500096 - THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY - ADVANCED

The Processuality of Nature and the Nature of Processuality. Between Bergson and Whitehead. Continuing the research path initiated in recent years, this course aims to investigate some relevant philosophical conceptions of nature. Drawing on the results achieved, in particular, through the examination of the ontological theses of Merleau-Ponty's late philosophy, which demonstrate a reversal of perspective regarding the connection between the experiencing subject and the experienced object, this reversal will now be explored starting from the writings of H. Bergson and A.N. Whitehead. This means continuing in the direction identified with the study of the French phenomenologist's works (and already the year before with the study of Patocka's), with a view to exploring the possibility of thinking of nature as a- or pre-subjective manifestation. In Merleau-Ponty, an initial phase, based on the work Phenomenology of Perception, in which manifestation is situated in the context of an anonymous corporeal subjectivity that nevertheless somehow maintains a sort of primacy, is followed by a subsequent phase in which, without repudiating the phenomenological approach, he attempts to reverse the perspective, making subjective corporeality a response to the manifestation of nature itself. The outcome, albeit incomplete, of this strategy consists in the attempt to outline an ontology of the "flesh" as a pre-subjective and pre-objective relational fabric, a primordial place of manifestation that precedes and establishes the separation between subject and object. The outcome of Merleau-Ponty's reflections can thus be validly compared with two different yet related approaches that chronologically preceded, and influenced his thought to varying but certainly demonstrable degrees: the works of Bergson, well known to Merleau-Ponty, and of Whitehead, whose thought is less familiar to him but is the subject of significant consideration and currently constitutes a important topic of critical inquiry among scholars. We will first consider some passages from Bergson's most important works: from An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness to La pensé et le mouvant, via Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution. The aim is to demonstrate how, in Bergson, the theme of duration, initially identified as a way of understanding the peculiar nature of consciousness in its specific irreducibility to the causal and quantitative thought of the natural sciences, then develops increasingly decisively and convincingly towards a processual understanding of reality, particularly but not only living reality, to emerge as a dynamic metaphysics based on processual appearance as such, freed from the intellectualistic substructures of modern thought, and somehow reminiscent of the lessons of ancient philosophers, particularly Aristotle (with whom Bergson engaged from his earliest days) and especially Plotinus. One could even argue that Bergson's philosophy represents a dynamic version of Plotinus' emanative thought, connected to developments in the natural sciences. A further step will consist of an analysis of some passages from Whitehead's most important works, particularly The Concept of Nature, Process and Reality, and Adventures of Ideas. This will demonstrate how Whitehead's theoretical demands are very similar to those of Bergson, yet accompanied by a constant need to connect his event-based approach to a critique of the prevailing epistemological models of the natural sciences, thus clearing the way for a different and more adequate model of understanding nature. The intrinsic relationality of reality, which Whitehead's process metaphysics seeks to provide a structural description of, intersects with more recent developments in physicists' reflections, from Prigogine's dynamical models to Rovelli's interpretation of quantum mechanics. In conclusion, the two authors demonstrate both similarities and differences in their respective positions, but two elements certainly stand out in their approach to reality: the importance of processuality and, above all, the emphasis on creativity. In both, in fact, the creativity of reality is not a secondary element but rather likely the fundamental key to their conception. Through Bergson and Whitehead, an innovative element in the understanding of nature emerges, which deserves further investigation.