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I. Introduction

Though an outgrowth of Western philosophy, process philosophy has many affinities with the Chinese tradition. Whitehead himself, as well as Hartshorne, Cobb, and others, pointed out certain parallels with Mahayana Buddhism regarding their common denial of an underlying substantial substratum for enduring objects.¹ The Taoist strand of Chinese thought has an even more basic affinity with process philosophy in its insistence that a naturalistic cosmology underlies and provides the limits for an understanding of persons and society; Chang Chung-yuan and David Hall have explored this point, emphasizing the prominence naturalistic cosmology gives the aesthetic dimension of human experience.² My purpose in this paper is to trace out some affinities with neo-Confucianism.

It is frequently said that neo-Confucianism combines the metaphysical naturalism of Taoism and the process psychology of Buddhism with the moral concerns of Confucianism. To the extent this is so, process philosophy may have something to learn from it, for it is often remarked as a weakness of the process tradition in America that it has not developed a substantial ethical and political theory. The study of Wang Yang-ming is particularly useful here, not only because he was the culmination of the great neo-Confucian tradition and a genuinely original thinker, but also because he struggled very seriously to get along with only the Taoist and Buddhist strains of thought and was driven almost against his will to the active ethical orientation of Confucianism. Here, if anywhere, we should find the special reasons for neo-Confucianism. A recent study of Wang by Tu Wei-ming brilliantly lays out the psychological aspects of Wang’s journeys through Taoism and Buddhism.³ Julia Ching’s To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming is an excellent full scale study of his thought.⁴

My intention in this essay is twofold. On the one hand, it is to introduce readers of this journal to a philosopher and philosophic tradition that are intrinsically important and probably little known by them. The purpose is not to provide a new critical interpretation of Wang in terms of the Chinese tradition itself, but rather to use the conceptions of process philosophy to show the depth and subtlety of his thought.

On the other hand I am concerned to contribute to the development of viable philosophy and therefore ask whether Wang’s thought in its various points is valuable and true. Similarly I have no predisposition to believe that process philosophy itself is authoritative. Consequently what follows is not merely a comparison or setting of parallels but also an inquiry into whether the parallel themes are valid. The purpose of "finding ancestors" is to give depth and subtlety to one’s own creative work; "massive inheritance" of stable, complex structure is the prerequisite of high-level order.

I propose here to examine certain aspects of the idealism of Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) that point in the direction of many themes of process philosophy, namely the relations of mind, action, and value. The method will be to examine a central text of Wang’s, explicating it in its own terms and suggesting what it might mean in the language of process philosophy. In order to do this it will be necessary to refer at length to some of Wang’s antecedents in the neo-Confucian tradition, and I hope the main points of this essay hold for a general association of neo-Confucianism with process thought.

II. Manifesting the Clear Character

In 1527 Wang Yang-ming wrote his "Inquiry on the Great Learning," a succinct summary of the main themes he had been developing throughout his life. Its structure is a commentary on each of the "three items" in the Great Learning ("manifesting the clear character," "loving the people," "abiding in the highest good") and then a discussion of the meaning and significance of the order of the "eight steps" for attaining the "three items." The first part of that structure allowed Wang to give an epitome of his metaphysical views, and the second provided the occasion for defending his views against the prevailing theory of Chu Hsi (1130-1200)⁵

The first of the "three items" is that the education of a great man (Or perhaps the text means only the education of an adult) consists in "manifesting the clear character." Whereas for ancient Confucianism this probably referred mainly to the moral virtue of sincerity, for the neo-Confucianists it was an ontological statement about human nature and its grounding in the nature of things.

Wang began his exposition of this "item" with the assertion that "the great man regards Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body" (WYM 272). In this claim Wang was indeed asserting a diversity in the universe; he did not claim with Parmenides and Bradley that Being is one and diversity is somehow illusory; more to the historical point, he was not asserting a Buddhistic version of diversity as illusion. Rather he was asserting that for the great man, Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things -- a longhand expression for the universe -- are connected as parts of a body are connected.

The metaphor of the body can be interpreted in two ways. The first involves construing the body as an objective physical machine with interrelated and coordinated moving parts. Used as a metaphor for the connectivity of the world, this conception of body suggests that the world is a totally integrated physical whole, perhaps a machine. But this is a Cartesian construing of the notion of body, not necessarily congenial to the Chinese tradition.

The second interpretation construes body in a more personal or "embodied" sense, for instance as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty spoke of the "lived body" for which the objectified physical aspects are but abstractions. On this construction Wang’s point would be that for the great man the whole world is a body, that the difference between his personal body and the rest of the universe is trivial, and that his feeling for the rest of the universe is of the sort most people have only for their personal bodies. From the standpoint of process philosophy this point can be made without explicit use of the notion of body. The world is a world for a prehender, with all the physical connections between things being coordinate divisions of prehensions. Whitehead interpreted the human body as a special case of the human world, in a sense reversing Wang’s metaphor. The similarity between them, however, I suggest, is in the kinds of connections each uses to interpret the relation of things to knowers, connections generalized from cognitive activities. Both neo-Confucianism and process philosophy interpret these cognitive activities as natural processes basic to cosmology.

Wang said, "the great man regards Heaven, Earth and the myriad things as one body" (italics mine). Does this mean that in themselves they are not one body but are so only when regarded by a particular point of view? Not at all. Wang also said "that the great man can regard Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body is not because he deliberately wants to do so, but because it is natural to the humane nature of his mind that he do so" (WYM 272). This means, first, that the great man’s view is not a special categoreal scheme or perspective that is one among others and that can be adopted. It is not like William James’s suggestion that we should see things optimistically. The second implication of the statement is that the view of the things as one body is a function of the "human nature" that underlies a person’s particular mind. Even inferior people have this humane nature and see things as one body, except that they quickly cover it up with selfish desires. Wang quotes Mencius on the primordial quality of feelings of commiseration (SCP 65)⁶ We shall return shortly to why inferior people go wrong.

III. The Great Ultimate, Principle, and Original Nature

Before that, however, it is necessary to reflect briefly on certain general neo-Confucian doctrines presupposed in Wang’s discussion and what these might mean in contemporary terms. Chou Tun-i (1017-73) was the first great neo-Confucian philosopher to set out the major themes that Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming took for granted.⁷ His classic, "An explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate," began with this paragraph:

From the standpoint of our own concerns, the crucial point of this passage is its assertion that the Great Ultimate is a vibratory movement, wherein movement itself has a limit in which it is transformed to tranquillity which returns to the origin of assertive movement again. The ancient concepts of yang (the active part of movement) and yin (the tranquil part) are interpreted as derivative or partial functions of the Great Ultimate’s movement. I take this to assert that the most primoridal sense of what it is to be feels "being" to be vibration. To be is to be one or several vibrations.

This interpretation obviously depends on Whitehead’s language describing the cosmos as a set of vibratory patterns. Its utility for making connections with modern physics is obvious⁸ Therefore it is important to determine the degree to which this interpretation was in the minds of the neo-Confucians and the extent to which it is a mere implication or possible reading of what they said. It must be admitted at once that they did not develop the notion toward a theoretical physics; nor did they elaborate a prescientific cosmology drawing out the implications of vibratory motion very explicitly. Rather they usually moved very quickly from naturalistic statements to concerns about human nature, ethics and politics.

On the other hand, the sense that to be is to be a "change" illustrating the principles of yang and yin is very ancient and permeated the Chinese culture the neo-Confucians took for granted. It was more basic than the splits between Confucian, Taoist, and other schools. Furthermore, there was no school of thought in China that would have presented a substantialist alternative to the view of being as change; the closest candidate would be the common-sense view of things attacked by the Buddhists as illusion, and even here it was the Indian, not Chinese, sources of Buddhism that became most exercised about criticizing the theory of permanent substances. The Chinese might never have seen the need to sharpen or even develop explicitly the concept of being as vibratory motion. I believe that my interpretation, though not a paraphrase, would not be denied by the neo-Confucians.

I wrote above that "the most primordial sense of what it is to be feels ‘being’ to be vibration" The language of "sensation" is deliberate. The sense that leads to ontology for the Chinese is not vision or touch, as it has been for the West. Nor is it the hearing of the music of things, as it has been for India.⁹ Rather it is the dance, more particularly the kind of exercise movement traditionally attributed to the Emperor Yu (2205 BC.) for the purpose of bringing health through harmonizing with the universe, and developed through the millennia into what we now know as T’ai Chi Ch’uan and related movements.¹⁰ The importance of this is that learning the rhythms of one’s own movement is part of learning to perceive the being of others; ontology requires cultivated experience, though all of us can feel something of what is intended in an ontology of vibratory movement.

Within the Chinese cosmology of vibratory motion, ascending and descending the waves is called yang and yin respectively. Further concepts are needed to describe the amplitude of the waves. These are concepts that would relate a given vibration to its environment of vibrations with which it must harmonize. Each vibration has its intrinsic nature, "given by Heaven" as the neo-Confucians would say; but its nature is determined by the requirements of harmonizing with its background and the larger rhythms of which it is a part. The cosmology of vibratory motion requires a notion of harmony as a central ontological concept.

Although Wang did not develop the point, I believe he presupposed the cosmology of a harmony of vibratory motions as the background to his claim that the sage is one body with the universe. In one sense, every being is one body with the universe in that its rhythms must at least be compatible with the vibrations around it. To be completely out of phase is to self-destruct. But some internal rhythms can be so attuned that they register and reinforce the rhythms of distant vibrations; these are the ones that are "perceptive" of the distant, or ontologically conjoined by virtue of mutually supportive or organically connected harmonies. The meaning of this in terms of human experience was the primary neo-Confucian concern, not its cosmological meaning.

For Chou, the heart of normative human nature is sincerity, a concept originally developed in the ancient Confucian classic, "The Doctrine of the Mean" (SCP 95-114). Sincerity, for Chou, is that harmonizing trait which connects ideal inner tranquillity and all the outer moral activities. He wrote:

What might this mean in terms of contemporary process philosophy? Within an actual occasion the categoreal obligations govern the passage of separately prehensible data, merely subjectively unified, into a novel, concrete, objectively harmonized occasion. This inner process must satisfy the categoreal obligations, as a cosmological necessity. I suggest that the process of concrescence according to categoreal obligations is what Chou and the other neo-Confucians idealize as inner tranquillity. The inner process of concrescence is not isolated from other occasions, however. Each of the other occasions has its own value, the objective fact of its own subjective process of satisfaction of the categoreal obligations. Properly moral subjective concrescence should respect the values of what it prehends and of what later will prehend it. That is, speaking very generally, an occasion should objectify its data "truly," preserving their individually attained values, and superject to its successors the best potentialities (AI, ch. 16).

Of course, these points about actual occasions are made as if actual occasions were people. They are not; at most they are only momentary parts of people; and most occasions are not parts of anyone. The point of process philosophy is that the elements of subjectivity and value, indeed obligation, are found rudimentarily in every actual element. A continuing difficulty with process thought today is the facile slippage from personal language to cosmological language, and then the assumption that a fully elaborated cosmology is a sufficient theory of the human person. Difficulties aside for the moment, the historical point should be stressed that the neo-Confucianists did exactly the same thing, perhaps because something like panentheism was common to both positions.

Sincerity, for Chou Tun-i read into process terms, is the harmony of ideal subjective process with ideal objective perception and effect. Without that harmony there can be an elegant way of satisfying the categoreal demands for subjective harmony that distorts the values of the world and contributes only trouble for the future. There can also be ways of responding objectively to the world and helpfully toward the future which, without harmony, leave the self (or occasions) in either knots or unwoven skeins. Sincerity is the peculiar harmony that maximizes both inner elegance and outer virtue.

It is apparent from these suggestions for interpretation that the model for sincerity is cosmological, not psychological. This was indeed the way Chou took the point. His little essay "An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate" begins cosmologically with the generation of yang and yin from the Great Ultimate; from yang and yin come the Five Agents or material forces: water, fire, wood, metal, and earth; and from these all things are made. Then Chou argued:

Because man is the purest and best exemplar of the manifestation of the Great Ultimate, human virtues (at base, sincerity) provide the names for cosmological factors,

Consequently, in his book, Penetrating the Book of Changes, Chou said that sincerity is the foundation of the sage obtained from the Originator of all things (SCP 465). It is the original nature of man, and not of man only but of all things except not so clearly or excellently. Later neo-Confucianists such as Ch’eng Hao (1032-1085) and Ch’eng I (1033-1107) developed more straightforwardly cosmological concepts to interpret the original nature of man, namely "principle of nature" and "material force." Roughly, the "principle of nature" is the set of categoreal obligations and "material force" is creativity organized in its basic ways (e.g., as active and passive and as the physical elements) and expressed as initial data. Chu Hsi, the greatest of the neo-Confucianists before Wang Yang-ming, argued that each thing in the universe has its own nature or principle, and that this principle is antecedent to but never separate from the thing’s material force (PHN, bk. II). For these later thinkers the concept of jen, meaning love or humanity, took the place of sincerity in Chou’s thought as describing the ideal harmony of inner process and outer connections.

IV. One Body

In light of this background, we can reinterpret Wang Yang-ming’s claim that "the great man regards Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body." Great because of his humanity (jen), the sage harmonizes his internal process with all things to which he is related. But what about the person who is less than a sage? Is humanity (jen) universal, or is it a special achievement of greatness? This is an ancient question for Confucianism.

Wang addressed this question from two sides. On the first he argued by a series of steps that a person, great or inferior, identifies with all things. If he sees a child about to fall into a well, he feels immediate alarm and commiseration; but the feeling of humanities does not extend only to his "brothers." Wang wrote,

Note that Wang was explicitly rejecting the view that love or identification -- regarding as one body with oneself -- is a matter of affinity with things like oneself. It is not a matter of appreciating out of analogy with a sense for one’s own feelings. Rather, it is a fundamental appreciation for the values of things’ own natures, and a pang at the loss of those values. This is similar to Whitehead’s point that the primary objects of prehension are other occasions or nexuses of occasions replete with the subjective senses of their own satisfactions. In the process theory of actual occasions, the intrinsic formal value of prehended things is very quickly compromised by the need of the prehending occasion to valuate the things relative to the demands of its own satisfaction. The world is mostly transmuted to structures and lines of energy. Only in human beings, indeed only in connoisseurs, is there a highly developed capacity to integrate prehended things into one’s own subjective experience while acknowledging the objective natures and values of those things. For the most part, physical low-level occasions, and even people most of the time, forget the values things have in themselves and attend only to the values they have in their own coming satisfaction. Massive negative prehension is the price most things pay for subjective harmony. This is precisely Wang’s point: the great man should learn how not to have to pay that price. The scope of prehensions unites all things into one body, but only the sage can regard things that way because only he can minimize negative prehensions.

Wang does not infer from the above that the sage is a higher grade of being than the inferior person. Rather, the inferior person has the same nature the sage does, but obscures it by allowing himself selfish desires. This is Wang’s second approach to the question of the universality of humanity (jen). The effect of having selfish desires is not immediate immorality but rather the breakdown of the harmony between inner process and outer things. Having a selfish desire interposes between the categoreal obligations of subjective satisfaction, and the objective values of things to be attended to, a bad principle of valuation, namely that things should be valued for their contribution to a personal idea of self. This is more than merely valuing things according to their potentials for integration in satisfaction. It is also more than negatively prehending things in order to achieve integration. It is to value things according to how they serve an idea of self in distinction from the rest of the world. The idea of the self, so used, destroys the sage’s regard of the whole world as one body. As Wang put it,

Would Wang have said that the original human nature, manifested by the sage as humanity or love, is different from the principle inherent in other things? In one sense yes. Only people have the "clear character" according to which all things are regarded as one body, which it is the duty of the great man to manifest. In another sense, not necessarily. When a great man grasps another thing as part of his body, he does so by appreciating its principle; as we shall see Wang also argued, the principles of all things are identical with the principle to be found in one’s own mind. What might that principle be? My suggestion is, the categoreal obligations for grasping a world into a new valuable actuality; the character a person has, even if obscured by selfish desires, is the same that animals, plants, and tiles have; in nonhumans, that character lacks clarity because of what process philosophy calls "negative prehension.

V. Loving the People

The second characteristic of the learning of a great man is "loving the people." Wang explained this by saying

This involved Wang in an interpretation of the ancient Chinese distinction of substance from function. Roughly, the substance of a thing is what it is in itself, and its function is what it is interacting with others. A thing functions according to its own inner principle (as well as according to the possibilities offered by the things with which it interacts). When the thing is considered in its substance, the principle is there but inactive, undifferentiated and unmanifest. When the thing is considered in its functioning, the principle is the guiding force of its activity, diversely relating to the myriad things. For the Confucian tradition, a person touches his substance in the meditation that attains tranquillity; a person’s function is seen in his relations as rightly ordered.

Wang’s contribution here was to point out that the humanity by virtue of which the great man is one body with the world can be regarded both as substance and as function.¹³ As substance, the person’s own personal being apart from expressions, humanity is the manifestation of the clear character by which the world is regarded as one body. This is a complicated theory. How can the sage regard the world as one body when he still has the continuing task of making it one body? Is this not a simple confusion of the ideal with the real?

Wang’s usual way of responding to this difficulty is to point out the continuity of knowledge and action. A person does not really know himself to be one body with others unless he is interacting with them in "bodily harmony." This is not merely a matter of his own intentions but of theirs too. For the sage to love the people he must also "renovate" them, that is, make them also great.¹⁴ This picks up the traditional Confucian theme -- the main theme of the "Great Learning"-- that by perfecting one’s own life one has a causal influence on perfecting the lives of others, a topic to which we shall return.

At the moment, however, let me stress a point that will pose some difficulties. It seems as if the world is not one body, regardless of how the sages would like to see it; if this were not so there would be no need for effort; on this interpretation, reality simply has not measured up to the ideal. Wang and some other Confucianists see the matter differently. For them the world at base is indeed really ideal, one body, as it were; evil is the superimposition by selfish desires of feelings and actions that pervert the ideal harmony.¹⁵ The bulk of the moral program then is the elimination of selfish desires so that the original clear character will shine through, or so that love of the people will be fulfilled, with all that means for the ordering of the family, economy, and state. Put in theological terms, Wang believed that "after the fall" human nature was still intact underneath and moreover man was still in the Garden of Eden. Put another way, the disharmonies that rend the otherwise organic fabric of the world are all functions of one’s selfishness. But is this so?

VI. Abiding in the Highest Good

Before pursuing this point it is necessary to examine Wang’s interpretation of the third item of the "Great Learning," namely, "abiding in the highest good." He wrote:

I take this to mean that the highest good is the Heaven that endows us with our original nature or substance, and that in its substantiality, that is, apart from expressive functioning, this original nature is innate knowledge of its own source. In its functioning, the clear character is an innate knowledge of the good as expressed in things, one’s own mind and other things. This valuational quality of inner subjectivity carrying through all experience is characteristic of neo-Confucianism generally. Wang’s own special emphasis is on the fact that if the good can be found functioning within one’s own mind, there is no need to investigate things outside the mind for the purpose of abiding in the highest good; this is the chief point of his dispute with Chu Hsi.¹⁷

The general theme of abiding in the highest good is the greatest contribution neo-Confucianism has to contemporary philosophy, because it is the point at which an axiological theory of experience is put forward. Without the necessity of working through the fact-value dichotomy, neo-Confucianism presents an understanding of the knowledge of things’ inner principles in which those principles are values.¹⁸

Process philosophy can help explicate "abiding in the highest good" in modern terms, and in turn can learn from that doctrine some ramifications of its own view. First of all, from an objective or coordinate point of view, everything has a pattern or structure; one interpretation of the Chinese term for principle (li) is "pattern." Process philosophy points out that patterns are not only facts or forms of facts but also values. The reason for this is that each pattern or structured thing is a satisfaction, or a nexus of satisfactions. In other terms, a structure has the value of being a means to an end. The end is the satisfying of the categoreal obligations of harmony within the limits imposed by the initial data; the concrete satisfaction is the means by which this end is achieved (PR 127-30)¹⁹ Without the factual character of the structure, there would be no actual means by which the end is attained. But without the value of being a means to some end, a structure is radically unintelligible; it must always be somehow "mysterious," as Wittgenstein suggested, that there is such a thing as formal coherence.

Of course, most if not all structures of which we are aware in experience are not the result of single occasions but of nexuses of them; they exhibit a great many satisfactions. Most of them, however, are socially organized so that the satisfaction of each member occasion is coordinated with the satisfactions of many of the others, so the value of the whole has extra coherence. With neo-Confucianism, process philosophy offers as an empirical generalization the proposition that experience is shot through with valuing. To take in a structure is to take it in as the achievement of satisfaction; the factual character of the structure may be isolated from the value elements, and for many practical purposes it is; but this should be recognized as abstraction from the basic "principle" of the structure.

Second, from a genetic or subjective point of view, the principle of a thing is the set of categoreal obligations that define the process of attaining satisfaction for its initial data. The initial data are the "material forces," as it were, needing regulation by "principle" -- the categoreal obligations of creativity -- in order to be existent or present. Stated this way, Wang Yang-ming was surely right that there is only one "principle" in all things. Things differ because of their diverse initial data; as I shall argue shortly there is also another source of difference that Wang does not explicitly take into account. Meanwhile, a common process theme should be mentioned here: in a genetic analysis of an occasion, "principle" would be "innately" present in the sense that the categoreal obligations of creativity govern the genetic process. Moreover, the initial data incorporated into the emerging occasion are themselves innate exemplars of the categoreal obligations. The categoreal obligations, to use Wang’s language, are the clear character of man’s (or anything’s) original nature that the sage might manifest. They are also the principles of other things to which the sage might be related. Because the obligations are present in process, Wang believed they not only are innate but can be known innately. Although it might require sagacity to express this objectively, what he meant was that insofar as a person apprehends the value of something, he apprehends it as satisfying "principle," that is as being a means to the end of incorporating the categoreal obligations in the process of making an actual thing out of initial data.

Third, for both neo-Confucianism and process philosophy, exhibiting "principle" allows of degrees. That is, although all processes and resulting structures must be harmonious out of conformity to the categoreal obligations, some ways of meeting those obligations with certain data are more harmonious than other ways with those same data. In particular, as Whitehead expressed the theme, human beings can live with truth, beauty and adventure, which are superlative ways of meeting the categoreal obligations as relevant to human life. The obligations can be met without truth, beauty or adventure, or with only minimal attainments. In neo-Confucian terms, abiding in the highest good is not merely exhibiting "principle," which all things do willy-nilly, but also adjusting those aspects of life under possible control to resonate with the fact of exhibiting principle. Wang and most other neo-Confucians would have argued, as noted above, that the failure to exhibit principle in the highest degree is a result of corrupting selfishness, not lack of original attainment. The result is similar to that expressed in process philosophy, however, that harmony is minimally, not maximally, embodied.

The acknowledgment that the exhibition of "principle" allows of degrees is important for its contribution to solving a larger issue for Chinese thought, most pressing for Taoism (neo-Confucianism had incorporated most Taoist themes). Because the Tao is the principle of existence, nothing can escape it; yet clearly many things depart from the Tao. This is possible because there are minimal and maximal ways of being in the Tao, and many ways in between.

A fourth point of contact between neo-Confucianism and process philosophy regarding value is that for both it is an ontological matter. Principle is that by which things exist, for Wang and other neo-Confucianists. For process philosophy the ontological condition for existence is the satisfaction of the categoreal obligations; past occasions provide the cosmological data and causal constraints, but emergent existence is a matter of meeting the obligations.

The ontological character of the innate quality of value raises the further question of why this is what it means to be rather than something else. Why are these categoreal obligations the way to harmony? That they fit our intuitive sense (or do not) is an empirical matter. But why is harmony "that way?" No description of the conditions for harmony can give the normative reasons for their being obligatory. The Chinese respond to this question by citing Heaven as the source of principle.²⁰ Principle is the original gift native to every determinate thing and process. In itself indeterminate, Heaven or the Great Ultimate gives rise to a principled world.²¹ On the one hand, there is a sense of arbitrariness in the creative process; yet, on the other hand, Heaven is Heaven precisely because its creation is principled. The theology connected with most process thought asserts that God is finite and does not create in a radical sense; because God is said to be bound by the categoreal obligations, he cannot account for why they are normative. A more radical doctrine of creation is not incompatible with a process cosmology, however; God can be represented as a creator ex nihilo that, from the standpoint of the harmonies of the world, is similar to Plato’s Form of the Good.²²

Wang’s interest in "abiding" in the highest good was more immediately moral than ontological. He pointed out that if the superior person does not abide in the highest good, his attempts to manifest the clear character or love the people are likely to go awry. The Buddhists and Taoists sought to manifest the clear character without abiding in the highest good, and lost their minds "in illusions, emptiness, and quietness, having nothing to do with the work of the family, the state, and the world" (WYM 274f). Those who want to love the people without abiding in the highest good sink "their own minds in base and trifling things," losing them in scheming strategy and cunning techniques having neither the sincerity of humanity nor that of commiseration (WYM 274). The point is, both the normative character of harmony within and the objective satisfaction without can be lost, with only factual consideration remaining, unless the value dimension of being is explicitly cultivated.

VII. Investigation of Things

From this point on in his essay Wang dealt with practical implications of his exposition of manifesting the clear character, loving the people, and abiding in the highest good. They fall under three main heads.

The first is his argument that the "principle" should not be sought in external things. Chu Hsi and others had argued that the foundation of Confucian learning, i.e., the "three items," were to be found through investigation of external things. Wang argues that this just leads to the mind’s being confused (WYM 274f.). Of course one must investigate things in order to know what they are, Wang would admit, but one could not discern the "principle" in them if one did not already have that in oneself, and have it identified there. The cultivation of "principle" in tranquillity and peaceful repose therefore allows norms to be brought to deliberation instead of sought in deliberation itself. This makes sense in terms of process philosophy insofar as it means that the categoreal obligations are universal and that it is by discerning them in oneself that one especially appreciates the satisfactions of others as normative. But insofar as there is a parallel with process philosophy at this point, two additions must be made to the problem.

First of all, despite the universality of the categoreal obligations each event in the universe is unique in having its own place, its own data to integrate, and its own subjectivity. As a result, the means, i.e., the "satisfying" structure, by which any other occasion would meet its obligations is unique to itself. Therefore, a person could not know anything about a particular thing other than himself by knowing only the categoreal obligations in himself or in abstraction.

Second, even if a person knew the categoreal obligations and the initial data for another event, that event has its own subjectivity by which it spontaneously weights the importance its antecedents will have for it. So, in order to know how and to what degree "principle" is realized in another thing, it is necessary to investigate it directly.

Wang wrote, "People fail to realize that the highest good is in their minds and seek it outside. As they believe that everything or every event has its own definite principle, they search for the highest good in individual things (WYM 274). But everything does have its own definite "principle." Although "principle" or the categoreal obligations are ingredient in everything, each case is unique. Apart from structuring specific processes, "principle" is vacuous or indeterminate. The statement of "principle" in abstraction from specific processes, as Whitehead makes in discussing the categoreal obligations, is merely an empirical generalization of nodal points in the way of becoming harmonious, not an exhibition of the normativeness of "principle" or the obligations for any particular entities.²³

At this point it is relevant to recall the general neo-Confucian conception of nature as a complex, harmonious configuration of vibratory changes. Suppose we said that a person appreciates a distant thing by grasping its vibratory character, its rhythms and the connections of its rhythms with the surrounding environment and across intervening distance. This would be done by virtue of the extraordinarily complex rhythms within human experience wherein the core of the person’s own experience is made compatible with the rhythms of external things, with minimal distortion, and whereby semantic rhythms within the person’s experience point out the external reference; Whitehead’s discussion of symbolic reference is a good account of this. With this level of interpretation, the experience of experiencing a distant thing would be a kind of concrete feel of the harmonious nature in which both the thing felt and the feeler exist, a feeling of participating in the Tao that includes the perceived thing. Put another way, one can feel oneself to be in natural connection with the distant thing; the thing can be isolated for strict observation only by a process of abstraction that somehow attempts to neutralize the intervening medium.

This feeling of harmonious connection with other things is perfectly concrete, and if it serves as a categoreally basic feeling, puts a new perspective on both the knowledge of principle (categoreal obligations) and the knowledge of particular other things arising out of their specific initial data. Knowledge of principle is completely abstract: as noted above, the categoreal obligations are universal for all occasions and are actually indefinite without some specific initial data. The particular actual entities prehended, according to process philosophy, are absolutely unique, both because of the uniqueness of their initial data and because of the individuality of their own subjective processes of unifying those data.

Within the ambiance of process philosophy, experience of another thing is usually presented as a matter of receiving the other as datum and then transmuting it so as to make it compatible with other demands within the experiencing occasion: the Other/Self dichotomy is preserved in a strict fashion, and doubtless there are important contexts where this is valid. But suppose there are indeed aafeelings of harmonious connection" within which both the appreciation of categoreal obligation ("principle") and the givenness of the data of others are abstractions. One’s self-constitution would be a vibratory response to the rhythms felt in the environing universe, but the character of that response would be a harmonic constituent of the larger "body" of the universe. The "morality" of self-constitution would include both the acknowledgment of distant rhythms and setting up one’s own rhythm so as to enhance those others. To bring such feelings of harmonious connection to consciousness is unlikely to be a frequent occurrence. But it is not incompatible with Whitehead’s vision of things, and indeed is closely allied to the sense of Peace that he articulated in his later writings.

What I have called "feelings of harmonious connection" are not explicitly discussed and defended by Wang Yang-ming. Is there any ground for thinking he asserted something like them in other terms? I believe they are natural extensions of the doctrine of vibratory motion underlying yang and yin that is common to the entire heritage of neo-Confucianism. Indeed, those feelings must be close to what the entire Chinese tradition has meant by being aware of one’s participation in the Tao.

Second, I believe this notion was what Wang was reaching for in his attempt to extend the concept of principle to cover what some other neo-Confucianists called material force. His insistence on monism was not aimed to reduce the particularity and materiality of the world to ideal "principle" in some subjective sense, although he did misstate his case when he called for seeking principle within oneself instead of in external things. His monism was rather the doctrine that genuinely human functioning was a concrete grasp of the rhythms of the universe in harmony; from the perspective of the actual rhythms of the universe, both particular initial data and universal categoreal obligations are partial and abstract. Finally, there are other doctrines of Wang that make good sense on this interpretation, among which are the following.

VIII. Roots and Branches

Wang’s second main practical theme had to do with the continuity of process. "Things have their roots and their branches," said the Great Learning, and Chu Hsi had likened manifesting the clear character to the roots and loving the people to the branches (WYM 276). Wang objected that this inevitably leads to making these two things and argued instead that manifesting the clear character consists in loving the people, and vice versa (so long as this continuous process abides in the highest good). To distinguish strongly between roots and branches is to encourage self-preoccupation on the one hand and unintegrated moral activity on the other. So far so good; pragmatism has made a similar point.

But if we remember the problem above concerning "principle" in things outside one’s mind, we must cope with the problem of contingency. An act of love issuing from one’s own clearly manifested character cannot flow smoothly through the world to its objects as guided by principle. The specific expression of principles of other things might be different; further, other things have their own subjective responses to make that might thwart the love (or renovation). The superior person simply does not have the control over others and over the nonanimate part of the world that Wang and other Confucianists would like to think.²⁴ The metaphor of roots and branches might be too limited.

From the perspective of process thought, the problem is that of spontaneity. Although each occasion is obligated to constitute itself within the limits of its initial data and the tolerance of the environment, it exercises spontaneity in doing so, and when the occasions are parts of complex human experience, that spontaneity might be significant. One person’s self-constitution cannot affect the spontaneity of another’s except through persuasion; furthermore, limiting attempts to influence to mere persuasion is one way of showing basic human respect. Where the self/other dichotomy is strictly observed, influence and control can be nothing more than presenting oneself as initial data to be done with as the other occasion may. But from the perspective of the world as an interlocking harmony of rhythms, one’s action is the setting up of a chain of vibratory processes within which other people move. They, of course, behave with some spontaneity and may act so as to change the rhythms one intends for them. But the overarching concrete harmonic pattern is a larger matrix of value than either their own personal ideals or one’s own initial intentions.

My suggestion is that the metaphor of roots and branches ought not be interpreted by identifying one’s initiating actions as the roots and the consequences of those actions in others as the branches. Rather, the roots and branches are the proximate and remote elements of the overall harmonic process of the universe.

Wang was correct precisely in his insistence in not separating them. The limitation on this point, however, is that people do have the spontaneous ability to fit within the overall harmonies in ways that minimally harmonize, that barely meet the categoreal obligations; the price paid for this diminution of one’s rhythmic answer to nature’s pulses is the necessity to erect a barrier of a narcissistic image of self and world to which one answers instead.

IX. From Person to Society

Wang’s third theme brings out the critical elements in the others even more. Asked to explicate the passage from the Great Learning that says the sages ordered the state by cultivating their personal lives in knowledge and will, Wang developed his view that the rectified will or innate knowledge of the good is the foundation for action and knowledge of external things. All things, from the inner mind to ordering the state, are "really one thing," Wang said.

Wang exegeted his statement with the comment that only when one is actually willing things or thinking thoughts does the question arise as to their goodness or evil; prior to the "functioning" of will and thinking there is only the original nature or principle. A well-cultivated person responds to good thoughts and actions as good, bad ones as bad. What does the cultivation consist in? It consists in extending the innate knowledge of principle, the highest good, into all objects of thought and action so that their real value-character is manifest.

To extend that knowledge is to investigate those things. The external world cannot be ignored; it must be investigated so as to manifest its structured value. Chu Hsi would say the "investigating" means finding out what things are. In contrast, Wang said, "To investigate is to rectify" (WYM 279), by which he means a person knows an external thing by rectifying it so that it is lovingly conformed to principle. Rejecting all strong distinctions between internal and external things, Wang defined a thing as an object of will. Anticipating Josiah Royce. Wang argued that willing a thing’s good is the way to know it. On his view, it would not make sense to say one knows a bad thing; in the complete sense of "know," the sense appropriate to the sage, "to know" is "to will."

Therefore the rectification of the mind so as to bring its functioning into consonance with the highest good is the foundation for all particular willed actions and acts of knowing, including matters of government. "If one sincerely loves the good known by the innate faculty but does not in reality do the good as he comes into contact with the thing to which the will is directed, it means that the thing has not been investigated and that the will to love the good is not yet sincere" (WYM 279).

This is a remarkable, and dangerous, strategy as it stands, for it amounts to saying that moral and political action flow naturally from a cultivated personal life. Let me briefly develop this line of criticism, leaving for another time the discussion of the identification of will and knowledge.

From the perspective of process philosophy, the events of the world are unique and perhaps interestingly contingent; this is particularly true of the events comprising personal and social life. Therefore. there are cosmologically built-in limits to the moral force of a person, indeed to his moral ideals. Whereas it may be true that there is an ideal state of affairs for all the things affected by a person’s actions, it is not at all true that it is ideal that they should be made to realize their ideals by his actions alone. In most human affairs, freedom to be self-governing is a rather higher ideal than most of the ideals about which governance decisions would be made.²⁵

If a Confucian sage could indeed strictly order the state by his investigative will, that would be a totalitarian situation. Confucians earlier than Wang noted that a sage-king could order the state by encouraging people to imitate his own virtue; but this is not the same as causing the people to be virtuous by the will that knows them.

Now I believe that if the concept of vibratory change is noted as the background to Wang’s thought, a different interpretation emerges. To know and to will a thing would mean both to reverberate to its rhythms in ways that reinforce what is good and to set up improved rhythms where possible. One could no more control another person than one dancer can force the movements of another dancer. But one dancer is neither knowing nor caring for the other without dancing in such a way as to acknowledge tenderly and to provide rhythms for the other’s initiative. A caring dancer evokes spontaneity in others with the very rhythms he or she sets up. Herbert Fingarette has developed an elaborate interpretation of Confucius in which the dominant thesis is that the ruler governs the empire, establishing harmony and peace, by a kind of ritual dance or observance of propriety.²⁶ Wang was no totalitarian!

X. Unresolved Paradoxes

At this point it is necessary for me to admit that the interpretation I have been pressing based on the notion of vibratory change and harmony has lifted up an extreme Taoist tendency in Wang. It emphasizes a communication with nature and other people whose rhythms do not always respect the idiosyncrasies of individuals. Particularly, it tends to dismiss into irrelevance those elements of spontaneity that are not significant for the great harmonies of natural and social life, and those elements of degrading brute force whose existential harmony with nature thwarts humanity.

It also suggests that social and political strategy would not respect the rules of propriety, or the integrity of private experience, if propriety and private integrity stand in opposition to the larger rhythms of harmony and justice. Indeed, the Confucians traditionally criticized the Taoists for taking propriety and private integrity too lightly, for being willing to use deceit in strategy and public affairs. I believe this is not an unfair interpretation of Wang Yang-ming. His great achievements were as a military leader -- a Taoist occupation -- rather than as a Confucian court scholar. His famous victory over royal rebels was based on deceiving envoys.

But where does this leave us with regard to ethics and political theory? For is it not the case that the problems we so often must deal with are the brute, disharmonic forces of poverty, malice, stupidity, and entrenched personal and group interest? To focus on the high level harmonic connections of things is to mystify practical politics and permit what should be changed. Does not justice sometimes demand paying strict attention to the Self/Other dichotomy? Is it not the case in fact that the Maoists are right in insisting on changing the basic material conditions of life before attempting the subtler cultivation of character through interpersonal rhythms and that the traditional approaches of both Confucianism and Taoism were counterrevolutionary?

I suspect that the answer to those rhetorical questions is yes and that the resolutions of the problems they pose will involve distinguishing various kinds of experience and assigning to each a domain of appropriate roles. The Taoist awareness of the harmonic connections of the universe has its place, particularly in contexts of cultivation of the spirit. The moral experience of dealing with resolutely opposed Others also has its place, and the norms for that kind of experience are not easily derivable from considerations manifesting the clear character. loving the people, and abiding in the highest good.

A cosmology of social thinking is needed to sort and order these and other kinds of experience. The hallmark of such a cosmology would be an emphasis on the participation of all parties rather than the harmonic pattern in which they participate, for the pattern is moral to the extent that it is an extension of individual, responsible exercise of spontaneity. Neither neo-Confucianism nor process philosophy so far has contributed a cosmology of social thinking.

The remarkable ethical point about Wang Yang-ming was that in his vigorous and active life he continually kept his immediate practical concerns in contact with his metaphysical tradition concerning value. It is a topic for another essay, though the point is well explored in Tu Wei-ming’s book, to discern how Wang’s personal spiritual development was the occasion for making his metaphysical life concrete.

References

PHN -- Chu Hsi, Philosophy of Human Nature, trans. byJ. Percy Bruce. London: Probsthain & Co., 1922.

SCP -- Wing-tsit Chan, ed. and trans., Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

WYM -- Wang Yang-ming, Instructions for Practical Living, trans. by Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.

Notes

1. See, for instance, Whitehead’s RM; Hartshorne’s Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1970); John B. Cobb, Jr.’s "Buddhist Emptiness and the Christian Cod," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45/1 (March, 1977), 11-26; and Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975); for several critical dialogues on this issue, see John Cobb’s Theology in Process, edited by David Ray Griffin and Thomas J. J. Altizer (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977).

2. See Chang Chung-yan’s Creativity and Taoism: A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art, and Poetry (New York: Harper, 1970); and David Hall’s Uncertain Phoenix (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming).

3. Tu Wei-ming, Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming’s Youth (1472-1509) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).

4. Julia Ching, To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).

5. Chu Hsi was the great systematic synthesizer of Sung neo-Confucianism. Just as Thomas Aquinas provided the great synthesis of medieval Christian responses to Aristotelian and Arabic thought, so Chu brought together Confucianism’s incorporation of Taoism and Buddhism. His editions and interpretations of the Chinese classics were the basis of the civil service examinations in China from 1313 to 1905! Selections of Chu’s writings are in Chan’s Source Book; see also PHN. For background see J. Percy Bruce’s Chu Hsi and His Masters: An Introduction to Chu Hsi and the Sung School of Chinese Philosophy (London: Probsthain & Co., 1923); also Professor Carsun Chang’s The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought, Volume I (New York: Bookman Associates, 1957).

6. Book of Mencius, 2A:6, (SCP 65).

7. For a brief biography and exposition see Bruce’s Chu Hsi and His Masters, chs. 2 and 6.

8. Cf. SMW. For a more complete development of themes of "vibration" in Eastern thought and modern physics, see Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (Berkeley: Shambala, 1975.)

9. See Antonio T. de Nicolas’ Four Dimensional Man (Stony Brook, N.Y.: Nicolas Hays, 1976), and Ernest C. McClain’s The Myth of Invariance (Stony Brook, N.Y.: Nicolas Hays, 1976).

10. See Sophia Delza’s Tai Chi Ch’uan: Body and Mind in Harmony (New York: David McKay, 1961), appendix.

11. The internal quotation is from Analects 12:1, in Chan, p. 38.

12. Wang’s general line of argument concerning the origin of evil had been originally developed by Chang Tsai (1020-1077); see for instance Chang’s Correcting Youthful Ignorance, SCP 507-14.

13. Although this particular interpretation is original with Wang, Ch’eng Hao had written, "The man of jen forms one body with all things without any differentiation. Righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness are all (expression of) Jen," in his essay "On Understanding the Nature of Jen (Humanity)," SCP 523.

14. The "item" in the Great Learning, "loving the people," can also be translated "renovating the people," which was Chu Hsi’s preferred rendering. Wang argued that it means both loving in the sense that a parent loves a child and also renovating in the sense of to "arouse the people to become new," a phrase from a later portion of the Great Learning (WYM 51).

15. Ch’eng Hao, for instance, wrote "everyone’s nature is obscured in some way and as a consequence he cannot follow the Way. In general the trouble lies in resorting to selfishness and the exercise of cunning. Being selfish, one cannot take purposive action to respond to things, and being cunning, one cannot be at home with enlightenment. For a mind that hates external things to seek illumination in a mind where nothing exists, is to look for a reflection on the back of a mirror," from "Reply to Mater Heng-chu’s Letter," SCP 256. Chu Hsi said, "Whatever remedy you find for the distraction and distress of the Mind you cannot regain its lordship. You must perceive and understand the principles of the universe without the slightest admixture of selfish motives, then you will succeed. . . . Otherwise, you will find that selfish desire becomes like a live dragon or tiger, impossible to master (PHN 247; cf. 264-66). Wang Yang-ming discussed desires throughout the Instructions for Practical Living; see for instance part II, section 161 (WYM 140f.).

16. In his Investigation of Things Wang wrote, "The highest good is the original substance of the mind. It is no other than manifesting one’s clear character to the point of refinement and singleness of mind. And yet it is not separated from the events and things. When Chu Hsi said in his commentary that (manifesting the clear character is) ‘the realization of the Principle of Nature to the fullest extent without an iota of selfish human desire,’ he got the point" (WYM 7).

17. Chu was not as "externalistic" as Wang sometimes made him out. Chu wrote, "The mind embraces all principles and all principles are complete in this single entity, the mind. If one is not able to preserve the mind, he will be unable to investigate principle to the utmost. If he is unable to investigate principle to the utmost he will be unable to exert his mind to the utmost" (SCP 606). On the other hand, as will be discussed below, Chu Hsi did believe that external things must be investigated to understand principle thoroughly. He wrote, "From the most essential and most fundamental about oneself to every single thing or affair in the world, even the meaning of one word or half a word, everything should be investigated to the utmost, and none of it is unworthy of attention. . . .There is no other way to investigate principle to the utmost than to pay attention to everything in our daily reading of books and handling of affairs. . . . To investigate principle to the utmost means to seek to know the reason or which things and affairs are as they are and the reason according to which they should be, that is all if we know why they are as they are, our will will not be perplexed, and if we know what they should be, our action will not be wrong. It does not mean to take the principle of something and put it in another" (SCP 610f).

18. Whereas Chu distinguished the "reason for which things and affairs are as they are" from the "reason according to which they should be," Wang emphasized an identity of fact and value in things’ reasons or principles; all neo-Confucianism stressed the continuity of value with fact in experience.

19. Whitehead says here (PR 127, for instance, the "‘order’ in the actual world is differentiated from mere givenness by introduction of adaption for the attainment of an end."

20. See, for instance PHN Book I, "The Nature and the Decree" passim; Wang treated the theme throughout his Instructions for Practical Living, for instance in part II, WYM 96.

21. See Bruce’s discussion of the Great Ultimate in chapter VI of his Chu Hsi and His Masters.

22. The alternative conception of God is developed in my God the Creator (Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1968); the connection with Plato’s Form of the Good is developed in my Cosmology of Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), chapter 3.

23. That Whitehead’s basic categories are empirical generalizations without demonstrated normativeness even when ingredient in specific entities is argued, in connection with the Category of the Ultimate, in my "Whitehead on the One and the Many," Southern Journal of Philosophy, 7/4 (Winter 1969-70), pp. 387-93.

24. This is not to suggest the neo-Confucianists believed that a sage could control completely through efficient causes. Still they believed that control was not limited by the responses of others if one’s own character were perfected to manifest principle clearly.

25. See Cosmology of Freedom, chapters 9 and 11.

26. Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper Torch-books, 1972).

Whether Whitehead’s cosmology is a plausible and useful view of the world depends in large measure on the cogency of his distinction between genetic and coordinate divisions of actual occasions. Philosophically, this distinction is his way of reconciling the claims of inner subjective life with those of objective experience and knowledge. It has specific application, for instance, in reconciling the claims of depth psychology with those of physiological psychology.

Whitehead’s exposition of the distinction is not without its problems, however. One of the most important problems is whether the genetic process within an actual occasion from initial data to satisfaction involves some kind of real or temporal succession. This paper will attempt to clarify the problem of succession.

Lewis S. Ford has addressed himself directly to the claim for nonphysical (but still temporal) successiveness in the genetic process in his article "On Genetic Successiveness: a Third Alternative" (1 :421-25).¹ Ford begins by pointing out that the differences between phases in a single occasion cannot be mere differences in complexity of integration. Although the eternal objects descriptive of the different phases may differ only by complexity of integration, to identify the genetic process with its definite eternal objects is to miss the dynamism of the decisions involved in the succession of phases (Ford quotes PR 342). The proposal, then, is that there is a phase of genetic development beyond the initial one for each modification of the initial, divinely given, subjective aim. ‘The subjective aim at each phase provides the subjective unity of all the data at that phase; subjective unity at every phase means only that the data are compatible for synthesis, not that they are completely integrated. Lack of complete integration means the phase is an incomplete one in the whole genetic process. The final phase of satisfaction consists in complete determination where the subjective unity is fulfilled with complete integration or synthesis.

Earlier phases, according to Ford’s hypothesis, causally influence their successors but do not completely determine them precisely because "being later" means making further decisions. But what about the sense in which the occasion is supposed to be causa sui as a whole? Ford writes: "Now there is only one act of self-actualization, but this one act is genetically (not actually) analyzable into successive decisions having within their particular phases the same properties Whitehead ascribes to the occasion as a whole with respect to decisions" (1:4220. The critical point, of course, is the claim for genetic but not actual analyzability. Ford’s position is clear. Each phase is causa sui in itself through its decisive modification of subjective aim; the final phase or satisfaction completes the sui generis creativity of the occasion. But if each phase including the last is causa sui, is the occasion as a whole causa sui? Of course, answers Ford.

But this is to interpret "the occasion as a whole" to mean the complete set of phases in the occasion, not the occasion as a singular actual entity whose phases are abstractly, that is, analytically, contained in it.

My interpretation of Ford’s position, therefore, is that he construes the temporal character of an extended linear series of occasions to be a series of phases punctuated by demarcations of discontinuity. Some phases are completely determinate, but these are continuous with each other by virtue of mediating phases of incomplete determination moving toward penultimate determination. A single actual occasion is the set of phases beginning with an incompletely determinate phase and ending with the next completely determinate phase, termed the occasion’s satisfaction. This interpretation is supported by Ford’s terminological suggestions regarding Whitehead’s doctrine of supersession. Whitehead said time is one species of supersession, namely, that in which the physical pole of one occasion (its completion in satisfaction) supersedes the physical poles of others and is in turn superseded by later occasions. But another species of supersession, according to Whitehead, is that in which there is supersession of mental and physical poles, i.e., of phases, within each occasion. The moral Whitehead draws is "that the category of supersession transcends time, since this linkage (of physical and mental poles within an occasion] is both extratemporal and yet is an instance of supersession" (IS 241). Ford’s terminological suggestion is to identify time with supersession as such distinguishing two species, physical and genetic time (1:424). I take this to mean physical time is the measure of serial order from satisfaction to satisfaction and genetic time is the measure of the phases beginning with the first incompletely determinate one after a satisfaction and moving through the next satisfaction. The advantage Ford urges by this revision of terms is the giving of prima facie weight to the temporal connotations of Whitehead’s language about earlier and later phases.

There are two important reasons for believing Ford’s interpretation is not what Whitehead meant. The first is it misconstrues what a genetic division is supposed to be and the second is it neglects the distinction between becoming and being, between appearance and reality. I shall deal with these in turn.

According to Whitehead (PR 28f) the analysis of an actual entity into prehensions exhibits the most concrete elements in its nature, and such an analysis is called a division. Genetic analysis is one such kind of division. Now a prehension in any division, including genetic, has all the features of an actual entity itself with an important exception:

I take this to mean, first, that a genetic division is not the analysis of an occasion into phases but the analysis of an occasion into prehensions. Since a prehension, because of its "certain incomplete partiality" cannot be understood by itself, its subjective form must be explained by reference to the place of the prehension in the whole occasion as determined in phases. In other words, the reference to phases in a genetic division is essential only because this is what accounts for the character of a prehension’s subjective form; coordinate division, neglecting subjective form, need make no reference to phases.

Second, the thing being divided is the actual entity as a whole; prehensions are that into which it is divided. Of course, we may think of the completed occasion as one harmonized prehension; but this is what is to be analyzed, not an analytical component. The sense in which a prehension is a concrete element divided out of an actual entity requires the prehension to be partial with respect to its subjective form. A complete prehension is undivided and can only be physically felt.

It follows from this, I believe, that incomplete phases of an occasion are themselves abstractions from satisfied occasions. They have no existence in themselves so as to be able to exist earlier than the satisfaction phase. Furthermore, phases are abstract elements of the satisfaction called upon to explain prehensions, and themselves are more abstract than prehensions. If prehensions are partial and require the whole occasion in order to have completely determinate subjective form, so much more do the earlier phases need the completed occasion to exist at all. To speak of an occasion’s satisfaction as itself a phase, the last in the genetic process, is only an abstraction derivative from the intention to give a genetic analysis; apart from any division of it, the occasion itself just is its satisfaction or complete determination coming to be and being.

Now it might be argued (although Ford does not do so) that each phase in a genetic process is a pattern of prehensions, the later differing from the earlier in containing certain novel conceptual prehensions. But the prehensions of each phase must be different from those of the other phases by virtue of different subjective forms, just as on Whitehead’s view the prehensions of each occasion differ from those of each other by virtue of the same reason. I believe Whitehead wanted to avoid just this proliferation of prehensions beyond necessity in his doctrine of epochal time. The point of the appeal to phases in an epoch is to explain the subjective form of prehensions divided out of the satisfied actual entity. The explanation begins with the whole satisfied entity plus the previous entities that entered into it, and explains the former by phases of decision transforming the latter into it.

My objection to Ford’s claim that an earlier phase exists before a later phase, in a genetic sense of "exists before," does not conclude that the difference between phases is merely a matter of complexity of eternal objects. He is certainly right about the dynamism of the process of coming to be, a dynamism not expressed at all in coordinate division except by measurements of energy. Rather, my objection is that he construes earlier phases to be just as real in a temporal sense as the concrete occasion itself albeit the phases are real in genetic time, not physical time.

The second reason for doubting Ford’s interpretation, therefore, picks up at this point. The genetic process is one of becoming; the temporal process one of being. Time measures real change; genesis measures the appearance of reality. These are important themes for Whitehead not registered by Ford’s interpretation in sufficient depth.

The early phases of concrescence are only the becoming of the concrete fact; therefore they are not anything yet, only the becoming of something. They are not real earlier than the satisfactions because they are not by themselves real. The reality ingredient in early phases is only the reality attained by previous occasions present as prehensive data; all the differences between the early phases of an occasion and previous occasions are constituted by the concrescent occasion s appearances plus the elimination of some initial data required for objectifying the appearances. What does in fact appear is the new reality in the physical satisfaction of the concrescent occasion; but in the early phases it has not completely appeared and is therefore only mere appearance.

Our language, of course, makes it very difficult to speak of phases of becoming or stages of appearance. The language reflects the Aristotelian bias that subjects must be real substances. In the Aristotelian scheme growth and development are primarily the unfolding of principles in successive phases, each phase of which is itself substantial reality; a squirrel killed before reproducing is no less a substance because it ceased to exist before fulfilling the final cause of being a squirrel. It is with philosophical metaphors like Aristotle’s in mind that Ford’s interpretation of genetic successiveness gains its force. But Whitehead, at least at this point, was more Platonic. Coming to be is not the same as, or composed of, being. To be in a world of change requires coming to be, and having-come-to-be in a world of changes requires instant perishing. Being cannot dwell in change except as goal or past fact. These rather general remarks do not prove anything, of course; they only suggest one must live in an Aristotelian world to draw genetic successiveness so close to physical time as to call both time. This is not Whitehead’s world.

Now the genetic process is indeed dynamic, a matter of decisions. But this is to say, from the standpoint of existent occasions, that occasions can be analyzed as having come to be through dynamic decision. From that standpoint there is no dynamism left: everything has been decided except what the future will do. Whitehead’s point is not that the dynamism we feel characterizing our experience is an illusion. It is rather that our dynamic experience, our subjective immediacy, is not fully real but only the appearing of reality.

Ford would agree with this last point if only there were no elimination during concrescence. Elimination (which both of us agree does happen) requires a real diminution or perishing of that which is real, he argues. But this diminution or perishing is ambiguous. What happens in elimination is that some datum is eliminated from objectification in that particular concrescing occasion. This in no way diminishes the objective immortality of the datum as a potential for objectification; it is a potential quite apart from being actually objectified, and is so forever even if always actually eliminated. In no sense does elimination cause the datum to perish as a potential. The only thing diminished is the concrescing occasion which no longer can objectify the datum; but even this presumes (falsely) that the occasion "exists" at an early stage possessing the datum, which is lost to a later stage. It is better to say merely that a potential datum is not in the end objectifiable in this particular occasion, given its final determinate character; the reason for this is the decision to eliminate.

When an occasion has appeared, when it has fully come to be, it loses its subjective immediacy, its process of decision, its feeling of self-possession; for the feeling of self-possession consists precisely in deciding on the appearance of one’s own reality. Is this to say the realm of decisive, dynamic change is only appearance, not quite real? The answer is yes, if care is taken not to substantialize "realm" or to infer there is no reality to appearance. Is this to say that the objects known, the actual occasions which are known by subjecting them to divisions, are realities, not appearances, in the realm of being, not becoming? Yes. Is it to say the only "knowledge" we have of appearances, of the genetic process of decision and change, is hypothetical, derived as one of an indefinite number of possible divisions of the actual entity (cf. PR 28)? Yes. Familiar Platonic themes.

References

1. The special Whitehead issue of the Southern Journal of Philosophy, 7, 4 (Winter, 1969), particularly John B. Cobb, Jr., "Freedom in Whitehead’s Philosophy: A Response to Edward Pols," pp. 409-43; Edward Pols, "Freedom and Agency: A Reply," pp. 415-19; and Lewis S. Ford, "On Genetic Successiveness: A Third Alternative," pp. 421-25.

Notes:

1 The first two alternatives alluded to in Ford’s title are (1) John Cobb’s theory of epochal becoming to the exclusion of real genetic successiveness (with which the present paper is in general sympathy), and (2) Edward Pols’s claim that Whitehead’s theory of genetic successiveness is inconsistent with the theory of epochal becoming.

In my judgment the grouping together of Whitehead’s Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (PNK) and The Concept of Nature (CN) by such scholars as Victor Lowe and Nathaniel Lawrence, coupled with the dramatic impact of Whitehead’s attack on theories of the bifurcation of nature in the later of the two books, has almost completely obscured the epistemological subtlety that is to be found in the Enquiry, by one year the earlier of the two books. Whitehead’s own repeated insistence on the limited scope of these two volumes and, it might be added, on the alleged "closedness" of nature to mind, a share of culpability in preventing either awareness or full appreciation of what I am prepared to adjudge to be some of Whitehead’s most exciting contributions to epistemology.

The fact is that, actual and/or possible internal inconsistencies notwithstanding, Whitehead’s Enquiry employs or considers a variety of possibilities concerning the nature of experience and the meaning and status of externality, all of which are worth careful scrutiny for the value they may have as relating to the clarification of Whitehead’s thought as well as to the articulation or resolution of relevant philosophical issues. As my explication of and commentary on the text of the Enquiry proceeds, it should become clear that the picture suggested later by The Concept of Nature, a picture that represents Whitehead as dogmatically claiming that ". . . there is but one nature, namely the nature that is before us in perceptual knowledge" (CN 40), is, however justified by contextual evidence, a distortion by way of an oversimplification of the deliverances of a mind greatly occupied with issues at once subtle and complex.

Throughout his writings prior to the Enquiry, Whitehead had included a variety of discussions properly to be classed as metaphysical in his sense of that word (PNK vii). Ostensibly, however, the Enquiry was to be concerned with geometry considered as a physical science, thereby excluding metaphysical considerations: "How is space rooted in experience?" (PNK 4). "We are concerned only with Nature, that is, with the object of perceptual knowledge, and not with the synthesis of the knower and the known" (PNK vii).

The first discussion in the Enquiry does not adequately define perception but does serve as an introduction to Whitehead’s notion of significance. In a subsection entitled "Perception," Whitehead states that the conception of one universal nature embracing the fragmentary perceptions of events by one percipient and the many perceptions by diverse percipients is surrounded with difficulties (PNK 8). There is what Whitehead calls the ‘Berkeleyan Dilemma’: "Perceptions are in the mind and universal nature is out of the mind, and thus the conception of universal nature can have no relevance to our perceptual life" (PNK 8f.). Whitehead’s answer to this dilemma points out that Berkeley’s analysis tacitly ignores the fact that ‘significance’ (as yet undefined) is an essential element in experience; we are, however, left in doubt as to what aspect of the dilemma here concerns Whitehead. At no point in the immediately following discussion does Whitehead repudiate the statement that perceptions are in the mind and universal nature is out of the mind; perhaps then the introduction of significance as an element in concrete experience is a way of saying that a phenomenalistic analysis which includes the felt fact of significance is adequate to the task of providing a ground for natural knowledge, a ground which does not depend on the introduction of the conception of a transcendent "nature" At this point, this suggestion is but a speculation, but we can later find other evidence to support this possibility.

But one might argue that such a suggestion can readily be invalidated by reference to the analysis of perception which Whitehead makes after his discussion of the Berkeleyan Dilemma. In this analysis, Whitehead states in summary form those items that enter into a perception: ". . . perception involves a percipient object, a percipient event, which is all nature simultaneous with the percipient event, and the particular events which are perceived as parts of the complete event" (PNK 13). However, on closer study, I submit that this passage is either: (a) incorrect or (b) compatible with the suggestion I have made.

First, (a), the assertion that all nature (here taken to mean the totality of happenings in the universe) simultaneous with the percipient event is a complete event involved in perception is an incorrect description of what happens in perception. For example, if I perceive a batter strike a ball, the parts of the complete event which are the event, batter-striking-ball, are not given to perception simultaneously. I see the batter striking the ball at one moment and only later hear the batter striking the ball. As Whitehead said earlier in his "Space, Time, and Relativity": "What we perceive at any instant is already ancient history with the dates of the various parts hopelessly mixed" (OT 225=IS 105).¹ However, (b), the passage under consideration is compatible with my suggestion that perhaps Whitehead does not object in principle to asserting that perceptions are in the mind (albeit significantly so); then it follows that the assertion that the complete event (which here means only the complete contents of awareness) is in fact simultaneous with the percipient, would, in this case, be analytic, merely explicating the meaning of the phrase ‘complete event’ as the complete contents of awareness simultaneous with a given percipient event.

That Whitehead himself is aware of this point is evidenced by a distinction between "seeing" and "really seeing" which he introduces into his discussion of objects in the Enquiry. There he states that when an astronomer looks through a telescope and sees a new red star burst into existence what he really sees is a star coming into being two centuries previously (PNK 85). But what he sees is redness situated in some event which is happening now (PNK 85). Thus the complete event cannot be identified with what the astronomer is really seeing since the complete event is simultaneous with the percipient event by definition, and what the astronomer is really seeing is something that happened two centuries before his perceptions. In the light of this distinction between what is seen and what is really seen, it is necessary to conclude that the essence of what is seen is its symbolic aspect, its role in being effective as a sign for what is really seen; in this sense Whitehead’s notion of significance is not a repudiation of the Berkeleyan Dilemma with respect to the in-the-mind, out-of-the-mind aspect of it. Rather it is, as already stated, a repudiation of the dilemma with respect to its failure to include in its description of the contents of the mind the aspect of symbolism which, to Whitehead, is as important as the aspect of mere perceptual contents.²

On this analysis, one can then argue that there is in the Enquiry a clear phenomenalistic emphasis, for if the complete event "which is all nature simultaneous with the percipient event" is merely what is seen, then what is really seen is not included at all by Whitehead in his listing of the components of perception. "Universal nature," "the external world," is, at least in some sense, not relevant to the fact of significant perception, but must probably be inferred as an active conditioning event (PNK 85-91).

Part II of the Enquiry. "The Data of Science," begins with a sentence which certainly seems to support my suggestion that Whitehead strongly favors phenomenalism: "Our perceptual knowledge of nature consists in the breaking up of a whole which is the subject matter of perceptual experience, or is the given presentation which is experience -- or however else we prefer to describe the ultimate experienced fact" (PNK 59). I suggest that the word choke here is not accidental: ". . . perceptual experience . . . given presentation . . .experience . . . ultimate experienced fact." Whatever the underlying ontology may be, the emphasis here is clear: an external physical world is not a datum for the perceptual knowledge of nature.

The seemingly paradoxical use of both ‘physical world’ and ‘nature’ in the same sentence just quoted calls for a note of recognition and explanation. Nature is "the object of perceptual knowledge" (PNK vii). Whatever be the relation of nature to mind, the "breaking up" of it (here again I am quoting from Whitehead), that is, the diversification of nature, may be in terms of each of several possible types of entities (cf. PNK 60). A subclass of one of these types is the class of physical objects (cf. PNK 88). Thus, in one sense, the physical world, as the class of all physical objects, can be taken as derivative from nature (when by nature we mean the phenomenalistic object of perceptual knowledge). A remaining problem, then, is to determine the relation of ‘physical world’ in that sense to ‘physical world’ in the sense of something underlying perception, should this latter sense be permissible by Whitehead.

Whitehead lists the types of entities into which nature can be diversified, especially with respect to the needs of scientific theory: events, percipient objects, sense-objects, perceptual objects, and scientific objects (PNK 60). If nature be diversified into events, then since events have the quality of extending over one another (PNK 61), the externality of nature is the outcome of this relation of extension. Whitehead’s point here seems weaker than the one he made in "Space, Time, and Relativity" in which he argued that location in space and location in time both embody and perhaps necessitate a judgment of externality (OT 197=AE 237=IS 94). Here, in contrast, the externality of nature follows merely from the fact of the relation of extension that holds between events, without there being required the element of judgment. A little later we shall see Whitehead modify this position.

But first Whitehead considers briefly the related problem of the community of nature. Unlike objects, which enter into experience by virtue of the "intellectuality of recognition," events are lived through, they extend around us: "They are the medium within which our physical experience develops, or, rather, they are themselves the development of that experience" (PNK 63). It is not clear what Whitehead intends by speaking of "physical" experience here, nor is it clear what is intended by equating the events with the development of the experience instead of the experience itself, although the two might be coextensive, in which possible case the point might be construed as a phenomenalistic one.

Nevertheless, it is clear that regarding the status of nature, conceived as the object of perceptual experience, Whitehead is closer to a phenomenalistic position than to a naïve-realistic one:

Whitehead is not asserting an epistemological solipsism here, but is stating that the question of the community of nature to all, being metaphysical, is not one that has to be answered from the point of view of science.³ Moreover, it remains to be seen whether or not Whitehead’s position, as it unfolds in the Enquiry, will remain uninvolved in the "difficult metaphysical question."

Whitehead returns to the problem of externality in detail in Chapter VI, "Events." Here he elaborates the doctrine of the Constants of Externality; of his doctrine he states:

The constants are characteristics of a perceptual experience when we assign to it the property of being an observation of the passage of external nature, not "when it is given as an observation of the passage of external nature." Note also the equation of apprehension with the assignment of the property in question: apprehension is an activity; externality is its product.

The emphasis on the activity of the percipient in relation to the fact of externality is seen again in a passage following closely upon the last one cited:

Another point arises from these two passages last cited: the very fact of there being a nature for our knowing is a resultant of the percipient’s activity in investing his perceptual experience with externality. The constants are the conditions for nature; they are characters which it possesses when the perceptual experience in question has assigned to it the property of externality. The question of whether we invest nature with these conditions I consider answered in the affirmative by the theory of projection which Whitehead will introduce in his essay "Uniformity and Contingency" (ESP 104) and later will develop fully in Process and Reality (e.g., PR 193). But within the scope of the Enquiry, without the constants of externality (the third, fourth, and fifth, that is), ". . .our perceptual experience appears as a disconnected dream" (PNK 78).

The sixth constant of externality deserves special consideration because of its subject; it is the association of events a community of nature. Whitehead holds that the sixth constant arises from the fragmentary nature of perceptual knowledge:

Whitehead’s skepticism concerning the status of the external world as immediately given in experience is here evident. His use of the terms individual perception’ and ‘distinct streams of perception’ would be in keeping with the phenomenalistic strain which I have been indicating; the same cannot be said of his use of the phrase "he apprehends the same external nature." If, as I have suggested, the externality of events is a contribution of the percipient, then it is difficult to see how this last phrase can be reconciled with what would seem to be the essence of Whitehead’s thinking on the problem of externality. We might take this phrase to be elliptical to the point of being misleading, or we might take it to support Lawrence’s contention that Whitehead in 1919 was working from a naïve realism, or so Whitehead thought (WPD 18 et passim). I am inclined to offer an interpretation that, at this point in the discussion, can be nothing more than a suggestion: Whitehead is leaning toward a form of naïve realism a leaning that will culminate in his famous attack on theories of the bifurcation of nature.

Continuing with the Enquiry, immediately after the last passage cited, Whitehead states that we distinguish between the qualities of events as in individual perception and the objective qualities of the actual events within the common nature which is the datum for apprehension (PNK 780. The first are the sense data of individuals. Again we find the notion of apprehension used in conjunction with the concept of external nature -- here spoken of as common nature. We again note the absence of the use of the notion of apprehension in passages dealing with the relation of a percipient to the external world.

That Whitehead’s bent toward a naive realism is not yet fully effective in his thinking seems to follow from this next passage:

Whitehead is here beginning to elaborate a theory of awareness that gives the body its due with respect to the mechanics of perception. His point is that the knowledge possessed by a percipient is completely the awareness which is derivative from the percipient’s then-present bodily event. The bodily event, as one among other events, is causally related to antecedent or contemporaneous events. But the percipient’s knowledge of those other events is had only mediately, that is, only in so far as the relations which these other events have to the bodily event so affect the bodily event that the awareness derived from the bodily event will be significant (to the percipient) of the environmental events.⁴ This speaking of the knowledge as relative, as well as mediate, is presumably meant to allow for the conditioning of awareness in accordance with the state of the bodily event, over against the further determination of that state by environmental events in their relation to it.

The factors involved in analysis are:

There is a subtle difficulty in Whitehead’s position on common nature, a difficulty which is almost identical with one found earlier in his" Space, Time, and Relativity" (OT 212=AE 242-44=IS 980f). Whitehead, within his theory, may assume that there is a common nature. Having done so, he may argue that science constructs a concept of such a common nature. I question, however, the wisdom in speaking of common nature itself as being a construction. We assume that it exists and we form a concept of what its nature is. If it does not exist, we are fooled, and we ought not to have gone beyond a phenomenalistic position. If it does exist, a skeptic may, if he wishes, argue that still there is no method whereby we may compare it with our concept of it; this position seems forceful and could, it seems, be met only by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, such as what emerges in Process and Reality (PR 275). Since in Process and Reality Whitehead argues that the pragmatic test is the ultimate means of bridging the appearance-reality gap, there is evidence that in his thinking he came to accept explicitly in Process and Reality what at this time in the Enquiry was only vaguely implied.

There is also an ambiguity in Whitehead’s use of the notion of externality. We have seen above that there is a sense in which externality is a contribution of the percipient. In speaking of the bodily event, Whitehead, not without contradiction, states: "This event [the bodily event] is the life of that organism which links the percipient’s awareness to external nature" (PNK 80). It is obvious that "external" is not here being used in the sense that it was used in the initial discussion of the constants of externality. There externality was something with which some perceived facts were invested (PNK 71f). "Externality" here, presumably, is being used in the sense that the common nature which is assumed to exist is taken to be external to the percipient, not in the sense that certain perceptual experiences of the percipient are taken to be observations of the passage of external nature (cf. PNI (71).

This same ambiguity may be present in the following passage:

It seems to me that the phrase "is not for us a percept of external nature" is used in the sense of "is not for us a percept which we invest with externality." On the other hand, in the phrase "its explanation from external events," the word "external" appears to be used in the transcendent sense in which I have suggested that the common nature, if it exists, is external to the percipient. However, it may be that the word "external" is being used consistently in the two places. In that case, the latter part of the sentence in question ought to read: ". . . though it may find its explanation from our concept of an external common nature." Here the reference would explicitly be to the constructed concept of an external nature, not to an external nature which may or may not be real but whose externality is never given immediately to experience.

Whitehead is here struggling with a problem which he will later clarify in The Concept of Nature:

Causal nature, in the sense in which Whitehead is referring to it here, is external to the percipient in the transcendent sense. If it exists, it does not have to be invested with externality; it is external but is not so given immediately to experience. In a phrase, it exists in itself. It is known only through its relation to the bodily event by which it conditions awareness, while not itself being given for awareness. Nature, on the other hand, in this passage from The Concept of Nature, is external only in the sense that it is invested with externality by the percipient. Whether or not Whitehead accepts the position which he is discussing here, I suggest that the passage is referring to the same distinction which I feel that Whitehead has failed to make in the sections of the Enquiry which have been under consideration.

In order to do justice to Whitehead, however, it must be noted that he recognized the difficulty (albeit in a different context, namely in a discussion of types of objects) prior to the publication of the second edition of the Enquiry. In the "Notes" added to the second edition, it may be that he recognized the distinction, although perhaps then not too clearly:

I suggest that since Whitehead is here speaking of physical objects and of scientific objects as being the occasions of a duration, the meaning of this notion of occasion is the same as the meaning of the previously employed notion of conditioning awareness. If that is so, then it is clear why Whitehead states that the antecedent physical and scientific objects which occasion the duration to be what it is are another story -- they are not phenomenal, that is, experientially given, entities.

In the same section of the ‘Notes," Whitehead also clarifies some related points with respect to his theory of objects, including the status of the "antecedent physical and scientific objects."

In the body of the Enquiry, the first objects which Whitehead introduces into the discussion are sense-objects: "Tastes, colors, sounds, and every variety of sensation are objects of this sort" (PNK 83). They are, in other words, phenomenal entities. Their relation to nature is expressed in terms of conditioning events. But it is important to note that Whitehead qualifies this statement by saying that this relationship holds ". . . so far as it is restricted to one percipient event and one situation. . . (PNK 86). Whitehead is by no means assuming a community of nature; the theory he is expounding is intended to hold even if there were only one percipient in the universe, and even if that one percipient were limited to his own private experience. There is nothing here so far that is incompatible with a pure phenomenalism: "An event which is an active condition is a cause of the occurrence of the sense-object in its situation for the percipient event; at least, it can be so termed in one of the many meanings of the word ‘cause’" (PNK 86). Whitehead is here noting the ambiguity of the word "cause" in a manner analogous to what I have already observed in the passage cited from The Concept of Nature. Since the analysis up to this point in the Enquiry is an analysis of relations found holding within nature, we take it that the meaning of "cause" which is here relevant is the phenomenal sense -- the sense in which the burning fire is part of a causal chain that affects the functioning of the brain, not the sense in which the fire causes a mind to perceive warmth and redness.

The strong phenomenalistic flavor of the discussion of the theory of objects in the Enquiry is nowhere clearer than in the explication of the notion of perceptual objects:

This is, in many respects, a remarkable passage. First, we may note that, in order of exposition, tables and chairs, for example, are perceptual objects; the notion of a physical object is derivative and will be introduced later. Second, Mill’s openly phenomenalistic definition, whatever be the difficulties with it, is introduced (1:369) presumably because it in some sense would serve to qualify the notion in question. Third, Whitehead states that the fact of the existence of perceptual objects is among the greatest of the laws of nature. On my interpretation, the point that he is here making pertains to the fact that phenomenal sense objects somehow cohere in such a way that perceptual objects may be given to awareness. This point is made earlier in "The Anatomy of Some Scientific Ideas," in which Whitehead states that the thought-objects of perception (corresponding to perceptual objects here) are instances of a fundamental law of nature, the law of objective stability: "It is the law of the coherence of sense-objects" (OT 148 = AE 192).

In conclusion, then, it seems reasonable to make the strong statement that a perceptual object for Whitehead is merely the recognized permanence of the association of certain sense-objects (PNK 88). It follows, from this conclusion and my earlier consideration of the externality which is contributed by the percipient, that the externality of perceptual objects cannot constitute the external world that would presumably be the proper subject of metaphysical analysis. The same conclusion holds with respect to what Whitehead terms "physical objects" since a physical object is only a non-delusive perceptual object, a delusive perceptual object being one the perceptual judgment of which is mistaken on one or both of two points:

And, as we have seen above, the referent of the term "active condition" is an instance of a cause in the phenomenal employment of that notion.

Although Whitehead goes on in later sections of the Enquiry to argue that actually all perceptual objects are delusive (since all perception is belated) (PNK 184), and then to propound an analysis of the transition from appearance to cause which will provide a theory for the connection of delusive perceptual objects with their generating events, it must be emphasized that Whitehead is still in no way advocating a causal theory of perception. It might be embarrassing to his position to question an assertion to which he is here committed, namely, that apparent characters of events essentially involve reference to percipient events (PNK 183). In the first place, it was not necessary for him to underscore this point since he had early in the book stated that all perception involved a percipient event. Secondly then, is it possible that his unoccasioned re-emphasis of this point is in some way related to the development of a new position with respect to the role of the percipient event in perception, a role, that is, which is other than that of merely being involved?

I have already referred to the notes which were added in the second edition of the Enquiry. I indicated at that time that Whitehead had made the perhaps cryptic assertion that the antecedent physical objects and scientific objects which occasion a duration to be what it is are another story. I ventured an interpretation at that time, and, now that the theory of objects has been discussed at least in its broader outlines, I choose to return to a brief support of the interpretation which I then put forth.

I find in my reading of the Enquiry that the phrase "which occasion a duration to be what it is" cannot he admitted as meaningful without transcending the scope of what I have taken to be Whitehead’s approach to certain problems in this particular book. Nature is what is given in perceptual experience, and a duration is that complete event which is the whole of nature simultaneous with a given percipient event (itself part of the whole) (PNK 68). It follows then that that which occasions a duration to be what it is must be some thing or process which, in some sense remaining to be specified, transcends nature.

If we follow the doctrine as developed in the text, neither physical objects nor scientific objects will meet this requirement of transcendence; physical objects are discriminated within nature as are, for that matter, scientific objects which are defined as the last stage in a series of abstractions (PNK 188).

In my interpretation of the Enquiry, nature for Whitehead would have to be conceived as opaque, incapable of an explanation which would be, at least in principle, before the fact. I suggest that the note regarding physical and scientific objects in the second edition of the Enquiry be taken as a break on Whitehead’s part with the position spelled out in the body of the book insofar as that position, because of its phenomenalistic orientation, rules out the possibility of the above-mentioned type of explanation. In point of fact, the added notes, to my mind, do little or nothing to clarify that type of solution Whitehead is planning for this problem of transcendence. How, for example, on the material in the Enquiry do we go about interpreting the following passage? "Thus a physical object is a social entity resulting from scientific objects, and halfway towards a perceptual object" (PNK 203). Also, having stated that antecedent physical and scientific objects are a "different story" as Whitehead has done, I question the accuracy of his then stating, nevertheless, that they are causal characters as discussed in the text (PNK 203). In short, I wonder just what we are being told when Whitehead states that something is a different story

At any rate, Whitehead emphasizes that the distinction between causal and apparent characters must not be overstressed since it is ". . . relative to a deliberately limited point of view" (PNK 204). Still, we might set down a question: Does the point of view to which the distinction between causal and apparent characters is limited preclude Whitehead’s making the assertion that there is something that occasions a given duration to be what it is? If the answer, as I have already suggested, is "yes," there will be need for some important additions to Whiteheadian ontology to follow the Enquiry.

References

WPD -- Nathaniel Lawrence, Whitehead’s Philosophical Development. Berkeley and Los Angeles; University of California Press, 1956.

1. John Stuart Mill, "The Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy," in Philosophy of Scientific Method, ed. Nagel. New York: Hafner, 1950.

Notes

1 Even if a naive realistic view be held, it is clear that the "dates" are hopelessly mixed although what is perceived is not taken to be an event in the past.

2 Whitehead deals further with the relation between symbolism and perception in Process and Reality. See PR 2-279 for his principal discussion.

3 The obvious critical point to make of Whitehead here is to indicate that his statement that science is true for each percipient is to claim to know something of the experience, qua scientific, of each percipient, and hence to have admitted an element of transcendence into the very statement of the problem.

4 Contrast this with the phenomenologically accessible significance of his explicit concern.

The problem of power is as ancient as the age of man. The presence of power is manifest wherever two or more people are gathered together and have any kind of relationship. Its deeper and sometimes darker qualities emerge as soon as the omnipresent factor of inequality makes itself felt.

The presence and operation of power are not limited of course to the life of human-kind. If the findings of those who study animal behavior are to be accepted, power is an indispensable element in the preservation of the group life of the species in the animal world. Power manifests itself in the creation of order. This order which is essential for the maintenance of animal life seems to be derived from the pervasive fact of the inequality of power. Perhaps to a greater degree than we care to admit, the principle of the relation between order and in-equality may function in the organization of life at the human level.

If power is roughly defined as the ability to make or establish a claim on life, then the range of the presence of power may be broadened to include the notion that power is coextensive with life itself. To be alive, in any sense, is to make some claim, large or small. To be alive is to exercise power in some degree.

The principle involved may be extended still further to the level of metaphysical generality. If value is coterminous with reality, as it is in all metaphysical systems, then the discussion of power becomes correlative with the analysis of being or actuality itself. In this most general perspective, to be actual means to exercise power.

The following discussion of power is not meant to be primarily metaphysical in generality. In keeping with the conditions of the Lectureship, the focus is on the human involvement with power. But no idea is self-sufficient in its meaning. Ideas, like people, have their lives only in a community of relations. The understanding and justification of any important idea requires an explanatory and relational context within which the idea lives, moves, and has its being. This explanatory context includes the immediate neighborhood of other ideas closely related to the topic under discussion. This neighborhood expands until it embraces those notions which constitute the most general description of reality of which we are capable during any particular historical epoch.

It is a presupposed and perhaps obvious thesis of this lecture that all understandings of power, and particularly the two views to be discussed, are grounded in conceptions both of the human self and, at least implicitly, of the ultimate nature of things. The possible truth of any conception of power is in part a function of the descriptive adequacy of the views of selfhood and the general nature of things that undergird that particular conception of power. If these more general understandings are inadequate, then the correlative concept of power will also be truncated or inadequate in some other way. By the same logic, a basic shift in the conception of power should have consequences for a change in our understanding both of the nature of the self and of the basic nature of things. As William James was fond of saying, "There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere -- no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact" (Pragmatism, pp. 49f).

After all these centuries of the practice of power and of theorizing about its nature and function, what is to be said about it that hasn’t been said before many times over? I contend that our lives and thought have been dominated by one conception of power. To anticipate the later discussion a bit, this longstanding tradition has on the whole defined power as the ability to produce an effect, or as the capacity to bring into being, to actualize or to maintain what has been actualized. At the human level power is understood to be the capacity to actualize the potentialities for good and evil of an individual or a group. The heart of this traditional view is the conception of power as the strength to exert a shaping and determining influence on the other, whatever or whoever the other might be.

It would simply be wrong-headed to deny that the tradition has identified one aspect of power. But this viewpoint is not only truncated. It is demonic in its destructiveness. Too often it is the basic criterion by which the status or worth of an individual or group is determined and measured. It is to a large extent the condition whereby the ineradicable inequalities of life lead to or are transformed into life-denying injustices.

The problem of power is not just a matter of the actualization of possibilities. It is rather a question of the level of individual and social fulfillment that is to be achieved or that is to emerge. It is a problem of the kinds of possibilities that are to flower and the kinds of contexts conducive to the emergence of these possibilities. The thesis of this lecture is that the nature and role of relationships determine both the level of human fulfillment that is possible and the conception of power that is to be practiced.

To put the point in another way, it could be said that our lives and thought have been dominated by one conception of the nature and role of relationships, and thus of one conception of power. This viewpoint is inadequate for the emergence of individuals and societies of the stature required in today’s world. I do not mean to deny or castigate the role of power in the living of life. On the contrary. But I am concerned to set forth at least an initial version of a more humanizing conception of power. The problem of power is the problem of size and stature.

