The Approach of the Process Ontology through Art and Values in

Knowledge-Based Societies
(Culture and Value in Late Modernity)
An Invitation to International Workshop
INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO PROCESS
PHILOSOPHY
October, 7-9 2015

Organized by the Department Social Theories, Strategies and Forecasts

Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge BAS
and
Romanian Academy Institute of Philosophy

Process philosophy has spread as a relatively novel approach in philosophical

reflection about the world, which aims to focus on becoming or occurring of
things and very much like Eastern philosophy has been approaching transience of
being. In this way process philosophy overcomes the centuries old Europecentrism of philosophical reflection and refines the philosophical approach to the
problems of being and becoming, static and changing nature of things.
We live in time when changes in all spheres of life have speed up. Contemporary
cultural and social processes are developing incomparably more intensively than
even a century ago. Science and technology has contributed to great changes in
quality of life, social stratification, work and education, human values and
believes, communication and lifestyles.
The workshop will aim to spur a discussion on the different aspect of
contemporary cultural and social changes, on the concept of progress and

development, on dynamics of values and social processes and invites presentations

reflecting on the many ways in which acceleration of changes and speed of
development challenges contemporary society. Interdisciplinary analyses and
philosophical reflection on the processes of becoming, occurring, coming about, or
being impertinent and transient will be focused on process philosophy approach,
paradigms of social change and formation and effect of cultural values in time of
profound changes as nowadays.
Therefore, the workshop invites contributions to the following three panels. The
themes are suggested, but not limited to:

I. COGNITIVE AND EXPLANATORY POTENTIAL OF PROCESS PHILOSOPHY

APPROACH
The first panel of the workshop will be devoted to investigation of process ontological
framework for the further development of the application of process ontology to the
investigation of social phenomena. In connection with the last ones it will be attempted to
develop in more details the theoretical aspects of applied ontology: the top-down and the
down-top approaches of ontological investigations, as well as the ontological levels and
other methodological approaches.

How construction of the world is possible by means of process ontology, process

epistemology and process ethics?
Cognition in virtual space from the point of view of process philosophy
II. PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
The paradigm of progress and its challenges to societies in transition
From material to post-material world: value changes and changing patterns of
political actions
The paradigm of knowledge-based society in the Information age: becoming
digital citizen
III. VALUES IN ACTION: ETHICS, ART AND RELIGION
The role of religious values and believes in what is becoming or how it is
occurring
Persistent and transient in the world of aesthetic values

Innovation and creativity as dynamic aspects of being

Internet values and online activism for social change

Some of paper proposals will be published in a Second Issues of the Balkan Journal of
Philosophy / 2016 (a peer-reviewed international periodical journal) (http://www.isskbas.org/BJP/index.htm ; http://www.pdcnet.org/bjp )
Please, send your abstracts (up to 250 words) via e-mail by 31 August 2015, in English,
to bonytodorova@gmail.com .