Whitehead for Education, the Humanities, and the Social Sciences: In Pursuit of a Metamorphosis of Pedagogy

“There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.”
Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 41

The Polish Whiteheadian community is happy to announce the upcoming conference entitled “Whitehead for Education, the Humanities, and the Social Sciences: In Pursuit of a Metamorphosis of Pedagogy“. It will take place in Katowice, Poland and online on 19-20 November, 2025. 

Organizational Information & Venue

The conference will be held in a hybrid format, allowing for both in-person participation and online attendance via Microsoft Teams. The venue location is Katowice, spinPLACE | University of Silesia in Katowice, ul. Bankowa 5,

Introduction

In times of a global polycrisis, the current direction of the Society’s activities focuses on “interweaving” contemporary processualism into the most vital contexts of the present—especially those most sensitive to the destructive impact of a civilization founded on an outdated vision of the world. One such area is the construction of a social environment that supports the developmental and educational processes of children, adolescents, and young adults.

Education, however, does not take place in a vacuum—it is part of culture, whose original function was to creatively support the human process of adaptation to Nature. Nature accessible both “from the outside” through the senses, and “from within” in inner experience. Whitehead’s process philosophy offers a way to re-integrate education and culture into the broadest cosmological context of understanding reality. It also sets new standards for culture—including pedagogical culture. Are we capable of meeting these standards in an age when the primary function of both education and culture has become adaptation to… culture (and technology)?

The main inspiration behind this anniversary conference is the book published last year by Professor Lech Witkowski, titled Whitehead. Naddania i (w)zrosty dla humanistyki i edukacji [Whitehead. Superjects and Concrescences for the Humanities and Education] (Adam Marszałek Publishing House, 2024, 496 pages). This ambitious work “interweaves” Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy into various currents of contemporary humanities and social sciences. In engaging critically with existing interpretations of Whitehead’s thought, the author demonstrates how slow its reception has been, and how prone it remains to overly hasty readings. The book introduces several key processual concepts into pedagogical discourse, showing how Whitehead’s philosophy of organism provides robust, rational, and at the same time flexible interpretative frameworks for both pedagogy and the humanities more broadly. At the same time, the book stands as an example of scholarly work conducted within the processual paradigm, offering insight into the inner dynamics of the event that is the writing of a book—an event which ultimately becomes a transformative experience for the author himself. The theses presented in the book will be discussed by invited panelists during a special session of the conference.

Use the button below to view the conference schedule and the directions for virtual attendance.