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It is well known that the various forms of process thought are agreed in denying the existence of an enduring self which maintains absolute identity through change.¹ Process thought -- regardless of whether time is taken to be Continuous or discreet, or whether one holds to an A series or B series view of time -- is committed to some form of ancestral chain model of the self wherein the self is a series of interrelated actual occasions in which earlier occasions are prehended by later members of the chain to form a serial nexus. There is no stable essence running through all members of the chain; the "persistent" self is a derived unification of momentary selves.

For example, over a decade and a half ago Process Studies contained a well-known exchange between Charles Hartshorne and Peter Bertocci over the issue of personal identity (see P1, HPI). Hartshorne likened his view of the self to that of historical Buddhism. The self is a society, a stream of consciousness, formed by a synthesis of experient occasions, analogous to momentary human experiences which occur at, roughly, 10-20 per second. A present, actual occasion contains or houses its past occasions as its data, and thus, the subjectivity or present immediacy of a present actual occasion has those past occasions as its objects.

In this article, I want to argue that this model of the self is the Achilles’ heel of process philosophy by presenting and clarifying a Kantian style argument for an enduring I. When one is dealing with basic, metaphysical questions, like the nature of the self, there are two general strategies to follow. First, one can appeal to a basic intuition of the thing in question and ask others to "look" at the phenomenon itself. Now, when it comes to the self, my intuitions are along the lines of Edmund Husserl and Thomas Reid. In successive moments of experience, I not only have an awareness of those successive experiences, but I also am aware of an I which is identical in each moment and which is identical to my current self. I individuate myself prior to the individuation of my acts of experience or the objects which transcend and yet are embedded in those acts.

This strategy of directly appealing to experience itself is the approach employed by Bertocci in his response to Hartshorne. Time and again he rests his case against Hartshorne on appeals like the following: "In my personal, noninstantaneous direct experience, I do not find that I am a succession of units. I am a self-identifying unity who can recognize and recall his own experiences as successive" (HPI). This is roughly the same line of approach taken by Roderick Chisholm. He says. "‘How do I know that "I" is not ten thinkers thinking in union’? The answer, I would say, is this: We know it in the same way as we know that there is at least one thinker" (FP 89).

Now it does seem to me that our immediate awareness of our own self and its experiences shows us that the process of unification is really an abstraction from the acts of unification done by a unified being. Unfortunately, such appeals can be called question-begging or simply denied. Instead of pursuing this dialectic further, I will take a second strategy in arguing for an enduring I -- I will try to show that the denial of such a self inexorably leads to unacceptable conclusions.

The Argument

The argument to be presented finds its classical expression in Kant’s paralogisms, especially the third, and it has been emphasized in resent years by H. D. Lewis (SI 32-37; IS 47-49) and A. C. Ewing (VR). Let us call this the Epistemological Argument. Here is Ewing’s statement of it:

An Ethical Analogy

Since epistemic considerations bear an analogy to moral considerations, e.g., there are moral duties to act and epistemic duties to believe, there is moral praise for responsible behavior and epistemic praise for rational behavior, it may be helpful to clarify the epistemological argument with an ethical analogue (cf. IdSe 13-16).

Our basic intuitions about responsibility and punishment seem to presuppose an enduring I. In normal cases, we do not hold someone responsible for another’s actions nor do we punish someone for another’s immoral deeds. But if an ancestral chain model of the self is true, then when a person does an immoral deed at time t₁, if we punish a person-stage in the "same" chain at time t₂, later than t₁, we are not really punishing the responsible agent who did the deed at t₁. At best, we are punishing a Döppelganger. So if identity is a fiction, then the notion of responsibility for past wrongs loses its foundation.

Similarly, it is hard to see how one could be justified in fearing the future on an ancestral chain model. Why should I fear at t₁ going to the dentist at t₂? In reality, the future pain at t₂ will be had by someone whose psychological connections with me are only remote. My present fear is not a fear of someone else being in pain, even if that person looks like me and has certain personality traits and memories similar to mine. My present fear is about the pain that I will experience at t₂.

The point here is not one about the relative merits of altruism towards others vis a vis self-concern. Hartshorne argues that his model of the self offers a way of grounding altruism just as directly as self interest (PI 213). Since there is no numerical identity between the various selves in the same ancestral chain, I look back upon past experiences and forward to future ones with both altruistic and self-interested feelings. Similarly, I look back upon and forward to the experiences of others. In fact, says Hartshorne, there is no absolute difference between the two cases.

The force of my arguments about past responsibility or future fear is not essentially one of grounding altruism or appropriate self-interest, which I would ground in the metaphysical claim that all humans have the same essence which constitutes their unity as a class called by Kant the kingdom of ends. Rather, the point I am making is that there is simply a difference between being responsible for a past act or fearing a future experience in which I myself was or will be involved as opposed to those involving someone else, regardless of how much that other person shares similarities with me. Prima facie, it is hard to believe that there is no absolute difference between the two cases.

It is possible to respond to these arguments by saying that our basic intuitions need to be revised so as to be in keeping with a "loose and popular" sense of identity and not a "strict and philosophical" sense, to use Bishop Butler’s terminology. Perhaps we can ground punishment in deterrence, protection of society, or in some weaker sort of responsibility and continuity compatible with an ancestral chain model. Perhaps all we need for the rational justification of future pain is the belief that it will be unpleasant for someone who will have my present memories. Whatever the specifics of such a program, one thing seems clear. An ancestral chain model is committed to some sort of replacement of our common sense intuitions about these matters with some weaker sorts of intuitions which are compatible with that model of personal identity and which are not too unlike those common sense intuitions.

But those deliberations about past responsibility and future pain, helpful as they are, do not take us to the heart of a moral analogue to the epistemological argument. If an ancestral chain model is correct, then moral actions themselves do not exist. For moral actions have, among other things, a beginning initiated in keeping with a moral intention, intermediate means to the moral end, and an end which is the action intended. A moral action is a temporal unity which spans a duration longer than a temporal atom and which finds its unity in the same self who is present at the beginning of the action as intentional agent, during the action as guider of means to ends, and at the end of the action as responsible actor. Here, unification is constituted by sameness of the self. A specious present cannot be stretched to accommodate such moral actions without reaching the breaking point, especially when we remember Hartshorne’s statement that roughly 10-20 actual occasions occur each second.

The Epistemological Argument

It is possible to understand the epistemological argument in terms of past responsibility in violating our epistemic duties or future fear of irrationality. Thus, on an ancestral chain model, no one could literally be faulted at time t₂, later than t₁, for holding to an irrational belief at t₁. Similarly, there would be little motivation to study, say from fear of irrationality, since the person at t₂ who benefits from such acts would not be the person at t₁ who began to study. So if identity is a fiction, then epistemic responsibility for past wrongs, and epistemic fear of future irrationality would be without sufficient foundation.

It may be possible to respond to such problems, by revising our common sense notions of epistemic responsibility and irrationality. Such a program could draw encouragement from either attacks against traditional conceptions of rationality, e.g., foundationalism, normative rationality, and internalism, which replace those conceptions with conceptual relativism, hermeneutics, and so forth (cf. PMN, especially 131-212).

But these deliberations, as helpful as they are, do not take us to the heart of the epistemological argument for an enduring I. According to the epistemological argument, on the ancestral chain model one cannot have full-blown epistemic acts wherein a chain of reasoning in thought through and a conclusion drawn. Indeed, according to Ewing’s statement above, one could not even attend to a very complicated proposition, for such an act requires a period of time wherein the same self is present at the beginning and the end of the process. The simple fact is, that it seems to take time for the self to grasp a complex proposition or argument.

Suppose someone were thinking through the chain of reasoning in the following syllogism: [(P Q) & P] Q. In order for the inference to be drawn, the same self must be present throughout the process. This self attends first to the major premise, then the minor premise, and finally, draws the conclusion by holding the two premises together and seeing their connection. The point is not that the logical relations which obtain among propositions are themselves temporal. Rather, the processes of thought in acts of knowing are such that they take time to think through and they involve an enduring self to hold the terms together and draw inferences.

In the quote above, Ewing makes the same point with reference to the process of entertaining a proposition and making it meaningful to the self. Understanding the proposition "wolves eat lambs" requires attending to the subject, the direct object, and the transitive verb. As Frege pointed out, propositions are unities or wholes which cannot be identified with a mere heap of semantic parts. Similarly, attending to a proposition requires a unified act of consciousness for a single self and such an act cannot be identified with a mere heap of successive temporal moments attended to by person-stages.

Again, consider the origin and content of our concept of number. Edmund Husserl gave a detailed analysis of the course of experience through which we come to have the concept of a totality of things. i.e., number. Dallas Willard summarizes one stage of Husserl’s analysis as follows:

In order to illustrate this, suppose one were going to count ten dots on a sheet of paper. One would begin such a process with an intent or interest to enumerate the dots in an ordered sequence. This would initiate a sequence of specific acts of separately noticing specific dots, say as one’s gaze moved from the left to the right of the paper. In this process a new and distinct type of whole becomes present to me -- a concrete number of x objects. There is more to such a whole qua totality or multiplicity of objects than its elements, viz. its unification, and this unification is accomplished by an enduring agent.

At each stage in the process of counting, through a serial intuitive enumeration, I am able to consider each element of the totality noticed up to that point as a separate and specific dot, and then each dot must be seen as one so noticed in relation to the others so noticed. If I have counted five dots on the left, I am able to form a totality of five dots which have been counted by me, separate that totality from the number of dots still to be counted, and continue to add dots to the multiplicity already noticed as the count continues. Thus, during the process of counting, I must not only have successive acts wherein I notice the dots, but I must also have successive acts wherein I have a second order act of noticing which forms into a unified multiplicity the various individual acts of noticing dots up to that point.

So the process of counting the ten dots is a complex act which has the same self at the beginning and the end of the act. This self initiates the process with an enumerative interest, sequentially notices individual dots, holds together sequentially emerging totalities of acts of noticing, and completes the count by seeing the totality of objects as one intuitive whole.

As a final example, consider another observation made by Husserl about the fulfillment structure which obtains between and among various experiences.² We are all aware of the difference between the mere representing of an object to consciousness by thinking about it, and the direct intuition of the object itself which is the fulfillment of the former. Suppose I am in the living room and I am thinking about a cherry pie on the kitchen table. At this point I am merely representing the pie to myself, perhaps by using various sensa of previous pies or the sought-after pie experienced earlier. When I walk into the kitchen, I begin to have a succession of experiences of the pie which replace one another sequentially as I approach the pie. If the kitchen is large and the lights are very dim, I may begin with an intuition of a fuzzy, roundish shape that is somewhat grey. But finally, I have the experience of intuiting the object as it is in itself. In such an act, I can hold before my consciousness my initial representation of the pie and the successive experiences on my way into the kitchen (and I am aware of them as being past and as having been present to me), and I can recognize that the direct intuition of the pie is the fulfillment of the prior experiences.

Such acts of fulfillment are complex wholes or processes which seem to require an enduring self to make sense of them. The self seems to move through the various stages of such experiences and to hold them together in larger and larger unities until, finally, the end of the sequence is seen to fulfill the representation at the beginning of the experience.

It is not clear to me what the details would be in a process rejoinder to the epistemological argument. In my opinion, we do not have a successful process account of the self which survives the epistemological argument. Such an account would have to take acts of knowing like those listed above and explain them in a way which is compatible with an ancestral chain model of the self. But I think the general line of approach is clear enough. As each new self in the chain emerges and ceases to be, it passes on to later selves not only its content, but also the feeling of ownership.³ That is, later selves appropriate in memory the content and the feeling that the content is mine from earlier selves.

One final point should be mentioned here. If later selves have content in them that resembles the content in earlier selves, then by an argument made familiar by Bertrand Russell, this resemblance would seem to require grounding in a monadic or dyadic universal which is a multiply exemplifiable entity in each, perhaps the relation of resemblance itself.⁴ In order to be veridical, my present memory of a past experience must have identical qualities instanced in it as were instanced in the past experience when it was present. In order to deny this conclusion, one can say that the two experiences are merely similar. But this simply results in postulating the universal Similarity Itself. Either way, such an entity would be a Platonic universal, the classic exemplar of being. While such an argument does not prove an enduring I, nevertheless, if Platonic universals are required to make sense of successive states of consciousness, then this would present a problem for process philosophy.

But universals aside, if a chain of thought is very complicated, then it seems that a period of time is required for the self to undergo reflection along such a chain. On the ancestral chain model we are considering, whatever self would be required to appropriate the earlier mental contents would certainly seem to have his work cut out for him. For he would have before his momentary gaze a very complex whole of constituent propositions, experiences, and the like. And the same problem would seem to recur all over again, for time would surely be needed in order to attend to such a complex whole. The ancestral chain model would be stretching the spacious present to the breaking point.

In the case of the moral analogue to the epistemological argument, a defender of the process view of the self could dismiss moral acts altogether. Such a move might be distasteful and highly counterintuitive. But that fact alone would not undercut the intelligibility of process metaphysics. But a similar move does not seem available to someone who is confronted with the epistemological argument. As Paul Weiss pointed out:

In short, the epistemological argument, if successful, shows that the denial of an enduring self is guilty of self-referential inconsistency. There may be a successful account of acts of knowing within a Whiteheadian ancestral chain model which avoids the force of the epistemological argument. But if no such account is available, then the enduring self may, indeed, be the Achilles’ heel of process metaphysics.⁵

References

FP -- Roderick Chisholm. The First Person. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.

HPI -- Peter Bartocci. "Hartshorne on Personal Identity: A Personalistic Critique." Process Studies 2 (Fall 1972): 216-221.

IdSe -- Geoffrey Maddell. The Identity of the Self. Edinburgh: The University Press, 1981.

IS -- H. D. Lewis. The Illusive Self. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982.

LOK -- Dallas Willard. Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1984.

MB -- Paul Weiss. Modes of Being. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1958.

PI -- Charles Hartshorne. "Personal Identity from A to Z." Process Studies 2 (Fall 1972): 209-215.

PMN -- Richard Rorty. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

SI -- H. D. Lewis. The Self and Immortality. New York: Seabury Press, 1973.

VR -- A. C. Ewing. Value and Reality. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973.

Notes

1For a good discussion of absolute and relative identity, see David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1980). 1-74. While I agree with Wiggins in holding to the sortal dependency of identity, my argument in this paper does not depend on such an understanding. My epistemological argument is compatible with a Lockean understanding of substance with the I as some sort of bare particular or hacceitas.

2For a helpful treatment of the ontology of knowing acts in Husserl, including the notion of foundation, see Dallas Willard, ‘Wholes, Parts, and the Objectivity of Knowledge." in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Format Ontology, ed. Barry Smith (München: Philosophia Verlag, 1982), 379-400.

3For two examples of this strategy, see Eugene Fontinell, Self. God, and Immortality (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 85-89; and Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge. MA: Bellknap Press, 1981), 71-114,

4I have surveyed arguments for universals from similarity in my Universals, Qualities, and Quality-Instances (Lanham, MD: The University Press of America, 1985), 109-133.

5I wish to thank Lewis Ford and David Beck for their helpful comments and criticisms of an earlier draft of this article.

The voices of deconstruction would have us believe that the pillars of our culture have collapsed. God is dead. The self has disappeared. History is at an end. The book is closed. The loss of these four points of reference, it is claimed, redefines the terms of the debate on value (E chs. 1-4). George Allan’s Importances of The Past is a brilliantly written, well crafted and eloquent response to these assertions.

The strategy of deconstruction begins with the charge of logocentrism whereby language and reason are impugned for their imposition of an arbitrary rationalism on experience. An indictment of Western philosophy as a futile search for the total explanation of everything then follows. It is seen as a form of hubris that undoes the foundations of the culture it seeks to establish. A gargantuan appetite for control through explanation recoils upon itself leaving culture with a set of empty abstractions. The metaphysics of presence evaporates real experience.

There is a familiar ring to all this. It was precisely the intolerable abstractness of scientific materialism evidenced by the fallacies of simple location and misplaced concreteness that led to Whitehead’s development of the philosophy of organism. There is, however, an essential difference between our cultural debate and the issues Whitehead faced in 1925 (see SMW). His major concern was with the adequacy of the abstractions dominating the general climate of opinion. Today’s critics directly attack the form of reason that Whitehead used to redirect cultural efforts. As a result, they are left either to wait with Heidegger for the authentic voice of Being or to play with Derrida in the fields of Difference.

Professor Allan chooses another path. Through a coordination of the various dimensions of the past, he directly addresses the central question: What is value and what are the terms of its achievement? In 1925 Whitehead chose the word "value" to counter the empty world of scientism. It remains a good choice. It is not grounded in an empty rationality, but is to be understood as a term of feeling. Furthermore, it describes the immediate character of experience. Being is the attainment of value and the achievement of intensity. This echoes Plato’s definition of Being as The Good. For Allan the past provides the present with spheres of relevance from which prevalent feelings of importance can be derived. Some six domains are identified: a common ground, a holy ground, a solid ground, the historical past, the mythic past, and the eternal past. Each gives to the present age a basis for choice and a ground of solidity from which to express its own unique perspective. When the present meets an appropriate past, it is suffused with a sense of depth, stability, and importance that anchors its own values. The "was" of the past suggests an "ought" in the present: this is the doctrine of internal relations expressed on personal, social and cultural levels.

But what happens if the past is no longer appropriate? This, of course, is the message behind the code word "postmodern." Suppose we grant deconstruction its claim. Is there any way in which process thought remains relevant? Though it is a simplification that stunts the varied riches of this work, The Importances of the Past answers by arguing for the insistent presence of norms in all modes of value achievement. Allan finds in the "End" of tradition continuing evidence of unvarying beginnings that confirm the presence of purpose. So, whether it is David Hall’s version of chaotic creative pluralities, or the everyday epiphanies of Auerbach’s literary vision or even Foucault’s decentered universe of subjective violence, aim, intent and purpose assert themselves. Every arche implies a telos. If desire is not an admission of worth, it contradicts itself. Action accompanies desire and every beginning confesses in a general way its end. A natural intimacy connects desire, arche, and telos and stands between us and "the solipsism of the present moment" (IP chs. 8-9).

What strikes the reader of Allan’s work is his immense respect for the achievements of the past and his equally sensitive recognition of the sheer fragility of human effort in the present. What took centuries to build cannot be undone in a frivolous instant. Temporal interweavings laboriously constructed into layers of physical, social, cultural and personal fact conspire to constrain efforts after novelty. But what happens when the cultural order no longer expresses zest, adventure and novelty? Are the deconstructionists right after all? Is this not a time for new foundations and new beginnings? After all, their work has struck an obviously raw nerve in the philosophical community.

Decay is as an inevitable aspect of process. The wasting away of traditions is part of the narrative of culture. Whitehead suggests a way of dealing with these transitions:

The reference to massiveness and system reflect Whitehead’s sensitivity to the normative dimensions of change. A major transition alters the value of a situation by redistributing the lines of intensity that make up it axiological setting. Even when these shifts involve the vast cultural dislocations envisioned by deconstruction, neither system nor massiveness lose their importance. Without them, the desired changes degenerate into the frivolous or the trivial -- a quality, some might say, already present in certain styles of philosophical discourse. What is at stake is the quality of change, its possibilities for altering the cultural landscape in a lasting manner. Cultural transitions are not carried out by declaration. Intellectual responsibility demands that a normative sensitivity inform such activities.

In what follows I will build upon the development of process thought carried out by Robert Neville, especially in his Reconstruction of Thinking (RT). To be -- and that would include culture -- is to be a value. This achievement of worth is carried out by harmonizing the conditions that govern such attainment. In this way the massiveness of a cultural environment finds a central place in its members’ actual constitutions. Such massiveness, Whitehead tells us, results from "variety of detail with effective contrast" (AI 325). It produces a feeling of strength threading itself throughout the fabric of a culture. Such weaving can create in turn a texture of depth that welcomes new ways of expressing value.

Call this quality of tolerance for novelty the sign of an open system. An open system is one that requires a large infusion of variety for its stability. In nature such systems are a mark of ecological stability. Such adaptive responses are not a necessary feature of cultural systems. They tend to view the novel as a threat to their integrity. Nevertheless, the vigor of a culture depends on its attitude toward novelty. Following Whitehead and Neville, I would suggest that an open cultural system would express a special form of triviality, vagueness, narrowness and breadth (RI 164-165).¹ Appropriate cultural coordination of these experiential dimensions provides the systematic background that Whitehead saw as necessary for the complex task of encouraging novelty and adjusting to its presence.

What specific union of massiveness and system is needed to support novel cultural transitions? Triviality marks the loss of importance. This is what Allan might call the perimeter of cultural relevance. When some semblance of order manifests itself in a commonly shared manner, vague cultural signs of identity emerge. Attention begins to be paid to these regions of mutually important experience. Out of such representative boundaries flows the possibility of strong individuality -- the narrowness that supports an enduring character distinct from the vague contours of the cultural environment. Such narrowness creates the variety of detail required to ensure the effective presence of massiveness. When a cultural background manifests sufficient systematic integrity, novelties intense by reason of their narrowness can find a place within the culture’s general aims and purposes. A culture gifted with such adaptive tolerance has attained significant breadth.

A system is a togetherness of parts that promotes the regular identification of moments of importance. This definition stresses the normative dimension of a system. There are, of course, many other ways of defining a system. An open system would be one that maintained a set of vague norms inviting further specification. Attempts at supplying that narrowness would intensify the values in question Each such attained value would in turn render the vaguely defined norms both more precise and more important. The ensuing contrast between attained specific value and the general sense of importance still clinging to the norm in question would accelerate the drive for value. When this rhythmic interchange of precision and generalization reaches a level of regularity, culture expresses a quality of breadth.²

Systematic integrity is gained when a detailed variety of values possessing fairly stringent individuality finds a supportive background. A thriving culture systematically generates novel instances of value. It is the sheltering power of a culture’s normative system that keeps this novelty from collapsing into the frivolous. A good cultural matrix does not allow its moments of value to disappear beyond the boundaries of importance. Whitehead’s "order entering upon novelty" is exemplified by the complex interactions of such an open system. What advances an open system is its lack of contentment: its achievements stir the depths of process. Such a high degree of unrest is caused by the regular presence of what Whitehead termed "Truthful Beauty." An experience, Whitehead tells us, that "lies beyond the dictionary meaning of words" (AI 334; see chs. XVI-XVIII).

In his analysis of the mythic past Allan draws on this notion of truthful beauty to explain the significance of established tales (IP ch. 5). By employing the concept of typification, he demonstrates how a person, deed or place can embody a complex web of meanings -- all of which find their appropriate niche in the enduring individuality that typifies the network of values in question. This "It," Whitehead tells us, "is one of the strongest forces in human nature" (AI 336-337; see also S). The wisdom of culture resides in its ability to set forth in regular rhythm such definitive yet expansive typifications. The diachionic pattern of the past synchronizes with the individual awarenesses of a culture. What counts in all this is not the words employed but the feelings evoked.

This understanding of the aesthetic base of a system directly challenges the charge of logocentrism that deconstruction lays on philosophy. What matters is the intensity of the feelings evoked, not the verbal formula or its rationalized explanation. Human experience is not a matter of a set of abstractions tricked up to convey a sense of continuity. Rather it is the outcome of feelings receiving harmonic intensification by reason of the massive background of an open system. The use of reason and words do not automatically diminish experience. Such loss is either the outcome of failure in the harmonic background supporting a culture’s individual achievements, or the destructive dissonance of such values.

