My dissertation explores the ecological implications of a process metaphysics, focusing in particular on subjectivity. Primarily using the work of Whitehead and Deleuze, I explore how taking a process metaphysics seriously undoes the assumption that an individual self is a discretely bounded and independent subject. I argue that this framework troubles expansive identifications of the self with a unified whole that one finds in some metaphysically inflected strands of environmental thought (for example Deep Ecology). Instead, it encourages an orientation towards the qualitative and affective aspects of micro-relational moments, since these are the most ‘real’ metaphysically. Macro-level entities such as the self (as well as other ‘wholes’) are understood as abstractions from these primary occasions. I consider the existential impacts of taking these views seriously, in particular with regard to the transformed standing of tertiary or affective qualities that follows from the metaphysical view developed. / 10000-01-01

In this project, I explore the projects of the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 150-250 CE) and the process metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). Despite their very different historical contexts, I argue that both thinkers defend a process-relational metaphysics: the view that a fundamental aspect of our universe is constant change, in which each moment is interrelated with the next. Though many interpreters have suggested that the projects of Nāgārjuna and Whitehead are fundamentally at odds, I argue that their approaches are compatible and complementary. This interpretation allows us to more deeply understand the central claims of process metaphysics and defend their shared view from two common criticisms, which I call the problems of continuity and identity. In the former, critics of process metaphysics allege that if a person is constantly changing from moment to moment, we cannot explain how that person remains in some sense the same self over time. In the problem of identity, critics allege that if everything is change and process all the way down, nothing could come to be in the first place. Nāgārjuna provides a solution to problem of continuity, but critics argue that he still has trouble answering the problem of identity. Whitehead provides a compelling solution to the problem of identity, but his critics allege that he fails to adequately answer the problem of continuity. By showing how these two philosophers can be read as two sides of a larger system, we can defend process metaphysics from both criticisms at once

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