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

This doctrine is very unplausible; and, to speak bluntly, is in contradiction to plain fact. But, even worse, it omits the vital character of memory, namely, that it is memory. In fact the whole notion of repetition is lost in the ‘force and vivacity’ doctrine. What Hume does explain is that with a number of different perceptions immediately concurrent, he sorts them out into three different classes according to force and vivacity. But the repetition character, which he ascribes to simple ideas, and which is the whole point of memory, finds no place in his explanation. Nor can it do so, without an entire recasting of his fundamental philosophic notions.

Hume’s argument has become circular. In the begin- ning of his Treatise, he lays down the ‘general proposi- tion’: “That all our simple ideas in their first appearance, are derived from simple impressions, . . .” He proves this by an empirical survey. But the proposition itself employs—covertly, so far as language is concerned—the notion of ‘repetition,’ which itself is not an ‘impression.’ Again, later he finds ‘necessary connection’: he discards

® This doctrine of ‘force and vivacity’ is withdrawn in the last sentence of Hume’s Appendix to the Treatise. But the argument in the Treatise is substantially built upon it. In the light of the retraction the whole

‘sensationalist’? doctrine requires reconsideration. The withdrawal can- not be treated as a minor adjustment.

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this because he can find no corresponding impression. But the original proposition was only founded on an empirical survey; so the argument for dismissal is purely circular. Further, if Hume had only attended to his own excellent Part II, Section VI, ‘Of Ideas of Existence, and of External Existence,’ he would have remembered that whatever we do think of, thereby in some sense ‘exists.’ Thus, having the idea of ‘necessary connection,’ the only question is as to its exemplification in the connectedness of our ‘impressions.’ He muddles the importance of an idea with the fact of our entertainment of the idea. We cannot even be wrong in thinking that we think of ‘neces- sary connection,’ unless we are thinking of ‘necessary con- nection.’ Of course, we may be very wrong in believing that the notion is important.

The reasons for this examination of Hume, including the prolonged quotations, are (i) that Hume states with great clearness important aspects of our experience; (11) that the defects in his statements are eminently natural defects which emerge with great clearness, owing to the excellence of his presentation; and (ili) that Hume differs from the great majority of his followers chiefly by the way in which he faces up to the problems raised by his own philosophy.

The first point to notice is that Hume’s philosophy is pervaded by the notion of ‘repetition,’ and that memory is a particular example of this character of experience, that in some sense there is entwined in its fundamental nature the fact that it is repeating something. Tear ‘repetition’ out of ‘experience,’ and there is nothing left. On the other hand, ‘immediacy,’ or ‘first-handedness,’ is another element in experience. Feeling overwhelms repetition; and there remains the immediate, first-handed fact, which is the actual world in an immediate complex unity of feeling.

There is another contrasted pair of elements in experi-
ence, clustering round the notion of time, namely, ‘endur-
ance’ and ‘change.’ Descartes, who emphasizes the notion

Locke and Hume 207

of ‘substance,’ also emphasizes ‘change.’ Hume, who minimizes the notion of ‘substance,’ similarly emphasizes ‘change.’ He writes: “Now as time is composed of parts that are not coexistent, an unchangeable object, since it produces none but coexistent impressions, produces none that can give us the idea of time; and, consequently, that idea must be derived from a succession of changeable objects, and time in its first appearance can never be severed from such a succession.” *° Whereas Descartes writes: “ ... for this (i.e. ‘the nature of time or of the duration of things’) is of such a kind that its parts do not depend one upon the other, and never co-exist; and from the fact that we now are, it does not follow that we shall be a moment afterwards, if some cause—the same that first produced us—does not continue so to produce us; that is to say, to conserve us.” And again: “We shall like- wise have a very different understanding of duration, order, and number, if in place of mingling with the idea that we have of them what properly speaking pertains to the conception of substance, we merely consider that the duration of each thing is a mode under which we shall consider this thing in so far as it continues to existvisnne a!”

We have certainly to make room in our philosophy for
the two contrasted notions, one that every actual entity
endures, and the other that every morning is a new fact
with its measure of change.

These various aspects can be summed up in the state-
ment that experience involves a becoming, that becom-
ing means that something becomes, and that what
becomes involves repetition transformed into novel
immediacy.

This statement directly traverses one main presupposi-
tion which Descartes and Hume agree in stating
explicitly. This presupposition is that of the individual
independence of successive temporal occasions. For

1° Cf. Treatise, Part II, Sect. III. 11 Cf. Principles, Part I, 21, and 55.

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example, Descartes, in the passage cited above, writes: “(The nature of time) is such that its parts do not depend one upon the other. . . .”” Also Hume’s impressions are self-contained, and he can find no temporal relationship other than mere serial order. This statement about Hume requires qualifying so far as concerns the connection between ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas.’ There is a relation of ‘derivation’ of ‘ideas’ from ‘impressions’ which he is always citing and never discussing. So far as it is to be taken seriously—for he never refers it to a correlate ‘impression’—it constitutes an exception to the indi- vidual independence of successive ‘perceptions.’ This pre- supposition of individual independence is what I have elsewhere ** called, the ‘fallacy of simple location.’ The notion of ‘simple location’ is inconsistent with any admis- sion of ‘repetition’; Hume’s difficulties arise from the fact that he starts with simple locations and ends with repetition. In the organic philosophy the notion of repetition is fundamental. The doctrine of objectifica- tion is an endeavor to express how what is settled in actuality is repeated under limitations, so as to be ‘given’ for immediacy. Later, in discussing ‘time,’ this doctrine will be termed the doctrine of ‘objective immortality.’

