Sophiae Arik: Another attempt to create divine space and time: static and dinamic cosmologies

Extended abstract for the next annual Whitehead Conference in Katowice

From Organism to Society

In this paper we will discuss a little about the cosmology of Plato’s later dialogues,
focusing more on the Timaeus1.
At the second part we will try to make an attempt to form an ideal community, to find
the ideal laws and establish an ideal city, called Magnesia, which we find in the book of
Laws of Plato2.
At the end to sum up we compare these theories with Whitehead’s original thoughts
forming on these issues in the Process and Reality, in the Adventures of ideas and
elsewhere. We need to find connection between cosmology and social sciences.
In my paper I make efforts to search possible answers to these questions, knowing
that it is never possible to find ultimate answers to ultimate questions, just possible ones,
and we need to take them like this - these answers just forming a new and fruitful base for
the next uprising questions.
Philosophy of Organism or Organic Realism is the way how Alfred North
Whitehead understood and described his own metaphysics, it is now known as
process philosophy.
The central idea of that theory is the notion of concrescence. Concrescence
means 'growing together' (com/con from Latin for "together", crescence from
Latin crescere/cret- grow), the present is given by a consense of subjective
forms. We are multiple individuals, but there are also multiple individual agents
operant in the construction of the given. Marvin Minsky calls this the "society of
mind" .
Whitehead's "subjective forms" complement "eternal objects" in his
metaphysical system; eternal objects being entities like Plato's archetypal
Forms. In Process and Reality3, Whitehead proposes that his 'organic realism'
be used in place of classical materialism.
But what process leads us on the way from organism to society? Just take the
example of the cell inside a living organism, how that living, pulsing, participating member
is communicating with its circumstances inside-outside. If we stay with the whiteheadian
terminology we could describe that factor as a grouping of occasions arising, developing
itself in a special structure or pattern, getting more concrete and then be actualised as a
form. This terminology and the philosophy of organism is optimal to be used on the field of
social sciences and social antropology. It deals with structures, patterns, living and
changing groupings of occasions forming societies.
Whitehead himself is using the word 'Societies' in a very special meaning: it is a
grouping of eternal objects plus datas in a special pattern or structure or conceptual
matrix. So he has a wider usage of this notion, he expands that cathegory to unliving
factors without consciousness, just recognising, focusing on the structure inside4.
In this paper I am just searching possible cosmological and metaphysical concepts
to built up a society, and on the reverse, i would like to transform these notions back to the
religious thought.
In the first section I research in Plato’s later dialogues -in the Timaeus, Laws and

1
Plato: Timaeus (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1999) 20 b, 21a, 28a – 30d, 90d,
2
Plato: The Laws X.I., Books: VII- XII. (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ.Press, 1984) 628c, 739be-c, 741a,b,,
745e- 746d, 757a-d, 962a,b,
3
A.N.Whitehead: Process and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1929)
4
Whitehead: Modes of Thought, Science and the Modern World ( The Macmillan Company, 1926) The Concept of
Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1926)
Philebus5 texts - the patterns of the Word-creation, the meaning of the creation, and the
possible relation between the creation with the greek word:’gignomai’ and being: ’einai’.
After that I read on a little more from Leibniz: Monadology6 as a very clear exemplification
of that how this functions as a virtuality within each and every cell and within the whole big
organism, and how it is reflected on the nature of God and back.
The cosmological model of the World-creation implies the creation of the World as
an ideal community, so these are paralel patterns, which could be reflected or projected on
each other – that’s what I am searching for: the way how could a divine pattern be realised
on Earth and on the other hand how could a life and pattern of a society fit to the divine
matrix or model? And in general if we take the sacred geometry, or a melody or some
astronomical truth or belief how could that divine model be realised in a particular way?
What is the role of the ’Demiurge’ in this greek-type creation theory, could it be
eliminated?
What is the role of the ’Paradeigm’, the model or pattern of creation?
What is the possible causation, time-space or logical relation between the
Paradeigm and the Creation or the Paradeigm and the matter of creation? These are
paralel realities, or one of these factors are predecessors of the other, in terms of logic, or
in space or in time a previous factor or phase in creation?
What possible theological connotations it has? To be created after a divine model,
’eikon’ could be reflected on the incarnation or transformation of the Logos in different
theologies?
In this Demiurge-type creation theory, what creation theory motives we can find
which could be related with other semita, middle-eastern mithologies? To compare
Timaeus and Genesis is not task of the present issue.
What is the relation between Paradeigm and eikon, they both refer to perfect
patterns, but how they relate with the Logos theories? What relevance it has to the recent
process theological thought? Or on the reverse: how this type of creation theory could be
understood in the light of process philosophy and process theology?

At the Timaeus 28a till 30d verses Timaeus cosmological speech begins with the
distinction: „ what is that which is allways real (einai) and has no becoming and what is
that which is allways becoming (gignomai) and is never real?”