The rise of modern science and technology make this effort of reconception mandatory. In addition to improving the lot of modern people, science and technology have contributed to the rise and development of problems we have never had to face before in human history. These problems are of such magnitudes and complexity that the quality of the future of our planetary existence now confronts us as something more than just a theoretical or imaginative issue first detailed for us by the writers of science fiction.

The emergence of modern science and its operational offspring, technology, together with the evolution of that mode of thought called "historical understanding," have heightened modern man’s sense of control and have led him to believe that he is responsible for the shape of history. This situation could constitute a rather grim illustration of Niebuhrian irony in that our very creativity may have resulted in the appearance of destructive historical forces too intractable for our capacities to manage or transform.

The development of science has opened Pandora’s Box. Once opened it cannot be closed. The interests of scientists and the theoretical and technological consequences of scientific research have been such that, on the whole, science has become a major contributor to and servant of the traditional conception of power. The continued existence of science as a constructive force in human life presupposes that a sufficient number of members of our various earthly societies and religions take on a size never before required with such urgency. The traditional conception of power is inadequate to help us in our possible evolution toward this goal.

The problem of power is the problem of quality of our lives. Those qualities that make for the most complex and intense enrichment of life may not possess the greatest survival value. But they are not engendered by our dominant conception and practice of power.

The alternative conception of power is indigenous to process! relational modes of thought and action. This viewpoint has been elaborated most fully by Charles Hartshorne in his conception of God. In this discussion, as well as in other matters, I stand gratefully on the minds and shoulders of my very illustrious teachers and colleagues.

The two conceptions of power to be discussed involve a rather simple and obvious distinction. But the implications of this distinction are not simple. This short lecture cannot do justice to the possible fertility of this distinction. Neither type exists in its purity. To this degree the discussion is more concerned with ideal types than with concrete instances of either type of power.

A sort of nonbiblical text and point of departure for this lecture is to be found in one of the definitions in Webster’s Dictionary, which characterizes power as an ability either to produce or to undergo an effect. This is intriguing for two reasons. First, except possibly for certain scientific purposes, power as commonly understood is seldom defined as the capacity to suffer or undergo an effect. Second, the conception of power is characterized in terms of either/or and not in terms of both/and.

I. Linear Power

[Editor’s note: The original draft of this lecture, from which the type for part I was set, used the term "linear power" as the first conception of power. A revised and expanded draft, used for the typesetting of part II, changes "linear" to "unilateral"; hence the reference in part II to "unilateral power," which corresponds to "linear power" in the version of part I printed below.]

The first conception of power defines power as linear in character. Linear power is the ability to produce intended or desired effects in our relationships to nature or to other people. More specifically, linear power is the capacity to influence, guide, adjust, manipulate, shape, control, or transform the human or natural environment in order to advance one’s purposes.

This kind of power is essentially one-directional in its working. Briefly stated, linear power is the capacity to influence another, in contrast to being influenced. The influence may be direct or indirect, coercive or persuasive in nature. It operates so as to make the other a function of one’s ends, even when one’s aims include what is thought to be the good of the other. If the traditional distinction between the masculine and the feminine is accepted for the moment, the masculine being defined as active and the feminine as passive, then linear power is quite thoroughly masculine in character.

This is a one-sided, abstract, and nonrelational conception of power. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this form of power is nonmutual in its relationality. With respect to the one who is influenced, the relationship is internal. That is, he is altered by the relationship. With the respect to the one who is exercising this kind of power, the relationship is external. That is, theoretically he is unaffected by the relationship. In actual fact, the exertion of influence on something or someone else may involve some degree of reciprocity. Certainly the exercise of power has some valuational effect for good or ill on the one exerting the power. But the main thrust of this kind of power is to produce a desired effect on the other in accordance with one’s own purposes. Ideally, its aim is to create the largest effect on the other while being minimally influenced by the other.

It is apparent that the clearest illustration of this kind of power is to be found in the traditional Catholic conception of God, as Hartshorne has documented in systematic detail.

A. In terms of linear power, we set forth our claims on life as individuals and groups against other individuals or groups with their opposing and competing claims. We make these claims and create our influence in order to actualize the values of life, including our status and sense of worth. The greater our capacity to influence others, the larger the claim on life we feel we are entitled to establish. Our more predominant power is our justification, our warrant, for our superior status and sense of importance.

Inequality is a categoreal feature of our experience. We differ in energy, ambition, intelligence, emotional intensity, relational sensitivity, imagination, creativity, addiction to evil and other forms of destructiveness, and the capacity to love. We are strikingly unequal in power, in our capacity to influence others for good or ill, by fair means or foul. In this view our size or stature is measured by the strength of our linear power. Our sense of self-value is correlative to our place on the scale of inequality. That is, our size is determined by our ability to actualize our purposes in the context of others with their competing aims. Our strength is measured by the amount of competing power we can resist, control, or overcome. It is evaluated by the amount of pressure others must exert before our claims are curtailed or before we must reach some compromise. The degree of our strength or the level of our size is relative to the degree of pressure we can handle or control.

The idea, that the relative strength of our linear power is too often the basis of our sense of self-identity and self-worth, is illustrated in the institution of athletics. The aim of sports is neither physical fitness, nor exercise, nor the rounding out of a balanced life, although these values may be its by-products. Sports is not primarily a matter of physical competition. Sports is an affair of spirit competing against spirit, expressed through the agencies of our bodies. The aim is to find or create our identity and place in the power structure formed m the arena of competitive games. The aim is to win, to achieve excellence. But, contrary to the idealists who find competition distasteful, we do not win by doing our best. We achieve the excellence of our best by striving to win. The conception of power as unilateral recognizes that our identity is largely a relational matter. We know who we are in the context of relationship, even the relationships of competition.

In answer to the inevitable question as to how well he shoots, the nonprofessional golfer may reply that he normally shoots in the high 70’s or the low 80’s. If he were more honest or fulsome in his reply, he would stipulate that he performs at that level of excellence when he is competing against players whose competence more or less matches his own. The club professional at the local golf course normally may shoot in the low 70’s when playing against members of his club. If this same professional were to compete in a professional golf tournament held at his home course he might do well to score in the low 80’s. There is no such thing as a completely friendly game of golf unless the hierarchy of power has already been established and accepted by all the players.

I remember playing golf several years ago with the son of a professional golfer. We played several holes in desultory fashion, which means that the level of our play varied from fair to mediocre. He announced suddenly that, he was going to play some golf. He promptly proceeded to do so in rather excellent fashion. He was built in proportion to his tall height and he possessed a very enviable golf swing. I failed to match his level of play. In the middle of one fairway he stopped walking and asked me if I knew why I wasn’t playing well. In response to my negative reply he offered the explanation that I had been trying to imitate his swing, that I had been playing his style rather than my own, and that I had lost my identity. His analysis was accepted as accurate, and I became aware once again of the difficulty of retaining one’s sense of self-identity and self-worth in the face of the inequality of power, and of the possible crippling effect that too often accompanies the loss of one’s own base.

I also remember being at a racetrack and watching a drama involving a very highly-bred horse. His pedigree was of the highest credentials. This horse apparently had not been winning his share of rich purses. Since it is rather expensive to keep a horse who is not paying his way, he was entered in a claiming race, which means that he could be claimed or bought. The interesting point is that all the other horses in the race, who were less highly-pedigreed, had run the distance of the race in times markedly faster than that of the horse who was the star of this little episode in the animal kingdom. But they had established their times for the race while running against a different class of competition than they were facing on this particular day. Suffice it to say that our hero won the race by the widest margin it is possible to have and still have it called a race. The inveterate gamblers could be seen nodding their heads wisely, and could be heard muttering something to the effect that class will tell.

I do not regard these illustrations as esoteric or applicable only to the field of sports. A much more complex illustration of the intricacies of power is found in a recent psychological study of the conditions of human courtship. The most decisive and interesting condition, as reported, consisted in the principle that if the woman did not affirm the man’s self-image then no courtship ensued or was possible. The man did not have to affirm the woman’s self-image in order to have courtship occur. The dimensions and implications of this finding are too numerous to discuss here. The study came to the conclusion that the presence of this condition indicated the basic dominance of the man in courtship. I find this conclusion thoroughly ambiguous. The man is possibly dominant, but only if dominance is conceived of in terms of what I call linear power. A quite different conclusion is possible if a different conception of power is adopted.

B. When power is defined in a linear fashion as a capacity to influence another, it follows factually as well as logically that the gain in power by the other is experienced as a loss of one’s own power and therefore of one’s status and sense of worth. At the human level, at least, and possibly with respect to nature itself, the other is often experienced as a threat or a potential threat to our ability to realize our purposes. The idea of being influenced seems to connote a loss or lack of power relating to our sense of insecurity. To be influenced by someone or something other is therefore experienced as a weakness, just as dependence on another is a reflection of our inadequacy or lack of self-sufficiency. Within this understanding of things, passivity is no virtue. On the contrary, it is a preeminent symbol of a lack of power.

In this competition of power, our relative strength or size can be ascertained by the degree to which the freedom of the other is curtailed. The reduction of freedom is an attenuation of power. Consequently, in our struggle for greater power it is essential that the other be restricted in his power as much as possible, or that the freedom of the other be contained within the limits of our control -- whether the other be another person or group or the forces of nature. We hesitate or refuse to commit ourselves to those people or realities we cannot control.

C. As long as one’s size and sense of worth are measured by the strength of one’s capacity to influence others (and this influence always takes the form of shaping the other in our image), as long as power is associated with the sense of initiative and aggressiveness, and passivity is indicative of weakness or a corresponding lack of power, then the natural and inevitable inequalities among individuals and groups are the means whereby the estrangements in life become wider and deeper. The rich become richer, and the poor become poorer. The strong become stronger and the weak become weaker and more dependent. From a deeply religious point of view, and in the long run, this manner of handling the inequalities of life results in an increasing impoverishment for both the strong and the weak. Whether on a Marxist or any other basis of analysis, the divisions between us become more destructive of the family of man.

This link between linear power and sense of worth or status in the eyes of others as well as in our own eyes, is one of the important factors involved in the problem that has puzzled and preoccupied ethicists for centuries, namely, that we seldom relinquish our power voluntarily. We loosen our grip and make our concessions only when we are forced to do so by some competing group that has acquired sufficient power to bring us to the negotiating table, as the history of the labor-management conflict and the modern women’s movement illustrate. Without interference from this competing group our power tends to become inertial and self-perpetuating. As Saul Alinsky used to insist: people in power will listen only when you have enough political "clout" to make them listen. We tend to run over or trample on or remain indifferent to those people whom we feel we can safely ignore.

This conception of power takes on a darker color if the fact of inequality is united with the restive quality of human freedom. More than any other contemporary thinker it was Reinhold Niebuhr who taught us that the human spirit, which is the unity of the self in its freedom, possesses a transcendent outreach. Man in his freedom can transcend in fact or in imagination any given or proposed limitation on what an individual may regard as desirable or possible with respect to his security or fulfillment. On the basis of insights which he attributed to Kierkegaard, Niebuhr grounded both creativity and sin in mans basic anxiety or insecurity. No amount of security with respect to the goods of this life can overcome man’s anxiety. Consequently, man’s spirit in its unbounded restlessness moves toward the indefinite or infinite.

This quality of freedom is manifested in every aspect of a person’s life. This means that any impulse of a person may become insatiable. This is especially the case with respect to his desire for power. In this way our demands or claims tend to become inordinate. This inordinancy reflects the element of self-interest which infects every activity of a person. His claim to rectitude is pretentious, since the self is often the servant and not the master of its impulses. The children of darkness know all this full well since they recognize no law that transcends their self-interest. The children of light who do not take sufficient cognizance of the expansive character of man’s freedom whereby an individual’s or a group’s self-interest may take the form of inordinate or unreasonable claims, believe that our impulses are manageable and amenable to rational control.

The expansive character of freedom means that we tend to overstate the legitimacy of our claims and they become pretentious. We are prone to overplay our strengths and to refuse to recognize the limitations of our virtues, and the result is that they become destructive. While freedom can manifest itself in the form of creative reconstruction, it can also, when combined with the omnipresent factor of inequality, lead to injustices beyond those that may flow from our natural inequalities. This situation may be one reason for the adversary proceedings in our law courts. For Niebuhr it led to his defense of the system of checks and balances in our form of democracy. As he put it, our capacity for justice makes democracy possible, our capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary.

D. It is apparent that this conception of power is grounded on a nonrelational or noncommunal view of the self. The self lives in a society, but the society does not live in the self as part of its inner being. The self has relationships with others, but the self is not created out of these relationships. The others are not constitutive of the self. Society is a context within which the self operates. The self has relationships with other members of the society because society is the necessary medium for the fulfillment of the self.

In this view, there is a movement of the self toward others, but these others exist as means for the realization of the goals of the self. These others exist either as helpers or companions, or as obstacles, or as possible threats to the full use of the self’s power to actualize its purposes.

Furthermore, the freedom of the self is in no sense an emergent from the relationships the sell has with its society. Freedom is a power inherent within the self in its own individual being. In the same sense, the possibilities of the self are latent Within the self in its own life. Society provides the occasions wherein and whereby these possibilities are actualized.

In this conception of power the aim is to move toward the maximum of self-sufficiency. The self is to become as self-dependent as possible. Dependency on others, as well as passivity, are symptoms of weakness or insufficiency. Dependency may become a threat to the integrity of the self. The self is to live out of the strength of its independence. It should relate to others out of its strength and not out of its dependency. Communities may exist as cooperative societies made up of essentially independent and self-reliant members who share common concerns. The less fortunate members of a society, the handicapped and disadvantaged, are the beneficiaries of the charitable and compassionate feelings of the more fortunate, although they are to be praised and prized most honestly when they approximate as nearly as they can the self-dependency of the life of linear power.

This viewpoint has its religious dimension, of course, because the independence of the self may be ultimately qualified by the sense of its dependence on God the creator and sustainer. This conception of power is at home with Descartes’ definition of a substance as that which requires nothing but itself (and God) in order to exist. The strength of the creative and influential power of the self is derived from itself and from God and not from other members of the society.

I suggest that a linear conception of power is a reasonably faithful interpretation of the official creed of the Republican Party in this country. I also believe that it is basically congruent with the traditional metaphysics of substantive modes of thought. This viewpoint on the nature of power is integral to that tradition of Christian theology which has been heavily influenced by this traditional metaphysical outlook. I believe that this conception of power in Christian theology has brought confusion to our understanding of the meaning of Christian character and personality.

To push this point a bit further, I think there is at least one strand of the New Testament interpretation of Jesus which illustrates this conception of power. In several passages it is emphasized that Jesus derived his power and size from God, and from God alone. This is the same power that the Gospel of John reports Jesus as prayerfully asking God to grant to his disciples. It is not recorded that Jesus ever acknowledged his indebtedness to his fellows for his stature or power. As recorded, the relationship was essentially one-sided. The people were the recipients of the influence of his love, his healing graces, and his teachings. In return they gave him his crucifixion. As Scripture has it, "I came to minister, not to be ministered unto."

E. Partly because of the nonrelational view of the self that is presupposed, linear power tends to be somewhat abstract in its operation. Linear power is an expression of specialized concerns. That is, we deal only with those aspects of the human and natural environment that are relevant to our purposes. Our interest in others is highly selective. We are not concerned to deal with the full concrete being of the other -- whether the other be a person or nature in its livingness or God.

This character of linear power is not merely theoretical in its import. The fact is that the aspects of people or nature or God which we neglect tend to revenge themselves on us. The energy of repressed or ignored dimensions of the other must he expressed somehow. The actualization of the expression may be shorter or longer in its process of becoming. If it be true that Cod is not mocked, it may also be the case that the concrete life of other people cannot be disregarded with impunity. In due season the harvest is reaped, for good or ill. Surely our contemporary revolutions involving blacks, Indians, women, and the underdeveloped nations furnish us with more than sufficient evidence on this point.

If individuals are emergents from their relationships, as I believe they are, then the practice of linear power blocks the full flow of energy that could be productive of the emergence of greater-sized individuals from these relationships. Linear power also blocks the quality of the gift that others would give to us out of their freedom.

Lord Acton’s principle, that power corrupts, involves what I am calling linear power. The practice of power, like the possession of great wealth, tends to corrupt its exponents because it helps to create conditions of estrangement. Unless qualified by compensating qualities, the exercise of power tends to alienate the possessor of power. It attenuates the sense of fellow-feeling. It weakens the communal ties that bind us to each other. It deadens our sensitivity to the fact that we are deeply dependent on each other and that we are creative of each other.

The Biblical advice to the rich, that they should give their wealth to the poor, will not solve our economic problems. But it could remove one source of alienation. However, the moral of the principle that power corrupts is not that we should divest ourselves of all power or totally eschew the exercise of power. The total absence of all power is nonexistence, and the refusal to exercise the power we possess leads to destruction. The moral is rather that another kind of power is required. In this connection it is instructive to note the resentment toward the United States expressed by those European nations who were helped by the Marshall plan following World War II.

F. The point concerning the abstractive character of linear power can be expanded. The continued practice of this kind of power breeds an insensitivity to the presence of the other -- again, whether the other be a person or nature or God. The sense of the presence of the other involves a feeling of the concrete actuality of the other, of being truly present to another, of being less concerned to shape and control the other, of letting the other be himself in his concrete freedom.

Perhaps this is one reason why most of the great religious figures possessed qualities that we have traditionally associated with the feminine. They were open to the presence of the other. They were open to being shaped and influenced by the other. Certainly much of what it means to be religious is opposed to the purely masculine.

The practice of linear or unilateral power is antithetical to many of the deeper dimensions of the religious life. The habit of trying to shape and control our human and natural world in accordance with our own purposes makes it difficult to give ourselves in faithful trust to that which we cannot control and which could transform even our sensitivities. Having been nurtured to be insensitive to the presence of the other, in this instance a concretely actual God, God becomes something abstract and remote. So we sometimes have recourse, in Christian circles, to the "living Jesus" in order to overcome our sense of the abstractness, the remoteness, and the emptiness of what in truth is a living, concrete presence. The purely masculine stance in life tends to substitute ethics for religion. Even this approach may become an ethics of ideals which, after all, are themselves abstractions. In this fashion we can shape ourselves in accordance with our own projections, and thereby maintain both our independence and the feeling of self-determination that accompanies our sense of controlling power.

It follows, somewhat inevitably, that a life lived in terms of linear power reduces the sense of the mystery of life, the mystery of the other in its freedom, including and especially the divine other. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the sense of mystery impresses itself most forcibly on us when this kind of power reaches its inescapable frustration. The freedom of God and the freedom of man are not subject to human control. The strangeness of life and the hiddenness of its meaning cannot be respoded to appropriately by a life-style of linear power.

G. When love is contrasted with power, as it is usually done within the Christian theological tradition, it needs to be noted that it is the linear conception of power that is regarded as the antithesis of love. Again, when Jesus (and other christological figures) is described as being powerless, and as having renounced power as the world understands power, it is unilateral power that is at issue. In terms of this kind of power, Jesus and other religious leaders are at the bottom of the hierarchy of power.

The issue between love and linear power is not finally the issue between persuasion and coercion. The contrast consists in the direction of one’s concern, with power focused in the self-interest of an individual or a group, and love concerned with what is for the good of the other. In some interpretations of love, especially Christian love, it would appear that love is as unilateral and nonrelational in its way as linear power is in its way. The interpretation of divine love, as being a concern for the other with no concern for itself, may be the ultimate instance.

It may be that love has been interpreted in this fashion as a compensatory device to counteract the one-sidedness of linear power. Love then becomes one side of the coin that carries the face of power on the other side. This involves the principle that the way to offset one extreme is to introduce a contrary extreme. It would appear that this kind of love, like this kind of power, needs an alternative conception.

H. This is the basic conception of power that has been controlling in western historical experience. It has been dominant in political and economic philosophies as well as in ethical and theological systems. Its preeminence in military thought and action is obvious. Its efficacious role in the ordering of social life is no less apparent. It is rigorously operative in certain embodiments of leadership as well as in the relations between the sexes. The American experience in the leveling of a continent and the partial reshaping of the face of nature constitutes one large national illustration of this kind of force.

Bacon’s aphorism, that knowledge is power, refers in the first instance to linear power. It symbolizes a modern transformation in the function of knowledge. In the pre-modern world knowledge had practical applications, to be sure. Artisans, farmers, alchemists, doctors, seafarers, astronomers, and a few physical philosophers had knowledge of various natural structures and processes. Their practical grasp of the ways of things enabled people to carry out the necessary affairs of everyday life in a tolerable fashion. But on the whole the most important function of knowledge was to serve as a handmaid to understanding and contemplation. But now knowledge to a large degree has been conscripted in the service of unilateral power and control, especially as this knowledge and control are shaped by the concerns of theoretical and applied science.

Scientific knowledge is specialized knowledge. This kind of competence and understanding and inquiry is essential. But unless it is related to other forms of knowledge and inquiry and to other dimensions of life in some integral fashion, specialized knowledge becomes a prime servant of linear power with its ambiguous and destructive consequences. Our universities have become major training grounds for the practice of this kind of power.

Karl Marx’s contention, that the aim of philosophy should not be the quiescent understanding and acceptance of life as it is, but rather the transformation of nature and society, strengthened the instrumental relationship between knowledge and power.

One of the interesting implications of Marx’s interpretation of the role of philosophic study is that the traditional conception of philosophy is essentially feminine in outlook. The unified understanding of the nature of things as they are in their being, to which we must conform, has been replaced by a dynamic interpretation of things in their creative becoming, with which we should cooperate, to which we can contribute, and over which many of us attempt to exercise greater control.

In being at least partially responsible for the course of history, by what star, if any, are we to be guided? As we try to plan and direct the evolution of human society and its pluralistic values and styles, by what are we to be shaped and transformed?

II. Relational Power

The second and alternative conception of power is relational in character. This is the ability both to produce and to undergo an effect. it is the capacity both to influence others and to be influenced by others. Relational power involves both a giving and a receiving.

The true alternative to the traditional role of the masculine as the active agent who influences is not the traditional conception of the feminine as the passive recipient of the influence. This is so even if it is acknowledged that the undergoing of an effect influences the producer of the effect. The audience does help to create the actor. But the true alternative to a masculine version of power is not a feminine version of power. This would merely be substituting "she" for "he." With respect to developing a more adequate conception of power, the solution does not consist of choosing between the alternatives of producing an effect or of undergoing an effect. This solution would involve the life style of either/or, which is a strategy of choosing between equally one-sided truncations.

I do not propose or intend to ground the conception of relational power on the possible distinction and relations between masculine and feminine roles. With respect to the problem of power in relation to human sexual differentiation, I am not concerned to defend either traditional or modern versions of the roles of men and women, or to deny or affirm their distinctive natures, regardless of whether these differences are understood to be inherent or culturally derived. A relational conception of power is hopefully applicable however the differences and similarities between the sexes are defined. In fact, the problem of sexual differentiation is finally irrelevant to the principle of power conceived in relational imagery, even though sexual differentiation has a bearing on the specific dynamics of relational power involving the two sexes. I mention this context at some length in order to emphasize the point that the dominant conception of power is describable in terms of qualities that have been traditionally associated with the masculine.

Power as Being-Influenced. Without opting for a traditionally feminine version of power, it needs to be stressed that the conception of relational power, in contrast to power conceived as unilateral, has as one of its premises the notion that the capacity to absorb an influence is as truly a mark of power as the strength involved in exerting an influence. We all know that it takes physical and psychic strength to endure an effect. The immovable object may be said to be as powerful in its way as the irresistible force is in its way.¹ Yet in spite of this we have persisted in attributing power only to the producer of an effect.² But the principle involved goes beyond this simple observation.

The idea that the capacity to receive from another or to be influenced by another is truly indicative of power is not derived from an arbitrary linguistic decision to extend the term "power" to include the receiving of an influence. The idea rests on more elemental considerations that revolve around the notion of size. The concept of size is taken as fundamental and decisive because it is the most basic criterion by which to make decisions and judgments concerning value. To reiterate an earlier point, the problem of power is finally a problem of value. The justification for any conception of power consists ultimately of principles (or decisions or presuppositions) concerning value.

The term "power" is a value term. It is indicative of worth or significance. Under any conception of power, to refer to a person or group as powerless is to reduce that individual or group on the scale of value. Under unilateral power the worth (or size) of an individual is measured by the range of that individual’s ability to influence others. The correlative thesis of this section of the lecture is that the practice of relational power both requires and exemplifies greater size than that called for by the practice of unilateral power. Since the capacity to receive an influence is a necessary component in the actuality of relational power, the principle of size is applicable to the experience of undergoing an effect. It is the factor of value or size that enables us to attribute power to the experience of receiving an influence derived from others.

Our readiness to take account of the feelings and values of another is a way of including the other within our world of meaning and concern. At its best, receiving is not unresponsive passivity; it is an active openness. Our reception of another indicates that we are or may become large enough to make room for another within ourselves. Our openness to be influenced by another, without losing our identity or sense of self-dependence, is not only an acknowledgement and affirmation of the other as an end rather than a means to an end. It is also a measure of our own strength and size, even and especially when this influence of the other helps to effect a creative transformation of ourselves and our world. The strength of our security may well mean that we do not fear the other, that the other is not an overpowering threat to our own sense of worth.

The world of the individual who can be influenced by another without losing his or her identity or freedom is larger than the world of the individual who fears being influenced.³ The former can include ranges and depths of complexity and contrast to a degree that is not possible for the latter. The stature of the individual who can let another exist in his or her own creative freedom is larger than the size of the individual who insists that others must conform to his own purposes and understandings.

The notion that being influenced may indicate a lack of sufficient self-dependence and that it may tend toward a neurotic dependence on others with its attendant lack of freedom contains a justifiable point of caution and limitation. This is the possible weakness of the strength of openness. But this contention has its counterfoil in the notion that the unqualified urge to influence or to dominate others may indicate a fundamental insecurity and lack of size. This is the possible weakness in the inner dynamics of the strength of controlling or unilateral power.

Under the unilateral conception of power the desire to influence another may well include a love for the other, where this involves a concern for what is thought to be for the good of the other. Or, to invert the point, a love for the other may indeed involve the desire to control the other in a direction that is felt to be for the other’s good. But, under this conception of power, the good that directs the exercise of influence on the other has the limitations of a preconceived good. It often exemplifies the conscious or unconscious desire to transform the other in one’s own image. It is of the nature of efficient cause to reproduce its own kind.

Under the relational conception of power what is truly for the good of any one or all of the relational partners is not a preconceived good. The true good is not a function of controlling or dominating influence. The true good is an emergent from deeply mutual relationships.

If power always means the exercising of influence and control and if receiving always means weakness and a lack of power, then a creative and strong love that comprises a mutual giving and receiving is not possible.

The Constitutive Role of Relationships. The foundation of relational power lies in the constitutive role of relationships in the creation of individuals and societies. The individual is a communal individual. He is a creature of contexts. He lives in society, and the society quite literally lives in him. He is largely a function of the relationships out of which he is born. He begins his pulsating, momentary existence as an individual from a set of complex impulses derived from the ongoing energy of past events as they objectify themselves into the present. This qualitative energy is carried by the relations or vectoral prehensions which largely constitute his life. His life is for the most part, but not completely, a gift from those others who make up the societal context in which he lives. Without these others he would not be. Or as the former manager of the New York Yankees, the late Casey Stengel, said after his team had won still another baseball championship, "I could hardly have done it without the players.

This communal or relational conception of the self stands in marked contrast to the nonrelational or substantive view of the self. In this latter interpretation, which, like the unilateral conception of power, has dominated the history of western thought, the self has relations with others, but its inner constitution is not composed of these relations. The influences of these others are not parts of the very soul of the nonrelational self. These others, through their objectifications of themselves, are not literally present within the self that is being influenced. In the nonrelational conception the self has its inner being within itself. Its essential life and the power of its being are derived from itself (and God). It lives in a context, to be sure, but this context is not part of the very warp and woof of its being. To put the contrast in another and perhaps more controversial fashion, in the nonrelational view the self has experiences, but the self is to be distinguished from its experiences. In the relational view the self doesn’t have experiences. The self is its experiences.

The unilateral conception of power has endured in spite of the point, as noted earlier, that we all recognize it requires strength to absorb an effect. Analogously, the nonrelational conception of the self has endured in spite of the fact that thinkers in untold numbers have recognized what most of us are aware of, namely, that everyone and everything we encounter becomes part of the fabric of our lives. "Relation" in the internal sense is a way of speaking of the presence of others in our own being. It is the peculiar destiny of process/relational modes of thought to have transformed this common-place but deep-seated observation into a metaphysical first principle.⁴

In the relational viewpoint the individual begins life as an effect produced by the many others in the world of his immediate past; But he is not simply a function of these relations. He is an emergent from his relationships, and in the process of his emergence he also creates himself. His life as a living individual consists of synthesizing into some degree of subjective unity the various relational causes or influences which have initiated his process of becoming something definite. His concrete life is constituted by a process of deciding what he will make out of what he has received. This is his emergent selfhood. What he makes out of what he has received is who he is. This is also his emergent freedom because he is his decision. His subjective life is his process of deciding who he is.

When selfhood has been achieved, the qualitative energy of the individual is released from the individual’s self-preoccupation. Having been an emergent response to a complex set of causes, the individual now joins with others as a member of a complex set of causes to create the future, where the future may include another momentary occasion of the individual’s ongoing historical life. In order to become an influence in the lives of others, the momentary individual must "die" as an experiencing subject and become an object to be experienced and received by other momentary subjects in their ongoing lives. Anything that can influence another reality can in turn be influenced at a later stage of itself by this other reality. This is the precise meaning of mutuality.⁵

In some such manner we feed upon each other. We are both cause and effect We constitute each other in part. We are both self-creative and creative of each other, for good or ill, or for good and ill. We are dependent and yet autonomous. We are at once communal and solitary individuals. But the solitariness of individuality is lived out only in the midst of constitutive relationships.

In the relational, contrasted with the noncommunal conception of the self, possibilities do not inhere within the individual as latent entities waiting to be realized. In contrast to the traditional view which held that the acorn contained all the possibilities that were to flower later into the adult oak tree, the relational viewpoint maintains that possibilities are emergents from relationships. A wife is not the occasion whereby a man actualizes husbandly possibilities that reside or subsist wholly within the confines of his enclosed selfhood. The husbandly and wifely possibilities of the respective partners are peculiar to and are created out of that particular marital relationship in which each helps to create the other. The more deeply mutual and creative the relationship, the wider the range of emergent possibilities for those participating in the relationship. The wealth of possibilities is not simply "there" as a present and completed fact, subsisting as a latent condition that is in some sense independent of the world of actual events. Possibilities are created or emerge as possibilities along with the advances that occur within the natural and historical environments.

Analogous considerations apply to the notion of freedom. The individual’s self-creativity is an expression of the strength of his freedom. Or, more accurately, his freedom is a pervasive quality of his self-creativity. His freedom, like his self-creativity, is an emergent from his relationships. To this degree his freedom is not a quality that is derived solely from himself as though he were an independent, self-contained, self-derived, and self-sustained individual. The degree and range of his freedom is not wholly a function of his own resources. On the one hand his freedom is derived from the unfathomable mystery of the emergence of his self-creativity. On the other hand his freedom is in part an enabling gift from his society that is conveyed to him through his constitutive relationships. He is helped or hindered in achieving greater freedom by the enhancing or crippling relations in which he lives. The deeper his involvement in creative and transformative relations, the greater the possibility for the enlargement and empowering of his freedom.

Freedom has several dimensions, and all of them are emergents from the functioning of the constitutive relations in which an individual has his being. Certainly one of the strongest components is that of transcendence, which is the capacity of an individual in fact or in imagination to transcend both society and himself. The intimate connection between transcendence and the expansive character of freedom was noted previously. Even though an individual’s capacity to transcend his society is partly a gift from that very society, he often fails to acknowledge this indebtedness and acts as if he had somehow outgrown his dependence on that society. The tension between society and the freedom of an individual is abiding and irresolvable, to be sure. But in his pride an individual may come to feel that his freedom is wholly self-derived and a function of his own resources. He can imagine that he is essentially independent of all constitutive relationships. In this mood he tends to use his transcendent freedom to enhance his sense of self-importance and to strengthen his egoistic impulses. Almost inevitably he moves in the direction of a more consummate practice of unilateral power. In this fashion he becomes more fully estranged from his fellows and adds to the destructive consequences of our natural inequalities.

In terms of the relational or communal conception of the self, our constitutive relationships enable us to be free. In this sense we are related in order to be free, that is to actualize our highest possibilities relative to ourselves as unique individuals. But freedom does not stand alone as the one absolute or primordial value. Just as fundamentally, we are free in order to be more fully related. We are most free in all the dimensions of our freedom when we enter more deeply into those relationships which are creative of ourselves as people of larger size. The inclusive term is stature. Freedom and relationality are its essential components.

Power as the Capacity to Sustain a Relationship. From this perspective, power is neither the capacity to produce nor to undergo an effect. Power is the capacity to sustain a mutually internal relationship.⁷ This is a relationship of mutually influencing and being influenced, of mutually giving and receiving, of mutually making claims and permitting and enabling others to make their claims. This is a relation of mutuality which embraces all the dimensions and kinds of inequality that the human spirit is heir to. The principle of equality most profoundly means that we are equally dependent on the constitutive relationships that create us, however relatively unequal we are in our various strengths, including our ability to exemplify the fullness and concreteness of this kind of power.

It is important to stress the point that in relational power the influencing and the being influenced occur within and are functions of the mutuality of internal relatedness. This kind of mutuality is to be contrasted with the mutuality of external relatedness that is involved in various instances of unilateral power, such as the mutual good of compromise and accommodation, or the mutuality of external cooperation and divisions of labor, or the mutuality of bargaining and a quid pro quo. In the context of relational power, giving and receiving, influencing and being influenced, producing an effect and undergoing an effect, are not only mutually dependent and interwoven. At times they seem to be almost indistinguishable and their roles appear to be interchangeable. Often the greatest influence that one can exercise on another consists in being influenced by the other, in enabling the other to make the largest impact on one’s self.

The principles of relational power mean that influencing and being influenced are so relationally intertwined that the effort to isolate them as independent factors would constitute an illustration of either one or both of Whitehead’s famous two fallacies: that of simple location or that of misplaced concreteness.

If someone is to talk, someone else must listen. If one is to hear, someone else must speak. The actor in part creates the audience. The audience in its turn partly creates the actor. The drama is an emergent from the interaction between the actor and the audience. In this kind of mutuality of power it is as blessed to receive as it is to give. In our kind of culture, where power is identified so strongly with the exercise of influence upon another, it is often more difficult to receive in such a manner as to enhance and further the relationship. One of the most difficult of all social graces to achieve is the ability to receive in such a way that the giver feels honored in the giving and in having the gift received, or in such away that in giving the giver feels that he has received.’

The art of receiving creatively the influence or gift of another is difficult to master because our sense of worth and power is identified so deeply with the direct act of creating, or giving, or exercising an influence on others. We have been nurtured to believe that dependence is indicative of a lack of worth. But in relational power the focus is not on any particular member of the relationship or on one side of the relationship. The focus is on the relationship to which all contribute and from which all members are fed. The worth of the one who gives is partly dependent on the worth of the one who receives, or the worth of the giving is dependent on the worth that must attach to the receiving. Revelation, to be effective, must be received and made operative in the lives of those who are to be disciples. In fact the cries and prayers of those who need and want to be redeemed in part call forth and create the messiah. The messiah’s capacity to influence his people is in part derived from his being shaped by their need, although his response to their need may take a form which is other than what they want and think they need. The messiah who comes is usually not the one they had hoped for or expected.

In conceiving of relational power as the capacity to sustain a mutually internal relationship, the stress is on the primacy of relationships. These relations include, of course, those entities which are related. In the practice of this kind of power one must trust the relationship. The good is an emergent from the relationship. Except in a negative sense this process of creative emergence lies beyond our ability to direct or to command. The attempt to guide or control this process results only in obstructing the emergence or in restricting the worth of the relationship to the level of value which already exists. Those who are fearful of committing themselves to something they cannot control enhance the strength of the forces involved in the practice of unilateral power.

Those who conceptualize within the imagery of nonrelational or substantive modes of thought, and/or who find it difficult to transcend the traditional conception of power as unilateral, may also be uneasy with the conception of relational power. They may think that the practice of relational power is too non-directive or untrustworthy. They may feel that this kind of power is, for example, ethically sound only if one’s concerns in the relationship are directed toward the other and what is for the other’s good. But this possible response misses the whole point concerning the primacy and creativity of the relationship and the process of emergent good.

Being Present to Another. The primacy of relationships and the emergence of possibilities within relationships can be seen in looking at the phenomenon of being present to another, or being a presence to and for another. Being present to another, when this is understood non-relationally as though we were dealing with independent individuals, can mean either that one discloses himself to another in a deeply personal way, or that one is so fully receptive to the other that the other feels that he is known and understood. When interpreted relationally the phenomenon takes on a different coloration.

The initiating disclosure of one’s self to another enables and frees the other to receive the revealing of one’s self. This reception in turn enables the revealer to be freer in his disclosure of himself. The active openness of the receptive mood of one who listens calls forth the disclosure of him who would speak. The speaking and the listening are creative of each other in the relationship. Also, through his listening the listener discloses himself to the one who speaks. In being heard, the one who speaks knows the one who hears. The two disclosures may not be equal in depth and range in that specific instance. Yet there is a mutuality of self-revelation. The knowing and the being known are mutually creative. Presence means that both knowing and being known are functions of the creativity of both the speaking and the listening. I would understand this to be the relational version of Buber’s I-Thou.⁹

There is an interesting contrast that sometimes develops in relations between at least some men and some women, although the point under discussion does not depend on the stereotyping of either men or women. The matter can be stated in a greatly oversimplified manner and without benefit of psychological or social contexts: women often seem to think that a man is not genuinely concerned about a woman unless he specifically asks her about her feelings, as she asks him about his feelings. Unless he inquires she does not often volunteer information about her feelings. In the absence of his inquiry the volunteering of this information is tantamount to asking him to be concerned about the state of her being. She should not have to call his attention to her inner life. He should be sensitive to her nonverbal communication, as she is sensitive to his. Sensing something of the mood of her spirit, he should express his concern by asking her about her feelings and hopes.

A man, by contrast, thinks that a woman should evidence a concern for him and their relationship by initiating the process of her self-disclosure. She should communicate her feelings to him voluntarily, as he does to her, without first being asked about them. He should not need to keep reassuring her of his interest in her feelings and doings. She should assume that he does care, even though he doesn’t always or even usually demonstrate his concern by the asking of questions.

Each perspective has its limited validity and value. But neither is normative or adequate. Each perspective, in itself, is focused on the self and not on the relationship. In brief, each point of view is to a large extent unilateral in its directional intent. There is a relationship, but it is a function of separate and diverse perspectives. It is not yet a relationship of mutual internality in which each asks and volunteers, in which the asking and the volunteering and the perceptiveness to non-verbal expressions are mutually creative within both partners. In short, it is not yet an association in which the relationship is the base and center.

Relational Power as Concrete. Relational power, in contrast to the abstractness of unilateral power, is concerned with the concrete life of the other, whether the other be an individual or a group. One of the important consequences of the major intellectual discoveries in the modern world, from Copernicus to Einstein, is our increased understanding of the detailed empirical processes which shape our thinking, behavior, and being. We are more aware of conditioning contexts, histories, psychological dynamics and relationships, which largely determine what we most concretely are.

The exercise of power must operate with an awareness of these elements. To do otherwise is to relate to each other inadequately in terms of abstract classes, or stereotypes, or groups looked at in a cross-sectional manner without reference to their peculiar histories. In this fashion we fail to deal with the inexhaustible and variegated richness, the confusing complexity, and the omnipresent and intertwined ambiguities present in the concreteness of individual and group life. Transparent clarity, cleanness, and the absence of ambiguity are found only in the abstractions of thought. Power, to be creative and not destructive, must be inextricably related to the ambiguous, contradictory, and baffling character of concrete existence. It must live with regenerative awe and wonder in the midst of the strange turnings that transform victory into defeat and defeat into victory; the humbling ironies and the intractable conditions within both people and nature that shatter the best laid plans and destroy the bridges of our hopes. It must be rooted in the relative chaos and mess in which we live out our days. In this respect, the concept of relational power is nothing more nor less than a recognition of what has in fact happened in our modern world. It is also a recognition of what is needed in order to respond creatively to what has happened.

As a capacity to sustain complex and mutually internal relationships that encompass more of the concrete lives of individuals and groups, the practice of relational power must confront the whole plenum of psychological and spiritual conditions that characterize the human spirit. This plenum includes the better and the worse, the good and the bad and their confounding mixture. It ranges from the balanced reasonableness of the mature to the excesses and deficiencies of the immature, and from the dependable goodness of sensitive souls to the demonic irrationalities of the deprived, the frustrated, and the depraved. Doubts, anxieties, inertias, resistances, and multidimensional forms of pride live in all of us.

