Sunday, December 3, 2017

Organism and Prehension

Whitehead's Actuality is constituted by processes of intake from its environment by an Organism, which is itself at any moment the culmination of prior intakes.  But, lacking in this scheme is Motility, as if only certain plants were Organisms.  Now, a general term that he uses to characterize these events is Prehension.  However, he does not seem to recognize that Prehension means Grasp, which entails Motility, i. e. a hand enfolding some object.  To so recognize it is to also recognize that in the Organisms with capacity for Grasp, it is not a termination of a process but a preparation for further Motility, e. g. wielding a tool.  He is thus precluded from considering that a fundamental moment in the experience of an Organism is that it modifies its environment, not merely takes from it.

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