An Essay in Cosmology
Whitehead’s magnum opus, the magisterial Process and Reality, began as the Gifford Lectures he presented at the University of Edinburgh. Process and Reality is a book of legendary difficulty but it repays the considerable exertions required to come to terms with its neologisms, and to come to an understanding of the speculative metaphysics in this work of wonder, or what Whitehead calls the “philosophy of organism.”
It is interesting and important to note that, for Whitehead, as he develops it in this book, the concept of God is not a matter of faith but a logical requirement for the integrity and coherence of his cosmological scheme. In his words, “The concept of ‘God’ is the way in which we understand this incredible fact—that what cannot be, yet is.” (PR, p. 350)
To give some idea of the amazing width, depth, breadth, and heights of the book, here is the complete Table of Contents which in itself runs to more than 3500 words:
PART I: THE SPECULATIVE SCHEME
Chapter I. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY 3
I. Speculative Philosophy; Coherent, Logical, Necessary System of Ideas; Interpretation of Experience.
II. Defects of Insight and of Language; Conditions for Observation; Rigid Empiricism, Imagination, Generalization; Coherence and Incoherence; Creativity, the Ultimate.
III. Rationalism and Dogmatism; Scheme as a Matrix, False and True Propositions, Use of the Matrix; Experimental Adventure.
IV. Philosophy and Science, Grades of Generality; Dogmatic Influence of Mathematics; Progress of Philosophy.
V. Defects of Language; Propositions and Their Background; Metaphysical Presupposition; Excessive Trust in Language; Metaphysics and Practice; Metaphysics and Linguistic Expression.
VI. Speculative Philosophy and Overambition; Overambition, Dogmatism and Progress; Interpretation and Metaphysics; The Higher Elements of Experience, Subjectivity and the Metaphysical Correction; Morality, Religion, Science, Connected by Philosophy; Contrast between‡ Religion and Science; Conclusion.
Chapter II. The Categoreal Scheme 18
I. Four Notions, namely, Actual Entity, Prehension, Nexus, the Ontological Principle; Descartes and Locke; Philosophy Explanatory of Abstraction, Not of Concreteness.
II. The Four Sets of Categories; The Category of the Ultimate; Conjunction and Disjunction; Creativity, the Principle of Novelty, Creative Advance; Togetherness, Concrescence; Eight Categories of Existence; Twenty-Seven Categories of Explanation.
III. Nine Categoreal Obligations.
IV. Preliminary Notes; Complete Abstraction Self-Contradictory; Principles of Unrest and of Relativity; Actual Entities never Change; Perishing of Occasions and Their Objective Immortality; Final Causation and Efficient Causation; Multiplicities; Substance.
Chapter III. Some Derivative Notions 31
I. Primordial Nature of God; Relevance, the Divine Ordering; Consequent Nature of God; Creativity and Its Acquirement of Character; Creatures, Objective Immortality, Appetition, Novelty, Relevance; Appetition and Mentality, Conceptual Prehensions, Pure and Impure Prehensions; Synonyms and Analogies, namely, Conceptual Prehension, Appetition, Intuition, Physical Purpose, Vision, Envisagement.
II. Social Order, Defining Characteristic, Substantial Form; Personal Order, Serial Inheritance, Enduring Object; Corpuscular Societies.
III. Classic Notion of Time, Unique Seriality; Continuity of Becoming, Becoming of Continuity, Zeno; Atomism and Continuity; Corpuscular and Wave Theories of Light.
IV. Consciousness, Thought, Sense-Perception are Unessential Elements in an Instance of Experience.
PART II: DISCUSSIONS AND APPLICATIONS
Chapter I. Fact and Form 39
I. Appeal to Facts, European Tradition; Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant; Intrinsic Reasonableness; Footnotes to Plato; This Cosmology Platonic; Participating Forms; Divine Ordering; Ontological Principle; Facts the only Reasons; Facts are Process; Prehension, Satisfaction.
II. Rationalism a Faith, Adventure of Hope; Limits of Theory, Givenness, Professor A. E. Taylor on Plato; Decision, the Ontological Principle; Entities and Process, Actual Entities and Decision; Stubborn Fact.
III. Platonic Form, Idea, Essence, Eternal Object; Potentiality and Givenness;Exclusiveness of the Given; Subject-Superject, Becoming and Being; Evaporation of Indetermination in Concrescence, Satisfaction Determinate and Exclusive; Concrescence Dipolar; Potentiality, Givenness, Impossibility; Subsistence.
