Student No.

07975043

What is the Role of the Subjective Aim in

Whitehead’s Account of Concrescence?

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 Student No. 07975043

What is the Role of the Subjective Aim in Whitehead’s Account of

Concrescence?

Contents

Introduction 3

I. Laws of Nature 6

The Laws of Nature or The Manifest Stability in Nature 6

Doctrine of the Law as Imposed 7

Doctrine of the Law as Immanent 8

Order in Nature: Immanent and Imposed 10

II. Whitehead’s Process 13

Creativity 13

Process 14

The Ontological Principle 16

Actual Occasions 17

Concrescence 20

III. Subjective Aim 23

Freedom 24

Diversity 26

Efficient and Final Causality 27

Conclusion 30

Bibliography 33

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What is the Role of the Subjective Aim in Whitehead’s Account of

Concrescence?

Introduction

In the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead the subjective aim describes the

conditioned process of Becoming whereby novel facts attain actuality. The

conditioning of this process and its potential for originality is important in the
description of the order and diversity of the complex system of interrelations

described by Whitehead as actual entities. The potential for becoming

organised, for manifesting a stability of organisation and for generating original

patterns of organisation are features required by Whitehead’s process

metaphysics. The self-organisation and self-creation of Whitehead’s actual

entities is in contrast to the imposed organisation and created nature of

mechanical materialist metaphysics.

The metaphysics of process described by Whitehead rejects any transcendent

realm of existents. Whitehead’s ontological principle demands reasons without

any appeal to superadded entities. Instead of powerless bodies organised by

external law, Whitehead describes powers of differentiation which are

productive of organised systems. The process of Becoming is dipolar and actual

entities are both the product of forces and the ingredients in future productive

occasions. In a process metaphysics laws or principles of organisation are

inherent, the product of the relational structure of entities in the system. The

relations of the system are dynamic, they describe change and Becoming, not

static atemporal entities. Both efficient and final causalities are active in the
system as prior actualities condition, but do not determine, the becoming of

new actualities. There is then a certain freedom or irreducible indeterminacy in

the system. Potentiality has real ontological significance and the development of

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organisation and the possibility of original patterns of organisation are

immanent to the system. The subjective aim in Whitehead’s metaphysics

describes the conditioning of potential Becoming by efficient and final causality.

This paper will explore the process described by Whitehead, and the features of
this process in the organisation and creativity of actual entities.

In section I. we will examine the possibility of considering concepts of

organisation as laws pertaining to the structure of existence. Mechanical

materialism will be considered as exemplary of a system of imposed law.

Whitehead’s process metaphysics as exemplary of immanent law. It will be

argued that the bifurcation of nature entailed by imposed law presents serious

problems for the further development of a philosophy of nature.

In section II. we will describe those aspects of Whitehead’s process metaphysics

relevant to the consideration of the concept of organisation. The conditioned

process whereby stability and order are the product of the creative power

inherent in nature is the subjective aim of actual occasions, the events of

Becoming described by Whitehead’s philosophy.

In section III. we will examine the subjective aim, the conditioning of the

process of Becoming. The process of Becoming is open to a certain freedom,

with potential diversity from past facts. There are two forms of causation active

in Whitehead’s process and these are active in the subjective aim of individual

quanta of Becoming.

We take a philosophy of nature to be any which considers its metaphysical

statements to have real ontological value; the description of a metaphysical

system is considered as true of reality, and not a statement of appearance,

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phenomena or theory. A philosophy of nature is then ontology of the most

general lineament; metaphysics applies globally and in no partial sense to

special entities. It is the argument of this project that Whitehead’s metaphysics

represents such a philosophy of nature.

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I. Laws of Nature

The Laws of Nature or The Manifest Stability in Nature

In its broadest sense a law represents a theory capable of drawing together

particular matters of fact and describing their relation. The possibility of

generalising from particular matters of fact to potential past or future

configurations of fact represents a speculative law aiming at a description of

wider circumstances than can be given in any particular instance. The concept

of a law is dependent upon a certain regularity, order or recurrence. A

persistent order in any system makes possible a coherent study of that system,

but it is also the condition for our own systematising investigation. Were there
no stability of form or organisation the interrogation of objects, environments or

systems would dissolve as quickly as the system itself changed. Equally, our

relationship as observers to a system described by laws will be affected

depending upon whether we are considered subject to those same laws.

In Adventures in Ideas (1933) Whitehead describes four prevalent doctrines

concerning the laws of nature. Each represents a possible answer to the question

“what is a law?”, and each describes a certain understanding of the entities and

relations whose configuration is described by the law: 1) law as immanent; 2)

law as imposed; 3) law as observed order of succession or mere description; and

4) law as conventional interpretation. Whitehead argues that the doctrine of the

law as imposed has been primary in the history of European science and

philosophy, especially since the 17th century. Whitehead also argues however
that many of the contemporary problems of science and philosophy are the

result of this doctrine. In seeking to guide new understandings he puts forward

the doctrine of the law as immanent as a system unencumbered by the aporia of

imposed law. All four doctrines have played some part, for better and worse, in

the continual unfolding of our understanding of nature. However, in the context

of the present project however there is not space to adequately consider all four.

