Whitehead and Definition

208 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY seen in symbolic transfonnation." Taking up the problem of mytb in another connection, Hopper and Kenneth Burke see it in the guise of paradox and ambivalence as these matters are discussed by Empson and Brooks: "the characteristic expression of this double-pointedness of the mythic image is in terms of the oxymoron-the figure combining contradictory elements in a single expression.... Images so employed both reveal and conceal. The poetic objects are not just empirical but are also to a degree enigmatical, and a certain amount of mystery will arise precisely where there is communication between levels." Delmore Schwartz on "The Vocation of the Poet in the Modem World" considers the poet's problems vis-a-vis language in our multilanguaged world. And then he turns to assess the role of the poet in the class-room now that the modem university has assumed the function of artistic patronage. Albert Solomon has some interesting remarks on the novel as a sociological fonn. But first he makes a sharp distinction : "The sociologist , therefore, stands in total contradistinction as social engineer to the poet who is concerned with the maintenance, preservation, and continuation of the truth about the whole, the truth of the unity of God, world and man." Anned with this formidable definition, Solomon turns to the novel which "emerges as a new literary fann, not because bourgeois, patrician and people as such are different from the knights of chivalrous romance, but because sociological awareness, the totally new factor, becomes the focussing element of plot. In the simplest possible terms, society is now the destiny of the individual; the horizon under which the individual lives is determined by the pressure , power, and control of society. The novel, from Don Quixote on, is the manifestation of this new outlook." This is typical of the genre criticism in the Hegelian tradition which today is very active again. For the most part English literature has been spared these stem categories and the furious appetite to tidy up the world of letters in the spirit of what Freud called "anal eroticism." Such, however, is the scope of variety of this collection that it contains something to please and displease every taste. WHITEHEAD AND DEFINITION" MARCUS LONG The mark of a genius, according to Bosanquet, is the number of enduring new words he adds to the language because each new word represents a new insight, a finer discrimination, and an advance in *Whitehead's T heory of Reality. By A. H. JOH NSON. Boston: The Beacon Press. Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders & Co. Ltd. 1952. Pp. xiv, 263. $5.50. REVIEWS 209 knowledge. There is no need to quarrel with this criterion. The quarrel comes when an ambitious scientist or philosopher fallaciously converts the proposition and assumes that if he coins a new word or redefines an old he is thereby marked as a genius. The late Professor A. N. Whitehead coined more words and altered more familiar meanings than any other philosopher of the twentieth century. This has made an understanding and appraisal of his work extremely difficult. Whitehead insisted technical language was essential to express the new insights and discriminations of his philosophy. Many critics have disagreed. Some have even charged that the technical language is only a device for concealing the philosophic poverty of his system. In this book, Whitehead's Theory of Reality, Professor Johnson is concerned to show that the strange language of Whitehead is both meaningful and useful, and to establish his own faith that "the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead will provide, for the twentieth century, the answers to those ultimate questions which confront reflective men in all ages." It is only fair to say that he has done an excellent job in defending the reputation of Whitehead within the limits he set for himself. The defects of the book (I suspect) arise more from the limitations of space than from the intentions or capacities of the author. The first half of the book offers interpretations of the basic terms in Whitehead's mature philosophy based on a survey of Whitehead's own definitions and usages. Students who have been discouraged hy the barbarous language...