Many historians of philosophy have often described it as a continuous dialogue that is compiled from those philosophers who preceded the last. I think that this is a fairly accurate statement and in this paper, I attempt to demonstrate how Ancient Greek philosophy has directly influenced modern philosophy in an obscure field of ontology. Alfred North Whitehead, in the twentieth century, wrote a book entitled Process and Reality, wherein he develops a radically different ontology that opposes the long reign of substantialism originating with Aristotle. Heraclitus, a pre-socratic philosopher, was long ahead of his time. He was abstracting ideas that could not be expressed in the language of the time due to the lack of conception in the Western Philosophical Tradition. Heraclitus often spoke in epigrams to try to convey his ideas, and in doing so, he is often misinterpreted to absurdity. However, there are strong arguments and ideas put forth in Heraclitus’ epigrams that cannot be ignored. Juxtaposing this with Aristotle’s conception of substance will provide the basis for a conjugal dichotomization with Whitehead’s Event Ontology.

To understand Heraclitus and Aristotle fully is a feat of scholars, but a general understanding will suffice for the intention of this paper. I will first define Heraclitean Flux and then delineate between Flux and Logos (as Heraclitus employs the term), then juxtapose these concepts with Substantialism, in a rudimentary form. This Substantialist introduction will be a segue to Aristotelian Substantialism and that juxtaposed with Cartesian substantialism. Finally, I will attempt to demonstrate that the Aristotelian conception of substance is precursory to event ontology and panpsychism developed by Whitehead and extended by Charles Hartshorne.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, often times referred to as “Heraclitus the Obscure,” is known by historians to have written a book during his life, of which only a hundred or so fragments survived. He is famous for his use of epigraphic riddles and seemingly contradictory phrases. Heraclitus was often ridiculed for many misunderstood his insight and perhaps he was ahead of his time. Heraclitus developed a powerful conception of reality that is unificatory and rather intuitive:

All things come into being through opposition, and all are in flux,like a river

(Melchert 19).

The ancient Greek philosophers, even before Heraclitus, were fascinated by duality, or conceptual oppositions and that is reflected in the above excerpt from Heraclitus. Heraclitus thought that opposition could be found in everything and that was what structured reality and kept it changing, hence Flux. But there is something more fundamental here that Heraclitus is hinting at. Although he doesn’t make it explicit, he begins to address the concept of substance. Substantialism wasn’t conceived until Aristotle, but Heraclitus was beginning to define an underlying property of substances, vis-a-vis its form. In other words, Heraclitus recognized that an apple changes from green to red, but remains an apple. Heraclitus didn’t have the terms Aristotle employed, matter and form, to describe this notion. In the interest of avoiding anachronistic interpretation, Heraclitus would have said something along these lines: the color green pairs with the apple and some amount of time later, the color red and the apple pair up (Tarpey Lec. 1). This is of course rudimentary, but the illustration is sufficient for my purposes.

Heraclitus also speaks of a river as an analogy for Flux:

Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters (Melchert 19).

Perhaps the river also illustrates Heraclitus’ notion of Flux and “substance.” The river stays the same although the waters that make up the river are constantly changing through motion; however, the waters themselves are not the river, but a characteristic that aids in composition. “A river is not identical with the water that makes it up but is a kind of structure or pattern that makes a unity of ever-changing elements. It is a one that holds together the many” (19). Back to the apple example, the fact that an apple is red is a secondary characteristic of identity, but that it is an apple is fundamental, in and of itself. It has become evident that through Flux and opposition, we attain a structure of reality, but this is second order abstraction. More fundamentally, Flux itself is structured by oppositions and this is where Heraclitus developed his notion of Logos.

There is nothing permanent except change (22).

Heraclitus not only realized that Flux characterizes our reality, but that Flux itself is characterized by Logos. To use a cliche, there is a method to the madness, and Heraclitus realized that Flux devoid of structure is contradictory and violates his conception of oppositional polarity. For to know black, one must know white; to know Flux, one must know stability.

