Chromatikon III

7/25/2019 Chromatikon III

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ChromatikonIIIAnnuaire de la philosophie en procs

Yearbook of Philosophy in Process

sous la direction de Michel Weber et de Pierfrancesco Basile

Presses universitaires de Louvain

2007


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Sommaire Contents

Michel WeberAvant-Propos................................................................................... 5

Foreword .......................................................................................20

I. Sminaires de recherche Research Seminars...........25

Pierfrancesco BasileThe Reality of Forms ......................................................................27

Jean-Marie BreuvartHusserl et Whitehead......................................................................45

Didier DebaiseLife and Orders ..............................................................................57

Ronny DesmetThe Rebirth of the Ether .................................................................69

Guillaume Durand

Les objets perceptuels.....................................................................95Franck Robert

Quest-ce quune couleur?............................................................107

Xavier VerleySentir ...........................................................................................119

II. tudes critiques Critical Studies............................149

Jean-Pascal AlcantaraLe rle des mathmatiques chez Whitehead .................................151

Une sur de Saint-JeanUn tre premier que les religions appellent Dieu.......................183

Laura IlinescuVrit et pouvoir dans leLviathande Thomas Hobbes .................189


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4 Contents

Marc MaesschalckRaison et vnement chez Jean Ladrire ...................................... 193

Pierre MontebelloNietzsche, une philosophie de la nature........................................ 207

Michel WeberContact Made Vision .................................................................... 227

III. Comptes rendus Critical Reviews.........................261

Stphan GaleticWilliam James,Essais dempirisme radical .................................... 262

Ronny DesmetLacoste Lareymondie, Une philosophie pour la physique quantique . 265

IV. Informations rticulaires Reticular News ............271

DiscussionDavid Ray Griffin, A Reply to Alexander Cockburn ....................... 272

NotesPeter H. Hare, On Gertrude Stein and Mathematical Logic ............ 275

InterviewCarlo Sini, Luca Gaeta and Luca Vanzago, The Milano School........ 278

TributeLeemon McHenry, T.L.S. Sprigge, the Last Idealist........................ 282

Sminaires Seminars ................................................................. 290

Publications ................................................................................... 293

Table des matires Table of Contents......................................... 295


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Avant-ProposMichel Weber

Cette troisime dition du Chromatikon poursuit limplmentation duprogramme de recherche et de publication lanc en mai 2000 avec la crationdu rseau chromatiques whiteheadiennes devenu en novembre 2006lassociation sans but lucratif Centre de philosophie pratique chromatiqueswhiteheadiennes1. Comme chaque anne, elle reprend les sminairesparisiens les plus reprsentatifs ainsi que les dernires informationsrticulaires. Celles-ci consistent principalement dans la parution imminentedes premiers volumes des ditions Chromatika, qui mettront lhonneurA.N.Whitehead, Ph. Devaux et J.Wahl. On peut donc sattendre, dans unavenir proche, un renouvellement, si pas un rafrachissement, desouvrages whiteheadiens disponibles en langue franaise.

On le sait, le concept de doxa est un concept tage. Les Avant-proposdesChromatikon I et II ont explicit sa dimension alinante ; il possde toutefoisune valeur contextualisatrice intrinsque qui peut tre rendue manifeste par lastipulation de quelques pistes de recherches qui devraient permettre de

rgnrer la comprhension globale de luvre de Whitehead, prcisment laide de son inscription dans le tissu socio-culturel de lpoque. Desinnombrables figures captivantes qui, au propre ou au figur, entourrentWhitehead Cambridge, Londres et Harvard, quatre semblent plusparticulirement prometteuses, ne ft-ce que parce que leur affinit lectiveavec le penseur organique a t jusquici largement ignore: James Ward, quifait lobjet de toute lattention de P. Basile2, William Butler Yeats, Maurice DeWulf et Christiana Morgan.

Bien sr, il faudrait galement revisiter le double cercle de la CambridgeConversazione Society(les Apostles) et du groupe de Bloomsbury. Si celui-cia dj fait lobjet de nombreuses recherches, elles devraient tre toutefoisreprises ab ovo dans le cadre des tudes whiteheadiennes. Le cercle des

Apostles est incontournable pour comprendre la vision de Whitehead: ilrassemblait des croyants sans chrtient cultivant imagination, amiti etsens du devoir envers un idal socitaire de type libral (au sens noble duterme)3 Pour sa part, Bloomsbury est plus important pour comprendrelpicurisme et le cynisme de Russell en conjonction avec celui delinamovible Ottoline Morrell (18731938), qui recevait Bloomsbury(Londres) et au Garsington Manor (Oxford) que loptimisme humaniste de


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6 Michel Weber

Whitehead. On pourrait mme ce propos en venir se demander quelletait au juste le domaine do mergea limpratif russellien dinterprtationdes relations dyadiques par des relations polyadiques.

Il faudrait galement reconsidrer lpoque victorienne elle-mme (18371901), troisime cercle qui verra lapoge de la puissance industriellebritannique et surtout de lEmpire. Si les annes 18481863 donnrent llite anglaise le sentiment de limminence de sa domination plantaire,leuphorie fut de relativement courte dure: avec la proclamation de lEmpireallemand en 1871 et le rtablissement de lUnion aprs la guerre deScession, toujours en 1871, il devint urgent de promouvoir les intrts de laCouronne laide dune politique imprialiste tous azimuts qui sera

directement responsable on ne le dira jamais assez des deuxdflagrations mondiales. Pour prendre un exemple significatif: la crationdes camps de concentration durant la deuxime guerre des Boers (18991902) fort curieusement nomme the Last of the Gentlemans Warsconstitue un des traits les plus inventifs de la stratgie de Lord HerbertKitchener (18511916), lequel est toujours considr cette date, et pasuniquement dans sa patrie, comme un hros Il est dailleurs cet gardremarquable que le frre du philosophe, Henry Whitehead, vque de sontat, ait, dans sa jeunesse, connu Kitchener trs intimement4.

Vue par ce bout-l de la lorgnette, luvre de Whitehead apparat la foiscomme lhritire dune des idologies imprialistes les plus puissantes quisoient5et comme son antidote oupharmakon. Ces annes deperpetual war forperpetual peace, pour reprendre lexpression de Ch. A. Beard, furent en effetcelles de lexplosion de lidal du progrs civilisateur par la raison cratrice etde son imposition manu militari des peuplades aussi sauvages etcorrompues que celles de lAfrique, de la Chine et de lInde. Cest dans cecadre idaliste que l'hglianisme des Bradley, Bosanquet, Royce, Green,Caird, Haldane et McTaggart s'est dvelopp, un hglianisme de droitepour lequel le moteur de l'histoire, ce sont des valeurs spirituelles et non,comme dans l'hglianisme de gauche (celui qui aboutit au marxisme-lninisme), des mcanismes conomiques bien terrestres. Pour reprendrelexpression synoptique de Paul Gochet: le matriel et le spirituel sont dans lepremier cas dans un rapport top/down et dans le deuxime dans un rapportbottom/up.

William Butler Yeats (18651939) est le pote irlandais qui commit (on

pourrait dire percola) les vers fameux:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innishfree. []And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes droppingslow6.

Alors que Wordsworth et Shelley sont abondamment cits dans le corpuswhiteheadien, on ny trouve gure de trace de la connaissance quavait le


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Avant-propos 7

philosophe de Yeats. Mais son influence ne fait pas de doute et on pourraittout aussi bien remarquer labsence dans ses crits de Planck, dont larvolution quantique est pourtant indubitablement compter au nombre descatalyseurs de la thorie pochale. De fait, une anthologie de Yeats date de1910 se trouvait dans la bibliothque personnelle de Whitehead Harvard7.

Dautre part, la bibliothque de Yeats contenait Science and the ModernWorld (CUP 1926)8, ouvrage richement annot probablement entre lacomposition de Among School Children et de A Vision. Ce qui intressaitYeats dans cette uvre, ctait avant tout lunit organique et vnementiellede ltre ( unity of being9 ). La dfinition de lvnement par lide dunefigure de figures endurantes (pattern of patterns enduring10) permet de

comprendre la substance comme activit et la spatialisation commesuspension(arrestency11), en un mot: de la temporaliser ( pattern, activity,process is taken in relation to time12). Du reste, la possibilit de rconcilier lathologie (catholique) avec la science tout en acceptant lexprience nave,cest--dire le sens commun, lui semblait aussi importante que celle delsotrique du daimon (question en corrlation directe avec son intrtpour loccultisme et la mythologie13),

De plus, Yeats dclarait en priv que Whitehead tait un meilleur crivainque Russell; plus prcisment quil y avait quelque chose daristocratique, lafois au sens dune intensit intrinsque son altitude spculative et dunmpris pour ceux qui se satisfont dune fausse clart (on pourrait dire duclinquant). La loquacit plbienne dun Russell ne faisait simplement pas lepoids14. Gardons-nous de polmiquer, mais les anglicistes savent dexprienceque le style russellien nest pas du tout reprsentatif du gnie de la langueanglaise.

