Michel Weber (born 1963) is a Belgian philosopher. He is best known as an interpreter and advocate of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, and has come to prominence as the architect and organizer of an overlapping array of international scholarly societies and publication projects devoted to Whitehead and the global relevance of

process philosophy Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. In opposition to the classi ...

. Weber criticizes contemporary academic philosophy for losing touch with its early Greek roots. Philosophy has a practical mission (rooted in Socratic discourse) to restore personal and social

well-being Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in th ...

, but it cannot do this, he argues, if it renounces its traditional

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

obligation (rooted in

pre-Socratic Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...

speculation) to understand the

cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...

. Weber believes that

is uniquely qualified to fulfill this double function in the

post-modern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

world. Weber was educated in Belgium and the United States. The primary languages of his publications are English and French.

Education

Michel Weber studied

applied economics Applied economics is the study as regards the application of economic theory and econometrics in specific settings. As one of the two sets of fields of economics (the other set being the ''core''), it is typically characterized by the application ...

at the Saint-Louis University, Brussels (''candidat ingénieur commercial'', 1986) and philosophy at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve (''licencié en philosophie'', 1991; ''docteur en philosophie'', 1997). His master's thesis, written under the supervision of Jean Ladrière, dealt with the epistemological status of the " anthropic principle" in

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...

in light of the concepts of

teleology Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...

(or "finality") found in

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...

, and

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

. From 1993 to 1995, he was Visiting Scholar at the Center for Process Studies of the

Claremont School of Theology Claremont School of Theology (CST) is an American graduate school focused on religion and theology and located in Claremont, California. CST is fully recognized and approved as one of thirteen official theological schools of the United Methodi ...

and at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California (U.S.), where he worked under the supervision of John B. Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin. In 1997, he defended his doctoral thesis, ''Intuition pré-systématique et intuition ontologique chez Alfred North Whitehead. Euristique du pancréativisme de l’époque de Harvard'' (''Pre-systematic Intuition and Ontological Intuition According to Alfred North Whitehead: The Heuristics of Pan-creativism in the Harvard Era''), written under the supervision of Marcel Crabbé.

Career

From 1997 to 2002 he was Research Fellow at the ''Centre de Logique de l’Institut supérieur de Philosophie'' of the UCLouvain. From 2001 to 2002 he taught philosophy at the ''École européenne Bruxellensis II'' (European Baccalaureate, Anglophone Section, 6th and 7th years). From 2002 to 2007, he was Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophical Anthropology of the UCLouvain Higher Institute of Philosophy. In 2000, Weber created, with the support of François Beets and Paul Gochet (

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

), the ''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'' and the ''Whitehead Psychology Nexus'', two scholarly societies intended to federate research on different aspects, nuances, and implications of the thought of A. N. Whitehead. In 2001, he created the ''European

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

Project'' with Jack Barbalet (University of Leicester), Jaime Nubiola (University of Navarra) and the late Timothy L. S. Sprigge (Emeritus Edinburgh). In 2002, he created the research seminars "''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes''" with the cooperation of the "Philosophies of Experience" research center at the ''Université de Nantes'' Department of Philosophy and the Center for the Study of Pragmatism and Analytic Philosophy at the Sorbonne (''le Centre d'Études sur le Pragmatisme et la Philosophie Analytique'' or CEPPA, but renamed since as EXeCO; ''Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne-École Doctorale''). Since 2004, he has been the Editorial Director of the series ''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'' for the academic publisher Ontos Verlag (Frankfurt) and Editorial Co-director, along with Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh) and Johanna Seibt (Aarhus & Konstanz), of the ''Process Thought'' series, also with Ontos Verlag (Advisory Board: Mark Bickhard, Lehigh; Jaime Nubiola, Navarra; and Roberto Poli, Trento). Since 2005, he has co-edited the ''Chromatikon: Annuaire de la philosophie en procès — Yearbook of Philosophy in Process'' at the

Presses universitaires de Louvain The Presses universitaires de Louvain (''PUL'') is a university press of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) located in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. It was established in 2000 to mark the 575th anniversary of the Old University of Louvain The ...

