Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

(vil) That two descriptions are required for an actual entity: (a) one which is analytical of its potentiality for ‘objectification’ in the becoming of other actual entities, and (b) another which is analytical of the process which constitutes its own becoming.

The term ‘objectification’ refers to the particular mode in which the potentiality of one actual entity is realized in another actual entity.

(ix) That how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions of an actual entity are not independent. Its ‘being’ isp. 35 constituted by its ‘becoming.’ This is the ‘principle of process.’

(x) That the first analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete elements, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in its process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehensions. Analysis in terms of prehensions is termed ‘division.’

• (xi) That every prehension consists of three factors:
• (a) the ‘subject’ which is prehending, namely, the actual entity in which that prehension is a concrete element;
• (b) the ‘datum’ which is prehended; (c) the ‘subjective form’ which is how that subject prehends that datum.

Prehensions of actual entities—i.e., prehensions whose data involve actual entities—are termed ‘physical prehensions’; and prehensions of eternal objects are termed ‘conceptual prehensions.’ Consciousness is not necessarily involved in the subjective forms of either type of prehension.

• (xii) That there are two species of prehensions: (a) ‘positive prehensions’ which are termed ‘feelings,’ and
• (b) ‘negative prehensions’ which are said to ‘eliminate from feeling.’ Negative prehensions also have subjective forms. A negative prehension holds its datum as inoperative in the progressive concrescence of prehensions constituting the unity of the subject.

(xiii) That there are many species of subjective forms, such as emotions, valuations, purposes, adversions, aversions, consciousness, etc.

(xiv) That a nexus is a set of actual entities in the unity of the relatedness constituted by their prehensions of each other, or—what is the same thing conversely expressed—constituted by their objectifications in each other.

(xv) That a proposition is the unity of certain actual entities in their potentiality for forming a nexus, with its potential relatedness partially defined by certain eternal objects which have the unity of one complex eternalp. 36 object. The actual entities involved are termed the ‘logical subjects,’ the complex eternal object is the ‘predicate.’

(xvi) That a multiplicity consists of many entities, and its unity is constituted by the fact that all its constituent entities severally satisfy at least one condition which no other entity satisfies.

Every statement about a particular multiplicity can be expressed as a statement referent either (a) to all its members severally, or (b) to an indefinite some of its members severally, or (c) as a denial of one of these statements. Any statement, incapable of being expressed in this form, is not a statement about a multiplicity, though it may be a statement about an entity closely allied to some multiplicity, i.e., systematically allied to each member of some multiplicity.

(xvii) That whatever is a datum for a feeling has a unity as felt. Thus the many components of a complex datum have a unity: this unity is a ‘contrast’ of entities. In a sense this means that there are an endless number of categories of existence, since the synthesis of entities into a contrast in general produces a new existential type. For example, a proposition is, in a sense, a ‘contrast.’ For the practical purposes of ‘human understanding,’ it is sufficient to consider a few basic types of existence, and to lump the more derivative types together under the heading of ‘contrasts.’ The most important of such ‘contrasts’ is the ‘affrmation-negation’ contrast in which a proposition and a nexus obtain synthesis in one datum, the members of the nexus being the ‘logical subjects’ of the proposition.

(xvii) That every condition to which the process of becoming conforms in any particular instance, has its reason either in the character of some actual entity in the actual world of that concrescence, or in the character of the subject which is in process of concrescence. This category of explanation is termed the ‘ontological principie.’ It could also be termed the ‘principle of efficient,p. 37 and final, causation.’ This ontological principle means that actual entities are the only reasons; so that to search for a reason is to search for one or more actual entities. It follows that any condition to be satisfied by one actual entity in its process expresses a fact either about the ‘real internal constitutions’ of some other actual entities, or about the ‘subjective aim’ conditioning that process.

The phrase ‘real internal constitution’ is to be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (III, III, 15): “And thus the real internal (but generally in substances unknown) constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their ‘essence.’” Also the terms ‘prehension’ and ‘feeling’ are to be compared with the various significations of Locke’s term ‘idea.’ But they are adopted as more general and more neutral terms than ‘idea’ as used by Locke, who seems to restrict them to conscious mentality. Also the ordinary logical account of ‘propositions’ expresses only a restricted aspect of their réle in the universe, namely, when they are the data of feelings whose subjective forms are those of judgments. It is an essential doctrine in the philosophy of organism that the primary function of a proposition is to be relevant as a lure for feeling. For example, some propositions are the data of feelings with subjective forms such as to constitute those feelings to be the enjoyment of a joke. Other propositions are felt with feelings whose subjective forms are horror, disgust, or indignation. The ‘subjective aim,’ which controls the becoming of a subject, is that subject feeling a proposition with the subjective form of purpose to realize it in that process of self-creation.

(xix) That the fundamental types of entities are actual entities, and eternal objects; and that the other types of entities only express how all entities of the two fundamental types are in community with each other, in the actual world.

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(xx) That to ‘function’ means to contribute determination to the actual entities in the nexus of some actual world. Thus the determinateness and self-identity of one entity cannot be abstracted from the community of the diverse functionings of all entities. ‘Determination’ is analysable into ‘definiteness’ and ‘position,’ where ‘definitness’ is the illustration of select eternal objects, and ‘position’ is relative status in a nexus of actual entities.

(xxi) An entity is actual, when it has significance for itself. By this it is meant that an actual entity functions in respect to its own determination. Thus an actual entity combines self-identity with self-diversity.

(xxii) That an actual entity by functioning in respect to itself plays diverse réles in self-formation without losing its self-identity. It is self-creative; and in its process of creation transforms its diversity of rdles into one coherent réle. Thus ‘becoming’ is the transformation of incoherence into coherence, and in each particular instance ceases with this attainment.