Platonism, mereology and Whitehead's process ontology

This thesis critically examines the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead focusing on the relationships between his platonism and his mereology. Particular attention is given to Whitehead’s notion of the ‘extensive continuum’; an ideal mereotopological structure said to ground the geometrical nature and measurability of physical events. The thesis argues that Whitehead’s platonism is inconsistent with his process philosophy and results in confused and mistaken ideas about inter alia the nature of spacetime and general relativity. The thesis makes the case however that Whitehead’s thought does contain the seeds of a one-category ontology of relational events producing and binding themselves into processes, whose similarity and contingency is grounded in their own genetic nature rather than some super-sensible realm of forms beyond sense experience.