Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence.

Examines the postmodern implications of Whitehead's metaphysical system.

In this book, David Ray Griffin argues that the perceived conflict between science and religion is based upon a double mistake -- the assumption that religion requires supernaturalism and that scientific naturalism requires atheism and materialism.

In this book, David Ray Griffin, best known for his work on the problem of evil, turns his attention to the even more controversial topic of parapsychology. Griffin examines why scientists, philosophers, and theologians have held parapsychology in disdain and argues that neither a priori philosophical attacks nor wholesale rejection of the evidence can withstand scrutiny.

After articulating a constructive postmodern philosophy that allows the parapsychological evidence to be taken seriously, Griffin examines this evidence extensively. He identifies four types of repeatable phenomena that suggest the reality of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Then, on the basis of a nondualistic distinction between mind and brain, which makes the idea of life after death conceivable, he examines five types of evidence for the reality of life after death: messages from mediums; apparitions; cases of the possession type; cases of the reincarnation type; and out-of-body experiences. His philosophical and empirical examinations of these phenomena suggest that they provide support for a postmodern spirituality that overcomes the thinness of modern religion without returning to supernaturalism.

"This is a very thorough integration of the data from parapsychology, both experimental and anecdotal, into the philosophical discussions concerning the nature and role of consciousness. The scholarship is sound, and the issues raised in this book are very hot topics in the academic community, especially among philosophers and cognitive scientists". -- Richard S. Broughton, Director, Institute for Parapsychology

"This elegantly written book shows a greater command of the empirical data than any otherwork on the subject by a philosopher, and no other philosophical work on the survival of death deals with the conceptual issues with greater subtlety or thoroughness". -- Stephen E. Braude, author of ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination and The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science

After the surprising publishing success of the so-called New Atheists it has become clear that there is a market for critical discussions about religion. A religion is much more complex than a set of beliefs which cannot be proven, as the New Atheists argue. There is, in fact, much more to religion and much more to the arguments about its truth claims. This book seeks to bring together a range of discussions, both critical and apologetic, each of which examines some part of religion and its functions. Half of the contributors are critical of some element of religion and the other half are apologetic in nature, seeking to defend or extend some particular religious argument. Covering a wide range of topics, including ethics, religious pluralism, the existence of God, and reasonableness of Islam, these pieces have in common arguments that are made in careful and scholarly ways they represent reasonable perspectives on a wide swath of contemporary religious debates, in contrast to the unreasonableness that creeps into discussions on religion in American society.

This book, originally published by The Westminster Press in 1973, was the first full-scale Christology based upon process thought. Its thesis: Whitehead's process philosophy provides a basis for explicating the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is God's decisive self-revelation, in a manner that is consistent with both modern thought and Christian faith. A Process Christology brings together three dimensions of recent theology: the new quest for the historical Jesus, the new-orthodox emphasis on God's self-revealing activity in history, and the theology based primarily on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. This edition contains a new Preface.

Unlike other accounts of the historic attacks on 9/11, this discussion surveys the role of the world's most advanced military command and control plane, the E-4B, in the day's events and proposes that the horrific incidents were the work of a covert operation staged within elements of the U.S. military and the intelligence community. Presenting hard evidence in the form of proprietary photos taken from raw footage filmed by CNN, the account places the world's most advanced electronics platform circling over the White House at approximately the time of the Pentagon attack. The argument offers an analysis of the new evidence within the context of the events and shows that it is irreconcilable with the official 9/11 narrative.

Was America's response to the 9/11 attacks at the root of today's instability and terror? The events of September 11, 2001, set off a chain of global crises and civil perils that have normalised a climate of fear and conflict. These include the disastrous effects of regime-change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the war on terror, the rise of ISIS, and the growing existential threats of ecological and nuclear holocaust. Looking back, it is clear that the story of 9/11 has been used to legitimise and manufacture support for disastrous policies. In Bush and Cheney, Griffin argues that ripple effects of 9/11 have become so destructive and dangerous that a national reckoning has become essential, in the words of William Rivers Pitt, to stop 'the dominoes of September' from continuing to fall.

The mind-body problem, which Schopenhauer called the world-knot, has been a central problem for philosophy since the time of Descartes. Among realists--those who accept the reality of the physical world--the two dominant approaches have been dualism and materialism, but there is a growing consensus that, if we are ever to understand how mind and body are related, a radically new approach is required.
David Ray Griffin develops a third form of realism, one that resolves the basic problem (common to dualism and materialism) of the continued acceptance of the Cartesian view of matter. In dialogue with various philosophers, including Dennett, Kim, McGinn, Nagel, Seager, Searle, and Strawson, Griffin shows that materialist physicalism is even more problematic than dualism. He proposes instead a pan-experientialist physicalism grounded in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Answering those who have rejected pan-psychism as obviously absurd, Griffin argues compellingly that pan-experientialism, by taking experience and spontaneity as fully natural, can finally provide a naturalistic account of the emergence of consciousness--an account that also does justice to the freedom that we all presuppose in practice.

In this book, four distinguished scholars level a powerful critique of the rapid expansion of the emerging American empire and its oppressive and destructive political, military, and economic policies. Arguing that a global Pax Americana is internationally disastrous, the authors demonstrate how America's imperialism inevitably leads to rampant irreversible ecological devastation, expanding military force for imperialistic purposes, and a grossly inequitable distribution of goods--all leading to the diminished well-being of human communities.

Whereas ?religious diversity? refers to the fact that there are many religious traditions, ?religious pluralism? refers to beliefs and attitudes. Religious pluralists believe that other religions can provide positive values and truths, even salvation--however defined--to their adherents. The articulation of religious beliefs inevitably involves the use of philosophical ideas. Some philosophical positions discourage religious pluralism. Other positions encourage pluralism, but only superficial versions thereof. The present book is based on the conviction that the philosophy articulated by Alfred North Whitehead encourages not only religious pluralism in the generic sense but deep religious pluralism. As such it is offered as an alternative to the version of religious pluralism that has dominated the recent discussion, especially among Christian thinkers in the West--a version that has evoked a growing call to reject pluralism as such.

The baffling age-old question, if there is a good God, why is there evil in the world? has troubled ordinary people and great thinkers for centuries. "God, Power, and Evil" illuminates the issues by providing both a critical historical survey of theodicy as presented in the works of major Western philosophers and theologians--Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Luther, Calvin, Leibniz, Barth, John Hick, James Ross, Fackenheim, Brunner, Berkeley, Albert Knudson, E. S. Brighton, and others--and a brilliant constructive statement of an understanding of theodicy written from the perspective of the process philosophical and theological thought inspired primarily by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

Furthering his contribution to the science and religion debate, David Ray Griffin draws upon the cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead and proposes a radical synthesis between two worldviews sometimes thought wholly incompatible. He argues that the traditions designated by the names "scientific naturalism" and "Christian faith" both embody a great truth--a truth of universal validity and importance--but that both of these truths have been distorted, fueling the conflict between the visions of the scientific and Christian communities. Griffin contends, however, that there is no inherent conflict between science, or even the kind of naturalism that it properly presupposes, and the Christian faith, understood in terms of the primary doctrines of the Christian good news.