The concept of harmony implies a normative measure. Again following Neville, a normative measure judges the way in which actual harmonies achieve their possibilities (RT 82-83). Each harmony has an ideal potential. Normative thinking evaluates the actual achievements of value in the light of what is possible for that situation, time or place. By using appropriate norms, a culture can be ranked according to the ways in which it realizes its ideals. A culture’s perspective is itself a normative measure since it provides the understanding through which expressions of importance are achieved. Therefore: such evaluations must also take into consideration the culture’s own ideals as expressed in its systematic background of importances. The point is the concept of normative measure renders concrete the abstract doctrine of harmony by allowing for the evaluation of cultures on the basis of their real achievements.

Through a structural analysis of the activities of elimination, subordination, abstraction and cumulation, Allan demonstrates the basic ways in which the past is rendered effectively present (IP 95-108). Each such activity measures in different ways the importances of the past. When accomplished, the past is thus welded to the present through levels of normative importance. Typification, the normative instrument just discussed, establishes an exceptionally strong bond because it summons up a measure of potential interpretive wealth unmatched by other means. It is the narrowness of typification exerting pressure on the vague importances of a culture that yields up the requisite breadth. Cultures weave a matrix of vague but ultimate importances around such normative measures.

In particular Allan cites three such types: person, deed or place (IP 108). Understood as normative forms, these activities summon up in a mysteriously generous way the vaguely systematic importances of a culture. They do not define history but rather establish nodes of indefinite significance that the temporal course of history proceeds to fill with meaning. Such great actions, locales and human beings are what they are by reason of their intimate connection with the systematic background of a culture. Deprived of harmonic interaction with a culture’s background, these activities become mere episodes isolated from the massive ensemble of values they both sum up and foretell.

Human memory leans on these typifications when deciding the significance of present acts. In its stress on the term postmodern, deconstruction fails to do justice to the open character of the systematic background of human value. If "postmodern" means that we are beyond the categories of history, then the term contradicts itself. There can be no present time standing absolutely outside its past. If it did, how would we know it as a form of time? A determinate time requires the existence of a difference for its own identity. Talk of the close of history may be rhetorically effective, but it is not philosophically responsible. At best, such phrases can only mean that the present has yet to create its own significance. The term postmodern is therefore a negative self-definition. The age only knows what it is not. But that tells us nothing about its character.

A much more accurate description of the character of our age is "Transition." In Process and Reality Whitehead distinguishes between two kinds of fluency (PR ch. X).³ There is the microscopic fluency internal to the genesis and perishing of actual occasions. Its technical term is concrescence. More to our concern is the macroscopic fluency characteristic of the movement from occasion to occasion. This latter type is termed "transition" and is shaped by the efficient causality massively inherited from the past. Microscopic process or concrescence transforms the conditions of its actual past world so as to achieve its own identity. In contrast to efficient causality, concrescence stresses the teleological dimension.

Pitted against the massive weight of the past, teleology appears to be a decided underdog. Recognition of the slim, frail weight of intellectual purpose is an essential part of Whitehead’s naturalism. One aspect of time in a process universe is the steady accumulation of forms of constraint. As Allan clearly demonstrates, the construction of a cultural complex is an interminably slow, intricate affair consuming vast epochs. Its failures are often as significant as its achievements. The aims and intentions of conscious entities have but a slim chance of gaining a foothold in the universe. But when with the help of a cultural order they do, the transformations of experience are startling and often amount to a complete metamorphosis.

What characterizes such transitions are shifts in the normative measures used to assess importance. What was once regarded as a manifestation of complexity suddenly turns into an exercise in simplicity. Environmental obstacles are transformed into novel opportunities. Dimensions of experience once considered essential come to be regarded as accidental. The Copernican Revolution, airplane travel and racism are obvious examples. These revolutionary transitions establish a marked change in the ways in which reality appears to human consciousness. The contrast holding Reality and Appearance together breaks down and new forms of harmonic contrast are slowly called into being. Without the strength provided by the cultural order such new visions are doomed to failure. They can only survive through cultish propaganda or enforced dogmatism. Without a background of sustaining order, such cultural novelties quickly become intellectual curios.

There is a direct relation between normative thinking and healthy cultural transition. By healthy, I mean a transition that would weave novelty onto a supportive backdrop of order. What I am suggesting is an open cultural system so sensitive to the claims of novelty that it could nourish difference inside itself.

What would such a system look like? What norms would it establish for the sheltering of novelty? Let us return to the four qualities of triviality, vagueness, narrowness and breadth. Such a system would have as its chief aim the reconciliation of opposites through breadth of vision. Also it would have to be applicable within the narrow range of human experience. Finally, it would have the ability to identify regular patterns of importance within cultural experience. I am, of course, talking about a cosmology of cultural change.

Central to such a system of cultural transition would be its attitude toward novelty. Reason would have to drop its contemporary obsession with explanation through causal observation. Deconstruction’s effort to unmask the pretenses of such forms of thinking provides a useful reminder that thought need not be driven by an unconscious lust for power. Platonic reason of the sort practiced by Whitehead and exemplified in Allan’s work has a different aim. It seeks to understand the various ways in which types of existence are intertwined so that justice can be done to their individual merits and their connections with each other. What animates this form of thought is an absolute respect for the value of the world. Its attitude toward novelty is a natural extension of its fundamental commitment to the axiological worth of existence.

But such a pattern of thought cannot be reduced to a simpleminded acceptance of whatever comes to be. Mere cultural acquiescence violates the principle norms of a process universe. Human experience necessarily involves direct assessment of the worth of the world. Judgment is built into our worldly transactions demanding an evaluation of that participation. Here even Nietzsche agrees with Plato, for despite all evasive actions, the category of obligatory valuation applies. Therefore the real question is: how shall we evaluate the world and ourselves as part of it? A responsible answer demands a recourse to norms that are public, debatable and applicable. Anything less is cute, trivial and a diversion.

The primary category governing such a normative cultural analysis would be intensity of experience. Both Allan and Whitehead share this vision. Intensity is the reward of narrowness woven into a background of vague importance. By itself narrowness simplifies the universe, edging dangerously near the Sartrean reef of solipsism. A vague sense of importance leaves the universe exactly where it started -- a complex assortment of events untouched by specific expressions of value. The achievement of intensity depends on the right mixture of narrowness and vagueness.

The measuring of such mixtures requires a set of norms that carry through any and all cultural transmutations. A cosmology is a set of interrelated generic traits acquiring specificity through application. The systematic use of categories varies the meaning of the generic traits by forcing them to exhibit their interpretive value in unique, actual settings. Thus novelty is assured a definitive place in the scheme since historical situations call forth new conditions that in turn demand new specifications of the vaguely normative categories of interpretation.

In exhibiting an alternating rhythm between the particular and the universal, this hermeneutic process constructs the massive system of background order that Whitehead thought necessary for cultural transition. The universal order shelters the novel particulars so that they contribute the variety of detail that ensures the health of the cultural system. Such a process carries no taint of dogmatism since in this system universal signifies an open pattern calling for concrete specification.⁴ In other words, the totalization of experience decried by deconstruction carries no weight within a properly understood cosmological interpretation of culture.

A cultural cosmology evaluates the experiential significance of the typifications that Allan describes as crucial for the construction of systems of value. It marks out for interpretation the breadth of the relevant "Its" that constitute a culture’s axiological nodes. A double normative measure applies to these enduring individual instances. In the first place, they ought to function as narrow specifications of the culture’s aims and ideals. At the same time, they must refer beyond themselves to a still unspecified domain of vague importance. The narrative of historical time then records the evolution of their significance. In this way the universal and the particular combine to express the breadth of a culture’s ideals.

When these nodes of significance elicit from the participants in a culture continuing forms of novel specification, the problem of transition becomes manageable. Given this normative analysis, there are two primary ways in which a culture can experience failure. When its systematic background no longer provides the depth necessary for the inclusion of novelty, a culture must eliminate all expressions of radical novelty. Insufficient depth signals the emergence of tyrannical means of control. Such extreme measures mark the unraveling of the background of support that tradition labored to erect. The other way by which a culture fails is when emergent novelty simply overwhelms the supportive cultural matrix. Even when this occurs, the decline of a culture is a slow, tedious affair characterized by numerous episodes of backing and filling.

If cultural transformation is as complex as this analysis suggests, one must question deconstruction’s pronouncement that philosophy is at an end. This essay began by citing deconstruction’s claim that four critical pillars of our culture have collapsed. Suppose we use the concept of an open system to examine in turn each such claim. The question to be asked is whether the pillar in question has lost its supportive capacity as a bare "It" of nodal significance. Remember it is the ability of such typifications to incorporate novel expressions of meaning that constitutes their supportive function.

The first claim is the death of God. Now what does this mean? Does it indicate a widespread atheism? Not at all. It means that the perceived cultural relevance of God no longer receives intense and unanimous consent. No informed person would deny the fact that the history of philosophy testifies to the continual reconstruction of the idea of God. But deconstruction would have it another way. The death of God means that the very boundaries of importance are obliterated. No edge separating the trivial from the significant can be spied out. As a result, all is permitted and experiment is the cultural order of the day.

Implied in this strategy, however, is a concealed norm. As Allan points out every end implies an order and every order implies a quest for the important. Presupposed in the liberation experienced by the overthrow of tyrannical gods is a substitute search for more enduring values. Whatever the particular definitions of God, there has always been implied in the concept a reference to a vast reservoir of importance awaiting realization. It is the referential significance of God that so upsets deconstruction. It is seen as the ultimate onto-theo-logical oppression strangling all human effort. The cosmology suggested here lays no such restrictions on the human race. Understood as a bare "It" requiring responsible expression throughout a culture, God is an invitation to experience, not a sign of its loss?

What threatens the deconstructionist program is the suggestion that norms exist independent of human invention. As the ground of normative experience, God is no tyrant but rather the source of the mutual relevance of such norms.⁶ In undermining God as the first pillar of culture, a domain for absolute subjectivity is opened up. Nothing could count against expressed values because in reality there are no values. Where there are no normative measures, there can be no means of estimating importance. What matters is that things be kept interesting. But even here a presupposed quality of importance rears its head. Surely, what is of interest strikes some axiological chord. How else would we feel its significance?

In declaring the death of God deconstruction seems to want it both ways. On the one hand it seeks a field of creativity untrammeled by normative factors. On the other hand it desires that what is created express some measure of significance. The admission of any degree of importance, even that of the merely interesting, brings in its train the complex problem of axiological reference. Bereft of any systematic supportive background, deconstruction has no philosophical resources to bring to bear on questions of importance. One cause of the sense of triviality that clings to so much of this type of thinking is precisely its lack of normative distinctions. Lacking a ground of vague importance, deconstruction is forced back into a form of verbal narrowness. The pyrotechnics of this mode of expression camouflage the obviousness of its findings. One need not be a dour moralist to take offense at the trivialization of important experience.

In dismissing the possibility of vague but important dimensions, deconstruction is forced to take up residence on the next level of the harmonic register. It is not true that the trivial is the simple. Triviality is the result of an undifferentiated complexity that offers no normative distinctions between entities. It is an ideal place to play at being serious. But no genuinely serious risks are allowed, since one quickly gets forever nowhere.

The second cultural pillar is termed the disappearance of the self by which is meant the continual fading of a permanence in the face of life’s movement. In terms of a process cosmology, a human self is the outcome of a lifetime of consistent effort to embody normative ideals. This act of self-creation structures a character that embodies the aims, intentions and achievements of the subject in question. To have a name is to be given the opportunity to express its significance.⁷

At first glance, there would appear to be general agreement between deconstruction and the process viewpoint. But it evaporates once the issue of norms is raised. The passage of the self in cosmological terms is marked by the presence of efforts to bring one’s conduct in line with one’s ideals. No such norms are available within deconstruction’s efforts to form a self. What one is granted is a dizzying array of symbols, metaphors, and analogies -- each bearing a "trace" of presence that is marked by an inevitable absence.⁸ It is not that such literary devices lack evocative power. In the hands of a skilled writer they are a remarkably resonant, but the overall effect is one of sheer transiency, an incredible airiness that glides over the serious and important achievements of human life. One result of reading Allan’s work is a sense of the immense effort involved in the creation of important values. No similar depth is felt in deconstruction’s glassy presentation of our efforts at self-making.

What is most disturbing in all this is the attempt to identify frailty with weakness. While it is true that the teleological efforts of mind are far outweighed by the massive causal efficacy of the past, the efforts involved in human experience do not perpetually go up in wispy smoke. Embedded in the past of each person are the results of efforts to achieve value. They do not disappear with the verbal announcement of a "new" self. Neither are they created by the adoption of metaphorical reference. Such selves are achieved at great cost, not the least of which is the admission of finitude in the face of infinite sources of importance. Deconstruction would have us regard that strength as weakness. It is better understood as frailty, at times capable of reaching extraordinary tensile strength.

In its attempt to reduce the gravity of importance, deconstruction runs up against a continuing series of obstructions. As a result, a certain masochistic style breaks through its effort to view culture at the breaking point. It first seeks to endorse Nietzsche’s metaphor of a horizon wiped clean of all traces of divinity. Deprived thereby of a ground of importance, it embraces a self given over to experimentation as the wellspring of value. At this crucial moment, it then sees that very self disappear leaving only semiotic traces in its wake. Desperate for further punishment, it then sets its sights on the record of human accomplishment, history itself.

One might think that this effort to deconstruct the history of Western philosophy would inevitably turn toward some kind of despair. Such is not the case. The end of history marks the start of a free zone of creativity in which the restrictions of an uptight version of reason can be shucked off. Such freedom is not without fright but in apocalypse there is the liberation of new wave thinking. Looked at soberly, what could such a declaration really mean? Has history been so destroyed that even the most obvious chronicles of good and evil no longer apply? So it would seem since this dizzying fall through time secures no landing place where history might begin again.

It is one thing to announce the end of history. It is entirely another matter to feel the sense of such an event. Allan’s work is given over to mapping the texture of the past that asserts itself in the present. He shows how the solidity of the world -- spatial, temporal, material, social, and cultural -- depends on the inclusion of past achievements in present moments. If deconstruction is correct, the present is abandoned to its own devices. Since history no longer reaches into the present, even comparative norms are missing. An existential solitariness surrounds each person. With a normless desolation shrouding the situation, even the attempt to speak of culture is evidence of misunderstanding. What is left is inventiveness and play, luck and pluck. The past supplies neither strength nor endurance. If history no longer exists, then the chilling fact is that time has ceased to flow out of a reservoir of deeds through an active present and towards an effective future.

There are deep inconsistencies in all this. It is not the case that deconstruction has an interest in banishing time. Most of its thought revolves about deconstructing time’s results. Also if history is at an end, how would one know that a new time is at hand? If only to establish its difference, the present needs the past. To proclaim the end of history is simultaneously to assert the presence of a new time. Is this time equally fated to become historical? Would that not imply that history never ends, but always waits to absorb time? But perhaps deconstruction means to say that a new form of history is in the making, one free of the taint of logocentrism.

The envisionment of a new form of history differs from the claim that there is no more history. As seen before, one of the charges that deconstruction levels against traditional philosophy is logocentrism, a form of cultural imperialism that seeks to control everything it encounters. Such control devastates the possibilities of creativity and results in our current cultural wasteland. To order its understanding a new form of history would require some use of reason. It is decidedly unlikely that normative thinking would be the type selected. In practice, deconstruction substitutes game playing for history. The banishment of plot, narrative and causal efficacy is accompanied by an invitation to play. There is only the present moment and its creative possibilities.⁹

Again, contradictions abound. A game is created by the use of rules. These normative measures mark out the boundaries of achievement, the standards of value. Within them all manner of variation is possible, all modalities of style encouraged: outside them, no game can be played. If the end of history marks the beginning of the game of real life, it still stands in need of norms. How else would we even know that a game was in progress? It is just not that easy to escape history.

The last cultural pillar is the "Book" which I take to signify culture as a system of norms, values and achievements. A book is a prime example of cultural hegemony enclosing within its boundaries all knowledge, all value, and all standards of excellence. The covers of the book surround in a systematic fashion the contours of experience crushing them into conformity with its categories. What is lost in the process is the depth, reach and intensity of experience. The stability promised by a book is really a symptom of incipient rigor mortis, its coherence a sign of stiffening joints no longer capable of holding the flow of expression. In its quest for a just articulation of the proper boundaries of experience, culture is labeled as antilife.

In place of the Book, deconstruction offers "writing" whose textual pleasures include punning displays of the difference that defeats every attempt at direct statement. Bristling with hyphens, parens, slashes, dashes, traces, holds, blanks and gaps, deconstructive prose tries to capture in a kind of knowing hieroglyphic the insufficiency of thought. In so doing it creates a caricature of thought, a cartoon version of abstraction that depends on squiggles and dots to convey meaning. Such writing is intended to exhibit the poverty of thought, its inability to say everything-all-at-once. For such is the perceived intention of the metaphysics of presence: the Book is simply the most tangible symbol of such outrageous ambition.

There is in cosmology a much more humane understanding of the purpose of thought and the writing of books. Abstraction does not aim at the replacement of the concrete. It seeks to protect the concrete by showing its connections, relations and interfusion with other parts of experience. A good abstraction should display the important features of experience so that continuing patterns of intensity can be encountered again and again. Over the course of a human life such experiences come to constitute the very meaning and texture of actuality.

Furthermore, cosmological thought is necessarily abstract since it seeks to draw out of the flux of experience universal and permanent aspects. If done sensitively and with due regard for existential variety, abstract thought allows the thinker to appreciate the forms of process encountered. In other words a normative form of thinking demands judgment of the worth of experience. As The Importances of The Past demonstrates, this can be done without incurring charges of cultural hegemony. In fact, Allan’s work increases respect for the enormous variety of the world’s value. Through the simple act of enlarging our appreciation of the past, a book such as this confounds deconstruction’s attack on the Book.

Two final remarks conclude this critique of the closing of the Book. First, deconstruction seems unwilling to acknowledge the term "asymptotic." Whitehead, of course, uses it to describe his attitude in framing the speculative scheme of Process and Reality.¹⁰ It means that thought can only approximate its object. The proper attitude of the thinker is one of modest corrigibility. Second, the stipulative qualities that appear in the schema are the result of attempts at precision. This precision is required since the system demands testing in real experience. A cosmology is therefore a hypothesis meant to be applied, adjusted, and revised in light of its use. This method indeed seeks a comprehensive view, but it does so in deference to value’s infinite variety. Such qualities do not resemble the totalizing, logocentric drive of a metaphysics of presence. The opposite would seem to be the case since this system makes its presuppositions public, demands that it find experiential validation and from the very start admits its limitations.

In the end deconstruction’s attack on the four foundations of our culture does not convince. It makes a crucial mistake when it neglects the bonding power of Whitehead’s "bare it." In fact, God, the self, history and the Book are typifications used by the human race to form a backdrop of support for the evolution of novel values. Each such "it" has endured countless interpretive expressions and will no doubt suffer more. As pivots of an open system of cultural reference, they outlast the obituaries prepared for them by deconstruction.

Understood as a cultural form, each expresses a potential version of the four features of harmony. A vagueness in the concept of God can receive specification through the self s narrow search for redemption. Or conversely, a narrow notion of God may specify the vague value of the self. The breadth of the various religious traditions testifies to the plenitude of this welding of vagueness and narrowness. Similarly, history’s vagueness widens in temporal depth when narrow forms of individual effort are included in it. Or it is equally possible that the vagueness of individual selves deepens through participation in historical greatness. As representative of a culture, a book is as likely to sum up an age’s specific accomplishments as it is to stir that age toward vague realms of potential importance.

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to George Allan for such an evocative work. He has succeeded in expressing the palpable importances of the past. No intellectually responsible thinker can afford to overlook this accomplishment. I began this essay by citing his words. Their full import now seems clearer. Without a sense of the transcending importance of past achievements we cannot hope to redeem their worth or beget their children. Such is the universal fecundity of bare Its.

References

E -- Mark Taylor. Erring. A Postmodern A/theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

IP -- George Allan. The Importance of the Past. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1986.

RT -- Robert C. Neville. Reconstruction of Thinking. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1981.

Notes

A concise summary of Neville’s thinking can be found in "Sketch of a System." New Essays in Metaphisics (Albany: The State University of New York Press, i987), 253-273. Whitehead’s presentation of these themes occurs in PR, Part II, ch. 4. Sections I and II.

2I am, of course, employing Whitehead’s educational rhythms. The "romantic" phase is what fuels the drive for more important instances of value. See AI, ch. 2.

3Jorge Lois Nobo’s Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, (Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1986) shows the special merit of the term "transition." He argues effectively for the real presence of the past in the creative process itself.

4David Hall in the filth chapter of The Civilization of Experience (New York: Fordham University Press, 1973) demonstrates the value of Whitehead’s concept of abstraction for an open theory of cultural interests.

5Of course the question of God is much more complex than this. My interest here is its general cultural relevance.

6This understanding of God derives from Neville’s God the Creator (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1968) and Creativity and God (New York: The Seabury Press. 1980).

7For example, on one level the work of Jacques Lacan can be read as a sustained attempt to bring together in an intricately normative system the human subject, language, cultural systems, and the subconscious. See Lacan, Ecrits, tr. A. Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977). See also Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, Jacques Loran and the Philosophy of Psychoanlysis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). There is no more normative concept than his development of the law of ‘the Name of the Father." See Ecrits, 65-68. 143-144.

8See E. ch. 2: "The Disappearance of the Self.’

9 See E, ch. 3: ‘The End of History.’

10 The first chapter of PR is a sustained defense and explanation of this type of thinking.

Whitehead defines philosophy as "the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity" (PR 15/22). Whitehead’s own effort in its intention fully conforms to this conception of the philosophical enterprise. Quite ironically, however, in conceiving process in the sense of concrescence as subjective immediacy (PR 29/43) he undermines his own purpose.

Whitehead tells us that the philosophy of organism embraces what he calls the ‘reformed subjectivist principle," which doctrine, in turn, "fully accepts Descartes’ discovery that subjective experiencing is the primary metaphysical situation which is presented to metaphysics for analysis" (PR 160-243). Thus, in agreement with Cartesian terminology, he writes:

In Spinozistic terminology, this means that each actual entity is causa sui (PR 88/135). In terms of his own categoreal scheme Whitehead states the same principle most explicitly in the 23rd category of explanation and the 9th categoreal obligation. The former reads:

The latter, i.e., the 9th categoreal obligation reads: "The concrescence of each individual actual entity is internally determined and is externally free" (PR 27/41). In accordance with these principles Whitehead explains that "formal immediacy" or to be causa sui means:

He further points out:

Clearly, we have to take Whitehead seriously when he claims to be in agreement with Descartes in placing subjectivity at the core of his metaphysics. Thus, in accordance with the reformed subjectivist principle, he proclaims that "apart from the experiences of subjects there is nothing, nothing, nothing, bare nothingness" (PR 167/254). Granted that this is not the subjectivity of consciousness which Whitehead considers to be the task of philosophy to correct, but subjectivity as the primary metaphysical situation, it seems self-evident that unless subjectivity at the metaphysical level is mitigated, the same also cannot be secured at the level of consciousness. Thus Whitehead’s whole effort is concentrated upon the mitigation of metaphysical subjectivity. Whether he is successful in this effort is what I intend to consider in this paper.

First, however, I should like to address myself to the question of the general historical significance of Whitehead’s particular dilemma. The western philosophical tradition viewed as a whole stands Out as a process of the enhancement of subjectivity rather than the correction of it. Philosophy grows out of a mythopoeic soil, the naive realism of the ancient person for whom truth and being are identical. His interest in first principles is a cosmogonic one. Philosophy is born as the person becomes increasingly conscious of himself as a knower and thereby loses his naivete. The discovery of subjectivity is coupled with an awareness of the world as an object for thought as distinct from the knower. This separation is pinned down by Protagoras and bequeathed to Socrates and to Plato. If man is the measure of all things, then it is the task of man to know what those things are. Hence ontology, the study of being qua being is to be seen as the consequence and achievement of subjectivity.

