. Lewis, Alessandro Sardi, Alix Parmentier, Andrew Dawson, Annamaria Miranda, Arran Gare, Barbara Muraca, Berit Brogaard, Beth Lord, Brian G. Henning, Bruce Duncan MacQueen, Bruce G. Epperly, Carol F. Johnston, Carol P. Christ, Claude de Jonckheere, Claus Michael Ringel, Clifford Cobb, Craig Eisendrath, Daniel A. Dombrowski, David G. Butt, David Ray Griffin, Dominic J. Balestra, Donald Wayne Viney, Donna Bowman, Douglas R. Anderson, Elias L. Khalil, Elie During, Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos, Franck Robert, Gao Shan, Gary A. Cook, George Allan, Giangiacomo Gerla , Gottfried Heinemann, Graham Bird, Granville C. Henry, jr., Gudmund Smith, Guillaume Durand, Howard Woodhouse, Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Jaime Nubiola, James Connelly, James Williams, Jean-Pascal Alcantara, Johanna Seibt, John B. Cobb, Jr., John H. Buchanan, John Quiring , John W. Lango, Jonathan Delafield-Butt, Jorge Luis Nobo, Joseph A. Bracken, S.J., Joseph E. Earley, Sr., Joseph Grange, Juan Vicente Mayoral de Lucas, Judith Jones, Julie A. Nelson, Kipton Jensen, Leemon McHenry, Les Muray, Lieven Decock, Liliana Albertazzi, Luca Gaeta, Luca Vanzago, Manuel Bächtold, Marc Maesschalck, Maria Pachalska , Mark Modak-Truran, Mark R. Dibben, Mary Elizabeth Moore, Max Velmans, Michael Epperson, Michael Fortescue, Michel Weber, Murray Code, Mustafa Ruezgar, Norman Sieroka, Patrick J. Coppock, Paul Custodio Bube, Peter Hare, Peter Simons, Pierfrancesco Basile, Les Muray, Randall E. Auxier, Richard Feist, Robert Castiglione, Robert J.Valenza, Ronny Desmet , Ross L. Stein, Rudolf Windeln, Stephen T. Franklin, Sylviane R. Schwer, T. L. S. Sprigge, Thomas A. F. Kelly, Thomas E. Hosinski, C.S.C., Timothy E. Eastman, Vincent Shen, Volker Peckhaus, William Jay Garland, William T. Myers"

"The present Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought is the product of three years of collective labor. Gathering 113 entries written by 101 internationally renowned experts in their fields, it aims at canvassing the current state of knowledge in Whiteheadian scholarship and at identifying promising directions for future investigations through (internal) cross-elucidation and (external) interdisciplinary development. There is indeed an urgent need to interpret Whitehead secundum Whitehead and to read him from the vantage point of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research. As Felix Frankfurter claimed in his tribute to the philosopher some sixty years ago, the “need for breaking down sterilizing departmentalization has been widely felt. Unfortunately, however, a too frequent way of doing it has been, wittily but not too unfairly, described as the cross-sterilization of the social sciences.”1 This misplaced concreteness is precisely what we seek to avoid here."

« The Urizen of Whiteheadian Process Thought », Mark Dibben and Rebecca Newton (eds.), Applied Process Thought II: Following a Trail Ablaze, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought XXI, 2009, pp. 61-73.

In his brief preface to Adventures of Ideas, Whitehead provides a rare window into how he conceived of his own work. “The three books—Science and The Modern World, Process and Reality, Adventures of Ideas—are an endeavour to express a way of understanding the nature of things…. Each book can be read separately; but they supplement each other’s omissions or compressions” (AI vii). If I am correct, one of the most important concepts in process thought is virtually absent from Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality. I suggest that the single most important “omission” remedied by Adventures of Ideas is the claim that beauty is the one self-justifying aim of the universe, that “The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty” (AI 265). Creativity is in this sense “kalogenic”; it is inherently beauty generating. Though there are notable exceptions, surprisingly few process scholars have recognized and embraced the significance of this claim. Indeed, beauty is notable in its absence from most of the major works on process metaphysics, which tend to focus on Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World and Process and Reality. Perhaps fearing charges of aestheticism, those who do note the centrality of beauty have mistakenly sought either to minimize its significance or to explain it away as metaphorical embellishment. The goal of this brief essay is to defend the view that process thought, particularly process ethics, will be more adequate and applicable if it is “re-centered” around the concept of beauty.

The global covid-19 pandemic earnestly reminds us of the fragility of existence in the face of disaster. The question of evil has engaged theologians, philosophers, and ordinary folk either in defense of a belief in a benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient supreme being or to turn towards atheism. Admitting the presence of evil while insisting on the existence of God requires what has come to be called a theodicy, understood as the task of justifying the role of an ultimate being in the face of evil. We soon realize, while attempting this, that the classical theistic stance presents logical contradictions by holding God to a strict independence and unilateral power. If we pursue the idea that God is independent of the world, determining entirely its reality by sheer volition, we are challenged by the problem of how a benevolent being causes evil to befall a world that he supposedly loves unconditionally. Creating a logically coherent theodicy requires a reassessment of classical attributes of God that disallow a cohabitation of God and an evil-ridden world, such is the aim of process thought. Process philosophy, largely construed, goes as far back as the pre-Socratic era in the ideas of Anaximander, through to Socrates, much later Spinoza, and more systematically elucidated by Alfred North Whitehead. Its leading proponents about the problem of evil are Charles Hartshorne, David Griffin, and John Cobb among a few others. The present paper explores and critically examines process theism with focus on the relationship between God and natural evil i.e., covid-19. It aims, firstly, to offer an understanding of the metaphysical structure of process philosophy and define the role of God in such a world. Secondly, to contrast this image with classical theology on the nature of God, showing why its notions inevitably lead to contradictions. Lastly, I explain process theodicy as a remedy to the daunting questions of theodicy as well as illustrating its limitations.