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

THE CATEGORIES I. The Category of the Ultimate. II. Categories of Existence. III. Categories of Explanation. IV. Categoreal Obligations.

It is the purpose of the discussion in these lectures to make clear the meaning of these categories, their appli-

2 In this connection I may refer to the second chapter of my book The Principle of Relativity, Cambridge University, 1922.

The Categorical Scheme 31

cability, and their adequacy. The course of the discus-
sion will disclose how very far they are from satisfying
this ideal.

Every entity should be a specific instance of one cate-

gory of existence, every explanation should be a specific instance of categories of explanation, and every obliga-

tion should be a specific instance of categoreal obliga-

tions. The category of the Ultimate expresses the gen-
eral principle presupposed in the three more special
categories.

The Category of the Ultimate

‘Creativity,’ ‘many,’ ‘one’ are the ultimate notions
involved in the meaning of the synonymous terms ‘thing,’
‘being, ‘entity,’ ‘These three notions complete the Cate
gory of the Ultimate and are presupposed in all the more
special categories,

The term ‘one’ does not stand for ‘the integral number one, which is a complex special notion. It stands for the general idea underlying alike the indefinite article ‘a or an,’ and the definite article ‘the, and the demon- stratives ‘this or that,’ and the relatives ‘which or what or how.’ It stands for the singularity of an entity. The term ‘many’ presupposes the term ‘one,’ and the term ‘one’ presupposes the term ‘many.’ The term ‘many’ conveys the notion of ‘disjunctive diversity’; this notion is an essential element in the concept of ‘being.’ There are many ‘beings’ in disjunctive diversity.

‘Creativity’ is the universal of universals character-

izing ultimate matter of fact. 1t is that ultimate prin-

ciple b 1 any, which are the universe dis-

junctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the
universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things
that the many enter_into complex unity,

‘Creativity’ _is_the principle of novelty. An_actual
occasion is a novel entity diver ity 1
many’ which it unifies. Thus_ ‘creativity’ introduces

novelty into the content _of the many, which are the

32 Process and Reality

universe disjunctively. The ‘creative advance’ is the
application of this ultimate principle of creativity to
each novel situation which it originates.

‘Together’ is a generic term covering the various spe- cial ways in which various sorts of entities are ‘together’ in any one actual occasion. Thus ‘together’ presupposes the notions ‘creativity,’ ‘many,’ ‘one,’ ‘identity’ and “diver- sity.’ The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the ‘many’ which it finds, and also it is one among the disjunctive ‘many’ which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively ‘many’ in process of passage into conjunctive unity. This Category of the Ultimate replaces Aristotle’s category of ‘primary substance.’

Thus the ‘production of novel togetherness’ is the ulti-
mate notion embodied in the term ‘concrescence.’ These
ultimate notions of ‘production of novelty’ and of ‘con-
crete togetherness’ are inexplicable either in terms of
higher universals or in terms of the components partici-
pating in the concrescence. The analysis of the compo-
nents abstracts from the concrescence. The sole appeal
is to intuition.

The Categories of Existence

There are eight Categories of Existence:

(1) Actual Entities (also termed Actual Occasions), or Final Realities, or Rés Verae.

(11) Prehensions, or Concrete Facts of Relatedness.

(111) Nexis (plural of Nexus), or Public Matters of Fact.

(iv) Subjective Forms, or Private Matters of Fact.

(v) Eternal Objects, or Pure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Fact, or Forms of Definiteness.

(vi) Propositions, or Matters of Fact in Potential

The Categorical Scheme 33

Determination, or Impure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Matters of Fact, or Theories.

(vii) Multiplicities, or Pure Disjunctions of Diverse Entities.

(viii) Contrasts, or Modes of Synthesis of Entities in one Prehension.

Among these eight categories of existence, actual
entities and eternal objects stand out with a certain
extreme finality. The other types of existence have a
certain intermediate character. The eighth category
includes an indefinite progression of categories, as we
proceed from ‘contrasts’ to ‘contrasts of contrasts,’ and
on indefinitely to higher grades of contrasts.

The Categories of Explanation

There are twenty-seven Categories of Explanation:

(i) That the actual world is a process, and that the
process is the becoming of actual entities. Thus actual
entities are creatures; they are also termed ‘actual occa-
sions.’

(11) That in the becoming of an actual entity, the
potential unity of many entities—actual and non-actual
—acquires the real unity of the one actual entity; so that
the actual entity is the real concrescence of many
potentials.

(i111) That in the becoming of an actual entity, novel
prehensions, nexts, subjective forms, propositions, mul-
tiplicities, and contrasts, also become; but there are no
novel eternal objects.

(iv) That the potentiality for being an element in a real concrescence of many entities into one actuality, is the one general metaphysical character attaching to all entities, actual and non-actual; and that every item in its universe is involved in each concrescence. In other words, it belongs to the nature of a ‘being’ that it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’ This is the ‘principle of relativity.’

(v) That no two actual entities originate from an iden-

34 Process and Reality

tical universe; though the difference between the two universes only consists in some actual entities, included in one and not in the other, and in the subordinate entities which each actual entity introduces into the world. The eternal objects are the same for all actual entities. The nexus of actual entities in the universe correlate to a concrescence, is termed ‘the actual world’ correlate to that concrescence.

(vi) That each entity in the universe of a given con-
crescence can, so far as its own nature is concerned, be
implicated in that concrescence in one or other of many
modes; but in fact it is implicated only in one mode:
that the particular mode of implication is only rendered
fully determinate by that concrescence, though it is
conditioned by the correlate universe. This indetermi-
nation, rendered determinate in the real concrescence,
is the meaning of ‘potentiality.’ It is a conditioned in-
determination, and is therefore called a ‘real poten-
tiality.’

