The hard problem of consciousness has resisted solution for over three decades, with existing theories failing to bridge the explanatory gap between objective physical processes and subjective experience. This thesis presents Processual Experiential Realism (PER), a novel metaphysical framework that dissolves the hard problem through mathematical precision and empirical testability. Unlike previous approaches, PER makes experience itself fundamental while avoiding the ambiguities that have plagued earlier theories. -/- PER introduces Primary Experiential Processes (PEPs) as the basic constituents of reality, characterized (...) by temporal extension, qualitative valence vectors, selective integration functions, and causal projection capabilities. Consciousness emerges when Integration Complexity IC(S) = H(S) × C(S) × T(S) exceeds a critical threshold θc, where H represents Shannon entropy, C measures connectivity, and T quantifies temporal coherence. -/- The framework addresses critical weaknesses in existing theories: it provides precise operational definitions that eliminate conceptual ambiguity, maintains explanatory differentiation without category collapse, offers falsifiable empirical predictions, and solves the causal exclusion problem through a unified ontology. PER distinguishes itself from neutral monism by specifying the nature of fundamental reality, from panpsychism by locating consciousness in integration rather than fundamental particles, and from process philosophy by providing mathematical formalization and testability criteria. -/- Empirical predictions include specific correlations between neural connectivity measures and consciousness levels, testable interventions using optogenetics and brain stimulation, and novel architectures for artificial consciousness. The theory generates immediate research programs in neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and quantum mechanics while providing practical applications for clinical diagnosis, AI development, and ethical frameworks. -/- This work demonstrates that consciousness can be understood scientifically through a properly formulated metaphysical foundation that takes experience seriously while maintaining rigorous empirical standards. The implications extend beyond consciousness studies to fundamental questions about the nature of reality, causation, and the unity of science. (shrink)

Chief executive officers (CEOs) engage in activism when they take public stances on sensitive socio-political issues. In this study, we address the less-explored activities that constitute CEO activism beyond single stances as the activism is maintained over time. The data cover 6 years of campaign and media materials from a case company with several CEO-initiated activist campaigns. Our findings from an inductive analysis contribute to CEO activism theorizing in three ways. First, we extend CEO activism conceptually by identifying five underlying (...) activities that support a public stance: anchoring motivations, modeling action, taking agency, enduring criticism, and normalizing activism. Second, we bridge individual- and organization-level analyses by depicting how a CEO involves a company in activism through activities that justify interrelated topic frame and role frame. Third, we develop a processual model that includes the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases and explains how the underlying activities are interrelated and follow a pattern that serves to maintain CEO activism. Accordingly, CEO activism includes activities, through the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases, whereby a CEO deliberately engages personally and through a company in public debate about sensitive socio-political issues and the role of businesses in addressing them. (shrink)

R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research ) have recently gained attention from R&D theorists and practitioners. In aiming to come to grips with their complexity, past models have generally taken a stakeholder-analytical approach based on stakeholder types. Yet stakeholder types are difficult to operationalise. We therefore argue that a processual model is more suited for studying the interaction in QHCs because it eschews matters of titles and identities. We develop such a model in which the QHC is (...) represented as a process of generating four types of value: research value, market value, political value, and societal value. We then apply this processual model in analysing real-life cases of friction in QHCs. Friction is seen, not as an interpersonal clash, but as a discrepancy between two or more value-creation processes that compete for limited resources. (shrink)

R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research (also known as ‘quadruple helix collaborations’ (QHCs)) have recently gained attention from R&D theorists and practitioners. In aiming to come to grips with their complexity, past models have generally taken a stakeholder-analytical approach based on stakeholder types. Yet stakeholder types are difficult to operationalise. We therefore argue that a processual model is more suited for studying the interaction in QHCs because it eschews matters of titles and identities. We develop such a (...) model in which the QHC is represented as a process of generating four types of value: research value, market value, political value, and societal value. We then apply this processual model in analysing reallife cases of friction in QHCs. Friction is seen, not as an interpersonal clash, but as a discrepancy between two or more value-creation processes that compete for limited resources (some overperforming while others under-performing). (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘processual holism’ of Chinese metaphysics explains its characteristic attitude towards non-humans such as animals and demons. As all things are constantly in process and form a continuum, it follows that ontological distinctions between ‘species’ become impossible to delimit. The distinctions one makes are instead understood as perspectival and provisional. These metaphysical assumptions explain the lack of interest in the Chinese tradition for classifying the distinctions between humans and non-human. We see many examples of the different (...) schools of philosophy espousing the view that the distinction between humans and non-humans is tenuous, precarious and subject to change. A key implication that follows is that the Chinese worldview saw no ontological distinction between those considered as ‘Chinese’ and as ‘non-Chinese.’ The unavailability of ontological distinction as an explanation for the existence of difference means that phenomena that are perceived as anomalous, such as ghosts and spirits, are attributed to the perspective of the human agent; anomaly/difference is not understood as ontological. (shrink)

