Whitehead Chapter Three Section B

METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR A THEORY OF VALUE

IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF A. N. WHITEHEAD

Chapter Three (continued)

"Eternal Objects"

[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 B:

Pure Potentiality:

The Nature and Function of the Realm of Eternal Objects

In this section I shall consider (1) the nature of eternal objects in among themselves - that is, "pure potentiality" - and (2) the limited metaphysical functions performed by eternal objects in Whitehead's philosophy.

(1)

The argument of this sub-section is that there are some aspects of eternal objects which are independent of the actualities in which they ingress. But in order to "get at" these aspects it is necessary to perform the supreme act of abstraction. One must abstract from "the objective intervention of actual entities belonging to any definite actual world, including God among the actualities abstracted from 44." But these independent aspects of eternal objects in themselves in no way make eternal objects self-subsistent, independent realities, nor do they account for, limit or control the "real togetherness" of eternal objects which constitute the definite characters of actualities.

What can be known about the realm of eternal objects in itself? Not much. For eternal objects function only in actualities, and we can be aware of them only in and through actualities. We can know only those properties which it is necessary to ascribe to eternal objects in order for actuality to be what it is. What are these properties? They are mainly two in number: eternal objects in themselves each have (a) an "individual essence" and (b) a "relational essence".

(a)

It is necessary that each eternal object have in itself an "individual essence" so that it can confer one definite character upon actualities. There is no requirement, however, as to how simple or how complex this individual essence need be. Whitehead says that there are both simple and complex eternal objects, and, in fact, it frequently seems that the individual essence of the same eternal object may be regarded as either simple or complex, depending on which of its relations to other eternal objects is being considered.

It is doubtful whether we ever experience a simple eternal object, or even whether we ever experience just one single eternal object, even a very complex one. But, just for the purposes of illustrating the relation between simplicity and complexity, that red, sphere and rubber are relatively simple eternal objects. Then, according to Whitehead's theory, there must be such complex eternal objects as red-sphere and red-rubber-sphere. And this would not by any means be an example of the most complex eternal object; a definite description such as this-red-rubber-ball-with-a-cut-right-here-and-belonging-to-my-little-boy-Tommy has one exceedingly complex eternal object accounting for just this peculiar shade of definiteness. The extreme specificity of eternal objects suggested by the above example has already been mentioned. The point here is to see, first, that there is an infinity of eternal objects, each with its own individual essence; and, secondly, that some eternal objects have such complex individual essences that they can ingress fully, or be fully realized, in only one actual occasion. The peculiar character of this particular ball never existed before, and it will never be realized again. Indeed, not only "enduring objects" like this ball, which consists of a whole "nexus" of occasions, but every actual occasion in it, and every actual occasion whatever - every momentary pulsation of actuality - realizes completely just one complex eternal object, though all the others are involved in it. And so rich is the realm of eternal objects, that it contains an inexhaustible supply of these complex eternal objects which are fully realized, "ingress in the most concrete mode", once and only once.

The effect of this extreme specificity and profusion of eternal objects is to liberate actualities from their dominance. More generic forms could exercise control over actuality. All oak trees would be subject to the eternal plan and form of oak. For Whitehead this is not so. Eternal objects exercise no such control. Even if an acorn sprouted into a purple dragon with fifty-one heads, all spitting fire, the rich and accommodating realm of eternal objects would furnish the requisite essences for this peculiar realization of definiteness. 45 Only actuality is active in its relationship to eternal objects - it draws upon them; they do not direct it.

(b)

The "relational essence" of each eternal object seems to offer more of a threat to the freedom of actual process. First, it is the relational essence of each eternal object which makes of the totality of eternal objects not just a heap but an organized "realm 46". Secondly, Whitehead says, "Thus relational essence determines how it is possible for the [eternal] object to have ingression into actual occasions 47." But the relational essence does not organize eternal objects into the patterns which we recognize in actualities. The organization it brings is of almost inconceivable generality, and the relevance to actuality which it assures is only that whenever any eternal object ingresses into an actuality, either a finite group of the others or all of the others, depending on the mode of ingression &endash; conceptual or physical &endash; are involved in this ingression.

