The subjective forms of propositional feelings are dominated by valuation, rather than by consciousness. In a pure propositional feeling the logical subjects have preserved their indicated particularity, but have lost their own real modes of objectification. The subjective form lies in the twilight zone between pure physical feeling and the clear consciousness which apprehends the con- trast between physical feeling and imagined possibility. A propositional feeling is a lure to creative emergence in the transcendent future. When it is functioning as a lure, the propositional feeling about the logical subjects of the proposition may in some subsequent phase promote deci- sion involving intensification of some physical feeling of those subjects in the nexus. Thus, according to the various categoreal conditions, propositions intensify, at- tenuate, inhibit, or transmute, without necessarily enter- ing into clear consciousness, or encountering judgment.
It follows that in the pursuit of truth even physical
Propositions and Feelings — 403
feelings must be criticized, since their evidence is not
final apart from an analysis of their origination. This
conclusion merely confirms what is a commonplace in
all scientific investigation, that we can never start from
dogmatic certainty. Such certainty is always an ideal to
which we approximate as the result of critical analysis.
When we have verified that we depend upon an authentic
perceptive feeling, whose origination involves no rever-
sions, then we know that the proposition which is the
datum of that feeling is true. Thus there can be no
immediate guarantee of the truth of a proposition, by
reason of the mode of origination of the propositional
feeling, apart from a critical scrutiny of that mode of
origination.
The feeling has to be (i) perceptive, (ii) authentic,
and (iii) direct, where a definite meaning has, in the
preceding section, been assigned to each of these con-
ditions.
The proposition which is the datum of an imaginative feeling may be true. The two questions of the origination of consciousness in the subjective forms of feelings, and of the intuitive judgment of a proposition, apart from the mode of origination of the feeling of it, must now be considered.
Language, as usual, is always ambiguous as to the exact proposition which it indicates. Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks. Its function is (a) to arouse in the prehending subject some physical feeling indica- tive of the logical subjects of the proposition, (8) to arouse in the prehending subject some physical feeling which plays the part of the ‘physical recognition,’ (y) to promote the sublimation of the ‘physical recognition’ into the conceptual ‘predicative feeling,’ (6) to promote the integration of the indicative feeling and the predicative feeling into the required propositional feeling. But in this complex function there is always a tacit reference to
404 Process and Reality
the environment of the occasion of utterance. Consider the traditional example, ‘Socrates is mortal.’
This proposition may mean ‘It is mortal.’ In this case the word ‘Socrates’ in the circumstances of its utterance merely promotes a physical feeling indicating the it which is mortal.
The proposition may mean ‘Jt is Socratic and mortal’;
where ‘Socratic’ is an additional element in the
predicative pattern.
We now turn to the words denoting the predicative pattern, namely, either ‘mortal,’ or ‘Socratic and mortal.’ The slightest consideration discloses the fact that it is pure convention to suppose that there is only one logical subject to the proposition. The word ‘mortal’ means a certain relationship to the general nexus of actual enti- ties in this world which are possible for any one of the actual entities. ‘Mortal’ does not mean ‘mortal in any possible world,’ it means ‘mortal in this world. Thus there is a general reference to this actual world as exem- plifying a scheme of things which render ‘mortality’ realizable in it.
The word ‘Socratic’ means ‘realizing the Socratic predi- cate in Athenian society.’ It does not mean ‘Socratic, in any possible world’; nor does it mean ‘Socratic, any- where in this world’: it means ‘Socratic, in Athens.’ Thus ‘Socratic,’ as here used, refers to a society of actual enti- ties realizing certain general systematic properties such that the Socratic predicate is realizable in that environ- ment. Also the ‘Athenian society’ requires that this actual world exemplifies a certain systematic scheme, amid which ‘Athenianism’ is realizable.
Thus in the one meaning of the phrase ‘Socrates is
mortal,’ the logical subjects are one singular Jt (Socrates)
and the actual entities of this actual world, forming a
society amid which mortality is realizable and including
the former ‘Jt’ In the other meaning, there are also
included among the logical subjects the actual entities
forming the Athenian society. These actual entities are
Propositions -and Feblings ° 405
required for the realization of the predicative pattern
‘Socratic and mortal’ and are the definitely indicated
logical subjects. They also require that the general
scheme of this actual world be such as to support
‘Athenianism’ as well as ‘immortality, and in conjunc-
tion with mortality.
The Higher Phases of Experience
‘CoMPARATIVE feelings’ are the result of integrations
not yet considered: their data are generic contrasts. The
infinite variety of the more complex feelings come under
the heading ‘comparative feelings.’
We have now to examine two simple types of com- parative feelings. One type arises from the integration of a ‘propositional feeling’ with the ‘indicative feeling’ from which it is partly derived. Feelings of this type will be termed ‘intellectual feelings.’ This type of com- parative feelings is subdivided into two species: one spe- cies consists of ‘conscious perceptions’; and the other species consists of ‘intuitive judgments.’ The subjective forms of intuitive judgments also involve consciousness. Thus ‘conscious perceptions’ and ‘intuitive judgments’ are alike ‘intellectual feelings.’ Comparative feelings of the other type are termed ‘physical purposes.’ Such a feeling arises from the integration of a conceptual feeling with the basic physical feeling from which it is derived, either directly according to categoreal condition IV (the Category of Conceptual Valuation), or indirectly accord- ing to categoreal condition V (the Category of Concep- tual Reversion). But this integration is a more primitive type of integration than that which produces, from the same basic physical feeling, the species of propositional feelings termed ‘perceptive.’ The subjective forms of these physical purposes are either ‘adversions’ or ‘aver- sions.’ The subjective forms of physical purposes do not involve consciousness unless these feelings acquire inte- gration with conscious perceptions or intuitive judgments.
