Big Things From Little Things? The problem of the compound individual.

Abstract

This paper deals with work done last century and early this century on a problem of fundamental ontology from within the broad process relational ‘research program’. This is the problem usually termed in process circles ‘the problem of compound individuals’. The viewpoints taken by the following are outlined briefly: Whitehead and Donald Sherburne (all real entities microscopic); Hartshorne/Cobb (large events with regional inclusion); Joseph Bracken (equi-primordial fields); George Wolf (large events without regional inclusion: marbles in jelly); Lewis Ford both early (sub-occasions) and recent (included and inclusive occasions); and also some non-Whiteheadian and even anti-Whiteheadian process views (Ivor Leclerc, Nicholas Rescher, Reto Lezius Fetz, George Lucas, James Felt). It concludes, very provisionally, that events seem to be moving in the direction of a layered or multi-level ontology, to allow ontologically ‘equiprimordial’ realities of different levels and sizes with dependencies going in all directions. This seems to fit with some recent work done in process circles in Australia (esp. Gare and Douglas) and also Europe. Finally, there are some remarks on the importance of the question well beyond fundamental ontology, for application to the mind-body problem, in social and political theory and with respect to various questions in theology.