Whitehead's Philosophy Of Creativity And Its Implication In Religion And Culture

This dissertation on Whitehead's philosophy provides both a novel interpretation of his metaphysical system and an important significance in practical application. There are two aspects that we'll discuss: his philosophy of creativity and its implication in religion and culture. We do our best to give consideration to both of them.This dissertation consists of six chapters, in which those contexts are divided into three phases of thought:First, in chapter one, we'll talk about the speculative philosophy on creativity, it is the concept that we can undertand the process philosophy and the philosophy of organism. However, the introduction and study of Whitehead's philosophy in current texts are mainly focused on the concept of process or organism, but ignoring the ultimate category of creativity ,which makes us gain an unabridged comprehension of Whitehead's philosophy. In view of what is mentioned, this chapter is intended to give a deeper insight into Whitehead's philosophy. To philosophy of creativity, all those ideas of process and organism are derivative concepts.Second, in chapter two, we'll analyze the premise of creativity, it is possibility. We particularly describe one extreme of categories of existence in Whitehead's metaphysical system: eternal object as pure possibility. Another extreme here is the complete actuality which is expressed as actual entity or actual occasion in Whitehead's terms. So, in chapter three, we concern about the ontological foundation of creativity. In chapter four, then, we concentrate on Whitehead's theory of perception, taking it as an exemplification of the ontology of actual occasions.Finally, in chapter five and chapter six, the implication of the philosophy of creativity is brought to light, including in the construction of theology and in the development of civilization. And what is more, we give an contemporary content on Whitehead's philosophy of creativity in the conclusion of this essay.Thus, Whitehead's ideas have offered us new methods in our study of the most profound problems in the history of metaphysics and theology and important significances in our current practice of religion and culture.