Editing Process philosophy (section)

== Whitehead's ''Process and Reality'' ==
[[Alfred North Whitehead]] began teaching and writing on process and metaphysics when he joined [[Harvard University]] in 1924.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/whitehed/|title= Alfred North Whitehead}}</ref>
In his book ''Science and the Modern World'' (1925), Whitehead noted that the human intuitions and experiences of science, aesthetics, ethics, and religion influence the worldview of a community, but that in the last several centuries science dominates [[Western culture]]. Whitehead sought a holistic, comprehensive [[Cosmology (philosophy)|cosmology]] that provides a systematic descriptive theory of the world which can be used for the diverse human intuitions gained through ethical, aesthetic, religious, and scientific experiences, and not just the scientific.<ref name="Hustwit"/>

In 1929, Whitehead produced the most famous work of process philosophy, ''[[Process and Reality]]'',<ref name="Whitehead 1929"/> continuing the work begun by [[Hegel]] but describing a more complex and fluid dynamic ontology.

Process thought describes truth as "movement" in and through substance ([[Hegelian]] truth), rather than [[substance theory|substances]] as fixed concepts or "things" ([[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] truth). Since Whitehead, process thought is distinguished from [[Hegel]] in that it describes entities that arise or coalesce in ''becoming'', rather than being simply dialectically determined from prior posited determinates. These entities are referred to as ''complexes of occasions of experience''. It is also distinguished in being not necessarily conflictual or oppositional in operation. Process may be integrative, destructive or both together, allowing for aspects of interdependence, influence, and confluence, and addressing coherence in universal as well as particular developments, i.e., those aspects not befitting Hegel's system. Additionally, instances of determinate occasions of experience, while always ephemeral, are nonetheless seen as important to define the type and continuity of those occasions of experience that flow from or relate to them.
Whitehead's influences were not restricted to philosophers or physicists or mathematicians. He was influenced by the French philosopher [[Henri Bergson]] (1859–1941), whom he credits along with [[William James]] and [[John Dewey]] in the preface to ''Process and Reality''.<ref name="Whitehead 1929"/>

=== Process metaphysics ===
For Whitehead, metaphysics is about logical frameworks for the conduct of discussions of the character of the world. It is not directly and immediately about facts of nature, but only indirectly so, in that its task is to explicitly formulate the language and conceptual presuppositions that are used to describe the facts of nature. Whitehead thinks that discovery of previously unknown facts of nature can in principle call for reconstruction of metaphysics.<ref name="Whitehead 1929"/>{{rp|13,19}}

The process metaphysics elaborated in ''[[Process and Reality]]''<ref name="Whitehead 1929"/> posits an ontology which is based on the two kinds of existence of an [[wikt:entity|entity]], that of actual entity and that of abstract entity or [[abstraction]], also called 'object'.<ref>Palter, R.M. (1960). ''Whitehead's Philosophy of Science'', University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL, p.&nbsp;23.</ref>

''Actual entity'' is a term coined by Whitehead to refer to the entities that really exist in the natural world.<ref name="Audi (ed.)">Robert Audi. 1995, ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.'' Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. 851–853.</ref> For Whitehead, actual entities are spatiotemporally extended events or processes.<ref name="Cobb"/> An actual entity is how something is happening, and how its happening is related to other actual entities.<ref name="Cobb"/> The actually existing world is a multiplicity of actual entities overlapping one another.<ref name="Cobb"/>

The ultimate abstract principle of actual existence for Whitehead is ''creativity''. Creativity is a term coined by Whitehead to show a power in the world that allows the presence of an actual entity, a new actual entity, and multiple actual entities.<ref name="Cobb"/> Creativity is the principle of novelty.<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/> It is manifest in what can be called ''singular causality'', which term may be contrasted with the term ''nomic causality''. An example of singular causation might be that ''"I woke'' this morning because my alarm clock rang"; an example of nomic causation is that "alarm clocks ''generally wake'' people in the morning." Aristotle recognizes singular causality as [[Four causes#Efficient cause|efficient causality]]. For Whitehead, there are many contributory singular causes for an event; for example, a further contributory singular cause of someone being awoken by an alarm clock on a particular morning may be that they were sleeping next to it (till it rang).