In presocratic thought the naive realistic outlook is not as yet abandoned and the philosophical one is not fully established. The presocratic analysis of first principles is a mixture of cosmogony and ontology. Thus when Thales declares that water is the arche of all things, it may mean either that water is the temporally first element from which other things derive, or that all things are essentially water. The same ambiguity is present in all of the physical philosophers. It is in fact Plato who for the first time assigns cosmogony a mythopoeic significance and declares ontology to be the proper task of the philosophical discipline. Protagoras, in the dialogue which bears his name, relates a myth (320d-e) in terms of which the generation of sensible objects is explained as involving two stages. The first stage pertains to the generation of composites out of earth and fire which are the basic elements. The second stage is conceived as the constitution of the same objects as composites of various properties (dynameis). Of these two forms of explanation, it is the second which Plato considers to be the subject matter of dialectic, i.e., logical analysis, and moves therefrom to the theory of Forms. As for the first which relies upon a theory of elements, he returns to it in mythopoeic contexts only. Having established the distinction, Plato, being himself a poet, can transcend the distinction and combine, as he does in the Timaeus, the mythopoeic and the philosophical outlooks on a poetic level.

Ever since, it has been the aim of many a philosopher to recapture the Platonic synthesis but without Plato’s art and purely on philosophical grounds. This undertaking, which looks upon Plato’s Timaeus as its paradeigma, has been termed cosmology’ in the western philosophical tradition of which Whitehead’s Process and Reality is a prime example. In the latter work, Whitehead points out that the metaphysical character of Plato’s Timaeus consists in "its endeavor to connect the behavior of things with the formal nature of things" (PR 94/144). What he falls to take seriously, however, is the fact that the so-called connection is secured on poetic grounds. The "subordinate deities" who fulfill this function are given a naive realistic interpretation by Whitehead. He tells us that "In Greek thought, either poetic or philosophic, the separation between the physis and such deities had not that absolute character which it has for us who have inherited the Semitic Jehovah" (PR 94/144). For all practical purposes, Plato should not have called his Timaeus a mythos. No one in the history of western philosophy seems to have taken him seriously enough. The result has been the emergence of the cosmological point of view.

The cosmological point of view is permeated by the difficulties originating from the incompatibility of the cosmogonic and the ontological frames of reference. While the cosmogonic point of view requires a naive realistic acceptance of the world, the ontological point of view rests upon subjectivity and conceives of the world as its object. Thus, cosmology is caught up in a dilemma, a dilemma which is of the very nature of cosmology. On the one hand the world is to be viewed from the point of view of the subject and conceived objectively, and, on the other hand, it has to be maintained in its integrity, viewed from a perspective which precedes the subject-object distinction.

The scholastics were seemingly successful in overcoming this dilemma by assigning the maintenance of the world’s integrity to a transcendent God which constituted an extra-subjective point of reference -- a principle which remained intact on the basis of faith regardless of the philosophical problems concerning its nature. After the Copernican revolution in philosophy, not of Kant’s but of Descartes’, however, God was conceived as a deus ex machina, and the subjectivist point of view leaped forward. Hence, the basic inconsistency of Locke’s position, the emergence of various forms of idealism and later of Kant’s critical philosophy, the success of analytic philosophy and of phenomenology.

Whitehead’ s attempt to reinstate cosmology is to be seen as the revival of an old ideal, that of recapturing the Platonic synthesis of naive realism and ontology. In this task he can neither disregard the subjective perspective nor revert to a deus ex machina. The philosophy of organism is conceived as a way of bypassing these limitations.

The way in which Whitehead tries to achieve this end is to identify subjects as the basic elements (stoicheia) of reality. In this he differs from Leibniz in a most significant way, in that, whereas in Leibniz’s philosophical scheme reality is transported into subjectivity as ontology suggests, in Whitehead’s the procedure is reversed and subjectivity is transported into reality in accordance with naive realism as cosmology demands. This also explains how in the Leibnizian scheme God, which too is a monad, can be transcendent qua creator as opposed to all the other monads which are created, whereas in the Whiteheadian one it has to be conceived in accordance with the same principles applicable to other actual entities.

It has to be noted that Whitehead’ s position in this respect is quite different from that of Aristotle’s as well. It is true that in accordance with the Aristotelian position the individuals are the primary substances and as such they are the ultimate unities constituting reality. But from the Whiteheadian point of view these primary substances are vacuous. He defines "vacuous actuality," "which haunts realistic philosophy," as "the notion of res vera devoid of subjective immediacy." He points out that this notion is "closely allied to the notion of ‘inherence of quality in substance.’ Both notions -- in their misapplication as fundamental metaphysical categories -- find their chief support in a misunderstanding of the true analysis of ‘presentational immediacy"’ (PR 29/43). The difference between Aristotelian philosophy and the Whiteheadian one can be briefly stated by saying that whereas the former is a realistic position, the latter is a naive realistic one. In the former the res vera are capable of philosophical analysis only to the extent that they are objects for thought, whereas the latter demands that the same be capable of analysis qua subjective immediacy. That is to say, the res vera should be analyzable not only from an external point of view. but an internal one as well. This means that the philosophical scheme should render it possible to speak from within reality, and not only human reality at that. It is this requirement which ultimately characterizes process philosophy. I should like to point out parenthetically that it is in this respect that the philosophies of Spinoza and of Hegel can be viewed as precursors of process philosophy.

The actual entities which are the building blocks of the cosmos are subjects and as such they are in process. Thus process is the nature of reality qua the actual entities. But as subject an actual entity requires an objective world. Thus an objective analysis of the world, i.e., an ontology of the world, is called for from the point of view of an actual entity. The burden lies with the justification of the claim that the objective world from the point of view of a given subject coalesces with the naive realistic frame of reference in terms of which the same subject is in the world, i.e., an unitary component of reality in togetherness with other entities such as itself. Whitehead’s whole effort in Process and Reality is convergent on this task.

The Whiteheadian term "actual entity" is in itself an assertion of the cosmological point of view. It signifies a subject-superject. That is to say, the actual qua subjective immediacy is process but qua entity it is an object. The concept of ‘actual entity’ is thus a synthetic one so that Whitehead’s speculative scheme has to provide a justification for this synthesis. Obviously Whitehead was quite well aware of this necessity and tried to meet it. Whether he was successful is another question. Speaking of Locke’s assumption that ideas are the proper objects of knowledge, Thomas Reid had said that he had no argument. "Locke says it and repeats it, but never proves or tries to prove it." Clearly Whitehead, unlike Locke, did try to substantiate his fundamental claim. Whether he was successful is open to discussion.

The way in which Whitehead tackles this problem is through the introduction of a new concept of objectivity. This indeed is what he means by a "true analysis of ‘presentational immediacy"’ (PR 29/43). In the 8th category of explanation he defines "objectification" as "the particular mode in which the potentiality of one actual entity is realized in another actual entity." Whitehead explains that "The principle of universal relativity directly traverses Aristotle’s dictum, ‘A substance is not present in a subject."’ Objectification is precisely the way in which, allowances being made for degrees of relevance, "every actual entity is present in every other actual entity" (PR 50/79). Thus "objectification" is conceived as a relational term. More importantly, however, objectification signifies not an external but an internal relatedness. The 10th category of explanation states: "That the first analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete elements, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in its process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehensions." Prehensions, which are "the concrete facts of relatedness" are in turn conceived as cases of objectification. ‘The ‘positive prehension’ of an entity by an actual entity is the complete transaction analyzable into the ingression, or objectification, of that entity as a datum for feeling, and into the feeling whereby this datum is absorbed into the subjective satisfaction" (PR 52/82). Thus objectification is the bond between a given subject in its immediacy and another entity which is devoid of immediacy.

In both cases of objectification we have an internal view of the percipient subject. Objectification is a relation between the said subject and its data. In causal objectification, however, there is involved the further point that the datum itself is a subject, although not in this context a percipient one. In Whiteheadian terminology this means that only past actual entities which are devoid of subjective immediacy can be objectified. The question which immediately arises at this point is whether causal objectification as such can substantiate the claim that objectified actual entities are to be conceived not merely as superjects but subjects as well. Stated differently, the question is whether what are referred to as past actual entities are in fact actual entities instead of merely entities.

Whitehead needs to establish the fact that at least one type of objectified entities are actual entities in order to escape the solipsism of the present moment, as he himself notes (PR 81/125, 152/230-231). That is to say, he needs to establish internal relations as external relations as well in order to escape from falling into a form of idealism in the Hegelian mode and to maintain a form of pluralism as opposed to Spinozistic monism. The principle of causal objectification is the only principle in terms of which Whitehead can hope to achieve this result, for causal objectification is conceived precisely as that very relation whereby an actual entity transcends its presentational immediacy (PR 81/125). Whitehead points out that the "objectified experiences of the past . . . describes the efficient causation operative in the actual world" (PR 115-117/176-178). "According to this account, efficient causation expresses the transition from actual entity to actual entity" (PR 150/228).

Having said so, however, Whitehead goes on to point out that transition is characterized by mere subjective responsiveness or receptivity (PR 117/178). Consequently, transition manifests itself as perception in the mode of causal efficacy (PR 120/184). He explains that "According to this account, perception in its primary form is consciousness of the causal efficacy of the external world by reason of which the percipient is a concrescence from a definitely constituted datum. The vector character of the datum is this causal efficacy" (PR 120/184). Hence causation is defined as "nothing else than one outcome of the principle that every actual entity has to house its actual world" (PR 80/124).

It seems to me that anytime the actual entity qua actual, i.e., qua subjective immediacy, is taken into consideration, the naive realistic discourse, appropriate to cosmogonic or scientific explanation, has to be abandoned and the causally efficacious datum is to be conceived as a component of the percipient subject qua concrescence whereby transition as such is lost sight of and replaced by process. In this context, past actual entities have the status of objects for a subject and cannot be conceived in themselves. Unless they are so conceived, however, causal efficacy cannot be established as an external relation as well as an internal one. On the other hand, if there are no external relations between actual entities, then there can be no escape from the solipsism of the present moment and pluralism cannot be secured.

In order to speak of a plurality of actual entities a principle of togetherness is needed. The extensive continuum is proposed by Whitehead as such a principle. This principle is intended to lend support to the principle of causal objectification and to help solve the problem of the solidarity of a pluralistic universe. This presents a very delicate situation. According to the philosophy of organism, "continuity concerns what is potential; whereas actuality is incurably atomic." Hence "contemporary events happen in causal independence of each other" or else actual entities would not be externally free. Accordingly, togetherness has to be so conceived as not to interfere with the principle of causal independence. Thus, Whitehead maintains that "the contemporary world is objectified for us under the aspect of passive potentiality" (PR 61/95).

The implications of this state of affairs is given in the following statement of Whitehead’s:

It is illuminating to compare Whitehead’s analysis at this point with that of Leibniz. Leibniz, having maintained that internal relations of the monads are phenomenal, had to propose pre-established harmony whereby the monads could be externally interrelated in a non-phenomenal, i.e., real, sense. Whitehead, on the other hand, having conceived internal relations, i.e., objectifications, as phases of concrescence, i.e., as real, develops a position whereby external relations are constituted qua objectification and are potential, if not phenomenal.

The extensive continuum as a principle of togetherness of actual entities is given to presentational immediacy which "gives positive information only about the immediate present as defined by itself’ (PR 124/189). Accordingly, extensive continuum as such does not seem to be an adequate principle of real togetherness, of real external relations. Whitehead thus moves on to supplement it with a discussion of the "presented locus." This concept is intended to provide a passage from presentational immediacy to causal efficacy whereby extensive continuum can be conceived also as a principle of real external relations.

"Presented locus" is a common ground of perception in the mode of causal efficacy as well as perception in the mode of presentational immediacy. It is directly perceived in presentational immediacy, "while the causal past, the causal future, and the other contemporary events, are only indirectly perceived by means of the extensive relations to the presented locus" (PR 169/257). Clearly, the perceptive mode of causal efficacy is here conceived as the perception of the presented locus as a part of "the general scheme of extensive interconnection."

Now, Whitehead considers the extensive continuum as "real" "because it expresses a fact derived from the actual world and concerning the contemporary actual world . . . It is the reality of what is potential, in its character of a real component of what is actual" (PR 66/103). Thus, "presented locus" is conceived as an atomized, i.e., actualized portion of extensive continuum. It follows that this portion is continuous with the rest of the extensive continuum. The question, however, is that of whether from the standpoint of a given actual entity, any other portion of the extensive continuum but its own, can be objectified as atomized. Since what is objectified is the "aboriginal potentiality," unless other actual entities be given, their presented loci cannot be given. The "presented locus" cannot constitute an access to other actual entities qua actual, but qua entity only. It is in this sense that a given actual entity "is everywhere throughout the continuum; for its constitution includes the objectifications of the actual world and thereby includes the continuum" (PR 67/104).

The "presented locus" is indeed of no real help in leading us from presentational immediacy to causal efficacy, for perception in the mode of causal efficacy itself is a type of objectification, giving us merely an internal view of the subject. Whitehead himself seems to be aware of this shortcoming in his analysis when he says:

To the extent that an actual entity cannot transcend its subjectivity and have access to other actual entities qua subjects, Whitehead cannot be said to succeed in mitigating metaphysical subjectivity. From the point of view of an actual entity in its concrescence, there are no other actual entities but entities only. A subject is capable only of internal relations whereby all the terms of relations are elements in its own constitution. That those terms also are externally, it cannot judge. Nor can it itself be an object for itself. In being a subject it can be an object only for another. But if it can have no access to other subjects, it cannot conceive of itself even as a potential object for another subject.

It would seem that one issue Whitehead had in mind in his conception of the consequent nature of God was the maintenance of external relations between actual entities and hence also of pluralism. Thus Whitehead’s God is conceived almost as a principle of post-established harmony. But even this is not tenable in that God too is an actual entity and is governed by the very same principles that apply to other actual entities. Thus God also, qua subject, can have no access to other actual entities qua subjects and cannot be a principle of external relations.

The naive realistic perspective, which was rejoined to philosophy after the renaissance and embraced by scientists, resulted in the modern period in a revival of the cosmological point of view. By the end of the 18th century the various difficulties in the assimilation of naive realism into the philosophical perspective had become apparent. Kant’s critical philosophy was the ultimate conclusion of this development. But the interest in the cosmological synthesis was not thereby given up. Nineteenth-century philosophers turned to the presocratics as a source of inspiration and instruction. Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and Heidegger developed their perspectives under such guidance. Whitehead’s philosophy is no exception to this nostalgic trend. Yet in his case once again, the cosmological point of view has displayed its intrinsic inconsistency.

Of course, we have to remember that Whitehead’s preference lies with adequacy rather than consistency. He prefers Locke to Hume, Descartes to Spinoza. If this is to be understood as a matter of personal taste we have no right to contest it. But Whitehead also said that "Speculative boldness must be balanced by complete humility before logic, and before fact. It is a disease of philosophy when it is neither bold nor humble, but merely a reflection of the temperamental presuppositions of exceptional personalities" (PR 17/25). It seems to me that it is time we showed humility before logic and before fact, and realized that the basic problem with cosmological theories lies not with the powers of explanation of the philosophers who have proposed them, but the incompatibility of the two fundamental components of cosmological analysis. Cosmology as such consists in a naive realistic ontology which is a contradiction in terms, in that, naive realism is a non-philosophical, mythopoeic posture and cannot be assimilated into the philosophical perspective which of necessity is a self-conscious activity.

Most of Whitehead’ s publications prior to 1911 were intended exclusively for the world of professional mathematicians. This was especially the case in his Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898) and in Principia Mathematica (published together with B. Russell in 1910 ff.). In some minor publications he in addition had mathematical physicists in mind.¹ This, however, changed in 1911 with the publication of An Introduction to Mathematics. Here we find him for the first time writing for a larger public.

This had consequences for both the contents and manner of presentation in this new work. He no longer could assume such a profound mathematical knowledge as with his previous readers. The title of the book already reflects this circumstance. It ‘only’ proposes to be an introduction to mathematics -- however, a very profound one, as we shall see. Regarding the contents of the book, this meant that all the subjects of higher mathematics (such as mathematical logic, group theory, analytic, non-euclidian, and projective geometries, and integral calculus) could not be dealt with.² The simpler manner of presentation was conditioned by the fact that neither the necessary mathematical symbols (such as the symbolism of mathematical logic used in PM or that of analytical geometry used in UA) nor the rigorous mathematical methods (such as axioms, definitions, and proofs) could be utilized. Thus the insights into the remaining areas of mathematics that were dealt with (the theory of numbers, algebra, geometry, the differential calculus, and topology) had to be reduced to the most basic points of these various branches.³

However, these external conditions did not make Whitehead’s presentation of mathematics superficial. We rather find him in IM dealing anew and in depth with three areas: philosophical, historical, and applied mathematics. He touches these questions anew, insofar as they had already delivered important problems in his earlier works on pure mathematics (philosophical problems in UA, MC, and PM; historical matters in MC; and applied mathematics in his earliest scientific publications).

The significant interest in philosophical mathematics follows from the amount of space allotted in IM to the treatment of the three basic problems that had occupied Whitehead in his work up to that point. They are the question about the nature of mathematics, its unity and internal structure, and its applicability to nature. This is also indicated by the aim of IM as enunciated in chapter one: "The object of the following chapters is not so much to teach mathematics, but to enable the students from the very beginning of their course to know what the science is about, and why it is necessarily the foundation of exact thought as applied to natural phenomena" (IM 2).

Whitehead’s statements on the origin of mathematics, the criteria and characteristics of its historical development, and the present conceptions about the interrelation of its basic disciplines belong to the field of historical mathematics. In all three phases of its development the language of mathematics played an important role. Whitehead’s selection of and emphasis on individual moments in the development of mathematics is primarily guided by his philosophical interest in understanding the growth in unity and interconnection of mathematics as a whole. He ignores areas of mathematics which are not especially suitable in clarifying these philosophical aims, and suppresses periods in which various subfields were developed independently of each other.⁴

His special interest in applied mathematics can be seen in the large passages dealing with the mutual influence of physics and mathematics. Here also the topics are chosen so as to elucidate philosophical points, especially the question of how and why mathematics applies to nature at all. One of the areas that is not covered in IM is the relationship of mathematics to the humanities or, more generally, to the subjective side of reality. However, one can already find hints intimating the forthcoming emergence of that question.

The aim of the following analysis of IM is to trace Whitehead’ s keen interest in mathematics and its philosophical foundations, and to show how on the one side the basic insights of his previous works on pure mathematics are here condensed into a few highly ingenious and self-evident concepts, and how on the other side these concepts can be regarded as pre-figurations of basic concepts in his later philosophy of organism.⁵ The historical and physical passages from IM will only be used to illustrate the basic structure of Whitehead’s philosophy of mathematics.

I. The Nature of Mathematics

Whitehead sums up the nature of mathematics in the following statement: "the leading characteristic of mathematics [is] that it deals with properties and ideas which are applicable to things just because they are things, and apart from any feelings, or emotions, or sensations in any way connected with them. This is what is meant by calling mathematics an abstract science" (IM 2f).

A problem with this conception of mathematics seems to arise when the two sciences of algebra and geometry are compared with each other. While the numbers of algebra can be universally applied, even to things that can never be perceived by the senses, the space of geometry seems to be much less abstract (see IM 179). The reason is that spatial conceptions cannot be applied to all things as numbers can. Whitehead argues: "This, however, is a mistake; the truth being that the ‘spaceness’ of space does not enter into our geometrical reasoning at all . . . . [The] space-intuition which is so essential an aid to the study of geometry is logically irrelevant . . . . It has the practical importance of an example, which is essential for the stimulation of our thoughts" (LU 180f). Thus even in geometry the leading characteristic is its abstractness (see IM 182).

The abstract nature of mathematics had occupied Whitehead more than two decades prior to IM, and had found an exact establishment in UA and PM. This was done by showing that the concepts hitherto regarded as basic to mathematics, like numbers and space-points, were not that basic at all, nor bound up with our intuition of nature, but could be deduced from the axioms of mathematical logic. Even on this new level of foundation for mathematics, the axioms and definitions of formal logic could be formulated without any direct introduction of the contents of assertions, thereby assuring a complete independence from any particular occasion in which these ideas were applied.

This analysis of mathematics seems to be the reason for Whitehead to attach e attribute of a "particular individuality" (SMW 229) to eternal objects in his later philosophy. By this he meant that "the [eternal] object in all modes of ingression is just its identical self" (SMW 229). The reasoning behind this statement is that, if the ideas of mathematics and their respective properties were dependent on diverse cases of application, they would not be able to maintain the same identity in every mode of application.

Thus the abstract nature of things, as first uncovered by the analysis of mathematical ideas, if extended to pertain to nonmathematical ideas as well, is the condition for membership in the realm of eternal objects.

The comparison between algebra and geometry led Whitehead to another conclusion, in a sense complementary to the arguments above. He states: "Space-perception accompanies our sensations, perhaps all of them, certainly many; but it does not seem to be a necessary quality of things that they should all exist in one space or in any space (IM 182).⁶ Here he does not only stress the independence of abstract mathematical ideas from any special application to nature, as described above, but extends their independence to the point where these abstract ideas are no longer bound to find application in nature, as perceived by our senses.

This aspect of the abstract nature of mathematics, that not all of its results necessarily can be applied to reality, plays an important role in UA and PM. Already in UA the problem of an "uninterpreted calculus" (UA 5) or a "calculus only partially interpretable" (UA 10) has become prominent in Whitehead’s mathematics.

In his metaphysical cosmology these thoughts are further developed, and result in statements such as: "the metaphysical status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for an actuality" (SMW229). For we could not think of pure possibilities, if all eternal objects, of which the ideas of mathematics only constitute a subgroup, necessarily had to find an application in nature. The partial detachment of the realm of eternal objects from the actual world, which is important in Whitehead’s later thought, seems to originate in his appreciation that mathematical ideas need not find application in the spatial world of matter.

On this side, the abstract nature of mathematics, again extended to include non-mathematical things, provides the necessity of assuming the existence of an independent realm of eternal objects. Though sufficiently separated from the actual world, this realm is not completely detached from it, as we shall see below.

Altogether then, we have two lines of thought ensuing from the abstract nature of mathematics. One fixes on the independence of mathematical ideas from any special instance of their application to nature and thus focuses on the area of contact between mathematics and reality. This line of thought controls the necessary condition for membership in the realm of eternal objects. The other fixes on those areas of mathematics that are partially inapplicable. As can be shown, Whitehead reaches these conclusions through an analysis of the internal structure of mathematics. The result was a sufficient condition for postulating an independent existence of the realm of eternal objects. In the following, we will further expound these two separate lines of thought. We first take up the second aspect, and analyze Whitehead’s statements on the internal structure and historical development of mathematics. Only then will we come back to the first line of thought, and systematize Whitehead’s analysis of the area of contact between mathematics and natural science.

II. The Unity and Internal Structure of Mathematics

a) Formal Concepts Governing the Internal Structure of Mathematics

In connection with the abstract nature of mathematics Whitehead specifies three concepts that underlie all mathematical disciplines. He says: ‘These three notions of the variable, of form, and of generality, compose a sort of mathematical trinity which preside over the whole subject. They all really spring from the same root, namely from the abstract nature of the science" (IM 57).

Of these three, the notion of the variable is the most fundamental. In UA this concept is called a "substitutive sign," and its universal importance in mathematics follows from the assertion: "The signs of [any] Mathematical Calculus are substitutive signs" (UA 3). In PM the notion of the variable is carried into the realm of mathematical logic in order to emphasize and establish its profound significance in the overall structure of mathematics. Its foundation is laid in the "Theory of Apparent Variables’ (PM I 127ff). The variables are defined in close connection with the predicates and quantifiers of the calculus of propositional functions. Here the quantifiers define the range of the variables (some =x, and any = (x)), and the predicates represent the propositions assigned to the individual variables. This system of definitions is still in use today.

