METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR A THEORY OF VALUE

IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF A. N. WHITEHEAD  

Chapter Three

"Eternal Objects"

"All subsequent philosophy is a series of footnotes on Plato."

--Alfred North Whitehead...

"Plato himself may not have been a 'Platonist'."

---William H. Leue--.\"............

 

[Note: Footnotes are designated in red and may be accessed by scrolling down the page to the green sections.

 

Note also that since since they refer to the paper version of this work, references to actual pages of the thesis are not accurate in this online medium.]

 

Write me at maryskole@aol.com to inform me of errors you may find, or for a copy of the paperback version ($18.95 plus $2 shipping) - available after September 15, 2005. Thanks.

 

Below are the full titles of books referred to in the footnotes.]

 

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 Rerason

OT Organization of Thought

 

SECTION A:

Whitehead is not a Platonist 

 

The description of concrete process - of what goes on in each actual occasion - which was given in the last chapter, shows, I believe, that Whitehead's notion of real existence is basically a notion of creative activity. The consideration of several of the more abstract factors in this creative activity is necessary, however, to complete the picture and to overcome several powerful objections to the interpretation here given - that creative activity is the basic "stuff" of reality. I will consider three of these abstract factors in creative activity: "eternal objects" (in this chapter), and what Whitehead calls "creativity" and "God" in the next chapter.

 

The primary reason for considering eternal objects is to show that actual entities fulfill that ultimate condition of being a creative process which I have listed as "existentialism" - they make their own characters, not just the individual nuances of their characters but the persisting, recognizable traits which characterize whole societies of occasions: that is, their essences. There is, however, a very important secondary objective to this chapter, and that is to remove one of the two principal objections to the notion that the concrete actual existences are the ultimate realities for Whitehead and that they are creative processes, the objection that it is really eternal objects which constitute ultimate reality for Whitehead - that they determine the nature of each actual existence. Such a doctrine, of course, destroys the notion of the metaphysical primacy of concrete existence, destroys the notion of general ontological, creative activity, destroys the contention that there is real freedom and real origination of novelty in actual process; in short, destroys most of the characteristic aspects of Whitehead's philosophy. Some commentators have seen this very clearly 1. Others try to maintain both a kind of "Platonic" interpretation of the role of eternal objects in Whitehead's philosophy and also his emphasis on the primacy of the individual, concrete actualities 2.

 

Whitehead is either some sort of "Platonist" or a believer in the metaphysical primacy of actual, concrete process. I don't see how he can be both. Is he a Platonist? This question does not mean, "Is he a follower of, or admirer of, Plato?". Plato, as Whitehead himself asserts, is subject to many interpretations 3. Plato himself may not have been a "Platonist". By "Platonism" I mean any theory which holds that there are forms or patterns antecedent to the concrete processes in which we find forms or patterns manifested; that is, as antecedent to process, these forms constitute an ordered system, complete and perfect; that the law and order and structure which we find in the actual world is entirely dependent upon and derivative from this antecedent perfect order (actual process only embodies or actualizes form; it doesn't generate form; it can however be held responsible for imperfections, confusions, conflicts, and the lack of order and structure in the actual world); and, finally, the realm of antecedent forms is in all ways more real, more intelligible, and of higher absolute value than the actual world 4.

 

There seem to be only two reasons for thinking that Whitehead is a Platonist. First, there is Whitehead's oft-repetition of eternal objects in Whitehead's system. If "actual occasions" are the most frequently occurring notion in his philosophy, "eternal objects" certainly are his second most prominent feature. What more natural than to associate this strange term with the most prominent feature of Platonism? But both of these arguments constitute a kind of "guilt by association". There are much more substantial and relevant arguments to the effect that Whitehead is not a Platonist 5.

 

I shall concentrate on two groups of such arguments: (1) arguments drawn from the general character of his philosophy, and (2) arguments concerning peculiarities of his specific doctrine of eternal objects which make it impossible to conceive them as in any basic way similar to "platonic forms".

