Processing Mimetic Reality: Harmonizing Alfred North Whitehead and René Girard

by Dr. Andre Rabe

Meaning is not simply discovered but created. Two exceptional thinkers who can help us with this creative meaning-making process are the French academic René Girard and the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Dr. Rabe demonstrates that deep, broad, and significant harmonies exist between process philosophy and mimetic theory. Girard enriches Whitehead through exemplification, and Whitehead enriches Girard through an expansion of the overall narrative and deeper ontological insights into the processes that made us human. The result is an illuminating unveiling of the biases we developed in becoming human and a proposal for how we may access the more creative and beneficial aspects of desire that lie latent within these processes.

178 pages, Paperback

Published January 17, 2024

Reviews

[Mitchell Krebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Girard sees ritual as a reenactment of the events that culminated in scapegoating violence or sacrifice. Both the threatening chaos and the magical solution— the sacrifice that stopped the uncontrolled violence and brought peace— form, part of many rituals… but in the end, they (Whitehead and Girard) agree that ritual ‘ emerges as a way for humans to relive in Tranquility what was initially experienced as a struggle for survival’”.

“Jesus comes as the true light that enlightens every man (John 1:9) ‘ to give us understanding, that we may know the true One, and we are in him who is true’ (1 John 5:20). Jesus is the living demonstration of who God is, and therefore who we authentically are as being created in God’s image and likeness.”

“Mimetic atonement becomes the encounter in which every desire I have allowed to form me dissolves, and consequently, I am undone and made anew. It is the event in which I am re-formed as I come face-to-face with my origin, the authentic desire that imagined me and brought— in the God, who is love.”

[MICHAEL NELSON · Rating 5 out of 5]

Infinite Hope

“Truth in motion” , is a phrase that comes to mind; stimulating an intense hope for more of the beauty yet to be seen or heard. For me the writer of this book vastly speaks to an understanding about glorification with God through the writings and meditations of Girard and Whitehead. A glorification wherein love is in motion in the absence of violence or force yet active in its influences and seduction toward goodness! A glorification to happen as we gather around the table partaking.

To speak vastly is saying there are volumes of references used by Andre Rabe that flow together adding clarity to summarizations of his thought. Beautifully written!