Upcoming Meetings of the Society

• APA Eastern Division
• APA Pacific Division
• APA Central Division
• Metaphysical Society of America
• Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

Past Meetings

• APA Eastern  Division Meeting
  December 27-30, 2011 Washington, DC (APA Website)
  • Session Chair: Jude Jones, Fordham University (jujones@fordham.edu)
  • Session Title: "Process Thought in Physics and Meta-Physics: Issues for the New Millennium"
  • Speakers:
    "Evolving towards Relational Realism."
    Timothy E. Eastman
    Consultant in Space Science and Plasma Sciences
    Plasmas International (plasmas.org)
    
    "Bad Metaphysics does not make for Good Science."
    Gary L. Herstein
    Ellis University
    
    "Whitehead's Natural Philosophy: A Meta-Physical Framework for Productive Physics."
    William M. Kallfelz
    Department of Philosophy & Religion and Department of Mathematics and Statistics
    Mississippi State University
     
• Metaphysical Society of America
  March 10-12, 2012, Athens, GA - University of Georgia (MSA Website)
  • TBA
     
• APA Central Division Meeting
  February 15-18, 2012 - Palmer House Hilton, Chicago(APA Website)
  • Session coordinator/chair: Scott Sinclair (St. Louis Community College) (scottsin@charter.net)
  • TBA
     
• APA Pacific Division
  April 4-7, 2012, San Diego, CA (APA Website)
  • Session coordinator: Daniel A. Dombrowski (ddombrow@seattle.edu) 
     

PAST MEETINGS

2008-2011

• APA Pacific Division
  April 20-23, 2011, San Diego, CA (APA Website)
  • Session coordinator: John Quiring (johnq@ctr4process.org)
  • Group Session G6, Friday Evening, April 22, 7:00-10:00 p.m.
  • Topic: Philosophy of Biology
  • Chair: Steve Hulbert (Claremont Graduate University)
  • Speakers: Olav Bryant Smith (Butte College) “An Evolution in Communication”
    Adam Scarfe (University of Winnipeg) “Guardians of Our Genes: Epigenetics and Ethics in Process Philosophical Perspective”
    John Quiring (Victor Valley College) “Mapping the Reduction-Emergence, Origins-of-Life, and Units-of-Selection Debates”
    Frederic Tremblay (University at Buffalo) “Nicolai Hartmann’s Influence on the Development of Phylogenetic Systematics”
     
• APA Central Division Meeting
  March 30-April 2, 2011 - Hilton Minneapolis Hotel, Minneapolis, MN (APA Website)
  • Session coordinator/chair: Scott Sinclair (St. Louis Community College) (scottsin@charter.net)
  • Call for Papers (closed)
  • Topic: Whiteheadian Philosophy; Chair: Scott W. Sinclair
  • Speakers:
    William Hamrick (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) “A Whiteheadian Key to Merleau-Ponty’s Fundamental Thought”
    Gary L. Herstein (Ellis College) “Whitehead’s Theory of Extension: Spatial Reasoning as the Bridge between Logic and Metaphysics”
    S. Cheyenne Boylen  (Sonoma State University) “Emotion as Process: A Tribute to Alfred North Whitehead”
     
• Metaphysical Society of America
  March 10-12, 2011, Atlanta, GA - Emory University (MSA Website)
  • Chair: Jude Jones (Fordham University)
  • Speaker: Daniel Dombrowski (Seattle University) "Hartshorne, Plato, and the Concept of God"
  • Respondent: Brian G. Henning (Gonzaga University)
     
• APA Eastern  Division Meeting (THIS MEETING WAS CANCELLED DUE TO A BLIZZARD)
  December 27-30, 2010 Boston, MA - Marriott/Westin-Copley Connection (APA Website)
  • Chair: Brian Henning (Gonzaga University)
  • Speaker: Daniel Dombrowski (Seattle University) "Hartshorne's Dipolar Theism and Pacifism"
  • Commentator: David Banach (Saint Anselm College)
     
