Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

The subjective form of the propositional feeling will depend on circumstances, according to categoreal condition VII. It may, or may not, involve consciousness; it may, or may not, involve judgment. It will involve aversion, or adversion, that is to say, decision. The subjective form will only involve consciousness when the ‘affirmation-negation’ contrast has entered into it. In other words, consciousness enters into the subjective forms of feelings, when those feelings are components in an integral feeling whose datum is the contrast between a nexus which 7s, and a proposition which in its own nature negates the decision of its truth or falsehood. The logical subjects of the proposition are the actual entities in the nexus. Consciousness is the way of feeling that particular real nexus, as in contrast with imaginative freedom about it. The consciousness may confer importance upon what the real thing is, or upon what the imagination is, or upon both.

SECTION IV

A proposition, as such, is impartial between its prehending subjects, and in its own nature it does not fully determine the subjective forms of such prehensions. But the different propositional feelings, with the same proposition as datum, in different prehending subjects, are widely different according to differences of their histories in these subjects. They can be divided into two main types, here termed, respectively, ‘perceptive feelings’ and ‘imaginative feelings.’ This difference is founded on the comparison between the ‘indicative feeling’ from which the logical subjects are derived, and the ‘physical recognition’ from which the predicative pattern is derived.

Thirdly, and lastly, the predicative feeling may have arisen in the prehending subject by reversion, according to the heading (8) of the previous section. In this case the predicate has in it some elements which really conp. 400tribute to the definiteness of the nexus; but it has also some elements which contrast with corresponding elements in the nexus. These latter elements have been introduced in the concrescence of the prehcnding subject. The predicate is thus distorted from the truth by the subjectivity of the prehending subject. Such a perceptive feeling will be termed ‘unauthentie.’

These physical feelings are either identical or different. If they be one and the same feeling, the derived propositional feeling is here called a ‘perceptive feeling.’ For in this case, as will be seen, the proposition predicates of its logical subjects a character derived from the way in which they are physically felt by that prehending subject.

If the physical feelings be different, the derived propositional feeling is here called an ‘imaginative feeling.’ For in this case, as will be seen, the proposition predicates of its logical subjects a character without any guarantee of close relevance to the logical subjects. Since these physical feelings are complex, there are degrees of difference between them. Two physical feelings may be widely diverse or almost identical. Thus the distinction between the two types of propositional feelings is not as sharp-cut as it might be. This distinction is still further blurred by noting that three distinct cases arise which differentiate perceptive feelings into three species, which in their turn shade off into each other.

Since we are now dealing with perceptive feelings, we have on hand only one physical feeling which enjoys the rdle both of the indicative feeling, and of the physical recognition. In the first place, suppose that the predicative pattern is derived straight from the physical recognition under the heading (vy), so that there is no reversion and the heading (8) is irrelevant. In this case the derived propositional feeling will be termed an ‘authentic perceptive feeling.’ Such a feeling, by virtue of its modes of origination, has as its datum a proposition whose predicate is in some way realized in the real nexus of itsp. 401 logical subjects. Thus the proposition felt proposes a predicate derived from the real nexus, and not refracted by the prehending subject. But nevertheless the proposition need not be true, so far as concerns the way in which it implicates the logical subjects with the predicate. For the primary physical feeling of that nexus by the prehending subject may have involved ‘transmutation’ according to categoreal condition VI. In this case, the proposition ascribes to its logical subjects the physical enjoyment of a nexus with the definition of its predicate; whereas that predicate may have only been enjoyed conceptually by these logical subjects. Thus, what the proposition proposes as a physical fact in the nexus, was in truth only a mental fact. Unless it is understood for what it is, error arises. Such understanding belongs to the subjective form.

But if the primary physical feeling involves no reversion in any stage, then the predicate of the proposition is that eternal object which constitutes the definiteness of that nexus. In this case, the proposition is, without qualification, true. The authentic perceptive feeling will then be terined ‘direct.’ Thus there are ‘indirect’ perceptive feelings (when ‘reversion’ is involved), and ‘direct’ perceptive feelings; and feelings of both these species are termed ‘authentic.’ In the case of these ‘authentic’ feelings, the predicate has realization in the nexus, physically or ideally, apart from any reference to the prehending subject.

Unauthentic feelings are feelings derived from a ‘tied’ imagination, in the sense that there is only one physical basis for the whole origination, namely, that physical feeling which is both the ‘indicative’ feeling, and the ‘physical recognition.’ The imagination is tied to one ultimate fact.

SECTION V

Imaginative feelings belong to the general case when the indicative feeling and the physical recognition differ.

p. 402

But there are degrees of difference, which can vary from the case when the two nexis, forming the objective data of the two feelings respectively, enjoy the extreme of remote disconnection, to the case at the other extreme when the two nexis are almost identical. But in so far as there is diversity between the feelings, there is some trace of a free imagination. The proposition which is the objective datum of an imaginative feeling has a predicate derived, with or without reversions, from a nexus which in some respects differs from the nexus providing the logical subjects. Thus the proposition is felt as an imaginative notion concerning its logical subjects. The proposition in its own nature gives no suggestion as to how it should be felt. In one prehending subject it may be the datum of a perceptive feeling, and in another prehending subject it may be the datum of an imaginative feeling. But the subjective forms of the two feelings will differ according to the differences in the histories of the origination of those feelings in their respective subjects.