IV. Actual Occasions Internally Determined, Externally Free; Course of History not Necessary, No Perfection; Efficient ausation and Final Reaction; God’s Primordial Freedom; Each Concrescence between Definite Free Initiation and Definite Free Conclusion, the Former Macrocosmic, the Latter Microcosmic.
V. Universals and Particulars, Unsuitable Terms with False Implication; Illustration from Descartes, also Hume; Descartes’ Alternative Doctrine, Realitas Objectiva, Inspectio, Intuitio, Judicium; World not Describable in Terms of Subject and Predicate, Substance and Quality, Particular and Universal; Universal Relativity.
VI. Locke’s Essay, Agreement of Organic Philosophy with It; Substitute ‘Experience’ for ‘Understanding’; Ideas and Prehensions; Locke’s Two Doctrines of Ideas, Ideas of Particular Things; Representative Theory’ of Perception; Logical Simplicity and Genetic Priority not to be Identified; Substance, Exterior Things, Societies; Solidarity of the Universe.
VII. Locke’s Doctrine of Power, Power and Substance; Causal Objectification and Presentational Objectification; Change Means Adventures of Eternal Objects; Real Essence, Abstract Essence; Doctrine of Organism and Generation of Actual Entities.
Chapter II. The Extensive Continuum 61
I. Continuum and Real Potentiality, Atomized by Actual Occasions; How the Continuum is Experienced, Presentational Immediacy, Sensa; Real Chair and Chair-Image; Complex Ingression of Sensa.
II. General Potentiality and Real Potentiality; Standpoints of Actual Occasions, Determined by Initial Phase of Subjective Aim; Extensive Relationships; The Epochal Theory of Time, Zeno, William James.
III. Newton’s Scholium.
IV. Newton’s Scholium, Comparison with Philosophy of Organism and with Descartes; ‘Withness of the Body,’ Status of the Body in the Actual World; Ontological Status of Space for Newton, Descartes and the Organic Philosophy.
V. Undifferentiated Endurance and the Passivity of Substance, Source of Errors.
VI. Summary.
Chapter III. The Order of Nature 83
I. Order and Givenness Contrasted; The Four Characteristics of Order; Attainment of End, Lure of Feeling; Causua Sui.
II. ‘Society’ Defined, Defining Characteristic and Genetic Inheritance; Environment, Social and Permissive; Cosmic Epoch, Social Hierarchy.
III. Evolution of Societies, Decay, Chaos, the Timaeus, the Scholium, Milton.
IV. Societies in this Cosmic Epoch; The Extensive Society, the Geometric Society, Electromagnetic Society; Waves, Electrons, Protons.
V. Enduring Objects, Corpuscular Societies, Structured Societies.
VI. Stability, Specialization.
VII. Problem of Stabilization, Exclusion of Detail, Conceptual Initiative, Life.
VIII. Inorganic Apparatus for Life.
IX. Life a Reaction against Society, Originality.
X. Life and Food, Life in Empty Space, Catalytic Agent.
XI. Living Persons, Canalization of Life, Dominant Personality only Partial.
Chapter IV. Organisms and Environment 110
I. Reaction of Environment on Actual Occasions; Narrowness and Width, Dependent on Societies, Orderly Element; Chaos, Triviality, Orderliness, Depth; Triviality, Vagueness, Narrowness, Width; Incompatibility, Contrast; Triviality, Excess of Differentiation; Vagueness, Excess of Identification; Nexus as One, Vagueness, Narrowness, Depth; Coordination‡ of Chaos, Vagueness, Narrowness, Width.
II. Intensity, Narrowness; Philosophy of Organism, Kant, Locke.
III. Sensa, Lowest Category of Eternal Objects, Definition; Sensa, Contrasts of, Intensity; Contrasts in High and Low Categories, Patterns; Eternal Objects, Simplicity, Complexity; Sensa Experienced Emotionally.
IV. Transmission, Diverse Routes, Inhibitions, Intensification; Vector Character, Form of Energy; Physical Science.
V. Environmental Data as in Perception; Visual Perception, Most Sophisticated Form; Originated by Antecedent State of Animal Body, Hume; Animal Body and External Environment, Amplifier.