Aristotle’s conception of Substance would not have been possible without Heraclitus’ contributions. Again though, Aristotle did not use the term “substance.” Instead, he denoted a substance as an Ousia. Literally translated, Ousia means “this.” For Aristotle, an Ousia is a hylomorphic composite insofar as all Ousias are dually composed of matter and form. This delineation is exactly that of Heraclitus’ thought put into a cogent terminology and explicated further in Aristotelian substance ontology. Aristotle noted Heraclitus’ observation of Flux and incorporated it into a temporal organization of Ousias. I would like to refer to the apple example once again to juxtapose Heraclitus’ explanation and Aristotle’s. For Heraclitus, the apple pairs with green for a while, then pairs with red. With Aristotle, the apple is a form and that it’s green is its matter. The form is actual and eternal, in other words, it is the underlying characteristic that makes the apple an apple independent of the myriads of matter it could be given. Aristotle also gave a name to changes in matter, accidental adventures. This term is modernized, however, it does justice to the temporal nature of hylomorphic composites. Insofar as an ousia is hylomorphically arranged, albeit matter and form, the matter has the potentiality to undergo change (Heraclitean Flux), whereas the form is actual, concrete, eternal and unchangeable. For example, when the apple changes from green to red, that is a change in matter, or an accidental adventure. This accidental adventure did not change the form, being an apple (that the apple exists) (Tarpey Lec.1).

There is much more to be said about Aristotle’s substantialism, but this delineation is sufficient enough to proceed with my argument. First, I would like to juxtapose Descartes’ conception of substance with Aristotle’s to clarify a difference that is significant to understand before proceeding. For Descartes, a substance is what it is in and of itself, or, “…an existent thing which requires nothing but itself in order to exist” (Felt). Descartes’ conception of substance is insufficient, to put rather bluntly, an apple is not an apple independent of its matter, in Aristotelian terms. Descartes negates relations by stating relations do not compose, in anyway, a substance. In other words, Descartes affirms only form in his conception of substance. Harkening back to Heraclitus, Flux is structured by Logos and oppositions are complementary. The duality of matter and form in Aristotle is inseparable logically. The Law of Polarity, often employed by Hartshorne, dictates that dualities are inseparable in practice. Again, one cannot know flux without knowing stability; one cannot know form, without knowing matter. Hartshorne furthers the argument here:

Suppose a substance ‘S’ requires another substance ‘P’ in order to exist; then ‘S’, just being itself, is related to ‘P’, and since related-to-P includes ‘P’, ‘S’ itself must include ‘S’. Otherwise, it must be possible for it to exist without ‘P’, external relations being those not necessary to a thing. It follows that ‘P’ is predicable of ‘S’ as a necessary relatum for its intrinsic relation (Felt).

What Hartshorne is suggesting is that for a substance to exist as itself, it must have relations to other substances. In addition, a one-sided conception of substance, vis-a-vis form only, does not satisfy our common sense intuitions that dictate a dual composition of substances, one that endures change and time, and one that does not.

So far, I have illustrated Heraclitus’ idea of Flux and the structural nature of the Logos and oppositional polarity and how that influenced Aristotle’s conception of substance (Ousia) as a hylomorphic composite dually composed of matter and form. The matter of an Ousia is subject to change (flux) through its temporal nature of potentiality where accidental adventures are possible, and form being the underlying, unchangeable, and eternal characteristic of an ousia that makes it itself with relations to it’s matter. I also juxtaposed Aristotelian substance with Cartesian substance and showed a significant difference insofar as the Cartesian conception states that a substance is what it is, in and of itself which places form as more fundamental than matter. I then demonstrated that this idea is one-sided and cannot do justice to oppositional polarity and common sense intuitions. Throughout the rest of this paper, I will attempt to show that Aristotle’s Substantialism (influenced by Heraclitus) is precursory to Event Ontology, which opposes Substantialism (as a whole) insofar as events are more fundamental than substances or unchanging being (forms).

