The European Society for Process Thought together with the Polish Whitehead Metaphysical Society announces the 6th European Summer School in Process Thought, which will take place from Monday, the 2nd of August 2 – till Friday, the 6th August 6, 2021. The Conference will be in hybrid form. Participants from Poland will meet at the Franciscan Monastery in Katowice, 76 Panewnicka Street Poland (not more than 8 persons), all other persons will connect via Zoom

Organizers:

Polish Whitehead Metaphysical Society (Bogdan Ogrodnik, Piotr Leśniak); European Society for Process Thought (Helmut Maaßen)

Contact: piotrles1@wp.pl

When: 2-5 August 2021

Where: Franciscan Monastery

76 Panewnicka Street

Katowice, Poland

Conference Fee: No conference fee for online participation

Abstract Submission Deadline: June 02, 2021
Abstracts should be limited to a maximum of 300 words.
Presentations should be no longer than 40 minutes, including 15 minutes for Q&A.

The 2021 European Summer School in Process Thought is planned as a workshop-conference. There will be  discussions in small groups on the topics of the presentations.  There will be sections (teams) of up to 10 people. Each section will have its tutor or coordinator with the responsibility for the section and for the relevance and clarity of the theses discussed. The Tutors  will also chair the sessions of the sections.

Description of the aims of the conference

“Beauty is the mutual adaptation of the several factors in an occasion of experience.” (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 252)

             When, two years ago, we wrote about “Great Change” in our conference announcement, nobody expected that our life on earth would change so quickly and radically. We add  pandemy of the coronavirus to the list of challenges our contemporary civilization faces. We stand by the request that many current practices may lead to the end of human culture or even to the extinction of life on Earth. We have no time to detach speculation from reality. We are in the time of “Great Change”, a time for mature philosophy—one that is aware of its role in society.

            The concepts of nature and beauty are used here in the inclusive sense and by way of creative contrast.  A multitude of approaches, disciplines, and integrative ways of thinking are required. This is not a summer school for one narrow academic discipline, but aims at addressing all issues important today for our natural and cultural environment. We invite topics that contrast the concepts of nature and beauty as well as the natural and the cultural. We look for unifying, creative visions as well as for detailed analysis with concrete practical applications.

            We all participate in processes like climate change, environmental pollution, and the extinction of species. And we all confront the risks associated with the spread of monoculture and its ensuing reduction of diversity. This takes place in many areas, notably agriculture, politics, codes of conduct, and aesthetic values, and now also in the form of pandemic restrictions. Therefore, we invite all types of reflection that inspire actions to hold back the process of destruction. Bold visions expressed in a rational form allow us to experience the attractive power of beauty and truth and in the long run to change the world. The universe is in the making and it may degenerate into trivial forms of order or it may be saved, as Whitehead put it, “by God’s vision of truth, beauty and goodness” (Whitehead, Process and Reality, 346). We need to examine possible visions critically, in order to save our world from plunging into triviality or even chaos. We need philosophy with speculative power and an analytic capacity of critical thinking. One of the most important areas of responsibility for a philosopher is the question of ‘being’ and the process of philosophical thinking. We invite topics connected with methods of teaching and with the popularizing of process philosophy.

            Ten years ago, the first summer school was organized in Katowice-Panewniki at the Franciscan Monastery by the Polish, German, Bulgarian and Hungarian Societies for Process Thought. The upcoming conference will again be held there. Saint Francis who combined love for nature with devotion for Divine Beauty, is also a symbol of dialogue between different cultures, religions and ways of life. The Franciscan Monastery is a perfect place to ask serious questions about the responsibility of process philosophy in the time of “Great Change”.

Preliminary timetable:

Day 1, August 2, Monday

Link for the Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87982146984?pwd=N2NWWHRWTVpGNTZ3YVZlVmFUN0hQdz09

Meeting ID: 879 8214 6984 Passcode: 816975

10.00 Opening of the conference

About organisational issues, and the aims of the conference

Helmut Massen, Piotr Leśniak, Bogdan Ogrodnik

10. 30 -13.00 Opening panel

Where is our civilisation heading?