 

(1)

Whitehead tries to develop a "process philosophy". Such philosophies are in general opposed to what is "static", emphasizing time rather than eternity and present actuality rather than some transcendent perfection. Whitehead has much in common with such arch-foes of Platonism" as Bergson 6 and Dewey 7. Not only does Whitehead's metaphysics emphasize actual flux rather than transcendent forms, but his epistemology is not what one would expect from a Platonist. Again he is clearly associated with the pragmatists, holding that thought and its concepts are not born out of and for detached contemplation, but rather out of and for real interaction with the world, adjusting to it (and it to the knower). 8 Whitehead has many affinities with empiricists and nominalists. 9 He is particularly sympathetic to Locke and Hume 10. In general, Whitehead is in many profound aspects of his philosophy in agreement with the foes of Platonism and essentialism 11.

The principal doctrine of Whitehead's metaphysics which places him firmly among the anti-Platonists, however, is his doctrine of the metaphysical primacy of actual existence, one of the best formulations, of which is his "ontological principle" 12. For a Platonist, ideal form has metaphysical priority over actual process, because he holds that the latter is derivative from the former. For Whitehead actual process is the most real kind of entity, and everything else, including eternal objects, are real only insofar as they function in and contribute to actual process.

 

(2)

 

What is an "eternal object"? One of the major sources of misunderstanding of Whitehead's philosophy comes from assuming that this question can be easily answered. It cannot be easily answered. Indeed, Whitehead never shows us an individual eternal object. It turns out that they cannot be displayed. They function always not as individuals, but only together, as the whole realm of eternal objects, and this functioning can be observed only in the context of actual process. So we never "see" an eternal object; we can only see that such a principle is a metaphysical necessity.

 

[Whitehead's own comments must point the way here:] "...what an eternal object is in itself - that is to say, its essence - is comprehensible without reference to some one particular occasion of experience." 13 Or, an even stronger statement, "Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an eternal object. 14" Neither of these statements, however, is a good definition of an eternal object 15. But other things are abstract for Whitehead besides eternal objects.

 

All sorts of feelings - including "propositional feelings" and "conceptual feelings" in general - all feelings but the total feeling process of each occasion are abstract in that they can transcend particular occasions.

What Whitehead seems to be getting at in the statement quoted above are not eternal objects in themselves, but rather "conceptual prehensions" or "conceptual feelings", which are the primary actualizations of eternal objects. These feelings, like all feelings, are themselves actualities. To "get at" what eternal objects in themselves are it is much better to take a metaphysical rather than an epistemological approach. In so doing we give up the quest to catch an eternal object in itself as some-thing we can "know" directly, but we discover the necessary functions which they must perform 16. It is, perhaps, naive to expect to experience directly every sort of entity which is found to be necessary to postulate in order to explain reality. Such a demand tries to make concrete actualities out of abstractions. This is just what Whitehead does not want to do. He believes in and employs certain abstractions, but they must not be confused with concrete actuality, the one true reality, towards which they contribute but do not replace 17.

Metaphysically, then, eternal objects in themselves are to be understood as "pure possibilities" of "definiteness" or "determinateness" 18. Now, "definiteness" is a trait only of actuality, so the whole meaning of eternal objects is to contribute something to actuality. In themselves they are merely "possibilities" or "potentialities". As such they are not independent entities, but aspects of actuality. Eternal objects are not suddenly evoked "...from not-being into being. It is the evocation of determination out of indetermination 19." Where does the "indetermination" reside while awaiting the "evocation"? There is "nowhere" but in actualities themselves, because there is nothing real outside of actual entities 20. It is my contention that Whitehead means that both "determination" or "indetermination", or "definiteness" and "possibility" are aspects of all actual entities. The actual includes the possible. This is the main metaphysical reason for the dynamic character of Whitehead's notion of actuality. it is not a concept of dead, accomplished "fact", stamped by the impress of form and then relegated to the realm of "mere fact"; it is rather the concept of the definite finite character within a constantly present vast and indefinite sea of possibilities, which actuality itself contains and which is always threatening to engulf any limited character selected from it, but which is also always available for any new definite character that actuality may seek to achieve.

 

Eternal objects then constitute a realm of pure possibilities, which realm is not a realm apart - a perfect realm of forms - but a functioning aspect of every concrete actuality. As such, there are two peculiarities to Whitehead's notion of eternal objects and their relations to actualities which seem to me to be utterly incompatible with the Platonic tradition. (a) The first is the extreme specificity of eternal objects - they are not just class concepts or generic traits, but account for every nuance of definiteness that any actuality has, or might ever manifest. (b) The second peculiarity is that not just one eternal object - an actuality's ideal pattern of form - functions in each occasion, but on the contrary, it is necessary to understand that all eternal objects - the whole realm - function in and are necessary to each and every actual entity.