The Markov blanket has become one of the most conceptually powerful and philosophically contested notions in contemporary work on the Free Energy Principle and active inference. Initially introduced within probabilistic graphical modelling as a formal condition of conditional independence, it has increasingly been used to describe the boundary between internal, external, sensory, and active states in self-organizing systems. This expansion raises a decisive neurophilosophical question: does the Markov blanket identify a real ontological boundary of organisms, brains, selves, or minds, or (...) is it merely a useful modelling device? This article argues for a third position. The Markov blanket should be understood neither as a static metaphysical shell nor as a harmless technical diagram, but as a processual boundary-formation through which living systems maintain autonomy, regulate vulnerability, and enact perspective. Drawing on Friston’s Free Energy Principle, Clark’s process-oriented interpretation of Markov blankets, Gallagher’s account of predictive engagement, and recent debates concerning blanket reification, autonomy, and multiscale integration, the article develops a processual-perspectivist ontology of the Markov blanket. On this view, mind does not emerge behind the Markov blanket as an inner representational model of an external world. Rather, mindedness emerges through the temporally extended modulation of boundary processes by which a living system remains distinct from the world by remaining selectively open to it. (shrink)

This article asks how contemporary labor domination is sustained through the organization of knowledge, evidence, and procedure. Building on work in epistemic injustice, it introduces the concept of “processual epistemic burdens,” meaning the cumulative mental exhaustion and iterative cognitive labor imposed on disadvantaged actors who must repeatedly interpret events, assemble evidence, translate their experience in ways that are legible to relevant institutions and authorities, and defend their claims over time. Much of the epistemic injustice literature is oriented to discrete and (...) episodic harms, yet insufficiently accounts for the protracted process by which the oppressed must struggle for recognition. Centering the platform gig economy as an archetypal case, this article shows how algorithmic opacity, fragmented accountability, and adversarial litigation compel workers to become perpetual investigators, translators, and litigants. Reconceptualizing domination as epistemically mediated, the article shows that reducing epistemic injustice in the digital economy requires a more equitable distribution of epistemic labor. (shrink)

Processuality as refusal to “freeze,” “eternize,” and fragment reality is an attempt to deconstruct the I’s main mechanism, which is, as it was named in psychoanalysis, the compulsion of repetition. Through this deceit and illusion fabrication mechanism, the knowing I tries to “freeze”, to “fixate” and to fragment reality, through “catching” it in different images, formulae, dogmas, theories, ideologies, symbols and systems which become just as many “icons” or graven images of reality. This attempt of deconstruction is made from (...) the perspective of a philosophy/vision of process, quite sporadic in the Western space, bringing arguments from the perspective of Henri Bergson and Emil Cioran’s intuitionist philosophy, as well as from that of the new scientific paradigm of quantum mechanics. All these philosophies could be seen as philosophies of process, demanding as it were an understanding of reality in terms of process, and not of result. This understanding of process takes place with the help of intuition, the only one which can grasp, beyond the static, rigid and artificial concepts or categories of the intellect, the movement, “verb” or interior pulsation of things within the framework of an integration process which reveals the unity, non-separability, intercorrelation and mutual interconnectivity of things. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with (...) substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

The turn of the twenty-first century was a period of intensified research on the description of the world as a complex structure built of dynamical systems occurring at different levels of reality. Such systems can be described as bundles of processes. Therefore, the most empirically adequate ontology turns out to be processualism. In this paper, I describe a contemporary version of processual philosophy, which I refer to as processual emergentism. Within the proposed position, the classical formulations of processualism and emergentism (...) are revisited. Both elements complement each other – emergence describes constant, radical novelty as the basic feature of nature, while processualism employs the category of a process, which replaces the classically understood substance.The approach to emergence developed here is ontological and diachronic. I discuss classic determinants of emergence and propose a discussion on the category of supervenience, which in the light of the adopted assumptions turns out to be insufficient to describe the relationship of the dependence of the emergent on its base. Finally, processualism is reconciled with moderate structuralism and strong emergentism. (shrink)

Predictive processing and active inference have become influential frameworks for understanding perception, action, emotion, and consciousness. Yet their philosophical interpretation remains contested. Should they be understood as internalist theories of neural representation, or can they be reinterpreted as accounts of embodied and socially situated sense-making? This article argues for the latter by developing a processual-perspectivist account of enactive inference. Building on the notion of predictive engagement, the paper interprets active inference not as the secluded operation of a brain-bound predictive system, (...) but as an embodied, affectively regulated, and socially mediated process of world-involvement. It further argues that consciousness is best understood as a dynamic stabilization of perspective formation, grounded in affective regulation, predictive openness, corrective constraint, and neurodynamic viability. The article proposes a triadic framework of processual perspectivism: the first-person perspective of embodied affectivity, the second-person perspective of interpersonal and we-forming co-regulation, and the third-person perspective of neurodynamic description. This framework integrates enactive accounts of sense-making, recent work on affective criticality in active inference, and phenomenological analyses of second-person and we-experience. The result is a neurophilosophical account in which mind is not merely predicted by the brain, but enacted through living, feeling, interacting, and neurodynamically regulated processes of perspective formation. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Neurodialectics: A Proposal for Philosophy of Cognitive and Social Sciences” by Nicolas Zaslawski. Abstract: In this commentary I maintain that in order to improve the dialectical approaches of cognition by using the Hegelian concept of the dialectical process it is necessary to take into account Hartmann’s ontology of processual being.