In and beyond all these and countless other problematic states of the human spirit, along with their opposites, there are the many kinds and degrees of inequality that are present in all relationships. The fact of inequality is not just one consideration among many equally significant facts. It is a bed-rock condition. The failure to recognize its decisive status has confounded many social and political theories and programs. It has been a major basis for the traditional conception of order. It is now one of the strong motivating forces which impel us toward the reconstruction of modern societies. It is an ambiguous factor in all lives. It is at once a basis for compassion and a reason to despair. It is at once a precondition of leadership and a major element in the drift toward social mediocrity. It is the presupposition of messiahship. The inequalities that are crippling and dehumanizing may be reducible in scope and influence, but the general condition of inequality seems not only ineradicable but necessary. It is a necessary component in the division of labor and in the variety of creative capacities. In this respect it is part of the meaning of human finitude.

In the practice of unilateral power many of these natural and cultivated inequalities inevitably result in obstructive and impoverishing structures of injustice. It is the hops that in the practice of relational power we may learn how to interrelate these inequalities so they may become mutually enhancing.

It is possible to have a reasonably well-ordered society (in both the large and small sense of that term) as long as we deal abstractly with individuals and groups. The practice of unilateral power can create this kind of society. It has done so throughout history. The price for this ordered life is the neglect or repression of many important dimensions of the human spirit. In moving from this well-ordered but repressive society to forms of social life which enable these dimensions of the human spirit to emerge in more concrete relationships, we must be prepared to live within conditions which are more complex, confused, and unsettling. The surfacing of repressed forces creates problems which did not exist previously. Roles are transformed. Habitual patterns of behavior and response are no longer appropriate or acceptable. Crises in the areas of personal, professional, and social identity appear. The established order in all areas of life is weakened. Traditional values, all too often grounded on structures of abstract relationships, are questioned. The total situation becomes disruptive and potentially disintegrative. It borders on chaos. The social consequences of the liberation of women and the changed consciousness of minority peoples and underdeveloped countries (among other factors) have brought us to just such a state of affairs.

This unstable condition holds great promise for the future. A wise man has said that "the great ages. are the unstable ages." But not all unstable ages have been great milestones in the odyssey of the human spirit. The price for creative advance is enormous. The challenge may be beyond our strength. There is ground for hope and reason to despair.

It is clear that the continued practice of unilateral power is totally inadequate to the social task that confronts us. But the practice of relational power is an incredibly difficult art to master. This type of power requires the most disciplined kind of mutual encouragement and criticism. The creative openness of this type of relationship involves possibilities of the greatest advance and the greatest risk. It calls for the utmost of energy, patience, endurance, and strength. It can lead to the deepest joys and to the abyss of the agony of suffering. In it will be found both heaven and hell and the bitter-sweet amalgam of their co-presence.

Relational Power as Size. The ultimate aim of relational power is the creation and enhancement of those relationships in which all participating members are transformed into individuals and groups of greater stature. In this kind of relationship the individuals (or groups) are neither swallowed up in the relationship nor are they absorbed into each other. Yet the relationship; which includes its members, exists only in terms of its members.

The aim of relational power is not to control the other either directly, or indirectly by trying to guide and control the relationship. The greatest possible good cannot emerge under conditions of control. The aim is to provide those conditions of the giving and receiving of influences such that there is the enlargement of the freedom of all the members to both give and receive. This enlarged freedom is the precondition for the emergence of the greatest possible good which is neither preconceived nor controllable. The commitment within relational power is not to each other but to the relationship which is creative of both. It is a commitment to the relational "us" and not to one or the other.

The elements of the structure of this highly involuted relationship can be stated very abstractly, although it must be emphasized that these elements operate relationally and dynamically. On the one hand, in exercising an influence within the relationship one makes his claims and expresses his concerns in such a style as to enable the other to make his largest contribution to the relationship. With this contribution the experiences of all the participants are intensified and broadened. In making one’s claims and in exercising one’s influence on the other in this fashion, the freedom of the other is recognized and respected. On the other hand, one is to receive the presence and influence of the other within the relationship in such a manner that the other is enabled to enter more freely and fully into the relationship. In being received in this fashion the one who influences may be more open to absorb the influences of others.

The structure of relational power, again defined ideally, is such that the claims of justice (from the perspective of unilateral power) are both included and transcended. From the side of the claimant, some portion of justice is obtained in the very maiking of the claim or in exercising an influence. But in making the claim relationally, that is by enabling the recipient to respond most freely and creatively, justice is transcended. From the side of the recipient of the claim, justice is also served in the very receiving and acknowledgement of the claim. But in receiving the claim relationally, that is by enabling the claimant to become more open to the relationship and to being influenced, justice is transcended. In this kind of relationship transcendence means that, all the parties involved both give and receive more than the requirements of justice demand or permit.

This is a description of the nature of the process of relational power viewed structurally and abstractly. It is also a description of relational power as operating ideally and without reference to the baffling and confounding realities which constitute our empirical existence. When looked at concretely and dynamically, the actual instances of relational power fall far short of this ideal structure. They are incredibly far more complex, ambiguous, and involuted. They involve all the contrasting qualities that are to be found in the endless variety of concrete individuals and social groups. They include the full plenum of conditions the human spirit is heir to. These qualities and conditions, which constitute the materials and contexts with which and in which the exemplifications of relational power must fulfill their ambiguous destinies, run the gamut from triumphant breakthroughs to crippling regressions, from life-restoring laughter to life-denying despair, from the beauty of the gracious heart to the debasing cruelty of the small mind and smaller soul.

Within this larger spectrum of the general human situation there appears to be at least two elemental factors with which the practice of relational power must wrestle in its struggle to create individuals and groups of larger size. These factors are at once the materials for creative advance and the grounds of frustration and persistent smallness of size.

The first is the fact of contrast, which often appears as conflict although not necessarily in the form of overt violence. Conflict more usually exhibits itself under the many guises of competition which infects all the dimensions of our social life. But contrast most generically refers to the inexhaustible differences of otherness. Contrast is the precondition of complexity without which the creation of a larger integrity is not possible. Without adequate contrast the intensity of experience may become too narrowly focused, and may lead to the crippling sickness of moralism or to the more virulent disease of fanaticism.

The second is the factor of estrangement which is the brokenness of life’s essential relationships. The umbrella of estrangement encompasses the emptiness of the uncommitted, the heartless shrug of the in-different and the insensitivity of the unmoved, the inertial smallness of the complacent, the errancy of the unfaithful, the demonry of the prideful and the absolutely certain, and the destructiveness of the hateful. The attempt to overcome estrangement is the "open sesame" to the experience of depth, without which the adventure of greater size loses its foundation of elemental simplicity.

Undergirding these two factors of contrast and estrangement and remorselessly immanent within all movements toward greater size, are at least four conditions which appear to be unalterable or categoreal in nature. The degree of decisiveness with which our grasp of these conditions permeates our understanding, and the manner in which we deal with them, define and shape the limits of our creative advance.

There are first, and most obviously, the inequalities of energy, vision, sensitivity, maturity, and the capacity and the love to sustain relationships. Inequality of some sort or in some degree is present in every relational situation. As noted previously, in the practice of unilateral power these natural and inevitable inequalities lead to destructive injustices. The strong become stronger, and the weak become weaker. This is a form of mutual impoverishment. In the practice of relational power they create an imbalance that can be mutually enriching. Both the strong and the weak may become not only stronger but larger in stature.

There is, secondly, the puzzling fact of ambiguity, the interpenetrating mixture of virtues and vices. Virtues carried beyond their inevitable limits become demonic vices. An individual’s weaknesses are the other side of his strengths. Like the biblical parable of the wheat and tares they grow together. They coexist within an individual. The evil cannot be cut out of a person’s spirit without weakening the strength of his goodness. The evil can be lessened only by the transformation of the strength of his goodness. The passion that caused the individual to transcend the limits of his virtues, and thereby convert them into vices, is the same strength that gave rise to the virtues originally. The failure to recognize the depth of ambiguity in all matters of the spirit leads us to live moralistically, without compassion, and without adequate understanding of others or, more pitiably, of ourselves.

There is, thirdly, the creative role of evil or brokenness in opening us to greater depths of experience. In the absence of problems or failures we tend to live our lives inertially. Dewey has suggested that we think only when our systems of thought and value break down, when we encounter dimensions of life we cannot handle. We often take the value and services of others for granted. Only when they have departed, leaving a vacant space against the sky, when it is too late to express our gratitude, do we come to acknowledge our indebtedness. An infidelity in marriage can lead to a deeper level of maturity in the relationship than perhaps was possible before. In the biblical parable of the prodigal son the deeply resentful older brother is given the possibility of a growth in stature in the face of the father’s joyous welcoming of the repentant younger brother. The naughtiness of young children can call out depths within the parents which were not exemplified previously. The presence of evil does not lead inevitably to a greater good. Obviously. But the actualization of greater good seems to be grounded on brokenness in some degree.

Fourthly, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, through all the ironies and strange turnings of the human spirit there persists the ineradicable dialectical condition wherein every advance makes possible greater destructiveness, and every gain brings new opportunities and larger temptations.

All of these categoreal conditions are dimensions of a web of inter-relatedness that constitutes the seamless context within which all human life is lived.

Relational power is the capacity to sustain an internal relationship. The sustaining does not include management, control, or domination. Rather, it involves the persistent effort to create and maintain the relationship as internal. This effort is carried out within the context of the factors and conditions previously described, and in the face of all the dynamic forces which operate to weaken or break the internality and transform it into the predominantly external type of relationship that is characteristic of the practice of unilateral power.

The discipline demanded by the effort to sustain internal relationships is at least difficult. Its cost is large and sometimes enormous. The price to be exacted involves the expenditure of great energy in the form of an active patience, physical stamina, emotional and psychic strength, and a resilient trust and faith. Above all, the cost is measured in the coin of suffering. The capacity to endure a great suffering for the sake of a large purpose is one of the decisive marks of maturity. In the Christian tradition the adequate symbol of the cost of sustaining an internal relation is the cross.

Within the conception of power as relational, size is fundamentally determined by the range and intensity of internal relationships one can help create and sustain. The largest size is exemplified in those relationships whose range exhibits the greatest compatible contrasts, contrasts which border on chaos, (Whitehead). The achievement of the apex of size involves sustaining a process of transforming incompatible contrasts or contradictions into compatible contrasts and of bearing those contrasts within the integrity of one’s individuality.

There are other less inclusive criteria which are applicable to the determination of size. Size may be ascertained by the degree of the concreteness of the other, including the other’s freedom, that one can absorb, while attempting to maintain the relationship as mutually creative and transformative. This is especially the case when the freedom of the other moves him in the direction of indifference, refusal, or estrangement. Size may be measured by the extent to which one has enabled the other to be as large as he might become, and thereby make his fullest contribution to one’s own life as well as to the lives of others. Size can also be determined by the freedom with which one’s love of the other transcends the "in spite of" character of the traditional conception of love and moves toward an unqualified "because of."

In our religious tradition the "suffering servant" is an important symbol with respect to our topic of power. It may be used to refer to an individual or a people. The suffering servant has sometimes been interpreted as one who receives an influence without making any claim on his own behalf, as one who passively suffers the effect of self-centered or destructive unilateral influence. In this interpretation the suffering servant is one who exemplifies the purely feminine conception of passive power in contrast to the wholly masculine version of aggressive power. This is a contrast between two unilateral actions.

But from the point of view taken in this lecture, this interpretation is inadequate. The suffering servant is rather one who can sustain a relationship involving great contrast, in this case the incompatibility between love and hate. In absorbing the hate or indifference derived from the other, while attempting to sustain the relationship by responding with love for the other, the extreme of contrasts is exemplified. This contrast is an incompatibility, in fact an emotional contradiction. But by having the size to absorb this contradiction within the integrity of his own being, and in having the strength to sustain the relationship, the incompatibility has been transformed into a compatible contrast.

This is size indeed. This consideration highlights the principle that the life of relational power requires a greater strength and size than the life of unilateral power. The suffering servant, in returning love for hate, and in attempting to sustain the relationship as internal and creative, must be psychically larger and stronger than those who unilaterally hate. Without this greater strength and larger size the suffering servant could not sustain the relationship. He would crack psychologically, or he would break the relationship and revert to the practice of unilateral power.

It follows from all this that a christological figure such as Jesus, who is to be found at the bottom of the hierarchy of unilateral power, stands at the apex of life conceived in terms of relational power. But a messiah of size cannot be created out of the weakness of a milquetoast. In considering the topic of size it needs to be noted, again, that inequality is present as an inescapable condition. Because of this inequality there is an unfairness to life. This quality appears to have something like a categoreal status in our experience. Our only choice is to choose between two forms of unfairness. In the life of unilateral power the unfairness means that the stronger are able to control and dominate the weaker and thereby claim their disproportionate share of the world’s goods and values. In the life of relational power, the unfairness means that those of larger size must undergo greater suffering and bear a greater burden in sustaining those relationships which hopefully may heal the brokenness of the seamless web of interdependence in which we all live. "Of whom much is given, much is expected."

It has been maintained that the contemporary world, which has been so decisively shaped by modern science, requires the presence of groups of people of adequate size. It is the contention of this lecture that the practice of unilateral power cannot create people of a size sufficient to cope with the problems we face. If the quality of terrestrial life is to attain a level which makes it worth the effort of living it, this achievement is possible only in terms of the practice of relational power.

But our situation is deeply problematic. The notion that the life of relational power calls for a stature which transcends the life of unilateral power does not mean, however, that relational power has greater survival capability than unilateral power. The higher forms of life may be less able to survive (as higher forms) than less complex forms of energy. The more sensitive the organism, the more it may need to be protected from some of the rougher and cruder aspects of existence. In terms of permanence, the stone far outdistances man. As Whitehead has observed, "The art of persistence is to be dead."

There is another dimension to our problematic situation. It is an issue that has troubled theologians and philosophers of history for centuries. Stated in terms appropriate to this lecture: can the life of relational power be sustained with sufficient strength in the face of perhaps overwhelming unilateral power? Those who live relationally are larger in stature and psychically stronger than those who live unilaterally. Nonetheless, can relational power become so efficacious historically that it may at least hold its own if it cannot overcome the destructive forces of unilateral power? The lives of those who live relationally may not be sufficiently efficacious or persuasive with respect to those who live unilaterally. In fact the opposite may and does occur. The behavior of the larger may create a fury in the souls of the smaller and weaker that can eventuate in greater impoverishment and destructiveness. This principle is exemplified in the anti-Semitism which is an attitude of the weaker against the stronger.

Who shall inherit the earth? The Bible says it will be the meek. But surely this prophecy is not warranted if the meek are understood to be spineless doormats who live in terms of a unilaterally feminine conception of power. If the meek are understood to be living embodiments of relational power, if they are in fact members of a suffering servant people, then the proposition is surely interesting. It may even become true.

The earth belongs, or ought to belong, to those who make the largest claims on life. The largest claims are not made nor are they makeable in the form of unilateral power. They are made by those who attempt to embody most fully the life of relational power, for they are claims made not only for themselves but on behalf of all peoples.

The metaphysical depth and pervasiveness of the primary conditions which constitute the problematic context for the practice of relational power¹⁰ point to a universe struggling toward creative advance. This problematic context confronts us whether we opt for unilateral or relational power. The god of unilateral power is not a tribal deity. On the contrary. It is a universal god. But it is a demonic god, an idol which is not large enough to merit our faith and devotion. The issue appears to be in doubt. But the faith which can live with that doubt is a steadfast and hopeful trust in both the goodness and the power of a relational god of adequate size.

Notes

1 There is the New England short story ("The Great Stone Face") about the influence of a mountain in the shaping of a human face. Beginning when he was a small boy and persisting throughout his life, a certain man developed the habit of spending many hours looking at a stone face which the forces of nature had etched on the side of a mountain. Gradually over the years the man’s face took on the character of the great stone face.

2 The scientific definition of power as the capacity either to produce or to undergo an effect seems to be an exception to this general practice.

3 The receiving of influence from another may result in the enlargement of one’s identity or the creative transformation of one’s freedom.

4 The methodology of historical understanding is thoroughly contextual in character. Every historical figure (or institution or movement) must be seen and understood contextually, because that individual lived his life in that particular context and in no other. All historical life is particular in its concrete existence. It is possible to interpret this methodology and its achievements in terms of a non-relational conception of the self and society. In this conception a context functions so as to shape and limit an individual’s possibilities which are relevant to that particular context. But a relational view of the self and society would seem to furnish a more adequate basis for grasping the significance of the work of historians. In a limited way an individual helps to give shape to his contextual environment, and that particular world shapes that individual. The individual lives in a context of others, but that context lives and has its being only within the individuals, and in the relations between individuals, who partly constitute the totality of that context. The context becomes part of the inner life of the individuals who live in that world.

5 In other words, the mutuality is not simultaneous. The presence of mutuality in the strictest sense requires a crisscrossing interrelationship of cause and effect in the successive stages in the ongoing lives of two or more individuals. For ordinary practical purposes this strict definition of mutuality need not be insisted on.

6 Because of their inertial qualities these relationships may also become the enemies of freedom.

7 This view of internal relations includes, of course, the presence of external relations. The communal individual is also solitary. All partners, especially marriage partners, as Gibran insisted, need "spaces in their togetherness.

8 It is also true that it is often difficult to influence or to give to another in such a way that the other is not demeaned but is in fact enhanced by this aspect of the relationship. The difficulty is due to considerations analogous to those involved in the development of the art of gracious reception.

9 The fullest exemplification of "presence" would involve having each member both speak and listen in terms of the dynamics stated in the text. This situation seldom occurs with hill equality on any specific occasion.

10 Ambiguity, inequality and the several dimensions of the inextricable relationships between good and evil.

I

When in the seventeenth century the revolutionary new metaphysics of materialist mechanism was introduced, it retained two most significant features from the Thomistic Aristotelianism which it replaced, namely the doctrine of God as prime mover, and the doctrine of locomotion as the fundamental motion. Indeed in the new metaphysics of the physical as matter, it itself utterly devoid of any principle of change, God was all the more necessary for the locomotion of matter, that being the only motion or change possible in that scheme. Further, although later in the century the Newtonian system was hailed as the full and final triumph of the doctrine of mechanism, perturbations in the orbit of the planet Mercury were discovered which were inexplicable in terms of Newton’s system, Newton himself maintaining the necessity for the occasional direct intervention of God to correct these.

In the eighteenth century thinkers became increasingly sensible of the philosophical unsatisfactoriness of a deus ex machina, and by the end of the century a solution was found through very considerable advances in mathematics by a number of great mathematicians and natural philosophers -- Maupertius, d’Alembert, Lagrange, Laplace, Fourier in France, and the Bernoulli brothers and Leonard Euler in Switzerland -- leading to a perfection of the system of mechanics, especially by Laplace, whereby the anomalies in Newton’s cosmology were eliminated, thus rendering unnecessary any divine intervention in the celestial motions. This triumph of mechanism, particularly in regard to its implications with respect to the role of God, was expressed in the celebrated reply by Laplace in response to Napoleon’s observation about the absence of God in his system, that he, Laplace, had no need for that hypothesis.

By the end of the nineteenth century the doctrine of materialist mechanism reached its full development with Kirchhof, Hertz, Mach and Poincaré. Physics was conceived as the "science of mechanics" -- the title of Mach’s most influential book -- and this was the fundamental natural science to which all others were reducible. With the work of Darwin this doctrine had also become basic to biology, and was soon to be extended to the study of man. Further, with thinkers such as Mach and Poincaré the philosophical implication of their materialist mechanism also became clear, namely that it is only "science," thus conceived, which gives "positive" (i.e., genuine, certain) knowledge. Therewith all "metaphysics" was repudiated -- excepting, of course, only that of materialist mechanism (which was no longer thought of as "metaphysics") -- this repudiation also extending to theology. In the twentieth century this positivism came largely to dominate academic philosophy, especially British and American.

But in the nineteenth century, particularly during the second half, and then increasingly in this century, advances occurred in scientific thinking itself which were to undermine the doctrine of materialist mechanism, although for a long time this was not evident because those developments continued, indeed to the present day, to be interpreted in terms of the presuppositions of that doctrine.

Whitehead was the scientist who in the twentieth century most clearly perceived the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of the scheme of materialist mechanism -- he was singular among scientists in having a peculiarly philosophical intellect, i.e., one penetrating to the greater generalities, ultimately to metaphysics. In Science and the Modern World he engaged in a review of the advance of modern science from the seventeenth century, bringing out "the present confusion as to the foundational concepts of physical science" (SMW 128), as a background to his development of an alternative philosophical basis.

From the philosophical point of view, Whitehead brought out, the most significant scientific developments were those which had in the nineteenth century led to the introduction of the concept of "energy" on the one hand, and on the other those comprising the introduction of the undulatory theory of light, and to the theory of electromagnetism and their unification by Clerk Maxwell, in whose theory, as Whitehead put it, "the waves of light were merely waves of his electromagnetic occurrences" (SMW 123). The philosophical significance of this is, first, as Whitehead stated it, that electromagnetic theory "in Maxwell’s hands, assumed a shape in which it demanded that there should be electromagnetic occurrences throughout all space" (SMW 124); and secondly, that this entailed the introduction of the presupposition that continuity was basic, for "electromagnetic occurrences were conceived as arising from a continuous field" (SMW 124). This implication is most important because in the reigning doctrine of material mechanism the concept of "atomism" was fundamental in the physical, matter being conceived as essentially discrete and thus discontinuous.

A further philosophical complication arose in connection with the doctrine of the conservation of energy, since this entailed the conception, in Whitehead’s words, of "a quantitative permanence underlying change" (SMW 126), for this implied that there is another kind of permanence besides that of matter which, in the material mechanistic doctrine, had been the only permanence. This not only made acute the philosophical issue of the relation between matter and energy, but it also brought crucially to the fore the entire issue of change. For in the doctrine of material mechanism the only kind of change was locomotion, i.e., change in respect of place, this being the only change possible for matter. In contrast to this, change in energy is something other than locomotive change -- change in energy might result in locomotive change occurring, but change in energy is not reducible to locomotive change. This entails that kinds of change other than locomotive must be admitted in the physical realm. This further complicated the issue of the relation between matter and energy. Is energy a kind of reality other than matter? And if so, what would be its status? If energy be subsidiary to matter, how can energy change be other than locomotive? From these and other similar considerations it was clear to Whitehead that a fundamental revision of the conception of the physical was requisite, and indeed urgent.

Basically, and most importantly, he held it to be necessary to reject the conception of the physical as "matter," in itself changeless, inert, "stuff-like." The theories of energy and electromagnetism made it evident to him that the primary physical entities must be essentially "event-like." Accordingly he proposed that "We must start with the event as the ultimate unity of natural occurrence" (SMW 129).

With this, the antithesis between "atomicity" and "continuity" could be rescued from the contradiction it had constituted in the doctrine of the physical as "matter." These two concepts of "atomicity" and "continuity" are antithetical, but they are not necessarily contradictory (SMW 124). They are not so if "events" be taken as fundamental in the physical. For "event" does not mean a mere or sheer "happening." Whitehead used the word "event" in its primary etymological sense of "to come out" (from the Latin evenire), which implies "something" which comes out. This entails that the "something" must necessarily be continuous with that out of which it comes. And it also entails that the "something" must have an essential discreteness as itself different from that out of which it comes.

Whitehead elaborated his new conception of the physical by drawing further implications of its nature as "event." First, this leads to a fundamental ontological position, namely that the physical entity as an event entails that it "comes to be," i.e., that it is subject to "becoming" -- in contrast to matter, which is in itself changeless, and thus merely "being." Further, a physical entity as "becoming" entails that it is necessarily related to that out of which it becomes, i.e., past events. As Whitehead has stated it: "The position here maintained is that the relationships of an event are internal, so far as concerns the event itself that is to say, that they are constitutive of what the event is in itself (SMW 130).

One other crucial metaphysical implication follows. This is that internal relatedness can be effected only by activity, that is, by the physical entities being essentially "acting" entities -- an "acting" which Whitehead characterized as that of "prehension." This position is to be seen in contrast to the conception of the physical as "matter," which is essentially inert, inactive. In contrast to the conception of "inert matter," the development of science in this century demands that the physical entities be conceived as "active."

II

It will not be necessary to elaborate Whitehead’s philosophy of the nature of the physical in more detail. I want to proceed to one most relevant implication for a cosmology based on a metaphysics of the physical as "active." Whitehead came to this topic toward the end of Science and the Modern World. He introduced it by recurring to Aristotle: "Aristotle found it necessary to complete his metaphysics by the introduction of a Prime Mover -- God (SMW 215). Whitehead himself had come to a similar position, in contrast to the position of the cosmological system of materialist mechanism, in which there is no place for God.

The reason for Whitehead’s recurrence to Aristotle is significant. It was, in the first place, to emphasize that his finding it necessary to complete his own cosmology by the introduction of God was not for religious reasons. The point is not that religion was of no importance to him; quite the contrary. But religious experience per se cannot be determinative in this context: as he has expressed it, "for nothing, within any limited type of experience, can give intelligence to shape our ideas of any entity at the base of all actual things, unless the general character of things requires that there be such an entity" (SMW 215f.). The point is that religious experience requires critical scrutiny and justification by theology, a theology moreover which is grounded in metaphysics and cosmology. Whitehead was here rejecting the long and still influential tradition of the primacy of religion to metaphysics and cosmology.

For him on the contrary it is metaphysics which has to be primary, and determinative in cosmology, and also in theology. Thus Whitehead had good reason for recurring to Aristotle as the last great European metaphysician who was entirely dispassionate in regard to the topic of God and the cosmological order; for after him, as Whitehead put it, "ethical and religious interests began to influence metaphysical conclusions" (SMW 215).

The general point which Whitehead was arguing was that the advance in science in the last hundred years had necessitated a fundamental revision of our metaphysical foundations, and that when this is pushed through it becomes clear that God must be readmitted to a fundamental role or function in the universe. But the conception of this role is not to be derived from religion. He maintained the contrary position:

III

How exactly the function of God in the universe is to be conceived is a fundamental task of metaphysics. In developing his own metaphysical thought in this respect Whitehead was most deeply influenced by Plato and Aristotle, especially so by Plato.

We have seen that his analysis of recent scientific advances had led him to the conclusion that physical entities must be conceived as essentially "active"; as he said, it is necessary to conceive of a "substantial activity" (SMW 220). Now these acting entities, as previously noted, are necessarily interrelated. Whitehead saw that the metaphysical issue raised by this is as to how that "substantial activity" is to be understood. It might be maintained that there simply and ultimately are an indefinite plurality of individual "substantial activities." But this raises the problem of how and by what they are interrelated. It could be held that they must necessarily be related by something other than their own individual "activities," this something being held, as by Leibniz, to be God -- a view which subsequently found little favor. Whitehead adopted a different approach, by noting that each of the indefinite plurality of actual acting entities is united by their having in common the general factor of "activity." But this commonness cannot be that of a "universal character," for "activity" is not per se a "character," a "definiteness," since it is acting or activity which "has" some or other definite character distinguishing it as this as opposed to that action. In other words, "activity" is not an attribute; it is rather a subject. Whitehead concluded that "the unity of all actual occasions forbids the analysis of substantial activities into independent entities" (SMW 220), for their "unity" is precisely the "substantial activity" which they share. Whitehead’s metaphysical conclusion therefore was that "Each individual activity is nothing but the mode in which the general activity is individualized" (SMW 220).

This means that Whitehead has made a metaphysical distinction between, on the one hand, the plurality of acting physical entities, and on the other, a "general activity" underlying all the occasions of individual acting, and of which each of them is an "individualization." The distinction is between actual individual physical entities and an underlying or substrate general activity upon which each individual is dependent, the latter being thus the "source" of the individual actings. This, as Whitehead recognized, is analogous to Aristotle’s individual ousiai (substances) and his hupokeimenon. substrate, which he termed hule -- which came to be rendered materia in Latin. In both these thinkers therefore we have the general metaphysical distinction between the actual individual physical entities and a general substrate underlying them and upon which they are dependent.

A main point to be emphasized is that Aristotle explicitly made a distinction between actual physical entities on the one hand, and hule, matter, on the other, which is not a physical entity but is an arche, source, principle, of physical entities. What Aristotle distinguished as being anarche, principle, source, Whitehead in Religion in the Making, termed a "formative element."

Now Whitehead, following Plato and Aristotle, distinguished another, a second, "formative element" or principle upon which the actual physical entities are dependent. His metaphysical theory was, as we have seen, that each individual activity is "nothing but the mode in which the general activity is individualized." "Mode" means a manner or state of being of a thing (cf. Shorter O.E.D., art. 6), which entails alternative possibilities of being. This entails that "what" particular mode of activity is actualized cannot be determined by the underlying general activity, by reason of its very generality. Whitehead maintained that we have therefore to conclude to the necessity of another principle or source required by the actual individual physical entities in addition to the general substrate. That is, it is necessary, as he expressed it, that "We conceive actuality as in essential relation to an unfathomable possibility" (SMW 216). This means that the second principle is an infinite plurality of abstract possibility. It was this which Plato and Aristotle had distinguished by the general term cidos or idea, which became rendered forma, "form," and which Whitehead called "eternal objects" – "eternal" because they are not subject to "becoming," and "objects" because they are "given."

Thus we have two "ultimates," Whitehead agreed with Plato and Aristotle, upon which individual physical entities are dependent. Plato and Aristotle referred to these "ultimates" as archai, principles, and Whitehead in Religion in the Making called them "formative elements," i.e., those "elements which go to the formation [of the] actual world, passing in time" (RM 77). He emphasized that "such formative elements are not themselves actual and passing; they are the factors which are either nonactual or nontemporal, disclosed in the analysis of what is both actual and temporal" (RM 77). Whitehead, in arriving at this analysis, had in fact been more particularly influenced by Plato, who had made this distinction early in his Timaeus (Tim. 27D-29D).

Now Whitehead further agreed with Plato, and Aristotle, that a third "formative element" or principle, source, of physical actuality is necessary. Whitehead’s argument is as follows: "So far as the general metaphysical situation is concerned, there might have been an indiscriminate modal pluralism apart from logical or other limitation. But there could not then have been these modes, for each mode represents a synthesis of actualities which are limited to conform to a standard" (SMW 221). That is, given the indefinite plurality of possibilities, in order for there to be individual actuality entails a definite limitation of possibility to "a this," which entails a standard in terms of which that limitation is effected. Thus, as Whitehead stated it, "as a further element in the metaphysical situation, there is required a principle of limitation" (SMW 221). This third formative element, Whitehead maintained, in agreement with Plato and Aristotle, is "what men call God" (RM 78; cf. SMW 221f.).

Thus for Whitehead the role of God in the universe is that of the "principle of limitation," or as he has alternatively expressed it, the "principle of concretion" (cf. RM 80; also PR 345/ 374). Whitehead completely rejected the Judeo-Christian doctrine of God as creator of the universe, as well as the conception of God in the seventeenth century, namely of God as the prime mover. His conception is closer to that of Aristotle, of God as the teleological principle, i.e., the source of ends -- it is this which is essentially entailed in God as the principle of concretion.

IV

Now there is one feature of Whitehead’s doctrine which merits special attention. When in Religion in the Making he elaborated his conception of the three "formative elements" (RM 76-81), Whitehead characterized the third of these elements, God, as "the actual but non-temporal entity" (RM 78), and he maintained this characterization of God as an "actual entity" throughout the systematic elaboration of his metaphysics and cosmology in Process and Reality, as well as in his subsequent works.

A further point relevant here is that in Process and Reality Whitehead developed an elaborate system of categories as fundamental. The first of these is "The Category of the Ultimate." It is to be noted, however, that icontrary to his formulation of his metaphysics and cosmology in Process and Reality, as well as in his subsequent works, there is an underlying general activity, which he had called "Creativity", a term which he continued to use. Does this signify his abandonment of the conception of three "formative elements," of three ultimates?

The second of his "formative elements," namely "eternal objects, appears in Process and Reality listed fifth among his "Categories of Existence," the first of these being "actual entities." At the end of this list Whitehead stated that: "Among these eight categories of existence, actual entities and eternal objects stand out with a certain extreme finality. The other types of existence have a certain intermediate character" (PR 29/ 33). The third "formative element," God, is listed nowhere in the entire scheme of categories. God appears only in the following chapter, entitled "Some Derivative Notions." It there becomes evident that Whitehead had subsumed God under the general category of "actual entity," and that actual entities were thus divided into the plurality of temporal actual entities, and one nontemporal actual entity, God.

However, from a careful study of the entire text of Process and Reality it becomes clear that although Whitehead did not use his earlier designation of "formative elements," in fact the earlier position had essentially continued unmodified in the scheme of Process and Reality. That is, Creativity, Eternal Objects, and God continue to constitute the three ultimates of his system. As far as his Categories are concerned, he should have listed three "Categories of the Ultimate" -- i.e., in addition to Creativity, he should have included eternal objects and God. And in respect of the Categories of Existence, in fact he has only one which is eminent and primary, namely actual entities, the others in the list being either ingredients in actual entities (prehensions, subjective forms), or actual entities in various fundamental modes of relation (nexus, propositions, multiplicities, contrasts -- to which he might consistently have added societies).

But the crucial issue to be raised here, and which needs close examination, is respecting Whitehead’s conception of God as an "actual entity." In this he is of course in a long tradition. This is usually thought to go back to Plato, but that is questionable. Plato, in his Timaeus -- which must be taken as the decisively relevant work, and which was indeed subsequently the most influential in respect of this topic -- starts by making a fundamental distinction between "what always is" (ti to on aei) and what is always in becoming (ti to gignomenon aei) (Tim. 27D-28A). The former is constituted by, first, the eide (forms), secondly, the divine demiourgos (craftsman), and thirdly, the hupodoche (receptable). That which is always in becoming is the entire heaven or cosmos (pas ouranos he kosmos) (Tim. 28B), in which he included all physical beings. The former three are the ultimate sources, archai (Tim. 28B-C) of the latter -- Plato used the word arche here.

The philosophical description of the cosmos, i.e., his cosmology, to which he then proceeds, is cast in the form of a genetic account, i.e., a cosmogeny. This procedure of understanding by the device of a genetic account is one which Plato had adopted previously, e.g., in Book II of the Republic in explaining the nature of the polis. This procedure evidently does not constitute a literal explanation, as indeed he explicitly emphasized in the Timaeus; it is rather to be taken metaphorically, i.e., as "a likely story" (tou eikota muthon) (Tim. 29D). Plato adopted this "mythological" procedure for lack of the appropriate terminology and categoreal system for articulating the structure of the cosmos, i.e., a cosmology -- the achievement of such a cosmology was attained by Aristotle.

But in this conception of three archai, sources, of the cosmos and the entire physical realm Plato made a tremendous philosophical advance, which included also what he saw to be entailed in these three as archai. This was that none of the three is to be conceived as "actual beings." He had already come to the realization of this respecting the eide, forms, which earlier he had identified as to ontos on (beingly being) and on alethes (true being), but he had come to see the fallacy of the "third man" entailed in that view (Plato, Parmenides 131E-132B), and further in the Sophist, that the conception of the forms as themselves "beings" had to be abandoned (Plato, Sophist 249C-D). Here in the Timaeus he accorded them the different status of an arche, source, both of the being and of the knowledge of physical things. The second arche, the receptacle, is also not to be conceived as any kind of "actual being"; and, in itself devoid of all form, it cannot in the strict sense be "known" -- it is apprehendable only by "a kind of bastard reasoning" (Tim. 52B; logismo tini notho).

Plato’s term demiourgos also is not to be taken literally as "an actual being," but rather as a metaphorical designation of that which is a cause (aition) -- for, as he says, that which is in becoming "necessarily must have some cause" (hup’ aition tinos anangken) (Tim. 28C). Plato explicitly emphasized the extreme difficulty of conceiving this cause: "The maker and father of this universe (ton men oun poieten kai patera toude tou pantos) it is a hard task to find, and having found him it would be impossible to declare him to all mankind."¹ For the demiourgos is distinct from the cide, and is thus not "formed," so can neither be "a being" nor "known" as beings are known.

Aristotle developed a systematic cosmology in terms of the principles (archai) which are the causes (aitiai) of the cosmos. He rejected all supposition of a literal genesis, generation, of the cosmos by or from those causes -- he held that there can be no beginning nor end to the process of the cosmos. Thus the principles are not to be conceived as transcendent in a literal sense of separately and independently existing. Rather the principles are immanent in the cosmos, though they are transcendent of the physical in not being themselves physical entities but being that which is required by the physical as its principles. These principles for Aristotle were hule (matter) -- which corresponds to Plato’s receptacle -- the eide, (forms), and Theos. The role of God in Aristotle’s system is that of the teleological cause of kinesis, motion; that is, God provides the telos, the end, i.e., the "that for the sake of which," requisite for the becoming and order of this cosmos.

But Aristotle failed fully to follow through on Plato’s highly important insight. He did indeed do so as far as hule, matter, is concerned, and also with respect to cidos, form. Regarding matter he held: "By matter I mean that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor a certain quantity not assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined."² And with respect to form, he completely rejected the earlier Platonic doctrine -- apparently still widely accepted -- of form as itself ousia, to on, an individual being. Instead he maintained Plato’s later position that eide are the principles, sources (archai) of the definiteness of individual beings, and are thus not themselves individual beings.

Where Aristotle significantly departed from Plato was respecting the third arche, God. This, he held, is to be conceived as an actual individual being. He did soon the basis of his metaphysics. The entire universe, he maintained, is in an interminable process of becoming, i.e., of genesis, coming-into-being, which entails that it involves kinesis (motus, motion), i.e., qualitative, quantitative, and locomotive change. Now the process of becoming is to be analyzed, he held, as the perpetual actualization of potentiality, i.e., as a perpetual transition from potentiality (dunamis) to actuality (energeia). However, in this process, although potentiality is antecedent to actuality, it cannot be ontologically antecedent, since strictly only actuality can be "a being" (ousia, to on), and a process of becoming is possible only from an actual being. In respect of the universe in becoming, this requirement, namely of the ontological priority of actuality, is fulfilled, and can only be fulfilled if the arche, principle, source, of the becoming of the cosmos, namely God, be a full actual being. His conclusion was therefore that God is "aidion (eternal), ousia, energeia" (Met. 1072a25).

V

With respect to Plato’s insight concerning the ontological status of God, this was therefore lost, and remained lost for several centuries. It was recovered, however, in the third century AD. by Plotinus, the founder of what later came to be termed Neoplatonism. Plotinus accepted the growing tendency of the Platonic schools of the previous few centuries to the abandonment of the conception of Plato and Aristotle of three archai, and the acceptance instead of but one arche, principle, as the source and origin of the physical universe, that principle being God.

Plotinus was the thinker who most clearly perceived the implications, and in particular of the ontological implications, of that new position. These were, first that if God be the sole source and origin, this entailed that God is the source of all "being," which implied, secondly, that God is the source of all the "definiteness" of beings, i.e., of "what" they are, and also of all "good"; for every being necessarily has to be of some or other "kind" or "quality," and in some respect and measure "good," of some "value." Cod’s being the source of the definiteness of beings thus meant God’s being the source of eidos, form. Thirdly, since, as had been clear from Plato and Aristotle, "knowledge" of particular things consisted in the apprehension of the "forms" of those things, this implied that God is also the source of all "knowledge."

But it was what all this entailed respecting the conception of God which it was the singular merit of Plotinus to have seen. This is that, as the ultimate and sole source of all, God must be absolutely transcendent. It is what this absolute transcendence consists in which is crucially important. In his reasoning Plotinus drew on Plato’s argument in the Republic at 509B in his simile of the sun. Plotinus argued that since thought and knowledge are necessarily in terms of the forms, and since (here drawing on the "third man" argument) the source of form cannot itself be "a form" or itself "formed," therefore the source of form must transcend, i.e., be beyond (epekeina) form, and accordingly it cannot itself be known in the way in which all formed things are known. Likewise, Plotinus’ argument is, the source of "being" (ousia, to on) cannot itself be "a being." This entailed therefore that of the ultimate source there can be "no thought, no knowledge, since it is indeed beyond what we speak of as ousia, being."³ Accordingly we can strictly only think of God as the ultimate One which is the source of all.

In the next century Augustine of Hippo, the greatest of the Fathers of the Church, most fully accepted the metaphysics of Plotinus as a basis for his theology. But Augustine came to it with a strong belief in the Judeo-Christian conception of God, which predisposed him to the Parmenidean-Platonic ontology, i.e., of "being" as changeless, immutable, and he accordingly maintained that "it is only that which remains in being without change that truly is,"⁴ which entailed that only God could be conceived as "true being" (vere esse). The validity of Plotinus’ argument consequently escaped him, and accordingly the Christian Neoplatonic tradition stemming from Augustine differed in a fundamental respect from Plotinian Neoplatonism. In the Augustinian tradition God is emphatically "a being."

