Introduction
Process philosophy is a recent and twentieth century philosophy from United States of America. Its history reaches back to Ancient philosophy of H
eraclitus. But an elaborative doctrinal formation took place in the twentieth century with Alfred North Whitehead. Process philosophy makes us understand about the universe or the world in its subtleties and our place as humans. Process philosophy is a successful philosophy. With this philosophy, contemporary philosophers are able to explain world’s developments as best we can discern them. Process metaphysics holds that reality is processual. While stating that reality is processual, it never looses the hold of what is permanent, not changing and eternal. For example, God, in his primordial nature, does not change; he changes only in his consequent nature. Process philosophy is of two types: theistic and naturalistic. Theists see God as major player in cosmic process, order, its intelligibility, and its creative dimension. Naturalistic processists see nature explicable in a nature-immanent way and view world as self-managing and self-sufficient system.
In this essay, first I give process philosophy according to Whitehead, then the historical background, and finally the reasons why Whitehead chooses to be processual in his thought. With that, I end this paper.
1. What is Metaphysics for Whitehead?
According to Aristotle, metaphysics is the first philosophy - the science of first principles. The first principle, according to Whitehead, is the ultimate fact. The central problem in metaphysics for Whitehead is then to conceive the complete ultimate fact. We can only understand the complete fact through fundamental notions concerning the nature of reality. So it is necessary to discover those fundamental notions. And to find out the relevant and appropriate fundamental notions, it is better to conceive the nature of complete fact. This is the whole endeavor of metaphysics of Whitehead.[1] What we mean by fundamental notions then? Fundamental notions are such that in terms of which all our experiences are interpreted. They must be coherent, logical, necessary and usually framed into a system. They are general because they also share with other actual entities. These general features or principles constitute the nature of the actual entities, especially their ‘whatness,’ i.e., their essence. There are other special features other than fundamental and general feature which actually belong to special sciences. But metaphysics is concerned with generic features of actual entities. Let us see the definition of Whitehead as given by Ivor Leclerc:
This Whitehead could define metaphysics as the study of the completely general or generic features or characteristics of actual entities, the study of actual entities qua actual entities.[2]
This explanation is actually is against the traditional conception of metaphysics, which says, “the study of being qua being.” These fundamental notions are coherent and logical. Coherency means interrelation between notions, which means they should have logical connections between one another. Incoherence is the disconnection of first principles. Coherence is perceivable, because ultimately the fundamental natures of things lie together in a harmony. These fundamental notions are necessary because they have the characteristics of complete generality and they presuppose universality. Therefore they are embodied in all things and in all time.
2. Whitehead’s Metaphysical Procedure
Whitehead uses speculative reason as metaphysical procedure. First he forms a working hypothesis: that is to say that the metaphysical generalities are discovered by observation guided by a theory as to the nature generalities. We normally get hypothesis through direct insight into the nature of datum, and the actual world including ourselves. The process of direct insight cannot be fully analyzed until a scheme of metaphysical ideas has been developed. Through the scheme of metaphysical ideas, the direct insights are analyzed. And for scheme of metaphysical ideas, we should have insight into metaphysical generalities. By some special field of knowledge, there are certain features already identified by insight. They are almost generic. And by imaginative generalization, they are to be constructed into metaphysical general principles. This method was called by Whitehead as ‘imaginative rationalization.’[3] The metaphysical principles we have got through imaginative rationalization constitute the working hypothesis. This working hypothesis is applicable to all experience and by which very many items of experience are interpreted. This is how the speculative reason proceeds. This working hypothesis needs a careful and elaborate verification. The elaboration and the testing or verification of the scheme using the criteria of coherence, logical consistency, necessity in universality and adequacy, is what we understand by metaphysical enquiry.[4]
3. What is Process Philosophy?
What is process philosophy? Process philosophy attempts to know the world’s empirical realities by making framework of conceptions and ideas to integrate the products of modern enquiry into coherent framework of thought linked to a metaphysical tradition reaching Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle in antiquity and Leibniz in modern age.[5] Process philosophy concerns with what exists in the world and with the terms of reference by which this reality that which exists is to be understood and explained. The natural existence consists in and is best understood in terms of process rather than static things, in terms of modes of change rather than fixed stabilities. Those who espouse this theory, maintain change in everything starting from physical, organic and reaching to psychological. Change is pervasive and predominant feature of the universe.
