- PR, Process and Reality
- SMW, Science in the Modern World
- MT, Modes of Thought
- AI, Adventures of Ideas
- AE, The Aims of Education
- SmB, Symbolism, its Meaning and Effect
- RM, Religion in the Making
- ESP, Essays in Science and Philosophy
- FofR The Function of Reason
- OT Organization of Thought
This study strives to be "constructive" rather than "critical". While a critical discussion of an author's works need not be destructive, it is certainly primarily analytical. The emphasis is on testing the literal text of the argument, examining the meanings of individual terms, checking each step of proof, and, inevitably, on looking for ambiguities, equivocations, inconsistencies, and inconsistently proved conclusions; I think that it is best to admit at the outset that the bulk of Whitehead's philosophical writing will not stand up under such an examination. It is full of ambiguities, equivocations, inconsistencies and what look like outright contradictions. It is comparatively easy to point these out - in fact to reduce almost any of Whitehead's arguments to a shambles. This, I suppose, is worthwhile work, and any student of Whitehead must take these criticisms seriously and attempt to avoid them in future reconstructions of the Whiteheadian kinds of philosophy. But I do not propose to make this paper another item in the already considerable collection of narrow, clear, precise, fully documented, and utterly deadly discussions of various aspects of Whitehead's philosophy.
I cannot, of course, try to be "uncritical". I must expose inconsistencies and contradictions where they seem to me to be ungetroundable. But I do not intend the critical side of this paper to be its principal objective. Quite frankly, this paper seeks to be neither a hostile nor even a neutral presentation of certain aspects of Whitehead's work. Rather, I am seeking to enter imaginatively into the spirit of Whitehead's philosophy, and in this spirit to develop the study of certain philosophical problems beyond the point at which he left them.
What, then, can I do with the contradictions which I must inevitably encounter?
First, of course, I could appeal to the notions of change and development that are themselves a constant theme in his thought and say that what looks like a contradiction is merely evidence of development in Whitehead' s thought 28. I do not propose to make frequent use of this device, however. In the first place, my interest is not primarily historical. I am interested in Whitehead's total outlook on the world as a way of philosophising rather than in the details of the temporal development of his thought. Secondly, I feel that development or at least change in an author's views is often assumed on no better evidence than the difference in publication dates between the works in which the inconsistent passages appear, except when Whitehead himself gives some evidence that he has changed his mind, I do not feel that I am justified in making such an assumption. Thirdly, Whitehead's philosophical venture doesn't strike me as being characterized as steady and cumulative development. It is rather, like his "actual occasions" constantly starting over. It is a series of divergent approaches to the development of a new philosophical outlook, an outlook which is never fully formulated. 29
The second position which the spirit of Whitehead's philosophy encourages me to take about his self-contradictions is that some of them represent possible alternatives. Philosophical statements are, after all, in the realm of theory, and it is the nature of theory, according to Whitehead to be "potential". While every actual entity, according to Whitehead, must be fully determined, it is essential to Whitehead's meaning of potentiality that it involve alternatives, that not everything be definitely decided. He also applies this notion to his own philosophical doctrines. On certain issues he doesn't seem to have made up his mind, or he doesn't think that just one definite answer is necessary. On these points he can be understood as offering alternative theories.
This development of alternative theories which would be incompatible if their joint truth were asserted may even indicate superiority rather than weakness in Whitehead's philosophy 30. At least, in interpreting the statements of the great philosophers of the past, Whitehead himself is very generous in pointing out, even when he strongly rejects their systems as a whole, certain alternative suggestions of theirs ( probably in most cases not recognized by the original authors as alternatives or as opposed to the rest of their doctrines) which, though also at variance with the main course of the subsequent interpretation of these philosophers, really transcended the limitations of their systems and of the minds of their followers and interpreters, and which now seem to Whitehead to be better and more fruitful than the notions for which they are principally known. In fact, he sees in many of these previously ignored alternatives adumbrations of his own philosophy 31. The masters, through the presentation of alternative doctrines that would have been concretely incompatible, saw further than their consistency-loving disciples, and thus remain vital beyond the range of their particular epochs 32.
