Part I of this paper attempted to investigate the nature of the existence with which value is closely associated in Whitehead's philosophy. Part II will be devoted primarily to the investigation of this "close association," the relation between existence and value must be analyzed. In Part I we have seen that Whitehead's notion of existence is charged with "concern", purpose. Interest, "feeling", governing propensities, frustrations, satisfactions, anticipations, consequences, means, ends, and, in general, almost all of the acts, conditions, relations, and predicates with which "values" have been associated. Still, it does not follow that the relation between this "rich" notion of existence and value is simple or self-evident. Indeed, the very profusion of value-charged words in the metaphysical description of existence generates problems for the orderly consideration of problems of value. Is value associated with one, a few, or with all of these value-oharged aspects of existence? And, after all, what does "associated with" mean? Does it designate a relation of identity? of analogy? of implication or of some more concrete kind of dependence? And if the last question is answered affirmatively, which way does determination run? Do values determine existence, or does existence determine values? It is my opinion that after Whitehead's notion of existence and its relation to value have been understood, then some light may at last be thrown on the problems proper to theory of value as such. In the light of these considerations, I have adopted the following schedule of topics in this part of my paper: in Section B of this chapter I shall consider the discussion of the problems and difficulties of associating value with existence and introduce certain qualifications to this association. In Chapter Six (which is probably the "heart" of this paper), I shall attempt a positive statement of the nature of this association between value and existence in Whitehead's philosophy. It is my contention that the nature of value in general for Whitehead, insofar as it can be defined, wlll emerge in the presentation of the nature of the close association between value and existence. Finally, in Chapter Seven, I shall attempt to apply these conclusions about the nature of value in general for Whitehead to a few of the more specific problems of value. But before embarking on these discussions, there remains another preliminary matter to be taken up in this section. The whole procedure of this paper may still be questioned. One might ask, "Is all that has gone before - Part I of this paper - really necessary? Even if Whitehead's theory of value is somehow closely tied up with his metaphysics, can we not recognize it as a variety of one of the commonly recognized types of theory and more or less ignore the details of the metaphysics with which it may be associated? Cannot, after all, Whitehead's views on value be presented in a more or lose autonomous discussion, as has been the almost overwhelmingly preponderant tradition in modern discussions of theory of value? The only adequate answer to those questions is to try this procedure. An entire study might be made out of this problem alone. Since my procedure has been to assume that the answer to this question is in the negative and to go on from that point to present an alternative theory, I can here take up this matter only briefly and in outline form. Three possible variations of well-recognized theories of value can be or have been elicited from Whitehead's statements about values. A fourth possibility is that he puts forward two or all three of these theories and oscillates among them or at loast fails to present an adequate integration of them. I shall discuss briefly all four of these possibilities in the following paragraphs of this section: 1. The contention that Whitehead has a psychological theory of value - that either "interest" or "satisfaction" (conative or affective acts or states) provides the basis for Whitehead's notion of general value; Commentators on Whitehead's statements on values have advocated all four of those interpretations, though, as far as I know, no one commentator has clearly seen all four possibilities in Whitehead. And certainly isolated statements can be found in Whitehead's writing which seem to support each of those views. People who have really made a serious study of Whitehead's statements on value questions seem to incline towards the first view - a psychological value theory. A more superficial examination of Whitehead's writings, and, oddly, enough, acquaintance with his metaphysics rather then with his observations on value, seems to favor the second view - a formalistic theory of value. Profounder students of his metaphysics generally incline toward the third value theory for Whitehead - self-realizationalist. The fourth alternative is advanced by people who observe that his value statements really do seem to contradict each other and particularly among those who observe that Whitehead seems to believe in both relative and absolute value. This very diversity and disagreement among Whitehead's own statements and among his interpreters seems to me sufficient justification for a re-examination of his whole philosophy, including his metaphysics, to see whether somewhere some integrating concept might not be found. Why should a man who has shown so much penetration and insight into some philosophical problems make such obviously incompatible statements about values? Is it because his attention was distracted elsewhere - to metaphysical problems, perhaps? - or is it because he found in these other regions - again perhaps