, first with Diane d'Eprémesnil (UCLouvain), then with Pierfrancesco Basile (University of Bern), and now with Ronny Desmet (''Vrije Universiteit Brussel''). In 2006, he created the ''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'' "Centre for Philosophical Practice," a non-profit organization. The center now federates the three networks mentioned above (the ''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'', the ''Whitehead Psychology Nexus'', and the ''European William James Project'') and provides an institutional base for two new activities: first, the publication of a scholarly book series appearing under the label ''Les Éditions Chromatika'' (''Chromatika Editions'') and, second, the opening in Brussels of Belgium's first philosophical counseling service or "philosophical praxis."Centre de philosophie pratique "Chromatiques whiteheadiennes."
See also "''The Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'' Centre for Philosophical Practice,
''Process Perspectives''
, 30:1 (Summer 2007), pp. 17-18. Since 2007, he has been a member of the "Contemporary Ontological Visions" network of the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 2008–9, he was Visiting Professor at the New Bulgarian University, Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology & Department of Philosophy and Sociology. Since 2009, Weber is also a trained

hypnotherapist Hypnotherapy is a type of mind–body intervention in which hypnosis is used to create a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern. Popularized by 17th and 18th ce ...

(Institut Milton Erickson, Brussels).

Philosophical work

As a principal source of inspiration, Weber promotes the ideas of a group of loosely associated thinkers from the early 20th century who applied evolutionary thinking to

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, and

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

, giving rise to the school of thought now known as "

." Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), along with C. S. Peirce (1839–1914), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), and

(1842–1910), is regarded as one of the fathers of process philosophy. This mostly Anglo-American

school of thought A school of thought, or intellectual tradition, is the perspective of a group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, discipline, belief, social movement, economics, cultural movement, or art movement. ...

still finds only minority endorsement in academic philosophy departments. Nevertheless, despite its limited reception in the United States and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

, process philosophy has begun to interest a small but growing number of scholars worldwide. By organizing a global network of like-minded scholars and fostering the publication of their ideas in Europe, Weber has contributed significantly to the visibility of process philosophy in that continent. There also appears to be a shift of focus. Until recently, interest in Whitehead, especially in the United States, tended to focus on process theology. Whitehead's brief but provocative theological speculations, added almost as an afterthought at the end of his major philosophical opus ''

Process and Reality ''Process and Reality'' is a book by Alfred North Whitehead, in which the author propounds a philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy. The book, published in 1929, is a revision of the Gifford Lectures he gave in 1927–28. Whi ...

'' (1929), were elaborated into an excitingly new natural theology that seemed particularly attractive to Christian theologians because it made naturalistic sense of God's personal love for creatures. This theological emphasis, however, along with a sometimes evangelical tone adopted by Whitehead's more ardent devotees, may be the reason for the marginalization of process philosophy in mainstream academic philosophy. With his 1996 book ''Process Metaphysics'', the eminent and prolific American philosopher

Nicholas Rescher Nicholas Rescher (; ; born 15 July 1928) is a German-American philosopher, polymath, and author, who has been a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh since 1961. He is chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science and was fo ...

began a campaign to rehabilitate a broadly

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

style of process thinking. He defended it as the optimal matrix for any systematic theorizing about the nature of things. Like Rescher in the United States, Weber cultivates a critical and largely secular appreciation for process philosophy. He translated Rescher's ''Process Metaphysics'' into French in 2006. In 2000, his monograph ''La dialectique de l’intuition chez A. N. Whitehead. Sensation pure, pancréativité et onto-logisme'' (''The Dialectic of Intuition in the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead: Pure Sensation, Pancreativity, and Onto-logism'') was awarded a prize by the Belgian Royal Academy (''Classe des Lettres de l’Académie Royale de Belgique'').See Jean Ladrière, Marc Richir, Jacques Taminiaux, "''Rapports des Commissaires''," ''Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques'', ''6e série'', ''Tome XI'', Bruxelles, 2000, pp. 122-126. Weber argues that the term pancreativism constitutes the more appropriate qualification of Whitehead's metaphysics, which is neither a

pantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...

or a panentheism.

Professional activities

Weber is the author of 10 monographs and 80 scholarly articles and encyclopedia entries. His monograph ''La Dialectique de l’intuition chez A. N. Whitehead: sensation pure, pancréativité et contiguïsme'' (''The Dialectic of Intuition in the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead: Pure Sensation, Pancreativity, and Onto-logism'') was awarded the ''Prix du Concours annuel 2000'' by the Royal Academy of Belgium. He is also the motive force behind numerous international and intercultural collaborations. He strives to coordinate his professional activities toward the creation of a new, visionary philosophical culture conceived as cooperative, intellectually adventurous, ethically self-aware, and global in reach. :*He has founded three international scholarly societies: :::*''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'', :::*the ''Whitehead Psychology Nexus'', and :::*the ''European

