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A middle way: Process philosophy and critical communication inquiry
- Source: Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, Volume 4, Issue 2, Dec 2012, p. 113 - 131
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- 01 Dec 2012
Abstract
My contention in this article is that in order to construct critical communication knowledge useful for understanding change and affording a productive politics, critical scholars would benefit from an ongoing, serious discussion of the metaphysical assumptions that underlie our work. Conceiving change – understanding its process and how to create humane change – is the axis on which critical work turns. Process thought provides a relevant and useful philosophical context in which to address questions of change. I begin this article, then, with a brief argument to revisit and reconsider process thought in the context of communication scholarship. Next, I offer an overview of Alfred North Whitehead’s speculative and systematic approach, contrasting it with a traditional metaphysics approach. Following is an explication of process in contrast to substance and a discussion of some fundamental tenets that comprise a process theory of reality. A brief analysis of temporality animates the foregoing concepts and points to some implications, in the final section, for conceiving change in critical communication work from a process-oriented perspective.