 

Footnotes for Chapter Three-a (1-20):

1 "By insisting upon the subsistence of an exhaustive, eternal possibility, Whitehead reduces creation to selection from a catalogue" (Stallknecht, N.P., Studies in the Philosophy of Creation, Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1934, p. 137).

Mr. Edward Pols concludes that there is no real "freedom" in Whitehead's philosophy because his basic doctrine reduces to a kind of "essentialism" (op. cit.).

Millard (op. cit., p. 12) sees this tendency as in conflict with his position on values and says that "the major emphasis of his general metaphysical position" should have caused him to reject it. He calls this tendency "eternalism".`

2 Even such a generally sympathetic and understanding critic of Whitehead as Dorothy Emmet seems to think that Whitehead intends only minor modifications of this hoary old theory (Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, p. 138).

3 Many diverse and mutually conflicting philosophical schools appeal to Plato. It is well-known that Whitehead himself says that all subsequent philosophy is a series of footnotes on Plato. Whitehead means that the seeds of most important philosophical notions can be found in Plato, for he explored many lines of thought. There is no one simple, coherent doctrine in Plato. "Platonism" is merely one of the philosophical traditions tracing itself back to Plato.

4 Those who accuse Whitehead of "essentialism", much as E. Pols (op. cit.), are not, strictly speaking, accusing Whitehead of traditional "Platonism", for these critics do not mean that Whitehead regards the world as a reflection of ideal forms but, rather, as really constituted out ofd these forms, a view which was recently held by some of the "new realists", such as E.B. Holt in his Concept of Consciousness. It is this kind of doctrine that John Dewey himself "suspects" Whitehead of holding. Dewey gives quotations from Whitehead which "...seem to warrant the conclusion that the phrase [Whitehead's] saying that general characteristics or essences constitute natural existence is to be taken literally. Deficiency of my own intellectual grasp may be the cause of my belief that this entire strain of thought substitutes abstract logical connectedness for the concrete existential temporal connectedness upon which I have based my intepretation of Whitehead's system." ("The Philosophy of Whitehead", in Schilpp, op. cit., p. 658). Still other critics accuse Whitehead of an objective idealist's interpretation of Platonism. "...an actual occasion is constituted out of universals; only, as I see it, a sentient kind of universal, a concrete, and not an abstract, universal. Such universals would seem to function almost like a stuff, that is, to possess a kind of undifferentiated duration. They are eternal objects (Sellers, R.W., "The Philosophy of Organism and Physical Realism", in Schilpp, op. cit., p.411)."

5 In a later article on Whitehead, ("A.N. Whitehead: the Last Phase", Mind, vol. 47 (1948), p. 266), Miss Emmet seems to reach a similar conclusion. "He [Whitehead] does not assign any superior status to forms over against events; and at the end of the day the emphasis of his philosophy is on the world as a process from which formal patterns can be abstracted."

6 For whom static forms tend to play only the role of a sort of lurking metaphysical devil that takes the hindmost, an enemy of "life", beauty and reality.

7 Dewey condemns the philosophical tradition that concentrates on static essences and forms as evidence of a sort of mass neurosis, an "escape mechanism", and even as an instrument for class exploitation (The Quest for Certainty, ch. 1). There are sympathetic echoes of this protest in Whitehead's philosophy. On the level of social ethics, at least, he is acrimonious toward those who seek only to preserve the status quo, regarding it as the embodiment of some transcendent perfection (see below, ch. 7, Sec. C, of this paper). But even on a more general philosophical level, protests against the philosophic and religious dismissal of "turmoil". He is opposed to "changeless order conceived as the final perfection" (MT, p. 110). Insofar as the Hellenic Greeks were guilty of it, Whitehead says, it was due to the overinfluence of mathematics in their philosophy (MT, p. 111). And Whitehead thinks that there were many strains of Greek thought that escaped this baleful influence, especially in Plato. This is strange testimony from a noted mathematician, whose name is generally associated with making the formal mathematical pattern supreme above all else.

8 Whitehead may praise "pure science" and mathematics a little more than Dewey does, but he tends to justify pure science ultimately on practical grounds, and even the still more impractical study of philosophy on the basis of its utility for science and society.

Dewey, unfortunately, must be listed among those who do not understand Whitehead's metaphysics very well. He thinks that for Whitehead mathematics is about necessary relations among eternal objects in themselves. I hope to show that this assertion is not true of Whitehead' s doctrine in the next section of this chapter. Dewey says that essences should be subject to future revision ("The Philosophy of Whitehead", in Schilpp, op. cit., p. 659). In the sense in which Dewey here means "essence" - a pattern or law of the behavior of things - Whitehead too believes that they can and must be altered.

9 Could a Platonist or "essentialist" consistently write the following passage? "Consider in your mind some definite chair. The concept of that chair is simply the concept of all the interrelated experiences connected with that chair - namely, of the experience of the folk who made it, of the folk who sold it, of the folk who have seen it or used it, of the man who is now experiencing a comfortable sense of support, combined with our expectation of an analogous future, terminated finally by a different set of experiences when the chair collapses and becomes firewood." (Whitehead, AE. p. 159). Here we have a concept being built up by "association", by "projected operations", by "predictions" of future experience. Surely this must be an empiricist, perhaps even a positivist who has written this passage!

10 Indeed, he thinks of himself a much better empiricist than Hume, complaining that the latter's "impressions" are really disguised universal essences rather than real, immediate, physical experiences (PR., Pt. II, ch. 7).

11 PR., ch. vii, "I am also greatly indebted to Bergson, William James and John Dewey. One of my preoccupations has been to rescue their type of thought from the charge of anti-intellectualism, which rightly or wrongly has been associated with it."

His doctrine of eternal objects may be understood as one of the principal means by which he tries to do this; it is meant to supplement, not to oppose, his doctrine of flux.

12 See above, ch. 2, Sec. B, of this paper.

13 SMW., p. 228.

14 PR., p. 70. At this point Whitehead also says that he calls these entities eternal objects because the older terms "Platonic forms" and "essences" are frequently used in senses which he rejects.

15 "To be abstract is to transcend particular concrete occasions odf actual happening. (SMW., p. 228)."

16 Whitehead sometimes falls back on such mundane notions as "redness" or "threeness" as examples of eternal objects, but these are just the sort of entities which most exponents of "essences" seem to be thinking of. I am going to argue that notions such as these, insofar as we are aware of them in experience, indeed, insofar as they operate in any actuality, are never simple eternal objects in themselves. See below. Sec. C of this chapter.

17 Not only eternal objects, but such other abstract metaphysical principles as what Whitehead calls "creativity" are in this same position. We never encounter "creativity" in the raw, so to speak, but only as a factor in necessary actuality&emdash;that is, we can see that such a factor is necessary to explain certain aspects of concrete actuality as we experience it. See below, ch. 4, Sec. A, of this paper.

18 PR., p. 32. The fifth "category of existence" (this whole categorical scheme is supposed to be Whitehead's most succinct and precise statement of his system) describes eternal objects as "Pure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Fact, or Forms of Definiteness".

19 PR., p. 226.

20 Including God, of course. See below, ch. 4, Sec. B of this paper.

 

 

(a)

 

Traditional Platonism leaves room for individual differences among actualities which are not attributable to their "forms", but rather are attributed to their "matter", their brute factuality. The form was thought of as a generic notion describing a class, but not accounting for all of the blemishes and deviations of the individual actualities which are members of the class. It is clear, however, that the relation of Whitehead's eternal objects to the actualities in which they "ingress" cannot be understood in this way.

 

There is no character belonging to the actual apart from its exclusive de-termination by selected eternal objects,. The definiteness of the actual arises from the exclusiveness of eternal objects in their function as determinants. If the actual entity be this, then by the nature of the case it is not that or that. The fact of incompatible alternatives is the ultimate fact in virtue of which there is definite character 21.

 

Commentators on Whitehead's philosophy, even those who are rather friendly towards the idea of reinstating universals or essences in metaphysics, find it difficult to accept this extreme specificity of eternal objects 22. Certainly, any Platonistically inclined person should find this aspect of Whitehead's doctrine of eternal objects rather uncomfortable, if he stops to consider it seriously 23.

