excerpts from Process and Reality
by Alfred North Whitehead
existence
and
Explanation
illustrated with Krazy Kat comic strips
by George Herriman
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Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead;
text drawn from the
Corrected Edition 1978 The Free Press Ó Respective copyright holder.
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Krazy Kat by George Herriman
ÔKFS Ó Respective copyright holder.
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Do
Big Words Turn You Off?
Well
this work by Alfred North Whitehead is the mother-load of big words used in
dizzying combination and compound constructions. All for good reason, I see
because generally, big words exist in the universe to express specific, complex
meanings. Why use one big word when a short phrase or combination of simple
words can do the job? It is because as our sentences grow longer and are
composed of more words that are simple and less specific there is an ever
greater potential distortion of meaning between the speaker and the audience.
I
have appended footnotes defining many terms employed for my own reference in
studying this work. In separate study of Whitehead and Bertrand Russell’s work
Principia Mathematica, I could ‘hear’ Russell’s voice clearly in the writing
from having enjoyed a number of his books. So I decided to seek out Whitehead’s
writing to get a flavor of the differences of thought between these two great
minds. In reading Process and Reality I can clearly see that the system
described in Principia Mathematica was his basis of constructing this complex
work of cosmology in organic philosophy.
This
quote from the previous work has inspired me in my metaphysical studies: “It
will be found that owing to the weakness of the imagination in dealing with
simple abstract ideas no very great stress can be laid upon their obviousness.“ In the study of any metaphysical system,
mono-theistic religions, Eastern ethical systems like Buddhism, Hinduism etc.,
or secular Western philosophies one sees the metaphysics variously carried by subjective
contemporary narratives meant to convey the ideas expressed. Unfortunately too
often the message is altered with perceptions of the subject, because the
subject is easily remembered, while the metaphysics must be assimilated into
our consciousness and more our subconscious to be employed, and in doing so it
may not come so easily to mind.
I hold George Herriman as the greatest
American poet of the Twentieth Century, and that his medium comic strips is unsurpassed
as an expressive art form. I love his work, including Krazy Kat, above all
other cartoonists. I hope these strips, chosen quickly as they seemed to apply
to each explanation, help enlighten them.
The Categories of Existence
There are eight
Categories of Existence:
(i)
Actual
Entities1 (also termed Actual Occasions) or Final Realities.
(ii)
Prehensions,2
or Concrete Facts of Relatedness.
(iii)
Nexūs
(plural of Nexus3), or Public4 Matters of Fact.
(iv)
Subjective
Forms, or Private5 Matters of Fact.
(v)
Eternal
Objects,6 or Pure Potentials for the Specific Determination7
of Fact, or Forms of Definiteness.
(vi)
Propositions,
or Matters of Fact in Potential Determination8, or Impure Potentials9
for the Specific Determination of Matters of Fact, or Theories.
(vii)
Multiplicities,
or Pure Disjunctions10 or Diverse Entities.
(viii)
Contrasts,
or ‘Modes of Synthesis’11 of Entities in one Prehension, or
Patterned Entities.12
Among these eight
categories of existence, actual entities and eternal objects stand out with a
certain extreme finality. The other types of existence have a certain
intermediate character. The eighth category includes an indefinite progression
of categories, as we proceed from ‘contrasts’ to ‘contrasts of contrasts,’ and
so on to higher grades of contrasts.
1Actual
entity: a real being, material or metaphysical substance existing now or as a
fact or by vivid description.
2prehensions:
taking hold, grasping, mental understanding or apprehension by the senses.
3Nexus:
a connected group
or series as, or connected to, a center or focus.
4Public:
accessible to or shared by all members of the community.
5Private:
restricted to the individual or arising independently of others.
6Eternal
object: an object of continuous duration including functions, data, variables
and other elements that constitute the subject matter of an investigation or
science.
7Specific
determination: in a specific case, the act or process of determining fixed
purposes, resolution, or adherence to a definite line of action.
8Potential
determination: Latent, but possibly capable of anything but not an actual
determination.
9Impure:
mixed, adulterated, foul, or unchaste determinations.
10Disjunction:
disunion, severance, alternative possibilities.
11Modes
of Synthesis: manner, form, or method, one’s custom or fashion of combining
parts into a whole (the opposite of analyze).
12Patterned
entities: a model, example or guide one commonly applies to entities
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The Categories of
Explanation
There are
twenty-seven Categories of Explanation
(1) That
the actual world is a process,13 and that the process is the becoming14 of ‘actual
entities.’ Thus the actual entities are creatures; they are also termed ‘actual
occasions.
(2) That
in the becoming of the actual entity, the potential
unity of many entities in disjunctive diversity – actual and non-actual –
acquires the real unity of the one
actual entity; so that the actual entity is the real concrescence15
of many potentials.
(3) That
in the becoming of an actual entity, novel16 prehensions, nexus,
subjective forms, propositions, multiplicities, and contrasts, also become; but
there are no ‘novel eternal.
13Process: something going on, a continuing action or
function, a series of actions or operations conducting to an end.
14Becoming: to come into existence or to undergo change
or development.
15Concrescence: increase by the addition of pieces, a growing
together or coalescence.16Novel:
new and not resembling formerly known or used, original or especially striking
in conception or style.
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(4)
That
the potentiality for being an element in a real concrescence of many entities
into one actuality is the one general metaphysical character attaching to all
entities, actual and non-actual; and that every item in its universe is
involved in each concrescence. In other words, it belongs to the nature of a
‘being’ that it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’ This is the ‘principle of
relativity.’
(5) That
no two actual entities originate from an identical universe; though the
difference between the two universes only consists in some actual entities,
included in one and not the other, and in the ‘subordinate entities’17 which each actual
entity introduces into the world. The eternal objects are the same for all
actual entities. The nexus of actual entities in the universe correlate to a
concrescence termed ‘the actual world’ (that) correlate to that concrescence.
(
(6) That each entity in the universe of a given
concrescence can so far as its own nature is concerned, be implicated
in the concrescence in one or other of
many modes; but in fact it is
implicated only in one mode:
that the particular mode of implication
is only rendered fully determinate by
that concrescence, though it is conditioned by the correlate
universe. This indetermination,
rendered determinate in the real concrescence, is the meaning of
‘potentiality.’ It is a ‘conditioned indetermination,’18
and is therefore called a ‘real potentiality’.19
and is therefore called a ‘real potentiality’.19
(7)That
an eternal object can be described only in terms of its
potentiality for ‘ingression’20 into the becoming of actual entities;
and that its analysis only discloses other eternal objects. It is a pure potential. The term ‘ingression’ refers to the particular mode in
which the potentiality of an eternal object is realized in a particular
actual entity, contributing to the definiteness of that actual entity.
potentiality for ‘ingression’20 into the becoming of actual entities;
and that its analysis only discloses other eternal objects. It is a pure potential. The term ‘ingression’ refers to the particular mode in
which the potentiality of an eternal object is realized in a particular
actual entity, contributing to the definiteness of that actual entity.
17Subordinate entity:entity that is placed in, or occupying a lower class, rank, or position by
by the introduction of an actual entity.
18 Conditioned indetermination: existing or stipulated of a determination not precisely determined, or known in advance, or having an infinite number of solutions.
19Real potentiality:the actual ability to develop or come into existence.
20Ingression:the act, ability, power, or liberty of entrance or access.
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This blog examines the metaphysical process Whitehead and Russell developed in Principia Mathematica, and which i percieve as the basis was the basis of devising the lectures that evolved into Whitehead's Process and Reality only a few years later.
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