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We will instead examine those doctrines engaged in a realist project to elucidate

what order there is in nature and the reasons for that order: the doctrines of

imposed and immanent law.

Doctrine of the Law as Imposed

The doctrine of the Law as imposed has as its metaphysical base an order of
external relations between independent existents which are the constituents of

nature. The independent constituents of nature are understandable in complete

abstraction or isolation from any other part of nature, they are sufficient to

themselves, and need no addition for their existence. That these existents are
however found within a world of other existents imposes upon them the

necessity of causal relations and these are the laws of nature.

The classical physics of Newton is exemplary of the doctrine of imposed Law. A

body is describable mathematically simply by its volume, mass and motion. The

extensive nature of a body is the limit of its attributable characteristics. In

relation to other bodies positions may be measured and from these relations
certain forces imposed. The existence of two or more bodies in any space

establishes relationships of force – inherent, impressed, centripetal – and from

these certain laws are derived.

An imposed law is consistent with Deism. Descartes’ enquiries were aimed at a

reconciliation of the new physics of his time with metaphysical and theist
concerns. The dualism of Descartes metaphysics is another clear example of the

doctrine of imposed law; material extension contains no power of its own and so

motion is imposed upon bodies from elsewhere. Indeed there is here a clear link

between scientific and philosophical method. In Newton’s work the order of

nature is established by his adoption of the doctrine of imposed law. The

dualism of such a system, of matter and some immaterial substance, is explicit:

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“It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation

of something else, which is not material, operate on and affect other matter”

(Newton, 2004, 102). Descartes enquiries are concerned precisely with the

nature of the immaterial operations acting upon dull matter.

The problems of such dualism are well known to philosophy. How are two

orders of nature, entirely separate, able to effect or interact with one another?

The problem of a mechanics of nature which are imposed splits the system and
there is a bifurcation of nature into dull extended matter and active immaterial

powers. How are we to know the laws from the particular bodies, and are the

laws able to tell us anything about the particular bodies upon which they act?

How can there be any relation between two absolutely opposed natures?

The success of the doctrine of imposed Law is evident in its ubiquity however.

It has been a consistent feature of philosophy and science that any order in

nature must be imposed. The classical sciences of the 17th century which

operated on this assumption served in the development of at least 250 years of

technology and civilisation. Classical mechanics is still used today in the

description of the motion of macroscopic objects, from projectiles to

astronomical objects. Indeed this success now presents us with a problem as the

metaphysical basis of imposed law underpins much of our contemporary

understanding of nature. The bifurcation of nature which is the result of such

an understanding must be refuted. The impetus must then be to show that

order is not the product only of an imposed law but instead that the creative

advance of the immanent power of nature will itself be productive of order.

Doctrine of the Law as Immanent

By the doctrine of the law as immanent the order of nature is itself expressive

of nature’s laws. The entities in nature by their relation to one another compose

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the pattern of nature. By the interdependence of any community the pervading

structure of these relations is a pattern of the laws of nature. Contrary to the

doctrine of mere description the doctrine of the law as immanent is precisely

concerned with reasons and explanations. The organisation of nature is

constituted by its internal relations.

Whitehead introduces the doctrine of the law as immanent with Plato’s

definition of reality as power:

My suggestion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of

power to affect another, or to be affected by another even for a moment,

however trifling the cause and however slight and momentary the effect,
has real existence; and that the definition of being is simply power

(Plato, Sophist, 247E).

To have an effect, to be the cause of a difference, or to be effected is to be real.

Any fact or entity must be the product or effect of some actual power and no
fact can exist independently and without reference to any other fact. This

doctrine is a reversal of the doctrine of imposed law or external relations since

no body can be inanimate and no immaterial power can be imposed

unidirectionally. Any actual existent must be capable of effecting and being

effected. By the criteria proposed by Plato the “inanimate brute matter” of

Newton cannot be redeemed by any external force of a separate and unknown

nature. If there are bodies and forces in the cosmos then both must be capable

of effecting, or being effected by, change.

Beyond the inherent speculative and realist character of the doctrine of the law

as immanent Whitehead raises three further consequences. First, we can not

always expect exact conformation to the laws of nature because immanent laws
are expressive of a process rather than regulating it. Those things possessive of

a common character will conform to a law, but in some cases the relations of

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things will fail to illustrate any law. This does not mean that we are once again

deprived of induction as a rational means of investigation. In fact, the doctrine

of the law as immanent, with its consideration of nature as intrinsically

powerful and ordered by it’s own causal relations, provides us with a reasonable

degree of certainty in induction. Indeterminacy and probability are irreducible

parts of nature, but that nature is alive to a creative advance that is premised

upon continuity of internal relations.

A second consequence of the immanency of nature’s law is that the uniformity

and stability of the laws of nature are only contingent. Since the organisation of

the internal relations of Nature is itself productive of the laws then any change

in their arrangement may result in a change of the laws. The evolution of the
universe is conceivable only concurrently with the evolution of the laws. Any

consideration of evolution subject to eternal or unchanging laws signals a

reversion to the doctrine of imposed law. This tension however marks the final

consequence of the doctrine of the law as immanent: it is only tenable within a

metaphysical system capable of providing us with an adequate understanding of

the way in which “the characters of the relevant things in nature are the

outcome of their interconnections, and their interconnections are the outcome of

their characters” (Whitehead, 1933, 113). Any Law that is the product of the

organisation of its constituents, that can in some way explain this organisation
is subject to a reciprocal relationship of constructed/constructing and some

account must be given of the way in which any order prevalent in nature comes

about.

Order in Nature: Immanent and Imposed

The doctrines of imposed and immanent law both consider nature as either

definitely or potentially ordered and that order as following from some reason.

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Each puts forward the possibility of a philosophy of nature whose descriptions

are inclusive of every existent. Whitehead was concerned throughout his

philosophical work with the problem of the bifurcation of nature. Any

conceptual system which divides existent entities into separate realms, or

excludes from description some set of existent facts must be viewed as a

conceptual abstraction of limited applicability. The pragmatic application of

some system of abstractions to local situations will be valued for its descriptive

power, but the extension of this abstraction beyond its limits will result in

aporia. Representative of imposed law we have considered mechanical

materialism, and there are problems with this doctrine which entail serious
bifurcation.

The metaphysics of mechanical materialism describe a manifest stability of

organisation in some system, but by its ontology of independently existing and

powerless bodies this organisation is not an inherent feature of the system. The

organisation of any system of bodies is imposed by some external power.

Whitehead described the eminence of static and powerless bodies in a

metaphysics “‘the fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ […][which] consists in

neglecting the degree of abstraction involved when an actual entity is

considered merely in so far as it exemplifies certain categories of thought”

(Whitehead, 1929, 7-8). Bodies considered merely as extended contain no

inherent power and thus mechanism entails dualism; the activity and

organisation of a system are not a part of the system. The principles of

organisation and activity also work asymmetrically; they act on the system, but

are not themselves acted on. They are then subject to no change and are

essentially atemporal. The division of reality is then of a transcendent and

eternal realm, and a changing temporal realm. For the method of science and
philosophy such a division presents serious problems. First, the ontological

significance of the two realms is uncertain; of what necessity is a temporal realm

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if a transcendent realm contains within itself every principle of its organisation?

Second, since laws are imposed they will be followed exactly and are then

deterministic. Causality is efficient only and the change through time of any

system can be reduced to a necessary chain of causal connections. This may be

considered a virtue of imposed law, especially for the physical sciences, since

there can be absolute certainty about cause and effect. However, in science
absolute determinism is at variance with contemporary understandings of

quantum physics, and appears reductive and lacking explanatory power in the

life sciences. The philosophical implications of absolute determinism are also

serious. Third and following from the previous, mechanist systems are
essentially atemporal. The Becoming of the temporal world is merely a limited

perspective on the transcendent realm of Being. Finally, causality between a

transcendent and temporal realm must be explained, and the epistemology of

beings in the temporal realm must be accounted for.

If considering the order of nature as imposed entails bifurcation, then it is

argued by Whitehead that considering the ordering principles as immanent will

repair this division. We will then consider Whitehead’s metaphysics of process

as exemplary of a system of immanent law.

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II. Whitehead’s Process

Creativity

Becoming is for Whitehead the primary expression of Being. Whitehead’s

metaphysics describes not independently existing entities but the creativity of

interdependent entities. There is no eminence of bodies in Whitehead’s

metaphysics, or need for the imposition of external laws. Bodies made eminent
have no effects, no powers inherent in themselves. We have examined the

problems of imposed law and found need of some alternative. Therefore, taking

Plato’s definition of real existence as power, we must ask will be the

consequences of this new criteria of ontological significance? First, it will be

recognised that mere power is not a sufficient description for our purposes. The
criteria proposed by Plato is power in the production of difference. Whatever

has power to effect change or be changed has real existence. The process of

becoming which is Whitehead’s concern is a function of the active production of

difference, the mapping of some cause to its effect. The creativity active in

every entity of Whitehead’s metaphysics is a power of effective change.

In Process and Reality (1929) Whitehead sets out his speculative scheme in a

series of categories. The “Category of the Ultimate” is creativity. Creativity is

for Whitehead the most general metaphysical notion, a process of differentiation

and the activity of actualisation. This ultimate creativity describes the relation
of all potential elements in a system and the activity of change effected from

this system. “It is the ultimate, underivable condition of transformation or

composition, the universal principle of construction or actualisation, understood

as the activity of establishing a relation between the structure of a result and its

bases” (Bradley, 2008, 4). Creativity cannot be understood as a thing or activity

which might exist apart from other entities, it is the power active in the

interrelations of every element in a system. The description of any element is

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inconceivable apart from its relations, which are characterised by creative

power. Further to this all elements of a system must be understood as the

effects of the process of creativity and also then as potential causes for the

further activity of this system. As such then this creative power is ungrounded,

since no beginning to its activity can be posited any element in the system is

regarded as the result of antecedent activity. Creativity is productive of the

entities of a system and these entities in turn are the system of relations

formative in a creative process of new entities.