To establish these conclusions, I will first show what they are not. They are not the "contrasts" among eternal objects which are achieved in actual occasions. 48 "Contrasts" are specific to their relata; they cannot hold between any two things or even between limited classes of things, but only between those specific entities be-tween which they do hold.

The diversity of status, combined with the real unity of the components, means that the real synthesis of the two component elements ... must be infected with the individual particularities of each of the relata. Thus the synthesis in its completeness arising expresses the joint particularities of that pair of relata, and can relate no others. A complex entity with this individual definiteness, out of de-terminateness of eternal objects, will be termed a "contrast". A contrast cannot be abstracted from the contrasted relata. 49

The relational essence of an eternal object makes no such claim on its terms, which are the individual essences of eternal objects.

... the relational essence of an eternal object is not unique to that object. The mere relational essence of each eternal object determines the complete uniform scheme of relational essences, since each object stands internally in all its possible relationships. ... Accordingly, the relationships (as in possibility) do not involve the individual essences of the eternal objects; they involve any eternal objects as relata, subject to the proviso that these relata have the requisite relational essences. ... This principle is the principle of the Isolation of Eternal Objects in the realm of possibility. The eternal objects are isolated because their relationships as possibilities are expressible without reference to their respective individual essences 50.

All of the usual relations which we think of as being highly abstract, even the mathematical and logical relations, would seem to involve something besides the relational essences of eternal objects, because, "What are ordinarily termed relations are abstractions from contrasts. A relation can be found in many contrasts; and when it is so found, it is said to relate the things contrasted 51". Even such abstract and general a logical relation as inconsistency involves actual process to develop it, and actual process can also overcome inconsistency, which it couldn't do if inconsistency were an aspect of the eternal over-all relatedness of eternal objects.

The concept that two propositions, which we will name p and q, are inconsistent, must mean that in the modes of togetherness illustrated in some presupposed environment the meanings of the propositions p and q cannot both occur. Neither meaning may occur or either may occur, but not both. Now process is the way by which the universe escapes from the exclusions of inconsistency 52.

These basic logical relations are all creatures of process. They are not what is meant by the relational essences in pure potentiality.

In the nature of things there are no ultimate exclusions, expressive in logical terms. For if we extend the stretch of our attention throughout the passage of time, two entities which are inconsistent for occurrence on this planet during a certain day in the long past and are inconsistent during another day in the more recent past - these two entities may be consistent when we embrace the whole period involved, one entity occurring during the earlier day, and the other during the later day. Thus incon-sistency is relative to the abstraction involved 53.

What then are "relational essences"? They are internal to each eternal object, so no eternal object can be without one 54. What the relational essence does is to permit the association of this eternal object in an actuality with any other eternal object. Exclusions are the work of actuality. Relational essences permit making any grouping of eternal objects; they permit the construction of special finite relations among eternal objects, but they do not themselves carry on this construction. They are a sort of medium making all eternal objects accessible from any one and permitting them to be pushed around in relation to each other 55.

Now the construction of "contrasts", the most general term for all the structures of eternal objects - "patterns", "order", "perspectives", "laws" - which are generated in, exist in, and exercise control over actualities, cannot be discussed in this section, for this topic involves the relations among actual entities, not just the relations among eternal objects. Eternal objects and their eternal relations have only a passive and permissive function. The individual essences will give definiteness for any actual character, and the relational essences provide access for the construction of any determinate bonds between eternal objects. They are ways of getting from any eternal object to any other without individual consideration of all of the others. 56

If we confine our attention to eternal objects in themselves, the result of an act of ordering carried on by actual process is an "abstractive hierarchy" 57. But there is no sense at all to all of this elaborate machinery so long as the discussion remains on the level of pure potentiality, so long as we consider only the possible relations of eternal objects in themselves. All that need be said is that pure potentiality permits the erection of these structures, just as the beach sands permit their sculpturing by the waves or by a sand artist. The reason for interest in abstractive hierarchies is that they reflect the ways in which actual occasions do in actuality combine eter-nal objects 58.