Maurice De Wulf (18671947), lve puis collaborateur-clef de DsirMercier (18511926) dans la promotion de la no-scolastique Louvain etailleurs, fut nomm Professeur l'Institut de philosophie en 1893 et admis l'mritat en 1933. En 1913, il prend part la soutenance de thse dtienneGilson, qui sjournera pour sa part Harvard de 1926 1929. Les voyagesdtude de De Wulf aux Etats-Unis sont nombreux : en 1915 il donne desconfrences Cornell et effectue un premier sjour Harvard; en 1919 ilaccompagne Mercier aux Etats-Unis15; en 1920, il donne des confrences Madison University (Wisconsin), Chicago University et PrincetonUniversity16. Il sjourne Harvard de 1920 1925 (Whitehead y arrive en

aot 1924) puis en 19271928; titulaire d'une chaire d'histoire de laphilosophie du moyen ge (cre pour lui), il participe galement lafondation de la Mediaeval Academy of America (1926)17. De ses coursprofesss Harvard, il tira une monographie intitule Medieval PhilosophyIllustrated from the System of Thomas Aquinas18. Il dmissionne, pour raisonsde sant, le premier septembre 1928.


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Si influence il y eut, elle produisit assurment plus deffet sur Whitehead,avide de se former lhistoire de la philosophie, que sur De Wulf ou surGilson19. Whitehead ne pouvait qutre curieux de la rforme thomiste queGilson et De Wulf entendaient mettre en place pour rsister aux assauts de lamodernit (et du modernisme) et plus particulirement de ses aspectssystmatiques et pratiques (cf. par exemple les James Lectures de Gilson20).Religion in the Makingrenvoie dailleurs au Manual of Scholastic PhilosophydeMercier sur la question du rejet de la preuve ontologique d'Anselme et deDescartes21. Lintrt critique de De Wulf pour le panthisme chartrain et lamystique rhnane (tout particulirement Eckhart) tait galement trs parlantpour lui. De Wulf tait de plus trs au fait de la rforme panenthiste de

Krause (17811832) et de ses relations avec les travaux, e.g., de Victor Cousin(17921867) et de Paul Janet (18231899)22. Au demeurant, on a retrouvune lettre, datant probablement de novembre 1925, dans laquelle Whiteheadcrit son fils T. North:

[] We are beginning to pay back some of the hospitality withlittle Tuesday dinners. We can only dine eight. Next Tuesday weare having De Wulf (a Belgian scholastic philosopher), JamesWoods, Miss Longfellow, the Greenes, and Osborn Taylor. Jessiewill come in afterwards: Osborn Taylor turned up unexpectedly.[]23

James Haughton Woods tait alors prsident du dpartement de philosophiede Harvard ; de Miss Longfellow on sait uniquement quelle tait trs ge et

de bonne compagnie; Rosalind Greene tait lpouse de Henry CopleyGreene et une amie des poux Hocking (tous deux francophiles, ils devinrenttrs lis avec les Whitehead24); Henry Osborn Taylor tait historien, maissurtout le mcne qui offrit les fonds pour engager Whitehead; Jessie taitquant elle la fille du philosophe.

Christiana Morgan, ne Drummond Councilman (18971967), rencontreWilliam Otho Potwin Morgan (18951934) en 1917 et lpouse son retourdu front en 191925. Ils emmnagent alors au 985 Memorial Drive (quelquesannes plus tard, Whitehead habitera dans le mme btiment, dtruit depuis,au 984 Memorial Drive). Chr. Morgan fait la connaissance de Henry AlexanderMurray (18931988), jeune chercheur en biochimie au Rockfeller Institute, en1923. Leur relation reste semble-t-il platonique (tous deux sont maris)

jusqu ce que Jung, quils consultent ensemble Zrich en 19261927, lesenjoigne de passer lacte afin de librer leurs inconscients respectifs. En1927, Murray devient directeur assistant de la Harvard Psychological Clinic,que venait de crer Morton Prince (18541929), et il engage Chr. Morgancomme research assistant. En 1929, il est nomm directeur de la HPC et ilparticipe la cration de la Boston Psychoanalytic Society. De 1927 1937,Murray, et probablement Chr. Morgan, suivent certains cours de Whitehead


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au dpartement de philosophie. En 1931, Murray participe, en tant quecollgue et ami, au symposium en lhonneur du septantime anniversaire deWhitehead. W. Morgan est absent, soit en raison de la dtrioration de sontat de sant (dtrioration continue depuis son retour du front: il mourra detuberculose en 1934) soit afin de ne pas tre confront publiquement lamant de son pouse26. Quoi quil en soit, il fut lui aussi proche deWhitehead, qui crivit une prface logieuse son article posthume TheOrganization of a Story and a Tale27. En 1935, Chr. Morgan devientresearch fellow au Radcliffe College. En 1941, elle participe avec H. M.Sheffer, R. B. Perry, W. Morgan, un certain Pickman et trente-trois autresinvits au repas danniversaire donn loccasion du quatre-vingtime

anniversaire du philosophe. Elle garde un souvenir mu du discours deWhitehead:

He began by saying that his mind was disrupted by thetensions of the times & that he could put nothing together intoany sequence. Then he said You have all been saying thesethings about mebut I want to say to you that in all of my workI have only been Evelyns instrument it is her voice that hastalked through me it is herunderstanding that I have spoken.We came together as two absolutely different people with twoabsolutely different backgrounds & inheritance. Out of thisdifference has come the fertilizing and creativity of my life whereas in most cases it has led to strife. I know how rare and

how precious this fortune is which has given me the very centerof my creativeness28.

La contribution scientifique de Chr. Morgan la psychologie clinique estdouble: dune part, Jung la conduite une descente dans linconscientcollectif qui allait luipermettre daffiner ses thories et, plus particulirement,de donner Zrich, de 1930 1934, les Visions Seminars29; dautre part,elle fut la cheville ouvrire, si pas lme, du Thematic Apperception Test.Dans les deux cas, elle se distingua par sa capacit de symbolisation brute etdorganisation des images symboliques.

Entre juillet 1926 et mai 1927, Morgan exprimenta, en tat de transehypnotique, une srie de visions archtypales sauvagement rotiquesquelle reprit et retravailla, entre 1926 et 1928, dans ses Vision Notebooks.

Douglas rsume son ordalie:Christiana did not defeat the depths but instead, and originally,

unitedthe depths with the heights. Toward the end of her visionsbook, in February 1927, she discovered what the masculine erahad tried to hide: that not only the primitive and spiritualfeminine needed uniting, but also the masculine figures of Satan


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and Christ. Christiana visioned a Satanic Christ lurking behindthe one-sided mask of God. [] The visions as a whole anticipate

Jungs final work, Mysterium Coniunctionis. An Inquiry Into theSeparation and the Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy30.

Jung tait la recherche de la femme anima depuis sa rencontre avecFreud; il crut la trouver en la personne de Emma Jung (18821955), deSabina Spielrein (18851942), de Chr. Morgan et, surtout de Toni Wolff(18881953), quil rendit toute entire dvoue sa cause. De mme, ilinstrumentalisa cyniquement la nature pythique de Morgan afin depromouvoir ses recherches personnelles et, subsidiairement, larrivisme deMurray.

Chr. Morgan semble stre rapproche de Whitehead dans les annes 19341935 (aprsson dmnagement doctobre 1933: les Morgan et les Whiteheadfurent donc voisins pendant prs de dix ans), soit prcisment alors quellelaborait le Thematic Apperception Test. Cl. Douglas crit que Morgan allaitalors supplanter Evelyn, non dans le cur de Whitehead, mais dans sonimagination cratrice. On soulignera que rien, dans la biographie tablie parDouglas, ne porte croire que Morgan soit devenue la matresse deWhitehead31 une thse qui se retrouve pourtant dans une certainelittrature32et que Lowe a choisit purement et simplement dignorer.

Plus intressante est la question de la nature exacte de linfluence deMorgan sur Whitehead et de son contre-transfert. Pour autant que nous lesachions, on ne trouve aucune trace de Chr. Morgan dans les crits du

philosophe, dans la biographie de Lowe ou dans les maigres archiveswhiteheadiennes qui demeurent la Nathan Marsh Pusey Libraryde Harvard, la Milton S. Eisenhower Library de Johns Hopkins et au Center for ProcessStudies de la Claremont School of Theology. Cl. Douglas fonde sa narrationprincipalement sur la correspondance, les carnets et les journaux intimes deChr. Morgan et de H. Murray, consultables Harvard (Pusey Libraryet FrancisA. Countway Library of Medicine): il y a l manifestement un gisementinformationnel de toute premire importance pour les tudeswhiteheadiennes. Par exemple, dune statue de Morgan, Whiteheadsexclamera:

It is a primitve woman moving from one age to another.Terrible, magnificent,a woman who would commit murder. A

great primeval force. O, not you, you at all as far as likenessgoes. Good heavens! What have you inspired? Womanbecoming, woman moving out of darkness into light. The mostmagnificent statue of a woman I have ever seen33.

On retrouve bien le ton vif et surprenant que certains croient bon dednoncer dans lesDialoguesde L. Price.

Dautre part, ce que Morgan dit de Whitehead est rvlateur:


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Morgan, in the same reminiscence, listed the things aboutWhitehead she prized: his kindness; his aesthetic sense andphilosophy; his enjoyment of beauty and others talent; hisappreciation of women; his simplicity, humor, expressiveness,loyalty, optimism, and his ability to evoke her love. She felt thatWhitehead was in many ways similar to Jung; both men wereher spiritual fathers and were powerful pioneers who, besideshaving deeply religious spirits, shared a zest andadventurousness that she prized highly. Both men also helpedher to give the courage to lead her own unconventional life.Whitehead, though, held a closer place in her heart, because of

his humility. [] Altie conveys the pure joy in the living processof becoming conscious, the life joy in the formulation for its ownsake He is simply speaking out of his own life and being andnot imposing it on others34.