In IM Whitehead condenses this notion of the variable in the two concepts any and some." Whitehead can say: "Mathematics as a science commenced when first someone, probably a Greek, proved propositions about any things or about some things, without specification of definite particular things" (IM 7). It is clear that this pair of concepts simply represents a non-technical rendering of the rigorous formalism of the theory of propositional functions (see IM 8).

As the following assertions show, the two mutually exclusive terms "any" and "some" play a fundamental role in all basic disciplines of mathematics. "The ideas of any and of some are introduced into algebra by the use of letters, instead of the definite numbers of arithmetic" (IM 7). "As in algebra we are concerned with variable numbers . . . so in geometry we are concerned with variable points" (IM 88; cf. 176). Even in laying the foundation for the differential calculus one cannot do without this pair of concepts (see IM 175).

Similar things could be said of the notion of form. In UA, for example, the idea of mathematical form is founded rigorously on the concepts of "Equivalence" and "Operations" (UA 5ff and 7ff). And in PM it is the general notion of a relation (PM I 187ff) that represents the logical analysis of form. Just like the variable, this notion also plays a fundamental role in algebra and geometry (see the summary IM 88).

Using the notion of generality, Whitehead wants to point out that mathematics always seeks expressions which, taking up the notions of the variable and of form, are able to unite as great a subdivision of mathematics as possible, using only one uniform formalism. It was Russell’s and Whitehead’s aim in utilizing the formalism of mathematical logic to unite the whole of mathematics in this way. Thus the notion of generality is the condensation of the main results of PM as enunciated in the preface: "(1) . . . what were formerly taken tacitly or explicitly, as axioms, are either unnecessary or demonstrable⁷; (2) . . . the same methods by which supposed axioms are demonstrated will give valuable results in regions, such as infinite numbers, which had formerly been regarded as inaccessible to human knowledge. Hence the scope of mathematics is enlarged both by the addition of new subjects and by a backward extension into provinces hitherto abandoned to philosophy. (PM I.v). All this is accomplished by using only one and the same formalism. This generalization of a mathematical formalism⁸ results on the one hand in the progressive extension of the range of applicability of a single mathematical idea,⁹ and on the other hand in the unification of parts of basic mathematical disciplines on a higher level.¹⁰ Whitehead himself states: "As they [the branches of mathematics] become generalized, they coalesce" (IM 84).

It is especially these two last notions of form and of generality, and the underlying correlations between variables and mathematical formalisms, that play an important role in Whitehead’s later philosophy. Just as in mathematics the quantities represented by the variables are not treated independently, but in a complex network of interrelations, so Whitehead later postulates: "An eternal object, considered as an abstract entity, cannot be divorced from its reference to other eternal objects" (SMW 229f). Here lies the mathematical pre-figuration of concepts such as "realm of eternal objects," "abstractive hierarchy," and "nexus" (cf. SMW 232f, 241f; PR 22/32).

b) The Unification of Independent Parts of Mathematics

Of the two results that issue from the generalization of a mathematical formalism mentioned above, we will here discuss the possibility of unifying subordinate mathematical disciplines in a new formalism. The emergence of coordinate geometry from the unification of algebra and geometry will serve as an example. (For the following see figure I)

In chapter 9 of IM Whitehead shows the correspondence between algebra and geometry regarding their main abstractive processes. Just as in algebra the variables are an abstraction from specific numbers, so in geometry variable points are generalized from points. The same can be said of the algebraic transition from special equations to general algebraic forms, and the geometrical extension of figures to general geometrical loci. Only on this more abstract or general level of the two branches was a unification possible. Variable points and variable numbers are united in the idea of coordinates making it possible to identify algebraic correlations with geometrical loci.

In connection with this analysis of coordinate geometry Whitehead makes some far-reaching statements on the philosophical implications of the ideas involved. He starts by pointing to the prerequisites for being able to use the formalism of coordinate geometry, namely the arbitrary choice of an origin and coordinate axes. From the point of view of abstract mathematics both choices seem "artificial and clumsy . . . . But in relation to the application of mathematics to the event of the Universe we are here symbolizing with direct simplicity the most fundamental fact respecting the outlook on the world afforded to us by our sense" (IM 91). Every one of us has a restricted and finite outlook on the universe. The origin we choose and to which we refer our sensible perceptions of things "we call here: our location in a particular part of space round which we group the whole Universe is the essential fact of our bodily existence" (IM 91).

This simple philosophical interpretation of coordinate geometry also has its forerunner in Whitehead’s mathematics. It can be derived from certain earlier ideas (see MC). His definition of an interpoint (cf. definition 1.21, MC 485) has two characteristics relevant in this connection. First, the underlying pentadic relation of linear objective reals is based on the idea of an intersection of two such objective reals without the prior conception of a point in space. Such a meeting of two lines with no location in space comes very near to Whitehead’ s later concept of feeling (see PR 23/35 and 219ff/334ff). Secondly, as with the origin of coordinate axes, round which the whole universe is grouped, the definition and existence of an interpoint also involves all of space, insofar as an infinite number of linear objective reals, covering all of space, go to make one interpoint.

The same can be said of the definition of a - (or homaloty-) point (cf. definition 3.42, MC 495 and 506). Here the -point is defined as the -concurrence of the whole -region (i.e., all of space) with a three-membered -axial class. This means that all of space is conceived as being arranged around one point. The difference from the interpoint is that the -point involves a -axial class, i.e., the nonpunctual analogon to the axes of a coordinate system (cf. definition 3.22, MC 494).

Here again we have the pre-figuration of an important concept of the philosophy of organism. It is the concept of "prehension into unity of the patterned aspects of the universe of events" (SMW 213f). Just as we, when applying coordinate geometry to our physical existence, choose an origin and axes round which the whole universe is grouped, so later Whitehead conceives every event as prehending the whole universe of events into one new unity.

Before concluding this section, we need to make some remarks about his treatment of mathematical symbols. Contrary to the popular idea of mathematical symbolism as comprising the language of mathematics or more generally the language of the exact sciences, we find mathematical symbols treated here in a significantly different way. They are not the elements of a new language, distinct from our ordinary language, but simply represent a shorthand for our everyday speech, as pertaining to mathematics. Two statements underscore this understanding of symbolism.

First, Whitehead emphasizes that the signs for numerals, letters, and mathematical operations are not the outward side of a language essentially different from, and more mysterious than everyday language, but that they are introduced to relieve the brain (see IM 39) and "to make things easy" (IM 40). For "by the aid of symbolism, we can make transitions in reasoning almost mechanically by the eye, which other-wise would call into play the higher faculties of the brain" (IM 41). Thus the function of mathematical symbolism is to help perform "important operations . . . without thinking about them" (IM 42).

Secondly, Whitehead shows that every mathematical symbol must be interpretable. "A symbol which has not been defined [i.e., interpreted in ordinary language] is not a symbol at all. It is merely a blot of ink on paper which has an easily recognized shape" (IM 64). These properties of mathematical signs, connected with the main body of mathematics by the reciprocal relation of symbolism and interpretation (see figure 2), were essential for the advance of mathematics. Without their help the basic concepts governing mathematical structure and development, i.e., variables, form, and generality, could hardly have been used in actual mathematical research.

III. The Applicability of Mathematics to Nature

The question about the relation of mathematics to physics must have occupied Whitehead since the beginning of his scientific career. For his fellowship dissertation on Maxwell’s electromagnetic field theory,¹¹ as well as his first two scientific publications on special problems of the hydrodynamics of incompressible fluids¹² testify to an at least open relationship to problems of mathematical physics. This must be one of the reasons why Whitehead devotes so much space to questions concerning the methods and principles of applying mathematical ideas to the phenomena of nature, and why he sees himself obliged to write that "all science as it grows to perfection becomes mathematical in its ideas" (IM 6).

Whitehead’ s statements on the relation of mathematics to the experience of nature can be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: events/things, things/mathematical ideas, and mathematical ideas/variables. To these correspond the interrelational conceptions of relations between things, correlations of mathematical ideas, and form. (For the following see figure 2.)

With a similar aim as in MC, Whitehead conceives the world as "one connected set of things which underlies all the perceptions of all people" (IM 41). He also calls this world "the general course of events" (IM 14). The first step in the direction of a mathematical handling of nature is "to recognize [amid the general course of events] a definite set of occurrences as forming a particular instance" (IM 14) of what is to be mathematically grasped. These things, isolated for their mathematical treatment, have relations to each other (see IM 4). We thus must distinguish between the "general course of events" and the "things" with their respective relations to each other. The process of differentiation consists of two opposite movements: the isolation or discovery of these things in nature (see IM 15) and their re-cognition or verification in "the general course of events." For this it is necessary "to have clear ideas and a correct estimate of their relevance to the phenomena under observation" (IM 18).

The second step crosses the actual region of contact between mathematics and the experience of nature, and thus represents the science of mathematical physics or applied mathematics. It distinguishes between the actual mathematical ideas involved, such as numbers or points, and the things of nature attached to them. At the same time it separates the mathematical correlations from the prevailing relations between things in nature (cf. IM 2, 32). This process of differentiation again consists of two opposing movements: of abstraction and of application. As mentioned above, abstraction is that direction which determines the nature of mathematics and insures the existence and independence of the mathematical ideas as against the things of nature.

Application goes in the opposite direction, as Whitehead postulates: the "correlations between variable numbers . . . are supposed to represent the correlations which exist in nature . . ." (IM 32). While abstraction stresses the distinct existence of mathematics, application emphasizes the connection between mathematics and nature. This treatment of the reciprocal relationship between the things of nature and the ideas or concepts of mathematics, together with the respective correlations, is of great significance for understanding Whitehead’s philosophy of nature and his subsequent metaphysical cosmology. For here we have the germination point Out of which later grew his concept of the ingression of eternal objects in the world of actual events. For every eternal object Whitehead later demands "the general principle which expresses its ingression in particular occasions . . . . An eternal object, considered as an abstract entity, cannot be divorced from its reference to other eternal objects and from its reference to actuality generally; though it is disconnected from its actual modes of ingression into definite actual occasions" (SMW 229f).

The final step has already been treated above (in section 2) and consists of distinguishing between special and general mathematical ideas (e.g., the difference between numbers and variables), as well as between special mathematical correlations and their generalization in the concept of form. In this part we also have to distinguish two opposing directions. By successive steps of generalization the scope of the individual branches of mathematics is enlarged, and these branches are brought to a position where they can be united. By substitution special ideas and correlations are produced which can possibly find application in nature.

Now each of these three steps contributes in an individual manner to the clarification of the tasks in the bordering area between mathematics and natural science. The actual laws of nature originate in the reciprocal process of abstraction and application of step two. For Whitehead writes:

The task of mathematics in this complex network of relations is by no means to prove the truth of the laws of nature. It can merely provide mathematical certainty about the properties of correlations used in these laws of nature. In Whitehead’s own words:

Thus the truth of a law of nature can only be established within the context of step one, namely under the control of the reciprocal concepts of discovery and verification. Here, however, Whitehead points to an essential problem:

Whitehead’s analysis of the applicability of mathematics to nature, as set forth above, is basically formal in nature. The influence on his later thinking is apparent. This influence is so great that we must see in Whitehead’s mathematical publications not only pre-figurations of later thoughts, but also part of the coercive force that caused him to develop his metaphysics the way he did. For if mathematics holds in any way, and if it is at all applicable to nature, then it is, by its very existence, a guarantee for the reality and significance of eternal objects and their ingression into nature. This is a clear indication of the continuity and overall consistency of Whitehead’s philosophy in its various stages. All of this, however, resulted from the formal side of the interaction between mathematics and science. But, as can already be seen in MC, Whitehead is in addition very much concerned with the material side of this interaction. In IM Whitehead also touches the material questions regarding space, time, measurement, and the dynamic conception of nature. But in his treatment of these topics (IM chapters 4, 16, 17) there are marked differences with his later thinking. Neither his relational conception of space, which is basic for understanding his concept of extensive abstraction and which gave his theory of relativity its unique character, nor the problem of the bifurcation of nature, with its differentiation between the materialistic and personalistic outlook on the world, seem to be clearly in Whitehead’s mind at this time. This seeming indication of a clear discontinuity, however, is relative. For even amidst these apparent shifts in the overall conceptions of Whitehead’s thinking there are strong points that can be made in favor of a continuous and organic development of his philosophy. ¹³ A detailed discussion of this material side of the relationship of mathematics to nature is beyond the scope of this paper, for it involves not only Whitehead’ s philosophical analysis of geometry but also his philosophy of nature.

References

IM -- Alfred North Whitehead. An Introduction to Mathematics. London: Oxford University Press, 1982.

MC -- Alfred North Whitehead. "On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series A, 205 (1906): 465-525.

MVI -- Alfred North Whitehead. "On the Motion of Viscous Incompressible Fluids: A Method of Approximation." Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics 23 (1889); 78-93.

PM -- Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica. Vol. I (to *56). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. All other material from PM is quoted according to the respective first edition: Vol. I, 1910; Vol. II, 1912; Vol. III, 1912. All published Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

UA -- Alfred North Whitehead. A Treatise on Universal Algebra. With Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.

WPR -- Granville C. Henry. "Whitehead’s Philosophical Response to the New Mathematics." Southern Journal of Philosophy 7 (1969): 341-349.

Notes

1Cf. MVI and MC.

2This can be seen from a direct comparison of the contents of IM with the article "Mathematics" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, now printed in ESP, 282-284.

3All this already results from a very external comparison of the layout of the text in IM with PM or UA.

4 E.g., Islamic and medieval mathematics and the development of mechanics in the eighteenth century. A detailed analysis of the general philosophical implications that ensue from the way Whitehead discussed the history of mathematics and its relation to physical science in IM can be found in C. A, Clark, "Intimations of Philosophy in Whitehead’s Introduction to Mathematics," Adds del Segundo Congreso Extraordinario Interamericano de Filosofia, Julio 1961 (San Jose: 1962, 157-161).

5G. C. Henry in WPR (reprinted in Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Ford and George L. Kline [New York: Fordham University Press, 1983]: 14-28) has also pointed to the fact that Whitehead’s later philosophy (especially his doctrine of eternal objects) is rooted in his earlier basic mathematical concerns. Henry’s very instructive treatment of the subject is, however, only based on an analysis of UA, MC, and PM, with no mention of IM.

6As Whitehead remarks at IM 185f, the same can be said about the mathematical properties of time.

7 E.g., the purely logical derivation of the natural numbers. Cf. PM I 331ff and II 3-26. Later on Whitehead realized the impossibility of a complete derivation of number theory from logic. Regarding the influence of this insight on the development of his philosophy see WPR, especially 345ff.

8 In UA this is comprised in the concept of "substitutive signs." See UA 8.

9 E.g., of numbers in the generalizations of number theory. See IM, chs. 6-8.

10 E.g., coordinate geometry as the unification of algebra and geometry. See IM. ch. 9.

11 See The New Encyclopedia Britannica 1983. Macropedia 19, 816.

12 Cf. Whitehead’s MVI and "Second Approximations to Viscous Fluid Motion: A Sphere Moving in a Straight Line, Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics 23 (1889): 143-152.

13 See Michael Welker. Universalität Gottes und Relativität der Welt. Theologische Kosmologie im Dialog mit dem amerikanischen Prozessdenken nach Whitehead. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag. 1981, especially ch. 2, part A.

Augustine expresses well the bafflement experienced by anyone who reflects on time. It is utterly ordinary, yet exasperatingly difficult to fathom. Indeed, time presents the thinker with so many knotty riddles that one cannot help but be sympathetic with those who declare it unreal.

One of time’s many puzzles is the variable rate of lived time. We do not experience time as flowing equably. Its rate seems alterable in the extreme: time can fly and it can crawl. An hour can seem an eternity when one is in pain. To a bored student (or teacher!) the second hand of a watch can seem to be motionless. On the other hand, an hour -- even a day -- can rush by when one is lost in thought, and after an evening of good conversation with friends, we look at the clock and say, "Where did the time go?" And not only do we experience time as something which can change its rate radically, it can change often. Within one day our experience of time can undergo many variations. Each new activity brings with it an alteration, sometimes small and sometimes great, in the experience of time. In addition to these everyday changes, there is also the apparently universal experience that as the years pass and one grows older, time seems to speed up. Whereas for a small child ten minutes is a long while to have to pay attention, a day stretches out before one as a lifetime and a year is as unfathomable as infinity, for an adult the years begin to rush by at dizzying speed.

This essay is an attempt to make sense of the varieties of temporal experience. My thesis is that the scheme of ideas which is Whitehead’s philosophy of organism provides the resources to frame an acceptable account of the variable rate of "lived time."

But do we not already understand the apparent variability of time? Indeed we do not lack for explanations. Probably the most widely accepted is a psychological one. "Time flies when you’re having fun" is one of the sturdiest commonplaces in the English language. It is indisputably true as a general statement of fact. But it often functions also as an explanation. The hypothesis is that when we are enjoying some activity, we wish time would move slowly or stop altogether and so it seems to fly. On the other hand, when some state of affairs causes us to suffer pain or displeasure, we wish time would rush by and so it seems to crawl. While I do not deny that this explanation has some validity, it is clearly incomplete and inadequate. For not all of our experiences of "slow time" and "fast time" are linked to pleasure and pain. For example, working on this essay has not been particularly "fun." As I work in my carrel, I squirm uncomfortably as I strain to organize my thoughts and attempt to express them clearly. And yet, each time I glance at my watch, I am surprised at how much time has passed. Moreover, who would want to argue that the experience of adults is generally more pleasurable than that of children? And yet that is precisely what this psychological explanation would seem to require.

Another common explanation could be called the full time/empty time hypothesis. This theory is based on the observation that when not much is happening (empty time), time seems to move slowly. This is unquestionably true, as anyone who has missed a plane connection knows. The problem is that "full time" can either creep or fly. The second before a car accident is very full and that moment can seem extraordinarily long. An evening of Mozart is very full and time flies. Moreover, returning to our child/adult contrast, it would seem odd to hold that the experience of childhood is "emptier" than that of later years. This hypothesis may have a piece of the truth but hardly all of it.

Yet another explanation deals explicitly with the contrasting experiences of time in children and adults. One could call this a relativity theory of time experience. This theory explains the fact that time seems to move more slowly to children than to adults in this way: an hour (or any unit of time) is longer relative to the span of time a child has lived. While this theory has a certain immediate appeal and plausibility, closer inspection renders it problematic. For it would require that time experience be a complicated, continuous comparison of contemporary time spans to the whole span of one’s lifetime. Where is the "ruler"? Memory hardly qualifies since we never remember our whole life span and what we do remember is there for us only as pieces and never as one continuum. And even if this hypothesis does have some validity, it is hardly a full explanation of the variability of lived time since both children and adults have experiences of "slow time" and "fast time." Indeed, many elderly nursing home patients in full possession of their faculties experience time as moving with excruciating slowness.

We do not lack for explanations of the variability of time experience but we do lack for one adequate to the richness of the data. That this is the case is hardly surprising because, as we noted at the beginning of this essay, time itself is notoriously puzzling. If one aims at a more satisfactory explanation of the experience of "slow time" and "fast time," one must deal with the fundamental question, "What is time and how do we experience it?"

Whitehead’s philosophy of organism deals explicitly with this fundamental question. William Hammerschmidt has gone so far as to claim that

This claim may be exaggerated. It is, after all, difficult to specify the core of a system in which "coherence" means

But it is undeniably true that Whitehead’s treatment of space-time is a key strand, a sine qua non in his web of thought. What then does he say about time?

The first thing to note is that Whitehead insists that time is not an independent actuality. He directly contradicts Newton’s notion of absolute time which "of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without regard to anything external" (MP 77). Whitehead protests that while one may choose to use such a notion as a helpful abstraction, one can treat such absolute time as an actuality equal to all other actualities only at the expense of coherence. Indeed, Newton ends up with a four substance metaphysic (space, time, minds, bodies) which makes Descartes’ problems look like child’s play. For Whitehead, in contrast, time is an abstraction from concrete actual occasions and it has no reality apart from them.¹

This may sound like a demotion of time. But what it more than gains in importance in Whitehead’s system. For temporality is not just one feature among others characterizing actual occasions. It is utterly fundamental. The Category of the Ultimate ("the many become one and are increased by one"; "the creative advance into novelty") puts time at the heart of the system.² Temporality is Whitehead’s solution to the problem of relating the One and the Many.

What is more, by insisting on speaking of time as in actual occasions rather than actual occasions being in time, Whitehead makes it possible to speak of the experience of time. Whitehead holds that time is not simply a theoretical construct or inference; we do in fact experience time. We see this in his discussion of perception in the mode of causal efficacy. Whitehead says of this mode that it

Whitehead, of course, is speaking here of our root experience of causality (against Hume). It is at the same time, though, an account of our primitive experience of time -- of sheer temporality, of derivation from the past and passage towards the future.

At first glance, this account of the experience of time as the experience of the temporality of the present may look like a "solipsism of the present moment," especially when we add to this Whitehead’s theory of the atomicity of actual occasions with its epochal theory of time. Since actual occasions do not move, there is no enduring subject which is traveling through time. But we must remember that the experience of the present is in part the experience of derivation. Actual occasions do not simply experience themselves, they experience themselves as systems of relations to past actual occasions. These relations involve the actual occasions with the time which preceded them and therefore in the flow of time.

We can see, then, that Whitehead’s system can give an account of the experience of time. But how does this help us explain our experience of "slow time" and "fast time’? If temporality is the most fundamental character of each and every actual occasion, should we not experience time as flowing equably? To say this, though, is to forget that an actual occasion is, in Whitehead’s system, more than the sum of its relations. Besides having a conformal phase (or "physical pole") in which it inherits, every actual occasion has a supplemental phase (or "mental pole") in which freedom and novelty are real possibilities. Whitehead says of these poles

This passage is usually cited in discussions of the epochal theory of time but I believe it also speaks to the experience of time. The conformal phase involves the actual occasion in relations and therefore in time; the supplemental phase does not. The supplemental phase can be trivial (as in the societies of actual occasions that make up atoms) or it can be dominant (as in thought or fantasy). To put it simply, actual occasions are always related to past actual occasions but these relations may be more or less important for present experience. This means that experience may be more or less temporal, more or less "time rich." For an account of experience in which these relations have faded drastically, we can cite Whitehead on percepta in the mode of presentational immediacy:

Now, to speak of conscious human experience in Whiteheadian categories is to speak of a regnant nexus of actual occasions which are enjoying rich supplemental phases. Conscious experience of time is therefore far from a pure experience of temporality (just as it is far from a pure experience of causality). Consciousness is, compared to "lower" forms of experience in the world, relatively "time poor." But it is not utterly devoid of time since derivation (conformal phases) still plays a role. And because consciousness is not a simple phenomenon but admits of differences, of "levels" of consciousness, of more or less complex supplemental phases, our conscious experience can be more or less temporal.

Given this understanding of the nature and experience of time, I will now venture a Whiteheadian account of the phenomenon "slow time"/ "fast time": When the physical pole of the occasions in one’s regnant nexus becomes more dominant than usual, one is more enmeshed in relationships and therefore in time. Time crawls. When, on the other hand, the mental pole becomes more dominant than usual, one is freer from conformation to relationships and therefore from time. Time flies. To paraphrase the cliche quoted earlier in this paper, time flies when your regnant nexus is enjoying especially rich supplemental phases.

