Whitehead and Organism

Whitehead's concept of 'Organism' is innovative in two main respects. First, it is primarily a Metaphysical notion, of which the more familiar Biological version is a special case. Second, it connotes the pattern of a dynamic process, not the structure of a static entity. This second feature resolves a difficulty that, as previously discussed, Kant encounters--cognitive-purposive heterogeneity, that the Kantian system cannot systematize without recourse to a fiction. For, qua process, Whiteheadian Organism consists in precisely a transition from a multiplicity of cognized givens, to their unity as the realized satisfaction of a purpose. Whitehead's system does not accommodate all the antitheses encountered by Kant or Bergson, e. g. he merely describes, without explanation, that in an organism, organic and inorganic processes are found to stand in a "regnant"-"subservient" relation. Still, he does manage to find middle ground between Biology and Physics, i. e. by classifying the motility of an organism as a 'Physiological' phenomenon.