Le Thematic Apperception Test (ci-aprs TAT) est un test projectif encoreutilis de nos jours en psychologie clinique afin de saisir la personnalitinhibe du patient. Sa version de 1943 consiste en une srie de 20 planchesfiguratives reprsentant des situations sociales varies et ambigus. Leprincipe directeur est systmique: chaque planche (sauf la planche 16,vierge) met en scne linterpersonnel afin de susciter linterprtationnarrative la plus subjective et dramatique possible. Le thrapeute prsente lesplanches au patient (selon des modalits quil ne nous appartient pas de

dbattre ici) et lui demande de sen inspirer pour raconter une histoire quidevra rendre compte de ce qui se passe, cest--dire de ce que lespersonnages ressentent et pensent au moment du clich, mais aussi descauses et des consquences de la situation prsente. On parie sur le fait que lepatient ne pourra que projeter, consciemment ou non, sa propre histoire surces figures (le Rorschach, qui date lui de 1921 et auquel le TAT se rfreexplicitement, suit le mme principe, mais laide de planches non-figuratives).

La premire publication scientifique dcrivant le TAT date de 1935; ellereconnat le rle directeur de Chr. Morgan35. De fait, le TAT sera connu sous lenom Morgan-Murray Thematic Apperception Test jusquen 1943, date laquelle une nouvelle version fut publie par Harvard University Press avec

pour auteur Henry A. Murray, M.D., and the Staff of the HarvardPsychological Clinic36. A la fin de sa vie, Murray attribua lide originale dutest une tudiante (undergraduate) de Radcliffe. Il semble que Morgan,qui ne dtenait quun diplme dinfirmire dlivr pendant la premire guerrepar le YWCA de New York, ait t en partie responsable de cet effacementprogressif qui arrangeait bien lorgueil paranoaque de Murray.


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En consquence, la question immdiate que se pose le whiteheadien estdouble: dune part, existe-t-il dans les archives de Morgan ou de Murray desindices permettant destimer limplication directe ou indirecte ( travers leschme catgorial) de Whitehead dans la construction du TAT? loccasiondune publication intermdiaire sur le TAT, Murray rendit dailleurs hommage Whitehead et dautres luminaires de lpoque:

To Morton Prince who had the vision, raised the endowmentand was the first director of the Harvard Clinic, to SigmundFreud whose genius contributed the most fruitful workinghypotheses, to Lawrence J. Henderson whose expositions ofscientific procedure established a methodological standard, to

Alfred N. Whitehead whose philosophy of organism suppliedthe necessary underlying generalities, and to Carl G. Jung whose writings were a hive of great suggestiveness37.

Dautre part, le TAT peut-il occasionner un affinage de la philosophieorganique elle-mme? Le point dimpact serait probablement chercher auniveau du statut des propositions: Propositions are Tales That Might be Toldof Logical Subjects38, mais encore faudrait-il le montrer par le menu

Lembotement de ces diffrents cercles dinfluence (et leurs interfrences)pourrait occasionner un cycle rottique39 dterminant un train d'enquteinnovateur en philosophie whiteheadienne. Reste bien sr trouver lechercheur dispos se le rapproprier en tout ou en partie.

Pour conclure, on mentionnera la publication en partie IV de la rponse deD.R.Griffin larticle de A. Cockburn Scepticisme ou occultisme? Lecomplot du 11-Septembre naura pas lieu40 paru dans le Monde diplomatiqueen dcembre 2006. Ce nest certes pas la premire fois que le Mondediplomatiquequi demeure sous bien des rapports un mensuel de premireimportance dans le contexte de la lutte contre la gnralisation, parconcentration des mdias traditionnels entre les mains de groupes industrielsproches du monde politique, de la nouvelle vulgate plantaire41 tente deridiculiser ceux qui, impermables la construction mdiatique de la ralit

impriale42, font retour au bon sens et dnoncent la mythographie officielledes vnements du 11 septembre 2001. Le refus de la direction parisienne depublier la rponse de Griffin (qui nest parue que dans ldition norvgiennedu Monde diplomatique) est aussi difficilement justifiable que, prcisment,lassimilation de toute critique de la politique no-librale une thorie ducomplot: il sagit ni plus ni moins que de lapplication dune interdiction de


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penser; quelle soit facilite et oblitre par le dlitement du tissu social nechange rien laffaire.

Qui se souvient encore du 27 fvrier 1933? Nous sommes nouveau noysdans un mcanisme pervers de type double-ligature dans lequel lindividu,pour ne pas affronter rationnellement le rel, fait, volens nolens, semblant decroire linvraisemblable. Personne, manifestement, ne veut soutenir le regardncessairement hallucin dun Saturne dvorant ses enfants (Goya, 18201823). Or, la lutte antiterroriste constitue une guerre contre les liberts quisemble ntre quun prlude la criminalisation de toute forme dopposition.Le seul appareil qui manifeste encore cette heure une certaine rsistance enOccident est la magistrature et cest bon droit quon se demande

combien de temps elle pourra rsister43

.Nombreuses sont pourtant les voix qui slvent aux Etats-Unis mme pourdnoncer la drive fascisante du nouvel ordre mondial (qui nest autre, selonloxymore nolibral, quun chaos constructif): mis part Griffin, onmentionnera Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Webster G. Tarpley, Lynn Margulis,Paul Craig Roberts, Howard Zinn, Naomi Wolf, Daniel Ellsberg et ledmocrate Lyndon LaRouche44. Comme le remarque Vidal avec l-proposquon lui connat, it is interesting how often in our history, when disasterstrikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than well, yes, there areworse things45.

On prtera du reste tout particulirement attention trois faits peucomments: le liberticide Patriot Act, qui a t dpos trois jours aprs les

attentats, est manifestement le fruit dun long travail de rflexion et derdaction (les juristes parlent dune anne au minimum) plongeant ses racinesproximales dans le pamphlet du PNAC rendu public en 200046; ensuite, lamultiplication des exercices militaires (war games) mettant en scne, e.g.,de vraies faussesattaques terroristes du type 9/11 et programms le 11septembre 2001: Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, NorthernVigilence, Northern Guardian, National Reconnaissance Office Drill (cf.galement le Tripod II et lAmalgam Virgo). Est-il besoin de prciser quela conflagration des donnes relles et virtuelles occasionne par cesexercices plus ou moins secrets (ceci nest pas une figure de style) a entretenuune confusion contribuant expliquer la paralysie des oprateurs NORAD etautres? Enfin, au niveau de lendurance de la signature psychique delvnement, on se souviendra que 911 nest autre, aux Etats-Unis, que lenumro dappel des services de secours.

Pour toutes ces raisons et bien dautres encore, il est vraissemblable quetout penseur digne de ce nom ait deux philosophies: la sienne et celle deSpinoza


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Notes

1 Parution des statuts au Moniteur belge le 08/11/06 (le droit franais parled Association loi 1901 ).

2 Cf., e.g., Pierfrancesco Basile, All monads have windows ?:James Wardand the Reception of Leibnizs Theory of Monads in British Idealism (inEinheit in der Vielheit. VIII Internationaler Leibniz Kongress, edited byHerbert Breger, Jrgen Herbst und Sven Erder, Hannover, Gottfried-

Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gesellschaft, 2006, pp. 29-36) et Rethinking Leibniz:Whitehead, Ward and the Idealistic Legacy (in Process Studies35.2, 2006,pp. 207-229).

3 Believers without Christianity : W. C. Lubenow, The Cambridge Apostles,18201914. Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectualand Professional Life, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.407. Du reste, James Bradley crit Dorothy Emmet told me that sheheard Whitehead say of Process and Reality, Its a defence ofliberalism ! ( Transformations in Speculative Philosophy, 19141945 ,in Tom Baldwin (ed.) Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1870-1945, 2003,Cambridge University Press, pp. 436-446, p. 446).

4Cf. Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, New York, HarcourtBrace, 1933 (trad. franc. Paris, Gallimard, 1934) et Philippe Devaux, La

cosmologie de Whitehead. Tome I, L'pistmologie whiteheadienne, dit parThibaut Donck et Michel Weber, Prface de Paul Gochet, Louvain-la-Neuve,ditions Chromatika, 2007, p. 167. [sous presse] Voir galement la notulede Peter Hare, dans ce volume, pp. 277 sq.

5Donald Harman Akenson, God's Peoples. Covenant and Land in South Africa,Israel, and Ulster, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1992.

6William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innishfree , from The Rose, 1893, inThe Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Repr. of the 2nd ed., London,Macmillan, 1971, p. 16.

7W.B. Yeats,Poems, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908. Lannonce de la librairieLameDuck stipulait: Large octavo, 301pp. First thus. Very good or bettercopy in publisher's elaborately decorated boards. Pages untrimmed. B/w

frontis portrait drawing of Yeats. Yeats' early poetry is contained here,including The Lake Isle of Innisfree, To Ireland in the Coming Times,and The Wanderings of Oisin. Inscribed on the front free endpaper:North Whitehead from N......y, ...ridge, Xmas 1910. Judith Jones(Fordham) travaille depuis de nombreuses annes sur les affinits lectivesrunissant Whitehead et Yeats; elle na malheureusement pas encore


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publi le rsultat de ses recherches, comme prvu, dans les Transactions ofthe Charles S. Peirce Society.

8Cf. le MSS 40,568 / 273 de la W. B. Yeats manuscript collection sise laNational Library of Ireland.

