---
title: "Process philosophy"
chunk: 4/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:33:47.022286+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Topology ====
Whitehead's theory of extension was concerned with the spatio-temporal features of his occasions of experience. Fundamental to both Newtonian and to quantum theoretical mechanics is the concept of momentum. The measurement of a momentum requires a finite spatiotemporal extent. Because it has no finite spatiotemporal extent, a single point of Minkowski space cannot be an occasion of experience, but is an abstraction from an infinite set of overlapping or contained occasions of experience, as explained in Process and Reality. Though the occasions of experience are atomic, they are not necessarily separate in extension, spatiotemporally, from one another. Indefinitely many occasions of experience can overlap in Minkowski space.
Nexus is a term coined by Whitehead to show the network actual entity from the universe. In the universe of actual entities spread actual entity. Actual entities are clashing with each other and form other actual entities. The birth of an actual entity based on an actual entity, actual entities around him referred to as nexus.
An example of a nexus of temporally overlapping occasions of experience is what Whitehead calls an enduring physical object, which corresponds closely with an Aristotelian substance. An enduring physical object has a temporally earliest and a temporally last member. Every member (apart from the earliest) of such a nexus is a causal consequence of the earliest member of the nexus, and every member (apart from the last) of such a nexus is a causal antecedent of the last member of the nexus. There are indefinitely many other causal antecedents and consequences of the enduring physical object, which overlap, but are not members, of the nexus. No member of the nexus is spatially separate from any other member. Within the nexus are indefinitely many continuous streams of overlapping nexūs, each stream including the earliest and the last member of the enduring physical object. Thus an enduring physical object, like an Aristotelian substance, undergoes changes and adventures during the course of its existence.
In some contexts, especially in the theory of relativity in physics, the word 'event' refers to a single point in Minkowski or in Riemannian space-time. A point event is not a process in the sense of Whitehead's metaphysics. Neither is a countable sequence or array of points. A Whiteheadian process is most importantly characterized by extension in space-time, marked by a continuum of uncountably many points in a Minkowski or a Riemannian space-time. The word 'event', indicating a Whiteheadian actual entity, is not being used in the sense of a point event.

==== Whitehead's abstractions ====
Whitehead's abstractions are conceptual entities that are abstracted from or derived from and founded upon his actual entities. Abstractions are themselves not actual entities. They are the only entities that can be real but are not actual entities. This statement is one form of Whitehead's 'ontological principle'.
An abstraction is a conceptual entity that refers to more than one single actual entity. Whitehead's ontology refers to importantly structured collections of actual entities as nexuses of actual entities. Collection of actual entities into a nexus emphasizes some aspect of those entities, and that emphasis is an abstraction, because it means that some aspects of the actual entities are emphasized or dragged away from their actuality, while other aspects are de-emphasized or left out or left behind.
'Eternal object' is a term coined by Whitehead. It is an abstraction, a possibility, or pure potential. It can be ingredient into some actual entity. It is a principle that can give a particular form to an actual entity.
Whitehead admitted indefinitely many eternal objects. An example of an eternal object is a number, such as the number 'two'. Whitehead held that eternal objects are abstractions of a very high degree of abstraction. Many abstractions, including eternal objects, are potential ingredients of processes.

==== Relation between actual entities and abstractions stated in the ontological principle ====
For Whitehead, besides its temporal generation by the actual entities which are its contributory causes, a process may be considered as a concrescence of abstract ingredient eternal objects. God enters into every temporal actual entity.
Whitehead's ontological principle is that whatever reality pertains to an abstraction is derived from the actual entities upon which it is founded or of which it is comprised.

==== Causation and concrescence of a process ====
Concrescence is a term coined by Whitehead for the process of a new occasion manifesting as "fully actual"—i.e., becoming concrete—and, having completed this process of actualization (achieving satisfaction, in his terms), in turn becoming an objective datum for successor occasions. The concretion process can be regarded as a process of subjectification.
Datum is a term coined by Whitehead to show the different variants of information possessed by actual entity. In process philosophy, each datum is obtained through the events of concrescence.

== Commentary on Whitehead and on process philosophy ==
Whitehead is not an idealist in the strict sense. Whitehead's thought may be regarded as related to the idea of panpsychism (also known as panexperientialism, because of Whitehead's emphasis on experience).

=== On God ===
Whitehead's philosophy is complex and nuanced regarding the concept of "God". In Process and Reality: Corrected Edition (1978), the editors elaborate upon Whitehead's view of the concept:

He is the unconditioned actuality of conceptual feeling at the base of things; so that by reason of this primordial actuality, there is an order in the relevance of eternal objects to the process of creation. [...] The particularities of the actual world presuppose it; while it merely presupposes the general metaphysical character of creative advance, of which it is the primordial exemplification.
Process philosophy might be considered, according to some theistic forms of religion, to give God a special place in the universe of occasions of experience. Regarding Whitehead's use of the term "occasions" in reference to "God", Process and Reality: Corrected Edition explains: