Matthew Segall's Series on Whitehead

Introduction

by R.E. Slater

I

At the 22:00+ minute mark Matt Segall speaks to why Whitehead's process metaphysic is becoming so attractive to the natural sciences. It is why I became so quickly attracted to it once learning of it: "That in Whitehead is offered a helpful, competent cosmological metaphysic to the quantum world of science more than any other current metaphysic presently available." If you have a science background you will understand what I mean.... As introduction, Matt spends the first 22 minutes speaking to why process thought came to life in the early days of the quantum revolution of the sciences.

Moreover, Whitehead's process ontology seems to right all the errors I had once been taught from an Americanized bible educational perspective as learned from within a Reformed Calvinist evangelical theism. My education was neither Methodist nor Lutheran, Catholic nor Orthodox, nor even interfaith though I strive to understand each a bit better now then I could then when held in the grips of westernized evangelical thought. And yet, it may be said that all Christian and non-Christian religions easily fall into my critique of the Christian faith here in this article.

Finally, I find Whitehead's process ethic to be ironically far more generous than any Christian ethic displayed by the church when influencing state government and social thought as observed historically over the centuries by Christian oppression, cruelty and terror. Not that other parts of Christianity hasn't had its good results despite it's assimilating efforts of Westernized thinking and behaviour when communicating in cross cultural situations. But in Whitehead's universe, God and experiential outcomes tell of the love God holds for us and is working causally (not casually) through a cooperating universe... which tells us of an interacting divine prescence which is real and meaningful:

Usage: Cause v Casual: "The interviewers tried to be as casual and friendly as possible whereas Cause is the reason or source for something to happen." Thus, I prefer to write of a processual God as an interacting, non-coercive causal presence than of an evangelic God seen more as a determinatively controlling and forceful presence over-ruling creaturely agency. Hence, God by love, is working causally through a cooperating universe effecting not only God's non-coercive, interacting causal will but affecting universal and creaturely will as well in a working fellowship of novel creativity, benevolence, and beauty.

17 "You know this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Now everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for a man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God. Therefore, ridding yourselves of all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

- James 1.17ff (NASB)

II

Having watched the good-and-bad words-and-deeds of the church tells us the "Christian" God needs a better definition than what God has been given by the church over the centuries. I submit that Process philosophy undergirding Process theology can offer any church or religion a more thoroughly loving God and universe than presently had under earlier Greek/Roman Stoicism, neo-Platonic Hellenism, or conflicted Jewish-Semitic thought. This would include all succeeding church ages held under various philosophic arguments and arrangements which have influenced its theological outcomes. As example, the Marxist German-Lutheran God who was quickly turned into a Nazi-Aryan God of hate and genocide. Thus and thus, a non-processual God is a more secularized and worldly God than a loving God of processual actuality as seen in Whiteheadian vernacular.

Which brings us to the subject of sin and the many kinds of "bible" theologies behind this idea.... Process theology describes sin differently than would a non-processual theology. That the subject of sin is approached through creaturely freewill or agency rather than as an inbred force of nature. That is, creation is good and beautiful. It is not inherently sinful even though it groans and is affected by sin. So too humanity. We are not sinful but fraught with ethical tension. I would suggest we rather are born with a love nature in a freewill universe.

Moreover, a loving God created a world and a creation without sin as birthed from God's image as versus i) the church's imagined "sin nature" which it's theology flatly states inhabits all creation. It is further imagined ii ) that "Sin entered Adam and that all creation fell in Adam" per the Apostle Paul. Whence comes the idea that humanity is born into sin even as all creation is... thus answering the church's question of sin and evil's origin.

However, Paul's kind of Semitic thought was influenced by the intermix of Greek and Roman philosophies across his own Semitic Judaism. Paul is searching for words and phrases to describe sin and evil which a processual theologian may take as a tensional force interacting with love-ingrained or imputed "freewill " agency. But NOT as an imputed force into nature as described by the traditional church's "Adamic Fall." Sure, it makes for good preaching but soon all of God's creation is seen as ugly and unloving giving to us in consequence a fickled, dipolar God who both loves and shows wrath which in consequence gives to us a austerely moral church full of legalism and hypocrisy, but not a church of love and goodwill. The point? The kind of God we have is the kind of God we get. God becomes humanized rather than Godly. God is love. God is not evil.

Hence, today's meta-modernist theologian must work through the bible-and-church's many pan-philosophical and psycho-social historical outlooks of God which church has betrayed it's kind of God that it worships. The portrayal of God in either Moses' day, or Jesus' day, 4000 to 2000 years ago is quite a bit different from the 21st century church's God today. A God which the church has added to in the bible or subtracted from in the bible over it's many theological eras. It is a myth that tbe traditional God has only been one kind of God.

And so, in process thought the church is afforded the opportunity yet again to re-orient it's bible's many enculturated kinds of theologies so that it may revisualize a God worthy of following. A God who speaks love and beauty against the unbeing and unbecomingness of unloving theologies, attitudes and actions.

As example, look at the early church's bible in it's eschatological depiction of God in the New Testament book of Revelation. Certainly this is not a loving God but a God of wroth and judgment. Such a picture defies a God of love, health and welfare (notably, I have discussed Revelation in another article several months ago which the interested reader may review). Let's just say that Christian thought has been affected by secular thought many, many times.

Too, God has often been described by our own anthropological demeanors too many times. So if we are going to continuely employ such a practice let us justifiably pursue a decent enough philosophy to help guide us in our preaching and ministries rather than to look to ourselves as the sum total of who God is as theologians and dogmatists have done over the centuries.  Which is another way of saying that if we are to effect God's love than we our responsible to love in word and deed in healthy, helpful ways per the kind of God we have constructed in our minds and hearts. When we do not, the world blows up under us and around us. That is the story of Revelation. An eschatological picture of what happens when we do not love one another. It is the story of us and our failures and not of God and God's character.

Conclusion

And so, it is not necessary to further describe God as a wrothful divine ruler come to curse and destroy. We are the ones who are affecting our own destruction... not God. The gods of the Greek pantheon are not like the Jewish God of Jesus. They are different. And the church must account for the bible's many interior enculturated writings of God and theology when reading the bible for it's own day and age. If it doesn't, we continue to get a muscular dipolar God of human imagination. In process thought this won't do.

Hence Whitehead, and hence a reconstruction of Westernized theology from a post-evangelical or post-traditional outlook. One that is built on a processual metaphysic, ontology, and ethic. Process theology's God is more thoroughly beautiful. More loving. More kind and good. And traditionalized words like "holiness" become irrelevant as all creation is seen as holy in processual thought even as all can be beautiful and loving when based in a God which is beautiful and loving in God's Self.

Amen and Amen,

R.E. Slater

January 4, 2025

Alfred North Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism

with Matthew D. Segall

Dartington Trust   |   June 4, 2021

 

This talk introduces Alfred North Whitehead’s “Philosophy of Organism,” a novel metaphysical scheme that he articulated in the first half of the twentieth century not only as a protest against the lifeless Nature imagined by scientific materialism, but also as a rejection of the narrow linguistic analysis and sterile logical positivism of his philosophical contemporaries. His was an attempt to make natural science philosophical again by asking whether physical causes and motions need be so violently segregated from the conscious reasons and emotions by which we apprehend them. We will explore the major themes of his magnum opus, Process & Reality, wherein Whitehead attempts to construct an organic system of the universe that not only brings quantum and relativity theories into coherence, but gathers up scientific truths, aesthetic feelings, and religious values into an integral vision of reality.

Matthew D. Segall is a process philosopher whose research focuses on process-relational thought (especially Alfred North Whitehead) and German Idealism (especially Friedrich Schelling). He is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA (CIIS.edu). He has published articles on a wide-array of topics, including metaphysics, Gaia theory, religious studies, psychedelics, and architecture. He also blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.  

This talk is part of the Holistic Science programme at Schumacher College. Find out more about the programme and register for updates about the course: https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/...

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Matt Segall, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Department at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute. He is author of Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead, and Physics of the World Soul: Whitehead's Adventure in Cosmology. His website is https://footnotes2plato.com/about-me/

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death.

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Matthew David Segall returns to the Homebrewed podcast with Dr. Tripp Fuller after 8 years! It was a blast to talk with Matt about his new book and a bunch of other process-related goodness. When you get done listening make sure you check out his YouTube channel and the new book.

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Matt shares the story of his own wrestling with Christianity and his reflection on the future of the faith... 'a non-denominational non-institutionalized Christian' what do we make about the power and problems that come with a religious tradition. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

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Episode 69: Dr Matt Segall (footnotes2plato): Life, Death, Metaphysics, and Alfred North Whitehead

April 1, 2022 | 1:21:29

Welcome to More Christ, where we seek to bring some of the world's most interesting and insightful guests to discuss life's central and abiding questions. In this sixty-ninth episode in a series of discussions, I'm joined by Dr Matt Segall.

Matthew D. Segall, PhD, received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. His dissertation was titled Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. It grapples with the limits to knowledge of reality imposed by Kant's transcendental form of philosophy and argues that Schelling and Whitehead's process-oriented approach (described in his dissertation as a "descendental" form of philosophy) shows the way across the Kantian threshold to renewed experiential contact with reality. He teaches courses on German Idealism and Process Philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.

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Matthew David Segall on the God and Nature of Schelling and Whitehead with Rahul Sam

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Prof. Matthew David Segall (‪@Footnotes2Plato‬) is a transdisciplinary researcher, writer, and philosopher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences, as well as in the study of consciousness. He is the Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute. Prof. Segall has authored many books, including 'Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead' and is the creator of Footnotes2Plato. In this episode, we discuss the paradigm shift in biology, Whitehead's philosophy of organisms, Schelling's Naturphilosophie, deep ecology, Transcendental Materialism and Slavoj Žižek.

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"Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism: Turning Idealism Inside Out

August 2, 2023 | 46:04

My presentation summarizing the paper linked below at the 13th International Whitehead Conference hosted by the Munich School of Philosophy. Introduced by Godehard Brüntrup.

Link to paper I am summarizing: https://footnotes2plato.com/2023/06/2...

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Matthew Segall on Whitehead: Music and Memory, the Song of Life, and Beauty

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Matthew Segall joins The Meaning Code to discuss the intersection of music, memory, and the fundamental nature of life. They explore the communal nature of cellular life and how it relates to the collaborative effort of human development as well as the importance of intelligent sensitivity in decision-making and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

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Matt Segall – The Intricacies and Insights of Whitehead’s Process Thought

Apr 6, 2022 | 58:06

Conversations in Process has returned for a second season! Host Jay McDaniel will be interviewing exciting guests from both within the process community and beyond. Want to listen to this conversation on the go as an audio-only podcast? Find the show on your preferred podcasting application at https://cobb.institute/conversations-...

On this episode of Conversations in Process, Jay is joined by Professor Matthew Segall to discuss the finer details of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and theology, and to draw connections between Whitehead’s thought and other important thinkers and religious traditions.

Matt is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where he teaches graduate level courses on process philosophy and German Idealism. His recent book, Physics of the World-Soul: Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology, put Whitehead’s process cosmology into conversation with various contemporary scientific theories, such as general relativity and quantum theory. This book is exemplary of much of Matt's recent work, which puts ideas from process philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences.

In this conversation, Matt begins by sharing a bit of his own intellectual journey, telling how he came to Whitehead through Terence McKenna. He talks about his own spiritual background, growing up in a mixed religious family and coming to appreciate eastern religious sensibilities at a young age. Along with guidance from mentors, he eventually discovered that the spiritual insights from dharmic religions which had captivated him in his adolescence actually had equivalents within Western spiritual and religious traditions. Discovering these sources of Western wisdom was what eventually led Matt to encountering Whitehead’s own work, first exploring Adventures of Ideas before diving into Process and Reality.

At this point, Matt and Jay dive into some of the finer details of Whitehead’s philosophical vision, spending some time dwelling on his conception of God, considering how this differs from previous understandings of the divine and subverts certain Western philosophical tendencies generally. Matt also shares his perspectives on God as both the divine lure and the divine companion in Whitehead’s thought, and also emphasizes how Whitehead’s God is something that may appeal to more scientifically-minded folks due to the strong empirical emphasis in Whitehead’s thought. Another important aspect to Whitehead’s philosophy is his insistence on “organic realism,” which Matt presents as an alternative to either idealism or materialism.

Matt and Jay conclude this conversation with a discussion of how Whitehead’s thought interfaces with other important traditions such as Neoplatonism, shamanism, Buddhism, and Jung’s depth psychology. Matt and Jay both emphasize that these two-way dialogues are always fruitful and that these are areas ripe for further research and conversation. Matt will be returning to Conversations in Process later this season to continue this dialogue and explore the ways in which process thought can contribute to contemporary social, cultural, and ecological issues. Stay tuned!

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Whitehead and religion in the making w/ Matt Segall- Voicess with Vervaeke

Sep 13, 2020  |  1:07:01

Matt Segall is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness a the California Institute of Integral studies. Here is a link to one of his talks: Religion in Human and Cosmic Evolution: Whitehead's Alternative Vision (with discussion)

Matt and I have a deep discussion and get into dialogs about Whitehead's process philosophy and his idea of the religion in the making which has connections to the religion that is not a religion. It was a very great pleasure to talk with Matt, and I look forward to many more such discussions.

Studying Whitehead's Process and Reality with John Cobb

     

• John Cobb's Guidance: His Vocation, Lifestyle, and Sense of God's Love

• The Widening Effect: John Cobb’s Legacy of Imagination, Compassion, and Hope​​

Studying Whitehead's Process

and Reality with John Cobb

article link

by Jay McDaniel​

​During my graduate studies, I had the privilege of taking two classes under John Cobb. One focused on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, where we studied Process and Reality, and the other explored Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Both courses left a lasting impression on me, not just because of the subject matter but because of John’s unique teaching style, which I came to understand as profoundly "proposative" in nature.

In the Whitehead course, we spent time discussing Whitehead’s concept of "propositions" as "lures for feeling." During one such discussion, John drew an intriguing connection between Whitehead’s use of the term "propositions" and the word "proposal." He suggested that propositions could be understood as proposals—ideas put forth for consideration rather than dogmas to be accepted uncritically. He then casually remarked that a Whiteheadian approach to teaching would naturally be, in his words, "proposative" in spirit.

This proposative approach stood in contrast to more didactic teaching methods, where instructors present a fixed and authoritative set of truths that students are expected to accept without question. It also avoided the pitfalls of a purely open-ended approach, where the teacher offers no guiding content, leaving students adrift in unstructured conversation. Instead, John’s proposative style balanced these extremes. He presented ideas as invitations for exploration—concepts to ponder, discuss, and evaluate.

John’s teaching sessions typically began with him speaking for about twenty minutes, during which he introduced ideas and framed the discussion, building upon paragraphs in Process and Reality.(He assigned none of his own books or secondary texts.) Afterward, the floor opened up for dialogue. Often, we struggled to grasp the complex concepts he presented, prompting him to elaborate further. Yet even in his explanations, John’s tone and manner remained proposative. He never imposed ideas upon us or pressured us to adopt them. Instead, he shared thoughts in a way that encouraged reflection and inquiry. His delivery was casual rather than dogmatic, inviting rather than insistent.

He was very clear that Whitehead's philosophy was itself a complex set of proposals - some metaphysical, some empirical, and some as lyrical -and that often but not always Whitehead's appeal was to intuition. The ideas were to be tested against experience, including both personal experience and evidence received from other sources of knowledge, including science, psychology, art, and religion. And he was equally clear that Whitehead's ideas are themselves in process: that what people "do" with Whitehead includes adaptations, revisions, alterations, and, if needed, downright rejections.

There were students in our class—at least one—who rejected almost all of it from the outset. This particular student was a fairly convinced Wittgensteinian and understood Wittgenstein as debunking the metaphysical enterprise. John disagreed, but he also treated the student with respect, making it clear that there might be wisdom in the critique. There was nothing dogmatic in John’s manner of teaching. We got the sense that John himself was always open to critique and questioning, and that he had a capacity to relativize his own points of view and listen, with sincerity, to views that contradicted his own.

*

John's course stretched our minds beyond anything we had theretofore imagined. John casually noted that Whitehead would lie awake at night asking questions we never imagined. We agreed. Who among us had thought about relations between pure potentialities of the objective species and those of the subjective species, much less the very idea that things can be real as potentials, but not actual. Taking Whitehead under John was by all means an intellectual adventure—an adventure of ideas. And John's manner of explanation—in presenting the idea of eternal objects, or prehensions, or actual entities, or subjective forms—were often new to us and excitingly difficult to understand. I say "excitingly" for a reason. Studying with and under John was, for me and many others (but not the Wittgensteinian), exciting.

Typically,as noted above, the ideas from Whitehead presented as "proposals" were themselves presented as they emerged from particular paragraphs and sections of Process and Reality. As John offered his twenty-minute intro, we would turn to the paragraph, read what Whitehead said, and then consider the idea, with help from John. So you might call his approach "text-evoked" as well as proposative. He wanted to be faithful to Whitehead's text and ideas.

*

As I remember, John was particularly focused on making sure our class didn’t think Whitehead’s cosmology was only about God. Instead, it was about an organic universe in which God played an important role. Whitehead’s key ideas—the eight categories of existence along with Creativity and God—were central to the proposals we studied. If I had to highlight the core ideas that John emphasized in the course—or at least the ones that stood out most to me while reading Process and Reality with him—it would be these ten:

• Actual Entities – The basic units of reality, each a process of unifying past influences into a new moment of experience.

• Eternal Objects – Timeless possibilities or forms that actual entities can incorporate into their processes.

• Prehensions – The ways actual entities feel and respond to the influences of other entities.

• Nexus – Groups or networks of actual entities that form patterns of connection.

• Subjective Forms – The specific ways actual entities experience or interpret the influences they prehend.

• Propositions – Potentialities or ideas about how reality might unfold, providing aims for creative action.

• Multiplicities – Collections of entities or possibilities that can be unified in various ways.

• Contrasts – The combinations of differences that create meaningful patterns or harmonies.

• Creativity – The ultimate principle underlying all processes of becoming and change: the self-creativity of each moment of experience and the creative advance into novelty of the universe as a whole.

• God – A source of novel possibilities and a companion to the world, guiding processes toward beauty and harmony without coercion.

When I teach Process and Reality to others, as I’ve often done with college undergraduates, I tell them that mastering these ten ideas is a big step toward understanding Whitehead.

But these were not the only ideas. I recall vividly discussing hybrid physical prehensions, experience in the mode of causal efficacy, perception in the mode of presentational immediacy, the extensive continuum, and questions of value, harmony, and intensity (the self-enjoyment of a concrescing subject). But all seemed framed in terms of eight categories and the two additional ideas (Creativity and God).

​*

We students were also asked to trace an idea through the text that was presented by Whitehead in different ways and present the idea in a one-on-one oral exam at the end of the course. The idea that I traced was transmutation. This task of tracing an idea was itself an exercise in proposative thinking. It required us to engage deeply with Whitehead’s text, considering the evolution of concepts and testing their relevance to our own experiences and reflections. In doing so, we came to appreciate the fluid and evolving nature of philosophical inquiry, a hallmark of John Cobb’s teaching method.

And we were asked, on our own, to read another of Whitehead's books. I read Modes of Thought. John assigned no secondary texts; no books that he himself had written; and we got the feeling that he was not too keen on our reading secondary texts before reading Whitehead in the original.

*

I recall one particular moment when we turned our focus to Whitehead’s understanding of God. A student in the class asked a question that suggested Whitehead’s concept of God captured “what God really is.” John paused for a moment and then gently responded, “God may be ‘something like’ this.” He emphasized that Whitehead’s ideas about God should be understood as proposals, not definitive statements. John reminded us that any concept of God—no matter how profound—remains, in essence, a map, not the territory itself. He drew attention to the distinction between experiencing God and conceptualizing God, emphasizing that the reality of God is always more than our experience or ideas about God. Whitehead’s concept of God was one way of thinking about divine presence in an evolving universe, but it did not—could not—fully capture the mystery and depth of divine reality.

