Process ontology is making deep inroads into the hard sciences. For it offers a workable understanding of dynamic phenomena which sits well with inquiries that problematize the traditional conception of self-standing, definite, independent objects as the basic stuff of the universe. Process-based approaches are claimed by their advocates to yield better ontological descriptions of various domains of physical reality in which dynamical, indefinite activities are prior to definite “things” or “states of things”. However, if applied to physics, a main problem (...) comes up: the notion itself of process appears to pivot on a conception of evolution through time that is at variance with relativistic physics. Against this worry, this article advances a conception of process that can be reconciled with general relativity. It claims that, within timeless physical frameworks, a process should not be conceived as activities evolving through time. Rather, processes concern the identity that entities obtain within the broader sets of relations in which they stand. To make this case, the article homes in on one of the physical approaches that most resolutely removes time from the basic features of reality, that is, canonical quantum gravity. As a case in point, it addresses Carlo Rovelli’s Evolving Constant approach as a physical paradigm that resolutely rejects time as an absolute parameter and recasts processualism as an inquiry into how physical systems affect one another. (shrink)

I explore Leibnizian themes in the theoretical physicist's pursuit of a quantum cosmology by examining Smolin's program based on the elimination of ideal elements. These constructs are formal mathematical structures of a physical theory that require for their interpretation the existence of objects external to the system treated by the theory. After introducing some necessary background information, I discuss the particulars of Smolin's definition of ideal elements and analyze his motivations and arguments for the elimination of ideal elements. I then (...) survey and assess his two specific proposals for the construction of a quantum cosmology. The former stems from the canonical approach to the development of a quantum theory of gravity; the latter consists of a series of hypotheses framing a speculative fundamental theory of the universe. Finally, I consider the explicit links and debts of Smolin's program to Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)