This paper analyzes problems with the notion
of ontological dualism, and seeks to replace it with the notion of an
intersubjective monism. Ontological
dualism is first critiqued from the point of view of problems with substance
interaction and secondly from the confusion between duality and dualism. It is argued that dualism is the result of a
misapprehension of a fluctuating world of duality. The dualistic notions we conceive of are
ontologically projected onto the world through our ability to generalize from
objects in the world. Platonic notions are merely phenomenal states of mind
based upon experience with the actual world, and have no ontological existence
outside of the subjective perspective.
Using Whitehead’s metaphysics as a basis, the concept
of substance is itself challenged and replaced with the complex metaphysical
system of process as the basis for
the world. God is explored as a
non-temporal actuality, as it is conceived in process philosophy, and is
critiqued based on the problems with dualism discussed above. Using process terminology, the concept of
self, culture, etc are explored in terms of their generation, perpetuation, and
their ability to change based upon the mechanisms within process thought. Process thought is then proposed as a
language game, and it is argued that the world is a linguistic model for
defining and explaining the world between many subjects; the world is an
intersubjective projection based on the interrelations between subjects at many
levels of complexity and experience.
Key
terms: dualism, monism, intersubjectivity, process philosophy, prehension,
substance, ontology, metaphysics, Whitehead, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein.
The Problem
of Ontological Dualism
and the
Solution of Intersubjective Pluralistic Monism
by
Shaun P. McGonigal
A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements
for the Degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy
May, 2003
© 2003 Shaun P. McGonigal
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Part I: The Problem of Ontological Dualism
A............................................ Dualism, Monism, and Duality
B............................ Metaphysics as Ontological Idealizations
C... Metaphysical Concepts and the Construction of Culture
D............................................ Instinct, Emotion, and Intellect
E. Transition: Towards a Transcendence
Part II: Intersubjective Pluralistic Monism
B. Metaphysicalization and God
C. Formation of Mind: Mechanisms of Negative and Positive Prehension
D. Process Philosophy as a Language Game
Human life
is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its
existing language. Such ideas cannot be
grasped singly, one by one in isolation.
They require that mankind advances in its apprehension of the general
nature of things, so as to conceive systems of ideas elucidating each
other. But the growth of generality of
apprehension is the slowest of all evolutionary changes. It is the task of philosophy to promote this
growth in mentality.[1]
Philosophy
has been referred to as the attempt to clarify language. Language is generally thought of as a verbal
expression of sense. Verbal expression
is a kind of symbolism, thus a form of art—indeed, articulation. Yet language can take other forms than verbal
signs—whether they are auditory or written—and can be thought of as any
communication through symbolic means.
Through the many forms of language we can communicate anything from
feelings to complex ideologies; we attempt to communicate brain states or
‘internal states’ through the medium of language.
The problem is that we are forced to
use this indirect medium—whether they are sounds, symbols, etc—to transmit
these internal states from person to person.
The epistemic gap that this necessity creates is what is responsible for
the need for philosophy. This becomes
more and more apparent the more we look at the nature of communication from a
metaphysical point of view—from the point of view of generalization. It is our ability to generalize
phenomenological internal states into concepts that allows us to communicate
and construct a worldview.
All communication, whether at the levels of speech or
“body language,” is based on the process of prehension—the divisibility of characteristics
of actual entities—posited by Alfred North Whitehead in the 1920’s and
1930’s. Thus, the problems of language
and thus philosophy are based upon a fundamental process of how the world
interacts at all levels. It will be
important to look deeply into the complex intricacies of this basic
communication which provides the possibility of language—of subject-subject interprehension and eventually, at a higher level of
complexity, at symbolic language and conceptualization of the world.
However, this is not a problem necessarily for the
quantum theorist to be solved by particle accelerators and mathematical
equations. Instead, the problem exists
at a phenomenological level. The
problems of philosophy, particularly of metaphysics, are not questions about
reality but about ourselves, and how it is that we interrelate as
subjects. The problem of ‘what is
reality?’ becomes a problem of how it is that communication—or, to use
Whitehead’s term in a slightly different way, prehension—between entities manifests. It is not a matter of the subject separated
from the objective nature of reality that makes the question so difficult, but
rather that it is many subjects in communication that are trying to
collectively interpret an intersubjectivity.
Reality, if such a thing exists, might lie outside of the
intersubjective, as with Kant’s notion of the noumena. Alternatively, reality is simply this
intersubjectivity, meaning that our subjectivity plays a large part in the
construction of a “nature” of a shared reality.
If the latter is the case, then there is no “merely”
objective[2]
perspective—no “God’s eye view”—as everything is ultimately a subject. If the former, then the objective transcends
any possibility for subjective comprehension and the problems of philosophy
still exist from our intersubjective point of view, nonetheless. That is, if we were truly unable to pierce
the veil of subjectivity, then anything we discuss would be impotent in
attaining any certainty of the noumenal reality beyond us, but we would still
be left with philosophical problems due to the complexities within
intersubjectivity. Either way, the
nature of prehension as formulated by Whitehead will be the key to
understanding the complex web of an intersubjective world.
The primary goal of this paper will be to first
explore the problems involved in so-called ‘substance ontology’ and determine
the place for metaphysics in the future of philosophical pursuits. Secondly, it is my intention to propose how
Whitehead’s metaphysics might offer a perspective on phenomenology, allowing us
to conceive of the development of subjects—particularly conscious ones like
ourselves—as a process of prehension within an intersubjective universe.
Dualism v. Monism
The issue of whether or not the world
is divided into two realms, substances, etc has consequences far beyond
academic philosophy and ivory tower speculation. This question is at the foundation of a
worldview of a person, as it concerns how the universe can be viewed at a
fundamental level. Accepting dualism as
the nature of reality, for example, opens up a number of possibilities for
belief systems that monism would not as easily allow. Thus the question of whether the universe is
fundamentally monistic or dualistic is crucial in determining a worldview. It is this issue that will remain the thrust
of part I of this study, while paying careful attention to the implications
that being a dualist or a monist will have on our metaphysical notions and how
they influence our attitudes and perspectives in life.
Before we can investigate the
arguments for and against, as well as the implications of dualism and monism,
we have to be sure that these terms are clearly defined. By dualism I mean ontological dualism,
which is the state of reality that involves two substances fundamental to
reality. Generally, dualism is thought
of in terms of the mind/body separation and other such separations of the
‘materialistic’ and ‘spiritualistic’ or ‘mind.’
However, this characterization leaves much of the complexity unseen,
especially considering scientific advances in the last couple hundred years
which question, for one, the physicality of matter.[3]
By monism I mean ontology where only one
“substance” is fundamental to the world.
However, I want to be careful with the term “substance” as it tends to
evoke Cartesian ideas that I will generally want to avoid. In my use of the term, I want it to be
understood that I am trying to refer to whatever is fundamental (either in
terms of dualism or monism) to the ontology of the world. As we dive into the metaphysics of Whitehead,
the term substance will become even more tentative, as it is clear that his
metaphysics repudiates any kind of fundamental “substance.” Whether the
fundamental ontological nature of the world can be called a “substance” will be
a question to be tackled in part II.
What dualism essentially implies to us is that what we
see, feel, hear, taste, etc is not all that there is in existence. Our body, including all of our collectors of
“sense data”—the sense organs and interpretive tools within the brain—are not
all that make up what we are. Or, if
they are, then there is some aspect to reality that transcends this
“transitory, seductive, deceptive, paltry world,”[4]
one which we do not exist within. Thus
empiricism itself could only open up for us part of reality, the other part
being subtler, non-material—yet perhaps intelligible. Plato’s concept of supersensible and
unchangeable ‘forms’ which are only apprehended by reason and unfettered by the
senses allow that the intelligible ‘Forms’ are not completely unattainable to
us, as we can think about them using reason.
The Forms, being somehow transcendent of the changing flux of the world
of particulars, act as the basis for the transitory world of change, flux, and
death. Whatever we see in this world is
merely a copy, in some sense, of the ideal Form.
This view of dualism is neither exhaustive nor
comprehensive. There are other ways of
expressing the problem that illuminates different aspects of dualism. Is the question of dualism v. monism about
whether the world is made up of one kind or two kinds of substances, or is it a
slightly more complex and subtle problem?
Perhaps instead of looking at the problem from the point of view of
whether the world is made up of a ‘material’ basis and/or a ‘spiritual basis,’
we should be asking if all of what “is,” what exists in the universe, is
accessible to us. One might try to argue
that what is beyond our understanding acts as evidence that the world is
dualistic, as there are aspects to reality that transcend our corporeal
being. Putting the question this way
would not necessitate a dualism, however, as even in a monistic universe there
will be aspects of reality that will be unknown to subjects. Indeed, the more complex manifestations of a
monistic universe would seem to be of some other “divine” or
“transcendent” nature if we understood them poorly enough.[5]
It seems then that we have a more
complex question on our hands. The
complexity can be divided into two major possibilities, however. The difference between the two is based upon
the problem of substance interaction, which will be addressed below. The two possibilities break down as follows:
(1)
Our “natural”
existence is limited to the phenomenal—the world of “appearance” based
on physical processes—and we are unable to apprehend the transcendent noumenal reality —the “real” world—that lies beyond
us.
or
(2)
We exist as
dualistic beings, part of which is physical (‘body’) and subject to natural
laws and the other which is spiritual (‘mind’) and subject to some other
reality. In this case, we may be aware
of both, but only part of us is essential, perhaps immortal, while the other is
subject to entropy and ultimately death.
The
difference between the two is subtle.
(1) would not allow for the possibility of what has been called “natural
religion” or “rational religion,”[6]
but would allow for “revealed” religion, assuming some intelligence within that
noumenal realm was capable of
finding a way to get around the interaction problem in order to reveal anything
to us. I mean by this that if the noumenal
world was transcendent in such a way that any apprehension of it was
categorically impossible from the phenomenological or “natural” side of
reality, then any religion that stems from this noumenal reality would
be wholly dependent upon the possibility of some divine intelligence or
presence being able to, perhaps “miraculously,” pierce this divide in
“substances”—that is, essentially, divine revelation. Whitehead seems to agree:
Any
proof [of a transcendent God] which commences with the consideration of the
character of the actual world cannot rise above the actuality of this
world. It can only discover all the
factors disclosed in the world as experienced.
In other words, it may discover an immanent God, but not a God wholly
transcendent.[7]
For a
reality that conformed to possibility (1), any religious notions derived from
reason would be suspect, as it would have to be demonstrated that our ability
to reason was somehow supernatural, which trends in phenomenology and the
“philosophy of mind” do not seem to support.[8]
However, if
dualism were to be interpreted such that we were able to view a perspective of
each “realm,” as with (2), then we might be able to allow for a kind of
Platonic intelligibility where we would be able to attain the truth or the
“Good” through some means; perhaps philosophy, perhaps religion. Here, “natural” or “rational” religion would
be possible as our ability to reason and such could be equated with our
essential “spiritual” self. And I
suppose that between the two dualistic models above ((1) and (2)) various gray
areas would emerge, as they have over the history of philosophy.
This is really just a survey of the problem, and more
in depth studies on the nature of dualistic metaphysics are ubiquitous. Monism usually speaks of us either being
purely spiritual beings, thus throwing out the temporary, the base, and the
changing bodies and such, or it is ultimately natural and (supposedly) without
spiritual significance. This is an
oversimplification.
Rarer it is to find someone who is willing to put to
trial this notion of dualism, including all of it’s implications of immortal
souls trapped in bodies, human dignity in an undignified world, etc. One such challenging thinker is Nietzsche,
who seems to present the issue not so much to say that the world is not
dualistic, but that the question posed in such a way seems to be trapped by
looking at the world in terms of “metaphysics.”
That is, our language implies the existence of a subject, and this
implies a metaphysical subject-object construction.[9] Nietzsche urges us to overcome the
metaphysical constructions that this subject-object construction implies, as he
says in his Beyond Good and Evil:
The
fundamental faith of the metaphysicians is the faith in opposite values. It has not even occurred to the most cautious
among them that one might have a doubt right here at the threshold where it was
surely most necessary—even if they vowed to themselves, “de omnibus dubitandum.”
For one may doubt, first, whether
there are any opposites at all, and secondly whether these popular valuations
and opposite values on which the metaphysicians put their seal, are not perhaps
merely foreground estimates…. It might
even be possible that what constitutes the value of these good and revered
things is precisely that they are insidiously related, tied to, and involved
with these wicked, seemingly opposite things—maybe even one with them in
essence. Maybe.[10]
While
Nietzsche does not seem to be attacking dualism in the same way that I am here,
I believe that the same point, that dualism is a linguistic and metaphysical
construction, is made.
The metaphysical implications of subject-object
ontology are partially responsible for the dualistic metaphysical construction
of idealizations (discussed in the next section). Nonetheless, Nietzsche does touch on a
notion here that is of great interest for those who wish to defend
dualism. If language allows us to divide
the world into subject-object, good-evil, phenomena-noumena, etc, then there
might be a common “essence,” as Nietzsche says, which would imply that the
dualism is the result of language.[11] This issue implies further problems with
dualism.
Other problems with dualism have been brought up from
various sources, but many ultimately revolve around the problem of substance
interaction. That is, if the world is
said to be fundamentally made of two different substances, then how is it that
they interact? How does the soul, for
example, interact with the body as well as the body with the soul? It seems that if they were able to interact
in any way, then it would be difficult to hold that they are truly different
substances, meaning that dualism would collapse into monism, or at least to
some form of Neoplatonism or Augustinianism. Dualism must involve two utterly different
substances that share no ontological commonality to be called dualism.
Thus both possibilities, (1) and (2), are found to be
lacking. If the two realms are utterly
unable to communicate because they are utterly different in an ontic sense (1), then any claims concerning the nature of
this noumenal realm beyond us are either merely speculative or the
result of divine revelation. But to
argue that “truths” or whatnot derive from another world with different
fundamental natures must be evaluated on the nature of this reality—the reality
in which we exist and which acts as the basis for our ability to evaluate. But “the character of the actual world cannot
rise above the actuality of this world,”[12]
says Whitehead. Since any criteria that
we would apply to this revelation may be completely incompatible with
the transcendent, the assertion or denial of its truth would be completely
beyond our epistemic abilities and completely absurd. Thus, any idea credited to revelation can
only be accepted on faith, and would be subject to the same criticisms as any
purely speculative ideology. Epistemically, it would be like believing any of the
variously creative images from dreams or science fiction; without the
possibility to ever test or challenge the truth of these transcendent notions,
philosophical consideration of them would be useless. Further, we would have to wonder how they
ever became formulated linguistically.
If they came from a realm that has no characteristics in common with
this one (where language exists), we would have to wonder how such an idea
would translate for us. How could we ever begin to argue that what we
could say with any words could apprehend a reality that transcends linguistics?
Concerning (2), the problem is different, but
related. (2) postulates that we exist having
two natures, one temporary and subject to natural laws, the other subject to
different rules—perhaps immortal, perhaps non-corporeal. Can this even be considered dualism? If there
is some self—the subject—that somehow is able to have a perspective in each
(the ‘mind’ and ‘body’), then there must be a common element or aspect to each
“side” of this supposedly dualistic existence. If there is something that mediates or
connects them, then either this mediator is a third substance with even
different properties that, perhaps “miraculously” allows communication between
the two, or the two are not actually different substantially.[13]
If the body and the mind can interact, they must not
be completely ontologically different, which should concede to a fundamental
monism rather than dualism. Once again,
this does not disprove dualism, as (1) is still possible. However, we would be forced to concede that
anything we are able to conceive of would have to exist apart from the
transcendent, otherwise we could not conceive of it, as conception would have
to be a kind of interaction. Thus, (1)
is possible, but any transcendent reality would be beyond our ability to
apprehend, and (2) collapses into duality within monism.
Duality
A distinction must be made between the interplay of duality
and the substance separation of dualism.
Duality I define as the dual aspects of one underlying being,
interplay within one thing. If we were
to talk about concepts such as Yin and Yang, for example, we would have to recognize
that even here the two aspects share some essential commonality. This commonality represented by the dot of
the opposite color in each side of the popular Taoist symbol—often called the
“Tai Chi symbol”—cannot be a representation of dualism in the sense I am using
it here.
[
If each
side—the yin and the yang—is
balanced in harmony with the others, and each contains the essence of the
other, then it cannot be said that this view is dualistic, since both share a
common “essence.” This Taoist symbol is
a representation of what we can call a duality within a monistic world, which
may evoke Neoplatonic as well as Augustinian themes
once again.
Here, two main possibilities
arise. On the one hand, there could be
something more fundamental to the duality of yin and yang (or
matter and spirit) that allows them to interact. If this is the case, then the question of
fundamental nature is deferred to the common element of both, making this the
fundamental ground to a monistic world rather than a dualistic one. If each shares some characteristic or
element, then neither is fundamental[14]
(because there is something more basic than it to act as a common element),
thus not dualistic. The discussion about
monism and dualism is about a fundamental nature to reality, not some
superficiality of appearance of manifestation of fundamental natures.[15]
Rather than dichotomies, we are dealing with
gradations of some scale that allows extremes which can be conceived as a
duality (and supposedly as a dualism).
Again, we can use the Taoist schema as an example. Whatever the opposite characteristics are,
whether they are light/dark, good/evil, etc, both share a commonality that
makes the concept of opposite both possible and, perhaps ironically,
problematic. With light and dark, we can
defer the distinction to one of presence of radiation of a certain kind (and
perhaps to what degree). With good and
evil, it is a question of valuation based on some moral standard that is common,
which is put on a scale—a duality—that exists as a basis for the possibility of
the “opposite” valuations. With matter
and spirit, the question becomes more difficult as we cannot say, knowing what
we know about quantum physics thus far, what might act as the commonality that
allows them to interact. Perhaps further
conclusions from further research will help answer this problem, or perhaps
not. Once again, we have to be careful
how language is influencing how we conceive of these interrelations between
concepts.