An actual entity is a general philosophical term for an utterly determinate and completely concrete individual particular of the actually existing world or universe of [[Metaphysics (Aristotle)#IX: Theta|changeable entities]] considered in terms of singular causality, about which categorical statements can be made. Whitehead's most far-reaching and radical contribution to metaphysics is his invention of a better way of choosing the actual entities. Whitehead chooses a way of defining the actual entities that makes them all alike, ''qua'' actual entities, with a single exception.

For example, for [[Aristotle]], the actual entities were the [[Metaphysics (Aristotle)#Summary#Zeta|substance]]s, such as Socrates. Besides Aristotle's ontology of substances, another example of an ontology that posits actual entities is in the [[Monadology|monads]] of [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibniz]], which are said to be 'windowless'.<!--
—— EFN & ref. begin below ('comment–off-set' from article text for editing-view clarity) ——

-->{{efn|D. M. Datta, quoting Leibniz in an attempt to explain and analyze the "windowlessness" of monads:
<blockquote>First, the monads are ''substances;'' therefore, their accidents "cannot separate themselves from substances, nor go about outside of them" and thus "neither substance nor accident can come into a Monad from outside." Secondly, a monad is ''simple,'' and therefore it has no parts and "there is no way of explaining how a Monad can be altered in quality or internally changed by any other created thing"; [... t]hirdly, a monad is ''a spiritual mirror of the whole universe,'' and it has "no outside" and therefore, 'coming from outside' or 'passing outside from it' is inconceivable.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Datta |first=D. M. |last2=The Hegeler Institute |date=1936 |editor-last=Sugden |editor-first=Sherwood J. B. |title=The Windowless Monads |url=https://academic.oup.com/monist/article-lookup/doi/10.5840/monist19364612 |journal=The Monist |language= |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=13–24 |doi=10.5840/monist19364612 |issn=0026-9662|url-access=subscription }}</ref></blockquote>}}

==== Whitehead's 'actual entities' ====
For Whitehead's ontology of processes as defining the world, the actual entities exist as the only fundamental elements of reality.

The actual entities are of two kinds, temporal and atemporal.

With one exception, all actual entities for Whitehead are ''temporal'' and are ''[[wiktionary:actual occasions|occasions of experience]]'' (which are not to be confused with [[consciousness]]). An entity that people commonly think of as a simple concrete [[object (philosophy)|object]], or that Aristotle would think of as a substance, is, in this ontology, considered to be a temporally serial composite of indefinitely many overlapping occasions of experience. A human being is thus composed of indefinitely many occasions of experience.

The one exceptional actual entity is at once both temporal and ''atemporal'': God. He is objectively immortal, as well as being immanent in the world. He is objectified in each temporal actual entity; but He is not an eternal object.

The occasions of experience are of four grades. The first grade comprises processes in a physical vacuum such as the propagation of an electromagnetic wave or gravitational influence across empty space. The occasions of experience of the second grade involve just inanimate matter; "matter" being the composite overlapping of occasions of experience from the previous grade. The occasions of experience of the third grade involve living organisms. Occasions of experience of the fourth grade involve experience in the mode of presentational immediacy, which means more or less what are often called the [[qualia]] of subjective experience. So far as we know, experience in the mode of presentational immediacy occurs in only more evolved animals. That some occasions of experience involve experience in the mode of presentational immediacy is the one and only reason why Whitehead makes the occasions of experience his actual entities; for the actual entities must be of the ultimately general kind. Consequently, it is inessential that an occasion of experience have an aspect in the mode of presentational immediacy; occasions of the grades one, two, and three, lack that aspect.

