ABSTRACT
The chief problem of Whitehead's philosophy for hermeneutics, and hence for a theory of reading, is its inadequate theory of language. Any theory of reading must take into account how language works, and how its inner structures relate to the individual. Whitehead's theories, especially as found within the seminal Gifford Lectures later published as Process and Reality, have been given much attention since the 1970s by theologians. But they have received little attention from literary theorists or philosophers interested in hermeneutics. Whitehead's notion of process goes beyond a simple understanding of a series of events being continually played out. He has formulated his notion into a distinct principle: 'The how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions of an actual entity are not independent. Its "being" is constituted by its "becoming". This is the "principle of process"'.
