A. N. W.
Harvard University January, 1929
Contents
Preface
e e ° eo e Vv
Part I
THE SPECULATIVE SCHEME CHAPTER
ABSTRACT . . 5 pp ane ae ee 3
I. SPECULATIVE PuiLosoray ae oan Die PIES. :, 4
UL, “tees Crumaretovsiovn Seisanas! 4 4 5°56 4 5 6 . 4
Le SOME SL IERTVATIVE. NOTIONS .)0s © .)": Ds). > 46
Part 11
Discussions and Applications
CER ACEMEM Be cnc ee os ge a BT
I. Fact anp Form. . . Sr Obs Wee est eee 62
Il. Tue Extensive ContTINUuUM ee ee ts ye OS.
ipo tan Orpen or NATURE. . . . . = ... 127
IV. ORGANISMS AND ENVIRONMENT. . ... .. 168
NWEELOCKECAND ELUME. 6 . 4 « » «. « . ~. L198
VI. From Descartes to Kant. ..... . 218
Vil. Tue Supsgectivist PrRincipte . .... .. 238
VINI. SymponicoRermerENce . ... . . ..« 255
XPD GOPOSITIONS: . « «2 « © 6 + -» «~~ « “280
DOPE EO Croissance ce et OLY
Part Iii
The Theory of Prehension
Pe ACT ee Wf pager. esas a) | Ok
I. Frevines . er Pes ore) et re ood
Il. Tuer Primary F EELINGS Per At! SOF
ies Lub TRANSMISSION OF FEELINGS. . . . . . 3/38
IV. PRoposiTions AND FEerincs. . . .. . . 93891
V. Tue Hicguer PHases of EXPERIENCE. . . . 406
xii CONTENTS
PART TV THE THEORY OF EXTENSION
CHAPTER PAGE
ABSTRACT . . Oe eee on ee oe eee Book
I. CoorDINATE Division. Ne Oe Sn ee Ge We ce BARS
II. Exrensive CoNNECTION ow ay, ae eee eee
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IV. Srrains. Joie at bitldtimin cent ae ee
Ne MEASUREMENT | ee abu ae ce ee ee
PARTE AW,
Final Interpretation
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PART! THE SPECULATIVE SCHEME
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Cuaprer I. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY
tip
III.
Ly
Speculative Philosophy; Coherent, Logical, Necessary System of Ideas; Interpretation of Experience.
Defects of Insight and of Language; Conditions for Observa- tion; Rigid Empiricism, Imagination, Generalization; Coher- ence and Incoherence; Creativity, the Ultimate.
Rationalism and Dogmatism; Scheme as a Matrix, False and
True Propositions, Use of the Matrix; Experimental Adven-
ture.
Philosophy and Science, Grades of Generality; Dogmatic Influ- ence of Mathematics; Progress of Philosophy.
. Defects of Language; Propositions and Their Background;
Metaphysical Presupposition; Excessive Trust in Language;
Metaphysics and Practice; Metaphysics and Linguistic
Expression.
Speculative Philosophy and Overambition; Overambition, Dog- matism and Progress; Interpretation and Metaphysics; The Higher Elements of Experience, Subjectivity and the Meta- physical Correction; Morality, Religion, Science, Connected by Philosophy; Contrast Between Religion and Science; Conclusion,
CuaptTer II]. Tue CaATrecorEAL SCHEME
. Four notions, namely, Actual Entity, Prehension, Nexus, the
Ontological Principle; Descartes and Locke; Philosophy Explanatory of Abstraction, Not of Concreteness.
. The Four Sets of Categories; The Category of the Ultimate;
Conjunction and Disjunction; Creativity, the Principle of Novelty, Creative Advance; Togetherness, Concrescence; Eight Categories of Existence; Twenty-seven Categories of Explanation.
Nine Categoreal Obligations.
Preliminary Notes; Complete Abstraction Self-Contradictory; Principles of Unrest and of Relativity; Actual Entities Never Change; Perishing of Occasions and Their Objective Immortality; Final Causation and Efficient Causation; Mul- tiplicities; Substance.
4 Process and Reality
Cuapter III. Some Derivative Notions
I. Primordial Nature of God; Relevance, the Divine Ordering; Consequent Nature of God; Creativity and Its Acquirement of Character; Creatures, Objective Immortality, Appetition, Novelty, Relevance; Appetition and Mentality, Conceptual Prehensions, Pure and Impure Prehensions; Synonyms and Analogies, namely Conceptual Prehension, Appetition, Intui- tion, Physical Purpose, Vision, Envisagement.
II. Social Order, Defining Characteristic, Substantial Form; Per- sonal Order, Serial Inheritance, Enduring Object; Corpus- cular Societies.
III. Classic Notion of Time, Unique Seriality; Continuity of Becom-
ing, Becoming of Continuity, Zeno; Atomism and Contin-
uity; Corpuscular and Wave Theories of Light.
IV. Consciousness, Thought, Sense-Perception are unessential ele- ments in an instance of experience,
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY
Tuts course of lectures is designed as an essay in
Speculative Philo . Its first task must be to define
speculative philosophy,’ and to defend it as a method productive of important knowledge.
Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a
coherent, logical, necessary_system of general ideas in
terms of which eye xperience can be
interpreted, By this notion of ‘interpretation’ I mean
at everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed
Se willed, or thought, shall have the character
ol a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the
philosopitical scheme should be coher logical 1
Feces es interpretation, applicable and_adequate,
ere ‘applicable’ means that some items of experience are
Sus interpretable, and ‘adequate’ means that there are_
no items incapable of such interpretation,
Speculative Philosophy 5
‘Coherence,’ as here employed, means that the funda-
mental ideas, in terms of which the scheme is developed,
presuppose each other so that i isolation they are mean:
ingless 1s requirement does not mean that they are
definable in terms of each other: it means that ae 18
indefinable in one such notion cannot be abstracted from
its relevance to the other notions. It i ideal of
peculative philoso that its fundamental ions sha.
not seem capable of abstraction from each other,
other words, it is presu ity ¢ -
ceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the ois s
philosophy to exhibit this truth. This r_is its coherence,
The term ‘logical’ has its ordinary meaning, including ‘logical’ consistency, or lack of contradiction, the defini- tion of constructs in logical terms, the exemplification of general logical notions in specific instances, and the principles of inference. It will be observed that logical
notions must themselves find their places in the scheme of philosophic notions.
It will also be noticed that this ideal of speculative Peery has its rational side and _ its empirical side
e rational side 1s expressed by the terms ‘coherent: and ‘logical. e empirical side is expressed by the terms ‘a licablo’ and “adequats’7-—But the two’ sides are bound together by clearing away an ambiguity which remains in the previous explanation of the term ‘ade- quate.’ The adequacy of the scheme over every item does not mean adequacy over such items as happen to have been considered. It means that the texture of observed experience, as illustrating the philosophic scheme, is such that all related experience must exhibit the same texture. Thus the philosophic scheme should be ‘necessary,’ in the sense of bearing in itself its own warrant of univer- sality throughout all experience, provided that we confine ourselves to that which communicates with immediate matter of fact. But what does not so communicate is
6 Process and Reality
unknowable, and the unknowable is unknown’; and so
this universality defined by ‘communication’ can suffice.
This doctrine of necessity in universality means that
there is an essence to thé ich forbids relation-
ships beyon ation of its rationality. Spec- ulative philosophy seeks that essence.
Philosopners can never hope finally to formulate these
metaphysical first principles. Weakness of insight and
deficiencies of language stand in the way inexorably.
Words and phrases must be stretched towards a general-
ity foreign to their ordinary usage; and however such
elements of language be stabilized as technicalities, they
remain metaphors mutely appealing for an imaginative
leap.
There is no first principle which is in itself unknow- able, not to be captured by a flash of insight. But, put- ting aside the difficulties of language, deficiency in imaginative penetration forbids progress in any form other than that of an asymptotic approach to a scheme of principles, only definable in terms of the ideal which they should satisfy.
The difficulty has its seat in the empirical side of phil- osophy. Our-datum, is the actual world, including our- - selves; and this actual world spreads itself for observation in_the guise of the topic of our immediate ex perien ce
fication for_any thou a and the starting point for
thought is the analytic observation of components of this
experience. But we are not conscious of any clear-cut
complete analysis of immediate experience, in terms of
the various details which comprise its definiteness. We
habitually observe by the method of difference. Some-
times we see an elephant, and sometimes we do not. The
result is that an elephant, when present, is noticed.
* This doctrine is a paradox. Indulging in a species of false modesty, ‘cautious’ philosophers undertake its definition.
Specudatives Philosophy 7
Facility of observation depends on the fact that the object
observed _is important when present, and sometimes_is
absent,
The metaphysical first principles _can_never fail _of exemplification. e can never catch the actual world taking a holiday from their sway. Thus, for the discovery of metaphysics, the method of pinning down thought to the strict systematization of detailed discrimination, already effected by antecedent observation, breaks down. This collapse of the method of rigid empiricism is not confined to metaphysics. It occurs whenever we seek the larger generalities. In natural science this rigid method is the Baconian method of induction, a method which, if consistently pursued, would have left science where it found it. What Bacon omitted was the play of a free imagination, controlled by the requirements of coherence and logic. The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imagina- tive generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation. The reason for the success of this method of imaginative rationalization is that, when the method of difference fails, factors which are constantly present may yet be observed under the influence of imaginative thought. Such thought supplies the differences which the direct observation lacks. It can even play with inconsistency; and can thus throw light on the consistent, and persistent, elements in experience by comparison with what in imagi- nation is inconsistent with them. The negative judg- ment is the peak of mentality. But the conditions for the success of imaginative construction must be rigidly adhered to. In the first place, this construction must have its origin in the generalization of particular factors discerned in particular topics of human interest; for ex- ample, in physics, or in physiology, or in psychology, or in aesthetics, or in ethical beliefs, or in sociology, or in lan- guages conceived as storehouses of human experience. In
8 Process and Reality
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 exemplifi- cation.
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 detailed
Speculative Philosophy 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 con- trolled, 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.