Difficulties with this doctrine began, however, to be manifested in the succeeding centuries -- these were at the root, for example, of the so-called "negative theology." But it was not until the period of Scholasticism when, after the arrival of Greco-Arabic philosophy in the West in the twelfth century, which brought a realization of the full import of metaphysics for theology, that these difficulties came to the fore.

The thinker who perceived these most clearly was Thomas Aquinas. He accepted from Augustine, and Aristotle, that God is "a being." But, he was clear, there is a fundamental difference, in respect of "being," between the being of God, the creating being, and the being of creatures. Creatures are to be understood philosophically in terms of the Aristotelian categories: quality, quantity, relation, place, time, etc. But these categories do not apply to God, for God is not at a particular time, nor in any place, nor of a certain quantity, nor of a certain quality. How, then, is God to be understood?

In answer to this problem Aquinas advanced a doctrine of "transcendental categories," developing this from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book X, Chapter 2. This doctrine cannot be treated in detail here; I shall take only some relevant features. Aristotle in that text maintained that "being" (to on) and "unity" (to hen) are special categories or predicates, ones "transcending" (from transcendere, to climb over, surmount) the division between the subject and the predicates that are asserted of the subject; that is, "being" and "unity" apply equally to the subject and to each of the predicates. Aquinas extended this notion of "transcendental category" to the distinction between the being of God and the being of the creatures. Thus the being of creatures is understood by its "essence," i.e., "what it is," which is to say its quality, this being its form. But the essence of God is not a quality, a form; the essence of God, Aquinas held, is "being itself" (ipsum esse). God is therefore to be understood in terms of "transcendental categories" which pertain to God alone. For example, he maintained that a distinction is to be made in respect of the category of "unity" -- which is convertible with "being" -- in its application respectively to God and to creatures. Each creature "is" as "one," as Aristotle, and Plato, had insisted. But, Thomas maintained, the "being" of God is not univocally "one," for Thomas accepted the trinitarian doctrine of God. That is, God is "one" not in the sense in which a creature is "one," but in a "transcendental" sense. In creatures the category of "unity" is the principle of quantity, of number; but this is not so in the case of the transcendental category of unity. There is also a similar distinction respecting the category of "relation," between relation pertaining between creatures and the transcendental category of relation pertaining to God.

But with this another problem becomes acute, namely that of how these transcendental categories are to be grasped. Aquinas’ solution to that problem was his doctrine of "analogical predication." This is that we predicate those categories to God "by analogy with" our predicating categories to creatures. This is a complex doctrine involving distinctions between kinds of analogy -- that of "proportion" and that of "proportionality" -- but for our purposes it will not be necessary to consider these.

However, there remains, it seems to me, the fundamental question whether these doctrines of Aquinas, of transcendental categories and of analogical predication, succeed in overcoming the fallacy, that of the "third man," which Plotinus had seen to be involved in ascribing predicates to God, the problem namely that if God be the source of all, God is the source not only of categories and predicates, but is the source also of "being," and that thus God must necessarily transcend "being," which entails that God is not consistently to be regarded as "a being." The position of Aquinas would be consistent if it be understood that God is analogous to "a being." But this has been all too easily lost sight of, and God is in his system conceived as "a being."

VI

After this historical excursion we can now return to Whitehead. In Process and Reality, in his chapter on "God and the World," Whitehead maintained that "God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification (PR 486/521). Not to treat God as an exception to metaphysical principles is sound, and we have seen the endeavor of the greatest thinkers in the past to adhere to that. In so far as Whitehead’s statement is to be taken as a criticism, it is one which could validly be brought against those, especially in the modern period, in whose scheme God was a deus ex machina.

Whitehead’s statement, however, that "He is their chief exemplification," requires scrutiny. It is certainly to be taken as an assertion of his intent. And he has also explicitly gone to great length to put this into effect. Fundamental to his metaphysics, as we have seen, is the rejection of the conception of "being" as inherently changeless, excluding becoming -- this is the Parmenidean-Platonic heritage taken over in Neoplatonism and which became dominant from the seventeenth century. This is the position which he has emphatically repudiated: "It is fundamental to the philosophy of organism, that the notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change is completely abandoned" (PR 39/ 43). His contrary view is enunciated in his Category of Explanation I that "the actual world is a process, and that process is the becoming of actual entities" (PR 30/33), and in Category of Explanation IX, in reference to an actual entity, that its "‘being’ is constituted by its ‘becoming’" (PR 31/ 34f.).

Since, as we have noted earlier, in his scheme God is an actual entity, Whitehead had accordingly concluded to the statement under discussion, that God must be the chief exemplification of his metaphysical principles, which is to say that God, like every other actual entity, must be in a process of becoming. Further, according to Category of Explanation X, "the first analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete element, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in its process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehensions" (PR 311 35). "Prehensions" are the actings of an actual entity, and are of two kinds, physical prehensions which are the acts of relating to other actual entities, and "conceptual prehensions" which are the actings in reference to eternal objects or pure possibilities.⁵

Now in Whitehead’s scheme, as far as all temporal actual entities are concerned, physical prehensions are primary, because every actual entity arises from antecedent actual entities by its physical prehension of them; and its conceptual prehensions arise from those physical prehensions. But God is an exception to this category, in that ln God conceptual prehensions are primary. This exception is regarded as justified by virtue of the role of God in the total scheme, but it nevertheless is an exception to the metaphysical principles holding for all other actuality.

There are also other significant exceptions. The physical prehension of every actual entity necessitate its relatedness to all other actual entities in its past, i.e., those from which it has arisen, by immediate and mediate physical prehension. This entails that every actual entity necessarily has a spatiotemporal locus in reference to all other actual entities. Further, its locus is unique to each actual entity; no other can have an identical spatiotemporal locus.⁶ Moreover, it is accordingly possible to determine "where" and "when" each actual entity is relatively to others. But does God have a unique spatiotemporal locus? It seems clear that God is an exception to this.

These are examples of many exceptions to his metaphysical principles which Whitehead had been compelled to make with respect to God, and these have been much discussed in the technical literature on Whitehead. Another highly important issue is whether God is one single actual entity, or whether God is to be regarded as a "society" constituted by a linear supersession of actual entities. There is no clear statement in Whitehead’s writing which can unambiguously settle the question. But either way, God is an exception to the metaphysical categories of Whitehead’s scheme.

It will not be necessary to pursue further this inquiry into exceptions. The foregoing suffice to bring into very serious question not only whether in Whitehead’s system God is consistently conceived in terms of the metaphysical categories pertaining to the world, to all physical actuality, but whether this is consistently possible at all.

If we review the historical development of metaphysics, we find, as I have sought to show above, that the endeavor to develop a consistent and coherent system has brought out the necessity for certain ultimates, or "formative elements," as required by the general character of the physical universe, and in terms of which the physical world is ultimately to be understood. By a slow, groping, difficult process of inquiry the insight had been attained, albeit uncertainly, fitfully, and been inadequately sustained, that those ultimates have of necessity to "transcend" the physical, and that they are themselves not to be grasped, understood, in terms of the categories in which the physical 1S understood. Plato’s, in the Timaeus, was the first, and possibly the greatest, insight into this. Aristotle’s tremendous achievement was to have developed this systematically, but it lacked the completeness of Plato’s insight. Whitehead, before he wrote Process and Reality, gained that insight from Plato, but, like Aristotle, did not have it adequately. This inadequacy in both of them was manifested in their regarding God as an "actual entity," to be understood in terms of the metaphysical categories applicable to all other actuality.

But Whitehead’s general system, I would aver, can attain coherence in this respect if, as I suggested earlier, he retained the three "formative elements" of Religion in the Making as three "categories of the ultimate," instead of only one as listed in Process and Reality. This, however, would entail abandoning the conception of God as an "actual entity."

It seems to me that there is no necessity that God be conceived as an "actual being," as a being, at all. Aristotle had thought this to be necessary in terms of his metaphysics because, as we have seen, the teleological "cause" requisite for the transition from potentiality to actuality had itself necessarily to be an actuality -- this is why he held God to be not only aidion, eternal, and ousia, being, but is also energeia, in-act. But the issue is whether his requirement of God as a teleological cause necessitates God’s being an "actual being." Aristotle gave an affirmative answer to this because he conceived God as able to function as a teleological cause only by being an actual being which is the archetype of perfection, the exemplar for all other actuality to aim at -- mediately or immediately.

Plato, however, had a much more profound insight (cf. Rep. 509B), that what is fundamentally necessary in respect of the teleological cause is that it be the arche, source, of "good," that is, the source of the distinction between "good" and "bad," between "better" and "worse," because it is this distinction which is indispensably necessary for there to be any selection among infinite possibilities, for there to be any "limitation" of possibility, as Whitehead expressed it.⁷

Whitehead too came to this insight of Plato, as we have seen. For him God is primarily the principle, i.e., source, of "limitation," and thereby God is the "principle of concretion." God as this principle, in Whitehead’s words, "constitutes the metaphysical stability whereby the actual process exemplifies general principles of metaphysics, and attains the end proper to specific types of emergent order" (PR 54/64). And, as he has alternatively put it, God is that "in the world, in virtue of which there is physical ‘law’" (PR 402/ 434).

But Whitehead, like Aristotle, thought that being this principle entailed that God had to be an "actual entity." However, if one takes into account Plato’s insight, which was also that of Plotinus, that a principle, source, of actuality cannot itself be an actual being, it is clear that Whitehead’s conception of God as an "actual entity" is unacceptable. Whitehead has correctly seen the necessity of God as the principle of limitation, of concretion, the teleological principle, the principle of good. But for that God does not have to be an actual entity. God is not an "actual entity" but a "principle of actuality."

Notes

1Tim. 28C. Tr. F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1937), p. 22.

2Aristotle, Metaphysics 1029a20-21, tr. W. D. Ross; my italics.

3Plotinus, Enneods V, 4,1: hou me logos mede episteme, to de kai epekeina legetai einai ousias.

4Augustine, Confessions, Book VII, Ch. 11.

5 PR, Category of Explanation XI, 31f.I 35.

6 Cf. Category of Explanation V PR 301 33f.

7See my paper "The Metaphysics ofthe Cood" in The Reciew of Metaphysics 35I1, especially Section VII.

Earlier, and until about two centuries ago, there had been a main field of inquiry known as philosophia naturalis, the philosophy of nature. Then this field of inquiry fairly abruptly ceased being pursued. It is interesting, and as I shall show, important to us today to determine how and why this happened. It is indeed not difficult to do so, and the main features of this history can be fairly quickly sketched.

In the sixteenth century there occurred a considerable expansion of interest, especially among medical men who were leading scientists and thinkers of the day, in the philosophy of nature, which led to the momentous developments of the seventeenth century. Of particular importance in this process were the steps taken in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, for these had the consequence of the introduction of a new conception of nature, which appeared in a number of books about the year 1620, by Daniel Sennert in Germany, David van Goorle in Holland, Galileo in Italy, Francis Bacon in England, and most fully developed by the Frenchman Sebastian Basso in his Philosophia Naturalis, 1621. This new conception of nature was elaborated and fully explored in the course of the seventeenth century by thinkers such as Descartes, Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, Leibniz and Newton, to name but a few of the most important. Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy (1644) was largely devoted to the philosophy of nature. Gassendi, in a number of books, worked out the theory of material atomism. Thomas Hobbes explored an alternative in his De Corpore. Leibniz, in the next generation, critically and penetratingly examined the theories of his predecessors and developed his own alternative philosophy of nature in a series of monographs, articles, and letters. Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in 1686. Although the work was mainly concerned with the "mathematical principles" of the philosophy of nature, it contained some highly significant philosophical sections, especially the "Rules of Reasoning" at the beginning of Book 3 and the General Scholium at the end of that book. To this must be added the "Queries" at the end of his Opticks. Terse though they are, these philosophical sections not only evidence the depth of Newton’s philosophical reflection, but also adumbrate the philosophy of nature underlying his scientific structure. These writings on the philosophy of nature by these thinkers and others are among the most important works of the seventeenth century.

Quite early Sebastian Basso had seen very clearly that basic to the new conception of nature was a new conception of matter. In this new view matter had come to be conceived as itself substance, in contrast to the previous conception in which matter was only the correlative of form in a substance. The consequence of the conception of matter as itself substance was an ineluctable metaphysical dualism, which had been explicitly accepted by Basso and Galileo and was then systematically developed by Descartes. After Newton the success of the new natural science had become so overwhelming that the acceptance of this dualism was no longer to be withstood, despite Leibniz’s vigorous struggle against it, and in the eighteenth century and onward it reigned completely.

The outcome of this was that the universe was divided into two, one part consisting of matter, constituting nature, and the other part consisting of mind or spirit. The fields of inquiry were divided accordingly: natural science ruled in the realm of nature, and philosophy in the realm of mind. Thenceforth these two, science and philosophy, each went its own way, in separation from the other. In this division there was no place for the philosophy of nature. Its object had been nature, and this was now assigned to natural science. What remained to philosophy was only the epistemological and logical inquiry, which has natural science, but not nature, as its object -- today usually called the philosophy of science. Philosophy of nature as a field of inquiry ceased to exist.

In our time, however, I wish to maintain, the situation has completely changed. The reason for this is to be found in the development of science in the past hundred years. This development has had the consequence that the conception of nature which had originated in the seventeenth century and thenceforward constituted the foundation for science down into this century has now been entirely destroyed. No other conception of nature has replaced it. We today stand in need of a new conception of nature, for this is indispensable to the conception by man of himself and his place in the universe, a conception of fundamental importance to every sphere of man’s life and activity. Moreover, a new conception of nature is requisite for science itself.

Adequately to comprehend the changed present-day situation and especially the necessity of a new conception of nature for science, we must have clearly in mind the scheme of concepts in terms of which nature had been understood. These concepts are matter, space, time, and motion.

Central and basic was the concept of matter, for matter was the physical substance constituting the realm of nature and was thus the principle object of scientific inquiry. Matter was conceived by the philosophy of nature of the seventeenth century as fully "being," that is, as not subject to "becoming"; in other words, matter is, always, and is always what it is. This means that matter is completely without any capability of internal change, either by itself or of being changed by anything else. Matter in itself is entirely unchangeable.

With this conception of matter there is only one possibility for there to be change at all in the realm of nature, and this is that matter is capable of undergoing change of place. But this change of place has nothing whatever to do with matter per se, either in the sense that such change affects matter internally in any way or in the sense that matter could move itself from one place to another. In the modern philosophy of nature this change of place constituted "motion" or "movement." That is, motion could only be change of place, locomotion -- in contrast to the previous conception of motus, motion, which included the kinds of change like expansion and growth in size, and also qualitative change, both of which had been ruled out by the new conception of material substance as in itself changeless. But in this new philosophy locomotion was not necessitated by matter; matter in itself does not need to change place; per se it is completely indifferent to such change. Matter, as Newton explicitly recognized, is movable, but it is incapable of moving itself. This means that the concept of motion is not entailed by the concept of matter and cannot be derived from it. Accordingly in this philosophy motion is a completely independent fundamental concept.

Equally independent are the concepts of space and time. They are not derivative from the concept of matter, since matter per se does not require either space or time. In respect to time this is relatively easy to see, since matter simply "is." That the concept of space similarly is not entailed by matter is frequently not appreciated because of the strong tendency nowadays to confuse the concepts of extension and space, an error of which Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, and also Kant were not guilty. Space and time are required, not by matter per se, but because the new science of physics in the seventeenth century was a mechanics, that is, a mathematical investigation of the locomotion of pieces of matter. For this measurability was requisite, which meant that places and velocity had to be capable of determination. It is this which was provided by space and time, for they, as Newton said in his famous Scholium, are essentially places: "For times and spaces are, as it were, the places as well of themselves as of all other things. All things are placed in time as to order of succession; and in space as to order of situation. It is of their essence or nature that they are places; and that the primary places of things should be movable, is absurd."

By the end of the seventeenth century nature was in general conceived as a mechanism, which meant that nature could in principle be completely understood in terms of the motion, i.e., locomotion, change of place, of pieces of matter, usually referred to as "bodies." This concept of body is important, as we shall have occasion to see. In the philosophy of nature which was generally accepted by scientists after the end of the seventeenth century, the concepts of matter, substance, and body were identified.

Even before the end of the seventeenth century it was becoming clear that some revision of this scheme of matter, space, time, and motion was necessary. To Leibniz and Newton it was clear that a pure kinetics, as attempted by Huygens, as well as a phoronomy, as held by Descartes, were untenable. Leibniz and Newton both introduced the concept of force, and in the eighteenth century physics became a dynamics. This entailed that the concept of force take the place of motion in the scheme; motion could be conceived as derivative from force.

The concept of force led to the conception of the interaction of bodies and the attempt to conceive force as derivative from bodies, an attempt to which the notion of gravitational force presented grave difficulties, as Newton had long before clearly seen. In a letter to Bentley he wrote:

That in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the attempts was nevertheless made to conceive force as derivative from bodies does not necessarily indicate that the thinkers in question were, to use Newton’s words, lacking in a competent faculty of thinking, but rather that implicitly a quite different conception of body was being introduced.

A most important development was that the concept of force led to the field concept in the nineteenth century. I shall quote C. F. von Weizsäcker’s excellent brief exposition of this development:

If we then consider the general theory of relativity, it becomes clear how very far contemporary physics is from the basic concepts of the eighteenth century. Again I shall cite von Weizsäcker:

Little indeed remains in this of the former scheme. Although the words matter, space, time, and motion continue to be used, they now have completely different meanings. Take the concept of space. In the general theory of relativity it has, as von Weizsäcker has said, become a "physical object in the full sense of exercising action and suffering effects." But what exactly does "physical object" mean? If it means "the object of physics," then this is not anything new or special, for space has, since the seventeenth century, always been an "object" of physics. But this is not what is meant here, for von Weizsäcker said, "a physical object in the full sense of exercising action and suffering effects." Clearly what he means here is a substance, a res. That is to say, in this theory space has become the physical existent or substance. Einstein himself saw how close this position is to that of Descartes with his one res extensa. In the philosophy of Newton, however, space was definitely no substance; for Newton there was only one substance, matter. In Einstein s theory, on the contrary, space has become substance, and not only one substance among others, but the true physical substance, from which matter is derivative.

To see how Einstein has arrived at this position it is necessary to take into consideration a particular development after Newton. In the eighteenth century space was conceived by increasing numbers as some kind of existent, a conception which Kant correctly completely rejected as an "Unding." Nevertheless space continued implicitly to be conceived as some kind of existent or substance. One important reason for this is that after Kant there no longer existed the discipline, the philosophy of nature, to subject this conception to critical scrutiny. Thus it has come to be possible for Einstein in this century to conceive space not simply as a substance but as the true physical substance. The question must, however, be raised whether Einstein’s true physical substance is to be conceived as "space" at all. Certainly his physical existent or substance is extended, but not everything which is extended is to be identified with space. Further, in the classical eighteenth century doctrine of space, space was conceived as a container, in which the physical material substances exist and move, itself, however, neither affecting the substances nor being affected by them. But this conception of space has been completely abolished by Einstein. What he calls space is no more a container than is Descartes’ res extensa. And further, Einstein’s space both affects and is affected by matter. With that complete difference in conception, how appropriate is it to continue to use the term "space" in the contemporary theory, and can it be done without danger of confusion? It seems to me that much confusion has indeed ensued.

In Einstein’s theory we also have a concept of matter completely different from that of the earlier philosophy of nature. In the latter conception, as we have noted, matter was a full being, in itself unchangeable. Not only in Einstein’s theory but in general in contemporary physics, what continues to be spoken of as "matter" is something which, by contrast, is "in becoming" an existent which is active, producing effects by its acting, and itself suffering effects, these effects being internal changes in the entities affected. It is clear that in the contemporary theory we do not find the concept of matter as formerly understood. More precisely stated, nothing of the previous conception of matter remains in contemporary physics; every feature of matter as formerly understood has been completely abandoned.

To continue to refer to these entities as "matter," as "particles" (i.e., of matter), can have serious consequences. I shall take only one example, but it is an important one. We have noted that in the earlier philosophy of nature the concepts of matter and body were equivalent. Macroscopic bodies are composites of a mass of material particles which, right down to the smallest atomic (indivisible) particles, are still bodies. Consequently in classical physics it was completely indifferent whether, in experiments concerning the laws of motion, bodies of (say) 10 kilograms, or 1 kilogram, or 1 milligram are used. The laws of motion hold for all bodies, however large or small. Consequently, although the laws of motion are not empirically verifiable with individual atoms, it is consistent to assume the laws, empirically verified with compound bodies, as equally applying to the final constituent bodies, the atoms, and therefore that the routes of individual atoms in motion are exactly determinable. Now since about 1900 it has been established not only that what had been taken to be atoms, i.e., not divisible, are in fact compounds but also that the classical laws of motion do not hold for the sub-atomic constituents, which display variations in their motion, so that their paths are determinable only by statistical probability. In fact, all the laws of sub-atomic physics are statistical probabilities.

This difference in respect of laws of motion could be significant of a fundamental difference in the kinds of entities respectively involved. The presupposition has, however, continued that the newly discovered constituents must themselves he material bodies -- they are spoken of as "particles" or "elementary particles," that is, of matter. For "particles" (little parts) are parts of something, and the something of which they are parts is body or matter. This presupposition is strengthened by the adjective "elementary," for an "element" means a final, not further divisible constituent, it being not further divisible not because it is impossible to divide it but because further division would result in its ceasing to be a "part," that is, of the same kind as, that of which it is a part. Accordingly an elementary particle of matter must be matter; an elementary particle of a body must itself be a body. Thus the very terms used carry the presupposition of the sub-atomic constituents as bodily, that is, they are implicitly conceived as having the properties and characteristics of bodies.

But this presupposition is definitely open to question. We have here a philosophical problem. A macroscopic body is a composite, but so is any microscopic body, down to that which is still called an "atom." The question has to be raised whether the constituents of a composite body necessarily have to be conceived as being bodies. Stated generally, is it necessary that the constituents be "parts," i.e., of the same kind, having the same character or property, as that of the composite? That there is no necessity in this had been clear to Leibniz in the seventeenth century -- and also to Aristotle in antiquity. Leibniz strongly opposed the assumption and developed a theory of body, and matter, as composite, with the constituents entities of a very different kind, explicitly nonmaterial. But despite Leibniz the presupposition has ruled down to the present day. It seems to me that in contemporary science, not only in physics but also in chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, and in biology, the continued implicit acceptance of this presupposition is having restrictive consequences.

For if the sub-atomic constituents are not particles, little parts, i.e., little material bodies, but are nevertheless implicitly conceived as having bodily characteristics, in particular as having as a basic feature that of locomotion, change of place, it would not be surprising if difficulties ensue. For example, corporeal locomotion is continuous, but in contemporary physics quantum characteristics, i.e., discontinuity, are well established. But the presupposition nevertheless continues that the motion of the sub-atomic constituents is essentially locomotion, change of place -- sub-atomic physics is dominantly a quantum mechanics.

But if the presupposition entailed in the terminology of "elementary particles" be rejected, and we accept the possibility that in the sub-atomic realm we have entities of a quite different kind, then a number of important consequences open up. It could then be the case, for example, that locomotion pertains properly only to compounds, bodies, and that the changes involved in the constituents are something quite different and far more complex. Thus if it be taken that the sub-atomic entities are not in themselves unchangeable -- which surely is one definite outcome of contemporary physics -- but rather that they are acting entities, then clearly we have a kind of change, i.e., that which is involved in "acting," which is not reducible to, or derivative from, change of place, locomotion -- though change of place could be derivative from it. Thus locomotion could be analyzed as an abstract, derivative feature, essentially pertaining to bodies. The kind of change, motion, in the sub-atomic realm would. be something else. In this realm Whitehead, in Science and the Modern World (chapter 8), distinguished a kind of change which he termed "vibratory organic deformation" in addition to that which is "vibratory locomotion," but, as he later came to see, even these are derivative from a kind of change, motion, which is still more fundamental. Clearly it is necessary that the whole concept of motion be entirely rethought.

The main point I am concerned to make is that considerations such as these are of direct relevance to science. This means that it becomes of the highest significance to know what kinds of entities we are concerned with, for the inquiry into the kind of change is not possible in dissociation from the question of the kinds of entities. It is to be noted, too, that contemporary physics displays an interesting contrast to the earlier, so-called classical physics in respect of the entities with which it is concerned. In the earlier physics all the entities were alike, material bodies. They could differ in size, structure, and composition, but they were of one single fundamental kind, matter. But contemporary sub-atomic physics has revealed a number of entities of different kinds. This makes the question of the nature of the entities with which it is concerned all the more acute. And this raises the further issue, namely, by what procedure the answers to these questions as to the nature of the entities and the nature of motion are to be arrived at.

In respect of this one thing must be clearly recognized. This is that these considerations and questions transcend the realm of science; with them we are in the realm of philosophy -- admittedly philosophy which is very close to science, but philosophy nevertheless, whether it be engaged in by scientists themselves or by those who are primarily philosophers. In other words, we have philosophy here which once again has nature as its object. In our time, I wish to maintain, the development of science has come to require of philosophy as one of its most important tasks the resumption of the inquiry into nature.

With regard to this task, however, philosophy today faces singular difficulties. First, for the past two centuries philosophy has not had nature as its object at all, with the result that the entire problematic, the range of issues involved as well as that of method, has been lost. A second kind of difficulty is constituted not simply by philosophy’s having been for two centuries essentially a philosophy of mind or spirit; the difficulty is contained in what emerged into clarity when this kind of philosophy reached its maturity with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, namely, that on its basis the Ding an sich remained inaccessible, unknown and unknowable, on the other side of the great metaphysical divide. But it is precisely the physical Ding an sich which is required to be the primary object of the philosophy of nature.

How then in the circumstances today is philosophy to proceed to take up its task of making nature again an object of its inquiry? flow is the problematic of the philosophy of nature to be recovered? Certainly there can be no one single way, and many should be attempted. One way is to approach it from the side of natural science, that is, trying to get at the philosophical problems as they are seen to arise in scientific inquiry. This is the way followed by some thinkers, for example, A. N. Whitehead in a series of books, The Principles of Natural Knowledge, The Concept of Nature, and Science and the Modern World; by Milic Capek in his The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics; and by C. F. von Weizsäicker in his recent Die Einheit der Natur, as well as other books of his -- this list is intended as illustrative, not exhaustive. A survey of the attempts following this way reveals an appreciable difficulty in being able to disentangle the philosophical from the scientific issues and to move further than merely formulating the contemporary scientific developments in rather general, as opposed to specifically scientific, terminology. Whitehead’s success in recovering the problematic of the philosophy of nature has been the most considerable, but his writings unfortunately have been far from easy to understand, moving as they were not only in unfamiliar territory but in an unfamiliar terminology, the latter devised in an attempt to free himself from inherited presuppositions, at first epistemological and later also metaphysical. By the time he wrote Science and the Modern World, he had come to see that the basic issue was that of the physical existent, how it was to be conceived. The contemporary scientific development had made completely untenable the conception of the physical existent as in itself changeless, individually self-complete, each physical existent in no intrinsic relationship to any other. The very contrary emerged as the case; the physical existents act and suffer effects. This for Whitehead brought the philosophical problem of relations to the fore:

But this could not be achieved without explicitly tackling as fundamental the problem of the nature of the physical existent. This is what Whitehead undertook in his major and most difficult work, Process and Reality, subtitled "An Essay in Cosmology," the term "cosmology" there being a synonym for "philosophy of nature." This work contains his most extensive and most profound analysis of the problems of the philosophy of nature. It should be emphasized, what is sometimes liable to be overlooked, that Whitehead’s recovery of the problematic of the philosophy of nature would not have been possible without his having gone back extensively to earlier philosophy, especially Greek and that of the seventeenth century.

This suggests another way of approach to the philosophy of nature, complementary to the one we have been discussing, that is, from science. This alternative way, one which I have followed in my The Nature of Physical Existence (Allen & Unwin, in the Muirhead Library of Philosophy, 1972), is to seek to recover the problematic of the philosophy of nature though a study of the philosophy of nature in past periods, particularly those in which it has been vigorous. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are of especial value in this respect. Not only was this a period of fundamental change like that in which we are living, but it was one in which the thinkers advancing the new conceptions particularly well understood the problems at issue. For they had to develop their theories in opposition to the dominant Aristotelianism. Although they rejected the particular Aristotelian doctrines, they gained from their detailed study of Aristotle a singularly good grasp of the fundamental issues involved in the philosophy of nature. This way of approach, especially by the inquiry into the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thought, has two other advantages. One is that by securing a thorough understanding of that period from which the entire modern development in science and philosophy derives, we shall be in a better position to assess the present. Secondly, such an inquiry can be of appreciable value too in disentangling the philosophical and the scientific issues, respectively, and by distinguishing them, clarifying their interconnection.

I should like here briefly to discuss one issue, especially prominent in the seventeenth century, which seems to me to be of particular significance for the present. This is the problem of the status of the mathematical and its connection with the physical. I have here used the adjectives "mathematical" and "physical" as nouns in the attempt to avoid implicit presuppositions. I have posed the problem as that of the status of "the mathematical," not of "mathematics." "Mathematics" is the name of a particular science, a branch of systematic inquiry. The question can be raised as to the object or objects of mathematics, and various answers to that are possible and have been maintained. The point I wish to bring out is that the answer to that question involves the problem of the physical. That is, the philosophy of nature is necessarily implicated.

The seventeenth century was a time when the importance of mathematics for the inquiry into nature, the physical, impinged with particular force. This was the outcome of a development which had its roots in the late medieval revival of Neoplatonism, in which Nicolaus of Cusa played a determinative role. From him derived the conception of the universe as a mathematical structure, which was taken up by Galileo and a number of other thinkers in the seventeenth century. But the entire issue had to be subjected to close scrutiny, which it was by thinkers like Descartes, Gassendi. Hobbes, Leibniz, and Newton among the chief. The issue can be most satisfactorily put as the question of the status of the mathematical. Galileo, and Descartes following him, identified the mathematical and the physical. For Descartes the physical existent was res extensa. This was not an existent which, in addition to other properties, was also extended -- as was the case in Gassendi’s matter. For Descartes the very essence of the physical res was extensiveness; it existed as extensive; its extensiveness constituted its being. That is, this res in essence was geometrical extensiveness and nothing else. Descartes conceived the other existent, res cogitans, as the mental counterpart of the physical extensiveness; cogitatix in its purest form was mathematical, that is, it was the conceiving, the mental grasping, of what in the other res was the extended mathematical. This is why for him the knowledge of pure mathematics was the knowledge of the essence of physical existence. It was not at the level of pure thought, therefore, that the metaphysical dualism presented Descartes with difficulties in respect of mathematical knowledge of the physical.

What constituted a real difficulty for his contemporaries and thinkers of the following generations was that Descartes’ identification of the physical and the mathematical made material atomism impossible. Gassendi and Newton both saw that the only way to save material atomism was to separate the mathematical entirely from the physical. But that made acute the problem of how there can be mathematical knowledge of the physical if the physical be entirely devoid of mathematical features. Gassendi did not see this problem very clearly. Newton and Leibniz, however, did, and both produced complicated and subtle solutions. Newton’s was to ground the mathematical in God’s activity in respect of matter. Leibniz rejected this way as a Deus ex machina, but his own theory of a pre-established harmony did not strike his contemporaries as all that different. In the eighteenth century two alternatives were developed. The first, not philosophically very coherent, was to regard space as the object of geometry. The second was the revolutionary doctrine of Kant, conceiving mathematics as grounded in the mind, a mental construction. The former doctrine continued in favor in the nineteenth century and was thought to be strengthened by linking it with field theory. The entire position, however, was undermined by the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. So Kant’s position came into increasing acceptance and today is dominant. But the fundamental difficulty with this doctrine is that according to it the object of mathematical investigation, in mathematical physics, for example, must itself be a mental construct. The physical existent remains on the other side of the metaphysical gulf, unknowable.

This century has seen great prominence given to the problem of the foundation of mathematics. Most of this inquiry is rooted in the basic Kantian position of mathematics as a mental construct. In this tradition too stood the great work of Russell and Whitehead, Principia Mathematica. Whitehead was to have written the fourth volume of the work, on geometry. It never got written, at least not as a part of that work. For Whitehead had come to see the need to face the crucial issue of how geometry applies to the physical, as Victor Lowe has pointed out. This meant the necessity to get into the philosophy of nature, recovering its problematic, the long road leading finally to Process and Reality, which has developed a new position bringing the physical and the mathematical once again into close relationship.

This problem of the connection between the physical and the mathematical is one not merely of philosophical interest; it is one of the greatest relevance and importance for science, more particularly at the present time, which is why Whitehead, himself a scientist, made this problem central to his endeavor.

I have given Whitehead some prominence in this paper, not because I am concerned to propagate his particular doctrine -- I have myself come to some appreciable differences from him -- but because he has seen most clearly the need in our time for the philosophy of nature, particularly for science, and because he has gone furthest in recovering the problematic of the philosophy of nature and has produced the first major philosophy of nature in response to the changed situation resultant from the scientific developments of the recent period. But, just as in the seventeenth century, other such philosophical schemes will need to be produced. However, as in the seventeenth century the various later theories were not produced independently of each other but came to be developed by working through, and in divergence from, the first great attempt at a philosophical structure built upon a profound insight into the problems at issue, namely, that of Descartes, so in our time the new efforts which are required in the philosophy of nature will need to come to terms with the pioneering work of Whitehead.

References

EN -- C.F. von Weizsäickcr. Die Einheit der Natur. München: Hanser, 1971.

Professor Buchler’s paper, "On a Strain of Arbitrariness in Whitehead’s System," which appeared in Journal of Philosophy (66, 19 [October 2, 1969], 589-601) and an abstract of which appears on page 70 of this issue of Process Studies, is an important and a very challenging one. It is challenging not only to Whitehead, but to the entire metaphysical tradition which has maintained the position of what Professor Buchler terms "ontological priority." He has in his work called this metaphysical position into question, and in the paper under consideration he specifically attacks Whitehead’s adherence to it. His challenge to Whitehead has the more point since he sees Whitehead as also, and indeed more fundamentally, maintaining what Professor Buchler holds to be the contrary position -- one which he himself advocates -- that of "ontological parity." In his view Whitehead’s attempt to adhere to these two positions involves him in serious discrepancies in his statements, even to the extent of casting "a shadow of crude myth upon a remarkably intricate issue of distinctions and generalizations." (p. 591) But his most serious charge is that the consequence of Whitehead’s adherence to these two positions is a deep-seated arbitrariness in his system, that some of the characteristic features of his doctrine are without adequate foundation, that his insistence on them must in the end be convicted of gratuitousness.

Now I will accept that there is something in Whitehead’s thought which Professor Buchler, from the perspective of his philosophy, discerns as two "trends." But the acceptability of his characterization of these two "trends" is one of the points at issue in this discussion. This is of direct consequence for the issue which he has made central; namely, whether there is a lack of coherence, an arbitrariness, in Whitehead’s system. But whether one agrees with Professor Buchler or not about his characterization, he has certainly raised a general problem of quite basic import in metaphysical thinking.

In Trend I, as Professor Buchler has put it, "Whitehead seeks to define and justify a set of major concepts, together with their derivatives," and he goes on to point out that "these concepts are designed to distinguish ‘types of entities’ (types of ‘existence’) and to explain their interrelation." (p. 590) I would agree that this is what Whitehead has done and, moreover, that he has recognized this as a basic philosophical task.

Whitehead’s summary delineation of these types of "entities," types or kinds of "existence," is listed in Chapter II, Section 2 of Process and Reality as the "Category of the Ultimate" and the eight "Categories of Existence."

Now the fundamental issue is not concerning the exhaustiveness of this list of "categories," nor indeed that of Whitehead’s distinction of these particular types or kinds rather than others. The former would relate to the question of the completeness of Whitehead’s system, and the latter would concern the justification of Whitehead’s particular delineation of these kinds vis-à-vis that of other systems. The quite fundamental issue and that which specially concerns us here -- for it is that which Professor Buchler’s discussion has brought to the fore -- is the problem of the basis upon which a distinction into "kinds" or "types" of "entities" or "existence" is made at all. That thinkers have been compelled, implicitly or explicitly, to make such distinctions, for example, as between "actuality" and "possibility" is manifest -- and Professor Buchler, it seems to me, accepts this. But the question is as to the ultimate basis of such distinctions.

The basis upon which Whitehead has made his distinction into his nine "categories" is, I submit, that which Aristotle was the first to have clearly and systematically brought out. This is, first, that the primary concern of metaphysics is "being," and secondly that "being" is used in many senses. In other words, metaphysics is the concern, in the most fundamental respect, with "what is," and when this inquiry is entered into it emerges that not all which is "is" in exactly the same sense.

The problem which then presents itself is to distinguish the different senses in which entities "are" and to classify them accordingly. The outcome has been different metaphysical systems. Whitehead’s nine "categories" mentioned represent his discrimination of the different senses of "to be" and the "entities" which "are" in these senses. That is, what I am maintaining is that the ultimate basis upon which Whitehead has distinguished the different "kinds" or "types" of entities is the different senses in which they "are."

Now the reason for my insistence upon the issue of the basis upon which the distinction into types or kinds of existence is made is because it is of the greatest relevance to Professor Buchler’s charge of incoherence and arbitrariness in Whitehead’s system. His contention is that Whitehead’s move from Trend I, the delineation of types of existence, to Trend II, in which Whitehead has assigned some order of "priority" among the types, is incoherent, that it involves the arbitrary introduction of some other principle not required by, and indeed inconsistent with, that upon which the distinction into types is made.

My argument will be that Whitehead’s move from Trend I to Trend II does not involve arbitrariness, that on the contrary this move is not only entirely coherent, but that it is indeed necessitated by the basis upon which he proceeded in Trend I.

Professor Buchler sees the basis of Whitehead’s procedure in Trend II to be the adoption of a principle of "degrees of reality." I should like to say straight away that I find myself in much agreement and sympathy with Professor Buchler in his strictures on terms like "reality," the "concrete," the "abstract," etc.; his criticisms are important and ought to have a salutary effect. On the other hand, however, it seems to me that he does not sufficiently take account of the very genuine metaphysical problem which lies at the base of the use of these terms. The respect in which his strictures are legitimate and valuable is in so far as they are directed against these terms when their use constitutes an evasion of the problem which is at issue, that is, when their use involves the tacit presupposition of a position in regard to the problem without a recognition that that very position is what is in question.

I do not myself think that Whitehead is as guilty of this uncritical use of these terms as Professor Buchler considers him to be. Rather, it seems to me that the contrary is the case, that Whitehead has very definitely concerned himself with the problem in question. This problem could be put here as that of the basis of his procedure in what Professor Buchler has delineated as Trend II.

This, I submit, for Whitehead arises out of and follows from that which constitutes the basis upon which the distinction into kinds or types of entities or existence is made. For Whitehead has definitely recognized that when the distinction is made into types of entities the problem requires to be faced not merely as to how they are related to each other, but how they are related in respect of "being."

The outcome of Whitehead’s reflection on this problem was to bring him into essential agreement with Aristotle in his solution to this problem. This is that the different senses of "being" are not on a parity, that the various senses ultimately have reference to one sense as basic. Whitehead has referred to this as the "Aristotelian principle" and the "ontological principle." For Aristotle the sense in which ousia "is" is distinctively different from that in which, for example, a quality "is" or a quantity or a relation "is:’ For Whitehead the sense in which an actual entity "is" is likewise distinctively different from that in which eternal objects, propositions, nexus, etc. "are." The "ontological principle" is not only that each of these kinds "is" in a distinctively different sense, but that there is a certain primacy in the sense in which ousia "is" or an actual entity "is."

The primacy of the sense in which these entities are is grounded in what in the philosophical tradition has been termed "act." The term goes back to the Aristotelian energeia (from ergon, work, doing): en-ergeia. "in-work," "in-doing," "in-act." It is significant that the Latin verb ago was selected to render the Aristotelian sense; its literal meaning is "to drive, lead, impel, put in motion. For the fundamental import of the Aristotelian energeia is not a mere abstract "state of being in work," but that the entity in question is that which inherently has the driving, the moving impulse; it is that which has the power, force, to initiate the work, the doing; it is that which is the primary spring, or source of the doing. The Aristotelian doctrine is that there is one type of entity or being which "acts" in this sense of itself initiating and carrying out the "work," the "doing," the "moving," by its own inherent power. Whitehead shares this position with Aristotle. The kind of entity which acts in this sense he has termed "actual entity." In Whitehead’s philosophy "acting" in this sense is peculiar to actual entities. Only actual entities are in this fundamental sense "agents."