Thus I hope to resolve some apparent conflicts among Whitehead's statements by leaving them in the form of alternatives, the choice among which is left open. Still, this solution cannot be employed too often, or his views would lack all definite form.
Finally, however, there are some ungetroundable conflicts among Whitehead's statements. In these cases I must assume that in some instances his insight penetrates further than in others, and that it is up to me, keeping his total system and the general spirit of his philosophy in mind, and stating the situation as far as possible, nevertheless to decide which statement should be accepted and which rejected.
After all, when I asserted that in this study I would try to be "constructive", I did not mean merely that I would give a positive exposition of Whitehead's definitely formulated views. Such an enterprise, though worthy 33, would not fulfill the rather nebulous requirement of "originality" expected of a paper such as this. In order to get Whitehead to answer, or to suggest an answer, to the questions which I wish to ask him, I must to some extent select the insights most relevant to my own inquiry 34.
What I am seeking to do, while remaining as faithful to Whitehead's actual statements as possible and seeking assiduously for any guidance which he has provided, is to extend the Whiteheadian philosophy into a field where he himself did not push its development very far. In pursuance of this aim I must (1) select some of his notions for greater emphasis than he gave to them and largely ignore others, (2) make inferences to new statements impelled by his actual statements, (3) occasionally explore new ground ruled only by his general principles and method, and (4) in general, develop aspects of his thought beyond the point at which he left them. Certain conjectures and imaginative leaps, labeled as such whenever I am aware of them, are necessarily involved in this process.
Footnotes 28-34:
28 This is the course taken by Mr. R. M. Millard in his doctoral thesis on The Place of Value in Whitehead's Thought (Boston University, 1950). He says, "To assume beforehand that Whitehead's statements about value in SMW. can be exactly equated with his statements about value in the article "immortality" is not only to overlook the intervention of sixteen years of active thought on the subject but to negate Whitehead's own emphasis on process, change, creativity and development (pp. 4-5). However, Mr. Millard adds that we mustn't assume that the last phase are necessarily the most adequate (pp. 8-9).
29 Indeed, except for the highly condensed statement in Part I of PR., Whitehead does not seem to make any direct and extended statement of his own philosophy. His usual method is to develop his own views in a set of loosely organized commentaries or notes on some other subject that he happens to be considering at the moment - cultural history, or the opinions of other philosophers.
30 Whitehead says (AI., p. l25),. "It philosophy] is not - or, at least, should not be - a ferocious debate between irritable professors. It is a survey of possibilities and their comparison with actualities."
31 He does this particularly in the cases of Locke, Descartes, Hume and Aristotle. And for Whitehead it is the explanation of the un-equaled greatness of Plato that, although he developed no one comprehensive philosophical system, he discovered and explored to some extent all of the alternative fundamental principles on which later systems have been constructed.
32 Whitehead also suggests in Pt. iv of AI., that the social usefulness of philosophical speculation not tied to particular practical concerns - that is, of theoretical, speculative philosophy&emdash;rests in its discovery and preliminary exploration of alternative modes of integrating the life of man, an activity which may later have profound applications when the contemporary cultural patterns are destroyed or find themselves in crises in which they must be altered in order to survive. The development of successful alternative cultural integrations in such a situation will depend on the availability of new forms of order which can provide the necessary novelty to meet the threatening situation.
33 And, judging by my own reading, not yet satisfactorily performed.
34 See above, sec. A of this chapter, where I point out that Whitehead has produced no detailed consideration of the problems of value.
Apart from the difficulties listed above - those connected with expounding Whitehead's answers to questions which he did not directly ask himself - the great stumbling block which this, or any, study of Whitehead's writing encounters is his strange use of language. This difficulty has two aspects: (l) there is first his coinage of many new terms and his odd uses of old terms. This is the most obvious of the difficulties. But (2) beyond it there is a more subtle problem - a sort of systematic distortion of the very syntax of language, which frequently is not given sufficient weight by commentators. Without at least some understanding of this second factor, however, no study of Whitehead's philosophy can go far without running up against what look like insuperable contradictions.
