Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures, 1929) — Alfred North Whitehead

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This book, one of Alfred North White-
head’s most important works, presents a
condensed scheme of cosmological
ideas developed by confrontation with
various topics of experience. Thus this
design attempts to bring the aesthetic,
moral and religious interests into rela-
tion with those elements of knowledge
which have their origin in natura!
science.

Professor Whitehead himself said: “In
putting out these results four strong im-
pressions dominate my mind: First, that
the movement of historical and philo-
sophical criticism of detached ques-
tions, which on the whole has dominated
the last two centuries, has done its
work, and requires to be supplemented
by a more sustained effort of construc-
tive thought. Secondly, that the true
method of philosophical construction is
to frame a scheme of ideas, the best
one can, and unflinchingly to explore
the interpretations of experience in
terms of that scheme. Thirdly, that all
constructive thought, on the various
special topics of scientific interest, is
dominated by some such scheme, un-
acknowledged, but no less influential
in guiding the imagination. The impor-

(Continued on back flap)

in 2026

An Essay in Cosmology

Girrorp Lectures DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY or EpvinsurcuH Durine THE Session 1927-28

BY
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
F.E.S.,-SC.D., Li..D.

Fellow of Trinity College m the University of Cambridge and Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University

Tur Macmittan Company

New York

CoryricutT, 1929, by The Macmillan Company
Copyright renewed 1957 by Evelyn Whitehead
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy-
ing, recording or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Sixth Printing 1967

{Thb Macmillan Company, New York

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

Tuese lectures are based upon a recurrence to that phase of philosophic thought which began with Descartes and ended with Hume. The philosophic scheme which they endeavour to explain is termed the ‘Philosophy of Organism.’ There is no doctrine put forward which can- not cite in its defence some explicit statement of one of this group of thinkers, or of one of the two founders of all Western thought, Plato and Aristotle. But the philos- ophy of organism is apt to emphasize just those elements in the writings of these masters which subsequent sys- tematizers have put aside. The writer who most fully anticipated the main positions of the philosophy of organ- ism is John Locke in his Essay, especially * in its later books.

The lectures are divided into five parts. In the first
part, the method is explained, and scheme of ideas, in
terms of which the cosmology is to be framed, is stated
summarily.

In the second part an endeavour is made to exhibit this
scheme as adequate for the interpretation of the ideas
and problems which form the complex texture of civilized
thought. Apart from such an investigation the summary
statement of Part I is practically unintelligible. Thus
Part II at once gives meaning to the verbal phrases of
the scheme by their use in discussion, and shows the
power of the scheme to put the various elements of our
experience into a consistent relation to each other. In
order to obtain a reasonably complete account of human
experience considered in relation to the philosophical

1Cf. An Essay Concerning Hunan Understanding, Bk. IV, Ch. VI, Sect. 11.

vl PREFACE

problems which naturally arise, the group of philosophers and scientists belonging to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been considered, in particular Descartes, Newton, Locke, Hume, Kant. Any one of these writers is one-sided in his presentation of the groundwork of experience; but as a whole they give a general presenta- tion which dominates the development of subsequent philosophy. I started the investigation with the expec- tation of being occupied with the exposition of the diver- gencies from every member of this group. But a careful examination of their exact statements disclosed that in the main the philosophy of organism is a recurrence to pre-Kantian modes of thought. These philosophers were perplexed by the inconsistent presuppositions underlying their inherited modes of expression. In so far as they, or their successors, have endeavoured to be rigidly sys- tematic, the tendency has been to abandon just those elements in their thought upon which the philosophy of organism bases itself. An endeavour has been made to point out the exact points of agreement and of dis- agreement.

In the second part, the discussions of modern thought have been confined to the most general notions of physics and biology, with a careful avoidance of all detail. Also, it must be one of the motives of a complete cosmology, to construct a system of ideas which bring the aesthetic, moral, and religious interests into relation with those con- cepts of the world which have their origin in natural science.

In the third and fourth parts, the cosmological scheme
is developed in terms of its own categoreal notions, and
without much regard to other systems of thought. For
example, in Part II there is a chapter on the ‘Extensive
Continuum,’ which is largely concerned with the notions
of Descartes and Newton, compared with the way in
which the organic philosophy must interpret this feature
of the world. But in Part IV, this question is treated
from the point of view of developing the detailed method

PREFACE vil

in which the philosophy of organism establishes the theory of this problem. It must be thoroughly under- stood that the theme of these lectures is not a detached consideration of various traditional philosophical prob- lems which acquire urgency in certain traditional systems of thought. The lectures are intended to state a condensed scheme of cosmological ideas, to develop their meaning by confrontation with the various topics of experience, and finally to elaborate an adequate cosmol- ogy in terms of which all particular topics find them interconnections. Thus the unity of treatment is to be looked for in the gradual development of the scheme, in meaning and in relevance, and not in the successive treat- ment of particular topics. For example, the doctrines of time, of space, of perception, and of causality are recurred to again and again, as the cosmology develops. In each recurrence, these topics throw some new light on the scheme, or receive some new elucidation. At the end, in so far as the enterprise has been successful, there should be no problem of space-time, or of epistemology, or of causality, left over for discussion. The scheme should have developed all those generic notions adequate for the expression of any possible interconnection of things.