 

Indeed, it seems to us that Whitehead leaves no doubt that he means by this notion of specificity of eternal objects to reject any identification of his view with that of Platonism. He says that he is opposed to the "class theory of individual fact", on the grounds that members of a class are not "really diverse", being separated from each other only by "disjunction", a relation among "potentials", and therefore not adequate to differentiate one actuality from another. 24

 

Whitehead believes that it is because of the extreme specificity of eternal objects that individual actualities are penetrable by reason. Eternal objects underlie every facet of individual definiteness, and eternal objects can be known and are not altered by the knowing process. This does not mean, however, that eternal objects alone account for actuality. The word "objective" must be noted; it is only the final "objective" content of individual actualities that is accounted for by eternal objects. 25 Eternal objects provide a common medium of exchange and communi-cation between all actualities, but they do not account for the "formal" reality of any actuality.

 

Though it has been obvious to many that this specificity of eternal objects did not agree with traditional Platonism, it has led to the accusation of an even more extreme kind of "essentialism", the notion that actualities are not reflections in some sort of recalcitrant medium of formal patterns, but are, rather, altogether nothing but complex "intersections" of a vast number of essences. This is not, however, Whitehead's view. Indeed, he definitely rejects it in the very passage in which he rejects the Platonic class-theory notion of the relation of universals to actualities. He says that an interaction of universals, no matter how many were involved, would nevertheless always be merely a universal and so would describe only a class. Even if this class had only one member, the class cannot be transmuted into the actuality which is its member. A class is always a "mere multiplicity" and so can never be a "proper entity" 26. - An actuality is not just a mass of eternal objects. There is something else in an actuality - the "cement" that holds the eternal objects together in that particular configuration 27.

 

But other bad consequences threaten to follow from Whitehead's attribution of all definiteness to eternal objects. Particularly threatened seems to be his assertions that there is real "freedom" and real "novelty" in actual process. How can there be real novelty if all possible developments in actuality are prefigured antecedently and eternally in the realm of eternal objects? And how can actualities, every aspect of which is determined by eternal objects, be free? And yet novelty and freedom are both essential to creative process, and there can be no doubt that Whitehead asserts that actual process is characterized by real novelty and real freedom. This apparent contradiction is, of course, just another paradox of Whitehead's philosophy. It will take the rest of this chapter to explain it. It may be suggested here, however, that the explanation lies in the very specificity and multiplicity of eternal objects. There are too many of them, and they are too fine-grained, too ready in yielding any possible shade of definiteness to assert any control over or put any limitation on actual process. Indeed, it is actual process which must supply the limitation.

 

(b)

 

The second peculiarity of Whitehead's doctrine of eternal objects would seem to contradict the first, for, whereas the specificity of eternal objects was used to account for the "objective diversity" of actual occasions, one from another, this second peculiarity of Whitehead's theory - that all eternal objects (the whole infinite realm of them) must function in every occasion - seems to say that occasions are all alike as to the eternal objects which function in them. Perhaps it is just as well that most commentators on Whitehead do not seem to be fully aware of this aspect of his doctrine (more of them would otherwise have completely rejected his philosophy). It is nevertheless true. Indeed, Whitehead states definitely that all stored objects function in each occasion 28 "...every item in its universe ["actual" or "potential"] is involved in every concrescence" - this Whitehead describes as the basic "principle of relativity" true for all actual entities 29. Whitehead repeats this assertion elsewhere: "Each actual entity is an arrangement of the whole universe, actual and ideal..." 30; and "Every actual occasion ...defines itself as a particular individual achievement, focussing in its limited way an unbounded realm of eternal objects. 31 "

 

But "where" are the unrealized and rejected eternal objects? If they had a realm of "subsistence" of their own, the demand to locate them could be dismissed as naive physicalism. But they don't have any such independence for Whitehead 32. I have already suggested that for Whitehead the possible, the indeterminate, the merely potential is an aspect of actual process 33. This means that unrealized eternal objects function somehow in each actuality along with those that have more definite and positive ingression. It seems that when Whitehead says that an eternal object always retains "an indefinite diversity of modes of ingression" 34, he doesn't mean merely the tame Platonic notion that a form is not exhausted by any number of actualizations which participate in it, but rather, as his context here states, that the ingression in each occasion is capable of a fantastically broad variation, from complete "relevance" to complete "irrelevance". The point is that "irrelevance" is a kind of functioning. What Whitehead means in all seriousness seems to be that in a sense the form of "red" is in "blue" things, or, to give a slightly more elaborate example, not only is the form of "oak" in all oak trees, actually, and in all acorns potentially, but it also contributes to the definiteness of pine trees, shoe trees and my great grandmother.

