A history of the concept of God through the lens of process thought.

Argues for political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy as a politically liberal view Daniel A. Dombrowski brings together the thought of the 20th-century philosophy's greatest political liberal, John Rawls, with the thought of the great process philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. He shows that political liberalism is intimately linked with process philosophy, renaming it 'process liberalism'. He justifies this process liberalism in contrast to four potentially troublesome sources or influences: metaphysics, religion, right-wing politics (...) and left-wing politics. Dombrowski engages a series of interlocutors and alternative positions including Franklin I. Gamwell, Timothy D. Snyder, Martin Heidegger and Karl Marx. In conclusion, he offers a compelling, intricate and resourceful argument for nonhuman animal rights based on Rawlsian principles, which in turn forms the basis of a future environmental ethics. (shrink)

Process Mysticism uses the process philosophies of Charles Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead, and Henri Bergson to explore mystical religious experiences. The aim is not so much to demonstrate that such experiences are true or veridical as it is to understand, in a William Jamesian fashion, how they could be possible and not contradict the concept of God held by philosophers and theologians. Divine world-inclusiveness, ideal power and tragedy, the ontological argument, asceticism and the via negativa, divine visions and voices, and (...) the aesthetics and ethics of mysticism are all treated in detail. The book is ecumenical in that it is meant to illuminate mystical experiences as they occur around the world in different religious traditions, but the author is especially familiar with those in the Abrahamic religions. "Mysticism" can refer to either direct experience of God or the claim that such experience is ineffable, and both senses of the term are carefully analyzed in the book. (shrink)

Griffin's panexperientialism as perennial philosophy -- Stengers on Whitehead on God -- Rawlsian political liberalism and process thought -- Hartshorne, the process concept of God, and pacifism -- Butler and grievable lives -- Wordsworth, Whitehead, and the romantic reaction.

The Singer-Regan debate -- Reciprocity -- Frey's challenge -- The criticisms of Leahy and Carruthers -- The great ape project and slavery -- The Nozick-Rachels debate.

ABSTRACT In this article I freely use the thought of Charles Hartshorne to defend the ethical permissibility of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. In the later stages of pregnancy the fetus has an ethical status similar to that of a sentient yet non‐rational animal, a status which should generate in us considerable ethical respect. The distinctiveness of this Hartshornian approach lies in the effort to bring metaphysics to bear on a controversial issue in applied ethics. In particular, the (...) metaphysical issue of temporal relations is crucial to consider in the effort to ascertain the ethical status of the fetus. Two symmetrical (immoderate) theories of temporal relations are criticised, one of which provides the basis for opposition to abortion, a theory wherein one is internally related both to one's past and to one's future. An asymmetrical (moderate) theory of temporal relations is defended, a theory wherein one is internally related to one's past yet externally related to the future. This latter theory would permit abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. (shrink)

Employs the political philosophy of John Rawls to address controversies involving politics and religion.

In recent years, the ontological argument and theistic metaphysics have been criticised by philosophers working in both the analytic and continental traditions. Responses to these criticisms have primarily come from philosophers who make use of the traditional, and problematic, concept of God. In this volume, Daniel A. Dombrowski defends the ontological argument against its contemporary critics, but he does so by using a neoclassical or process concept of God, thereby strengthening the case for a contemporary theistic metaphysics. Relying (...) on the thought of Charles Hartshorne, he builds on Hartshorne's crucial distinction between divine existence and divine actuality, which enables neoclassical defenders of the ontological argument to avoid the familiar criticism that the argument moves illegitimately from an abstract concept to concrete reality. His argument, thus, avoids the problems inherent in the traditional concept of God as static. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson claims that the argument from marginal cases is 'the central argument' behind the claim that nonhuman animals have rights. But she thinks, along with Cora Diamond, that the argument is 'obtuse'. Two different meanings could be intended here: that the argument from marginal cases is too blunt or dull to dissect the reasons why it makes sense to say that nonhuman animals have rights or that the argument from marginal cases is insensitive regarding nonrational human beings. The purpose (...) of the present article is to argue that, despite Anderson's and Diamond's nuanced and perceptive treatments of the argument from marginal cases, this argument is not obtuse in either sense of the term. (shrink)

The ancient background -- Weiss and the pursuit of bodily excellence -- Huizinga and the homo ludens hypothesis -- Feezell, moderation, and irony -- The process of becoming virtuous.

It has often been noticed that Plato's metaphysical view of being is dipolar. The purpose of the present article is to detail what it means to say that being is dipolar in Plato. Further, I will explore the extent to which dipolarity in Whitehead is indebted to Plato and the extent to which Whitehead's dipolarity is different from Plato's. In this regard I will concentrate on Whitehead's recently published Harvard Lectures.

Charles Hartshorne is one of the premier metaphysicians and philosophers of religion in the twentieth century.

This tightly argued, historically grounded study sets out to demonstrate that a 'pro-choice' stance is as fully justified by Catholic thought as an anti-abortion view, and may even be more compatible with Catholic tradition than the current opposition to abortion espoused by most Catholic leaders.