With this proposed explanation in hand, let us return to the data, our concrete experiences of "slow time" and "fast time," to check its adequacy. We have noted already that time seems to move slowly when one is in pain. The proposed explanation seems to work very well here. For pain does appear to be experience in which the physical pole is dominant in the occasions of the regnant nexus. Pain is the experience of derivation in the extreme (no one with a burned hand or cracked ribs can take seriously Hume’s doubts about causality). When we turn to boredom, another experience of "slow time," the explanation again seems adequate. But here the physical pole is dominant not because of its unusual strength but because it does not supply the rich and vivid contrasts necessary for a strong mental pole to develop. One could differentiate pain and boredom by saying that in the former, the experience flooding into the present moment is so insistent as to prevent the higher levels of consciousness from emerging while in the latter, experience gives no occasion for those higher levels. In either case, the end result is weak supplemental phases, lower levels of consciousness and "slow time."

Our proposed explanation can also help us make sense of the experience of the general acceleration of time as one grows older. It would seem reasonable to hold that as one grows up, as one’s brain develops and becomes more complex (a process which does not end with physical maturity but continues through life) and as one accumulates a wealth of memory against which one can compare and contrast present experience, the mental poles of the occasions of one’s regnant nexus would become generally stronger. Piaget and others have made us very aware that the mind is not simply there with all its powers at the beginning of life, needing only data on which to work. Rather, the mind develops, following a predictable path from lower to higher abstractions. The experience and thought forms of children are very different from those of adults. It is interesting to note in this regard that much of what Whitehead says of perception in the mode of causal efficacy applies especially well to childhood experience. For whom is it more true than for children that "an inhibition of familiar sensa is very apt to leave us a prey to vague terrors respecting a circumambient world of causal operations" (PR 176/267)? Children experience time as moving slowly because they generally live at a less abstract and complex level of consciousness than do adults.

What, then, can we say about the experience common among the elderly, especially those in nursing homes, that the rate of time seems to slow down radically? In some cases this is due to degeneration of the brain (with the consequent impoverishment of supplemental phases). In other cases, the increasing level of pain and/or boredom inhibits supplemental phases.

The relevance of our proposed explanation to the experience of time rushing by when one is thinking is immediately obvious. For Whitehead, in his attacks on any simple-minded panpsychism or subjective idealism, made clear again and again that thought is a rare thing in the universe and is possible only when actual occasions have very complex supplemental phases. The purer, more abstract and more complicated the thought, the less it is in time.

The situation is more difficult when we turn to another common example of "fast time" -- the experience of pleasure. One might expect, given our proposed explanation, that pleasure would engender the feeling of "slow time." After all, is not pleasure, like pain, primarily an experience of derivation, of inheritance? Isn’t it a case of experience where the physical pole is dominant?

But perhaps the difficulty here is only apparent. For much that we call pleasure is actually the relief or termination of pain. Moreover, pleasurable stimuli function differently than do painful ones. A pleasurable stimulus is typically pleasant only briefly whereas a painful one can remain bothersome for long stretches of time (indeed, for years). The more the "volume" of a painful stimulus increases, the greater the pain, whereas pleasurable stimuli can, with an increase in "volume," cease to be pleasant and can even become painful. Perhaps we can summarize the difference between pleasure and pain thus -- while painful stimuli demand our attention and thus inhibit supplemental phases, pleasurable stimuli are feelings which invite further complex feeling. Indeed, pleasure can be a highly intellectual phenomenon (witness the joy one can take in savoring the intricacies of a fugue or the complex allusions and metaphors of a poem).

Let us turn our attention to yet another example of "slow time"/ "fast time." When I drive somewhere for the first time and then drive there again on another occasion, I have the distinct sensation that the trip is much shorter the second time. Wouldn’t the Whiteheadian explanation here proposed lead us to expect the opposite since during the first trip I am especially alert mentally and during the second I am more relaxed?

Why does repetition change the experience of time? Why, in particular, does it make for "fast time"? Do we not have to turn to the previously discussed psychological explanation (i.e., I am more anxious -- an unpleasant state which I wish would end -- during the first trip) in order to account for this phenomenon? But consider another example of repetition: I purchase a recording of a concerto by C. P. E. Bach, a concerto I have never before heard. When I return home, I listen to this recording and thoroughly enjoy it. Later I play it again and once more relish it, only this time the concerto seems to take less time. It is difficult to see how the psychological explanation could apply here since both playings are pleasurable and on neither occasion am I anxious.

If we turn back to the Whiteheadian explanation proposed above, we can account for both sets of data as long as we remember that degrees of alertness do not measure degrees of consciousness (witness the absent minded professor, "lost in thought"). When one is experiencing something for the first time, one is too busy paying attention to be able to form the most complex supplementary phases. It is repetition with the anticipation it makes possible that frees us from the tyranny of the present and creates the conditions for the highest levels of consciousness. Repetition makes for "fast time" because it gives the mind room to play.

There are, of course, many other examples of the variable rate of lived time. Readers are invited to reflect on their own temporal experiences in order to test further the thesis here proposed. I will conclude my testing in this essay with a hard case -- the extreme "slow time" of dreams.

When I wake with the alarm and shut it off, I sometimes fall immediately back to sleep and enter a dream. In the dream I may set out on a journey across a mountain range only to encounter tremendous difficulties -- my car breaks down; I set out on foot but I find myself caught in a blizzard; I struggle to a cabin where I meet strange folk and have long, convoluted conversations; long hours, even days pass. And then suddenly I am jerked awake by the snooze alarm. A mere ten minutes of clock time have elapsed.

Time experience in dreams may well seem to pose insuperable difficulties for my account of temporal experience. After all, "dream time" is the slowest of all human experiences of time and yet at the same time dreams are highly mental. They occur when a person is in a state of extreme sensory deprivation. In other words, in dreams a person is radically unrelated to the world. Would not our proposed thesis lead us to expect dreams to be "fast time" experiences?

Of utterly key importance here is that we understand Whitehead’ s distinction between the "physical" and the "mental" poles of an occasion. Nothing but confusion results if we simply apply the common meanings of these two terms when we use them in the context of his metaphysic. For Whitehead, the physical and the mental are not two kinds of stuff in the world. Rather, they are two different activities within each actual occasion. The distinction physical/mental does not apply to the contents of experience but rather to the ways contents are experienced. The experience of any actual occasion is "physical" insofar as it is derivative from other actual occasions; it is "mental" insofar as it supplements, shapes and alters that derivative experience. This means that mentality cannot be inherited; it can only be occasioned, for what is "mental" in one occasion becomes "physical" for its successors.

With this clarification made, it is obvious that even though dream experience is highly mental in that it has no immediate cause outside the cranium, it can be understood as very physical in Whitehead’s terms. As long as the occasions of the regnant nexus are primarily inheriting and only weakly supplementing, their experience is predominantly physical. It does not matter from where they receive experience. Whether it be from a chain of occasions originating in the sun, from a chain constituting a memory or from the chain which is the regnant nexus, inheritance is inheritance is inheritance.

Indeed, dreams seem not only to involve "slow time," they are also what I shall call "physical pole heavy." Whitehead’ s description of perception in the mode of causal efficacy already cited seems especially appropriate to dreams. In the Land of Nod there are most certainly "vague presences, doubtfully feared." Here the percepta are "vague, not to be controlled, heavy with emotion." In dreams we are not abstract observers surveying experience dispassionately nor are we like the active fantasizer who constructs a world. Rather, we suffer (in the older, broader sense of the word) experience and usually that experience has an odd, disjointed logic. One could describe a dream in Whiteheadian categories as follows: our regnant nexus "drifts" relatively aimlessly in the non-social nexus which is its environment, inheriting in a more or less random fashion. Its supplemental phases are not utterly trivial, for then it would be unconscious, but they are of a low grade, too low to effectively "steer" the regnant nexus.

Whether or not this description is itself accurate, it seems clear that dreams involve a low form of consciousness.³ Therefore, the fact that they are extreme examples of "slow time" fits with the thesis here proposed, namely, that the more dominant the physical pole of the occasions in one’s regnant nexus, the more enmeshed one is in relationships and thus in time.

This essay has in no way been an exhaustive analysis of all manifestations of "fast time" and "slow time." It has, though, shown the real promise of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism to make sense of our experience of time and its apparently variable rate. This is admittedly a very small piece of the puzzle which is human experience. But a philosophy, if it is to earn our trust, must be able to address the "small" as well as the "large" questions. One of the strong attractions of Whitehead’s philosophy is that it can indeed "speak of many things" -- of cabbages as well as kings.

References

C -- Augustine. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Trans. Rex Warner. New York: New American Library, 1963.

MP -- Isaac Newton. The Mathematical Principal of Natural Philosophy. Trans. Andrew Motte. New York: Daniel Adee, 1846.

WPT -- William Hammerschmidt. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Time. New York: Penguin, 1961.

Notes

1 See David Sipfle, "On the Intelligibility of the Epochal Theory of Time," The Monist, 53, 1969, p. 509; Robert Palter, Whitehead’s Philosophy of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p.7.

2 David Mason has pointed out the similarity between Whitehead and Heidegger in their emphasis on temporality. See his article, "Time in Whitehead and Heidegger: Some Comparisons," Process Studies, Vol. 5, No, 2 (Summer, 1975), pp. 83-105.

3 This appears to find confirmation in sleep research which has found that newborn humans spend about eight to nine hours per day in REM sleep whereas adults spend only one to two hours per day in that state. For discussions of the research, see David Cohen, Sleep and Dreaming (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), pp. 47-54; William Dement, Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep (San Francisco: San Francisco Book Company, 1976). p. 30.

Whitehead describes a form for the realization or actualization of a concrete occasion as an object which is abstracted from time. This phenomenon, in his terminology, is an ‘eternal object’ which ‘ingresses’ into an actual occasion. The focus of this paper will be on the nature of this primary structure by which experience is unified, that which is the ‘how’ and the formal ‘what’ of the process of being. This nature is to be found in the ideal patterns which Whitehead indicated with the term ‘eternal object.’

I.

Dance forms are a useful analogy for illustrating the characteristics of eternal objects. These ideal sets of patterns may be represented in a most graphic and satisfying way by a square dance. In this art form, which is the national folk dance of the United States, a process occurs that is dynamic and creative and yet relies on the presence of ideal patterns for its actuality. Whitehead’s sense of beauty would surely have been satisfied by the visual variations in the changing squares which are actualizations of many sets of mathematical patterns and possibilities.

In a square dance, each square is comprised of four couples who respond to the directions of a caller. The dance is a process of varying patterns of interaction among the eight people within the square and occasionally among sixteen people in two squares, thirty-two people in four squares, and soon. No one knows the pattern to be danced in the next minute until the caller sings the call. The creating and creative process is like a kaleidoscope: each new pattern actualized by the dance comes from, includes, works into itself all former patterns and anticipates all future patterns within the dance occasions.

The caller almost always (unless planning to teach a new design) sings a call known to everyone. But each time it is danced, it begins from a new position, that is, the dancers are coming into the new pattern from a different pattern than that in which they began the last time they heard it called. In addition, the dancers will have rotated positions, changed partners, and begun from different positions in relation to each other.

During the dancing of the major pattern, the interaction among the two, two and four, four and six, two and six, four and eight, and so on, is in continual variance. And even these variations within the pattern differ according to whether the caller is calling in East Coast or West Coast style, Appalachian or formal tradition, or whether he or she is experienced in working with the patterns. If the caller is not experienced, some of the patterns will abort and dancers end up walking around unconnected and confused because the internal relationships of the developing form have been misdirected. This does not follow Whitehead’s thought precisely, as he would say that internal relationships are a result of prehensions which are not directions, but this objection will be considered later.

Viewers of the dance also are related to it as the visual patterns become part of their memory from observation and as the costumes and personalities of the dancers are experienced in the initiating of varying new patterns of pleasurable or unpleasurable response.

Most dancers know 300 to 4(n) calls, each of which is a pattern comprised of between 2 and 64 steps to be danced per minute. Because of the variations possible, every dance is a new creation in the interaction of the dancers; the internal relations are never the same. Even if a particular pattern of major complexity were attempted with the same people, the same calls in the same order, the same costumes, the same caller, and so on, there would be no way to guarantee that it could be danced in exactly the same pattern. If it were merely a matter of external relations, that is, relations between patterns within patterns, perhaps such exact repeatability could be accomplished. But it isn’t. The timing could be made close, but not exact. The agility of each dancer would be better or worse than the last time or the time before. So, while the major pattern, that is, the calls as they are in themselves and as they relate to each other sequentially during the whole dance may be the same from dance event to dance event, the individual instantiation (actual occasion) will be different in that a new creation is displayed by the interaction of the dancers in the uniqueness of the occasion.

The difference in the pattern display might be unnoticeable to most observers. They are often in the prehensions of the dancers themselves. Such information as the fact that dancer P forgets his right from his left occasionally will be prehended, at a subconscious level most likely, by his corner dancer Q. It is a prehension in that it is an integral part, a necessary causal relation, which results in a new aspect of the pattern. Dancer Q will then modify the pattern between them by reaching first for dancer P’s right arm when the call requires a right allemande instead of waiting for him to meet her halfway. If she were to wait for the period of his hesitation, the timing of the next step would be delayed also. So she will modify her response in the immediate relation to dancer P as well as in subsequent relations. The adaptation to his hesitation then creates a new subpattern between them.

This simple analogy shows all of the characteristics of an eternal object as it is displayed in an instantiation. Since an eternal object is that pattern which brings value or intrinsic reality to an event, it gives the happening an end by making the event an end in itself. As a pattern, a form can also be classified teleologically, that is, according to its ends. First, it is for-itself in that it has an individual essence that is not dependent for its makeup on any other pattern. Second, it is for-others in that it forms the actual occasion by ingression. Third, it is for-the-whole of all relations, the totality of both possibility and actuality in that it has internal relations (of segments of the pattern during the instantiation as it ingresses in actual occasions) and external relations (to, in the close perspective, some other eternal objects). The result of these further relations to other eternal objects is the expression (and, perhaps, formation) of yet another more complex eternal object. This hierarchy of complexity continues until the one most complex unity is reached. This is not a formation of completely novel patterns, but rather of increasingly complex unities of eternal objects in novel patterns of external relatedness.

II.

Before we can explore how the square dance can help us understand eternal objects, we need to examine their nature in some detail. This section will catalogue ten characteristics which specify an eternal object, while the next will show how these characteristics are illustrated in the dance.

I) Potentiality/possibility.

Kraus explains this as part of the relational essence of an eternal object which includes "the indefinite plurality of relations which constitute the status of the eternal object in the realm of possibility" (ME 34).

2) Formality.

Kraus says that eternal objects "form the patterns structuring concrete fact" and "the forms structuring the togetherness of data into a datum of experience -- eternal objects in Whitehead’s language -- are given for all times in ordered, intelligible, interrelated sets like mathematical systems" (ME 30).

3) Relationality.

Kraus says that "insofar as eternal objects are related as foci of their internal relations, these relational patterns are uniform schemes -- matrices of relations demanding of their relata only that they have the characteristics pertinent to their particular position in the scheme" (ME 34).

4) Uniqueness.

Kraus does not comment on this point, but its meaning is relatively clear. An eternal object as an abstract possibility has not come to reality until instantiated in the actual occasion. It becomes part of the occasion in a way that no other eternal object can while, at the same time, retaining its own mode of relating.

5) An element of associated hierarchy.

Following a complex description of the nature of associated hierarchy, Whitehead says, "This associated hierarchy is the shape, or pattern, or form, of the occasion in so far as the occasion is constituted of what enters into its full realization" (SMW 170).

6) Renders decision possible.

Kraus says that "realization therefore implies decision -- the selection of relevant eternal objects to be embodied and the rejection of others" (ME 32).

7) Pattern.

Kraus explains this: "any actual entity as an event is a patterned interfusion of all other events and that eternal objects are the abstract patterns making that interfusion possible" (ME 31).

8) Ingression.

Kraus elaborates:

and

9) Repeatability.

It is also an attempt to explain how ‘intrinsic essence’ lends value to an event:

Kraus explains this repeatability of eternal objects as the basis for enduring objects:

10) Independence of space/time.

and

And, again, "the metaphysical status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for an actuality" (5MW 159). It is form, a noninstantiated pattern which is partially determinate. Kraus elaborates on this point:

III.

Returning to the square dance analogy, it is possible to look more closely at the eternal objects of the calls as instantiated in these dance formations. The dance itself which can be called D_n is the actuality which is the realization of the pattern according to the S_n sequence in which it is danced. It is a particular pattern composed of X_n calls in Y_n extension of space with a duration of Z_n. If D _n were X₅ calls in Y₆ extension of space with a duration of Z₇, and if the sequence S were the same, the major pattern (D_n,) consisting of X₅ calls in the sequence S₁ would comprise the pattern. This same pattern could be instantiated, or realized, in Y₈ or Y₉ extension of space and Z₇ or Z₁₄ duration. The variations here are obvious. The potentiality of actualizing in D,, the pattern of X₅ calls in sequence S₁ is (Y_n + Z_n)n. In other words, there are at least as many variations in the possibility of realization of the basic pattern as there are possibilities of the variations of space extension and time durations in which the pattern may ingress. Other variations depend on the prior internal relations, the external relations between patterns, and on the nature of the particulars which make up the process.¹

Let us take, then, the basic pattern of X₅S₁ as the eternal object which is potential until the dance being called brings it to realization in D_n dancers. It is formal in that, without it the dancers would be still, quiet, without any ongoing relation to each other and to the dance as a whole as well as to all other dances, and soon. They would aimlessly or with new purpose informed by other patterns move away from the square taking on other extensions of space -- talking with friends, pouring coffee, picking up coats to go home. The pattern of the calls is what brings value or intrinsic reality to the event making the dance what it is, an actual occasion which has itself for an end.

So, the teleological aspects of an eternal object are clearly exhibited in the analogy of the square dance. The end-for-itselfness of the potential D_n pattern is indicated in that X₅S₁ can be called in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Nashville for children or teens or adults, for dancers of any combination of abilities. It can be called at half speed for new dancers or triple speed for those who want a challenge. Yet in all these instances it still remains X₅S₁.

The characteristics of potentiality/possibility (1), formality (2), unique individuality (4), pattern (7), and independence of space/time (10) are displayed and can be seen from this focus. Potentiality/possibility and formality are present in the fact that without the dancers and the music, the X5S1 pattern has no actuality. It is merely a set of relationships between different directions for movements and it has only an ideal form until it is vocalized, heard, responded to. It is empty until the dancers supply the content. The possibilities for content are signified by (Y_n + Z_n)n as well as by the variations in dancers, costumes, music available, callers, and so on. But X₅S₁ does not need (X₅ + Z_n) to remain X₅S₁.

If X₅S₁ is to display itself in its for-otherness aspect, the process of gaining actuality will bring into play the second set of characteristics: non-unique relational essence (3), element of associated hierarchy (5), rendering of possibility of decision (6), ingression (8), and repeatability (9).

First, the caller selects pattern X₅ rather than X₆ or X₇ or X₈. In order to put the sequence together so that it can be danced, he chooses the calls named ‘daisy chain,’ ‘ocean wave,’ and ‘grand square.’ He decides not to use ‘load the boat’ and ‘half tag.’ As each of these calls is a subpattern in itself, the caller has chosen the particular sub-patterns applicable and arranged them in degree of importance for the dance. Their associative hierarchy is not, of course, dependent on the caller’s decision. It is determined by the possibility inherent in their potential relations with all the variables inherent in the actual occasion. The fact that only certain sets of these relations between calls will form a dance which continues without interruption accounts for the non-unique relational essence. The internal consistency of the pattern lies in the fact that the caller cannot call both ‘daisy chain’ and ‘load the boat’ if a workable pattern is to be executed.

That aspect of the eternal object which is its for-the-world perspective is also indicated by the characteristics of non-unique relational essence (3), element of associative hierarchy (5), pattern (7), and repeatability (9). In our analogy, the pattern X₅S₁ is related to all other X_n S_n patterns in the square dance realm (as analogous to the concrete world). The decision on the relevance of the patterns is determined by the level of ability of the dancers, the size of the group, the size of the dance floor. the music available, and so on. X_n S_n patterns are weighed against each other for positive or negative relevance, that is, suitability to the particular dance specified as (Y_n+ Z_n)n + (A_n + B_n+ C_n. . . N_n).

So, in this particular dance, the pattern of five specific calls (X₅) is to be executed in the sequence of ‘right allemande,’ ‘left allemande,’ ‘dosey-do,’ ‘ocean wave,’ and ‘daisy chain’ (S₁). (A different set of calls might be X₈ and a different sequence of the same set might be X₅S₂). The particulars are Y / space and Z / time as well as A / ability of the dancers, B / music, C / location in the country, D / size of the group, and so on. An X₅S₁ pattern might work well if called at normal speed (Z₁) for a group of six squares on a large dance floor (Y₁) when the dancers are at an advanced level of ability (A ₁). If there were twenty squares on the same size dance floor (Y₂) and the dancers were of intermediate ability (A₂), the caller would need to weigh that in any choice of calls. The pattern chosen might then be X₃S₂ to be called at half speed (Z₂).

The repeatability characteristic is exhibited in the fact that, even though the circumstances may change, the X_nS_n pattern will be included in the possibilities and weighed each time for positive or negative suitability in the new dance process. It is sometimes the case that X₅S₁, for instance, is sung by a caller on two different evenings to two different musical backgrounds. It is never the same dance, but it is a repetition of the pattern in a non-unique relational essence.

Although it offers a graphic understanding of the characteristics and teleology of Whitehead’s eternal objects, the square dance analogy could be said to fail beyond this point. It appears to have a mechanistic aspect in that the caller makes decisions which are weighed in his or her limited, human mind. In ingression, it is the nature of the eternal object as hierarchically related to all other eternal objects and as it is in itself which lures the particulars of the actual occasion in process as it informs them. This formation process of the actual entity by ingression of one or more related eternal objects is self-creative rather than other-directed.

It may, however, be possible to answer this objection by saying that the lure of the most appropriate eternal object or set of appropriately eternal objects for the present actual occasion is itself an eternal object, one in process as are the relationships of rational thinking itself. It is the subjective form with which that eternal object is prehended. This leads to a modification of Whitehead’s notion of eternal objects, one in which the subject/object distinction is overcome even at the initial level of formation. The possibility of such a notion has been implied in this paper, but the development will be left to another time.

References

ME -- Kraus, Elizabeth. The Metaphysics of Experience: A Companion to Whitehead’s Process and Reality. New York: Fordham University Press, 1979.

SMW---Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World. New York: The Free Press, 1925.

Notes

1For clarification, designations are as follows.

D_n -- actual occasion: dance pattern as instantiated whole with X_n, Y_n, Z_n in S_n.

X_nS_n -- eternal object: specific calls, specific number of calls, specific sequencer – potential dance pattern.

X_n -- specific number and designation of calls: one set of relations in the potential dance pattern (EO).

S_n -- specific sequence: another set of relations in the potential dance pattern (EO).

Y_n -- extension of space in pattern instantiation.

Z_n -- extension or time in pattern instantiation.

This essay traces the course of a correspondence between Edgar Sheffield Brightman (1884-1953) and Charles Hartshorne (born 1897) over a ten year period beginning in 1934. Brightman taught philosophy at Boston University and Hartshorne philosophy at the University of Chicago. This correspondence is significant for two main reasons. First, it has not been documented before. Second, and more importantly for researchers, it shows that though there is much in common between the two men their thought failed to converge on fundamental issues. As will be seen there was a basic divide in their metaphysical understanding, despite their urgent seeking for common ground.

Our discussion of their thought on epistemology and the metaphysics of God will expose this divide.

The correspondence which is the subject of this examination is held in the Brightman Archive at the Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University. The author is grateful for the permission granted him by the library authorities to research the Archive.

