WHITEHEAD’S PROCESS PHILOSOPHY

(‘remedy’ study notes 11-93)

Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947) - Englishman who, after teaching mathematics and science at Trinity (Cambridge), became a professor at Harvard at age 63 after which he published his philosophical works, one of which was "Science and the Modern World". A meta-physicist, he saw the role of philosophy as more a matter of understanding the world than changing it, and his approach was that of an undogmatic rationalist as opposed to mysticism in the Platonic tradition. The concepts which form the core of Whitehead's view are those of event (or occasion), prehension, organism, and eternal object.

· event - as opposed to the traditional concept of a thing existing at a specific here and enduring through a succession of instantaneous nows, Whitehead saw - as in particle physics - that things exist as a PROCESS - an event thus interpenetrates all the infinitely various aspects to the universe at some particular standpoint.

· prehension - an apprehension of an event taking place. The apparently steady endurance of matter is likened to the same principles now accepted for sound and light - vibration in air and ether: In the case of matter, each primordial element is a vibratory ebb and flow of an underlying energy, or activity. The streaming system associated with each element's time period is nothing at any instant, but requires the whole period in which to manifest itself. The path in space of such a vibratory element - where the entity is constituted by the vibrations - is represented by a series of detached positions in space (like an automobile found at periodic milestones yet nowhere in between).

· organism - an organism is simply an event, i.e., the coming into being of a prehensive unity, whose present includes its past and looks ahead into its future. The organism's life has a structure or pattern arising from the particular way it prehends into unity all the manifold aspects of nature that it includes. Its endurance through time is simply the successive prehensions of past patterns along with present aspects.

Whitehead observed that there is no fundamental difference between physics and biology - i.e. no real differences, ultimately between relatively simple organisms (electrons, atoms, stones) and the larger and richer organisms (plant, animals, men). Beginning with the simplest event, or prehension into unity, we can advance into more and more complex organic structures, as a given structure at one level is prehended into a higher structure at another level. The so-called scientific object – electron, molecule, etc. - is simply a selection from the full diversity of aspects that are being prehended into unity here and now. But what is actually being prehended into current unity? Some organisms obviously prehend other organisms, but as we work our way back to these simpler organisms we have to face the question. Of what are the simplest events of prehension? Whitehead's answer was:

· Eternal Objects - any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world. “Enduring things are the outcome of a temporal PROCESS, whereas eternal things are the elements required for the very being of the PROCESS. Every scheme for the analysis of nature has to face the facts of change, endurance, plus eternality. Mountains endure, but after ages change, eventually wear away and are gone. Colours are eternal, neither living nor surviving yet always constant, thus eternal. The realm of eternal objects is the realm of possibility; the realm of events is that of actuality, and a principle of selection or ‘value’ is present as to the inclusions /exclusions of eternal objects into the units of events or organisms, that are now seen as "units of emerging value, real fusions of the characters of eternal objects, emerging for their own sake." For example, the aesthetic process going on in the mind of the artist: what emerges is a work of art - a 'fusion' of selected eternal objects. In the same context, an electron is just as much a unit of emerging value as Michelangelo's "David". The grand designer, organizer, energizer and ultimate metaphysical principle at work, is God, which Whitehead calls the Principle of Concretion - the ultimate limitation to being, and ultimate irrationality to us, if we try to analyze God in the sense of "why?"

(The similarity between Whitehead's 'eternal objects' and Plato's "forms" has to be noted; as a mathematician, he concluded in a Platonic fashion that the truths of math imply an eternal pattern in the universe.)

Notes on Alfred North Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism:

Society of Actual Entities - There are many space - time systems, made up of numerous linear series (personal societies) of actual entities (an actual entity being an organism, i.e. atom, molecule, crystal, man). In a personal society with little novelty, the slight amount of spontaneity manifest by its component actual entities is the basis of wave-transmission phenomena. In energy transmission, societies of actual entities may take the form of either a wave front or a corpuscle (particle). The light phenomena may start as a corpuscular society - i.e. it may be characterized by strands of personal societies - gradually these distinct societies may fade out and be replaced by a society which assumes the wave characteristic more obviously. Vibration and rhythm appear in physical nature because in a society that constitutes an ordinary object there is achievement of contrast within the unified experiences of the component actual entities that form the enduring object's society. This contrast is achieved by conceptual reversion, transmutation, subjective harmony and subjective intensity.

In the field of biology, every organism is a temporary organization of materials from the environment in accordance with a constant pattern; that an organism is constituted by a synthetic process - a process of concretion; that some measure of uniqueness or autonomy belongs to each natural individual (i.e. each organism is internally determined, depending on available externally derived "data" (actual entities/eternal objects). Subjectively, the acts of integration by which the organism is constituted appears in itself to be psychical rather than physical, no matter how dependent it may be upon physical factors for its execution. According to Whitehead, subjective aim enters the picture during the creative process, i.e. a factor of aim or purpose which is a basic element of all actual entities --- "the determinate unity of an actual entity is bound together by the final causation, towards an ideal - the ideal, itself felt, defines what 'self' shall arise from the datum". The ideal has this power because it is prehended by the subject with the subjective form of "purpose to realize it." (e.g. the scholar selects from various options those which further the achievement of his ideal (goal)).

