Process Philosophy and belief Process philosophy postulates process as a metaphysical ground of all things that exist in this

world. That all things flow is the first vague generalization which the unsystematized, barely analysed, intuition of men has produced. Without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system. (1929c, Pt 2, Ch. 10, sec. 1, p. 317) (SEP, Whitehead, 2012). If the nature is a process, all existents that participate in the nature should also take part in the whole process. To generally or metaphysically describe the quality of matter or form altogether may be best described in term of process. Process is underlying all the activities and description of matters and forms. For example, to give a definition of terms like man, beauty or justice, an explanation must consist of process, which can either be a process of remembering a picture of man or of an occurrence of feeling of justice. For process philosophy, nothing is eternal and secure from the changes wrought by time and its iron law that everything that comes into being must perish, so that mortality is omnipresent and death's cold hand is upon all of nature laws as well as things. (SEP, 2012). Process is defined a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end by Oxford American dictionaries. Seemingly everything is a process must reach an end, but the same process that has ended may always resume if a cause of that particular process arises. The idea of process philosophy is close to the context of Buddhist teaching or Dharma. According to Oxford American dictionaries, dharma is the principle of cosmic order. In Theravada Buddhism, dharma is a term for the factors of existence, or the transitory conditions that cause phenomena to come into being. (Dharma, 2012). Nothing is permanent since it is only a continual process of arising and ceasing including self. In metaphysics, the Buddha argues that there are no self-caused entities, and that everything dependently arises from or upon something else. The doctrine of non-self, however, does not imply the absolute inexistence of any type of self whatsoever, but is compatible with a conventional self composed of five psycho-physical aggregates, although all of

them are unsubstantial and impermanent. (IEP, Buddha, 2012). For this paper, I would like to bring a Whiteheads process philosophical approach to examine on belief. The point is to investigate whether process philosophy could illustrate a clearer picture of the process of belief and how we can justify true belief with the help of process study. Anything that belongs under a certain process has its connection and significant between one another, just like the cause and effect theory. It may sound like a law, but this law of general process is very flexible and variant depending on various factors and variables. Whitehead sees an actual entity is being Whitehead calls the process of constituted by its becoming. (PR, p.23).

unification a concrescence of prehensions, where prehensions are the ways in which other entities are taken in by, and felt within the entity, and where the concrescence is the creative process of pulling together these diverse prehensions of other actual entities into a novel, organic unity. (PR, p.20). Thus, Whitehead views an interconnected whole of all entities in the world and as large as the universe. Whitehead also mentions about belief in his Process and Reality text, saying, A feeling is termed a belief, or is said to include an element of belief, when its datum is a proposition, and its subjective form includes, as the defining element in its emotional pattern, a certain form, or eternal object, associated with some gradation of intensity. (PR, p. 267). The process of belief includes a proposition, eternal object, and emotion. Locke (IV, XV, 3) explains this process as The entertainment the mind gives this sort propositions is called belief, assent, or opinion, which is the admitting or receiving any proposition for true, upon arguments or proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge that it is so. (PR, p . 268). Whitehead disagrees with Locke on the distinction between certainty and uncertainty of belief that Lockes idea of knowledge and intuition is just a recollection of uncertain record, not a certain connection. It can signify that the process of belief is uncertain since it composes of many uncertain players. As Whitehead views belief in term of feeling, his description on comparative feelings would be essential for understanding process of belief. Comparative feelings consist of two types, intellectual feelings and physical purposes.

