WHITEHEAD’S PROLEGOMENA TO ANY

7/30/2019 WHITEHEADS PROLEGOMENA TO ANY

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W H I T E HE A D S P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N YF U T U R E M E T A P H Y S I C S

WALTER E. STOKESKingsCollege, Cambridge

Alfred N or th W hiteheads criticism of the Fallacy of Misplaced Concrete-ness, the error of taking abstractions for concrete reality, is well known.But often it is considered to refer only to deterministic mechanismsdoctrine of Simple L0cation.l How ever, his perception of this same fallacyin different form in the m etaphysical presuppositions of D escartes, Lockeand Hume, and Kant is perhaps more significant. For this criticism con-stitutes Whiteheads own prolegomena t o any future m etaphysics.Three interlocked and interrelated errors : the Cartesian substance-quality doctrine of actuality, the sensationalist doctrine of Locke andHume, and the Kantian doctrine of the objective world, are instances ofthe Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness and have reduced philosophy to anegligible influence in the contem porary world.

TH E SUBSTANCE-QUALITY DOCTRINE O F ACTUALITYWhitehead traces the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in the doctrineof simple location to the general acceptance of Aristotelian logic. Hethinks t ha t this w idely held notion of m atter derives from the tendency tolook below what we are aware of for the substance in the sense of theconcrete thing .z An d A ristotelian logic is the seed-bed of this tendencyto postulate a substrate for w hatever is encountered in sense-awareness.This criticism of the pre-suppositions of deterministic mechanism re-mains a dominant theme in the period of Science and the Modern World.

And throughout the period of the philosophy of organism Whiteheadregards the substance-quality doctrine of actuality as another prevalentFallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. Once again, a s in the case of simplelocation, the point that W hitehead is making is not to deny the usefulnessWhitehead thus describes the doctrine of Simple Location: To say that a bit ofmatter has simple location means that, in expressing its spatio-temporal relations, it isadequate to state that it is where it is, in a definite finite region of space, and throughouta definite finite duration of time, apart from any essential reference of that bit of matterto other regions of space and to other regions of time (Science and the Modem World(New York, 1925; Cambridge, 1926).- Page refcrences are to the New York edition.)See also SMW pp. 71-2.

2 Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, I920), p. 18.42


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WHITEHEADS PROLEGOMENA TO A N Y FUTURE METAPHYSICS 43of such expressions, but to object to mere abstractions being taken forconcrete reality.1 Readily, Whitehead grants that the ideas of substanceand quality, as well as simple location, are the most natural ideas for thehuman mind. The only question is how concrete such conceptions ofnature are. Whiteheads only point is that these are simplified editions ofimmediate matter of facf.2 Just because the substance-quality doctrineof actuality does not account for the totality of immediate experience, White-head is opposed to that dominance of quality over relatedness which hasprevailed from Aristotle to Descartes and up to n0w.3It is Whiteheads conviction that this Fallacy of Misplaced Concretenessis the central difficulty of modern phil~sophy.~s Whitehead sees it, thesubstance-quality doctrine leads to a description of reality that is at oddswith what is given in immediate experience, and that does violence to thatimmediate experience which we express in our actions, our hopes, oursympathies, our purposes, and which we enjoy in spite of our lack ofphrases for its verbal analy~is.~nd the mark of the failure of the sub-stance doctrine is its total inability to express the interconnectedness ofthings :

W e find ourselves in a buzzing world, amid a democracy of fellow creatures;whereas, under some disguise or other, orthodox philosophy can only intro-duce us to solitary substances, each enjoying an illusory experience: 0Bottom, thou art changed !What do I see on thee?6Immediate experience contradicts the substance-quality doctrine ofactuality.This line of criticism is applied by Whitehead to Descartess meta-physics. In Whiteheads analysis of the Cartesian position, Descartes heldthe substance-quality doctrine of actuality and so predicates a quality ofthe substance under consideration; the quality predicated being in somecases an accident and in others an essential attribute. Whitehead judgesthat Descartes did raise the basic metaphysical question: ..What is it