Process Philosophy has internal variations. The difference depends upon what type of process is taken as paradigmatic and paramount. Alfred North Whitehead sees that physical process is important and all other sorts of processes are modeled on. Henri Bergson ultimately sees a biological process at work and considers the world essentially organic. William James considers bases his ideas of process on a psychological model and saw human thoughts are paradigmatic. Among them all, it is Whitehead who used purely scientific terms in his process metaphysics; others use either relied totally on intuition or mystical sort of apprehension.[6] Process philosophy is philosophical position which insists on process as constituting an essential aspect of everything that exists and it is a commitment to the fundamentally processual nature of the real. And a process philosopher is the one who holds that what exists in nature is not just originated and sustained by processes, but ongoingly characterized by the processes.[7]
4. Historical Background
As we have seen in the introduction briefly, philosophy of process takes us back to ancient time, whereby Parmenides and Zeno and the Atomists of Pre-Socratic Greeks denied processes and undermined those realities which pass through process or change.[8] In the order of beings, changing realities were always considered lower in degree and eventually they were subordinated to substantial things which never change. But there are philosophers who held that reality was process. I give below some of the philosophers who proposed process as ultimate.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (b. ca. 540 B.C.) can rightly be considered as the father of process philosophy. In his book, On Nature, he said that the world as constituted with manifold of opposed forces joined in an mutual rivalry interlocked in constant strife and conflict. According to him, fire is the most elemental force in this order of change. The world order is an ever-lasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.[9] The fundamental stuff of the world is not any material substance but fire which is a natural process and all things are of its workings. The variation of different states and conditions of fire creates all natural change, because fire ultimately destroyer and transformer of things. And this changeability pervades the world. His famous statement is, “one cannot step twice into the same river.”
Plato is also a process philosopher.[10] He agrees that there is change or process. And because of this change or process, he says that it is unable to provide a stable, orderly foothold required for any rational prehension, description and explanation. Things are always on the move and escape our perception. If we are to have adequate knowledge, then that could be possible through non-perceptible, unchanging and non-material forms. Therefore Plato also affirmed that reality is changing.
Aristotle, although placed substance at the centre of his metaphysics, inherited Heraclitean doctrine. Aristotelian cosmos manifested stability only at the outer limits of stars and otherwise all else is pervaded by change which is natural and biological. His doctrine of causes, the role of activity and passivity among categories and the emphasis on change in the theory of physics – all mark that Aristotle was a key figure in the process philosophy.
Leibniz maintained that all things that appear in our perception are not substances but phenomena. The world consists of monads which are units, centers of force and bundles of activity. These monads or units come together and constitute the world’s things. Each aggregation is single unified long-term process.
Hegel is a predominant philosopher in the process thinking. He is the one who promoted the historical development or historical process. Whatever exists in the world, be it an idea or natural thing, is never a stable thing but a processual item which is always on transit. One cannot understand it through stable properties and the knowledge of it is possible only through processual categories and terms.[11] A thing is constantly reshaped in an ongoing development through the operation of dialectic, according to Hegel, which continually blends conflicting opposites into a unitary. The historical change we have to understand in this line.
Bergson is another important philosopher in process thinking. He regarded process and temporality as pivotal features of the world. The world is an organic world whereby the creature forces of evolutionary development are pervasively at work. Change, innovation and creativity are nature’s essence and organic life. Evolution and organic life’s driving force of creative vitality are everywhere at work.[12]
5. The Uniqueness of Whitehead
Descartes found three actual entities (substances): thinking mind, extended bodies and God. Whitehead maintained only two kinds of actualities: actual entities and eternal objects. Whitehead derived from Descartes two things: the multiplicity of substances (actual entities) and Descartes’ position with regard to knowledge that the whole pyramid of knowledge is based on the immediate operation of knowing is contributory element in the composition of an actual immediate actuality.[13] The organic philosophy rejects the substance-quality notion of actuality and gives a new meaning to experience. According to it, the meaning of experience is the self-enjoyment of being one among many. But Descartes’ was contrary to this; he says that experience is the experience of an individual substance of its qualification by ideas.[14] The philosophy of substance presupposes first the subject and encounters the datum and finally responds to it. But the philosophy of organism presupposes a datum first, which is latter met with feelings and finally attains the unity of the subject.
Spinoza proposed monism which says that reality is one. In contrast to Spinoza, Whitehead maintains that reality is both pluralistic and monistic.
David Hume is a sensationalist who holds the theory that sense impression is the starting point for metaphysical thinking. But he never clearly says about their ultimate cause. And it is also difficult to construe whether they are directly coming from the objects or from the creative power of the mind or from the author of our being.
Kant transcendental aesthetics, namely time and space explains how the subjective data pass into the appearance of an objective world. Whereas the organic philosophy seeks to describe how objective data pass into subjective satisfaction. For Kant, the world emerges from the subject; and for the organic philosophy, the subject emerges from the world.[15] In Kant’s epistemology, there is a process from subjectivity to apparent objectivity, because according to Kant, we use categories to perceive things which are objects. In contrast to this, in Whitehead’s metaphysics, there is a process from objectivity to subjectivity. We say from the objectivity because the external world serves as datum to the subject.[16] From all his predecessors, Whitehead differs radically and creates a special and particular place in process philosophy.
6. Key Terms in Process Philosophy
Actually we need a due preparation before reading Whitehead’s metaphysics, because his metaphysics is little complicated and hard to understand. Whitehead uses lot of scientific terms to explain the metaphysical ideas. There are some key terms without which we cannot understand his philosophy. We see those terms in this chapter.
