Thursday 21 July 2011
Becoming and Being
My process-oriented metaphysical predisposition has been inspired by ancient and contemporary thinkers from both East and West. It is an unqualified commitment to a process ontology.
From the East, the I Ching (book of change) and both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu allude to the ceaseless fluxing and changing nature of the universe. From the West, Heraclitus championed this very same metaphysical orientation; things become.
The key implication of acknowledging process as primary is a suspicion regarding the adequacy of language/reason to capture the essence of reality. Linguistic categories are static representations of an ever-changing reality. In more recent times, William James, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead as well as Nishida Kitaro and Nishitani Keiji in the East have specifically grappled with the implications of taking process seriously.
My own research is an abiding effort to tease out the implications of this process ontology for the social world in general and for business practice in particular.
From the East, the I Ching (book of change) and both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu allude to the ceaseless fluxing and changing nature of the universe. From the West, Heraclitus championed this very same metaphysical orientation; things become.
The key implication of acknowledging process as primary is a suspicion regarding the adequacy of language/reason to capture the essence of reality. Linguistic categories are static representations of an ever-changing reality. In more recent times, William James, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead as well as Nishida Kitaro and Nishitani Keiji in the East have specifically grappled with the implications of taking process seriously.
My own research is an abiding effort to tease out the implications of this process ontology for the social world in general and for business practice in particular.
Wednesday 13 July 2011
In Praise of the Ordinary, the Inconspicuous, the Ephemeral
My metaphysical disposition is inspired by the writings of ancient Eastern and Western philosophers
'The Tao that can be Named is not the Tao' Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
'Harmoniê aphanês phranerês kreittôn. . .' (The hidden harmony is deeper, the invisible connection stronger, the inconspicuous correspondence more interesting than the apparent) Heraclitus, Fragments
'The Tao that can be Named is not the Tao' Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
'Harmoniê aphanês phranerês kreittôn. . .' (The hidden harmony is deeper, the invisible connection stronger, the inconspicuous correspondence more interesting than the apparent) Heraclitus, Fragments
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