• APA Eastern  Division Meeting
  December 29, 2009 1:30-4:30 New York, NY - Marriott Marquis in Times Square (APA Website)
  • Chair: Bill Myers (Birmingham-Southern College)
  • Session: Carbondale Graduate Student Session on Process Thought
  • Speakers:
    • Michael Brady (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), "A Process Metaphysics of Evolution: Pushing Whitehead and Bergson Together"
    • Ravi Dinesh Doshi (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), "Kant and Whitehead: Analogous Analogy?"
    • Joseph John (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), "Whitehead's Speculative Pragmatism"
       
• APA Central Division
  February 18, 2010 (7:30-10:30 PM), Chicago, IL - Palmer House Hilton - Palmer House Hilton (APA Website)
  • Session coordinator/chair: Scott Sinclair (St. Louis University) (scottsin@charter.net)
  • Topic:  "Introducing Process philosophy/theology"
  • Speakers:
    • Arlette Poland (University of California Riverside): "Successful Introductions to Process: Context and Commitment"
    • Robert Mesle (Graceland University):  "Connecting with Lived Experience in the World:  A Teaching Sample"   
    • Adam C. Scarfe (Brandon University): "Promoting Process Thought: What has been done? What is being done?  What should be done?"

• Metaphysical Society of America
  March 5-6, 2010, Boston, MA - Boston University (MSA Website)
  • Speaker: Robert C. Neville (Boston University), “Perpetual Apophasis and the Existential Implosion of Worldview"  
  • Respondent: George R. Lucas, Jr. (US Naval Academy)
  • Chair: Brian G. Henning (Gonzaga University)
   
• Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy
  March 11-13, 2010, Charlotte, North Carolina (SAAP Website)
  • Panel Theme: "The Depths of Experience"  
  • Chair: Brian G. Henning (Gonzaga University)  
  • Speaker: Jeremy R. Hustwit (Methodist University)  
    Title: “Toward Poetry or Science? Strategies for Coordinating Language, Experience, and Reality”
    Abstract: American Philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is marked by both a lack of confidence in ordinary language’s ability to refer to the world, and a corresponding turn to experience in order to guide us through the world. While some philosophers seek to remedy this situation by pushing scientific-literal modes of discourse to their limit with burgeoning lexicons of stipulative definitions, others turn to the flexibility of metaphor and poetics as the most adequate mode of expression. This paper will compare Peircean and Whiteheadian strategies for bridging the gaps between language, experience, and reality.  
  • Speaker: Steve Hulbert (Claremont Graduate University)
    Title: “Hume and the Problem of Personal Identity: A Jamesian Process Solution”
    Abstract: Hume creates a bit of a puzzle when in the Appendix of the Treatise (Nidditch, 636) he states what he believes to be two inconsistent principles surrounding the idea of personal identity, but he seems unable – or at least unwilling – to resolve this inconsistency, choosing instead to adopt what he calls a skeptical position.  The purpose of this paper is to carefully examine the principles in question, and to try to determine why Hume did not attempt to reconcile the two principles. I will review his treatment of this problem from an American perspective – with special attention given to William James’s stream of consciousness and his thoughts on experience broadly construed. I will attempt to show that Hume himself has a partial process solution in his own thought and that augmenting that thought with a Jamesian approach I can present a process approach to the problem that I believe addresses his concerns in a more satisfying fashion.  
  • Responding: John Woell (Greensboro College)
    
• APA Pacific Division
  March 31-April 4, 2010, San Francisco, CA - Westin St. Francis (APA Website)
  • Session coordinator: Dan Dombrowski (ddombrow@seattleu.edu)
  • Theme: Climate Change and Philosophy
  • Speakers:
    • Susan Armstrong (Humboldt State University)
    • Brian G. Henning (Gonzaga University)
       
