Announcing the Process & Science Network (PSN)

The Center for Process Studies is proud to announce the launch of the Process & Science Network (PSN), a new program dedicated to cultivating rigorous dialogue between process philosophy and the natural sciences. PSN was established in response to the growing inadequacies of the dominant worldview of scientific materialism which has systematically excluded mind, purpose, and value from its conception of nature.

Rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, the Process & Science Network aims to do more than interpret scientific developments. PSN is committed to actively generating testable research programs that span the full evolutionary spectrum of nature—from physics and biology to psychology and cosmology—offering a philosophically coherent alternative to reductionist approaches that explain away lived experience rather than illuminate it.

“Whitehead warned over a century ago that modern science risked degenerating into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses without a coherent metaphysical foundation,” said Dr. Matthew David Segall, Director of the Process & Science Network. “PSN exists to take that warning seriously: not as a retreat from science, but as a deeper engagement with it. We want to build bridges between process philosophy and the natural sciences that yield real research, real dialogue, and eventually real empirical programs.”

The Process & Science Network grows out of five years of foundational work which commenced when the late John B. Cobb, Jr. (1925–2024) recruited Dr. Segall to chair the Cobb Institute’s Science Advisory Committee. With the Cobb Institute now merged into the Center for Process Studies, PSN represents a transformation and expansion of that work under a new structure designed for greater institutional reach and research capacity.

PSN’s Core Objectives Include

• Building a durable network of process-oriented scientists, natural philosophers, philosophers of science, and interdisciplinary researchers
• Developing a funded research engine to translate philosophical concepts into viable hypotheses and empirical programs
• Producing and publishing dialogues—interviews, roundtables, and public conversations—that advance the field
• Organizing conferences, workshops, and working groups that generate white papers, pilot proposals, and collaborative publications
• Providing a pluralistic home for a wide range of process traditions, including evolutionary, pragmatic, phenomenological, Bergsonian, enactive, and other approaches

While anchored in Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, PSN is committed to intellectual pluralism—welcoming traditions that preceded, extended, ran parallel to, or even diverged from Whitehead. The network’s vision is one where philosophical differences become productive research contrasts rather than institutional fractures.

PSN has already hosted significant events, including the Revitalizing Biophilosophy conference series and the Intuiting Life conversation series—full recordings of these programs are available on the PSN program page.