God is seen as a unique actual entity, not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principals, but rather their chief exemplification, having both mental (primordial) and physical (consequent) poles. The primordial nature of God is a unity of conceptual prehensions that together bring within God's experience all eternal objects. The consequent nature of God is constituted by his physical prehensions of other actual entities. God also has a superject nature in that he provides specific, concrete data to be used in the self-creative process of other actual entities. Ordinary actual entities rise and pass away – droplets of experience, creatures of (relatively) short endurance. They create themselves and then pass on, leaving residual fragments as data for the possible use of newly arising actual entities. In this sense the temporal process is a perpetual perishing. In striking contrast to the short and simple annals - the brief and transitory existence of ordinary actual entities, is the experience of the uniquely different actual entity, God, whose consequent nature is characterized by "everlastingness" - non-perishing. Elements contributed by actual entities (at their demise) to God retain their essential identity within God's experience, with God exercising a "tender care that nothing be lost that can be saved, with the accepted elements not being drastically changed by God.

Good and evil are also taken into the experience of God with undiminished distinctiveness. Evil becomes a stepping stone to good, being overcome in the sense that it stimulates the development of its opposite. Evil is also overcome, but not eliminated, in the sense that it is placed in the context of a wider experience and is a distinct element in the total experience. When data is absorbed into God's experience, "every fact is what it is, a fact of pleasure, of joy, of pain, or of suffering". Because God is so clearly aware of the reality of evil, He experiences a deep sense of tragedy, and feels sympathy for the suffering of other actual entities, while concurrently trying to "project" to other actual entities how positive values may issue from suffering - i.e. salvage from wreckage.

As to the origin of the universe, Whitehead suggests that in all probability there was no 'first day' of creation; that the self-creative process of actual entities is occurring now, as it did in the past and will do so in the future. The metaphysical situation has always been as it is now - actual entities, both ordinary ones and God interacting creatively, mutually dependent. Each actual entity is its own self-creative agent, with God providing data for each newly arising actual entity, and any actual entity in turn providing data for God, God being unique in the sense of providing for the organization and relevance of eternal objects and "saving" some data by absorbing them in his enduring life.

Experience is essentially untidy and highly complex. No element of experience can really exist in isolation - sense data do not constitute the only content of consciousness. In addition there are emotions, volitions, imaginations, conceptions and judgments. "We live in durations and not in instants - the present essentially occupies a stretch of time, the distinction between memory and immediate presentation cannot be quite fundamental; for always we have with us the fading present as it becomes the immediate past."

While an actual entity has "objective mortality" in those succeeding entities which have prehended it, and while on death there is union (of essential data) with the everlasting nature of God, that which is preserved is not the "departed" entity as such, since its unique individuality must fade out before some of its contents are absorbed by a new entity. Whitehead sees nothing mystical in the relation between mind and body, both so intertwined that it is impossible to distinguish where one stops and the other starts - the body is the mind's link with the external world.

As to memory, Whitehead's theory of the progressive interrelation of actual entities indicates that a past actual entity provides data for a present actual entity, with such incoming data perceived as coming from the past of the same, not former entity. The novelty of conceptual prehension is the basis of imagination, using the power of self-determination and material sourced in the past and treated via creative imaging. In thinking, he argues that it is a routine human activity, having a very intimate relationship with manual dexterity. It is noted that the range of creative thinking becomes enlarged when an individual is able to travel in safety and thus break through the limited horizon of a single social structure. In distinguishing wisdom and intelligence, intelligence has as its goal the achievement of a nice, simple system (paying the price through omitting non-conforming data) whereas wisdom takes a wider view, being concerned with the conflicting complexities of things. Thus wisdom tries to correct the "too simple" systemization of intelligence. Wisdom involves the application of knowledge to human problems, specifically to the achievement of values.

Value theory is concerned chiefly with Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Peace - and their opposites.

Truth is defined as the conformation of appearance to reality.

Beauty is the mutual adaptation of the several factors in an occasion of experience.

Good is present as an achieved value through the preconditions of infusion, stability and modification of patterns which allow for the union of harmony, intensity and vividness.

Evil is typed as i) triviality; ii) deprivation due to conflict of either concepts (external objects) or actualities; iii) when conceptual experience is carried on without sufficient reference to the necessities of ordinary social activity; and iv) a reliance on brute force with a lack of a coherent purpose. Evil is said to lead to its own elimination, either by

i) destruction; ii) degradation, or iii) elevation. For example in i) a disease may be so intense that the organism dies; in ii), pigs are not evil, hence if men degrade themselves to animal level, they are no more evil (except by loss of relative potential); and in iii) pain (evil) may lead to an attitude whereby it is disregarded.

Morals are seen as relative, with the details of specific moral codes adjusted to changing environmental conditions, yet they are the expression of an ultimate ideal (the good).

Economic Values - the higher value experiences - those which make life supremely worthwhile - depend on a foundation of economic values but rise far above them. Without adequate stimulation and opportunities for value enjoyment, men are reduced to robots.

Peace - is a 'quality of mind, steady in its reliance that fine action is treasured in the nature of things'. It is an attitude that develops in those who look behind the pressure of immediate events to underlying factors. The tragic fact of evil does not produce despair. Rather, it stimulates us to a fineness beyond the faded level of surrounding fact. Tenderness and lack of egoism are the obvious fruits of peace of mind. Peace, since it is destructive of ruthless and narrow selfishness, involves a relaxation of mutually inhibiting tensions. Creative activities are widened in scope and strengthened. A peaceful state of mind arises when one becomes aware of the functioning of God - in particular His consequent nature.

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