• "Beyond Metaphysics: Transcontinental Explorations in Whitehead's Late Thought"
  (in conjunction with the Whitehead Research Project)
  December 4-6, 2008 Claremont, CA
  • Conference website
• APA Eastern  Division Meeting
  December 28, 2008  Philadelphia, PA - Marriott Hotel (APA Website)
  Group Session II - 9:00-11:00 AM
  • Chair: Jude Jones (Fordham University)
  • Speakers:
    • James Marsh (Fordham University)
      "Process Philosophy: Problems and Prospects"
    • Anne Pomeroy (Richard Stockton College)
      "Process Philosophy and Social Transformation"
• 7th International Whitehead Conference
  January 5-9, 2009 Bangalore, India (http://www.whitehead-bangalore.in/)

• APA Central Division
  February 20, 2009 (7:00-10:00pm) Chicago, IL - Palmer House Hilton (APA Website)
  • Duston Moore, Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne
    “Unconscious and Non-conscious Experience in Whitehead, Freud, and Marx”
  • Keith A. Robinson (University of South Dakota)
    “Whitehead’s Speculative Philosophy and Radical Empiricism”
  • Commentary: Randall E. Auxier (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

• Metaphysical Society of America
  March 13-14, 2009 Atlanta, GA - Emory University (MSA Website)
  • Session Title: "Imagination in Process: Realization and the Unrealized:
  • Jude Jones (Fordham University, Director SSPP)
    "'Imagine There's No Heaven': The Urgency of the Actual World"
  • Vincent Colapietro (Pennsylvania State University),
    “Routes of Inheritance: Paradigmatic Instances and Unexplored Possibilities”
     
• APA Pacific Division
  April 8-12, 2009 Vancouver, British Columbia - Westin Bayshore (APA Website)
  • Theme: Process Thought, Violence, and Nonviolence
    • Chair: John Quiring - johnq@ctr4process.org
    • Call for papers (closed)
    • Dan Dombrowski (Seattle University)
      “Pacifism and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism.”
    • Adam Scarfe (University of Saskatchewan Process Philosophy Research Unit )
      “On Religious Violence and Social Darwinism in the New Atheism: Toward a Critical Process Pan-Selectionism”
    • Jeanyne Slettom (Center for Process Studies)
      “Scars of War: A Whiteheadian Approach to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”

2007-2008

• APA Eastern  Division Meeting
  December 27-30, 2007  Baltimore, MD - Marriott Inner Harbor (APA Website)
  GROUP SESSION VIII-9 - Saturday, December 29, 11:15 A.M.-1:15 P.M. Bristol Room (Third Floor)
  • Chair: Brian G. Henning (Mount St. Mary's University)
  • Speakers:
    • Thomas A. F. Kelly (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)
      “Real Presences: The Dialogic Nature of Process”
    • Derek Malone-France (The George Washington University)
      "Between Molina and Hartshorne: A Whiteheadian Construal of Divine Foreknowledge”
  • Commentator: George Shields (Kentucky State University)
     
• Metaphysical Society of America
  March 7-9, 2008 Portland, ME - University of Southern Maine (MSA Website)
  • Speaker: Brian G. Henning (Mount St. Mary's University)
     
• Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy
  March 13-15, 2008  East Lancing, MI - Michigan State University (SAAP Website)
  • Chair: Brian G. Henning (Mount St. Mary's University)
  • Speakers:
    • Vincent Colapietro (Penn State University)
      "Affinities between Alfred North Whitehead & Charles Sanders Peirce: Overlapping Interests and Shared Aspirations"
    • Scott Sinclair (St. Louis University)
      "Is there a connection between Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead?
       
