Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-relational Ontology (European Studies in Process Thought) [Unabridged] 144387695X, 9781443876957

Citation preview

Dynamic Being

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology Edited by

Vesselin Petrov and Adam C. Scarfe

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology Edited by Vesselin Petrov and Adam C. Scarfe This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Vesselin Petrov, Adam C. Scarfe and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7695-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7695-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ...................................................................................................... viii Dynamical and Process-Relational Ontologies Vesselin Petrov Acknowledgments ............................................................................... xxxvii Part I: Dynamic and Process-Relational Ontologies—Theory Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 Aristotle’s “Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity Johanna Seibt Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 28 The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories Roberto Poli Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 44 Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology Vesselin Petrov Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 68 Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality Helmut Maassen Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 86 Freedom, Creativity and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics Ella Csikós Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 95 Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory Maria-Teresa Teixeira Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 107 The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology Piotr LeĞniak

vi

Table of Contents

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 122 Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology and the Problem of the Indeterminacy of Interpretation Dimitri Ginev Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 146 Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity Yujian Zheng Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 162 Being as Process of Harmonization: A Chinese View of Dynamic Being Chenyang Li Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 169 La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter François Beets Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 181 Descartes and the Problem of the Passions Carlos D. Garcia Mancilla Part II: Dynamic and Process-Relational Ontologies—Application Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 210 Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis Michel Weber Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 230 On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection: Process-Relational Ontology and Behavior in Evolutionary Biology Adam C. Scarfe Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 262 A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time Dimiter Vakarelov Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 306 Identity, Ontology and Flux: Process, Matter, and the Problem of Mass Nouns Henry Laycock

Dynamic Being

vii

Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 337 Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes in the Framework of the General Formal Ontology Heinrich Herre Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 356 Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic with Self-Referential Constant Specifications Rosen Lutskanov Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 364 Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text: How Far Can We Progress? Galia Angelova Contributors ............................................................................................. 383 Index ........................................................................................................ 390



PREFACE DYNAMICAL AND PROCESS-RELATIONAL ONTOLOGIES VESSELIN PETROV

One of the most important characteristics of present day ontological research is the growing interest in, and emphasis on, the dynamic aspects of being and/or on the process-relational character of being itself. Among the first investigations in the field of dynamics theory in ontology was the book Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories,1 which was published more than ten years ago in 2004 by Kluwer Academic Publishers. However, it was devoted almost exclusively to the investigation of dynamic categories. Many other important questions still await detailed answers. For example, what is the meaning of the concepts of “dynamics,” “dynamicity,” “dynamic ontology,” etc…? Are they identical to, or similar with, “processes,” “process ontology,” “process-relational ontology” respectively? Is “process ontology” a type of “dynamic ontology”? The aim of the present book is to examine these and many other questions, or at least to suggest fruitful approaches in dealing with such questions. At the same time, it outlines some of the recent developments in the field of ontology. The book aims to carry out two main tasks: first, to investigate developments in the theory of dynamic and process-relational ontologies, and second, to investigate developments in the application of these ontologies. The second task is multidisciplinary in character and, as such, the authors of the chapters in this volume are specialists not only in philosophy, but also in other fields of science, for instance, psychology, biology, mathematics, logic, computer science, etc… The above formulated aim and tasks have determined the structure of this book. It is divided into two parts: Part I: “Dynamic and ProcessRelational OntologyTheory” and Part II: “Dynamic and ProcessRelational OntologyApplication.” Part I begins with a discussion of some general problems concerning the meaning of the basic concepts of

