The Notion of Process: Hegel and Contemporary Metaphysics

Abstract

This article is aimed at highlighting some possible contributions of Hegel’s philosophy to the contemporary debate around process metaphysics. In the contemporary metaphysical debate, process metaphysics represent an attempt to highlight the limits of the traditional philosophical paradigm, which is based on the notion of substance, and to work within an alternative paradigm, which is based on the notion of process. What exists, then, are not substances, substrates, fixed and stable objects characterized by certain properties, but processes, events, occurrences. The main idea of ​​process metaphysics is that being is dynamic and that this dynamic nature must be the main focus of any comprehensive philosophical explanation of reality. Looking at this revolution, it is necessary to define the very notion of process. In fact, this work of conceptual clarification of the fundamental notion of this new philosophical paradigm is still ongoing. My idea is that Hegelian philosophy can offer some relevant indications to do the job. In this sense, the article will be divided into two parts: on the basis of the analysis of some definitions of the notion of process in the contemporary debate around process metaphysics, I will show 1) the need to determine the minimal ontological structure of the notion of process; 2) the possibility of determining this structure through some conceptual tools provided by Hegel’s logic and in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy.