Michael Halewood

Words, Whitehead and the World

Language and Process

Roland Faber

Deena Lin

Considered together, Butler and Whitehead draw from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and creative opportunities of limitation. The contributors of this volume offer a unique contribution to and for the humanities in the struggles of politics, economy, ecology, and the arts

On the Occasion

Butler on Whitehead

Andrew M. Davis

How do we make ourselves a Whiteheadian proposition? This question exposes the multivalent connections between postmodern thought and Whitehead’s philosophy, with particular attention to his understanding of propositions. Edited by Roland Faber, Michael Halewood, and Andrew M. Davis, Propositions in the Making articulates the newest reaches of Whiteheadian propositions for a postmodern world. It does so by activating interdisciplinary lures of feeling, living, and co-creating the world anew. Rather than a “logical assertion,” Whitehead described a proposition as a “lure for feeling” for a collectivity to come. It cannot be reduced to the verbal content of logical justifications, but rather the feeling content of aesthetic valuations. In creatively expressing these propositions in wide relevance to existential, ethical, educational, theological, aesthetic, technological, and societal concerns, the contributors to this volume enact nothing short of “a Whiteheadian Laboratory.”

Experiments in a Whiteheadian Laboratory

Propositions in the Making

Over the last 50 years there has been a growing appreciation of the important role that farmers play in the development and conservation of crop genetic diversity, and the contribution of that diversity to agro-ecosystem resilience and food security. This book examines policies that aim to increase the share of benefits that farmers receive when others use the crop varieties that they have developed and managed, i.e., ‘farmers varieties’. In so doing, the book addresses two fundamental questions. The first question is ‘how do farmer management practices – along with other factors such as environment and the breeding systems of plants – affect the evolution and maintenance of discrete farmers’ varieties?’ The second question is ‘how can policies that depend on being able to identify discrete plant varieties accommodate the agricultural realities associated with the generation, use and maintenance of farmers’ varieties?’ This focus on discreteness is topical because there are no fixed, internationally recognized taxonomic or legal definitions of farmers’ varieties. And that presents a challenge when developing policies that involve making specific, discrete farmers’ varieties the subject of legal rights or privileges. The book includes contributions from a wide range of experts including agronomists, anthropologists, geneticists, biologists, plant breeders, lawyers, development practitioners, activists and farmers. It includes case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe where, in response to a diversity of contributing factors, there have been efforts to develop policies that provide incentives or rewards to farmers as stewards of farmers’ varieties in ways that are sensitive to the cultural, taxonomic and legal complexities involved. The book situates these initiatives in the context of the evolving discourse and definition of ‘farmers' rights’, presenting insights for future policy initiatives.

Challenges in Taxonomy and Law

Farmers' Crop Varieties and Farmers' Rights

The contemporary importance of A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) lies in his direct yet productive challenge to the culture of thought inherent in modernity that suffuses science, social theory and philosophy alike. Unlike the more destructive aspects of post-modernism and post-structuralism, Whitehead’s diagnosis of the conceptual fault-lines of the modern era does not entail a passive relativism, nor does it assign a negative role to thought. Instead, he calls for a renewal of critical thinking. Whitehead’s own, positive, philosophical approach is based on becoming, relativity, and a re-conception of subjectivity and the social. This book outlines Whitehead’s thought and uses it to re-orient a range of specific questions within contemporary social theory, namely: the relation of language and the body; the individual and society; sexual difference and conceptions of nature; the question of realism; the concept of the social; and viewing capitalism as process. It also provides detailed analyses and comparisons of Whitehead’s concepts with those of Judith Butler on materiality and the body, and those of Luce Irigaray on nature, essentialism and sexual difference.

Tracing a Culture of Thought

A. N. Whitehead and Social Theory

According to some social theorists, we are ‘at the end of the social’. This book argues that such pronouncements may be premature, as we need to reengage with what sociologists have previously meant by ‘the social’. ‘Rethinking the Social’ is the first book to systematically analyse the different concepts of the social developed by Durkheim, Marx and Weber. It examines how the concept of the social became unproblematic for twentieth-century writers and suggests that debates surrounding this concept remain very much alive. Building on A. N. Whitehead’s work, Halewood develops a novel ‘philosophy of the social’.

Michael Halewood

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