Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect
SYMBOLISM
Its Meaning and Effect
BY
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
F.R.S., SC.D. (CAMBRIDGE),
HON. D.SC. (MANCHESTER).
HON. LL.D. (ST. ANDREWS),
HON. D.SC. (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN),
HON. SC.D. (HARVARD AND YALE).
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE AND PROFESSOR
OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
BARBOUR-PAGE LECTURES
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
1927
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1927
Copyright, 1927,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped.
Published November, 1927.
_Printed in the United States of America by_
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK
DEDICATION
These chapters were written before I had seen the Washington monument
which faces the Capitol in the City of Washington, and before I had
enjoyed the experience of crossing the borders of the State of
Virginia—a great experience for an Englishman.
Virginia, that symbol for romance throughout the world of English
speech: Virginia, which was captured for that world in the romantic
period of English history by Sir Walter Raleigh, its most romantic
figure: Virginia, which has been true to its origin and has steeped its
history in romance.
Romance does not yield unbroken happiness: Sir Walter Raleigh suffered
for his romance. Romance does not creep along the ground; like the
memorial to Washington, it reaches upward—a silver thread uniting earth
to the blue of heaven above.
April 18, 1927.
PREFACE
In accordance with the terms of the Barbour-Page Foundation, these
lectures are published by the University of Virginia. The author owes
his thanks to the authorities of the university for their courtesy in
conforming to his wishes in respect to some important details of
publication. With the exception of a few trifling changes the lectures
are printed as delivered.
These lectures will be best understood by reference to some portions of
Locke’s _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_. The author’s
acknowledgments are due to _Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and Its
Historical Relations_ by Professor James Gibson, to _Prolegomena to an
Idealist Theory of Knowledge_ by Professor Norman Kemp Smith, and to
_Scepticism and Animal Faith_ by George Santayana.
A. N. W.
Harvard University, June, 1927.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I ... 1
1. KINDS OF SYMBOLISM ... 1
2. SYMBOLISM AND PERCEPTION ... 2
3. ON METHODOLOGY ... 5
4. FALLIBILITY AND SYMBOLISM ... 6
5. DEFINITION OF SYMBOLISM ... 7
6. EXPERIENCE AS ACTIVITY ... 9
7. LANGUAGE ... 10
8. PRESENTATIONAL IMMEDIACY ... 13
9. PERCEPTIVE EXPERIENCE ... 16
10. SYMBOLIC REFERENCE IN PERCEPTIVE EXPERIENCE ... 18
11. MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ... 20
12. RÔLES OF SENSE-DATA AND SPACE IN PRESENTATIONAL IMMEDIACY ... 21
13. OBJECTIFICATION ... 25
CHAPTER II ... 30
1. HUME ON CAUSAL EFFICACY ... 30
2. KANT AND CAUSAL EFFICACY ... 37
3. DIRECT PERCEPTION OF CAUSAL EFFICACY ... 39
4. PRIMITIVENESS OF CAUSAL EFFICACY ... 43
5. THE INTERSECTION OF THE MODES OF PERCEPTION ... 49
6. LOCALIZATION ... 53
7. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN ACCURATE DEFINITION AND IMPORTANCE ... 56
8. CONCLUSION ... 59
CHAPTER III ... 60
USES OF SYMBOLISM ... 60
CHAPTER I
1. _Kinds of Symbolism._
The slightest survey of different epochs of civilization discloses great
differences in their attitude towards symbolism. For example, during the
medieval period in Europe symbolism seemed to dominate men’s
imaginations. Architecture was symbolical, ceremonial was symbolical,
heraldry was symbolical. With the Reformation a reaction set in. Men
tried to dispense with symbols as ‘fond things, vainly invented,’ and
concentrated on their direct apprehension of the ultimate facts.
But such symbolism is on the fringe of life. It has an unessential
element in its constitution. The very fact that it can be acquired in
one epoch and discarded in another epoch testifies to its superficial
nature.
There are deeper types of symbolism, in a sense artificial, and yet such
that we could not get on without them. Language, written or spoken, is
such a symbolism. The mere sound of a word, or its shape on paper, is
indifferent. The word is a symbol, and its meaning is constituted by the
ideas, images, and emotions, which it raises in the mind of the hearer.
