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Introduction
Alfred North Whiteheads major philosophical work, Process and Reality, presents a complex and original metaphysical framework which is initially quite challenging to understand. This paper represents my individual efforts to understand Whiteheads philosophy more deeply by relating it to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. There were two main reasons why I selected Buddhist philosophy as a way of engaging Whiteheads philosophy more deeply. First, since I had some familiarity with Buddhist philosophy, I felt that relating Whiteheads philosophy to this existing knowledge and experience would be an effective way to integrate it into my understanding. Second, after noticing a few intriguing similarities between Whiteheads philosophy and Buddhist philosophy, I felt drawn to see what other similarities there may be, and to what extent these similarities stand up under closer scrutiny. Although I wanted to see in what ways these philosophies might converge, at the same time I felt it was important to honor their differences, and acknowledge that some of their similarities might be only superficial resemblances. Before discussing the similarities between Whiteheads philosophy and Buddhist philosophy, however, I will briefly introduce these philosophies separately.
substance, but a relational process of becoming: how and actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is. ...Its being is constituted by its becoming (PR, p. 23). This process of becoming is a creative synthesis into one actual entity of its many relations to other actual entities. Whitehead calls the process of unification a concrescence of prehensions, where prehensions are the ways in which other entities are taken in by, and felt within the entity, and where the concrescence is the creative process of pulling together these diverse prehensions of other actual entities into a novel, organic unity. Thus, actual entities involve each other by reason of their prehensions of each other (PR, p. 20). Because of this mutual co-constitution, you cannot abstract the universe from any entity...so as to consider that entity in complete isolation. ...In a sense, every entity pervades the whole world (PR, p. 28).
similarities. The primary areas of convergence that will be discussed are (1) impermanence and process as fundamental aspects of reality, (2) the emptiness and lack of substance of things, (3) the relational and dependent nature of things, (4) the notion of ignorance and mistaken perception, (5) the possibility of freedom from ignorance and mistaken perception, (6) the emphasis on subjective and experiential aspects of reality, and (7) the fundamental limitations of language and philosophical systems in characterizing reality. Kenneth Inada (1971, 1975) has also pointed out some similarities between Buddhism and Whiteheads philosophy. As I will point out, however, the correspondences he makes differ in some respects from mine.
immutable and static, which is obviously false. The conclusion is that all things are empty of any such essence. This doctrine of emptiness (sunyata) is fundamental to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Similarly, Whitehead states that it is fundamental to the metaphysical doctrine of the philosophy of organism, that the notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change is completely abandoned (PR, p. 29). Process philosophy departs from substance philosophy by denying any isolated, individual essence to things. The idea that things have essences is at best a useful abstraction, and at worst a profound misconception of reality: The simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining persistent qualities, either essentially or accidentally, expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken (PR, p. 79). An important instance of this mistake is the Cartesian assumption that the human subject is a fundamental essence prior to human thought. Whitehead inverts the priority: The philosophy of organism...conceives the thought as a constituent operation in the creation of the occasional thinker. The thinker is the final end whereby there is the thought. In this inversion we have the final contrast between a philosophy of substance and a philosophy of organism (PR, p. 151). Similarly, a distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophy is the doctrine of no-self (annata). As Buddhist practitioner-scholar B. Alan Wallace explains, the self is not a physical, psychic, or spiritual substance propelled through time; rather it is a sequence of dependently related events. It is dependent upon the body and the mind that are its basis of designation, upon other causes and conditions that give rise to the present state of its continuum, and upon the mental designation of the self (CR, p. 160). The self, however, is not a mere vacuity. Although it does not have an independent, separate essence, it nevertheless still has a dependent, interrelated existence. Whitehead echoes this with his statement that an actual entity is not lacking being entirelyrather, Its being is constituted by its becoming (PR, p. 23). Thus, both Buddhist doctrine and Whiteheads philosophy avoid the extremes of substantialism and nihilism, and propose that things have a relational, interdependent type of existence.
These contrasted aspects will be called the physical and the mental poles of an actual entity. No actual entity is devoid of either pole (PR, p. 239). The physical and mental poles of the actual entity, in other words, correspond to the dependence of the entity upon efficient, physical causes and upon final, conceptual causes, respectively. As Whitehead explains, the creative process is rhythmic: it swings from the publicity of many things to the individual privacy; and it swings back from the private individual to the publicity of the objectified individual. The former swing is dominated by the final cause, which is the ideal; and the latter swing is dominated by the efficient cause, which is actual (PR, p. 151). We have already seen that dependent arising in the sense of dependence upon efficient causes is the correlate in Buddhism to Whiteheads efficient cause that dominates the physical pole of an actual entity. Is there a Buddhist correlate to Whiteheads final cause that dominates the mental pole of an actual entity? Indeed, a very similar idea is found in other meanings of the Buddhist concept of dependent arising. In addition to arising in dependence on efficient causes, the doctrine of dependent arising also means that things exist or are established in dependence upon conceptual designation: Events are dependent for their very existence upon the power of the mind and convention that designates them (CR, p. 145). Thus, in addition to depending on their physical efficient causes, things also exist in dependence upon mental designation. In other words, an actual entity depends for its very determination as a particular existent upon the ingression of eternal objects through intellectual prehensions. The notion of dependent arising in Buddhism thus encompasses both physical and mental forms of prehension. Because it encompasses all the ways in which things depend upon each other, Inada (1975) suggests that this Buddhist concept is nearly identical to Whiteheads principle of Creativity, which accounts for the integration of the plurality of actual entities into a web of interdependence. Although there is certainly a similarity between the two concepts, the Buddhist concept of dependent arising lacks the aspect of novelty that is essential to Whiteheads principle of Creativity. In other words, the principle of Creativity implies more than just the interdependence of thingsit also implies that the process of arising is an advance into novelty, and this aspect of the principle of Creativity is not present in the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising.