Intellectual feeling is subdivided into conscious perceptions and intuitive judgments. For physical purposes, it arises from a conceptual feeling integrates with the basic physical feeling wither directly or indirectly. The subjective forms of physical purposes do not involve consciousness unless these feelings acquire integration with conscious perceptions or intuition judgments. (PR, p. 266). Whitehead proposes the affirmation-negation contrast, which is the contrast between the affirmation of objectified fact in the physical feeling, and the mere potentiality, which is the negation of such affirmation, in the propositional feeling the subjective form of the feeling of this contrast is consciousness. (PR, p. 267). Consciousness is occasionally emerged among all feelings as the light to solve conflict between contrasts. Many people compare Whiteheads process philosophy to Buddhist theory of dependent origination in many aspects, although there are some minor different in detail, but the main concepts are still coherent. In John B. Cobbs Whitehead and Buddhism, Masao Abe points out some differences between the two and one among those points is the personal existence. In the cycle of dependent origination, the law of cause and effect is unavailable, however, the ultimate reality for Buddhism, selfless entity, is the stage that locates out of the cycle and no longer considered as in a process. It does not mean that one has to die to be out of the cycle, but a life with full realization of dharma through the right practices. Therefore it is possible that a process of belief could have its end in the righteous manner, which means a full realization of belief without being locked in a process, an ideal belief that will not lead us to doom but enlightenment. Apart from Whitehead, there are many other philosophers who mention about belief. Hume theory of belief can be divided into four main theses, which are the Antirationalist, the Occurrentist-Sentiment, the Causal, and the Antivolitional thesis. First of all, the Antirationalist conveys Beliefs are not simply ideas in the mind, for then we could produce them at will. Hence, if beliefs are not ideas then follow the second theory, the Occurrentist-Sentiment conveys Beliefs are feelings or sentiments in the mind, depicted by the vivacity and forcefulness attached to ideas and thus separating them from what we regarded as fiction. By separating beliefs from fiction, the Causal theory arises to say that the cause

of beliefs is by experiencing things in constant conjunction. Throughout an experience, not many people can control the arising and ceasing of feelings, as it is the nature of human beings. The Antivolitionalist sees beliefs as spontaneous occurrences of vivid ideas in the mind, are passive occurrences, completely involuntary, beyond the pale of the will to effect. (Pojman, P268). Humes theory of belief expresses his philosophical backgrounds, which are skepticism and empiricism. It is interesting to see how the empiricists thought of beliefs is simply connected to the ground of its approach to other areas of philosophy although he could think otherwise. In fact, Hume already mentioned about the cause of belief in his third thesis that beliefs are caused by experiencing things in constant conjunction. When many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event; we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion (Pojman, P.43), a constant conjunction is an inference to experiences and the cause of belief for Hume. A tool to complete the operation of belief is the memory since it collects a sequence of constant conjunction and formulate into belief. This should signify that a feeling of belief arises from our experiences without, referring to the fourth thesis, rational analysis at will. In other words, the same occurrences must repeat itself in a number of times before the probability of belief could raise up to the level that become belief. It brings us a question whether we can choose to believe or we misunderstood that we can choose to believe. It could be true that a belief is passive by taking an example of a politician who tries to convince people to believe in him or her. Sometimes we believe in a politician without realizing an exact moment of the arising of that belief. Thus, humans are systematized to have various beliefs according to their background or experience, but since there are false and true belief, could we at least choose to believe only in the truth. The way people define a given word is largely determined by the beliefs which they hold about the thing referred to by this word. A definition that is merely arbitrary or either too narrow or too broad, based on a false belief about justice, does not give the possibility of communication. (IEP, Plato, 2005). Since people are composed of different series of experiences and customs, there should be an error when contemplating or working on the same event. Later philosophers develop Humean theory of belief and propose other views on the nature of belief.

According to Ramsey, there are no general beliefs, only habits based on singular beliefs. (Pojman, P.269). Another antioccurrentist philosopher, Alexander Bain, wrote, Belief has no meaning except in reference to our actions. For dispositional theory of belief, Braithwaite and Gilbert Ryle point out occurrentism is mistaken and that belief includes a dispositional feature. (Pojman, P.270). Being in one extreme is often dangerous, therefore, H.H. Price who holds both occurrentist and dispositionalist theories, tries to moderate conditional statements with emotional occurrent. Price explains quite clear on his belief of belief that it is a multiform disposition, which is manifest or actualized in many different ways: not only in his actions and his inactions, but also in emotional states such as hope and fear; in feeling of doubt, surprise, and confidence; and finally in his inferences (Pojman, P.272). Similar to the moderation between externalism and internalism, Reflective knowledge depends on reliability, truth, and justification, and as such it is both externalist and internalist, the justification aspect giving it its internalist component. (Pojman, P.156). Pojman also states the interconnection of beliefs, wants, and actions as hardly inseparable components. Actions are explained by beliefs and desires, and they are unintelligible apart of them. Likewise, desires are blind without beliefs, but beliefs need desires in order to motivate action. (Pojman, P.274). Belief, desire, and action seem like a sequential process, but after all belief seems to be the starting point before desire and action. After all the arguments proposed by many philosophers, all of them share a unity in process. No matter if it is to be justified by behaviors, representations in the mind, or feelings, they are all interconnected in a process. Feelings and behaviors are uncertain as well as the knowledge that store in our memory because our memory can be unorganized as well. A forgetful person may know a lot of things, but can remember only half of it and has problem restoring his saved knowledge. I agree with Whiteheads disagreement on Locke about the certainty of knowledge and intuition. Our past datum cannot be guaranteed as the right source of knowledge in interpreting others behaviors or justifying our beliefs. As Whitehead mentions about a contrast within feelings between an intellectual and physical feelings, it reminds me of Platos work on in the