There is also another sort of language, purely a written language, which
is constituted by the mathematical symbols of the science of algebra. In
some ways, these symbols are different to those of ordinary language,
because the manipulation of the algebraical symbols does your reasoning
for you, provided that you keep to the algebraic rules. This is not the
case with ordinary language. You can never forget the meaning of
language, and trust to mere syntax to help you out. In any case,
language and algebra seem to exemplify more fundamental types of
symbolism than do the Cathedrals of Medieval Europe.
2. _Symbolism and Perception._
There is still another symbolism more fundamental than any of the
foregoing types. We look up and see a coloured shape in front of us, and
we say,—there is a chair. But what we have seen is the mere coloured
shape. Perhaps an artist might not have jumped to the notion of a chair.
He might have stopped at the mere contemplation of a beautiful colour
and a beautiful shape. But those of us who are not artists are very
prone, especially if we are tired, to pass straight from the perception
of the coloured shape to the enjoyment of the chair, in some way of use,
or of emotion, or of thought. We can easily explain this passage by
reference to a train of difficult logical inference, whereby, having
regard to our previous experiences of various shapes and various
colours, we draw the probable conclusion that we are in the presence of
a chair. I am very sceptical as to the high-grade character of the
mentality required to get from the coloured shape to the chair. One
reason for this scepticism Is that my friend the artist, who kept
himself to the contemplation of colour, shape and position, was a very
highly trained man, and had acquired this facility of ignoring the chair
at the cost of great labour. We do not require elaborate training merely
in order to refrain from embarking upon intricate trains of inference.
Such abstinence is only too easy. Another reason for scepticism is that
if we had been accompanied by a puppy dog, in addition to the artist,
the dog would have acted immediately on the hypothesis of a chair and
would have jumped onto it by way of using it as such. Again, if the dog
had refrained from such action, it would have been because it was a
well-trained dog. Therefore the transition from a coloured shape to the
notion of an object which can be used for all sorts of purposes which
have nothing to do with colour, seems to be a very natural one; and
we—men and puppy dogs—require careful training if we are to refrain from
acting upon it.
Thus coloured shapes seem to be symbols for some other elements in our
experience, and when we see the coloured shapes we adjust our actions
towards those other elements. This symbolism from our senses to the
bodies symbolized is often mistaken. A cunning adjustment of lights and
mirrors may completely deceive us; and even when we are not deceived, we
only save ourselves by an effort. Symbolism from sense-presentation to
physical bodies is the most natural and widespread of all symbolic
modes. It is not a mere tropism, or automatic turning towards, because
both men and puppies often disregard chairs when they see them. Also a
tulip which turns to the light has probably the very minimum of
sense-presentation. I shall argue on the assumption that
sense-perception is mainly a characteristic of more advanced organisms;
whereas all organisms have experience of causal efficacy whereby their
functioning is conditioned by their environment.
3. _On Methodology._
In fact symbolism is very largely concerned with the use of pure
sense-perceptions in the character of symbols for more primitive
elements in our experience. Accordingly since sense-perceptions, of any
importance, are characteristic of high-grade organisms, I shall chiefly
confine this study of symbolism to the influence of symbolism on human
life. It is a general principle that low-grade characteristics are
better studied first in connection with correspondingly low-grade
organisms, in which those characteristics are not obscured by more
developed types of functioning. Conversely, high-grade characters should
be studied first in connection with those organisms in which they first
come to full perfection.
Of course, as a second approximation to elicit the full sweep of
particular characters, we want to know the embryonic stage of the
high-grade character, and the ways in which low-grade characters can be
made subservient to higher types of functioning.
The nineteenth century exaggerated the power of the historical method,
and assumed as a matter of course that every character should be studied
only in its embryonic stage. Thus, for example, ‘Love’ has been studied
among the savages and latterly among the morons.
4. _Fallibility of Symbolism._
There is one great difference between symbolism and direct knowledge.
Direct experience is infallible. What you have experienced, you have
experienced. But symbolism is very fallible, in the sense that it may
induce actions, feelings, emotions, and beliefs about things which are
mere notions without that exemplification in the world which the
symbolism leads us to presuppose. I shall develop the thesis that
symbolism is an essential factor in the way we function as the result of
our direct knowledge. Successful high-grade organisms are only possible,
on the condition that their symbolic functionings are usually justified
so far as important issues are concerned. But the errors of mankind
equally spring from symbolism. It is the task of reason to understand
and purge the symbols on which humanity depends.
