Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

A proposition has neither the particularity of a feeling, nor the reality of a nexus. It is datum for feeling, awaiting a subject feeling it. Its relevance to the actual world by means of its logical subjects makes it a lure for feeling. In fact many subjects may feel it with diverse feelings, and with diverse sorts of feelings. The fact that propositions were first considered in connection with logic, and the moralistic preference for true propositions, have obscured the réle of propositions in the actual world. Logicians only discuss the judgment of propositions. Indeed some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; and most logicians consider propositions as merely appanages to judgments. The result is that false propositions have fared badly, thrown into the dust-heap, neglected. But in the real world it is more importantp. 396 that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is, that it adds to interest. The doctrine here maintained is that judgment-feelings form only one subdivision of propositional feelings; and arise from the special sort of integration of propositional feelings with other feelings. Propositional feelings are not, in their simplest examples, conscious feelings. Consciousness only arises in some integrations in which propositional feelings are among the components integrated. Another point to notice is that the physical feeling, which is always one component in the history of an integral propositional feeling, has no unique relation to the proposition in question, nor has the subject of that feeling, which is also a subject prehending the proposition. Any subject with any physical feeling which includes in its objective datum the requisite logical subjects, can in a supervening phase entertain a propositional feeling with that proposition as its datum. It has only to originate a conceptual feeling with the requisite predicative pattern as its datum, and then to integrate the two feelings into the required propositional feeling.

Evidently new propositions come into being with the creative advance of the world. For every proposition involves its logical subjects; and it cannot be the proposition which it is, unless those logical subjects are the actual entities which they are. Thus no actual entity can feel a proposition, if its actual world does not include the logical subjects of that proposition. The proposition ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’ could not be felt by Hannibal in any occasion of his existence on earth. Hannibal could feel propositions with certain analogies to this proposition, but not this proposition. It is, further, to be noticed that the form of words in which propositions are framed also includes an incitement to the origination of an affirmative judgment-feeling. In imaginative literature, this incitement is inhibited by the general context, and even by the form and make-up of the material book. Sometimes there is even a form of words designedp. 397 to inhibit the formation of a judgment feeling, such as ‘once upon a time.’ The verbal statement also includes words and phrases to symbolize the sort of physical feelings necessary to indicate the logical subjects of the proposition. But language is always elliptical, and depends for its meaning upon the circumstances of its publication. For example, the word ‘Caesar’ may mean a puppy dog, or a negro slave, or the first Roman emperor.

The actual entities whose actual worlds include the logical subjects of a proposition will be said to fall within the ‘locus’ of that proposition. The proposition is prehensible by them. Of those actual entities which fall within the locus of a proposition, only some will prehend it positively. There are two kinds of pure propositional feelings, namely, ‘imaginative feelings’ and ‘perceptive feelings.’ These kinds are not sharply distinguished, but their extreme instances function very differently.

SECTION III

A propositional feeling can arise only in a late phase of the process of the prehending subject. For it requires, in earlier phases: (a) a physical feeling whose objective datum includes the requisite logical subjects; and (6) a physical feeling involving a certain eternal object among the determinants of the definiteness of its datum; and (vy) the conceptual feeling of this eternal object, necessarily derivate from the physical feeling under heading (8), according to categoreal condition IV; and perhaps (8), some conceptual feeling which is a reversion from the former conceptual feeling, according to categoreal condition V, involving another eternal object as its datum.

The physical feeling under the heading (a) will be termed the ‘indicative feeling’; the physical feeling under heading (8) will be called the ‘physical recognition.’ The physical recognition is the physical basis of the conceptual feeling which provides the predicative pattern.

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The ‘predicative pattern’ is either the eternal object which is the datum of the conceptual feeling under the heading (y), or it is the eternal object which is the datum of the conceptual feeling under the heading (6). In the former case, the second conceptual feeling, namely, that under the heading (8), is irrelevant to the consideration of the propositional feeling. In either case, that conceptual feeling whose datum is the predicative pattern is called the ‘predicative feeling.’

In this account of the origin of the predicative feeling, we are in general agreement with Locke and Hume, who hold that every conceptual feeling has a physical basis. But Hume lays down the principle that all eternal objects are first felt physically, and thus would only allow of the origination of the predicative feeling under heading (y). However he makes two concessions which ruin his general principle. For he allows the independent origination of intermediate ‘shades’ in a scale of shades, and also of new ‘manners’ of pattern. Both of these cases are allowed for by the principle of ‘reversion,’ which is appealed to under heading (6). The propositional feeling arises in the later phase in which there is integration of the ‘indicative feeling’ with the ‘predicative feeling.’ In this integration the two data are synthesized by a double elimination involving both data. The actual entities involved in the datum of the indicative feeling are reduced to a bare multiplicity in which each is a bare ‘it’ with the elimination of the eternal object really constituting the definiteness of that nexus. But the integration rescues them from this mere multiplicity by placing them in the unity of a proposition with the given predicate pattern. Thus the actualities, which were first felt as sheer matter of fact, have been transformed into a set of logical subjects with the potentiality for realizing an assigned predicative pattern. The predicative pattern has also been limited by elimination. For as a datum in the conceptual feeling, it held its possibility for realization in respect to absolutely any actual entities; but inp. 399 the proposition its possibilities are limited to just these logical subjects.