Nathaniel Lawrence brings out the precise point of opposition between the philo-sophy of organism and scientific materialism : Whiteheads philosophy is one whichproposes the conception of organisms rather than material as fundamental to nature.It is essential to emphasize, however, that matter is not a chimera, it is an abstraction.And matter does have simple location. _.. or Whitehead there is nothing fallaciousabout saying that a bit o ma tter i s sinlply located, provided that you recognize the limita-tions o not talking about something concrete. (Single Location, Simple Location, andMisplaced Concreteness, Review o Metaphysics, VIII (1953-54), p. 238.)2SMW pp. 76-7.3 PR p. ix ( =Process and Reality [New York, 1929; Cambridge, 19291).4 PR p. 78.5 Ibid.6 PR pp. 78-9. In a footnote Whitehead acknowledges his indebtedness to WilliamJames for the term buzzing. PR p. 78, n. 12 .


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44 W A L T E R E . S T O K E Sto be an actual entity? . His word for an actual entity was substance .IBut Descartess answer suffers from the limitations of the substance-quality doctrine of actuality. For, though Whitehead agrees withDescartess rejection of a monism, he thinks that Descartess assumptionslead to an artificial account of what common sense believes to be ourdirect knowledge of other actual entities.2 Accordingly, Whitehead notesthat for Descartes there were three kinds of substances :cogitating minds,extended bodies, and God. Whitehead believes that the accidental relationbetween substances poses insoluble difficulties for Descartes. For, in theCartesian scheme such relations can only be qualities of a substance.Although the Cartesian minds and bodies did not depend on any othermind or body in order to exist, they did require the concurrence of God.Since a relationship is the correlation of a pair of qualities one belongingexclusively to one individual, and the other exclusively to the otherindividuaP the correlation itself must be one of Gods accidental qualities.And this interpretation of Cartesian metaphysics is confirmed by Des-cartess theory of representative ideas; for, according to this theory, apair of qualities are correlated - he quality of the perceived, and thequality of the perceiver- ut God knows the correlation, so that theperceivers knowledge of God gives him a guarantee of the truth of hisidea. Whitehead concludes that this account of the knowledge experienceis so patently artificial that there is no need to criticize it further. Therefore,Descartes ought either to have rejected the plurality of individual sub-stances (the path taken by Spinoza) or abandoned the assumptions of thesubstance-quality doctrine of actuality. Retaining pluralism, the sub-stance-quality doctrine of actuality would give a complete account of areal particular thing as a set of abstract characteristics united in individual-ized togetherne~s .~ ut, Whitehead finds this objectionable, preciselybecause it shatters the interconnectedness of things:

Such an account of the ultimate atoms, or of the ultimate monads, of theultimate subjects enjoying experience, renders an interconnected world of realindividuals unintelligible. The universe is shivered into a multitude of dis-connected substantial things, each thing in its own way exemplifying itsprivate bundle of abstract characters which have found a common home inits substantial individuality.5

Since Descartess metaphysics is built on the pattern of Aristotelian logic,for him a relationship is the correlation of a pair of qualities one belong-ing exclusively to one individual, and the other exclusively to the otherindividual. But, in Whiteheads philosophy of organism, actual events1 PR p. 218. 2 PR p. 219. 3 Ibid.4 A1 p. 169 ( =Adventures of Ideas [New York, 1933; Cambridge, 19331).5 A1 pp. 169-70.


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W H I T E H E A D S P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N Y F U T U R E M E T A P H Y S I C S 45know each other only because they are essentially related to one another.

Whiteheads criticism of Descartes gives some indications of his ownapproach to metaphysics. First of all, Whitehead considers the funda-mental question of metaphysics to be: What is it to be an actual entity?1And Whitehead maintains that metaphysics must be based on immediateexperience and that it must avoid taking abstract modes of expression forconcrete reality. Finally, Whitehead insists that a metaphysics mustpreserve both the plurality of actual entities and their interconnectedness.