An adequate account of human mentality requires an explanation of (i)
how we can know truly, (ii) how we can err, and (iii) how we can
critically distinguish truth from error. Such an explanation requires
that we distinguish that type of mental functioning which by its nature
yields immediate acquaintance with fact, from that type of functioning
which is only trustworthy by reason of its satisfaction of certain
criteria provided by the first type of functioning.
I shall maintain that the first type of functioning is properly to be
called ‘Direct Recognition,’ and the second type ‘Symbolic Reference.’ I
shall also endeavour to illustrate the doctrine that all human
symbolism, however superficial it may seem, is ultimately to be reduced
to trains of this fundamental symbolic reference, trains which finally
connect percepts in alternative modes of direct recognition.
5. _Definition of Symbolism._
After this prefatory explanation, we must start from a formal definition
of symbolism: The human mind is functioning symbolically when some
components of its experience elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions,
and usages, respecting other components of its experience. The former
set of components are the ‘symbols,’ and the latter set constitute the
‘meaning’ of the symbols. The organic functioning whereby there is
transition from the symbol to the meaning will be called ‘symbolic
reference.’
This symbolic reference is the active synthetic element contributed by
the nature of the percipient. It requires a ground founded on some
community between the natures of symbol and meaning. But such a common
element in the two natures does not of itself necessitate symbolic
reference, nor does it decide which shall be symbol and which shall be
meaning, nor does it secure that the symbolic reference shall be immune
from producing errors and disasters for the percipient. We must conceive
perception in the light of a primary phase in the self-production of an
occasion of actual existence.
In defence of this notion of self-production arising out of some primary
given phase, I would remind you that, apart from it, there can be no
moral responsibility. The potter, and not the pot, is responsible for
the shape of the pot. An actual occasion arises as the bringing together
into one real context diverse perceptions, diverse feelings, diverse
purposes, and other diverse activities arising out of those primary
perceptions. Here activity is another name for self-production.
6. _Experience as Activity._
In this way we assign to the percipient an activity in the production of
its own experience, although that moment of experience, in its character
of being that one occasion, is nothing else than the percipient itself.
Thus, for the percipient at least, the perception is an internal
relationship between itself and the things perceived.
In analysis the total activity involved in perception of the symbolic
reference must be referred to the percipient. Such symbolic reference
requires something in common between symbol and meaning which can be
expressed without reference to the perfected percipient; but it also
requires some activity of the percipient which can be considered without
recourse either to the particular symbol or its particular meaning.
Considered by themselves the symbol and its meaning do not require
_either_ that there shall be a symbolic reference between the two, _or_
that the symbolic reference between the members of the couple should be
one way on rather than the other way on. The nature of their
relationship does not in itself determine which is symbol and which is
meaning. There are no components of experience which are only symbols or
only meanings. The more usual symbolic reference is from the less
primitive component as symbol to the more primitive as meaning.
This statement is the foundation of a thoroughgoing realism. It does
away with any mysterious element in our experience which is merely
meant, and thereby behind the veil of direct perception. It proclaims
the principle that symbolic reference holds between two components in a
complex experience, each intrinsically capable of direct recognition.
Any lack of such conscious analytical recognition is the fault of the
defect in mentality on the part of a comparatively low-grade percipient.
7. _Language._
To exemplify the inversion of symbol and meaning, consider language and
the things meant by language. A word is a symbol. But a word can be
either written or spoken. Now on occasions a written word may suggest
the corresponding spoken word, and that sound may suggest a meaning.
In such an instance, the written word is a symbol and its meaning is the
spoken word, and the spoken word is a symbol and its meaning is the
dictionary meaning of the word, spoken or written.
But often the written word effects its purpose without the intervention
of the spoken word. Accordingly, then, the written word directly
symbolizes the dictionary meaning. But so fluctuating and complex is
human experience that in general neither of these cases is exemplified
in the clear-cut way which is set out here. Often the written word
suggests both the spoken word and also the meaning, and the symbolic
reference is made clearer and more definite by the additional reference
of the spoken word to the same meaning. Analogously we can start from
the spoken word which may elicit a visual perception of the written
word.
