In his book Being and Value, philosopher Frederick Ferré acquaints us with a beautiful idea that he names with a beautiful word: kalogenesis.
“Kalós” is the Greek word for “beauty” and “genesis” of course refers to “generating” or “bringing into existence.” And so kalogenesis means the creation or coming to be of beauty. The adjectival form of this word is “kalogenic.”
According to Ferré, beauty is omnipresent, everlasting, and present in every momentary flash of actuality. The becoming of any actuality is also the becoming of beauty. In short we live in a kalogenic universe populated by kalogenic entities. To be, on whatever level, from protons to people, is to be a begetter of beauty.
It seems Whitehead is in accord with this, for he says:
The metaphysical doctrine, here expounded, finds the foundations of the world in the aesthetic experience . . . All order is therefore aesthetic order, and the moral order is merely certain aspects of aesthetic order. The actual world is the outcome of the aesthetic order, and the aesthetic order is derived from the immanence of God. (RM 104-05)
God is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness. (PR 346)
In co-creation with God, the fundamental cosmic process, the coming to be of each momentary flash of actuality, represents a real achievement, a flicker of originality, arising out of a feeling, however vague, for a range of possibilities that might have made its existential path otherwise. Adventure is inherent in the very structure of reality.
If, on this hypothesis, the coming to be of every actual entity involves at least some measure of self-completion and, therefore, real freedom, it follows that every occasion is of intrinsic value. Value is inherent in the very texture of reality.
Coming to be always involves the many and the one. In Whitehead’s pithy phrase, “The many become one, and are increased by one.” This describes a process whereby diversity is made one in a prehensive unification of experience. Probably the most general definition of beauty is “unity in diversity.” The culmination of coming to be is a feeling of “satisfaction” upon achieving this accomplishment. It follows that every momentary flash of actuality not only produces beauty, but also “enjoys” the experience of beauty. Beauty is inherent in the most basic dynamics of reality.
The most fundamental process in the universe, the process whereby actuality is attained in each momentary pulse of experience, is a kalogenic process. To be an actual entity is to be a kalogenic entity. The “process” of process philosophy is a kalogenic process.
Beauty also has to do with contrasts held together in harmony. The wider the contrast, the more intense the expression and the experience of beauty. In the becoming of every individual there is always, however slight, some feeling of contrast between what is actual and what is possible.
Ferré observes that:
. . . in its process of becoming actual every fundamental entity must result in a unified harmony of definite elements held together in experience. In this way, every pulse of actualizing energy represents in itself an act of kalogenesis. The universe comprised of kalogenic entities and their combinations is therefore, strictly speaking, the by-product of beauty. (BV 358)
With the advent of sexual reproduction new experiences and expressions of beauty became possible. In Ferré’s words:
Sexual reproduction makes the search for beauty even more intense and gives advantage to decorations, iridescent fins and fine feathers, prowess at dance, attractive odors, and the like, throughout the sexually animated kingdoms, botanical as well as zoological. The universal quest for satisfactory experience, for subjectively enjoyed beauty, draws organisms whether or not their experience (compared to ours) is dim and unselfconscious. At the biological level, we find ourselves within an intensely kalogenic universe. (BV 361-62)
Key to Abbreviations
RM Whitehead, Alfred North. Religion in the Making.
PR Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. Corrected Edition. Ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne.
BV Ferré, Frederick. Being and Value: Toward a Constructive Postmodern Metaphysics.
HyC