 

Footnotes for Chapter Three-a (21-34):

21 PR., p. 367. From what little I know of Plotinus, I gather that on this point Whitehead is nearer to him than he is to Plato.

22 Charles Hartshorne states that Whitehead makes eternal objects "too definite" and admits that he, Hartshorne, would rather have "determinate distinctions of quality emerge in process" ("Whitehead's Idea of God", in Schilpp, op. cit., p. 556).

23 Dorothy Emmet reminds us that Plato represents Socrates in the Parmenides as shocked at the thought of admitting "ideas" of mud and hair into his "heaven of forms". She goes on to say, "He might have been even more shocked at Whitehead's unrestricted immigration policy (Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, p. 134)."

24 PR., p. 348.

25 Whitehead's most formal statement of the accountability of individual facts to eternal objects is the "category of objective diversity", which says that every item in an actuality must be "objectively" diverse from every other item. The key word is "objectively". "Objective" is one of those words which Whitehead uses in a technical sense quite at variance with common usage. What is "objective" in any actuality is what comes to it from without, or what it itself contributes to other actual entities; that is, what transcends the actuality in question. Eternal objects are the final objective content of all actualities. "Objective" is opposed to "formal". What a thing is formally is what a thing is for itself or in itself, or what it contributes to its own existence.

26 PR., p. 348.

27 It has already been suggested in the last chapter that this "cement", this stuff of actuality, is feeling. See below, Sec. C of this chapter for an elaboration of this view.

28 My discussion of the "relational essence" of every eternal object, see below, pp. 127-135 of Sec. B of this chapter, will finally show why this must be. Each eternal object is so related essentially to all others that the whole realm is involved as a total field of relationship by the choice of any one.

29 PR., p. 33.

30 RM., p. 100.

31 SMW., p. 253.

32 See above, p. 41 of this section.

33 PR., p. 226.

34 PR., p. 69 (Italics mine).

  

How can all eternal objects be involved in each occasion? Surely each occasion must "select" some and "reject" others in order to have any definite character. Yes, that is exactly what happens.

 

The determinate definiteness of each actuality is an expression of a selection from these forms. It grades them in a diversity of relevance. This ordering of relevance starts from these forms which are, in the fullest sense, exemplified, and passes through grades of relevance sown to those forms which in some faint sense are proximately relevant by reason of contrast with actual fact 35.

 

The secret of how all eternal objects can enter into each occasion and the meaning of "how" in the question as to "how eternal objects ingress" is that there are "grades", "ordering", and "diversity" of relevance of eternal objects to each occasion, and, most important of all, included in this grading and ordering, is outright rejection of some eternal objects as not characterizing that occasion. This paradoxical process of functioning through being rejected is carried on through what Whitehead calls "negative prehensions". Other actual occasions can only be prehended positively; "negative prehensions" are always of eternal objects 36. These negative prehensions are still positive contributions to the process of an actual occasion, however.

 

An actual entity has a perfectly definite bond with each item of the universe. This determinate bond is its prehension of that item. A negative prehension is the definite exclusion of that item from positive contribution to the subject's own real internal constitution. This doctrine involves the position that a negative prehension expresses a bond. A positive prehension is the definite inclusion of that item into positive contribution to the subject's own real internal constitution. This positive inclusion is called its 'feeling' of that item. Other entities are required to express how any one item is felt. All actual entities in the actual world, relatively to a given actual entity as 'subject', are necessarily 'felt' by that subject, though in general vaguely. ...only a selection of eternal objects are then said to have 'ingression' in that subject. But those eternal objects which are not felt are not therefore negligible. For each negative prehension has its own subjective form, however trivial and faint. It adds to the emotional complex though not to the objective data... the negative prehension of an entity is a positive fact with its emotional subjective form... 37.