in metaphysics - notions which to him at least overcame these apparent contradictions and made it possible for him to acknowledge the partial truth of all of the major tendencies in theory of value because he was developing concepts which could, if pushed a little farther than when they were left in his published writing, combine them all in a new approach to the problems of value? Considerations of this sort spurred me on to the study of Whitehead's metaphysics presented in Part I of this paper, and I hope now that I can justify this excursion. More detailed examination of these apparently conflicting theories of value in Whitehead's philosophy, however, will, I believe, reveal more definite and conclusive justification for my venture into Whitehead's metaphysics in search of integrating concepts for his views on values. I believe that I detect in each of these views, when it is put forward alone and out of relation to the others, similar weaknesses. They all ignore important considerations in Whitehead's metaphysics which are relevant to the understanding of the very terms in his statements which they cite as evidence for their interpretations, and they all, to some extent, at least, assume the'"bifurcation" between existence and value which, as I mentioned in the Introduction to this paper, 1 is the metaphysical reason for the common futility of much contemporary theory of value. I shall now proceed to apply and expand those criticisms in relation to each of these theories. 1. The contention that Whitehead has a psychological theory of value: This is the most serious contender among the candidates for the interpretation of Whitehead's theory of value, both because Whitehead himself makes many statements about values in psychological terms and because many students of Whitehead's views on values have reached this conclusion. There are, however, a number of psychological theories of value. A recent compilation divides "psychological value theories" into three group: "hedonistic theories", "affective theories", and "interest theories", 2 and there are important differences among the individual views under any one of these kinds of psychological theory. What kind of psychological theory is Whitehead alleged to have? Mr. Goheen 3 and Mr. Schilpp 4 claim that Whitehead has some form of interest theory, and Mr. Hughes seems to endorse a somewhat similar view when he says that in Whitehead's philosophy, "All qualities and values through nature exist primarily as aims, or, better, aimings of individual acts, which become fully actual only as they evoke response in other acts." 5 None of these commentators however, with the possible exception of Mr, Hughes, 6 specifies further what sort of interest theory Whitehead has. Indeed, the first two, Goheen and Schilpp, do not present an interest theory but something closer to an "affective" theory. An "interest theory of value" would, I suppose, be something like Ralph Barton Perry's "general theory of value" in which all value is defined in terms of the relation between an interest and its object, 7 and it is said that, "Any object, whatever it be, acquires value when any interest, whatever it be, is taken in it, just as anything whatsoever becomes a target when anyone aims at it." 8 If Whitehead has an interest theory, I imagine that it is not like Perry's, but must rather be classified among the theories which Perry lists (and rejects) as finding value in the "qualified object of interest" 9 or in the "object of qualified interest", 10 for both Mr. Goheen and Mr. Schilpp proceed to quality their statements that Whitehead has an interest theory of value 11. Most commentators on Whitehead's theory of value, including Mr. Goheen and Mr. Schilpp, conclude that Whitehead has some kind of affective theory of value, linking value with "feeling" rather than with interest. For Whitehead, of course, interests, along with anything else that is actual, are feelings, but, unfortunately, these commentators do not stick very close to Whitehead's use of the term "feeling". Considering what feeling means to them, it might have been better if they had stuck to interest, because at least in its etymological sense, "interest" means "being among", and it always retains some reference to the objects in which one is interested, whereas in the non-Whiteheadian tradition, which his commentators are unable to escape, "feeling" suggests the most subjective, individual and isolated sort ot entities. There are, of course, several varieties of "affective" theories of value - theories linking value with feeling. Mr. Hill made "hedonistic" theories a separate group, but, since pleasure and pain, or unpleasantness, seem to be feelings, I suppose that, in the broad sense of "affective", hedonistic theories are affective theories. No one seems to claim seriously, however, that Whitehead is a hedonist. The affective states with which he associates value are too structured and complex to be identified with those allegedly simple and uniform feelings, pleasure and unpleasantness. The kind of affective psychological theory of value which is most frequently found in Whitehead's philosophy associates value most closely with the sort of feelings which mark the achievement of a goal, the satisfaction of an interest, the fulfillment of an endeavor, the realization of an end, the resolution of a conflict - what Dewey has called "consummatory experience". Here, the feelings are usually thought to be more or lose complex, highly structured and specific to the situations in which they arise 12. This is certainly the kind of psychological theory of value which many commentators find in Whitehead. Mr. Goheen, in the article mentioned above, says, Resolution of conflict is a form of existence, which will "feel" better than the present state of conflict. Since feeling is the ultimate nature of value, "unity" is best explained as the feeling of a form of activity which resolves the present conflict of "interests" 13 It will be noted that "unity", which he saw as an external qualification of "interest", is here made internal to the kind of feeling with which he most directly associates value. Mr. Ely comments briefly on Whitehead's theory of value in his discussion of Whitehead's God and seems to reach similar conclusions. "Value means intensity of feeling when that intensity is attained by combining harmoniously what at first seem to be incompatible elements." 