NATURAL, SOCIAL BODIES: ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD ON MATERIALITY, SOCIAL INTERPRETATION AND PROCESS METAPHYSICS

In this paper I argue that Alfred North Whitehead's view of the body as a structured society of actual occasions is helpful to this end. I begin by underscoring the role of the body for metaphysics as Whitehead sees it and by highlighting some of the central features of his process view. Next, I describe Whitehead's account of the body and show how his process perspective helps him to overcome the Cartesian bifurcation of nature into the dualisms of mind/body, active/passive, subject/object, and culture/nature. Finally, I argue that Whitehead's sense of the social extends to all of nature and is not limited to human cultures as it is for Butler and other thinkers.