Process Philosophy

Process Philosophy

Right	Section	Contents
Voting Rights and Suffrage	Philosophical Origins	Process philosophy is a philosophical tradition that describes reality as primarily being made up of processes or events, rather than objects (Rescher, 2000, pg. 4). This means that when we look at supposedly static objects in our world, we are actually seeing a constantly changing event or an action taking place, and things that seem like they are static are just processes that are relatively more stable than others. Nicholas Rescher describes the main claim succinctly: “Even on the surface of it, verbs have as good a claim to reality as nouns. For process theorists, becoming is no less important than being…The phenomenology of change is stressed precisely because the difference between a museum and the real world of an ever-changing nature is to be seen as crucial to our understanding of reality” (pg. 4). While a political connection to Process Philosophy’s metaphysical and ontological claims seems far-fetched, Alfred North Whitehead—perhaps the most rigorous and defining theorist for Process Philosophy in the 20th century—claimed that the goal of philosophy is to “…voyage towards the larger generalities” of human life and behavior (Whitehead, 1979, pg. 94). This meaning that an understanding of the nature of reality will then give you access to insights of psychology, aesthetics, ethics, sociology, language, and virtually every other human enquiry and experience. The majority of political history, static roles were assigned to rulers and their subjects. A king and his identity were stamped definitively, and this title was described as chosen by God; the king’s unchanging identity was a thing in the universe. The Process Philosophy critique of this type of conception is decidedly an aesthetic one: “People instinctively dislike being described in thing-classificatory terms…Such object-property attributions indicate a fixed nature that we naturally see as repugnant to ourselves” (pg. 14). This is to say, a political system which tries its hardest to stay the same and not go through changes in power and interactions goes against how reality is presented and organized to us, as well as what we value in ourselves and others. With this analysis, the right to vote can clearly be understood. After thousands of years of static politics, people began to advocate for a political system which would better reflect the dynamism, novelty, and change seen in reality. The right to vote allows for processes like changes in leadership, as well as changes in the law and governance. Due to the ever-changing opinions and contexts that individuals go through, the right to vote allows for a reflection of this novelty. Such a system is empowering due to it allowing individuals to express themselves as ever changing processes themselves as opposed to static objects and it is metaphysically accurate according to our natures and the nature of reality. Also, it is telling that such political ideals came about during the Enlightenment, a period of time where understanding of the world without appeal to philosophical and religious tradition was given major emphasis. As we learned more about the world, we learned about the ideal political system. References: Rescher, Nicholas. Process Philosophy : a Survey of Basic Issues. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Whitehead, Alfred North, David Ray Griffin, and Donald W. Sherburne. Process and Reality : an Essay in Cosmology. Corrected ed. / edited by David Ray Griffin, Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1979.