Most of the letters through the ten year period were typewritten. Brightman used his secretaries who included file references in the script. Hartshorne, it would seem, did his own (much untidier) typing and of the two dispatched the longer letters. Hartshorne added copious marginal, head and tail notes often in longhand, which is difficult to read. By and large the correspondence is substantially complete -- indicating, at least, a thoroughness in Brightman’s office management.

The correspondence began (despite my immediately previous remarks) with a now lost or uncopied note and some articles from Brightman. Hartshorne acknowledges these on Oct. 18, 1934:

He goes on to remark that the only thing that seriously worries him in Brightman’s philosophy, "is the idea that other selves are merely inferred but never given." By saying this Hartshorne is challenging the fundamental axiom around which Brightman’s whole philosophical system revolves. This is his concept of the person. Without injustice to the magnitude of Brightman’s writing on the person his position can be readily summarized.

Brightman considers that each person is defined by an immediate awareness or experience that characterizes that person alone. One cannot have direct experience of another, but another’s existence may be inferred as a reasonable hypothesis to account for the coming and going, and for influences upon personal experience. This immediate experience of the person is connected to past and future by memory and anticipation.

Over against this Hartshorne expressed his own belief that, "literal participation in each other’s being is about my strongest belief," though he did grant "that other human selves are, for practical purposes known indirectly." He asks, "are we not parts of each other, members of one another?" Souls for Hartshorne, "literally overlap, and some cement is needed to bind them together, and what binds them must itself overlap." We need not trouble here with Hartshorne’s definition of the soul, except to say that in the context of this correspondence it may be taken synonymously with that which he calls the "self."

In his letter of December 10, 1934 Brightman shares Hartshorne’s worry, "that other selves are merely inferred but never given," and goes on to present his own empiricist colors "I’d like to be able to make sense out of the idea of a literal participation in other selves . . . whenever I try, I find myself landed in contradiction, in epistemological chaos, and in unfaithfulness to experience . . . ." Brightman’s argument is that any "intuition" (for him a synonym for "experience"), "is exclusively a member of me," but the object of that intuition is "always problematic and distinct from the conscious experience which refers to it." He offers an illustration: "I cannot say that the flower is the same as the soil . . . which nourishes it." For Brightman a sharp epistemological dualism separates cause from effects. However urgent the necessity of the relationship of effect upon its cause, this relatedness implies otherness, not absorption.

Brightman argues that a statement from Hartshorne’s letter, "other persons are necessary to my existence . . . and hence can be inferred from my existence" and that "necessary to my being and part of my being are the same," seems to Brightman "to surrender the empirical and psychological to the logical too completely." Brightman makes, "a sharp distinction between my actual self and its causes."

Hartshorne’s comment, in an untidy reply (February 10, 1935) upon Brightman’s position is that he seems to, "presuppose the logic of absolute differences even while arguing for a particular application of that logic." He goes on:

By ‘given’ both mean the direct experience of oneself in personal experience. Hartshorne’s view is that the givenness of one’s own personal experience and that of others is distinguished only by a difference of degree. He defined ‘sociality’ as a "sharing of creative experience." He considered that "Human neighbors are mostly imagined and inferred, but then so is my own self, very little of which is distinctly intuited at any moment. Degrees of vagueness in intuition are vital to the [i.e., Hartshorne’s] doctrine." Hartshorne’s effort in presenting his case to Brightman is to attempt to explain the distinction "between a thing and its causes." He believes it is a distinction to be explained and not to be taken as ultimate. This last is Brightman’s stance. Hartshorne’s explanation is that of Whitehead:

How does Brightman respond? He does so briefly (May 30, 1935) by restating his own position. namely, that immediate experience ("givenness") is a "unique, irreducible, brute fact." For Brightman there is an "absolute difference . . . between what is given as myself . . . and all other selves." Brightman refuses to admit that because "my own past and future have to be inferred (this) does not place them in the same category as other selves." He continues "they (-- my past and future --) are inferred as what has been or will be given to a self which experiences itself as the same as the other self of the specious present." Hartshorne’s closing remarks in his previous letter that the differences between them are "partly verbal" sounds gravely inadequate as Brightman challenges a fundamental move offered by Hartshorne:

Thus Brightman distinguishes other selves (within which category he includes one’s own physical make-up) from inferences about the past and future of one’s own self because these inferences concern immediate experiences (either actual or hypothetical) of one’s own self alone. By this move Brightman attempts to reinforce his absolute distinction between the experiencer and other selves (including one’s own body) as the object of that experiencing.

Hartshorne, each time he replies to Brightman, tries to move him away from his "absolute" bifurcation of experience and its object. His statements "are all acceptable" (Dec. 22, 1938) and the distinction between the two becomes "technical," "not so substantial," (Jan. 30, 1938); "purely verbal" (July 31, 1937).

There is some correspondence missing between 1935 and 1938, but an interesting point to note is that, though Hartshorne replies to Brightman’s letter of May 30, 1935 on July 19. 1935, he writes on Dec. 22, 1938 apologizing for not having replied to Brightman’s letter of "three years ago." The content of Hartshorne’s letter make it quite clear he is referring to Brightman’s of May 30, 1935! Evidently he has forgotten the interim communications. Thus, even though there are gaps in the Archive between 1935 and 1938, the correspondence is resumed in 1938 as though there were not.

Hartshorne (Dec. 22, 1938) develops his argument that in experience there are gradations of awareness, such that in experience "faintly given is the whole past, including the past of other individuals, particularly those composing the body." In an earlier letter (July 19, 1938) he cites a link with Leibniz’s "gradations of awareness" to indicate the intellectual origin of his own position. For Hartshorne past presents, though given in the present, are "nevertheless past because they are the less definite parts of the present." The presence of future experiences in the present similarly fall into place in this gradational scheme. Thus the immediate moment of experience, the specious present, includes all the preceding presents of the self but the succeeding ones only in the vague outline constitutive of futurity. In this way past, present and future experiences all form part of the self "givenness of past in present is what is meant by the endurance of the ‘identical’ self." In an interesting aside he remarks that this view was the "crowning achievement of ANW."

Developing this theme Hartshorne considers that other selves are also "integral to my present in that theirs has to enter into it." In this sense he contends "I am identical not only with my past self but with other past selves. But not in the same degree and pattern." Our observations concerning Hartshorne’s view of gradations of experience would lead us to expect such words from him. He explains that consistent with this metaphysics, "Empirical facts easily distinguish my past from yours." Thus "The own-self is the only individual distinctly given." Other selves, though given, are "made much more distinct . . . [by] inference and imagination . . . than the self."

Hartshorne’s objection to Brightman resides in the latter’s insistence that whilst other selves are "necessary to" (January 30, 1938) my experience they are not "part" of it. Hartshorne knows of no difference between these "in the broadest logical sense." In experience, "what is given" to two people, say, is the same, and what "is given to you is itself, with some grade of relevance or vividness, given to me." Hartshorne describes (Dec. 22, 1938) this "feeling by one feeler of the feeling of another" as "love in one aspect" (also Feb. 10, 1935). It involves "duplication of states with differences of distinctiveness between individuals." It is precisely this area that Brightman cannot accept: "Distinctions of clarity and faintness in the given . . . [are valid] to the limit" (January 1, 1939). But he argues that his "knowledge of the past (does not) correspond to the vague areas of consciousness." He goes on:

Thus far the differences between Brightman and Hartshorne may seem to be relatively resolvable by more appropriate vocabulary. But such ready resolution is not available:

Brightman then is interpreting Hartshorne’s own understanding of gradations of experience in the terms of his own metaphysical framework where "given" means literal content of experience. Brightman can make no sense of Hartshorne’s statement that "faintly given is the whole past." How can it and "the past of other individuals" be faintly given, asks Brightman? Most of these past experiences of other selves will not be given at all to me, he argues. They cannot constitute a "given" to me when I am not conscious of them. To interpret "given" in the way he sees Hartshorne doing is to say that "a given is not a given." Thus, "your view must take as a postulate that there is a faint givenness, so faint that it is for the most part totally absent from the given."

Brightman is on strong ground, at least empirically speaking. If something is in one’s consciousness, one will have experience of it -- it will be "given" in experience. In other words, if this something’s presence is so faint as to be incapable of experience then what sense is there in saying it is given in experience? Why not say it is absent? Hartshorne’s panpsychism seems to require him to take his concept of the participation of selves in one another to speculative limits that seem, to Brightman, empirically indefensible.

Brightman enlarges upon his criticism of Hartshorne by referring to his own interpretation of interaction. For there to be interaction, it "is meaningless unless two beings are involved." How can there be two beings if they participate in one another’s being? This would be Brightman’s question, and it reminds us of his earlier refusal to admit identity of a cause with its effect and vice versa. For Brightman individuality of selves is fundamental. But being an individual in no way implies an inability to interact with other individuals. Using Leibnizian language he writes:

In his reply (May 8, 1939) Hartshorne writes, "I understand better now why you are so interested in maintaining a distinction between what is necessary to and what is part of a thing."

The force of Brightman’s challenge has brought about the need for a precision of reply from Hartshorne that hitherto has been lacking. Much the more diffuse of the two in style, Hartshorne offers the following (in the same letter) both to meet this requirement and to make his position more clear vis a vis Brightman’s:

He adds:

This will satisfy Brightman’s insistence on the uniqueness and irreducibility of persons. Hartshorne’s comments are also intended to go some way towards rapprochement of their interpretations of the ways that the self is an individual in interaction with others. But is what Hartshorne saying sufficient? An initial reading of Brightman’s reply might lead us to think it might be. Indeed, for the first time, he writes, "It almost seems to me as though our difference were more verbal than real" (May 12, 1939). But further reading leads us to conclude that these opening remarks were based more on rhetorical enthusiasm than on sound reason. Brightman writes:

This counters Hartshorne’s position directly. Brightman adds:

At an earlier point in this letter he writes, helpfully developing the implications of his dualist empiricism:

At this juncture the correspondence lapsed for three years. It is therefore an appropriate point to offer an interim conclusion. We have here two thinkers in the idealist, theistic Christian and process traditions of philosophy, both earnestly wishing to seek and achieve agreement. But both seem separated (despite earnest goodwill that was not to last) in their respective epistemologies by the ancient chasm of dualism and monism. For these two men convergence in this historic area proved as impossible in 1939 as it was to later in 1944.

Their letters from 1942 are more convoluted and to a degree more confused. Their presentation becomes more voluminous and passionate as they engage each other in a number of areas. Of necessity we shall be selective.

In what we can call the second phase of their correspondence issues that remain from the first re-emerge. They do so, however, with a turn in direction. Theistic material is introduced. On Jan. 22, 1942 Hartshorne wrote to Brightman replying to the latter’s review of Moral Values and the Idea of God. In the relevant section of his letter for our present purposes he discussed Brightman’s criticisms of his treatment of part and whole. He begins, "I still think that it is untenable to infer from, x includes y and all its properties, that x has as its own all the properties of y. Hartshorne applies this to his doctrine of God. For him, since all individuals are part of the deity, it follows that God also has these beliefs as part of his whole. So "the actively erroneous beliefs are ‘included in’ God but are God’s only in the sense of beliefs he includes, not those he believes." In the relevant section of his own reply Brightman does little more than restate his refusal to identify content of experience with the object to which that experience testifies. Thus in Hartshorne’s terms of reference Brightman writes, "I cannot believe that God’s knowledge of me is ontologically identical with my actual being for myself."

Equally including volition in one’s experience, "is not necessarily in all cases to will in the ways in question." He adds, "One may suffer the volitions of others as parts of one’s being, but not one’s own volitions, except in the sense in which the smallness of a part belongs to a large whole. Not merely is the volition not all of the whole’s volition, it is not its at all in the same sense or mode as it is the volition of the part." Relating this to God this means he "feels our volitions directly, and they are parts of him, as that to which one is passive is a part of the passive state, logically inseparable from its being as a whole." He makes what he believes is a concession to Brightman:

This he distinguishes from volition, "To feel the suffering of others is to suffer whereas to feel the volitions of others is not to will them." How does Brightman respond? In a letter of September 25, 1942 he writes, "I agree entirely with all that you say about parts and wholes. I also grant that there are the different modes of inherence to which you hold." So far, so good. But for Brightman the vital point now emerges": "If a belief inheres in God without his believing it and the same belief inheres in me while believing it, everything is hunky-dory [sic]."

Brightman accepts that much of what Hartshorne says is not in dispute: "There is no contradiction in saying that parts are small and the whole is great, or even that parts are bad and the whole good." But he is still in dispute with Hartshorne on the content of the divine mind and the human mind: "there is contradiction in declaring that a perfect mind entertains contradictory beliefs about the same belief." Our own reading of these letters leads to the impression that Brightman has not taken Hartshorne’s point nor yet has he even answered his criticisms. This too is Hartshorne’s own impression, who "still can’t see [Brightman’s] vital point as a point":

This is essentially a restatement of Hartshorne’s position, noted above, that "God has the activity of my belief as an activity of his part, but this is passivity of himself, as a whole, to the part, and thus the belief is felt and enjoyed but not believed, except by the part."

Brightman is angered: "I cannot see the intelligibility of your premise"; "I am not at all satisfied with the state of our discussion." He sees Hartshorne to be involved in what his own teacher, Borden Parker Bowne, called "Picture Thinking." From this Brightman contends that, "What is true of space relations is not tine of a thinking mind." Some analogies are offered (October 31, 1942):

Hartshorne (Nov. 9, 1942) offers, "another try," being cautious and exact in his considered reply:

He argues that the properties of parts do not belong to wholes, that "A part can move, while its whole does not . . . the fading out of one of my sensations is not my fading out . . ." He writes:

Hartshorne’s position seems quite straightforward and clear. Yet Brightman disagrees and claims to do so on empirical grounds. Brightman replies, January 31, 1943, "believing P cannot be within God unless God believes P . . . every act in a mind is an act of that mind." For Brightman when the mind, as a unity of consciousness acts, the whole mind acts:

The alternative to this for Brightman is to conceive mind as an "assemblage, not a real unity, as I experience it to be. Relating this to a doctrine of God, he writes, "If God contains my act as mine, but not as his, then my act is not his act in any personal sense, and the verb ‘contain’ is being used in an impersonal sense."

If Brightman was the clearer of the two writers in their earlier correspondence, it is now Hartshorne who takes that role. Our reading gives the impression of Hartshorne patiently reworking and rewording his metaphysic to enable his interlocutor to understand him more fully. Brightman either fails to understand Hartshorne’s position within Hartshorne’s terms of reference or fails to comprehend that it is a tenable position at all. With regard to the former alternative one has some sympathy with Hartshorne when he criticizes Brightman for not considering the "distinction between pantheism and panentheism" when he attempts to refute Hartshorne whom he implies holds a pantheist position. With regard to the latter we consider Hartshorne justified when he says, "I haven’t chiefly attacked your position but protested as though you had a refutation of my position. If you have it you have not stated it . . ." (Nov. 9, 1942).

To attempt to clear the air Hartshorne draws up a list of some things they do agree upon:

Is God’s experienced knowledge of my beliefs inferential? Hartshorne considers it is. If so God’s knowledge would not be perfect, Brightman could object, "for inferential knowledge can be adequate only to abstract objects." For Hartshorne, "perfect knowledge must have some sort of unity with its object." God’s knowledge seems to Hartshorne "in our experience always a unity of knowing and known, except so far as there is inference." Hartshorne has drawn to the limits his notion of experience and inference and from this develops his earlier thesis of parts and wholes, arguing from his position that, when the whole acts, the whole does act and that when the parts act the whole need not. Certainly, "every property of the part makes a difference to the whole and that suffering parts mean a suffering whole." His stance is such that Brightman must react or retreat. For Brightman’s benefit and at his request Hartshorne outlines what he means by panentheism.

Brightman replies (July 12, 1943) that there can be no perfect knowledge, only the "best possible" knowledge that the circumstances allow. Hartshorne’s seeming application of perfect knowledge to analytical judgements is, for Brightman misleading and therefore concludes that "I see no possible way of knowing a concrete object (other than my present self) without inductive inference." It seems to Brightman that "this is the nature of knowledge -- to refer, to describe, to understand, to infer -- rather than to be." Thus God knows us "by description" (Hartshorne used the word "inference"): "No mind can . . . have acquaintance with anything but itself." Further, "God obviously cannot know our doing as we know it, if this be true. What God does not do he cannot know himself as doing."

This last quotation clarifies some of the earlier confusion. For Brightman the human person cannot be a part of that of which God is the whole, therefore God cannot experience our acts. He has knowledge by description of them. If he experienced the acts they would be his, not ours, on Brightman’s terms. We have thus a dualist metaphysics of reality displayed in Brightman. The content of God’s consciousness extends to the "physical universe" for which he accepts "panentheism." But with respect to other selves (minds) there is no "direct or indirect evidence" for one self being contained within another. In these terms the unity of consciousness which Hartshorne raised previously is explained by Brightman in interactive terms between distinct consciousness and not in terms of a continuum (my word) of one single consciousness.

Hartshorne responds by defining more clearly (what Brightman was to describe [September 5, 1943] as the "clearest statement of the thing we are puzzled about that one could well ask for") what he means by part and whole. In this letter (not dated but probably September 1, 1943) by "part of a thing in the widest sense" is meant "whatever must be described if the thing is to be fully described." For Brightman this is the "real nub of the matter" (September 5, 1943). A "part" of the person is not for Brightman its cause but "consciousness less than the whole," for the whole of the person "would be the completed series of that consciousness -- a situation never empirically attained -- i.e., there is always future and immortal consciousness. Thus for Brightman consciousness, the essence of what it is to be a person, can be nothing other than the consciousness itself. He repeats again something with which we are now familiar, namely that the brain, nervous system, air, sun or anything else cannot be a part of one’s consciousness.

Hartshorne differs: "I am no part of Jane Austen, though she is part of me. Also, we are parts of God as he is now but not as he once was and as he might have been now" (Jan. 13, 1944).

This constitutes the divide between Hartshorne and Brightman. For the former a monism of Mind in the universe is fundamental, because "The Divine Mind preserves the absoluteness of the "whole being . . . independent of what parts there may be" acting on and in it. For the latter a fundamental dualism of human and divine mind with mutual interaction but not inclusion characterizes the unity between them. Inevitably from this perspective their correspondence moved into what each meant by the terms and language they were using.

In a very brief letter of May 19, 1944 replying to Hartshorne’s long communication of Jan. 13, Brightman wrote that acting under his physician’s direction "Dire physical necessity compels me to lag in our discussion, while agreeing our differences are linguistic." On this note the correspondence ended.

The present author has to conclude the differences were more than linguistic. Though Hartshorne repeatedly urged they were linguistic Brightman only said as much twice through the ten year period of their writing. As with the discussion on epistemology, the two were separated by the ancient perspectives of monism and dualism. In their metaphysics of the content of God’s mind as with their respective epistemologies this fundamental divide prevented them achieving convergence. Such a divide cannot be bridged by claiming a linguistic difference when all the evidence they offer suggests the difference resides in diametrically opposed ontologies.¹

References

PG -- E. S. Brightman, The Problem of God. The Abingdon Press: New York, 1930.

Notes

1Reflecting on this correspondence, Hartshorne comments: "I should have used and emphasized ‘feeling of feeling’, in this duality of experience is precisely my difference from Brightman. He thinks we just feel [only] our own feelings."

‘Twas a month before Christmas when all through the hall,

Not a student was sleeping while under the pall

Of late nights in Tipple with papers to type,

And fill with the usual brilliance and hype.

My notes were all nestled like birds of a feather,

Nested and messily huddled together,

And I with my keyboard and Apple P.C.

Had just settled in front of the warm C.R.T

The luster of letters on the flickering screen

Enlightened my mind and illumined the scene,

‘Til the pixels like pixies appeared to impart

A light to my head and a glow in my heart.

When next door in the parlor I heard a great sound

Like the weight of the world and its past coming down

Right into the present to parlay a while,

Flooding fireplace then floor like the crest of the Nile.

So I jumped to my feet, saved my soul to my disk,

And took courage enough to take heart and take risk,

To open the door like the leaf of a book

And proceed and process and prepare for a look.

When what to my world-viewing gaze should ingress,

But a metaphysical system and those who profess:

Now Harts home! now Cobb! now Sherburne and Griffin

On Ogden! on Birch! on Suchocki and Blitzen!

These minions had landed and chose to remain

Like the descent from the sky of some great aeroplane,

With a master of systems who lovingly led,

By the lure in his eye and the White of his Head.

He was vested with logic from his top to his toes,

But looked through his specs like a someone who knows

That the heart has its reasons down an alternate path,

More a Biblical road than Principia Math.

The pack he flung open had a world stuffed into it,

And he opened his mouth and said, "Come on, intuit."

"Imagine," he said, "a process that’s real.

Because deep in your bones its a truth you can feel."

"Each actual entity touches the others,

Like family, friends, parents, sisters and brothers;

The substance of the matter is no substance whatever,

As far as my pack goes, we’re all in it together."

"As a matter of fact, if you don’t mind the suggestion,

The fact is not matter, but it’s mind, without question;

My companions and I have conceived a new vision,

From the feelings of quarks to the love that’s in fission."

"From the stuff of the stars to the stuff of ourselves,

From gyrating electrons to the genes in our cells,

The truth is a beauty and should gain recognition,

It’s more mind than machine, less cog than cognition."

"We are known and are cared for each one to a name,

And our senses make sense when informed by an aim

That both binds us as means and yet frees us as ends

For the doing of what some divine mind intends."

Then the voice of the white-headed first joined the last,

As a chorus was raised in one multi-part blast:

"It’s a month before Christmas but a day after Darwin,

Come join in the metaphysical mood we all are in."

Now, they’d intoned such torrents of truths felt and reasoned

That silent night study drowned in sounds of the season,

Like Adeste Fideles put to jingle bell rocking,

Or a whole body of doctrine stuffed in a small stocking.

"I don’t know where to begin," I began with a start,

"Or how I should answer; with my head or my heart.

"It’s a vision quite suited to either Jesus or Buddha,

Why it even rates stars from Luke Skywalker or Yoda."

"And if beauty is truth, as so says Mr. Keats,

This is surely a case where the twain in one meet.

Yet, ‘All ye know on earth and all ye need . . . know,

Cannot sanction aesthetic metaphysics, though."

"Born of a bent for mathematical musing,

Organismic philosophy comes off quite confusing

Considering what must be seen as the schism

Of little bio in the logos of its organism."

"Since mathematics and physics making love through the years

Have multiplied mystics to the music of spheres,

It would seem amor-cidal, like a check, choke, or throttle

To love a biologist who was not Aristotle."

"So it did not endear or derive people’s applause

Who broke biology’s embracing of divine final cause,

As did Darwin of Down when he tried to undo it

And picture a world without telos tied to it."

"The white-heated spotlight of scientific approval

Left Darwin eclipsed with its fin de siecle removal,

So one’s white-headed ‘29 blindness is full

Of those times’ transmutations that made bear out of bull."

"But what of the others who should have known better,

Who wrote after genetics had salvaged the letter

And spirit of Darwin’s conception of species,

Short shrifted and slighted in process thought’s theses?"

"Some say nothing’s new without divine prodding,

Each thing aping others until Someone goes godding,

While others claim order to God we are owing,

Indispensable divinity gets us coming or going."

"Either way nature is never enough

To explain mind in matter as brain’s thinking stuff,

Without the great Mind making ever so gentle

Suggestions to entities all of whom are quite mental.

"

You are pleased to report that poor Darwin himself

Wasn’t really prepared to put ends on the shelf,

So denying contrivance in the effect of each cause

He held out for design behind natural laws."