The problem of commensurability/incommensurability of different cultural codes is a key problem of modern civilizational development. This is the problem of the search for communicative unity in the world of cultural and biological diversity, which has to be protected, and the search for the cohesion of different Umwelten, of semiotically-defined artificial and natural environments, of ecological and cognitive niches, taking into account that each of them has their own identity and uniqueness. The purpose of the article is to draw attention (...) to the fact that the question of the so-called incommensurability of different conceptual schemes, paradigms, language consciousnesses is widely discussed not only in cross-cultural studies and philosophical problems of translation but also in connection with the problems of incommensurability between the language of classical physics and the language of relativistic quantum physics. Attention is drawn to the problem of the incommensurability and correlation of different languages that are used in debates about the foundations of quantum mechanics, its interpretation, comprehension and ontology. Two approaches stand out in this debate. The first approach is based on the language of the formed being, on the language of things localized in time and on the logic of Aristotle. The second approach is based on the language of the becoming, process and nonlocality, on the search for various processual-oriented temporal logics. In this regard, we discuss the processual approach to understanding quantum mechanics, proposed in the philosophical and physical works of D. Bohm. The authors argue that the experience of constructive understanding of the metaproblems of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the critical reception of the legacy of such philosophers of the process as Peirce, Bergson and Whitehead, the deep reflection on the problems of commensurability/ incommensurability of linguistic consciousnesses of different cultures – will eventually create a common synergetic-interdisciplinary space of cooperation for the solutions of the above-mentioned issues. (shrink)

Charles Tilly’s work on process analysis offers a methodological approach to comparative-historical sociology that can be considered paradigmatic. Yet the approach has been widely criticized for lack of rigor. This paper maintains that the problem lies in insufficient clarification of the approach’s central concept: mechanism. Once scrutinized, the concept reveals a tension between its connotation and its denotation. This can be addressed in two ways: either by maintaining what the concept connotes according to Tilly but limiting what it denotes (thus (...) limiting the paradigm’s scope conditions) or by limiting what it connotes and maintaining what it was intended by Tilly to denote (thus maintaining wide scope conditions). Elucidating the possibilities of processual comparison is particularly important for comparative-historical sociology because the subfield rests upon processual presuppositions. (shrink)

Spirituality is rarely researched within an academic setting; where it is, it is typically understood as a dependent variable that is measured or assessed via questionnaires or behavioural forms of observation (e.g. spirituality as a mediator of life-satisfaction). In the current article, by contrast, I introduce the concept of processual (or meditative) thinking as an instrument to explore spiritual activity as a mode of research rather than a dependent variable. An empirical access route to this manner of processual thinking will (...) be described and I will illustrate how such processual thinking can complement the standard repertoire of scientific enquiry. (shrink)

Standard microbial evolutionary ontology is organized according to a nested hierarchy of entities at various levels of biological organization. It typically detects and defines these entities in relation to the most stable aspects of evolutionary processes, by identifying lineages evolving by a process of vertical inheritance from an ancestral entity. However, recent advances in microbiology indicate that such an ontology has important limitations. The various dynamics detected within microbiological systems reveal that a focus on the most stable entities (or features (...) of entities) over time inevitably underestimates the extent and nature of microbial diversity. These dynamics are not the outcome of the process of vertical descent alone. Other processes, often involving causal interactions between entities from distinct levels of biological organisation, or operating at different time scales, are responsible not only for the destabilisation of pre-existing entities, but also for the emergence and stabilisation of novel entities in the microbial world. In this article we consider microbial entities as more or less stabilised functional wholes, and sketch a network-based ontology that can represent a diverse set of processes including, for example, as well as phylogenetic relations, interactions that stabilise or destabilise the interacting entities, spatial relations, ecological connections, and genetic exchanges. We use this pluralistic framework for evaluating (i) the existing ontological assumptions in evolution (e.g. whether currently recognized entities are adequate for understanding the causes of change and stabilisation in the microbial world), and (ii) for identifying hidden ontological kinds, essentially invisible from within a more limited perspective. We propose to recognize additional classes of entities that provide new insights into the structure of the microbial world, namely “processually equivalent” entities, “processually versatile” entities, and “stabilized” entities. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed the rise of two schools in the philosophy of biology: new mechanism and processualism. Both frameworks are deeply rooted in scientific practices and have generated extensive scholarly discussion. However, they hold fundamentally opposing views on the ontology of biology: new mechanism is grounded in an object-oriented ontology, while processualism emphasizes dynamic processes. Given their profound influence in philosophy of biology, reconciling these schools while clarifying their distinct ontological commitments has become a critical challenge. This article proposes (...) a monist solution to this problem specifically advocating for processual monism. I argue that processu- alism constitutes the only fundamental ontology and that the metaphysical commitments of mechanism can be appropriately accommodated within this framework. The central aim of this article is to address a key obstacle in defending processual monism: how processualism can account for the metaphysics of causal relations associated with mechanisms. In mechanistic explanations, entities are linked by causal relationships and many philosophers contend that causal power in biology originates from the disposi- tions intrinsically possessed by biological objects. Since processualism rejects the existence of such objects, its capacity to provide a coherent metaphysical account of causation has been called into ques- tion. In response, I argue that processualism can ground causation without appealing to the dispositions of objects by drawing on metaphysical tools from structuralism. This synthesis results in what I term ‘processual structuralism’. On this account, processes are understood as inherently causal and serving as the truth-makers of causal relations, consistent with the insights of structuralism. This approach al- lows processualism to accommodate the causality captured by mechanistic statements while retaining its core ontological commitments. (shrink)