Dynamic Being

ix

“dynamicity,” “dynamical systems,” and the relationship between dynamical systems and process-relational theories. Next, it deals with some general problems pertaining to the principles of process-relational ontology and its development. It then considers some concrete aspects of process-relational ontology (e.g., freedom, creativity, potentiality, ontological memory, and causality), including aspects of its dialogue with other domains of philosophy, such as hermeneutic phenomenology. Later, it investigates some aspects of dynamic being, such as normativity and harmonization. Part I concludes with an investigation of some of the historical aspects of the idea of dynamism. Part II begins with a consideration of some fruitful applications of process-relational ontology to the scientific fields of psychiatry and evolutionary biology. Then special attention is paid to the application of dynamic and process-relational ontologies to the formal sciences: mathematics, logic, semantics, and computer science. The following is a more detailed review of the contents of the chapters in the book. Chapter One, “Aristotle’s ‘Completeness Test’ as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity” by Johanna Seibt, functions largely as an introductory chapter to the whole book, given that its main task is to present some preliminary considerations for an exploration of the question of what it means for being to be “dynamic” and to suggest how one might formulate an implicit definition of “dynamicity.” The author approaches this task from the methodological stance of analytical ontology. Investigations of the nature of dynamic being and the study of “dynamicity” have thus far remained outside the purview of the mainstream debate in analytical ontology. The present essay is one of the first pioneering investigations to do so from the perspective of analytical ontology. According to Seibt, the reason for the neglect of dynamic entities and of the notion of dynamicity is not due to the use of formal languages in the description of ontological domains. Rather, it lies in a combination of sociological and conceptual factors. There are no principled obstacles against analytical process ontology in the sense of a formal theory of dynamicity and dynamic entities. Hence, the aim of the essay is to present some preliminary and heuristic considerations toward a formal account of the notion of dynamicity. Seibt differentiates between metaphysics and ontology, and her investigations in the paper pertain to the ontology of dynamicity, rather than to the metaphysics of dynamicity. She formulates three important subtasks: first, to investigate the question of the definability of dynamicity (the question of the direct definition of dynamicity in analytical ontology); second, to inquire into the question of atemporal dynamicity (or dynamicity independently on temporal

x

Preface

relationships); and third, to deal with the question of primacy of directed dynamicity (sorting out which modes of dynamicity are basic and which are derived). An ontological account of dynamicity, undertaken in the general methodological paradigm of analytical ontology, aims to reconstruct conceptual content as it is made manifest in inferential relations. The author emphasizes that the recent debate in analytical ontology on existence in time has little to offer an ontology of dynamicity, even where it nominally speaks of “static” entities, of “events,” or of “becoming.” This debate centers either explicitly or implicitly around John Ellis McTaggart’s contrast between four-dimensionalism and presentism. However, Seibt suggests that an ontological account of dynamicity needs to sidestep contemporary uses of the terms “dynamic” and “static” in the mainstream discussion of analytical ontology and to take its bearings from other sources. She chooses the route of locating inferential data by reviewing some discussions of dynamic being in the history of philosophy. She turns specifically to a passage in Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX, Chapter Six, which contains important leads for arriving at a general method as well as provides insight into specific inferential constraints. The passage represents the so-called Aristotelian “completeness test” where Aristotle comments on his double distinction, on the one hand, between dynamis and energeia, and, on the other hand, between kinesis and energeia. In relation to the background of the restatements of Aristotle’s text, Seibt considers its possible heuristic significance for an ontology of dynamic being. For that purpose, she considers the development of some traditional interpretations of Aristotle’s text, namely, those carried out by Gilbert Ryle (1949), Zeno Vendler (1957) and Anthony Kenny (1965). She argues that, despite their shortcomings, they also produce some important insights that can assist us in the project of constructing an ontology of dynamic being. In reaction to the difficulties that she raises in respect to this project, the author suggests an alternative interpretation of Aristotle’s “completeness test.” In contrast to other readings, Seibt argues that Aristotle’s text contains a definition, not of occurrence types, but of two modes or forms of dynamicity. First, there is the dynamicity of the “stretched” developmental variety, considered as a “push from here to there”the mode of dynamicity of “coming about” (kinesis). Second, there is “dynamicity” in the form of “going-on” as “selfpropagation”the mode of dynamicity of “self-expression” (energeia). There is a curious interdependence that is present in relation to these modes here. Specifically, the second mode of dynamicity, namely, involving a “going on” or “self-expression,” is the way in which the first