6.1. Actual Entity or Actual Occasion
Actuality means nothing but the ‘ultimate entry’ of a thing into a concrete. And in abstraction, that thing in question is just nonentity. In a more understandable way, actual entity means that which exists by its own activity and is causa sui, i.e., of its own cause. That is why Whitehead applies self-creation to all actualities.[17] Actual entity or actual occasion is an instance of concrescence. Concrescence is not a finished product, for there is creativity in each and every actuality. Thus we can never see the actual world; we can only see through standpoint of the immediate concrescence. The completed actualities form a completed world and which become a complex datum for new concrescence; and this process is called transition.[18] I explain the terms: concrescence and transition, in the following topics. But for now, it is enough to know what an actuality is. An actuality, as some philosophers say, is also identified as an event,[19] an occasion, ultimate fact or unit, and so on. The fundamental features of an actuality are unity and process. The actual entity which is an ultimate fact is an ontological unit which is able to subsist in itself and can be defined in itself. This is a complete existent. Aristotle, Plato and Leibniz call this stuff using different names. For Aristotle, it is ‘substance’; for Plato, it is ‘form’; and for Leibniz, it is ‘monad.’ These terms do not exactly mean what Whitehead says about an actuality. So they are inadequate in their meaning.
The whole of the purpose of Whitehead is to know the ‘whatness’ of the actual entity. To carry out this task, he chooses not the subjectivist theory of Descartes, Kant and British empiricists, Locke and Hume, but the objectivist theory of Greeks and medieval philosophy.[20]
6.2. Eternal Object
Eternal object is one of the formulative principles in the making of an actuality. It is an individual and non-temporal actuality. It is a form of definiteness of actual entity. Its mode of existence is that of component of actual entities. Eternal object is not only one, but many in number; it is pluralistic. Their being does not consist in a process of becoming. Becoming, process, transition are irrelevant to their nature. They are eternal and timeless.[21] The nature of eternal objects is pure potential. And potentiality must be given to actuality in order to exist. The very nature of its potentiality implies givenness and givenness involves reception – reception which is proper to the actualities.
The metaphysical status of eternal objects is that an eternal object is that of the possibility for an actuality. An eternal object is unitary and diverse. It is diverse in its ingression, but remains intact or self-identical throughout all ingressions. There are three principle factors with regard to the comprehension of eternal objects: 1. Eternal objects are particular. It is a principle of identity, i.e., each eternal object is qualitatively unique. 2. Its general relationship to other eternal objects as apt for realization in actual occasions. It is a principle of plurality. Eternal objects are not separated from each other. 3. An eternal object is a general principle which expresses its ingression in particular actual occasions.[22] Eternal objects have two-fold relationships: 1. the interrelatedness of eternal objects by a system of internal relations such that each eternal object has a definite place in the realm of eternal objects. 2. The relatedness of eternal objects to actual occasions by a system of relations which are external to eternal objects and internal to occasions.[23]
6.3. Ingression
Ingression is the term Whitehead uses for expressing the coming of eternal objects into existence in the actualities in the sense of informing or determining the definiteness of actualities. Eternal objects have ingression in the novel actual entities, thereby determining their definiteness.[24] By virtue of their ingression, they become antecedent to the actualities; they never become actual entities, but they are ingredients to the actual entity. It is through past actualities that forms have their ingression into actualities. These forms or eternal objects by their nature must have ingression. Their existence does not involve process, since they are determinants of definiteness of the process of acting of actual entities. They never become another creation in the ingression.
6.4. Two Types of Process
There are two types of process according to Whitehead: concrescence and transition. Ivor Leclerc calls these two processes with different names. According to him the first one is called microscopic process and latter is called macroscopic process.[25]
6.4.1. Concrescence
Concrescence means the internal constitution of a particular existent. Concrescence, I think we can also call it as creativity, constituting the particular existent, takes the particular existent to its final cause, which is, as Whitehead calls it, “subjective aim.”[26] Each individual concrescence is itself a novel individual ‘thing.’ Concrescence and a novel thing are one and the same. They are not two different things.
6.4.2. Transition
Transition is a kind of passage from one particular existent to another particular existent. According to Locke, this transition is perpetually perishing. One example we can give is of the notion of time. But for whitehead, it is the origination of the present in conformity with the power of the past. Transition is the one whereby the perishing of the process on the completion of the particular existent of occasion, constitutes that existent as an original element in the constitution or concrescence of the other particular existents elicited by the repetition of process. Transition is the vehicle of efficient cause, which is the immortal past.[27]
6.5. The Theory of Objectification
In whitehead’s metaphysics, the theory of objectification is very important, especially in the second fluency. And also this theory serves as mediating principle between concrescence and transition. The theory of objectification says how the actual occasions become original elements or datum for a new creation or new occasions or new creative concrescence. All past objectified particular occasions form a unity of datum. The very fact that there is unity in datum presupposes elimination of certain elements in their constitution and obtaining of some relevant elements. It is a complicated process whereby the many past objectified particular occasions become one complex datum. One thing we have to keep in mind that the past objectified occasions are created once the occasions in question die. [28]
6.6. The Analysis of Actual Occasions
The actual occasion is analyzable. And the analysis discloses an operation which is at work; this operation is generically called ‘feeling.’ Therefore we say that an actual entity is a concrescence effected by a process of feeling. This feeling includes four principles: actual occasions, eternal objects, the feelings felt, and its own subjective forms of intensity. All these are at work in a particular concrescence. It is such a wider generality of a feeling of complex feelings – operation of many operations. There is a process of integrating feelings going on in the individual actuality until it finds the unification of feelings. The final unity is termed in Whitehead’s metaphysics, as ‘satisfaction.’ Satisfaction is culmination of the concrescence into a completely determinate fact.[29] Until it achieves satisfaction, an actuality remains indeterminate. The satisfaction is the final cause of the concrescence.