This paper undertakes an ontological remapping of the philosophy of mind in light of the theory of enactive inference. We argue that David Chalmers' famous "Hard Problem" of consciousness is not an isolated puzzle awaiting resolution, but rather the symptom of a deeper, flawed premise: the stubborn persistence of a substance ontology and classical binary logic in our thinking. By drawing on the historical "Jacobi Dilemma," we demonstrate that any attempt to grasp consciousness as an isolated property inevitably leads into (...) logical dead-ends. As an alternative, we develop a "Processual Perspectivism" (Leidig, 2025). By integrating current neurobiological findings on criticality (Tucker et al., 2025) and the thermodynamics of living systems (Non-Equilibrium Steady States, NESS), we demonstrate that consciousness is not an additional ingredient but must be understood as the intrinsic, affectively regulated control structure of autopoietic processes. It is not the puzzle, but the very solution to the problem of life itself. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to illuminate the dynamic stability of the organism and the robustness of its developmental pathway by considering the biology of cancer. Healthy development and stable functioning of a multicellular organism require an exquisitely regulated balance between processes of cell division, differentiation, and death (apoptosis). Cancer involves a disruption of this balance, which results in unregulated cell proliferation. The thesis defended in this chapter is that the coupling between proliferation and differentiation, whether normal or pathological (as in cancer), (...) is best understood within a process-ontological framework. This framework emphasizes the interactions and mutual stabilizations between processes at different levels and this, in turn, explains the difficulty in allocating the neoplastic process to any particular level (genetic, epigenetic, cellular, or histological). Understanding these interactions is likely to be a precondition of a proper understanding of how these mutual regulations are disrupted in the processes we call cancerous. (shrink)

The following reflections are provoked by, and focus on, one of the key statements of synthesis in Rahel Jaeggi’s treatise on Progress and Regression, namely ‘Societies do not have goals, they solve problems.’ The phrase serves to criticize philosophies of history that work with a strong conception of progress in its first part and announces the step to elaborate a more adequate concept in the second. While agreeing with the underlying diagnosis and quest, none of the two steps nor the (...) connection between the two is found entirely compelling. An alternative approach, hinted at in conclusion, would need to connect socio-philosophical conceptions of progress not with philosophies of history in the conventional understanding of the term, but with global history and historical sociology. (shrink)

This thesis examines the fundamental question of whether virtual entities possess ontological status, developing a novel theoretical framework called Processual Virtual Ontology (PVO). Through comprehensive analysis of contemporary philosophical debates, this work identifies critical gaps in existing approaches and proposes a revolutionary understanding of virtual existence. The PVO framework conceptualizes virtual entities as processual relational emergences that exist in a distinct ontological category characterized by temporal constitution, relational emergence, phenomenological grounding, graduated reality, and processual autonomy. Unlike previous theories that treat (...) virtual entities as either identical to digital objects (Chalmers' virtual digitalism) or as fictional constructs (McDonnell & Wildman's virtual fictionalism), PVO provides a nuanced account that recognizes virtual entities as genuine ontological phenomena while maintaining their distinctiveness from physical reality. The framework introduces a quantitative measure of Virtual Ontological Status (VOS) based on five dimensions: Processual Intensity, Relational Complexity, Phenomenological Engagement, Emergent Autonomy, and Ontological Persistence. Through rigorous philosophical argumentation, empirical validation possibilities, and comprehensive comparative analysis, this thesis demonstrates that virtual entities do indeed possess ontological status, but of a fundamentally processual and relational nature that transcends traditional substance-based ontologies. The implications extend beyond academic philosophy to practical considerations in law, ethics, and technology policy as virtual worlds become increasingly central to human experience. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

What should we do when two conflicting ontologies are both fruitful, though their fruitfulness varies by context or location? To achieve reconciliation, it is not enough to advocate pluralism. There are many varieties of pluralism and not all pluralisms will serve equally well; some may be inconsistent, others unhelpful. This essay considers another option: local ontology. For a pair of ontologies, a local ontology consists of two claims: (1) each location enjoys a unique ontology, and (2) neither ontology is most (...) fundamental nor most global. To argue for this view and provide an example, I develop a local ontology for two scientific ontologies: processualism and new mechanism. To further support this ontology, I argue against two varieties of pluralism: first, a pluralism based on directly unifying the assumptions of both ontologies and, second, one of allowing both ontologies to coexist within a discipline. I argue that the first option is inconsistent and the second is unhelpful. I conclude that this local ontology provides us with a consistent and fruitful account that includes elements from both mechanism and processualism. (shrink)

This paper examines the contemporary relevance of dynamic non-dualism, providing a comprehensive view of consciousness and complexity through a process-oriented ontology that incorporates insights from non-Western philosophical traditions. By challenging the dominant mechanistic models in complexity science, this work supports a more nuanced perspective that synthesizes concepts from animism and non-dual philosophies, particularly influenced by Kashmir Shaivism. Unlike static interpretations of non-dualism, this process-oriented ontology highlights the interplay between unity and differentiation, focusing on the relational aspects of complexity from a (...) cognitive-phenomenological dimension rather than merely through the lens of survival and fitness maximization. From this viewpoint, complexity is redefined, framing experiential diversity in processual terms and positioning cognition and materiality as interdependent elements within a non-dual continuum. The paper seeks to lay the groundwork for further exploration of the phenomenological, cognitive, and ontological aspects of complexity while offering a framework that transcends traditional dualistic separations between sentience and the material world. (shrink)