9 W. B. Yeats, annotation de la page 170 de Science and the Modern World,1926.

10W. B. Yeats, annotation de la page 169 de SMW 1926.11W. B. Yeats, annotation de la page 190 de SMW 1926 : spatialization =

arrestency .12

W. B. Yeats, annotation de la page 212 de SMW 1926.13 En marge de la page 226, au niveau de la thse the spatio-temporalcontinuum is the general system of relatedness of all possibilities Yeatsspcule daimon = the individual spatio-temporal continuum as[abstracted ?] from particular individual occasions .

14 W. B. Yeats made a strong case for the superiority of Whitehead as awriter. Well aware that Russell was the scion of a lordly house andWhitehead the son of a country parson, Yeats delighted to find "somethingaristocratic" in Whitehead's "packed logic" and "difficult scornful lucidity",and was infuriated by Russell's "plebeian loquacity". Letter to OliviaShakespear (18631938), April 22, 1926, cite par George Louis Kline,Review of Paul Grimley Kuntz: Alfred North Whitehead (1984) & BertrandRussell (1986), Haverford. The Alumni Magazine of Haverford College,

1987, pp. 30-32. terme, elle devrait tre publie dans The collected lettersof W.B. Yeats, Edited by John Kelly, Eric Domville, Warwick Gould, RonaldSchuchard, Deirdre Toomey et al., Oxford / New York, Clarendon Press /Oxford University Press, 1986-. Voir galement le site Toile InteLex PastMasters, Unpublished Letters section, Accession Number 4863.

15 Cf. Le Cardinal Mercier et les universits amricaines, in Revue de no-scolastique, t. XXII, n1, 1920, pp. 13-116 ; Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Vol.XXII, Nr 20, 1920, p. 449.

16 Vanuxem Lectures publies sous le titre Philosophy and Civilization in theMiddle Ages, Princeton University Press, 1922.

17Cf. Classical Philology, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Apr., 1926), pp. 161-162.18

Harvard UP, 1922 (puis 1929); cf. la bibliographie tablie par PierreHarmignie: La carrire scientifique de M. De Wulf, in Var. auct.,Hommage Monsieur le professeur Maurice De Wulf. Volume de Mlangesextrait de la Revue noscolastique de Philosophie, tome 36, fvrier 1934,Louvain, ditions de lInstitut suprieur de Philosophie, 1934, pp. 39-66.Voir galement, dans le mme volume, Lon Nol, L'uvre de M. De


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16 Michel Weber

Wulf, pp. 11-38; C. E. M., Struyker Boudier, Wijsgerige leven in Nederlanden Belgi 18801980. Deel V & Deel VI: De filosofie van Leuven,Leuven/Baarn, Universitaire Pers Leuven / Ambo, 1989 (Partie V, pp. 129-134 et VI, pp. 304-308); Jean Ladrire, One Hundred Years of Philosophyat the Institute of Philosophy , in David A. Boileau & John A. Dick, editors,Tradition and Renewal. Philosophical Essays Commemorating the Centennialof Louvain's Institute of Philosophy. Volume 3, Louvain, Leuven UniversityPress, Louvain Philosophical Studies 7, 1993, pp. 41-78.

19 Sur la question subsidiaire de linfluence de Gilson sur Whitehead, voirPierre Rodrigo, qui crit: Si nous soutenons que linfluence dEtienne

Gilson est ici dterminante, ce nest pas seulement parce que, comme onle sait,Procs et ralit a explicitement reconnue dans sa Prface une detteenvers Gilson ; cest surtout parce que la deuxime partie des tudes sur lerle de la pense mdivale dans la formation du systme cartsien, parues en1930, est compose dessais dont nous savons par leur auteur lui-mmequils ont t labors partir des confrences donnes par Gilson Londres et Bruxelles au tout dbut des annes 1920 qui se trouventdonner trs exactement le ton de linterprtation de Descartes proposepar Whitehead dans Science and the Modern World. (De l'esthtique l'histoire. L'atlologie des valeurs vives, in Franois Beets, Michel Dupuiset Michel Weber (diteurs), La science et le monde moderne dAlfred NorthWhitehead Alfred North Whiteheads Science and the Modern World,Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Chromatiques whiteheadiennesIV, 2006, pp. 241-258.

20 tienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience. William JamesLectures (Harvard University), New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1937 ;puis: Westminster (Md.), Christian classics, 1982 et enfin Unity ofphilosophical experience: a survey showing the unity of mediaeval, Cartesianand modern philosophy, Blackrock, Four courts press, 1990,

21Religion in the Making, 1926, p. 69 ; en fait l'ouvrage est un collectif: byCardinal Mercier and professors of the higher institute of philosophy, AManual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy. Second Edition (Revised), London,Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1917; il sagit de la traduction dela quatrime dition du Trait lmentaire de philosophie l'usage desclasses, dit par des professeurs de l'Institut suprieur de philosophie del'Universit de Louvain, en 1906.

22 Cf., e.g., Maurice De Wulf, Quelques formes contemporaines depanthisme ,Revue No-Scolastique de Philosophie, 4, 1897, pp. 375-385.

23Victor Augustus Lowe, A. N. Whitehead. The Man and His Work. Volume I:1861-1910 ; Volume II: 1910-1947 (edited by J. B. Schneewind),Baltimore, Maryland and London, The Johns Hopkins University Press,1985 & 1990, vol. II p. 321 ; cf. II pp. 132 et 304.


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Avant-propos 17

24 On se souviendra que Madame Whitehead avait fait ses tudes dans uncouvent Angers.

25Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness. The Life of Christiana Morgan, NewYork, Simon and Schuster, 1993.

26 Symposium in Honor of the Seventieth Birthday of A. N. Whitehead,Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1932 (reprispartiellement dans Essays in Science and Philosophy, New York,Philosophical Library, Inc., 1947).

27Prface reproduite intgralement ci-dessous, pp. 21-22.28Cit par Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness, op. cit., pp. 221-222.29 Du 15 octobre 1930 au 21 mars 1934 ; cf. Claire Douglas (ed.), Visions:

Notes of the Seminar Given in 19301934 by C. G. Jung , Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, Bollingen Series, 1997.

30Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness, op. cit., p. 172. Cf. Mary Daly, PureLust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy(Boston, Beacon Press, 1984).

31Claire Douglas parle de muse et de femme inspiratrice (Translate ThisDarkness, op. cit., pp. 217 sq.) ; lorsquelle voque la relation de Morganavec Murray ou Jung, elle parle d anima woman ou d erotic muse.

32Deirdre Bair,Jung. A Biography, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 2003.33Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness, op. cit., p. 216.34Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness, op. cit., p. 218.35 Christiana Morgan & Henry A. Murray, A Method for Investigating

Fantasies: The Thematic Apperception Test, Archives of Neurology andPsychiatry, 34, 1935, pp. 289-306.

36Henry A. Murray, M.D., and the Staff of the Harvard Psychological Clinic,Thematic apperception test: Manual. Cambridge, Harvard University Press,1943, rdit en 1971. Cette version comporte deux jeux de dix images,dont cinq (1, 3, 6, 14, 18) furent dessines par Chr. Morgan.

37 Henry A. Murray (ed.), Explorations in Personality. A Clinical andExperimental Study of Fifty Men of College Age, New York, OxfordUniversity Press, 1938; cf. le paragraphe Thematic Apperception test,pp. 673-680.

38

PR xxvi qui nous renvoie aux pp. 256-259, spcialement p. 256 :But nowa new kind of entity presents itself. Such entities are the tales that perhapsmight be told about particular actualities. Such entities are neither actualentities, nor eternal objects, nor feelings. They are propositions. Aproposition must be true or false. Herein a proposition differs from aneternal object ; for no eternal object is ever true or false. Cf. Jean-ClaudeDumoncel, Les sept mots de Whitehead ou Laventure de ltre (Crativit,


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18 Michel Weber

Processus, vnement, Objet, Organisme, Enjoyment, Aventure). Uneexplication de Processus & Ralit, Paris, ditions et Publications de lcoleLacanienne, Cahiers de lUnebvue, 1998, pp 152-158.

39 Cf. Nicholas Rescher, Essais sur les fondements de l'ontologie du procs.Traduit de langlais et prfac par Michel Weber. Traduction relue parlauteur, Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Chromatiqueswhiteheadiennes IX, 2006, spcialement le chapitre Procs cognitifs etprogrs scientifiques .

40 .41On peut parler de berlusconisation. Pour le reste, voir Pierre Bourdieu et

Loc Wacquant, La nouvelle vulgate plantaire , Monde diplomatique, Mai2000, pp. 6-7.

42Cf. le mot fameux de Karl Rove, conseiller de George W Bush : We're anempire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And whileyou're studying that reality judiciously, as you will we'll act again,creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's howthings will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be leftto just study what we do. (cit par Ron Suskind, Without a Doubt, TheNew York Times, October 17, 2004; cf. Robert Fisk, Even I question the'truth' about 9/11 , The Independant, August 25, 2007; voir aussi ChristianSalmon, Storytelling, La machine a fabriquer des histoires et formater lesesprits, ditions La Dcouverte, 2008)

43Le 5 septembre 2006, Christian Panier, prsident du Tribunal de premireinstance de Namur, dclarait lors dun Face linfo (RTBF): Je pensequil y a un dessein qui mle le politique, le judiciaire et le mdiatique dansune forme de nouvel opium du peuple qui consiste dire : Restez chezvous, bonnes gens, terrez-vous, on soccupe de tout pour vous. Du reste,cf. Jean Bricmont et Julie Frank (sous la direction de), Chomsky (Paris,ditions de L'Herne, 2007), Armand Mattelart, La globalisation de lasurveillance (Paris, ditions La Dcouverte, 2007) et Jean-Claude Paye, Lafin de l'tat de droit. La lutte antiterroriste: de l'tat d'exception la dictature(Paris, ditions de La Dispute, 2007).

