A.N. Whitehead - A Conspectus of Whitehead's Metaphysics

Alfred North Whitehead

A Conspectus of A. N. Whitehead’s Metaphysics

http://www.philosopher.eu/a-n-whitehead-summary/

by Peter Sjostedt-H

* To Peter's observations I will abridge it with my own using [RES]

• A system of panpsycho-panentheism.
• i.e. a panpsychism: that all entities have sentience (or, ‘proto-sentience’), combined with a panentheism: that God is nature and more
• [RES - panexperientialism may be the more prefered route re inorganic matter]

• Whitehead calls his system the ‘Philosophy of Organism’; it is also known as ‘Process Philosophy’.
• Every entity is an organism, encapsulated in his sentence:
  • ‘Biology is the study of the larger organisms; whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms.’ (SMW, ch. VI)
• It is known as Process Philosophy because in actuality there are no static substances, but only events, occasions, processes.
• [RES - In place of, or in addition to "organism" the idea of "Being & Event" might be added]

• The smallest processes are called ‘actual occasions’, or ‘actual entities’.
• These are drops of experience that constitute nature (cf. William James).

• Actual entities are perspectives on the world, analogous to Leibniz’s monads. They are transitory: they become and they perish.

• The process of an actual entity is called a concrescence. [It] involves:

• an initial subjective aim to create that actual entity,

• a prehension of other actual entities,

• a subjective aim that conduces a decision, and

• a satisfaction that completes the process.

• An initial subjective aim is bequeathed by the panentheistic God (see below) that sets off an experiential perspective.

• [RES - The word "bequeathed" may speak of a determinate cosmos; as such, open and relational process theology would say God allows creational interminate freewill]

• An actual entity prehends other actual entities, but not in the traditional relation of representation-to-object but rather as part-to-whole.
• i. e. the prehension of an actual entity is the actual inclusion of that other actual entity within itself. This fusion is called vectoring. There is no absolute subject-object dichotomy. (cf. Henri Bergson)

• The type of qualia that actual entities employ for their prehensions are called ‘eternal objects’. These are metaphysical ‘pure potentials’ and subsist within a realm of ‘God’ (see below).

• Prehensions can be positive or negative, physical or conceptual:
• Positive prehensions are of what is included in the actual entity. [sic, Formed Relationships]
• Negative prehensions reject entities and concepts for inclusion. [sic, Unformed Relationships]
• Physical prehensions are of other actual entities.
• Conceptual prehensions are of eternal objects alone.
• There are also impure and hybrid prehensions which are combinations of the above.

• An actual entity is determined by past prehensions, but is also to varying extents self-determined through its subjective aim that strives for experiential aesthetic intensity.

• There is thus efficient causality in the inheritance of the prehensions of actual entities, and final causation (teleology) in the subjective aim of actual entities.

• [RES - Prehensive Process --> AE / AO --> Process of Becoming]

• Actual entities in aggregate are called nexūs, and if the nexūs share a common characteristic they are called societies. An electron is an example of a society, as is an atom, molecule and crystal.

• Whitehead adopts a dual-aspect theory whereby external appearance correlates to internal experience.

• What are traditionally named ‘organisms’ are complex societies.

• These high-grade societies ‘transmute’ a plurality of incoming prehensions into an abstracted unity for ease of comprehension. Common human sense perception is an example thereof.

• There are two main species of human perception: perception in the mode of causal efficacy (PMCE) and perception in the mode of presentational immediacy (PMPI):
• PMPI is commonly identified with all perception, being that from the five senses.
• PMCE is the less distinct yet more ubiquitous internal experience of the actions and experiences of the past and concurrent surroundings flowing into the present.
• Our actual perception is the combination of these two, a combination named ‘perception in the mixed mode of symbolic reference‘.
• [RES - Sensation + experience = perception]

• God is vital for the operations of Whitehead’s system. (S)He has two natures: the primordial and the consequent:
• The primordial nature of God (PNG) is the realm of eternal objects.
  • The eternal objects are ingressed into all our experiences thereby determining the qualitative type of the experience.
• The consequent nature of God (CNG) is the pantheistic unity of all experiences drawn into one higher consciousness.
• PNG is unconscious; CNG is conscious.
• [RES - Open & Relational Process Theology state that God IS and IS BECOMING ("I AM That I AM"). Thus, Experiential Event --> Prehensive Process --> Concresence as eternal cycle)]

• God bestows the initial subjective aim for an actual entity as a lure for its concresence and the experiential intensity it evokes.
• It is God’s purpose to enjoy the experiential intensities S(H)e provokes.
• [RES - "enjoy" perhaps learn, take in, observe, be affected by, take action, etc]

• God is not omnipotent as actual entities and their societies have their own teleology.

• [RES - Open and Relational Process Theology may say God uses His omnipotence to sustain the cosmos but choses to guide, or participate, with it by its permission.]

• God is not omniscient because the future does not yet exist because novelty emerges from actualities via their subjective aim and the infinity of eternal objects.

• [RES - Open and Relational Process Theology may says unknowing is the nature of becoming.]

• God is not omnibenevolent because morality is subordinate to aesthetic appreciation which is God’s desire. (Thus ‘God’ is perhaps a misnomer.)

• [RES - Open and Relational Process Theology may rather say the God is always, and at all times, loving. It is both a choice but far deeper, it is who He is.]

• Above Actual Entities and God, the third main tenet of Whitehead’s cosmology is Creativity.
• God conditions creativity but it is beyond His control.

• All but the PNG is subject to flux, to process, to novelty, to creativity.
• Matter evolves as well as ‘organisms’, the laws of nature change, even the three dimensions of our extensive epoch will pass into history and in its place a cosmos of unimaginable difference will rise.

[*Note - RES - Based on Open & Relational Process Theology Whitehead's metaphysic of cosmology will need more rigorous adaptation as ORPT is a more recent subject not known during Whitehead's day though he was leaning into it.]