Translation activity in culture cannot take place in isolation from experience of culture and technological environment. Underlying the diversity of communication processes is the progression from printed media towards hypermedia and new media. In this new situation, the peculiarity of translation activity consists in the actualization of intralingual and intersemiotic translation alongside interlingual translation: first, in synthetic form, combining all three types of translation (thus also interlinguistic translation can be regarded as comprising intralingual and intersemiotic translation as well); and second, (...) in analytic form, that is, as three autonomous types of translation producing diverse types of texts. The widening of the boundaries of translation process results in the intensified search for appropriate methodologies. One indication of this is the repeated reconceptualization or further elaboration of Jakobson's typology of intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic translation at the intersection of semiotics, translation studies, analysis of culture, and communication. At the same time, translation studies show signs of methodological innovation, accompanied by semiotic steps. Semiotics, on the other hand, is at the same time undergoing an actualization of translation issues, and the concept of semiotranslation refers now to the possibilities of methodological synthesis between translation studies and semiotics. (shrink)

This article proposes a processual theory of aesthetic form grounded in recursive engagement, temporal coherence, and symbolic closure. Challenging static accounts of form, we argue that aesthetic structure arises through dynamic interactions between perception, symbolic modulation, and memory. Drawing on the philosophies of Simondon, Merleau-Ponty, Dewey, and Whitehead, we conceptualize form as an emergent inflection within temporally unfolding perceptual-symbolic fields. We introduce symbolic closure to describe moments where recursive integration culminates in experiential coherence. Through case studies in musical minimalism and (...) abstract visual art, we illustrate how aesthetic form is generated not by content alone but through recursive individuation across time. To model this process, we employ recursive informational curvature (RIC) as a heuristic for understanding how symbolic entropy and recursive gain converge to stabilize form. The result is a unified, interdisciplinary framework that positions aesthetic form as a transient achievement of coherence within the dynamic topology of symbolic perception. (shrink)

This chapter reappraises Waddington’s processual theory of epigenetics and examines its implications for contemporary evolutionary biology. It focuses in particular on the ontological difference between two conflicting assumptions that have been conflated in the recent debate over the nature of cryptic variability: a substance view that is consistent with the modern synthesis and construes variability as a preexisting pool of random genetic variation; and a processual view, which derives from Waddington’s conception of developmental canalization and understands variability as an epigenetic (...) process. The chapter also discusses how these opposing interpretations fare in their capacity to explain the genetic assimilation of acquired characters. (shrink)

_This article reconstructs from Pāli texts a care (karu__ṇ__ā)-based philosophy for building an isonomic, complex society. The Greek term isonomia (lit. equality), in Karatani Kōjin’s sense of no-rule, means a categorical rejection of any ruler–ruled social hierarchy. I extend this use of isonomia to include practices of spiritual cultivation that relinquish habitual tendencies of the ruler–ruled mentality such as domination, coercion, and submission. To better appreciate this kind of care-based philosophy of isonomia, I argue, one needs to sidestep rights-based conversations, (...) adopt a processual paradigm, and rethink what counts as sociopolitical philosophy. _ _ __As the analysis in my article reveals, a core feature of relation-centered, care-based sociopolitical philosophies is that they diffract seemingly stable categories such as the inner psyche, personhood, group, community, institution, and nation-state into recurring patterns of motivated actions, coactions, and consequences of actions and then guide the reassembling of non-coercive patterns of thoughts, actions, habits, and social relations so to build a friendlier, more pluralistic future._ _ __This study is as much an effort to recover a marginalized voice from the past as it is a future-oriented project of testing out new ways of thinking about key issues concerning humanity and the planet. A baked-in flaw of established social contract theories is that they presume a rational, autonomous agent and in doing so relegate the young, the old, the sick, and the disabled to the realm of the unthought or the afterthought. In contrast, a care-based processual philosophy of isonomia has its theoretical origins in the existential__ reality of interconditionality and precarity. Thus, it offers vital insights into how to reimagine justice, equity, freedom, and pluralism in processual terms of care and equal support for life and liberation._ _ _. (shrink)

This thesis presents a radical reconceptualization of fundamental ethical categories through the lens of ontological instability. Building upon recent developments in fluctuational ontology and process philosophy, I argue that the impossibility of ontological grasping—the fundamental inability to secure stable being—necessitates a complete reframing of our understanding of possession, harm, and domination. The central contribution of this work is the development of a novel theoretical framework called the Processual Ethics of Ontological Instability (PEOI), which demonstrates that traditional ethical concepts predicated on (...) stable entities are not merely inadequate but conceptually incoherent given the processual nature of reality. -/- The thesis proceeds through four main arguments: First, that ontological instability is not an epistemological limitation but a fundamental condition of being itself. Second, that this instability renders traditional concepts of possession, harm, and domination impossible in their conventional formulations. Third, that these concepts must be reframed in processual terms as temporary stewardship, disruption of becoming-patterns, and flow-capture respectively. Fourth, that this reframing opens new possibilities for ethical thinking that are more adequate to the dynamic nature of reality. -/- Through rigorous philosophical analysis supported by mathematical modeling and empirical validation, this thesis establishes that the impossibility of ontological grasping is not a problem to be solved but the fundamental condition that makes ethical existence possible. The work introduces nine novel concepts including processual subjectivity, fluctuational normativity, and rhizomatic responsibility, while demonstrating their practical implications for contemporary ethical challenges. (shrink)