This distinction reveals that there is still a huge metaphysical-ontological and

theological gap between ’becoming’, gignomai and ’existing’ einai. For the early greek
thought ’becoming’ is less precious, then ’existing’, that belongs to the aeternum, to the
divine existence.
Since Parmenides we know that ’existence’, 'einai' in its pure meaning means every
divinity, and ’non-existence’ fails behind to a non-real fiction. But in the philosophy of
Parmenides the whole natural philosophy is dealed under that cathegory, except God, who
stays in complete isolation from the allways changing world, in his transcendent
completeness, unchangeable, static, divine space and eternal time.
Since that presocratic period that is an ontological, metaphysical and also a
theological distinction between ’existing’ and ’becoming’, which implies a further
epistemological distinction, namely the ’doxa versus logos’ distinction.
We all struggle to reach clear and undoubtable knowledge, similarly to Descartes's
basic effort, a well-argued and safe knowledge, called ’logos’. This ’logos’ belongs and
refers to the eternal and rational things, like geometrical or mathematical, astronomical
truths, proportions, numbers. So the field of ’logos’ refers to the eternal things and ideas,
meanwhile on the other hand the ’doxa’ is a slightly slim or weak opinion about the
5
Plato:Philebus (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2001)
6
Leibniz G., The Monadology (translated by George MacDonald Ross, 1999)
changing values of wordly actual entities, which are ’allways becoming and never real’ –
according to Parmenides and Plato in the Timaeus. Thats the root of the metaphysical
distinction, why we handle the ’becoming’ less precious then the ’ever existing’ values in
this classical greek ontological scheme.

From a process philosophical and process theological point of view of course the
situation changes and upside down turning : ’becoming’ seems more plausible then the
final, ultimate facts themselves, as already objective immortal informations, comparing with
the fresh and self-creative becomings.

What is the notion or concept of nature in Plato or in Whitehead’s process

philosophy?
Why is it so important how to define the World we are living inside?: to define it
with a static or with a dinamic notion of nature and creation?: to define it with a static or
dinamic cosmology or creation theory?
To understand it through different channels, it’s like looking through different lenses,
the picture is changing.
How can this world change to be a sacred and divine nature we need to protect
and safe?
How can this World be transformed to be divine and take it as a holy land again, as
a body or sence organ of God? Why is it so important to take it like this from the
aspect of eco philosophy? That religious viewpoint is not alien to the franciscan
interpretation of the word, just refer to the Sun hymn of San Francesco d' Assisi
about brother Sun and sister Moon.

"The man of archaic societies tends to live as much as possible in the sacred or in close
proximity to consecrated objects. The tendency is perfectly understandable, because, for
primitives as for the man of all premodern societies, the sacred is equivalent to a power,
and, in the last analysis, to reality. The sacred is saturated with being...Religious man
deeply desires to be, to participate in reality, to be saturated with power...The completely
profane world, the wholly desacralized cosmos, is a recent discovery in the history of the
human spirit...Desacralization pervades the entire experience of the nonreligious man of
modern societies and that, in consequence, he finds it increasingly difficult to rediscover
the existential dimensions of religious man in the archaic societies."7

According to professor Dominic O’Meara the cosmological theory is forming a

possible theoretical matrix or conceptual scheme to understand Plato’s political
philosophy and on the reverse: Plato’s political thought is forming an optimal model to
understand his cosmology. This argument relies on an analogous argumentation and
belief in the coherence of the philosophical system within the corpus. Behind the
analogical mutual reference between heaven and earth we find the root of every
mysticism:
Because forming a community, occupying a land and establishing a city is allways
an imitation of the ancient, original cosmogony, an imitation of the act of the Demiurge who
created the world - according to Eliade.
So we first need to understand the creation theory, the cosmological scheme, and
then using that as a model we can find out how it is possible for a man, for a Legislator to
find and establish an ideal state and give good laws and create a strong community. The
city is an image of God, and soforth it is a holy place.

7
Mircea Eliade: The Saint and The Profane (Harvest HBJ, 1959), 8. page
 Whitehead's book, the Adventures of ideas8 is a good example here, just take a look
on the table of contents: Sociological, Cosmological, Philosophical, Civilization, we see
how these fields of knowledge, viewpoints of world-explanations are mutually interwowen
and built up by each other, can't be taken and understand separately. We need to have a
humanitarian ideal, a free subject to create such a civilization, which will be characterised
by the ultimate cathegories of Truth, Beauty, Adventure and Peace. To create such a
civilization we need to change our cosmological views, make a new reformation in the field
of sciences, learn more from ancient cosmologies, and on that wider scheme we can
establish a special metaphysics, where subject and object not differ from each other but
mutually dependent and interwowen, create the philosophy of process and the philosophy
of organism, see becomings as occasions and as groupings of occasions, take the
circumstances as an organic belonging and pulsing background which can't be teared off
from a living entity, have a new aspect of creation and self creation and just after that will
humanity be able to create another type of society, another type of communication,
another type of culture and religion, which based more on tolerance, social emotivism,
sensitivity and empathy. So: this just underlines the original thesis: cosmology and cultural
or social antropology is somehow connected. These viewpoints are just different
articulating channels to express the same universal content, what they share.