VI. Perception and Animal Body, Causal Efficacy.
VII. Causal Efficacy, Viscera; Presentational Immediacy, Delusive Perceptions, Secondary Qualities, Extension, Withness of Body; Hume, Kant.
VIII. Loci Disclosed by Perception; Contemporary Regions, Causal Past, Causal Future; Immediate Present, Unison of Becoming, Concrescent Unison, Duration; Differentiation between Immediate Present and Presented Duration; Presented Locus.
IX. Presented Locus and Unison of Becoming; Presented Locus, Systematic Relation to Animal Body, Strains, Independence of External Contemporary Happenings, Straight Lines, Measurement; Unison of Becoming, Duration.
X: Summary.
Chapter V. Locke and Hume 130
I. Hume, Perceptions, Substance, Principle of Union; Ideas, Copies of Impressions, Imaginative Freedom.
II. Hume and ‘Repetition,’ Cause and Effect; Memory, Force and Vivacity.
III. Time, Hume, Descartes, Independence of Successive Occasions; Objective Immortality.
IV. Influence of Subject-Predicate Notion; Hume, Descartes, Locke, Particular Existence.
V. Hume and Locke, Process and Morphology; False Derivation of Emotional Feelings; Sensationalist Doctrine; Santayana.
Chapter VI. From Descartes to Kant 144
I. Descartes, Three Kinds of Substance: Extended, Mental, God’s; Three Kinds of Change, of Accidents, Origination, Cessation; Accidental Relations, Representative Ideas; Unessential Experience of External World.
II. Locke, Empiricism, Adequacy, Inconsistency; Particular Existent, Substance, Power; Relativity, Perpetually Perishing.
III. Analogy and Contrast with Philosophy of Organism.
IV. Hume and Process, Kant, Santayana.
V. Contrasted Procedures of Philosophy of Organism and Kant.
Chapter VII. The Subjectivist Principle 157
I. The Subjectivist Principle and the Sensationalist Principle; The Sensationalist Doctrine Combines Both; Locke, Hume, Kant; Statement of the Principles; The Three Premises for the Subjectivist Principle; Philosophy of Organism Denies the Two Principles and the Three Premises; Descartes; ‘That Stone as Grey,’ Substance and Quality, Organs of Sensation; Descartes’ Subjectivist Modification; ‘Perception of that Stone as Grey’; Failure to Provide Revised Categories; Hume.
II. Knowledge, Its Variations, Vaguenesses; Negative Perception the General Case, Consciousness is the Feeling of Negation, Novelty; Consciousness a Subjective Form, Only Present in Late Derivative Phases of Complex Integrations; Consciousness only Illuminates the Derivative Types of Objective Data, Philosophy Misled by Clearness and Distinctness.
III. Primitive Type of Physical Experience is Emotional; Vector Transmission of Feeling, Pulses of Emotion, Wave-Length; Human Emotion is Interpreted Emotion, Not Bare Emotional Feeling.
IV. Decision Regulating Ingression of Eternal Objects, Old Meeting New; The Three Phases of Feeling: Conformal, Conceptual, Comparative; Eternal Objects and Subjective Forms; Continuity of the Phases; Category of Objective Unity.
V. Reformed Subjectivist Principle is Another Statement of Principle of Relativity; Process is the Becoming of Experience; Hume’s Principle Accepted, This Method only Errs in Detail; ‘Law’ for ‘Causation’ no Help; Modern Philosophy Uses Wrong Categories; Two Misconceptions: (i) Vacuous Actuality, (ii) Inherence of Quality in Substance.
Chapter VIII. Symbolic Reference 168
I. Two Pure Modes of Perception, Symbolic Reference, Common Ground, Integration, Originative Freedom, Error; Common Ground, Presented Locus, Geometrical Indistinctness in Mode of Causal Efficacy; Exceptions, Animal Body, Withness of Body.
II. Common Ground, Common Sensa; Modern Empiricism, Make-Believe, Hume; Sensa Derived from Efficacy of Body; Projection.
III. Mistaken Primacy of Presentational Immediacy, Discussion, Causal Efficacy Primitive.
IV. Further Discussion; Causation and Sense-Perception.
V. Comparison of Modes; Integration in Symbolic Reference.
VI. Principles of Symbolism, Language.
Chapter IX. The Propositions 184
I. Impure Prehensions by Integration of Pure Conceptual and Pure Physical Prehensions; Physical Purposes and Propositions Discriminated; Theory, Not Primarily for Judgment, Lures for Feeling; Objective Lure; Final Cause; General and Singular Propositions; Logical Subjects, Complex Predicate; Propositions True or False; Lure to Novelty; Felt ‘Contrary’ is Consciousness in Germ; Judgment and Entertainment; Graded Envisagement.
