Table Of ContentMind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and
Philosophy by John B. and David R. Griffin Cobb,
Jr.
John B. Cobb, Jr. is Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont, Avery professor of Religion
at Claremont Graduate School, and Director of the Center for Process Studies. David Ray Griffin teaches
Philosophy of religion at the School of theology at Claremont and Claremont Graduate School and is Executive
Director of the Center for Process Studies. Published by University Press of America, 1977. This book was
prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
(ENTIRE BOOK) A collection of essays by prominent physicists, biologists, geneticists,
zoologists, philosophers and other thinkers about the relationship between science and
philosophy, particularly the teleological versus the mechanistic explanation of the universe.
Special emphasis is given to the writings of Alfred North Whitehead and Process Theology.
Contributors include John Cobb, Jr., Theodosius Dobzhansky, Charles Hartshorne, and Arthur
Koestler.
Preface
These papers come from a conference held in Bellagio, Italy in June, 1974. The hope underlying
the conference was that, if aspects of Whitehead’s form of process philosophy were effectively
communicated to scientists who in turn could help philosophers understand the nature of their
current problems, both philosophers and scientists would benefit. Although communication
between the two communities is far from easy, this volume suggests that it is possible and that,
when it occurs, it is mutually fructifying.
Part 1: The Evolution of Mind
Chapter 1: The Frontiers of Biology -- Does Process Thought Help? by
W. H. Thorpe and Response by Bernhard Rensch.
The reduction of chemistry to physics, of biology to chemistry, of animal conscious or
subconscious experience to biology, and of consciousness itself and the creativeness of the
human mind to animal experience, are all problems that are unlikely if not impossible to succeed.
Chapter 2: Can Evolution be Accounted for Solely in Terms of
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
Mechanical Causation? by L. Charles Birch
The metaphysical background of process thought is far more germane to the evolutionary picture
provided by biology than is the mechanistic philosophy. The only sort of universe in which
evolution of organisms can occur is one in which the entities have subjective aim.
Chapter 3: From Potentiality to Realization in Evolutiony by
Theodosius Dobzhansky
The transcendence of life and human mind were evolutionary from the non-living to living
entities, but scientific knowledge is quite insufficient to give satisfactory accounts of these
transitions. An explanation is intractable and unsolved thus far.
Chapter 4: Emergence in Evolution: (Response to Birch and
Dobzhansky) by Ann Plamondon
In materialistic philosophy, "higher order" is an aggregate, and it cannot be said to be of greater
complexity than its constituents. But the author proposes that in evolutionary development the
higher-level order must have been contained in some sense in the lower-level constituent(s). Thus
when higher levels of order exhibit properties not belonging to their lower-level constituents, the
correct inference is not that something has been added to the lower-level constituents but, rather,
that they exhibit different properties when they organize the higher-level order.
Chapter 5: The Process Theory of Evolution and Notes on The
Evolution Of Mind by C. H. Waddington
The author proposes a solution to the dilemma of considering the beginning of the evolutionary
process as, on one end, depending on nothing but atoms, forces and physicochemical factors, and
the other end, as involving something of a totally different character we call ‘mind.’
Chapter 6: Some Whiteheadian Comments by John Cobb, and
Response by W. H. Thorpe
The most complex machine will not exhibit any purposiveness, yet the determinist and the
teleological arguments are intertwined into the very roots of nature. Self-conscience human
purpose is found in the higher orders, thus the author opposes a reductionist interpretation of
emergent novelties.
Part 2: Mind and Order
Chapter 1: The Implicate or Enfolded Order: A New Order for Physics
by David Bohm
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
The author uses an analyses of quantum theory and how it needs a fundamentally new notion of
order to show a development that is capable of making full contact with modern science, yet
assimilates common experience, to give a single, whole, unfragmented world view.
Chapter 2: Three Counter Strategies to Reductionism in Science by
Francis Zucker
Three research programs that are motivated by opposition to physical reductionism.