The doctrine of the individual independence of real facts is derived from the notion that the subject-predicate form of statement conveys a truth which is meta- physically ultimate. According to this view, an indi- vidual substance with its predicates constitutes the ultimate type of actuality. If there be one individual, the philosophy is monistic; if there be many individuals, the philosophy is pluralistic. With this metaphysical presupposition, the relations between individual sub- stances constitute metaphysical nuisances: there is no place for them. Accordingly—in defiance of the most obvious deliverance of our intuitive ‘prejudices’-—every

*? Cf. Science and the Modern World, Ch. III.

Locke and Hume 209

respectable philosophy of the subject-predicate type is monistic.

The exclusive dominance of the substance-quality metaphysics was enormously promoted by the logical bias of the mediaeval period. It was retarded by the study of Plato and of Aristotle. These authors included the strains of thought which issued in this doctrine, but included them inconsistently mingled with other notions. The substance-quality metaphysics triumphed with exclu- sive dominance in Descartes’ doctrines. Unfortunately he did not realize that his notion of the ‘res vera’ did not entail the same disjunction of ultimate facts as that entailed by the Aristotelian notion of ‘primary substance.’ Locke led a revolt from this dominance, but incon- sistently. For him and also for Hume, in the background and tacitly presupposed in all explanations, there remained the mind with its perceptions. The percep- tions, for Hume, are what the mind knows about itself; and tacitly the knowable facts are always treated as qualities of a subject—the subject being the mind. His final criticism of the notion of the ‘mind’ does not alter the plain fact that the whole of the previous discussion has included this presupposition. Hume’s final criticism only exposes the metaphysical superficiality of his pre- ceding exposition.

In the philosophy of organism a subject-predicate proposition is considered as expressing a high abstraction.

The metaphysical superiority of Locke over Hume is exhibited in his wide use of the term ‘idea,’ which Locke himself introduced and Hume abandoned. Its use marks the fact that his tacit subject-predicate bias is slight in its warping effect. He first (I, I, 8) explains: “. I have used it (ie. idea) to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking. . . .”” But later (III, III, 6 and 7), without any explicit notice of the widening of use, he writes: “. . . and ideas become **

18 Ttalics mine.

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general by separating from them the circumstances of time, and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence.” Here, for Locke, the operations of the mind originate from ideas ‘determined’ to particular existents. This is a funda- mental principle with Locke; it is a casual concession to the habits of language with Hume; and it is a funda- mental principle with the philosophy of organism. In an earlier section (II, X XIII, 1) Locke expresses more vaguely the same doctrine, though in this context he immediately waters it down into an unexplained notion of ‘going constantly together’: “The mind, being, . furnished with a great number of the simple ideas con- veyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, . . . takes notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together.”

But Locke wavers in his use of this principle of some
sort of perception of ‘particular existents’; and Hume
seeks consistency by abandoning it; while the philosophy
of organism seeks to reconstruct Locke by abandoning
those parts of his philosophy which are inconsistent with
this principle. But the principle itself is to be found
plainly stated by Locke.

Hume has only impressions of ‘sensation’ and of ‘reflec-
tion.” He writes: “The first kind arises in the soul
originally, from unknown causes.” ** Note the tacit pre-
supposition of ‘the soul’ as subject, and ‘impression of
sensation’ as predicate. Also note the dismissal of any
intrinsic relevance to a particular existent, which is an
existent in the same sense as the ‘soul’ is an existent;
whereas Locke illustrates his meaning by referring (cf.
III, II, 7) to a ‘child’—corresponding to ‘the soul’ in
Hume’s phrase—and to its ‘nurse’ of whom the child has
its ‘idea.’

Hume is certainly inconsistent, because he cannot
entirely disregard common sense. But his inconsistencies
are violent, and his main argument negates Locke’s use.

** Treatise, Bk. I, Sect. II.

Locke and Hume 211

As an example of his glaring inconsistency of phrase- ology, note: “As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, per- fectly mexplicable by human reason, and it will always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arrive immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from the Author of our being.” *” Here he inconsistently speaks of the object, whereas he has nothing on hand in his philosophy which justifies the demonstrative word ‘the.’ In the second reference ‘the object’ has emerged into day- light. He writes: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other, if we consider these objects in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we form of them.” This quotation exhibits an ingenious confusion whereby Hume makes the best of two meta- physical worlds, the world with Locke’s principle, and his own world which is without Locke’s principle.

But Locke’s principle amounts to this: That there are many actual existents, and that in some sense one actual existent repeats itself in another actual existent, so that in the analysis of the latter existent a component ‘deter- mined to’ the former existent is discoverable. The phi- losophy of organism expresses this principle by its doc- trines of ‘prehension’ and of ‘objectification.’ Locke always supposes that consciousness is consciousness of the ideas in the conscious mind. But he never separates the ‘ideas’ from the ‘consciousness.’ The philosophy of organism makes this separation, and thereby relegates consciousness to a subordinate metaphysical position; and gives to Locke’s Essay a metaphysical interpretation which was not in Locke’s mind. This separation asserts Kant’s principle: “Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind.” ** But Kant’s principle is here applied in exactly the converse way to Kant’s own use of it. Kant is obsessed with the mentality