Free Essay Example on the Process Philosophy Identifies the Metaphysical Reality Amid Change and Dynamism

Introduction

Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers sought real truth, based on permanent substances, while processes would be subordinated to timeless substances. For example, illness in humans was considered an accidental change in the substance of the human being, which would be essential. Consequently, classical ontology denied all reality amid change. On the contrary, process philosophy does not characterize the change as illusory or as purely accidental to substance, as in Aristotelian thought, but treated this change as the cornerstone of reality.

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The philosophy of the process is interested in the real world and the references in which its reality can be understood and explained. Its mission is to allow to describe, clarify, and explain the most comprehensive characteristics of reality, as in metaphysics, however with a very characteristic methodology. In the philosophy of the process, a better approach to natural existence is achieved by collecting the transitory components that result in variation in the process. For such scholars, any type of change, whether physical, organic, or psychological - is a patent and predominant feature of reality that must be included in the study scheme.

Process Philosophy and Civil Rights in the US

Since the 1960s, process philosophy has had some influence in the United States. Its significance is to creatively put forward a series of new philosophical views and principles, and in a certain sense, promote the realization of a "process turn" in modern and contemporary Western philosophy (Martin, 2006). The American society is living in a time of numerous and intense moral concerns, and among them, those concerning civil rights stand out. However, this was not always the case. During most of human history, both in the most primitive social organizations and in the most splendid civilizations, those that are now considered violations of civil rights were common occurrences. However, the worldview has been a constant evolution from Christianity, to Transcendentalism to Communism (Martin, 2006). Slavery, racial inequality, systemic oppression, and segregation of minorities by white supremacy are some of the factors that undoubtedly marked the history of the United States. Even with the abolishment of slavery during the civil war, the fight for equal rights in America continues to be a critical facet in the country.

On December 1995, Rosa Parks was arrested, charged, and prosecuted for failing to yield her seat to a white passenger in a Montgomery bus, the events which sparked huge protests in the country and pioneered the civil rights movement. Other events also encouraged the fight for the rights of African Americans. It is worth noting, for example, the murder of Emmet Till in the summer of 1955. Till was a black teenager who was murdered, allegedly, for whistling a white woman. The victim's mother decided to leave the coffin open to show the harsh beating inflicted by the two white kidnappers, who were found not guilty soon after. Also in 1955, activist pastor George W. Lee and civil rights activist Lamar Smith were murdered in the southern United States. The assassination of the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., represented a major milestone in the fight for racial equality in the United States.

The process philosophy insists that the world is essentially a process of continuous generation, and the existence of things is its generation, so the process is truly real. With the series of negative effects brought about by industrial civilization in the late 20th century, modern issues such as racial discrimination, environmental pollution, the danger of nuclear war, one-sided attention to GDP growth, health and food safety have become increasingly prominent, and the relationship between man and nature has become increasingly tense (Martin, 2006). The unsustainability of the systemic oppression of the black community was and continues to be a process that influences the fight for civil rights in American society.

The concept of race has come to be understood as a social construction with increasing calls for overcoming it as a tool for understanding human genetic diversity. For instance, the American sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois began to argue a century ago that distinctions between black and white health in the United States did not stem from biological but from social differences, and that those differences could not be used to explain distinctions without having their basis in culture (Smith, 2017). Still, race continues to be used as a tool to segregate others considered different, mostly blacks and immigrants from having access to the wellbeing and economic opportunities available in the United States (Mullins, 2019).

The fight for civil rights has led scientists to question some well-established assumptions about race differences. In the 19th century, with the positivist impulse on the sciences, racist scientific theories emerged to try to hierarchize the races and prove the superiority of the pure white race. French philosopher, diplomat, and writer Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) is one of those who stood out in this scenario with his publication on the Inequality of Human Races (Flores, 2019). A study based on anthropology, physiology, and psychology called craniometry or craniology also appeared in the 19th century. Such a study consisted of taking measurements of individuals' skulls and comparing the measurements with data such as propensity to violence and intelligence coefficients (Goodrum, 2016). Today, however, serious studies with both a sociological, psychological, and genetic basis no longer give credit to racist theories of the last century. While organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan in the United States and other white supremacists continue to use these outdated racial theories to justify the supremacy of the white race, the history of civil rights demonstrates a process of undeniable change. Similarly, in line with the principle of process philosophy, the real world and the universe are a process and an infinite process of continuous change.

References

Flores, H. (2019). Racism, Latinos, and the Public Policy Process. Rowman & Littlefield.

Goodrum, M. R. (2016). The beginnings of human palaeontology: prehistory, craniometry and the ‘fossil human races’. The British Journal for the History of Science, 49(3), 387-409.

Martin, G. R. (2006). Prevailing worldviews of western society since 1500. Triangle Publishing.

Mullins, P. A. (2019). Misrepresenting Black Africa in US Museums: Black Skin, Black Masks. Routledge.

Smith, J. E. (2017). Nature, human nature, and human difference: Race in early modern philosophy. Princeton University Press.