The New Metaphysics In Process Philosophy Of Whitehead

Process Philosophy is an enormous theoretical system constructed by Alfred North Whitehead, who is one of the most important philosophers in 20th-century. The theme of his philosophy is the becoming of universe. Its purpose lies in providing an explaining way and conceptual pattern for the construction of actual world, and observing what the world looks like, and why it does so.Whitehead believes that universe is a vivid, living organism, which exists in the eternal creation and process. The only possible theory about universe is: The universe always tends to be novel or creative. Those elements which constituted the world are not the original materials or objective substances, but are "organism" composed by characters and relationships. The reality of the world lies in its process. Process is the world, and the world is process. Process is the reality, the reality is process. Obviously, the reality of process has an intrinsic distinction from traditional reality of substance.In the becoming of the universe, Whitehead makes the metaphysical classification of eternal objects and actual entities. The eternal objects are potential possibilities, but once involving in the flux of events, they will become actual entities. In these two fields, value plays an important role. Logically, our actual world is one of the infinite worlds that are converted by eternal objects. Then, who choose the actual world from so many possibilities? The only answer is God. The choice of God is not only the source creating us, but also the restrictive source which does not make other possibilities come true. So, the becoming of the world is to provide various kinds of possible conditions. But God is the ultimate power which converts possibility into actuality. The illumination about the becoming of universe is just novel feature of metaphysics constructed by Whitehead. The dissertation is composed of four parts: The first section: On the background of philosophy of Bergson, it expounds that Whitehead criticizes the thought of substance. And, he raises the essence and the basic frame of new metaphysics.The second section: It discusses the scene of possible world, the position of eternal objects, and introduction of factors of value.The third section: It illustrates the scene of actual world, its basic particle-actual entities, and its fundamental condition, integration and process of becoming. It also explains the role that the value plays in actual world.The forth section: God is the ultimate power which makes world from possibility to actuality. And it shows connections between God and the world, God and the value in details, etc.