The other possibility is that the two
substances—whether they are called ‘matter’ and ‘spirit’ or some other
terms—are actually the same but manifest themselves in different ways, in
different circumstances, that we call “matter” and “spirit,” or whatever terms
we want to employ. The difference
between the two is subtle, but is based on the perspective from which we are
looking at them. This latter perspective
is ultimately the solution that Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics will lean
towards.
The universe, thus disclosed, is through and through
interdependent. The body pollutes the
mind, the mind pollutes the body.[16]
Whitehead’s
Process Philosophy is explored in his major work Process and Reality
and his other less major works such as Science and the Modern World, Religion
in the Making, and Adventures of Ideas. Whitehead’s metaphysics will be discussed in
more depth below, but it is important to understand at this point that his
metaphysics carries a kind of duality that is not ultimately dualistic, but pluralistically
monistic,[17] as is
implied by use of the word “interdependent.”
This phenomenological argument
demonstrates how dualism is epistemologically problematic, but what about
ontologically? Ultimately this problem
cannot be completely avoided, as any attempt to say anything about the world
that might be beyond our ability to know would be absurd. That is to say that if there were a part of
reality beyond our ability to know, speak, etc, it would remain alien to us by
definition. But given the interaction
problem, that is, if a dualism existed how could the substances interact, and
given the notion that we are able to think and be aware of our mind as well as
our body, ontological monism would seem to be a fair conclusion. That is, where would the argument for ontological
dualism fit into our needs for explanation?
We have concepts like dualism because
we are trying to explain how things work, and we need theoretical constructs to
do so. Dualism is an interesting
construct to explain how we are conscious (or at least how we appear to be
conscious). But given the problem of
substance interaction and the fact that we are aware of both a body and a mind
within the same ‘self,’ dualism fails as an explanation, both epistemologically
and ontologically. For if some
ontological dualism were still said to exist, we would have to wonder what
function it would have for us as it could not explain anything we could be
aware of. Thus ontological dualism still
might be the case, but it would have to be a truly transcendent substance. This is an area of faith only, as if could
never be proved, disproved, or even experienced. Thus, dualism cannot be used as an
explanation to any philosophical problem, as philosophy always exists as a
linguistic function of what we are able to experience.
Assuming that nobody is a proponent of
any “triality” or some other multiple-substance
ontology,[18] the
rejection of dualism leaves us with the universe we exist in as the
manifestation of one fundamental substance (again, I use this
term “substance” cautiously) or one fundamental
nature. The obvious problem then is
what is the nature of this monism, and how does it manifest in such a way that
the levels of complexity we see in the world are possible? Ultimately this may seem a question for the
physicist who is working on the sub-atomic particles by use of complex theories
in the laboratory. But putting aside the
nature of some “monistic sub-atomic particle,” we can explore the implications
of monism on our possible philosophical world-views, primarily from a
phenomenological point of view.
“Man
projected his three ‘inner facts’, that in which he believed more firmly than
anything else, will, spirit, ego, outside himself…. No wonder he later always
discovered in things only that which he had put into them!”[19]
Monism does not have to cut out the possibility of
spiritual significance, this is a prejudice of either the dualist who wishes to
create an emotive argument against monism, or the monist who, with his
anti-dualist agenda, has oversimplified the problem in an attempt to downplay
religion, metaphysics, etc. The monist,
surveying the problem, should ultimately realize that dualism is a
manifestation of the problem of universals.
A further aspect of the false notion of ontological
dualism can be better illuminated by defining metaphysics for our use in this
discussion. Metaphysics has often been
put in comparison with ontology.
Ontology—the study of being—discusses the actual nature of what “is,”
generally from a phenomenological point of view. This is the case because we can only observe
the phenomenon of being as a subject (or as a complex of many
subjects). That is, we cannot escape our
perspective(s), as such, to look at being objectively—as
“things-in-themselves.” Metaphysics, on
the other hand, is when we try to generalize or idealize our perspectives onto
the “objective” world in some doctrinal way—in essence when we try to objectify
being into some absolute form or generalization.
By defining the nature of things in some static,
generalized, or idealized form, we are trying to step beyond our
(inter)subjective limitations, and we force an interpretation upon reality. Dualism then comes in when the metaphysical
“reality” is posited as real and somehow separate from the phenomenological or,
perhaps, physical, physiological, and neurological. Thus, we construct a dualistic
ontology through a metaphysical postulation; literally by projecting the “other
side” of the dualistic reality through generalization of phenomenal
perspectives. I will refer to this
projection as metaphysicalization. In this sense, dualism is the result of an
error in thinking about our phenomenological perspective—Nietzsche might have
smiled (or laughed!). Or, as Whitehead
says:
The
history of ideas is a history of mistakes.
But through all mistakes it is also the history of the gradual
purification of conduct. When there is
progress in the development of favorable order, we find conduct protected from
relapse into brutalization by the increasing agency of ideas consciously
entertained. In this way Plato is
justified in saying, The creation of the world—that is to say, the world of
civilized order—is the victory of persuasion over force.[20]
Whitehead
is here implying that ideas are fundamental to conduct, or actions. Throughout the first part of Adventures of
Ideas, Whitehead repetitively argues that “general ideas”[21]
(which might be compared with what Thomas Kuhn would later call paradigms),
are the basis for more specialized ideas, such as theories, which both act in
tandem as the basis for how we construct the world.
Since this point is going to be of considerable
importance throughout the following pages, it is necessary to clarify the
position more clearly. Dualism, in terms
of the problem with the soul-body distinction, is the idea that the body is
somehow a vessel for the soul or mind.
What we are, says the dualist, is this (perhaps immortal) soul or mind
that exists independent of or essentially differently from the body. Whether the soul/mind is discussed in the
terms of “consciousness,” “soul,” etc does not significantly change the
problem, because the proposition is that somehow our will, our “self,” is
somehow greater or transcendent of the body—or more generally of matter.
From this point of view, phenomenology would seem to
be ambiguous in what it studies. If the
soul, the “self,” is supposed to be more than just mere matter, then it seems
that our phenomenological perspective is somehow separate from the material
body, and thus phenomenology studies the spirit or mind. In this sense, the body would simply be a
tool to give the mind or soul information to think about—the body as merely a
hindrance and possibly a temporary anchor to the material world. Strangely, this idea is conceptually similar
to the idea that we might simply be a brain floating in a vat, hooked up to
input devices to make it seem like we exist in a body in a real world. [22] It is similar in that from this point of view
it would not really matter what happens in the mind—whether the mind exists as
a disembodied brain or soul makes little phenomenological difference to us
because it would essentially seem the same way from our subjective point of
view.
On the other hand, the phenomenological perspective
could be the result of a dependence upon how the body—the whole body as well as
the structure of the brain—interprets sense data from the external world. Consciousness, however, is often argued to
not be materially based, and is often the buzz word for those who wish to argue
in favor of dualism—or against materialism, as is more often the case.[23] The assumption here is that if materialism is
false, then dualism must be the case.
This perspective is highly problematic, however, as it is based upon
specific conceptions of materialism or monism that may not hold up.
Materialism is often described as a combination of two
factors, structure and function. The
world has a form, and it acts a certain way, thus what we are is ultimately
very complex organisms that are based on complex mechanical properties. I’m of course not being fair here, as this
overly simplistic view of materialism is neither prevalent nor convincing. Essentially, materialism has been
philosophically crafted as the elimination of the spiritual side of the
dualistic framework in order to say that what remains is the material—the
“stuff.” This calls into question
concepts such as freedom and souls, as well as puts most religions into the
obsolete pile.
This leaves us with the material and mechanistic
universe of the Enlightenment, with its clock-like precision and
predictability. Strike the cue ball
thus, with this trajectory, and you can predict where the shot will end
up. If you know the initial position,
velocity, pressure, temperature, etc of the first moments of the universe, then
you should be able to, given the correct laws and calculating devices, know who
will win the World Series in 2012. A
determinate universe leaves little room for free will, spontaneity, etc.[24]
Thus, when we are thinking about what we are going to do tomorrow, or in a few
seconds, we are essentially—as part of the determined plan, of course—creating a
concept of a freedom that does not exist.
Our freedom is an illusion, and we should all simply be Epicureans
enjoying each moment, as if it were what we willed anyway.
Coming from this perspective, some have tried to argue
that our human desire to find meaning in life—what Nietzsche calls the
“metaphysical need” [25] or the
“will to knowledge”—makes us want to reject this mechanistic and deterministic
conception of the universe. They argue
that it is merely a human weakness, a vanity, that we hold onto such notions as
free will and some other divine or Platonic world in which the mechanistic
rules of the world do not apply; a world where God, and perhaps angels and
devils, can interject “miraculously” so as to throw a wrench into the gears, or
simply to slow them down or speed them up a bit.
This latter point of view is not mine. If it were, I would be merely capitulating to
the mechanistic paradigm; a monism that makes it more difficult to have a world
with novelty, freedom, or meaning. But,
on the other hand I am not accepting the supposed alternative of “wishful
thinkers,” ignoring the facts in order to believe a nice fairy tale. Instead I challenge the dichotomy presented
thus, and question both this materialistic monism as well as any dualism in favor
of another kind of monism. Instead of
cutting out one side of the dualism for the other, as the idealists on the one
side and the materialists or ‘physicalists’ on the
other, have tried to do, I propose that what we see as the “other side” of the
dualism is not the other side at all, but merely potential and idealized
generalizations of what is on “this side,” and thus part of the same
reality. The implications of this, while
not revolutionary or particularly novel in itself, will become apparent later
on. First we have some more ground to
cover.
Plato’s
dualistic system has obviously been heavily influential in the history of
philosophical ideas, and thus in culture generally. Whitehead himself has said that all of
philosophy is but a footnote to Plato, as he believed that the many and diverse
dialogues of Plato—starring Socrates and his many interlocutors—covered at
least the elements of all philosophical questions still at hand. Whether or not this is the case is not the
focus here, but rather how a particular part of Plato’s thought influenced one
of the major problems in the history of philosophy; the problem of universals.
This problem has broken down to two main camps, each
with various interpretations of their own.
Plato, as evidenced by his Cratylus,
seems to be convinced that names have actual significance attached to the
things themselves, as his analysis of the Greek language demonstrates. Plato’s Cratylus
is probably the best example of the relationship between language and meaning
in reality. This idea lays the seeds for
what has been called Realism. Realism is
the idea that our descriptions of the world have actual correlation to the
world itself, and that our language is therefore some kind of map or
approximation of the world as it is. The
world exists in a definite way, our linguistic descriptions are just
explanations of this way, say the Realists.
Nominalism
presents a challenge to this kind of approach to language and metaphysics. With nominalism, instead of words containing
a meaning for the objects they refer to, they merely have what Wittgenstein
calls ‘use.’ Terms for things are
conventional, the similarity between words is not evidence of the words in some
way participating to Forms of meaning, as the Platonic model implies. Rather, language is based on gestural patterns of expression, and is based on the same
pattern as interpreting body language and facial expressions.[26]
The conventionality of words allows us to conceive of concepts themselves as
manifestations of particular things being referred to, by use of symbols.
In this manner, Realism seems to imply a kind of
linguistic dualism. Meaning would be
like a self, a “soul,” contained within
the “body” of words or concepts. That
is, words would be dualistic beings with a body (sound or group of letters) and
a soul (the “meaning”). But nominalism would not imply this linguistic dualism, as it
argues that meaning is merely a function of association of sounds and symbols
with internal states of mind. Thus, when
we communicate we are not passing around meanings so much as manipulating the
world in such a way that we can learn to recognize what manipulations convey
what, given room for error in this communication. At higher levels of complexity and among more
individuals, this language game[27]
develops into what we call a society—culture.
Dualism is not a concept that is difficult to find in
culture. It seems that it lies at the
very root of the very concept of culture.
Culture is just one—indeed a major one—manifestation of this
metaphysicalization that is based on the linguistic assumptions of
Realism. It is at the level of language
games that culture and other such contextual realities manifest. Cultural concepts such as “freedom” and
“property” are essentially ontological constructions based upon the experiences
of actual interactions, generalized for our use in society. This is not to imply that there is no
ontological status of things which are “free” or are “property,” but only that
the concepts themselves are metaphysical constructions projected on top of the
phenomena we have, albeit incompletely.
These ideas will be elaborated in Part II, after we have familiarized
ourselves with Whitehead’s schema, which will be useful in fleshing this out.
In the case that it would be useful,
I’ll use an analogy that stems from something I happened upon a few years
ago. It is a Zen saying that I found a
while back that went something like the following:
Before Studying Zen, mountains are mountains and
rivers are rivers
When you start to study Zen, mountains are no longer
mountains, and rivers are no longer rivers.
When you have mastered Zen, mountains are once again
mountains, and rivers are once again rivers.
The time
I first read this saying, it conveyed a sense of seeing things as they are only
by questioning their natures, a transformation in perspective. The world exists, so the child thinks. That child may grow up to study philosophy,
and wonder whether it is all an illusion; whether the world is as we see it or
some other way. In the end the
philosopher will come to see the world again, but the world they see is seen
differently. Yes, the mountains look the
same and the river still flows downstream, but the perspective on these objects
changes because the observer has changed.
This theme of birth, transformation,
and rebirth is a common theme throughout religion and the arts, and plays on
ideologies that seem to lie deep within the human psyche. Indeed, perhaps, it is all the more
interesting to ponder that no other theme is more appropriate for the human
mind. It seems that the Zen saying above
is very significant, but not precisely in the way that I initially
thought.
In the beginning, before the advent of philosophical
investigation of mountains and rivers, the mind merely sees colors, shapes,
textures, and movement. As the mind
gains more experiences with colors, shapes, etc, it begins to interpret them
and recognize generalities, consistencies, and the like. This is the birth of metaphysics and acts as
the catalyst for everything from Platonism to Dialectical Materialism. By organizing the phenomena, or
“impressions,” to use Hume’s term for what I mean, is the beginning of our
construction of an external world and meanings of objects in it. In essence, the mind learns to make sense of
the phenomena or impressions it collects from the world.
But this process is not merely a function of
interpretation, but also of a transformation of the subject itself. As we shall see in Part II, it is due more to
a rejection of the subject-object model that pervades the epistemological and
ontological worldviews of traditional philosophy. Mastering
Zen, therefore, is not a matter of simply learning how to see rivers and
mountains, it is about mastering the self; only when the self (or selves)
changes can the world change.
Now, from a Realist point of view this is clearly
nonsense. Reality is as it is
independently of how subjects perceive it, and a change in perspective on the
world is simply a change in interpretation. In a sense the Realist is partially correct,
and in another sense the Zen point of view is also correct. There is another perspective on this issue
that makes this apparent dichotomy dissolve.
This solution is one of intersubjectivity, where while the reality
exists as it is despite how subjects perceive it, it is not independent of how
the subject exists itself. But we are
still far from clearly defining our intersubjective solution to this problem,
as this will take some analysis of Whitehead’s metaphysics.
On the road to this solution, we will need to take a
look at how metaphysical constructions assist in the development of culture, as
this will lead us towards understanding how an intersubjective perspective can
be better analyzed. Culture is a
manifestation of intersubjectivity, and how it becomes will help lay a basis
for what will come in Part II. We will
first begin with a problem of communication.
The fact that metaphysics is a construction and does
not necessarily exist in the world is an interesting concept indeed. A major critique would be to say that if this
is so, then how is it that so many people share a similar perspective that
allows them to communicate with each other; if we all create metaphysical
concepts that we can postulate as real, then why do we so often share the same
metaphysicalizations, rather than all of us having our own, making it more
obvious that the ideals are mere fabrications?
That the mind has developed to ‘make order out of
chaos’ is not controversial.[28] There are many evolutionary advantages to
having this ability. Indeed, it may be
the case that this ability lays at the root of our ability to metaphysicalize.
Making order out of the flux of percepta
creates concepts for us to use in thinking and communicating. Concepts are transferred, if you will, via
language metaphors or language games.
The metaphors for concepts we share with each other with greater ease
are generally the simpler ones with higher levels of generalization; they are
easier to conceive, easier to generalize, thus easier to create linguistic
signs for.[29] When the construction of my linguistic
metaphors correlate sufficiently with whatever terminology or linguistic
metaphor (language game) another person is using, then this sharing—this
intersubjectivity—creates a basis for social understanding. Multiply this event by the many hundreds,
thousands, or millions of people in a given society and you have a piece of
that culture.
The success of certain constructions might even be put
into a Darwinian matrix of Natural Selection.
To check back with Nietzsche:
Words
are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite
image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of
sensations. To understand one another,
it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same
words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have
one’s experience in common.[30]
This, of
course, is dependent upon the contextualist notion of
meaning that Nietzsche seems to display throughout much of his work. This quotation’s similarity to Wittgenstein’s
notion of “family resemblance”[31]
is also striking. While Nietzsche’s
target here is not metaphysics but of commonalities in cultures and people, I
believe that the current point can still be derived from it without risking
being accused of taking the statement out of context. Nietzsche, I believe, is actually utilizing
his metaphysical critiques in order to make his point about culture and
commonality. Nietzsche continues:
…it
would follow on the whole that easy communicability of need—which in the last
analysis means the experience of merely average and common
experiences—must have been the most powerful of all powers at whose disposal
man has been so far. The human beings
who are more similar, more ordinary, have had, and always have, an advantage;
those more select, subtle, strange, and difficult to understand, easily remain
alone, succumb to accidents, being isolated, and rarely propagate.[32]
Thus the
common experience, which is easier to communicate to others, will tend to
remain in greater numbers while differences—in perspective perhaps—and
tend not to have as much success. Thus
culture, at least culture of the common person, is dominated by metaphysical
constructs. This fact makes critiquing
metaphysical assumptions that much more difficult in the face of culture, since
it means critiquing the types of things that most people share, the things that
allow the possibility of culture.