T H E S E N S A T I O N A L I S T D O C T R I N E O F P ER C EP TI O NAccording to Whitehead, the substance-quality doctrine of actuality is

one of the premisses of the subjectivist principle, which combined withthe sensationalist principle he terms the sensationalist doctrine ofperception. The subjectivist principle is that the datum in the act ofexperience can be adequately analysed purely in terms of universals, andthe sensationalist principle is that the primary activity in the act ofexperience is the bare subjective entertainment of datum, devoid of anysubjective form of reception.2 These two principles are the heart of thisparticular fallacy. This, too, is an instance of the Fallacy of MisplacedConcreteness.

There are three premisses to the subjectivist principle itself: first, thesubstance-quality doctrine of actuality; second, the Aristotelian notion ofsubstance; hird, the percipient subject, an Aristotelian primary substance.The first of these premisses forces metaphysical analysis to proceed by wayof the predication of qualities of substances. The second premiss sets upqualities and substances in mutually exclusive classes. Finally, thethird premiss places the knower in the category of primary substance.

Up to the time of Descartes, a tendency towards objectivism hadprevailed which found metaphysical truth in the subject-predicateform ofthe proposition. From the time of Thales philosophy had maintained thatits starting point was immediate experience. But, since Greek philosophywas influenced by the forms of everyday speech, it concluded from suchstatements as, That stone is grey, that the universe is composed of primarysubstances and their universal qualities. Theory of knowledge proceededalong similar lines starting from the principle that all knowledge is basedon perception, perception was analysed on the supposition that the subject-predicate form of the proposition expressed a fundamental metaphysicaltruth. According to this analysis, perception is the awareness hat a universalis qualifying a particular substance.3 And in this theory of knowledge,

PR 13. 219; also PR p. 241. PR p. 239. 3 PR p. 240.D


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46 W A L T E R E . S T O K E Sperception is had by sensation so that the universal qualities whichqualify the perceived substances are, in respect to the perceiver, his privatesensations referred to particular substances other than himself.l This wasthe analysis of perception in the tradition of objectivism which hadprevailed prior to the Cartesian revolution.But for Descartes the proposition, such as, That stone is grey is nolonger the starting-point of metaphysics; the starting-point becomesexperience, such as, my perception of this stone as grey. However,Whitehead believes that Descartes missed the real significance of this dis-covery because he held on to the substance-quality categories. WhereasDescartes thinks of the knower as the creator of the occasional thought,Whitehead considers thought to be a constituent operation in the creationof the occasional thinker.Z In Descartess philosophy the operations aredirected from the substance as a subject. In the philosophy of organismthey are directed toward the actual entity as superject. Here the premissesof the subjectivist principle are abandoned.Hume followed Descartess move away from objectivism, although he,too, clung to the substance-quality categories. Whitehead explains thatfor Hume the ultimate elements in an activity of knowing are the impres-sions of sensation, showering through the stream of experience, associatedas memories, provocative of emotions and reflexions, and expectations.3Since Hume adhered to the pattern of Aristotelian logic, in his analysis ofmy perception of this stone as grey, he sought a universal qualifying themind; and he concluded that greyness, a sensation qualifying the mind,is the primary element in immediate experience.Whitehead admits that the word perception can be so defined that itincludes only those experiential functions which arise directly from thestimulation of the various bodily sense-organs, but he wishes to deny thatthis is the only proper meaning of the word.4 Whitehead objects thatHume has arbitrarily applied the subjectivist and sensationalist prin-ciples to the data of immediate experience. For Humes position is thatthis sensation of greyness is related to no other actual entity. Whiteheadobjects to the Humean doctrine that each impression is a distinct existence,arising in the soul from unknown c a ~ s e s . ~or, in keeping with his sen-sationalist doctrine Hume breaks down immediate experience into parti-cular feelings of universals, not into feelings of other particulars whichexemplify universals. For this reason Whitehead objects to Huniescharacterizing the primary data in terms of universals as he does in thefirst section of his Treatise giving the colour red as an illustration.6