II. Truth and Falsehood, Experiential Togetherness of Propositions and Fact; Correspondence and Coherence Theory; Propositions True or False, Judgments Correct or Incorrect or Suspended; Intuitive and Derivative Judgments; Logic Concerned with Derivative Judgments; Error.
III. Systematic Background Presupposed by Each Proposition; Relations, Indicative Systems of Relations; Propositions and Indicative Systems; Illustration, Inadequacy of Words.
IV. Metaphysical Propositions; One and One Make Two.
V. Induction, Probability, Statistical Theory, Ground, Sampling, Finite Numbers.
VI. Suppressed Premises in Induction, Presupposition of Definite Type of Actuality Requiring Definite Type of Environment; Wider Inductions Invalid; Statistical Probability within Relevant Environment.
VII. Objectification Samples Environment.
VIII. Alternative Non-Statistical Ground; Graduated Appetitions, Primordial Nature of God; Secularization of Concept of God’s Functions.
Chapter X. Process 208
I. Fluency and Permanence; Generation and Substance; Spatialization; Two Kinds of Fluency: Macroscopic and Microscopic, from Occasion to Occasion and within Each Occasion.
II. Concrescence, Novelty, Actuality; Microscopic Concrescence.
III. Three Stages of Microscopic Concrescence Vector Characters Indicate Macroscopic Transition; Emotion, and Subjective Form Generally, is Scalar in Microscopic Origination and is the Datum for Macroscopic Transition.
IV. Higher Phases of Microscopic Concrescence.
V. Summary.
PART III: THE THEORY OF PREHENSIONS
Chapter I. The Theory of Feelings 219
I. Genetic and Morphological Analysis; Genetic Consideration is Analysis of the Concrescence, the Actual Entity Formaliter; Morphological Analysis is Analysis of the Actual Entity as Concrete, Spatialized, Objectivé.
II. Finite Truth, Division into Prehensions; Succession of Phases, Integral Prehensions in Formation; Five Factors: Subject, Initial Data, Elimination, Objective Datum, Subjective Form; Feeling is Determinate.
III. Feeling Cannot be Abstracted from Its Subject; Subject, Aim at the Feeler, Final Cause, Causa Sui.
IV. Categories of Subjective Unity, of Objective Identity, of Objective Diversity.
V. Category of Subjective Unity; The One Subject is the Final End Conditioning Each Feeling, Episode in Self-Production; Pre-established Harmony, Self-Consistency of a Proposition, Subjective Aim; Category of Objective Identity, One Thing has one Rôle, No Duplicity, One Ground of Incompatibility; Category of Objective Diversity, No Diverse Elements with Identity of Function, Another Ground of Incompatibility.
VI. World as a Transmitting Medium; Explanation; Negative Prehensions, with Subjective Forms.
VII. Application of the Categories.
VIII. Application (continued) .
IX. Nexūs.
X. Subjective Forms; Classification of Feelings According to Data; Simple Physical Feelings, Conceptual Feelings, Transmuted Feelings; Subjective Forms not Determined by Data, Conditioned by Them.
XI. Subjective Form, Qualitative Pattern, Quantitative Pattern; Intensity; Audition of Sound.
XII. Prehensions not Atomic, Mutual Sensitivity; Indefinite Number of Prehensions; Prehensions as Components in the Satisfaction and Their Genetic Growth; Justification of the Analysis of the Satisfaction, Eighth and Ninth Categories of Explanation.
Chapter II. The Primary Feelings 236
I. Simple Physical Feeling, Initial Datum is one Actual Entity, Objective Datum is one Feeling Entertained by that one Actual Entity; Act of Causation, Objective Datum the Cause, Simple Physical Feeling the Effect; Synonymously ‘Causal Feelings’; Primitive Act of Perception, Initial Datum is Actual Entity Perceived, Objective Datum is the Perspective, In General not Conscious Perception; Reason for ‘Perspective’; Vector Transmission of Feeling, Re-enaction, Conformal; Irreversibility of Time; Locke; Eternal Objects Relational, Two-Way Rôle, Vector-Transference, Reproduction, Permanence; Quanta of Feeling Transferred, Quantum Theory in Physics, Physical Memory; Atomism, Continuity, Causation, Memory, Perception, Quality, Quantity, Extension.