This point is raised merely to show that while this
metaphysical construction is problematic, it is also necessary. Without the construction of idealizations in
the world, language, culture, and society would not be possible and we would
not be able to communicate. As Nietzsche
said, “[w]ords are acoustical signs for concepts” and
concepts are signs for “sensations.” The
sensations themselves, as I mentioned in the introduction, are internal states,
pieces of consciousness. Our ability to
generalize these sensations into concepts (Whitehead’s term will be “conceptual
feelings”) and to subsequently give these concepts verbal signs is what allows
us to communicate. This ability to
create concepts is based on our ability—perhaps our necessity—to generalize
phenomena (sensations) into metaphysical constructs, which give the appearance
of a dualism.
The mistake, or the danger, of this ability/necessity
is that we often posit the concept to be ontologically “true.” That is, we try to pierce the veil of
subjectivity to place our concepts under the shroud of “objective
reality.” When we conceive of the
concept of self, soul, property, etc for the use in linguistic communication,
we do not necessarily make this error.
It is a must that, in order to communicate, some concepts will have to
be used. The concepts themselves are
tools for our interactions, and it is the problem of philosophy to better
understand these concepts and to figure out how to clarify their use and
legitimacy in the language games we employ.
What we should not do is posit the metaphysical—the linguistic,
perhaps—as objectively real. “Where a
man cannot find anything to see or to grasp, he has no further business.”[33] We cannot make concepts any more than
that—concepts. They may be “real”
(whatever that might mean), but that is not for us to say—either singularly or
collectively. We have to be satisfied
with their use in thinking and in language, and not propose that they have an
existence in themselves.
To return to the Zen analogy above, it might be fair
to say that the mountains and rivers return to their status not from a
Realist’s perspective, but from an anti-Realist perspective; a constructed
and projected one. Thus the analogous
master of Zen realizes that the mountains can become mountains again only
because he makes it so—because he has always made it so, because culture made
them so and he must partake in culture to communicate.
I would like to say that what ‘actually’ happens is
that the world exists, we perceive it, and we construct an approximation of it
in our conscious mind. But I cannot say
that. All that I can say is that we have
the conscious experience, and that we must construct, a posteriori, the
means by which this construction took place.
We essentially derive the idea that the world we see actually originates
from something beyond us. Or am I simply
falling prey to the skeptics’ ploy by defining the “Truth” in such a way that I
can say that it does not exist?
In the end, I believe, this is just
another mistake. The question is not so
much whether the world exists outside of us or if we merely create it with our
metaphysical constructions, but a more complex question. Unfortunately, this more complex form of the
question cannot be successfully articulated yet, as there are terms and
relations of terms to be illuminated below.
But since it is not nice to bring up the promise of something
interesting and then simply say it will come later, I’ll say that the answer
becomes clearer when we keep in mind that the separation from world and subject
that the simple form of the question above relies on, is itself in question
here. How would the question change if
the world actually were a concrescence—that is, a coming together or a kind of
integration of entities—of subjects rather than objects looked at from the
points of view of some subjects?
What is consciousness? What is abstract thought? If it is the ability to generalize sensations
into conceivable images, then what thought is not abstract? Is the world an abstraction, or is it
something else? The world is an
intersubjectivity.
Before moving on, I suppose a few words should be said on the topic of
the relationship between our instinctual and emotional nature and the power of
the intellect. One of the most powerful
implications of Plato’s thought has been the strong distinction between our
desires and our rational self. Plato’s
images of the Tripartite soul[34]
are largely responsible for this notion, as Plato’s general reputation and
influence on Western philosophy will attest.
Nietzsche didn’t see it this way, and neither do
I. Nietzsche’s argument that our
“metaphysical need” or “will to knowledge” is what is responsible for what we
call our rationally developed philosophy.[35] The Platonic view was that our ability to use
Reason allows us to access intelligible Forms that this world is a mere copy
of. However, our perspective of the
metaphysical is not the result of philosophical minds pondering the depths of
the universe through strict logic, rationality, or dialectics. As Nietzsche has repeatedly pointed out, this
metaphysical assumption—this “metaphysical need”—is a result of an error, of
the will to truth that derives “truth” from untruth.[36] Essentially what this means is that we
create our perspectives on “truth” through an error in thinking. This is similar to what I have been arguing
all along.[37] Instead of this metaphysical perspective on
the world (that is, this error) being the result of philosophers, it is a human
condition that philosophers are simply subject to:
This
[dualistic, see note below] way of judging constitutes the typical prejudgment
and prejudice which gives away the metaphysicians of all ages; this kind of
valuation looms in the background of all their logical procedures; it is on
account of this “faith” that they trouble themselves about “knowledge,” about
something that is finally baptized solemnly as “the truth.” The fundamental faith of the metaphysicians
is the faith in opposite values.
It has not even occurred to the most cautious among them that one might
have a doubt right here at the threshold where it was surely the most
necessary—even if they vowed to themselves, “de omnibus dubitandum.”[38]
That
this is a human condition and not merely a philosophical one can be
demonstrated by the ubiquity of this “faith” in this dualism of “opposite
values” among people. One only needs to
stop and talk with most contemporary of persons on the street; anyone who holds
onto the notion that the world is somehow “more than this.” Then we might be able to equate Nietzsche’s
“metaphysicians of all ages” with the common man,[39]
as we all need to use these metaphysical concepts just in order to communicate,
as we have seen above.
These notions believed, by Plato and
his numerous ideological followers, to be a separation of the desires of the
body from the Reason of the mind was thus an illusion. We do not have some ability to repress or
circumvent our physiological existence in order to navigate through the
unchanging Forms and abstract concepts in the mind. Further, this power is ultimately unnecessary
as these abstract concepts are the result of a physiologically based
phenomenological process that has deep roots in desires and instincts.
One of the greatest manifestations of
dualism is this belief in this Platonic separation. Its implications have sprouted up within religious
ideologies that propose that the mysteries of “creation” cannot be known to
mankind, and that faith is required for understanding. But if this dualistic starting point is taken
away, these implications cannot be reached without apparent incoherence. If the world is a concrescence of entities
that share an ontological status with what constitutes us—that is, if monism is
true—then all aspects of reality should be, in some way, potentially accessible
to us. Mysteries might still exist, but
not by necessity. Anything not
understood is merely due to a limited perspective, lack of information, or
perhaps intellectual capability (due to a lack of complexity of mind). Thus, there would not be a need so much for a
revelation as for a good teacher and some patience.
This teacher need not be a person,
someone who has a broader perspective and the like. Instead, we can be our own teachers through
our ability to metaphysicalize. Our ability to learn from our errors, as it
were, is our ability to transcend what is obvious, and thus progress in our
understanding.[40] The fact that our generalizations are
ultimately erroneous does not change the fact that they can be a source for
creativity and novelty in the world that can become actualized through applicability. But in order to practice this creativity we
must be able to transcend our metaphysical need; we need to be able to look
outside of Plato’s cave without feeling compelled to step into its vacuous
oblivion.
Knowing that the ‘metaphysical’ is an idealization of phenomena leads
us to ask if this error in interpretation has any usefulness for us. Are we to simply ignore metaphysics as false
and thus useless or are we to live within the illusion as if it were real? Fortunately, neither choice is really
necessary. I say fortunately because if we had to abandon all
manifestations of metaphysics it would make communication and culture vastly
difficult to partake in. It is also
fortunate because living within a world we know is based on errors and bad
vision[41]
would force us to live apart from the culture, which many already do for this
very reason. The “new philosopher,” says
Nietzsche, will know solitude better than anyone else.
It is true that the metaphysical world, the ideals, is
in fact a construction based upon what already is. But this is a necessary and very useful part
of reality. Without the process of this
generalization, reality would not be able to evolve and change; it would likely
remain a stagnant and uniform mass of insignificance.[42] Imagine that this ability to metaphysically
generalize the world were suddenly taken from humanity; what would come of
culture, religion, language, art, music, etc?
Now imagine how the levels of these creative aspects of our being were
never there to begin with, and ask how we might have achieved the state of
affairs as they exist now.
What we will find in Part II is that
we need to learn how to transcend the idea that something has to be either true
or false—indeed Sic et Non. This
ideology is a remnant of scholastic conceptions of the world that are no longer
compatible with our understanding of things.[43] Truth is not a matter of on or off, but a
complex web of concepts that exist in a Heraclitean river
of flux, change, and multiple perspectives.
What makes it more complex is to realize that not only can you not step
into the same river twice, but even if you could it would not even be the same
foot, as even our perspectives are in flux.
The metaphysicalized
construction of the world we create for our linguistic and practical navigation
within the world is a generalized perspective of the complexity of what
is. Yet the line between real and
unreal—what is the actual world and what is its generalized interpretation—is
more fluid and fuzzy than traditional logic would have us conclude.[44]
It is not that the metaphysical
generalizations don’t exist, it is that they are not yet necessarily
actual. To say that they do not exist
would be either to concede type (1) dualism, as above (that is, they would not
exist in the same substantial way that we do), or to say that things that do
not exist are somehow able to effect that which does exist, which seems absurd
and which Whitehead overtly rejects. And
while Positivism wants to avoid metaphysical conversations because of their
lack of reality, they cannot deny that the conversation is possible. Thus metaphysical generalizations exist, but
they exist primarily as the result of being generated by generalized
interpretations—they exist as potential.
The further elucidation and
implications of this concept will, however, have to wait until we familiarize
ourselves with the complex terminology within the metaphysical system of Alfred
North Whitehead. Process philosophy, or
the “philosophy of organism,” will pick up on the problems presented thus far
and offer us a metaphysical view that will blaze a path for how we can utilize
metaphysics without falling victim to its siren-like attractiveness.
Whitehead is a thinker who seems as if he were trying to be cryptic and
misleading because he creates his own unique terminology. This is necessary as the basis for his
thought is an attempt to cut the legs off of traditional metaphysical
notions. If he were to use traditional
terminology, his ideas might be confused with the thought of those that he is
at odds with. The following will act as
an introduction to Whitehead’s metaphysical terminology and concepts.
So, what is Whitehead trying to
accomplish? The short answer is to say
that he is trying to propose that the basis for reality—more appropriately, being
or becoming—is not
so much stuff or the “thing-in-itself,” but rather a process.
The
philosophy of organism is closely allied to Spinoza’s scheme of thought. But it differs by the abandonment of the
subject-predicate forms of thought, so far as concerns the presupposition that
this form is a direct embodiment of the most ultimate characterization of
fact. The result is that the
‘substance-quality’ concept is avoided; and that morphological description is
replaced by description of dynamic process.[45]
Again,
later on;
In
the philosophy of organism it is not ‘substance’ which is permanent, but
‘form.’ Forms suffer changing relations;
actual entities ‘perpetually perish’ subjectively, but are immortal
objectively.[46]
Process
philosophy, or the “philosophy of organism,” proposes that the world is
fundamentally constituted by the concrescences of actual entities or actual
occasions, nexūs, and prehension. This process manifests itself from the
subjective point of view in one way but through objectification this process is
more difficult to apprehend. The
difference between subject and object here is merely a difference in
perspective. Everything is a subject
(that is, everything experiences at some level), but from the point of view of
a particular subject, everything else becomes objectified. David Ray Griffin agrees:
All
things other than our own experience appear to be mere objects, rather than
subjects, because by the time they can be prehended they are objects; their
subjectivity has perished…So, we are right to think that everything that we
perceive is an object—in the ontological as well as the epistemic sense of the
term. We are only wrong to think of them
as mere objects.[47]
Actual entities are the “final real things of which
the world is made up. There is no going
behind actual entities to find anything more real.”[48] These actual entities are neither physical
nor mental, but manifest a polarity of each.
That is, the actual entity has what Whitehead calls a “mental pole” and
a “physical pole.” These poles are not
separate, but rather interdependent parts of a complex duality. In Whitehead’s terms, within the actual
entities ‘creatures’[49]
are qualified by the ideal forms, or the mental pole, and the ideal forms are
qualified by the creatures, the physical pole.
The mental and physical poles qualify each other and are thus
interdependent, but not substantially separated in any dualistic way. “The final facts are, all alike, actual
entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and
interdependent.”[50]
The actual entities are analyzed through a process
called prehension, which is a kind of repetitious replication of
itself—supposing that nothing interferes with the process of prehension. The replication is possible due to the actual
entity being divisible or analyzable by its characteristics or ‘feelings,’
which is another way of describing prehension.
Actual entities are not isolated, but are ultimately related to
one-another. Here, Whitehead is
challenging the Aristotelian notion that a
‘substance
is not present in a subject.’ On the
contrary, according to this principle [of universal relativity] an actual
entity is present in other actual entities.
In fact if we allow for degrees of relevance, and for negligible
relevance, we must say that every actual entity is present in every other
actual entity.[51]
This
creates a complex interdependence of interaction through prehension that
permeates all of reality. Thus, to think
of a prehension as a simple chain of “causality” from one actual entity to
another would be to severely oversimplify what is going on.
A
prehension reproduces in itself the general characteristics of an actual
entity: it is referent to an external world, and in this sense will be said to
have a ‘vector character’; it involves emotion, and purpose, and valuation, and
causation. In fact, any characteristic
of an actual entity is reproduced in a prehension. It might have been a complete actuality; but,
by reason of a certain incomplete partiality, a prehension is only a
subordinate element in an actual entity.[52]
Thus,
prehension and actual entities are inseparable and interdependent
concepts. Prehension occurs as a natural
manifestation of what an actual entity is, and the actual entity is also
dependent upon the prehension, as we shall see with the analysis of the
interplay of the mental/physical polarity below.
A ‘nexus’ occurs as a collection of actual
entities:
Actual
entities involve each other by reason of their prehensions of each other. There are thus real individual facts of the
togetherness of actual entities, which are real, individual, and particular, in
the same sense in which actual entities and their prehensions are real,
individual, and particular. Any such
particular fact of togetherness among actual entities is called a ‘nexus’
(plural form is written ‘nexūs’).[53]
A nexus,
in other words, is essentially a concrescence, a coming together, of actual
entities. An actual entity can actually
be the result of a prehension of an entire nexus, and thus become an entity within
a new nexus. An example of a nexus is a
society. When entities come together as
a collaborating whole, with each particular entity sharing a common prehension
(meaning it is composed of similar characteristics) as the other entities in
the group, then we have a society, or a nexus.
The prehension of one actual entity by
another occurs through what is called a “feeling.” A physical feeling (derived from the physical
pole of the actual entity) is prehended, or felt, by the mental pole of the following
actual entity, creating a “conceptual feeling,” which becomes the mental
pole. Thus, the duality between the
mental pole and physical pole is not a duality around a particular entity per se.
This would fall into the substance-based metaphysical trap that
Whitehead is trying to avoid. Instead,
the duality is one between two manifestations of existence, one mental or
potential, the other physical or actual; the actual entity is, in a sense, an
objectified version of both.
This
creature is that one emergent fact. This
fact is the self-value of the creative act.
But there are not two actual entities, the creativity and the
creature. There is only one entity which
is the self-creating creature.[54]
Thus,
Whitehead’s metaphysics can be simplified, if even perhaps to some degree
oversimplified, to the duality between potential (creativity) and actual
(creature) states of affairs.
With the above very preliminary introduction of the
terminology and how they are implemented, we need to move on to a more comprehensive
discussion of Whitehead’s Process and Reality, which arguably proposes
the most mature form of this theory. The
ideas developed in Religion in the Making are important, yet somewhat
less developed, and the ideas in Adventures
of Ideas are an employment
of this metaphysical scheme in the fields of history, sociology, etc. However, a comparison between the three
works and how Whitehead’s thought evolved would be more appropriate to a work
specifically about the development of Whitehead’s metaphysical theory. My use of Whitehead here is designed more to
utilize his thought and apply it to the problems elucidated in Part I, and to
elucidate these problems as a complex interplay between the potential metaphysical
constructions and the actual subjects that create them—or, I should say, they
perpetuate one-another.
Whitehead gives us a sufficient outline of his scheme
in Part I, chapter II, section II of Process and Reality. Here, Whitehead elucidates his “categorical
scheme,” which is broken into four parts: The ‘Category of the Ultimate,’
‘Categories of Existence,’ ‘Categories of Explanation,’ and the ‘Categorical
Obligations.’ To list each would be
extraneous and would try the patience of the reader, so the main relevant
points will have to suffice for our purposes.
The ‘Category of the Ultimate’ is designed to replace
Aristotle’s category of ‘primary substance.’ The three notions important here
are the concepts ‘one,’ ‘many,’ and ‘creativity.’ ‘One’ “stands for the general idea underlying
alike the indefinite article ‘a or an,’ and the definite article ‘the,’”
etc. The term ‘many’ presupposes ‘one’
and conveys the notion of ‘disjunctive diversity.’[55]
Creativity “lies in the nature of things” and acts as part of prehensive process that brings about novelty for the one
and the many.
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.[56]
This
is part of the process of prehension, as it concerns the problem of the ‘one
and the many.’ Ultimately, creativity
plays a crucial role in how the togetherness of the one from many. That is, creativity is an essential and
fundamental aspect to reality, rather than a function of some higher
complexity. This is not to say that
there is no effect of complexity on the freedom and ability of creativity, but
that the greater ability to be creative at higher levels of complexity is the
result of creativity being an integral part of prehension at the most basic
level of experience within reality.
Later, in the Category of Freedom
and Determination (the last of the nine ‘Categorical Obligations’), we see
that the “concrescence of each individual actual entity is internally
determined and externally free.”[57] This is perplexing, but let’s see where Whitehead
is going with this:
This
category can be condensed into the formula, that in each concrescence whatever
is determinable is determined, but that there is always a remainder for the
decision of the subject-superject of that
concrescence…. This final decision is the reaction of the unity of the whole to
its own internal determination. This
reaction is the final modification of emotion, appreciation, and purpose. But the decision of the whole arises out of
the determination of the parts, so as to be strictly relevant to it.[58]
Thus,
freedom is in a sense a function of a determined process. How this can remain a freedom and not strict
determinism will have to wait until the next section, when we deal with
Whitehead’s notions of God, the potential, and the actual. For now, it is sufficient to understand that
the ‘Category of the Ultimate’ is an expression of Whitehead’s sense that
creativity lies at the basis of the prehension of actual entities, and thus of
experience at all levels of complexity.
