The Center for Process Studies was founded in 1973 by John B. Cobb and David Ray Griffin to encourage exploration of the relevance of process thought to many fields of reflection and action. As a faculty center of Claremont School of Theology in association with Claremont Graduate University, and through seminars, conferences, publications and the library, CPS seeks to promote new ways of thinking based on the work of philosophers Alfred North Whitehead, and Charles Hartshorne, and others in the process tradition.
CPS seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought. Process thought helps to harmonize moral, aesthetic, and religious intuitions with scientific insights, and grounds discussion between Eastern and Western religious and cultural traditions. It seeks to offer an approach to the social, political, and economic order that brings issues of human justice together with a concern for ecology. Its range of interests also includes scientific, philosophical, multicultural, feminist, interreligious, political, and economic concerns; with a strong focus on ecology and sustainability.[1]
The Center for Process Studies works across disciplines to promote the exploration and application of process-relational thinking in various areas. Over the years, special “Projects” have been created for ongoing work in key area. Below is a list of current Projects.
Common Good International Film Festival The Common Good International Film Festival is an annual event that celebrate films that foster social and personal responsibility to others and the earth; films that elicit common sense, common decency, and the common good. Whiteheadian philosophy provides a worldview that fosters social and personal responsibility to one another and to the earth that sustains us. Intercultural appreciation and understanding is a component of the common good that can be fostered by viewing and discussing excellent films produced around the world.
Whitehead Research Project The Whitehead Research Project (WRP) is committed to scholarship on the texts, philosophy, and life of Alfred North Whitehead. WRP places Whitehead’s thought in dialogue with contemporary philosophies in order to unfold his philosophy of organism and its consequences for our time.
Process & Faith Process & Faith (P&F) is dedicated to providing practical applications of process-relational theology. P&F creates non-technical educational resources for clergy and laypersons of all faiths, including short-term courses and an online quarterly magazine Creative Transformation. P&F also makes available process-related books and other resources through its bookstore.
The China Project The China Project translates major process texts into Chinese, holds academic conferences in the United States and China, sponsors an annual “Process Academy” in China, hosts visiting Chinese scholars in Claremont, and has established over 23 Centers for Process Studies in China.
The Korea Project The Korea Project brings East and West together, by translating, publishing, organizing conferences, and offering Korean-language programs for students.
Latin America Project The Latin America Project works to establish positive relations between Liberation Theology and process thought, by hosting conferences and translating process-related materials into Spanish and Portuguese.
Publications
Journal The primary publication of the Center for Process Studies is the academic journal, Process Studies. Through feature articles, book reviews, critical studies, and special focus sections, the journal engages in advancing the discussion of process thought and its applicability across disciplines. Process Studies Supplement, an electronic publication available through the CPS website, makes available articles too long for the regular journal format.
Newsletter Process Perspectives is the Newsmagazine of the Center for Process Studies. It provides short thematic essays, reports on Center sponsored activities, and updates on activities from affiliated groups around the world, including the International Process Network of which CPS is a member.[3]
Library and archives
The library’s approximately 2,400 books, 750 dissertations, and 12,000 articles comprise the world’s largest collection of writings in the Whiteheadian-Hartshornean tradition of process thought. The library has thematic bibliographies to guide researchers to process scholarship in over 300 areas, such as aesthetics, biblical studies, ecology, economics, education, ethics, feminist theory, metaphysics, natural sciences, psychology, theology, and world religions and philosophies. CPS also maintains a collection of audio-visual materials that deal with process issues.
The Hartshorne Archive makes the primary and secondary works of Charles Hartshorne accessible. The library also maintains an archive of the works of Will Beardslee. Papers by the CPS co-directors and others, including Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Birch, John Spencer, and Daniel Day Williams, are held in special collections. Unpublished conference and seminar papers are also in the library holdings. CPS regularly hosts visiting scholars who make use of these resources for their research.
Conferences and seminars
The Center organizes conferences, seminars, and lectures on topics ranging from physics, education, and ecology to Buddhist and Chinese philosophy; from gender, race, poverty, and human rights to hermeneutics and transpersonal psychology. These conferences are a central part of CPS's work as they demonstrate the relevance of process thought to many fields.
The Center for Process Studies: Conferences and Conversations is a pictorial history of the original Center for Process Studies which includes Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb Jr., David Ray Griffin, Lewis S. Ford, Catherine Keller, and others associated with the Center's history. The Center for Process Studies: Conferences and Conversations includes original letters, CPS conference lists, photographs, and other ephemera from the CPS archives. The book was edited and published by Jahan Brian Ihsan, in December 2022, and contains a foreword by Wm. Andrew Schwartz, Executive Director of Center for Process Studies.[4]
Related organizations
Toward Ecological Civilization Toward Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv) propels scholars, activists, and policy experts toward realizing an ecological civilization ― a fully sustainable human society in harmony with surrounding ecosystems and communities of life. They provide momentum for integrating work across sectors that leads to concrete action, including grassroots innovations, policy reform, and laying the foundations for a sustainable future.
International Process Network The International Process Network (IPN) works primarily to promote communication among process-related organizations and concerned individuals. To this end IPN hosts a website (www.processnetwork.net) and hosts international conferences.
Society for the Study of Process Philosophies The Society for the Study of Process Philosophies (SSPP) is a satellite organization of the American Philosophical Association. The SSPP holds periodic meetings in conjunction with the APA, as well as with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy.
