The main purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of harmony in Whitehead's and Thome Fang's philosophy, and its relevance to the world today.
First, the paper begins with examining Whitehead's conception of harmony based on his philosohpy of organism which argues that "Every actual occasion involves every other, and to know any one is to know the whole universe."  For Whitehead, harmoniously dealing with others is extremely important for actual entities.
The paper also pays attention to the important role that disharmony plays in this process of seeking harmony.  For whitehead, not all harmony is good nor is all disharmony bad. Disharmony is relatively good for Whitehead because it prevents mere repetition (Adventures 259).  Only disharmony that is destructive, uncoordinated, unsubordinated, and therefore is evil.  Finally, in Whitehead's mind, there are several types of harmony from low level to high level; peace is the highest form of harmony which he called the "harmony of harmonies."  As an actual entity it claims harmonious relationship with others due to the fact that it exists and develops only in such environment, and only harmony can offer it the meaning of life.
Second, the paper explores Thome Fang's conception of Harmony that is based on Chinese philosophical traditions.  Harmony in Chinese traditions is set up as a central goal for all personal, social, political, and religious practices.  In Fang's philosophy, the notion of "comprehensive harmony" plays a crucial role.  That explains his rejection of all kinds of Western binary thinking and departmental mode of thought.  As Fang and his student, Shih-chuan Chen observe, the authors of Yi Jing takes the universe as a organic, harmonious whole in which each part closely interrelated with one another.  It is very important to note that harmony in Chinese traditions includes differences; it opens to invites the differences to come in, but sameness does not.  Harmony is different from samness; as harmony brings things into existence, but samness does not.  In addition, harmony makes people open themselves to others, but sameness does not.
Third, the paper explores the contemporary meaning of Whitehead and Thome Fang's philosophy of harmony.  For Whitehead, harmony is "as important for us now, as [it was] then at the dawn of the modern world, when civilization of the old type were dying" (Adventures 147).  For Thome Fang, "there are two alternatives lying before us with regard to the destiny of human beings: one leads to a peaceful, harmonious future, the other leads to contradictory, chaotic destruction."  How to reach the state of harmony for all mankind has become a pressing issue after 9/11.  It's time for us to pay a great deal of attention to "the survival of harmonious" rather than "the survival of fittest" which we have forgotten long ago.  "Survival of the fittest" should be replace with "survival of the harmonious" because the individual and soceity can exist and develop only within harmony.