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RésuméLe rapprochement de Whitehead avec le courant émergentiste, notamment Samuel Alexander, Conwy Lloyd Morgan et Charlie Dunbar Broad, met en lumière l’articulation entre la dimension processuelle de sa philosophie et son effort pour rendre compte du caractère signifiant de l’univers. Pour tous, la philosophie se doit de montrer que ce qui relève de l’esprit appartient pleinement à la nature, et n’a pas à être rejeté dans un non-lieu métaphysique. Mais, chez Whitehead, cet effort prend une tournure différente, impartiale, en décentrant la notion d’« esprit » de la référence exclusive à la mentalité humaine.

By comparing Whitehead’s thought with the philosophy of emergence, especially as it was developed by Samuel Alexander, Conwy Lloyd Morgan, and Charlie Dunbar Broad, we may gain a better understanding of the relationship between his processual approach of philosophy and his effort to recognize the reality of meaning as an essential character of the universe. For all of these authors, one task of philosophy is to explain how the features of the mind belong to nature itself, and that it does not have to be discarded into some metaphysical “nowhere.” But the specificity of Whitehead’s thought is that he tries to do so in an impartial manner, by decentering the notion of “mind” from any exclusive reference to human mentality.