(1) Perhaps with Plato as his model, Whitehead tries in his later works to write on many levels - ranging from the level of myth and image to that of highly condensed technical argument. The result does not always seem to promote maximum clarity. In actual practice, it seems to me, he writes on only two levels - one a rather cavalier and jaunty lecture style, and the other an overly-condensed technical jargon having too high a concentration of his own technical terms. What is more, he has a way of plunging suddenly from one level to the other without warning, in mid-paragraph, sometimes in mid-sentence.
Whitehead is known for his bold coinage of new terms. Some of his inventions, such as "prehension", seem unusually happy choices which condense many aspects of very complicated notions into a single word. Others of his terms, such as "subject-superject" seem rather clumsy and unmanageable.
There is another linguistic device of Whitehead's, however, which must be kept in mind, particularly in the field of values. And that is the imposition of special meanings on common words. Many of the words used in ordinary speech to describe values and value states are employed by Whitehead in special functions where it is difficult at first to say whether they are still value terms or not. For example, the word "valuation" itself is used by him in a highly specialized way to describe an aspect of an epistemological-metaphysical process having to do with the "ingression" of possibilities into actuality. Does it also mean for Whitehead the process of judging or feeling the value of something? It is not easy to decide, because he doesn't discuss the term in relation to value problems. Then there is the term "satisfaction", frequently an important term in psychological theories of value. For Whitehead, however, it is not a psychological but a metaphysical term, descriptive of an aspect of every actual entity, whether it be an electron-event, an occasion taking place in a lump of clay, or. a moment of ecstatic human experience. How important, then, is the notion of "satisfaction" to Whitehead's ideas of value? The usual psychological meaning of the term will not help us to decide correctly. Only an investigation of his whole metaphysics will give us an adequate notion.
Finally there is the word "value" itself. Whitehead at no point makes an effort to deal with the notorious ambiguities of this term 35. Indeed, he never seems to use this term in a technical sense. Its many meanings remain for him completely unanalyzed 36.
Finally, he attempts to introduce as a basic, if not the basic, value term in his phi-losophy the word "importance". It is not clear, however, whether this is only a late development in his philosophy or whether every occurrence of this word in his writing should be understood as having a special meaning. Even when he intends it to be a technical term, however, "importance" and "important" are such common words in general speech and come so easily to mouth or pen that it is doubtful whether Whitehead has considered carefully every occasion of his usage of it. Indeed, in general, especially as far as value terms are concerned, the major difficulties in Whitehead's writings are not caused by an oversized technical vocabulary but, rather, by the uncritical incorporation into his writing of the common ambiguities of these terms.
(2) But the most troublesome difficulties of Whitehead's language do not stem from his use of individual terms but, rather, from the way he puts the terms together, from his peculiar syntax, from a sort of systematic distortion of the structure of his propositions. There are, as I see it, three reasons springing from the nature of his philosophy itself for these difficulties. Two of them can be mentioned quite briefly, but the third calls for a more extended discussion, for some understanding of it is a necessary preliminary (often ignored by those who attempt to comment on Whitehead) to the understanding of any aspect of his philosophy.
(a) First, like most metaphysicians, Whitehead is interested not only in the clearly formulated propositions which we have in such well-organized departments of knowledge as the sciences but, even more, he is interested in the ultimate presuppositions of any and every branch of knowledge, action and experience. These ultimate presuppositions are never clearly formulated in any of the special fields which use them. They do not, strictly speaking, belong to the special fields in which they function, but to our common, uncritical experience, and to the more constant, and therefore least noticed, aspects of experience. Whitehead says that these ultimate presuppositions lie in the "necessities of existence", and,
Language mainly presupposes the necessities and emphasizes the accidents. We rarely mention what must be present. We do mention what might be absent. The whole difficulty of philosophical discussion is this feebleness of language 37.
Language was never designed for the uses to which the metaphysician must put it.