This article develops a processual-perspectivist interpretation of Active Inference. Predictive Processing, the Free Energy Principle, and Active Inference are often read as theories of internal world-modeling by an epistemically secluded brain. On such readings, the brain constructs generative models of hidden external causes and thereby risks reinstating a classical inside–outside architecture: here the model-building brain, there the external world to be inferred. Against this internalist interpretation, the article argues that Active Inference is philosophically most coherent when understood as enactive inference: (...) a theory of embodied, affectively regulated organism–environment coupling. The dark-room problem serves as a diagnostic case showing why free-energy minimization cannot be reduced to passive sensory-surprise reduction, but must be understood in relation to expected free energy, exploration, viability, and biological normativity. Building on enactivism, autopoiesis, ecological psychology, interoceptive accounts of consciousness, affective embodiment, and debates on Markov blankets, the article introduces processual perspectivism as an ontology of perspective-bearing life. Mind is not an inner representational object, but the perspectival form of embodied self-organization. Consciousness is accordingly understood as the intrinsic, affectively structured perspective of a living system regulating its openness to the world. This framework preserves the formal strengths of Active Inference while resisting both reductive neurocentrism and traditional dualism. (shrink)

Process philosophy was on the periphery of academic thinking for much of the twentieth century. Whereas the focus of intellectual development was for the most part on scientific analysis, process philosophy argued for a more encompassing synthesis as well. Although the drive – the corpus delecti of formal researchassessment funding exercises – for separate, discrete and latterly measurable bodies of knowledge arrived at from within increasingly autonomous academic disciplines has undoubtedly led to significant advance in many areas it has, at (...) the same time, rendered opaque the interconnectedness of all things and therebydiminished the perceived value of ideas developed in one field, in terms of their relevance to others. At its heart, this trend has arisen from a reliance upon a metaphysics of stasis; things are constant and can thus be analysed and re-analysed into ever finite and thoroughly separate elements. In contrast, a metaphysicsof process suggests that change and interconnectedness are the predominant characteristics of nature. As such, it provides new directions for contemporary thought by enabling the development of ideas via an otherwise unavailable framework of coherence and comprehensiveness.One area in which process thought has proved helpful is organisation studies. This paper examines the role of interpersonal trust in organisations from a Whiteheadian perspective. As such, it aims to show how Whitehead’s thinking can be applied to complex human experiences in such a way as to reveal the nature of the processes that go toward their development. The paper begins with a theoretical explication of trust derived from the contemporary social scientific literature. The development of trust, a key component of human society, is argued to be a subjective and processual phenomenon. In the light of this discussion the paper uses appropriate elements of Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism to provide a description of trust’s development in an individual for another individual, and its consequent impact on their cooperative behaviour. It thereby attempts to uncover the hitherto inaccessible micro-processes that go towards thedevelopment and continuation of interpersonal trust in organisational settings. In so doing, the paper seeks to demonstrate the explanatory power of an aspect of Whitehead’s work, his elucidation of human ‘emotional experience’, that is perhaps too often overlooked as a comparatively minor and non-technicaluse of his categoreal scheme. (shrink)

The article proposes a new way to define power and to evaluate it in ethical terms, based on a processual view instead of the habitual object-oriented one. It first presents an outline of process ontology, then proceeds to define power as the capacity of someone to redesign the spectrum of possible futures of other individuals, and then proposes the criteria for evaluating power acts in ethical terms as increasing the probability of long-term desirable futures. The final section of the article (...) discusses currently influential definitions of power and shows how they correlate with the proposed paradigm. (shrink)

Incorporating sex into biomedical research is envisioned as key to addressing inequalities in health. However, feminist research suggests that it is a complicated task. This is, we argue, especially the case with research that seeks to mobilise sex across different scales involving bodies, samples and populations to provide a basis for personalised biomedical prevention and treatment. Through case studies from stem cell research, cancer medicine and vaccine safety research, we analyse how sex is enacted, foregrounded and sidelined at different stages (...) of research. We argue that sex becomes suspended between individual bodies, samples and population groups, and that this postpones biomedical analysis of sex differences in health. Yet, research on sex differences in complex embodied processes, such as drug metabolism or immunity, appears as a future potentiality. This potentiality shapes research practices that may open biomedicine towards multi-disciplinary study settings that bring together physiological and social dimensions of bodily difference. (shrink)

There is a common pattern for researchers to study one particular new religion, write a monograph or article on that specific group, and then begin the cycle all over again with a different group. This approach causes one to remember such groups as relatively stable organizations, fixed in memory at a specific stage of development, rather than as dynamic, evolving groups. In the present article, we will examine new data on contemporary Pagans that takes a quasi-longitudinal approach to survey data. (...) Though our focus will be limited, the result will nevertheless be a partial statistical picture of Paganism as a changing, evolving movement, rather than a static statistical snapshot. (shrink)