After seeing how the relational essences of eternal objects permit the arrangement of them into all sorts of patterns and the isolation of finite groups of them, even though they may involve each eternal object in an overall relationship to all of the other eternal objects, it may now be possible to construct an analogy which will make these paradoxical relational essences a little more credible. This analogy is my own, but I think that Whitehead suggests it indirectly. The analogy is that relational essences of eternal objects are like space-time relationships holding among actual entities. What Whitehead suggests is that,

... the spatio-temporal relationship in terms of which the actual course of events is to be expressed, is nothing else than a selective limitation within the general systematic relationships among eternal objects 59".

The common aspects of space-time and relational essences are those, as I see it. As the former system of relations is internal to each actual occasion, so the latter is internal to each eternal object. As the former relates all actual occasions, so the latter is internal to each eternal object. As the former relates all actual occasions to any one taken as a center, so the latter relates the whole realm of eternal objects to any one eternal object taken as a center. As spatio-temporal relations make one realm of all actuality and yet permit the isolation of finite regions and definite figures in space and limited spans of time; so relational essences, though they make all eternal objects internal to each eternal object and make of the totality of eternal objects an organized "realm," nevertheless permit the isolation of selected relations and the construction of finite abstractive hierarchies. It is necessary to have these systems of overall, mutual, internal relationships among entities in order to make finite definiteness possible, but this necessity is easier to see in the case of space-time, and particularly in the case of space (even traditional geometric space) than in the case of the unimaginable relations among eternal objects. I believe, however, that the notion of relational essences can be understood as a similar system of relations to that we call space-time, but holding between eternal objects rather than actualities, and being much more general, not subject to such limitations as dimensionality, which are not eternal and metaphysically necessary, but originate in actuality.

If the foregoing description of the realm of eternal objects in itself is close to what Whitehead intends, then it is clear that eternal objects do not, either in their individual essences or in their relational essences, direct or control or limit the course of actuality. Indeed, eternal objects are so designed as to permit, almost to encourage, the free development of actuality. Actuality is constantly putting itself in bondage to its own dead past, but it can, and eventually does, break these bonds of its own fashioning. Actualities are not in eternal bondage to eternal objects. There is no absolute metaphysical order, even on the mathematical and logical level.

Apart from actuality, apart from some kind of realization in actuality, even if it is only "conceptual" and so still partially potential, particularly apart from the conceptual realization which they receive in the primordial nature of God; eternal objects determine nothing. They provide no "reasons" for anything being as it is, because a "reason" is always an appeal to some actual condition. 60 Eternal objects tell no tales as to their own ingressions, and this is "the ultimate ground of empiricism"; only the actual facts reveal how things are and why they are that way 61. "Thus the endeavour to understand eternal objects in complete abstraction from the actual world results in reducing them to mere undifferentiated nonentities 62.

The realm of eternal objects in itself is a formless infinity, a heap, held together only by a kind of mutual relationship almost too loose to conceive. It is formless because it is too rich in forms, none of which are adjusted to each other. It is infinite because it contains infinite possibilities of definiteness. But it can do nothing, determine nothing, be nothing in itself. "Apart from the finite the infinite is devoid of meaning and cannot be distinguished from nonentity 63 ".

Footnotes for Chapter Three Section B (44-63):

44 Actual acorns, of course, are likely to develop into nothing but oak trees, but the compulsion to do so does not come from the realm of eternal objects but from the "real potentialities", the actual character dominant in the ancestors of the occasions in the seedling. It is they, the previous actualities in their "objective immortality", which exercise the influence to conformity. See Sec. C of this ch. for further discussion.

45 SMW., p. 230.

46 SMW., p. 230.

47 See above, ch. 2, Sec. D, and below, Sec. C of this chapter.

48 PR., p. 349.

49 SMW., pp. 237-38.

50 PR., p. 349.

51 MT., p. 75. The logical relation which Whitehead calls "inconsistency" is Sheffer's stroke function "/".

52 MT., p. 76. I don't believe that it can be established that Whitehead means that eternal relations impose separate realizations, removed from each other in time, on certain characters, for, as I shall try to show in Sec. C of ch. 6, an actual consummation is successful to the extent that it achieves joint realization of characters which previously seemed to exclude each other.