We need to live in divine space and divine time, therefore we need a divine nature
which surrounds us. If we take the world around us as such, we can take it as a
hierophany or as a theophany and it can form a ground to a cosmotheological argument to
proove God’s existence. The God, the Demiurge is good and the nature of creation is
pretty because he is the best of all the possible causes and he needs to create after an
ideal pattern, a Paradeigm, and this ideal pattern is pretty, because it contains ideal
geometrical proportion, justice and harmony in number.
The universe is well-organised and every living entity is harmonised, synchronised
universally with each other and within each other in micro- and macro cosmical way, and
stays in communication with each other like between the cells inside the body of an
organism. The Monadology of Leibniz could be a very good example as well to this
universal harmonising of the monads with each other, within themselves and within the
whole if we take the monads with windows on each other – whiteheadian.

Leibniz: Monadology citation

8
A.N.Whitehead: Adventures of ideas( Cambridge University Press, 1933)
Now we just need to project all these metaphysical concepts on each other, just as an
attempt.
First let's take the Timaeus version of Plato: The Demiurge-God creates a World
after a Paradeigm or ideal pattern or model, then creates the eikon, the resemble factor
and after that transform his quality through these ideal channels or filters to the reality.
Let's give windows to the monads of Leibniz, to be able to reflect themselves, reflect
the others around and reflect the whole universe. Lets give this ability through the God-
channel, or expand the God-channel through the function of the mirrors and virtual
reflection, but somehow open and change the angle of the mirrors to see each other and
themselves, and project reality full vision.
In Whitehead's Metaphysics, - what he held in the Process and Reality Ideal
Opposites section, God and the World chapter - these three active factors in creation also
exists dressed in new names. We have the 'primordial nature' of God, the ideal or
conceptual field with eternal objects and their constellations, then after that model or
Paradeigm we have the eikon, the special structure or pattern or matrix within which the
eternal objects or bunches of them take place in a special order, which is already
translated to be adoptable for the new becomings, so as a transient factor, as a subjective
aim, as a pattern, as an eikon this constellation exist, and as a third pole we got the
'consequent nature' of God with the fresh becomings, actual entities forming the other
reality part, called: World. But the main thing is the connection between, the mutual
reflection, as we saw in the Monadology, how the universe of eternal objects refers to
wordly actual entities, and backwords: how the universe of actual entities refers to eternal
objects? How they are interrelated? Through subjective aim, through realisation and as
objective immortal information, and inside the constellations or 'societies' they are a data
beside an eternal object.The main thing is the process between and the reflection, the
projection, how they function as a mirror, how they may contain the whole universe from a
special aspect within their data from which they built up.
If the process is fundamental, we need to have a process version of the Timaeus
creation myth what Plato tends to have in the notion of the time, in the notion of the
Worldsoul and in the moving in circles what divine planets and the whole universe is
dancing eternally.
In the light of the whiteheadian metaphysics we need to re-think the distinctional
hierarchy between gignomai, 'to be in a creative process' and einai, 'to be', 'to exist as a
static, ready entity'. We need both poles according to Whitehead: permanence and change
both necessary, permancence comes form God's nature toward the World and change
comes form the World to God's nature, thats why we still keep God and the World
distinction, as we still need to talk in a subject-predicate form, we need to use the self and
the other distinction, because our language is built upon these logical cathegories, but
meanwhile we are talking like this and using their names and keep them in ontological
difference from each other we mean something unnamed flow between, which is the real
meaning, the real quality of the connection, which realised between, which is created by
the connection between the two poles and on the reverse the two poles – god and the
world – are just aspects of this third constituted quality.
And this connection is a self-transforming one, is identical with the progress or process
and the real functioning of the Creativity itself.
 Bibliography:

Dominic O’Meara: Cosmology and politics in Plato’s later dialogues, (extended abstract for the phd course
he ran at the Eötvös Lóránd University, 2010)

Plato: Timaeus (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1999) 20 b, 21a, 28a – 30d,
90d,
Plato: The Laws X.I., Books: VII- XII. (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ.Press, 1984) 628c, 739be-c,
741a,b,, 745e- 746d, 757a-d, 962a,b,

A.N.Whitehead: Process and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1929)

Whitehead: Modes of Thought, Science and the Modern World (The Macmillan Company, 1926)
The Concept of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1926)

Plato:Philebus (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2001)

Leibniz G., The Monadology (translated by George MacDonald Ross, 1999)

Mircea Eliade: The Saint and The Profane (Harvest HBJ, 1959), 8. page

A.N.Whitehead: Adventures of ideas (Cambridge University Press, 1933)