​Virginia Woolf and Alfred North Whitehead: 
Veronika Krajíčková ​and the Living Earth
​

Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain

Center for Process Studies

"And as happens sometimes when the weather is very fine, the cliffs looked as if they were conscious of the ships, and the ships looked as if they were conscious of the cliffs, as if they signaled to each other some secret message of their own."

- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

​"A book waiting to be written—and Veronika Krajíčková does so in mindful, thorough, and always informative ways," writes Melanie Sehgal of the University of Wuppertal.

​I want to join Sehgal in singing the praises of Krajíčková's Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker (Lexington Books, 2023).

​Krajíčková is a graduate in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, where she teaches English and courses on Virginia Woolf and other modernist women authors. Her book is an advance in Whitehead studies, an advance in Woolf studies, and perhaps (we can hope) an advance in the ongoing history of humanity on our small, troubled, but also gorgeous planet. Certainly that is her hope. Her aim is to articulate a perspective, influenced by Whitehead and Woolf, that is ecologically friendly and good for human beings - the ideas for which are available to all,

I best begin with two observations about Whitehead, to frame a context for her accomplishment.

The first is that Whitehead can rightly be understood as part cosmologist and part phenomenologist: a philosopher whose ideas shed light on a cosmos that transcends human life while also illuminating the depths, complexities, and poignancy of daily life experience, descriptively or phenomenologically described. In Process and Reality, he moves back and forth between these two perspectives: one cosmological and one phenomenological. When he speaks of "actual entities" as momentary occasions of experience, there are times when he seems to have in mind quantum events, and other times when he is thinking of moments of human experience. The same applies to his notions of prehension (feeling), subjective form (emotions), subjective aim (purposes), and the act of decision, which he says is the very essence of actuality. However, some process philosophers who are enthusiastic about his philosophy often focus on the cosmological side while neglecting the phenomenological side. When they speak of occasions of experience, they seem to have in mind very tiny objects in the depths of an atom, but not moments when one might stand alongside a friend, sharing emotions, and gazing at cliffs across a bay that seem to bristle with their own vitality.

The second observation is that Whitehead can be seen as a poet of sorts—certainly a mathematician, intellectual historian, and philosopher, but also a poet whose aim is to offer springboards for reflection and imagination, not to provide an airtight system aimed at controlling the world through the mind. He would likely cringe to know that some "Whiteheadians" have turned his philosophical output into a somewhat rigid and overly refined "system," at the expense of realizing that he is often speaking in terms of metaphors and, to use his phrase for propositions, "lures for feeling." The process movement, understood as a movement of thought and mind helping to bring about a better future for humanity and the world, can flourish only if it speaks to human experience and does so in ways that are poetically enlivening.

These two observations show why, as a process thinker myself, I am enthusiastic about Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker. Krajíčková’s book accomplishes two things: it bridges the gap between the cosmological and phenomenological sides of Whitehead, showing, with the help of Virginia Woolf, how the cosmological ideas are indeed relevant to human experience. It also recognizes and builds upon the side of Whitehead that is experimental and exploratory, not dogmatic or overly rigid.

Along the way her book develops a Whiteheadian approach to literary criticism or, at least, a Whiteheadian approach to literature. And it does so by showing how literature itself can deepen and enliven what otherwise might remain rarified abstractions even if important and perhaps even true: abstractions such as "all living beings have intrinsic value" and "everything is interconnected" and "there are no isolated subjects" and "we live in an intersubjective universe."  Such abstractions are ineffective unless concretized in stories and metaphors which bring big ideas down to earth and into the heart. They not simply illustrations of more general truths, they are carriers of truths in their own right. In some respects they are more true than the abstractions they are meant to illuminate. They are, to again use Whitehead's phrase, "lures for feeling."

Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker simultaneously accomplishes still another, equally important, end. It invites philosophically minded readers unfamiliar with Woolf and literary discussions to want to learn much more about Virginia Woolf, because her brilliance as a writer and a philosopher of a very refreshing kind shines through every page. Krajíčková shows how Woolf develops a "personal philosophy" of her own, which in many ways resembles Whitehead's, who was likewise something of a maverick in philosophy. Her thesis is not that Woolf was directly influenced by Whitehead, but rather that they were contemporaries, both engaged with similar issues due to the changing social and scientific developments of their time.