An adequate formulation or expression of this, free from objections, is fraught with immense difficulty because of the inevitable ambiguity of words, which is not easy to eradicate even in technical usage. This is the more so in an area so fundamental as that in which we are here involved. For the terms do not have a technical meaning antecedent to theory, but only with and as integral to theory, and differences in theory or even in interpretation affect the meaning. Thus, for example, consequent upon a particular interpretation of the Aristotelian contrast of dynamis and energeia the term "act," actus has come to have the meaning not only of a "a doing," but also of "a thing done," i.e., that which is the outcome of the doing. Then too, while the word "act" as a philosophical technical term refers primarily, as I have indicated, to the "doing," "moving," "working," of an entity which has the inherent power and is the spring or source of that "doing" or "moving," the word is readily used in an abstract sense, and also derivatively as pertaining to other than these entities. The same is the case with the word "agent," which in its primary sense refers to the entity with the power to and which does "act," but which in derivative senses can be and is used to apply to other than these entities. Thus human beings are agents in the primary sense, but derivatively corporations, societies, etc., and even feelings and fears and attitudes too are spoken of as agents. Also in some theories "passive" agents are distinguished from "active" agents. Closely related to this etymologically and in philosophical usage is the word "efficacy," which in its primary sense refers to the power of acting of the kind of entity I am discussing, but which also is used derivatively of other entities.

Certainly with these different senses of words it is possible to fall foul of equivocation, but it does not seem to me that Whitehead has been guilty of that. It is true, as Professor Buchler points out, that Whitehead says that "agency belongs exclusively to actual occasions" and that he also speaks of an eternal object as being "an agent in objectification." But it is clear, when one takes account of the different senses in which the word "agent," "agency," is used, that there is no inconsistency here. The same holds for all the other instances which Professor Buchler has brought forward such as "efficacy" and "functioning." In each case cited the words are used in different senses, and it seems to me that Whitehead is well aware of this and has committed no fallacy. On the other hand I do not feel sure that Professor Buchler has himself avoided this when he insists "that efficacy belongs to all natural complexes whatever," and seemingly disregards the significance of the different senses of "efficacy"

For it is precisely the difference of sense which is of the greatest relevance in the issue before us. If we do not allow ourselves to get caught by the equivocal senses of terms, then it is clear, I think, not only that the sense in which Whitehead ascribes "activity, agency," "efficacy," "functioning," to actual entities is different from that in which he ascribes these to eternal objects, societies, etc., but also that there is a definite respect in which the sense of "act," "efficacy," etc. of actual entities is prior to that of the other senses.

Thus the respect in which and the ground upon which Whitehead. with complete consistency, accords priority to actual entities is that it is only actual entities which are agents, in the primary sense I have endeavored to elucidate, all other entities being "agents" or "efficacious" only either as factors in actual entities, i.e., as contributory to the "act" of actual entities (e.g., eternal objects, prehensions, subjective forms, propositions) or as derivative from actual entities (e.g., nexus, societies). This is "ontological" priority because "act" is fundamental to "being" in the respect I have tried to indicate.

But this "ontological" priority is to be distinguished from the priority of archai. principles or sources. In respect of this there is a most important divergence between Plato and Aristotle, and Whitehead is with Aristotle in this. For Aristotle, for example, eidos and hyle are prior to ousiai as archai. For Whitehead creativity and eternal objects are in this respect prior to actual entities. It is the inheritance of the Platonic position, strongly augmented by Christian philosophy from the Patristic period onward, which in the modern period has continued the acceptance of the identification of "being" and "principles." It seems to me that Professor Buchler’s philosophy is a protest against this inheritance. But Whitehead has freed himself from this identification. When this is clearly seen the apparent arbitrariness which Professor Buchler claims to find in Whitehead disappears.

A great deal of the interest which has recently developed concerning the thought of Alfred North Whitehead has come from the Christian theological community. Studies on the relations of various aspects of Whiteheadian thought to elements of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition continue to appear. On the other hand, little research has ken done concerning the relation of the philosophy of organism to Ash’s major religions. This is surprising since the possibility of discovering a truly adequate means of relating the intellectual and religious traditions of East and West should provide more than adequate motivation for that task The following study of the Indian religious tradition and ‘Whiteheadian thought is offered from this perspective. Hopefully, illustrating the value of Whitehead’s categories for understanding Indian culture and religion will stimulate further research into the area of Fast-West comparisons from a Whiteheadian point of view.

The chief problem facing any comparative study involving the Indian religious tradition is the identification of the characteristic elements of that tradition. Its complexity is well known. Where should one begin a study among such diverse elements as Vedic ritual, Upanishadic speculation, devotional theism, Neo-Vedantin philosophy, Tantric mysteries, and modern movements? Perhaps the best approach is one which emphasizes the history of the religious literature. In this way no major element will be omitted and the importance of each aspect can be judged in the light of the entire tradition,

The literature of the Indian religious tradition begins with the Vedas. The hymns of the Rig Veda are believed to have been composed between 1500 and 900 BC. Probably the most striking feature is their conception of deity. Most of the gods are transparent to their natural origins: Agni from fire, Soma from the wine, Usas from the dawn, Dyaus and Varuna from the sky, Surya and Savitri from the sun, the Asvins (twins) from the twilight, and so forth. The explanation for this transparency lies in the halt of the process of personification which produces the notion of deity.¹ The evolution of that conception in India stopped halfway between its point of genesis in objects of nature and the very anthropomorphic notion of deity found in the Greek religions. The consequence of this is that the Vedic gods are never completely divorced from the objects of nature which explain their origin. This phenomenon of arrested personification caused a great multiplicity of gods. Because they were so closely related to the power of nature, there tended to be as many gods as there are aspects of nature. They lacked specific qualities and at times merged in character and function. Working against this tendency was the concept of rita. As natural law, it represents a unified and ordered universe. Such a universe has little room for a multitude of indistinct gods. Consequently there was a constant search for a single principle in terms of which the many gods and pluralities of nature might be ordered and explained. Monistic and monotheistic explanations were considered, yet no definitive solution emerged (Rv. X. 129)²

The Vedic search for unity was combined in the Brahmanic period with a quest for the cosmic power associated with sacrificial ritual. According to the priestly theory of thc Brahmanas, there is a mysterious power which authorizes the Vedas and renders efficacious the ritual which they command (2:8). It is this same power which relates the microcosm and macrocosm, man and the universe. Thus man and the universe could be related and harmonized by the proper sacrificial ritual. Through their knowledge of Vedic ritual, the priests could manipulate this power. Individuals, gods, and the universe itself were thus dependent on the brahmins for the preservation of cosmic harmony (see: Satapatha Brahmana II. 226; IV. 3.4.4; and XII. 4.4.6). Probably because of the abuses associated with this scheme, a notion developed in the Aranyaka period which explained that the cosmic power might also be known through symbolic meditation upon sacrificial procedure (1:1.35). This in turn led to increased speculation concerning the nature of the mysterious power itself. That speculation was then associated with the older interest in a unifying principle behind natural and divine pluralities. The product of the combination provided the central theme for the Upanishadic literature -- what is the ultimate unity in terms of which all reality might be explained?

The Upanishadic quest for a unity proceeded in two directions: the objective and the subjective. Early Indian sages searched the cosmos for an absolute arid they searched man himself. The objective search was for brahman, the final irreducible unity behind nature and the cosmos. The possibilities considered are many and disparate, often incompatible.³ The subjective quest was for atman, the innermost self. At some point during the early Upanishadic period the objective and subjective quests for unity tended to draw together Often both types of inquiry are presented in the same passage or narrative (Chan. V. 11-18; Brih. II. 1; Kaus. IV) - The search for the self (atman) became confused with the search for the essence of the cosmos conceived personally as atman or purusha. Finally the realization was made that the two quests were in reality one. The unity behind the individual is the unity behind the cosmos. Brahman equals atman (Brih. IV. 4.25; Ait. V. 3; Svet. I. 16; Brih. II, 5.1; etc.). With this new conception of the absolute, each of the two partial elements which formed it were transcended. A higher synthesis was created. The new absolute, brahman, was described as spiritual and indubitable like the essence of the self -- atman. Yet like the earlier conception of brabman. it was also characterized as the objective unity behind the entire universe.

Nevertheless, the situation is not quite so simple. We find the absolute beyond the old subjective and objective unities described in two ways. Hiriyanna has termed these the cosmic and acosmic: "in sonic passages the Absolute is presented as cosmic or all-comprehensive in its nature (saprapanca); in some others again, as acosmic or all-exclusive (nisprapanca)" (7:~9). A typical example of the cosmic description of brahman, brahman understood inclusively, is: containing all works, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all tastes, encompassing this whole world, the unspeaking, the unconcerned -- this is the Soul of mine within the heart, this is Brahma" (Chan. III. 14.4; cf. III. 14.2-3). Dasgupta suggests the following passages as characteristic descriptions of the cosmic notion of brahman:

According to both Keith and Hume, this is the oldest and most commonly found description of brahman in the Upanishads (9:11. 510f; 8:32-52). Typical expressions of this concept are those in which brahman or the One is described as creating the universe out of itself, and then reentering it as its essence (Brih. 1. 4.7; Chan. VI. 3.3; Tait. II. 6; Ait. III. 11-12). Brahman is thus both source of the universe and is essence dwelling immanently within it.

Perhaps in Western terms the cosmic conception of brahman might best be understood as being itself. In the above quotation from the Chandogya Upanishad, Dasgupta translated it as "the Being" It is inclusive in the sense In which being itself includes all reality. Like the latter, brahman thus conceived Is the source of all existents. It might be thought of as the material cause. It is not an existent, but is the ground or essence of all existents. It unites the one and the many. It is the universal. All existents are individuations or expressions of it.

Probably the most characteristic acosmic or all-exclusive descriptions of brahman may be found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The negative method is typical:

In order to prevent one from concluding from this description that brahman is simply void, it is asserted that all that is owes its existence and reality to brahman, "At the command of the Imperishable the sun and the moon stand apart . . . at the command of the Imperishable the earth and the sky stand apart" (Brih. III. 8.9). This exclusive description implies a notion of transcendence. Brahman is not transcendent in the sense in which a monotheistic god transcends the world. Instead, it is transcendent in that it is beyond finite things and the essence of finite things. This notion of transcendence is therefore even more radical than the sense in which cosmic brahman or being itself transcends existents.

It is the acosmic notion of brahman which is associated with what has been called the transcendental subject of knowledge, a conception which plays an especially important role in the teaching of Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Brahman is described as the knowing self. It is the ever-regressing self of the subject-object relation. It is the objectifying self which can never be known. It can never be known because when the objectifier becomes objectified, it is no longer subject. It has become object (see: Brih. III. 8-23; Brih. I. 4.7; Chan. VIII. 12.4; Katha IV. 3-4). It is because this subject cannot be known as subject that it is often described negatively. That fact is made clear in the following:

Here, then, is the acosmic conception of Brahman: all-exclusive, transcendent, inscrutable, the knowing subject.

The cosmic and acosmic descriptions of brahman are two of the three major elements of the Indian religious tradition. The third is the theistic. It is associated primarily with the post-Upanishadic period. The thought of this period has been described as generally realistic, theistic, and emphasizing the cosmic form of the absolute. With that background we can look more specifically at how the development, of theism proceeded.

Indian theism is to be found among those sects which emphasize bhakti, or devotional faith. Vaishnavism and to a lesser degree Saivism are the most important among these sects. The word bhakti and the related words bhagavat and bhagavata are derived from the root bhaj. The oldest meaning of this word is to participate, but in this context it means "to adore." Grierson tells us that according to the Aphorisms of Sandilya (1.2), bhakti is defined as " ‘a[n] affection fixed upon the Lord’; but the word ‘affection’ (anurakti) itself is further defined as that particular affection (rak ti) which arises after (anu) a knowledge of the attributes of the Adorable One" (5:539)⁵ Rudolf Otto defined bhakti as "faith, filled with love, expressing itself in reverence" (11 :55).

Although important Saivite sects such as Saiva Siddhantam⁶ are clearly theistic, Vaishnavite history provides more material for the study of Indian theism.⁷ Vishnu, like Siva. is an old Vedic god who came into prominence at about the same time as Siva but probably in a different part of India. In the Rig Veda he is a minor god, an ally of Indra, known for prowess as a fighter (Rv. IV. 55.4; VII. 99.5; VIII. 10.2). The next step in the evolution of this deity involves the concept of Narayana. Narayana was a supreme being much like Purusha. Purusha was the primeval cosmic person whose sacrifice was used to explain the origin of the world. Narayana too was a supreme being who through sacrifice became the world. In the evolution of Vaishnavite theism, the conceptions of Vishnu and Narayana were joined to form an Important element of the notion of the divine.

Soon after the beginning of the Aryan migrations into India, the occupied portion of the subcontinent is believed to have been divided into two somewhat different religious areas. There was the northern section of India around modern Delhi called the Midland (Madhyadesa). It was the center of the Vedic form of brahmanic religion. To the immediate east and south of the Midland was the other area which might be termed the Outland. Here, brahmanic ritualism played much less of a role and brahmin authority was almost unknown. It was also here that, in contrast to the developments toward monism going on in the Midland, monotheism arose.

All that can be said for certain about Vaishnavite history at this point is that a monotheistic creed developed around Vasudeva, the adorable (bhagavat). Hiriyanna says that, "its essential features were belief in a single personal god, Vasudeva, and in salvation as resulting from an unswerving devotion to him. Briefly, we may say that it resembles the Hebraic type of godhead." (7:100). Otto echoes, "Whatever the earliest expression of the Vishnu-faith may have been, a god, originally a mere tribal deity, gathers to himself, as in Israel, in ever-increasing measure, the position and dignity of complete and unique super-mundane deity" (11 :27f). The increased usage of the term Isvara (lord) for God rather than the Vedic term deva (god) suggests the unique conception of deity that was developing.⁸

The unknown founder and teacher of this tribe may have been a member of the Satvata sect of the Outland tribe. As is often the case with the founder of a tribe or religion, he was later identified with the god about whom he had preached. Perhaps this is the explanation of the name Vasudeva.⁹ He also came to be called Krishna through an identification with the sage Krishna about whom there is a tradition reaching back into the Rig Vedic period. We may say then that Krishna Vasudeva, the founder of the Bhagavata religion who later became identified with the god in whom he believed, taught salvation by devotional faith to the one god Vaseduva. Grierson and Bhandarkar explain that he "taught that the Supreme Being was infinite, eternal, and full of grace, and that salvation consisted in a life of perpetual bliss near him" (5:541).¹⁰

The second stage in the development of this form of devotional theism is the wedding of the Bhagavata religion and Sankhya philosophy. In its search for a self-understanding, the monistic developments going on within the Midland were anathema to this religion. The quest for an absolute unity within the Vedic tradition was clearly incompatible with the relation between the soul and the lord which was ultimate for the Bhagavatas. Consequently an alliance was made with what may be called the proto-Sankhya philosophy then developing in the Outland (7:270). At that time this philosophy was probably no more than a dualistic world vision based on the principles of prakriti and purusha (matter and spirit). The Yoga system which complemented this basic world view elaborated a technique for the realization of the self (purusha) as independent of prakriti. The association of the Bhagavata tradition with Sankhya-Yoga thought resulted in the former’s adopting the technical term yoga and in taking the name Purusha for Vasudeva, the lord. The new name for the bhagavat opened the way for the later identification of Vasudeva with Narayana, who was conceptually related to Purusha, the original male.

The next stage in the evolution of Indian theism is the crucial one. It is marked by the brahmanization of the theistic tradition. At this point the question of the relation of God or Isvara to the impersonal One of the Upanishadic tradition arises. This development may be seen in the famous story of the Bhagavad Gita. The impetus behind the marriage of the theistic movement to Upanishadic monism was the rise of Buddhism and Jainism in the Outland (7:100; 5:541). Buddhism especially was a genuine threat to the brahmin orthodoxy of the Midland. The latter was prepared to compromise with the theistic sect in order to form a united front with the Bhagavatas against the Buddhists. As for the worshippers of Vasudeva, they too felt attacked by the openly atheistic Buddhists and Jams. At least the brahmins who represented Aryan orthodoxy affirmed an ambiguously defined brahman. Thus the theists of the Outland joined forces with the monists of the Midland and the great question of the precise relation of brahman and Isvara was set for later thought.

The price that orthodoxy was forced to pay for its alliance with theism was twofold. It had to concede to an identification of Vasudeva with the old Vedic god Vishnu, thus granting the former a place in the orthodox Vedic tradition. The other concession was accepting as orthodox Bhagavat monotheism with its bhakti-oriented form of worship and ethic (12:495). The reconciliation of bhakti with the central concepts of Brahmanic and Upanishadic ethics -- karma and jnana -- is particularly obvious in the Gita. A definitive solution to the problem of the relation of brahman and God is much more difficult to end.

In the period shortly after the Gita the identification of Vasudeva with Narayana and Vishnu was completed. More importantly, Bhagavata theism became increasingly dominated by Upanishadic monism. During this later epic period, under the influence of the very old Vedic conception of deity produced by the process of arrested anthropomorphism, the Bhagavatas were led to simply identify their lord Vasudeva with the cosmic conception of brahman. Grierson explains:

This period in the history of Indian thought is found represented in the eighteen Puranas. These books are sectarian in nature, although most of the basic subject matter comes from the epics, especially the Mahabharata. They consistently teach a rather imprecise form of monism in which the conception of God which arose with the Bhagavata cult is identified with the cosmic conception of brahman. This union is the artificial result of the compromise between Bhagavata theism and Upanishadic monism. Other products of the compromise are ambiguities concerning the relation of Vishnu-Vasudeva to other gods and inconsistencies concerning the final end for man."

It was into a religious situation much like the one reflected in the Puranas that Shankara came in the early part of the ninth century. In clarifying the ambiguities which we have mentioned, and in building the most coherent and complete philosophy that India has ever known, he thoroughly undercut the past theistic tradition. He began by distinguishing two levels of knowledge.¹² He then used these to reconcile the obvious tensions between the two conceptions of brahman and the idea of a personal God. Brahman conceived cosmically and God are aspects of reality from the perspective of common life. Knowledge of them is avidya. It is true in terms of the phenomenal world. Vidya however, is a higher knowledge. It is the knowledge of the mystic. From this perspective, all reality is brahman, acosmically conceived. It is the consciousness of the transcendental subject. There is complete unity here. Brahman is entirely devoid of qualities, parts, or distinctions. There is no world, no God, no individual. There is only brahman, and brahman is atman.

In spite of Shankara’s genuine interest in devotionalism and the bhakti movements as important for life in the realm of avidya, the implications of his thought soon became clear. Many of the theistic Saivites and especially the Vaishnavites realized that Shankara’s distinctions between ontological and epistemological levels did not really alter the effect of his monistic position. This was so because it was precisely at the level of the most real that they, the bhaktas, affirmed the absolute ultimacy of the God-man relation. Therefore they could not accept unity at that level, whatever concessions might be made on other levels. The result was a reaction against Shankara and monistic thought generally.

This reaction manifested itself in two ways. One was the rise of the powerful bhakti devotionalism in the lives of the alvar, and nayanar poets. The love poetry of this period of Indian literature is characterized by a deep longing for communion with God.¹³ The other side of the reaction against the rise of Shankara’s Advaita Vedantic thought was a more philosophic one. It manifested itself in a renewed interest in Sankhya philosophy and in a movement away from Upanishadic monism. Its culmination came in the eleventh century with the thought of Ramanuja. He attempted a detailed refutation of much of Shankara’s thought and then went on to provide the final context for modern Indian theism. First, he implicitly rejected the acosmic description of brahman (Sribhasya IV. 2.1-20 in 13:728-743)¹⁴ This was done by expanding the cosmic notion so as to include consciousness. Being itself or the cosmic notion was interpreted somewhat idealistically in terms of consciousness. Having done this, Ramanuja could then argue that Upanishadic passages referring to the acosmic conception (as the transcendent conscious subject) really referred to the cosmic notion with the intent of emphasizing its conscious character (Sribhasya III. 2.3 in 13:602; Sribhasya II. 1.9 in 13:421-424).¹⁵ Passages referring to the acosmic conception as absolute unity were said to refer to brahman conceived cosmically, but in the unmanifest state. This form of the cosmic conception was then related to God through the use of a body-soul metaphor and a unique substance-accident theory. Brahman and Isvara were said to be related inseparably as are substance and attribute, the latter being the necessary expression of the former. Whatever the philosophic shortcomings of his substance-attribute theory, Ramanuja succeeded in fixing a permanent place for theism in the Indian philosophic tradition.

Since the time of Ramanuja the bhakti tradition has continued down to the present. Yet, Shankara’s thought has tended to dominate later philosophic directions. It may be said that India’s theistic tradition has not produced a system of equal philosophic excellence to that of Shankara. Consequently, a really adequate answer to the bhakta’s problem of the relation of Isvara and brahman has not been given. Also, Indian theists therefore have lacked the conceptual tools to express adequately their faith in terms of their intellectual and cultural tradition. Later philosophers of the Visistadvaita Vedanta school clarified and further elaborated Ramanuja’s thought, but it still lacked the originality, power, and coherence of Shankara’s Advaitic thought. Added to this, after the period of Ramanuja, interest in philosophic thought somewhat declined. Consequently, new attempts to deal philosophically with the problems of theism in the Indian setting were very few. When interest again developed in Indian philosophy during the nineteenth century, attention centered on Advaitic thought. One reason for this may have been the uniqueness of the acosmic notion of brahman which appealed to those with nationalistic interests. Whatever the case, the problem of adequately relating Isvara and brahman remains a contemporary problem for Indian theists.

With this brief outline before us we are now in a position to begin the comparative study. The perspective gained should make it clear that the characteristic elements to be considered in comparison with Whiteheadian thought should be the two conceptions of brahman and the Indian conception of God or Isvara. Yet, the fact is that these three elements are not compatible even within the Indian tradition itself. Given the acosmic conception of brahman as transcendental consciousness, there finally can be neither God nor being itself. There is only brahman, the one alone. Ramanuja’s response to this dilemma was to reject the acosmic notion and develop a philosophy that would adequately relate Isvara and brahman cosmically conceived. Because of the force of Ramanuja’s claim to having systematized the real truths of the Hindu religion, and because of the obvious gains to be realized through the comparison of two culturally different theistic traditions, Ramanuja’s approach will be followed. In developing our comparison with Whiteheadian thought, we will refer only to the cosmic notion of brahman and its relation to the Indian conception of God.

In a general vein, it might first be said that Whitehead’s philosophy and the Indian tradition share a certain unity of vision. Both reject any sort of final metaphysical dualism. For Whitehead, there is a cosmic unity of feeling or experience. It is a consequence of the principle of universal relativity according to which all actual entities participate in each other. It is because this participation constitutes actual entities that they are generically identical. They are all instances of participation, process, or creativity, "the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact" (PR 31). Creativity is, then, the final explanation for the unity of vision in the philosophy of organism. On the other side, the cosmic conception of brahman grounds all plurality and provides a metaphysical unity in the Indian tradition. The central question is, "what is the relation of creativity and this conception of brahman?" The answer we shall argue is that Whitehead’s description of creativity and the cosmic description of brahman are two descriptions of the same reality.¹⁶

Perhaps the best place to begin a comparison of brahman and creativity is with the negative descriptions of both. In the Upanishads, the cosmic conception of brahman is said to he beyond space, time, and causality. Regarding space, brahman is often characterized as being at the same time very small and very large: "smaller than a mustard seed" and "greater than the earth" (Chan. III. 14.3). Further, it is omnipresent, e.g., "that . . . which is above the sky, . . . beneath the earth, that which is between these two" (Brih. III. 8.7; cf. IV. 2.4). The implication of these passages is "a disengagement of brahman from the laws of space, which assigns limits to everything and appoints it a definite place and no other" (3:150-151). There is a similar relation between brahman and time. It is described as being apart from or independent of past and future (Katha II. 14; Brih. IV. 4.15). At other places brahman is pictured as being of infinite duration (Katha III, 15; Svet. V. 13) and of very small moment -- "like a flash of lightning" (Kena 29-30; Brih. II. 3.6). The implication here is that brahman is limited neither to a particular moment in time nor to existence over a specific extent of time. Rather, time is dependent upon brahman (Svet. VI. 5.6; 1.2). Brahman is also occasionally described as static, as "the Imperishable" (Brih. III. 8). At other times, it is said to be independent of, or different from, both becoming and not becoming (Isa. 12-14). Radhakrishnan has argued that descriptions like the latter indicate that brahman is described as static only to emphasize its independence of causality (12:175). Certainly there is much ambiguity in the texts concerning whether or not brahman is static. Nevertheless, descriptions like the one in Brihadaranyaka II. 3.15 showing brahman as both stationary and moving would seem to support Radhakrishnan’s argument.

Like brahman, creativity too is "beyond" space, time, and causality. It cannot be located in terms of the spatiotemporal continuum. The latter has reference to the interrelation of actual entities rather than to creativity. It can be neither an efficient cause nor the effect of a particular cause. By the ontological principle, causality like spatiotemporal location applies only to actual entities. Creativity however is not an actual entity, but the "ultimate principle" (PR 31, 47). It is a "principle," a "concept," or a "notion". As such, like brahman, it is quite beyond location in terms of space and time. Also, it transcends efficient and final causality.

In addition to descriptions of brahman as transcending space, time, and causality, it was also considered by the Upanishadic sages in terms of the old formula of sat chit anada (being, consciousness, bliss). There is considerable development of thought concerning the relation of brahman and king. The situation is further complicated because although the cosmic conception of brahman is characterized as being, the acosmic is not. Regarding the cosmic conception of brahman, it is often described as being or being itself: "Being . . . , this was in the beginning, one only without a second" (Chan. VI. 2.1; cf. Brih. V. 4). Along with this there is the constant reminder that as being, brahman transcends all beings or particulars. It is not this, not that (neti, neti).

Concerning the relation of brahman and consciousness, there are occasional Upanishadic passages which suggest that it is consciousness (Brih. IV. 4.6; Ait. III) - Yet the fact that brahman is described as the self one step beyond the self in dreamless sleep (turiya) indicates that brahman is beyond consciousness (Mait. VII. 11). As being itself, it must be said to be beyond consciousness. This is so because as universal (Brih. II. 4.12), brahman is beyond all plurality including the subject-object duality of consciousness.

The third element in the traditional threefold characterization of brahman is bliss. Scholars believe the original meaning of the word ananda to have been sexual. In its Upanishadic usage it implies the transcendence of worldly suffering (Brih. III. 5. I) and desires (Brih. IV. 3. 21). It also has reference to the transcendence of the dichotomy between good and evil (Tait. II. 9). The transcendence of these elements is the result of the realization of unity. Suffering, desire, good and evil are all related to individuality. The realization of brahman, conceived cosmically or acosmically, is the "experience" of universality. It must therefore involve a movement away from plurality and experiences related to individuality (Tait. II. 8). As the realization of absolute unity, the bliss of brahman must also transcend all worldly forms of bliss associated with plurality. And for that reason it is quite beyond the powers of normal understanding and appreciation.

Upanishadic discussion of brahman in terms of being, consciousness, and bliss produces little in the way of concrete information concerning brahman. Characterizations of brahman in these terms all have turned out to be negative. Brahman transcends the dichotomy of empirical being and nonbeing. It is even beyond consciousness. Although brahman may positively be said to be bliss, this is a bliss so far removed from any sort of empirically known bliss as to be of little descriptive value. Consideration of brahman in terms of sat chit ananda thus only serves to implicitly emphasize the general teaching of the inscrutability of brahman. In transcending being and consciousness, all normal modes of prehension and understanding also have been eliminated.

Returning to Whitehead’s conception of creativity, only actual entities or clusters of actual entities are beings. Consequently, as an abstraction rather than an actual entity, creativity must be quite other than any being or existent. The parallel with the cosmic conception of brahman is exact Concerning consciousness, creativity too transcends that form of experience. Consciousness is the subjective form of a particular type of feeling, the feeling of the contrast between a nexus of actual entities and a proposition related to the same nexus (PR 407, 372). Creativity is the generic activity related to all types of feeling. Its generality carries quite beyond the realm of consciousness. Further, for Whitehead. "consciousness presupposes experience, and not experience consciousness" (PR 83). Creativity, the most fundamental metaphysical characterization of experience, must therefore transcend consciousness. And, with regard to both creativity and brahman. consciousness may be said to be derivative and secondary.

As to the relation of creativity and the Indian realization of bliss, obviously Whitehead did not address himself to this type of question. Since the philosophy of organism is a study based on general experience, it should come as no surprise that the realization of creativity has not been considered. It is doubtful if, according to the Whiteheadian scheme, creativity could be said to rise to the level of consciousness. Consciousness depends on negation and contrast. That hardly seems compatible with the many Indian descriptions of the bliss of brahman as tranquility, integration, and equanimity. More specifically, consciousness is the subjective form of an intellectual feeling. Feelings are positive prehensions, and prehensions have reference to actual entities and eternal objects. They do not refer to creativity itself. Thus, in any normal sense creativity could not rise to consciousness. That, of course, is just what the Indians have said all along. We are left with the ontic question of whether or not brahman is "realized" The Indian mystical experience certainly occurs. Descriptions of it seem to suggest that there is some form of radical self-awareness in which a living person discovers himself transparent to the very process of concrescence itself. Yet, the idea of such a "realization" sounds strange in terms of the system as it now stands. The question remains as to how one can most adequately account for the acknowledged experience in terms of Whiteheadian categories. That this question stands does not necessarily jeopardize the central argument that brahman and creativity are one.

In terms of being, consciousness, and bliss, it was seen that Upanishadic discussion continually returned to the theme of the inscrutability and indescribability of brahman. Brahman can be neither known nor described. This is because both processes presuppose a duality of subject and object. Yet, brahman is the unity characterizing all particulars. With respect to brahman, there is no subject apart from it to know it. In similar fashion, there is no other in terms of which to describe it since all are expressions of it. Thus brahman is quite beyond knowledge and description. Certainly Whitehead meant much the same when he explained that creativity could not be univocally characterized because of its ultimate generality. Creativity, he said, "is that ultimate notion of the highest generality at the base of actuality. It cannot be characterized, because all characters are more special than itself" (PR 47). In terms of a comparison of negative characterizations, we may thus summarize: both are inscrutable and beyond the realm of univocal definition and description.

Beyond these negative similarities, much can be said concerning the resemblance of the positive explanations of creativity and brahman. Most of these are related to the notion of "being itself’ which has been used to convey aspects of both Charles Hartshorne has emphasized the parallel between creativity and the scholastic notion of being itself. By employing that term he wishes to emphasize its universality. In his own words,

Concerning brahman, we have already seen that Dasgupta used the term "Being" in relation to the cosmic conception of brahman. In the Upanishads brahman is often described as creating the universe out of itself and then reentering it as its essence. Descriptions are also common which refer to brahman as "containing" all things, "encompassing" all things, and "pervading" all things. The point behind these and other inclusive characterizations is that all realities are expressions or manifestations of brahman. The importance of Upanishadic representations of brahman as creating and reentering the universe is that brahman also may be viewed as the material cause and universal substance underlying all particular realities. In the Gita, brahman is described as "both the material cause of the universe and the eternal spirit immanent in the universe" (15:338). For Ramanuja, brahman is the material cause in the sense of a universal substance of which all things may be said to be modes (Sribhasya. II.3.17 in 13:539-40.) As has already been concluded from descriptions such as these, the cosmic conception of brahman is like the power of being or being itself. It is the most universal of categories, unknown except in its individual instances. In all these respects brabman and creativity are the same.

Whitehead presented the notion of creativity as follows:

By the phrase "universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact" Whitehead means that creativity is the primary metaphysical principle. It is the most fundamental principle of being. Its ultimacy involves two factors. It is ultimate, first, in "that it constitutes the generic metaphysical character of all actualities; and secondly it is ultimate in the sense that the actualities are individualizations of it" (WM 86) - Like brahman creativity is the most general metaphysical principle and it is also a universal of which all realities are manifestations. Beyond these similarities, this universal substance is operative as the material cause of all existents in the same sense as brahman.

In order to avoid misunderstanding at this point, the particular sense in which creativity may be said to be substance and material cause should be reviewed. By the time of Process and Reality, Whitehead had rejected any notion of substance in a Spinozistic sense. He particularly objected to Spinoza’s conception of substance as eminently real (PR 10-11). He also protested against the modern notion of substance as a "neutral stuff." Yet, he rejected the Aristotelian characterization that emphasized substance as a static substratum most emphatically (PR 79. 43f). Also, for Ramanuja, the conception of brahman as substance does not involve such elements. Although Whitehead rejected the Aristotelian notion of substance as a passively receptive, primary substance, and the Spinozistic conception of substance as an eminently real, efficient and material cause, he did not altogether reject the notion of substance. He recognized the philosophic necessity for a universal substance, and in the philosophy of organism creativity plays this role He explained "‘Creativity’ is another rendering of the Aristotelian ‘matter’ and of the modern ‘neutral stuff.’ But it is divested of the notion of passive receptivity, either of ‘form’ or of external relations" (PR 46; cf. PR 32). For the Whiteheadian scheme, creativity is substance. It is substantial in two senses it is the universal characterizing all particulars, and it constitutes the actuality of entities. It is materially causal. The phrase "materially causal" refers to the existence or "thatness" of reality. It is this "thatness" to which creativity points. It is only in these respects that creativity may be said to be substance, and it is just in these senses that it is like brahman.

Just as it was seen that brahman cannot exist as a particular being, so "creativity exists only in its individual instances" (WA 15). We have already seen how it transcends all kings or particulars. It follows from this fact and the two senses in which creativity is substantial, that it might best be conceived as being itself or the power of being. Certainly this was Hartshorne’s meaning when he compared creativity with being as such and agency as such. In all these ways, then, creativity and brahman are identical in their relation to being itself. While both being and creativity are beyond the contrast between the static and the dynamic as it applies to actualities, being itself might be understood in terms of either one. On the other hand, because of the continuous interaction of the one and the many, creativity may only be interpreted in terms of the dynamic.

The materials of the Indian scriptural tradition do not dearly affirm brahman as either static or dynamic. Generally it was seen described as "imperishable," or as independent of both becoming and not becoming. Yet occasionally the texts affirmed it as moving or dynamic. Brihadaranyaka II. 3.1-5 referred to it as ‘unformed, real, noumenal, immortal, moving, and yon." In the Gita it is once described as "unmoved," "yet moving indeed" (BhG, XIII. 15). Radhakrishnan’s response to this ambiguity is to argue that statements affirming brahman as static are intended only to indicate brahman’s independence of the laws of causality. His own words are:

Although there is no avoiding the fact that the Indian tradition is rather silent on the question of whether or not brahman is dynamic, Radhakrishnan has here raised the more fundamental elements involved in that question and provided material for comparison at this deeper level.

If brahman is free from subjection to causality, so is creativity. This is the case because. with the exception of material causality. causality only applies to actual entities. We have seen that this is implied in the ontological principle also called the "principle of efficient, and final, causation" (PR 37). According to it. only actual entities can function as efficient causes. Creativity, which is a principle or category rather than an actual entity, must therefore be independent of these types of causality which apply to actual entities. In a similar way, as "there is no change in Brahman, though all change is based on it." the same could be said of creativity.

In the Whiteheadian system change applies neither to creativity nor to any particular actual entity. To explain this, a few words must be said about Whitehead’s notion of the extensive continuum. The extensive continuum is the background matrix in terms of which all actual entities become. It includes all actual entities. It is the total coordination of the standpoints of all actual entities in terms of each other. In Whitehead’s terms: "An extensive continuum is a complex of entities united by the various allied relationships of whole to part, and of overlapping so as to possess common parts, and of contact, and of other- relationships derived from these primary relationships" (PR 103). Each actual entity receives its location in terms of this continuum along with its initial aim from God. Consequently "all actual entities are related according to the determinations of this continuum" (PR 103). Space, time, and change describe the relations of various actual entities in terms of this continuum. Thus, they do not refer to either a particular actual entity or creativity itself. Specifically, change characterizes neither creativity nor actual entities. "An actual entity never moves: it is where it is and what it is" (PR 113) in terms of the extensive continuum. The doctrine of internal relations which underlies the process of concrescence makes it impossible to attribute change to any actual entity" (PR 92). Rather, "change is the difference between actual occasions in one event" (PR 124). For the philosophy of organism, changes are a function of the relation of actual entities in an event with respect to the extensive continuum. It is quite as inapplicable to creativity as it is to brahman. Yet as change and relation are dependent upon brahman, so too they may be said to depend on creativity. This follows by simple logic. Change and spatiotemporal relations are a function of the relations of actual entities within an event. Each of these actual entities is a particular instance of creativity, its material cause. Thus, finally, change is dependent upon creativity, the substance of actual entities.

Associated with this parallel in regard to change, more may be said concerning the similarity between brahman and creativity with respect to time. Radhakrishnan has said of the relation of time and brahman,

Brahman itself is timeless but grounds time. Yet, in a more specific sense than just mentioned above, creativity too is timeless and grounds time. This is not a timelessness like the static atemporality associated with eternal objects, but rather timelessness of another sort. It is the entire point of the epochal conception of time. According to Whitehead, "there is a becoming of continuity, but no continuity of becoming. The actual entities are the creatures which become, and they constitute a continuously extensive world. But, they are not temporally extensive. In other words, extensiveness becomes, but ‘becoming’ is not extensive" (PR 53). Time does not refer to actual entities. As actual entities emerge into existence, they pass instantaneously into objective immortality. The phases of concrescence have no temporal extension. Time has reference to the extensive world rather than to actual entities in themselves. It is a reality of measurement referring to the interrelations of actual entities which have already come into existence. This measurement is possible because, although there is no continuity of becoming, there is a becoming of continuity. Time is a function of that becoming or creativity expressed in actual entities. As such, it is dependent upon creativity. Creativity is in turn independent of its. The parallel with brahman and time is exact.

Another deeper issue connected with the question of the relation between brahman and creativity as process or becoming concerns the classical philosophic problem of the one and the many. Creativity is process in the sense that it is the movement of the many to a new unity which reestablishes plurality. For the Indian scriptural tradition, although there is no explicit literary teaching as to whether or not brahman is dynamic, there is the affirmation that it is the key to the problem of the one and the many. Thus at the level of this deeper question, there is material available for comparison, as well as the suggestion of a parallel.

Obviously, as the one universal substance and material cause of all actualities, brahman and creativity both may be said to be the one which unites the many. Dasgupta has pointed this out in connection with the characterization of brahman in the Gita (1:II. 474f). Yet one can go even further in comparing how these two universals are related to the many. This can be done by considering Ramanuja’s treatment of the problem.

He dealt with the problem of the one and the many in the context of the relation of substance and attribute. Brahman is the one universal substance of which there are many modes (prakara) or attributes. God and souls are, for example, combinations of these attributes. Ramanuja’s dilemma is this: how can one philosophically justify theism and argue against Shankara for real and eternal distinctions between God and individuals and between brahman and God, while at the same time maintaining the ultimate unity of brahman? In other words, he must affirm both the ultimate unity of brahman and the plurality of the attributes which define God and the soul Neither unity nor plurality may be allowed ultimacy at the expense of the other. Both must be shown to be ultimate.

Ramanuja attempted to do this through his notion of the inseparability (aprthak-siddhi) of substance and attribute. He argued that brahman, the one material cause, necessarily manifests itself as attributes equally real and eternally distinct from itself. As manifestations of brahman, however, they are inseparable from it. At the very heart of Ramanuja’s conception of brahman, according to Lacombe, is the notion that brahman’s very essence is to "complete" itself, or "overflow," or "produce" attributes:

Thus the one brahman is only itself as it is also the many attributes including those which define God and the soul. The notion of brahman necessarily overflowing in attributes solved the problem of relating the one and the many for Ramanuja, but later Advaitic philosophers lost little time in pointing out that Ramanuja’s system lacked any explanation for why or how brahman should do this.

Before proceeding to illustrate how the Whiteheadian solution to this problem parallels the Indian, it should be pointed out that an answer to the larger question of the relation of brahman to creativity as process or becoming emerged. Ramanuja was able adequately to relate the one and the many only by conceiving of brahman as essentially dynamic. The terms "overflowing," "producing," and "completing" were used. Thus, here is one point where the description of brahman by the Indian tradition clearly parallels the very dynamic notion of creativity as becoming.

Returning to the question of the one and the many, according to Whitehead, "the many become one and are increased by one" (PR 32). In this solution to the problem of their relation, the movement from plurality to unity and renewed plurality is creativity. "It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which arc the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion. which is the universe conjunctively" (PR 31). Because of the epochal theory of time, this coalescence of the universe into a new unity is not temporally extensive. Therefore, the unification of the past world of actual entities occurs simultaneously with the reestablishment of plurality through the sudden emergence of a new actual entity. In this way unity and plurality share equal ultimacy in the dialectical movement of creativity from disjunction to conjunction. Thus, the one and the many are adequately interrelated and grounded in creativity. The analogy with Ramanuja’s attempt to do the same with brahman should be obvious.

