SUO: Peirce and Whitehead
Nicola,
I have been busy trying to finish a couple of papers and haven't had
a chance to write a formal answer to all the points in your review
of my book.
But I did want to clear up that point about the interpretation
of Whitehead's categories and their correspondence with Peirce's.
In particular, the main disagreement was whether Prehension
belonged under Secondness and Nexus under Thirdness, as I said,
or the opposite, as you said.
The point I made was that my interpretation was consistent with
Whitehead's Process and Reality and with Sherburne's summary of
P & N. But for a more definitive answer, I scanned in some
excerpts from Whitehead's _Adventures of Ideas_, which is the
book he wrote immediately after P & N. The dates are 1929 for
Process and Reality, and 1933 for Adventures of Ideas.
For the basic ideas, Whitehead gave a more detailed explanation
in the later book, which I believe make it clear that my
interpretation is consistent with both of Whitehead's books
and with Sherburne's summary.
The pages that discuss "prehension" and "nexus" are included
at the end of this message.
Note that a prehension is a dyadic relation between what Whitehead
calls the subject and the object. What seemed confusing in
Sherburne's summary is Whitehead's sentence "Thus a prehension
involves three factors." When you read that sentence in context
(see the excerpt labeled p. 178), it is clear that there are
two distinct "occasions", the subject and the object, and that
the third factor, the "subjective form" is "the affective tone
determining the effectiveness of that prehension in that occasion
of experience." It is more like a commentary on the relevance
or importance of that prehension, and certainly not a distinct
"occasion" in the experience.
Following that is a more extended discussion of nexus, in
which Whitehead makes it clear that it is a grouping of
multiple "occasions", which may include multiple prehensions
of one another. There are clearly many more "occasions"
involved in a nexus than in a prehension.
Have you sent your review to the editor? If not, I wish you
would correct it. If you have, I'll ask the editor to include
my response.
John
______________________________________________________________________
Excerpts from _Adventures of Ideas_ by Alfred North Whitehead,
Macmillan, New York, 1933.
Page 178: Prehensions. A more formal explanation is as follows.
An occasion of experience is an activity, analysable
into modes of functioning which jointly constitute its
process of becoming. Each mode is analysable into the total
experience as active subject, and into the thing or object
with which the special activity is concerned. This thing is a
datum, that is to say, is describable without reference to its
entertainment in that occasion. An object is anything performing
this function of a datum provoking some special activity
of the occasion in question. Thus subject and object
are relative terms. An occasion is a subject in respect
to its special activity concerhing an object; and anything is
an object in respect to its provocation of some special
activity within a subject. Such a mode of activity is termed
a 'prehension.' Thus a prehension involves three factors.
There is the occasion of experience within which the prehension
is a detail of activity; there is the datum whose relevance
provokes the origination of this prehension; this datum is
the prehended object; there is the subjective form,
which is the affective tone determining the effectiveness of
that prehension in that occasion of experience. How the
experience constitutes itself depends on its complex of
subjective forms.
Page 202ff
13. The Grouping of Occasions
SECTION I. The Grouping of Occasions is the outcome of
some common function performed by those occasions in the
percipient experience. The grouped occasions then acquire
a unity; they become, for the experience of the percipient,
one thing which is complex by reason of its divisibility into
many occasions, or into many subordinate groups of occa-
sions. The subordinate groups are then complex unities,
each belonging to the same metaphysical category of exist-
ence as the total group. This characteristic, namely divisi-
bility into groups of analogous type of being, is the general
notion of extensiveness. The peculiar relationships (if any)
diffused systematically between the extensive groups of an
epoch constitute the system of geometry prevalent in that
epoch.
The general common function exhibited by any group of
actual occasions is that of mutual immanence. In Platonic
language, this is the function of belonging to a common
Receptacle. If the group be considered merely in respect to
this basic property of mutual immanence, however other-
wise lacking in common relevance, then -- conceived as
exemplifying this general connectedness -- the group is termed
a Nexus.