Process

In Whitehead’s metaphysics events not things are the eminent metaphysical

reality. The enduring objects of our experience are events, or more accurately,

multiplicities and series of events. Even the most impassive of objects have a

history and this history is a record of its changing relations. An apparently

impassive rock was formed some geological time ago in the dynamic processes of
sedimentation, or volcanism. Perhaps this rock was chipped from a larger stone,

which was moved at different times to new locations amid new structures of

events. Whitehead considers Cleopatra’s Needle on the London Embankment.

The Needle has been on the embankment for all of my life, but it was not
always there, there has not always been an embankment or even an Earth. Day

to day it gets dirty or cleaned, and a physicist could describe the dance of

electrons lost or gained. The permanence of any description depends upon the

abstraction of the definition (1925, 166-7). The most fundamental reality of any
object is its activity in its relations within a system of other objects similarly

constituted by events.

The events of Becoming of Whitehead’s philosophy are described as “actual

occasions” or “actual entities”. Actual occasions are units of process which are

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the fundamental metaphysical reality in the description of the becoming of the

world. These occasions are deeply interrelated and the system of their relations

are productive of higher order entities. A nexus is a collection of actual

occasions related by some fact. If the elements of a nexus are not simply

contiguous but joined by some characteristic inherited by all its members then

it is called a society. Societies are united by some commonly inherited

characteristic and by this inherited character a society will be self-sustaining, or

enduring. The objects of common experience are societies, so are the more

abstract entities of the sciences. A rock, an electron, or Cleopatra’s Needle are

societies, so are people. The description of these entities as enduring identically

is a pragmatic simplification for coherent discourse (and the result of a

simplification inherent in human perception). To ontologise the enduring

identity of these things is to make their extensive nature eminent and thus

require the imposition of powers of order or motion. Therefore, a process

metaphysical description of these entities is concerned with their becoming. The

actual occasions which are productive of nexus and societies are discrete quanta

of becoming, they themselves do not endure. Once an occasion has become, its

productive power is exhausted and it perishes. This does not mean however that
becoming is a constant foam of ephemeral occasions having no lasting effect.

The past occasions subsist as data for future occasions, at the end of their

process they attain objective immortality. The data of past occasions are then

active in the becoming of new actual occasions.

The process of the becoming of actual entities is called concrescence, and the

enduring character of any entity is a Becoming that must be serially repeated.

Nothing endures in itself but must be created anew by the process of

concrescence. Of the temporally and materially extensive nature it is important

to remember that in a philosophy of process through epochal occasions “[t]here

is a becoming of continuity, but no continuity of becoming” (Whitehead, 1929,

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35). The becoming of continuity is a part of what Whitehead describes as the

creative advance of the universe; everything that becomes is something new, the

active production of a novel actuality. As particular expressions of creativity,

actual occasions are self-creating or causa sui. The creative process does not

begin ex nihilo, the activity of occasions describes the change from the data of
past occasions to novel actuality. In this way the enduring extended objects of

experience are serially recreated. The scientists description of Cleopatra’s needle

and its dancing atomic constituents perhaps comes closest to describing this

metaphysical process. Of course, if the description of these atoms posits them as

enduring corpuscles then a problem of the power of these entities reappears. A

Whiteheadian physics admits of no atomic corpuscular constituents, the entities

of particle physics are actual occasions. Indeed, in the final analysis the world is

nothing but actual occasions. “‘Actual occasions’ – also termed ‘actual entities’

- are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going

beyond these actual entities to find anything more real. […] God is an actual

entity, and so is the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space”

(Whitehead, 1929, 18). The becoming of actual occasions, and the inheritance of

the data of the past in novel creativity of present actual fact is the process by

which all actuality becomes.

The Ontological Principle

Whitehead’s ontological principle is a rejection of any transcendent realm of

higher or more perfect reality, or any external power imposing order from

beyond. The ultimate creativity of Whitehead’s metaphysics is productive from

actuality to novel actuality. There is no separation of realms, creativity works

in and through actual entities. “[T]he world is built up of actual occasions[…]

[and] whatever things there are in any sense of ‘existence’, are derived by

abstraction from actual occasions” (Whitehead, 1929, 73). Actual occasions in

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their nexus and societies are the constituents of the particular entities of

experience. Active in actual occasions however, are entities other than actual. It

must always be remembered that these are “derived by abstraction from actual

occasions”, they have no independent existence in themselves. Whitehead’s

formulation of the ontological principle makes clear that whatever can be said
in any sense to exist, can exist only as active in the process of becoming actual

which constitutes all actual entities. “[E]very condition to which the process of

becoming conforms in any particular instance, has its reason either in the

character of some actual entity, or in the character of the subject which is in

the process of concrescence” (Whitehead, 1929, 24). Thus, any existent other

than actual occasions must be understood as it actively contributes to the

becoming of actuality, any discussion of such existents apart from such process

is an abstraction. The analysis of Whitehead’s account of process, and the

genetic analysis of actual occasions requires such abstractions. The philosophy

of process is a rejection of any distinction of substance or imposition of external

law. The ontological principle stands in opposition to the fallacy of misplaced

concreteness and the calcification of Being in static powerless inertia. If any

entity is not an ingredient active in the becoming of some actual entity then it

is nothing. Every entity of Whitehead’s universe has the potential to be active

in effecting difference or be effected by a process of differentiation.