I remember one day when John had to miss class. A conference was being held in Claremont on, as I recall, the rights of nature. The conference included a visit, on John's part, to a local indigenous community where elders from the tribe guided John and others in the activity of getting down on the ground, ears to soil, to hear the voices of ancestors. John came back the next week, and shared the experience with the class. Although he knew "modern" perspectives, eschewing such ideas, would reject the very idea; he was quite open to it, adding that Whitehead's notion of "objective immortality" and "feeling the feelings" of the past might help us be open to such possibilities. Such was his own openness to the world.

*

In the class it was apparent to all of us that we were in the presence of a teacher who was brilliant, kind, analytical, imaginative, and, not least, curious about the world and the many disciplines that are part of the modern university. The class was in Whitehead's "philosophy" but, for John., the value of Whitehead's philosophy is that it could help link, help us see connections between, so many different areas of thought: economics, aesthetics, literature, physics, education, biology, and mathematics, for example. In this breadth of interest, he inspired us to want to think beyond whatever pigeonholes we were confined to. Yes, he was a philosophical theologian - but he was interested in so much more than philosophy and theology. It was 'all' connected for him, and his very example of being curious about the world, and openness to interconnections, inspired us.

We left his class thinking that the value of Whitehead's philosophy was not just that it might help us "explain" things or "understand" reality. It was that it would encourage us to be curious and open, like our professor, and avoid pigeonholes. I am sure it is this that has affected me to try to develop, in my own small way, a website - Open Horizons - that includes essays on a wide and eclectic array of topics, all of which, thanks to Whitehead and John, seem connected.

*

Of course, we didn't leave the class without writing a term paper and having a final examination. My term paper was on transmutation which, in Whitehead’s philosophy, refers to the process by which data from the world are transformed into feelings or subjective experiences within an actual entity. It highlights how the external world becomes internalized through prehensions and contributes to the formation of new realities. For Whitehead, transmutation is not merely a passive reception but an active transformation, demonstrating how each actual entity integrates the past into its own becoming. This idea underscored for me the deeply relational and dynamic nature of existence in Whitehead’s system. I have been "transmuting John's class for many years now, and adding some transmutations of my own. This very page is a transmutation of his influence on me.

And then there was the final exam, itself an oral exam. As individuals taking the class, we would meet John in his office and, as I recall, be asked three questions about Whitehead. The first would be a softball question such as "What is an actual entity?" The second a little more difficult, such as: "What is the extensive continuum and how does Whitehead think it is related to the ontological status of the future?" The third would be, typical of John, the "So What" question: "Why does any of this matter?" To the latter, of course, there was not a final answer, but he was interested in our response, for our own sake.

*

I think there were about twenty students in the class. Some left the class inspired by Whitehead's Process and Reality and wanting to know more, while others left having had their fill of cosmology and metaphysics. I realized then, as I realize now, that reading Process and Reality in depth is for some, but not all. Still, I think everyone left being inspired by, and grateful to, John Cobb. They were inspired by his proposative method of teaching, by his openness to new ideas, by his humility and capacity for self-criticism, and by the sheer range of his thinking. He seemed, and was, interested in everything: economics, spirituality, aesthetics, physics, politics, agriculture, biology, morality, literature, and more. He thought it was "all" connected and that Whitehead's philosophy can help us see the connections or, at the very least, inspire us to look for them. We agreed with him. Yes, he was a philosophical theologian. But we had never met a theologian like John - a theologian whose humility and openness were as inspiring as his ideas. A theologian whose proposative style was contagious such that we, too, became more open, more interested, more curious, more adventurous, more engaged.

* * * * * * * *

Whitehead's Eight Categories of Existence

plus Creativity and God

Actual Entities

An actual entity is a moment of concrescence—a moment of experience in which the many entities of the past actual world are felt and gathered into the unity of a subjective whole. In each actual entity, "the many become one, and are increased by one." This gathering includes the self-creativity and self-enjoyment of the entity, as it unifies influences from the past and brings forth something new. Actual entities are multiple and thus different from one another. Each entity arises with its own distinct characteristics, shaped by its unique prehensions and subjective forms. Once completed, an actual entity perishes as a subjective experience but continues to exist objectively, contributing to future moments of experience. This process exemplifies the dynamic nature of reality—each actual entity participates in the ongoing creative advance of the universe by transforming the past into novelty.