(b) A second source of difficulty is more peculiar to Whitehead's philosophy. Whitehead's philosophy emphasizes process, change, organic growth, in which the inner nature of the things under discussion changes. This seems to be the explanation which Professor Urban gives for the complexities of Whitehead's language 38. Language is designed to handle the static. The fluidity of incessant process slips through its meshes.
(c) But I think that there is a third and more fundamental source for the difficulties of Whitehead's language. Indeed, this third point may be the ultimate source of the first two difficulties. This point provides the key to the understanding of the very sentences which Whitehead has written. What I am after is Whitehead's theory of meaning 39. What I am seeking to explain is, I suppose, a notion or presupposition about rationality itself, an ideal about what it is to be rational, which is rather different from the one which we at least think that we ordinarily use.
Whitehead never expounds this fundamental concept completely. Two persistent themes in his writing point towards it, however. (i) One is his "anti-Aristotelianism", and (ii) the other is his concept of "coherence".
(i) The company of those who have been anti-Aristotelian is legion, but Whitehead differs from many of them in that he does not by any means attack Aristotle in toto. He admits a deep debt to Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, not just in general, but in detail, and in respect to his own philosophy 40. Always generous towards his philosophical ancestors, Whitehead finds peculiarly penetrating adumbrations of the philosophy of organism in Aristotle. In some ways Whitehead is rejecting the fundamental anti-Aristotelianism so long characteristic of modern sciences by insisting that final causes, and not just efficient causes, are operative in nature. The similarity between Whitehead and Aristotle is much closer than that, however: there is a similar "biological" atmosphere to the description of process in each 41. For both, most actual things grow and decay, seek their individual goods and enjoy their attainment. For both, the metaphysical setting of process rests heavily on a contrast between "actuality" and "potentiality", though the meanings which they give to these terms is somewhat different for Whitehead than for Aristotle 42.
Yet on one aspect of Aristotle Whitehead is a persistent critic, and, oddly enough, it is the one aspect of Aristotle which has best survived the scientific revolution which overthrew Aristotle's physics - that is, his logic 43. He never says flatly that Aristotle's logic is false. It is formally valid, he says, and it is even useful for certain purposes. What Whitehead objects to is not the bare formal principles of Aristotle's logic but its broad interpretation as the final arbiter of rationality and, especially, its adequacy as a tool for metaphysical investigation 44. If we success in carrying on such investigations within the limits of Aristotle's logic - and this is hard to do because our experience and thought processes inadvertently transcend such limitation - we shall inevitably come out with pale, abstract, inadequate philosophical systems. The correct use of formal logic is only for dealing with "high abstractions." For philosophising we need a method that gets much closer to the concrete nature of things. "Philosophy is the critic of abstraction" 45.
Is Whitehead's philosophy, then, just another of the periodic revolts against reason which crop up in philosophy? The kind of rationality which proceeds in accordance with the principles of Aristotelian logic has frequently been condemned as "abstract" or "external", as "mere understanding", as "spatialization", as "lifeless", or as killing life. But is there any other? Many proposed substitutes have seemed to fall apart under close examination. Is there only a choice between syllogisms and calculating machines on the one hand, and barbaric passion, sentimental foolishness and mystic ecstasy on the other?
There is a romantic aspect to Whitehead's philosophy. He would not deny it 46. But Whitehead is not just another "garden variety" of romantic. His peculiarity is that he is a very rationalistic romantic 47. Of course, Hegel thought of himself as a rationalist and invented a new "logic" and a new ideal of rationality to prove it. In a general way Whitehead does the same thing, as I suppose anyone must do who rejects the adequacy of Aristotelian logic as an instrument of philosophical investigation and as a model of rational structure 48. In his insistence on the interdependence of all propositions, on the significance of analogy as a fundamental operation of reason, and on his peculiar notion of "coherence" (which I will now try to describe), Whitehead is perhaps closer to Plato than to anyone else in his notion of the basic structure of rational discourse 49.