Alfred North Whitehead, to start, was not the first to hold event ontology as part of his philosophical creed. Henri Bergson, William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey have all held views related to event ontology, but it was not until Whitehead wrote his book, Process and Reality, that event ontology was furthered into a formal philosophy. This ontology is often referred to as Process Philosophy, hence Process and Reality. Charles Hartshorne also furthered Whitehead’s Process Philosophy and made valuable strides in an exegesis of Process and Reality. Here, I will strictly refer to Whitehead’s and Hartshorne’s narrower and finer conception of Process Philosophy.

Whereas Descartes’ Substance is composed of form, fundamentally (and that was shown to be insufficient above), Process philosophy opposes this, and the converse, placing relations (matter) as fundamental to form; in addition, it denies Aristotelian Substantialism. Process philosophy attempts to “construct a cosmology in which all intuitions well-grounded in human experience can be reconciled” (Griffin). The very concept of substance presupposes “the locomotion of bits of matter devoid of spontaneity, internal process and intrinsic value” (Griffin). To complete the reconciliation, Process philosophy “reconceives the basic units of the world as processes” (Griffin). Furthermore, to appeal to pragmatic efficacy, Process philosophy does not reform language to refer to tables as processes that interact table-wise. Instead, the term actual entity is employed; “an actual entity is a process” and “the reality is the process” (Griffin). To elucidate, the actual entities that comprise reality “are momentary occasions of experience involving two kinds of process” (Griffin).

As stated by Griffin, actual entities involve two kinds of process and this is where an important distinction needs to be made between being and becoming. To understand this distinction, reference matter and form from Aristotle, matter being potentiality and form being actuality. Being, in the process tradition, refers to past actuality; contrastingly, Becoming is future potentiality. The two types of process involved in an actual entity are spatio-temporal, just as Being and Becoming (past actuality and future potentiality). Concrescence is the process “within an actual occasion and involves moving from potentiality to concreteness” (Griffin). Concrescence can be thought of as Becoming moving towards Being. The process between actual occasions is known as Transition. In addition to the two types of process, there are two types of causation integral to these processes: “efficient causation expresses the transition from actual entity to actual entity; and final causation expresses the internal process whereby the actual entity becomes itself” (Griffin). Between these two types of causation is a fundamental relation that must be noted: “every actual occasion begins by receiving efficient causation from prior actual occasions, completes itself by exercising final causation, understood as self-determination, and then exercises efficient causation upon following occasions” (Griffin). Essentially, this processing involves incessant oscillation between efficient and final causation. The best example of this process philosophy (not including the smaller details) is to think of a film reel. The film itself is a culmination of chronological moments captured pictorially in nearly negligible amounts of time intervals. Observation of the film’s frames reveals these momentary occasions of experience; however, when the film is played in a projector, the separate occasions are displayed as continuity.

With the mention of momentary occasions of experience, it is important to unpackage the other half of Whitehead and Hartshorne’s philosophy. Recall that process philosophy’s central task is to “construct a cosmology in which all intuitions well-grounded in human experience can be reconciled” (Griffin). Whitehead valued our common sense intuitions and explicates largely on the cohesion of practice and theory. What many philosophers deny vocally they presuppose in practice, this is known as a performative contradiction and it deeply troubled Whitehead. In addition, Whitehead developed the concept of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”, “in which an abstraction from something, useful for particular purposes, is identified with the concrete thing itself” (Griffin). This fallacy and the performative contradiction were intrinsically related by committing the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, the philosopher also falls guilty to performative contradiction. These pitfalls can be widely observed in scientific materialism, idealism, and dualism. Whitehead’s culmination of not only process philosophy, but also panpsychism, completed the central task of reconciling experience.