II. Conceptual Feelings, Positive and Negative Prehensions; Creative Urge Dipolar;Datum is an Eternal Object; Exclusiveness of Eternal Objects as Determinants, Definiteness, Incompatibility.
III. Subjective Form of Conceptual Prehension is Valuation; Integration Introduces Valuation into Impure Feelings, Intensiveness; Three Characteristics of Valuation: (i) Mutual Sensitivity of Subjective Forms, (ii) Determinant of Procedure of Integration, (iii) Determinant of Intensive Emphasis.
IV. Consciousness is Subjective Form; Requires Its Peculiar Datum; Recollection, Plato, Hume; Conscious Feelings always Impure, Requires Integration of Physical and Conceptual Feelings; Affirmation and Negative Contrast; Not all Impure Feelings Conscious.
Chapter III. The Transmission of Feelings 244
I. Ontological Principle, Determination of Initiation of Feeling; Phases of Concrescence; God, Inexorable Valuation, Subjective Aim; Self-Determination Imaginative in Origin, Re-enaction.
II. Pure Physical Feelings, Hybrid Physical Feelings; Hybrid Feelings Transmuted into Pure Physical Feelings; Disastrous Separation of Body and Mind Avoided; Hume’s Principle, Hybrid Feelings with God as Datum.
III. Application of First Categoreal Obligation; Supplementary Phase Arising from Conceptual Origination; Application of Fourth and Fifth Categoreal Obligations; Conceptual Reversion; Ground of Identity, Aim at Contrast.
IV. Transmutation; Feeling a Nexus as One, Transmuted Physical Feeling; Rôle of Impartial Conceptual Feeling in Transmutation, Category of Transmutation, Further Explanations; Conceptual Feelings Modifying Physical Feelings; Negative Prehensions Important.
V. Subjective Harmony, the Seventh Categoreal Obligation.
Chapter IV. Propositions And Feelings 256
I. Consciousness, Propositional Feelings, Not Necessarily Conscious; Propositional Feeling is Product of Integration of Physical Feeling with a Conceptual Feeling; Eternal Objects Tell no Tales of Actual Occasions, Propositions are Tales That Might be Told of Logical Subjects; Proposition, True or False, Tells no Tales about Itself, Awaits Reasons; Conceptual Feeling Provides Predicative Pattern, Physical Feeling Provides Logical Subjects, Integration; Indication of Logical Subjects, Element of Givenness Required for Truth and Falsehood.
II. Proposition not Necessarily Judged, Propositional Feelings not Necessarily Conscious; New Propositions Arise; Possible Percipient Subjects within the ‘Scope of a Proposition.’
III. Origination of Propositional Feeling, Four (or Five) Stages, Indicative Feeling, Physical Recognition, Predicative Pattern (Predicate), Predicative Feeling; Propositional Feeling Integral of Indicative and Predicative Feelings.
IV. Subjective Forms of Propositional Feelings, Dependent on Phases of Origination; Case of Identity of Indicative Feeling with the Physical Recognition, Perceptive Feelings; Case of Diversity, Imaginative Feelings; Distinction not Necessarily Sharp-Cut; The Species of Perceptive Feelings: Authentic, Direct Authentic, Indirect Authentic, Unauthentic; Tied Imagination.
V. Imaginative Feelings, Indicative Feeling and Physical Recognition Diverse, Free Imagination; Subjective Form Depends on Origination, Valuation rather than Consciousness; Lure to Creative Emergence; Criticism of Physical Feelings, Truth, Critical Conditions.
VI. Language, Its Function; Origination of the Necessary Train of Feelings.
Chapter V. The Higher Phases Of Experience 266
I. Comparative Feelings, Conscious Perceptions, Physical Purposes; Physical Purposes More Primitive than Propositional Feelings.
II. Intellectual Feelings, Integration of Propositional Feeling with Physical Feeling of a Nexus Including the Logical Subjects; Category of Objective Identity, Affirmation-Negation Contrast; Consciousness is a Subjective Form.