Chapter 3: Temporal Order and Spatial Order: Their Differences and
Relations by Milic Capek
Our instinctive tendency is to believe that the relations of succession can be adequately
symbolized by geometrical relations. The persistence of this belief has had disastrous influence
through the centuries on philosophical and theological thought, and upon physical theories as
well.
Chapter 4: Free Will in a Hierarchic Context by Arthur Koestler,
Responses by Charles Hartshorne and Bernhard Rensch
The degrees of freedom in the hierarchy increase with ascending order, and each upward shift of
attention to higher levels, each handing over of decision to higher echelons, is accompanied by
the experience of free choice. But is it merely a subjective experience? The author thinks not,
since freedom cannot be defined in absolute, only in relative, terms, as freedom from some
specific constraint.
Chapter 5: Some Whiteheadian Comments by John B. Cobb, Jr.
Reductive determinism mistakenly holds the view that when prediction of behavior and thought
is not possible, this is because of the complexity of the determining factors rather than because of
indeterminacy or freedom.
Part 3: The Primacy of Mind
Chapter 1: Arguments for Panpsychistic Identism by Bernhard Rensch
and Response by Charles Hartshorne
All psychic phenomena (sensations, mental images, feelings, thoughts and processes of volition)
are merged in our stream of consciousness. All psychic experience is therefore part of a process.
Many considerations speak in favor of this "panpsychistic identism."
Chapter 2. Panpsychism and Science by Sewall Wright
In addition to the necessarily deterministic and probabilistic interpretations of the material world
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
of science, there is the primary but private knowledge which each of us has of his own stream of
consciousness, more or less continually directed toward the finding of an acceptable course
through the difficulties of the external world by means of voluntary actions.
Chapter 3: Physics and Psychics: The Place of Mind in Nature by
Charles Hartshorne
Since physics and chemistry have demonstrated how limited in penetration our mere sense
perceptions are, how radically they fail to disclose what is really there in nature, it follows that
the entire traditional foundation for both materialism and dualism has been destroyed by the
advance of knowledge. All concrete or physical things (a) are minds of some high or low kind, or
(b) are composed of minds. However, only active singulars are individually sentient.
Chapter 4: Some Whiteheadian Comments by David Ray Griffin
The author discusses the similarities and differences between the insights of Bernhard Rensch,
Sewall Wright, and Charles Hartshorne, from a Whiteheadian point of view.
Part 4: Mind and Organism
Chapter 1: Some Main Philosophical Issues in Contemporary Scientific
Thought by Ivor Leclerc
Previously, biology was conceived as reductive to chemistry and chemistry as reductive to
physics. But today these sciences have distinct features. Biology, as an example, by virtue of its
structure, makes possible the requisite degree of conceptual origination, having the characteristic
of "life," which is not true of chemistry or physics.
Chapter 2: Whitehead and the Philosophy of Science by Ann
Plamondon and Response by Bernard Rensch
Metaphysics has an essential role in the philosophy of science -- that of the understanding and the
grounding of scientific concepts and methodology. That is, the fundamental concepts of a
metaphysical system should give an analysis of the foundational concepts of the sciences in such
a way that these concepts themselves provide a grounding -- a general logic -- of the
methodology of the sciences.
Chapter 3: Whitehead’s Philosophy and Some General Notions of
Physics and Biology by David R. Griffin
A discussion of Whitehead’s understanding of: 1) metaphysics and it’s relation to science; 2) the
fundamental categories to all of reality; 3) the implications in his understanding of fundamental
categories in the objects of physics; and 4) non-reductionistic biology which avoids dualism,
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
including vitalism.
Chapter 4: Can Whitehead Help Us Learn What We’re Talking
About? by Richard H. Overman
The proper interpretation of Lamarckian notions in genetics depends fully on knowing ‘what' we
are talking about. All new patterns of efficient causation in animal bodies can be traced to some
occasions’ subjective aims.