Project''. :*He manages a non-profit publishing house, :::*''Éditions Chromatika''. :*And, he oversees (in conjunction with various colleagues) the publication of four book series :::*the ''Chromatiques whiteheadiennes'', :::*the Ontos Verlag ''Series in Process Thought'', :::*the ''Whitehead Psychology Nexus Studies'', and :::*the ''Chromatika'' editions, ::as well as a philosophical annual, :::*''Chromatikon: Annuaire de la philosophie en procès — Yearbook of Philosophy in Process''. Using process philosophy as a matrix to foster synergies, Weber follows the work of hundreds of scholars worldwide and with each of his projects defines a locus where he thinks creative energies are poised to intersect. Collaborating with some 150 scholars representing all continents, he has to date edited or co-edited 30 collections, bringing together hundreds of original papers on themes relating to process philosophy in an interdisciplinary and multicultural context. :*Most ambitious in scope is the two-volume ''Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought'', edited by Weber and Will Desmond: "Gathering 115 entries written by 101 internationally renowned experts in their fields, the ''Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought'' aims at interpreting Whitehead ''secundum'' Whitehead, at canvassing the current state of knowledge in Whiteheadian scholarship and at identifying promising directions for future investigations through (internal) cross-elucidation and (external) interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary development." :*Also noteworthy is the recent interdisciplinary volume edited by Weber and Anderson Weekes, ''Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind'', which "opens a dialogue between process philosophy and he burgeoning field ofcontemporary consciousness studies."Weber and Weekes, ''Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind'' (Albany: SUNY), 2009.
/ref> It is too early to judge how this book will be received by those who approach the study of consciousness from more mainstream backgrounds in Anglo-American Analytic philosophy or in Continental Phenomenology and Existentialism, but the contributors to this volume make a point of establishing what they believe to be fertile common ground between process thought and both its mainstream rivals. Weber is also the founder of the ''Centre for Philosophical Practice'' in Brussels.

Philosophical Counseling Philosophical consultancy, also sometimes called philosophical practice or philosophical counseling or clinical philosophy, is a contemporary movement in practical philosophy. Developing since the 1980s as a profession but since the 1950s as a prac ...

is a recent movement, probably begun in the United States, employing Socratic methods of dialog for the purpose of short-term counseling that, without seeking to replace more traditional

psychotherapies Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome prob ...

, nevertheless offers an alternative to them. In July 2010, he organized an ''Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute'' in Paris, at the Cité universitaire's Fondation Biermans Lapôtre. The second Institute has taken place in July 2011. In May 2014, the philosophical counselling service moved to the Centre Kinos, now Tonaki, of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve. Dr Weber is also currently Adjunct Professor, Department of Educational Foundations,

University of Saskatchewan A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

Bibliography (selection)

;Authored monographs #
La Dialectique de l’intuition chez A. N. Whitehead: sensation pure, pancréativité et contiguïsme
'. Préface de Jean Ladrière. Mémoire couronné par la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, Frankfurt / Paris, Ontos Verlag, 2005 (). #
Whitehead’s Pancreativism. The Basics
'. Foreword by

References

External links

Centre de philosophie pratique "Chromatiques whiteheadiennes"

Chromatika pages on the Academia.edu site

''Process Perspectives''

Center for Process Studies

Centre de Logique de l’Institut supérieur de Philosophie

École européenne Bruxellensis II

Ontos Verlag (De Gruyter)

Bulgarian Academy of Science—Institute of Philosophy

International Pragmatism Society (Oklahoma State University)

Sophia Europa (Università di Trieste & Oxford University)

Polish Neuropsychological Society (Cracovie)

Association Philosophia

Association for Process Thought

Aldous-Huxley-Forschungsstelle / Centre for Aldous Huxley Studies

Centre d'Études sur le Pragmatisme et la Philosophie Américaine (GEPPA)

Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos

International Process Network (Fordham University)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, Michel 1963 births 20th-century Belgian non-fiction writers 20th-century Belgian philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century Belgian non-fiction writers 21st-century Belgian philosophers 21st-century essayists Belgian essayists Belgian male non-fiction writers Epistemologists Living people Metaphysicians Metaphysics writers Ontologists Writers from Brussels Philosophers of mind Philosophers of psychology Philosophers of religion Philosophers of science Philosophical cosmologists Philosophical counselors Philosophy academics Philosophy writers Process philosophy Social philosophers Theorists on Western civilization Writers about religion and science Université catholique de Louvain faculty