Process Philosophy's Antecedents: A Family Tree of Dynamic Process Ontologies, Part 2

Process Philosophy's Antecedents

A Family Tree of Dynamic Process Ontologies

Part 2

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Philosophical ontologies study the nature of being and existence and is a subdiscipline of metaphysics. Broadly, formal ontologies investigate abstract features while applied ontologies utilize ontological theories and principles to study entities within specific domains.

INTRODUCTION

Building upon yesterday’s foundational overview of dynamic process ontologies, this second part traces the historical unfolding of processual thought within both religious and philosophical traditions. By mapping these antecedents, we see a continuous thread of dynamic, relational, and becoming-centered ontologies weaving through ancient cosmologies, classical philosophies, medieval theologies, and modern scientific insights.

This family tree highlights the converging streams that have shaped contemporary process thought — an evolving tapestry of ideas that resists static categories and instead affirms movement, change, and interconnectedness at the heart of reality.

I.

MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS ONTOLOGIES

• Includes both process and non-process traditions
• Grouped by era and tradition

I. Ancient Ontologies (Pre-Axial Age to Early Axial)

• Animism & Totemism – World as alive, all beings with spirit (prehistoric–indigenous)
• Polytheism – Many gods with various domains (Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Canaanite, Hindu)
• Henotheism – One supreme god among others (early Israelite, some Vedic thought)
• Pantheism – God and world are identical (early Upanishads, Stoicism)
• Panentheism – God in the world, world in God, but God transcends (Upanishadic Hinduism, some early Christian mysticism)

II. Classical Philosophical Ontologies (Axial Age)

• Platonic Idealism – Eternal Forms/Ideas as true reality
• Aristotelian Substance Ontology – Reality composed of substances with essential forms
• Atomism – Reality built from indivisible units (Democritus, Epicurus)
• Stoicism – Rational Logos as immanent in all things
• Buddhist Ontology (Śūnyatā) – Emptiness of inherent existence; interdependence
• Hindu Advaita Vedanta – Non-dual Brahman as ultimate reality
• Confucian Relational Ontology – Being defined by relationships within a moral cosmos

III. Medieval Ontologies

• Neoplatonism – Emanation of reality from the One (Plotinus, Augustine)
• Scholastic Theistic Realism – Being grounded in God’s essence (Aquinas)
• Islamic Kalam Ontology – God's will as ontologically fundamental (Ash'arite occasionalism)
• Jewish Kabbalistic Ontology – Emanations (Sefirot) from Ein Sof (Infinite)
• Nominalism (Ockham) – Denial of universals as real; reality as particulars

IV. Modern Philosophical Ontologies (Post-Renaissance)

• Cartesian Dualism – Mind (res cogitans) and Matter (res extensa)
• Monism (Spinoza) – Single substance = God or Nature
• Empiricist Ontology (Locke, Hume) – Reality apprehended through sense perception
• Idealism (Kant, Hegel) – Reality shaped or constituted by mind/spirit
• Materialism / Physicalism – Only matter (or energy) is real
• Process Ontology (Whitehead) – Reality is becoming, not static being
• Phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger) – Reality as experienced; being-in-the-world
• Existentialist Ontology (Sartre) – Existence precedes essence; freedom as ontological core

V. Contemporary / Postmodern Ontologies

• Post-Structuralist Ontologies – Reality constructed via language, power, and difference
• Relational Ontology (Process, Feminist, Ecological) – Being is constituted by relations
• Object-Oriented Ontology – Objects exist independently of relations or perception
• Quantum Ontologies (Field, Information) – Reality as fields, energy, information (modern physics)
• Panpsychism – Mind or experience as fundamental aspect of all reality
• Integral / Metamodern Ontologies – Integrative approaches blending multiplicity (Wilber, metamodern thinkers)

VI. Comparative Family Tree Overview

a diagrammatic family tree of ontologies reflecting both chronology and influence patterns.

A family tree of Ontologies
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

A family tree of Ontologies showing Processual Elements
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

II.

MAJOR PROCESS-BASED PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS ONTOLOGIES

• Includes PROCESS traditions only
• Grouped by era and tradition

I. Proto-Process Ontologies (Pre-Axial)

• Animism & Totemism – All things in flux, spirited; relational cosmos
• Indigenous Cosmologies – Cycles of nature as ongoing becoming

II. Emerging Philosophical Processes (Axial)

• Heraclitus (Greek) – "All is flux," the Logos as ordering flow
• Buddhism (India) – Śūnyatā (emptiness), interdependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda)
• Upanishadic Hinduism (India) – Brahman as evolving cosmic reality
• Daoism (China) – Dao as the ever-flowing way of nature

III. Process Threads in Classical Philosophy

• Stoicism – Logos as living reason, immanent in nature
• Neoplatonism (Plotinus) – Emanation as a dynamic outflow from the One
• Early Christian Mystics – God as flowing presence (Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius)

IV. Medieval and Islamic Contributions

• Kabbalah – Emanations (Sefirot), divine dynamism in Jewish mysticism
• Islamic Philosophical Theology (Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Mulla Sadra) – Substantial motion (harakat jawhariyya), all beings in motion
• Christian Processions (East & West) – Theological language of Trinity as dynamic relations (though often staticized)

V. Early Modern Dynamics

• Nicholas of Cusa – Coincidence of opposites, unfolding creation
• Giordano Bruno – Infinite worlds, ever-unfolding universe
• Spinoza – God or Nature as single substance with infinite modes (proto-processual)

VI. Modern Precursors and Theorists

• Hegel – Dialectic as unfolding Geist (Spirit)
• Bergson – Creative evolution, élan vital
• Whitehead (Process Philosophy) – Becoming as metaphysical core; God as primordial, consequent, and superjective nature
• Teilhard de Chardin – Omega Point, evolutionary theology

VII. Contemporary Developments

• Process Theology (Cobb, Suchocki, Hartshorne) – Divine relationality and ongoing creation
• Ecological and Relational Ontologies – Panpsychism, Deep Ecology
• Quantum Ontologies – Dynamic fields, relational entanglement
• Metamodern Ontology – Integrative, open-ended becoming (e.g., Hanzi Freinacht)

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

CONCLUDING REFLECTION

In retracing the roots of process-oriented philosophies and theologies, we discover that what many modern thinkers articulate as “process” is neither a novel invention nor a narrow metaphysical project. Rather, it is a recurring intuition — surfacing in every age — that reality itself is relational, emergent, and perpetually in becoming.

By recognizing these antecedents, we anchor today’s processual frameworks within a broader historical dialogue, affirming both their ancient resonance and their contemporary relevance for philosophy, science, and faith alike.