Thus the term Nexus does not presuppose any special
type of order, nor does it presuppose any order at all
pervading its members other than the general metaphysical
obligation of mutual immanence. But in fact the teleology
of the Universe, with its aim at intensity and variety,
produces epochs with various types of order dominating
subordinate nexus interwoven with each other. A nexus can
spread itself both spatially and temporally. In other words,
it can include sets of occasions which are contemporary
with each other, and it can include sets which are relatively
past and future. If the nexus be purely spatial, then it will
include no pair of occasions such that one of the pair is
antecedent to the other. The mutual immanence between
the occasions of the nexus will then be of the indirect type
proper to contemporary occasions. It is for this reason that
the notion of externality dominates our intuition of space.
If the nexus be purely temporal, then it will include no pair
of contemporary occasions. It is to be a mere thread of
temporal transition from occasion to occasion. The idea
of temporal transition can never be wholly disengaged from
that of 'causation.' This latter notion is merely a special
way of considering direct immanence of the past in its
future.
SECTION II. The notion of the contiguity of occasions is
important. Two occasions, which are not contemporary, are
contiguous in time when there is no occasion which is
antecedent to one of them and subsequent to the other.
A purely temporal nexus of occasions is continuous when,
with the exception of the earliest and the latest occasions,
each occasion is contiguous with an earlier occasion and a
later occasion. The nexus will then form an unbroken
thread in temporal or serial order. The first and the last
occasions of the thread will, of course, only enjoy a
one-sided contiguity with the thread.
Spatial contiguity is more difficult to define. It requires a
reference to the temporal dimension. It can be defined by
the aid of the doctrine that no two contemporary occasions
are derived from a past wholly in common. Thus if A and
B be two contemporary occasions, the past of A includes
some occasions not belonging to the past of B, and that of
B includes occasions not belonging to the past of A. Then
A and B are contiguous when there is no occasion (i) con-
temporary with both A and B, and (ii) such that its past
includes all occasions, each belonging both to the past of A
and the past of B. The particular form of this definition is
of no great importance. But the principle that the inter-
relations of the present are derived from a reference to the
past is fundamental. It gives the reason why the con-
temporary world is experienced as a display of lifeless sub-
stances passively illustrating imposed characters.
Anyhow contiguity, temporal and spatial, is definable in
terms of the doctrine of immanence. By the aid of the
notion of contiguity, the notion of a region can be defined as
denoting a nexus in which certain conditions of contiguity
are preserved. The logical details of such a definition are
irrelevant to this discussion.
So far we have been considering various species of nexus,
whose sole principle of unity is derived from the bare fact
of mutual immanence. We will term this genus of nexus,
the genus whose species are discriminated by differences of
bare extensive pattern. More briefly, it will be termed the
Genus of Patterned Nexus. Every nexus belongs to some
species of this genus, if we abstract from the qualitative
factors which are interwoven in its patterns.
SECTION III. We now pass on to the general notion of a
Society. This notion introduces the general consideration
of types of order, and the genetic propagation of order. The
definition depcnds upon taking into account factors which
are omitted in the analysis of the Genus of Patterned
Nexus.
A Society is a nexus which 'illustrates' or 'shares in,'
some type of 'Social Order.' 'Social Order' can be defined
as follows: 'A nexus enjoys "social order" when (i) there
is a common element of form illustrated in the definiteness
of each of its included actual entities, and (ii) this common
element of form arises in each member of the nexus by
reason of the conditions imposed upon it by its prehensions
of some other members of the nexus, and (iii) these
prehensions impose that condition of reproduction by reason
of their inclusion of positive feelings involving2 that com-
mon form. Such a nexus is called a "society," and the
common form is the "defining characteristic" of that
society.'
Another rendering of the same definition is as follows:
'The point of a "society" as the term is here used, is that
it is self-sustaining; in other words, that it is its own reason.
Thus a society is more than a set of [actual] entities to
which the same class-name applies: that is to say, it in-
volves more than a merely mathematical conception of
'order.' To constitute a society, the class-name has got to
apply to each member, by reason of genetic derivation
from other members of that same society. The members
of the society are alike because, by reason of their common
character, they impose on other members of the society the
conditions which lead to that likeness.'
