52 Process and Reality
of that term. But unfortunately ‘person’ suggests the notion of consciousness, so that its use would lead to mis- understanding. The nexus ‘sustains a character,’ and this is one of the meanings of the Latin word persona. But an ‘enduring object,’ gua ‘person,’ does more than sustain a character. For this sustenance arises out of the special genetic relations among the members of the nexus. An ordinary physical object, which has temporal endurance, is a society. In the ideally simple case, it has personal order and is an ‘enduring object.’ A society may (or may not) be analysable into many strands of ‘enduring objects.’ This will be the case for most ordinary physical objects. These enduring objects and ‘societies,’ analys- able into strands of enduring objects, are the permanent entities which enjoy adventures of change throughout time and space. For example, they form the subject- matter of the science of dynamics. Actual entities per- ish, but do not change; they are what they are. A nexus which (i) enjoys social order, and (ii) is analysable into strands of enduring objects may be termed a ‘corpuscular society.’ A society may be more or less corpuscular, according to the relative importance of the defining char- acteristics of the various enduring objects compared to that of the defining characteristic of the whole corpuscu- lar nexus.
There is a prevalent misconception that ‘becoming’ involves the notion of a unique seriality for its advance into novelty. This is the classic notion of ‘time,’ which philosophy took over from common sense. Mankind made an unfortunate generalization from its experience of enduring objects. Recently physical science has aban- doned this notion. Accordingly we should now purge cosmology of a point of view which it ought never to have adopted as an ultimate metaphysical principle. In these lectures the term ‘creative advance’ is not to be construed in the sense of a uniquely serial advance.
Some Derivative Notions 53
Finally, the extensive continuity of the physical uni-
verse has usually been construed to mean that there is a
continuity of becoming. But if we admit that ‘some-
thing becomes,’ it is easy, by employing Zeno’s method,
to prove that there can be no continuity of becoming.’
There is a becoming of continuity, but no continuity of
becoming. The actual occasions are the creatures which
become, and they constitute a continuously extensive
world. In other words, extensiveness becomes, but
‘becoming’ is not itself extensive.
Thus the ultimate metaphysical truth is atomism. The creatures are atomic. In the present cosmic epoch there is a creation of continuity. Perhaps such creation is an ultimate metaphysical truth holding of all cosmic epochs; but this does not seem to be a necessary conclusion. The more likely opinion is that extensive continuity is a spe- cial condition arising from the society of creatures which constitute our immediate epoch. But atomism does not exclude complexity, and universal relativity. Each atom is a system of all things.
The proper balance between atomism and continuity is of importance to physical science. For example, the doctrine, here explained, conciliates Newton’s corpuscu- lar theory of light with the wave theory. For both a corpuscle, and an advancing element of wave front, are merely a permanent form propagated from atomic crea- ture to atomic creature. A corpuscle is in fact an ‘endur- ing object.’ The notion of an ‘enduring object’ is, how- ever, capable of more or less completeness of realization. Thus, in different stages of its career, a wave of light may be more or less corpuscular. A train of such waves at all stages of its career involves social order; but in the earlier stages this social order takes the more special form of loosely related strands of personal order. This dominant personal order gradually vanishes as the time advances. Its defining characteristics become less and
? Cf. Part II, Ch. II, Sect. II; and also my Science and the Modern World, Ch. VII, for a discussion of this argument.
o4 PROCESS AND REALITY
less important, as their various features peter out. The
waves then become a nexus with important social order,
but with no strands of personal order. Thus the train
of waves starts as a corpuscular society, and ends as a
society which is not corpuscular.
Finally, in the cosmological scheme here outlined one implicit assumption of the philosophical tradition is repu- diated. The assumption is that the basic elements of experience are to be described in terms of one, or all, of the three ingredients, consciousness, thought, sense-per- ception. The last term is used in the sense of ‘conscious perception in the mode of presentational immediacy.’ Also in practice sense-perception is narrowed down to visual perception. According to the philosophy of organ- ism these three components are unessential elements in experience, either physical or mental. Any instance of experience is dipolar, whether that instance be God or an actual occasion of the world. The origination of God is from the mental pole, the origination of an actual occa- sion is from the physical pole; but in either case these elements, consciousness, thought, sense-perception, be- long to the derivative ‘impure’ phases of the concrescence, if in any effective sense they enter at all.
This repudiation is the reason why, in relation to the
topic under discussion, the status of presentational imme-
diacy is a recurrent theme throughout the subsequent
‘Parts’ of these lectures,
PART IT DISCUSSIONS AND APPLICATIONS
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Cuarter I. Fact anp Form
I. Appeal to Facts, European Tradition; Plato, Aristotle, Des- cartes, Locke, Hume, Kant; Intrinsic Reasonableness; Foot- notes to Plato; This Cosmology Platonic; Participating Forms; Divine Ordering; Ontological Principle; Facts the Only Reasons; Facts are Process; Prehension, Satisfac- tion.