Dynamic Being

xi

mode of dynamicity is there. Specifically, “coming about” is there by the “going on” of some dynamis to become-F. At the same time, it appears that we can only understand the mode of dynamicity of “self-expression” by contrasting it with “coming about.” Here, the questions of what to do with the interdependence between these two modes of dynamicity, and/or of how to solve this “riddle of dynamicity,” arise naturally. Seibt then displays four possible reactions to such claims, all of which are exemplified in the history of metaphysics. One of them is Whitehead’s own solution to “the riddle.” However, she does not embrace any of these four reactions. Rather, she advances her own fifth option, namely, a standard implicit definition of the “ongoingness” of “dynamicity.” The general strategy of her proposal can be summarized by the following claims: (i) dynamicity or dynamic being is “ongoingness by expressing itself”—“to be” is to “go on”; (ii) “self-expression” is reflected, in characteristic structure, in the description of an entity; (iii) for example, if we describe an entity E in terms of a partition that specifies what is “part of being that entity” (i.e., we specify its spatial, function, material, etc…, parts within a single partition using a generic part relation), the fact that E is dynamic will be reflected in the partition in the form of certain distinctive patterns representing “self-expression”; (iv) self-expression is mereologically reflected in strict automerity, which generates self-similar patterns within a partition. The author makes the further suggestion of using a “leveled mereology” instead of classical extensional mereology, in coming to her solution. In the conclusion of the chapter, Seibt states that the question of whether, in relation to the suggested interpretation, energeia is the “dominant” one of the two modes of dynamicity, can remain open. The most important issue, according to her, is the use of Aristotle’s text as a foil for a discussion of the most basic concepts in an ontology of dynamic being. Aristotle’s text provides us with two very useful methodological pointers: first, it can direct analytical ontologists to a more careful investigation of aspectual inferences as the relevant linguistic data for an ontology of dynamic beings or occurrence types; and second, within a non-standard mereology, we can formulate the self-referential structures that seem to be the hallmark of any attempt of conceptually characterizing dynamicity. The aim of Chapter Two, “The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories,” by Roberto Poli, is to explain the differences between dynamical systems theory and process theory. It approaches the questions of what dynamics and dynamicity are, and of whether dynamical systems are simply reducible to process theories. It

xii

Preface

tackles these issues from quite a different angle as compared with the previous chapter. Poli explains briefly what dynamical systems theory and process theory are. His answers stem from the obvious fact that dynamical systems theory is a theory of a class of formal models. It is scientific theory, while process theory is ontological (metaphysical), i.e., it is a philosophical theory. Poli outlines two main differences between the two theories. First, according to him, process theories require some type of “glue” to keep the states of the underlying temporal continuum together, and they accept causation as providing such “glue,” while classic dynamical systems do not need any “glue” to keep the points of the continuum together. The second main difference concerns time: dynamical systems theories consider time only as order, while for process theories order is not sufficient unto itself, and they include unidimensionality, the present moment, parallelism, and actuality in their understanding of time. In that sense, dynamical systems theory is more general than process theory and does not necessarily have a process theory as its underlying ontological framework. The chapter considers these differences in more detail and analyzes some of the main concepts belonging to dynamical systems theories and to process theories, such as continuum, time, process, and causation. Poli considers the category of “process” as a category of real being. Its analysis requires analysis of the categories of “time” and “causation.” However, ideal entities are atemporal and are not connected by causal relations. In his analysis of “causation,” Poli relies on Nikolai Hartmann’s notion that causation provides an explanation for why the series of the states in a process is not just arbitrary, but rather, one state depends on another. Causation has the form of a temporal series. The ordered collection of a series of causal relations is a process. Concerning time, Poli discusses only its universal moments. He stresses the connection of time with becoming: time is both the dimension and the direction of what becomes. Five characterizing features of time are analyzed: (1) unidimensionality (time is not a system of dimensions); (2) order (time as order is only the continuity of time, because time proceeds uniformly over all events); (3) the moment-now (perhaps the most important feature of real time); (4) parallelism (all temporal processes run at the same velocity); and (5) actuality (the feature of the present as it advances in the flow of time; the past and the future are not unreal, they are just not actual). In connection with the notion of continuum, Poli explains some important concepts that are present in Brentano’s theory of continua, and especially, the latter’s theory of the present as a boundary within a

