---
title: "Process philosophy"
chunk: 1/6
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"
---

Process philosophy (also ontology of becoming or processism) is an approach in philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only real experience of everyday living. In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory (as argued by Parmenides) or accidental (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the most fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.
Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, classical ontology has posited ordinary world reality as constituted of enduring substances, to which transient processes are ontologically subordinate, if they are not denied. If Socrates changes, becomes sick, Socrates is still the same (the substance of Socrates being the same), and change (his sickness) only glides over his substance: change is accidental, and devoid of primary reality, whereas the substance is essential.
In physics, Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.
Process philosophy is sometimes classified as closer to continental philosophy than analytic philosophy, because it is usually only taught in continental philosophy departments. However, other sources state that process philosophy should be placed somewhere in the middle between the poles of analytic versus continental methods in contemporary philosophy.

== History ==

=== In ancient Greek thought ===
Heraclitus proclaimed that the basic nature of all things is change; he posits strife, ἡ ἔρις hē eris ("strife, conflict"), as the underlying basis of all reality, which is itself thus defined by change.
The quotation from Heraclitus appears in Plato's Cratylus twice; first, in 401d:

τὰ ὄντα ἰέναι τε πάντα καὶ μένειν οὐδένTa onta ienai te panta kai menein ouden"All entities move and nothing remains still."and, second, in 402a:
"πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει" καὶ "δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης"Panta chōrei kai ouden menei kai dis es ton auton potamon ouk an embaies
"Everything changes and nothing remains still ... and ... you cannot step twice into the same stream."
Heraclitus considered fire to be the most fundamental element:

"All things are an interchange for fire, and fire for all things, just like goods for gold and gold for goods."
The following is an interpretation of Heraclitus's concepts in modern terms, as understood by Nicholas Rescher:

"...reality is not a constellation of things at all, but one of processes.  The fundamental 'stuff' of the world is not material substance, but volatile flux, namely 'fire', and all things are versions thereof (puros tropai).  Process is fundamental: the river is not an object, but a continuing flow; the sun is not a thing, but an enduring fire.  Everything is a matter of process, of activity, of change (panta rhei)."

=== Nietzsche and Kierkegaard ===
In his written works, Friedrich Nietzsche proposed what has been regarded as a philosophy of becoming that encompasses a "naturalistic doctrine intended to counter the metaphysical preoccupation with being", and a theory of "the incessant shift of perspectives and interpretations in a world that lacks a grounding essence".
Søren Kierkegaard posed questions of individual becoming in Christianity which were opposed to the ancient Greek philosophers' focus on the indifferent becoming of the cosmos. However, he established as much of a focus on aporia as Heraclitus and others previously had, such as in his concept of the leap of faith which marks an individual becoming. As well as this, Kierkegaard opposed his philosophy to Hegel's system of philosophy approaching becoming and difference for what he saw as a "dialectical conflation of becoming and rationality", making the system take on the same trait of motionlessness as Parmenides' system.

=== Twentieth century ===
In the early twentieth century, the philosophy of mathematics was undertaken to develop mathematics as an airtight, axiomatic system in which every truth could be derived logically from a set of axioms. In the foundations of mathematics, this project is variously understood as logicism or as part of the formalist program of David Hilbert. Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell attempted to complete, or at least facilitate, this program with their seminal book Principia Mathematica, which purported to build a logically consistent set theory on which to found mathematics. After this, Whitehead extended his interest to natural science, which he held needed a deeper philosophical basis. He intuited that natural science was struggling to overcome a traditional ontology of timeless material substances that does not suit natural phenomena. According to Whitehead, material is more properly understood as 'process'. 