Suggestions of a processual orientation in Collingwood’s thought can be found in certain places in his corpus, but Collingwood is not generally known as a process philosopher. This is likely because the Libellus de Generatione, in which he develops a process-oriented ontology, has long been unavailable and thought lost. While a copy was found and is housed in the Bodleian Library, it was only made publicly available in 2019. This chapter explicates the process ontology developed in the Libellus and contextualizes it in relation to Collingwood’s wider corpus and to early twentieth-century process philosophy. Drawing on Sandra Rosenthal, I argue that Collingwood’s understanding of process is closer to Bergson’s than Whitehead’s, especially in ways that allow for genuine novelty and creation, and in its implications for the metaphysics of time. I then discuss implications of this process ontology for the view of Collingwood as an idealist and for other areas of his philosophy. Finally, I consider whether attributing a processual ontology to Collingwood is in tension with his own view of “metaphysics without ontology.”

This introduction asks what Darwin’s writings still offer to contemporary criticism and humanist thought, highlighting the implications of his work on ecologies, human difference, and aesthetics.

A conceptual foundation for a process approach in psychology is provided, including the characteristics of a ‘process’ and a process ontology (or metaphysics) and its philosophical roots. We describe how this approach contrasts substantialism and a substance ontology. Here, we introduce what our envisioned process-approach implies for realism, where we discuss the stance that the construal of reality is constructed. With this, we position ourselves as critical realists.

A conceptual foundation for a process approach in psychology is provided, including the characteristics of a ‘process’ and a process ontology (or metaphysics) and its philosophical roots. We describe how this approach contrasts substantialism and a substance ontology. Here, we introduce what our envisioned process-approach implies for realism, where we discuss the stance that the construal of reality is constructed. With this, we position ourselves as critical realists.

Like a broad array of core notions in human and social sciences, identity is reformulated with regard to a general anti-Cartesianism. This leads to shifting reified entities to processes and results in a fundamental opening to dynamic plurality and to contextualizing any phenomenon. This shift can be read as a theoretical and as a societal shift in dominant industrialized countries, but it can also be used as a critique of traditional Western individualism that colonizes through psychological science what is otherwise done through markets and symbolic meanings of things, actions, and persons. In this reading, the term “identity” crystallizes the ideology of individualism. Thus, this chapter uses a nonindividualistic, performative-dialogic approach emphasizing the concrete experience of “languaging.” It broaches two issues emerging through processuality: How can we theorize continuity and coherence within change? How do we articulate the social and the individual to each other? Dialogism framing language and self builds the ground for developing identity as a process occurring in a field of mediated activities generated and shaped by language activities deployed onto that field. This process displays a call-and-reply dynamic of crossing and blending voices. An example illustrates this dynamic, highlighting identity as being called by voices of different types. Finally, the two issues are offered an answer by deconstructing the assumptions of sameness and homogeneity and shifting towards heterogeneity, plurality, and dialogicality that are contained by centripetal and centrifugal forces: identity is an interim, even fragile, stage that continues through the dynamic of call-and-reply of speaking voices.