Chapter 5: Whitehead and Modern Science by C. H. Waddington
If we approach science from the Whiteheadian point of view, the fortress which the anti-scientists
will have to attack is not what they think it is, and may be capable of mounting a rather
devastating counter-attack.
Chapter 6: Concluding Editorial Comments by John B. Cobb, Jr.
From the sixteenth through the eighteenth century, philosophy and science developed in close
connection. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries they have become quite separate. The
disciplines of cosmology and philosophy of nature have fallen between the stools. Alfred North
Whitehead is the major twentieth-century exception to this breakdown of an ancient and fruitful
relation. C.H. Waddington believes that scientific thought is "just about now beginning to catch
up with the first phase of Whitehead’s thought," and that science will proceed in the general
direction Whitehead moved in his later work. The editors believe that the advance of science can
be facilitated by an ongoing discussion with Whitehead’s philosophy of nature, and hope that
more philosophers and scientists will join in the discussion.
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of
Science and Philosophy by John B. and
David R. Griffin Cobb, Jr.
John B. Cobb, Jr. is Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont,
Avery professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate School, and Director of the
Center for Process Studies. David Ray Griffin teaches Philosophy of religion at the
School of theology at Claremont and Claremont Graduate School and is Executive
Director of the Center for Process Studies. Published by University Press of
America, 1977. This book was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie
Brock.
Preface
Students of living things have long been in a quandary. On the one
hand, progress in understanding follows when they treat their objects
like complicated machines, composed purely of matter. On the other
hand, it is clear to many of them that living organisms, and especially
self-conscious human living organisms, are something quite different
from what their explanatory categories allow. Explaining in this
conventional way is too much like explaining away.
Many working biologists are content to add to the corpus of biological
knowledge without troubling themselves about these issues. Some
strongly insist that reductionistic explanations are fully adequate. But
others continue to seek ways of thinking that explain without explaining
away. The conferences and volumes for which C. H. Waddington has
been responsible have pressed toward new conceptualization; and
Arthur Koestler and 1. R. Smythies have edited essays developed from a
conference on "Beyond Reductionism."
Neo-Darwinism has played a prominent role in expanding the power of
reductionistic modes of thought in evolutionary theory. It has been an
effective force in weakening older forms of vitalism and teleological
thinking. Yet some of its chief architects do not themselves draw
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
reductionistic or materialistic implications from their theories. Sewall
Wright sees biological science as treating the externals of living things
with deterministic and statistical laws, but he believes the creatures
themselves have internality and freedom. Theodosius Dobzhansky
stresses the miracle of the emergence of humanity in its radical
discontinuity with the rest of the world. C. H. Waddington sees an
interaction between the purposive behavior of animals and their
environment that was inadequately recognized in more reductionistic
interpretations of neo-Darwinism.
Topics of this sort have not been in the center of philosophical attention
in the past generation. Neither existentialists nor language analysts
undertook to explain life. But there has been a tradition of philosophical
naturalism in this century, stressing organic and processive categories,
which seems to have the potential for fruitful interaction with the work
of reflective biologists. Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin in France have
obvious relevance, as do James, Peirce, and Dewey in the United States,
and Tennant and Alexander in England.
A small but growing number of philosophers have been particularly
impressed by the potential fruitfulness of the conceptuality of Alfred
North Whitehead. Whitehead called his position the ‘philosophy of
organism.’ He held that, while biology studies the larger organisms,
physics studies the smaller ones. Much scope for ‘reduction’ of
biological phenomena to physical ones remains, but when that to which
reduction occurs is not matter in motion but organisms in environments,
the meaning of ‘reduction’ is changed. Furthermore, organisms of
organisms can be understood as transcending their organic parts in ways
that the most complex machines do not.
