Editing Process philosophy (section)

== History ==
=== In ancient Greek thought ===
Heraclitus proclaimed that the basic nature of all things is change; he posits strife, ''{{lang|grc|ἡ ἔρις}}'' ("strife, conflict"), as the underlying basis of all reality, which is itself thus defined by change.<ref>Wheelwright, P. (1959). ''Heraclitus'', Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, {{ISBN|0-19-924022-1}}, p.35.</ref>

The quotation from [[Heraclitus]] appears in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' twice; first, in 401d:<ref>''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' Paragraph [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0171%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Asection%3D401d Crat. 401 section d line 5].</ref>
<blockquote>{{lang|grc|τὰ ὄντα ἰέναι τε πάντα καὶ μένειν οὐδέν}}<br/>''Ta onta ienai te panta kai menein ouden''<br/>"All entities move and nothing remains still."</blockquote>and, second, in 402a:<ref>''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Crat.+402&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0171 Paragraph 402 section a line 8].</ref>

<blockquote>{{lang|grc|"πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει" καὶ "δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης"}}<br/>''Panta chōrei kai ouden menei kai dis es ton auton potamon ouk an embaies''
<br />"Everything changes and nothing remains still&nbsp;... and&nbsp;... you cannot step twice into the same stream."<ref>This sentence has been translated by [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] in Epistulae, [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/seneca.ep6.shtml VI, 58, 23].</ref></blockquote>

Heraclitus considered fire to be the most fundamental element:

<blockquote>"All things are an interchange for fire, and fire for all things, just like goods for gold and gold for goods."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Harris|first1=William|title=Heraclitus: The Complete Philosophical Fragments|url=http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/Heraclitus.html|website=Middlebury College|access-date=3 October 2015|ref=DK B90}}</ref></blockquote>

The following is an interpretation of Heraclitus's concepts in modern terms, as understood by [[Nicholas Rescher]]:

<blockquote>"...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'')."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rescher|first1=Nicholas|title=Process Philosophy: A survey of basic issues|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wrc3b|url-access=limited|date=2000|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|location=[Pittsburgh]|isbn=0822961288|page=5}}</ref></blockquote>

=== 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".<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Cox
 |first=Christoph
 |date=1999
 |title=Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation
 |publisher=University of California Press
 |page=170
 |isbn=0-520-21553-2}}</ref>

[[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.<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Carlisle
 |first=Claire
 |date=2005
 |title=Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions
 |publisher=State University of New York Press
 |page=9-10
 |isbn=0-7914-6547-0}}</ref> As well as this, Kierkegaard opposed his philosophy to [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]'s system of philosophy approaching becoming and [[Difference (philosophy)|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.<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Carlisle
 |first=Claire
 |date=2005
 |title=Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions
 |publisher=State University of New York Press
 |page=15
 |isbn=0-7914-6547-0}}</ref>

=== 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]],<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/search/r?entry=/entries/mathematics-inconsistent/&page=1&total_hits=1087&pagesize=10&archive=None&rank=0&query=mathematics%20symbolic%20langue | title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | chapter=Inconsistent Mathematics | year=2022 | publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}</ref> this project is variously understood as [[logicism]] or as part of the [[Formalism (philosophy)|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'.