Associated with this parallel between brahman and creativity concerning the one and the many, there is still another similarity between the thought of Ramanuja and Whitehead on the relation of substance and attribute. We have just seen how Ramanuja insisted on the inseparability of substance and attributes. It also should be emphasized that there is a relation of interdependence between them. Substance produces attributes but it does so necessarily and is therefore itself dependent on them. Lacombe explains, "if it is true that the substance produces at the interior of itself its own attributes, it does so because of necessities of its essence, which want to be expressed in a plurality of images of itself" (10:290). Thus brahman and the attributes which define God and the soul are interdependent and "co-ultimate." In a similar sense substance and attribute are also interdependent and "co-ultimate" within the Whiteheadian scheme. There can be no actual entities or attributes without creativity or substance because creativity is the very substance or material cause of actual entities. On the other hand, there can be no creativity without actual entities because creativity is the interaction of actual entities. In this way the two are interdependent. They are also co-ultimate. Creativity is the material cause of the universe while actual entities are the efficient causes. The latter are the building blocks of the world as we know it. They explain the "what" of reality. Creativity or substance explains the "that." Most importantly, however, there can be no "that" without a "what" and vice versa. The material cause and the efficient cause, substance and its accidents, are co-ultimate. Just as brahman was the key to understanding these relations of interdependence and co-ultimacy for Ramanuja, creativity plays the same role in the Whiteheadian scheme.

We have now compared creativity and the cosmic conception of brahman in the Upanishads in terms of space, time, causality, consciousness, and particulars. They have also been analyzed in relation to the concept of being itself. This led to a comparison of Ramanuja’s and Whitehead’s solutions to the problems of the one and the many, substance and attribute, and the role of becoming. The similarities in their descriptions are so many and so exact that one is naturally led to conclude that we are dealing here with one ultimate. Brahman and creativity may be said to be similar descriptions of one ultimate, independently arrived at in two very different cultural traditions. The question which now must be addressed is whether the same can be said of the characterizations of God in the two traditions.

On the relation of the conceptions of God in Western process philosophy and Indian philosophy, Charles Hartshorne has already pointed to the possibility of parallels. Speaking on the dominance of monism and the constant emphasis on the divine as substance in the Indian tradition, he commented: "thank in no small part to Ramanuja, a healthy instability does obtain and now and then results in approaches to dipolarism or panentheism" (PSG 178). We shall now argue that a great deal more than mere approaches to panentheism can be found in the Indian tradition.

One of the most interesting analogies between these two conceptions of God concerns the notion of Isvara as inner controller and God as the source of the initial aim. The notion of God as inner controller begins to play an important role in Indian theism in the Svetasvatara Upanishad. It is in that Upanishad which we have the only clearly identifiable instances. of Upanishadic theism. God is described as the "Inner Soul of all things" (Svet VI. 11; 1. 12) and as the inner guide running through all things like a thread (sutra) holding them together. The same concept has become a dominant element in the Gita’s presentation of the lord. Krishna teaches that he is in the very heart of all contingent kings, guiding and directing them. At times this direction is described in extremely forceful language. "In the region of the heart of all contingent beings dwells the Lord, twirling them hither and thither by his uncanny power (like puppets] mounted on a machine" (XVIII. 61).¹⁸ At other times the emphasis is only on supervision (X. 20; XV. 15; XIII. 17). Most often, this control is described through the metaphor of a seed. God controls all kings as the seed directs the future growth of a plant: "And what is the seed of all contingent beings, that too am I. No being is there, whether moving or unmoving, that exists or could exist apart from me" (X. 39; cf. VIII. 10; XIV. 3; XV. 7-10). Ramanuja used the body-soul metaphor to indicate the sense in which God is the inner director of all things. He guides persons and objects from within as the soul directs the body (see 1:399).

In the Whiteheadian system, God directs the development of an actual entity in the sense of luring it towards a form of self-realization productive of the greatest possible future intensity of feeling. This is done through the provision of a complex eternal object from the primordial nature of God (PR 374). Received through a hybrid physical feeling of God, it serves as an ideal for the concrescing actual entity in its self-development. This complex eternal object is a graded ordering of all possibilities for the new occasion as it creates itself through the process of decision (PR 374.75, 195, 373). Thus an ideal is given to lure the actual entity. There is no external constraint. The metaphor of a seed pregnant with possibilities for the growth and development of a new plant is not inappropriate for this provision of a guiding aim. There is clearly a likeness in these two descriptions of God’s way of working in the world.

Related to this parallel between these two conceptions is their further similarity in terms of God’s roles as creator and preserver. The Svetasvatara Upanishad refers to God as creator and sustainer (III. 2; IV IA; VI. 1 ff.) as does the Gita. God is creator in his capacity of spinning out nature: "By Me, Unmanifest in form, all this universe was spun" (IX. 4; cf. VIII. 22; XVIII. 46; I. 17). The idea of spinning out nature comes from the Sankhya concept of the evolution of the world out of nature (prakriti). Krishna teaches, "Subduing my own material Nature ever again I emanate this whole host of beings, -- powerless [themselves], from Nature comes the power" (IX. 8; cf. VII 4-5). Creation is also described as God’s planting of his seed: "Great Brahman is to Me a womb, in it I plant the seed: from this derives the origin of all contingent beings" (XIV. 3). The two accounts of creation are then reconciled in the Gita by the fact that brahman is understood to be composed of purusha and prakriti. In this way the planting of a seed in brahman is not unrelated to the spinning out of reality from nature (prakriti). According to the Gita, God is also the sustainer of the world (XV. 13). He is the sustainer in the sense that all reality is contingent with respect to him. Not only does reality depend on God for its initial existence, but it is dependent upon him for its continued existence: ‘No being is there, whether moving or unmoving, that exists or could exist apart from Me" (X. 39; cf. IX. 4-6, X 8). As all reality is dependent on God for its existence, the power of destruction also rests with God. God destroys the world at the end of each cosmic cycle by absorbing it into himself. It then evolves again out of God at the next period of creation. Krishna explains, "All contingent beings pour into material Nature which is mine when a world-aeon comes to an end; and then again when (another] aeon starts. I emanate them forth" (IX. 7). God is thus not only the origin but also the dissolution of all things (VII. 6 and IX. 18).

According to Ramanuja, matter and souls are modes of brahman. the material cause. They alternatively exist in two states: manifest and unmanifest (see 13: XXVIII). The unmanifest (pralaya) state is a subtle state in which particulars a-re not distinguished and in which matter is unevolved. Individual souls are not joined to material bodies and their intelligence is in a state of contraction. Creation marks the termination of this stage. Then, through an act of the lord’s will; matter becomes visible, tangible, and the selves become associated with bodies. Brahman is said to be the material cause and God the efficient cause in this creation.

For Whitehead too, God is creator in the sense of efficient cause. According to the ontological principle, only actual entities can be efficient or final causes. God is the efficient cause of all other actual entities in that he determines their locus within the extensive continuum and then provides them with a suitable aim. Without some aim they could not be, and without a particular aim they would not be what they are. It must be remembered, however, that God does not absolutely direct occasions, but rather "lures" them. God’s role as creator does not imply absolute control. Additionally, creation does not imply an initial temporal creation out of nothing: "God is not before all creation, but with all creation" (PR 521). Like the Indian notion rather than the Christian, creation for Whitehead merges into the conception of preservation. God is creator in the sense of continually providing initial aims for new actual entities. Creation is not once but always. In a sense, the entire cosmic process depends on him and the question arises of whether he or creativity is more ultimate in these causal terms. In any case, God -- like the Indian notion of Isvara -- can dearly be thought of as creator and preserver. Both continually operatC as efficient causes.

Probably the most arresting parallel between these two conceptions of God concerns the two ways in which the Indian notion approximates the Whiteheadian idea of panentheism. The first way has reference to God and actuality, the second to God and the universal According to the Whiteheadian characterization of God, all actual entities are absorbed in God’s consequent nature (PR 523). They are absorbed in the sense that God, like all actual entities, prehends all past occasions into his own actuality. As the one nontemporal actual entity, however, God never becomes objectively immortal. Therefore, unlike other actual entities, he will everlastingly draw actual entities Into himself (PR 524-25). In fact, God may be said to absorb the whole universe of actual entities into himself. The rough Indian analogy to this is the notion of Isvara as destroyer or absorber of the world. As absorbed in God, the world is in an unmanifest (pralaya) state. During this state, it was seen that particulars are not distinguished by name and form, matter is unevolved, and the intelligence of souls is contracted.

Beyond this vague analogy between Indian theism and the Whiteheadian conception of God, there is a larger and more profound sense in which the two types of panentheism are alike. This involves the rapport, not between God and actuality, but between God and the universal. There is a striking resemblance between the way brahman is related to Isvara and the way creativity is related to God. In the history of Indian thought the problem of relating Brahman and God was the central problem of the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita’s solution was to relate them, as well as the Sankhya absolutes of prakriti and purusha, through the conception of panentheism. The inclusion of prakriti and purusha was necessary due to the early contact of the Bhagavatas with the emerging system of Sankhya-Yoga thought. Brahman was first said to be composed of prakriti and purusha. In this way the primary categories of Sankhya-Yoga were reconciled with the absolute of Midland brahmanism. The latter was then in turn related to Vishnu-Vasudeva by conceiving of it as a portion of Isvara’s being. In this sense brahman is within Isvara. This becomes apparent in the following important passages:

The only way that nature and brahman can be in God while God is not in them, but surpasses both, is for God to include brahman and the world within himself as a part of the whole. This is the Gita’s conception of panentheism. It is the key to understanding its metaphysics and ethics. Long ago, Edgerton noted that the Gita’s theism "differs from pantheism . . . in that it regards God as more than the universe" (4:149). Ramanuja too recognizes and affirms this form of panentheism in the Gita (14:139). God includes the universe and the imperishable brahman within himself, but that is only one part of the whole. The other part is beyond this part yet supports it: "This whole universe I hold apart [supporting it] with [but] one fragment [of Myself], yet I abide [unchanging]" (X.42). At times brahman is said to be the body of God or his womb out of which he creates. Again it is referred to as his highest home. R. C. Zaehner has interpreted the last characterization as meaning that brahman is God’s mode of being (15:185). In any case, all such characterizations indicate the nature of brahman as a portion of the lord.

In a similar way for the philosophy of organism, God and creativity are related in terms of panentheism. Also, creativity might be said to be God’s mode of being. As an actual entity, God is an instance of creativity -- the universal substance and material cause. He is described as being "in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground" and as the "primordial, nontemporal accident" of creativity (PR 529, II). As actual, God includes creativity within himself and could be said to have it as his body or mode of being. The parallel with Isvara should be apparent. Beyond this, however, it should also be pointed out that God is the one nontemporal actual entity. He is everlastingly actual. More specifically, his primordial nature is eternal and his consequent nature everlasting. This nontemporality and consequent everlastingness is analogous to the fact that, at the periods of cosmic absorption according to Ramanuja, the attributes which constitute God are not assimilated like the others. For both systems God as efficient cause must remain actual. Isvara himself never passes into the pralaya state and Whitehead’s God never becomes objectively immortal. Just as Isvara everlastingly reabsorbs the world but not the particulars of himself, so Whitehead’s God everlastingly prehends individual actual entities into his consequent nature. The similarity is clear. Yet, Ramanuja seems to suggest that one way in which Isvara also includes the totality of brahman as his body lies in the fact that he absorbs the world into the pralaya state. Having rejected any form of pantheism, Whitehead avoids this. God includes all actual entities within himself only as prehended objects (See IWM 403-9). He is therefore related to the whole of creativity somewhat differently. He may be said to include the totality of creativity only in the sense of everlastingly remaining an instance of it

The difference here is significant. While God and Isvara are identical in relation to the description of how the universal is related to each as its mode of being, so both conceptions of the divine affirm the notion that the world of particulars passes into God. Relatedly, both Ramanuja and Whitehead distinguish between those parts of the divine nature responsible for efficient and final causality. Yet they differ in the way that they understand how the totality of the universal is related to the divine. Certainly the closeness of the first two points of comparison and the similarity of intention concerning the third are sufficient to establish the parallel between these two related forms of panentheism. It might be noted that some contemporary process thinkers will probably find themselves more in agreement with Ramanuja than with Whitehead on this issue. If so, it remains to be seen which of these similar visions of panentheism is most adequate to the facts of experience and coherent in terms of total system.

The similarity of the cosmic conception of brahman and the notion of creativity has now been established. The parallel between the Indian view of Isvara and Whitehead’s vision of the divine has also become apparent. These facts serve as further evidence for the validity of these common conceptions from widely differing cultural contexts. They also suggest that Whitehead’s thought might provide the key element for an adequate bridge between Indian and Western philosophico-religious traditions. Lastly, in coherently and adequately relating God and creativity. Whitehead may have implicitly solved the age-old problem of Indian theists. Perhaps the bhakta’s problem of how best to understand Isvara and brahman may yet be resolved. Moreover, if this were done through the use of a system philosophically equal to that of Shankara, theism’s rightful claim to a place in the Indian tradition might again be clear. Certainly many questions still remain to be answered. For example, what might realization of creativity mean in Whiteheadian categories? Also, how might the interpretation of the mystic experience which produced the acosmic conception of brahman be explained from the Whiteheadian point of view? Answering these questions will be a very difficult task. Hopefully the material of the present study has suggested the possibility of genuine cross-cultural understanding through the use of the philosophy of organism. That, in turn, should provide ample motivation for the difficult tasks ahead.

References

IWM -- William A. Christian, An Interpretation of Whiteheads Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.

PSG -- Charles Hartshorne and William L. Reese, Philosophers Speak of God. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.

WA -- Donald W. Sherburne, A Whiteheadian Aesthetic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

WM -- Ivor Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958.

1. Surendranath Dasgupta. A History of Indian Philosophy. 5 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963-1967.

2. Surendranath Dasgupta. Hindu Mysticism. Chicago: Open Court, 1927.

3. Paul Deussen. The Philosophy of the Upanishads. New York: Dover Publications. 1966.

4. Franklin Edgerton, ed. The Bhagavad Gita. New York: Harper and Row, 1944.

5. George A. Grierson. "Bhakti Marga" Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1909). Volume II.

6. Charles Hartshorne. "Whitehead on Process: A Reply to Professor Eslick." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XVIII (June, 1958).

7. M. Hiriyanna. Outlines of Indian Philosophy. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1932.

8. Robert Ernest Hume, ed. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1951.

9. Arthur Berriedale Keith. The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads. Vol. XXXII, Harvard Oriental Series. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925.

10. Olivier Lacombe. L’Absolu scIon Ic Vedanta. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1966.

11. Rudolf Otto. India’s Religion of Giace and Cin-istianity Compared and Contrasted. New York: Macmillan Co.. 1930.

12. S. Radhakrishnan. Indian Philosophy. Volume I. New York: The Macmillan Co,. 1923.

13. George Thibaut. ed. The Vedanta-Sutras with Ramanuja’s Sribhashya. Sacred Books of the East. Volume XLVIII. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904.

14. J. A. B. Van Buitenen, ed. Ramanuja on the Bhagavadgita. Delhi: Motilal Banarisdass, 1968.

15. R C. Zaehner, ed. The Bhagavad Gita. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969

Notes

1 See: Max Miller. A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (London: Williams and Norgate, 1859), chapter IV and his Chips from a German Workshop (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1900), Vol. 1, pp. 24-28; A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg: Verlag Von Karl J. Tnbner, 1897), pp. 15-21; and 9:58ff.

2 References to the Rig Veda will appear as Rv. Upanishadic abbreviations are as follows:

Ait Aitareys Upanishad’

Brih Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Chan . Chandogya Upanishad

Katha Katha Upanishad

Kaus Kaushitaki Upanishad

Mait. Maitri Upanishad

Svet. Svetagvatara Upanishad

All Upanishadic quotations are taken from 8.

3 See: I. B. Pratt. India and 1t~ Faiths (Boston: Houghton)Aiflhin Co., 1915), p. 76; 9:498: Washburn Hopkins. ‘The Religions of India (London: Ginn and Co., 1895), p. 220: M. Winternita, A History of Sanskrit Liu,-awre (Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1927), Vol. 1, p 245; R. 0. Bhandarkar, Vaishn i~m, Sai,,ii,n. and Minor Religious Systems (Nepali Kapra, Varnas: Indological Book House, 1965), p. 1; j. N. Farquhar, ‘The Religious Quest of India: An Outline of the Religious Literature of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920); George Thibaut, ed, ‘The VedantaSt.tra~ with the Co,nmeneary by Sanltarakaryo, p art I, Vol. XXXIV: Sacred Books of the Ea3r (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890), ci if; H. O~d~nberg, Die Lehre Aer Upanishaden.snd die Anf~snge des Bicddhisnis (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck ~ Ruprecht, 1915). pp. 59-104; Miller, History of Sa,sskrit Literature. pp. 320 if; and 12:140. Often Upanishadic notions of brabman are miticized within the Upanishad themselves In Brih. II. I, twelve de~nitions of brahnsan are rejected; in Brib. IV. I. six: and in Kaus. IV. Sixteen

4 Hume consistently translates the Sanskrit term brahman (neuter) as Brabnia, the nominative single form. This should not be confused with Brahms, the name of a personal god of the Hindu trinity. In the text we have followed the more common usage -- brahman.

5For a more complete analysis of bhaj, and bhakti, see the work of M. Dhavamony, S.)., quoted in 15:181.

6 See: R. C. Zachner, Hinduism (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 117-19 and A. L. Basham, The Wonder that Was India (New York: Grove Press, 1959), p- 334.

7 It must be noted that details of Vaishnavite history are highly ambiguous. The general history here presented follows the direction suggested by Richard Garbe and developed by George Grierson in his article (5). The account has been corrected, however, by the following works J. Gonda. Aspects of Early Visnvism (Delhi: Motilal Banarisdass. 1969); H. Raychandhuri. Material for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press. 1936): Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism. Saivism. etc.; 1:II.

8 See J. Gonda. ‘The Isvara Ideal," Change and Continuity in Indian Religion (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1965), pp. 162-63 and R C. Zaehner. The Comparison of Religions (Boston: Beacon Press. 1962). pp. 10411.

9 Note the distinctions here between Vasudeva, the proper name of a god, and Vasudeva, a family name common among the Vrsni race. On the evidence for these identifications, see Bhandarkar. Vaisnavism, Saivism. etc. p. 11 and 1:II, 541-44.

10 There is today general scholarly agreement that there cannot have been any Christian influence on Vaishnavism until well after this period and the period of the Gita. See Raychandhuri, Early History of the Vaisnava Sect. chapter III. and especially Richard Garbe, India and Christendom (Lasalle: Open Court, 1959). pp. 212ff.

11 These ambiguities stand out particularly well in the Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas. See: H. H. Wilson. ed., The Vishnu Purana, A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1961). pp. vii-viii; The Bhagavada Purana. XI. 14, XI. 20. Purnendu Narayan Sinha. trans., A Study of the Bhagavata Purana (Adyar. Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950), pp. 613 and 630.

12 For excellent general discussions of Shankara and his thought, see: 7:337-82, and 1:1. 406-II. 227. According to G. Thibaut, careful study of the Upanishads themselves reveals no ground, for any such distinction between types of knowledge (13:XXXIV.exif). Upanishadic passages claimed in support of the distinction are: Prasna Upanishad V.2; Mundaka Upanishad 1. 1.4; Brih. II. 3ff.; Mait. VI. 15 and 36.

13 ‘The writing of Nammalvar is typical. See 1:III. 69-84 for a full discussion.

14 The key sources for Ramanuja’s thought are his commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras (13: XLVIII; Olivier Lacombe. La Doctrine moral et métaphysique de Ramanuja [Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1938]) and the Bhagavad Gita (14).

15 See also Ramanuja’s comments on Brahman’s being constituted by "manifold moving and immovable entities" in his commentary on the Gita (14:141). Hartshorne and Reese (PSG 177-89) miss this characteristic of Brahman by limiting their study to the commentary on the Vedanta Sutras. In his commentary on the Gita the dynamism of Brahman is more apparent. Confusion arises because Ramanuja distinguishes between the change which relates Brahman to the world and which might threaten his perfection, and the process which involves Brahman essentially. The latter according to Ramanuja expresses the very meaning of perfection. These authors are certainly correct, however, in pointing out that Ramanuja is inconsistent here concerning the relation of perfection and becoming. Also the question remains as to whether or not the distinction which he draws between these two types of process is really legitimate even in terms of his own vision.

16 The idea has already been suggested by David Bidney (‘The Problem of Substance in Spinoza and Whitehead," Philosophical Review, 45 [1936]. p. 586). and was even hinted at by Whitehead himself. In contrasting his notion of creativity with Spinoza’s conception of the absolute, he wrote: "In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, ‘eminent’ reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese thought, than to Western Asiatic, or European thought" (PR 11).

17 See especially Hartshorne. "Le Principe de relativité philosophique chez Whitehead," Revue de Metaphysique et de Moral, LV (1955), pp. 28-29. There Hartshorne suggests: "Let us say. . . that creativity is for him [Whitehead] almost what being has been for the scholastics, a notion analogically applied to all" (p. 28).

18 All quotations from the Gita are taken from the translation by R. C. Zaehner. Bracketed additions are those of the translator.

In this paper I shall develop a view of perception from the partial theory to be found in Whitehead’s early philosophical writings and defend it against objections which led Whitehead himself to replace it later with a somewhat different theory.¹

Development of the Early Theory

The first phase or moment of perception is sense-awareness (CN 4). Sense-awareness disengages factors from the total flow of fact (PNK 59-60; CN 13; R 14), the content of primal experience, bringing to the fore two profiles (suggested AE 201) of total perceptual objects.

In Profile I the attention of the percipient event (observer) is centered on some event located at a more or less definite region which is spatially related to him in the duration cogredient with him (his specious present). This gives him cognizance of the event by adjective (R 18), for he identifies it and its space-time boundaries by sense-objects situated in it (PNK 67, 84; CN 78, 147). He also perceives the attended event embedded in a field of other events; hence, he acquires cognizance of these events by relatedness (R 19), that is, as more or less definite somethings related to and signified by the attended event. While the percipient centers attention on a, he may also pay secondary attention to b, pick out its location with a degree of definiteness by its relatedness to a. and begin to cognize it by adjective (e.g., while watching a buzzing fly, I become aware of its proximity to a fragile goblet).

In Profile 2² the percipient centers his attention on relations within the perceptual field and discerns events and their sense-objects secondarily qua relata. Thus, one may notice the distance between two events or a contrast between two objects. It is important to insist that relations are found in the perceptual field, not imposed upon a manifold of unrelated data by reflexively discernible mental acts. Relations are discerned as factors of fact (PNK (12, 60f; CN 141; R 13f), binding other factors into the experienced unity of total fact.

Relations are object-like in that the same sort of relation can he discerned among different sets of events. They are event-like in that it makes sense to speak of (e.g.) this distance between given events or this contrast between the objects situated in them. Being like both events and objects, relations are identical with neither: and there is a fundamental distinction between discernment of relations, apprehension of events, and recognition of objects in perception (PNK 67).³

In taking profiles on perceptual objects, the percipient may be cognizant of his own body by relationship to an attended object and vaguely by adjective, e.g., when focusing my attention on a fly while trying to swat it. I am aware of muscular contractions in my arm. Now, in some contexts it is convenient to speak of the whole body as the percipient event (the event in nature [PNK 70] embodying the perceptual act); in others, as only some minute event in the central nervous system. Hence, we may say either that the percipient is aware of itself or of external events in the same body (a muscle event is external to a brain event) while attending to external objects. I shall identify the percipient with the brain event and speak in the latter fashion. Whitehead prefers the former (PNK 80; CN 107).

All of these events -- brain, muscle, total body -- are in the perceptual world. Each can be made a center of attention and recognized by sense-objects (muscle and brain tissue have color, shape, etc.). Each enters extensional externality (and internality) relations (PNK 61) with one another and the remaining events in the world. Fly and eye are external to one another, and both to the percipient brain event. Correlatively, it is external to them. All belong to the same external world.

One relational profile which we seem to discern (whether we really do is doubtful in my opinion) is the causal connection between events, most prominently in cases where a bodily event is the effect (PNK 14), e.g., when I am aware of touching a rough surface, the surface event, recognized by tactual sense-objects, is discerned to be the cause of the kinesthetic sensum in my finger. Causality is discerned as a relation in the external world even in this case and indeed as holding between events external to the percipient if we identify the latter with a brain event.

Our immediate awareness of causation at best is feeble; it usually is non-existent, and yet we apply the concept widely. In identifying specific causal relations, event A, is almost always judged to be the cause of B, (that is, when our judgment is reasonable) because of the prior conjunction of events of sort A with events of sort B, or analogous evidence, rather than on the basis of direct discrimination of a process in B, taking account of, flowing from, or forming itself by virtue of Ai (PNK 87).⁴

Whatever the grounds of causal judgments, reflection on the relation leads the careful observer to note that events are situations of particular sense-objects only when surrounded by other events which are situations of specific other sense-objects. Certain events in the perceptual field are active conditions of the formation of the attended event and the ingression of sense-objects into it (PNK 86), e.g., active conditions of events recognized by tactual profiles include events in the percipient’s finger tips and nervous system, that is, in the physiological medium. Active conditions of visual profiles also include events In a source of illumination and in the media between illumination, attended event, and eye.

The role of active conditions means that ingression is a polyadic relation between the sense-object, event, and an indefinite number of other events with their objective characters (PNK 84-86: TSM 52; CN 145-47). If we examine a field of perception with the right questions in mind, we discern such polyadic relationships. They are one profile (Sort 2) which we can take on perceptual objects.

These data of sense-awareness are primary facts for me, "primary" in being facts I would be most reluctant to dismiss and "facts" in being realities access to which provides a basis for understanding other things. It is sense-awareness that acquaints us with what an event is and how it is extended and bounded. The world with which we are occupied in thought and action is composed of events recognized through sense-objects which are their true properties. No ontology or theory of perception that denies these primary facts is credible to me. Later in the paper I shall argue that Whitehead subsequently denies them.

In taking various profiles, the percipient reaches across space to distinguish events, objects, and relations, while letting them stand as they are in them selves. I shall refer to this as perception at a distance, meaning not the psychic otherness of anything perceived in the matrix of externally related events in relation to the act of perceiving, but the spatial distance between any attended event and the percipient, which itself is part of the matrix (CN 3; II 132f).

If we admit perception at a distance but deny action at a distance, we must reject the myth of sensa as mental effects of external realities. Events as situations of sense-objects and relations among events are given as there, not here (in the percipient event) or nowhere (embedded in the allegedly aspatial realm of mental entities). One basis for the myth of sensa is a misunderstanding of the role of active conditions in the ingression of sense-objects into nature. The percipient qua external event is an effect of other events (e.g., light signals must reach the retina and brain for the wall to be green); and perceiving is conditioned by the percipient and its causal relations. But perceiving is not simply being acted on in the external world.

A second basis for the sensa myth is the fact that we do use mental images to fill out perceptual objects; e.g., I am aware of the visual profile of an event. Depending on my needs or curiosity, I may judge how it would feel were I to touch it, how it looks from other perspectives, how future events in the enduring entity to which the attended event belongs would appear under various active conditions, etc. In perceptual judgments we refer images. derived by analogy from data of previous sense-awareness,⁵ to an attended event (PNK 89f; CN Ch. I); e.g., I anticipate the appearance of a goblet if I swat the fly sitting on it, and I refrain from swatting.

As the example suggests, perceptual judgments are often revealed by the way we unreflectively comport ourselves toward perceptual objects. We can also be reflectively aware of such judgments and their structure. Knowledge that some judgments are spontaneous and unconscious (AE 186, 194, 197; CN 154f) plus knowledge of the structure of perceptual judgments makes it possible to hypothesize that sense-awareness is a projection, always concealed from detection, of sensa, conceived as mental images, on antecedent reality. This hypothesis, however, leads by a familiar path to the total bifurcation of perceptual appearance from reality, removing the ground for construing appearances as effects or signs of reality. Bifurcation fatally impugns the testimony of the senses. It should be avoided at almost any cost.

The total physical object is a synthesis of (1) all sense-objects ingredient in its situation by virtue of actual polyadic relations involving percipients and (2) all the dispositions of the situation to display additional sense-objects in possible ingression relations (AE 193; CN 154; R 54).⁶

A total perceptual object is not merely a set of sense-objects and dispositions; it is a synthesis effected by the surge of existence which is the event. The concrete perceptual object is the total perceptual object and its situation. We perceive concrete objects as being more than their involvement in the particular ingression relation at the basis of our sense-awareness, and hence as overflowing particular profiles. This "something more" is determinate and hence the ground for the truth or falsity of perceptual judgments. The transcendent existence of concrete objects is also the ground for our ordinary presupposition that they are public entities. You and I see the same chair because we apprehend the same external event and recognize the same total perceptual object. We do not sense exactly the same profile or form the same set of perceptual judgments, but each of us can reconstruct approximately what the other senses and judges. This suffices for social interaction in relation to the public world.⁷

Finally, I should briefly distinguish between physical objects and illusions within the category of total perceptual objects. Physical objects are total perceptual objects whose component sense-objects and dispositions are connected by a law of variation (PNK 89f, 186; CN 167). We appear to have the inductive power to grasp the law instantiated in concrete objects when they are analogous (though never identical) to prior objects of our acquaintance. Thus, when I come upon a chair of an odd shape or color, I can imagine with a fair degree of success how it appears from other perspectives.

Illusions ⁸ do not exemplify such laws. The event I see beyond a mirror ⁹ or when I am drugged is truly the situation of sense-objects by which I recognize it, but I have no basis to judge the profiles of the event from other perspectives.

Once we distinguish illusions from physical objects by observational tests (that is, by the failure of perceptual judgments in the one case and their success in the other) we then discover that one of the differences lies in the fact that the situation of an illusion is not an active condition for the ingression of its profile, e.g. because of the interposition of the mirror between percipient and situation or because of the disruption of the percipient’s physiological medium by drugs (PNK 89; CN 153). (We subsequently discover the true active conditions in the external world of the illusion as a perceptual object in the external world.)

Whitehead’s Later Theory: The Phenomenological Part

Whitehead’s later theory involves (1) a reflective phenomenological description of perceiving in terms of two modes, causal efficacy (CE) and presentational immediacy (PI); and (2) an ontological reconstruction of these processes in terms of prehension. I will concentrate my criticism on the doctrines of projection in PI and reenactment of feelings in physical prehension.¹⁰

According to Whitehead’s later theory, taking a profile on a perceptual object in PI is a matter of projecting (PR 262; AI 314) sensa and geometrical objects (SMW 216; S 14, 21; PR 257, 262; AI 276f; MT 100) on a focal region in the presented locus or contemporary world (PR 189, 192f, 257, 476).¹¹ Since Whitehead conceives of contemporary events as in unison of becoming with and causally independent of the percipient occasion (PR 95, 188-90) and retains the causal criterion of illusion from his early theory, he is forced to conclude that the appearance of a focal region as actually qualified by eternal objects of its profile is an illusion. All PI is illusory (PR 179, 186, 273). We are also mistaken in identifying the boundaries of the attended event with the boundaries of its apparent locus (in the focal region). Actual occasions are extended and atomic. Any group of occasions composing a macroscopic event located approximately at the focal region will probably overlap or fail to exhaust precisely that region. We could not know because we do not directly apprehend contemporary occasions. Yet we do demarcate fairly precise boundaries for focal events in perception and specify them with greater precision by abstractive geometry. Hence, it must be that we project geometrical objects as well as sensa.

Project them on what? Not noumena differing entirely from the phenomena of PI. Whitehead tries to avoid radical bifurcation by introducing a second mode of perception, CE, which discriminates the same sorts of entities (events, sensa, geometrical objects) in the same total field as PI (S 8, 30, 49, 53; PR 255-59). In CE we perceive past rather than contemporary events. Past events can act on the percipient, so CE may possibly be non-illusory. At any rate, Whitehead claims, past events donate to the percipient in CE the sensa and geometrical objects which he projects in PI onto contemporary regions.¹²

CE also directly discloses causal relations, especially those involving our bodies. Whitehead is most insistent that we are immediately aware that we see with our eyes and touch with our hands (SMW 132f; S 43, 56f; PR 258f, 263, 265-67; AI 243, 265; MT 209, 217). This points up another illusion in PI. We actually perceive e.g., past events acting on our eyes, yet it is an event at a contemporary location that we identify by a visual profile.

Whitehead now maintains that even the first profile of objects in sense-awareness entails a perceptual judgment.¹³ Images obtained from one event (the past event identified by CE) are referred to (projected upon) a hypothetical new event (occupying one of the possible regions which can be discriminated in the locus presented in PI). This judgment is a spontaneous, forever concealed (S 3f; PR 261, 273) mental act of symbolic reference in which CE and PI are inextricably fused (PR 185, 262f; AI 232, 279).

Insofar as CE is perception of past and therefore actual events, it is not necessarily illusory. One might look to future CE perceptions of PI focal regions to determine whether or how PI is false. But Whitehead’s theory does not allow this because CE is illusory in another way. While it does not involve projection, it does involve transmutation. The primal data in perception (as I explain in the next section) are prehensions of individual occasions. These data are worked in CE, at least by conceptual valuation and perhaps by reversion so as to attribute to macroscopic nexus eternal objects found among or possible for the occasions that belong to the nexus. This commits the fallacy of composition. CE transmutes the internal character of regions in the actual world to obtain the images projected in PI onto contemporary regions, and the transmutation is unconscious (PR 362, 387, 415). Hence, to check PI by CE is to check one copy of a newspaper by another, to check one illusion by another.

The terms in which Whitehead formulates his theory should alert us that something is going awry. Data provided by CE, though partially veridical, are almost completely vague (S 43f, 55; PR 256; MT 98). PI data, though definite enough to be useful evidentially, are almost completely illusory. Whatever the symbolic reference involved, how can the vague correct the illusory, or the illusory, the vague? More precisely, how can we tell from vague data that definite data are illusory, or from illusions what vague data contain? The vagueness of CE allows the philosopher to assume any content that he wishes. Whitehead imagines just the sort needed for projection in PI.

Furthermore, the mental processes which transform veridical data of simple physical prehension into the transmutations of CE and then projections of PI are always operating and always hidden, so anything can be assumed about them without fear of empirical falsification. Illusion is now thought to be omnipresent in definite, conscious perceptual experience -- yet the dichotomy between physical objects and illusions was introduced to express observable differences within the field of conscious perception.

A reconstruction of the perceptual process is required if we believe that conscious perception is illusory. Whitehead’s primary reason for the belief is the transmission theories of causal influence in physics such as those which lead to the Special Theory of Relativity. Thus he defines the contemporary world relative to an occasion as those distant events occurring after the emission and before the return of energy between their locations and that of reference occasion. I shall call this set of events the causal present.

Why must the causal present be identified with the field of events given in perception, the presented present? ‘Whitehead noted in his early theory that perception passes continuously into memory (AE 189f; CN 68). I suggest that we discern the pastness of an event, and classify our apprehension of it as a memory, only when we apprehend a successor to it at the same location. We do not discern its (causal) pastness relative to our own percipient event. What we perceive in the presented present, then, are events on the front surface of the time cone of events in the causal past of actual world. We do infer what events are like in the causal present once physics has taught us to distinguish the causal present from the future, but the sense-awareness component of perception is not an inference. It is the direct disclosure of actual events through some of the eternal objects that are actually ingredient in them. This is what a careful phenomenological inspection of the perceiving process reveals.

Whitehead’s Later Theory: The Ontological Part

Perception grasps some aspects of concrete perceptual objects directly in sense-awareness and other aspects indirectly by perceptual judgment, while letting the objects stand as they are in themselves. The best term for the structure of perception is intentionality. The nearest equivalent of intention in Whitehead’s vocabulary is prehension, but prehension takes on the burdens of an ontological category. Prehensions are involved in all concrete entities in the universe.

At the basis of perception and higher cognitive activities are simple physical prehensions (PR 361f). Whitehead assigns to these the properties which make CE a partially faithful rendering of the actual world (the ordinary objects of CE, however, are transmuted nexus. while simple physical prehensions grasp single actual occasions [PR 353, 361, 375f]). Simple physical prehensions objectify occasions by eternal objects, e.g. green, actually ingredient in them. This may be schematized as p (a,Gb), meaning occasion a prehends b as G. Occasions have an irreducible particularity. Gb and Gc stand for distinct instantiations of the same eternal object and physical prehensions are determined to particular termini (PR 363). Prehensions are also particulars (PR 338), so p (a,Gb) and p (a,Gc) stand for distinct components of a besides, and by virtue of, having distinct termini. Thus physical prehensions have a vectoral character, carrying evidence of their origin (PR 28, 182, 353f, 363). These are the bases for the particularity and sense of causal origin in CE.

Feeling is the subjective form of prehensions (PR 66, 337; AI 227). To perceive a green event is to feel it as green (PR 232f, 249, 353, 356). Whitehead further concludes, by "philosophical generalization,"¹⁴ that all actual entities are occasions of experience (SMW 107; 5 87; PR Pt. IV, Ch. VII). When a feels green occasion b, b is also a center of feeling. Since eternal objects are ways occasions form themselves, b is green because it feels greenly (PR 131, 174, 356, 364; AI 314f). But then a not only feels b as green, it feels greenly itself (AI 321f) and precisely because it prehends b and feels its feeling (PR 362, 246f). In so doing, it conforms to or reenacts b’s feeling¹⁵ (PR 323, 363f, 374f; AI 235).

Again practicing philosophical generalization, Whitehead assimilates efficient causation to physical prehension: b acts on a when a prehends b (SMW 61, 155; PR 91, 327, 336, 361; AI 250f). If there is no action at a distance, a cannot directly prehend distant occasion c, e.g., something green on a hillside. However, we do learn about distant events by perception. Hence, a must prehend c indirectly by prehending contiguous occasion b through one of b’s objectifying eternal objects, P (PR 468), i.e., p (a,Gc) requires p (aPb). Now it would seem that P must be identical with G to mediate the relationship p (a,Gc) for a reenacts c’s feeling by reenacting b’s intervening feeling. Causation/prehension is a flow of feeling (PR 362f, 374).¹⁶

Even this does not say enough. For a to prehend c, it must not merely enact the same object as c (there are many green things in the universe that do not prehend each other), but enact it because c feels it. Again, its access to c is through b, so it must prehend b’s prehending of c, i.e. p (a,Gc) requires not just p (aCh) but p (a,p[b.Gc]) (PR 183f, 345).

Many features of this analysis are objectionable. (a) It reverts to the ancient notion that effects must resemble their cause, a notion frequently violated In empirically grounded explanations of modem science and common sense.

(b) The clutter of prehensions and enactments is unimaginable since a vast number of events intervene between the termini a quo and ad quem of perception, viz., events in the physical and physiological media between the perceptual object, sense organ, and percipient event in the brain. Whitehead supposes a to reenact feelings from all the occasions between it and c and have some sense of the distinct origin of each component in its complex prehension. This may not violate type economy (do not multiply types of entities beyond those required to explain the data); but surely some principle of instance economy is also reasonable (do not suppose the occurrence of instances of familiar types where there is not specific evidence). The challenge, then, is to account for the data (here, the phenomena of conscious perception) without Whitehead’s clutter of prehensions.

(c) Whitehead is forced to use the concept of negative prehension lavishly to explain why there is no conscious evidence of the processes he postulates. Suppose, for instance, a prehends Cc via body occasion b -- I see a green object and am conscious of using my eyes. Now a would normally be conscious of b not through G, but through a different eternal object S (I am aware of my eye not as a green object, but through a slight muscle strain). Even if b is G, a is not aware of it. He must have suppressed the prehension of Gb which mediates his prehension of Cc. Even an outside observer, e.g. an oculist, will not see b as C (the eye occasion as green) when he examines it while a is looking at a green object. Nor would the observer expect to see the occasions between hillside and the eye, in the nervous system, or percipient occasion a in the brain as green. Thus, innumerable feeling-greenly’s are negatively prehended and all but one occasion in the sequence through which feeling greenly allegedly flows are objectified under eternal objects different from green. As long as Whitehead is free to appeal to negative prehension to explain why we are not aware of what is occurring, he can assume anything he wishes without danger of empirical falsification.

(d) Whitehead’s positive basis for the doctrine of flow of feeling is generalization from single instances. A number of occasions (ex hypothesis) are involved in a perceptual chain. At one end ‘Whitehead finds himself a percipient occasion with a feeling somehow connected with green; at the other end he sees something green. He generalizes from his own case that all occasions, including that perceived, have feeling. He generalizes from the perceived occasion that all occasions in the chain are green. He constructs the notion of feeling greenly¹⁷ and generalizes that this is the relation of feeling to green in all the relevant occasions. All of these generalizations disregard appearances to the contrary on the ad hoc assumption of negative prehension.