• APA Pacific Division
  March 19-22, 2008  Pasadena, CA - Hilton Pasadena (APA Website)
  • Theme: Process Thought and the New Atheism (Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens)
    Chair: Daniel Dombrowski ddombrow@seattleu.edu
    • John Quiring (Victor Valley College and Center for Process Studies)
    • Randy Ramal (Claremont Graduate University)
    • Adam Scarfe (California State University at Bakersfield)
    • Donald Viney (Pittsburg State University)

• APA Central Division
  April 17-20, 2008  Chicago, IL - Palmer House Hilton (APA Website)
  GROUP SESSION - GIV-9 Friday, April 18,  7:00 PM-10:00 PM
  • Theme: "Topic: Whitehead's Empiricism: How Radical?"
  • Speakers:
    • George Allan (Dickinson College)
      “Transforming Whitehead's Eternal Objects into Transient Empirical Possibilities”
    • Gary Herstein (Muskingum College)
      “Irreducible Extension in the Unity of Whitehead's Thought”
  • Respondent: Randall Auxier (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale)

2006-2007

• December 29, 2006, Washington, D.C. - Marriott Wardman Hotel
  Annual meeting of SSPP at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association
   
  • Session GVIII-8: Friday, 11:15-1:15, Harding Room (Mezzanine Level)
  • Session Title: Traditional, Process, and Skeptical Approaches to the Ontological Argument
  • Chair: Brian Henning (Mount St. Mary's University)
  • Presentations:
    • Kathrin Rogers (University of Delaware)
      "Revisiting Anselm's Argument"
    • Mylan Engel (Northern Illinois University)
      "What Ontological Arguments Don't Show”
    • Daniel A. Dombrowski (Seattle University)
      “Response to Rogers and Engel”
       
• March 10, 2007 (4:15-6:00 pm)  Columbia, SC
  Society for the Study of Process Philosophies meeting at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy's Annual Meeting
   
  • Chair:  Brian Henning (Mount St. Mary's University) and Jude Jones (Fordham University)
  • Session Title: "Inconvenient Pragmatic Truths"
    After brief framing remarks from an informal panel of discussants, we will engage in a collaborative inquiry into the role of American philosophies in confronting global climate change
  • Conference Details and Program: SAAP Website

• Saturday, April 7, 2007 (7-10 pm)  San Francisco, CA - Westin
  APA Pacific Division Meeting - Jointly sponsored by the Society for the Study of Process Philosophies, Josiah Royce Society, and the Society for the Philosophy of Creativity
   
  • Chair: John Quiring (Victor Valley College)
  • Remarks:
    • Randall Auxier (Southern Illinois University - Carbondale)
      "On the Society for the Philosophy of Creativity"
    • Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley (California State University - Bakersfield)
      "On the Josiah Royce Society"
  • Speaker:
    • Christina Hutchins (Independent Scholar)
      "The Creativity of the Lost Cause: Grief and Imagination as Environmental Praxis"
    • Respondent: Adam Scarfe (California State University - Bakersfield)
  • Conference Details: APA Website
     

• April 19, 2007 (7:30-10:30 p.m.) Chicago, IL - Palmer House Hilton Hotel
  APA Central Division Meeting - Jointly sponsored by the Society for the Study of Process Philosophies and the Society for the Philosophy of Creativity
   
  • Chair: Stephen Bickham (Mansfield University)
  • Speaker:
    • Douglas Anderson, Southern Illinois University, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
      Creativity Americana"
  • Commentators:
    • Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson College)
    • John Cogan (Southern Illinois University)
  • Conference Details: APA Website

2005-2006

• April 27-30, 2006
  SSPP session at the Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, IL
  • Chair: Randy Auxier, Southern Illinois at Carbondale
  • Presentations:
    • Don Viney (Pittsburg State University)
      "God as the Most and Best Moved Mover: Hartshorne's Importance for Philosophical Theology"

• March 9-11, 2006 - Annual Meeting of the SSPP at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Texas State University, San Antonio, TX
     
  • Session Title: Process-Pragmatic Moral Philosophy
  • Presentations:
    • Jude Jones, Fordham University
      “Intensity in Moral Experience: A Process-Pragmatic Assessment of the Possibility of Moral Response to Overwhelming Circumstance”
    • Brian G. Henning, Mount St. Mary’s University
      “Whitehead and James on the Aim and the Limits of Moral Philosophy”