III. Belief, Certainty, Locke, Immediate Intuition.
IV. Conscious Perception, Recapitulation of Origin; Direct and Indirect Authentic Feelings, Unauthentic Feelings; Transmutation; Perceptive Error, Novelty; Tests, Force and Vivacity, Analysis of Origination; Tests Fallible.
V. Judgment, Yes-Form, No-Form, Suspense-Form; In Yes-Form Identity of Patterns, In No-Form Diversity and Incompatibility, In Suspense-Form Diversity and Compatibility; Intuitive Judgment, Conscious Perception.
VI. Affirmative Intuitive Judgment Analogous to Conscious Perception, Difference Explained; Inferential Judgment; Divergence from Locke’s Nomenclature; Suspended Judgment.
VII. Physical Purposes, Primitive Type of Physical Feeling; Retaining Valuation and Purpose, Eliminating Indeterminateness of Complex Eternal Object; Responsive Re-enaction; Decision.
VIII. Second Species of Physical Purposes, Reversion Involved; Eighth Categoreal Obligation, Subjective Intensity; Immediate Subject, Relevant Future; Balance, Conditions for Contrast; Reversion as Condition for Balanced Contrast; Rhythm, Vibration; Categoreal Conditions; Physical Purposes and Propositional Feelings Compared.
PART IV: THE THEORY OF EXTENSION
Chapter I. Coordinate Division 283
I. Genetic Division is Division of the Concrescence, Coordinate Division is Divisionof the Concrete; Physical Time Arises in the Coordinate Analysis of the Satisfaction; Genetic Process not the Temporal Succession; Spatial and Temporal Elements in the Extensive Quantum; The Quantum is the Extensive Region; Coordinate Divisibility; Subjective Unity Indivisible; Subjective Forms Arise from Subjective Aim; World as a Medium, Extensively Divisible; Indecision as to Selected Quantum.
II. Coordinate Divisions and Feelings; Mental Pole Incurably One; Subjective Forms of Coordinate Divisions Depend on Mental Pole, Inexplicable Otherwise; A Coordinate Division is a Contrast, a Proposition, False, but Useful Matrix.
III. Coordinate Division, the World as an Indefinite Multiplicity; Extensive Order, Routes of Transmission; External Extensive Relationships, Internal Extensive Division, One Basic Scheme; Pseudo Sub-organisms, Pseudo Super-organisms, Professor de Laguna’s ‘Extensive Connection.’
IV. Extensive Connection is the Systematic Scheme Underlying Transmission of Feelings and Perspective; Regulative Conditions; Descartes; Grades of Extensive Conditions, Dimensions.
V. Bifurcation of Nature; Publicity and Privacy.
VI. Classification of Eternal Objects; Mathematical Forms, Sensa.
VII. Elimination of the Experient Subject, Concrescent Immediacy.
Chapter II. Extensive Connection 294
I. Extensive Connection, General Description.
II. Assumptions, i.e., Postulates, i.e.,‡ Axioms and Propositions for a Deductive System.
III. Extensive Abstraction, Geometrical Elements, Points, Segments.
IV. Points, Regions, Loci; Irrelevance of Dimensions.
Chapter III. Flat Loci 302
I. Euclid’s Definition of ‘Straight Line.’
II. Weakness of Euclidean Definition; Straight Line as Shortest Distance, Dependence on Measurement; New Definition of Straight Lines, Ovals.
III. Definition of Straight Lines, Flat Loci, Dimensions.
IV. Contiguity.
V. Recapitulation.
Chapter IV. Strains 310
I. Definition of a Strain, Feelings Involving Flat Loci among the Forms of Definiteness of Their Objective Data; ‘Seat’ of a Strain; Strains and Physical Behaviour; Electromagnetic Occasions Involve Strains.
II. Presentational Immediacy Involves Strains; Withness of the Body, Projection, Focal Region; Transmission of Bodily Strains, Transmutation, Ultimate Percipient, Emphasis; Projection of the Sensa, Causal Efficacy Transmuted in Presentational Immediacy; Massive Simplification; Types of Energy; Hume; Symbolic Transference, Physical Purpose.
III. Elimination of Irrelevancies, Massive Attention to Systematic Order; Design of Contrasts; Importance of Contemporary Independence; Advantage to Enduring Objects.