1 PR pp. 240-1.4 AT p. 229. 2 PR p. 228.5 A1 p. 160. 3 A1 p. 159.6 PR p. 230.


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WHITEHEADS P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N Y F U T U R E M E T A P H Y S I C S 47Whitehead cannot accept the supposition that experience can be ade-quately analysed in terms of universals.Also, Hume held that sensations are the primary elements of immediateexperience and that emotions are derived from them; on the contrary,Whitehead maintains that emotion is more elementary than sensation.1Further, Whitehead objects that the correlation between sensation andemotion found in both Locke and Hume overlooks the fact that emotionby-passes sensation and is directed at the particular. This pre-eminence ofemotion over sensation is confirmed by the fact that emotion depends onvisceral states which are below the threshold of awareness. In directopposition to Hume, Whitehead holds that we prehend other actualentities, first by direct mediation of emotional tone, and only secondarilyand waveringly by direct mediation of sense. Here Whitehead directlyopposes Humes doctrine that hating, loving, thinking, feeling are derivedfrom particular instances of the minds awareness of universals.Whitehead believes that the sensationalist doctrine was maintained byLocke in the first two books of the Essay, though in the last two booksLocke gave ideas characteristics which determine them to this or thatparticular existent.Z Finally, Whitehead regrets that although Lockecontinually and severely criticizes the notion of substance, he offers nometaphysics to replace it.3 Yet the notions of an idea determined to a par-ticular existent and particular existent demand metaphysical discussion.Again, in his reflections on the significance of Locke and of Humessensationalist doctrine of actuality for metaphysics Whitehead returnsagain and again to its roots in the substance-quality doctrine of actuality.Whitehead judges that Locke and Hume are right when they followDescartes in his departure from objectivism; he agrees with the sub-jectivist principle that the whole universe consists of elements disclosedin the analysis of the experiences of ~ubjects.~ut Whitehead refuses tofollow Hume in his reduction of experience to particular feelings ofuniversals. Further, Whitehead reads in the last two books of LockesEssay such acceptable notions as the relational aspect of qualities and thecommunication between particular existents. Finally, Whitehead believesthat Lockes neglect of ultimate questions revenges itself on him.5

THE KANTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE OBJECTIVE W O R L DWhitehead thinks that Kant adopted this sensationalist doctrine ofactuality.6 And he finds quite explicit evidence for this in Kant himself:

And here we see that the impressions of the sense give the first impulse to8 A1 p. 289; also PR p. 236.1 PR p. 214.4 PR p. 252. 2 PR p. 221; lso PR p. 223.5 PR p. 223. PR pp. 221-2.


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48 W A L T E R E. S T O K E Sthe whole facultyof knowledge with respect to them, and thus produce experi-ence which consists of two very heterogeneous elements, namely, matter forknowledge derived from the senses (eine Materie ZUY Erkenntniss aus denSinnen) and a certain form according to which it is arranged, derived fromthe internal source of pure intuition, and pure thought, first brought intoaction by the former, and then producing concepts.1

He also cites as indication of Kants sensationalist doctrine the dictum:Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts areblind.2 For Locke and Hume, the data of immediate experience were thepatterns of sensation provided by the sense organs themselves; but,Whitehead observes that Kant narrowed down the data to the sense with-out the pattern provided by the sense organs. For, Kant adopted thenotion of the self-development of the experiencing subjecf.3 Accordingly,the patterns were no longer provided by the sense organs, but by theexperiencing subject.Whitehead agrees with Kants position that concepts are essential toknowledge, and, that, therefore, intuitions without concepts are blind,but Whitehead would reverse the process of Kants Critique ofp ur e Reason,wherein the subjective data become the objective world of phenomena.For Whitehead the process is that wherein the objective data becomesubjective satisfaction: For Kant, the world emerges from the subject;for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges from the world -superject rather than a subject .4 Whitehead notes that since Kantssensational data are considered in terms only applicable to conceptualregistration, they are devoid of pattern5 Therefore, for Kant there wasnothing to know apart from concepts, because the categories were neededto organize the chaos of the original data; thus, for Kant the process wasfrom subjectivity to an apparent objectivity. But just the opposite is trueaccording to Whitehead :process is from objectivity to subjectivity, fromobjectivity, whereby the external world is a datum, to subjectivity, wherebythere is one individual experience.6 This is the reversal of the subjectiveprocess of Kants Critique of Pure Reason.Whitehead further notes that there cannot possibly be a bridge betweenthe experiential and non-experiential since intuitive judgement concerns1 PR p. 235. Footnote 7,PR p. 235, gives thesourceas Transcend[ent]alAnalytic,chap.

