William James and John Dewey

 

Whitehead was strongly influenced by the Pragmatics (including William James and John Dewey pictured here) who focused on the usefulness of their ideas. Whitehead, as a scientist, was most interested in producing a system that was practical and useful. He considered that all entities were really real when they were active or effective. This was a big change from the prevalent ideas that some parts of reality were active and some were passive, some are part of one reality and others part of another reality, some are eternal mental objects and others temporary material objects (to list a few). To Whitehead the whole spectrum of reality is the same --  from smallest subatomic particle to God. There was one reality and every entity in this reality is dynamic, not an object but an event. The whole of reality is in dynamic interplay, shaping and responsive to each other yet proposing that each entity has its own formal experience (history that shaped it) and opportunity to change through its particular circumstance and ability to respond to that opportunity.