Further, why do we say that the word ‘tree’—spoken or written—is a
symbol to us for trees? Both the word itself and trees themselves enter
into our experience on equal terms; and it would be just as sensible,
viewing the question abstractedly, for trees to symbolize the word
‘tree’ as for the word to symbolize the trees.
This is certainly true, and human nature sometimes works that way. For
example, if you are a poet and wish to write a lyric on trees, you will
walk into the forest in order that the trees may suggest the appropriate
words. Thus for the poet in his ecstasy—or perhaps, agony—of composition
the trees are the symbols and the words are the meaning. He concentrates
on the trees in order to get at the words.
But most of us are not poets, though we read their lyrics with proper
respect. For us, the words are the symbols which enable us to capture
the rapture of the poet in the forest. The poet is a person for whom
visual sights and sounds and emotional experiences refer symbolically to
words. The poet’s readers are people for whom his words refer
symbolically to the visual sights and sounds and emotions he wants to
evoke. Thus in the use of language there is a double symbolic
reference:—from things to words on the part of the speaker, and from
words back to things on the part of the listener.
When in an act of human experience there is a symbolic reference, there
are in the first place two sets of components with some objective
relationship between them, and this relationship will vary greatly in
different instances. In the second place the total constitution of the
percipient has to effect the symbolic reference from one set of
components, the symbols, to the other set of components, the meaning. In
the third place, the question, as to which set of components form the
symbols and which set the meaning, also depends on the peculiar
constitution of that act of experience.
8. _Presentational Immediacy._
The most fundamental exemplification of symbolism has already been
alluded to in the discussion of the poet and the circumstances which
elicit his poetry. We have here a particular instance of the reference
of words to things. But this general relation of words to things is only
a particular instance of a yet more general fact. Our perception of the
external world is divided into two types of content: one type is the
familiar immediate presentation of the contemporary world, by means of
our projection of our immediate sensations, determining for us
characteristics of contemporary physical entities. This type is the
experience of the immediate world around us, a world decorated by
sense-data dependent on the immediate states of relevant parts of our
own bodies. Physiology establishes this latter fact conclusively; but
the physiological details are irrelevant to the present philosophical
discussion, and only confuse the issue. ‘Sense-datum’ is a modern term:
Hume uses the word ‘impression.’
For human beings, this type of experience is vivid, and is especially
distinct in its exhibition of the spatial regions and relationships
within the contemporary world.
The familiar language which I have used in speaking of the ‘projection
of our sensations’ is very misleading. There are no bare sensations
which are first experienced and then ‘projected’ into our feet as their
feelings, or onto the opposite wall as its colour. The projection is an
integral part of the situation, quite as original as the sense-data. It
would be just as accurate, and equally misleading, to speak of a
projection on the wall which is then characterized as such-and-such a
colour. The use of the term ‘wall’ is equally misleading by its
suggestion of information derived symbolically from another mode of
perception. This so-called ‘wall,’ disclosed in the pure mode of
presentational immediacy, contributes itself to our experience only
under the guise of spatial extension, combined with spatial perspective,
and combined with sense-data which in this example reduce to colour
alone.
I say that the wall contributes _itself_ under this guise, in preference
to saying that it contributes these universal characters in combination.
For the characters are combined by their exposition of one thing in a
common world including ourselves, that one thing which I call the
‘wall.’ Our perception is not confined to universal characters; we do
not perceive disembodied colour or disembodied extensiveness: we
perceive _the wall’s_ colour and extensiveness. The experienced fact is
‘colour away on the wall for us.’ Thus the colour and the spatial
perspective are abstract elements, characterizing the concrete way in
which the wall enters into our experience. They are therefore relational
elements between the ‘percipient at that moment,’ and that other equally
actual entity, or set of entities, which we call the ‘wall at that
moment.’ But the mere colour and the mere spatial perspective are very
abstract entities, because they are only arrived at by discarding the
concrete relationship between the wall-at-that-moment and the
percipient-at-that-moment. This concrete relationship is a physical fact
which may be very unessential to the wall and very essential to the
percipient. The spatial relationship is equally essential both to wall
and percipient: but the colour side of the relationship is at that
moment indifferent to the wall, though it is part of the make-up of the
percipient. In this sense, and subject to their spatial relationship,
contemporary events happen independently. I call this type of experience
‘presentational immediacy.’ It expresses how contemporary events are
relevant to each other, and yet preserve a mutual independence. This
relevance amid independence is the peculiar character of
contemporaneousness. This presentational immediacy is only of importance
in high-grade organisms, and is a physical fact which may, or may not,
enter into consciousness. Such entry will depend on attention and on the
activity of conceptual functioning, whereby physical experience and
conceptual imagination are fused into knowledge.
