Science and the modern world

by Alfred North Whitehead

In the present chapter, and in the immediately succeeding chapter, we will forget the peculiar problems of modern science, and will put ourselves at the standpoint of a dispassionate consideration of the nature of things, antecedently to any special investigation into their details. Such a standpoint is termed ‘metaphysical.’ Accordingly those readers who find metaphysics, even in two slight chapters, irksome, will do well to proceed at once to the Chapter on ‘Religion and Science,’ which resumes the topic of the impact of science on modern thought.

These metaphysical chapters are purely descriptive. Their justification is to be sought, (i) in our direct knowledge of the actual occasions which compose our immediate experience, and (ii) in their success as forming a basis for harmonising our systematised accounts of various types of experience, and (iii) in their success as providing the concepts in terms of which an epistemology can be framed. By (iii) I mean that an account of the general character of what we know must enable us to frame an account of how knowledge is possible as an adjunct within things known.

In any occasion of cognition, that which is known is an actual occasion of experience, as diversified[^[16]] by reference to a realm of entities which transcend that immediate occasion in that they have analogous or different connections with other occasions of experience. For example a definite shade of red may, in the immediate occasion, be implicated with the shape of sphericity in some definite way. But that shade of red, and that spherical shape, exhibit themselves as transcending that occasion, in that either of them has other relationships to other occasions. Also, apart from the actual occurrence of the same things in other occasions, every actual occasion is set within a realm of alternative interconnected entities. This realm is disclosed by all the untrue propositions which can be predicated significantly of that occasion. It is the realm of alternative suggestions, whose foothold in actuality transcends each actual occasion. The real relevance of untrue propositions for each actual occasion is disclosed by art, romance, and by criticism in reference to ideals. It is the foundation of the metaphysical position which I am maintaining that the understanding of actuality requires a reference to ideality. The two realms are intrinsically inherent in the total metaphysical situation. The truth that some proposition respecting an actual occasion is untrue may express the vital truth as to the aesthetic achievement. It expresses the ‘great refusal’ which is its primary characteristic. An event is decisive in proportion to the importance (for it) of its untrue propositions: their relevance to the event cannot be dissociated from what the event is in itself by way of achievement. These transcendent entities have been termed ‘universals.’ I prefer to use the term ‘eternal objects,’ in order to disengage myself from presuppositions which cling to the former term owing to its prolonged philosophical history. Eternal objects are thus, in their nature, abstract. By ‘abstract’ I mean that what an eternal object is in itself—that is to say, its essence—is comprehensible without reference to some one particular occasion of experience. To be abstract is to transcend particular concrete occasions of actual happening. But to transcend an actual occasion does not mean being disconnected from it. On the contrary, I hold that each eternal object has its own proper connection with each such occasion, which I term its mode of ingression into that occasion. Thus an eternal object is to be comprehended by acquaintance with (i) its particular individuality, (ii) its general relationships to other eternal objects as apt for realisation in actual occasions, and (iii) the general principle which expresses its ingression in particular actual occasions.

[16]. Cf. my Principles of Natural Knowledge, Ch. V, Sec. 13.

These three headings express two principles. The first principle is that each eternal object is an individual which, in its own peculiar fashion, is what it is. This particular individuality is the individual essence of the object, and cannot be described otherwise than as being itself. Thus the individual essence is merely the essence considered in respect to its uniqueness. Further, the essence of an eternal object is merely the eternal object considered as adding its own unique contribution to each actual occasion. This unique contribution is identical for all such occasions in respect to the fact that the object in all modes of ingression is just its identical self. But it varies from one occasion to another in respect to the differences of its modes of ingression. Thus the metaphysical status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for an actuality. Every actual occasion is defined as to its character by how these possibilities are actualised for that occasion. Thus actualisation is a selection among possibilities. More accurately, it is a selection issuing in a gradation of possibilities in respect to their realisation in that occasion. This conclusion brings us to the second metaphysical principle: An eternal object, considered as an abstract entity, cannot be divorced from its reference to other eternal objects, and from its reference to actuality generally; though it is disconnected from its actual modes of ingression into definitive actual occasions. This principle is expressed by the statement that each eternal object has a ‘relational essence.’ This relational essence determines how it is possible for the object to have ingression into actual occasions.

In other words: If A be an eternal object, then what A is in itself involves A’s status in the universe, and A cannot be divorced from this status. In the essence of A there stands a determinateness as to the relationships of A to other eternal objects, and an indeterminateness as to the relationships of A to actual occasions. Since the relationships of A to other eternal objects stand determinately in the essence of A, it follows that they are internal relations. I mean by this that these relationships are constitutive of A; for an entity which stands in internal relations has no being as an entity not in these relations. In other words, once with internal relations, always with internal relations. The internal relationships of A conjointly form its significance.

Again an entity cannot stand in external relations unless in its essence there stands an indeterminateness which is its patience for such external relations. The meaning of the term ‘possibility’ as applied to A is simply that there stands in the essence of A a patience for relationships to actual occasions. The relationships of A to an actual occasion are simply how the eternal relationships of A to other eternal objects are graded as to their realisation in that occasion.

Thus the general principle which expresses A’s ingression in the particular actual occasion α is the indeterminateness which stands in the essence of A as to its ingression into α, and is the determinateness which stands in the essence of α as to the ingression of Α into α. Thus the synthetic prehension, which is α, is the solution of the indeterminateness of Α into the determinateness of α. Accordingly the relationship between Α and α is external as regards Α, and is internal as regards α. Every actual occasion α is the solution of all modalities into actual categorical ingressions: truth and falsehood take the place of possibility. The complete ingression of Α into α is expressed by all the true propositions which are about both Α and α, and also—it may be—about other things.

The determinate relatedness of the eternal object Α to every other eternal object is how Α is systematically and by the necessity of its nature related to every other eternal object. Such relatedness represents a possibility for realisation. But a relationship is a fact which concerns all the implicated relata, and cannot be isolated as if involving only one of the relata. Accordingly there is a general fact of systematic mutual relatedness which is inherent in the character of possibility. The realm of eternal objects is properly described as a ‘realm,’ because each eternal object has its status in this general systematic complex of mutual relatedness.

In respect to the ingression of Α into an actual occasion α, the mutual relationships of Α to other eternal objects, as thus graded in realisation, require for their expression a reference to the status of Α and of the other eternal objects in the spatio-temporal relationship. Also this status is not expressible (for this purpose) without a reference to the status of α and of other actual occasions in the same spatio-temporal relationship. Accordingly the spatio-temporal relationship, in terms of which the actual course of events is to be expressed, is nothing else than a selective limitation within the general systematic relationships among eternal objects. By ‘limitation,’ as applied to the spatio-temporal continuum, I mean those matter-of-fact determinations—such as the three dimensions of space, and the four dimensions of the spatio-temporal continuum—which are inherent in the actual course of events, but which present themselves as arbitrary in respect to a more abstract possibility. The consideration of these general limitations at the base of actual things, as distinct from the limitations peculiar to each actual occasion, will be more fully resumed in the chapter on ‘God.’