(e) Another reason for the doctrine of reenactment of feelings is White-head’s apparent view that data must somehow be taken into the percipient occasion before¹⁸ it can be used in the transmutations of CE and projections of PI. But if my arguments for his early theory, and extending it, are correct, these doctrines are unnecessary. They multiply perceptual processes beyond what is necessary to explain the phenomena of perception.

(f) A problem remains of determining the relation between the entities of microphysics and perceptible macroevents. Whitehead solves this problem in his later theory by reconstructing microentities in terms of actual occasions and macroevents as appearances created by transmutations and projections from the data of simple physical prehensions. Whitehead’s early theory has resources in the concept of scientific objects for solving this problem without introducing atomic, actual occasions as a new order of entities or classifying perceptual objects as illusions. However, I do not have space to pursue the topic here.

Whitehead assimilates causation to prehension and accepts the principle that there is usually no action at a distance (SMW 78; PR 180-82, 247, 260). Influence must be transmitted from occasion to contiguous occasion, and perceptual information from distant occasion c reaches a by transmission through intervening occasions such as b. Whitehead does admit the possibility of prehension at a distance (PR 345). Telepathy may be an example (PR 387, 469; AI 318). If we identify the percipient event with a brain occasion, then the immediate sense of causal relations between external objects and sense organs would seem to be another (SMW 215; PR 180; AI 275). Both of these cases are problematic because we may be mistaken about what we sense or there may in fact be a submerged process of transmission. Both cases are rare. Whitehead mentions them, I think, to make the point that the principle of no action at a distance is not metaphysical. It is a scientific principle con-finned for most causal relations in this cosmic epoch (PR 468f). Hence, the theory of ordinary perception must provide for the transmission of sensa/feelings from occasion to contiguous occasion.

Whitehead’s assimilation of causation to prehension is required by external demands from his metaphysic rather than the phenomena of perception. He is truer to these phenomena in his early theory when lie allows perception at a distance. The act of perceiving in the early theory both transcends the whole field of perception and freely ranges across it to disclose profiles and relations of attended events, most of which are at some distance from the percipient. Perception does require causal conditions and the transmission of energy In which there is no action at a distance; but we could not know the active conditions of the ingression of sense-objects into attended events or of the percipient event itself were there no perception at a distance. ‘There is perception at a distance but not action at a distance; so perception is not causation. The doctrine of transmission of energy does not require the doctrine of transmission of sensa or flow of feeling from event to contiguous event. Rather we need to conceive of the intentionality of perception by which a percipient event here discloses a broad perceptual field, discriminating events, objects, and relations there and there and there the particular selection being a function of causal conditions.

Final Remarks

In this paper I have been motivated by a desire to defend the empirical character of epistemology. The analysis of perception should appeal as much as possible to the phenomena of perceiving. My empiricism is a liberal one in that I accept reflective observation or introspection as a form of immediate experience on a par with the outward looking form of sense-awareness which I describe. I also accept theoretic, quasi-scientific constructs, such as that of unconscious perceptual judgment, to supplement the appeal to phenomena when they are necessary to explain differences in forms of perception.

The espousal of an empirical approach to perceiving does not commit one to empiricism in general, though the results of my analysis confirm the reliability and cognitive richness of conscious perception. However, I do not consider other possible forms of experience, e.g. non-introspective, non-perceptual forms of intuition, nor do I consider the possibility that free constructions of the intellect are necessary to learn what can be learned from experience.

I have criticized Whitehead’s practice of philosophical generalization in specific instances where it leads him to evaluate perception as illusory or to explain an illusoriness which he antecedently assumes. However, I do not reject metaphysics as such, nor its use to interpret the results of perception, nor the attempt to subsume perceptual activities and relationships under metaphysical categories. I would only wish to find a metaphysic which does more justice to the plain testimony of the senses.

Whitehead devised his metaphysic to elucidate forms of experience besides perception and to systematize concepts drawn from other sources. My argument has not shown that external considerations are insufficient to require a metaphysical reinterpretation of perceiving along the lines which Whitehead proposes. One would have to present a comprehensive alternative to show that. At best my argument has shown that certain problems can be solved while accepting perception more nearly at face value than Whitehead did in his later theory. ‘These solutions are in harmony with the central theses of his early theory.

References

II -- Whitehead, "The Idealistic Interpretation of Einstein’s Theory." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s. 22 (1921-22), 130-34.

TSM -- Whitehead, "Time, Space, and Material," Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol. 2, "Problems of Science and Philosophy" (1919). 44-57.

Notes

I Whitehead’s thoughts on perception were continually developing, so any division of his writings obscures some changes within each grouping and continuities across the boundaries. Since my aim is to defend a view dialectically rather than contribute to minutiae of scholarship, I take the liberty of combining his writings into an early group, ending with The Principle of Relativity, and a later group, including everything afterwards. Two reasonably coherent, significantly different theories of perception emerge from these groupings.

2 At this point I extrapolate from Whitehead.

3 "Apprehension" and "recognition" are Whitehead’s terms: "discernment" is mine. Whitehead’s discussion of relations and their discrimination is somewhat fragmentary.

4 The analysis of causal judgments in terms of constant conjunction is, of course, much more complex than I am able to indicate.

5 I assume that ideas are in some sense copied from impressions, but I attribute much more freedom to the imagination and intellect than does Hume.

6 Unobserved sense-objects are not actual ingredients of any event and cannot be part of the perceptual object. Objective dispositions are. They are among the entities we represent in perceptual judgments. Whitehead is not very clear on this point.

7 The claims in this paragraph extend and perhaps diverge somewhat from Whiteheads early views. One has little direct evidence to go on, mainly his discussion of the sixth constant of externality, The Community of Nature (PNK 78f).

8 Called "delusions’ by Whitehead.

9 Or at its surface -- depth perception involves complications which I cannot consider in this paper.

10 I do not have space to criticize all the flaws in Whiteheads later theory, nor explore their sources, nor extol the many insights of this great man.

11 Some of Whitehead’s remarks suggest that he thinks geometrical objects are projected in PI: but it is hard to conceive what they are projected upon, since focal regions and apparent distances are defined by such objects. Other remarks suggest that Whitehead thinks that the geometrical properties of the contemporary world, that is, those revealed as properties of the regions upon which sensa are projected, are directly disclosed in perception: but then one is puzzled as to how we can veridically perceive geometrical figures at a distance or distances themselves, yet must project sensa. The issue of interpretation is too complex to discuss here. It requires a careful evaluation of Whiteheads theory of strain feelings and projectors (PR Pt. IV, Ch. II and Ill). I shall assume that the first interpretation is correct and geometrical objects are projected.

12 1 am ignoring the percipient’s use in CE of eternal objects gained by conceptual reversion, which makes it even more illusory as a disclosure of the actual world.

13 Whitehead does not use the term judgment at this point, but see S 50; PR 100, 260, 267; MT 181 for various summaries of PI in which its judgmental character emerges.

14 ". . . the utilization of specific notions, applying to a restricted group of facts, for the divination of generic notions which apply to all facts." (PR 8).

15 That is, when subsequent internal phases of a do not dismiss the feeling from its final satisfaction, the phase at which to feel greenly truly means to be green. Presumably media events must feel greenly in their final satisfaction if prehension of them by the percipient is to give him information about the original event consciously perceived as green.

16 A further ground for the doctrine of reenactment lies in Whitehead’s rejection of the concept of substance and assimilation of endurance to causation and thus prehension. As entity is permanently qualified by property G if it is composed of successive events e. f. g. . . . . each of which reenacts G by physically prehending its predecessor,

17 This notion is presumably familiar (the feeling is me) but not at all clear. I am conscious of having feelings about green: but these vary according to how many green walls have enclosed me, my associations with the forest, how much lettuce I have eaten, etc. That each experience of green has a feeling tone, I am somewhat doubtingly prepared to concede. That it is always the same feeling and a different one from the feeling tones of other colors, I do not clearly experience.

18 Chronologically? Logically? Whitehead’s doctrine of the internal phases of the actual occasion is very obscure. The doctrine also appears to be another example of philosophical over-construction and over-generalization. Whitehead brings together various mental activities which may be reflectively observed on separate occasions. He constructs the concept of a single occasion performing these acts. He then generalizes that all occasions pass through at least a rudimentary form of each phase. He then must suppose additional negative prehensions to explain why most occasions do not detect these phases in themselves, nor do outside observers.

Charles Hartshorne shares with most other metaphysically oriented philosophers a strong drive toward the general. Many people seem to have this drive to some degree. They will seek to understand some object or phenomenon by finding out the general class of things to which it belongs. If they are curious about what monotremes are or what causes rainbows, they may look into the matter. When they find out that monotremes are egg-laying mammals and that rainbows are instances of light refraction, they are usually satisfied. Of course, questions may arise about what mammals are or about the principles of light refraction, and answers might be sought in terms of still more general principles of biology or physics. But usually in a short time this process comes to an end. The person accepts a contingent principle just because the data support it or some authority in the field assures him it is true, and not because it is an instance of a still more general principle. Metaphysically oriented philosophers are not usually inclined to stop at such a point. They want to find ultimate principles and categories which are general in an absolute sense. Such principles and categories would apply to and explain the whole of reality, not merely some segment of it. As Hartshorne puts it: "The philosopher is seeking principles so general, so basic, that they are no longer special cases to be explained by the more general principles, but are themselves the most general of ideas, true not only of the actual world but of any conceivable one" (RSP 29). Such principles are called metaphysical principles. They are more general than scientific principles, but they should be understood as being on a continuum with scientific principles.¹ Like scientific principles they are intended to give us literal and accurate information about our universe.

This approach has been widely attacked in recent years by analytic philosophers who claim that ultimate principles of the kind set forth by metaphysically oriented philosophers involve misuse of language and are therefore not merely false but nonsensical. This attack, however, has not succeeded in driving the enemy from the field. Charles Hartshorne has maintained that the analytic philosophers have succeeded only in tearing down antiquated metaphysical castles. Their attack, he claims, is effective only against the principles and categories of classical metaphysics on which it is focused and has no force against neoclassical metaphysics.² It certainly does seem that Hartshorne knows more about analytic philosophy than analytical philosophers know about neoclassical metaphysics! Though my inclination now is toward analytic philosophy, I must admit that Hartshorne’s point has some cogency. His efforts to bring neoclassical metaphysics into dialogue with analytic philosophy have been largely ignored by analytic philosophers, regrettably, I believe, since much could be learned by such a dialogue. I would like to encourage such a dialogue by focusing on one aspect of Hartshorne’s metaphysics from the perspective of analytic philosophy.

My procedure will be to examine the category of feeling, first by sketching briefly Hartshorne’s position that feeling is a metaphysical category. Second, I will attempt to lay bare some of the linguistic assumptions of this position. Third, I will provide a criticism of this position from the perspective of analytic philosophy. Fourth, I will make some suggestions about what might account for the interest in making feeling an ultimate category. Hartshorne’s philosophy is complex, rich, and subtle, and if more than fifteen years of interest in his philosophy have taught me nothing else, they have taught me that effective argument against his position is never easy. So I do not think of what I have to say here as a definitive comment on the subject, but rather as a contribution to a dialogue that Hartshorne himself has sought.

I

Charles Hartshorne is one of the most vigorous contemporary proponents of panpsychism, the position that every genuine individual has mental attributes. This position perhaps may be developed best by first noting that the entities which make up the universe seem to fit into a hierarchy. As Hartshorne puts it: "Thus it is a reasonable view that all things, so far as they are individuals rather than aggregates, fall upon a single scale . . . running from the least particle of inorganic matter to the great universe itself" (BH 112). We may then attempt to determine just what the variables of this scale are. Some of the variables (e.g., ability to see) will be local variables which apply within a certain range of the scale, but not to the whole scale. The scale itself, however, must be defined by variables whose ranges are coextensive with the whole scale. Obviously such variables, which Hartshorne calls cosmic variables or metaphysical categories, must characterize human beings since human beings are on the scale. It is therefore reasonable to proceed by noting some of the most general characteristics of human beings and examining them to see if they can be generalized to lower and higher individuals on the scale. Some general characteristics of human beings are that they are social animals, they have minds, they feel, and they make decisions. According to Hartshorne, all of the characteristics I have just mentioned are cosmic variables. He maintains that all real entities, from the smallest subatomic particle to the universe, exhibit social characteristics such as feeling and freedom (e.g., LP 191-233; RSP 29-43; BH 111-23). The category of the social is too broad and complex to permit its examination here. I will focus, therefore, on the category of feeling, which is a necessary element of the social.

To understand feeling as a metaphysical category we must begin at the human level. At this level, feeling can be understood in terms of our own direct experience. We all have known joy, satisfaction, suffering, pain, etc., and therefore we are directly acquainted with feeling at the human level. When we use the term ‘feeling’ as a metaphysical category, however, we must take care not to fall into gross anthropomorphisms. Each level in the scale of entities will exemplify this category in its own way. Hartshorne spells this out very clearly in the following passage:

The word ‘feeling’ refers to a certain internal state of affairs whether it is used in reference to human beings or butterflies. But we must remember that even in human beings, feelings vary greatly in terms of intensity and definiteness (BH 117f). These variations are far from exhausted in the known range of human or even animal experience. The feelings of an atom may be of very low intensity and may be very vague compared to the feelings of a rabbit, but there is a continuity that justifies our using the same term in both cases.

Hartshorne argues for this position in numerous places in his writings. Two of the arguments which he uses may throw further light on feeling as a metaphysical category.

(1) All terms which are used to describe reality must initially be drawn from human experience because this is the only sort of experience to which we have direct access (BH 121). If we attempt to describe the passive role of some entity, we will find that we have no categories to use except human categories which in their natural use are closely related to feeling. Scientists speak, for example, of atoms ‘responding’ or ‘being in a satisfied state’. Before we dismiss such expressions as mere metaphors we should consider whether we have an alternative literal" description available which is devoid of implications of feeling. It is Harts-home’s contention that we must describe such entities as atoms in language which implies feeling if we are to describe them at all. If this is the case, what sense does it make to say that they do not actually feel? All of their observable features are compatible with their having (perhaps to a very low degree) feelings. No possible observation could show them to be wholly devoid of feelings because there is no way to "get inside" them and experience the absence of all feeling.³ Since we cannot avoid using categories that imply feelings in our descriptions of the passive role of entities and since we have no conceivable way of knowing entities to be devoid of feelings, there is nothing to be gained by denying that all entities have feelings (RSP 33; of Fl 349). Such a category, according to Hartshorne, is for all purposes an ultimate category.

(2) The second argument is based on the premise that it is impossible to draw a clear line between living and nonliving matter. We know that human beings feel, and we generally believe that other animals feel. A worm or an ameba will respond to a stimulus in a way that strongly suggests the presence of very primitive feeling. And, as Hartshorne puts It: "From man to molecules and atoms we have a series of modes of organization; at no point can one say, below this there could be no experience" (CSPM 6). Contemporary scientists have a difficult time drawing a line between living and nonliving matter. Stephen Toulmin in Foresight and Understanding, for example, points out that "any arguments which justify biochemists in speaking of genes as ‘molecules of extreme complexity’ justify us also speaking of atoms and molecules as ‘organisms of extreme simplicity’" (FU 78). Seen in this light, it may not seem so farfetched to suggest that an atom’s ‘response’ to its environment is really a kind of feeling.

For those who are not familiar with the basic tenets of panpsychism, two objections are likely to arise at this point. (1) It might be objected that it is absurd to speak of books, coffee cups, or planets as having feelings. Hartshorne, of course, agrees that this would be absurd, but denies that his theory implies it. The objects mentioned are not really individuals, they are collections of individuals. A stone, he points out, lacks sufficient unification to be an individual which might be a member of a society, but it may itself be a society (RSP 35f). His position on this point is stated succinctly in the following passage:

(2) It might also be objected that since in human beings and higher animals the ability to feel is dependent upon the functioning of a nervous system, those entities (like atoms) which have no nervous systems would obviously be unable to feel. Hartshorne’s answer is that this analogy does not apply. He writes:

Panpsychism may seem initially to be a position which is sharply at odds with common sense. Upon more careful examination, however, this is by no means as obvious as it might have seemed. The issue is essentially a logical one and purported counterexamples drawn from observations generally have little force against it.

Hartshorne’s contention that ‘feeling’ is a metaphysical category is not a mere facade on his metaphysical structure, but an integral part of the structure itself. His metaphysics is unified in his concept of God as "the all-sensitive mind of the world-body" (BH 208). If, as Hartshorne maintains, the universe is made up of sentient, free individuals, there must be some dominant individual in the universe as a whole or there would be total chaos. This dominant individual, God, is not a tyrannical individual ruling the universe from the outside. The universe itself is a single coherent organism with God as its dominant member (MVG 70). All of the metaphysical categories, including feeling, find their primary exemplification in God, God, as Perfect Being, includes all reality within himself. He feels the feelings of every individual in the universe and preserves forever the values inherent in these experiences (RSP 119). It is therefore very important to Hartshorne’s position that even so complex an object as the "world-whole" can be said to have feelings (BH 118f).

II

Before beginning a critical analysis of Hartshorne’s attempt to generalize feeling and establish it as a metaphysical category, we must get a fuller understanding of his view of metaphysics. Just what are metaphysical categories, and how are they developed? Hartshorne writes that "metaphysics fries to express what all possibilities of existence have in common" (CSPM 162f). This presupposes that there are qualities which all individuals have in common. Metaphysical categories designate those qualities. Metaphysical statements make use of metaphysical categories in giving general explanations of reality. Such statements purport to tell us something about the world, yet they cannot be falsified by any conceivable state of affairs. They state necessary truths and are grounded in the meanings of their terms. Hartshorne writes:

Perhaps Hartshorne’s position can be clarified by considering first how he deals with some objections to his point of view and second how a metaphysical category is developed.

There are two possible objections which deserve special consideration because Hartshorne is aware of them and deals with them explicitly. The first is that metaphysical judgments of the kind advanced by Hartshorne do in fact exclude certain possible situations. For example, his principle that all individuals have feeling excludes the possibility of there existing an individual which does not have feeling. It seems to be dogmatic denial of a possible state of affairs. Hartshorne’s reply is: "The purpose of metaphysical theory is not necessarily to cut off what would otherwise be possible alternatives; it is perhaps rather to make us more clearly conscious of the nature of that to which, save through logical confusion or mere verbalism, there can be no alternative" (2:479). In other words, Hartshorne denies that metaphysical statements are in any real sense excluding a conceivable state of affairs. If it could be shown that a metaphysical statement did exclude some conceivable state of affairs, that would be sufficient grounds for holding that the statement it not a metaphysical one. If some category can be shown not to include a conceivable individual, that would be sufficient grounds for holding that it is not a metaphysical category. According to Hartshorne, the metaphysical category of feeling excludes no possible individual. The notion of a nonfeeling being is nonsensical. No positive characteristic which can be observed is incompatible with a being’s having feelings. To assert, therefore, that an individual has feelings is to assert something that cannot be falsified by any possible observation.

But this very characteristic of metaphysical statements raises a second objection. It might be claimed that since Hartshorne’s metaphysical statements exclude nothing positive, they cannot be genuine affirmations of anything. Hartshorne, to the contrary, contends that while it is true that metaphysical statements exclude nothing positive, it is also true that they cannot fail to be positively exemplified (LP 284). Consider the statement that something exists. Hartshorne maintains that such a statement denies no positive state of affairs and therefore is not falsifiable in any conceivable way. Yet it seems clearly to be meaningful and is exemplified by any imaginable situation (CSPM 162f). According to Hartshorne, philosophers who hold that all meaningful statements about the world must negate some conceivable state of affairs are simply begging the question. They have taken a principle which is true for empirical statements and assumed that it is true for all statements. Their principle declares meaningless those statements which might serve as counterexamples to their principle. Statements like "Something exists" violate their principle and yet do not seem to be meaningless on any other grounds than the arbitrary principle they have laid down. If the statement "Something exists" is meaningful even though it excludes no possible positive state of affairs, then perhaps the same is true for "Every individual feels." At least, Hartshorne would claim, the latter is not obvious nonsense.

Let us now see if we can get a clearer picture of what is involved in the development of a metaphysical category. Hartshorne provides the following description of this process:

Feeling is certainly a variable of human experience, so let us consider how feeling might be developed into a metaphysical category following the suggestions in this passage. The starting point seems to present few problems. The meaning of this word is secured, according to Hartshorne, by the experience of joy, sorrow, pain, etc., which are common to all human beings. No one can sincerely deny direct acquaintance with the referent of the word ‘feeling’. In its everyday uses the word ‘feeling’ refers for the most part to the experiences of animals having nervous systems. If this restriction in meaning is retained, then clearly the word ‘feeling’ is not completely general in reference and is not a metaphysical category.

According to Hartshorne, however, this restriction is arbitrary. No observations we have made or could possibly make could prove the absence in a cell or a molecule or even an atom of the same sort of thing that the word ‘feeling’ refers to when it is applied to human beings. The restriction on the use of the word ‘feeling’ in everyday language seems to be an accident and can be removed without generating any obvious absurdities. Its meaning has been altered in the sense that it may now refer to a broader range of reality. What could possibly be gained by restricting its range of application in such a way that some actual or possible being would fall outside its scope? If nothing could be gained by this, then the word should be completely generalized and recognized as a metaphysical category. The word ‘feeling’, thus generalized, cannot fail to have a referent regardless of the form reality may take.

One might initially think that this process admits of a reductio ad absurdum. Why cannot any word be made into a metaphysical category by this process? Consider what would happen if one attempted to use this process, for example, on the color green. The word "green" refers to a certain range of the visible spectrum. Its most primitive meaning involves the exclusion of the other colors. If it were generalized so that its range of application were the entire visible spectrum (while still retaining its basic meaning), a contradiction would result. Something could then be green and not green at the same time and in the same respect. The restrictions on the application of the word "green" in ordinary language turn out not to be arbitrary ones, but are the necessary consequence of the meaning or reference of the word.

One might also argue that in the expansion of the range of application of a word to make it into a metaphysical category the original meaning would be lost. Hartshorne denies that this is so on the basis of his general theory of meaning. I cannot give this theory the treatment it deserves at this point, but crudely stated the theory is that the meaning of a predicate word is its referent. If the meaning of a word is such that it ordinarily refers to x as an element of A and B and we expand its range of application so that it refers to xy as an element of A and B and C and D, it still retains its original meaning because it still refers to x. The only check on the process of generalization which is needed, according to Hartshorne, is the sort of contradiction which we observed developing when we attempted the metaphysical generalization of the word "green." The continued meaningfulness of the term generalized is guaranteed by the principle that the meaning of a predicate word is its referent.

III

I approach this section with some uneasiness. The purpose of the section is to provide a criticism of Hartshorne’s use of feeling as a metaphysical category from the perspective of analytic philosophy. But what is that perspective? Analytic philosophy is a diverse and complex movement rather than a position. It would be foolhardy indeed for me to claim to speak for analytic philosophers. On the other band, it would be dishonest to claim the basic method I use here as my own. I have been deeply influenced by the later Wittgenstein, Austin, Strawson, Ryle, Searle, and other contemporary philosophers who are sometimes referred to as "ordinary language philosophers." The basic idea to which I shall appeal has been stated (perhaps somewhat vaguely) by William P. Alston, one of the outstanding contemporary philosophers of language, in the following passage:

In support of this claim, Alston cites passages from the writings of Ryle, Nowell-Smith, Evans, Strawson, and Warnock. I want to try to show the implications of this view of meaning for Hartshorne’s concept of feeling as a metaphysical category. My strategy will be to argue that Hartshorne’s use of the word ‘feeling’ deviates substantially from its ordinary usage while at the same time presupposing that usage and that this makes its use as a metaphysical category impossible.

To begin with let us note that Hartshorne was correct when he stated that in ordinary language the word ‘feeling’ is applied primarily to human beings. When I try to think of natural non-philosophical uses of the word ‘feeling’, I come up with examples like: "She feels happy," "He feels sick," "I feel like playing chess," "In which tooth do you feel the pain?" "I feel sorry for her," "He feels remorse over what he did," "She feels hopeful about the outcome," etc. It seems that in most ordinary cases where the word ‘feel’ is used in connection with a human subject there is a specification of what is felt. What is felt may be a relatively simple sensation or emotion, or it may be something logically tied to social conventions, like the conventions which make it possible to call the movement of pieces on a board "playing chess."

When we extend the use of the word ‘feel’ to animals, we tend to observe this distinction. In general, people are more likely to be comfortable saying that a dog feels happy than saying that the dog feels like playing chess. Some people, to be sure, have a strong tendency toward anthropomorphisms in the case of certain favored animals like dogs, cats, and horses. They might not hesitate to say that such animals feel remorse over what they have done. But would not most people be a little uneasy with the notion that an earthworm feels remorse over what it has done? Even in the case of simple emotions and sensations we tend to make distinctions among the kinds of animals to which we would apply them. We would probably speak of a bird feeling happy or feeling pain, and we might be inclined to speak of an ant being in pain, but I suspect that most people would find it a little odd to speak of an ant being happy. Although we notice that an ameba responds to acid, we might very well hesitate before saying that the ameba feels pain.

Why are we inclined to discriminate the way we do in extending the use of the word ‘feel’ to apply to animals? My suggestion is that this is because the criteria for the ordinary use of this word involve observable circumstances. We would not say that a dog feels like playing chess no matter what his behavior because the circumstances of that behavior would not include the appropriate social conventions. We might say that a dog feels happy at times because his behavior is rather like that of human beings when they feel happy. The behavior of an injured ant might remind us somewhat of the behavior of an injured person, but I have never seen an ant do anything that reminded me of the kinds of things people do when they are happy. The avoidance reaction of an ameba when dilute acid is introduced into its environment may remind me a little of the way a person jerks his hand away from a hot stove, but it also reminds me of the way people blink when a bright light is flashed in their eyes. I think I can see how someone might want to stretch the criteria a little and speak of an ameba’s feeling pain, but it certainly strikes me as a borderline case of the ordinary use of the word.

I have been trying to build at least a prima facie case that the criteria for the ordinary use of the word ‘feel’ include observable behavior on the part of the animal which is said to feel something which is fairly similar to the behavior of human beings when they are said to feel the same thing. This case can perhaps be made stronger still by calling attention to some features of the way we use the word ‘feel’ in connection with human beings. It is obvious that a person can feel happy and not show it in his behavior, so to say that a person feels happy is not to make a statement about the person’s behavior. On the other hand, I can imagine circumstances in which a person’s behavior is such that if anyone observed it and denied that the person felt happy I would be inclined to think the observer simply did not understand the meaning of the expression ‘feel happy’. It is only because such behavior is possible that we can say that a person might feel happy but not show it. Interestingly enough, when we speak of animals as feeling happy or feeling pain, we are inclined to emphasize the behavioral criteria of the use of these expressions even more. There is something a little odd about saying that a dog feels happy but is not showing it. I suggest that there are two reasons for this: (1) the paradigm cases for the ordinary use of the word ‘feel’ are those in which human beings exhibit ‘feeling behavior’, and situations where someone could be said to feel but not show it are highly complex situations which are parasitic on the paradigm cases; and (2) there is a general recognition that animal behavior differs from human behavior, and we are suspicious of applications that diverge too much from the paradigm cases.

My contention is that there is no possible behavior on the part of an electron or the universe as a whole which is sufficiently analogous to human behavior to make it possible to apply the word ‘feel’ in its ordinary sense to either. What behavior of an electron or the universe as a whole is even remotely like the behavior of a human being who feels happy or feels pain? At one point Hartshorne writes: "It is to be observed that physiology can as yet furnish no reason for denying feeling even to so complex an object as the world-whole, for we understand too little how feeling is possible to an animal organism to be able to infer that it is impossible that a different type of whole, even one so vast as the world, should feel" (BH 118). The problem, however, is not that we know on the basis of physiological evidence that the universe (Or an electron) does not feel; the problem is rather that the appropriate behavioral criteria for the use of the word in this setting are absent, and so we do not know what it means to use the word ‘feel’ here.

It will not, I think, solve the problem to point out that there is no clear place to draw the line between the sorts of beings that are ordinarily said to have feelings and the sorts of things that are not ordinarily said to have feelings. There are paradigm cases of things that can be said to have feelings (human beings) and paradigm cases of things that cannot be said to have feelings (electrons), and there are borderline cases where we are uncertain about whether to use the word ‘feel’ or not (amebas). But this is true of any word, and we are not ordinarily bothered by this. A fictional narrative three hundred pages long could be a novel, and one that is ten pages long could not. What about one that is seventy pages long? Or forty? There are borderline cases where we are unsure whether to call a fictional narrative a short novel or a long short story, but that is not taken as a justification for extending the use of the word "novel" to cover all fictional narratives.

My argument so far has focused on third person uses of the word ‘feel’. After all, when we speak of an atom or the universe as having feeling, we are using third person language. But perhaps it might be objected that Hartshorne avoids the difficulties I raise by his emphasis on first person language as the basis for the meaning of the word ‘feel’. If the meaning of the word ‘feel’ is established by introspectively connecting the word with the internal reality it designates, then I have a meaning for the word which I can imaginatively generalize in applying it to atoms or the universe. This objection is difficult to answer briefly, but I have two reasons for thinking that Hartshorne cannot successfully meet this criticism. First, if the meaning of the word ‘feel’ is established solely by introspection, then the word would be a word in what analytical philosophers call a "private language." A private language is one in which the words used refer to that which can only be experienced by the speaker of the language and therefore in principle cannot be taught to another person since the other person could never know the referents of the terms. The concept of a private language involves notorious difficulties.⁴ It is widely held that the meaning of a word cannot be established privately.

Hartshorne himself has acknowledged this, recognizing a private language of feeling as a paradox "so powerfully attacked by Wittgenstein" (LP 154). His method of avoiding this paradox will not, I think, work here. He writes:

But such a move can be made without circularity in reasoning only after the meaningfulness of attributing feelings to God has been established, and that is what my criticism calls into question.

My second reason for thinking that Hartshorne cannot meet the criticism I have made by an introspective derivation of the meaning of the word ‘feel’ is that if its meaning could be established in this way it could not, with the meaning so established, have any third person uses. Unless there are public criteria for the use of a word like ‘feel’ which involve observable behavior and the circumstances of that behavior, there can be no such thing as a correct use of that word as applied to others. Norman Malcolm makes this point in the following way:

Unless we have public criteria for the use of the word ‘feel’, what sense does it make to say that an atom or the universe feels anything? Why, for example, is it "plain enough" that the feelings of an atom must be vastly different from the feeling of a dog because their structures are different (BH 168)? If the meaning of the word ‘feel’ is established solely by introspection, then the connection of feeling to structure is Just as contingent as the connection of feeling to behavior. On this basis there would be no reason to say that it could not be the case that an electron has all the feelings a human being has. I am not even sure that one could not just as meaningfully say that chairs and typewriters have feelings. Perhaps they are wholes which are less well unified than their most unified parts (LP 192), but why does this prevent me from saying they have feelings if feeling is only contingently connected to structure and behavior? When we abandon circumstances and behavior as criteria for feeling, we are in an "Alice in Wonderland" kind of world.

It may still be maintained, however, that there is a serious weakness in my criticism of Hartshorne. I have tried to show that to make feeling a metaphysical category requires that the word ‘feel’ be used in ways which are very unlike the ways it is used in ordinary language. The immediate response is likely to be: "and why is ordinary language sacred?" Almost every academic discipline develops its own terminology, and this usually involves taking words from ordinary language and making them technical terms by modifying their meanings. Problems need not arise from this practice so long as we keep in mind when the word is being used in its ordinary sense and when it is being used as a technical term. Hartshorne contends that this practice is necessary for philosophy. He writes:

It is quite clear from this passage and others that Hartshorne feels considerable respect for ordinary language. It does the job for which it is intended quite well, but the job for which it is intended is not the job the philosophers must do. The philosopher may use ordinary language as a source of insight, but he must also recognize its limitations. One of the clearest expressions of this notion occurs in the following passage:

To say that Hartshorne’s metaphysics involves a modification of ordinary language is therefore merely to point out what he himself not only admits, but even insists upon.

Let us examine briefly the implications of this view of the relation between philosophical and ordinary language for feeling as a metaphysical category. The metaphysical use of the word ‘feeling’ is supposed to be an extension of its ordinary use, but not a violation of it. This view is clearly stated in a passage in which Hartshorne defends Whitehead’s use of the word in the following passage:

The metaphysical use of the word ‘feeling’, according to Hartshorne, extends its ordinary use, but does not contradict that ordinary use. Ordinary language does make a distinction between things which do feel (such as trees and planets), but that distinction is respected in using feeling as a metaphysical category. Ordinary language, however, is neutral on the question of whether electrons or the universe as a whole can have feelings. This is not a common sense issue but a metaphysical one, so there is no reason to think that the issue can be settled by an examination of ordinary language.

It is my contention, however, that the metaphysical use of the word ‘feeling’ does not merely extend its range of application, but violates the criteria which give the word meaning in ordinary language. I have tried to show that one of the criteria for the use of the word ‘feel’ in ordinary language is that the thing which is said to feel must at least be capable of observable behavior which is very similar to human behavior. To assert that something feels is not merely to assert that such behavior is possible, but the possibility of such behavior is at least a necessary condition for such an assertion. When Hartshorne extends the range of application for feeling the way he does, it is no longer clear what the word means since it cannot mean the same thing it does when it is used in ordinary language.

Consider the ability to do arithmetic. The attribution of this ability clearly involves behavioral criteria. We can test a person’s ability to do arithmetic by presenting him with certain problems and observing the way he goes about solving them. If a person regularly solves arithmetical problems which he has never seen before, then we say he has this ability. If a person regularly fails to solve such problems, then we say he lacks this ability. There may, of course, be borderline cases where we are unsure whether to say a person has the ability to do arithmetic or not. Also, it is perfectly possible for a person to have the ability to do arithmetic and never demonstrate his ability to solve problems. But it would be very odd indeed to attribute this ability where the entity to which it is attributed is in principle incapable of exhibiting problem-solving behavior.

I can, for example, imagine that someone might claim that his cat had the ability to do arithmetic because I can at least imagine the cat’s exhibiting the requisite behavior. We might therefore allow that it is meaningful to say that a cat has the ability to do arithmetic even though it is almost certainly false. But what would our reaction be if someone said that perhaps a hydrogen atom has the ability to do arithmetic? Here we are at a loss to know what is being claimed. The person might point out that this is not a problem for common sense and that we cannot solve the problem by an examination of ordinary language. He might say that he was using the expression "ability to do arithmetic" in roughly the same way it is used in ordinary language and is merely extending its range of application. In reply, we might point out that in ordinary language our use of this expression is governed by the requirement that the entity to which this ability is attributed at least be capable of exhibiting behavior like that of human beings when they solve problems in arithmetic. His use of the expression clearly violates this requirement, and it is therefore no longer clear what he means. It is not that we have some kind of evidence that hydrogen atoms lack this ability; it is simply that we do not know what it means to attribute this ability to them.

I believe that Hartshorne is wrong when he claims that ordinary language leaves open such questions as whether or not atoms can feel. Given the criteria that govern the word ‘feel’ in ordinary language, the question cannot even arise. Of course, it is open to Hartshorne to provide some different set of criteria for the use of the word ‘feel’ in accordance with which it would make sense to ask whether or not atoms can feel, but he has not done so. If he did, my guess would be that the question would become philosophically uninteresting. The importance of the issue lies in the claim that human beings are at one with the rest of the universe in terms of their inner experiences as well as in terms of their sheer physical characteristics. A definition of the word ‘feeling’ which is different from what the word means as it is now used in relation to human beings would probably have little charm for Hartshorne and other panpsychists.

IV

My exposition and critique of Hartshorne’s effort to make feeling a metaphysical category is now complete, but I am haunted by a question which Hartshorne raises in the following passage:

I have argued that what Hartshorne asks his readers to suppose in the passage is wrong, at least with respect to ‘feeling’ as a metaphysical category. I have tried to show that his treatment of feeling does violence to the ordinary use of the word which it presupposes. But why does he make this mistake? Why is it important for him to argue that the universe feels and is composed entirely of entities that feel? Why are other intelligent and sensitive philosophers and theologians attracted to this position? I do not think of the arguments I have presented as being especially subtle or profound, and Hartshorne has certainly read with care many of the works of the philosophers from which I derived them. Perhaps my arguments are unsound, but if they are not, why have not Hartshorne and other panpsychists arrived at my conclusion before? These questions are of deep concern to me, and I must confess that I have no answer which I feel is fully satisfactory and defensible. I do, however, have a tentative suggestion which may at least be a step in the direction toward an answer.

My suggestion is that a metaphysical description of the universe may be a sort of "picture preference" which serves to reinforce a person’s general orientation toward life.⁵ If this is true, then a person might have a strong inclination to believe that the picture preference which supports his general outlook on life is actually descriptive of the universe. Poetry and mythology may also serve this purpose to some extent, but a sophisticated person might accept this function without assuming that they provide a literal description of reality. But if this drive for a supportive picture of the universe were present in a person who also had a strong rationalistic bent, there might be a tendency to project the picture in question on the screen of the universe and assume that the projected picture is the reality.

Hartshorne himself indicates that his basic view of the scope of feeling was arrived at early in his life: "My own conviction that reality is indeed an ‘ocean of feelings’ (Whitehead’s phrase) was reached at an early age, without conscious reference to any philosophical writer or teacher, and was based, as I know from conversation Whitehead’s was, upon an attempted analysis of immediate experience, where alone reality can be encountered" (WP 148). Does this suggest that his view of feeling fulfills other needs of his in addition to his need to know the truth about reality? At any rate, there does seem to be a kind of general outlook on life which Hartshorne’s view of reality as an ‘ocean of feelings’ would support.

I do not assume that Hartshorne or any other process philosopher necessarily has just this particular outlook nor that their having it would be their reason for accepting this metaphysical position. I am only suggesting that if a person held Hartshorne’s view of feeling, it would tend to reinforce this sort of outlook on life. This outlook on life would involve sympathy and tenderness toward other human beings and animals; a kind of reverence for nature in general; a tendency to think of oneself as belonging in this world rather than as alienated from it; and a recognition that warmth and love are fundamental values for life. A person with such an outlook, it seems to me, might very well find the view that reality is an "ocean of feelings" very supportive. By projecting the most fundamental values of his own life onto the universe he would reinforce his feeling that he is really a part of this world rather than an intruder in it. His belief would provide a very important sense of security and confidence.

I do not mean to imply that if Hartshorne’s view of feeling does tend to reinforce a certain orientation toward life, this would in itself constitute the slightest reason for doubting that his view correctly describes reality. Rather, I am suggesting that if my criticism of Hartshorne’s view is correct, then this might be at least a partial explanation of why his position on the issue of feeling is attractive to him and to many philosophers and theologians.

References

BH -- Charles Hartshorne. Beyond Humanism. Chicago; Willett, Clark and Co., 1937.

CSPM -- Charles Hartshorne. Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. LaSalle, Ill.: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1970.

FU -- Stephen Toulmin. Foresight and Understanding. New York; Harper Torchbooks, 1961.

KC -- Norman Malcolm. Knowledge and Certainty. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Inc., 1963.

LP -- Charles Hartshorne. The Logic of Perfection. LaSalle, Ill.: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1962.

PI -- Sidney and Beatrice Rome, eds. Philosophical Interrogations. LaSalle, Ill.: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1970.

RSP -- Charles Hartshorne. Reality as Social Process. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1953.

WP -- Charles Hartshorne. Whitehead’s Philosophy. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1972.

1. William P. Alston. "Meaning and Use." The Theory of Meaning. Edited by G. H. R. Parkinson. London; The Oxford Press, 1968.

2. Charles Hartshorne, "Causal Necessities: An Alternative to Hume," Philosophical Review, 63 (1954), 479-99.

Notes

1 Hartshorne praises Whitehead for his understanding that "mathematics, physics, and biology have progressed because they have never been content simply to accept a handful of separate principles, but have looked for higher principles to unite the others" (WP 136).

2 See, e.g., Charles Hartshorne, "The Structure of Metaphysics: A Criticism of Lazarowitz’s Theory," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 19. no. 2 (December, 1958). Here Hartshorne indicates that he is in substantial agreement with much that Lazarowitz says in his attack on the principles of classical metaphysics. But he points out that Lazarowitz has not taken any examples from those representatives of modern metaphysics (presumably process philosophers) which Hartshorne would regard as the best.

3 How would one experience the "absence of all feeling" anyway? Hartshorne has generally insisted that there are no purely negative facts. To experience the absence of all feeling one would have to experience something else that is incompatible with feeling. And what could that possibly be?

4 For a brief but clear exposition of the notion of a private language and the difficulties it involves, see Norman Malcolm, "Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations" in Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations. edited by George Pitcher (New York: Anchor Books. 1966), pp. 65-103.

5 An approach somewhat similar to this has been suggested by John Wisdom and Morris Lazarowitz. They have, however, tended to develop this approach in Freudian terms. I am inclined to think that an Adlerian perspective is likely to prove more fruitful because of its teleological orientation.