Actual Occasions

An actual occasion is a discrete quantum of becoming, an “epoch” in

Whitehead’s terminology. As a unit of process an actual occasion is indivisible,

but in a genetic analysis of concrescence various factors constituting the process

of becoming can be discerned. The distinctions made always refer to the whole
activity of an occasion in concrescence. As a unity and as a process an actual

occasion must always be considered as it relates to the becoming actual of itself.

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An actual occasion is a process in the concrescence of a final determinate actual

fact. This end product Whitehead terms the “satisfaction” of the occasion. The

satisfaction of an occasion is its one purpose, and it is this purpose which is

described by the subjective aim. The meaning of the “subject” of any occasion

must be considered carefully however, for in common language a subject may be

understood as a pre-existent thing given to some situation or the fully formed

substance of some action. This is misleading since the subject of an actual

occasion is not pre-given, but in the process of concrescence or constituted by

the action. For this reason Whitehead uses the term “superject” to mean the

product of the process, or sometimes “subject-superject” to mean the experience

of the process and its product (1929, 29).

The relation of every actual entity to all other actual entities is described by

Whitehead as a form of experience. Whitehead’s term for the experiential

character of occasions is “prehension”, with the literal meaning seizing or

grasping. Actual occasions grasp or prehend other entities for the process of

their concrescence. The first phase of the process of an actual occasion is the

prehension of physical data. The data prehended by actual entities are the

definite forms of past actualities. It is from these past data that novel actual

occasions concresce. The inherence in every actual entity of some potentially

effective relationship to other actual entities is in this way illimitable. The

prehensions of actual entities give them access to every other actual entity.

“Each fully realized fact has an infinitude of relations in the historic world and

in the realm of form; namely, its perspective of the universe” (Whitehead, 1938,

89). The data of past actualities have ontological significance as they are

available to condition the concrescence of new actual occasions. The

concrescence of every other actual entity too is prehended by individual actual

occasions. Put simply, the relational structure of process is such that “every

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actual entity is present in every other actual entity” (Whitehead, 1929, 50). The

question that arises from such a deeply interrelated process is how to explain

the manifest diversity of entities in the universe? Why, if every actual entities is

present in every other are they not in absolute agreement in undifferentiated

unison? The answer to this is given in Whitehead’s reference above to form, the

perspective of the occasions and in qualification that “[t]he data for any one

pulsation of actuality consist of the full content of the antecedent universe as it

exists in relevance to that pulsation” (Whitehead, 1938, 89). Although actual

entities inhere in one another through their illimitable prehensions, every actual

occasion is actually diverse and is a particular perspective on the universe. The

reason why all occasions are not in undifferentiated unison is a product of

complex diversity arising from the supplemental phase of concrescence. The

second phase of the actual occasion is conceptual prehension which introduces a

new entity to the subject of the occasion.

The conceptual prehension of occasions is a prehension of relational forms

inherent in the physical data. Whitehead gives to these relational forms the

name “eternal objects”. Eternal objects provide potential forms of definiteness

for the final concrescence of the occasion. The physical and conceptual
prehension of occasions is the subjective form of concrescence which conditions

the becoming of actuality. Amongst the data of past actual occasions certain

relations inhere linking them by a common characteristic such as would organise

a nexus or society of occasions. These forms of organisation are eternal objects,

potential orders of relation for the becoming of new occasions. As forms of

definiteness considered in abstraction from any actuality eternal objects are

multiply instantiable. Whitehead calls the instantiation of an eternal object in

an actual entity “ingression”. Eternal objects are both immanent and

transcendent. As the form of definiteness of an actual entity they are immanent,

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and as a potential forms of definiteness they transcend any particular

ingression. Eternal objects function similarly to Platonic Forms, but the

transcendence of eternal objects is in no way as independently existing entities

in some ideal realm. An eternal object has existence only as it is relevant to an

actual entity.

Concrescence
The process of any actual occasions moves from its physical prehension, its

grasping of the data of antecedent actuality; through conceptual prehension, its

conceptualisation of potential patterns of definiteness; to its actualisation or

satisfaction. An occasion is a process of concrescence, and it has significance

only as a finally actual fact, the superject or product of its activity. Active in

the concrescence of every actual occasion is every other actual occasion, an

illimitable multiplicity of data. “The ground, or origin, of the concrescent

process is the multiplicity of data in the universe, actual entities and eternal

objects” (Whitehead, 1929, 224). The determination of a final form of

definiteness then requires the synthesis of the data active in an actual occasions.

Creativity is the process whereby “[t]he many become one, and are increased by

one” (Whitehead, 1929, 21). Creativity is the non-determining concept of this

process. The many are the diverse data of the universe which are synthesised in

an act of concrescence. The one is the novel actuality which is the terminus of
this process and a new datum for the serial creativity of becoming.

Whitehead describes nine categoreal obligations which guide the actualisation of

an occasion. These obligations are not imposed laws, but regularities illustrated
by the process itself. The categories do not serve as universals out of which are

built up particular concrete facts. Whitehead argues that to ask how such a

building up might occur is a mistake. The approach of his philosophy is instead

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to ask: “[h]ow can concrete fact exhibit entities abstract from itself and yet

participated in by its own nature?” (1929, 20). No exact confirmation to any

ideal can be expected; the organisation of actual fact instantiates certain

features of regularity which can be repeated or abstracted. The obligations then

describe the way in which occasions unify the multiple data (physical and
conceptual) in the concrescence of a final fact. It is not necessary here, nor is

there space, to elucidate the nine categories. Instead we will consider those

features relevant to our current discussion.

