Anyone who at bedtime consciously reviews the events of the day is subconsciously projecting them against the penumbral welter of alternatives. He is also uncon- sciously deciding feelings so as to maximize his primary feeling, and to secure its propagation beyond his imme- diate present occasion. In considering the life-history of occasions, forming the historic route of an enduring physical object, there are three possibilities as to the sub- jective aims which dominate the internal concrescence of the separate occasions. Either the satisfaction of the antecedent occasions may be uniform with each other, and each internally without discord or incitement to novelty. In such a case, apart from novel discordance introduced by the environment, there is the mere con- formal transformation of the feeling belonging to the datum into the identical feeling belonging to the imme- diate subject. Such pure conformation involves the exclusion of all the contraries involved in the lure, with their various grades of proximity and remoteness. This is an absolute extreme of undifferentiated endurance, of which we have no direct evidence. In every instance for which we can analyse, however imperfectly, the formal constitutions of successive occasions, these constitutions are characterized by contraries supervening upon the aboriginal data. But with a regularity of alternation which procures stability in the life-history. Contrast is thus gained. In physical science, this is ‘vibration.’ This is the main character of the life-histories of an inorganic physical object, stabilized in type.
Or (ii), there is a zest for the enhancement of some
dominant element of feeling, received from the data,
enhanced by decision admitting non-conformation of
286 Process and Reality
conceptual feeling to other elements in the data, and cul- minating in a satisfaction transmitting enhancement of the dominant element by reason of novel contrasts and inhibitions. Such a life-history involves growth domi- nated by asingle final end. This is the main character of a physical object in process of growth. Such physical objects are mainly ‘organic,’ so far as concerns our present knowledge of the world.
Or (iii), there is a zest for the elimination of all domi- nant elements of feeling, received from the data. In such a case, the route soon loses its historic individuality. It is the case of decay.
The first point to be noticed is that the admission of the selected elements in the lure, as felt contraries, pri- marily generates purpose; it then issues in satisfaction; and satisfaction qualifies the efficient causation. But a felt ‘contrary’ is consciousness in germ. When the con- trasts and identities of such feelings are themselves felt, we have consciousness. It is the knowledge of ideas, in Locke’s sense of that term. Consciousness requires more than the mere entertainment of theory. It is the feeling of the contrast of theory, as mere theory, with fact, as mere fact. This contrast holds whether or no the theory be correct.
A proposition, in abstraction from any particular actual entity which may be realizing it in feeling, is a manner of germaneness of a certain set of eternal objects to a cer- tain set of actual entities. Every proposition presupposes those actual entities which are its logical subjects. It also presupposes certain definite actual entities, or a cer- tain type of actual entities within a wide systematic nexus. In an extreme case, this nexus may comprise any actual entity whatsoever.
The presupposed logical subjects may not be in the
actual world of some actual entity. In this case, the
proposition does not exist for that actual entity. The
pure concept of such a proposition refers in the hypo-
thetical future beyond that actual entity. The propo-
Daesproposetilons 287
sition itself awaits its logical subjects. Thus propositions grow with the creative advance of the world. They are neither pure potentials, nor pure actualities; they are a manner of potential nexus involving pure potentials and pure actualities. They are a new type of entities. En- tities of this impure type presuppose the two pure types of entities.
The primary mode of realization of a proposition in an
actual entity, is not by judgment, but by entertainment.
A proposition is entertained when it is admitted into
feeling. Horror, relief, purpose, are primarily feelings
involving the entertainment of propositions.
In conclusion, there are four main types of entities in
the universe, of which two are primary types and two are
hybrid types. The primary types are actual entities and
pure potentials (eternal objects); the hybrid types are
feelings and propositions (theories). Feelings are the
‘real’ components of actual entities. Propositions are
only realizable as one sort of ‘objective’ datum for
feelings.
The primary element in the ‘lure for feeling’ is the sub- ject’s prehension of the primordial nature of God. Con- ceptual feelings are generated, and by integration with physical feelings a subsequent phase of propositional feel- ings supervenes. The lure for feeling develops with the concrescent phases of the subject in question. I have spoken of it elsewhere (cf. Science and The Modern World, Ch. XI).
“Tt is this realized extension of eternal relatedness be- yond the mutual relatedness of the actual occasions which prehends into each oceasion the full sweep of eternal relatedness. I term this abrupt realization the ‘graded envisagement’ which each occasion prehends into its syn- thesis. This envisagement is how the actual includes what (in one sense) is ‘not-being’ as a positive factor in its own achievement. It is the source of error, of truth, of art, of ethics, and of religion. By it, fact is confronted with alternatives.”
288 Process and Reality
All metaphysical theories which admit a disjunction between the component elements of individual experience on the one hand and on the other hand the component elements of the external world, must inevitably run into difficulties over the truth and falsehood of propositions, and over the grounds for judgment. The former difficulty is metaphysical, the latter epistemological. But all dif- ficulties as to first principles are only camouflaged meta- physical difficulties. Thus also the epistemological dif- ficulty is only solvable by an appeal to ontology. The first. difficulty poses the question as to the account of truth and falsehood, and the second difficulty poses the question as to the account of the intuitive perception of truth and falsehood. The former concerns propositions, the latter concerns judgments. There is a togetherness of the component elements in individual experience. This ‘togetherness’ has that special peculiar meaning of ‘togetherness in experience.’ It is a togetherness of its own kind, explicable by reference to nothing else. For the purpose of this discussion it is indifferent whether we speak of a ‘stream’ of experience, or of an ‘occasion’ of experience. With the former alternative there is to- getherness in the stream, and with the latter alternative there is togetherness in the occasion. In either case, there is the unique ‘experiential togetherness.’