Higher Phases of Experience 407
In an intellectual feeling the datum is the generic con- trast between a nexus of actual entities and a proposition with its logical subjects members of the nexus. In every generic contrast its unity arises from the two-way func- tioning of certain entities which are components in each of the contrasted factors. This unity expresses the con- formation to the second categoreal condition (the Cate- gory of Objective Identity). The common ‘subject’ en- tertaining the two feelings effects an integration whereby each of these actual entities obtains its one roéle of a two-way functioning in the one generic contrast. As an element in the subject no objectified actual entity can play two disconnected parts. There can only be one analysable part. Thus what in origination is describable as a pair of distinct ways of functioning of each actual entity in the two factors of the generic contrast respec- tively, is realized in the subject as one réle with a two- way aspect. This two-way aspect is unified as ‘contrast.’ This one analysable part involves in itself the contrast between the sheer matter of fact, namely, what the objectified actual entity in question contributes to the objectified nexus in the physical feeling, and the mere potentiality of the same actual entity for playing its assigned part in the predicative pattern of the proposi- tion, in the eventuality of the proposition’s realization. This contrast is what has been termed the ‘affirmation- negation contrast.’ It is the contrast between the affirma- tion of objectified fact in the physical feeling, and the mere potentiality, which is the negation of such affirma- tion, in the propositional feeling. It is the contrast between ‘in fact’ and ‘might be,’ in respect to particular instances in this actual world. The subjective form of the feeling of this contrast is consciousness. Thus in experience, consciousness arises by reason of intellectual feelings, and in proportion to the variety and intensity of such feelings. But, in conformity with the seventh
408 Process and Reality
categoreal condition (the Category of Subjective Har-
mony), subjective forms, which arise as factors in any
feeling, are finally in the satisfaction shared in the unity
of all feelings, all feelings acquire their quota of
irradiation in consciousness.
This account agrees with the plain facts of our con- scious experience. Consciousness flickers; and even at its brightest, there is a small focal region of clear illu- mination, and a large penumbral region of experience which tells of intense experience in dim apprehension. The simplicity of clear consciousness is no measure of the complexity of complete experience. Also this char- acter of our experience suggests that consciousness is the crown of experience, only occasionally attained, not its necessary base.
A feeling is termed a ‘belief,’ or is said to include an element of ‘belief,’ when its datum is a proposition, and its subjective form includes, as the defining element in its emotional pattern, a certain form, or eternal object, associated with some gradation of intensity. This eternal object is ‘belief-character.’ When this character enters into the emotional pattern, then, according to the in- tensity involved, the feeling, whatever else it be, is to some degree a belief.
This variation in the intensity of belief-character is insisted on by Locke in his Essay. He writes (IV, XV, 3): “The entertainment the mind gives this sort of propositions is called ‘belief,’ ‘assent,’ or ‘opinion,’ which is the admitting or receiving any proposition for true, upon arguments or proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge that it is so. And herein lies the difference between probability and certainty, faith and knowledge, that in all parts of knowledge there is intuition; each immediate idea, each
step has its visible and certain connection: in belief not so.”
Higher Phases of Experience 409
Locke’s distinction between certainty and uncertain belief is admirable. But it is not nearly so important as it looks. For it is not the immediate intuition that we are usually concerned with. We only have its recollec- tion recorded in words. Whether the verbal record of a recollection recalls to our minds a true proposition must always be a matter of great uncertainty. Accordingly our attitude towards an immediate intuition must be that of the gladiators, “morituri te salutamus,’ as we pass into the limbo where we rely upon the uncertain record. It must be understood that we are not speaking of the objective probability of a proposition, expressing its relation to certain other propositions. Comparative firmness of belief is a psychological fact which may, or may not, be justified by the objective evidence. This belief-character takes various forms from its fusion with consciousness derived from the various types of intellectual feelings.
Conscious perception is the feeling of what is relevant
to immediate fact in contrast with its potential irrele-
vance. This general description must now be explained
in detail.
‘Conscious perceptions’ are of such importance that it
is worth while to rehearse the whole sequence of their
origination. It will be seen that alternative modes of
origination are involved, and that some of these modes
produce erroneous perceptions. Thus the criticism of
conscious perceptions has the same importance as the
criticism of judgments, intuitive and inferential.
In the first place, there is one basic physical feeling, from which the whole sequence of feelings originates for the ‘subject’ in question. From this physical feeling, the propositional feeling of the sort termed ‘perceptive’ arises. The conscious perception is the comparative feeling aris- ing from the integration of the perceptive feeling with this original physical feeling.
410 Process and Reality
In the account of the origination of the ‘perceptive’ feeling (Part III, Ch. IV, Sect. IV), the various species of such feelings are analysed first into ‘authentic’ feelings and ‘unauthentic’ feelings; and secondly, ‘authentic’ feelings are analysed into ‘direct’ feelings, and ‘indirect’ feelings. Without qualification a direct perceptive feel- ing feels its logical subjects as potentially invested with a predicate expressing an intrinsic character of the nexus which is the initial datum of the physical feeling; with qualification this statement is also true of an indirect feeling. The qualification is that the secondary concep- tual feelings, entertained in the nexus by reason of rever- sion (cf. categoreal condition V), have been transmuted so as to be felt in the ‘subject’ (the final subject of the conscious perception) as if they had been physical facts in the nexus. Of course such transmutation of physical feeling only arises when no incompatibilities are involved.