The Whitehead Metaphysical Society

Founded in 2003 in Katowice

Seat:

St. Bonaventura’s Seminary OFM,
Panewnicka 76 Str.
40-760 Katowice
Poland

The Whitehead Metaphysical Society is an international and not-for-profit institution created in 2003 by a group of 20 philosophers and other scientist. We are registered at the Polish National Court of Registration with no. 0000242372 and keep accounts according to the Polish law as applies to non-governmental organizations.

The Society aims to conduct basic research in philosophy (especially metaphysics) and at the same time to inspire scientists working in other fields to research the foundations of their disciplines. We have organized 9 conferences on a national scale and 2 international ones. We have issued 3 volumes of Studia Whiteheadiana and 2 volumes of Studia Whiteheadiana. Series monographica. Since the beginning of our existence we have organized seminars to discuss the philosophical foundations of religious experience, inter-religious dialogue, quantum mechanics and many others philosophical issues.

All initiatives of the Society are taken with cooperation with the St. Bonaventura’s Franciscan Seminary in Katowice, the University of Silesia in Katowice and The Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow. The Society is a member of the International Process Network. 

The society’s goal is to support the development of metaphysics.

By “support” we understand:

• To care for the legacy of metaphysics, including the problematics of metaphysics, the ability to pursue these problems and develop them in the spirit of extant metaphysical systems.

• To create a climate supporting the exploration of new systemic solutions, and critical discussion of proposals.

• To inspire systematic studies on any particular philosophical issues that may shed some light on the problem of being.
  

The presence of an empirical element causes metaphysics to formulate successive systems and constantly verify them in terms of their coherence, internal consistency, applicability, and adequacy (P&R p.3).  Thus the development of metaphysics is understood here in the spirit of process philosophy:  categories, theses, and metaphysical systems are verified and compared with the current image of changing reality, accompanied by the expansion of the range and depth of our experience of being.  

Metaphysics, by constructing theories of reality, necessarily incorporates the empirical element along with the rational. If the a priori analysis of ideas, eternal objects, or ideal meanings is ontology, then metaphysics cannot develop without the development of ontology.

A.N. Whitehead constructed a metaphysics which, while remaining classical in spirit, embodies in its hypotheses the contemporary understanding of being. He reminded his readers that metaphysics is an adventure of the soul, a flight towards that which is unattainable.