 

In chapter two of this paper I explained that for Whitehead all actual entities are constituted out of "feelings". A negative prehension is said to "eliminate from feeling", yet it is also said to contribute to "subjective form", which is an aspect of every feeling 38. Indeed, the negative prehensions each have their own subjective forms which they contribute to the actual occasion having them 39.

This apparent contradiction can be solved by noting what it is that is eliminated from feeling. A negative prehension

 

...is active via its contribution of its subjective form to the creative process, but it dismisses its 'object' from the possibility of entering into the datum of the final satisfaction 40.

 

The "object", supposedly the "individual essence" of the eternal object, is excluded; that is, to does not positively characterize the actual occasion in question. But "not characterizing" may be much more significant than characterizing an occasion. it is done by a positive act of renunciation and rejection.

 

A feeling bears on itself the scars of its birth; it recollects as a subjective emotion its struggle for existence; it retains the impress of what it might have been, but is not. It is for this reason that what an actual entity has avoided as a datum for feeling may yet be an important part of its equipment. The actual cannot be reduced to mere matter of fact in divorce from the potential. 41

 

Now elimination is a positive fact, so that the background of discarded data adds a tone of feeling to the whole pulsation. No fact of history, personal or social, is understood until we know what has escaped and the narrowness of the escape 42.

 

Allowing the entire realm of eternal objects, full as it is of attributes which in many actualities would be incompatible contraries if all were equally realized, to function in each actuality would seem to threaten to engulf these actualities in chaos rather than to give them a completely definite character. But such a view is based on an insipid and one-sided view of what it is like to have a definite character. In a feudal universe each entity might placidly accept a status handed down to it. But in Whitehead's universe this is not so. Each actuality fights to become what it is, rejects other possible professions, and regards its positive choices as achievements to be held on to and, if possible, perpetuated. To have a definite character is to be something, but it is also not to be many other things 43. Infinity must be a factor in the situation in order that selection and rejection have something to work on; it is the totality which is differentiated into actual figure contrasted with and standing out from a background. Finitude is the achievement of a moment of tense equilibrium in which the boundless sea of infinity is briefly stilled and held in check. In some ways the achievement is even greater (and has more value) because it is certain that unfathomable infinity cannot be held under control for long; irresistible waves will soon rise out of its dark depths and drown its momentary master.

 

And so these two peculiar aspects of Whitehead's notion of eternal objects: that there are not just generic universal forms, but essences for every shade of definiteness; and that the whole realm of eternal objects functions in each moment of actuality - may not wreck Whitehead's philosophy and reduce it to utter confusion after all. Nor may it impose the domination of dead and static form on the process of actuality, but may, rather, help to prepare the way for the metaphysical ascendancy of the temporal over the eternal, the moving over the static, and the free and creative over the determined and derivative. Having, I hope, at least cast doubt on an uncritical "Platonic" interpretation of Whitehead's doctrine, and on other forms of "essentialism" of which he has been accused, I can now proceed to explain the limited but necessary function of eternal objects in Whitehead's philosophy.

 

Footnotes for Chapter Three-a (35-43):

35 PR., p. 335 and p. 336.

36 PR., p. 66. Similar statements occur on pp. 233-4 in PR. Calling an actual entity a "subject" and the term "subjective form" are explained in chapter 2, Sec. C of this paper (Italics mine except "how").

37 PR., p. 35.

38 PR., p. 346.

39 AT., p. 298. "Satisfaction" is a technical term which will be explained in chapter 5.

40 PR., p. 346.

41 MT, p. 122.

42 "All forms of realization express some aspect of finitude. Such a form expresses its nature as being this, and not that. In other words, it expresses exclusion, and exclusion means finitude." (MT., p. 107). There is a region of agreement here between Whitehead and Plato. Plato disliked infinity and found perfection in the forms of limitation. The infinite was a wild, irrational chaos for him, but Plato associated this chaos with pure "matter" only. Whitehead makes pure form an infinite, unlimited chaos too (but, in itself, a passive chaos). He too sees limitation and finitude as the road to any positive achievement.

43 PR., p. 337. Thus in one respect Whitehead is forsaking the Christian-Platonic tradition and returning to Plato himself. This tradition says that the realm of forms constitutes the mind of God and has no independent reality. Whitehead says, "He [God] does not create eternal objects; for his nature requires them in the same degree that they require him (PR., p. 392)."

 

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