53 SMW., p. 230

54 "The relationships of A [any eternal object] to any actual entity are simply how the eternal relationships of A to other eternal objects [A's relational essence] are graded as to their realization in that occasion (SMW., p. 231)". The actual occasions do the "grading" , as we shall see in the next section. Indeed, these "gradings" of eternal objects are "contrasts". Relational essences do not determine contrasts; they permit the construction of contrasts.

55 "The difficulty involved in the concept of finite internal relations among eternal objects is thus evaded by two metaphysical principles, (i) that the relationships of any eternal object A, considered as constitutive of A, merely involve other eternal objects as bare relata without reference to their individual essences, and (ii) that the divisibility of the general relationship of A into a multiplicity of finite relationships of A stands therefore in the essence of that eternal object. The second principle obviously depends upon the first. To understand A is to understand the how of a general scheme of relationship. This scheme does not require the individual uniqueness of the other relata for its comprehension. This scheme also discloses itself as being analysable into a multiplicity of limited relationships which have their own individuality and yet at the same time presuppose the total relationship within possibility. ... (SMW., pp. 238-39)."

56 Abstractive hierarchies are discussed in ch. 10 of SMW. Because of the limitation in length imposed on this paper, I have had to omit my discussion of this analysis. The burthen of it was to show that "abstractive hierarchies" are not ways in which eternal objects must be organized in all actualities, but rather they show the ways in which they can be organized. Eternal objects are such that any one may be taken as the "vertex" of an abstractive hierarchy, and then a finite or an infinite number of others can be arranged under it as constituting various levels of its analysis.

57 Any actual occasion "prehends" a group of other actual occasions, each realizing a complex eternal object as its own peculiar definiteness. The prehending occasion combines these old patterns into a new pattern having them as components. Its realized pattern in turn will be one among many components for the formation of a new pattern in a future occasion. Thus we have need of successive levels of complexity of pattern, each having the last level as its components. And there is always one central pattern, the pattern of the present occasion, from which the analysis starts. The pattern of any occasion may be taken as the starting point of analysis, the "vertex" of an abstractive hierarchy. Its analyzed components are the are the patterns of preceding occasions which the occasion with which we started has directly prehended. The direct "ancestors" of these occasions furnish their components, and so on. The level taken as the base would be an arbitrary starting point from this point of view, but there are many arbitrary things about the account of abstractive hierarchies.

I do not believe that this account in Science and the Modern World directly contradicts the analysis of actual occasions which appears later in Process and Reality, as some critics do, but I think that the latter exploration of the relations among actualities reveals depths and tremendous vistas, of which Whitehead was not fully aware when he wrote the earlier account of abstractive hierarchies.

58 Space-time relationships introduce "arbitrary" limitations peculiar to the actual course of events. Actuality has determined that there be just four dimensions. Whitehead suggests that other schemes are possible, and that in another "epoch" even spatio-temporal dimensions as we know them might be prominent features of actual things. Relations among eternal objects do not determine the specific character of spatio-temporal relations; actuality itself determines this character, but, still, space-time relations may have something in common with the non-actual relations among eternal objects, for, "This spatio-temporal scheme is, so to speak, the greatest common measure of the schemes of relationship (as limited by actuality) inherent in all the eternal objects (SMW, p. 239)."

59 PR., p. 392.

60 PR., p. 391.

61 PR., p. 392.

62 "Mathematics and the Good," in Schilpp, P.A., op. cit., p. 674. Ely, S.L., remarks that in SMW Whitehead believed that the realm of eternal objects was ordered in itself, but when he wrote PR., he no longer thought so. (The Religious Availability of Whitehead's God), pp. 18-19. Certainly Whitehead emphasizes the lack of organization of eternal objects in themselves more in PR., but I believe that a careful analysis of ch. 10 of SMW., will reinforce and explain this conclusion, not contradict it.

