Before going to the lecture of Dr. Cloots, allow me first to present a brief overview of what Process philosophy and Metaphysics are. Process philosophy is an established and time honored philosophical tradition that highlights becoming and changing over static being. Process philosophy has been recognized to be existent in many historical and cultural periods; however, the term “process philosophy” is primarily associated with the work of American philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000). Process philosophy is differentiated from other philosophical traditions in its attempt to bring together the varied intuitions found in human experience (such as religious, scientific, and aesthetic) into a consistent and comprehensible all-inclusive scheme. Metaphysics, on the other hand, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the study of reality transcending those of any particular science, traditionally including cosmology and ontology. Any attempt to investigate what reality is necessitates the need not to be confined on the physical. One must go beyond the physical. Thus, as what one metaphysician has said, “the root and ground of all metaphysical inquiry is the unrestricted drive to know all that there is to know about all that there is.”
With all those that have been said above, let us now proceed to Dr. Cloots lecture. Dr. Cloots lecture was primarily anchored on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, an English-born mathematician who became a philosopher. The concept of becoming in Dr. Cloots lecture revolves around the postulation that becoming involves a process. That becoming involves a series of actions directed toward a specific aim. Take for example this paper I have written on Dr. Cloots Lecture. Before this paper would be published in order to be read by whoever is interested with it must first undergo a series of actions, like thinking the appropriate word to be used, some of my fingers pressing the keyboard, committing some errors in the process of writing this paper, checking the spelling of the words, printing this paper, etc. All these actions are considered necessary moments. All those actions mentioned would form an integral part of the whole process of coming up with this paper to be read by you or anyone else who is interested. Becoming as a process entails different interconnected and necessary moments.
Becoming in Dr. Cloots view is not simply to be confined to the physical because seeing becoming in a holistic approach necessitates the need to go beyond the physical. Thus, trying to know who we are in the process of becoming would entail the need to know the self not simply through the physical aspects or attributes we have but to know also ourselves through the values or even character traits that we possess. Likewise, Dr. Cloots averred in his lecture that understanding the concept of becoming is to think of the world in terms of events. We have to see the world as an event, that is, seeing the world in the context of hi(her)storical events. Seeing the world in the context of hi(her)storical events is to picture the world as made up of millions and millions of events. An event is to be seen as a happening. As a happening, event deals with influences coming from different sides and the unification of all these influences take place in us as persons.
Composed of millions and millions of events, the world in its totality involves a coordination of events as posited by Dr. Cloots. This calim of Dr. Cloots can be traced back to its roots on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality that the fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience, that is, occasions of experience can be collected into groupings; something complex such as a human being is thus a grouping of many smaller occasions of experience. The world can be likened to a person that constitute a world in itself whereby a person is her(him)self with all those series of earthly events that happened in the life of the person molding h(er)im to what s(he) is now. The concept of becoming is not simply restricted to one event alone; otherwise, it would be impossible to speak of becoming. The presence of a synchronized events forming into some sort of a web creates the occurrence of becoming. Let us take again the human person as an example. The person is the person the s(he) is now not simply because of one event that occurred in his or her life, let us just say that the person was born in this time and place, but the person is the person that s(he) is now because of all those influences brought by the events that occurred in the temporal existence of the person. However, this does not exclude again the other events that may still occur in the future that could influence again the person to undergo the process of becoming. To make our example more specific, allow me to use myself as an example. I am Mark Gil J. Ramolete, not simply because I was born in Vigan City sometime in 1980, but I am what I am now as a result of all those planned events and unplanned events that occurred in my life in my interactions with my former and current teachers, including all those events that unfolded in my life as a person in my interactions with all those persons I met in the market, in the street, in the mall, etc. I may have changed as a result of all those events that unfolded in my life but I am still me though not exactly anymore the same as the person that I was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. This is also similar to your case as a person in your interactions with others. You have changed to some extent as a result of all those events that unfolded in your life but you are still you but not exactly the same as the person that you were before. This is what Dr. Cloots was driving at when he mentioned that permanence/identity is a result of change, of becoming.
Dr. Cloots reiterated that becoming is to be seen as be-coming, that is, as a verb. Dr. Cloots emphasized this because there’s always the element of novelty in the process of becoming. With the element of novelty, something new becomes or something new comes out. With the element of novelty in becoming, creativity as a result arises. From novelty, creativity follows because nothing new comes out or something new does not become if all those influences would not be specifically unified, coordinated or synchronized by the person. In mentioning the concept creativity in relation to novelty, Dr. Cloots took the opportunity to accentuate the importance of being in a university. Dr. Cloots posited that to be in a university is to travel the world of ideas and learn how to connect these ideas. Dr. Cloots further said that studying allows us to find ideas and to know how they are connected. Taking the words of Dr. Cloots into account, I would like to give a simple advice to all students including myself that we should learn to connect all ideas we are learning from our teachers. We should and must remove the prejudice we have from other subjects because of the misconstrued belief that we have or what others have imposed upon these subjects that they are not important. As students it is now our duty and not simply the duty of our teachers to connect all these ideas. We have to be creative in forming a web among these ideas and see the benefit we can get and share in the greater scheme of things or in our mode of togetherness. Those who have survived and those who have become successful persons are those who have learned to be creative with strong pillars and foundations in the process of becoming. However, as Dr. Cloots has said that becoming could either be in an upward movement or downward movement, and as such we may either experience a unity or disharmony of feelings when we progress or fail respectively in unifying all those influences affecting our lives in order that something new becomes in us. Nevertheless, inasmuch as we are still alive and are still capable of unifying these influences, we have to continue with the thrust of becoming.
by Mr. Mark Gil J. Ramolete, MA
PANL Member, Faculty of the Department of Philosophy, College of Human Sciences, Saint Louis University
No comments:
Post a Comment