14 He adds that "novelty" and "order", other things that Whitehead seems to find valuable, are only means to the production of intensity of feeling 15, thus emphasizing his conviction that "esthetic" feeling constitutes all intrinsic value for Whitehead. Finally, Mr. R. M. Millard, in a doctoral thesis devoted exclusively to Whitehead's theory of value, reaches the same sort of conclusion, He says, "…the root meaning of the term value for Whitehead can be stated as the actual enjoyment which is the unit of experience as become. 16 Footnotes for Chapter Five Section A (1-16):
16 The Place of Value in Whitehead's Thought, Boston; Boston University, 1950, p. 158. Certainly Whitehead himself says much which gives support to some such theory. For example, in Religion in the Making he says, "But the actuality is the enjoyment, and this enjoyment is the experiencing of value. 17" And on the next page he says, "The self-value is the unit fact which emerges. … Each actual entity is an arrangement of the whole universe, actual and ideal, whereby there is constituted that self-value which is the entity itself. 18 " And in Adventures of Ideas, he says that to conceive of any actuality, even the physical world, as devoid of self-enjoyment is to deny to it "intrinsic worth". 19 Many other similar statements could be quoted, but I prefer to return to them later when I will try to explain these statements, in the light of my own views on what Whitehead really means by them. 20 Certainly, however, it cannot be denied that for Whitehead value is closely associated with the feelings which we have (and, for him, which all things have) in their moments of consummation or satisfaction. It is not with this close association, but rather with the non-Whiteheadian interpretation of the status of the consummatory experiences that I would take issue. I can perhaps begin my criticism by continuing my efforts,to cite more precisely the kind of psychological state with which Whitehead is supposed to link value. "Enjoyment" or "satisfaction" is still too broad, because, writers on theory of value, who have agreed in associating value with these states have still disagreed among themselves as to the relation of these states to their antecedent phases - to the phases of unfulfilled interest, of striving, of problem solving - what Dewey calls the "instrumental"' phases. Dewey and Prall once engaged in a controversy part of which was on this issue in the Journal of Philosophy. 21 Dewey contended that the moment of value enjoyment is full of thought and that the memory at least of the antecedent, unresolved phases - the instrumental phases &endash; is essential to the enjoyment, as enjoyment and as valuable. Prall acknowledged that struggle and thought were frequently necessary in order to make enjoyment possible, but that the value experience when it comes to a moment of rest, out of time, cut off from the struggle, sheer enjoyment. Prall's position is extreme, but it raises an issue which a theory of value emphasizing enjoyment must face - how subjective and cut-off from the world in which it occurs is this enjoyment. Whitehead himself associates value with the process of its attainment. "… the enjoyment belongs to the process and is not any static result. The aim is at the enjoyment belonging to the process." 22 But it is on this point that I think many of the interpretors of Whitehead go wrong. Goheen compares Whitehead's value notions to those of Dewey, but he, nevertheless, interprets the moment of enjoyment which he says is intrinsic value for Whitehead as private. 23 This problem can perhaps be seen more clearly in Millard's more extended study. Millard, towards the end of his study, tries to emphasize the association of value with activity. It must be further emphasized that intrinsic value experience Is not something which happens to an occasion or is passively given. Rather, value contains an essentially active element. It is attained, achieved, the result of the process of concrescence 24. But throughout the rest of his study he emphasizes the privacy and isolation of the value experience. He says, "The mark and the being of value is separate individuality" 25. And, later later in his study, Every realization or intrinsic value as a feeling synthesis is the attainment of individuality, is a private, irreducible and individual experience. For Whitehead there are no public experiences of intrinsic value. I never experience anyone else's intrinsic value experience as he experiences it intrinsically. Intrinsic value experiences are always the actual subjective experiences of occasions 26. Can value be essentially active, be involved with the process of attainment and not just the moment of attainment, and yet be "a private, irreducible and individual experience"? There is something private and individual about it, but there is also