6.7. The Formal Constitution of Actuality
Whitehead says that there are three phases in the formal constitution of an actuality: 1. The responsive phase, 2. The supplemental phase, and 3. The satisfaction. About the last phase, I think, we do not need to go back, because we have seen in the above title. So now we look into the first two phases. In the first phase, that is, the responsive phase, we see the pure reception of the actual world as objective datum for concrescence. The actual world here is a multiplicity of private centres of feeling. The feelings are felt as belonging to external centres and they are not actually absorbed by the actuality into its private immediacy. This is the first stage in the first phase, and the second stage is governed by the private ideal whereby the many feelings which were felt alien in the previous stage, are now transformed into an aesthetic appreciation immediately felt as private. This is called ‘incoming appetition,’ which is also called as ‘vision,’ and in the physics, it is ‘scalar.’ In this second stage, things assume an emotional character.[30]
The second phase of supplementation has again two subordinate stages: the aesthetic supplement and intellectual supplement. In the aesthetic supplement, there is an emotional appreciation of the contrasts and harmony created by unification of the objective content in the concrescence of one actual entity. In this stage, the perception becomes complicated because of mixed feeling, such as pain and pleasure and beauty and distaste and so on by reason of the contrasts. We have inhibitions and intensifications. There is emotional reaction to perceptivity. The perceptivity is clouded by the emotions.[31] This stage requires an influx of conceptual feelings and their integration with the pure physical feelings. And in the second stage, there should be intellect at work. The negation of intellectual sight will bring irrelevant datum or content for the constitution of the particular occasion. The process then will create blind actual occasion, if the intellectual operations are not involved. There should be a propositional feeling with regard to eternal objects that ingress itself into the actual entity in question. This propositional feeling is nothing but an eternal object realized in respect to its pure potentiality as related to determinate logical subjects. Intellectual supplement is nothing but the consciousness of an actual entity.[32]
6.8. The Interplay of the Three Formative Elements
The world of actual occasions, according to process philosophy, is the outcome of the interplay of the three important elements: the first one is the creativity whereby the actual world is constantly moving to novelty; second, the realm of ideal entities. They are called forms in Aristotle’s term, but according to Whitehead they are identified as eternal objects. They are not actualities, but they are such that they are exemplified in everything that is actual according to some proportion of relevance; third, the actual and non-temporal entity, i.e., God.
7. Process the Ultimate
How physical succession or extension or historical continuity is carried out in process philosophy? This question needs to be answered in order to understand how process becomes everything and ultimate for the universe. The first formative element which is called creativity belongs to actual entity as one of its aspects. It is the actual entity which creates itself and its definiteness in the world. The creativity of a creature or actuality becomes creativity of another creature of actuality which is going to come in the future. This passage of creativity happens when the present actuality dies and becomes objectified, its objectified datum or creativity is passed to a new actuality. Therefore there is transition of creative action and this is what called physical and temporal succession or in other words, this is the transition of creative action.[33] The past is the object for the present, and the present is the object for future; and that is the historical continuity. The immediate present has to conform to what is past and near future will have to conform to the immediate present. So the past play two roles: first as settled objective history and secondly, as the constituent of the present. Historical continuity is the doctrine of the interconnectedness (relativity) taken in its application to the temporal passage from one thing or existent to another, from one epoch to another, and one development to another. In this way, the process is perpetuated in the world. This is the process which is going on in the universe. And process becomes ultimate, because, there is nothing outside the process.
8. God in Process
Aristotle perfected his metaphysics with introduction of Prime Mover (Unmoved Mover). Whitehead more or less did the same. God occupies a central position in his organic metaphysics, because it was necessary for Whitehead to bring God inside his philosophy for consistency and coherence of his philosophy. And moreover metaphysics must deal with religious experience and religious experience becomes as source of data for doing metaphysics. He introduced God to solve some of the problems arising from his organic philosophy. Whitehead talks of two natures of God: primordial nature of God and Consequent nature of God. He includes both the nature in his philosophy.
8.1. Primordial Nature of God
According to Thomas Hosinski, Whitehead brought God into his system to solve three problems which arose from his system of philosophy. I just give those three for us to understand why God was necessary for his system. The first problem is the actual ground of potentiality. If there is only past actualities for the present actuality as a possibility, there is nothing going to be new in the concrescence. Therefore actual entity has to prehend the relevant eternal objects or possibilities. These possibilities reveal to actualities the novel possibilities or potentialities. We have seen already that the eternal objects enter into actuality’s concrescence by ingression. Now the question is ‘who effects this ingression?’ And another question has to be answered is that in what actuality, the eternal objects are? God is the answer for these two questions. He is the ground and actual source of the general potentiality of the universe, i.e., eternal objects. And the relevant possibilities are made available to actual entities for their prehension and decision by God.[34]
The second problem is the actual ground of initial subjective aim. First of all, we have to know what subjective aim is. The subjective aim is an appetition urging the particular occasion toward its actualization and present in the subjective forms of the conceptual prehensions. It is nothing but decision as the occasion integrates its various prehensions. Strictly speaking it is actual occasion itself which is making the concrescence and totally present in and modified by its concrescence. It constitutes the developing centre and unity of concrescence and it acts as reason for concrescence.[35]
The initial phase of this subjective aim needs a reason for its ground and it has to be other than itself. It cannot be the past, because the past is dead already and it has passivity, because it has become objectified. Therefore Whitehead proposes God as the source of this subjective aim.