9. _Perceptive Experience._
The word ‘experience’ is one of the most deceitful in philosophy. Its
adequate discussion would be the topic for a treatise. I can only
indicate those elements in my analysis of it which are relevant to the
present train of thought.
Our experience, so far as it is primarily concerned with our direct
recognition of a solid world of other things which are actual in the
same sense that we are actual, has three main independent modes each
contributing its share of components to our individual rise into one
concrete moment of human experience. Two of these modes of experience I
will call perceptive, and the third I will call the mode of conceptual
analysis. In respect to pure perception, I call one of the two types
concerned the mode of ‘presentational immediacy,’ and the other the mode
of ‘causal efficacy.’ Both ‘presentational immediacy’ and ‘causal
efficacy’ introduce into human experience components which are again
analysable into actual things of the actual world and into abstract
attributes, qualities, and relations, which express how those other
actual things contribute themselves as components to our individual
experience. These abstractions express how other actualities are
component objects for us. I will therefore say that they ‘objectify’ for
us the actual things in our ‘environment.’ Our most immediate
environment is constituted by the various organs of our own bodies, our
more remote environment is the physical world in the neighbourhood. But
the word ‘environment’ means those other actual things, which are
‘objectified’ in some important way so as to form component elements in
our individual experience.
10. _Symbolic Reference in Perceptive Experience._
Of the two distinct perceptive modes, one mode ‘objectifies’ actual
things under the guise of presentational immediacy, and the other mode,
which I have not yet discussed, ‘objectifies’ them under the guise of
causal efficacy. The synthetic activity whereby these two modes are
fused into one perception is what I have called ‘symbolic reference.’ By
symbolic reference the various actualities disclosed respectively by the
two modes are either identified, or are at least correlated together as
interrelated elements in our environment. Thus the result of symbolic
reference is what the actual world is for us, as that datum in our
experience productive of feelings, emotions, satisfactions, actions, and
finally as the topic for conscious recognition when our mentality
intervenes with its conceptual analysis. ‘Direct recognition’ is
conscious recognition of a percept in a pure mode, devoid of symbolic
reference.
Symbolic reference may be, in many respects, erroneous. By this I mean
that some ‘direct recognition’ disagrees, in its report of the actual
world, with the conscious recognition of the fused product resulting
from symbolic reference. Thus error is primarily the product of symbolic
reference, and not of conceptual analysis. Also symbolic reference
itself is not primarily the outcome of conceptual analysis, though it is
greatly promoted by it. For symbolic reference is still dominant in
experience when such mental analysis is at a low ebb. We all know
Aesop’s fable of the dog who dropped a piece of meat to grasp at its
reflection in the water. We must not, however, judge too severely of
error. In the initial stages of mental progress, error in symbolic
reference is the discipline which promotes imaginative freedom. Aesop’s
dog lost his meat, but he gained a step on the road towards a free
imagination.
Thus symbolic reference must be explained antecedently to conceptual
analysis, although there is a strong interplay between the two whereby
they promote each other.
11. _Mental and Physical._
By way of being as intelligible as possible we might tacitly assign
symbolic reference to mental activity, and thereby avoid some detailed
explanation. It is a matter of pure convention as to which of our
experiential activities we term mental and which physical. Personally I
prefer to restrict mentality to those experiential activities which
include concepts in addition to percepts. But much of our perception is
due to the enhanced subtlety arising from a concurrent conceptual
analysis. Thus in fact there is no proper line to be drawn between the
physical and the mental constitution of experience. But there is no
conscious knowledge apart from the intervention of mentality in the form
of conceptual analysis.
