L'immanence de l'ordre de la nature dans la philosophie de Whitehead

The purpose of this article is to discuss, through Bergson and Whitehead, the status of the order of nature in a philosophy of immanence. After a brief outline of the way Bergson and Whitehead face the question of the order of nature, we will ask how Whitehead, following Bergson’s intuitions and developing a metaphysical scheme based on them, discusses the status of this order and the limits of a conception of the laws of nature as immanent. We will first ask for what reason Whitehead regards the order of nature as immanent, then we will ask in what way he describes this self-organization of nature in his metaphysical scheme. Then we will see how Whitehead’s conception of God, in accordance with Bergson’s theological hesitation between immanence and transcendence, expresses the fundamental contingence of the order of nature, and the fragility of this order in a philosophy of immanence.