philosophy, process

   A philosophy developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, process philosophy replaces the traditional Western metaphysics of being and substance with one of becoming and event. For this reason, Whitehead chose as the fundamental metaphysical primitive of his system a basic unit of becoming that he termed an 'actual occasion'. As each actual occasion moves toward being, it undergoes concrescence (a move from subjectivity to objectivity), through which it is 'prehended' by the actual occasions to follow. Each apparent substance (a tree, a person and so on) is a society of actual occasions in a flowing process of concrescence and prehension that creates an ongoing, fully relational oscillation between subjectivity and objectivity. Process philosophy holds to panentheism (see pantheism) in that the world is viewed as God's body, a collection of actual occasions in a constant dynamic of becoming. In this ongoing process, God works through persuasion as he suffers with creation through the prehension of the totality of actual occasions. While initially bewildering, process metaphysics is an impressive intellectual achievement and many see it as offering promising resources for an alternative conception of the God/world relation to the 'static substance' of classical theism. Philosophically, critics find the system to be deeply counterintuitive, and see inadequate argument to warrant overturning the intuition that there are enduring substances. Theologically, process philosophy stands in tension with the traditional Christian view of God's otherness and sovereignty over creation.

   See pantheism; theology, process; Whitehead, Alfred North

   Further reading: Rescher 2000; Sibley and Gunter 1978; Whittemore 1974