Title: Process Philosophy | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Headings: Process Philosophy
Process Philosophy
Table of Contents
1. What Counts as Process Philosophy
a. The Perennial Process Tradition
b. The Whitehead-Hartshorne Tradition
2. Assumptions and Method
a. In Pursuit of a Holistic Worldview
b. Neo-Classical Realism
c. Speculative Metaphysics
3. Basic Metaphysics
a. Creativity as Ultimate
b. Events, not Substances
c. Internal and External Relations
d. Rejection of Nominalism
4. The Human Person
a. Panexperientialism with Organizational Duality
b. Perception and Prehension
5. God and the World
a. Dipolar Panentheism
b. Freedom and the Problem of Evil
6. Non-theistic Variations
7. Process Philosophy as Constructive Postmodernism
8. Conclusion
9. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
b. Secondary Sources
Author Information

Content: Dewey exhibited process themes in his philosophy of education and epistemology. First, Dewey’s philosophy of education criticized the rote memorization of facts, and advocated the development of critical thinking faculties and problem solving abilities, thus shifting the emphasis from the accumulation of static propositions to building capacities for appropriating new insight. Likewise, Dewey’s epistemology of transaction argues that no belief should be considered final, as human knowledge is in a constant state of revision and development. Likewise, the naming of objects is always tentative and human knowing cannot be divorced from its temporal context. b. The Whitehead-Hartshorne Tradition
Despite these rich and varied contributions, the term “process philosophy” (as well as “process theology” and “process thought”) has become virtually synonymous with the neo-naturalist philosophical legacy left by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000). This association was popularized among those theologians and philosophers of the mid-century “Chicago School.” For this reason, the remainder of this essay will primarily focus on the Whiteheadian-Hartshornean school of process philosophy. Contemporary philosophers in this school include Lewis Ford, David Ray Griffin, Robert Neville, Victor Lowe, Donald Sherburne, Donald Wayne Viney, Jude Jones, John Lango, Daniel Dombrowski, Randall Auxier, and C. Robert Mesle, among others. Notable characteristics of this variant of process philosophy are its (1) method of metaphysical speculation, (2) event (rather than substance) ontology, (3) assertion of panpsychism or panexperientialism, (4) description of “prehension” in place of perception, and (5) panentheist doctrine of God. 2.