Moving to the ‘Categories of
Existence,’ it might be easier to simply list them all, as most of them will be
important terms for our use, and there are only eight of them:
(i)
Actual Entities, or
Final Realities
(ii)
Prehensions, or
Concrete Facts of Relatedness
(iii)
Nexūs, 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
Theories
(vii) Multiplicities, or Pure Disjunctions of Diverse
Entities
(viii) Contrasts, or Modes of Synthesis of Entities in
one Prehension, or Patterned Entities.[59]
Of these ‘Categories of Existence’ Whitehead gives actual
entities and eternal objects the special characteristic of a
“certain extreme finality.” Actual entities
have already been sufficiently defined above, as have prehensions to a lesser
degree. It is important to keep in mind
that a prehension is a kind of “division” of actual entities. “Each actual entity is ‘divisible’ in an
indefinite number of ways, and each way of ‘division’ yields its definite quota
of prehensions.”[60] To use
a loose example, a prehension of a person might be a listing of their
personality traits, behavior patterns, etc, say for creating a character sketch
of that person.
Also, the difference is the essence to a problem of
linguistics (that is, the relationship between meaning and symbol). The
difference between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ prehensions, which come up as one
of the Categories of Explanation, will also be significant. Category (xii) within the Categories of
Explanation says the following:
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 inoperative in the progressive concrescence of
prehensions constituting the unity of the subject.
The subjective form is what the actual entity feels,
it is essentially the experience of its own existence, as it is contingent upon
its circumstances.
The difference between ‘nexūs’
and ‘subjective forms’ will help elucidate the difference between the world of
language games (the nexūs) and the internal
states referred to in the introduction (the subjective form). That which is part of a nexus is
apprehensible by the whole world and is intersubjective, while a subjective
form is part of the subjectivity that is not shared in any intersubjective
way. The difference between the two
essentially that one has been objectified (the nexus) while the other has not
been objectified (the subjective form).
From the point of view of other actual entities, this
subjective form is objectified and becomes a part of a nexus. The subjective form, once again, is similar
to the internal state of an experiencing subject; from the point of view of
another subject, this subjective form becomes what Whitehead calls a “physical
feeling,” but what we might loosely associate with behavior. And as we can often interpret internal
experiences by observing the behavior of a subject, this physical feeling
allows other subjects to “feel” what the other feels through a similar
interpretive process.
These terms are vague, but Whitehead has definite
examples in mind. He is avoiding saying
“persons,” “societies,” “thoughts,” etc because he realizes that he is not
merely describing psychological and sociological interactions. He is describing a perspective on the nature
of the world at all levels of complexity and scope that manifests in very
definite ways for us. The terms are
meant, I believe, to convey relationships between things—to act as a
description of the nature of these interactions. This will become clearer as we move
along. For now, we must try to apply
these terms to some of the problems and discussions from Part I.
In Part I, I demonstrated that metaphysics is the
result of a generalization of phenomena (or as Whitehead calls them, ‘percepta’). Whitehead’s
scheme is facilitative in elucidating this conception in an interesting way,
one that helps circumvent some of the problems raised in current themes within
phenomenology and the philosophy of mind.
And yet Whitehead’s metaphysics has been largely ignored in the field,
with the exception of a few like David Ray Griffin and John Cobb. The following will analyze some of the
implications of Whitehead’s process thought concerning the issues discussed in
Part I.
Prehension, both positive and negative, acts as the
basis for the possibility of metaphysicalization. Thus far, we have talked about metaphysical
generalization, which is more akin to positive prehension than negative
prehension. Negative prehension’s
role in metaphysicalization will be sorted out from positive prehension below,
especially in the next section, but it is important to understand that
metaphysicalization is the result of both positive and negative
prehension. The role of creativity, which
is due to positive prehension, will be the immediate focus.
At the level of language games, culture, and social
interactions of all kinds, ideals essentially come into fruition when we
generalize in the form of a nexus, or a collection of actual entities.[61] This generalization is essentially a habit of
associating new information with known information,[62]
when we typify or categorize things for our common use and reference. As prehension effects (or affects,
either word is pertinent here[63])
the concrescence of nexūs, and thus our subjective form of the world, it
effects all possible subsequent feelings.
The concrescence of a nexus—which is, remember, a “public matter of
fact”—is itself a generalization, an averaging, if I can use this term
thus, of the feelings from actual entities being prehended.
When we prehend a subjective form—a “private matter of
fact”—we do so as a result of a nexus which has already been generalized. This is the birthplace of universals, through
the deification of sense data through an intersubjective process—intersubjective
because the subject and the other objectified subject are intimately connected
through Whitehead’s concept of ‘universal relativity’ (the notion that actual
entities exist within other actual entities).
Thus, since the actual entity is a subject-superject,
the difference between subject and object is not relevant in the same way as
with traditional metaphysics. It is not
simply us generalizing, but the nature of the nexus which generalizes, which
we, as a subject-superject, are a part of. To re-state, as this notion is critical, metaphysical generalization is not the
result of an interpretation of an object by a subject so much as it is the
nature of prehension which acts as the inter-relatedness between subjects—it
is a fundamental nature of reality.
But there is more to it than that. It is not enough to associate my concept of
metaphysical generalization with Whitehead’s prehension, because there are
significant differences between my thesis and Whitehead’s theory. The most striking is the place of God which,
while very different from traditional conceptions, still holds onto some
dualistic notions that I tried dispelling in Part I. Thus, I intend to critique Whitehead’s
concept of God as the non-temporal potential which acts as the basis for creativity. My critique will argue that the mechanism of process
itself is sufficient for creativity, and no God is necessary.
Before jumping in, a couple of terms
will have to be defined. When I talk of
something being actual, I mean that
it has already become, and has physical effects (it causes “physical feelings”
to be prehended). For something to be potential, it can have a subjective form
or a “conceptual feeling,” but it is not presently being prehended as a
physical feeling. I make this clarification
to avoid the criticism that I am smuggling in a dualistic notion with potential
v. actual. In another sense, both exist
and are thus in some way ‘actual,’ but one has no physical effect (the
potential), in the sense of Whitehead’s concept of a physical feeling within
the process of prehension.
Whitehead admits that he is following the footsteps of
Spinoza, so let’s see what Baruch has to say about God:
By God,
I understand Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance consisting of
infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence.[64]
And
later:
All
things which are, are in God and must be conceived through Him and therefore He
is the cause of the things which are in himself. Moreover, outside God there can be no
substance, that is to say…outside Him nothing can exist which is in
itself. God, therefore, is the immanent,
but not the transitive cause of all things.[65]
Thus,
for Spinoza, God is immanent and necessary.
Whitehead shares this notion, and elaborates on the role of God’s
necessity in ways that Spinoza does not.
It is Whitehead’s position that creativity is part of
the fundamental basis for reality. God
is seen as the source of creativity.
Thus, God would then have to be a fundamental part of reality; the
“primordial nature of God” is a potential and “is abstracted from his commerce
with ‘particulars’….”[66]
Thus, this ‘primordial nature’ of God is in line with Metaphysicalization.
God’s
immanence in the world in respect to his primordial nature is an urge towards
the future based on an appetite in the present…. For example, ‘thirst’ is an
immediate physical feeling integrated with the conceptual prehension of its
quenching.[67]
Here,
God is not explicitly said to be an actual thing, but a kind of feeling or
appetite for the possibility of future states of affairs, just like
metaphysical generalizations.
Whitehead’s notion, however, is that God is a kind of Platonic form,
“the Good” even. Whitehead associates
“eternal objects,” which share a non-temporal actuality with God, with Platonic
forms. [68]
But
just like metaphysical constructions, being based on experience through
phenomena, eternal objects and God are not actual (yet) but potential, or so I intend
to argue despite Whitehead’s assertion that they are actual but
non-temporal. As an example, many chairs
have been made in the history of the world, but my making one from raw
materials and tools is a novelty, even though other chairs already exist
elsewhere. The creation of a new chair
requires some creative force with the ability to conceive of the design and
methods for construction. However, the
conceived design and method are not necessarily Forms that I am participating
in, like Whitehead’s eternal objects, but rather a generalization based on
prior experience with particular chairs and their function.
Whitehead understands this problem of
the one and the many well enough, which is why he creates his categories of
existence that are non-temporal but actual—the eternal objects, which God
is. Because of the problem God is also
said to be necessary, as something is required to bring new things into the
world from non-being. According to
Whitehead’s ‘Ontological Principle,’
All
real togetherness is togetherness in the formal constitution of an
actuality. So if there be a relevance of
what in the temporal world is unrealized, the relevance must express a fact of
togetherness in the formal constitution of a non-temporal actuality.[69]
Or,
more simply, “Everything in the actual world is referable to some actual
entity.”[70] That is, a non-temporal (hence ‘eternal’)
object is what is responsible for novel becoming. This is the point at which I must part ways
with Whitehead. God is, for Whitehead, a
non-temporal actuality. Whitehead’s
argument is that ‘eternal objects’ would not have any existence without God
when they are not actualized. Thus, for
these eternal objects to come into being, keeping in mind the ontological
principle,[71] a
non-temporal actuality, God, would need to be present as the source of
creativity; God would need to be present in order to ingress eternal objects into the actual world, otherwise they would
have to come from no-thing. This, Whitehead argues, is impossible.
This non-temporal God, however, is not the only source
of creativity or novelty possible within Whitehead’s metaphysical system. God’s presence can be summarized thus; “The
actual world is the outcome of the aesthetic order, and the aesthetic order is
derived from the immanence of God.”[72]
(Here, “aesthetic order,” from Religion in the Making, is synonymous
with eternal objects, as the term “eternal object” had not been utilized before
Process and Reality). However, Whitehead also seems to imply that
the nature of novelty, an important aspect of creativity, stems from ‘positive’
and ‘negative’ prehension. Whitehead
argues that the source of this creativity is God, working through the mechanism
of the ingression of eternal objects into prehension. However there is nothing, despite Whitehead’s
insistence, that prevents the mechanism of process itself from being sufficient
for the ingression of potential, even while keeping in mind Whitehead’s
ontological principle. The potential has
no, indeed needs no, existence of any kind, non-temporal or temporal, to come
into being. The potential does not come
from no-thing, but from different contrasts
(the last category of existence) of actual entities being prehended.
What does not exist yet, but is
possible, is the potential. Whitehead
gives this potential a kind of non-temporal existence as part of his conception
of the polarity of the creative or mental side of the actual entity. However, this dichotomy of non-temporal and
temporal, which Whitehead seems to smuggle in here, is precisely the kind of
problem that I want to address with my critique of dualism. If there is going to be a non-temporal world
that differs from the temporal world, what allows this division if not some
kind of dualism? That is, even if there
were a non-temporal, how could it interact with any temporality?
This non-temporal world of potentials is not far in
concept from Plato’s intelligible realm.
The ontologically transcendent world where God is not subject to natural
laws, which Whitehead and
No non-temporal “God” is necessary for process. The mechanism of creativity itself is what is
responsible for the ingression of potentials, which are either truly novel
creations or derived from similar actualities but differed in some way. The idea that something outside time is
needed to bring about creativity is flawed, as even Whitehead admits that the
concept of time as we understand it is a construction, and that process is not
temporal:
There
is a prevalent misconception that ‘becoming’ involves the notion of a unique seriality for its advance into novelty. This is the classic notion of ‘time,’ which
philosophy took over from common sense.
Mankind made an unfortunate generalization from its experience of
enduring objects. Recently physical
science has abandoned this notion.
Accordingly we should now purge cosmology of a point of view which it
ought never to have adopted as an ultimate metaphysical principle. In these lectures the term ‘creative advance’
is not to be construed in the sense of a uniquely serial advance.[74]
If this
is the case, then why does Whitehead argue that a non-temporal entity is
necessary?
Instead of a temporal distinction, conceive of the
self-creating nature of the actual entity is based on a complex (yet monistic)
duality.[75] The potential nature of process can be
thought of as the possibility of actualization that needs simply to be given a
push, supposedly by God. That is, the
possibility is brought into existence through a kind of feeling, a sense perhaps.[76] When this possibility is brought into being,
it becomes a factor in the nexus of prehension—it becomes actual. In this sense, the prehension of the world by
the world creates alternative perspectives or novel contrasts of itself,
allowing new actualities to come into fruition.
As a model for thought, imagine this
in terms of a temporal dynamic, but only consider this analogy very
loosely. Each occasion in space-time is
a potential-become-actual. The events up
to that moment essentially create the moment itself through the circumstances
present. The moment itself becomes the
circumstances for the next moment, ad infinitum. Since, according to Whitehead’s notion of the
ontological principle, all
actual entities must arise from something that exists (either potential or
actual), a novelty that comes into being would seem an anomaly (thus the
apparent need for God). But this is not
necessarily the case. A novelty could be
a new combination of characteristics or entities, essentially a reorganization
or mutation of an actual entity. This
mutation does not have to be random, but its affinity to evolutionary concepts
is somewhat useful here.[77]
Whitehead’s insistence is that God is an immanent part
of the actual entity although temporally distinct. However, to postulate an intentional but
non-temporal creativity, an immanent God, within the process of prehension is
to evoke something similar to possibility (2) from Part I, as well as the
problems that it brings with it. Let us
remind ourselves of the problem:
(2) We
exist as dualistic beings, part of which is physical (‘body’) and subject to
natural laws and the other which is spiritual (‘mind’) and subject to some
other reality. In this case, we may be
aware of both, but only part of us is essential, perhaps immortal, while the
other is subject to entropy and ultimately death.
To put
this in Whitehead’s terms, we might say that the mental and physical poles
exist for the actual entity, but that they are subject to different laws or
natures—temporal and non-temporal in this case.
This succumbs to the problems with (2), as discussed in part I. Again, this dualism would have to collapse
into a monism.
Further, if we were to try to argue that the non-temporal
nature of God were more closely related to possibility (1) from Part I, we
could raise the same problems of interaction as well. For the creative, and non-temporal God to be
able to influence the world, we would be in need of something capable of
trans-temporal interaction: once again, the interaction problem, only a
temporal one.
Yet, these above points may not be sufficient in
showing God to be unnecessary in Process Philosophy and thus any system of
thought utilizing Process. Thus we will
look at the question from another point of view. God is posited in order to solve a problem of
the source of creativity, intent, etc.
If another solution can be shown to be possible, then the solution of
God would sit on thinner ice.
If the actual entity is a self-created “creature,”
then why is a creative force of a God needed to implement creativity? The fact that creativity exists is a
challenge to this problem. However, positing
God, even if it is an immanent God, is not necessarily the best solution to
this problem.
we
ascend from the occasions of experience in the life histories of electrons to
the regnant occasions in organelles, cells, simple animals, simple mammals,
nonhuman primates, and finally human beings, there are experiences in which the
mental pole is of increasingly greater significance, which means that
increasingly greater degrees of novelty can be originated by individual
occasions of experience in responding to their worlds.[79]
This
greater novelty results in greater ability for freedom. The difference between the simple and the
complex is one of degree, and not kind.
Experience is the basis for the world at the fundamental level of the
actual entity (hence the terms ‘panpsychism’ and ‘panexperientialism,’ [80]
which are often given to process philosophy).
When complexity arises, this experience is merely made more
complex. When experience becomes more complex,
we see the manifestation of intention and creativity. This is not to imply that there is any intent
at the fundamental level, but that the possibility for intention is based on
the panexperiential nature at the fundamental levels.
The
issue raised here is whether God or hierarchical complexity is responsible for
the creativity arising from the interplay between the poles of potentiality and
actuality. If the creative force is the
presence of a non-temporal God within the mental pole of prehension, even if
this “God” is an immanent and perhaps “natural” God (as Griffin seems to
propose throughout his book Reenchantment
without Supernaturalism), then it seems that the force responsible for
self-awareness, intention, and freedom is based on the existence of a
fundamental creative force that Whitehead calls “God,” or is dependent upon
this “God.”
Clearly,
this “God” is not our traditional notion; it is not transcendent (at least not
ontologically), it is not a prime mover, ex
nihilo, of any world, etc. Putting aside the term “God” and its many
associated concepts that may or may not be relevant for us, we have to evaluate
this possibility in terms of its theoretical merits. Somewhere between the duality of prehension
and the theory of a creative force at the pole of mentality, something either
has gone awry or process philosophy is guilty of the same backdoor theism as
Descartes; although in this case it is a different back door.
Whitehead
assuredly considered the problem of creativity, and tried to avoid bringing in
the traditional notions of God by redefining the term—he calls God the “Cosmic
Mind” at some point. Also, he was
careful to define God as “dipolar”[81]
rather than identifying God with the mental pole solely. This is ultimately a problem tackled by more
contemporary Process thinkers, dealing with what has been called Process
Theism.
Process theists, such as David Ray Griffin, talk about
God and the world while Whitehead talks about the mental and physical poles,
associated with the theory of prehension.[82] Once again, I must make the distinction
between dualism and duality, as the former presents a dualistic relationship
that is between God and the world (whether it is a temporal or ontological
separation), and the latter a duality within the world itself, as being
composed of the mental and physical poles. The issue is whether “God” is the
source of these poles, as the process theist seems to be saying. If so, then “God and the world” would be a
fair issue to raise. However, if God is
not necessary as a basis for process or creativity, then the relationship
between God and the world becomes less significant, if not wholly insignificant
in this discussion.
Dipolar metaphysics is central to process philosophy
as well as process theology. This can be
seen from the reading of any literature associated with process thought.[83] But more relevant to this discussion is the
centrality of dipolarity in Process Theism
itself.