"But Darwin, remember, did admit he was muddled,

And I think that he knew that he’d already scuttled

The vessel for sailing from feeling that quick

To the rock-solid shores of implied metaphysic."

"He knew that a sense of God might have developed

Without divine love having really enveloped

A universe thoughtless in its part or its whole

Until animal brains made for mind, heart, and soul."

"Darwin raised nature up as he lowered us in

But he never forgot that mind’s tied to the skin,

Blood, and brain of a beast’s bond of functions to form,

Making anthropomorphic a panpsychic Hartshorne."

Then I said to my guests as they stood to their feet,

"You might think on making your commitment complete

To a cosmos quite able to make all that we see

From the order of laws to real novelty."

"While mind might emerge from where once there’d been none

The knowing it need not mean meaning is done,

Nor need we, nor should we, make morals the business

Of tailoring ethics to the dictates of is-ness."

"Drawing ethical oughts out of ontological order

May leave us all bristling painted into a corner

If this finding new gaps for housing divinity

Should prove a pursuit falling short of infinity."

"Of course, so many things that you stand for are true

That I wouldn’t want world-views to wall me from you;

I just think there are roads that run straighter for making

The humane destination down the path you are taking.

Then I offered them eggnog and hot cider collectively.

But they said they’d no need, being immortal objectively.

Still, the white-headed one said I’d been pretty nice

As he looked in a small book he checked once, and checked twice.

So into his pack he reached to go fish

Out a present he proffered saying, "Prehend this if you wish."

As I took it I said, "I keep an open stocking,"

And we said at the same time, "Let’s please do keep talking!"

Then collecting together the company concresced

And moving in concert they leaping processed;

Up the chimney they flew like the down of a thistle

Soaring as fast as an aim that’s initial.

But I heard them exclaim as they perished from view,

"Satisfaction in your paper, and in all that you do!"

Hermeneutics means interpretation. There are two ways to define the term "hermeneutics." In a narrow sense, hermeneutics means the analytic methods for the exegesis of any text, especially when interpreting an ancient or classical document for our life situation. In a broad sense, it denotes the understanding and interpretation of our life in content as well as method (Heidegger). According to Paul Ricoeur, Nietzsche "had the insight that philosophy, as philosophy of culture, was a hermeneutics, an analysis of significations" (PPR 216).

In this paper, I will discuss the broad sense of the hermeneutics of Minjung and process theology by analyzing and comparing their theological significance. I will focus on the problem, the solution, and the hermeneutical methodologies of Minjung and process theology.

I. Major Problem

In traditional theology, the notion of sin is the central way of understanding problems in the world. Sin is construed as an obstacle in the way of salvation. But both Process and Minjung theologies think differently from traditional theology on the matter of sin. In process theology, the concept of the traditional doctrine of sin receives no attention. In lieu of the doctrine of sin, it speaks of a doctrine of evil.

For Whitehead, God’s primordial nature lures every actual entity to actualize its full potentials. Every actual entity aims at "intensity of sensitive experience" (PR 16/25). The process of the elimination of feeling proceeds until the concrete unity of feeling is attained. The final unity, called the "satisfaction," is where value, the aim of every actual entity, is obtained (PR 211-212/322). God’s goal in the world is the attainment of value (RM 97). God lures us to the maximization of enjoyment for attaining value from every actual occasion of experience (PT 75). In response to God’s initial aim, we choose our own way with self-determination. When we fail to respond to the lure of God’s initial aim, we are involved in evil. To Whitehead, "evil is exhibited in physical suffering, mental suffering, and loss of the higher experience in favor of the lower experience" (RM 92). We should avoid the two sorts of the experience of evil -- discord and triviality (PT 71). Triviality means to avoid the risk of suffering. When people choose an insignificant way of existence in order to reduce the possibility of suffering, they fall into triviality.

The other form of evil is discord. To understand discord, we need to know "inhibition," which has two meanings: one is "complete inhibition," "an example of the fitness of subjective form" (AI 256). Whitehead calls it "anesthesia." The other "involves a derogation from perfection." The latter is "aesthetic destruction," "the feeling of evil in the most general sense, namely physical pain or mental evil, such as sorrow, horror, dislike" (AI 256). The subjective experience of aesthetic destruction is discord (AI 256). Discord inheres in the destruction of "harmony" and produces frustration. Discord derives from the incompatibility of diverse modes of "beauty." Whitehead says, "The Discord in the Universe arises from the fact that modes of Beauty are various, and not of necessity compatible" (AI 266).

In its relation to beauty and to the notion of perfection, discord may be explained more clearly. For Whitehead, ‘The more intense the discordant feeling, the farther the retreat from perfection" (AI 256). Discord can be expressed in two ways: "Discord may take the form of freshness and hope, or it may be horror or pain" (AI 266). Discord is, however, a necessary element in the transition from one mode to another. Without it, progress is not possible: "Progress is founded upon the experience of discordant feelings" (AI 257). Thus, discord which is intrinsically evil and destructive, contributes to beauty by shifting an aim "from the tameness of out worn perfection to some other ideal with its freshness still upon it" (AI 257). Therefore, it is valuable in terms of its bestowment to "the merits of Imperfection" (AI 257).

For Minjung theology, the major problem is Han. The Minjung are the down-trodden whose unmistakable sign is Han-brooding. Han is the compressed feeling of suffering caused by injustice and oppression, a complex feeling of resentment and helplessness, anger and lamentation.

The Kwangju massacre in 1980 will illustrate Han. In Kwangju, the fourth largest city of Korea, thousands of people were demonstrating for the release of Dae Jung Kim, a prominent opposition leader, and the democratization of Korea. Chun’s regime sent paratroopers to subdue the demonstration. Their violent suppression escalated violence; over two thousand citizens were murdered. The silent streets of Kwangju were full of Han after the massacre. Han is a wailing cry against incredible injustice in silence. Han is the abyss of grief which has been imbedded in the collective unconscious history of the Korean Minjung for ages. As the Buddhist poet, Ko Eun, states, "We Koreans were born from the womb of Han and brought up in it" (MT 54). Numerous foreign invasions, the iron rule of tyrants, and the exploitation by the rich have caused the Han of the Minjung. Women, particularly, having experienced the long-suffering of dehumanizing patriarchy, envelop much sharper and deeper Han than do men.

Han is potential energy, an active volcano of indignation and agony. Depending on how it is unraveled, Han may turn out to be creative energy for revolution or may explode destructively to seek revenge and killing.

Han is a complex, dynamic feeling which cannot be neatly analyzed or dichotomized. To facilitate an explanation of its depth, it may be divided into two dimensions: personal and collective. Each dimension has two levels: conscious and unconscious. At its personal conscious level, Han takes the form of anger, helplessness, deep mourning, and resentment. At its personal unconscious level, Han is buried in deep anguish and bitterness.

At its collective conscious level, Han is demonstrated through collective wrath, rage, street demonstrations, and rebellion. At its collective unconscious level, Han is submerged in the deep silence of racial lamentation. Social injustice, political oppression, economic exploitation and foreign invasions produce collective Han. Han is transmittable. When the Minjung experience suffering over many generations, they develop unconscious collective Han and transmit it to their posterity.

No established Christian theology has focussed the problem of Han. Since World War II, most contemporary theologies have stressed the graveness of sin. Reinhold Niebuhr depicts "man as sinner" asserting that the heart of sin is pride and sensuality. For Barth, sin is rebellion against God and its marks are sloth, falsehood, disobedience, and unbelief. For Tillich, sin is estrangement, the manifestations of which are unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence. Latin American liberation theologians, criticizing the existential and individualistic understanding of sin found in traditional theology, stress the historical, social, and economic dimensions of sin. Unlike any of these approaches Minjung theologians take the problem of Han as its major theme. It does not mean that Minjung theology depreciates the doctrine of sin. Rather Minjung theology intends to complement the doctrine of sin by developing the notion of Han.

While sin is an offense against God and neighbor, Han is the painful experience of the victim of sin. Sin is the act of the oppressor and Han is the suffering of the victim. Sin belongs to the oppressor; Han belongs to the downtrodden. No one, however, is free from sin. The downtrodden may commit sin, causing Han for others. Sin may be absolved by confession and repentance. Han cannot be disintegrated by repentance. It takes a long period of healing following resolution of the original harm.

The traditional doctrine of sin has left out the pain of the victim. Feminist theology has become aware of this one-sided doctrine of sin. Especially, the male-centered understanding of sin, such as pride and self-centeredness, was unacceptable to feminist theologians. For them, sin is more like the lack of self assertion and pride, diffuseness, and low self-esteem (WR 37).

Han is basically a women’s term. The existence of women itself is Han (MT 54). The Minjung Han of women is more intense than any other because of the double bind of women in patriarchal and hierarchical culture. Traditional folk songs and folk tales are full of the Minjung Han of women.

Minjung theology affirms that theology should not be satisfied with solving the problem of sin but should snuggle with resolving the Minjung’s Han. The doctrine of sin must include the problem of Han. Without dealing with the problem of Han, the doctrine of sin would be preoccupied with the salvation of the oppressors only. Minjung theology intends to counterbalance the oppressor-centered concept of sin and salvation by exploring the problem of Han.

Comparison

1. Han and evil in the form of discord are quite similar. Discord abides with the destruction of harmony and generates physical and mental evil such as sorrow, horror, and dislike. Discord -- in itself destructive and evil -- has the positive dimension which brings forth freshness. Han, the boiled-down feeling of sorrow and anger, yields physical and mental sufferings. It is destructive in itself, yet has a positive aspect.

While Han as potential energy can be used for either a destructive rampage of vengeance or the constructive power of revolution, discord as evil can be horror and pain or it can take the form of hope and freshness. Both Han and discord become either creative or destructive. In other words, discord is intrinsically evil but may be instrumentally either good or bad. Han is also intrinsically destructive, but can be instrumentally used for good or bad. In terms of their intrinsic and instrumental values, Han and discord are resemblant.

2. In Minjung theology, sin produces Han. In process theology, our failure to respond to God’s initial aim engenders evil. For process theology, our resistance to God’s luring corresponds to the concept of sin. Nevertheless, both Minjung and process theologies set aside the doctrine of sin, underscoring Han and evil as problems in their systems. Minjung theology, however, does not devaluate the significance of sin in the scheme of salvation, for sin causes the Han of the oppressed. On the other hand, process theology has not grappled with the problem of sin. It states that discord as evil simply arises from the incompatibility of diverse modes of beauty. While Minjung theology recognizes the gravity of sin, process theology de-emphasizes the seriousness of sin in the process of progress. Both theologies need to work on the idea of sin, which we cannot afford to leave to traditional theology. Minjung theology must delve into the intriguing relations between sin and Han, and process theology needs to elaborate on the structural analysis of self-determination, which tends to resist God’s initial aim.

3. Han is caused when one’s own actualization of potentials is obstructed. Discord as evil takes place when the maximization of enjoyment is prevented. Both Han and discord cause suffering and horror. But, the experience of Han is quite different from that of discord. Whereas Han is the particular mode of the experience of the oppressed, discord is the universal mode of the experience of the oppressors and the oppressed. For Whitehead, the oppressors and the oppressed experience discord as a necessary factor for their growth.

Considering this notion of evil, one may wonder whether Whitehead fully grasped the darkness of evil in the world. His idea of evil is insufficient to embrace the deep misery and suffering of the oppressed. What we find in the heart of the victims of the Kwangju uprising is not the evil of discord which is a necessary factor for growth, but the inexpressible Han which cries out for justice. Women’s long-suffering experience is not particularly expressed in evil. Han epitomizes the silent suffering of women through the ages. Han is the depth of human agony whose dimensions include collective and unconscious worlds. Han is so deep that it may be inheritable. I believe that the experience of the evil of the downtrodden differs from that of the oppressors. If process theology aims at maximizing the intensity of the experience of people, it has to analyze the depth of human suffering, especially the ineffable pain of the downtrodden and women in the Third World, treating their experience of evil separate from the experience of the evil of the oppressors.

4. Discord is a necessary element in the transition from mode to mode. Since discord is an indispensable precondition for beauty, it takes an ontological seat in the path of progress. Han is not, however, a necessary element for the advancement of civilization. It is a transient reality which should eventually be overcome. On the other hand, Whitehead considers the evil of discord almost ultimate. Without the evil of discord, there will be no progress. For him, the end of progress is much worse than the end of the evil of discord. Upon considering the endless juxtaposed adventures of the evil of discord and beauty, I wonder whether Whitehead’s idea of the eschaton should be understood from a dualistic perspective.

II. Goal

For Minjung theology, salvation means creating Hanless society. To resolve the conscious dimension of Han, we must transform Han-causing personal or social problems, using Han as the basic energy. To unravel the unconscious level of Han, we have to transcend our deep-seated Han by participating in the process of transforming Han-causing problems.

In lieu of "utopia," Nam Dong Suh uses the biblical symbol, "millennium" (Rev. 20:2). A millennium is the positive side of Hanless society. Minjung theology prefers the symbol of the millennium to the symbol of the Kingdom of God. According to Suh:

In Korea, this millennium means an egalitarian society free from patriarchy and hierarchy, a self-determining country beyond foreign intervention, a reunified country beyond the division, and a democratic society beyond northern totalitarianism and southern authoritarianism. This is the state where everyone seeks to promote community-actualization beyond self-centered actualization. Here, an individual actualizes his or her potentials through helping others to actualize their potentials.

Minjung theologians believe that the Minjung are destined to be the subjects of their own history. Yong Bock Kim declares, "Kingdoms, dynasties and states rise and fall; but the Minjung remain as a concrete reality in history, experiencing the comings and goings of political powers" (MT 185). In the millennium, the Minjung will be the protagonists of their own destiny.

For Whitehead, God’s purpose in an actual entity is the attainment of the maximum of value in the world (RM 97). For his idea of historical goal, we need to mention four qualities -- Truth, Beauty, Adventure, and Art. They are essential for civilization. They need, however, a final quality, "a Harmony of Harmonies" or "Peace" which binds all four qualities. Apart from Peace, the pursuit of the four qualities can be ruthless, troublesome, and cruel (AI 284). This Peace drives out the ruthless egotism from our notion of civilization and is self-control "at the width where the ‘self has been lost, and interest has been transferred to coordinations wider than personality" (AI 285). The quality of civilization where Peace is united with Truth, Beauty, Adventure, and Art is comparable with the millennium of Minjung theology. One difference is that while peace which binds these four qualities should not be sought, the millennium of the Minjung must be striven for by the Minjung. To Whitehead, the experience of Peace is beyond our control: it arrives as a gift. The deliberate pursuit for Peace may pass into anesthesia (AI 285). Consequently, the goal of history is not to reach the Harmony of Harmonies. Instead, "The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty" (AI 285). Beauty is the internal incorporation of the diversities of experience for the yield of maximum effectiveness. Although the completion of civilization comes through Peace, it never consummates history because there are always "the dream of youth" and "the Adventure of the Universe starts with the dream" (AI 296). For Whitehead, the Harmony of Harmonies in unity with the four other qualities in civilization is most ideal; yet that should not be the goal of the Universe. Adventure in search of the new perfection of Beauty is the purpose of civilization.

Cobb’s process theology follows Whitehead in virtually identifying the eschaton with God (PTPT 78). In Pannenberg’s eschatology, the Kingdom of God, where the general resurrection takes place, is the destiny of history. To Teilhard de Chardin, God, the centre of centres, coincides with the Omega Point toward which all histories are converging. The Omega Point is his final vision of history (PTPT 78). Pannenberg and Teilhard espouse a closed end of history, while process theology, based on Whitehead’s notion of freedom, reevaluates "the Christian interpretation of history without presupposing a fulfilling End" (PTPT 144). This belief in the radical openness of the eschaton is one of the great contributions which process theology makes to Christianity. With a consistent view of human freedom and an honest, self-critical attitude, process theology successfully resists the trap of the pre-determinism of history, envisioning an open end of history.

Comparison

The millennium is congenial with the dynamics of the civilization of the balanced unity of the five qualities. Both of them affirm the community-actualization and the exclusion of restless egotism.

There is a difference too. Whereas Minjung theology literally seeks the establishment of the millennium, process theology does not pursue the quality of Peace because of its nature as a gift. The author sees some shortcomings in both approaches.

To eschew the abstractiveness of the symbol of God’s kingdom, Minjung theology consciously selects the symbol of the millennium, which is more historical and achievable. By fusing the symbolic reality of the biblical millennium with the sign of historical achievement, Minjung theology, however, makes a mistake of turning the millennium into a historical idol. Even though the historical fulfillment of the millennium should be sought, the millennium is not our possession but a hope for us.

For process theology, the notion of a new perfection through Adventure articulates the symbolic reality of the eschaton well. By almost identifying the eschaton with God, process theology avoids the confusion of the eschaton of history with the perfection of history; for God is "the Adventure of the Universe." Nevertheless, process theology is weak in terms of abstaining from the pursuit of peace. For Whitehead does not strive for Peace because it is a gift. Thus, his philosophical system makes little efforts to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Why can’t we seek the peace that saves civilization from its ruthless egotism? Why can’t we pursue the quality that binds Truth, Beauty, Adventure, and Art together? Even though we may not bring perfect Peace or may be in danger of falling into anesthesia, we cannot afford not to pursue the peace that brings the wholeness of civilization. Peace cannot be our possession but must be the ideal goal of our efforts.

Minjung theology upholds a closed view of the end of history by asserting the coming millennium in which the Minjung will be the subjects of their own history. But there is a chance that the Minjung may fail to achieve their historical call. Even after attaining self-determination in history, the Minjung have no guarantee that they will not turn out to be as oppressive as their oppressors. The millennium for which the Minjung strive is not a predetermined destiny of the Minjung in history. Without knowing the insecurity of freedom, the Minjung may fail to realize their historical vocation to establish the millennium on earth.

On the other hand, process theology affirms the unpredictability of the future, due to the adventure of freedom. Its coherent understanding of divine and human freedom provides one of the most rational views for the doctrine of the eschaton. The traditional idea of the eschaton holds that the fulfillment of history converges on the culmination of history. Process theology successfully defends the diverse possibilities of the historical eschaton, making room for divine and human freedom.

III. Hermeneutical Methodology

I use the term "hermeneutic" in the sense which incorporates various methodologies to achieve a certain goal for a system. For John Cobb, "Process theology has understood its responsibility more as that of clarifying what a Christian in the modern world should affirm and of guiding the church toward appropriated formulations of its faith" (PTPT 45). Even though he further acknowledges the use of biblical hermeneutics as necessary, he insists that process hermeneutics should not be limited to the Bible (PTPT 45).

Process hermeneutics starts from Whitehead’s organic philosophy. For Whitehead, God aims at realizing the maximum of value in all actual entities. These entities are guided by the subjective aim whose source is God. God uses the power of persuasion rather than coercion, luring the actual entity to the subjective aim (AI 166). Thus, persuasion is God’s methodology for the transformation of the world.

Process theology is, also, committed to the promotion of the enrichment of experience in the world. To achieve this, process hermeneutics seeks to "remove unnecessary external constraints upon the rational self-direction of conduct . . . . These unnecessary constraints do not operate chiefly upon the rich and powerful but upon the poor and oppressed" (PTPT 148). It has underscored "growth in truth" through "interchange with those whose experience and understanding are different from ours" (PTPT 61). The strength of process theology lies in its openness to truth, its appreciation for the diversity of various communities, and its self-critical ability in interaction with other groups. Open to new ideas and willing to change and to grow, this hermeneutics has the virtue of exercising the hermeneutics of suspicion on itself. Thus, we may say that process hermeneutics begins with Whitehead’s philosophy, commits itself to increasing the enrichment of experience of all, and follows its own direction of the commitment by promoting mutual growth in its interaction with other groups.

On the other hand, Minjung hermeneutics employs diverse sets of tools, including biblical hermeneutical methods. It, however, capitalizes upon other socio-cultural and political methods to achieve the goal of Minjung theology.

Byung Mu Ahn’s biblical hermeneutics is a socio-redactional criticism which explores the identity of Jesus and the Ochlos, the biblical Minjung in the gospel of Mark. In his studies, he concludes that Jesus and the Ochlos are inseparable in their identity. To know Jesus is to know the Ochlos. Thus, to serve Jesus is to serve the Minjung with whom Jesus completely identified.

Nam Dong Suh develops storytelling, socio-economic, and pneumatological methods. The storytelling method regards story as revelation. For Pannenberg, revelation is history. For Suh, revelation is story. Story tells us the suffering of the Minjung and their courageous resistance against injustice and also shares the vision of a new society. His socio-economic method pursues the infra-structure of revelation in the socio-economic life of the Minjung. He contends that revelation arises from "below" through the suffering of Minjung. His pneumatological method surpasses an interpretation based on the Bible alone. By emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit, it seeks an answer for a problem not only in the Bible but also in the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. It does not encourage us merely to repeat biblical events of the past in the present, but urges us to make our own new decisions in the present inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It presupposes the work of God’s Spirit in Korea prior to the introduction of Christianity to Korea (MPTCK 56). Suh mobilizes all these methods to disclose the reality of Han.

In addition to these approaches, Yong Bock Kim’s socio-biographical method and Young Hak Hyun’s cultural method deserve to be mentioned. Kim contends that theology must be the collective biography of the Minjung. To him, to write the suffering history of the Minjung in light of the Christ-event is the hermeneutical task of Minjung theology. Hyun thinks the Korean mask dances significant in their disclosing the hidden Han of the Minjung and in transcending their Han. The satirical performance of a mask dance guides the Minjung to the point of transcendence where their Han will be dissolved through laughing at themselves and at the absurdities of society.

Minjung hermeneutical methods are different from those of Latin American liberation theologians, which depend heavily on Marxist social analysis. The tools of Minjung hermeneutics do not derive from Marxist social analysis, but from the Minjung wisdom of life. The Minjung wisdom arises from their experience of suffering -- Han.

Comparison

1. Minjung and process hermeneutics have a common denominator; they surpass the boundary of the Bible. Minjung hermeneutics, transcending the perimeter of Christianity, appropriates Korean history, culture, religion, and tradition. More concretely, making good use of stories, songs, mask dances, socio-biography, socio-economy, rumors, literature, history, shamanism, Buddhism, and Chondokyo (an indigenous religion), Minjung hermeneutics diagnoses Minjung’s Han and seeks its resolution. For Minjung theologians, beyond the sacred history of salvation in Christianity, all histories are sacred in God’s salvific plan. Process hermeneutics, especially John Cobb’s, based on the Christian faith, moves beyond the traditional limit of theology by engaging in dialogue with ecology, sociology, economy, and Buddhism. This removes the established walls between various disciplines and seeks the unbiased, undivided truth of life. It opens a new chapter in the world of hermeneutics. Overcoming religious parochialism and theological reductionism, both of them expand the horizons of theological hermeneutics to both interdisciplinary and inter-religious realms.

2. On the other hand, Minjung hermeneutics derives not only from Minjung wisdom, but also from Minjung theologians’ participation in the action of Minjung struggles -- street demonstrations, sit-in-strikes with workers, imprisonment, etc. In these struggles, they listen attentively to Minjung stories and become part of these stories. Through storytelling and their involvement in Minjung struggles, they have changed the oppressive social system of Korea.

Process hermeneutics grows out of Whitehead’s metaphysics. Whitehead’s notion of God does not actively participate in the transformation of the world but exercises the power of persuasion only. This image of God is quite different from that of the crucified God of Christians. Like Whitehead’ s idea of historical action for the transformation of the world. Process theology has basically remained as an academic movement in academic circles. It has sought "adventures of ideas," but not adventures of action. John Cobb is aware of this weakness in process theology:

Process hermeneutics needs to articulate the relation between theology and practice. For Paulo Freire, praxis is the interaction between action and reflection (PO 75). Praxis imoludes all historical efforts which move towards the liberation of the world. In this sense, process theology has been partially in praxis and has transformed the world in various ways and has raised people’s consciousness on several crucial issues. Especially, process feminists have actively taken part in the women’s liberation movement and have greatly contributed to the cultural revolution of the world.