II. Rationalism a Faith, Adventure of Hope; Limits of Theory, Giveness, Professor A. E. Taylor on Plato; Decision, the Ontological Principle; Entities and Process, Actual Entities and Decision; Stubborn Fact.
III. Platonic Form, Idea, Essence, Eternal Object; Potentiality and Givenness; Exclusiveness of the Given; Subject-Super- ject, Becoming and Being; Evaporation of Indetermination in Concrescence, Satisfaction Determinate and Exclusive; Concrescence Dipolar; Potentiality, Givenness, Impossi- bility; Subsistence.
IV. Actual Occasions Internally Determined Externally Free; Course of History not Necessary, no Perfection; Efficient Causation and Final Reaction; God’s Primordial Freedom; Each Concrescence between Definite Free Initiation and Definite Free Conclusion, the Former Macrocosmic, the Latter Microcosmic.
V. Universals and Particulars, Unsuitable Terms with False Implication; Illustration from Descartes, also Hume; Des- cartes’ alternative Doctrine, Realitas Objectiva, Inspectio, Intuitio, Judicium ; World not Describable in Terms of Sub- ject and Predicate, Substance and Quality, Particular and Universal; Universal Relativity.
VI. Locke’s Essay, Agreement of Organic Philosophy with It; Sub- stitute ‘Experience’ for ‘Understanding’; Ideas and Pre- hensions; Locke’s Two Doctrines of Ideas, Ideas of Par- ticular Things; Representative Theory of Perception; Log- ical Simplicity and Genetic Priority not to be Identified; Substance, Exterior Things, Societies; Solidarity of the Universe.
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Locke’s Doctrine of Power, Power and Substance; Causal
Objectification and Presentational Objectification; Change
Means Adventures of Eternal Objects; Real Essence,
Abstract Essence; Doctrine of Organism and Generation of
Actual Entities,
Cuapter II. Tue Extensive ConTINUUM
Continuum and Real Potentiality, Atomized by Actual Occa-
sions; How the Continuum is Experienced, Presentational
Immediacy, Sensa; Real Chair and Chair-image; Complex
Ingression of Sensa.
General Potentiality and Real Potentiality; Standpoints of Actual Occasions, Determined by Initial Phase of Subjective Aim; Extensive Relationships; The Epochal Theory of Time, Zeno, William James.
. Newton’s Scholium. . Newton’s Scholium, Comparison with Philosophy of Organism
and with Descartes; ‘Withness of the Body,’ Status of the Body in the Actual World; Ontological Status of Space for Newton, Descartes and the Organic Philosophy.
Undifferentiated Endurance and the Passivity of Substance, Source of Errors.
. Summary,
Cuapter III. Tur Orpver or Nature
Order and Givenness Contrasted; The Four Characteris-
tics of Order; Attainment of End, Lure of Feeling; Causa
Sut.
. ‘Society’ Defined, Defining Characteristic and Genetic Inher-
itance; Environment Social and Permissive; Cosmic Epoch, Social Hierarchy.
. Evolution of Societies, Decay, Chaos, the Timaeus, the Schol-
aum, Milton.
Societies in This Cosmic Epoch; the Extensive Society, the
Geometric Society, Electromagnetic Society; Waves, Elec-
trons, Protons.
. Enduring Objects, Corpuscular Societies, Structured Societies. . Stability, Specialization. . Problem of Stabilization, Exclusion of Detail, Conceptual Ini-
tiative, Life.
. Inorganic Apparatus for Life. . Life a Reaction against Society, Originality.
Ao Oy a Ore 59
Xe
Life and Food, Life in Empty Space, Catalytic Agent.
XI. Living Persons, Canalization of Life, Dominant Personality
IX.
Il.
only Partial.
Chapter Iv. Organisms and Environment
. Reaction of Environment on Actual Occasions; Narrowness
and Width, Dependent on Societies, Orderly Element; Chaos, Triviality, Orderliness, Depth; Trivialty, Vagueness, Nar- rowness, Width; Incompatibility, Contrast; Trivialty,. Excess of Differentiation; Vagueness, Excess of Identifica- tion; Nexus as One, Vagueness, Narrowness, Depth; Coor- dination of Chaos, Vagueness, Narrowness, Width.
. Intensity, Narrowness; Philosophy of Organism, Kant, Locke. Ii.
Sensa, Lowest Category of Eternal Objects, Definition; Sensa, Contrasts of, Intensity; Contrasts in High and Low Cate- gories, Patterns; Eternal Objects, Simplicity, Complexity; Sensa Experienced Emotionally.
. Transmission, Diverse Routes, Inhibitions, Intensification;
Vector Character, Form of Energy; Physical Science.
. Environmental Data as in Perception; Visual Perception,
Most Sophisticated Form; Originated by Antecedent State
of Animal Body, Hume; Animal Body and External Envi-
ronment, Amplifyer.
. Perception and Animal Body, Causal Efficacy. . Causal Efficacy, Viscera; Presentational Immediacy, Delusive
Perceptions, Secondary Qualities, Extension, Withness of Body; Hume, Kant.