something public about it, according to Whitehead. And it is not the enjoyment that is peculiarly private. The people who think that Whitehead has a psychological theory of value associate the privacy with subjective feeling, personal, individual and cut off from the antecedent world. They fail to see that feeling cannot be so interpreted in Whitehead's philosophy and that the aspect of privacy of value has other grounds. It is necessary to understand his whole metaphysics in order to correct this erronious interpretation. First, as I pointed out in the discussion of the phases of an actual occasion 27 the "satisfaction" is not out off from the other phases of the occasion. By itself it is an abstraction. The complete actuality is the whole occasion, including the antecedent phases - "conformal" and "supplementary", and the subsequent phase - "objective immortality". Millard admits that Whitehead associates value with existence interpreted as concrete actuality, but, because he does not adequately examine this notion of existence in Whitehead. he assumes that only the moment of "satisfaction" is completely real. To his credit, however, it must be said that Millard observes that in Process and Reality actuality is specifically defined by Whitehead to mean the complete act of an occasion, not just one of its phases. ….the term actuality is extended in Process and Reality to include the process as well as the completion of actualization. The intrinsic value is only actual as the completion of the occasion's concrescence, and the concrescence is only actual as aiming at intrinsic value or satisfaction, but the occasion and intrinsic value are no longer completely synonymous. 28 Millard's response to this observation, however, is not to revise his isolation of the satisfaction and identification of intrinsic value with it, but rather to maintain that Whitehead has changed his mind since Science and the Modern World and is here introducing the first faint warning of an entirely different and incompatible theory of value - a "formal" theory of value, which Millard thinks he puts forth again in a fragmentary way in his last lectures on "Immortality" and "Mathematics and the Good". Millard, however, does try to incorporate this departure into his own system by recognizing "derivative intrinsic value" as "an anticipatory enjoyment of movement towards satisfaction 29, thus destroying the simplicity of his own view. The real trouble with Millard's and similar interpretations is that they have not probed deeply enough into the metaphysics of Whitehead. 30 So they revert to non-Whiteheadian notions - first, that feeling is something basically subjective and apart from the objective world; secondly, that there must be a fundamental bifurcation between existence and value; and thirdly, that what is peculiar to an individual occasion is not that it feels but that it creates. These assumptions are so closely related that it is impossible to treat them separately. The following quotation is revealing. It shows that Millard thinks that Whitehead's protest against "subjectivism" is only against the notion that experience "makes" its own content. ....The individual occasion does not make the world to which its prehensions refer. However its own actualization or completion or enjoyment is subjective and in the moment of its self-enjoyment the occasion is private and alone 31. Whitehead, however, meant much more by his rejection of "subjectivism". He meant that no feeling is purely subjective. His notion of "subjective form", for example, is not of an individual, epiphenominal reaction to the objective world, but of an actual supplementation of this world which can endure and itself become an "object" for subsequent actuality 32. Feeling - all feeling, and therefore, "satisfactions" - for Whitehead is the very stuff of actuality. Whitehead, however, meant much more by his rejection of "subjectivism". He meant that no feeling is purely subjective. His notion of "subjective form", for example, is not of an individual, epiphenominal reaction to the objective world, but of an actual supplementation of this world which can endure and itself become an "object" for subsequent actuality 33. Feeling - all feeling. and therefore, "satisfactions" - for Whitehead is the very stuff of actuality. Not only does Millard deny intrinsic value to the phase of an occasion antecedent to the satisfaction, he also denies it to the subsequent phase "objective immortality." He tells us that an occasion has only "instrumental value" in its objective immortality. 34 He must maintain this position, of course, to be consistent, because the objective immortality of one occasion is involved in the conformal phases of others. But if this is so, the intrinsic value of an occasion could not be "saved" in that special kind of objective immortality which Whitehead calls the "consequent nature of God". Again, the trouble is a failure to understand adequately Whitehead's metaphysical notions of feeling and actuality, because, as I have tried to show, 35 it is real feeling which survives and constitutes the objective immortality of an occasion, and in the next chapter, 36 I shall try to show that an occasion's intrinsic value is affected by these aspects of itself which survive its "satisfaction". What finally escapes these commentators in Whitehead's metaphysics is the notion of what I have called "creative activity". It is this which leads them to misunderstand Whitehead's reference to the "privacy" of an occasion. What is private to an occasion is not its content or the way in whieh it "feels" or supplements its content, but its act of creation. It alone can and does synthesize the world in just this way, but when it has accomplished this act, the act and its results can be shared by others. Other occasions feel its accomplishment partially, and God feels it fully - God who could not himself initiate these individual creative acts, can and does share in their completion.37 The psychologioal interpretation of Whitehead's theory of value, then, is inadequate. I cite two more general evidences of its inadequacy. First, it needs constant and unending qualification. Millard keeps qualifying his definition of value in Whitehead till, towards the end of his study it becomes "meaningful, structured, active, teleological, feeling synthesis. 