In June, 1974, a meeting was held at the Rockefeller Foundation’s
Study and Conference Center at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellaglo, Italy,
to consider whether and how process philosophy in general, and
Whitehead’s conceptuality in particular, might help those who are
seeking new, nonmaterialistic or nonreductionistic ways of
understanding biology. Whitehead’s fully developed system in Process
and Reality is of such complexity as to have been largely inaccessible to
scientists, and the developments in science are so rapid and technical as
to bewilder philosophers. The hope underlying the conference was that,
if aspects of Whitehead’s form of process philosophy were effectively
communicated to scientists who in turn could help philosophers
understand the nature of their current problems, both philosophers and
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
scientists would benefit. Although communication between the two
communities is far from easy, this volume suggests that it is possible
and that, when it occurs, it is mutually fructifying.
The use of the term ‘mind’ in the title of the book may be misleading;
for the noun suggests that a substantial entity is in view. Process
thought, on the contrary, understands mind as mental activity or
functioning, especially purposive action. ‘Nature’ is similarly
understood by most participants as occurrence or event.
The papers in Part One, "The Evolution of Mind," describes the mystery
of the rise of self conscious, human, purposive action out of a flux in
which it has been customary to find no grounds for such an emergence.
Thorpe formulates the problem as a challenge to process philosophy
and, after papers by Birch, Dobzhansky, and Waddington, and
comments by Cobb on the potential contribution of Whitehead, Thorpe
shares his concluding reflections. The issues are: What kind of
continuity and what kind of discontinuity are to be found in the
evolutionary process? And can process philosophy help biologists to
understand their data?
Part Two, "Mind and Order," treats the broader question of what is
meant by ‘order’ and how order is related to the human experience of
purposive freedom. Several strategies for overcoming reductionism are
distinguished and defended. The discussion is chiefly between
physicists and philosophers, although the relation to biology is always
especially in view.
Part Three, "The Primacy of Mind," opens up the specifically
ontological question of how the ultimate entities of the universe are to
be conceived. Two biologists and one philosopher argue that the
psychical, or mental, or subjective elements in reality are more
fundamental than the physical, material, or objective elements.
Part Four, "Mind and Organism," consists of papers that deal
specifically with Whitehead. They include expositions of his philosophy
of nature and his philosophy of science as well as more topical and
critical treatments. The final essay (apart from the concluding editorial
comments) is an account by Waddington of how his own work as a
biologist has been influenced by Whitehead’s philosophy.
A collection of essays of this sort does not reach a unified conclusion.
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
Yet the editors find themselves confirmed in the beliefs (1) that the
philosophy of nature is an important and fruitful area for continuing
exploration, especially if scientists and philosophers can learn to work
together, and (2) that for the time being Whitehead’s rigorously
articulated vision provides the most promising basis for further
reflection in this area.
This book is published under the auspices of the Center for Process
Studies. The conference out of which this book arose was sponsored by
the Center with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Public thanks
are herewith given to the Rockefeller Foundation, with special thanks to
the directors of the study and conference program.
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of
Science and Philosophy by John B. and
David R. Griffin Cobb, Jr.
Part 1: The Evolution of Mind
John B. Cobb, Jr. is Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont,
Avery professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate School, and Director of the
Center for Process Studies. David Ray Griffin teaches Philosophy of religion at the
School of theology at Claremont and Claremont Graduate School and is Executive
Director of the Center for Process Studies. Published by University Press of
America, 1977. This book was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie
Brock.
Chapter 1: The Frontiers of Biology --
Does Process Thought Help? by W. H.
Thorpe and Response by Bernhard
Rensch.
W. H. Thorpe is Director of the Sub-Department of Animal Behavior,
Department of Zoology, at the University of Cambridge.
At the very start of my work in biological research I was much inspired
and stimulated by the writings of Whitehead. I expressed this in the first
chapter of my book (Thorpe 1951, 1963). He seemed to me one of the
very few philosophers who showed a real understanding of biology; its
nature and its problems. I still regard him as one of the most profound
minds of his time and still find refreshment and stimulation in his
writings on an extraordinary variety of topics.
But over the years I have found him less of a support in biological
research than I had at one time hoped and expected. So I will try to
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