The subjective form of an occasion is its valuation of the contrasts inherent in

its prehended data. An activity which will guide the concrescence of the

occasion is the negative prehension of certain data. Negative prehension

excludes from consideration certain data as irrelevant to the actualisation of the

occasion or incompossible with the actualisation of other entities. The data

prehended must be unifiable in one superject and actualisable in the diversity of

other actual entities. The actualisation of an occasion then depends upon the

intensity of the valuation of the antecedent data and the eternal objects. With

this data positively prehended an occasion may repeat some form of definiteness

or diversify from it in a relevant contrast.

The concrescent process of an occasion may inherit directly and without

originality the patterns of data antecedent to it. “The Category of Conceptual

Valuation” describes the process whereby occasions prehend the conceptual

content of antecedent data. The conceptual prehensions of an occasion may be

only those directly implicated by its physical prehensions. If the conceptual

prehensions are limited to these determinate forms then physical necessity will

be the active type of causality active in the process. This is the efficient

causality of Whitehead’s metaphysics; the limiting of effect to the determinate

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patterns of data inherited from the physical prehensions of antecedent fact. In

this way the stability and regularity of nature is the product of these limited

types of conceptual prehension.

The concrescence of occasions is not limited to efficient causality and a certain

indeterminacy or variation from inherited patterns is possible. “The Category of

Conceptual Reversion” describes the process whereby patterns of eternal objects

enter into new relations in the context of the concrescent occasion and provide
diverse potentiality for the satisfaction of the occasion. In this way causality

diverges from the merely efficient variety. This new kind of causality and the

indeterminacy it introduces to the system of actual entities is conditioned by

physical necessity; conceptual valuation and negative prehension determine

concrescent fact so far as the creativity of process requires for consistency. But

there remains the possibility of original patterns of Becoming as the process of

concrescence creates new conditions for the satisfaction of actual entities. This

potential originality is a product of the diversity of conceptual prehension, and

this “diversity is a relevant diversity determined by the subjective aim”

(Whitehead, 1929, 26).

The determination of efficient causality and the potential for divergence from

this will be the subject for our final section. The necessary inheritance of

physical effects by some actual entities is the reason for any manifest regularity

and stability of nature. The novel originality of pattern which diverges from

this regularity represents a certain indeterminacy or radical potentiality for

freedom from the necessary requirements of mere reiteration of the past.

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III. Subjective Aim

The Becoming of Whitehead’s process metaphysics is the serial creativity of an

illimitable plurality of occasions active in the concrescence of final actual facts

or forms of definiteness. The Category of the Ultimate creativity is the most

general concept of this process. Actual occasions are particular instances of the

transformation of “‘creativity’, ‘many’, ‘one’” (1929, 21), the unification of

data in the concrescence of one final superject and the addition of this

completed superject to the plurality of all actual entities. Creativity is literally a

transformative process; the shaping of novel actual entities from antecedent

actual entities. But it is also a serially disjunctive process, not a continuum,

since a continuum is infinitely divisible and productive of no definite form. The

consistency of the process of actualisation establishes certain categories of

behaviour which occasions illustrate in their concrescence. The prehension of

physical and conceptual data and the valuation of eternal entities as potential

forms of definiteness is the process of the subject-superject of an occasion. The

conceptualisation of eternal entities is the valuation of the concrescent occasion

at its satisfaction. The aim of all occasions toward their concrescence is their

subjective aim. “The concrescence is dominated by a subjective aim which

essentially concerns the creature as a final superject. This subjective aim is this

subject itself determining its own self-creation as one creature” (Whitehead,

1929, 69). In situations of physical necessity there is little if any deviation form
a direct inheritance of past data. However, under certain conditions actual

occasions retain an open potentiality for the actualisation of original forms of

definiteness and in this way the subjective aim is the original creativity of

actuality. The subjective aim then performs two functions in Whitehead’s

metaphysics; the exploration of freedom, and the generation of diversity. We

will first consider the freedom and diversity of Whitehead’s process

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metaphysics. This will then introduce two concepts of causality which we will

consider in relation to the development of order in nature.

Freedom

The becoming of actual entities is conditioned by their environment in the form

of their physical prehensions of antecedent data, but the final superject of any
occasion has in the last analysis a certain freedom in its concrescence. The final

of Whitehead’s nine categoreal obligations is “of Freedom and Determination”

and describes the concrescence of any occasion after all other obligations are

fulfilled. “[I]n each concrescence whatever is determinable is determined, but

[…] there is always a remainder for the decision of the subject-superject of that

concrescence” (1929, 27-8). The determination of what is determinable is the

definite form of antecedent data and the patterns of eternal objects drawn from

their relations. The process of concrescence is not mere repetition however,

there is always some difference in the superject of an actual occasion from its

past data. In the most limited of cases this may be the difference between

occasion1 and occasion2. There may be a direct inheritance of form from an

antecedent datum, but the novel occasion is a concrescence in a changed

network of relations relative to its direct environment and the wider universe.

