Physical Emergence and Process Ontology

Abstract

Alfred North Whitehead introduces in Process and Reality the notion that the “philosophy of organism is a cell-theory of actuality.” I argue here that the most promising venue for a concordance with process ontology vis-à-vis extant physical theory includes the notions of dynamical and ontological emergence in the physical sciences, as described in Silberstein and McGeever (1999) as well as in Kronz and Tiehen (2002). Here I draw on my previous claims (1997, 2005, 2006) to show in more general terms how process ontology provides a more unified characterization of ontological and dynamical emergence.