The Unity in the Universe, According to Alfred N. Whitehead

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City VoL. VI JULY, 1943 THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO ALFRED N. WHITEHEAD INTRODUCTION No. 2 PROFESSOR Whitehead has made a large contribution to the field of modern philosophy in the several works which he has published. In the series of books which have appeared, he preserves the general outline of his theories, although he makes certain changes in the detailed explanations. In his latest work, Modes of Thought, one may note a further transition in his doctrine, still within the general trend of his earlier thought. For the purpose of this study the most systematic presentation of his cosmology may be found in Process and Reality. It is easily understood that, while he is presented as a philosopher in the general sense of that term, he has come to philosophy by way of mathematics and mathematical physics. Hence, he is especially interested in the cosmological rather than ontological aspects of philosophy. At the same time, his philosophy is organic, founded on principles which pertain as much to biology and psychology as to cosmology. His doctrine of prehension or prehensive experience as it is 135 186 EDWAIID J" LINTZ presented in Process and Reality is an extension of a fact which is verified concerning living things, to the inorganic world" First of aU, the world must be conceived as composed of monadic actual entities" Each entity becomes-it never is-and it is nothing but the process of its own becoming" This process of becoming resolves itself into the ingression of eternal objects which constitute the potentialities of definiteness any actual existence. Not only do eternal objects enter into the composition , but other actual entities may be prehensively gathered into the unity of one new entity. The eternal objects are similar to universals or Platonic forms, and have an eocistence separate from that which they possess when they are a part of the constitution of an actual entity" A rather disconcerting example of eternal object is a definite shade of green. Mr. Whitehead does not employ the term " greenness " but we may assume that the term is not alien to his idea an eternal object. In this manner of ingression or " participation," the eternal objects are the source of the temporal actual entities of which the actual world is formed. The part of "creativity" in the system is not very clear. It will be treated more fully in the section on creation. For the present, we may say that it is used at times as a synonym for the word " creation " considered as the act of creating; at other times it is that which results from the act of creation, the created world. At all events it is to be conceived as an element to be found throughout the world. All existing things, including God, are characterizations of The two groups, actual entities and eternal objects, are mediated by a thing which combines the two. The mediating element is the divine element in the world, " by which the barren inefficient disposition of abstract potentialities or eternal objects obtains primordially the efficient conjunction of ordering ." This ordering is said to be the "ideal realization" of all eternal objects. "The ideal realization of potentialities in the primordial nature of God constitutes the stability by which the actual process exemplifies general principles of metaphysics and attains the ends proper to specific types of emergent order"" THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE 187 By reason of the actuality of the primordial valuation, or ordering, or realization, of eternal objects, each eternal object has a definite, effective relevance to· each concrescent process. The ordering amounts to a plan which is realized only approximately in the concrescent process which constitutes a given actual entity. The concrescing entities enjoy a certain amount of freedom in the process, and therefore the primordial aim is attained only more or less. The process does not cease at the completion of a given actual entity. It begins with data, eternal objects, actual entities or both. These data are prehended by the actual entity...