It is evident from this description of the notion of a
'Society,' as here employed, that a set of mutually con-
temporary occasions cannot form a complete society. For
the genetic condition cannot be satisfied by such a set of
contemporaries. Of course a set of contemporaries may
belong to a society. But the society, as such, must involve
antecedents and subsequents. In other words, a society
must exhibit the peculiar quality of endurance. The real
actual things that endure are all societies. They are not
actual occasions. It is the mistake that has thwarted Euro-
pean metaphysics from the time of the Greeks, namely, to
confuse societies with the completely real things which are
the actual occasions. A society has an essential character,
whereby it is the society that it is, and it has also accidental
qualities which vary as circumstances alter. Thus a society,
as a complete existence and as retaining the same meta-
physical status, enjoys a history expressing its changing
reactions to changing circumstances. But an actual occa-
sion has no such history. It never changes. It only becomes
and perishes. Its perishing is its assumption of a new meta-
physical function in the creative advance of the universe.
The self-identity of a society is founded upon the self-
identity of its defining characteristic, and upon the mutual
immanence of its occasions. But there is no definite nexus
which is the nexus underlying that society, except when the
society belongs wholly to the past. For the realized nexus
which underlies the society is always adding to itself, with
the creative advance into the future. For example, the man
adds another day to his life, and the earth adds another
millennium to the period of its existence. But until the
death of the man and the destruction of the earth, there is
no determinate nexus which in an unqualified sense is either
the man or the earth.
SECTION IV. Though there is no one nexus which can
claim to be the society, so long as that society is in exist-
ence, there is a succession of nexus each of which is the
whole realized society up to that stage of its existence. The
extensive patterns of the various nexus of the succession
for a given society may be different. In such a case the
extensive patterns, so far as they differ, cannot be any ele-
ment in the defining characteristic of the society. But the
extensive patterns of the various nexus of the succession
may be identical, or at least they may have in common
some feature of their pattern. In this case the common
pattern, or the common feature, can be one element in the
defining characteristic of the society in question.
The simplest example of a society in which the successive
nexus of its progressive realization have a common exten-
sive pattern is when each such nexus is purely temporal and
continuous. The society, in each stage of realization, then
consists of a set of contiguous occasions in serial order. A
man, defined as an enduring percipient, is such a society.
This definition of a man is exactly what Descartes means
by a thinking substance. It will be remembered that in his
Principles of Philosophy [Part I, Principle XXI; also Medi-
tation III] Descartes states that endurance is nothing else
than successive re-creation by God. Thus the Cartesian
conception of the human soul and that here put forward
differ only in the function assigned to God. Both concep-
tions involve a succession of occasions, each with its
measure of immediate completeness.
Societies of the general type, that their realized nexus are
purely temporal and continuous, will be termed 'personal.'
Any society of this type may be termed a 'person.' Thus, as
defined above, a man is a person.
But a man is more than a serial succession of occasions
of experience. Such a definition may satisfy philosophers --
Descartes, for example. It is not the ordinary meaning of
the term 'man.' There are animal bodies as well as animal
minds; and in our experience such minds always occur
incorporated. Now an animal body is a society involving
a vast number of occasions, spatially and temporally co-
ordinated. It follows that a 'man,' in the full sense of ordi-
nary usage, is not a 'person' as here defined. He has the
unity of a wider society, in which the social coordination
is a dominant factor in the behaviours of the various parts.
Also, when we survey the living world, animal and vege-
table, there are bodies of all types. Each living body is a
society, which is not personal. But most of the animals, in-
cluding all the vertebrates, seem to have their social system
dominated by a subordinate society which is 'personal.'
This subordinate society is of the same type as 'man,' ac-
cording to the personal definition given above, though of
course the mental poles in the occasions of the dominant
personal society do not rise to the height of human men-
tality. Thus in one sense a dog is a 'person,' and in another
sense he is a non-personal society. But the lower forms of
animal life, and all vegetation, seem to lack the dominance
of any included personal society. A tree is a democracy.
Thus living bodies are not to be identified with living bodies
under personal dominance. There is no necessary connec-
tion between 'life' and 'personality.' A 'personal' society
need not be 'living,' in the general sense of the term; and
a 'living' society need not be 'personal.'