(ii) The other theme in Whitehead's philosophy which expresses his theory of meaning and ideal of intelligibility is the concept of "coherence". It occurs in his well-known definition of "speculative philosophy" in the first chapter of Process and Reality 50, and in explaining what he means by each term in this definition. Whitehead says,
"Coherence", as here employed, means that the fundamental ideas, in terms of which the scheme is developed, presuppose each other so that in isolation they are meaningless. This requirement does not mean that they are definable in terms of each other; it means that what is indefinable in one such notion cannot be abstracted from its relevance to the other notions. It is the ideal of speculative philosophy that the fundamental notions shall not seem capable of abstraction from each other. In other words, it is presupposed that no entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. This character is its coherence 51.
This notion of Whitehead's has sometimes been misunderstood and construed merely as a demand for consistency among metaphysical principles, or, at most, a demand that each individual, concrete entity be explained by the use of all of the fundamental ideas rather than only some of them. But if the above quotation is read carefully, it will be seen that it calls for much more. Each fundamental metaphysical notion itself, and not just concrete things, is to be dependent internally upon and explained by the other fundamental metaphysical notions. For what is "undefinable" in each can be explained only in terms of the other notions. Not having the "fundamental notions ... seem capable of abstraction from each other" means that in a "coherent" metaphysical system no one notion can be, or be intelligible, except insofar as its being depends on the being of the other notions, and its intelligibility is completed through the understanding of all the notions in their intimate mutual relationships 52.
If this concept of coherence is left out of account or minimized, and if the various statements which Whitehead makes about his fundamental notions are then compared, no matter how careful the comparison be, each notion will seem to lose its proper identity - as an emphasis - and become confused with some or all of the other notions. It will look as though Whitehead's whole system rests on very shifting and unsure grounds 53. "Actual occasions" will seem like nothing more than complexes of "eternal objects". "The primordial nature of God" will tend to dissolve into "eternal objects" and "creativity", and these in turn will appear as merely aspects of the "primordial nature of God". What Whitehead intends, however, is that each of these notions should have its own peculiar nature, which is a focus or emphasis, and that the other notions are necessary as a background to complete the explanation of the notion under discussion 54.
The kind of qualification of individual statements by the whole system called for by Whitehead's concept of "coherence" does not, however, apply only to statements about fundamental metaphysical principles, but is to be understood as an aspect of a general theory of meaning applying to the interpretation of all propositions whatsoever.
The point is that every proposition refers to a universe exhibiting some general systematic metaphysical character. Apart from this background, the separate entities which go to form the proposition, and the proposition as a whole, are without determinate character. Nothing has been defined, because every definite entity requires a systematic universe to supply its requisite status. Thus every proposition proposing a fact must, in its complete analysis, propose the general character of the universe required for that fact. There are no self-sustained facts, floating in nonentity 55.
There are then no isolated statements, no isolated facts, no isolated principles. Every statement is an abstraction, a selection, a mode of emphasis. A "philosophical" interpretation of any statement calls for an effort to relate the statement to its total context, and this total context is nothing less than a complete metaphysical system.
In Chapter Three of this paper I shall try to show that this theory of meaning is a consequence, as well as a preliminary assumption, of Whitehead's philosophy - in fact, that statements, propositions and all of the processes and apparatus of knowing are merely aspects of finite actuality in general, and so are subject to the same metaphysical conditions as are all other finite actualities. But here the intent of the discussion is primarily to direct attention to the kind of definition of fundamental value concepts that we can look for in Whitehead's philosophy. First, value concepts must be inextricably tied to metaphysical concepts. What can be presented as value concepts can only be metaphysical concepts reinterpreted with a slight shift of emphasis. Secondly, these concepts cannot be defined in a clear-cut, isolated way. I can attempt only to focus their meanings in fairly simple statements, and then try to correct these abstractions by relating them to the total background of other value concepts and the metaphysical principles which lie behind them.
Footnotes 35-55:
35 Emmet, D., ("A. N. Whitehead: the Last Phase", Mind, v. 47 (1948) p. 267) points out the ambiguity of Whitehead's use of "value" throughout his writing.
