Collection of links: North American Philosophical Roots of “A Process Model” (Gendlin, 1997/2018)

Three North American philosophers who preceded Gendlin

In “A Process Model (APM)” (Gendlin, 1997/2018), various philosophers who preceded Gendlin are mentioned, either directly or indirectly. In ancient philosophy, Plato and Aristotle are mentioned, as well as Leibniz, who proposed the concept of “monads” in modern times and later, and Kant, although his reference is limited to “The Critique of Pure Reason.” Regarding influence, other names that might be mentioned are Bergson and Whitehead. However, as yet, little secondary literature on these philosophers discusses their relationships of influence thematically worldwide.

Thus, as a beginning to situate Gendlin’s philosophy historically, I have taken the philosophies of three philosophers active in the United States in the first half of the 20th century: John Dewey (1859-1952), George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), and Suzanne Langer (1895-1985). I have discussed their philosophies and introduced them as precursors to APM in my previous blog posts.

Dewey and Mead are important figures in the school of “classical pragmatism” in the history of philosophy. The two were colleagues at the University of Chicago and allies from then on. Dewey’s philosophy includes works that thematically discuss “the interaction of organisms with their environment.” Two of these are “Experience and Nature” (Dewey, 1925/1929) and “Logic: The Theory of Inquiry” (Dewey, 1938). I see these as strongly influencing Chapters I-IV of the APM. I have also drawn on his complementary works “The Quest for Certainty” (Dewey, 1929) and “Knowing and the Known” (Dewey & Bentley, 1949). Like Dewey, Mead was concerned with “the interaction of organisms with their environment. I also see his theory of time (Mead, 1932) as influencing Chapter IV-B, “Time,” in APM, and his theory of symbols (Mead, 1934) as influencing Chapter VII, “Culture, Symbol, and Language,” in APM. It should be noted that there are previous studies by the Swiss philosopher Donata Schoeller (Schoeller & Dunaetz, 2018; Saller & Schoeller, 2018) on the influence of Dewey and Mead on Gendlin.

Langer’s philosophy, on the other hand, is a continuation of “The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms” (Cassirer, 1923-9) of Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), who emigrated from Germany to the United States. The aesthetics she developed is generally seen as a counterpoint to Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics. However, her philosophy has strongly influenced APM, although Gendlin does not explicitly mention it. In particular, I see her philosophy as having a strong influence on “to respond a picture as a picture,” “aboutness,” and “discursive use versus art” of symbols discussed in Chapter VII of APM. In my blog posts, I focus on Langer’s major work, “Philosophy in a New Key” (Langer, 1942/1957).

Collection of links to my blog posts

Below, I will provide links to the chapters of APM that correspond to each of my previous blog posts.

“Chapter II: Functional Cycle (Fucy)” & “Chapter I: Body-Environment (B-En)”

History of Chapters II and I Use of the Term “Implying” in “A Process Model”: with reference to Mead and Dewey

“Chapter IV-A: A Different Concept of the Body, Not a Machine”

Gendlin’s “interaction first” and Dewey’s “transaction”

Gendlin’s position against the “idealized observer” and Dewey’s position against the “spectator”: based on their views of old and new physics

Gendlin’s position against the “unit model” or the “content paradigm”: retroactive time in terms of G. H. Mead’s theory of time

“Chapter V-A: Intervening Events” & “Chapter I: Body-Environment (B-En)”

Pragmatistic origins of Gendlin’s en#0: with reference to Dewey and Mead

“Chapter VI-B: The Development of Behavior Space” & “Chapter III: An Object”

A Preliminary Examination of the Concept of “Object”: From G. H. Mead to Gendlin in the 1980s

“Chapter VII-A: Symbolic Process” & “Chapter VII-B: Protolanguage”

Responding to a picture as a picture: Susanne Langer and Eugene Gendlin

Words and visual patterns: in light of Gendlin and Langer’s discussions

Animals don’t “express” each other (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”—Gendlin and Mead: 1)

The three-step “order” beginning with “animal gestures” (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”— Gendlin and Mead: 2)

“Gestures” do not exist without the other animal (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”: Gendlin and Mead: 3)

Fighting does not occur in a “truncated act” (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”—Gendlin and Mead: 4)

How we know what our bodies look like (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”—Gendlin and Mead: 5)

Self-consciousness emerging from gestural communication (Symbolic process beginning with “animal gestures”—Gendlin and Mead: 6)

References

Cassirer, E. (1923-9). Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Bruno Cassirer.

Dewey, J. (1929). Experience and nature (2nd ed.). Open Court.

Dewey, J. (1929). The quest for certainty. Minton, Balch.

Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: the theory of inquiry. Henry Holt.

Dewey, J. & Bentley, A.F. (1949). Knowing and the known. Beacon Press.

Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.

Kant (1787). Kritik der reinen Vernunft (2nd ed.). Johann Friedrich Hartknoch.

Langer, S.K. (1942/1957). Philosophy in a new key: a study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art (3rd ed.). Harvard University Press.

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. (edited by C.W. Morris). University of Chicago Press.

Schoeller, D. & Dunaetz, N. (2018). Thinking emergence as interaffecting: approaching and contextualizing Eugene Gendlin’s Process Model. Continental Philosophy Review, 51, 123–140.