---
title: "Process philosophy"
chunk: 5/6
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"
---

'Actual entities' – also termed 'actual occasions' – are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real. They differ among themselves: God is an actual entity, and so is the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space. But, though there are gradations of importance, and diversities of function, yet in the principles which actuality exemplifies all are on the same level. The final facts are, all alike, actual entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and interdependent.
It also can be assumed, within some forms of theology, that a God encompasses all the other occasions of experience, yet also transcends them; it might, therefore, be argued that Whitehead endorses some form of panentheism. Since (as it is argued in many theologies) "free will" is inherent to the nature of the universe, Whitehead's God is not omnipotent in Whitehead's metaphysics. God's role is to offer enhanced occasions of experience. God participates in the evolution of the universe by offering possibilities, which may be accepted or rejected. Whitehead's thinking here has given rise to process theology, whose prominent advocates include Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Jr., and Hans Jonas (with the latter being influenced by the—non-theological—philosopher Martin Heidegger as well). However, other process philosophers have questioned Whitehead's theology, seeing it as a regressive Platonism.
Whitehead enumerated three essential natures of God. First, the primordial nature of God consists of all potentialities of existence for actual occasions, which Whitehead dubbed eternal objects; God can offer possibilities by ordering the relevance of eternal objects. Second, the consequent nature of God prehends everything that happens in reality; as such, God experiences all of reality in a sentient manner. Third and last, the superjective nature is the way in which God's synthesis becomes a sense-datum for other actual entities; in some sense, God is prehended by existing actual entities.

== Legacy and applications ==

=== Biology ===
In plant morphology, Rolf Sattler developed a process morphology (dynamic morphology) that overcomes the structure/process (or structure/function) dualism that is commonly taken for granted in biology. According to process morphology, structures such as leaves of plants do not have processes, they are processes.
In evolution and in development, the nature of the changes of biological objects are considered by many authors to be more radical than in physical systems. In biology, changes are not just changes of state in a pre-given space, instead the space and more generally the mathematical structures required to understand object change over time.

=== Ecology ===
With its perspective that everything is interconnected, that all life has value, and that non-human entities are also experiencing subjects, process philosophy has played an important role in discourse on ecology and sustainability. The first book to connect process philosophy with environmental ethics was John B. Cobb, Jr.'s 1971 work, Is It Too Late: A Theology of Ecology. In a more recent book (2018) edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and Wm. Andrew Schwartz, Putting Philosophy to Work: Toward an Ecological Civilization contributors explicitly explore the ways in which process philosophy can be put to work to address the most urgent issues facing our world today, by contributing to a transition toward an ecological civilization. That book emerged from the largest international conference held on the theme of ecological civilization (Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization) which was organized by the Center for Process Studies in June 2015. The conference brought together roughly 2,000 participants from around the world and featured such leaders in the environmental movement as Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva, John B. Cobb, Jr., Wes Jackson, and Sheri Liao. The notion of ecological civilization is often affiliated with the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead—especially in China.

=== Mathematics ===

In the philosophy of mathematics, some of Whitehead's ideas re-emerged in combination with cognitivism as the cognitive science of mathematics and embodied mind theses.
Somewhat earlier, exploration of mathematical practice and quasi-empiricism in mathematics from the 1950s to 1980s had sought alternatives to metamathematics in social behaviours around mathematics itself: for instance, Paul Erdős's simultaneous belief in Platonism and a single "big book" in which all proofs existed, combined with his personal obsessive need or decision to collaborate with the widest possible number of other mathematicians. The process, rather than the outcomes, seemed to drive his explicit behaviour and odd use of language, as if the synthesis of Erdős and collaborators in seeking proofs, creating sense-datum for other mathematicians, was itself the expression of a divine will. Certainly, Erdős behaved as if nothing else in the world mattered, including money or love, as emphasized in his biography The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.

=== Medicine ===

Several fields of science and especially medicine seem  to make liberal use of ideas in process philosophy, notably the theory of pain and healing of the late 20th century. The philosophy of medicine began to deviate somewhat from scientific method and an emphasis on repeatable results in the very late 20th century by embracing population thinking, and a more pragmatic approach to issues in public health, environmental health, and especially mental health. In this latter field, R. D. Laing, Thomas Szasz, and Michel Foucault were instrumental in moving medicine away from emphasis on "cures" and towards concepts of individuals in balance with their society, both of which are changing, and against which no benchmarks or finished "cures" were very likely to be measurable.

=== Psychology ===