A Theory of Everything sought in theoretical physics would unify all the known physical forces and predict the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle. Systematic metaphysicians, such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Whitehead and Russell, have also sought ‘theories of everything’ in terms of a general ontology. These philosophers have attempted to provide comprehensive explanations beyond physics; for even if physics is the basic science, it does not explain everything. Whitehead, for example, produced his philosophy of physics in an attempt to unify the physical sciences, but in his later metaphysics articulated in Process and Reality he attempted to go beyond this project with a more general theory that truly sought to explain everything – aesthetics, theology, psychology, mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, cosmology and so on – by a set of interconnected first principles. Accordingly, in this final chapter, I consider some of the most important philosophical implications of an event ontology beyond physics.

As noted in Chapter 1, an event ontology has been proposed by various philosophers as a solution to certain philosophical problems. Here I explore briefly its implications for the mind-body problem, perception and causation, free will, personal identity and moral agency. My intention is to show how an event ontology provides a consistent framework for addressing these problems.

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM

Most philosophers see the mind-body problem as insurmountable due to the manner in which Descartes conceived of mind and body as two separate substances – res cogitans and res extensa – with no properties in common. Descartes’ contemporaries and his immediate rationalist successors – Princess Elisabeth, Spinoza and Leibniz – recognised the impossibility of explaining the causal interaction between an immaterial, un-extended substance and a material, extended substance. But we are no closer to a scientific nor a philosophical solution today than philosophers were in 1649 when Descartes published his Passions of the Soul. The incoherence of substance dualism therefore led to monism, of which idealism explains the fundamental and irreducible reality of mind and materialism explains the fundamental and irreducible reality of matter.