Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

In this connection, I can only repeat, as a final summary, a paragraph from my Science and the Modern World (Ch. III): “You will observe that I do not hold induction to be in its essence the derivation of general laws. It is the derivation of some characteristics of a particular future from the known characteristics of a particular past. The wider assumption of general laws holding for all cognizable occasions appears a very unsafe addendum to attach to this limited knowledge. All we can ask of the present occasion is that it shall determine a particular community of occasions, which are in some respects mutually qualified by reason of their inclusion within that same community.” It is evident that, in this discussion of induction, the philosophy of organismp. 311 appears as an enlargement of the premise in ethical discussions: that man is a social animal. Analogously, every actual occasion is social, so that when we have presumed the existence of any persistent type of actual occasions, we have thereby made presumptions as to types of societies comprised in its environment. Another way of stating this explanation of the validity of induction is, that in every forecast there is a presupposition of a certain type of actual entities, and that the question then asked is, Under what circumstances will these entities find themselves? The reason that an answer can be given is that the presupposed type of entities requires a presupposed type of data for the primary phases of these actual entities; and that a presupposed type of data requires a presupposed type of social environment. But the laws of nature are the outcome of the social environment. Hence when we have presupposed a type of actual occasions, we have already some information as to the laws of nature in operation throughout the environment.

In every inductive judgment, there is therefore contained a presupposition of the maintenance of the general order of the immediate environment, so far as concerns actual entities within the scope of the induction. The inductive judgment has regard to the statistical probabilities inherent in this given order. The anticipations are devoid of meaning apart from the definite cosmic order which they presuppose. Also survival requires order, and to presuppose survival, apart from the type of order which that type of survival requires, is a contradiction. It is at this point that the organic philosophy differs from any form of Cartesian ‘substance-philosophy.’ For if a substance requires nothing but itself in order to exist, its survival can tell no tale as to the survival of order in its environment. Thus no conclusion can be drawn respecting the external relationships of the surviving substance to its future environment. For

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the organic philosophy, anticipations as to the future of a piece of rock presuppose an environment with the type of order which that piece of rock requires. Thus the completely unknown environment never enters into an inductive judgment. The induction is about the statistical probabilities of this environment, or about the graded relevance to it of eternal objects.

Thus the appeal to the mere unknown is automatically ruled out. The question, as to what will happen to an unspecified entity in an unspecified environment, has no answer. Induction always concerns societies of actual entities which are important for the stability of the immediate environment.

SECTION VII

In the preceding section there has been a covert appeal to probability. It is the purpose of this section to explain how the probability, thus invoked, can be explained according to the statistical theory. First, we have to note exactly where this appeal to probability enters into the notion of induction. An inductive argument always includes an hypothesis, namely, that the environment which is the subject matter considered contains a society of actual occasions analogous to a society in the present. But analogous societies require analogous data for their several occasions; and analogous data can be provided only by the objectifications provided by analogous environments. But the laws of nature are derived from the characters of the societies dominating the environment. Thus the laws of nature dominating the environment in question have some analogy to the laws of nature dominating the immediate environment.

Now the notions of ‘analogy’ and of ‘dominance’ both leave a margin of uncertainty. We can ask, How far analogous? and How far dominant? If there were exact analogy, and complete dominance, there would be a mixture of certainty as to general conditions and of complete ignorance as to specific details. But such a descripTA PROrOS TTPO NS 313tion does not apply either to our knowledge of the immediate present, or of the past, or to our inductive knowledge of the future. Our conscious experience involves a baffling mixture of certainty, ignorance, and probability.

Now it is evident that the theory of cosmic epochs, due to the dominance of societies of actual occasions, provides the basis for a statistical explanation of probability. In any one epoch there are a definite set of dominant societies in certain ordered interconnections. There is also an admixture of chaotic occasions which cannot be classified as belonging to any society. But, having regard to the enormous extension of any cosmic epoch, we are practically dealing with infinities, so that some method of sampling is required, rooted in the nature of the case and not arbitrarily adopted.

This natural method of sampling is provided by the data which form the primary phase of any one actual occasion. Each actual occasion objectifies the other actual occasions in its environment. This environment can be limited to the relevant portion of the cosmic epoch. It is a finite region of the extensive continuum, so far as adequate importance is concerned in respect to individual differences among actual occasions. Also, in respect to the importance of individual differences, we may assume that there is a lower limit to the extension of each relevant occasion within this region. With these two presumptions, it follows that the relevant objectifications, forming the relevant data for any one occasion, refer to a finite sample of actual occasions in the environment. Accordingly our knowledge of the external world, and of the conditions upon which its laws depend is, through and through, of that numerical character which a statistical theory of probability requires. Such a theory does not require that exact statistical calculations are made. All that is meant by such a theory is that our probability judgments are ultimately derivable from vague estimates of ‘more or less’ in a numerical sense.

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We have an unprecise intuition of the statistical basis of the sort of way in which things happen.

Nore—By far the best discussion of the philosophical theory of probability is to be found in Mr. J. Maynard Keynes’ book, A Treatise on Probability. This treatise must long remain the standard work on the subject. My conclusions in this chapter do not seem to me to differ fundamentally from those of Mr. Keynes as set out towards the conclusion of his Chapter XXI. But Mr. Keynes here seems to revert to a view of probability very analogous to that form of the ‘frequency theory,’ which as suggested by me he criticized acutely (and rightly, so far as concerned that special form) in his Chapter VIII.

SECTION VIII

So far the argument of the two preceding sections has been devoted to the explanation of the statistical ground for a probability judgment. But the same discussion also discloses an alternative non-statistical ground for such a judgment.