63 It is questionable whether there are any pure conceptual feelings in finite actual occasions, since they have already been felt - and so been at least slightly actualized - in the primordial nature of God.

(2)

But if eternal objects are so passive, if they don't account for the actual structure of the world, why invoke them? At best they seem to be more trouble than they are worth, calling as they do for all sorts of involved technical explanations, and at their worst they seem incompatible with a metaphysical position which says that concrete actuality and ceaseless process are ultimately real. And yet, it is just because of his emphasis on change and process that Whitehead feels that eternal objects are particularly necessary. The realm of eternal objects constitutes a solid, reliable bed-rock of uniform quality and exceedingly fine grain which can stand up under the terrific beating that unceasing flux imposes on the universe and on the human mind. Things are so turbulent and wild - since actuality is nothing but an avalanche of fleeting moments of process - that the universe would fly apart in a millisecond if it were not for the unobtrusive, cohesive function of eternal objects.

More precisely, the function of the realm of eternal objects is (a) to provide an ultimate "objective" content for feeling, which would otherwise rob Whitehead's actual process of any objective content whatsoever; and (b) to provide the fundamental identity amid the change and profuse diversity of actuality. Indeed, it is only through this identity-function of the realm of eternal objects that real diversity among actualities and the self-identity and discreteness of each individual actuality is possible.

(a)

Eternal objects provide the ultimate objective content of all feelings. Actuality for Whitehead is feeling, and feeling is continual active process. There is no underlying "substance" in actuality which remains identical through change. Only feeling is the "stuff" of actuality. But, then, what is felt? In Whitehead's philosophy there are only two possible "objects" for feeling: another feeling or an eternal object. Feelings of other feelings are "physical feelings", and feelings of eternal objects are "conceptual feelings" 64.

Most feelings have other feelings as their objects. But if the object of a feeling is a feeling, and the object of the second feeling is a third feeling, and so on, there seems to be danger of getting into an infinite regress of feeling. We are reminded of the problems involved in the older causal analysis of actual process in which each cause had to be conceived as itself an effect, which in turn called for a previous cause, and so on without end. One way sometimes offered of trying to break this regress, it will be remembered, was to postulate a "first cause" which was not itself an effect. But since this first cause was then not subject to all the conditions of being an agent in the actual world, it could only be a non-natural entity. Whitehead's eternal objects sometimes seem to terminate the regress of feelings in a similar manner, by introducing eternal objects as ultimate and original non-actual objects of feeling.

The 'first cause" was not entirely satisfactory as an explanation, however. It introduced foreign notions which destroyed the clear, consistent meaning of the causal relation. If eternal objects had to be understood as ultimate and original starting points for feeling, similar objections could have to be made. They are in themselves non-active and passive 65. Even without introducing the factor of God, it is evident that the "objective" functioning of eternal objects in each actual occasion, each feeling, must be immanent. The objective content of every feeling is both other feelings and eternal objects 66. A feeling feels feelings, which are feelings of feelings, and so on. Thus a feeling is aware of causal derivation, of a "vector" quality in what it feels. But feeling does not merely feel a puff of transmitted emptiness. What is being pushed on into the feeling is a definite set of characteristics. The definite character of the object is usually felt more vaguely than its "push". Only the more complicated feelings, such as those which are conspicuous in human experience, are more or less clearly aware of the definite pattern of eternal objects in its "data". But whether it is clearly felt or not, it is the definite character which the eternal objects give to a feeling in which they are ingredient which gives that feeling its ulti-mate objective content, a content which cannot be resolved into an eternal regress of other feelings, because it is present in each of these feelings.

Eternal objects provide some of the advantages of a notion of atomism, although Whitehead rejects both physical and psychological atomism - both Democritus and Hume.

There is no simple starting point in actuality: the element of simple self-identity is neither physical atom nor psychological "impression"; it is a passive ubiquitous, non-actual entity, an eternal object. The simplest physical and psychological entities are complex processes, not "simply located", not independent of other things, and not internally simple. The simplest awareness is not a blank "given" blob of pure sensation, but a feeling of derivation from a total past, seeking unity with a multiplicity of other feelings, making claims on a total future, and containing the whole real of possibility. And yet Whitehead agrees with Hume and the atomists in seeking a multiplicity of simple, self-identical entities, which combine and recombine in different patterns to account for change and the actual differences among things. Only he makes these entities universal possibilities rather than actual facts.