While considered by many as one of the greatest philosophers of religion and metaphysicians of the 20th century, Charles Hartshorne’s contributions to the study of aesthetics are perhaps the most neglected aspect of his extensive and highly nuanced thought. DIVINE BEAUTY offers the first detailed explication of Hartshorne’s aesthetic theory and its place within his theocentric philosophy.

In this article I argue both that an understanding of sport’s general character as competitive play can help us to read Homer more insightfully and that this reading can boomerang back to us to further illuminate the sport as competitive play thesis. My overall method is that of (Rawlsian) reflective equilibrium. The three sections of Homer that I examine are the Phaiacian games in Book 8 of the ‘Odyssey’, the Patroclos games in Book 23 of the ‘Iliad’, and the Penelope (...) games in Books 21–22 of the ‘Odyssey’. (shrink)

In this article I concentrate on three issues. First, Graham Oppy’s treatment of the relationship between the concept of infinity and Zeno’s paradoxes lay bare several porblems that must be dealt with if the concept of infinity is to do any intellectual work in philosophy of religion. Here I will expand on some insightful remarks by Oppy in an effort ot adequately respond to these problems. Second, I will do the same regarding Oppy’s treatment of Kant’s first antinomy in the (...) first critique, which deals in part with the question of whether the world had a beginning in time or if time extends infinitely into the past. And third, my examination of these two issues will inform what I have to say regarding a key topic in philosophy of religion: the question regarding the proper relationship between the infinite and the finite in the concept of God. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s an amazing philosopher has blazed across the philosophic sky—Stephen R. L. Clark. To date he has written twelve books, including _From Athens to Jerusalem, Aristotle's Man, Animals and Their Moral Standing, Civil Peace and Sacred Order, God's World and the Great Awakening, The Mysteries of Religion, The Moral Status of Animals, The Nature of the Beast, and A Parliament of Souls,_ as well as dozens of articles. Critics find him "arresting," "profound," "amusing," and, paradoxically, "irritating." In this (...) first critical work on Stephen Clark, Daniel Dombrowski provides a complete view of this intriguing philosopher and his work. Primarily, Clark's writing has focussed on three seemingly distinct philosophical spheres: philosophy of religion, the moral status of animals, and political philosophy. Unfortunately however, those familiar with one realm of his work, tend not to be familiar with what he has done in the other areas. To truly understand any one of Clark's specific concepts, one must comprehend the overlying philosophy that weaves them together. Dombrowski meticulously and critically assesses a wealth of important ideas and philosophical and theological topics to provide us with a firm grasp of Clark's ideas about God, animals, the environment, and politics. _Not Even A Sparrow Falls_ also tackles the difficult problem of determining Clark's stance among the many ideas he presents with varying degrees of seriousness and with various rhetorical goals in mind, as expressed in _The Moral Status of Animals_: _I am Aristotelian on Mondays and Wednesdays, a Pyrrhonian Sceptic on Tuesdays and Fridays, a Neo- Platonist on Thursdays and Saturdays and worship in the local Episcopalian church on Sundays. _. (shrink)

In this short article I respond, both positively and negatively, but mostly positively, to Jan Deckers’ examination of my defense of nonhuman animal rights from the perspective of process philosophy and from the perspective of what is commonly called the argument from marginal cases.

In this article I defend the claim that nonhuman animals can be persons. In this regard I rely on the thought of neoclassical or process theists like Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Their moderate stance regarding personhood is in contrast to the influential classical theistic view, which denies personhood status to nonhuman animals.

John Rawls is widely acknowledged to be the most influential political philosopher of the twentieth century. But the implications of his views for both religious belief and religious believers are hotly contested. Some think that he is largely on the right track, indeed that he solves many of the traditional problems regarding the relationship between politics and religion.1 Others are critical of his approach.2 Perhaps the most insightful of these critics of Rawls, who argues from the perspective of a metaphysical (...) view or a comprehensive religious doctrine, is Franklin Gamwell. It will be the purpose of the present article to both order Gamwell’s criticisms of Rawls, which are spread across seven... (shrink)

In this article I argue for the superiority of the neoclassical (or process) concept of God to the classical concept of God as static, especially as the former relates to the moral superiority of pacifism to just war theory. However, the two main proponents of neoclassical or process theism—Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne—failed to see the full ramifications of their improved concept of God in that they tended to stop short of pacifism by maintaining an uneasy alliance with the (...) violence often associated with classical theism. (shrink)

A moral orientation of a historically existing state is superior to an immoral one; but even a moral state or leader cannot be perfectly moral. The Republic (or its symbol, ancient Athens) is impossible for metaphysical and practical reasons, and it must suffer the same fate as Atlantis in this story, i.e., destruction at the hands of nature.

This book is a collection of 26 previously published essays on ‘Olympic philosophy,’ both ancient and modern. Because the essays were published over the past 20 years in various journals and books,...

There is a well known debate between those who defend a traditional (or classical) concept of God and those who defend a process (or neoclassical) concept of God. Not as well known are the implications of these two rival concepts of God in the effort to understand religious experience. With the aid of the great pragmatist philosopher John Smith, I defend the process (or neoclassical) concept of God in its ability to better illuminate and render as intelligible as possible mystical (...) experience. (shrink)

It is common to hear the claim that referees in sporting events are doing their jobs well so long as they are, quite simply, being fair to both sides in a competitive event. It will be the purpose...