It will be necessary later on to make some slight reference to
conceptual analysis; but at present I must assume consciousness and its
partial analysis of experience, and return to the two modes of pure
perception. The point that I want to make here is, that the reason why
low-grade purely physical organisms cannot make mistakes is not
primarily their absence of thought, but their absence of presentational
immediacy. Aesop’s dog, who was a poor thinker, made a mistake by reason
of an erroneous symbolic reference from presentational immediacy to
causal efficacy. In short, truth and error dwell in the world by reason
of synthesis: every actual thing is synthetic: and symbolic reference is
one primitive form of synthetic activity whereby what is actual arises
from its given phases.
12. _Rôles of Sense-data and Space in Presentational Immediacy._
By ‘presentational immediacy’ I mean what is usually termed
‘sense-perception.’ But I am using the former term under limitations and
extensions which are foreign to the common use of the latter term.
Presentational immediacy is our immediate perception of the contemporary
external world, appearing as an element constitutive of our own
experience. In this appearance the world discloses itself to be a
community of actual things, which are actual in the same sense as we
are.
This appearance is effected by the mediation of qualities, such as
colours, sounds, tastes, etc., which can with equal truth be described
as our sensations or as the qualities of the actual things which we
perceive. These qualities are thus relational between the perceiving
subject and the perceived things. They can be thus isolated only by
abstracting them from their implication in the scheme of spatial
relatedness of the perceived things to each other and to the perceiving
subject. This relatedness of spatial extension is a complete scheme,
impartial between the observer and the perceived things. It is the
scheme of the morphology of the complex organisms forming the community
of the contemporary world. The way in which each actual physical
organism enters into the make-up of its contemporaries has to conform to
this scheme. Thus the sense-data, such as colours, etc., or bodily
feelings, introduce the extended physical entities into our experience
under perspectives provided by this spatial scheme. The spatial
relations by themselves are generic abstractions, and the sense-data are
generic abstractions. But the perspectives of the sense-data provided by
the spatial relations are the specific relations whereby the external
contemporary things are to this extent part of our experience. These
contemporary organisms, thus introduced as ‘objects’ into experience,
include the various organs of our body, and the sense-data are then
called bodily feelings. The bodily organs, and those other external
things which make important contributions to this mode of our
perception, together form the contemporary environment of the percipient
organism. The main facts about presentational immediacy are: (i) that
the sense-data involved depend on the percipient organism and its
spatial relations to the perceived organisms; (ii) that the contemporary
world is exhibited as extended and as a plenum of organisms; (iii) that
presentational immediacy is an important factor in the experience of
only a few high-grade organisms, and that for the others it is embryonic
or entirely negligible.
Thus the disclosure of a contemporary world by presentational immediacy
is bound up with the disclosure of the solidarity of actual things by
reason of their participation in an impartial system of spatial
extension. Beyond this, the knowledge provided by pure presentational
immediacy is vivid, precise, and barren. It is also to a large extent
controllable at will. I mean that one moment of experience can
predetermine to a considerable extent, by inhibitions, or by
intensifications, or by other modifications, the characteristics of the
presentational immediacy in succeeding moments of experience. This mode
of perception, taken purely by itself, is barren, because we may not
directly connect the qualitative presentations of other things with any
intrinsic characters of those things. We see the image of a coloured
chair, presenting to us the space behind a mirror; yet we thereby gain
no knowledge concerning any intrinsic characters of spaces behind the
mirror. But the image thus seen in a good mirror is just as much an
immediate presentation of colour qualifying the world at a distance
behind the mirror, as is our direct vision of the chair when we turn
round and look at it. Pure presentational immediacy refuses to be
divided into delusions and not-delusions. It is either all of it, or
none of it, an immediate presentation of an external contemporary world
as in its own right spatial. The sense-data involved in presentational
immediacy have a wider relationship in the world than these contemporary
things can express. In abstraction from this wider relationship, there
is no means of determining the importance of the apparent qualification
of contemporary objects by sense-data. For this reason the phrase ‘mere
appearance’ carries the suggestion of barrenness. This wider
relationship of the sense-data can only be understood by examining the
alternative mode of perception, the mode of causal efficacy. But in so
far as contemporary things are bound together by mere presentational
immediacy, they happen in complete independence except for their spatial
relations at the moment. Also for most events, we presume that their
intrinsic experience of presentational immediacy is so embryonic as to
be negligible. This perceptive mode is important only for a small
minority of elaborate organisms.