11, sec. I (M ax Miiller).2 PR p. 236. Footnote 8, PR p. 236, gives thesourceas Trunscend[enf]alLogic,ntroduc-tion, Sect. I.3A1 p. 289. Whitehead calls this the Leibnizian notion. Ibid.5 PR p. 379. Whiteheads criticism of Kant is quite severe. In fact, Kant does keep6 PR p. 236.4 PR pp. 135-6.

the distinction between world and nature.


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W H I T E H E A D S P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N Y F U T U R E M E T A P H Y S I C S 49only togetherness in experience. To meet this difficulty Kant held thatonly the temporal world was experienced, a temporal world which initself could include no experiencing subject, but must be a dead phantas-mal, phenomenal world of apparent objectivity. Whitehead commentsthat Kant was a mathematical physicist for whom such a universe sufficed,but that such a world of lifeless phenomena is not the world of immediateexperience. For the abstractions of mathematical physics do not allow forthe experient subject within the temporal world.1Here, as in his reflection on the two other related misconceptions thathave haunted modern philosophy, Whiteheads chief concern is that Kantsmetaphysical position is not adequate to handle the data of immediateexperience. Whitehead maintains that Kants phenomenal world whichcan include no experiencing subject can only be satisfactory within thelimits of mathematical physics, for, it is certainly not the world of imme-diate experience. But, Whitehead believes that Kant made a great contribu-tion by developing the notion of an act of experience as a constructivefunctioning2 Once this notion is removed from its sensationalist contextit can be taken over by the philosophy of organism.Whitehead concludes that these interrelated and interlocked errors : hesubstance-quality doctrine of actuality; the sensationalist doctrine; theKantian doctrine, are instances of the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.Whitehead observes that neither Humes nor Bradleys attempts to breakout of this web have been successful, precisely because they fail to give aphilosophical account of the world of immediate experience:

Hume himself introduces the ominous appeal to practice- ot in criticismof his premises, but in supplement to his conclusions. Bradley, who repudiatesHume, finds the objective world in which we live, and move, and have ourbeing, inconsistent if taken as real. Neither side conciliates philosophicalconceptionsof a real world with the world of daily experience.3In his philosophy of organism Whitehead proposes to break out of thisweb by conciliating the philosophical conceptions of a real world withthe world of concrete experience. Basic to his approach to metaphysics,however, is his rejection of all forms of the Fallacy of Misplaced Concrete-ness which mistakes useful and necessary abstractions for concrete reality.His ultimate appeal is to immediate experience.These reflections of Whitehead put the traditional division of modernclassical philosophy into a new light. Quite rightly, Whitehead brings outthe continuity that exists in the philosophical tradition that runs from

2 PR p. 236. Whitehead sees the beginnings of this notion in Locke and Hume; how-3 PR p. 237.PR p. 289.

ever they only vaguely and imdequately conceived it.


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50 W A L T E R E. S T O K E SDescartes, to Locke and Hume, and finally to Kant. The empiricists,Locke and Hume, are as a matter of fact the heirs of Cartesian rational-ism. Another valuable aspect of Whiteheads criticism is his questioningof the primacy of sense-data. With great insight Whitehead judges thatAristotelian logic transformed into a metaphysics led Descartes and hissuccessors to take abstract qualities as the data of immediate experience.But the suggestion that Aristotelian logic inevitably leads to the substance-quality doctrine of actuality is not acceptable. First of all, Aristotelianlogic and modern symbolic logic complement one another; they do notcancel one another out. Secondly, a metaphysics of substance shouldbe both dynamic and concrete in accord with the data of immediateexperience.

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WHITEHEAD’S PROLEGOMENA TO ANY