The consideration of experiential togetherness raises the final metaphysical question: whether there is any other meaning of ‘togetherness.’ The denial of any alter- native meaning, that is to say, of any meaning not abstracted from the experiential meaning, is the ‘subjec- tivist’ doctrine. This reformed version of the subjectivist doctrine is the doctrine of the philosophy of organism.
The contrary doctrine, that there is a ‘togetherness’ not
derivative from experiential togetherness, leads to the
disjunction of the components of subjective experience
from the community of the external world. This dis-
The Propositions 289
junction creates the insurmountable difficulty for episte- mology. For intuitive judgment is concerned with togetherness in experience, and there is no bridge between togetherness in experience, and togetherness of the non- experiential sort.
This difficulty is the point of Kant’s ‘transcendental’ criticism. He adopted a subjectivist position, so that the temporal world was merely experienced. But according to his form of the subjectivist doctrine, in the Critique of Pure Reason, no element in the temporal world could itself be an experient. His temporal world, as in that Critique, was in its essence dead, phantasmal, phenom- enal. Kant was a mathematical physicist, and his cos- mological solution was sufficient for the abstractions to which mathematical physics is confined.
The difficulties of the subjectivist doctrine arise when it is combined with the ‘sensationalist’ doctrine concern- ing the analysis of the components which are together in experience. According to that analysis in such a com- ponent the only elements not stamped with the particu- larity of that individual ‘occasion’—or ‘stream’—of ex- perience are universals such as ‘redness’ or ‘shape.’ With the sensationalist assumption, or with any generalization of that doctrine, so long as the elements in question are universals, the only alternatives are, either Bradley’s doctrine of a single experient, the absolute, or Leibniz’s doctrine of many windowless monads. Kant, in his final metaphysics, must either retreat to Leibniz, or advance to Bradley. Either alternative stamps experience with a certain air of illusioriness. The Leibnizian solution can mitigate the illusioriness only by recourse to a pious de- pendence upon God. This principle was invoked by Descartes and by Leibniz, in order to help cut their epistemology. It is a device very repugnant to a con- sistent rationality. The very possibility of knowledge should not be an accident of God’s goodness; it should depend on the interwoven natures of things. After all, God’s knowledge has equally to be explained.
290 Process and Reality
The philosophy of organism admits the subjectivist doctrine (as here stated), but rejects the sensationalist doctrine: hence its doctrine of the objectification of one actual occasion in the experience of another actual occa- sion. Each actual entity is a throb of experience includ- ing the actual world within its scope. The problems of efficient causation and of knowledge receive a common explanation by reference to the texture of actual occa- sions. The theory of judgment in the philosophy of organism can equally well be described as a ‘correspond- ence’ theory or as a ‘coherence’ theory. It is a cor- respondence theory, because it describes judgment as the subjective form of the integral prehension of the con- formity, or of the non-conformity, of proposition and an objectified nexus. The prehension in question arises from the synthesis of two prehensions, one physical and the other mental. The physical prehension is the prehen- sion of the nexus of objectified actual occasions. The mental prehension is the prehension of the proposition. This latter prehension is necessarily ‘impure,’ and it arises from a history of antecedent synthesis whereby a pure conceptual prehension transfers its datum as a predicate of hypothetical relatedness for the actualities in the datum of some physical prehension (cf. Part III). But the origination of a propositional prehension does not concern us in this description of judgment. The sole point is the synthesis of a physical prehension and propo- sitional prehension into an ‘intellectual’ prehension (cf. Part III) whose subjective form involves judgment.
This judgment is concerned with a conformity of two components within one experience. It is thus a ‘co- herence’ theory. It is also concerned with the conformity of a proposition, not restricted to that individual experi- ence, with a nexus whose relatedness is derived from the varlous experiences of its own members and not from that of the judging experiment. In this sense there is a ‘correspondence’ theory. But, at this point of the argu- ment, a distinction must be made. We shall say that a
The Propositions 291
proposition can be true or false, and that a judgment can be correct, or incorrect, or suspended. With this distinc- tion we see that there is a ‘correspondence’ theory of the truth and falsehood of propositions, and a ‘coherence’ theory of the correctness, incorrectness and suspension, of judgments.
In the ‘organic’ doctrine, a clear distinction between a judgment and a proposition has been made. A judgment is a feeling in the ‘process’ of the judging subject, and it is correct or incorrect respecting that subject. It enters, as a value, into the satisfaction of that subject; and it can only be criticized by the judgments of actual entities in the future. A judgment concerns the universe in process of prehension by the judging subject. It will primarily concern a definite selection of objectified actual entities, and of eternal objects; and it affirms the physi- cal objectification—for the judging subject—of those actual entities by the ingression of those eternal objects; so that there is one objectified nexus of those actual entities, judged to be really interconnected, and qualified, by those eternal objects. This judgment affirms, correctly or incorrectly, a real fact in the constitution of the judg- ing subject. Here there is no room for any qualification of the categorical character of the judgment. The judg- ment is made about itself by the judging subject, and is feeling in the constitution of the judging subject. The actual entities, with which the judgment is explicitly concerned, comprise the ‘logical’ subjects of the judg- ment, and the selected eternal objects form the ‘qualities’ and ‘relations’ which are affirmed of the logical sub- jects.
This affirmation about the logical subjects is obviously
‘affirmation’ in a sense derivative from the meaning of
‘affirmation’ about the judging subject. Identification
of the two senses will lead to error. In the latter sense
there is abstraction from the judging subject. The sub-
jectivist principle has been transcended, and the judg-
ment has shifted its emphasis from the objectified nexus