Republic in which he describes humans soul into three parts, reason, spirit, and appetite which derived from the common experience of internal confusion and conflict that all humans share (Plato, The Republic, 436a,b). Reason is the rational part of the soul while appetite is the irrational one. Spirit is the drive toward action that can go into the direction of reason or appetite. Whitehead s conscious

perception is, like the rational part of the soul, the feeling of what is relevant to immediate fact in contrast with its potential irrelevance. The conscious perception is the comparative feeling arising from the integration of the perceptive feeling with this original physical feeling. (PR, p.268). Perceptive feeling is the origination of logical subjects that, without incompatibilities, will transmit to the subjective form of the physical feeling. The subjective form thus assumes its vivid immediate

consciousness of what nexus really is in the way of potentiality realized. There are therefore two immediate guarantees of the correctness of a conscious perception: one is Humes test of force and vivacity, and the other is the illumination by consciousness of the various feelings involved in the process. (PR, p.269). Here Pojman questions Hume on his second thesis about the vivacity and forcefulness that attached to ideas as an insufficient condition for belief. Pojman raises some examples that illustrate how we can believe without having occurrentist feelings at all. His example says, I may not feel anything at all when I tell you that I believe that 2 + 2 = 4 or what my name is, nor need the belief in question be occurrent. (Pojman, P268). Pojman tries to criticize Hume that occurrent If conscious feelings are not necessary for believing, by saying that belief is still there and not disappears even when we are not conscious of the feeling. perception is an element in in forming belief for Whitehead, conscious should be the main driver in justifying belief. Certainly conscious is a friend with reason and logic as they are in similar category, but not everyone has the same understanding of logic or reason in believing something. Even though we are conscious of feelings or feel the force and vivacity to a certain extent, it still does not guarantee true or right beliefs. Whitehead identifies truth as the absence of incompatibility or of any material contrast in the patterns of the nexus and of the proposition in their generic contrast. (PR, p.271). I picture Whiteheads view of truth as a matching data of a machine that would keep its process working. However, when apply to human beings, it is true to a certain extent but

not yet to the ultimate truth. We can suppose a magnet with plus and minus poles as true and false belief. Suppose a person is fundamentally composed of false ideas and propositions, false perceptive data or feeling would not be in contrast with existing ideas or patterns of the nexus. Therefore, that person may see the truth differently from others, but, in fact, the ultimate truth should be one and for all. In conclusion, I still believe there are many other philosophers who would suggest many other ways to justify true belief. Process philosophy gives us a better picture of belief when we look at it as a process. In fact, it can be considered as a natural law that we must see it outside of its cycle to be able to understand how it works. If we do not realize this natural law, we would be just under the control of this process and may not be able to justify true from false beliefs. Whitehead has write how we can achieve the truth from his explanation of the process of feelings and beliefs, but that systematic process can yield truth when there is no contrast in the process, which is still need further research whether it is a sufficient measurement for acquiring truth . According to Buddhism, if the ultimate reality for Buddhism is no self, it gives me wonder whether the ultimate true belief can be no belief or not. It may sound illogical since, by that way, one must believe that no belief is ultimate so at least it already in a process of belief. For this case, it is important to distinguish between beliefs and know. I hope I will further develop and make deeper research on this relevant topic in the future.

Reference Websites 1. Dharma (2012). Dharma. Retrieved from http://buddhism.about.com/od/abuddhistglossary/g/dharmadef.htm on 19.04.2012 2. IEP, Buddha (2012). Buddha. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/buddha/ on 23.04.12 3. IEP, Plato, (2005). Platos Political Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/platopol/ on 12.04.2012 4. SEP (2012). Process Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/ on 19.04.2012 5. SEP, Whitehead (2012). Alfred North Whitehead. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/ on 23.04.2012 Books 1. PR. (1978). Process and Reality. New York : Free Press. 2. Pojman, Louis P. (2001). What Can We Know? An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. 2nd Edition. Australia: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2001. 3. Plato. (1997). Republic. G.M.A. Grube. The United States of America: Hackett Publishing Company.