Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

this way the prime requisite, that anyhow there shall be some important application, is secured. The success of the imaginative experiment is always to be tested by the applicability of its results beyond the restricted locus from which it originated. In default of such extended application, a generalization started from physics, for example, remains merely an alternative expression of notions applicable to physics. The partially successful philosophic generalization will, if derived from physics, find applications in fields of experience beyond physics. It will enlighten observation in those remote fields, so that general principles can be discerned as in process of illustration, which in the absence of the imaginative generalization are obscured by their persistent exemplification.

Thus the first requisite is to proceed by the method of generalization so that certainly there 1s some application ;

and ess is application beyond the immediate origin, In other words, some synoptic vision has been gained. In this description of philosophic method, the term

‘philosophic generalization’ has meant ‘the utilization of specific notions, applying to a restricted group of facts, for the divination of the generic notions which apply to all facts.’

In its use of this method natural science has shown a curious mixture of rationalism and irrationalism. Its prevalent tone of thought has been ardently rationalistic within its own borders, and dogmatically irrational beyond those borders. In practice such an attitude tends to become a dogmatic denial that there are any factors in the world not fully expressible in terms of its own primary notions devoid of further generalization. Such a denial is the self-denial of thought.

The second condition for the success of imaginative construction is unflinching pursuit of the two rationalistic ideals, coherence and logical perfection.

Logical perfection does not here require any detailedp. 9 explanation. An example of its importance is afforded by the role of mathematics in the restricted field of natural science. The history of mathematics exhibits the generalization of special notions observed in particular instances. In any branches of mathematics, the notions presuppose each other. It is a remarkable characteristic of the history of thought that branches of mathematics developed under the pure imaginative impulse, thus controlled, finally receive their important application. Time may be wanted. Conic sections had to wait for eighteen hundred years. In more recent years, the theory of probability, the theory of tensors, the theory of matrices are cases in point.

The requirement of coherence is the great preservative of Re SRE sanity. But the validity of its criticism 1s not always admitted. If we consider philosophical controversies, we shall find that disputants tend to require coherence from their adversaries, and to grant dispensations to themselves. It has been remarked that a system of philosophy is never refuted; it is only abandoned. The reason is that logical contradictions, except as temporary slips of the mind—plentiful, though temporary—are the most gratuitous of errors; and usually they are trivial. Thus, after criticism, systems do not exhibit mere illogicalities. They suffer from inadequacy and incoherence. Failure to include some obvious elements of experience in the scope of the system is met by boldly denying the facts. Also while a philosophical system retains any charm of novelty, it enjoys a plenary indulgence for its failures in coherence. But after a system has acquired orthodoxy, and is taught with authority, it receives a sharper criticism. Its denials. and its incoherences are found intolerable, and a reaction sets in.

Incoherence i is the arbitrary disconnection of first principles, In modern philosophy Descartes’ two kinds of substance, corporeal and mental, illustrate incoherence. There is, in Descartes’ philosophy, no reason why there should not be a one-substance world, only corporeal, orp. 10 a one-substance world, only mental. According to Descartes, a substantial individual ‘requires nothing but itself in order to exist.’ Thus this system makes a virtue of its incoherence. But on the other hand, the facts seem connected, while Descartes’ system does not; for example, in the treatment of the body-mind problem. The Cartesian system obviously says something that is true. But its notions are too abstract to penetrate into the nature of things.

The attraction of Spinoza’s philosophy lies in its modification of Descartes’ position into greater coherence. He starts with one substance, causa sui, and considers its essential attributes and its individualized modes, i.e. the ‘affectiones substantiae.’ The gap in the system is the arbitrary introduction of the ‘modes.’ And yet, a multiplicity of modes is a fixed requisite, if the scheme is to retain any direct relevance to the many occasions in the experienced world.

The philosophy of organism is closely allied to Spinoza’s scheme of thought. But it differs by the abandonment of the subject- redicate forms of thought, So direct embodiment, of th t ultimate characterization of fact, The result is that the ‘substance-quality’ concept is avoided; and that morphological description is replaced by description of dynamic process. a 1n0za S ‘modes’ now become the sheer actualities: so that thou

lead us to the discovery of any higher grade of reality, he coherence, which the system seeks to preserve, is the dis hat. rocess, or_concrescence, of any one actual entity involves the other actual entities among its components, In this way the obvious solidari y_ot the world receives its explanation. In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid ofp. 11 actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed ‘creativity’; and God is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In monistic philosophies, Spinoza’s or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed ‘The Absolute.’ In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, ‘eminent’ reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.

In its turn every philosophy will suffer a deposition. But the bundle of philosophic systems expresses a variety of general truths about the universe, awaiting co-ordination and assignment of their various spheres of validity. Such progress in co-ordination is provided by the advance of philosophy; and in this sense philosophy has advanced from Plato onwards. According to this account of the achievement of rationalism, the chief error in philosoph is overstatement, The aim at generalization is sound but the estimate of success is exaggerated. There are two main forms of such overstatement. One form is what 1 have termed elsewhere,’ the ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness.’ This fallacy consists n_negecting tne Ceerce. lecting the degree of abstraction involved when an actual entity 1s considered merely so far as it exemplifies certain categories of thought, There are aspects of actualities which are simply ignored so long as we restrict thought to these categories. Thus the success of a philosophy is to be measured by its comparative avoidance of this fallacy, when thought is restricted within its categories.

The other form of overstatement consists in a false estimate of logical procedure in respect_to certainty, and in respect to premises, Philosophy has been haunted by the unfortunate notion that its method is dogmatically to indicate premises which are severally clear, distinct, and ? Cf. Science and the Modern World, Ch. III.

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certain; and to erect upon those premises a deductive system of thought.