36 At times, and without any warning,. he even uses it in its mathematical sense, as designating an instance of a variable, and the context is such that it is not clear whether he means it in this restricted sense or in some more general sense. Indeed, in some statements, this mathematical meaning of "value" seems to shade off into a metaphysical meaning for the word, as in the following: "... every actual occasion is a limitation imposed on possibility, and .... by virtue of this limitation the particular value of that shaped togetherness of things emerges.( SMW., p. 25I)."
37 MT., p. 139.
38 "The ultimate of analysis for Whitehead is an event, an occasion, a drop of experience. This is the ultimate metaphysical subject of discourse about which anything that is said must be said. Literary language will want to talk about it as though it were an entity, but that would be to distort it. To be is to happen, and one can talk about a happening only in the dynamic language of verbs. As the term for this ultimate itself is redesigned, so also must any quality or character applied to it be redesigned, with significant consequences, as we shall see ("Whitehead's Philosophy of Language", in Schilpp, op. cit., pp. 313-14)."
39 It is at least that. It is more. I might call it a "logic", except that it doesn't appear in Principia Mathematica; and, also, I gather from Whitehead's discussions of logic in his later works that he uses the term in several senses, some of which have no direct relation to the sense which it would have if the theory here being discussed were called "logic". Furthermore, what most contemporary logicians mean by "logic" is something quite different. What I am talking about here is not the construction of uninterpreted systems of symbols, but rather, the ways in which knowledge, and perhaps things in general, are put together.
40 For example, see Whitehead's remarks at a "symposium" on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, where he is recorded as having said that he thinks that he is closer to Aristotle than to Bergson or Bradley, and that he wants to supplement Aristotle's account of "becoming" with an account of "perishing". Also, PR., p. 319, where Whitehead compliments Aristotle on his "... masterly analysis of the notion of generation".
41 The greater familiarity with and emphasis upon mathematics by Whitehead ties him more closely to Plato, of course; but see ch. 3, sec. A of this paper on this point.
42 See ch. 3, sec. B for a discussion of Whitehead's meaning of "potentiality", and ch. 2, sec. B for a discussion of his meaning of actuality in this paper. I will not attempt to specify Aristotle's meanings for these notions.
43 Aristotle's logic has been criticized by many, from Francis Bacon to Korzybski, and certainly a good many of these critics were incompetent logicians - indeed, some of them seem to have opposed Aristotle's logic only because it was a bulwark of rationality. But Whitehead himself is a logician of note, so his criticism should at least be looked into carefully. What is more, work in modern "mathematical" logic, as distinct from the older "Aristotelian" logic. As I understand "Principia", it does not reject Aristotelian logic. Indeed, it gives it a new and broader base; for, whereas in Aristotle's presentation of it, the principles of logic and merely described, in "Principia" the main principles of Aristotle's logic are proved - at least, they are deduced from more general postulates, so that they are shown all to be parts of one system. In Principia Mathematica Aristotle's logic in a way achieves fruition: it is expanded and made more powerful than it ever was before.
Some critics of mathematical logic, such as Professor John Wild, seem to feel that this "fruition" is not of the kind which Aristotle himself would have welcomed, that it changes the very meaning of logic and makes it something that Aristotle would not call logic. They claim that for Aristotle logic was not uninterpreted. He thought of it as a methodological science - the methodological science to be used in the most exact inquiries. Whitehead, I think, recognizes that Aristotle meant something else by "logic" than is frequently meant by modern mathematical logicians when they use the word, but it is just on this basis that he criticizes Aristotle's logic. He admits its validity as a set of uninterpreted forms (having himself done much to establish such validity for it), but he does not think that it provides an adequate method for philosophical investigation. Its forms are too abstract for this purpose.