37 This is too much weight for a momnt of subjectively interpreted feeling to carry. If value is fundamentally subjective feeling of enjoyment, why does the notion need all this qualification? It is true that Whitehead makes all of these properties valuable, but would it not be better to find some notion which is big enough to absorb them and from which they can flow naturally, rather than tacking then onto the inadequate notion of an isolated moment of enjoyment? The second point is that a theory of value resting fundamentally on isolated moments of individual enjoyment, no matter how "structured", "teleological" and so on, could justify only relative value 38 Now Whitehead makes much of relative value, but he also believes strongly in principles of absolute value. At least, he applies them very freely. It may be that this faith of his is inconsistent with his fundamental value position. Many proponents of relativistic theories of value have inadvertently later introduced absolute standards of value, particularly when they come to the problem of the comparison of values. But certainly some effort should be made to interpret Whitehead's views on value in such a way that his statements about absolute values can be included. They may be essential to his value notions rather than conflicting with them. I shall try to present a view that can do this in the next chapter 39. Footnotes for Chapter Five Section A (17-39):
2. The contention that Whitehead has a formalistic theory of value. The psychological interpretation of Whitehead's views on value is certainly the most serious of the inadequate theories to which this section is devoted. This is so both because more competent observers have espoused it than the other views, and because it is really closer to the truth than they are. I propose therefore to deal with the other theories more briefly. There are many varieties of "formalistic" value theories. All of them agree in recognizing some sort of universal "qualities", "relations", or "essences" which when they "ingress" (to borrow an apt term from Whitehead to express their views) into actual things or experiences give value to these things or experiences. One issue on which these theories differ among themselves is as to the quantity of these special value essences. G. E. Moore originally recognized only one, a general value essence which he called "the good". 40 W. D. Ross says there are two such qualities, the "good", a general value quality, and the "right", an essence peculiar to moral obligations 41. Others, such an Nicolai Hartmann 42, recognize a large number of value essences, usually organized into structures and hierarchies. It is this last variety of formalistic theory which, I imagine, Whitehead is supposed to have. At least, his eternal objects are exceedingly plural and his occasional references to value forms are in the plural. 43 I believe that Chapter Three of Part I of this paper is sufficient refutation of the notion that values can be found among eternal objects in themselves In Whitehead's philosophy. Eternal objects in themselves are too passive; they are not Platonic forms, ideals, goals; indeed, actual occasions are probably never directly aware of them in themselves. 44 Disposing of eternal objects in themselves as the basis of value for Whitehead does not, however, completely dispose of the claim that Whitehead finds value principally in formal structures., Certainly he does believe that formal structure ia an important aspect of intrinsic value. The question is, how important? - is it the form or structure of a thing which fundamentally accounts for its value? Those who think so frequently cite the following passage in a late paper of Whitehead's. We must end with my first love - Symbolic Logic. When in the distant future the subject has expanded, so as to examine patterns depending on connections other than these of space, number, and quantity - when this expansion has occurred, I suggest that Symbolic Logic, that is to say, the symbolic exmination of pattern with the use of real variables, will become the foundation of esthetics. From that stage it will proceed to conquer ethics and theology. 45 This and similar statements, together with his emphasis on "contrast" and "harmonies" in all attainments, and the important position given to forms throughout his philosophy lead many critics to assume that Whitehead finds some or all value in forms. Mr. Schilpp, though earlier in the same article he accuses Whitehead of trying to base morals on "the quicksand of largely emotional reaction", 46 goes on to object to what he calls Whitehead's identification of morality with mathematical pattern and says that it reduces process to "something static". 47 Mr. Millard aud Mr, Goheen also find tendencies in Whitehead's writing to convert values into essences or to find the source of all value in order. 