Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

The subjective forms of propositional feelings are dominated by valuation, rather than by consciousness. In a pure propositional feeling the logical subjects have preserved their indicated particularity, but have lost their own real modes of objectification. The subjective form lies in the twilight zone between pure physical feeling and the clear consciousness which apprehends the contrast between physical feeling and imagined possibility. A propositional feeling is a lure to creative emergence in the transcendent future. When it is functioning as a lure, the propositional feeling about the logical subjects of the proposition may in some subsequent phase promote decision involving intensification of some physical feeling of those subjects in the nexus. Thus, according to the various categoreal conditions, propositions intensify, attenuate, inhibit, or transmute, without necessarily entering into clear consciousness, or encountering judgment.

It follows that in the pursuit of truth even physicalp. 403 feelings must be criticized, since their evidence is not final apart from an analysis of their origination. This conclusion merely confirms what is a commonplace in all scientific investigation, that we can never start from dogmatic certainty. Such certainty is always an ideal to which we approximate as the result of critical analysis. When we have verified that we depend upon an authentic perceptive feeling, whose origination involves no reversions, then we know that the proposition which is the datum of that feeling is true. Thus there can be no immediate guarantee of the truth of a proposition, by reason of the mode of origination of the propositional feeling, apart from a critical scrutiny of that mode of origination.

The feeling has to be (i) perceptive, (ii) authentic, and (iii) direct, where a definite meaning has, in the preceding section, been assigned to each of these conditions.

The proposition which is the datum of an imaginative feeling may be true. The two questions of the origination of consciousness in the subjective forms of feelings, and of the intuitive judgment of a proposition, apart from the mode of origination of the feeling of it, must now be considered.

SECTION VI

Language, as usual, is always ambiguous as to the exact proposition which it indicates. Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks. Its function is (a) to arouse in the prehending subject some physical feeling indicative of the logical subjects of the proposition, (8) to arouse in the prehending subject some physical feeling which plays the part of the ‘physical recognition,’ (y) to promote the sublimation of the ‘physical recognition’ into the conceptual ‘predicative feeling,’ (6) to promote the integration of the indicative feeling and the predicative feeling into the required propositional feeling. But in this complex function there is always a tacit reference top. 404 the environment of the occasion of utterance. Consider the traditional example, ‘Socrates is mortal.’

This proposition may mean ‘It is mortal.’ In this case the word ‘Socrates’ in the circumstances of its utterance merely promotes a physical feeling indicating the it which is mortal.

The proposition may mean ‘Jt is Socratic and mortal’; where ‘Socratic’ is an additional element in the predicative pattern.

We now turn to the words denoting the predicative pattern, namely, either ‘mortal,’ or ‘Socratic and mortal.’ The slightest consideration discloses the fact that it is pure convention to suppose that there is only one logical subject to the proposition. The word ‘mortal’ means a certain relationship to the general nexus of actual entities in this world which are possible for any one of the actual entities. ‘Mortal’ does not mean ‘mortal in any possible world,’ it means ‘mortal in this world. Thus there is a general reference to this actual world as exemplifying a scheme of things which render ‘mortality’ realizable in it.

The word ‘Socratic’ means ‘realizing the Socratic predicate in Athenian society.’ It does not mean ‘Socratic, in any possible world’; nor does it mean ‘Socratic, anywhere in this world’: it means ‘Socratic, in Athens.’ Thus ‘Socratic,’ as here used, refers to a society of actual entities realizing certain general systematic properties such that the Socratic predicate is realizable in that environment. Also the ‘Athenian society’ requires that this actual world exemplifies a certain systematic scheme, amid which ‘Athenianism’ is realizable.

Thus in the one meaning of the phrase ‘Socrates is mortal,’ the logical subjects are one singular Jt (Socrates) and the actual entities of this actual world, forming a society amid which mortality is realizable and including the former ‘Jt’ In the other meaning, there are also included among the logical subjects the actual entities forming the Athenian society. These actual entities are

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required for the realization of the predicative pattern ‘Socratic and mortal’ and are the definitely indicated logical subjects. They also require that the general scheme of this actual world be such as to support ‘Athenianism’ as well as ‘immortality, and in conjunction with mortality.

CHAPTER V
THE HIGHER PHASES OF EXPERIENCE

SECTION I

‘CoMPARATIVE feelings’ are the result of integrations not yet considered: their data are generic contrasts. The infinite variety of the more complex feelings come under the heading ‘comparative feelings.’

We have now to examine two simple types of comparative feelings. One type arises from the integration of a ‘propositional feeling’ with the ‘indicative feeling’ from which it is partly derived. Feelings of this type will be termed ‘intellectual feelings.’ This type of comparative feelings is subdivided into two species: one species consists of ‘conscious perceptions’; and the other species consists of ‘intuitive judgments.’ The subjective forms of intuitive judgments also involve consciousness. Thus ‘conscious perceptions’ and ‘intuitive judgments’ are alike ‘intellectual feelings.’ Comparative feelings of the other type are termed ‘physical purposes.’ Such a feeling arises from the integration of a conceptual feeling with the basic physical feeling from which it is derived, either directly according to categoreal condition IV (the Category of Conceptual Valuation), or indirectly according to categoreal condition V (the Category of Conceptual Reversion). But this integration is a more primitive type of integration than that which produces, from the same basic physical feeling, the species of propositional feelings termed ‘perceptive.’ The subjective forms of these physical purposes are either ‘adversions’ or ‘aversions.’ The subjective forms of physical purposes do not involve consciousness unless these feelings acquire integration with conscious perceptions or intuitive judgments.

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SECTION II