Panpsychism, etymologically, is “all soul” but with Whitehead and especially Hartshorne, who developed this doctrine further, it’s much more complicated than saying everything is psychical. For Hartshorne, he delineates between idealism by admitting a physical reality that is grounded in psychical aspects. Just as Whitehead, in a process approach, denotes substances as actual entities, Hartshorne agrees, but instead makes them “individuals.” Insofar as they are individuals, they have psychical aspects. In this sense, panpsychism is an organic philosophy that reconciles experience and avoids substance dualism two-fold, inasmuch as it avoids the bifurcation of nature through experience and process. In addition, in admittance of a physical reality, panpsychism is panpsychial realism. (Hartshorne).

Hartshorne also makes a distinction in individuals to avoid making claims that suggest a table is conscious. This sort of claim contradicts our common sense intuitions. One of the main tenets of this philosophy is to do justice to our common sense intuitions. Thus Hartshorne delineates between what he calls, “composite individuals” and “compound individuals”. A composite individual is one that its microconstituents’ psychical, or experiential (I will use experiential to denote a lower order mental state, those exclusive to composite individuals) aspects do not transcend the sum of its parts. For example, a table’s microconstituents has experience, but not a transcendent consciousness. A compound individual does have a transcendent consciousness, like a human. In other words, a composite individual’s microconstituents are far more “interesting” than the whole. A compound individual is far more “interesting” as a whole, than its parts. Perhaps another example that will elucidate this distinction is the emphasis on relations, not the individual. In recognizing that the individual creates relations, panpsychism is monistic pluralism. John Dewey, in his essay On Time and Individuality, wrote:

Recognition of the statistical nature of physical laws was first effected in the case of gases when it became evident that generalizations regarding the behavior of swarms of molecules were not descriptions or predictions of the behavior of any individual particle. A single molecule is not and cannot be a gas… It is a statement of what happens when a very large number of such constituents interact with one another under certain conditions (Dewey 234).

Dewey demonstrates the age-old problem of “the one and the many” impeccably, but does not recognize the weight of the statement in reference to panpsychism. One question that panpsychism raises is how the microconstituents, having micro-experience, could yield a transcendent consciousness (compound individuality)? By making experience fundamental (definition of panpsychism), the relations (and arrangements) over these microconstituents yields transcendent consciousness.

These past couple paragraphs have given a very simplified account of process philosophy and panpsychism, but my ultimate goal is to demonstrate that Heraclitus and Aristotle are precursory thinkers to process philosophy and panpsychism. The main tenet of process philosophy and panpsychism is that of the central task mentioned before, to reconcile experience, do justice to common sense, and avoid misplaced concreteness. Heraclitus’ doctrine of Flux was characterized by change, but structured and steady change through the introduction of Logos. Logos, unifies experience in Flux insofar as experience changes, but that experience exists, is a constant. However, Heraclitus did not extend experience as a fundamental constant, he kept it exclusive to humans and that move bifurcates nature and we are left with substance dualism. Panpsychism accepts, to a degree, Heraclitean Flux, but denies exclusiveness of experience to humans and offers inclusiveness. Aristotle made a distinction between matter and form. This distinction is important to my argument, insofar as it mediates Heraclitean Flux and eternality. Again, process philosophy and panpsychism delineates between the composite and compound individual which accepts Aristotelian matter and form, but not in a substantialist sense. Rather, form, being eternal is experience; matter, being potentiality, is process.

Works cited

Dewey, John. “Time and Individuality.” On Experience, Nature, and Freedom. N.p.: Liberal Arts, 1960. 224-43. Print.

Felt, James W., S.J. Whitehead’s Misconception of “Substance” in Aristotle. N.d. TS. N.p.

Griffin, David R. Process Philosophy. N.d. TS. N.p.

Hartshorne, Charles. Panpsychism. N.d. TS. N.p.

Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 1991. Print.

Tarpey, Michael. “Aristotelian Substance.” Tidewater Community College, Chesapeake. 04 Apr. 2015. Lecture.