44 Voir galement John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, SanFrancisco, Berrett-Koehler, 2004; Daniele Ganser, Natos secret Armies:Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, prface de John Prados,

New York, Frank Cass, 2005; Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of theUnited States: 1492Present, New York, HarperCollins, 1980. (Une histoirepopulaire des Etats-Unis de 1792 nos jours, tr. fr. Marseille, Agone, 2002);Webster G. Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, Made in USA, Progressive Press,2005 (La Terreur fabrique, Made in USA. 11 Septembre, le mythe du XXIe


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Avant-propos 19

sicle, Traduit de l'amricain par Benot Kremer et Tatiana Pruzan, Paris,ditions Demi-Lune, 2006).

45 Gore Vidal, Dreaming War. Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, NewYork, Thunders Mouth Press / Nation Books, 2002, p. 30.

46Rebuilding Americas Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a NewCentury, A Report of The Project for the New American Century,September 2000 travail se situant dans la mme ligne que le CounterIntelligence Program (en abrg Cointel Program, datant de 1956),approfondit depuis avec le Military Commission Actde 2006 et scell par laNational Security Security Presidential Directive / NSPD 51, signe par Bushle 9 mai 2007. Vidal na de cesse de rappeler que le tournant imprial sesitue en 1947, anne qui vit la naissance de la Truman Doctrine(12 mars),du Marshall Plan(12 juillet) et du National Security Act(26 juillet).


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ForewordMichel Weber

In the Prface, we are alluding to a few domains of inquiry that would beworth exploiting in order to refresh Whiteheadian scholarship. In more or lessoverlapping order they are: the Victorian era, the Bloomsbury Group, theCambridge Apostles, James Ward, William Butler Yeats, Maurice De Wulf andChristiana Morgan. Even the domains that have been already subjected tofirst-rate scientific inquiries should be re-discovered by Whiteheadians for thesake of their own heuristics. Here is a synopsis of the stakes; most quotes andreferences are to be found in thePrface.

The Victorian era (18371901) saw the apex of British industrial power andof its imperialism. More precisely, the years 18481863, in the immediateaftermath of The Great Famine (An Gorta Mr in Irish, 18451850) duringwhich the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation (otherwiseknown as genocide), gave the impression that a world-wide British Empirewas at reach. With the rise of the German Empire and the end of theSecession war, both in 1871, that possibility got dramatically compromisedand British politics was reformed accordingly, leading directly to the firstworld war. In other words, the Victorian years were in many ways, obviousand covert, years of perpetual war for perpetual peace; it should not beforgotten for instance that concentrations camps were created by Lord

Herbert Kitchener (18511916) during the second Boer War (18991902)the Last of the Gentlemans Wars.

Bloomsbury is important to understand the liberalism of that time (quiteforeign to current neo-liberalism), and perhaps even the Russellian logicalimperative of polyadic relations.

The Cambridge Conversazione Society (the Apostles) is essential in thecontext of Whiteheadian scholarship. Its policy was to gather believerswithout Christianity cultivating imagination, friendship and the sense of dutyand reverence laudated in theFunction of Reason.

William Butler Yeats (18651939) has been read by Whitehead (there was aYeats anthology in his library) while Yeats has perused with great concernScience and the Modern World(CUP, 1926). He was especially interested in the

organic and eventful unity of being, in the possible esoteric links with theconcept of daimon and in the interplay between science, religion andcommon sense. He furthermore made a strong case for the superiority ofWhitehead as a writer.

Maurice De Wulf (18671947) was a very important figure in the Thomisticrenewal orchestrated by Dsir Mercier (18511926) in Louvain. He visitedmany times the United States and sojourned in Harvard in the years 1920


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Foreword 21

1925, where he held the history of the philosophy of the Middle Ages chair(created for him). Any influence between De Wulf and Whitehead (or betweenGilson and Whitehead) is likely to have taken place in the mind of the latter,who was then eager to learn of all forms of systematic philosophy. Besidesbeing knowledgeable in Aquinas transcendentalism, De Wulf was especiallyfollowing pantheist and panentheist studies of the time.

Christiana Morgan, ne Drummond Councilman (18971967), meetsWilliam Otho Potwin Morgan (18951934) in 1917 and marries him in 1919.They then move into 985 Memorial Drive (a few years later, Whitehead willmove into the same building, now destroyed, 984 Memorial Drive). Chr.Morgan meets Henry Alexander Murray (18931988), a married biochemist

of the Rockfeller Institute, in 1923; in 1927, following Jungs advice, theybecome lovers to unlock their unconscious and their creativity. Jungs goalwas to transform Morgan into an erotic muse to serve both himself andMurray (in that order). Besides, Murray, probably Chr. Morgan, and perhapsW. Morgan, followed some of Whiteheads classes in the years 19271937.

Chr. Morgans contribution to clinical psychology is two-fold : on the onehand, the painting of the visions that took place under Jungs spell in theyears 19261927 and that were extensively exploited in Jungs 1932 VisionsSeminars; on the other hand, the senior authorship of the ThematicApperception Test (hereafter TAT). Interestingly enough, Chr. Morgan gotcloser to Whitehead in the years 19341935, precisely when she wasdirecting the work on the TAT.

As far as we know, there are no traces of Chr. Morgan in Whiteheadspublished works or in the meagre Whiteheadian archives of Nathan MarshPusey Library (Harvard), Milton S. Eisenhower Library (Johns Hopkins) orCenter for Process Studies(Claremont School of Theology). On the other hand,Cl. Douglas biography, that relies heavily upon Chr. Morgan and H. Murrayunpublished material preserved in Harvard (Pusey Library et Francis A.Countway Library of Medicine), presents the strong impact the philosopher hadon Chr. Morgan and H. Murrayand more relevant material would obviouslybe found in Pusey and Countway libraries. Hence the double question: whatwas exactly the direct and indirect impact of Whitehead on the TAT; howcould the TAT be used to expand the significance of the philosophy oforganism?

In addition, Murrays quote printed in our Prface testifies for his own

Whiteheadian debt while Whiteheads Preface to Morgans The Organizationof a Story and a Tale is explicit as well. Here it is in its entirety as it waspublished:

In this account of The Organization of a Story and a Tale by Dr.William Morgan three types of scientific thought converge. In thefirst place, and above all, there is Dr. Morgans own field work


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22 Michel Weber

among the Navaho Indians, giving him direct first-handknowledge of the workings of a primitive mentality. In thesecond place, Dr. Morgan constructs his analysis with a firmgrasp of the discoveries of modern psychology respecting theinterweaving of emotion, perception, and belief, into somesettled habit of mind. Lastly, to my own great interest, Dr.Morgan has made considerable use, especially in histerminology, of my philosophical account of the rise of anoccasion of experience, of whatever grade human or animal, outof the active influences of its environment. Any valid philosophyought to be able to furnish the categories of thought for the

explanation of such particular experience.Primitive human mentality has a special interest as throwing

light on the mentality which pervades animal nature on the onehand, and in the other direction by illustrating the submergedbasis of civilized thought and emotion. The animal is a stepdown; civilized man is above, by a short step.

As we read Dr. Morgans fascinating account of the rise ofstory and tale, under the urge of initial perception, of fusion withantecedent memory, of distortion by emotion and purpose, it isinteresting to speculate as to where we differ from the primitive.The difference is not great, but it is very important. It seems toconsist in the absence of criticism respecting the associations of

ideas casually evoked by each state of imaginative feelings as itarises. There must be some primitive type of criticism respectingthe suitability of suggested action for the purposes of immediatebodily existence. But when imagination strays beyondimmediate action, there is no critical apparatus to guide it. Thestory of the detachment of critical powers from their immediatepurpose is the inner history of the growth of civilization.1

Chr. Morgan was truly a woman moving out of darkness into light2and it isabout time that her work be acknowledged, especially in the context ofWhiteheadian studies. She embodied the ideal of scholarship andcommitment that is celebrated by all first-rate philosophers and sometimes bypsychologists:

Life and sacrifice go together. Red is the color of life andsacrifice. [] If you want to create, you have to sacrificesuperficiality, some security, and often your desire to be liked, todraw up your most intense insights, your most far-reachingvisions.3


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Foreword 23

Whitehead claimed that moral education is impossible apart from thehabitual vision of greatness.4 The erotetics5 outlined here might providesome paths to clarify both the general context of that claim and some of itsmost striking exemplifications.

The Chromatikon Yearbook has been so far framed according to a dualconcept: it was partly a proceedings-type publication (the research seminars)and partly a journal-type publication (the critical studies and reviews). Peer-

reviewing as such was only implemented in case of disagreement betweenthe co-editors.Starting with next years issue, our policy will be to screen all submitted

papers through double blind reviewing and to limit them to four thousandwordswith the possible exception, for outstanding contributions, to go up tosix thousand words. The deadline for new submissions is June 20 th 2008.More data will be available on the Yearbooks webpage: www.chromatika.org.Inquiries can be made in the meantime to [email protected] or [email protected].


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24 Michel Weber

Notes

1William Morgan, The Organization of a Story and a Tale. With a Preface byAlfred North Whitehead, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. LVIII, N229, July-September, 1945, pp. 169-194. This posthumous paper wasedited by Clyde Kluckhohn and Chr. Morgan.

2Claire Douglas, Translate This Darkness. The Life of Christiana Morgan, NewYork, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p. 216 (cf. the entire quote supra).

