European Society for Process Thought Whitehead for Education, the Humanities, and the Social Sciences.
In Pursuit of a Metamorphosis of Pedagogy
NEW DEADLINE: 15th of October 2025
19-20 November 2025 | Katowice, Poland
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Venue: Katowice, spinPLACE | University of Silesia in Katowice, ul. Bankowa 5
Organizers: The Whitehead Metaphysical Society; the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Pedagogy at the University of Silesia in Katowice; and the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology at the Pomeranian University in Stupsk
Motto:
“There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.” ANW The
Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 41
Introduction and Proposed Topics
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vital contexts of the present-especially those most sensitive to the destructive impact of a civilization founded on an outdated vision of the world.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 philos ophy 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 cul ture 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 Marszatek 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.
In the conference presentations, we encourage contributors to share the results of transdisciplinary research on the foundations of education (and, more broadly, the humanities), utilizing the interpretive framework offered by Whiteheadian process philosophy.
We also warmly invite reflections on Whitehead’s educational ideas from the standpoint of one’s own disciplinary practice, whether it be:
• the natural sciences (including neuroscience),
• humanities or social sciences-such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, or pedagogy,
• or spiritual disciplines (understood here as those concerned with the highest level of human
development, described in Whiteheadian terms such as fulfillment and peace).
We also hope to host presentations of concrete applications developed through transdisciplinary collaboration and inspired by processual thinking.
The time remaining to discover and implement such transformative approaches is, unfortunately,
short, especially if we wish to protect the most vulnerable members of society: children, adolescents, and young adults, along with the environments in which they grow, develop, receive education, and seek self-realization. For this reason, we must focus on what is essential.
Organizational Information
The conference will be held in a hybrid format, allowing for both in-person participation and online attendance via Microsoft Teams. Detailed information will be provided via email correspondence from
the conference secretariat.
Proposals for presentations should be submitted by 15 October 2025 to the conference secretariat at: processpedagogy2025@gmail.com
Submissions should include a proposal of approximately 1,800 characters (including spaces), with title and three keywords.
Each presenter will be allotted up to 20 minutes including discussion.
Conference papers will be considered for publication in a special issue (section) of Folia Philosophica— a journal indexed in SCOPUS, published by the Institute of Philosophy in Katowice.
Program Committee
Prof. Dariusz Kubok – Director of the Institute of Philosophy, University of Silesia in Katowice
Prof. Krzysztof Maliszewski, Associate Professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, University of Silesia in Katowice
Bogdan Ogrodnik, PhD – President of The Whitehead Metaphysical Society, Katowice
Prof. Andrzej Wiercinski – Faculty of Artes Liberales, Warsaw University, President of International
Institute for Hermeneutics
Prof. Lech Witkowski – Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology, Pomeranian University in Stupsk