Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

From the point of view of the philosophy of organism, the credit must be given to Hume that he emphasized the ‘process’ inherent in the fact of being a mind. His analysis of that process is faulty in its details. It was bound to be so; because, with Locke, he misconceived his problem to be the analysis of mental operations. He should have conceived it as the analysis of operations constituent of actual entities. He would then have found mental operations in their proper place. Kant followed Hume in this misconception; and was thus led to balance the world upon thought—oblivious to the scanty supply of thinking. But Hume, Kant, and the philosophy of organism agree that the task of the critical reason is the analysis of constructs; and ‘construction’ is ‘process.’ Hume’s analysis of the construct which constitutes a mental occasion is: impressions of sensation, ideas of impressions of sensation, impressions of reflection, ideas of impressions of reflection. This analysis may be found obscurely in Locke. But Hume exhibits it as an orderly process; and then endeavours—and fails—to express in terms of it our ordinary beliefs, in which he shares.

For subsequent empiricists the pleasure of the dogma has overcome the metaphysical rule of evidence: that we must bow to those presumptions, which, in despite of criticism, we still employ for the regulation of our lives. Such presumptions are imperative in experience. Rationalism is the search for the coherence of such presumptions. Hume, in his series of ideas and of impressions derivates from impressions of sensation, implicitly allows

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that the building-up of experience is a process of addition to original data. The philosophy of organism, in this respect, agrees with Hume. It disagrees with Hume as to the proper characterization of the primary data. In Hume’s philosophy the primary impressions are characterized in terms of universals, e.g. in the first section of his Treatise he refers to the colour ‘red’ as an illustration. This is also the doctrine of the first two books of Locke’s Essay. But in Locke’s third book a different doctrine appears, and the primary data are explicitly said to be ‘ideas of particular existents.’ According to Locke’s second doctrine, the ideas of universals are derived from these primary data by a process of comparison and analysis. The philosophy of organism agrees in principle with this second doctrine of Locke’s. It is difficult, and trifling, to determine the exact extent of the agreement; because the expositions of Locke and Hume bring in the very derivative operations involving consciousness. The organic philosophy does not hold that the ‘particular existents’ are prehended apart from universals; on the contrary, it holds that they are prehended by the mediation of universals. In other words, each actuality is prehended by means of some element of its own definiteness. This is the doctrine of the ‘objectification’ of actual entities. Thus the primary stage in the concrescence of an actual entity is the way in which the antecedent universe enters into the constitution of the entity in question, so as to constitute the basis of its nascent individuality. A converse way of looking at this truth is that the relevance to other actual entities of its own status in the actual world, is the initial datum in the process of its concrescence. When it is desired to emphasize this interpretation of the datum, the phrase ‘objective content’ will be used synonymously with the term ‘datum.’ Of course, strictly speaking, the universals, to which Hume confines the datum, are also ‘objects’; but the phrase ‘objective content’ is meant to emphasize the doctrine of ‘objectification’ of actual entities. If experi-

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ence be not based upon an objective content, there can be no escape from a solipsist subjectivism. But Hume, and Locke in his main doctrine, fail to provide experience with any objective content. Kant, from whom ‘process’ is mainly a process of thought, accepts Hume’s doctrine as to the ‘datum’ and turns the ‘apparent’ objective content into the end of the construct. So far, Kant’s ‘apparent’ objective content seems to take the place of the ‘satisfaction’ in the philosophy of organism. In this way there can be no real escape from the solipsist difficulty. But Kant in his appeal to ‘practical reason’ admits also the ‘satisfaction’ in a sense analogous to that in the philosophy of organism; and by an analysis of its complex character he arrives at ultimate actualities which, according to his account, cannot be discovered by any analysis of ‘mere appearance.’ This is a very complex doctrine, which has been reproduced in all philosophies derivative from Kant. The doctrine gives each actual entity two worlds, one world of mere appearance, and the other world compact of ultimate substantial fact. On this point, as to the absence of ‘objective content’ in the datum for experience, Santayana” seems to agree with Hume and Kant. But if his introduction of ‘animal faith’ is to be taken as a re-examination of the datum under the influence of the sceptical conclusion from Hume’s doctrine, then he, as his second doctrine, is practically reasserting Locke’s second doctrine. But if he is appealing to ‘practice’ away from the critical examination of our sources of information, he must be classed with Hume and Kant, although differing from them in every detail of procedure.

In view of the anti-rationalism of Hume’s contented appeal to ‘practice,’ it is very difficult to understand —except as another example of anti-rationalism—the strong objection, entertained by Hume and by his ‘empiricist? followers, to the anti-rationalistic basis of some forms of religious faith. This strain of anti-rationalism

5 Cf. Scepticism and Animal Fath,p. 232 which Locke and Hume explicitly introduced into philosophy marks the final triumph of the anti-rationalistic reaction against the rationalism of the Middle Ages. Rationalism is the belief that clarity can only be reached by pushing explanation to its utmost limits. Locke, who hoped to attain final clarity in his analysis of human understanding in divorce from metaphysics, was, so far, an anti-rationalist. But Hume, in so far as he is to be construed as remaining content with two uncoordinated sets of beliefs, one based on the critical examination of our sources of knowledge, and the other on the critical examination of beliefs involved in ‘practice,’ reaches the high watermark of anti-rationalism in philosophy; for ‘explanation’ is the analysis of coordination,

SECTION V