3

Clarissa Pinkola Ests, Women Who Run With the Wolves. Contracting thePower of the Wild Woman, London, Rider, 1992, p. 222.4The Aims of Education[1929], Free Press, 1967, p. 77.5Cf. Nicholas Rescher,Process Philosophy. A Survey of Basic Issues, Pittsburgh

(Pa.), University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000, Chap. 5.


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I. Sminaires de recherche Research Seminars


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The Reality of Forms: On a Leibnizian Argumentfor the Existence of God in Whiteheads Metaphysics

Pierfrancesco Basile1

1. Introduction

Whitehead is justly celebrated for his original conception of the nature of God,which he strips of many of the attributes orthodox philosophical traditionascribed to the Deity and that rendered Gods existence hardly believable. A

notable feature of Whiteheads conception, for example, is that God is neitheromniscient nor all-powerful nor the creator of the world, which means thattraditional objections such as those based upon the problem of evil and thereality of creaturely freedom do not arise in his philosophy. But there is also amore traditional side to Whiteheads thinking, which emerges most clearlywhen he discusses the problem of the existence of God. Whitehead does notadvance either the ontological or the cosmological argument, yet he doesoffer a revised version of the design argument and several passages suggestthat he holds to the so-called moral argument, the Kantian claim that ourexperience of moral obligation can be made intelligible only by postulatingthe reality of God as an ultimate standard of value. 2

The proof investigated in the present paper receives no title in Whiteheads

metaphysics. Charles Hartshorne refers to it as the Argument from theOntological Principle,3 but it could also be called the Argument from theEternal Objects, since it bears some significant similarities with a line ofreasoning developed by Leibniz and that Russell labeled the Argument fromthe Eternal Truths in his early, influential study of the philosophy of theGerman thinker.4 Like all proofs, in attempting to establish the reality of itsobject, it also conveys something about its objects nature. An examination ofthe proof will therefore provide an insight into Whiteheads conception of theDeity, although only a partial one.

Before entering in a discussion of this proof, however, a word must be saidabout the often-heard complain that Whitehead fails to provide sufficientarguments for his views. Indeed, some might even be surprised to hear thatthere is anything like a proof in Whiteheads philosophy at all. In the widelyread A Hundred Years of Philosophy, for example, John Passmore observesthat [t]here are those who would maintain that he [Whitehead] is theoutstanding philosopher of our century, but then immediately adds thatthere are others who would dismiss his metaphysical constructions asobscure private dreams.5Passmore seems to have at least some sympathyfor the latter opinion, since only a few lines later he says that Whiteheads


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28 Pierfrancesco Basile

style produces in the chronicler of contemporary thought a feeling ofdesperation.6

Although there is some truth in this accusation, the extent to whichWhitehead fails to make explicit the grounds of his positions tends to beunduly over-emphasized. Surely, his style and terminology have to bedigested before one can begin to appreciate his philosophys argumentativestructure. In Modes of ThoughtWhitehead does indeed sayto the surprise ofmost of his readers and to the chagrin of hard-core analytic philosophersthat in philosophical writings proof should be at a minimum. 7The contextmakes it clear, however, that he only means to deny that arguments are theend of philosophical activity and to recall what should be uncontroversial,

namely that what truly matters is that we reach some understanding of thenature of things and, in virtue of this understanding, perhaps even a differentway of experiencing the world and conducting our lives. Surely, if we couldhave an intuitive grasp of the truth, we would have no need for arguments.We do all see at a glance that 4 + 1 is equal to 3 + 2, but are we capable of

judging with the same immediacy that 19 + 58 yields the same result as 31+ 46? The Indian Ramanujan is told to have had this sort of ability for thefirst 100 integers. As Whitehead remarks, most of us do not and need tohave recourse to the indignity of proof.8

While explicitly downgrading the importance of philosophical arguments,Whitehead thus implicitly recognizes their significance for us: since we do notenjoy the privilege of divine insight, we do need arguments as an inroad toknowledge, even to a life more in accord with the way things really are.

2. A Theistic Argument

The proof is stated in Process and Reality; although the passage is long, itdeserves to be quoted at full length:

The scope of the ontological principle is not exhausted by thecorollary that decision must be referable to an actual entity.Everything must be somewhere, and here somewhere meanssome actual entity. Accordingly, the general potentiality of theuniverse must be somewhere; since it retains its proximaterelevance to actual entities for which it is unrealized []. Thissomewhere is the non-temporal actual entity. Thus proximaterelevance means relevance as in the primordial mind of God. Itis a contradiction in terms to assume that some explanatory factcan float into the actual world out of nonentity. Nonentity isnothingness. Every explanatory fact refers to the decision and tothe efficacy of an actual thing. The notion of subsistence ismerely the notion of how eternal objects can be components of


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The Reality of Forms 29

the primordial nature of God [] eternal objects, as in Godsprimordial nature, constitute the Platonic world of ideas.9

The main thrust of the argument is clear enough: Whitehead is advancing aversion of the Neo-Platonist and scholastic doctrine that abstract entities needan ontological foundation in Gods intellect. The arguments logical structure,its underlying premises and the specific import of the conclusion are perhapsnot equally evident. In order to reach a clearer formulation of the argument itmight be helpful to begin by considering Whiteheads contention in the finalline of the passage that there is a class of entitiesthe eternal objectsthatbear important similarities with Platos Ideas.

Whitehead does not provide a complete inventory of the class of eternal

objects in his works. A survey of the several passages in which they arementioned makes it sufficiently clear that it includes mathematical entitiessuch as numbers and geometrical figures as well as the universal properties ofthings. In The Function of Reason, for example, Whitehead writes that eternalobjects are the Platonic Forms, the Platonic Ideas, the medieval universals,10whereas inProcess and Realityhe refers to a subclass of the eternal objects asthe mathematical Platonic forms.11

For the purposes of the present paper, the most significant fact abouteternal objects is that they include the possible forms of definiteness for theparticular actualities of the world: An eternal objectWhitehead saysisalways a potentiality for actual entities.12 And even more clearly, he writesthat

if the term eternal object is disliked, the term potentials wouldbe suitable. The eternal objects are the pure potentials of theuniverse; and the actual entities differ from each other in theirrealization of potentials. (PR 149)

What Whitehead refers to here as actual entities are the worldly individuals.These are not to be identified with Aristotelian substances, i.e., staticsubstrata to which qualities inhere, but with teleological process-units thatachieve determinateness by instantiating a form or complex pattern of forms.When the final state of full determinateness has been reached, the actuality issaid to have achieved satisfaction. At this point, it ceases to exist as inprocess, or concrescence, and becomes a definite, objective yet transitionalconstituent of the world: it is not a becoming anymore, but a being. The

realm of eternal objects is the repository of all forms that can findingression in such actualities and, by their means, in the world-process.

Before going further, there is an ambiguity in Whiteheads use of the termpotentiality that needs to be pointed out. At any given moment, only aselection of the total realm of forms will be available to an actual occasion.The actual world, in so far as it is a community of entities which are settled,actual, and already become, conditions and limits the potentiality for


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creativeness beyond itself.13 My decision not too long ago to read a bookinstead of going to the movie, for example, is the settled past that nowprecludes me from enjoying certain visual experiences; at the same time thatvery same decision is a precondition for imaginative experiences of adifferent sort to occur. Whitehead distinguishes in this connection betweenthe general and the real potentiality of the universe. The former isstraightforwardly identified with the realm of eternal objects; in his account ofthe latter concept, however, Whitehead oscillates between an understandingof real potentiality as that selected portion of eternal objects that becomeavailable to an occasion on account of the immediate past and anunderstanding of real potentiality as being itself that actual past. The former

interpretation is supported by the following passage, where Whiteheadexplains that we have always to consider two meanings of potentiality: (a)the general potentiality, which is the bundle of possibilities provided bythe multiplicity of eternal objects, and (b) the real potentiality, which isconditioned by the data provided by the actual world. 14 Surely, if a realpotentiality is conditioned by the data provided by the actual world, it cantbe identical with that very same world. And yet, only a few lines earlierWhitehead had said that a real potentiality is nothing else than the actualworld itself in its character of a possibility for the process of being felt [i.e. fora novel emerging actuality].15

Fortunately, this uncertainty does not affect the argument underconsideration, to a further discussion of which we might now turn. Havingidentified the class of eternal objects with the general potentiality of theuniverse, Whitehead goes on to raise two distinct yet closely relatedquestions.

The first question concerns the eternal objects ontological status. Anunrealized possibility is by its very nature neither actual nor instantiated inany actual thing; nevertheless, there must be a sense in which possibilitiesare, for otherwise they could not be relevant to the actual course of things.This is the point behind Whiteheads only apparently barren remark in thelong passage quoted above that [n]onentity is nothingness. His use of thephilosophically loaded term subsistence is just another way of emphasizingthe problematic ontological status of possibilities, which are more thannothingness but less than full actualities. But in that same passageWhitehead also compares the realm of eternal objects with the Platonic

world of ideas: now, the fact that he raises a question as to the formsontological status suffices to show that this comparison is misleading in atleast one fundamental respect, since for Plato the forms are genuinely realand the particular individuals of the sensible world are the appearancespossessing an equivocal standing between being and not-being. ForWhitehead, on the contrary, the particular events taking place in the world-process are the genuine metaphysical entities, the ultimate building blocks of


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reality. Whitehead could not be clearer: Actual entities are the final realthings of which the world is made up. Insofar as they are mere possibilities,eternal objects possess a shadowy kind of being that calls for philosophicalelucidation.

