THE PRIORITY OF PROCESSES. HARTMANN, WHITEHEAD AND
ARISTOTLE ON THE PHENOMENA OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION Cover Image

DER VORRANG DER VORGÄNGE. HARTMANN, WHITEHEAD UND ARISTOTELES ÜBER WERDEN UND VERGEHEN
THE PRIORITY OF PROCESSES. HARTMANN, WHITEHEAD AND ARISTOTLE ON THE PHENOMENA OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION

Author(s): MARTIN HÄHNEL
Subject(s): Ontology
Published by: Издательство Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета
Keywords: Ontology; phenomena of generation and corruption; substance; Hartmann; Whitehead; Aristotle; metaphysics; process philosophy;

Summary/Abstract: The following paper presents the three most powerful approaches to the metaphysical phenomena ofgeneration and corruption stemming from Aristotle, Alfred North Whitehead and Nicolai Hartmann.After starting with a general overview of the historical developments of philosophical concepts on theissue of generation and corruption, the article sheds light on different criticisms evaluating the classicalAristotelian account of substance. Thereafter, I refer to the work of Nicolai Hartmann whose aim is toontologize the fundamental processes of coming-into-being and passing away while his contemporaryA. N. Whitehead sets up a certain process philosophy conceptually refraining from an Aristotelian conceptionof substance. In my view, both approaches require an overall re-examination of Aristotelianmetaphysics. In his rediscovered and attention-getting work De generatione et corruptione Aristotlegives an impressive account on how to understand substance out of the processes of coming-into-beingand passing-away. Against this backdrop, I finally argue that Aristotle’s conception of becoming iscloser to Whitehead’s process philosophy than to Hartmann’s positivistic ontology because in De generationeet corruptione the self-standing character of substance emerges as a subsequent moment of anencompassing processuality (described as a teleological alternation of generation and corruption). Incontrast, Hartmann claims that the process itself has to be taken as a self-standing substance.

  • Issue Year: 8/2019
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 123-139
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: German
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