44 PR., p. 45. From the point of view of many logicians and, I think, from the point of view of Principia Mathematica, such a criticism of Aristotle's logic would be irrelevant. For, according to their interpretation, logic is concerned only with uninterpreted forms and not with "applications". The use of logic in even such an exalted context as metaphysican discussion is an application. In Whitehead's later writing, however, he never seems to be concerned with "pure", uninterpreted logic and mathematics. Indeed, he seems to reject such concepts. As early as chapter 2 of SMW. we are told that mathematics is concerned with "real", if highly abstract, aspects of things. Particularly characteristic of this "realistic" attitude towards the formal sciences, I believe, are the grounds on which Whitehead praises H. M. Sheffer for the invention of the "stroke" function: not for its purely "formal" power of simplifying the postulates and reducing the primitive notions of the whole logistic system; but because he thinks that it expresses more adequately than do any other of the logical notions the metaphysical activity by which a concrescent process changes alternative possibility into definite actuality. MT., pp. 72-75.
45 SMW., p. 126. Whitehead goes on to explain this statement by saying, "Its function is the double one, first of harmonizing them [abstractions] by assigning to them their right relative status as abstractions, and secondly, of completing them by direct comparison with more concrete intuitions of the universe, and thereby promoting the formation of more complete schemes of thought."
46 The progress of the individual towards intellectual maturity, he believes, starts with a "romantic" phase, and he thinks that at least some aspects of this phase should be recaptured in full maturity of outlook (AE., ch. ii). The over-specialization and resultant one-sidedness of contemporary education should be compensated for not by "survey courses" in the neglected sciences and "general courses" in the neglected humanities but by actual participation in the fine arts and their associated crafts. (SMW., ch. xiii).
47 MT., p. 23. "If you like to phrase it so, philosophy is mystical. For mysticism is direct insight into depths as yet unspoken. But the purpose of philosophy is to rationalize mysticism: not by explaining it away, but by the introduction of novel verbal characterizations, rationally coordinated."
In AI., pp. 132-3, Whitehead looks back with approval on the Greeks' ... untroubled faith in lucidity within the depths of things to be gathered by some happy glance of speculation," and he decries the Hellenistic "... notion that the foundations of the world were laid down amid impenetrable fog," and he heaps scorn on the men who "... conceived God in their own image and depicted him with a positive dislike of efforts after understanding beyond assigned methodologies. Satan acquired an intellectual character, and fell by reason of an indecent desire to understand his creator."
49 The following statement of Whitehead's is interesting because in the context he says that this view is Platonic rather than Aristotelian. "The notion of the complete self-sufficiency of any item of finite knowledge is the fundamental error of dogmatism. Every such item derives its truth and its very meaning from its unanalysed relevance to the background which is the boundless universe." "Mathematics and the Good", in Schilpp, op. cit., p. 670.
Whether Whitehead's theory of rationality is similar to Plato's in detail I shall not here seek to determine. Certainly, however, occasional statements of Whitehead's about analogy would be significant in such a discussion. For instance, Whitehead says, "... the differences arising from diversities are not absolute. Analogies survive amid diversities. The procedure of rationalism is the discussion of analogy." MT., p. 134.
50 "Speculative philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted." PR., p. 4.
51 PR., p. 5.
52 PR., p. 6, where Whitehead admits that coherence is part of an ideal to which we are capable only of an "asymptotic approach", tempers this extreme claim a little.
53 A number pf Whitehead's critics seem to take this position. I cite the careful study of Mr. Edward Pols, The Idea of Freedom in the Metaphysics of Whitehead as an example of the comparison of Whitehead's fundamental concepts with each other with little allowance for the conditions I have been discussing. In the case of this study, I believe, there is not failure to appreciate Whitehead's theory of meaning, but a rather deliberate refusal to accept such conditions, on the grounds that they lead to unintelligibility. I too sometimes have my doubts, but, on the whole, I think I am inclined to agree with Whitehead.
54 This is the way I would interpret occasional statements of Whitehead which seem to dissolve away all of the major distinctions of his metaphysics: for example, "But, of course, there is no meaning to creativity apart from its 'creatures', and no meaning to 'God' apart from the creativity and the 'temporal creatures', and no meaning to the temporal creatures apart from 'creativity' and 'God'." PR., p. 344.
55 PR., p. 16.