One dipolarity, that between God
as influencing the world and God as influenced by the world, is emphasized by
Whitehead’s language of God’s “primordial” and “consequent” natures,
respectively. The other dipolarity, that between God as unchanging and God as
changing, is emphasized by Hartshorne…”[84]
Hartshorne’s
dipolarity is similar to something that
Panexperientialism, as described by process thinkers,
is in error when attributing experience to matter. This idea seems merely to create a different
kind of dualism; that of the fore-mentioned experiential and non-experiential
matter. As Hartshorne has said, as
quoted by
The nature of this complexity is based upon the
duality of process, which is based upon the interplay of the mental and
physical poles. God, or process itself,
is conceived as the source of both the physical and mental poles; God is not
one of the poles. Bruce Demarest, quoted
by Richard Rice, says that “the primordial pole of God, which possesses no
actuality, in fact possesses no reality.”[89] His point being that the concept of God from the
classical free will theist (or the “open view of God”[90])
is not adequately represented in process theism. But it is clear that the process theist is
attempting to reevaluate God in terms of process thought, yet may be failing in
this goal.
Essentially, there are two possibilities remaining for
this metaphysics. One possibility is
that the mental and physical poles of process philosophy are essentially the
same, but manifested slightly differently in some fashion, much like H20,
which can be in the form of water or ice, for example.[91] Either that or there is something more
fundamental that manifests itself into what we linguistically refer to as
“physical” and “mental” (which may be a false dualistic distinction, as discussed in Part I). The issue here is one that deals with a
similar problem as dealt with in quantum theory, which points out that matter
is essentially the same as energy. This
“something more fundamental” may be outside of our ability to conceive.
The solution to this problem is not clear, and will be
a question of empiricism more than metaphysics at this point. However, we are placed in a situation where
the idea of God has to be dealt with in some fashion. The pantheist might argue for the first
possibility, as it could be argued to support that God is both, like with the
water analogy above.[92] However, problems with pantheism and panexperientialism will be raised,[93]
and the process theist might want to argue for the second possibility and say
that it is God that is the essence of what manifests as the mental and physical
poles, and at this point this seems to be the better of the two choices for
process theists.[94] As Whitehead has said, “the nature of God is
dipolar.”[95] The
mental/physical poles are what make up “the world” as we know it. Thus, it seems that the dynamism of God and
the world holds up thus far.
However, the addition of “God” in process philosophy
is extraneous; the role given to God is the role of process. We must conclude that the essence to the
two poles, which make up the physical/mental world we live in, is this process
or action. If there were a God of any
kind it would have to either be the basis for (or simply be, if we were
to lean towards pantheism) this action or process that gives existence to the
mental and physical. Process is central
to dipolarity, which is central to process thought in
general. God is central to the process
theist, otherwise they would not be theists, and so the conclusion is simple;
Process theism, in accepting God and process metaphysics, must concede that God
simply is the world—the temporal world—as there are too many problems with God
as a non-temporal or non-actual being.
However, it is curious why process is in need of God
at all for this metaphysical system to work.
As Richard Rice points out, Hartshorne’s need for some storage bank for
the “universal memory” is not sufficient enough for this need,[96]
as there is nothing to show that any prehension contains any more memory then
the causes (or “feelings”) that it prehends from its
immediate circumstances.[97] Interestingly, Rice quotes Demarest further
by saying that “process thought does not need a God after all” and continues to
suggest that “process theology should lay all its cards on the table and
eliminate God entirely.”[98] I happen to agree, ironically, with Rice;
ironically because Rice intends to give this as evidence for process thought’s
downfall, while I still hold onto process thought’s validity and critique
Rice’s Christian free will theology almost completely.
Despite
God’s role in the world, according to this dipolarity is even more immanent than the process theist
wants to admit; it is so immanent that is actually becomes the thing it was
supposed to be the cause of, and converges.
In essence, it dissolves the traditional conception of God to a point
where it is unrecognizable. It seems
that the Process Theist, in holding onto God, is guilty of Nietzsche’s metaphysical
need. The ideal that they construct,
this notion of some ultimate concrescence of reality, is the error that
Nietzsche refers to as the “error of confusing cause and consequence.”[100]
They thought that the consequence of their thought-process, the ideal of this
concrescence of being, was somehow prior to existence and experience rather
than the result of it; or as Whitehead might prefer, part of the dipolarity.
This leaves us to say that if we are to use the term
“God” for the source of creativity in the world, we have to use it very loosely
and not in connection with any traditional usage of this term. I am more comfortable not using this term,
and prefer to think of creativity as the result of complex dipolar
relationships manifesting themselves.
This is not, however, a Lamarckian notion. As Daniel C. Dennett has very recently argued
in his book Freedom Evolves, [101]
complex activities such as creativity and freedom—at least the appearance of creativity
and freedom—can be the result of a rather simple repetitive mechanism that
functions as the basis for a rather large arena of interaction. Given time and complexity, Dennett argues, a
simple algorithm will give us the appearance of design where there is only a
simple process based on simple rules of interaction. Thus, process is self-sufficient in creating
and perpetuating the world and novelty.
…all individual things are contingent and
corruptible. For we can have no adequate
knowledge concerning their duration and this is what is to be understood by us
as their contingency and capability of corruption; for there is no other contingency
but this.[102]
As we dig into Process and Reality, Whitehead
goes into sometimes mind-boggling detail of the theory of prehension
(which is the title of Part III of the work).
Within this analysis are described concepts of feelings, which
take place within the subjective form. According to Whitehead, if all goes well
the prehension acts in the nexus like a replicator, a
continuation of the entity before itself through the effects of its
characteristics being felt by the world.
In Religion in the Making we get the sense that any creativity that
arises is due to God’s creativity in the world—an immanent God. In Process and Reality we get a
slightly different sense, and this difference is significant because it allows
us to see how Whitehead’s system is not necessarily dependent on God for creativity. Why Whitehead holds onto the necessity of God
and the eternal objects, then, is curious.
Often what happens in the prehension of a nexus is its
complexity creates a novelty in prehension.
Either multiple actual entities will prehend a
new contrast of actual entities, creating some new kind or a generalization of
many similar kinds (positive prehension), or the prehension will be partially
interrupted or corrupted in process (negative prehension). Thus, what is created is often something novel,
or at least not simply replicated. That
is, the becoming of new entities seems to come from no-thing, as they do not
exactly resemble their circumstances—much like offspring don’t usually look
exactly like their parents.
In a sense, negative prehension is somewhat like what
happens when we play “whisper down the lane.”
Certain characteristics of an actual entity get corrupted, left out, or
a new one is simply added erroneously, perhaps from a nearby nexus. Consider how cultures evolve and influence
one-another. If it were not for this
kind of complexity, American culture would not likely utilize chopsticks, for
example. The complexity of nexūs, or societies, which prehend,
or interact, with one another will cause the nexūs
to change over time. The negative
prehension is thus a random or chaotic mechanism for novelty, but not so much
creativity.
Creativity is productive, but the negative prehension
does not seem to be a mechanism for positive productivity but rather of
mutation, which may result in new forms accidentally. Creativity would have to result from higher
levels of complexity of positive prehension.
That is, while intent and creativity cannot be said to exist fundamentally
as a part of the nature of prehension, it can be said to arise due to
complexity of generalizing processes, much like Freedom supervening upon
simpler processes, as Dennett has so recently argued in his book Freedom
Evolves. This point leaves more than
sufficient room to argue for the mechanisms of process thought to account for
the creativity and intent observed in the world. The world need not be fundamentally
intentional in order for creativity to arise.
The self-creative process that exists at even the most
fundamental level is, therefore, responsible for positive and negative
prehension, which are supervened at higher levels of the complexity of this
process as such events as metaphysicalization.
Whitehead is quite clear in his opinion that a creature—the actual
entity—is a self-creating entity.
Whitehead seemed to have misapprehended the process, however, in not
realizing that his own notions of positive and negative prehension were
sufficient for creativity and novelty of all kinds, making God
unnecessary.
Without the need of a God then, we still have a number
of issues to deal with concerning the mechanisms of the world. Classically, the interplay between the
“physical” and the “mental” has been interpreted as the dualistic interplay of
two substances. What Whitehead pointed
out, and what I am re-emphasizing here, is that the “substances” themselves,
although they may have a kind of existence (they are “the world”), are
different forms of the same thing; process.
The poles are manifested by the nature of the process, but the nature of
the process is under constant change due to the manifestation of the poles
throughout reality.
It seems that the theory of novelty through random
mutation—I mean negative prehension—also coheres easily with the rest of
Whitehead’s theory. While the complexity
of positive prehensions at higher level of complexity might act as the basis
for the mechanism for creativity, negative prehension must be said to be
responsible for error and misapprehension.
That is to say that the process of metaphysicalization—our ability to
project interpretations, meanings, etc—is the result of our mind prehending,
both negatively and positively. When we prehend positively, we generalize and when we prehend negatively we misapprehend the world in some way.
The existence of this negative prehension makes the
possibility of novelty and creativity that much more fruitful and complex. Not only are generalizations possible,
allowing us to conceive of new ways of thinking about the world, but negative
prehension will often give us simply corrupted perspectives. So not only do we, in a sense, exaggerate the
world into ideals, confusing the causes and consequences as
Nietzsche criticizes, but we also have false information that can be taken as
real. From this, we have the capability
of proposing new ideas with this mix of metaphysical exaggerations and false
impressions. This addition of error to metaphysicalization
adds to the complexity of how we phenomenologically
construct the world.
Positive
prehension, the generalization of phenomena as described above, is partially
responsible for metaphysicalization. The
“negative prehension” is the other mechanism responsible for this novelty. Whitehead believes that these “negative prehensions”
are responsible for novelty as well. A
negative prehension, once again, occurs when the “positive” prehension fails
for some reason, and the process results in a corrupted feeling. “Apart from interference [from negative
prehension], the subjective form is a re-enaction of
the subjective form of the feeling felt.”
Whitehead’s term here, “subjective form,” is in a sense the feeling
actualized for the actual entity. Using
Whitehead’s terms, if all prehensions were ‘positive,’ then novelty would never
effect the concrescence of the actual entity, and we would essentially have a
universe full of actual entities cloning themselves and (perhaps) making
generalizations of those clones.
This idea of error creating novelty is one that has in
various ways been thrown around philosophical enterprises. It differs from Hume, in that for Hume
impressions could in essence be combined to create new ideas in the mind (which
is more like positive prehension), whereas for Whitehead the major factor is
not the combining of feelings from the nexus per se so much as it is the
nature of the ‘negative prehension’ itself as being corruptive. Nietzsche, on the other hand, might have
appreciated such a concept of error being responsible for novelty, as his Beyond Good and Evil and On the Geneology of Morals will attest. Similarly, Daniel Dennett, in his Consciousness
Explained, talks about consciousness as having to deal with the constraints
and pressures of time which force it to process events experienced in a way
that essentially rewrites our experience for our conscious experience of those
events.[103]
Negative prehension also manifests itself on the
larger scale of the nexus, in this case a nexus such as a complex thought. This seems to fit with what Whitehead calls
‘transmuted feelings.’ All feelings have
an ‘objective datum’ from which they originate, and are a kind of process for
transmission of information form one actual entity to another. In the case of the transmuted feeling, “the
objective datum is a nexus of actual entities.”[104] An event, which is itself a kind of nexus in
that it is a collection of actual occasions, can come together to create a
transmuted feeling which will act as the stimulus for the subjective form to
become actualized in the entity of thought.
The feeling felt by the mind effects the prehended world as well, as
they are interdependent through prehending one-another.
This idea is based on the “Categorical Condition of
‘Transmutation’”, which is described thus: “Our usual way of consciously
prehending the world is by these transmuted physical feelings,” which is to say
that what we experience consciously is essentially a concrescence of stimuli
from events prehended from the world through ‘physical feelings.’ These
physical feelings from the actual world create conceptual feelings in the form
of experience. In terms of the dipolarity, the world’s physical pole is responsible for
the creation of the mental pole of our actual occasion.[105]
Both are actual entities, but from the point of view of one subject, the
physical actuality of the other is objectified and it becomes the experience,
the feeling, of the outside world.
Thus, the mental pole is the actuality of the other
subject objectified for a subject. Since
this objectification is a feeling of a complex contrast of actual entities—a
nexus—it can be easily generalized or corrupted in various ways. Thus, our experience is the mental pole, and
our physical pole is what the rest of the world is able to see of us. This, of course, is not a simple in-out
function, as the body is a complex contrast of entities, and not everything
that goes in will come out, and some things that do come out might have never
actually come in, in that form at least.
The process takes place somewhere in between the mental and physical
poles, where all kinds of corruption and generalization can occur. In other words, when we perceive the world we
can perceive it incorrectly, perhaps by thinking we saw a monster when we saw a
shadow in a dark alley. Our
output—behavior—will allow any other people around to interpret our screaming
or jumping suddenly as evidence that something scary is in the alley. However, this is a negative prehension of
what was there actually.
Essentially our consciousness can be thought of as an
actual entity. The poles are a
concrescence of the data received from the world through the senses (which
might be thought of as the physical feeling from the physical pole, creating
the mental pole). The physical pole that
results from the mental as an actuality is, in
a sense, the thetic level of consciousness while the mental pole is the
non-thetic consciousness. The physical pole is what will effect (once
again, affect would also be valid)
later prehensions, it is essentially what is left behind as a kind of “memory”
for later prehensions, mostly by becoming actualized, and thus “physical.”[106]
Negative
prehension will cause consciousness—actual entities in general—to create novel
conceptions via creating errors in the apprehension of the world. When stimuli (physical feelings from other
actual entities) come into the mind (more generally, any nexus) for processing
into thought (newly prehended actual entity or nexus), it will not necessarily
be positively prehended, but will often encounter negative prehension that will
transform the feeling (as with the monster in the alley above). And while the positive prehension will change
the nexus by generalizing the (it might make us think that the shadow actually
does resemble the form of a monster, for example, while it won’t make us
believe it actually is a monster), the negative prehension has the
potential to create a thought that is truly novel to the actual world of the
mind, thus it can spur growth and change (screaming or suddenly jumping).
The nexus is a group of actual entities that is constantly
prehending itself, and any new incoming feelings from the actual world will
effect the next concrescence of the nexus.
An example of this kind of nexus is the mind itself, which is aware of
its own activities, while it is taking in new information from the world around
it for processing all the time. The
point is that the nexus feels the actual entity being prehended in much the
same way that a filter or lens will effect the substance coming through
it—however not so simply as this.
Because the prehension of the actual entity from the actual world
changes the nexus, the new concrescence will often include the new ‘physical
feeling’ from the actual entity. Also,
the process will ultimately change the ‘subjective form’ of the actual entity
prehended due to its relation with the world.
Thus, prehension is happening at many consecutive levels; internal
prehension of its own constitutions at many levels, and the incoming of
external stimuli, which will add to the already complex activity.
Within this process lies some form of
Kant’s categories. But the categories
are not necessarily part of the inherent structure of the mind. Instead, the “category” is an aspect of the
nexus, which is generated by experience and subject to constant change. There will be some characteristics that are
common, due to the fact that all human minds are constructed in very similar
ways. Further, since human minds deal
with the same reality, we will tend to form similar categories of thought, in
that we experience similar things. That
is, since the phenomenal experience itself is a manifestation—a feeling—of the
nexus of the mind prehending itself and the world, how the phenomena will
“feel” will depend on the structure of the nexus that is the “feeler,” the
self.[107] Thus, this “category” is more like a
perspective than an inherent part of the mind; it can be altered, replaced, or
continue as it is.
Thus,
negative prehension is ambiguous in the sense that it can be a source of new
ideas and perspectives on the world, but on the other hand the novel ideas that
arise as a result of negative prehension can be interpreted as the actual state
of affairs in the world, and held onto in the mind as a “truth.” If we trust the conceptions of the world,
those non-thetic memories of the thetic
phenomenal (positive or negative) prehensions, then we run the risk of trusting
one that was corrupted through generalization or error. This in addition to the generalization
problem of metaphysicalization can be conflated into a greater problem if we
consider that negative prehensions can be the metaphysicalized
as well, meaning that the concepts we have might not only be unwarranted
generalization of positive prehensions but unwarranted generalizations of
negative prehensions—things that were corrupted before they were
generalized. And given that the
corruption would occur before our conception of the idea, the problem of how to
tell which idea stems from negative prehensions and which from positive prehensions
becomes a more difficult problem.[108]
The mind, or psyche, is the result of the concrescence
of nexūs in the world. Whitehead
describes the world as a “medium for transmission” of prehensions through
nexūs in much the same way as a neurologist might describe the brain as a
medium of transmission for thought-processes.
Neural components cooperate, whether through design or chance, in such a
way that conscious awareness is created consisting of thoughts, opinions,
feelings, dreams, aversions, etc. While
negative prehensions do act as an agent of change or novelty, prehensions will
still tend towards similar transmissions from one thought to another and
creating a stream of thought rather than a chaotic sequence of thoughts. Not even the negative prehension in its error
of transmission will change the actual entity so much that there is no
recognizable relationship—the appearance of continuation of self. Even when mutation occurs in genetics, the
offspring generally resemble the parent species in some way.
As prehension continues throughout the network of the
neural pathways and over time, a pattern of nexūs will eventually form,
and in the case of the nexus as mind, a personality will emerge. Nexūs will take on habitual behavior
patterns based on the particular experience with the world. That is to say that many nexūs within
the mind will integrate into a personality or even an awareness[109]
at a higher (though not necessarily the highest) level of this hierarchy of
nexūs. The nexūs that
constitute the psyche, therefore, seem not to be centralized in the same way
that a processor does with a computer, or with the model of consciousness that
Dennett critically refers to as the “Cartesian Theater.”[110] This is significant because it demonstrates
the complex nature of the psyche, and therefore the complex nature of the
personality. Thus it seems to know
ourselves, we have to dig through the possibility that what we are conscious of
might be the result of multiple nexūs or selves coming together into a concrescence
of awareness. In a sense, it is a
self-perpetuating, but complex, psyche.