13. _Objectification._
In this explanation of Presentational Immediacy, I am conforming to the
distinction according to which actual things are _objectively_ in our
experience and _formally_ existing in their own completeness. I maintain
that presentational immediacy is that peculiar way in which contemporary
things are ‘objectively’ in our experience, and that among the abstract
entities which constitute factors in the mode of introduction are those
abstractions usually called sense-data:—for example, colours, sounds,
tastes, touches, and bodily feelings.
Thus ‘objectification’ itself is abstraction; since no actual thing is
‘objectified’ in its ‘formal’ completeness. Abstraction expresses
nature’s mode of interaction and is not merely mental. When it
abstracts, thought is merely conforming to nature—or rather, it is
exhibiting itself as an element in nature. Synthesis and analysis
require each other. Such a conception is paradoxical if you will persist
in thinking of the actual world as a collection of passive actual
substances with their private characters or qualities. In that case, it
must be nonsense to ask, how one such substance can form a component in
the make-up of another such substance. So long as this conception is
retained, the difficulty is not relieved by calling each actual
substance an event, or a pattern, or an occasion. The difficulty, which
arises for such a conception, is to explain how the substances can be
actually together in a sense derivative from that in which each
individual substance is actual. But the conception of the world here
adopted is that of functional activity. By this I mean that every actual
thing is something by reason of its activity; whereby its nature
consists in its relevance to other things, and its individuality
consists in its synthesis of other things so far as they are relevant to
it. In enquiring about any one individual we must ask how other
individuals enter ‘objectively’ into the unity of its own experience.
This unity of its own experience is that individual existing _formally_.
We must also enquire how it enters into the ‘formal’ existence of other
things; and this entrance is that individual existing _objectively_,
that is to say—existing abstractly, exemplifying only some elements in
its formal content.
With this conception of the world, in speaking of any actual individual,
such as a human being, we must mean that man in one occasion of his
experience. Such an occasion, or act, is complex and therefore capable
of analysis into phases and other components. It is the most concrete
actual entity, and the life of man from birth to death is a historic
route of such occasions. These concrete moments are bound together into
one society by a partial identity of form, and by the peculiarly full
summation of its predecessors which each moment of the life-history
gathers into itself. The man-at-one-moment concentrates in himself the
colour of his own past, and he is the issue of it. The ‘man in his whole
life history’ is an abstraction compared to the ‘man in one such
moment.’ There are therefore three different meanings for the notion of
a particular man,—Julius Cæsar, for example. The word ‘Cæsar’ may mean
‘Cæsar in some one occasion of his existence’: this is the most concrete
of all the meanings. The word ‘Cæsar’ may mean ‘the historic route of
Cæsar’s life from his Cæsarian birth to his Cæsarian assassination.’ The
word ‘Cæsar’ may mean ‘the common form, or pattern, repeated in each
occasion of Cæsar’s life.’ You may legitimately choose any one of these
meanings; but when you have made your choice, you must in that context
stick to it.
This doctrine of the nature of the life-history of an enduring organism
holds for all types of organisms, which have attained to unity of
experience, for electrons as well as for men. But mankind has gained a
richness of experiential content denied to electrons. Whenever the ‘all
or none’ principle holds, we are in some way dealing with one actual
entity, and not with a society of such entities, nor with the analysis
of components contributory to one such entity.
This lecture has maintained the doctrine of a direct experience of an
external world. It is impossible fully to argue this thesis without
getting too far away from my topic. I need only refer you to the first
portion of Santayana’s recent book, _Scepticism and Animal Faith_, for a
conclusive proof of the futile ‘solipsism of the present moment’—or, in
other words, utter scepticism—which results from a denial of this
assumption. My second thesis, for which I cannot claim Santayana’s
authority, is that, if you consistently maintain such direct individual
experience, you will be driven in your philosophical construction to a
conception of the world as an interplay of functional activity whereby
each concrete individual thing arises from its determinate relativity to
the settled world of other concrete individuals, at least so far as the
world is past and settled.