The third problem actually is the ground of order and value in the world. What brings order in the process? What unites the individual occasions? The process exhibits conditions or limitations, actually which are, according to Whitehead, metaphysical categories. There must be some reason for this categorical condition. What is the reason then for this ultimate and metaphysically arbitrary conditioning of possibilities? We cannot appeal to temporal actualities, because all of them have to undergo this category in their concrescence.[36] In the same way, value can be experienced only if here is some restriction. There must be some standard of value that guides the valuation. If there is no standard of value, then how can one judge that there is value in a particular thing in question? All possibilities are given to concrescence with certain type of values inherent in them. The subjective forms of feelings are reactions to the values inherent in the possibilities. The possibilities in order to have value, it has to have restrictions and that restrictions establishes contrasts, oppositions and gradations. Now the question is, ‘what accounts for the initial standard of value inherent in the initial subjective aim?[37]
So God must be somehow reservoir of all possibilities, must mediate between the realm of eternal objects and temporal world of actual entities, must be the ultimate world of actual enities, the ultimate ground of order and standard of value and finally the initial source of all initial subjective aim.[38]
God is transcendent and immanent creator. For, he creates each temporal actuality not determining what it would be but just making it possible. He creates all conditions and limitations which form the systematic order necessary for any course of actual occasions to occur. He equips the actualities with all kinds of possibilities for actuality to actualize itself. Therefore, in Whitehead’s system, God and temporal actualities are co-creators of the actual world. This is how God becomes transcendent and immanent creator.[39] God is immanent in the world in two senses: general sense and specific sense. In general sense, the whole world reflects the presence of God’s primordial ordering of potentiality. And in the specific sense, each temporal occasion begins its concrescence by physical prehension of God.[40]
God’s priority is metaphysical and hierarchical, that is, every temporal occasion in the temporal world depends ultimately upon God’s primordial nature for the very possibility of its occurrence.
8.2. Consequent Nature of God
Whatever we have seen above are primordial nature of God. Thomas Hosinski is also talking of consequent nature of God as explained by Whitehead. We can briefly see the consequent nature of God in order to have a full view on God. Consequent nature of God concerns the question about the meaning of our experience, life, our emotions, such as sufferings, injustice, loneliness, tragedy and evil, and our aspirations, the purpose of the world and its end.
There are three reason s why Whitehead talks about the consequent nature of God. The first one is that God also have subjective aim. Novelty and order are the ingredients of God’s subjective aim. It is understood as God’s appetition. The increase of God’s subjective aim brings more order and values to the world. The second reason is that if God is an actuality, then he has to exhibit the same type of principles as other actualities; otherwise, Whitehead’s philosophy is consistent and coherent. And finally, whitehead had to test his concept of God against the contemporary human religious experience. The consequent nature of God, as we have seen, is that he is the ground of unity of actualities and of the meaning of the world.[41]
Each actuality must undergo three phases in its process of concrescence: 1. Receptive phase of physical prehensions, 2. The responsive phase of conceptual prehensions, and 3. The integrative phase in which the physical and conceptual prehensions are integrated. The primordial nature of God belongs to conceptual phase of prehensions. And the consequent nature of God belongs to receptive and integrative phases. These two are consequent nature of God, because they follow after the interaction between God’s primordial nature and the actual entities of the temporal world.[42] Whitehead could not avoid the consequent nature of God, because of his principle of relativity. Through his physical prehension, God comes to contact with the world. He includes al the temporal actual entities into his concrescing experience. So God includes the course of the actual world.