The nature of the process of prehension will define
what the psyche is, especially during the psyche’s early development. That is to say that early on in the
development of the nexus, the pattern that will act as a “lens” for the mind
will not have been formed yet (at least not with as much complexity as it will
develop over time). [111] This is essentially the formation of
perspectives, some of which will dominate a psyche due to their early
internalization within the mind. This
seems to conform more to Locke’s tabula rasa than with Kant’s categories of the mind, but
perhaps really indicates again that Kant’s categories may not be inherent in
the mind.
There is an early stage of the development of the
nexus that will be subject to influences from the actual world solely. This can be referred to as the formative
stage of the mind or nexus and, therefore, the mind that is the
concrescence of these nexūs. The
mind is formed over time by having actual entities prehended into itself,
essentially having it grow in complexity and size.[112] This process of the formation of the psyche
is what we are becoming, as opposed to what we are. Thus it seems that the social element of
nurture, particularly for our early formative years, is confirmed in
terms of the phenomenology of mind in concrescence with the thought of
Whitehead.
Phenomena
are complex prehensions. More precisely,
perhaps, they are themselves actual occasions, which are prehended—that is they
are divisible—by the particular characteristics of the world it is
perceiving. Since the dipolar nature of
the actual entity is essentially experiential, the complex prehension of a
brain state creates a moment of awareness.
That is, because the world is essentially experiential—panexperiential—prehensions
of higher complexity create more complex experiences such as self-awareness
(which could be thought of as a nexus prehending itself) or consciousness.
Thus,
there may be some physical application to process thought, as the essential
experiential nature of the world is an attempt at a physical description of how
subjective experience is possible. But
here I do not wish to create a differentiation between the physical structure
of things and the phenomenological experiences that they can have at high
levels of complexities, because it seems that the physical process and the
experience are not merely related, they
are the same thing. Thus, if we want
to know how consciousness arises from the brain, all we need to do is apply
process dipolarity and its fundamental experiential
quality to see that the structure of the brain is the function of
consciousness.[113]
Because
of this, the thoughts we have are not merely epiphenomenal; they do not merely
correlate to neural processes miraculously.
Ned Block and others have argued that the brain is essentially an
algorithm machine, and that conscious experience is some kind of mechanical
result of calculative processes in the brain.[114] While this is interesting it does not address,
within the materialist’s model anyway, how experience results in the same way
that process thought allows. For the
computer analogy of the brain, we still need to explain how Mary’s experience
of red is not a new experience.[115] Thus the computer analogy of the brain, with
its algorithms and the like, is very good, but it lacks panexperientiality,
which at least offers an explanation of how the computer-brain can be
conscious.
Thus, when we talk about the phenomenological
experiences of trains of thought, novel ideas, errors, etc, we are actually
talking about how the processes in the brain might be interacting. Our subjective experience is the interaction
of processes itself, rather than being the result of it. If experience is a fundamental aspect of
reality, then the complex interactions at higher levels of complexity might
simply result in more complex experiences, such as the kind we have. At this point, this hypothesis will need
further testing and confirmation, but so far it is not inconceivable, as the
work of thinkers such as Block, Dennett, etc have shown.
This is the manifestation of the dipolarity
of process in terms of physical explanation, and is merely proposed as a
tentative hypothesis. The main thrust of
this system of process lies, however, not in a physical description of the
world—that is, not in terms of Realism—but a phenomenological one. In the following section, we will explore how
the process thought is better used as a theoretical tool for explaining how we
construct the world, rather than how we function based on our
construction.
Whitehead’s term “actual entity” is probably utilized because there
does not seem to be any better term for what he is trying to convey. Alternatively, he uses the term “actual
occasion” synonymously with “actual entity,’ and perhaps this is better. But Whitehead’s language throughout his works
still seems to imply that he is talking about a quantifiable event that we
could observe, given the right technology.
This sense may be misleading, as it implies an ambiguity within his
metaphysical worldview.
On one hand, Whitehead’s main thrust seems to be to
say that the world is not essentially made up of a substance (or substances)
but of a dipolarity of occurrences; process is the
essence of being, and not stuff. But, on
the other hand, looking at this as a physical description of events implies a
kind of materialistic description, which is not Whitehead’s intention. As many have argued (specifically Chalmers),
materialism, if false, seems to imply dualism, as materialistic descriptions of
the world cannot account for meaning and consciousness. Thus, we will have to analyze how this
problem can be reconciled; how can we understand Whitehead’s system while
avoiding materialism and dualism?
The interpretation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to
follow will be a result of conceiving metaphysics as a construction, as
described in Part I (particularly section B).
That is, I am not interpreting Whitehead’s metaphysical theories as
“true” per se, but rather as adequate for a discussion of phenomenology.
Whitehead’s schema can be thought of as a useful metaphor—an appropriate
“language game”—for how we construct reality for our conception. The problem will be how to utilize this
phenomenological perspective with the notion of dipolarity
within actual entities.
In Part I, the concept of a “monistic sub-atomic
particle”[116] was
alluded to. In Whitehead’s metaphysics,
we keep getting the sense, especially due to his utilization of the term
“actual entity,” that he is conceiving of some particle of reality that behaves
in the way that his theoretical construction does; it seems as if he is
theorizing the existence of some sub-atomic particle that “prehends”
and forms nexūs such that their complex interactions form the quantum
forces, and at higher levels the other forces and interactions that we observe
in every-day life. Perhaps Nietzsche was
wise to observe, while apparently in some agreement with van Fraasen’s later anti-Realist stance, that, again, where
“man cannot find anything to see or to grasp, he has no further business.”[117] That is, it may be a mistake to view
Whitehead’s metaphysics literally, that is, as a physical or
materialistic description of the world.
If we were to do so, we would likely be capitulating
to materialism, which Whitehead’s ontology seeks to avoid. So instead, we want to take a
phenomenological point of view here.
However, we would run the risk of following in the footsteps of Wittgenstein’s
“logical atomism” of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
From the beginning of the Tractatus,
Wittgenstein was not conceiving of his work as a physical description of the
world either:
1.
The World is all that is the case
1.1
The world is the
totality of facts, not of things
Thus,
while avoiding the attempt to describe the world in terms some kind of
particle-atomism, Wittgenstein still held onto a kind of logical atomism with
his Sachverhalten, commonly translated as
“states of affairs” or “atomic facts.”
So far, we are not in contrast with Whitehead. The world as made up of facts is somewhat
comparable with notions of process. What
will be at issue here is the atomism, which implies a kind of logical and
linguistic reductionism.
Later in his life, Wittgenstein
reconsidered this approach of logical atomism, and preferred a different
perspective. In his Philosophical
Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to think that we need to begin with
complexity rather than with the atoms of the world—facts—in order to understand
how language and thought function.
“Essence is expressed by grammar,”[118]
he says. In other words, identifying
something is not a matter of breaking it down into atomic parts, but by looking
at how it is expressed, how it is used.
Wittgenstein wants us to look and see how the language games, which are
essentially metaphorical signs, express the world. We don’t need to break down the world into
parts in order to understand it.
It is this perspective, that of the
later Wittgenstein, that I am employing in interpreting Whitehead’s
metaphysics. Rather than using it as a
tool to look at the world bottom up—that is, from the point of view of
describing physical properties and how they effect what we are and how we
exist—I am attempting to show that Whitehead’s terms and concepts are part of a
complex language game that is useful in thinking about the nature of our
existence—“our” existence as in the world as an intersubjective whole—from the
point of view of complexity. Thus, when
talking about facts, actual entities, etc, we have to keep in mind that we are
using these terms as part of a language game to describe the experiences we
have.
Despite our rejection of logical atomism as a
Realist’s conception, we can see that phenomena and actual entities are in one
sense atomic[119] in
that they appear to be located in space-time.
Actual Entities also appear to have definite causes and definite
effects. The causes are ‘physical
feelings’ from the world being prehended, and the effects are ‘conceptual
feelings’ of the subjective form within the mental pole of the subject—which
are actual events in space time, and thus in some sense atomic.
Phenomena, especially in the form of conscious
experience, seem to smoothly develop from prior moment of direct conscious
experiences to another in much the same way that actual entities are derived
from prehensions from other actual entities—whether singularly or as part of a
nexus. But in the case of negative prehensions
and the creativity discussed above, new ideas (new “feelings”) can arise. Through this prehension, the atomic nature of
the entity becomes an interdependent web where the individuality of each entity
is a matter of perspective and scale; an individual at one level could be
considered a complex at another. It is
at this point where the atomic aspects of entities becomes problematic, but is
still useful for purposes of defining individuals.
In a sense, the actual entity and the
nexus are also real things; they are people, societies, etc. But rather than describing the things in
themselves, Whitehead’s philosophy of organism seems to be better suiting in
describing things from a subjective point of view. That is, the terminology that Whitehead
employs seems better geared towards a phenomenological or linguistic
perspective than any physical one. And
this is consistent, as language and phenomenological experience are essentially
metaphysical anyway. The terms and the
system of process that Whitehead describes is a model for describing real
things at multiple levels—within people, societies, and perhaps clusters of
galaxies. By not using specifics, he
allows himself to elucidate that these processes manifest at many levels of
reality, rather than parochially limiting the concept to one or a few levels of
complexity.
Yet, because we are the ones doing the discussing and
thinking here, we have to keep in mind that the system is limited by the
metaphysical underpinnings of language, which are unavoidable. While the system is trying to describe
something that is relevant at multiple levels of complexity and scope, it is
expressed on the level of language, which is based in our ability to think,
which is phenomenological. Perhaps it would be useful to read Whitehead as if
he were using an analogy to convey a perspective about the nature of
perspectives, and how they are formed.
If, for example, metaphysicalization is an ontological construction
created from generalizations of particular conscious phenomena, and we are in a
sense actual entities, then perhaps the “feeling” of the subjective form—the
experience of an actual entity from its own point of view—can be thought of as
a moment of consciousness; a phenomenon.
It is at this level of complexity that Whitehead’s scheme is best
understood because it is at this level that is it expressed—the level of
language games.
Thus,
Whitehead’s metaphysics can be conceived of as a break-down of how conscious
experience is a “feeling” of the subjective form of the prehension, or what
Nietzsche called the “soul as subjective multiplicity,” or what we might call,
in Whitehead’s terms, our many actual entities that make up the nexus we call
“self.”[120] People are, in a sense, entities. We exist as a social construct within a
culture, and we prehend each other in much the same way as actual entities do
in Whitehead’s metaphysical system. Thus
process philosophy is, in one usage, a tool for describing interaction between
entities, both socially and psychologically.
We
feel (or perceive) the characteristics of the other entities around us; more
easily those that have similar constitutions as we do. That is, we are able to interpret the
behavior of other humans with greater ease than that of elephants, while even
between species we might be able to pick out common characteristics of
behavior. This is in part true because
we learn modes of behavior from one-another.
In anthropology we use the term acculturation to designate how we get
socially trained. This involves
everything from language to morals, and allows us to communicate and to
interpret the world better—at least this is what we think if we are
Realists. Of course, our physical
make-up plays a part here too, as our construction will limit the possibilities
of what we can do as well as guide us towards certain instincts and such.
We
and our conceptions of the world are interdependent. There is no privileged
view of the world, no objective view that does not change the nature of the
thing being observed.[121] The prehensions of the actual world
continually define who and what we are becoming, interdependently with the
world around us. We are never defined as
a totality of being, but are in a continual process of becoming. But since our conception of the world is so
heavily influenced by the circumstances in which we exist—just like the
prehension of an actual entity is said to depend on its circumstances, due to
the ontological principle that does not allow anything to come from
no-thing—our conception is contingent upon what is created in the world through
metaphysical generalization and negative prehension. That is, metaphysicalization is largely
responsible for how we understand the world.
Thus,
the Realist’s world of the thing-in-itself is simply a myth. For there to be an objective point of view,
it would have to be possible to exist without participating in the
intersubjectivity of the world. Given
that this intersubjectivity appears to be fundamental, I cannot see how this
would be possible within a monistic universe, with possible exception of the “cosmic
mind,” which is a pantheistic or panentheistic notion
of god.[122] We create metaphysical generalizations
individually, but we do so based on language games created intersubjectively. The intersubjective
world that we interpret is expressed in language games—the meanings,
significances, emotional responses, etc are all purely conceptual, and have no
actuality outside of our conception of them.
Imagine
walking down any city street. There are
street signs, store signs, signs of all kinds with all kinds of words,
pictures, etc on them. The words
themselves are simply shapes, textures, and colors, as are the pictures. But due to our learned ability to interpret
these symbols, and also due to the artistry of the pictures that makes them
resemble objects we see in the world, we make sense of them and give them
meaning. Also, the people on the street,
simply shapes, colors, textures, and also motions. However, we recognize them based on our
ability to recognize generalities (metaphysicalization), as people. The street itself is just a mess of actual
entities prehending one another—a mess of jumbled characteristics. The significance of any of it does not arise
except through interaction between beings of sufficient complexity, allowing
generalizations and “sense” to arise in complex experiences—beings like
ourselves.
Moreover,
we can interpret what kind of objects or people they are, as well as social and
cultural significances of these meanings—in extreme cases these are called
stereotypes, but without the possibility of this generalization we would not be
able to tell which one was a person and which one was simply an aggregate of
colors. That is, our ability to
distinguish things as this or that is the basis for the ability to associate
types of objects with certain meanings or associations. When we begin to assume that visual cues
actually tell us about the object’s essence, however, we have stereotyped or,
as I argue in Part one, metaphysicalized. The difference is one of degree, and not of
kind.
The
process of being lumped together into a type or general form—the
metaphysicalization—which allows us to recognize generalities and such, may
lead to the postulation of universals.
If the phenomena being prehended from different parts of the world are sufficiently
similar to one-another, we might start to think that the same type of thing
keeps being prehended are the same because they are “participating” in some
universal form. This Platonism is of
course subject to Nietzsche’s criticism elucidated in “The Four Great Errors,”[123]
but that does not prevent the conception from arising in the first place, as it
did for Plato and his many adherents over the millennia.[124]
What this comes down to is that actual entities are
interdependent with one-another. The world
is subject to the ‘ontological principle’; “Everything in the actual world is
referable to some actual entity,”[125]
nothing comes from no-thing. Process
philosophy works under more complex rules than that of Hume’s philosophy, but
does not repudiate Hume’s ‘impressions,’ which are useful in helping us
conceive of this process. Thoughts (more
generally, phenomena, especially when talking about sub-conscious activity)
derive their existence, their sense, from external stimuli (‘physical
feelings’), much in the same way that the creation of an actual entity depends
on feelings of other actual entities.[126] At the level of consciousness within a being
such as we are, the stimuli come through physical senses (‘simple physical
feelings’) and from impressions from prior sensual experiences—much in the
sense that Hume talked about with ‘impressions.’ This allows us to combine
incoming phenomena with what is already present within the nexus, as we can
combine the concept of “winged” with a horse that we are looking at to imagine
a winged horse, for example.
As Kant pointed out, the mind actively interprets the
world through ‘categories,’ aspects of the mind that are responsible for
conceptions such as causality and the like.
The process developed here diverges from Kant in some ways, but
essentially retains a Kantian flavor.
With Kant, again, the categories are part of the structure of the mind
before the experience; they act like a lens for incoming data, but not so here
as I argued above. Because the
conceptual feeling prehended is the result of a “concrescence,” that is a
coming together of various feelings, the many actual entities being prehended
ultimately become generalized or typified such that the concrescence is a single
feeling while not ignoring the many singular feelings from each actual
entity. The conceptual feeling of the
world—the nexus being prehended—might be compared to looking at a field of
grass; each blade of grass is unique—differing in size, length, thickness,
etc—while there still is a conception of the field as a whole. The difference is one of hierarchy in
complexity. What do you think human
societies look like on a larger scale? Perspective changes how we look at
things.
The above leads to the conclusion that Whitehead’s
theory of prehension helps describe how the mind is formed and how it works to
understand the actual world around us.
The very unit of mental activity, the moment of conscious phenomena, can
be thought of as an actual entity. The
actual entities come together in nexūs of mental activities that help
define how further thoughts will develop, creating a pattern of thought that
helps determine the nature of the personality, manifesting in behavior. How this behavior assists in the formulation
of culture, and how it is that we perpetuate and change culture, is now the
task at hand.
Culture is a construction; it is essentially the
result of our metaphysicalization of the interactions between selves. The concept of property, for example,
is a generalization of prehended phenomena of particular instances of objects
that belong to particular people or groups of people.[127] We internalize this datum, of objects
possessed by people, into a transmuted feeling and generalize them within the
nexus, to return to the terminology of Whitehead. But we have to keep in mind that such
concepts as property are essentially
language games, and that their use is purely contextual.
If cultural concepts are nominalist functions
of language games that exist as metaphysical generalizations, then these
language games exist within the process of actual entities as the mental
pole—where potential lies. The
communication of internal states, thoughts, feelings, etc is not possible without
the “signposts” of terms, which act to symbolize the brain-states—the
conceptual feelings of subjective forms within nexūs—we wish to
convey. The success of this conveyance
is shown by how behavior responds to the communication, as Wittgenstein shows
us in the beginning of Philosophical Investigations. The “meaning” of terms is not carried in the
terms; they simply point to a sense of meaning through context and accepted
symbols—accepted through rote association via context.
The concepts themselves are metaphysicalizations;
they exist in consciousness through the prehension between the nexūs of
the various minds. That is to say that
the concepts are held subjectively as a mind-state, which is the result of the
mind prehending the world. The fact that
other minds prehend the same datum, and given that
the other minds are sufficiently comparable to other minds, we can see how the
mind is able to metaphysicalize the datum of the
world while sharing the mind-state—the concept—with others, making it a shared
intersubjectivity. And since these
concepts exist at the metaphysicalized level, so does
culture, language, and all of their games.
The implications of this are
various. For one, it means that concepts
such as cultural or national identity are also contextual. The culture one grows up in will acculturate
them such that their beliefs, behaviors, etc reflect their environment. This is not surprising in itself, but it
implies that there is a level of absurdity or humor to certain kinds of extreme
patriotism and cultural or ethnic pride; especially if they lead to any form of
xenophobia. I say this only because to
be proud of your culture is to be proud of what you have been acculturated to,
which is in some sense vain. The fact
that culture exists only in our minds should act as a basis for finding
tensions between groups due to cultural or ethnic differences a little, if not
a lot, silly.
