1. WHITEHEAD'S THEORY OF PREHENSION

CHARLES HARTSHORNE

In the metaphysics of the twentieth century -and there is such a thing-Whitehead occupies a position like that of Leibniz or Spinoza in the seventeenthcentury. Whatever defects there may be in the philosophy of Whitehead, 1 regardbis theory of "prehension" as one of the finest contributions ever made toepistemolagy.

The word "prehension" is created by dropping the first syllable fram"apprehension". Prehension is a part or aspect of the more or less complex wholewhich is an act of awareness. It is the element of pure givenness in this act;experience as the having of an object. An experience for Whitehead is a unitaryevent or process termed an "actual entity" or "occasion". Every concrete thingwhich is given to or prehended by an entity is a prior event or actual entity, or agroup of such entities. Contemporary events are not, strictly speaking, prehended,nor are occasions sub equent to the act of prehending. Thus memory and perceptionare alike in that the object of both is in the pasto This assimilation 01 perceptionto memory is a highly original element in the doctrine.

The temporally prior entities which are given of course cannot dependfor their reality upon being given to this or that particular subject, since theearlier does 110t depend upon the later. The subject-object relation is externa],or mon-constitutive, for the thing given or prehended; on the other hand, it isinternal or constitutive for the subject prehending. A particular subject couldnot conceivably be that subject, that momentary experience, without prehendingjust the things it cloes prehend. This is what Whitehead means by "causal efficacy"or "conformation". The present occasion is just a certain way of prehending itspast. Hume is he re fIatly contradicted. Events are "distinguí hable" but yet not"separable", for granted the la ter event the earlier ones which it prehends couldnot have been otherwise . Causal efficacy is thus not a merely mysterious linkbetween earlier and later: it is the fairly obvious truth that there cannot beprehension oí X without X, and since prehension cannot be creative 01 its ante-cedent objects, they must be furnished to it by the actual past. Finally, not onlydoes the present prehending subject require a certain past, but that past required,not indeed this particular subject, but still, some suitable subject or subjects ea-pable of prehending that particular past. To be prehendecl by a particular subjectis never essential to a thing, hut to be prehendecl by S01ne subject able to do theappropriate prehencling is essential , This is a quasi-Berkeleyan element inWhitehead. To be is to be destinecl to be perceivec1. Why is this asserted ?Because: a) to be present is to be elestined to become past, and b) in this phi-losophy, being past and being object for some subject are helel to be inclistin-guishable. Experience shows us no other equally concrete way of having-a -pastbesides prehension.

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It is amazing how many que tions are answered at one blow by acceptingthe cloctrine of prehension. Are there uiternal relations of events to other events?y cs. for so Iar as events prehencl others, they are constituted by their relationsto these others. Are there ext ernal relatiou s? Ves, íor so far as events are pre-hended by subsequent events which they do not themselves prehend they mustbe independent of the e; also, so far a events, being mutually contemporary, arewithout prehensions running either way, there i mutual indepenclence. Is therecausal conuccted IlCSS? Ves, first. beca use the occurence of events strictIy entailsthat oí those events which they prehend; second, because process is bouncl to goon, ancl subsequent events must have enough in cornmon with their predecessorsto be suitable prehenclors for these, in order to objetify, or "pastify" them (soto peak). Finally, is there any freedom of indeterminacy in reality? Ves, andin all cases. since events never strictly depencl upon or imply their precise suc-ces ors. And here whitehead furnishe perhaps the neatest, strongest argumentfor íreedom ever proposed . The subject prehends not one hut many prior actua-lities. (Otherwise the world would have temporal hut not spatial structure)."The many become one and are increasecl by one". A single new actuality con-tains as it c1ata the previous many actualities : but now could the many unanbi-guously prescribe thcir OW11 unification into a new unity ? There must be anemergent or creative synthesis, to constitute not merely that but hou: the manyare made into a new one. Deterrnini 111. 1 suspect, cannot get arouncl this dif-ficulty . Tbe tltat is necessary, causally fixed, but not the ho'LCJ.

Thus, \Vhiteheacl's view of givenness not only solves certain epistemolo-gical problems ; it also gives an answer to Hume's scepticism about causal con-nections, and yet it avoicls the contrary extreme. ahso!ute idealism's denial ofcontingency and freec1om. In a single conception it explains the spatio-ternporalstructure of tbe world, the possibility oí knowledge, and the reality of freedom ,1t i . in 111)' opinion, one of the suprerne intellectual discovieries.

11. WHITEHEAD'S CONCEPTION OF GOD

Whitehead's theorv of divinity was. accorc1ing to his own statement (inconversation) "vague", anc1 it seemed likely to hirn, ancl sholud seem so to us,that it can be further clarifiecl. To achieve this we shall probably need to bemore aware than he was of two thinzs : tbe history of natural theology, and thelogical structure oí the problem and its possible solutions. 1\1al1)' oí Whitehead'scritics have not met these requirements , Often they are less aware than White-head of these matters. There are, as a matter of logic, two main possibilities íorconstruing the religious idea. Both were more or les s elaboratecl worked outprior to Whitehead , The first is this: we may iclentify Gocl with the purelyabsolute, infinite, eternal, unlimited, self-sufficient, impassible the lits can be pro-longed, but the terms are really, as intended, mutually equivalent or synonyrnous ,Thi has been the u ual way , It belongs to what 1 call "Classical Metaphysics",or the metaphysics which takes Being as the uperior form of reality, rather thancreative becoming. The other wa y, which 1 learnec1 from Vv. E. Hocking, doesnot identify God with the absolute or iníinite, though it cloes assert that Godha aspects oí absoluteness or infinity; it aclcls, however, that he al so has aspectsof relativity or finitude ,

