Work-in-Process Seminar | Paul Stenner: Reflections upon Transdisciplinary Applications of Whiteheadian Process Thinking within Social and Human Sciences

With Lennart Posch and Gabriel Bianchi, Paul Stenner has recently been involved in assembling a Special Issue of the journal Human Affairs which deals with the relevance of Whiteheadian process thinking to social and human sciences.  His contribution to the Special Issue provides an overview of Whitehead’s thinking which stresses the differences and continuities at play within the three main phases of Whitehead’s career. The paper is available here: A.N. Whitehead and Process Thought (degruyter.com) and can be discussed during the meeting. After introducing this paper, Paul Stenner will reflect upon some of his research which aims to apply process thinking to a number of topics at a variety of scales within several disciplines, but always with a ‘transdisciplinary’ orientation. At the broadest scale, Whitehead’s ‘turn’ towards a critique of scientific materialism provides the basis for a series of so-called ‘postmodern’ perspectives springing from a new sociological orientation to ‘the modern world’. At a smaller scale of focus, Whitehead provides powerful ways of re-thinking a host of psychological questions from the nature of feeling and emotion, through the role of the brain in the production of experience, to the problem of psychosocial transition.

The seminar is completely free and we welcome everyone regardless of their academic position. If you want to present your own work or simply attend the seminar, please get in touch with espt@milanstuermer.com to register.