. Loci Disclosed by Perception; Contemporary Regions, Causal
Past, Causal Future; Immediate Present, Unison of Becom-
ing, Concrescent Unison, Duration; Differentiation between
Immediate Present and Presented Duration; Presented
Locus.
Presented Locus and Unison of Becoming; Presented Locus,
Systematic Relation to Animal Body, Strains, Independence
of External Contemporary Happenings, Straight Lines,
Measurement; Unison of Becoming, Duration.
Summary.
CuaptTer V. Lockr AND HUME
Hume, Perceptions, Substance, Principle of Union; Ideas, Copies of Impressions, Imaginative Freedom.
Hume and ‘Repetition,’ Cause and Effect; Memory, Force and Vivacity.
III.
iN;
Ve
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LV:
Time, Hume, Descartes, Independence of Successive Occa- sions; Objective Immortality.
Influence of Subject-Predicate Notion; Hume, Descartes, Locke, Particular Existence.
Hume and Locke, Process and Morphology; False Derivation of Emotional Feelings; Sensationalist Doctrine; Santayana.
Cuapter VI. From Descartes To KAntT
Descartes, Three Kinds of Substance: Extended, Mental,
God’s; Three Kinds of Change, of Accidents, Origination,
Cessation; Accidental Relations, Representative Ideas;
Unessential Experience of External World.
. Locke, Empiricism, Adequacy, Inconsistency; Particular Exis-
tent, Substance, Power; Relativity, Perpetually Perishing.
. Analogy and Contrast with Philosophy of Organism. . Hume and Process, Kant, Santayana.
Contrasted Procedures of Philosophy of Organism and Kant.
Cuarter VII. Tue SuBJECTIVIST PRINCIPLE
The Subjectivist Principle and the Sensationalist Principle; The Sensationalist Doctrine Combines Both; Locke, Hume, Kant; Statement of the Principles; The Three Premises for the Subjectivist Principle; Philosophy of Organism Denies the Two Principles and the Three Premises; Descartes; ‘That Stone as Grey,’ Substance and Quality, Organs of Sensation; Descartes’ Subjectivist Modification; ‘Perception of That Stone as Grey’; Failure to Provide Revised Categories; Hume.
Knowledge, Its Variations, Vaguenesses; Negative Perception the General Case, Consciousness is the Feeling of Negation, Novelty; Consciousness a Subjective Form, Only Present in Late Derivative Phases of Complex Integrations; Con- sciousness only Illuminates the Derivative Types of Objec- tive Data, Philosophy Misled by Clearness and Distinct- ness.
Primitive Type of Physical Experience is Emotional; Vector
Transmission of Feeling, Pulses of Emotion, Wave-Length;
Human Emotion is Interpreted Emotion, not Bare Emo-
tional Feeling.
Decision Regulating Ingression of Eternal Objects, Old Meet-
ing New; The Three Phases of Feeling, Conformal, Con-
ceptual, Comparative; Eternal Objects and Subjective
Wb Sra Cl 61
LI.
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IV’.
Forms; Continuity of the Phases; Category of Objective Unity.
Reformed Subjectivist Principle is Another Statement of Prin- ciple of Relativity; Process is the Becoming of Experience; Hume’s Principle Accepted, This Method only Errs in Detail; ‘Law’ for ‘Causation’ no Help; Modern Philosophy uses Wrong Categories; Two Misconceptions; (i) Vacuous Actuality, (ii) Inherence of Quality in Substance.
Cuapter VIII. Symsoric REFERENCE
Two Pure Modes of Perception, Symbolic Reference; Com-
mon Ground, Integration, Originative Freedom, Error;
Common Ground, Presented Locus, Geometrical Indistinct-
ness in mode of Causal Efficacy; Exceptions, Animal Body,
Withness of Body.
. Common Ground, Common Sensa; Modern Empiricism,
Make-believe, Hume; Sensa Derived from Efficacy of Body; Projection.
. Mistaken Primacy of Presentational Immediacy, Discussion,
Causal Efficacy Primitive. Further Discussion; Causation and Sense-perception. Comparison of Modes; Integration in Symbolic Reference.
. Principles of Symbolism, Language.
Cuapter IX. Propositions
Impure Prehensions by Integration of Pure Conceptual and Pure Physical Prehensions; Physical Purposes and Propo- sitions Discriminated; Theory, not Primarily for Judgment, Lures for Feeling; Objective Lure; Final Cause; General and Singular Propositions; Logical Subjects, Complex Pred- icate; Propositions True or False; Lure to Novelty; Felt ‘Contrary’ is Consciousness in Germ; Judgment and Enter- tainment; Graded Envisagement.
Truth and Falsehood, Experiential Togetherness of Propo-
sitions and Fact; Correspondence and Coherence Theory;
Propositions True or False, Judgments Correct or Incor-
rect or Suspended; Intuitive and Derivative Judgments;
Logic concerned with Derivative Judgments; Error.
Systematic Background Presupposed by each Proposition;
Relations, Indicative Systems of Relations; Propositions
and Indicative Systems; Illustration, Inadequacy of Words.