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Those of us who take this view believe, with the late E. S. Brightman,in a "finite-infinite God". W e see no contrac1iction in this, for we are not as-serting that God is in all aspects the one or in all aspects the other, but onlythat in some he is the one, in the rernaining aspects, the other. Logic knowsno rule against this, unless it can be shown that infinity is not the sort of pre-dicate which could be confined to an aspect. But " J eoclassical metaphysicians"(a 1 call them) c1eny this . They think it not only can but must be so confinedto make any sense. K eoclassical views of c1eity are founc1 in Socinianism, thela ter Schelling, Fechner, Pfleiderer, Varisco, Bergson, Peirce, anc1 others. White-head is the most ysternatic anc1 powerful of the clefenc1ers oí this view.

To say that Goc1 is finite or relative, a well as infinite or absolute, isto irnply that his reality incluc1es becoming a wall a being. Since Whiteheadholds the principie of proces , according to which to be is to be either an abs-traction form, or an instance of, becoming, either his deity is abstract, or theremust be adivine form of becoming. When Whiteheacl callecl Goc1 the "PrincipIeof Concretion' he was thought by some to ha ve meant that God is a mere abstractprincipie. However this saying was but an epigram about God, not an adequateaccount of Whiteheads idea. Like all actual or concrete realities, God is as, andwhat, he become . Like all actuality, he perceives or "prehends" actualities in-c1epenc1ent of the particular prehensions which he has of thern . For this is partof the c1efinition of prehensión, and \Vhiteheacl dces not hesitate to apply thetheory of prehension to God. It follows that the aspect of God which consistsin prehension of a given set of actualities in the world clepends upon thoseworldly actualities, and not vice versa. Gocl is in this aspect relative to otherthings, and incleecl to all other things, for he prehencls all. He is indeed thcsole universally prehending individual. In this aspect he is not the least, butthe most, relative of all realities. He is effect of all causes, ancl not mere1y thecause of al! effects. The terrn Consequent N ature expresses this universal rela-tivity or clerivate character of deity. On thi point Whiteheacl is perfectly clearand consistent. Cod physically prehencls the universe, not in eternity, but stepby step, as it comes into being. Not even God can prehend events before theyoccur, for this is contradictory, since as Whitehead put it "there are no eventsin the future". N or does God prehend events eternally, for they are not eternallyreal, and since prehension does not create its objects, even divine prehensionoí this or that object must wait until the object has been provided.

Oí course, however, God for Whitehead is not merely derivative or re-lative ; he is also primordial or absolute. He i cause of all effects, as well aseffect of all causes. The phrase, Primordial Nature, refers to this aspect. E yerynon-divine actuality prehends God, and hence presupposes him. God as presup-posed object for an actuality A cannot be the same as or include that aspect ofGod which prehends A, for thi would malee the subject of prehension constitutiveof its objects, and this is contradictory. Thus God as Primordial, as universalobject, cause of all ubject, has to be an abstraction from the full actuality ofGod as universal subject. As the universally presupposed object, the PrimordialNature is only an aspect of God, not God simpliciter. Thus this aspect is "notconscious", j ust as the character of aman is not conscious; rather the man ismore or less conscious of his character, and of other things.

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So far a11 is cIear enough. But Withehead makes some statements whichtend to cIoud the picture. He speaks of the Consequent "Nature" as though itwere a second essence, parallel to the Primordial Nature. But if the ConsequentNature is taken as an essence, an abstraction, then we need a third term to expressthe concrete reality of deity. Two abstractions do not make a concrete actualiyt.1 suggest the term "Consequent State", it being understoocl that this is not asingle fixecl essence, but a relative term, just as "the present state" oí a man isnew each moment, as he is given new object of prehension. The ConsequentState is this state, relative to the universe now, or that state, relative to theuniverse then . Whiteheacl has no equivalent phrase. The only thircl aspect ofGod which he speaks of is the Superjective Nature, and here again the wordnature is suggestive of another fixecl essence, and that will not do at a11. Threeabstractions still clo not constitute anything concrete. Superjective State mightserve.

There are other difficulties with Whitehead's exposition. He calls Godal1 "actuality", or "actual entity". But according to the clefinition of such anentity it always presupposes prior actualities inclepenclent of it; and nothing canbe simply inclepenclent oí God, who orders a11 things into a worlcl. If God be asingle actuality, 1 see no escape from this difficulty . There must be a state ofGod upon which a given actuality depends by prehending that state, ancl anotherdistinct divine state which depencls upon A by prehending A. There is no roomfor such a real plurality of states within a single actuality. Again, the Consequentnature is saicl to be ever unfinished, in flux beyoncl any final completion: butthe clefinition of a single actual entity i that it reaches its "satisfaction", its,total value, which then is superjectively available for subsequent actualities. Suchan entity cannot be encllessly in flux. What Whitehead shoulcl have said is theGocl is a real succession of actual entities. a "personally ordered society" orsequence of divine experiences, each of which objectifies or prehends the worldas it thee ;6. Since for Whitehead this is what a person is, his Gocl could betermecl personal.