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Date
Time
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Venue
SOAS, Main Building
Room
P273

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Utilizing the metaphysical framework of Jainism, an ancient Indian tradition centered on ethical experiments in nonviolence, as a comparative case study, I will provide an account of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy of organism as characterized by a telos of nonviolence.

By exploring a few points of resistance to making this metaphysical comparison within process camps, I assert that technical concepts in Whitehead's works, such as "unison of immediacy," the "many" and the "one", the potentiality of "eternal objects" or the "subjective aim", the "lure", his description of the "khora," and even his use of the term "peace," present a vision of social and ecological nonviolence for an unfolding future that has meaningful parallels with Jain metaphysics. 

In this comparative analysis, harm reduction and social ecology need not be at metaphysical odds. Rather, nonviolence is, I argue, part of the struture of becoming in a process metaphysics, not only for exceptional "humans," but ultimately for all existent entities.

Speakers

Dr Brianne G Donaldson, Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies, University of California

Contact

Please email pf8@soas.ac.uk to confirm attendance.

Organiser

Image Credit: Brianne G Donaldson

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