The stable continuity of certain entities, for instance a helium atom or a rock,

are the manifest serial recreation of direct inheritance from physical data. The
necessity for entities to follow the determining physical prehensions is not

absolute however, and in every occasion there remains a certain freedom from

determination.

The freedom for the final determination of a concrescent occasion comes from

the inherent power that is productive of all entities. Since every occasion is an

instantiation of the general creative power of Becoming, and this power is none

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determining, an indeterminate region of possibility is open to occasions. First,

the ultimate creativity active in all process requires some domain or input;

creative activity acts on something which can always be variable. Creativity

does not work ex nihilo, but from some actual entity. The process from this

actuality will be partially determined by the set of actual entities active in the

process, but this set is potentially infinite and cannot be finally determined.
Second, creative activity is non-determining, it describes a process of

differentiation but does not require a definite form from any instance of this

process. The creativity of the many antecedent data as they are active in the

concrescence of a final superject requires the synthesis of the many in the one,
but the process of this synthesis is not determined. Third, the concrescence of

an occasion is not reducible to its domain or inherited data since it concrescence

from this data subject is its own novel determination. There is no limit to the

potential contrasts and relations which can be conceptually prehended as

eternal entities from the antecedent data of any occasion. Finally, the

concrescence of an occasion is not determined by any rule or law, since the

concrescence of the occasion is the act of expressing that rule. The concrescence
of actual occasions is free relative to ultimate creativity, its antecedent data and

its rule. A concrescent actual occasion enjoys negative freedom, in that its

activity cannot be determined by any of its conditions; and positive freedom, in

that it is then its own reason or cuasa sui (Bradley, 2008, 10). “[T]he future of

the Universe, though conditioned by the immanence of its past, awaits for its

complete determination the spontaneity of the novel individual occasions as in

their season they come into being” (1933, 255).

The relations inherent in any set of physical prehensions are illimitable, since

they include a potentially infinite number of datum, the relations of these data,
and potential relations of relations ad infinitum. The concrescence of novel

actualities have a potentially infinite potential forms of definiteness. An infinity

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of these eternal objects will not always be available for ingression, since the

conditions prevailing in any system will exclude from possibility the

actualisation of certain eternal objects. The necessity of agreement among

occasions in the actualisation of novel facts requires that a common character

prevails in any system. But where conditions are right for the actualisation of

original relations diversity from inherited conditions is possible. The negative

prehensions which exclude from possibility those eternal entities whose

ingression would contradict the actualisation of the general environment of any

occasion are the determining characteristics of Becoming, but this determination

is not absolute. The potential for diversity beyond the common character of

any system “constitutes that special element in the flux of forms in history,

which is ‘given’ and incapable of rationalisation beyond the fact that within it

every component which is determined is internally determined” (Whitehead,

1929, 47).

Diversity

In the conceptual valuation of the subjective form of any actual occasion there
are a potentially infinite number of conceptual prehensions. These variations of

conceptual possibilities represent “an indefinite progression of categories, as we

proceed from ‘contrasts’ to ‘contrasts of contrasts’, and on indefinitely to

higher grades of contrast” (Whitehead, 1929, 22). The “contrasts” and

“contrasts of contrasts” are the relations presented as forms for ingression by

eternal objects. The potentially infinite contrasts of these relations provide an

illimitable diversity of possible forms for concrescence.

The subjective aim of any occasion conceptualises both the past and the future.

The past comes from the prehensions of antecedent data. The future is the

anticipatory feeling of the subject-superject to its final concrescence. This

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anticipatory feeling contains within itself reference to the future concrescence of

novel occasions since the completed fact of an occasion will be a datum for

future occasions. Whitehead describes this process as “objectification”; the

satisfaction of the subjective aim will be a datum for future occasions. The dual
aspect of concrescent occasions, prehending the past and looking to the future,

is described by the Category of Subjective Intensity. The intensity of conceptual

prehensions are the quality and form of eternal objects conceptualised by the

subject-superject. The intensities of feeling are the effective product of the

contrast of eternal objects in the subjective form of any occasion, and they drive

the increasingly diverse creation of novel actual entities through contrasts,

contrasts of contrasts and so on. The ingression of eternal objects in actual

entities, and the subsequent contrasts with new potentials for definiteness,

provide the possibility of the ever increasing complexity of actual entities. The

consistency of creativity and the negative prehensions of occasions provide the

conditions of contrast for the growing complexity of relational systems. The

consistency of creativity is the unification of multiple data, through the

conceptualisation of relevant patterns of this data, in one novel actualised fact.

Negative prehensions and the interrelations of occasions then reject

incompossible eternal entities, and this constraint provide a certain measure of

stability for the development of novel occasions to explore the freedom of

possible actualisations.