As for political differences, the question, however,
becomes more complex; while political affiliation is often also a result of
acculturation, for most anyway, there exists a distance between cultural
identity and political ideologies, at least in Western multi-party
systems. In some cases the distance is
not so great, of course, as governments will sometimes not allow citizens to
disagree with the political system implemented.
It seems that there is still an influence of acculturation upon
political ideologies, even if it may be argued to be less powerful than ethnic
or national identities.
This type of implication, realizing
that our cultural concepts are ephemeral and perspective-based, is applicable
to various levels of sociology and psychology.
This is clear also from Whitehead’s Adventures
of Ideas, which similarly
tries to apply some of these metaphysical notions to historical and
sociological analysis. It is not in our
interest to consider all of the implications of this thought here,
however. It is sufficient to realize
that the intersubjective nature of societies relies on conceptions that are
behavior-based, as it is behavior that communicates culture. Behavior—in the form of everything from overt
to subtle actions (including inactions)—acts as the physical feeling for people
to perpetuate and sometimes alter through negative prehension or generalizations
(slowly, as the opening quotation of this paper states) the feeling through
prehension of these behaviors.
Our prehension (what traditionally might have been
called interpretation) is the mental pole of this process, which acts as the
possibility for the physical pole, our behavior. The behavior then becomes the datum for the
mental pole of others, helping to preserve cultural notions through positive
prehension—which is assisted by prehension’s ability
to generalize. Again, prehension tends
to have a replicative effect upon the world, as it is
a process of feeling the world as it is.
Thus, cultural notions and tendencies will be continued via process, as
the world tends to carry on the status quo. But due to the tendency of this prehension to
generalize, as we often miss the particulars of the trees when we see a forest,
we also gloss over the particular attributes of individual entities, and view
instead a culture of people who act like this, believe that, and do some other
thing.
Of course, negative prehension allows this
perpetuation of culture to be corrupted now and then, allowing the possibility
of slow change to occur in culture. Most
of these small changes will, undoubtedly, be either ignored or snuffed out due
to their lack of conformity. When
eccentric or anomalous behavior occurs, it can become a spectacle or an object
of our taunts and amusement—or, in some cases, our interest. This will tend to subvert its likelihood of
becoming a common behavior (for various sociological and psychological reasons)
and usually result in its quick disappearance.
However, given certain circumstances, a novel view or
creative act will “catch on” and will succeed in being passed along to
others. In most cases the result will be
a fad or a trend, but in others the effect will be more significant. There was a first time that someone wore blue
jeans, and I’m sure it looked a bit odd at the time. Whatever spawned this anomalous behavior was
the result of novelty and creativity on the part of a person who conceived of
an alternative to what was the norm, and that prehension was the catalyst for a
major fashion trend throughout the world since.
It is in this kind of manner that Whitehead’s scheme manifests at
psycho-social levels of complexity, which can be seen in Adventure of Ideas.
Thus, we are moving towards using
Whitehead’s scheme as the basis for a method of gaining a perspective—or
multiple perspectives—on the world around us.
Through gaining this kind of perspective, we are on our way to becoming
Nietzsche’s “new philosophers.” Thus it
seems that despite Whitehead’s lack of close familiarity with Nietzsche’s work,
their perspectives are, to some degree, compatible.[128] Admittedly, however, my use of Whitehead is
somewhat distorted—intentionally—by Nietzsche’s criticism of metaphysics.
Where to start then?
To recognize our inclinations of error and metaphysical projections is
not enough; we need somewhere to go, something to do. Perhaps the greatest prophet, if I may
venture to call him that, of what the “new philosophers” are to do with this
understanding, is Nietzsche:
To
translate man back into nature; to become master over the many vain and overly
enthusiastic interpretations and connotations that have so far been scrawled
and painted over the eternal basic text of homo natura;
to see to it that man henceforth stands before man as even today, hardened in
the discipline of science, he stands before the rest of nature, with
Oedipus eyes and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old
metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping at him all too long, “you are
more, you are higher, you are of a different origin!”—that may be a strange and
insane task, but it is a task[129]
To cover
our ears from the sweet songs of metaphysical propositions is for many a
daunting task. So ingrained into our
psyches are these metaphysical worldviews, that to question them seems to be to
throw away any possibility of significance, to capitulate to the darkness of
nihilism and to chaos. But this darkness
is merely our eyes having to adjust to awaking from a fantastic dream. That enterprising philosopher who freed
himself from Plato’s chains to the outside of the cave awoke to find that he
had been dreaming, and that his chains are now, if anything, his sense of
nausea[130] at the
attempt to wish into existence of an “outside” of the cave. There is a certain point at which realizing
that the cave has no mouth, that the sun—the “Good”—is merely an abstraction,
when we are no longer able to deceive ourselves any further. It is at this point that we have begun to be
Nietzsche’s “new philosopher.”
Without the supernatural,
metaphysical, or actual spirit to work with, we are left with the
potential generalizations and novelties of error to guide us. Our imagination, our ability to utilize this
metaphysical creative ability to invent and to improve, is perhaps our greatest
tool of innovation.
For if the
mind, when it imagines non-existent things to be present, could at the same
time know that those things did not really exist, it would think its power of
imagination to be a virtue of its nature and not a defect, especially if this
faculty of imagining depended upon its own nature alone, that is to say, if
this faculty of the mind were free.[131]
These
possibilities, conceived of in error of what is actually, can be brought
into actuality for our various uses. So
long as we realize that the metaphysical is a tool for a possible reality, and
not real per se (at least not yet), we can feel comfortable in using
this ability in order to freely
imagine new possibilities.
The mistake for many has been that these
potential ideas, because they have often proved useful, have been mistaken as
true. This is often the case because the
idea has proven in some way useful.
Utility is a measure of function within a context, whether it is a
culture, community, or personal. That
is, it exists at the same metaphysical level as language games and ideals. Whitehead says of Utilitarianism and
Positivism, of which the former is most relevant, that
[m]ost of what has been practically effective, in morals, in
religion, or in political theory, from their day to this has derived strength
from one or other of these men. Their
doctrines have been largely repudiated as theoretical foundations, but as
practical working principles they dominate the world. On the whole, their influence has been
democratic. They have swept away
mysterious claims of privileged orders of men, based on mystical intuitions
originated by religion or philosophy.
They carried back to the Roman Stoic Lawyers, though they repudiated the
ultimate metaphysical doctrines of Stoicism.[132]
In
short, the pragmatism of British utility and Positivism are unable to act as
theoretical bases, yet they are held onto faithfully nonetheless. The point is that they become useful and
practicable because people accept them as bases for behavior, even though they
are theoretically unable to hold up to scrutiny.
Thus, in a sense the pragmatist has a point, in that
what is useful becomes true—at least
it becomes actualized. What “true”
means, however, is a much different issue.
If it means true in-itself, as in some objective perspective, then
Whitehead’s critique is valid, as this perspective becomes impossible, and thus
“truth” becomes ultimately nonsense.
We are left with the problem of people
holding onto ideas about the world as true within the nature of the world
itself, as ontologically true, outside of any individual perspective. This danger also exists for us today,
especially if we want to hold onto metaphysically derived notions of human
intrinsic cosmological significance. If
we want to hold onto our metaphysical notions as guides or as inspiring goals
for our potential, then we will have to decide what ideals to make for
ourselves, what to will for ourselves; Thus spoke Zarathusthra. However, we have to be careful not to allow
these ideals to become ontological belief structures about the world.
For example, it may be individually helpful for
someone to consider their life, actions, and accomplishments to be significant
in order to motivate them to act in ways they deem good. But to employ this kind of notion into a
belief system that, for example, a divine being cares enough to reward or
punish you for these decisions is more of a stumbling block than anything else. It is at this point, where people jump from
ideals and goals to ontological and metaphysical belief systems, where tensions
between persons, cultures, and religions arise.
Again, this is easily avoidable so long as we don’t put too much stock
into metaphysical generalizations about reality.
But is this perspective practicable?
Is this kind of skeptical monism, psychologically, enough? Nietzsche seems to think that this higher
perspective, this higher spiritualization, is for the rare “free spirits”:
In
the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the
great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in
brief, all that is rare for the rare.[133]
If this
perspective of the world, avoiding metaphysicalization, is to be so rare
necessarily, then I suppose that the world shall remain common and enshrouded
in Maya. Indeed, this ancient Indian concept may be
very appropriate here. Do not believe
what your senses tell you, what our metaphysical instincts construct. You must be able to see past the illusion of
metaphysical dualism, cosmological significance, and meaning in order to
realize the influence that our language games, which are constructed on the
ground of metaphysical notions of being and “things-in-themselves” that we
project there. For most, the idea that
meaning, significance, etc are constructions will remain too much to abide, and
they will not succeed in transcending the illusion.
Underneath the games, the contextual
world of flux, and the pure phenomena there is nothing—no noumenal “reality”
hidden behind the temporal. The temporal
world is temporal because it exists in space and time and is perpetually in
flux. This includes language, bodies,
concepts, ideals, paradigms, theories, etc.
Thus our method must be based in a questing skepticism, a perpetual
“maybe”[134] and
“maybe not” of possibilities conceived.
Our method is likened to a dance, as Nietzsche says,[135]
and we must learn to become better dancers, anticipating the movements of the
flux around us as if we were trying to dance on turbulent waters. We must always take our beliefs as founded
upon a sandy beach, always in danger of the tide. The Buddhist notion of letting go is
especially appropriate here, as the less strongly we grip our worldview, the
less it will throw us off balance when it is suddenly washed away in the
flux—while we remain dancing!
With this methodology under our belt,
[p]erhaps the day will come when the most solemn concepts
which have caused the most fights and suffering, the concepts of “God” and
“sin,” will seem no more important to us than a child’s toy and a child’s pain
seem to an old man—and perhaps “the old man” will then be in need of another
toy and another pain—still child enough, an eternal child.[136]
And thus it seems that this methodology might not be
the ultimate solution, but rather part of a continuing development. Perhaps we are but as a race teenagers—or
perhaps children!—and like teenagers we think that we know everything (or
anything!). But there is no way to tell
what our adult years will teach us, what sophomoric ideas will make us giggle
in reminiscence. We laugh at notions
such as “all is water” now, but what will our metaphysics of today look like to
our intellectual descendents?
Of course, there are already aspects of culture that
use these kinds of methods. Many of
these aspects are hidden and rare, often eccentric individuals. But on a larger scale, there are parts of
culture that attempt to dispense these perspectives to the world, often with
varying results.
Science fiction is the best example of the usefulness
and dangers of our ability to create.
With this tool, this art, we can explore possible interpretations of the
past, possible futures (both utopian and dystopian),
and we can explore theories about what we are now, through imagined worlds both
the past and the future. Philosophical
questions can be explored, and we can make commentary upon both history and
contemporary actualities. What else can
we make of Star Trek, both old and new series’, than that they are explorations
of the various types of psychologies, cultures, governments, etc that we have
either experienced or dreamed up? This
science fiction giant is but one example of how we create worlds for ourselves
in order not just to entertain, but also to wonder what we have been capable of
and what we might do in the future.
This is true of all arts, but more so
with science fiction than most other forms of art. Art teaches us morals, asks us questions
about possibilities, and also has the potential to make us believe some of the
daydreams that we come up with. Thus,
the danger of science fiction, if our method above is not kept in mind, is that
people will begin to believe in the possibilities without good reasons to do
so. Is an energy-matter transporter
possible? Warp drive? What about a future where people are not motivated by
money or wealth, but simple desire to self-improve?
The notions that science fiction dispenses to the
world are double-edged. On the one hand,
they are the result of what we think is possible, and thus perpetuate this
belief to some degree. This is
potentially bad because believing one thing to be the truth will often blind us
to alternative possibilities. Then
again, seeing what wonders and dangers the future might contain adds
significant motivation within culture for progress. Or, perhaps we should say that it is a
process; the word “progress” implies the fact that we only have to keep working
on the how, but that we don’t have to worry about the “if” part. Thus, science fiction is an excellent tool
for motivating our imagination for possible advances, both technologically and
socially, but it can also influence our opinions of what is true, in some
cases.
Thus our methodology is already in motion. We just have to become better critics so that
we don’t get trapped in some false possibilities or over-inflate others. Our methodology is one of patience and
skepticism.
A phenomenon
isn’t a symptom of something else: it is reality.
—Wittgenstein
For so long we have blamed our senses for our misapprehension of the
world. Our inability to grasp objective
reality is the result of this deceiver, says the philosopher of old. “‘It must be an illusion, a deception which
prevents us from perceiving that which is,’”[137]
he says. It turns out that reality, this
objective perspective, is not so much an illusion, as it is a construction of
misinterpretations of an intersubjective flux without objective definition. The shadows on the wall continually move and
change because that is what the world does.
To this effect I ally myself with Heraclitus
and his world of plurality and change.
To this effect, I also ally myself
with the later Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations. For with this later Wittgenstein, we have to
begin with the complex; the world is complex.
To atomize or reduce the world into parts—Sachverhalten—as
Wittgenstein did in the Tractatus, is an error. This perspective assumes a definite order to
the world that has been lost in our inability to perceive, an order that can be
elucidated through a better language of representation—which was the attempt of
the Tractatus.
Of course, this differs from the clarification of language that is still
our goal; the Tractatus tries to perfect
language to describe the world, whereas the better understanding of language
games helps elucidate how we have constructed the ordered world out of
complexity of experiences.
To identify types, generalities, and
forms among this flux is the result of the power of the mind to generalize and
create. The mind is a complex nexus of conceptual feelings involved in an even
more complex interaction with the world—a mega-nexus, if I might call it
that—which is also prehending the mind, and every other nexus in relationship
with it. The metaphysics we conceive of
is but a nominalist’s fiction, a linguistic
construct, an ontological projection of something more than this, more
than biological life.
The senses are not dirty lenses
distorting a world that is, in itself, clear and well defined. The senses “do not lie at all. It is what we make of their evidence
that first introduces a lie into it….”[138]
The world is a confused flux of generalized positive and negative prehensions,
an intersubjectivity and not a subject-object divide. Only at certain levels of particular
complexity do awareness, consciousness, and reflexive abilities of thought
arise. At these points the mess of
prehensions is constructed into nexūs with conceptual feelings, which it
can relate to other conceptual feelings in order to ‘make sense’ of—literally
to invent—a structure to the world. The
world is intersubjectivity; the objects in the world are only objects from the
point of view of other subjects, much the same way that “the look” of Sartre
objectifies the Other.[139] The “objects” around us only appear as
objects, but are actually subjects from their own point of view. Again, Griffin.
All
things other than our own experience appear to be mere objects, rather than
subjects, because by the time they can be prehended they are objects; their
subjectivity has perished…So, we are right to think that everything that we
perceive is an object—in the ontological as well as the epistemic sense of the
term. We are only wrong to think of them
as mere objects.[140]
This
conception of subjects appearing as objects from the outside point of view is
among the first illusions about the world that we fall victim to, but by no
means the last.
The fact that the world is full of
subjects existing at different levels of complexity—some conscious, some locked
in instinctual behaviors, some simply grow, and some without any “life” at
all—means that there is still a vast complexity to the world that creates
problems in comprehending even small aspects of it. Understanding the intersubjective
complexities—psychology, language games, social complexity, etc—provides more
than enough material for the philosophical pursuit of clarifying language and
the metaphysical constructions that accompany our abilities to symbolize the
world.
Books
Cobb
Jr., John B. and Pinnock, Clark H. (eds). 2000. Searching
for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists.
Dennet,
Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained.
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Philosophy of Religion. Ithica:
Kaufmann,
Walter [trans. and ed.]. 1992. Basic
Writings of Nietzsche.
Kim, Jaegwon.
1993. Supervenience and Mind: Selected
Philosophical Essays.
Nietzsche, Friedrich.
1996 Human all too Human: A Book for
Free Spirits. Marion Faber and
Stephen Lehmann [trans.].
—1974. The Gay Science. Walter Kaufmann [trans.].
—1990. Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. R.J. Hollingdale
[trans.].
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1984. Being and Nothingness: A
Phenomenological Essay on Ontology.
Hazel E. Barnes [trans.].
Spinoza, Baruch. 1927.
The Philosophy of Spinoza. The Modern Library,
Tillich, Paul. 1968. A
History of Christian Thought. Ed. Carl
Whitehead, Alfred North.
1967. Adventures of Ideas.
—1978. Process and Reality, Edited Edition.
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Wittgenstein,
Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations.
Third ed., G.E.M. Anscombe [trans.],
—1999 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. C.K. Ogden [trans.].
Essays
Block,
Ned. "The
Mind as the Software of the Brain." (An Invitation to Cognitive
Science, edited by D. Osherson, L. Gleitman, S. Kosslyn, E. Smith
and S. Sternberg, MIT Press, 1995)
Francoz,
Marion Joan. "Habit as Memory Incarnate." College English 62.1 (September
1999): 11-29
Kim,
Jaegwon, "Supervenience." Guttenplan, pp. 575-584. 1994
Kirby,
Steve. “The Internalization of Nietzsche’s Master and Slave Morality.” Journal of the Society for Existential
Analysis, Jan 2003, Vol. 14, Issue 1.
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Barbera. “The
Epistemic/Ontic Divide.” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research. Vol. LXVI, No. 2, March 2003. pp. 404-418
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31-40.
[1] Whitehead (1967) p. 24
[2] David Ray Griffin’s usage of merely here comes from his idea that things outside of ourselves are in fact objects, but not “mere objects.” Cf. Griffin (1998) p. 159.
[3] By this I mean, primarily, Quantum Physics, which has made the question of what is matter more complex than ever. This only adds to the confusion of asking what the difference between corporeal bodies and possible non-corporeal existences. As my understanding of Quantum Mechanics is severely limited and unnecessary here, any analysis in these regards will be avoided.