Nevertheless, to promote the enrichment of experience more effectively, process theology needs to emphasize the side of action. By doing so, its contribution to the transformation of the world will be richer.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have tried to articulate my understanding of the hermeneutics of process and Minjung theologies by comparing their major problems, goals, and methodologies. Process theology perceives the evil of discord and triviality as problems, the attainment of the maximum of value in all actual entitles as goal, the mutual transformation in interaction with diverse communities as methodologies. In its encounter with Minjung theology, process theology may learn primarily the depths of human suffering shown in the abyss of Han and the necessity of the active involvement in the world for maximizing the intensity of experience.

As a historical and political movement, Minjung theology regards the Han of the Minjung as its problem, the resolution of Han in the millennium as its goal, and the biblical hermeneutic, storytelling, socio-biography, and mask dances as its methodologies. From process theology, Minjung theology may learn chiefly its idea of radical openness of the eschaton and its coherent idea of freedom. With the complementarity of these ideas, Minjung theology will be better equipped for its historical vocation to advance the millennium on earth.

References:

MPTCK -- Park, A. Sung. Minjung and Pungryu Theologies in Contemporary Korea. Ph.D. Dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, 1985.

MT -- Kim, Yong Bock, ed. Minjung Theology. Singapore: The Christian Conference of Asia, 1981.

PO -- Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: The Seabury Press, 1974.

PPR -- Ricoeur, Paul. The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Reagan, C. and Stewart, D. ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978.

PT -- Cobb, Jr., John B. and Griffin, David R. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976.

PTPT -- Cobb, Jr., John B. Process Theology as Political Theology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982.

WR -- Christ, Carol and Plaskow, Judith, ed. Womanspirit Rising. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.

Is the separatism of radical feminism as "radical" as it could be? What is feminist separatism? How might Whiteheadian philosophy complement radical feminism and enhance the revolutionary promise of separatism?

In light of the diversity among feminists, separatism is variously understood and occasionally carries the vagueness of an intuition rather than the precision of a definition. At one level, separatism is represented by literary utopian visions (like those of Sally Gearhart and Charlotte Perkins Gilman) in which women form woman-identified, male-excluding communities. Feminist utopian literature depicts these hidden communities in isolation from patriarchal civilization, which poses a threat to the creative and peaceful ecological niches imagined by women. These novels are, in fact, "useful fictions," which criticize patriarchy by envisioning alternatives to its misogynist, biocidal hierarchies. At their extremes, utopian alternatives capitalize upon romanticization of a female essence and idealization of female community. Whether fictitious or theoretical, this type of separation suggests that women’s potential will be realized only when women have segregated themselves into gynophilic, biophilic women’s societies.

Even with this much specificity, we could speculate about a number of forms which separatism may take. Separatist communities could be non-hierarchical or matriarchal, perhaps fluidly hierarchical or temporarily hierarchical. Women’s separatist communities could be potentially inclusive of all women or selective of gynaffectionate women and lesbians (perhaps of limited numbers of gynophilic men). These segregated women’s communities could range from the profoundly nature-centered, nature-identified society of Sally Gearhart’s utopia to the tidy, biophilic civilization imagined by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Perhaps a characterization of the hypothetical forms of feminist separatism would reflect the teleology of each. First, women might envision permanently segregated communities. In these societies, women could choose to separate themselves permanently from patriarchy in the effort to create an environment where women could experiment with personal and societal identity without the pervasive influence of patriarchy. This form of separatism would reflect hopelessness of the transcendence of patriarchy in society at large. Second, women could choose provisional separatism, segregating themselves for a time into exclusive women’s communities as a means of deprogramming themselves from patriarchy. Provisional segregation could involve living in all-encompassing women’s communities which reflect woman-identified priorities in business, domestic, and governmental affairs. This form of segregation would be temporary or provisional either to allow women to form a metapatriarchal identity and then to re-enter patriarchal society with renewed personal integrity or to await the transformation of patriarchy into postpatriarchy (provisional is a better descriptor for the latter purpose, since no feminist expects the imminent collapse of patriarchy). Third, instead of a total temporal and spatial segregation of women from patriarchy, women could and do engage in separatism which is limited to selected spheres of their lives. For example, women establish women’s businesses, participate in consciousness-raising groups, reside in homes for battered women, create lesbian families, support women’s political organizations. The purpose of nonsegregationist separatism is the formation of personal and political identity within a patriarchal society.

These teleological characterizations make perfect sense; however, there is one serious flaw in the presupposition which leads to such categorizations within feminist separatism. This sort of categorization presupposes that the purpose of feminist separatism is fundamentally to answer the question, how do feminists intend to relate to men? It suggests that the issue basic to separatism is the female-male relationship. This is an androcentric interpretation of women’s separatism. Perhaps, women’s separatism is not a question of how women will relate to men, but of how women intend to relate to each other.

I

Because Mary Daly is a wise prude who perseveres in removing androcentric, patriarchal scales from her own and other women’s eyes, I want to refer to her understanding of radical feminist separatism as a gynocentric interpretation of women’s separatism. Daly defines radical feminist separatism as

Daly’s definition suggests that separatism is not another investment of energy in confrontation with patriarchy. Separatism is the investment of energy in women’s self-hood. It is precisely an absence of androcentric focus, a refusal to allow patriarchy to control the use of gynergy. "What about men?" is an irrelevant question, because separatism concentrates on a gynocentric agenda.

The solidarity of women who challenge patriarchy creates the superficial impression that feminists have already overcome the distortions in female relationships. In fact, this is not the case. Feminists have found it necessary to devote a good deal of effort to envisioning sisterhood and gynaffection. Recent literature indicates that the issue of female relationships is an unfinished constructive effort which will continue to receive priority.

If women are the more relational gender, why is it necessary for women to reflect upon constructive modes of female relating? The fundamental reason is that the role of women as relational caretakers has been exercised for the nurturing of hetero-relations rather than gynaffectionate relations. In this role, women have been instrumental in the maintenance of patriarchal relationships which serve to separate women from women. The result is that women are cast in competitive or estranged relationships with each other. Internalization of the patriarchal agenda leads women to do horizontal violence to each other. Mothers act as token torturers of their daughters, when they teach their daughters to serve patriarchal interests. Token women, who have achieved apparent equality, take upon themselves the priorities of the patriarchs (including nonrelational, gynophobic attitudes). Mary Daly has argued that patriarchy thrives upon these separations of women. The patriarchal taboo against women-touching women is an indication that the power of female bonding is a threat to patriarchal strongholds.

Woman’s estrangement is not simply from her sisters but also from herself. When Daly introduced the issue of separation or separatism in Gyn/Ecology, it became clear that this estrangement is the crux of the issue. Using a play upon the etymology of "separate," Daly described separatism as follows:

From this description of separatism, there are important features which ought to be underscored. First, separatism has nothing to do with building walls which isolate and confine women. It is primarily a concept which has to do with loosening the confinement of women. It is the release of women’s energy and power. Second, separatism paradoxically removes that which is alienating. One could surmise from Daly’s description that separatism facilitates genuine relationships with oneself and others rather than obstructing relationships. Third, separatism as the paring away of false selves from the Self is prior to any discussion of separatism from or within groups. Political separatism is a derivative issue, not the primary issue. Fourth, separatism intends to remove both internal and external barriers to selfhood. Removal of internal obstacles is crone-logically primary for all authentic separation and is normative for personal and political separatism.

In her book Pure Lust, which is an elemental feminist philosophy, Daly discusses separatism in relationship to Be-Friending, a term which suggests the ontological status of female friendship. Radical Feminist Separatism is defined here as

In this definition, once again the point is that women have already been fragmented and that radical feminist separatism is action which counters phallic separatism, separation of women from ourselves and our Selves. Fragmentation is the result of broken gynophilic, biophilic communication -- the ontological communication of deep and natural interconnectedness. Fragmentation is the disconnectedness which flies in the face of interconnectedness, interruption of the flow of connection with all be-ing. The philosophical and existential presupposition here is that "everything that IS is connected with everything else that IS" (PL 362). Fragmentation creates "things" which are disconnected from Ultimate Reality and participation in be-ing. In this sense, they are nonbe-ing. In another sense, these things are very real barriers to realization of being, barriers from which women must remove themselves.

Daly suggests that the word "separatism" functions as a Labrys. It has a two-edged meaning. "Separatism" names phallic separatism, the separatism which blocks women’s lust for ontological communication. "Separatism" also names feminist resistance to phallic separatism. Positively stated, it is women’s choice for radical connectedness in biophilic be-ing. Radical feminist separatism is transcendence of the fear of separation from phallic separaters and acknowledgment that separation from Self has already happened. Radical feminist separatism is a choice to pare away the false selves layered upon women’s selfhood by patriarchy and to undertake telic centering, the purposive focusing which facilitates women’s metamorphosis.

To focus upon radical feminist separatism is to engage a second order term. Separatism is not the primary women’s movement. The ontological metamorphosis of women is the final cause of women -- it is women’s movement. Because the movement of women is blocked by patriarchy, separatism is an essential prerequisite to metamorphosis. Metamorphosis, biophilic communication, participation in Be-ing is women’s movement. Metamorphosis contextualizes separatism.

In Daly’s usage, separation is unrelated to boundaries and walls, because sisterhood is concerned with eliminating walls and expanding physical and psychic space. Separation or separatism is the paring away of alienating, confining false selves in order that woman may break through both internal and external obstacles to discovering the Self. Women have experienced similar forms of oppression under patriarchy, but the paring process occurs in a variety of expressions which reflect unique histories and temperaments among women. There is no equality among unique Selves. Such differences mean that women may need separation from other Female Selves in order to make their unique discoveries.

Woman-identified relationships entail the authentic likeness against which genuine differences may emerge. Woman-identified relationships, therefore, create new and varying patterns of relating, subject to the intensity and turbulence of unique Female Selves in relationship (G/E 382-383).

The purpose of radical feminist separatism is provision of a context which promotes gynophilic communication. It affirms the identity of women as original women, women who are the antithesis of man-made female creations, women who are self-originating. Separatism is a communal process which facilitates the flow of interconnectedness for each woman.

Be-Friending is an ontological category for Daly which describes the context or atmosphere within which women experience metamorphosis. Be-Friending is ontological friending; radical ontological, biophilic communication among women, implying the interconnectedness of all be-ing (PL 362). Be-Friending is creative for women as each woman becomes a friend to her own be-ing. Be-Friending promotes the creation of an atmosphere for leaps of metamorphosis. The Websters who weave the contexts for metamorphosis are inspired by female potential, female potency/ power. Any woman who makes leaps of metapatterning weaves a network of Be-Friending (PL 373).

Be-Friending reveals the uniqueness of female friendship in comparison with male comradeship. While the comradeship/fraternity survives by draining women of their energy, female friendship is a bonding which is energizing/gynergizing (G/E 319). Female bonding is threatening to comradeship, because it is a relationship which ignores the brotherhood and exposes its relationships with women as property arrangements. Female bonding is a free bondage. "The radical friendship of Hags means loving our own freedom, loving/encouraging the freedom of the other, the friend, and therefore loving freely" (G/E 367).

Women are in the process of discovering what it means to be together as women. If women assume that sisterhood is similar to brotherhood with respect to freedom and self-affirmation, then the struggle to understand female bonding results in the imitation of male comradeship/brotherhood. On the contrary, sisterhood can only be described with words like "Sparking of Female Selves," "New Be-ing," and "biophilic Self-finding" (G/E 370). Sisterhood refers to the wide range of female relating which extends to women of similar vision who may never have come into acquaintance. Friendship is a potential for all sisters/friends. Female-identified erotic love is one expression of radical female friendship (G/E 371-373). Sisterhood, female friendship, and female-identified erotic love are female discoveries of relationships which do not entail the self-loss of male-defined relationships for women.

Lesbianism is not merely a "special case" of sisterhood or female friendship. For Daly, it is a paradigm. Lesbianism refers to woman-identified women who have rejected false loyalties to men (G/E 26). Lesbianism is beyond reach of any patriarchal interference which fetishizes gay and homosexual women. Lesbian communities, because of their marginal status, are removed from patriarchy and may act as pioneers in the dis-covering of female friendship. Lesbianism is ultimately threatening to patriarchy, because it is more than physical contact between women. The Total Taboo against Women-Touching women is rooted in patriarchal fear of the gynergized power among interconnected, touching women – "For Women-Touching women are the seat of a tremendous power which is transmissible to other women by contact" (PL 248).

Be-Friending, as feminists have already seen, is not a panacea for women. The very diversity implied by female friendship means that there is the potential for conflict and disappointment (cf. Raymond). Be-Friending does not mean that every woman is a friend to every other woman. In the first place, time and energy for friend-ship are limited. In the second place, temperament and circumstances prevent women from being friends. For Be-Friending to take place, women must be able first to identify women who are for women and second to identify from among these women those with whom Elemental friendship is possible. That all women cannot be intimate elemental friends is no cause for despair, since all women can participate and communicate female friendship.

The character of female friendship may be inferred from the basic premise that biophilic relationships occur among woman-identified women. For Daly, sisterhood is primarily the relationship of lesbian women and secondarily of gynaffectionate women (who for various reasons in a complex world also maintain relationships with men). From this starting point emerge the particular characteristics of Be-Friendings. First, relationships must facilitate the dis-covery of Self through Self-acceptance and Separation. Second, relationships are multidimensional, so that to speak of Woman-Touching women implies an interconnectedness inclusive of physical contact, but not exclusively physical. Third, relationships are creative and gynergizing by virtue of the power of Be-Friending (PL 386).

Clearly, Daly powerfully moves women to examine concretely the necrophilic patriarchal relationships which have diminished and victimized women. Then metaphorically, Daly has constructed a transforming vision of female relating. Its value is precisely that women are creatively empowered and reunited with their Selves and other Female Selves from whom patriarchy has alienated them.

II

By reference to Janice Raymond, we may summarize and restate the same problematic with a different vocabulary which may help to illuminate issues at stake. Raymond proposes that the dominant worldview may be accurately named hetero-reality. This perspective supports the perception that "woman exists always in relation to man" and consequently that women together are actually women alone (PF 3). Hetero-reality is created by the prevailing system of hetero-relations, which expresses a range of social, political, and economic relations established between men and women by men. Paradoxically, women are used instrumentally to sustain heterorelations, when in fact reality is homo-relational; that is, male-male relations actually determine the course of reality in social, political, and economic spheres. The result is that women’s energy is expended in support of hetero-relations. Under the assumptions of hetero-relations, the only relationships for women are male-female relationships. Hetero-reality assumes that women do not/ought not have relationships with each other. Raymond proposes that this is the basis for the need for a philosophy of female affection (the project of her book, A Passion for Friends). Women, who have been monopolized by maintaining relationships with men now must reflect upon what it means for women to move beyond the hetero-relational separation of women toward gynaffectionate relationships. Gynaffectionate relationships are relations of woman-to-woman attraction, influence, and movement. Female friendship has its origin with original women, women who chart their own "beginnings from the deepest recesses of [their Selves] and other women" (PE 41-42). Female friendship is a context within which women may regain the integrity of their disintegrated Selves and restore the prime order of women in women’s relationships. Gynaffection is a context within which women may remember original women.

With respect to the word "separatism," Raymond encounters the problem of definition of a term which is used in a variety of ways among feminist theorists. If we mean by "separation" the idea of segregation, then Raymond finds it necessary to make some significant distinctions. Raymond clearly rejects sex-segregation which is an option not obtained by women’s choice, but against their will. This is an imposed "ghettoization" of women. Separation, which occurs by women’s choice, needs to be distinguished from segregation. Separatism must also be distinguished from simplistic, escapist, apolitical dissociation from the world. Separatism is not to be understood as "escape from" -- separatism is a move toward personal integrity. It is not a dissociation from the world, but a dissociation from hetero-reality. The purpose of separatism is movement toward woman-identified existence which is marked by worldliness and the intent to make a difference in the world.

As Raymond argues, we must be careful about what we mean by the dissociation of women. Women have developed a passive dissociation from the world by virtue of the fact that the world and its politics are man-made, homo-relational. Women who have been caretakers of hetero-relations have not participated in worldmaking. Women, therefore, have been worldless by default, In addition, there are women who have chosen worldlessness as a feminist ideal. The difficulty in both types of dissociation is that female existence becomes segregated and women lose access to the world. By dissociation, women multiply their superfluousness in a world which already views women as superfluous. Dissociation also diffuses the purpose and power of female friendship in two respects. First, it precludes the potential of female friendship to replace hetero-reality. Second, and perhaps more important, dissociation entails dissociation from women. Thus, gynaffection is restricted to a small community of women. Dissociation makes gynaffection a personal, rather than a political matter.

III

Daly’s and Raymond’s understandings of separatism lend themselves to interpretation from a Whiteheadian feminist perspective. While I in no way wish to say that Daly’s or Raymond’s views need validation from a "dead, white male philosopher," I do believe, first of all, that Whiteheadian philosophy will be enhanced by the incorporation of women’s experience (inclusive of feminist philosophy as part of women’s experience). Second, feminist theorists involved in critical and constructive projects ought to become involved in collaborative efforts to express feminist concerns. Multiple modes of expression can only enhance the clarity of feminist constructions. To this end, I want to suggest some Whiteheadian interpretations of feminist separatism.

The first point that I wish to make, as a Whiteheadian feminist, is that Be-Friending or gynaffection may function as a standpoint from which we may exercise judgment upon hetero-reality. In Whitehead’s philosophy, an operation of judgment may be directed toward particular perceptions (for example, "perceiving this stone as not grey" or "perceiving this stone as grey ). Whitehead noted that the most general case of conscious perception, the most primitive form of judgment, is the negative perception ("perceiving this stone as not grey"). As Whitehead describes the negative perception in relationship to consciousness, he says

We may use this insight to suggest that women have come to consciousness in a most basic way, when we become aware of a particular negative perception. Namely, reality is not hetero-reality. The universe through which women search imaginatively includes women’s experience. In this case, it need not be exclusively the universe of women’s experience. If we search through any universe which includes women’s experience as we know it, we find that hetero-reality is not reality in fact. Women have a standpoint from which we may make this judgment, from which we may experience negative perception of hetero-reality. This standpoint is the context of female friendship. Out of this, we know that hetero-reality is invalidated. It is through female friendship that women have come to consciousness of the pseudoreality of heteroreality. Separatism is women’s way of separating themselves from pseudoreality. We could say that separatism is a judgment, a negative perception of hetero-reality.

A second feature of Whitehead’s philosophy may be used to suggest the propositional character of Be-Friending/Gynaffection. A proposition is a lure for feeling. When a proposition is nonconformal, it proposes an alternative potentiality in reaction to the datum. Such a proposition suggests a novel response to the given world. As Whitehead notes,

I want to point out that Be-Friending functions as a proposition in several respects. Be-Friending reflects a connection between actuality and potentiality. The actual world within which women function includes deep memory of female connectedness, but it also includes a predominantly hetero-relational mode of female relationships. Be-Friending introduces an alternative potential in response to the world. It would be fair to say that women have not fully separated themselves from hetero-reality. Be-Friending then is largely a potentiality rather than an actuality. As a potential, it functions to lure women toward novelty, novelty rooted in actuality. The proposition Be-Friending, when it is admitted into feeling, introduces a new form into the world -- "A novelty has emerged into creation" (PR 187/284).

Whitehead’s doctrine of internal relations may be particularly helpful in interpreting separatism and Be-Friending. Since it is foundational to process philosophy, we can imagine several levels at which this doctrine makes contact with feminist theory. First, it merely reiterates Daly’s maxim that everything that IS is connected with everything else that IS. The pervasive interconnection of all that exists is prevalent in both Whiteheadian and feminist thought. Second, I perceive that Whitehead generally wished to communicate bolder claims about that interconnection than feminists ordinarily assert (unless Daly’s reference to the metaphor of the hologram may be understood to suggest something like Whitehead’s doctrine of internal relations). Whitehead was suggesting more than the mere fact that we exist as individuals who axe connected with other individuals. We are not first individuals who have relationships. We are not individuals apart from our relationships. In other words, individuals are constituted by relationships. In the process of self-creation, we exist by virtue of our relationships. This means that relationships are causally efficacious (in a Whiteheadian sense) in self-formation.

In summary fashion, I want to suggest how the doctrine of internal relations may enhance an understanding of separatism and Be-Friending. In the first place, it helps to underscore the ludicrous assumptions of hetero-reality. The assumption that women are not really related to other women, the absence of understanding men in relationship to women, the refusal to acknowledge the homo-relational basis of heteroreality, the ignorance of connectedness with nature all attest to the relational naivete of hetero-reality in comparison with a worldview based upon internal relations. I will note here that Catherine Keller’s analysis of hetero-reality in terms of the separate self-hood of men and the soluble selfhood of women corroborates the stunted character of relations within the dominant patriarchal worldview, which diminishes both relationality and individuality with its dualistic patterning of subject-object in male-female relationships. Second, the doctrine of internal relations may be used to interpret the significance of female friendship. If radical feminist separatism is primarily for the purpose of dis-covering woman’s Self and women’s Selves in relationship, then the doctrine of internal relations may suggest in part how that happens. According to Whitehead there is a reciprocal relationship between individuality and society. We become individuals through our social relationships and we also contribute to society by our completion as individuals. Technically, this is what Whitehead means by creativity. In a context of female friendship, women contribute to my search for my Self, just as the emergence of my Self enhances the metamorphic movement of gynaffectionate women. In hetero-reality, the richest contributions to my emergence, the contributions from gynaffectionate women, were truncated by an imposed dissociation from female relationships. At the same time, my creative contributions to female friendship were limited, if not eliminated. A doctrine of internal relations indicates just how formative of individual female selfhood female friendship is. It also highlights the contagion of female friendship.

In a sense, I refer to an intricate assemblage of Whitehead’s concepts, when I introduce the topic of internal relations. Especially with respect to separatism, I want to mention the importance of causal efficacy in internal relations. Causal efficacy is not to be understood in the sense of causal determination of the present as a direct consequence of a linear connection with events in the past. It is more accurate to think of causal efficacy as a mode of perception in the present. The emerging subject in the present moment responds with a large measure of freedom to events in its relevant past. The emerging subject determines how it will take account of these influences from its past actual world (its subjective form) and to what extent it will be constituted in the present by these relationships. While the subject has freedom with respect to these relations, it is also the case that each subject has none other than its own actual world as an influence. The narrowness or inclusiveness of that actual world may limit or expand the potential which may be realized by the subject in the present. When I reflect upon the potential which radical feminist separatism has for change (the introduction of novel forms) into social, political, and economic relationships, I suspect that the intentional political dissociation of women is a form of separatism with limited efficacy.

I advocate the utter worldliness of feminist dissociation. Worldless dissociation of women is, in effect, segregation of women. Not only is segregation a silencing of women by hetero-reality, but it is an elimination or negation of women’s influence in the world. On the other hand, worldly dissociation of women from hetero-reality may expand the dimensions of the world, multiplying creative options for the future. Ultimately, as a Whiteheadian feminist, I advocate the bold emersion of gynaffectionate power and potential within a wide range of contexts. A Whiteheadian consciousness of radical ontological relatedness evokes a more radical separatism to challenge the patriarchal worldview.

References

G/E -- Mary Daly. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978.

IW -- Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi. Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.

PF -- Janice Raymond. A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.

PL -- Mary Daly. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.

PR -- Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (Corrected Edition). Ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.