48 On the other hand, many passages can be quoted from Whitehead in which he definitely relegates order to a subordinate position in the realization of value. His constant theme is that even order must be felt in order to be valuable. For example: The Harmony is felt as such, and so is the Discord. Now Harmony is more than logical compatibility, and Discord is more than logical incompatibility. Logicians are not called in to advise artists. 49 And in the very article in which the passage regarding the glowing future of symbolic logic in revealing the secrets of value occurs, I find the following statement: Habits of thought and sociological habits [which for Whitehead are examples of structures functioning in actuality] survive because in some broad sense they promote esthetic enjoyment. There is an ultimate satisfaction to be derived from them. Thus when the pragmatist asks whether "it works", he is asking whether it issues in esthetic satisfaction. The judge of the Supreme Court is giving his decision on the basis of the esthetic satisfaction of the harmonization of the American Constitution with the activities of modern America. 50 The preceding quotation might suggest that order has only an instrumental value for Whitehead, but this is not the case. It is an aspect of all genuine intrinsic value &endash; but only an aspect &endash; not the main or sole source of this value. In order to find its true function in the generation of values, I believe that, again, it is necessary to make a careful study of Whitehead's metaphysics. In the last two sections of my chapter on eternal objects 51 I have tried to show the meaning and function of actual form in Whitehead's metaphysics. The proponents of formalistic theories of value are still trying to find value in something removed from conorete existence - in eternal or "subsistent" essences. Usually these people limit the ingression of these essences to human experience, which they interpret as subjective, and as out off from physical processes.They cannot claim Whitehead as an ally in any of these assumptions. I tried to show in the section referred to in the last paragraph that actual form is as much a product as a source of existence. For Whitehead its study is metaphysically important not because it reveals a transcendent determination of actual existence, but because the study of form to the closest approach that we can make to understanding the ceaseless, fluid, synthesizing activity which constitutes concrete existence. 52 Form is internal to and an inescapable ingredient in all actual existence, but form is itself, properly understood, a particularly illuminating and significant aspect of concrete creative process, not an external, static factor. If value is closely associated with conorete existence, it will therefore be closely associated with "forms" and "structures" when these terms are properly understood in their metaphysical setting. It is in this sense, perhaps, that the passage extolling symbolic logic as promising to unlock the secrets of value is to be understood. The view of logic and mathematics as concerned purely with static entities remote from process is for Whitehead a shallow view. When "metaphysically" understood, these subjects give us deepening insight into the activity of concrete actuality and its associated values. 3, The contention that Whitehead has a self-realizationalist theory of value. Whitehead tells us that, despite the influences which other actual entities exert on each actual occasion, each is fundamentally self-determined as to the course of its development and that one of the ends which it seeks is self&endash;realization". For instance, he says, Life [and every actual occasion, for that matter] is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others. The conduct of extemal life is conditioned by environment, but it receives its final quality, on which its worth depends, from the internal life which is the self-realization of existence. 53 Millard quotes this passage as one of the major bits of evidence for his view that Whitehead has a psychological theory of value, 54 but, it seems to me that it ties value much more directly with "self -realization" than with enjoyment. Furthermore, though it emphasizes "subjectivity" in Whitehead's. technical sense of being something for its own sake, 55 it uses the phrase "the self-realization of existence", suggesting that the self-realization, at least, is not purely personal and private. This conclusion could not be drawn from this quotation alone, of course, but I shall present further evidence in the next chapter 56 to show that each occasion achieves value insofar as it seeks not merely its own fruition but also, in and through its own processes, to realize the potentialities of all existence. Self-realization, at least in the objective idealist tradition, has usually stood the achievement of something more than isolated, personal good. It has emphasized the fulfillment of some sort of general metaphysical striving, and, I believe there is this aspect to Whitehead's philosophy and that it is an important ingredient in Whitehead's philosophy of value. Furthermore, in a more general way, Whitehead has in common with the objective idealists who emphasize "self-realization" the conviction that value considerations must be grounded in metaphysics. No one, as far as I know, has made a serious attempt to prove that Whitehead develops a self -realizationalist theory of value, but it has been frequently pointed out that his philosophy is in some way similar to that of objective idealism, and this general similarity probably includes a similarity in views on value problems. Granting the similarities, however, it is also true that there are important differences between Whitehead and the objective idealist tradition which must give a special character to his views on value. First, there is for Whitehead no "Absolute" and no one antecedent system of order being worked out through all process. 