Such entities should not interfere with nor limit the interpenetrating fluidity of actuality. Indeed, Whitehead thinks that they make it possible. Each eternal object in its "individual essence" is an incorruptible, unchangeable, self-identical trait which can enter into the wildest adventures of actual process, be passed on from feeling to feeling ad infinitum, and never show the slightest sign of wear or alteration.

... each eternal object is an individual which, in its own peculiar fashion, is what it is. This particular individuality is the individual essence of the object, and cannot be described otherwise than as being itself. Thus the individual essence is merely the essence considered in respect to its uniqueness. This unique contribution is identical for all such occasions in respect to the fact that the object in all modes of ingression is just its identical self. But it varies from one occasion to another in respect to the differences of its mode of ingression 67.

The metaphysical formulation of its relation to actual occasions which accounts for this immunity to wear is that this relation is external insofar as the actual occasion is concerned 68. An eternal object is a necessary ingredient in each actuality and helps give it its own peculiar nature, but the eternal object in itself is not altered or in any way affected by this relation.

(b)

The basic necessary function of the realm of eternal objects in actual process, therefore, is that of providing not only just content in general but identity in the flux. And on this identity individual differences and individual self-identity are based. In some ways this second function is merely a broader consideration of the first function of giving ultimate objective content. "Identity" is complex and has many aspects. (i) There is the total identity of all actuality which assures us that in spite of its internal diversity and conflict we are faced with one world. (ii) There is the old problem of the particular identity underlying similar but different things, the identity necessary to "change". (iii) There is the identity between knowing and what is known, between symbol and referend, which has occupied the center of the stage in modern times. In all of these problems of identity the realm of eternal objects plays a major role.

(i) In the last section of this chapter I tried to show that all eternal objects, the whole realm, function in each occasion. If this is true, then here is an element of identity guaranteed for every possible actuality, no matter what cosmic revolutions may shake the actual world. The most remote and inconceivably strange developments in actual process will be one with the present moment in containing the same unaltered realm of possibility. Actualities can differ only in how the components of this realm function - which ones contribute positively to the definiteness of each actual entity and which ones are "negatively prehended" - but it is the same total realm of eternal objects which must function in any possible instance of actuality.

(ii) Not only do eternal objects account for the identity of the world as a whole, but they help account for the identities of similar actualities, particularly those located at different stages of a process of change. In so doing, eternal objects also account for the identity of an actual process which we recognize as unchanged, that is, for an endurance. And through accounting for particular identities they also help account for particular and specific differences in the actual world. An actual occasion which must take account of a group of other actualities, each displaying a similar pattern of eternal objects, will "identify" the members of the group with each other and regard the whole group as one object, so far as there is simultaneity of occasions having the pattern, and one enduring object, so far as there is temporal succession among the occasions displaying a similar pattern of eternal objects. The eternal objects which identify these many occasions also mark them off from all other occasions, so that they are the final ground of particular identify and diversity among actualities.

Furthermore, actualities identify themselves by the eternal objects which are prominent in their definiteness. They regard these characteristics, though they are eternal and capable of ingressing in all other actualities, as peculiarly their own. And they use them to identify themselves with their own past and to distinguish their past from other past facts which they must take account of. Thus, to sum up in a rather obvious example, if I had red hair, other people would quickly come to recognize me by this characteristic; they might even call me "Red". What is more, I'd recognize myself by it, at least partly, and I'd call myself "Red". And when I looked in the mirror in the morning what I saw would reassure me that I was still the same person as the night before.

Actualities are individualized even through the eternal objects which they negatively prehend: as "non-poisonous", non-square", and so on. It is because all eternal objects are relevant to each actuality that we can characterize each actuality by the peculiar way in which some eternal objects ingress into it.