Finally I want to give the characteristics of God’s consequent nature. First of all, he has consciousness as his subjective form and he has knowledge. Secondly, the consequent nature is finite, incomplete, conditional and determined. Because, the physical prehensions depend on actualities which are conditioned, limited, etc, thirdly, consequent nature is everlasting and the primordial nature is eternal. Because, God’s concrescing experience is continuous and extends over all time. Fourthly, there is unchanging development in God’s concrescence. Many people misunderstand this point as if God in his primordial nature is changing. That is entirely wrong. Since God is actuality, he does not change. But respectively his experience in the consequent nature is changing. This change is to be understood in terms of the difference between entities that constitute the data of God’s physical prehension. God’s consequent nature at each moment of the world process, is not the same; it changes and become novel. God is constantly changing as he receives data from what is created in the World. God’s experience deveops, but not changes. God is technically immutable, but develops in reaction to the changes of the world. Finally, God is suffering, because of two reasons: 1. Because of his physical prehension of all temporal actual entities, he shares the suffering of all temporal creatures. 2. Because of God’s consequent nature, suffering is also included for his experience.[43]
9. Reasons behind Whitehead’s Metaphysics
David Hume’s doctrine of impressions of sensation is twofold, i.e. the subjectivist principle and sensationalist principle. Donald W. Sherburne is trying to combine these two and calls it as sensationalist principle.[44] This doctrine of Hume affected Whitehead in a negative way. He denies these doctrines, though accepts a reformed subjectivist principle. What are subjectivist and sensationalist principles? The former is that the datum of experience can be analyzed purely in terms of universals[45] and latter says that the primary activity in the act of experience is the bare subjective entertainment of the datum of experience, devoid of any subjective form of reception. This principle denies to the perceiving subject any involvement in the creation of its own essence. The subject is experiencing but not becoming; of course it cannot, because according to this theory, a substance is a complete essence. And senses are accidental qualities; senses change and subject never.[46]
9.1. Against Particulars and Universals
The philosophy of organism denies the traditional distinction between particulars and universals. In fact organic philosophy admits two ultimate classes of entities, mutually exclusive: actual entities and eternal objects. The actual entities are mis-described as particulars and eternal objects as universals. The ontological principle and universal doctrine of relativity stop us in drawing a sharp distinction like this between particulars and universals, because both actual entities and eternal objects according to Whitehead, falls under doctrine of universal relativity. An actual entity cannot be adequately explained in terms of universals, because other actual entities do not enter into description of any other actual entity. Here according to organic philosophy, every universal is particular in the sense of being just what it is, diverse from everything else and very particular is universal in the sense that it enter into the constitution s of other actual entities.[47]
With regard to Descartes, Whitehead maintains that Descartes holds an inconsistent position. Descartes upholds a representative theory of perception according to which, the experience cannot reveal the concrete particular, but rather only universals which then reveal the different aspects of particulars. If that is the case, as Whitehead says, no valid inference is possible. Even if one draws an inference, it cannot be justified and it will create skepticism about the existent of the particular realities. But Descartes managed to remove skepticism by introducing at one point an exception to his representative theory. This position is his doctrine of “realitas objective,” (objective reality), which, in the medieval period, meant formal reality or being in the mind. The conclusion is that only God can have objective reality or formal reality. Descartes is inconsistent in his theory. He is a representationlist; he speaks as though experience is exhausted by pure sense of perception. Against Descartes, Whitehead insists perception in the mode of causal efficacy and says that this perception in the mode of causal efficacy is part of experience and part of perception in the mode of presentational immediacy.[48]
Traditional philosophy includes a factor of extreme objectivism in metaphysics. And because of that, it almost became absolute that the subject-predicate form of propositions is the only proposition which can reveal the fundamental metaphysical truths. Descartes actually increased in metaphysics the substance-quality thought pattern. The traditional metaphysics said that there is nothing needed for a thing to exist except ‘that thing’ in question. But for Whitehead, for a entity to exist it needs all other entities. One can understand them in terms of their qualities; among them some are essential attributes and others are accidental modes. Descartes also made another principle which says that those substances which are the subjects enjoying conscious experience provide the primary data for philosophy. This is the subjectivist bias. And these subjects namely humans always have their experience according to the substance-quality categories.[49] This type of perception is always called metaphysical generalization. But at the end, the organic philosophy accepts that subjective experiencing is the primary metaphysical situation which is presented to metaphysics for analysis. This is what called, “reformed subjectivist principle.”[50] The reformation is nothing but the addition it has made to the subjectivist principle, namely the principle of relativity, which includes the potential for becoming and the conception of all things as qualifications to actual occasions. What the subjectivist theory says is entirely different that the whole universe consists of elements disclosed in the analysis of the experience of the subjects. Arsitotle said that a substance is not present in the subject whereas the principle of relativity states that an actual entity is present in other actual entities. Descartes’ subjectivism has to acquire objectivist principle, i.e., the objective content – according to organic philosophy, the objectification of actual entities, so as to become a full and holistic theory.[51] For, subjectivism is solipsistic.
All modern philosophy hinges around the difficulty of describing the world in terms of subject and predicate, substance and quality and particular and universal.[52] The consequence is that we have lost our immediate experience, our hopes, purposes, our actions and sympathies and all those feelings which cannot be expressed in words. The world has become more and more individualistic, scientific and materialistic. There is competition in the world rather than harmony and peace. Man has started to use others as means to achieve his ends forgetting that each entity has an end which particular and final and pertaining to only that entity in question.