57 An aspect of divergency and difference among the goals sought by actual occasions is essential to Whitehead's philosophy. They even conflict with each other, and the fulfillment of some means frustration for others. God In his "consequent nature" achieves one harmonious fulfillment, but it is never completed, and it is consequent upon rather than antecedent to actual process. 58 Secondly, whereas "self-realization" for the objective idealists has generally centered around self-awareness and self-know1edgee, for Whitehead "consciousness" is not a necessary aspect of concrete actual process. An occasion must be something for itself and must "feel" its achievement, but this feeling is primarily emotive, need not be conscious, and is not essentially cognitive. That is, cognition is only a very special and limited type of feeling. Feeling has for Whitehead a much more active role to fill in the world than mere cognition. 59 Thirdly, and most important (though this is in a way only an expansion of the second point), while it is true that actual occasions seek self-realization and that this is a partial explanation of their realization of value, for Whitehead the true nature of the aims and realizations of actual entities cannot be adequately doscribed by this term. "Self-realization" is merely one among several terms used in an approach to the central comprehensive notion of the nature of the activity which is the actual occasion and which accounts for this value. In Part I of this paper I have tried to show that this central notion is creative actiuvity. Each actual entity creates a world for itself and for others -. Self-realization is but one aspect of this process. So, though in some ways the notion that Whitehead has a self-realizationalist theory of value may be more adequate than the other interpretations discussed, nevertheless, like them it is an abstract and partial view, and fails to take full account of the peculiar nature of his metaphysical doctrines, from which alone an adequate notion of the place of value in his philosophy can be reached, 4. The contention that Whitehead has an inconsistent theory of value. It has been noted that Whitehead makes statements about various aspects of value which, if taken at their face value, seem to contradict each other, Most of the critics who have tried to integrate his views on value from one or another of the points of view discussed in this section have admitted failure to some extent. Somo of them seem to feel that Whitehead was unaware of these contradictions, some ascribe their difficulties to the temporal development, or, at least, change of his thought. Some say that he was trying to do justice to different aspects of the value problems - relative and absolute values, or esthatic and moral values, and failed, as others have failed, to supply adequate connections between his different value concepts. Mr. Millard and Mr. Goheen offer interesting suggestions to.explain this contradiction. Millard thinks that in the earlier phases of Whitehead's philosophical development when he was writing primarily on the philosophy of natural science, Whitehead thought of natural existence and values as mutually exclusive. 60 In his metaphysical phase Whitehead explicitly identifies existence and value, but, Millard thinks, the earlier view has not been completely dropped and keeps manifesting itself occasionally. 61 Finally, Millard says, in his last public lectures, 62 Whitehead reverts to the earlier view and thinks of two separate realms - a "World of Value" and a "World of Fact". Values, Millard believes, are here associated with eternal objects or with the primordial nature of God. 63 Thus Millard sees Whitehead as oscillating between a psychological and a formalistic theory of value, with major emphasis on the former. My own opinion,, which I will try to justify in the next section of this chapter, is that 'Whitehead's position in the earlier work on the philosophy of science is largely consistent with and absorbed into his metaphysical phase 64 and that his last two statements do not show a radical disscontinuity with his major statements of his views 65 Mr. Goheen finds inconsistency between Whitehead's emphasis on the value of "unity", "definiteness". and "finite pattern" - all formal aspects - and his statements that even disrupting novelty, "adventure, unresolved problems, and so on may have higher value". 66 A little later he says,
This quotation may well serve as a focus for summarizing the shortcomings which I find in most of the attempts which have been made to find a recognizable variation of one of the old theories of value in Whitehead's works. Mr. Goheen finds what he considers abstract forms and what he considers subjective enjoyment linked by Whitehead with value. Then he says that Whitehead fails to provide "middle principles" which would explain how they cooperate, to produce value. I say that those "middle principles" can be found only in Whitehead's metaphysics, and it is because Mr. Goheen has started with those abstractions rather than with the notion of concrete existence elaborated in Whitehead's metaphysics that he fails to find any foundations on which to erect a coherent and consistent theory of value in the framework of Whitehead's philosophy. Footnotes for Chapter Five Section A (40-67):
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