The second problem concerns what Whitehead calls the proximaterelevance of possibilities. We see novel modes of existence coming intobeing, forms as yet unrealized making their ingression in the world-process:What makes the forms thus capable of ingressing the concrete? Whiteheademphasizes that eternal objects have an essential reference to actuality:[T]he forms are essentially referent beyond themselves. It is mere phantasyto impute them any absolute reality, which is devoid of implications. The

realm of forms is the realm of potentiality, and the very notion of potentialityhas an external meaning. It refers to life and motion.16 Whiteheads pointcan perhaps be stated thus: possibilities have a tendency or nisus towardsexistence, yet they are unable to bring about their own actualization.

These two problems are linked in a straightforward way, for unless weknow what kind of being possibilities have, we cannot understand how theycan be operative in the world. As Whitehead indicates in the quoted passage,both problems can be solved by interpreting ideal forms as components ofthe primordial nature of God. In this way, possibilities receive an unequivocalstatus by being interpreted as objects of the divine mind; at the same time, astep is taken towards an understanding of their relevance to the world-process, for they have now been anchored to a genuine causal agent.

3. The Arguments Premises

The core idea of the argument is that, since (1) there are unrealizedpossibilities, and since (2) only actualities have causal power and can affectthe course of things, (3) unrealized possibilities must be rooted in an actualbeing, which must serve as their ontological ground as well as the foundationof their worldly relevance. But is it true that there are unrealized possibilities?

Whitehead is firmly committed to the belief that the future will not be amere repetition of the past. In his terminology, there are eternal objects thathave not yet been actualized and that will (or at least might) find ingression inthe world-process at some future time. Such a belief is never cast into doubt

in every-day life; when it is, what is shaken is nothing less that our instinctive,healthy sense that life is worth living. Nevertheless, the belief in the reality ofunrealized possibilities is philosophically controversial and stands in markedcontrast to eternalistic views of reality according to which time is unreal andall worldly eventspast, present and future onesoccupy a definite positionin the universe, being parts of a single whole that embraces them all as if in asingle grasp. On such views, if we could ever attain to a vision of reality sub


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specie aeternitatis, we would recognize that nothing can be realized, foreverything already is. At more than one point, Whitehead hints at Spinoza asa philosopher who held this sort of world-view, but his critique is mostimmediately directed towards Absolute Idealists such as Bradley and Royce.17

Eternalistic views of reality can be supported by the following reflection:There are unrealized possibilities only if there is an open future; but since at adeeper metaphysical level, time is unreal, there is no open future and nounrealized possibilities. The crucial tenet in this line of reasoning is the beliefthat time is not real. Whitehead must have been acquainted withphilosophical refutations of the reality of time (he was, for one thing, anintimate friend of McTaggart), but in his philosophy he assumes that time is

real. And when he argues for this conclusion, he discusses Zenos paradoxesrather than the more refined arguments of his contemporaries. Whiteheadsrefusal to enter into a direct discussion of eternalistic arguments isunsatisfactory and shows why the accusation mentioned at the beginning ofthis paper is not entirely misguided. Nevertheless, there is much justificationin support of the belief in the reality of time, for it is not easy to see how whatWhitehead calls a block universea static universe where all facts areeternally realizedcould be inhabited by creatures like us, who experiencereality sub specie temporis: How can the unchanging unity of factWhitehead asksgenerate the delusion of change?18

To this rather conventional objection against eternalistic views of reality, thefollowing one could perhaps be added: if from an ultimate metaphysicalperspective all past and future events are co-present in the universe, why dowe remember the past and not the future? Why is it not possible, as it seems,to reverse the flux of time as experienced in our lives? It is not easy to seewhy our experience of reality should be asymmetrical in this respect, if thereis nothing that matches that asymmetry in ultimate reality. In the absence ofa detailed examination of the arguments in support of eternalism suchobservations are scarcely decisive. They point, however, towards difficultiesthat a satisfactory eternalistic theory of reality should be capable ofanswering.

Another fundamental idea involved in Whiteheads argument is implicit inwhat he calls the ontological principle, namely the general Aristotelianprinciple that apart from things that are actual, there is nothingnothingeither in fact or in efficacy.19 The principle may appear to be obviously true,

but ultimately whether one will accept it or not depends upon how oneconstrues the notion of actuality. By excluding forms from the domain ofwhat is actual or fully real, the principle also excludes that forms could begenuine causal agents.

Whitehead does not provide any reason in support of the principle: is itreally so clear that forms are by themselves incapable of action? The difficultyhere is not that of understanding how a form could push another being into


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existence, which would indeed seem to be an unintelligible conception.Rather, the problem is that of understanding how an already existing formcould act upon an already existing actuality in such a way as to provoke it,so to say, to assume that form as its own. There is no denying that the thesisthat eternal objects cannot act is a highly intuitive one. In the Timaeus Platointroduces a Demiurge to explain the sensible things participation in therealm of forms. In Whiteheads philosophy, God is called upon to solve thesame sort of ontological perplexity: The things which are temporal arise bytheir participation in the things which are eternal. The two sets are mediatedby a thing which combines the actuality of what is temporal with thetimelessness of what is potential. This final entity is the divine element in the

world.20

4. The Divine Mind

It is the conclusion of Whiteheads argument that the ideal forms must beontologically rooted in some actual being. In itself, however, that conclusiondoes not say how the forms are related to God, nor the way in which theythereby acquire causal relevance. Lets consider the first of these points bydiscussing Whiteheads account of Gods relationship to the eternal objects.Now, Whitehead holds that eternal objects are the objects of Godsexperience: the primordial nature of God is his complete envisagement ofeternal objects.21 In advancing this thesis Whitehead is not solely playing

homage to a long-standing philosophical and theological doctrine, but obeyingthe basic constraints of his metaphysics. Whiteheads contention that allactualities must be of the same general ontological kind, together with hisfurther contention that the only actualities we know from within are thoseconstituting our own minds, compel him to argue that, like all otheractualities, God must be an experience and the eternal objects hisexperienced objects.

Whiteheads use of such phrases as grasping, feeling andenvisagement as qualification of Gods experience of the eternal objects,however, is not without serious difficulties. Such phrases must possess ananalogical meaning when they are applied to Gods grasping of the eternalobjects. Occasions of human mentality recognize universals in given,

presented actualities. With God the situation is radically altered, for theeternal objects are not abstracted from any felt actuality but exist as originallypartaking in the divine experience. Does this mean that the ideal requirementof a categoreal identity in the description of all actualities is thereforeviolated? Whitehead would seem to admit as much: God differs from otheractual entities in the fact that Humes principle, of the derivative character ofconceptual feelings, does not hold for him.22


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That God should turn out to be different from all other actualities can hardlybe said to constitute a surprising result. But to admit that the idea of a divineconceptual experience is sui generis is to admit that the idea finds no realexemplification in human experience. Doesnt this invite the skeptical remarkthat such an idea has no meaning at all? Although Whitehead is aware of thedifficulties involved with his conceptuality,23 nowhere does he seem to beworried by this sort of challenge. He might be thinking that an imperfectexample can still provide some basis for grasping the nature of an experienceof a different sort: a blind person might have a general understanding of theconcept of sight as a special sort of experience, provided that he has someknowledge of what it is to experience anything; analogously, we could

understand what a divine experience might be like by way of reference to ourown experiences. True, a blind persons conception of sight will remainvague; nevertheless, his will not be an entirely empty conception.

The conclusion that the eternal forms depend upon God for their existencedeserves further consideration in light of Whiteheads other contention thatGod does not create the eternal objects and that he depends upon the formsas much as the forms upon him. One straightforward way of making sense ofthis claim is by interpreting Whitehead as holding that God and Gods visionof the forms are one and the same. God does not turn his head, as it were,towards a panorama of existing beings: rather, he is the all-embracing visionof eternal objects. This interpretation finds confirmation in the followingpassage fromReligion in the Making, where Whitehead writes:

This ideal world of conceptual harmonization is merely adescription of God himself. Thus the nature of God is thecomplete conceptual realization of the realm of ideal forms. TheKingdom of heaven is God.24

It is important to observe that, although Whitehead identifies God with hiscomplete conceptual realization of the realm of ideal forms, the passagemust not be read as entailing that God cannot be a vision of other things aswell. For the purposes of the present paper, however, there is no need toenter in a discussion of what else God might be aware of besides eternalobjects. Specifically, there is no need to enter into a discussion of whatWhitehead calls Gods consequent nature, the divine view of the actual,concretely realized world. Only the following two points are of importance

here. The first is that God and the realm of eternal objects are not two distinctrealities facing each other, for the eternal objects are constituents of Godsexperience; the second is that God is not to be conceived of as a subjecthaving an experience, but rather as himself being that experience. In hisaccount of what he calls Gods primordial nature, Whitehead comes closerto thinking of God as a cosmic state of mind rather than as what is usuallycalled a person or an individual.


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The scholastic doctrine that ideal possibilities or the essences of things existin Gods mind was held, among others, by Leibniz. Because of his personalacquaintance with Cambridge philosophers such as James Ward, BertrandRussell and John Ellis McTaggart, all of whom were Leibniz scholars, and ofhis own readings, Whitehead might have been aware of the following passagein the Monadology:

It is farther true that in God there is not only the source ofexistences but also that of essences, in so far as they are real,that is to say, the source of what is real in the possible. For theunderstanding of God is the region of eternal truths or of theideas on which they depend, and without Him there would be

nothing real in the possibilities of things, and not only wouldthere be nothing in existence, but nothing would ever bepossible.25

The general line of argument and the conclusion to which it leads are similarto Whiteheads: there must be a mind that houses the possibilities of allthings, because these must exist as a precondition of created worldlyactualities and hence independently of the latter. Like Leibniz, moreover,Whitehead holds that possibilities are not created by God, but merelyhosted by him. (There is perhaps even some stylistic resemblance betweenthis passage and the one by Whitehead quoted in the second section of thispaper.)

