Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline the historical context of Whitehead’s philosophical work with a special focus on the comparison to classical pragmatism. The paper is divided in two main parts. The first part deals with the characterization of process philosophy in general, especially with Whitehead’s version of this philosophical movement, and contrasts it to traditional (substantial and mechanistic) philosophies. The second part examines some important common features of Whitehead’s process philosophy and James’ and Dewey’s classical pragmatism. The most important point of connection of their philosophical work is the concept of experience. It is also important to mention that for all of them the common epistemological basis is radical empiricism (or naturalistic empiricism in case of Dewey) and the ontological assumption of (some form of) realism.