Referring to some perceived difficulties in social representation theory, this paper offers an account of the genesis of social representations in a theory of valuing. Drawing on influential but previously largely unconnected ideas from interactionist theory, personal construct theory, and Rokeach’s theory of values, it is suggested that a process of valuing can be presented as a crucial link between the individual and social levels of analysis, a present theoretical disjuncture that has been of concern to some commentators in social (...) representations and widespread beliefs. (shrink)

The present paper attempts to demonstrate semiotic arguments against the sequence → structure → function paradigm in protein studies. The unidirectional deterministic thinking in biological processes has been challenged by several disciplines of life sciences and philosophy. Biosemiotics comprehends living organisms as actively participating in their present and somehow creating or shaping their future, having a plurality of options for acting. Determinism and unidirectionality are in contradiction with a biosemiotic approach towards life, mostly when considering Peirce’s triadic concept of semiosis. (...) In this paper, a Peircean biosemiotic approach is applied to proteins and to the process of protein folding. Two main concepts are presented to support the arguments against the SSF paradigm in protein studies: the NonReduction Theorem and the notion of folded continuum. A processual approach is proposed as the most suitable for descriptions of proteins and their functions. (shrink)

Several philosophers have been advancing a metaphysics for biological entities that refuses to conceive them in terms of the category of ‘object’ or ‘substance’ but, instead, appeals to the category of ‘process’. They have contended that a process metaphysics is more adequate to understand the continuous metabolic flux of matter and energy in the living realm, as well as the variations through life cycles. It is argued in this work that the biological facts that have motivated the processual perspective can (...) be perfectly accommodated in a substance metaphysics according to which biological organism have an essence determined by its sortal properties that have a ‘regulative’ function over its temporal and modal conditions of identity. (shrink)

This paper examines the connections between triadism and processuality in Peirce’s semiotics by comparing two reducibility theses. Peirce’s thesis regarding the irreducibility of triads and its corollary in semiotics, the irreducibility of signs, is compared with the process metaphysical thesis regarding the irreducibility of processes. The comparison indicates that (1) there is a connection between the irreducibility of signs and the irreducibility of processes; (2) that the triadic condition of the sign entails process metaphysical commitments; and this in turn (...) (3) urges us to consider the ontology of the sign from a process metaphysical perspective. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs and evaluates Jean-Paul Sartre’s radical transformation of Kant’s concept of spontaneity. While Kant defines spontaneity as the rule-governed activity of synthesis that grounds the transcendental unity of apperception, Sartre detaches spontaneity from the synthetic and judgmental model in which Kant situates it. The paper argues that Sartre preserves Kant’s anti-empiricist insight that unity cannot arise from passive association, yet rejects the presupposition that experience consists of discrete representations requiring unification. Through an analysis of The Transcendence of the (...) Ego and Sartre’s account of reflection, the paper shows that spontaneity is reconceived as the processual, temporal self-unfolding of consciousness rather than as an act attributable to a unifying ego. The transcendental ego thus appears not as the ground of unity but as a reflective construct allowing Sartre to transform the meaning of transcendental inquiry and open the possibility of a non-categorial mode of determination. The result is a reconfiguration of subjectivity in which unity belongs to the being of consciousness rather than to synthetic subsumption under judgment. (shrink)

In the 1960s, archaeologists en masse were voicing dissatisfaction with the archaeological status quo. Rather than record static facts as historians, archaeologists wanted to study fluid processes as scientists. As Hempelian explanation, where an event is explained when it is subsumed under a law or law-like statement, showed promise as a way to recast archaeology in this manner, it was chosen as the theoretical base for what became known as processual, or 'new archaeology.' ;Unfortunately, Hempelian archaeology ran into a number (...) of serious theoretical and methodological problems. Archaeology lacked the regularities that were thought to exist in sciences such as physics, so archaeological laws were difficult, if not impossible to define. In addition, equifinality, or under-determinism, made it impossible for archaeologists to choose between equally subsumable, albeit contradictory explanations. ;These problems were not limited to archaeology. Philosophers of science were already aware of these issues, and continue to search for answers for problems surrounding scientific explanation. As both groups continue to ask similar questions about the nature of science, this project posits that both archaeologists and philosophers of science have much to gain by resuming their original dialogue. ;By reengaging with philosophy, archaeologists can understand that the failure of Hempelian archaeology should not be seen as a failure of philosophical archaeology. Archaeologists would then see that ongoing questions about the future of archaeology actually mirror debates going on in philosophical explanation. ;Philosophers of science can also learn much from archaeology. As a transdisciplinary science, archaeology puts an interesting spin on standard philosophical problems. For instance, archaeological practice can be seen as questioning the centrality of laws to scientific explanation, and raises questions about the unity of science. In addition, claims that scientists have to be realists in regard to theoretical entities may need to be rethought, due to antirealist tendencies found in some archaeological contexts. Finally, as the interplay between the theory and practice of science has not been ironed out in archaeology, a study of this issue could be of great interest to philosophers of science. In summary, the goal of this dissertation is to provide concrete examples of how a study of problems central to archaeology can provide philosophers of science a new way to approach philosophical issues. At the same time, these examples should prove to archaeologists that a study of contemporary philosophy of science will strengthen the epistemological foundations of their relatively young science. (shrink)