Open and Relational Theologies Group The Open and Relational Theologies Group is a program unit of the American Academy of Religion, which brings together scholars of diverse interests and concerns; many of whom identify with open theology as well as process thought.
Institute for Postmodern Development of China The Institute for Postmodern Development of China (IPDC) works closely with the China Project of CPS to create and promote new modes of development in China and the West, by integrating classical Chinese philosophy with constructive postmodernism.
Chromatiques whiteheadiennes & Whitehead Psychology Nexus The Chromatiques[5] and the WPN[6][7] are two scholarly societies intended to federate European research on different aspects, nuances, and implications of the thought of A. N. Whitehead. In 2002, Michel Weber also created the research seminars “Chromatiques whiteheadiennes” in the UFR de Philosophie, Université Paris 1.
A complete list of affiliated organizations is available online.[8]
Related Research Articles
Process theology is a type of theology developed from Alfred North Whitehead's (1861–1947) process philosophy, but most notably by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), John B. Cobb, and Eugene H. Peters (1929-1983). Process theology and process philosophy are collectively referred to as "process thought".
Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach in philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only real experience of everyday living. In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory or accidental, process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.
Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology.
Charles Hartshorne was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and produced a modal proof of the existence of God that was a development of Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument. Hartshorne is also noted for developing Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy into process theology.
Bernard MacDougall Loomer was an American professor and theologian. Loomer was longtime Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School and a leading proponent of Process Theology.
John Boswell Cobb Jr. is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. He is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Cobb is the author of more than fifty books. In 2014, Cobb was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Claremont School of Theology (CST) is a private graduate school focused on religion and theology and located in Claremont, California. It is an official theological school of the United Methodist Church. Although it is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission, it is accredited with a "notice of concern"; it is also accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS).
David Ray Griffin was an American professor of philosophy of religion and theology and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Along with John B. Cobb, Jr., he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, a research center of Claremont School of Theology that promotes process thought. Griffin published numerous books about the September 11 attacks, claiming that elements of the Bush administration were involved. An advocate of the controlled demolition conspiracy theory, he was a founder member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
Daniel A. Dombrowski is an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at Seattle University. Since 2009 he has served as Editor of the journal Process Studies, and is a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America (2018–19).
Catherine Keller is a contemporary Christian theologian and Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University's Graduate Division of Religion. As a constructive theologian, Keller's work is oriented around social and ecological justice, poststructuralist theory, and feminist readings of scripture and theology. Both her early and her late work brings relational thinking into theology, focusing on the relational nature of the concept of the divine, and the forms of ecological interdependence within the framework of relational theology. Her work in process theology draws on the relational ontology of Alfred North Whitehead, fielding it in a postmodern, deconstructive framework.
Contemporary Whitehead Studies (CWS) is an interdisciplinary book series that publishes manuscripts from scholars with contemporary and innovative approaches to the studies of Alfred North Whitehead.
Charles Robert Mesle is an American process theologian and was professor of philosophy and religion at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, until his retirement in 2016. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion at Graceland University (1972) and a Master of Arts degree in Christian theology at University of Chicago Divinity School (1975), Mesle received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in philosophy and religion from Northwestern University (1980).
Process psychology is a branch of psychotherapeutic psychology which was derived from process philosophy as developed by Alfred North Whitehead. Process psychology got its start at a conference sponsored by the Center for Process Studies in 1998. In 2000, Michel Weber created the Whitehead Psychology Nexus: an open forum dedicated to the cross-examination of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy and the various facets of the contemporary psychological field.
Michel Weber is a Belgian philosopher. He is best known as an interpreter and advocate of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, and has come to prominence as the architect and organizer of an overlapping array of international scholarly societies and publication projects devoted to Whitehead and the global relevance of process philosophy.
The Whitehead Research Project (WRP) is dedicated to research and scholarship on the texts, philosophy, and life of mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. It explores and analyzes the relevance of Whitehead's thought in dialogue with contemporary philosophies in order to unfold his philosophy of organism and its consequences for our time and in relation to emerging philosophical thought.
Joseph A. Bracken, S.J. is an American philosopher and Catholic theologian. Bracken is a proponent of process philosophy and process theology of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Much of his work is devoted to a synthesis of revealed religion and Christian trinitarian doctrines with a revised process theology. Bracken introduced a field theoretic approach to process metaphysics.
Roland Faber is an author and Kilsby Family/John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. He is Executive Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies, Executive Director of the Whitehead Research Project in Claremont, California, and Editor of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies series. Faber received a PhD in systematic theology from the University of Vienna in 1992. In 1998, he was appointed assistant professor at the Institute for Dogmatic Theology in Vienna, Austria. In 2005, he received a joint appointment as professor of process theology at Claremont School of Theology and professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University.
Jay B. McDaniel is an American philosopher and theologian. He specializes in Buddhism, Whiteheadian process philosophy and process theology, constructive theology, ecotheology, interfaith dialogue, and spirituality in an age of consumerism. His current interest is "to see how these myriad concerns might unfold in China".
Clare Palmer is a British philosopher, theologian and scholar of environmental and religious studies. She is known for her work on environmental and animal ethics. She was appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University in 2010. She had previously held academic appointments at the Universities of Greenwich, Stirling, and Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and Washington University in St. Louis in the United States, among others.
Ecological civilization is the hypothetical concept that describes the alleged final goal of social and environmental reform within a given society. It implies that the changes required in response to global climate disruption and social injustices are so extensive as to require another form of human civilization, one based on ecological principles.
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