A Process Ontology (original) (raw)

Physical Emergence and Process Ontology

Alfred North Whitehead introduces in Process and Reality the notion that the “philosophy of organism is a cell-theory of actuality.” I argue here that the most promising venue for a concordance with process ontology vis-`a-vis extant physical theory includes the notions of dynamical and ontological emergence in the physical sciences, as described in Silberstein and McGeever (1999) as well as in Kronz and Tiehen (2002). Here I draw on my previous claims (1997, 2005, 2006) to show in more general terms how process ontology provides a more unified characterization of ontological and dynamical emergence.

The Ontology of States, Processes, and Events

2012

This paper presents a new view of the relationship between states, processes and events. Instead of trying to treat them as entities all on a similar footing, as most previous authors have done, we regard processes as abstract patterns of behaviour which may be realised in concrete form as actually occurring states or events. Processes are divided into two broad types, called continuables and repeatables, and various mappings between and within these categories are considered. The theory presented here is consistent with recent theorising about processes in ontology and computer science while being sensitive to the insights from the work of philosophers and linguists over many years.

Classifying Processes and Basic Formal Ontology

Unlike what is the case for physical entities and other types of continuants, few process ontologies exist. This is not only because processes received less attention in the research community, but also because classifying them is challenging. Moreover, upper level categories or classification criteria to help in modelling and integrating lower level process ontologies have thus far not been developed or widely adopted. This paper proposes a basis for further classifying processes in the Basic Formal Ontology. The work is inspired by the aspectual characteristics of verbs such as homeomericity, cumulativity, telicity, atomicity, instantaneity and durativity. But whereas these characteristics have been proposed by linguists and philosophers of language from a linguistic perspective with a focus on how matters are described, our focus is on what is the case in reality thus providing an ontological perspective. This was achieved by first investigating the applicability of these characteristics to the top-level processes in the Gene Ontology, and then, where possible, deriving from the linguistic perspective relationships that are faithful to the ontological principles adhered to by the Basic Formal Ontology.

Processes and events as rigid embodiments

Synthese, 2023

Monists and pluralists disagree concerning how many ordinary objects there are in a single situation. For instance, pluralists argue that a statue and the clay it is made of have different properties, and thereby are different. The standard monist's response is to hold that there is just a single object, and that, under the description "being a statue", this object is, e.g., aesthetically valuable, and that, under the description "being a piece of clay", it is not aesthetically valuable. However, Fine provided an ontological reading of the expression "an object under a description": the theory of rigid embodiments. The debate between monists and pluralists reduplicates in the domain of ordinary occurrences, like walks and conferences. Specifically, they disagree whether an occurrence in progress (also called "process") like John's walk that is happening at t n is identical to some completed occurrence (also called "event") like John's walk that happened between, e.g., t 1 and t n. Under the adoption of the pluralist's position, the article aims to provide a novel theory of ordinary occurrences that develops the ontological reading of "under a description" to account for occurrences in progress and completed occurrences. As a first result, we formulate a theory according to which both occurrences in progress and completed occurrences are rigid embodiments. As a second result, we argue that the suggested theory is explanatorily powerful to the extent it solves two puzzles that we call "the Puzzle from the Completion of a Process" and "the Metaphysicalcum-Semantical Puzzle".

FAPESP Postdoctoral Fellowship Research Project -- Towards a Metaphysics of Processes

This project is an enquiry in the metaphysics of {\itshape processes} and its semantics. For processes we means here, in the most generic way, dynamic entities such as actions or oriented relations, as opposite to static ones, e.g., substances, things or objects. How can we understand, justify and account for the asymmetry of becoming and the consequent emergence of contingently stable objects (properties) in terms of dynamical entities such as processes? The project is, thus, articulated so as to answer the following questions: (i) Are processes, conceived as basic entities, compatible with the constraints imposed by fundamental natural sciences? (ii) What is the basic mechanism that provides an explication of how emergent objectuality arises from processes? (iii) What are the consequences for any formal and semantic analysis of the emergence of objectuality?

The Process Category of Reality

2011

The Alternative Natural Philosophy Association (ANPA) has no preferred foundations nor methods. Rather a prime aim as its name indicates is to consider scientific alternatives to the mainstream. Nevertheless a number of its members in quite diverse applications seem to subscribe to some version of PROCESS. This seems more to arise by default rather than by any deliberate policy or even concerted effort to concentrate on the same paradigm. Incremental advances in interpolated knowledge promote a conservative mainstream with less scope to explore alternative methods. Studying the frontiers of knowledge on the other hand is more concerned with extrapolation from the known to the unknown and encourages the exploration of alternatives. For similar reasons also many of the substantive topics of interest to ANPA members tend to be fundamentals at the frontiers rather than incremental advances within existing knowledge.

Processes, Continuants and Individuals

The paper considers and opposes the view which has been argued for by a number of philosophers that processes are best thought of as continuants, to be differentiated from events mainly by way of the fact that the latter, but not the former, are entities with temporal parts. The motivation for the investigation, though, is not so much the defeat of what is, in any case, a rather implausible claim, as the vindication of some of the ideas and intuitions that the claim is made in order to defend – and the grounding of those ideas and intuitions in a more plausible metaphysics than is provided by the continuant view. It is argued that in addition to a distinction between events (conceived of as count-quantified) and processes (conceived of as mass-quantified) there is room and need for a third category, that of the individual process, which can be illuminatingly compared with the idea of a substance. Individual processes indeed share important metaphysical features with substantial continuants, but they do not lack temporal parts. Instead, it is argued that individual processes share with substantial continuants an important property I call modal robustness in virtue of form. The paper explains what this property is, and further suggests that the category of individual process, thus understood, might be of considerable value to the philosophy of action.

Can There be a Process Without Time? Processualism Within Timeless Physics

Foundations of Physics

Process ontology is making deep inroads into the hard sciences. For it offers a workable understanding of dynamic phenomena which sits well with inquiries that problematize the traditional conception of self-standing, definite, independent objects as the basic stuff of the universe. Process-based approaches are claimed by their advocates to yield better ontological descriptions of various domains of physical reality in which dynamical, indefinite activities are prior to definite “things” or “states of things”. However, if applied to physics, a main problem comes up: the notion itself of process appears to pivot on a conception of evolution through time that is at variance with relativistic physics. Against this worry, this article advances a conception of process that can be reconciled with general relativity. It claims that, within timeless physical frameworks, a process should not be conceived as activities evolving through time. Rather, processes concern the identity that entitie...