[4] Kaufmann (1992) p. 200. Beyond good and Evil, §2. For the notes on the works from Kaufmann’s text, I will also include the section in order to facilitate easier reference with alternative volumes.
[5] This point I believe is essentially in line with the anti-realist position that I defend in another paper. Essentially I argue that since there are aspects of reality that we do not understand, any theory will necessarily be flawed and thus untrue in the sense that it will ultimately have errors in it. A theory is, after all, merely a constructed ideology based on the information we have. If we have incomplete information, then our constructed ideology to explain that information can only be adequate to what is known at best, and cannot said to be “true” in any objective sense. This point will be essential in understanding my criticism of metaphysics throughout this paper. Cf. “Is Anti-Realism an Epistemic Capitulation?” at http://www.oocities.org/shaunphilly/philosophy_of_science.html.
[6] Cf. Whitehead (1996) p. 79
[7] Whitehead (1996) p. 71.
[8] Cf. section D below, as well.
[9] Cf. Kaufmann (1992) pp. 481-482. On the Geneology of Morals, I, §13. This is a theme that pops up throughout much of Nietzsche’s work.
[10] Kaufmann (1992) p. 200. Beyond Good and Evil, §2.
[11] I would like to be careful here not to imply the existence of some “thing-in-itself,” as Nietzsche and myself are skeptical of this metaphysical reality outside of perspectives. How intersubjectivity avoids this problem will have to wait until part two of this paper.
[12] Whitehead (1996) p. 71
[13] Perhaps this is the approach that some Christians have in mind when they conceptualize the Trinity. God the Father, transcendent; Jesus the Son, incorporated and incarnated; The Holy Spirit, the mediator that allows the message and inspiration of God to come to us. However, I believe that this conception would be subject to the same type of criticism.
[14] This idea is reminiscent of the Nicene concept of homoousia, which means (loosely) ‘of one substance,’ which was the official orthodoxy of the Trinity for the Catholic Church following this council at Nicaea. Homoousia would be distinguished from homoiousia, which means of similar substance, which might be more applicable to the current point. Cf. Tillich (1968) pp. 68-79 for more about the developments of Trinitarian concepts.
[15] I’m being coy here, as ultimately this sentence argues for the nature of the world as some thing-in-itself, whereas it is my intention to ultimately transcend this conception of things.
[16] Whitehead (1996) p. 87.
[17]
“Pluralistic monism” is not my term, but one borrowed from a contemporary
Process thinker, David Ray Griffin. His
notion of pluralistic monism can be found in Griffin (1998) and Griffin (2001).
[18] Although perhaps this should not be merely trivialized, as concepts such as the “tripartite soul,” the concept of Trinity footnoted above, or even with Nietzsche’s concept of the “soul as subjective multiplicity” (cf. Beyond Good and Evil, §12). Nietzsche’s concept here seems more in line with my “intersubjective monism,” however, and any “tripartite soul” as well as some notions of Trinity are subject to the same type of problems as a dualistic mind/body distinction.
[19] Nietzsche (1990) pp. 60-61.
[20] Whitehead (1967) p. 25.
[21] Cf. Whitehead (1967) p. 12.
[22] Cf. Neta (2003).
[23] David Chalmers is a good example.
[24] I mean here strict determinism and not any soft determinism that allows for free will. The issue here is partially relevant, but extensive treatment of free will and determinism will be omitted (freely, I assume). Yet, I’ve always liked this quote from Joseph Ratner, in Spinoza (1927) p. xxxix; “Only when we are subject to alien ends or the ends of alien natures are we enslaved. For freedom is not opposed to necessity or determinism; it is only opposed to an alien necessity or alien determinism.”
[25] This term is utilized by Nietzsche in various works, most notably in Human, all too Human, The Gay Science, and Beyond Good and Evil.
[26] This, once again, is a matter I explore elsewhere in a paper called “The Evolution of Language Games.” Cf. http://www.oocities.org/shaunphilly/wittgenstein.html
[27] This is, of course, Wittgenstein’s term. CF. Wittgenstein (1958) p. Philosophical Investigations, part I, §7
[28] Cf. Dennett (1991) pp. 344-356. This is the section entitled “Filling in’ Versus Finding Out.”
[29] This is more evident with more common language games. That is, every-day conversations utilize very simple metaphors, and are easy to communicate to more people. More complex or specialized language games, like that of philosophical discourse or logic, cannot be dispensed as widely with common comprehension.
[30] Kaufmann (1992) p. 406. Beyond Good and Evil, §268
[31] Wittgenstein’s idea of ‘language games’ is fortified by the notion of “family resemblances” among particular games, senses, etc. CF. Wittgenstein (1958) p. ##
[32] Kaufmann (1992) p. 407. Beyond Good and Evil, §268
[33] Kaufmann (1992) p. 212. Beyond Good and Evil, §14
[34] Cf. Phaedrus, 246a-b and The Republic
4.435-42, 9.580d
[35] Cf. Nietzsche (1974) pp. 169-172. §110-111.
[36] This notion is also found throughout much of Nietzsche’s work, but it is perhaps elucidated best in the first two books of Beyond Good and Evil. Cf. also Nietzsche (1974) pp. 169-172.
[37] I’m not sure if Nietzsche ever conceived of the problem as presented here, however. In either case, Nietzsche’s perspective is an important springboard for this analysis (as my frequent use of his thoughts will attest).
[38] Kaufmann (1992) p. 200, Beyond Good and Evil, §2. The last clause translates as “All is to be doubted,” and derives from Descartes. This segment follows an imagined interlocutor to Nietzsche who is essentially pleading for Platonism. He says to Nietzsche that “the things of the highest value must have another, peculiar origin—they cannot be derived from this transitory, seductive, deceptive, paltry world…. Rather from the lap of Being, the intransitory, the hidden god, the “thing-in-itself”…”
[39] Cf. especially above, where Nietzsche’s concept of “common” is explored.
[40] Whitehead says “progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious.” Whitehead (1978) p. 9
[41] I use this term in the sense that Whitehead does in Process and Reality. He says that a “conceptual prehension is a direct vision…of some possibility as to how actualities may be definite.” Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 33.
[42] Or, as Whitehead says, the alternative is a “static monistic universe.” That is, without potentiality, which will be associated with metaphysical generalization in Part II, the universe would simply be static and without change or growth.
[44] Thus “fuzzy logic.”
[45] Whitehead (1978) p. 7
[46] Ibid, p. 29
[47] Griffin (1998) p.
159.
[48] ibid, p. 18
[49] ‘Creatures’
Whitehead often utilizes in Religion in the Making, and is more useful a
term for clarification, I hope.’
[50] Whitehead (1978) p. 18
[51] ibid, p. 50.
[52] ibid, p. 19
[53] ibid, p. 20
[54] Whitehead (1996) p. 102.
[55] Whitehead (1978) p. 21
[56] ibid
[57] ibid, p. 27
[58] ibid, pp. 27-28. In case the term subject-superject is ambiguous in any way, Whitehead tells us later that “[a]n actual entity is at once the subject experiencing and the superject of its experience.” When Whitehead uses the term ‘subject,’ he is using it as an abbreviation for ‘subject-superject.’ Cf. Whitehead 1978, p. 29
[59] This list is adopted from Whitehead (1978) p. 22, and contains ommisions where I felt the information was extraneous for our needs here.
[60] Ibid, p. 19
[61] In a sense, this is kind of like how groupthink works. A collection of entities collectively form a feeling or generalization about what it is interacting with, and the group forms a kind of collective mentality, rather than a bunch of individual and different mentalities. And while the individual actual entities might have feelings that differ slightly, on the whole the group holds a similar, thus common, interpretation.
[62] Cf. Nietzsche (1990) p. 62. Nietzsche says here that to “trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives moreover a feeling of power.” He continues; “there is sought not only some kind of explanation as cause, but a selected and preferred kind of explanation, the kind by means of which the feeling of the strange, new, unexperienced is most speedily and most frequently abolished—the most common explanations. –Consequence: a particular kind of cause-ascription comes to preponderate more and more, becomes concentrated into a system and finally comes to dominate over the rest, that is to say simply to exclude other causes and explanations.”
[63] This is due to the fact that the prehension is a kind of merging of an effect—that is a result of a cause—and an affect—to move emotionally. This is because the nature of prehension is partially emotional, while in a sense it is the result of the characteristics of an actual entity. I will use ‘effect’ rather than ‘affect’ below, however.
[64] Spinoza (1927) p. 122
[65] Spinoza (1927) p. 135
[66] Whitehead (1978) p. 34.
[67] Whitehead (1978) p. 32
[68] Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 44
[69] ibid
[70] Whitehead (1978) p. 244
[71] Whitehead formulates this principle in a number of ways, each in context of his current point. Essentially, the principle states that nothing comes from no-thing. Thus everything that exists must have an origin from the actual world.
[72] Cf. Whitehead (1996) pp. 104-105. The quote is from p. 105
[73] There is a difference between Whitehead’s concept of an “enduring object,” like a society or any other type of nexus, and an eternal object, essentially a Platonic Form. Something that endures has the potential to persist indefinitely, while an eternal object is said to necessarily exist eternally in order to be ingressed into the world through God.
[74] Whitehead (1978) p. 35
[75] I do not wish to downplay the role of time here completely, as I believe that this process is better understood in terms of the concept of space-time rather than traditional notions of time that Spinoza and other metaphysicians before Whitehead’s time would have naturally utilized. An in depth discussion of the role of space time in this theory is beyond my abilities here, however, and will have to be, unfortunately, marginalized in my treatment of the problem. Whitehead was undoubtedly fairy familiar with the concept of space-time, considering his general knowledge of contemporary science.
[76] As David Ray Griffin argues in Griffin (1998), our consciousness is the result of supervenience; that is, the activity of the mental pole manifests itself at high levels of complexity as self-consciousness and thought. This idea will be utilized more fully below.
[77] The concept of mutation is more appropriate a metaphor for negative prehension, which works along side of positive prehension in metaphysicalization. The present point will be more fully articulated in the next section.
[78] Cf. Kim (1993) and Kim (1994).
[79] Griffin (1998) p. 194.
[80] This term is primarily Griffin’s, and essentially means that everything in the world experiences. In other terms, the theory of prehension is ubiquitous and relevant to all levels of being.
[81] Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 345
[82] Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 239
[83] Cf. Whitehead (1978) pp. 45, 108.
[84] Cobb (2000) p. 6. Charles Hartshorne was a colleague and pupil of Whitehead, and specialized in religion and metaphysics following in the footsteps of much of Whitehead’s ideas.
[85] Experience here is associated with the Whiteheadean concept of “prehension,” more precisely “feeling.”
[86] In other terms, this is the distinction of the difference between “true individuals and aggregational composites of such individuals.” This is Hartshorne’s distinction, utilized by Griffin to answer to common criticisms of panexperientialism/panpsychism. Cf. Griffin (1998) pp. 95-96.
[87] Griffin (1998) p. 77
[88] Again, cf. Whitehead (1978) p.22
[89] Here Demarest seems unfamiliar with Whitehead’s notion that God is a non-temporal actuality, or he previously criticizes this notion as we are doing here. Cf. Cobb (2000) p. 39
[90] Cf. Cobb (2000) p. 39.
[91] Once again, this is reminiscent of Kim’s notion of supervenience. Cf. Griffin (1998) pp. 56-57.
[92] Whether this is a matter of a continuum or a true dynamic relationship of two manifestations is not clear at this point in our understanding of physics/metaphysics
[93] Cf. Cobb (2000) pp. 176-177 for example
[94] This is not to imply that it is the best choice for us, as ultimately we want to show, as above, that God is unnecessary in process. It simply means that for the process theist, this choice is the lesser of two evils.
[95] Whitehead (1978) p. 345
[96] CF. Cobb (2000) pp. 168-170.
[97] Hartshorne’s justification for this notion is very likely Whitehead’s concept of “universal relativity,” which, again, states that all actual entities contain all other actual entities. However, the interpretation of this idea is ambiguous concerning some holographic type of memory that Hartshorne advocates.
[98] Cobb (2000) p. 179
[99] CF. Cobb (2000) p. 31
[100] Again, cf. Nietzsche (1990) pp. 58-65. “The Four Great Errors.”
[101] While I have not had the pleasure of reading this recent work yet, I have attended a recent lecture by Dennett elucidating his argument.
[102]
Spinoza (1927) p. 188
[103]
Cf. Dennett (1991) pp. 144-145.
[104] Whitehead (1978) p. 253
[105] Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 239
[106] The implications for this view on memory are interesting, but beyond the scope of this discussion. Essentially, the phenomenological experience would be recorded in the nexus in terms of its continuing presence as a feeling, through it’s perpetually being prehended. Thus, memory might not be “stored” so much as perpetuated in the process of preconscious thought; perhaps even as habit. Cf. Francoz (1999).
[107] This is truly in the spirit of Nietzsche’s concept of “multiplicity” of souls. Steve Kirby has defined Nietzsche’s concept of self is the “nodal point at which multiple and competing drives, passions and instincts meet.” Cf. Kirby (2003).
[108] A beginning to solving this problem is with the scientific method and the ability to duplicate empirical tests. It is safe to consider valid, perhaps, those phenomena that are easily reproduced again and again. Then again, it is possible that certain types of ideas are more-easily negatively prehended, but that would simply be pessimistic, I suppose.
[109] As for the complexities of what consciousness is, I may simply refer to thinkers such as Ned Block and Daniel Dennett. The complexities of what consciousness is are too complex to tackle here, as the mass of literature will attest.
[110] Cf. Dennett (1991) chapter 5.
[111] This is reminiscent of the point David Ray Griffin makes concerning “creation through persuasion” in his essay “Process Theology and the Christian Good News.” Cf. Cobb (2000) p. 30
[112] This is reminiscent of Richard Dawkins’ idea of the cultural transmission of “memes.” Dennett, in discussing this phenomenon, Dennett (1991) p. 207, says that all memes depend on reaching the “human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.” This issue, while relevant to the current point being discussed, overreaches the goals of this paper and will be omitted. .
[113] Here, I’m playing off the materialist’s definition of the world as structure and function, which tries to describe the mind-body problem as a function of stuff, while still holding onto the notion that they are somehow separate, which creates a kind of dualistic problem.
[114] Cf. Block, 1995
[115] This is a reference to the popular thought experiment of “Mary the color scientist.” Essentially, a scientist, Mary, grows up in a room where everything is black and white so she never sees any colors, but studies everything there is to know about how the brain sees colors. If she then sees a red object, has she learned something new? Cf. Jackson (1986).
[116] Cf. bottom of p. 12 above
[117] Kaufmann (1992) p. 212. Beyond Good and Evil, §14. Van Fraasen’s anti-Realist position argues that things theorized to exist but not observed directly cannot be said to be “real,” but may be said to be empirically adequate if indirect observation and tests support what the theory hypothesizes. Cf. van Fraasen (1980).
[118] Wittgenstein (1958) p. ## Philosophical Investigations I, §371
[119] Cf. Whitehead (1978) p. 235
[120] The self as a nexus of actual entities is not a contradiction of the notion that the self is an actual entity itself. Here, it is a matter of scale. From the point of view of a society, persons are actual entities in the nexus of culture, but at the smaller level of a person we a nexūs of actual entities that make us up. Thus, we have a hierarchical structure here.
[121] Thus, in a sense, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is a model for how subjects interact at higher levels of complexity, perhaps due to some kind of supervenience, as Griffin asserts. Cf. Griffin, (1998).
[122] We would have to concede that the universe might be in some sense self-aware, such that our lower level in the hierarchy would not usually be conscious of.
[123]
Cf. Nietzsche (1990) pp. 58-65
[124] In fact, it seems that the criticism is only possible because of this metaphysical error. Without our error of generalization, language would not be able to develop, and thus rational criticism would not be possible. Like Nietzsche said, this error was what made us an “interesting animal.”
[125] Whitehead (1978) p. 244
[126] This is not to downplay the role that internal prehension, the complexity of phenomena already within the nexus or mind, has in the development of the psyche.
[127] Whitehead discusses private property as a developing notion in history and notes that his contemporary notion of property is a legal fiction. My point is related, but notes that the notion of property is always a kind of fiction. I am agreeing with Whitehead in that it has become more of an abstract notion today especially concerning information, which didn’t come to crisis until recently with the advent of the internet and file sharing.
[128] Whitehead rarely refers to Nietzsche. When he does, it is usually in a negative light, and seems to misunderstand the perspectivism that Nietzsche employs. One example is in Whitehead (1967) p. 223, where Nietzsche’s thought is unfairly summarized as “anti-intellectualism.” I hope that my use of both thinkers here is a step in showing that the two thinkers are not necessarily opposed, though they do reach often very different conclusions, especially concerning religion.
[129] Kaufmann (1992) pp.351-352. Beyond Good and Evil, end of §230.
[130] I borrow the term ‘nausea’ from Nietzsche’s use rather than Sartre’s. Nietzsche uses this term to express the sickness of being faced with the all too human deception of the “metaphysical need.”
[131] Spinoza (1927) p. 170
[132] Whitehead (1996) pp. 36-37. The men referred to are Jeremy Bentham and Auguste Compte with their Utilitarianism and Positivism respectively.
[133] Kaufmann (1992) p. 243. Beyond Good and Evil, §43.
[134] This is the “maybe” of the “new philosopher” that Nietzsche formulates in Beyond Good and Evil, §2.
[135] Nietzsche (1996) p. 169. §278
[136] Kaufmann (1992) p. 259. Beyond Good and Evil, §57.
[137] Cf. Nietzsche (1990) p. 45.
[138] Nietzsche (1990) p. 46. Cf. also p. 49, where Nietzsche defines his “four theses” concerning the error of constructing “another world.” Here, of course, I apply the same method to criticize the construction of what we think is “reality.”
[139] Cf. Sartre (1984) pp. 340-400
[140] Griffin (1998) p. 159.