Process Studies Supplement Overcoming Anthropocentric ... - Here

32
PROCESS STUDIES SUPPLEMENTS 12 (2008)
his life, admitted that “even if one does not believe in God, there are elements
of the idea of God that remain in us and that cause us to see the
world with some divine aspects” (de Beauvoir 436-43). In this light, in
the last section of this paper, I will endeavor to express how the processrelational
standpoint overcomes the anthropocentrism of modernism and
the extreme anti-humanism of deconstructive postmodernism and radical
ecologism, as characterized above.
Overcoming the dichotomy between anthropocentric
humanism and radical anti-humanism via the “critical,
non-anthropocentric organicism” of “process-relational”
environmental epistemology
In the “Introduction to the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern
Thought,” David Ray Griffin contrasts what he calls “constructive” or
“reconstructive” postmodernism, of which process-relational modes of
thought are the chief example, with “deconstructive” or “eliminative”
postmodernism. He claims that the latter
overcomes the modern worldview through an anti-worldview,
deconstructing or even entirely eliminating various concepts that
have generally been thought necessary for a worldview, such as self,
purpose, meaning, a real world, givenness, reason, truth as correspondence,
universally valid norms, and divinity. . . . [However] the
postmodernism [derived from process-relational modes of thought]
can, by contrast, be called revisionary, constructive, or—perhaps
best—reconstructive. It seeks to overcome the modern worldview
not by eliminating the possibility of worldviews (or metanarratives)
as such, but by constructing a postmodern worldview through a
revision of modern premises and traditional concepts. . . . That is,
it agrees with deconstructive postmodernists that a massive deconstruction
of many received concepts is needed. But its deconstructive
moment, carried out for the sake of the presuppositions of practice,
does not result in self-referential inconsistency. It also is not so totalizing
as to prevent reconstruction. . . . Going beyond the modern
world will involve transcending its individualism, anthropocentrism,
patriarchy, economism, consumerism, nationalism, and militarism.
(xii-xiii, my additions)
As a “constructive” or “reconstructive” form of postmodernism, the
process-relational standpoint that is inspired by the philosophy of Alfred
North Whitehead deviates from the postmodernism of the “deconstructionist”
variety. It is highly critical of the anthropocentric humanism that