Mere diversity, and mere identity, are generic terms. Two components in the constitution of an actual entity [that is, two dead occasions prehended from its past] are specifically diverse and specifically identical by reason of the definite potential contrast involved in the diversity of the implicated eternal objects, and by reason of the definite self-identity of each eternal object 69.

As I understand the situation, there is a sort of neutral equi-potentiality of all eternal objects in themselves: none is more prominent than any of the others. Thus actualities are characterized by their disturbance of this equi-potentiality - by their individual emphasis on some eternal objects and definite rejection of others. And it is this disturbance of the equi-potentiality of "pure" possibility (eternal objects in themselves) which actualities pass on to each other.

Each actuality identifies itself with a past history, the sequence of occasions having a pattern of eternal objects similar to its own, and passing this pattern on through a chain of inheritance to the present moment, the present actual occasion. This group of occasions sharing and passing on a common pattern of eternal objects is a "society" 70. An actual occasion "feels" its derivation from this past. The previous occasions of its own society dominate its environment and impose their pattern of eternal objects on it. What is it that is identical or similar in each occasion of a society? It cannot be merely the act of inheriting or of projecting forward into a future. All occasions, even the most diverse, do these things. It is the feeling of definite form, of the pattern of eternal objects which is passed on and which constitutes the identity among the members of the society and constitutes the difference of this society from others.

As I hope to show in Section C of this chapter, eternal objects do not in themselves account for the pattern of them peculiar to each society and to each occasion, but they do help account for the pattern being able to be passed on from one actuality to another, and they are the final fixed elements, in terms of which similarity, identity and change can be noted. Feelings and patterns can be perpetuated, but always with a difference. A feeling prehended as originating in another actuality is not the same as that feeling was when it felt itself, in the occasion of its origin. And as a feeling is passed on through a sequence of feelings of it and feelings of feelings of it and so on, it must eventually fade till it becomes part of a vague and undifferentiated background. The "pattern" of eternal objects characteristic of a society also "fades" or is altered. But the component eternal objects, though their "mode of ingression" may vary from occasion to occasion, cannot be altered in their individual essences. They are always just what they are. Thus Whitehead conceives them to be the one true identity amid all diversity [Italics added by the editor]. They bridge the gap between any two moments in the rushing torrent of actuality, and, metaphysically speaking, this chasm is as great between two adjacent actualities - say the present moment of my own existence and my existence a split second ago - as it is between actualities far removed from each other in space and time. When one occasion prehends another, it can be partially identical with that other because the eternal objects forming the definiteness of the one can be "in" the other just as directly, just as internally, as they were in the first actuality. Whitehead emphasizes this aspect of real identity between two occasions by speaking of the "two-way functioning" of eternal objects.

A simple physical feeling enjoys a characteristic which has been variously described as 're-enaction', 'reproduction', or 'conformation'. This characteristic may be more accurately explained in terms of the eternal objects involved. There are eternal objects determinant of the definiteness of the objective da-tum which is the 'cause' [the past occasions], and eternal objects determinant of the definiteness of the subjective form belonging to the 'effect' [the present occasion's feeling of itself]. When there is a re-enaction there is one eternal object with two-way functioning, namely, as partial determinant of the subjec-tive datum, and as partial determinant of the subjective form. In this two-way role, the eternal object is functioning relationally between the initial data on the one hand and the concrescent subject on the other. It is playing one self-consistent role in obedience to the category of objective identity 71.