There is no [[Mind-body dualism|mind-matter duality]] in this ontology, because "mind" is simply seen as an abstraction from an occasion of experience which has also a material aspect, which is of course simply another abstraction from it; thus the mental aspect and the material aspect are abstractions from one and the same concrete occasion of experience. The brain is part of the body, both being abstractions of a kind known as ''persistent physical objects'', neither being actual entities. Though not recognized by Aristotle, there is biological evidence, written about by [[Galen]],<ref>Siegel, R. E. (1973). ''Galen: On Psychology, Psychopathology, and Function and Diseases of the Nervous System. An Analysis of his Doctrines, Observations, and Experiments'', Karger, Basel, {{ISBN|978-3-8055-1479-8}}.</ref> that the human brain is an essential seat of human experience in the mode of presentational immediacy. We may say that the brain has a material and a mental aspect, all three being abstractions from their indefinitely many constitutive occasions of experience, which are actual entities.

==== Time, causality, and process ====
Inherent in each actual entity is its respective dimension of time. Potentially, each Whiteheadean occasion of experience is causally consequential on every other occasion of experience that precedes it in time, and has as its causal consequences every other occasion of experience that follows it in time; thus it has been said that Whitehead's occasions of experience are 'all window', in contrast to Leibniz's 'windowless' monads. In time defined relative to it, each occasion of experience is causally influenced by prior occasions of experiences, and causally influences future occasions of experience. An occasion of experience consists of a process of prehending other occasions of experience, reacting to them. This is the ''process'' in ''process philosophy''.

Such process is never deterministic. Consequently, [[free will]] is essential and inherent to the universe.

The causal outcomes obey the usual well-respected rule that the causes precede the effects in time. Some pairs of processes cannot be connected by cause-and-effect relations, and they are said to be [[Spacetime#Basic concepts#Space-like interval|spatially separated]]. This is in perfect agreement with the viewpoint of the Einstein theory of [[special relativity]] and with the [[Minkowski space|Minkowski geometry]] of spacetime.<ref name="Naber">Naber, G. L. (1992). ''The Geometry of Minkowski Spacetime. An Introduction to the Mathematics of the Special Theory of Relativity'', Springer, New York, {{ISBN|978-0-387-97848-2}}</ref> It is clear that Whitehead respected these ideas, as may be seen for example in his 1919 book ''An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge''<ref name="Whitehead 1919">Whitehead, A. N. (1919). ''An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.</ref> as well as in ''[[Process and Reality]]''. In this view, time is relative to an inertial reference frame, different reference frames defining different versions of time.

==== Atomicity ====
The actual entities, the occasions of experience, are logically ''atomic'' in the sense that an occasion of experience cannot be cut and separated into two other occasions of experience. This kind of logical atomicity is perfectly compatible with indefinitely many spatio-temporal overlaps of occasions of experience. One can explain this kind of atomicity by saying that an occasion of experience has an internal causal structure that could not be reproduced in each of the two complementary sections into which it might be cut. Nevertheless, an actual entity can completely contain each of indefinitely many other actual entities.

Another aspect of the atomicity of occasions of experience is that they do not change. An actual entity is what it is. An occasion of experience can be described as a process of change, but it is itself unchangeable.

The atomicity of the actual entities is of a simply logical or philosophical kind, thoroughly different in concept from the natural kind of atomicity that describes the [[atom]]s of [[physics]] and [[chemistry]].

==== 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''.<ref name="Whitehead 1929"/> 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<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/> actual entity. Actual entities are clashing with each other and form other actual entities.<ref name="Cobb"/> The birth of an actual entity based on an actual entity, actual entities around him referred to as nexus.<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/>

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.<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/> It is a principle that can give a particular form to an actual entity.<ref name="Cobb" /><ref>Cf. [[Michel Weber]] (ed.), ''[https://www.academia.edu/279952/After_Whitehead_Rescher_on_Process_Metaphysics After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics]'', Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2004 ({{ISBN|3-937202-49-8}}).</ref>

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.<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/> The concretion process can be regarded as a process of ''subjectification.''<ref name="Cobb">John B. Cobb and David Ray Griffin. 1976, ''Process Theology, An Introduction. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.''</ref>

''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.<ref name="Audi (ed.)"/><ref name="Cobb"/>