Efficient and Final Causality

Mechanistic materialism is a deterministic system of imposed law in contrast to

the freedom of Whitehead’s process metaphysics. The freedom and

indeterminacy is not however a chaotic or incoherent process, the relations of

the system of actual entities impute to them certain obligations which are
productive of an ordered system. This order is necessary under the conditions of

individual occasions, but is not an absolute fact of the system. The Category of

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the Ultimate is creativity which is non-determining concept of transformation,

unification and diversity. By the ontological principle every entity in nature

must have the potential to effect or be effected, but the conditions of cause and

effect are not determined. What is entailed in any relation is the mapping of a

diverse set of data to some determinate concrescent fact. The inheritance from

data to novel occasion is conditioned, but not finally determined by the

obligations of the occasion in its network of interrelations. There are then two

forms of causality at work in Whitehead’s process metaphysics; the direct

inheritance from antecedent data, and the potential divergences inherent in this

data conceptually realised.

The concrescence of a final superject is both the satisfaction of the subjective

aim and a datum subsequent occasions; this is the process of objectification.

Every entity is then at different epochs both a subject and an object. When

objectified entities give to process the direct line of physical inheritance which
provides to every concrescence its basic ingredients. Physical prehensions and

the actualisation of occasions in the network of other occasions constrain the

concrescent process. The coherence of concrescent occasions as they interrelate

imputes to the occasions the necessity of certain forms of definiteness. This

direct form of effect from datum to datum is a form of efficient causality.

Efficient causality in a system of immanent power provides a regularity of order

which may be described by laws. In this way a stability of organisation is

established without the need for imposed law. Beyond this direct inheritance of

form however there is always a certain region of freedom or possibility in the

conceptual valuation of a concrescent subject. The secondary prehension, by the

Category of Conceptual Reversion, of eternal objects or “contrasts of contrasts”

give to certain occasions a space to explore divergent patterns of concrescence

from those directly inherited. The exploration of adjacent possibilities amongst

the welter of conceptual data is the function of the subjective aim and the final

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satisfaction of the occasion is in this sense a form of final causality. “The

‘objectifications’ of the actual entities on the actual world, relative to a definite

actual entity, constitute the efficient causes out of which that actual entity

arises; the ‘subjective aim’ at ‘satisfaction’ constitutes the final cause, or lure,

whereby there is determinate concrescence” (1929, 87).

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Conclusion

The subjective aim at satisfaction in a determinate concrescence from the data

of past fact is the particular activity of the ultimate creativity which is the

fundamental process of Becoming described by Whitehead’s metaphysics. The

creative process of unifying in one subject multiple data, and the transformation

from this data to a novel individual fact is the Becoming of every entity in

nature. By their interrelations, and these relations are so deep as for every

entity to be a potentially active element in every other, the concrescence of

occasions displays certain categories of behaviour. These categories are not

imposed, but a product of the process shared between all actual entities. The

immanent power of activity between all entities imputes to them certain shared
characteristics or forms of relation. By these forms of relation common patterns

can emerge which may be shared in nexus or societies and these entities are

descriptive of the manifestly stable regularities observed in nature. Nature

considered as a multiplicity of active powers will by its activity produce

relations of inheritance which serially recreate the enduring objects of

experience.

The bifurcation of nature entailed in mechanical materialism considered as a

system of imposed law separates from nature the powers of its activity and

organisation. Nature conceived of as lifeless dull extension is subject to no

reason other than imposed supernatural law. Such a bifurcation presents serious

problems to philosophy, but the power of imposed law in describing the regular

features of nature make it a valuable scientific tool. The challenge to philosophy

is to articulate a system of immanent law, established by powers which are

productive of activity, extension and order. Whitehead’s process metaphysics

describes such a system, and this system provides powerful philosophical

concepts for science and the philosophy of nature.

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In addition to the generation of certain stable and repeatable relations active in

the enduring entities in nature, Whitehead’s process philosophy describes the

indeterminism of creativity, the freedom of entities within a system, and the

diversity which is the product of such indeterminism. In this way the

development of systems beyond mere repetition of sequence is possible. The

laws described by mechanical materialism are deterministic, being imposed they

are followed exactly. The laws of a system of immanent law do not exist

independently, but are illustrated in the activity of the system. No exact

confirmation to any law can be expected. This indeterminacy does not

undermine induction or the investigative experiments aimed at an elucidation of

the order of nature, since the overall character is still one of manifest stability.
But the freedom of entities in a system of immanent laws to diverge from their

inherited situation puts forth the possibility of describing an evolving and active

system of nature.

The study of nature in its most fundamental being by contemporary science is

described by under the title of “physics”. The questions of physics are of the

motion, forces and powers of nature, and its methods of speculative theory and

systematizing law make clear to us its concerns: organisation, order and reason.
If the ontology guiding physics is of a static system ordered by a superadded

realm, physics then describes only determinist mechanics devoid of change or

time and subject to serious philosophical problems. If, alternatively, the study

of physics is undertaken in the etymological sense of the word – “phusis”

(φύσις), meaning the productive power in nature, the power of growth and

development – then the study of nature becomes “the progressive discovery of

new relevant questions, enlightening the diversity of nature, and the need to

learn how to approach this diversity” (Stengers, 2005, 1). This attentiveness to

the method and progressive discovery in the physical sciences then requires a

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sufficient metaphysics; the philosophical enquiry into the concept of nature

which informs and guides our questions. Whitehead’s philosophy describes such

a concept of nature, and the subjective aim is that aspect of it which explores

and unfolds the diversity of the creative power of nature in an ongoing

adventure.

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