Lestienne, Rémy
(2021)
Whitehead, la Négation de l’Instant et la Mécanique Quantique.
Lato Sensu, revue de la Soci�t� de philosophie des sciences, 8 (1).
pp. 1-11.
ISSN 2295-8029
Abstract
The philosophy of Nature and Time in Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) may not have received enough attention from
scientists, particularly in France. This article examines the relationship between Whitehead’s philosophy of Nature and
quantum mechanics in its historical developments. After a reminder of the context in which he was led to deny the existence
of the mathematical instant (sections 1 and 2), we return to the arguments he drew from the development of wave mechanics
(section 3). The relationship between the theory of concrescences and prehension with quantum mechanics (collapse
of the wave function on the one hand and quantum entanglement on the other) is examined in section 4. The non-locality
driven by quantum entanglement is more subtle than the universal solidarity driven, in the philosophy of the organism, by
prehensions, but their possible relationship is examined in section 6. Finally, both theories agree to give a large place to the
distinction between potentiality and actuality (section 7). Despite all these convergences, a strictly Whiteheadian interpretation
of quantum theory seems difficult, since its metaphysics has ignored a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics,
that of the superposition of states.
Despite its defects, Whitehead’s metaphysics, especially the negation of the instant, has brought to light, in my opinion, the
complexity of nature’s time (with Whitehead the process), far beyond the continuous variable t of physicists. A large part of
this article is based on my book Whitehead, Philosophe du Temps (Lestienne, 2020).
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