Whitehead, Heidegger, Epistemology

Aside from being approximately contemporaneous, Process and Reality and Being and Time seem to have little in common. Yet, they are both influenced by Bergson: Whitehead's Metaphysical principle Creativity, and Heidegger's Ontological principle Being is each an appropriation of Bergson's Biological principle, Elan Vital. Their kinship is borne out as each, following Bergson, interprets cognitive processes as special cases of their respective fundamental principles. The historical significance of these derivative statuses of cognition is that Knowledge does not occupy a privileged position in these systems, which departs from the Modern tradition initiated by Descartes. Accordingly, Epistemology is for neither Whitehead nor Heidegger the preeminent branch of Philosophy, i. e. that in which the criterion for Certainty regarding Truth is established, but one subordinated to Metaphysics and to Ontology, respectively.