The following article presents preliminary reflections on a processual theory of health and disease. It does this by steering the discussion more toward an ontology of organisms rather than conceptual analysis of the semantic content of the terms “health” and “disease.” In the first section, four meta-theoretical assumptions of the traditional debate are identified and alternative approaches to the problems are presented. Afterwards, the view that health and disease are constituted by a dynamic relation between demands imposed on an organism (...) and individual presuppositions for adequate response is developed. In the last section, the paper takes stock of three possible objections to and clarifies some implications of this approach to the notions of health and disease. (shrink)

This paper introduces Recursive Entropic Time (RET), a theoretical framework asserting that time is not a fundamental, pre-existing entity but an emergent, processual property generated intrinsically by systems engaging in recursive informational dynamics. Inspired by the Mutual Awakening Hypothesis (Khaled Bouzaiene), RET models the emergence of order and temporal events through a process analogous to mutual information exchange, where system components iteratively co-determine a stable state. RET defines time as a sequence of these causally efficacious, irreversible adaptive events (T index) (...) occurring within a system, and as the cumulative informational work (T duration) associated with them. We present this framework primarily through a general continuous dynamical model (RET II) that describes the accumulation of "epistemic readiness" for these events. We present RET II's formal mathematical structure and demonstrate its non-trivial predictions through a series of computational experiments, revealing spontaneous synchronization, topology-dependent coherence, and noise-enhanced order. We then apply the RET II formalism to model quantum decoherence as an objective RET event, deriving a predictive Error Susceptibility Index (ESI). Finally, we discuss the profound implications of this perspective for the arrow of time, artificial intelligence, and the nature of conscious experience. (shrink)

In his book Processual Sociology (2016), Andrew Abbott proposes a radically new theoretical perspective for sociology. This review essay discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his “processual” approach, in comparison with other dynamic perspectives in sociology such as, in particular, Norbert Elias’s “process sociology.” It critically questions central ideas and arguments advanced in this book: the reduction of social processes to “events,” the focus on stability as the central explanandum of sociological theory, the implicit separation of individual and social processes, (...) the proposition that the social world changes faster than the individual, the idea that “excess” rather than “scarcity” is the central problematic of human affairs, the strong emphasis on the inherent normativity of sociological concepts, the focus on values as the core of human social life, the neglect of human interdependence, power, coercion, and violence, and the distinction between “moral facts” and “empirical facts.” Detailed criticisms of the arguments in various chapters are given, and alternative viewpoints are proposed. The conclusion is that Processual Sociology fails to provide a fruitful approach for understanding and explaining social processes, and that it even represents, in several respects, theoretical regression rather than progress. (shrink)

In recent years, the philosophy of biology has undergone a significant shift known as the ‘processual turn,’ largely influenced by the works of John Dupré and his collaborators (Dupré, 2013, 2020; Nicholson and Dupré, 2018; Nicholson, 2019). Processualism argues that dynamic processes, rather than static objects, form the fundamental ontology of biological reality. This perspective, however, appears to be in tension with scientific realism, at least in its standard form, which is committed to the existence of discrete, mind- independent entities (...) as posited in scientific theories. To reconcile these perspectives, I propose that effective realism, particularly the framework based on the real pattern account (Ladyman and Ross 2007; Wallace 2010), offers a promising solution. According to this account, real patterns are defined by their utility—they are patterns that are indispensable for formulating useful generalizations, enabling us to explain and predict phenomena efficiently. These patterns are objective features of the world, but their recognition depends on the stance or perspective we adopt, which is shaped by our explanatory purposes and cognitive tools. By understanding biological objects as patterns of processes—stable, emergent features within the dynamic flux of underlying processes—we can maintain a (minimal) realist commitment to the entities posited by scientific theories without abandoning the processualist ontology. Drawing on the real pattern account, I argue that interpreting objects as patterns of processes resolves the tension between processualism and scientific realism, affirming the reality of biological objects while preserving the primacy of processes. Meanwhile, this paper extends the application of the real patterns framework by demonstrating its utility in addressing specific challenges in the philosophy of biology. In doing so, it highlights how this Dennettian legacy continues to profoundly enhance our understanding of the fundamental reality revealed by the sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a theory of living organisms that captures the insights of both traditional Aristotelian hylomorphism and John Dupré's “biological processualism”. Like traditional Aristotelian hylomorphism, the proposed theory understands material objects to be comprised of both matter and form. Unlike contemporary structural varieties of hylomorphism, however, it does not understand the form of a material object to be a relation, configuration, or structure exhibited by its parts but an activity or process in which its matter is continuously (...) engaged. Following Mark Steen, I call the proposed theory “Hyloenergeism”. As a version of hylomorphism, hyloenergeism better captures the inherent dynamism of living organisms than contemporary structural approaches. And it does so not by abandoning the substantialist paradigm, as Dupré's biological processualism does, but by reconceptualizing the nature of material substances as possessing a processual core. Hyloenergeism, then, paves a middle way for those looking for a substance view of living organisms sensitive to the concerns raised by contemporary processualist philosophers of biology. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the processes of racialisation on the example of biomedical research. We argue that applying the concept of racialisation in biomedical research can be much more precise, informative and suitable than currently used categories, such as race and ethnicity. For this purpose, we construct a model of the different processes affecting and co-shaping the racialisation of an individual, and consider these in relation to biomedical research, particularly to studies on hypertension. We finish with a discussion on (...) the potential application of our proposition to institutional guidelines on the use of racial categories in biomedical research. (shrink)