About philosopher’s responsibility today

Speakers: Maria-Teresa Texteira, Michel Weber, Roland Cazalis, Illya Reiderman, Bruce Scott,

12.00- 12.20 Coffee break

13.00 Maria-Teresa Texteira, Process Thought and the novel Ecology

13.40 Grzegorz Francuz, Some remarks on environmental ethics

14.20 Veronika Krajíčková“ My roots go down to the depths of the world”: Proto-Environmental Thought in Virginia Woolf’s Oeuvre and Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism

15.00 Summary

Day 2  August 3,  Tuesday

Link for the Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85604554387?pwd=UERWQ1BnM2V6d0M0RVo2SVlEcGt4UT09

Meeting ID: 856 0455 4387 Passcode: 297545

Aesthetics section (Helmut Maassen)

9.00 – 9.40 ESPT Meeting

10.00 Helmut Massen – opening

The word form coordinator (Organisational issues, aims of the section)

10.20 Lennart Posch, Musical Space Time. A philosophical Jazz analysis

11.00 Martin Kaplický Trivial Beauty and Appreciation of Nature

11.40 – 12.00 Coffee time

12.00 Ondřej Dadejík, Is Natural Beauty Really without a Frame?

12.40 Thomas Mical, Concrescence in the Beauty-Decadence Spectrum of Organic Modern Architecture: Creativity, One, Many

13.20 -13.40 Coffee time

13.40 Dennis Sölch, Environmental Ethics vs. Environmental Aesthetics

14.20 Alexander Haitos, Aesthetic Imagination: Harnessing Freedom to Create Beauty

15.00 Summary

Day 3 August 4, Wednesday

Link for the Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85604554387?pwd=UERWQ1BnM2V6d0M0RVo2SVlEcGt4UT09

Meeting ID: 856 0455 4387 Passcode: 297545

Theology section (Roland Cazalis)

10.00 Roland Cazalis – opening

( Aims of the section, announcements etc.)

10.20 Daniel J Shepard, Changing the very meaning of the word ‘God’

11.00 Piotr Leśniak, Performative theology in Plato’s Timaeus

11.40 – 12.00 Coffee time

12.00 Roland Cazalis, From beauty to peace: a call to a mystic transformation

12.40 Michał Handzel, The process of becoming a human person in the panentheistic concept of Grigori Savvich Skovoroda

13.20 -13.40 Coffee time

13.40 Piotr Janik, The issue concerning human understanding, i.e. understanding humans.

14.20 Denys Zhadiaiev, Whitehead and Dostoevsky

15.00 Summary

Day 4  August 5, Thursday

Link for the Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87484796514?pwd=cDl0R245VTRsN2Ezbm15WFVMUXArZz09

Meeting ID: 874 8479 6514

Passcode: 422929

Practical philosophy (which includes psychology and coaching) Piotr Leśniak, Bogdan Ogrodnik , Michel Weber

10.00 Michel Weber Bogdan Ogrodnik , Piotr Leśniak– opening ( Aims of the section, announcements etc.)

10.20 Bruce Scott, The killing of God: Identity politics, political correctness and so-called liberation.

11.00 Anastasiia Zinevych, Illya Reyderman, The double face of Being: nature and culture

11.40 – 12.00 Coffee time

12.00 Marcin Pietrzak, Death and Transformation of Socrates. The origin of consciousness according to Eric Neumann

12.40 Lehel Simon, Object-Subject-Superject: The Beauty of Mind

13.20 -13.40 Coffee time

13.40 Bogdan Ogrodnik, The attachment between the child and the mother as an example of internal relationship

14.20 Michel Weber, Covid-19 (84). The (political) truth of the health lie

15. 00 Summary

Day 5  August 6, Friday

Link for the Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82348154520?pwd=UkZKekRyelZabHEwTmtCVDNmOWR1QT09  

Meeting ID: 823 4815 4520 

Passcode: 477501 

 Education (including science and mathematics) (Vesselin Petrov, Franz Riffert)) 

10.00 – 10.30 Opening the pannel 

10.30 – 11.15  Franz Riffert (Austria). “Whitehead’s Concept of Learning and Instruction – On its Status in Current Research” 
11.15 – 12.00  Vesselin Petrov (Bulgaria). “The vindication of process ideas 

in machine learning” 

12.00 – 12.15 coffe break 

12.15 – 13.00 Rossitza Kaltenborn (Germany). “Integration of learning and neuroscience theories with AI-based technologies in intelligent learning system in accordance of Whiteheadean tradition and contemporary process theory” 
13.00 – 13.45 Marina Bakalova (Bulgaria). “Affective Neuroscience on Learning Emotion Concepts: A Philosophical Problem” 

13.45- 14.30 lunch break 

14.30 Lina Georgieva (Bulgaria). “Using video game mechanics in studying philosophy” 
15.15  Rosen Lutskanov (Bulgaria). “Learning as concrescence: process philosophy meets the society of mind”  
16.00 Petar Iliev (Bulgaria). “On some aspects of the European knowledge economy” 

16.45 – 17.00 coffe break 
17.00 Michael Heather (UK) & Prof. Nick Rossiter (UK). “Formal Order and the ‘Loveliness’ of Nature” 
17.45 Nicola Graves-Gregory (UK). “21st Century Pythagorean Mathematics” 

18.30 Summary