Knowra Process philosophy Process philosophy Process philosophy treats becoming, change, and relations as more fundamental than fixed substances. It understands reality through events and ongoing processes rather than enduring things alone.
Substance theory : The view that enduring substances are the basic constituents of reality and bear properties through change. It supplies the enduring-thing picture that process philosophy challenges.
Heraclitus : An ancient Greek philosopher known for emphasizing change and the unity of opposites. His fragments make flux a defining feature of reality.
Actual occasion : A momentary unit of becoming in Whitehead’s metaphysics, arising through relations to other actualities. Actual occasions are the basic events from which Whitehead builds his account of reality.
Process theology : A theological approach that applies process philosophy to God, creation, and the world’s ongoing becoming. It carries process metaphysics into accounts of divine action and change.
Atomism : The view that reality is composed of fundamental, indivisible units. Its emphasis on basic units contrasts with process philosophy’s emphasis on becoming and relation.
Becoming : The coming-to-be of new states, forms, or realities through change. Process philosophy gives becoming priority over static being.
Aristotle : An ancient Greek philosopher whose writings shaped metaphysics, logic, biology, and ethics. His accounts of potentiality and actuality offer resources for thinking about becoming.
Prehension : Whitehead’s term for the way an actual occasion takes account of other actualities in its becoming. Prehension describes how relations enter into each occasion’s constitution.
Process ontology : An account of being that treats processes, events, or activities as ontologically basic. It names the ontological commitment shared by many process philosophers.
Four-dimensionalism : The view that objects extend through time as well as space, with temporal parts at different times. It explains persistence through temporal parts rather than through process as the basic reality.
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