IV. Structural Systems, Discarding Individual Variations; Physical Matter Involves Strain-Loci.
V. The Various Loci Involved: Causal Past, Causal Future, Contemporaries, Durations, Part of a Duration, Future of a Duration, Presented Duration, Strain-Locus.
Chapter V. Measurement 322
I. Identification of Strain-Loci with Durations only Approximate; Definitions Compared; Seat of Strain, Projectors; Strain-Loci and Presentational Immediacy.
II. Strain-Locus Wholly Determined by Experient; Seat and Projectors Determine Focal Region; Animal Body Sole Agent in the Determination; Vivid Display of Real Potentiality of Contemporary World; New Definition of Straight Lines Explains this Doctrine; Ways of Speech, Interpretation of Direct Observation; Descartes’ Inspectio, Realitas Objectiva, Judicium.
III. Modern Doctrine of Private Psychological Fields; Secondary Qualities, Sensa; Abandons Descartes’ Realitas Objectiva; Difficulties for Scientific Theory, All Observation in Private Psychological Fields; Illustration, Hume; Conclusion, Mathematical Form, Presentational Immediacy in one Sense Barren, in Another Sense has Overwhelming Significance.
IV. Measurement Depends on Counting and on Permanence; What Counted, What Permanent; Yard-Measure Permanent, Straight; Infinitesimals no Explanation; Approximation to Straightness, Thus Straightness Presupposed; Inches Counted, Non-Coincident; Modern Doctrine is Possibility of Coincidence, Doctrine Criticized; Coincidence is Test of Congruence, Not Meaning; Use of Instrument Presupposes Its Self-Congruence; Finally all Measurement Depends on Direct Intuition of Permanence of Untested Instrument; Theory of Private Psychological Fields Makes Scientific Measurement Nonsense.
V. Meaning of Congruence in Terms of Geometry of Straight Lines; Systems of Geometry; Sets of Axioms: Equivalent Sets, Incompatible Sets; Three Important Geometries: Elliptic Geometry, Euclidean Geometry, Hyperbolic Geometry; Two Definitions of a Plane; Characteristic Distinction between the Three Geometries; Congruence Depends on Systematic Geometry.
VI. Physical Measurement, Least Action, Presupposes Geometrical Measurement; Disturbed by Individual Peculiarities; Physical Measurement Expressible in Terms of Differential Geometry; Summary of Whole Argument.
PART V: FINAL INTERPRETATION
Chapter I. The Ideal Opposites 337
I. Danger to Philosophy is Narrowness of Selection; Variety of Opposites: Puritan Self-Restraint and Aesthetic Joy, Sorrow and Joy; Religious Fervour and Sceptical Criticism, Intuition and Reason.
II. Permanence and Flux, Time and Eternity.
III. Order as Condition for Excellence, Order as Stifling Excellence; Tedium, Order Entering upon Novelty is Required; Dominant Living Occasion is Organ of Novelty for Animal Body.
IV. Paradox: Craving for Novelty, Terror at Loss; Final Religious Problem; Ultimate Evil is Time as ‘Perpetually Perishing’; Final Opposites: Joy and Sorrow, Good and Evil, Disjunction and Conjunction, Flux and Permanence, Greatness and Triviality, Freedom and Necessity, God and the World; These Pairs Given in Direct Intuition, except the Last Pair Which is Interpretive.
Chapter II. God and the World 342
I. Permanence and Flux, God as Unmoved Mover; Conceptions of God: Imperial Ruler, Moral Energy, Philosophical Principle.
II. Another Speaker to Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Primordial Nature Deficiently Actual, Neither Love nor Hatred for Actualities, Quotation from Aristotle.
III. God’s Nature Dipolar, Conceptual and Physical; This Physical Nature Derived from the World; Two Natures Compared.
IV. God’s Consequent Nature, Creative Advance Retaining Unison of Immediacy, Everlastingness; Further Analysis, Tenderness, Wisdom, Patience; Poet of the ‘World, Vision of Truth, Beauty, Goodness.
V. Permanence and Flux, Relation of God to the World; Group of Antitheses: God and the World Each the Instrument of Novelty for the Other.
VI. Universe Attaining Self-Expression of Its Opposites.
VII. God as the Kingdom of Heaven; Objective Immortality Attaining Everlastingness, Reconciliation of Immediacy with Objective Immortality.
Index 353
Editors’ Notes 389
HyC