Prehensions

Prehensions refer to the ways actual entities relate to and "take account of" one another. This concept captures how an entity feels or grasps another entity—not conceptually, but experientially. Prehensions are the building blocks of relationships, with each actual entity prehending others through positive (inclusive) or negative (exclusive) feelings. These prehensive relations allow all things to participate in one another’s becoming, embodying the interconnectedness of all entities.

Nexus (or Nexūs)

A nexus is a network of actual entities related through shared prehensions, forming structured webs of interconnected experiences. Some nexūs take on enduring forms called societies, where occasions of experience inherit common characteristics from one another, creating patterns of continuity.

• Corpuscular societies: These consist of relatively stable entities, such as atoms or molecules, which persist across time by maintaining coherence.

• Personally ordered societies: These are sequences of experiences that form personal identities, such as the stream of consciousness that constitutes a person’s life. Each occasion builds on its predecessors, creating personal continuity and coherence over time.

Nexūs and societies reveal how individual occasions of experience participate in larger patterns of becoming, connecting everything from microscopic particles to human lives in an ongoing process of transformation.

Subjective Forms

Subjective forms refer to the emotional or qualitative tone that shapes how an entity experiences the world. These forms influence how prehensions are integrated, giving each experience a unique emotional quality. For example, one person might feel rain as melancholic, while another experiences it as refreshing. Subjective forms guide how entities respond to and integrate the influences they prehend, adding emotional depth to experience.

Eternal Objects

Eternal objects are pure potentials—abstract qualities or possibilities that actual entities can take up in their becoming. They are not confined to any specific event but exist as timeless potentials. For example, the quality "redness" is an eternal object that can manifest across different instances and contexts. Eternal objects provide the abstract building blocks that influence the unique character of each experience.

Propositions

Propositions are lures for feeling—imaginative suggestions that invite actual entities to explore certain possibilities. They function as speculative invitations, guiding the creative process by proposing how things might be. A proposition is not merely a factual statement but a suggestion for novelty and change. For example, an artist may consider a proposition that offers a new way to combine colors. Propositions help entities integrate new potentials, influencing both artistic creation and practical problem-solving.

Multiplicities

Multiplicities are diverse entities that exist in disjunction from one another. They may consist of actualities (such as actual entities) or potentialities (such as eternal objects). As truly distinct, multiplicities are not yet unified into the togetherness of an actual occasion of experience. A particular moment of experience (or actual entity) gathers these disparate elements into unity, but outside such unification, the universe remains a multiplicity. In this sense, multiplicities represent the richness of possibilities that are yet to be integrated.

Contrasts

Contrasts refer to patterns of difference or opposition that are either harmonized or remain in tension within experiences. These contrasts give shape and complexity to reality by bringing together opposing elements. For example, a melody is enriched by contrasts between high and low notes, and a life story is enriched by the interplay of joy and sorrow. Contrasts are essential to the depth and texture of experience, embodying both harmony and tension within each moment.

Creativity

Creativity is the “ultimate of ultimates,” the underlying activity expressed in all actualities. It manifests as the self-creativity of each actual entity through concrescence—the integration of many influences into a unified moment of experience. This process also involves transition, where the subjective immediacy of an entity perishes but lives on as objectively immortal in the experiences of future entities. Creativity is the driving force behind the novelty in the universe, enabling the ongoing process of becoming through which the past transforms into something new.

God

God encompasses three aspects, offering a relational and evolving presence in the universe:

• Primordial Nature - This is God's conceptual aspect, holding all eternal objects as pure possibilities. It represents the timeless realm of potentiality, offering the raw materials from which new experiences emerge.

• Consequent Nature - This is God’s empathic reception of all that happens, integrating every experience into the divine life. God feels the world, weaving all joys and sufferings into a coherent whole, continuously expanding in response to the world's becoming. God’s consequent nature ensures that no moment of experience is ever lost, as every event contributes to the unfolding divine reality.

• Super-jective Nature - This is God's influence on the world, luring creatures toward new possibilities. The superjective nature represents the way God inspires and persuades actual entities toward greater beauty, truth, and harmony, without coercion. God’s power lies not in domination but in invitation—offering new possibilities and guiding the world toward creative advance.