Process and Reality
Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality redefines existence as an interdependent flux of becoming, anchored in his "philosophy of organism" that replaces inert matter with actual entities—dynamic, experiential events achieving momentary unity through concrescence, a self-creative process integrating prehensions (relational feelings toward other entities). These entities navigate eternal objects (pure potentials like mathematical forms) mediated by God's primordial nature, which orders possibilities non-coercively. Nexus —webs of prehensive relations—form societies with shared patterns, sustained by categorical obligations like "subjective unity" prohibiting contradictions during concrescence. Whitehead's extensive continuum replaces space-time with a relational matrix where actualities perish to fuel new concrescences, rendering reality a "creative advance." Critiquing Descartes' bifurcation of nature, he dissolves subject-object divides through prehensive unification where even electrons exhibit proto-experientiality. Though criticized for its complexity, this work catalyzed process philosophy, influenced ecological thought (e.g., Griffin’s panexperientialism), and reshaped theology (Hartshorne’s process theism), remaining a cornerstone in speculative metaphysics and interdisciplinary studies of dynamic systems.