Among the contemporary schools of thought, my obli-
gations to the English and American Realists are obvious.
In this connection, I should like especially to mention
Professor T. P. Nunn, of the University of London. His
anticipations, in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, of some of the doctrines of recent Realism, do
not appear to be sufficiently well known.

I am also greatly indebted to Bergson, William James,
and John Dewey. One of my preoccupations has been to
rescue their type of thought from the charge of anti-
intellectualism, which rightly or wrongly has been asso-
ciated with it. Finally, though throughout the main
body of the work I am in sharp disagreement with Brad-
ley, the final outcome is after all not so greatly different.
I am particularly indebted to his chapter on the nature

vill PREFACE

of experience, which appears in his Essays on Truth and
Reality. His insistence on ‘feeling’ is very consonant
with my own conclusions. This whole metaphysical posi-
tion is an implicit repudiation of the doctrine of ‘vacuous
actuality.’

The fifth part is concerned with the final interpretation
of the ultimate way in which the cosmological problem is
to be conceived. It answers the question, What does it
all come to? In this part, the approximation to Bradley
is evident. Indeed, if this cosmology be deemed success-
ful, it becomes natural at this point to ask whether the
type of thought involved be not a transformation of some
main doctrines of Absolute Idealism onto a realistic
basis.

These lectures will be best understood by noting the
following list of prevalent habits of thought, which are
repudiated, in so far as concerns their influence on
philosophy:

(i) The distrust of speculative philosophy.

(ii) The trust in language as an adequate expression of propositions.

(11) The mode of philosophical thought which implies, and is implied by, the faculty-psychology.

(iv) The subject-predicate form of expression.

(v) The sensationalist doctrine of perception.

(vi) The doctrine of vacuous actuality.

(vii) The Kantian doctrine of the objective world as a theoretical construct from purely subjective experience.

(viii) Arbitrary deductions in ex absurdo arguments.

(ix) Belief that logical inconsistencies can indicate anything else than some antecedent errors.

By reason of its ready acceptance of some, or all, of
these nine myths and fallacious procedures, much nine-
teenth-century philosophy excludes itself from relevance
to the ordinary stubborn facts of daily life.

The positive doctrine of these lectures is concerned
with the becoming, the being, and the relatedness of
‘actual entities.’ An ‘actual entity’ is a res vera in the

PREFACE ix

Cartesian sense of that term;’ it is a Cartesian ‘sub- stance,’ and not an Aristotelian ‘primary substance.’ But Descartes retained in his metaphysical doctrine the Aris- totelian dominance of the category of ‘quality’ over that of ‘relatedness.’ In these lectures ‘relatedness’ is domi- nant over ‘quality.’ All relatedness has its foundation in the relatedness of actualities; and such relatedness is wholly concerned with the appropriation of the dead by the living—that is to say, with ‘objective immortality’ whereby what is divested of its own living immediacy becomes a real component in other living immediacies of becoming. This is the doctrine that the creative advance of the world is the becoming, the perishing, and the objec- tive immortalities of those things which jointly constitute stubborn fact.

The history of philosophy discloses two cosmologies which at different periods have dominated European thought, Plato’s Timaeus,* and the cosmology of the seventeenth century, whose chief authors were Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Locke. In attempting an enterprise of the same kind, it is wise to follow the clue that perhaps the true solution consists in a fusion of the two previous schemes, with modifications demanded by self-consistency and the advance of knowledge. The cosmology explained in these lectures has been framed in accordance with this reliance on the positive value of the philosophical tradi- tion. One test of success is adequacy in the comprehen- sion of the variety of experience within the limits of one scheme of ideas. The endeavour to satisfy this condi- tion is illustrated by comparing Chapters ITI, VII, and X of Part II, respectively entitled ‘The Order of Nature,’ ‘The Subjectivist Principle,’ and ‘Process,’ with Chapter

2T derive my comprehension of this element in Descartes’ thought from Professor Gilson of the Sorbonne. I believe that he is the first to insist on its importance. He is, of course, not responsible for the use made of the notion in these lectures.

>I regret that Professor A. E. Taylor’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus was only published after this work was prepared for the press.

Thus, with the exception of one small reference, no use could be made of it. I am very greatly indebted to Professor Taylor’s other writings.

X Preface

V of Part III, entitled ‘The Higher Phases of Experience,’
and with Chapter V of Part IV, entitled ‘Measurement,’
and with Chapter II of Part V, entitled ‘God and The
World.’ These chapters should be recognizable as the
legitimate outcome of the one scheme of ideas stated in
the second chapter of Part I.

In these lectures I have endeavoured to compress the material derived from years of meditation. In putting out these results, four strong impressions dominate my mind: First, that the movement of historical, and philosophical, criticism of detached questions, which on the whole has dominated the last two centuries, has done its work, and requires to be supplemented by a more sustained effort of constructive thought. Secondly, that the true method of philosophical construction is to frame a scheme of ideas, the best that one can, and unflinchingly to explore the interpretation of experience in terms of that scheme. Thirdly, that all constructive thought, on the various special topics of scientific interest, is dominated by some such scheme, unacknowledged, but no less influential in guiding the imagination. The importance of philosophy lies in its sustained effort to make such schemes explicit, and thereby capable of criticism and improvement.

There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly.

In the expansion of these lectures to the dimensions of
the present book, I have been greatly indebted to the
critical difficulties suggested by the members of my
Harvard classes. Also this work would never have been
written without the constant encouragement and counsel
which I owe to my wife.