9.2. Against Substance
A substance in the cosmological theory is a continuous stuff with permanent attributes enduring without differentiation and retaining its self-identity through all the time. This stuff undergoes changes in respect to its accidental qualities and relations. It is numerically self-identical in its nature and it remains such throughout its accidental adventures. This kind of definition gave way to scientific materialism in the modern world. Modern science, especially new cosmology reduced the matter into quanta of energy. Science says that this quanta emerges from electron, proton and from unknown element which the scientists are trying to identify by the help of an instrument called, Large Hadron Collider established in Geneva. And this quantum energy functions by a simple law with the periodic rhythms which we detect in molecules.[53] This is what modern science says about a stuff or substance in its atomic form. This is utterly materialistic or in other words, it is what called scientific materialism. Process philosophy replaces this type of modern and scientific materialism with organic realism, i.e., from the notion of static stuff to fluent energy.[54]
9.3. Against Subjectivist and Sensationalist Doctrines
Modern epistemology of Rene Descartes, David Hume and Immanuel Kant stick on to subjectivist and sensationalist theories of perception. Modern epistemology construes perception in the mode of presentational immediacy as the sole perceptual datum for conscious cognition. Through these theories or doctrines, what is actually perceived is only the state of the perceiver. But if one says that we perceive something, then that may be something that could not exist independently of the perceiving ego.[55] This is subjectivistic and solipsistic as we have seen above. The subjectivists and sensationalists deal with Aristotelian substance as subject that can only yield the qualities inherent in it in its experience of outer realities. Also the datum cannot be the pure objects existing outside the mind, but could be the cluster of qualities or universals inherent in the experiencing subject.
Whitehead says that first of all, the mind perceives only idea; secondly even if mind perceives the facts and substances, it cannot represent or resemble the particular substance which exists outside the mind. And thirdly there is no basis or need for a cognitive mind to interpret the sense objects that are given to it.[56] These theories deny to the perceiving mind or subject any involvement in the creation of its essence. Here the subject is simply experiencing and not becoming; of course it will not and cannot, because a substance is a complete essence. What changes are only senses and not subject. The subject cannot understand the world, because it is beyond its experiential domain and even its own individuality, because in principle it cannot exist.[57] The organic philosophy accepts the subjectivist doctrine as legitimate starting point for metaphysics. For, if we are to be experiencable and knowable by at least some particulars which we ourselves experience and know, then there are some particulars which share some ontological status that we have. Therefore our present moment of experience qualifies other moments of subjective experience and we know them together with their past and potential future. And al these particulars are components to each other.
The particular shares all types of capacity to function as components and qualifications to other actual entities. So an actual entity is present in other actual entities. Each actual entity is predicable of all others. It can present in others only in objectified form as causal, presentational and anticipational.[58] In organic philosophy, entities that enjoy the subjective experience are substances each independent of all the others but as actual entities each dependent on all others for the past of its individual essence. Therefore the subjectivist principle is reformed; and the subjectivist principle in the datum for subjective experience is avoided so as to include in the datum other actual entities and eternal objects, i.e., particulars and universals. Whitehead’s reformed subjectivist doctrine is called the principle relativity.[59] Principle of relativity is actually one of the categories in Whiteheadarian metaphysics. The principle of relativity is explained in terms of actuality and potentiality. The only actuality, as we know, is actual entity or occasion or actuality or actual event. Potentiality and actuality are relative. Therefore an actuality which is now actual, will subsequently, when its actuality is complete, becomes potential for a new actuality. And the new actuality again in the future will become objectified and subsequently will be potentiality. This is called the principle of relativity.[60] Principle of activity is actually the way in which one actual entity is qualified by other actual entities. In the principle of relativity, there is repeatability of completed occasions or actualities. This repeatability presupposes another fundamental category – the category of Ultimate, God which is ever present and manifests itself in the individual creative process.[61]
9.4. Against Monism and Adaption of Pluralism
Whitehead rejects monism on two grounds: 1. This doctrine is unable to satisfy the criterion of coherence. There is only one existent and no other. Therefore its metaphysical nature must exhibit the necessary features of unitariness and changelessness. For the plurality of entities and for the features such as change, desire, evil, and error and so on, monism proposes the theory of modes of appearances of the actual entity. If actuality be one, changeless, self-sufficient, unitary whole, it cannot consistently be regarded that it diversify itself into plurality of modes as appearances.[62] Monists brought the principle of plurality in the form of modes in order to make their scheme applicable to the datum of experience, for, we experience plurality in the world.
2. the second ground of error in monism consists in the mistaken identification of certain features as constituting the metaphysical nature of actuality.[63]
Whitehead adapts pluralism, because the final facts are like, actual entities. There are many entities as actual. They all exhibit the same type of generic principles, and there are no different kinds of actual entities as it is found in Descartes’ theory: Res Cogitans and Res Extensa. Descartes’ extension and cogitation are actualities which are mutually exclusive and they exhibit such mutually exclusive metaphysical principles. His doctrine lacks coherence. In his doctrine, he does not say why there cannot be one rather than two. And finally according to him for a substance to exist, it needs only itself and no other.[64]
9.5. Against Vacuous Material Existence
Science has dominated in modern world; every reality has been explained in terms of scientific formulas. And everything has been reduced to material devoid of spiritual or divine and human content. Every entity has been construed as mere combination of electrons, protons and neutrons. There are very many consequences out this type of outlook of the universe. Life becomes boring and meaningless. There will be tendency for someone to consider himself as the only subject and all others including other creatures as objects. Materialism, consumerism and their related values will be predominant in the world. Everything will be considered in terms of its usefulness, and not for the sake of its own being. Whitehead, by proposing organic world or universe, has really the world from its ruin in its value. According to Whitehead, there are primary actual units which are called actual entities of which the world is composed. These epochal units are also identified as epochal occasions. These epochal occasions form a community and they are not static, but growing, passing and confirming. Each epochal unit or occasion is also called prehension in order stress the associated unity of an event or occasion. An event is not mere assemblage of parts or of ingredients. Prehension is the process of unifying, but on the whole, prehension, event, occasion and actual entity all mean same primary unit of moving actuality in the world.[65]
Conclusion and Criticism
Whitehead’s philosophy does not seem to be producing something new in terms of content, but it has tried to look into world entirely from different perspective – a perspective which includes God, mystery, and mysticism.
