Process Philosophy and Complexity Science: Systems Theory, Emergentism, Feedback Loops, and Autopoiesis

Abstract Developments in twentieth and twenty-first century science have led to the emergence of a new scientific paradigm, the frontier of which is complexity. Advancements in the engagement with complexity have required calling into question the substantialist ontologies of classical science toward a processual view of reality. When engaging with living systems under this paradigm, open, complex, nonlinear systems are of central concern, and general systems theory constitutes the beginning of this processual account. Through an understanding of the human being as an autopoietic, open, living system of organized complexity causally responsive to emergent conscious phenomena—drawing upon feedback loops, iterative patterns, and holism—we arrive not at a substantialist but at a process-based view of the human being and human reality. Contemporary scientific developments inform this redefinition of the human subject, which expresses a generative-formative process deeply congruent with established work in process philosophy.