Whitehead was critical with respect to Poincaré’s conventionalism. However, Whitehead stood closer to Poincaré than Bertrand Russell when Russellinvoked Poincaré’s conventionalism to highlight that the choice between Arthur Eddington’s orthodox interpretation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity on the one hand, and Whitehead’s alternative interpretation on the other, is not a matter of empirical fact, but a matter of convention. Whitehead shared two of the premises of Poincaré’s conventionalism: the physics-independence of geometry, and the choice of a physical geometry amongst geometries of constant curvature. This contributed significantly to his philosophical critique of Einstein, who held that the geometry of space-time depends on the physical distribution of matter, and that the non-homogeneity of this distribution (e.g., at the scale of the solar system) implies that the appropriate physical geometry is variably curved. Russell’s conventionalism, contrary to Whitehead’s view, did not take Poincaré’s premises into account, was shared by the logical positivists, and led to a philosophical defense of Einstein.

This essay presents some points of dialogue between process thinking and post-structuralism, particularly in light of the metaphysical cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead and the post-structuralist philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. This dialogue facilitates the emergence of a cosmologicalpostmodernism. Through the creation of concepts that situate the human within the networks, processes, and mutually constitutive relations of the cosmos, cosmological postmodernism re-envisions the worldview of modernity and overcomes its reification and dichotomization of the human and the world. Four concepts that Whitehead, Deleuze, and Derrida contribute to a cosmological postmodernism include “event,” “creativity,” “rhizome,” and “chaosmos.”

This essay presents what is at stake in Marcuse’s reference to Whitehead’s theory of eternal objects in chapter eight of One-Dimensional Man. There is afecund philosophical affinity between Marcuse’s Critical Theory and Whitehead’s metaphysical alternative. The introduction parses Marcuse’s citation of Whitehead, explaining how the Critical Theory employs eternal objects. Thus a correlate aim of this essay is to provide a charitable reading of Marcuse with attention to Whiteheadian undercurrents and concerns.

In “Non-Rigid Forms” I characterized possibilities as indefinite forms, in contrast to the definite forms (eternal objects) of actualities. This did not do justice to the atemporality of eternal objects. Indefinite forms ought to be construed as dense clusters of eternal objects. By progressive definition God specifies relevantpossibilities to the occasion, which determines one to become actual.

Isabelle Stengers’ work on Whitehead is amongst the most important in Europe today. The contributors here—Isabella Palin, Stephen Meyers, DidierDebaise, and Andrew Goffey—offer a range of perspectives on Stengers’ effort to “think with” Whitehead. Stengers’ detailed response is included.

The way in which Stengers thinks “with” rather than “about” Whitehead is explained through an examination of the transformational function of speculative propositions. The article then investigates the significance of the recurrent theme of “coherence” throughout Whitehead’s philosophical and socio-organizational writings. This theme guides and unifies his thought through its various conceptual adventures.

There is a good deal linking Whitehead’s and Emerson’s deepest in-tuitions, starting with their shared emphasis on intuition and flux—and despite the fact thatin sharp contrast with Whitehead, Emerson carefully avoided anything resembling a metaphysical system. Following Stengers, I distinguish between Whitehead’s “scheme” and his “intentionality”: he is “less the author of the scheme and of the concepts he articulates than he is obliged by them, compelled by them, in a process of empirical experimentation and verification which has about it something of the experience of a trance because the thought in question is taken, captured, by a becoming—something about to be.” The bulk of the essay concerns the central role played by “interstitial wagers” of this sort in Whitehead’s contribution to what he termed “the romance of human thought.”

In this article, I claim that Stengers’ interpretation of Whitehead’s speculative philosophy is organized around the concept of “infection.” In focusing on thisconcept it becomes possible to link process concepts such as “societies,” “environment,” and “historical trajectories” in a real philosophy of life. I have analyzedthe singularity of such a philosophy that Stengers calls a “culture of interstices” and its epistemological dimensions.

Isabelle Stengers’ magnificent book, Penser avec Whitehead, shows that to respond to the challenge posed by our epoch is to “think with” Whitehead in aconstructive and experimental process of reclaiming experience. “Experimentation” is a key term in Stengers’s reading, one which has a crucial role in articulating the stakes of “thinking with.” By looking at the diverse registers across which the notion of experimentation play in Penser avec Whitehead, this paper draws attention to the conceptual politics of “thinking with.”

Four different contributions about my Penser avec Whitehead are a bit like four different chemical tests, helping me to understand better how my proposition may activate interest and connections, but also, and more surprisingly, enlightening me about “how” I myself have inherited from Whitehead’s philosophicaladventure. This answer weaves threads from Debaise, Goffey, Meyer, and Palin together with this very special gift I owe them all: the recognition that if I felt itneeded to resist the notion of a Whiteheadian “conception of a creative world,” it is because to me “thinking with Whitehead” is not thinking about the world,rather reclaiming the kind of trust that thinking requires.