perception, says Nagarjuna, is intimately related to the fact that we do not see the causal connections between things: If you perceive the existence of all things in terms of their essence, then this perception of all things will be without the perception of causes and conditions (FWMW, p. 69). Whitehead presents a very similar view. For him, the more fundamental relational prehensions in the mode of causal efficacy are no longer apparent at the derivative level of presentational immediacy associated with normal consciousness: The former mode [of causal efficacy] produces percepta which are vague, not to be controlled, heavy with emotion: it produces a sense of derivation from an immediate past, and of passage to an immediate future. ...The percepta in the mode of presentational immediacy have the converse characteristics. In comparison, they are distinct, definite, controllable, apt for immediate enjoyment, and with the minimum of reference to past, or to future (PR, pp. 178-179). In other words, the distinct, definite, and isolated percepta of presentational immediacy are created by a process of ignoring the interdependence of things at the level of causal efficacy. Consciousness is only the last and greatest of such [formative] elements by which the selective character of the individual obscures the external totality from which it originates and which it embodies (PR, p. 15). The result of this obscuration is that consciousness only dimly illuminates the prehensions in the mode of causal efficacy (PR, p. 162). When the level of causal efficacy is ignored, the abstract, derivative percepta of presentational immediacy are mistaken as being the original concrete aspects of experience. This fallacy of misplaced concreteness...consists in neglecting the degree of abstraction involved when an actual entity is considered merely so far as it exemplifies certain categories of thought. There are aspects of actualities which are simply ignored so long as we restrict thought to these categories. (PR, p. 7). These ignored aspects of actualities are exactly their dependence upon causes and conditions. Thus, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is none other than the ignorance of the truth of dependent arising.
seems accurate insofar as the Bodhisattva is dedicated to compassionate action in the world for the benefit of all sentient beings. The Bodhisattva, however, is not God but a highly evolved sentient being. As for the correspondence between the Buddha and the primordial nature of God, this would be more accurately stated as the correspondence between Buddha nature and the primordial nature of God, since the Buddha Gautama was also not God but an awakened sentient being.
A Critical Difference
In contrast to Whiteheads philosophy, Buddhist philosophy embodies a critical dialectical method that dynamically turns upon its own categories and doctrines. The Indian Buddhist sage Nagarjuna (circa 2nd Century, CE) applied this technique to the various categories of thought in Buddhist philosophy, with the goal of freeing the mind from clinging to philosophical constructs. Through subtle dialectical argument, Nagarjuna demonstrated that any concept or philosophical position, if taken as final and absolute, ultimately leads to logical contradiction. The successful application of this technique reveals that the concept or position is empty of any final or ultimate truth. Because the same technique can be used to show that the opposite concept or position is also empty of any final or ultimate truth, the result is that both extremes of thought are abandoned, revealing a middle way between extremes of dogmatic assertion and dogmatic rejection. Nagarjunas dialectical technique applied to phenomena of experience as well as to philosophical views shows that when reality is rigorously and carefully examined, no permanent, absolute, or independent entity, existence, or conceptual truth is found. This not-finding is the discovery of emptiness. It is not a positive conclusion or new experiential phenomenon, but a non-conceptual insight regarding what is not actually present in the nature of experience. The dialectical process does not even end there. If the discovery of emptiness is itself grasped and reduced to a conceptual conclusion or final experience, then Nagarjunas method can be applied again to reveal the emptiness of this object of grasping (i.e., the emptiness of emptiness). Another very subtle form of grasping can take place when Nagarjunas critical technique is itself grasped onto as a final truth. A consistent application of the dialectical method then will reveal that the technique is itself dependent on grasping. If there is no grasping to extremes, there can be no criticism. Therefore, even Nagarjunas own technique is empty. The dialectical method, therefore, has the ultimate effect of undermining itself, just as the successful application of any medicine will result in a state of health wherein the medicine is no longer useful. If there is no fixity or grasping, then Nagarjunas method is unnecessary, just a medicine is no longer necessary after an illness is cured. As long as we are poisoned with habits of grasping and suffer its consequences, however, the medicine of emptiness is relevant and valuable. Thus, to the extent that Whiteheads philosophy has medicinal powers to dispel our ignorance of dependent arising, it is essentially in harmony with the spirit of the Buddhist teachings, even if it differs in some of its details. In spite of their differences, however, there are many significant similarities between these two philosophies. It is my hope that this paper will foster deeper understanding of both Whiteheads process philosophy and Buddhist teachings, and help all sentient beings in their creative advance toward Buddhahood.
Bibliography
Garfield, J. (1995), The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (New York : Oxford University Press). Inada, Kenneth K. (1971), Whitehead's actual entity and the Buddhas anatman, Philosophy East and West, 21(3), 303-315. Inada, Kenneth K. (1975), The metaphysics of Buddhist experience and the Whiteheadian encounter, Philosophy East and West, 25(10), 465-487. Mabbett, Ian W. (1995), Nagarjuna and Deconstruction, Philosophy East and West, 45(2), 203-225. Ramanan, K. Venkata (1975), Nagarjuna's Philosophy. (Motilal Banarsidass: Delhi). Wallace, B. Alan (1996), Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind (Ithaca, NY: Snow
Lion Publications). Whitehead, A. N. (1978), Process and Reality (New York : Free Press). (c) 2000 Thomas J McFarlane