Modern philosophy was totally dried materialistic and consumeristic. Whitehead’s philosophy made wet, and moisture, I say this, because there is life in it. He never thought of nature as something which is low in grade, but rather he respected it as something objective and which has an end or a goal for itself. He appreciated rather than studying scientifically.
He gives a new way of interpreting God’s involvement in the world – a way which is quite interesting. At the same time, Whitehead is very aware that he does not take away human freedom.
He totally abandoned the classical substantialism, because of its stereo-type explanation of the reality and changelessness.
He included twentieth century physics and natural science to explain the reality – the ultimate fact clearly and distinctly. It is good effort and welcomed by many including scientists.
Some Negative Criticism
One thing we have to observe that he tried to limit his study to the nature alone as it is perceived. According to him, nature is what is given in experience; and we cannot forget the mind and thought also as part of nature.
Organic philosophy challenged Christianity in very many ways, especially the nature of God as substance. Theologians took process philosophy as instrument to interpret God’s involvement with the world. According to them, God is changing and for some, God is even growing. But when Whitehead says that God is changing in his consequent nature and he feels for the world, it is something appealing. It is a good interpretation for the involvement of God in the world.
Bibliography
Findlay, J. N. Hegel: A Reexamination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Hosinski, Thomas E. Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC, 1993.
Kirk, G. S, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Leclerc, Ivor. Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition. London, New York: George Allen and Unwin Ltd & The Macmillan Company, 1958.
Luis Nobo, Jorge. Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity. Albany: State University of new York, 1986.
Lawrence, Nathaniel. Whitehead’s Philosophical Development: A Critical History of the Background of Process and Reality. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956.
Rescher, Nicholas. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. New York: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Sherburne, Donald W. A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality. New York: Macmillan Company, 1966.
Taylor, A. E. Plato: The Man and His Work. London: Macmillan, 1926.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality, David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, eds. New York: The Free Press, 1985.
[1] Ivor Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition (London, New York: George Allen and Unwin Ltd & The Macmillan Company, 1958) p. 29. [2] Ivor Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, p. 33. [3] Ivor Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, p. 47. [4] Ibid, p. 48. [5] Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996) pp. 3-4. [6] Ibid, p. 3. [7] Ibid, p. 8. [8] Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy, p. 7. [9] G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) p. 217. [10] A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (London: Macmillan, 1926) [11] J. N. Findlay, Hegel: A Reexamination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958) [12] Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy, pp. 16-18. [13] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan Company, 1966) p.139. [14] Ibid, p.140. [15] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p.152. [16] Ibid, p.152. [17] Ivor, Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, p. 82. [18] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, eds. (New York: The Free Press, 1985) p. 211. [19] Ivor Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, pp. 7-10. [20] Ibid, p. 28. [21] Ivor, Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, pp. 93-94. [22] Nathaniel Lawrence, Whitehead’s Philosophical Development: A Critical History of the Background of Process and Reality (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956) pp. 268-269. [23] Ibid, p. 273. [24] Ivor, Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, p. 94. [25] Ibid, p. 80. [26] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 210. [27] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 210. [28] Ibid, p. 210. [29] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 212. [30] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 212. [31] Ibid, p. 213. [32] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 214; Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead (USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC, 1993) pp. 110-126. [33] Nathaniel Lawrence, Whitehead’s Philosophical Development: A Critical History of the Background of Process and Reality, p. 263. [34] Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, p. 157. [35] Ibid, p. 158. [36] Ibid, p. 160. [37] Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, p. 161. [38] Ibid, p. 163. [39] Ibid, p. 176. [40] Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, p. 176. [41] Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, pp. 183-184. [42] Ibid, pp. 188-189. [43] Thomas E. Hosinski, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, pp. 192-196. [44] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p. 127. [45] Ibid, p.127. [46] Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity (Albany: State University of new York, 1986) p. 371. [47] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p.129. [48] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p.132. [49] Ibid, p.134. [50] Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, pp. 377-78. [51] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p.137. [52] Ibid, p.136; Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, p. 372. [53] Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p.166. [54] Ibid, p.152. [55] Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, p. 368. [56] Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, p. 370. [57] Ibid, p. 372. [58] Ibid, p. 373. [59] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, pp. 252. [60] Ivor, Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, p. 101. [61] Jorge Luis Nobo, Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity, p. 377. [62] Ivor, Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition, pp. 55-56. [63] Ibid. [64] Ibid, p. 57. [65] Nathaniel Lawrence, Whitehead’s Philosophical Development: A Critical History of the Background of Process and Reality, p. 262.
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