(vii) That an eternal object can be described only in terms of its potentiality for ‘ingression’ into the becoming of actual entities; and that its analysis only discloses other eternal objects. It is a pure potential. The term ‘ingression’ refers to the particular mode in which the potentiality of an eternal object is realized in a particular actual entity, contributing to the definite- ness of that actual entity.

(vil) That two descriptions are required for an actual entity: (a) one which is analytical of its potentiality for ‘objectification’ in the becoming of other actual entities, and (b) another which is analytical of the process which constitutes its own becoming.

The term ‘objectification’ refers to the particular mode
in which the potentiality of one actual entity is realized
in another actual entity.

(ix) That how an actual entity becomes constitutes
what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions
of an actual entity are not independent. Its ‘being’ is

The Categorical Scheme 35

constituted by its ‘becoming.’ This is the ‘principle of process.’

(x) That the first analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete elements, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in its process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehen- sions. Analysis in terms of prehensions is termed ‘divi- sion.’

(xi) That every prehension consists of three factors:
(a) the ‘subject’ which is prehending, namely, the actual
entity in which that prehension is a concrete element;
(b) the ‘datum’ which is prehended; (c) the ‘subjective
form’ which is how that subject prehends that datum.

Prehensions of actual entities—i.e., prehensions whose
data involve actual entities—are termed ‘physical pre-
hensions’; and prehensions of eternal objects are termed
‘conceptual prehensions.’ Consciousness is not necessar-
ily involved in the subjective forms of either type of
prehension.

(xii) That there are two species of prehensions: (a)
‘positive prehensions’ which are termed ‘feelings,’ and
(b) ‘negative prehensions’ which are said to ‘eliminate
from feeling.’ Negative prehensions also have subjective
forms. A negative prehension holds its datum as inop-
erative in the progressive concrescence of prehensions
constituting the unity of the subject.

(xiii) That there are many species of subjective forms,
such as emotions, valuations, purposes, adversions, aver-
sions, consciousness, etc.

(xiv) That a nexus is a set of actual entities in the
unity of the relatedness constituted by their prehensions
of each other, or—what is the same thing conversely
expressed—constituted by their objectifications in each
other.

(xv) That a proposition is the unity of certain actual entities in their potentiality for forming a nexus, with its potential relatedness partially defined by certain eternal objects which have the unity of one complex eternal

36 Process and Reality

object. The actual entities involved are termed the ‘logi-
cal subjects,’ the complex eternal object is the ‘predi-
cate.’

(xvi) That a multiplicity consists of many entities, and its unity is constituted by the fact that all its con- stituent entities severally satisfy at least one condition which no other entity satisfies.

Every statement about a particular multiplicity can be expressed as a statement referent either (a) to all its members severally, or (b) to an indefinite some of its members severally, or (c) as a denial of one of these statements. Any statement, incapable of being expressed in this form, is not a statement about a multiplicity, though it may be a statement about an entity closely allied to some multiplicity, i.e., systematically allied to each member of some multiplicity.

(xvii) That whatever is a datum for a feeling has a unity as felt. Thus the many components of a complex datum have a unity: this unity is a ‘contrast’ of entities. In a sense this means that there are an endless number of categories of existence, since the synthesis of entities into a contrast in general produces a new existential type. For example, a proposition is, in a sense, a ‘con- trast.’ For the practical purposes of ‘human understand- ing,’ it is sufficient to consider a few basic types of exist- ence, and to lump the more derivative types together under the heading of ‘contrasts.’ The most important of such ‘contrasts’ is the ‘affrmation-negation’ contrast in which a proposition and a nexus obtain synthesis in one datum, the members of the nexus being the ‘logical subjects’ of the proposition.

(xvii) That every condition to which the process of becoming conforms in any particular instance, has its reason either in the character of some actual entity in the actual world of that concrescence, or in the character of the subject which is in process of concrescence. This category of explanation is termed the ‘ontological prin- cipie.’ It could also be termed the ‘principle of efficient,

The Categorical Scheme 37

and final, causation.’ This ontological principle means that actual entities are the only reasons; so that to search for a reason is to search for one or more actual entities. It follows that any condition to be satisfied by one actual entity in its process expresses a fact either about the ‘real internal constitutions’ of some other actual entities, or about the ‘subjective aim’ conditioning that process.

The phrase ‘real internal constitution’ is to be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (III, III, 15): “And thus the real internal (but gen- erally in substances unknown) constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their ‘essence.’” Also the terms ‘prehension’ and ‘feeling’ are to be compared with the various significa- tions of Locke’s term ‘idea.’ But they are adopted as more general and more neutral terms than ‘idea’ as used by Locke, who seems to restrict them to conscious men- tality. Also the ordinary logical account of ‘proposi- tions’ expresses only a restricted aspect of their réle in the universe, namely, when they are the data of feelings whose subjective forms are those of judgments. It is an essential doctrine in the philosophy of organism that the primary function of a proposition is to be relevant as a lure for feeling. For example, some propositions are the data of feelings with subjective forms such as to constitute those feelings to be the enjoyment of a joke. Other propositions are felt with feelings whose subjec- tive forms are horror, disgust, or indignation. The ‘sub- jective aim,’ which controls the becoming of a subject, is that subject feeling a proposition with the subjective form of purpose to realize it in that process of self- creation.

(xix) That the fundamental types of entities are actual
entities, and eternal objects; and that the other types
of entities only express how all entities of the two funda-
mental types are in community with each other, in the
actual world.