Whitehead, Dewey, Experimentalism

Whitehead agrees with Dewey that Experience is fundamentally Aesthetic, i. e. the seeking, by an organism, of Harmony, and that it is episodic, i. e. consisting of discrete experiences, with their discrete terminal moments of satisfaction. However, as Ratner argues, in his introduction to a Dewey collection, Whitehead does not share Dewey's appreciation for experimental experiences, especially in the sphere of Scientific inquiry. For example, he quotes Whitehead as dismissing experiment as "cooking the facts". Now, as Whitehead's theory of Propositions, and his analysis of Hume's 'Missing Shade of Blue' problem, show, he allows that Truth is provisional, that Error is a constructive opportunity, and that Imagination can be the locus of discovery. On the other hand, what is lacking in his theory of Experience is an account of the creating of facts, in general, of which "cooking" them for Scientific purposes is a special case. For, as has been previously discussed, the arc of an experience, for Whitehead, begins with the de-stabilizing reception of a novel influx of energy, and terminates in a theoretical or practical decision regarding it. Hence, any subsequent efficient causality, originating in an emergent Superject from that experience, is outside the scope of that arc, even though, as has been suggested, Whitehead is not lacking in the systematic resources for accommodating such an active experiential process. What he is lacking in is Dewey's appreciation for the creative Artistic dimension of Aesthetic Experience.

Whitehead, Concrescence, Discrescence

Whitehead's vision of experience as fundamentally Aesthetic is compromised by his thesis that every Process is essentially a Concrescence, i. e. a transition from Multiplicity to Unity. That thesis, therefore, denies the essentiality to experience of the inverse transition, i. e. from Unity to Multiplicity, which, can, accordingly, be termed 'Discrescence'. But, Creativity entails Discrescence--as he explicitly recognizes, the generation of novelty publicly increases the multiplicity of existent entities, and privately is experienced as a "principle of unrest", and as an "appetite towards a difference". So, insofar as Whitehead disregards the Discrescent dimension of Creativity, or subordinates it to eventual Conscrescent operations, he abstracts from Aesthetic experience one of its essential characteristics.

Whitehead, God, Propositional Function

For Whitehead, 'God' is the primordial creature, which, in Spinozistic terminology, is a Mode, not Substance, nor naturing nature. This entity is the actualization of the normative ordering of all the Eternal Objects, i. e. the exemplification of a perfect being. It is, in this respect, thus comparable to, for example, the 'Adam Kadmon' of Kabbalistic Judaism, and to 'ens realissimum' of Medieval Theology. What distinguishes Eternal Objects from Platonic Forms is that they are, according to Whitehead, essentially incomplete without applicability to actuality, and God's normative ordering of them transforms them into what in Principia Mathematica are called 'Propositional Functions', which range over concrete instances, in combination with which, Propositions are formed. A Heideggerian might thus interpret Whitehead's God as supplying propositions with a cupola. And, in terms of Christian Theology, Whitehead's concept of God implies that "in the beginning" is the Propositional Function.

Whitehead and Aesthetic Experience

The detailed references in Process and Reality to Locke and Hume distract from Whitehead's interpretation of experience as fundamentally an Aesthetic, rather than as a Cognitive or Moral, phenomenon. That is, on that interpretation, the arc from sensation to knowledge, or from desire to satisfaction, is a special case of that from creative urge to organic harmonization. Thus, Whitehead's critique of Hume is, at bottom, not of the inadequacy of Impressions to found either Cognitive or Moral experience, but of the derivative, delimited nature of either of them. Still, he does maintain agreement with Hume that experience originates in a sentient moment, i. e. in an awareness, of some sort, of an object, of some sort. Hence, he precludes the possibility that an internal motor process can be an original creative impulse, and, hence, that e. g. graceful physiological motion constitutes an Aesthetic experience.

Whitehead and Valuation

Whitehead recognizes two categories of Valuation, which can be characterized as 'immediate' and 'mediated'. Immediate Valuation is a simple feeling of like or of dislike. Mediated Valuation evaluates immediate Valuations, via reference to some objective criterion, which, in Whitehead's system is attributable to 'God'. Prominent classical examples of an objective criterion are Aristotle's 'Mean' and Kant's 'Universalizability', while Emotivism reduces any such purportedly 'objective' concept to immediate Valuation. Whitehead's incorporation of 'God' into experience exposes a crucial shortcoming in Hume's Moral theory more effectively than does even Kant. For Hume, Valuation is primarily immediate. However, he further argues that sympathy with another is more worthy than merely private like or dislike, and that universal sympathy is more worthy than localized sympathy. Whitehead's scheme demonstrates that in the absence of some objective criterion, Hume has no grounds for his mediated Valuations.

Whitehead, Subject, Superject

Whitehead's repeated use of the term 'subject-superject' obscures that in some contexts he sharply divides 'Subject' from 'Superject'. In general, the former is the terminal phase of one Concrescence, the feeler of its feelings, while the latter is the initial stage of the subsequent Concrescence, an efficient cause of eventual Subjects. In particular, the formulator of a purpose is a Subject, but Whitehead does not explore a concept of Superject as the executor of purposes. He thereby misses an opportunity to develop a general notion of Superject as agent, i. e. as originator of physiological processes. Thus, by homogenizing the two as 'subject-superject', Whitehead abstracts from Organism the motor dimensions of Experience.

Whitehead and Transmutation

One categorial factor in any experience, according to Whitehead, is 'Transmutation', the projection of private phenomena into a perceptual object. Three well-known examples of Transmutation include one that he explicitly credits--Locke's Secondary Qualities, and two to which he implicitly alludes--Gestalt Theory's homogenization of perceptual data, and Santayana's analysis of Beauty as 'objectified pleasure'. However, he misses its potential application to Hume's 'Missing Shade of Blue' problem--that the inferring of an unsensed shade from given shades is a Gestalt homogenization of them. Furthermore, he nowhere explicitly entertains the relevance of Transmutation to purposeful action, i. e. that the physical modification of an environment for practical purposes effects a transmutation of it. Whitehead therefore has no occasion to consider that physical Transmutation is not a special case of the category, but its original.