At least one substantial difference between the two thinkers need to be

pointed out: Gods primordial nature is his envisagement of all abstractforms or universals, whereas Leibniz thinks of Gods intellect as populated bythe complete notions of particular existents. These are to be conceived as arecord of each individuals life-history. A mind that is capable of fully graspingan individuals complete concept would be capable of knowing all the factsconcerning that individuals life a priori, merely by inspecting the concept andconsidering whether a certain predicate is analytically contained in it.

This characteristic Leibnizian position has been recognized as problematicin many respects: from a logical point of view, it seems to imply that all truthsconcerning matter of fact are necessary, albeit they may appear to becontingent to minds incapable of grasping an individual complete notion.From a metaphysical point of view, it raises the question of the reality of

human freedom, for the doctrine would seem to imply that how an individuallife unfolds is predetermined by the reality of its complete concept in Godsintellect. This is a crucial distinction between the two philosophers: conceivedwith respects to his primordial nature, Whiteheads God has no knowledge ofparticular existentsneither of their past, present or future states. At leastprima facie, this implicit rejection of the doctrine of complete concepts doesseem to be a necessary condition for admitting that worldly beings bear some


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responsibility for the outcome of their existence, which is a thesis Whiteheadis notoriously eager to secure.

The reason for this very brief comparison is not solely to indicate a possiblesource of Whiteheads argument, but rather to understand it better byproviding a contrastive pole. In his early book on Leibniz, Russell raised aseries of interesting objections against the doctrine that possibilities andabstract entities have the ground of their existence in Gods intellect. Russellis concentrating on eternal truths in this passage, but the criticism can beeasily extended to any sort of abstract object:

Leibniz has to maintain that eternal truths exist in the mind ofGod. Thus we cannot say that God is subjected to eternal truths,

for they form part of his very nature, to wit, his understanding.But again Leibniz speaks of them as the internal object of hisunderstanding, thus suggesting by the word object, what theword internal is intended to deny, that the truths are somethingdifferent from the knowledge of them [].26

Russell is trying to force Leibniz into a dilemma, both horns of which haveundesired consequences. Thus Leibniz should either (i) hold that eternal truthsare the objects of the divine intellect, in which case they must exist outsideGods mind, or (ii) conceive of them as constituents of the divine intellect, inwhich case they cannot be that which God is thinking about. According toRussell, an object can be either Gods intentional object or a constituent ofGods mental state, but it cannot be both at the same time. As Russell

suggests, the notion of an internal object is self-contradictory, for to call anapprehended content internal is to locate it within the mind, whereas to callit object is to divorce it from the apprehending subject.

At first sight, Russells point might seem to be entirely correct, for it is truethat an experience is always an experience of an object, which does seem toentail that there must be some sort of distinction between an experience andwhat that experience is an experience of. Nevertheless, it is not clear that oneis really forced to choose between the two horns of Russells dilemma.Consider our experience of a pain, such as a tooth-ache. There is a very clearsense in which it is correct to say that the felt pain is what we areexperiencing; at the same time, there is an equally clear sense in which it iscorrect to say that the pain is a component of our experience, meaning by

experience the total state of mind we are at the moment we are feeling thepain, a state that includes much more than the present pain as it involves allour momentary sensations, thoughts, bodily feelings, volitions and so forth. Itmight therefore be wrong to think that what is internal to an experiencecannot also be its object. If these considerations are sound, then thedoctrine that the world-process requires a primordial cosmic experience as its


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foundation is not self-contradictory in the straightforward way suggested byRussell.

5. Is the Argument Valid?

A doubt may arise with regard to the arguments validity. After all, what thearguments premises require is that an ideal form be rooted in some actualbeing: why cant there be many divine minds, each of which thinks only aselected portion of the realm of the eternal objects?

The view that there are many divine mindseach of which thinks some

eternal objects and not othersmight appear to be intrinsically implausible,yet it is consistent with the truth of the premises. Whitehead seems to havehad precisely this objection in mind when writing the following passage:

In what sense can unrealized abstract form be relevant? Whatis its basis of relevance? Relevance must express some real factof togetherness among forms [I]f there be a relevance of whatin the temporal world is unrealized, the relevance must expressa fact of togetherness in the formal constitution of a non-temporal actuality. But by the principle of relativity there can beonly one non-derivative actuality [].27

This passage suggests that Whiteheads reasons for admitting the existence ofonly one God are linked with the idea that there must be some real fact of

togetherness among forms. Now, in order for a complex eternal object toexist, its constituent parts must exist together. What if the eternal object inquestion is an unrealized possibility? In this case, no togetherness of its partsis realized in any worldly actuality. If complex unrealized eternal objects havebeing, their parts must therefore exist together in the divine mind. AsWhitehead has it, there must be a fact of togetherness in the formalconstitution of a non-temporal actuality.28

Whiteheads reasoning might also be stated as follows. A relational complexR(A,B) is an eternal object expressing the possibility that a property A couldbe exemplified in reality as standing in the relation R with a property B. Thecomplex eternal object R(A,B) is Gods abstract representation of all actualitiesin which a relation of kind R holds between A and B. Now, if eternal objects

were distributed among several minds, then the range of what is possiblewould be drastically reduced: if A is rooted in the mind G1 and B in G2, thenthe eternal object R(A,B) isnt rooted anywhere. Stated in less precise butmore intuitive terms: if the divine mind G1 thinks only A and G2 thinks onlyB, then neither G1 nor G2 is thinking R(A,B). But if nobody thinks R(A,B), thenthe complex eternal object R(A,B) does not exist anywhere, which meansthat actualities of the form R(A,B) are not possible.


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One implication of this line of reasoning is that the relation between thenumber of combinations of eternal objects and the number of divine minds isone of inverse proportionality: monotheism is thus required in order tomaximize the number of possible states of affairs. More simply, monotheismis the only hypothesis that can account for the realm of possibilities in itscomplete extension.

Although there would be an explanatory gain in ascribing to Whitehead areasoning of this sort, it is unclear that this is really what is going on in thequoted passage, for Whitehead first calls God a non-temporal actuality andthen contends that the singularity of the divine mind follows from another ofthe cardinal principles of his system, the principle of relativity: by the

principle of relativityhe saysthere can be only one non-derivativeactuality.The principle of relativity is the fourth of Whiteheads twenty-seven

Categories of Explanation; according to the principle, it belongs to the natureof a being that it is a potential for every becoming. 29Again, a comparisonwith Leibniz might be helpful to understand Whiteheads position. In LeibnizsMonadology, each monad is related to all others in virtue of the fact that allmonads perceive, albeit with various degrees of clarity, the entire universe.Although the monads are incapable of direct causal interaction, it would be amistake to interpret the metaphor of the windowless monad as implying thecomplete unrelatedness of the basic constituents of reality. On the contrary,the absence of causal relatedness is balanced in Leibniz by a principle ofuniversal relatedness that finds its expression in the metaphor of the monadas a mirror of the universe. The connexion or adaptation of all created thingsto each and of each to all,Leibniz writesmeans that each simplesubstance has relations which express all the others, and, consequently, thatit is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.30 It is true that this sort ofrelatedness is mediated by God and by his pre-established harmony, but it is asort of connectedness nevertheless.

Whiteheads principle of relativity might be interpreted as a version ofLeibnizs idea that each monad mirrors the whole universe, adapted so as tofit the categories of his own thought and in particular his characteristicrecognition that, contrary to what Leibniz believed, causal relations betweenthe ultimate constituents of reality are both real and direct. According toWhitehead, each actuality-event is related to all earlier ones by being their

conjunct effect and to all later ones by being one of its several causes. Sincecausation requires that the cause be prior to its effect, relations betweencontemporaries cannot be interpreted causally and are therefore absent inWhiteheads system. Contemporaries, which are such that occur neither inthe past nor in the future of each other, can be related only indirectly, insofaras they have a common cause or lead to a common effect.


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Such contemporaries are said by Whitehead to be in unison of becoming.They have incorporated all data furnished by the past and have now closedthemselves off from the world, enjoying a moment of absolute privacy in thecourse of which the process of concrescence reaches its end. The significanceof this moment of absolute isolation should not be underestimated, for beingshut off from further external influence is a precondition for the actualoccasion exercising a free decision as to what it ought to become.

But the principle of universal relativity, if it has to be really universal, musthold for God as much as for worldly occasions. In Leibnizs system, Godspervasive presence in the world is manifest in several ways: for example, allcreated monads perceive the whole universe, but only God does this with full

clearness and distinctness; moreover, God is responsible for the pre-established harmony. In the metaphysics of Whitehead, the idea of Godsomnipresence translates into the idea that God enters as a causal factor in theconstitution of all worldly actualities. One way to achieve this is by conceivingGod as a permanent and easily accessible (in ways that require specification)reservoir of possibilities for all worldly actualities. God cannot therefore beconceived in the guise of temporal actualities as a fleeting occurrence ormomentary occasion. As Whitehead has it in the above quoted passage,possibilities must constitute a fact of togetherness in the formal constitutionof a non-temporal actuality (my emphasis).

At this point, it is not difficult to see how the principle of relativity plays arole in Whitehea

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Chromatikon III