Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

Conversely, where there is no decision involving exclusion, there is no givenness. For example, the total multiplicity of Platonic forms is not ‘given.’ But in respect of each actual entity, there is givenness of such forms. The determinate definiteness of each actuality is an expression of a selection from these forms. It grades them in a diversity of relevance. This ordering of relevance starts from those forms which are, in the fullest sense, exemplified, and passes through grades of relevance down to those forms which in some faint sense are proximately relevant by reason of contrast with actual fact. This whole gamut of relevance is ‘given,’ and must be referred to the decision of actuality.

The term ‘Platonic form’ has here been used as the

® Cf. Logic, Bk. I, Ch. II, $42.

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briefest way of indicating the entities in question. But these lectures are not an exegesis of Plato’s writings; the entities in question are not necessarily restricted to those which he would recognize as ‘forms.’ Also the term ‘idea’ has a subjective suggestion in modern philosophy, which is very misleading for my present purposes; and in any case it has been used in many senses and has become ambiguous. The term ‘essence,’ as used by the Critical Realists, also suggests their use of it, which diverges from what I intend. Accordingly, by way of employing a term devoid of misleading suggestions, I use the phrase ‘eternal object’ for what in the preceding paragraph of this section I have termed a ‘Platonic form. Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an ‘eternal object.’

In this definition the ‘conceptual recognition’ must of course be an operation constituting a real feeling belonging to some actual entity. The point is that the actual subject which is merely conceiving the eternal object is not thereby in direct relationship to some other actual entity, apart from any other peculiarity in the composition of that conceiving subject. This doctrine applies also to be primordial nature of God, which is his complete envisagement of eternal objects; he is not thereby directly related to the given course of history. The given course of history presupposes his primordial nature, but his primordial nature does not presuppose it.

An eternal object is always a potentiality for actual entities; but in itself, as conceptually felt, it is neutral as to the fact of its physical ingression in any particular actual entity of the temporal world. ‘Potentiality’ is the correlative of ‘givenness.’ The meaning of ‘givenness’ is that what zs ‘given’ might not have been ‘given’; and that what 7s not ‘given’ might have been ‘given.’

Further, in the complete particular ‘givenness’ for an actual entity there is an element of exclusiveness. Thep. 71 various primary data and the concrescent feelings do not form a mere multiplicity. Their synthesis in the final unity of one actual entity is another fact of ‘givenness.’ The actual entity terminates its becoming in one complex feeling involving a completely determinate bond with every item in the universe, the bond being either a positive or a negative prehension. This termination is the ‘satisfaction’ of the actual entity. Thus the addition of another component alters this synthetic ‘givenness.’ Any additional component is therefore contrary to this integral ‘givenness’ of the original. This principle may be illustrated by our visual perception of a picture. The pattern of colours is ‘given’ for us. But an extra patch of red does not constitute a mere addition; it alters the whole balance. Thus in an actual entity the balanced unity of the total ‘givenness’ excludes anything that is not given.

This is the doctrine of the emergent unity of the superject. An actual entity is to be conceived both as a subject presiding over its own immediacy of becoming, and a superject which is the atomic creature exercising its function of objective immortality. It has become a ‘being’; and it belongs to the nature of every ‘being’ that it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’

This doctrine, that the final ‘satisfaction’ of an actual entity is intolerant of any addition, expresses the fact that every actual entity—since it is what it is—is finally its own reason for what it omits. In the real internal constitution of an actual entity there is always some element which is contrary to an omitted element. Here ‘contrary’ means the impossibility of joint entry in the same sense. In other words, indetermination has evaporated from ‘satisfaction,’ so that there is a complete determination of ‘feeling,’ or of ‘negation of feeling,’ respecting the universe. This evaporation of indetermination is merely another way of considering the process whereby the actual entity arises from its data. Thus, in another sense, each actual entity includes the unip. 72verse, by reason of its determinate attitude towards every element in the universe.

Thus the process of becoming is dipolar, (i) by reason of its qualification by the determinateness of the actual world, and (ii) by its conceptual prehensions of the indeterminateness of eternal objects. The process is constituted by the influx of eternal objects into a novel determinateness of feeling which absorbs the actual world into a novel actuality.

The ‘formal’ constitution of an actual entity is a process of transition from indetermination towards terminal determination. But the indetermination is referent to determinate data. The ‘objective’ constitution of an actual entity is its terminal determination, considered as a complex of component determinates by reason of which the actual entity is a datum for the creative advance. The actual entity on its physical side is composed of its determinate feelings of its actual world, and on its mental side is originated by its conceptual appetitions.

Returning to the correlation of ‘givenness’ and ‘potentiality,’ we'see that ‘givenness’ refers to ‘potentiality,’ and ‘potentiality’ to ‘givenness’; also we see that the completion of ‘givenness’ in actual fact converts the ‘notgiven’ for that fact into ‘impossibility’ for that fact. The individuality of an actual entity involves an exclusive limitation. This element of ‘exclusive limitation’ is the definiteness essential for the synthetic unity of an actual entity. This synthetic unity forbids the notion of mere addition to the included elements.

It is evident that ‘givenness’ and ‘potentiality’ are both meaningless apart from a multiplicity of potential entities. These potentialities are the ‘eternal objects.’ Apart from ‘potentiality’ and ‘givenness,’ there can be no nexus of actual things in process of supersession by novel actual things. The alternative is a static monistic universe, without unrealized potentialities; since ‘potentiality’ is then a meaningless term.

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The scope of the ontological principle is not exhausted by the corollary that ‘decision’ must be referable to an actual entity. Everything must be somewhere; and here ‘somewhere’ means ‘some actual entity.’ Accordingly the general potentiality of the universe must be somewhere; since it retains its proximate relevance to actual entities for which it is unrealized. This ‘proximate relevance’ reappears in subsequent concrescence as final causation regulative of the emergence of novelty. This ‘somewhere’ is the non-temporal actual entity. Thus ‘proximate relevance’ means ‘relevance as in the primordial mind of God.

It is a contradiction in terms to assume that some explanatory fact can float into the actual world out of nonentity. Nonentity is nothingness. Every explanatory fact refers to the decision and to the efficacity of an actual thing. The notion of ‘subsistence’ is merely the notion of how eternal objects can be components of the primordial nature of God. This is a question for subsequent discussion (cf. Part V). But eternal objects, as in God’s primordial nature, constitute the Platonic world of ideas.