Here is how the publisher describes her book:

"Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker: Parallels Between Woolf’s Fiction and Process Philosophy introduces Virginia Woolf as a nondualist and process-oriented thinker whose ideas are, despite no direct influence, strikingly similar to those of Alfred North Whitehead. Veronika Krajíčková argues that in their respective fields, literature and philosophy, Woolf and Whitehead both criticized the materialist turn of their time and attempted to reattribute importance to experience and undermine long-rooted dualisms such as subject and object, the animate and the inanimate, the human and the nonhuman, or the self and the other. By erasing the gaps between these dualities, the two thinkers anticipated the poststructuralist thought with which Woolf has been anachronically associated in recent decades. Krajíčková shows that there is no need to analyze Woolf’s fiction via critical and philosophical theories that developed much later. This book demonstrates that Woolf and Whitehead’s ideas may help us adopt more ecologically friendly, selfless, intersubjective, and harmless modes of being in the present day. Both figures emphasize the intrinsic value and importance of each constituent of reality and teach us to appreciate the aesthetic values dispersed throughout our environment."

The book begins with an introduction titled Virginia Woolf and Process-Oriented Thought. It then has four chapters: 

1. Woolf's Conception of Things and the Relation between Subject and Object; 
2. Panpsychism and the More-Than-Human Experience in Woolf's Fiction; 
3. Woolf's Process-Oriented Identity, Intersubjective Selves, and Exploration of Community of Difference; 
4. Woolf's Criticism of Anthropocentrism and Exploitation of Nature. 

The book concludes with a section titled Analogies between Literature, Philosophy, and Real Life.

As the chapter titles and publisher's description suggests, the book has four core themes:

Undermining the subject-object dualism – Woolf and Whitehead propose that the separation between the experiencer and the experienced is artificial, emphasizing a deep entanglement between the two. Human experience is inseparable from the world it engages with. This "world" includes the physical world of solid objects and the imaginative worlds of ideas, images, and emotions. These worlds, along with the subjects who experience them, are always intertwined, and the subjects themselves become objects for others.

Challenging the mind-matter dualism – Both thinkers question the idea that mind and matter are distinct. Instead, they offer a panpsychist view where "mind" or "experience" is intrinsic to matter, suggesting that subjectivity is woven into the fabric of all existence.

Bridging individual separation – Woolf and Whitehead critique the patriarchal notion of self-contained individuals. They highlight the inter-subjective nature of existence, showing that identities are formed in relationship and connection with others, and that both identities and existence are fluid and flowing, changing over time with circumstances.

Onto-ethic of care – Both Woolf and Whitehead call for an ethic grounded in respect for life and a recognition of humanity's embeddedness within the natural world. This vision moves beyond anthropocentrism to a broader ecological awareness. It invites what process thinkers have called a "constructively postmodern" perspective or, more recently, and Ecological Civilization, consisting of communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, humane to animals, and good for the earth - with no one left behind.

Krajíčková develops these and other ideas with a rich and scholarly display and analysis of stories, metaphors, and reflections from Woolf, combined with an equally rich presentation of Whitehead's ideas. She masterfully weaves Woolf’s literary exploration of human experience, identity, and intersubjectivity with Whitehead’s philosophical concepts of prehension, subjectivity, and the interconnectedness of all entities. This interplay between Woolf’s narrative depth and Whitehead’s cosmology highlights the profound resonance between their respective approaches to understanding the complexity of existence.

Together, they offer a holistic vision of human life, one that is deeply embedded in and inseparable from the larger cosmos. Krajíčková's analysis not only illuminates the striking parallels between Woolf and Whitehead but also extends their ideas into a framework that encourages a deeper appreciation for the interconnections between self, others, and the environment. Her work invites readers to reflect on the ethical implications of this interconnectedness, advocating for a way of living that honors the relational nature of all existence.

Who will read this book? Three primary audiences quickly come to mind: students of process philosophy interested in modern literature, students of modern literature interested in process philosophy, and those engaged in both fields with a focus on fostering a more sensitive, earth-friendly world. It can serve as a core text for interdisciplinary courses in colleges and universities, such as Solid Objects and Hopes for a Better World or The Living Earth: Studies in Literature and Philosophy. Beyond academic contexts, the book’s ideas could be woven into aesthetic education, as Krajíčková emphasizes, and, as I suggest, into environmental education and even children's education, broadening its reach through a focus on the arts and the environment.

My hope is that the book will have a future both within the academy and beyond, gaining a foothold in wider circles - if not the text itself then its core ideas, however communicated. Krajíčková shares this hope, which is yet another reason I appreciate her work. She listens not only to the needs of scholarship but also to the needs of the world. And what does our world need? It needs an onto-ethic of care, rooted in the recognition that ours is a living earth. The idea of "dead matter" is not true to life—not even to "solid objects." We humans are not bound by rigid, unchanging identities; we are capable of growth and transformation. We can feel the emotions of others while respecting their differences, and we can empathize with other animals, acknowledging that their lives parallel ours in beauty. We can also feel the energies of cliffs and lakes, stones and water. Along the way, we may even discover a bit of joy. Yes, that's what the world needs, and it is these needs that Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker seeks to address, in a scholarly way, to be sure, and sometimes quite beautifully.

- Jay McDaniel

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