The reference to "objective identity" in the above quotation adds another point. Why doesn't an "enduring object", a society of actual occasions passing along the same or a similar pattern of eternal objects from one of its component occasions to another, just burst apart after a while? Each successive moment and every spatial part of its existence is prehending the pattern as realized in all of the other parts and all of the past moments of the society. Why isn't the pattern shattered by this accumulating multiplication? Think of one's own existence. I remember myself of a moment ago, of two moments ago, of all of the moments of yesterday and so on. Each of these memories is of a separate and individual actuality, even if they all have some similarity of pattern by reason of which I call them mine. Why isn't memory a maddening "Hall of Mirrors" which drives people insane shortly after birth? Again Whitehead appeals to the self-identity of eternal objects. The individual eternal objects comprise the fixed points in all this confusion. They may be prehended as playing different roles in different actualities - emphasized more in some, less in others, excluded by still others. But it is the same eternal objects in all actualities and it is these eternal objects which the new actuality in process of development must deal with finally. The other actualities, especially the "nearer" and similar ones, each contribute emphasis or suppression towards the role that each eternal object is going to play in the new actuality. But in constituting itself, finally, the developing actual occasion, feeling all of these pressures, "decides" on the role to be played in itself by their ultimate objects, the eternal objects. Each eternal object is finally felt only once with complete definiteness. The countless past ingressions of each eternal object do not duplicate it but only help to determine "how" it is to be felt by the new actuality - more or less vividly, or as rejected.

(iii) There is still one special case of the relation between actual occasions in which the identity function of eternal objects must be discussed, and this is in the relation, or class of relations, which we call cognitive. Eternal objects are the ultimate guarantors of truth and the metaphysical bulwark against solipsism. "If experience be not based on an objective content, there can be no escape from a solipsist subjectivism" 72. The ultimate objective content of experience is eternal objects.

This may not be clear at once. The most forceful aspect of "objectivity" is the feeling of something going on elsewhere, of feeling as felt by another. This is the experience of the "physical"; it is the feeling of external pressures, the feeling of derivation. Whitehead compares it to Santayana's "animal faith" 73. For Santayana this is the only way in which experience is objective' in its explicit content it is cut off from the world. But Whitehead thinks that the qualitative content of experience is itself identical with the characters of those external actualities from which we feel that our experience is derived. The incorruptibility and capacity for ingression in any actuality of the individual essence of each eternal object form the ultimate basis for this "correspondence theory of truth" 74. What can be ultimately identical in the experience and the things experienced are the eternal objects in the dominant character of each. "A truth relation will be said to connect the objective contents of two prehensions when one and the same identical partial pattern can be abstracted from both of them." 75 Error is possible too on this theory, because the "mode of ingression", "role", "emphasis" of any eternal object may be changed in the experience from what it was in the external actuality. nevertheless, Whitehead feels that the identity of the eternal objects in the two actualities - cognitive experience and its object - is the ultimate basis of the assurance that each of us is not locked up in his own qualitative dream, and that there can be, not just a "reference" or "similarity" but a genuine identity, between knowing and the thing known.

Eternal objects, then, perform the necessary function of being the ultimate objects, the ultimate fixities, the ultimate identities in a world of subjective subjects, a world of flux, a world of subtle and shifting diversities. By rejecting an atomic or a static actual world, Whitehead has driven these functions out of actuality. Still, he recognizes that they are necessary functions if the world is to be explained rationally. He feels that they can be safely assigned to these non-actual entities, eternal objects, just because he conceives them as otherwise passive, as bare potentials, as hovering on the border of nonentity.

Footnotes for Chapter Three Section B (64-75):

64 In fact, one manifestation of Whitehead's God is as a "principle of concretion" which makes inert eternal objects into suitable objects for feeling. See ch. 4, Sec. B, of this paper. As the principle of concretion, God is an "immanent cause", as Descartes sometimes conceived him, rather than a "first cause".

65 On p. 230 of PR., Whitehead seems to be saying this. In Sec. C of this chapter I shall try to explain how the objective content of a feeling is both other feeling and eternal objects. Adumbrating this explanation, the secret lies in the fact that the eternal objects felt are organized into a definite structure. Only feeling can perform this organization, and so what we feel is inextricably both feelings and eternal objects. We never feel either in isolation from the other.

66 SMW, p. 229 (italics mine).

67 SMW, p. 231.

68 PR., p. 251.

69 PR., pp. 50-51.

70 PR., p. 364.

71 PR., p. 231.

72 PR., p. 215.

73 SMW., pp. 247-48. This account is also based on PR., Pt. II, chs. 13 & 14, and AI., ch. 16.

74 PR., p. 309.

75 Op. Cit., pp. 27-28. (Italicization of the last sentence is mine.)

Move to Whitehead Chapter three Section C