Dynamic Being

xiii

continuous process. Poli concludes by stressing that in contrast to dynamical systems theory, process theories explicitly require causation as the link that keeps together the states of the underlying temporal continuum, and that dynamical systems theories see time only as order. The perspective on time that is embedded in the latter, as it were, stems from “outside,” while process theories add a vision of time from “inside,” due to the structural features of the moment-now. Chapter Three, “Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology” by Vesselin Petrov, is a continuation of the previous chapter, because it stems from the contemporary notion of dynamicity as well as from Poli’s claim that the conceptual basis of dynamical systems theory is broader than that of process theory. However, Petrov goes further in investigating the principles of theory formation in ontology, and of process ontology in particular. The investigation in this chapter is meta-ontological in character, since its aim is to analyze the dynamic aspects of the development of process ontology as well as to outline some of the basic characteristics and tendencies of this development. There are two main tasks subordinated to that aim: first, to consider and compare the development of some main process ontologies after Whitehead, so as to outline their basic characteristics, and second, to speculate about the future development of process ontologies and the underlying characteristics of those process ontologies. In carrying out the first task that was mentioned above, the author outlines three kinds of change, or three tendencies respecting the development of ontology: (1) theory revision by way of partial replacement of elements of an existing category system and/or local alterations to a categorical network; (2) radical ontology theory revision by way of wholesale replacement of the existing category system; and (3) the expansion of theory by way of specialization. The first tendency is characterized by three features realized in different ontological systems: (a) increasing the number of categories in ontological systems; (b) decreasing the number of categories in ontological systems; and (c) substitution of a new category for some old one. If (c) is realized concerning some basic category in the ontological system, it could lead to (2) radical ontology theory revision, which is realized (otherwise) by substitution of some main group of categories or even of the whole system of categories. Historical examples are given in the chapter for each occasion—in particular, Whitehead’s version of process ontology, Rescher’s version of process ontology, Johanna Seibt’s General Process Ontology (a version of non-Whiteheadian process ontology), and Justus Buchler’s naturalism. In relation to (3) the expansion of theory by way of

xiv

Preface

specialization above, the development of IT-ontologies is discussed in comparison with philosophical ontologies. A possible tendency in the future development of ontology that is outlined in the chapter will consist in the emergence of new top-level ontologies and especially process ontologies, as well as the emergence of new regional ontologies. This tendency can be realized in a strong or in a weak form. The weak form is exemplified in Andrew Paul Ushenko’s works, and one should expect that the strong version of expansion by specialization will be realized in some future process ontological investigations. With respect to the second task that was mentioned above, the author observes that the current state of development is leaning toward the creation of process ontologies that are more dynamic in character than Whitehead’s own process-relational ontology. Petrov argues that one of the main potentialities for the future development of process ontology can be formulated as a claim that in a truly dynamic ontology, such as a process ontology, the basic philosophical categories should themselves be variable so that they can express the dynamic nature of reality. One of the first attempts to build an ontological system embedded with “variability” in terms of its categories is present in the work of Joseph Brenner, although this attempt is defective on many fronts. Petrov expresses his hope that we shall arrive at an entirely new form of process-relational ontology that will be very different from Whitehead’s own version, and that will be distinct from other contemporary attempts to construct a nonWhiteheadian process ontology. Process-relational ontologies of the future may prove to be a kind of dynamic process ontology, but it is still too early to specify what kind of dynamicity it will express and how it will be expressed. Finally, the author speculates about two additional potentialities pertaining to the direction that process-relational ontology will take in its future development. The first consists in an ongoing synthesis of regional ontologies into new ones, or into a new higher-level ontology, largely by ignoring the details of the lower-level ontologies. This feature is easily observed in the development of the distinctly scientific ontologies of today. The second important tendency consists in the emergence of complex interrelations, interconnections, and interactions among distinct philosophical process ontologies. The same tendency is obviously evident even today for a number of scientific ontologies, but its full manifestation in philosophical process ontologies is still forthcoming. All of the tendencies that are considered in the chapter are based on the present situation surrounding the development of process ontology. In this sense, they represent the next logical steps in the course of development of

Dynamic Being

xv

process ontology. According to Petrov, the present day situation surrounding the development of process ontology does not provide us with any grounds for the formulation of other real tendencies than the ones discussed here. Chapter Four, “Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality” by Helmut Maassen, furthers some of the investigations of dynamic ontology that were carried out in the previous chapters, carrying them into a concrete area of philosophy. Maassen analyzes some aspects of dynamic ontology in Whitehead’s main philosophical work, Process and Reality.2 The author discusses some of the various components or aspects of dynamicity that are present in Whitehead’s metaphysics. He reminds the reader that the fundamental ontological unit in Whitehead’s metaphysics is the “actual entity,” which is a center of activity as it prehends. Whitehead’s introduction of his ontological principle is important because it explains the implication for each process of prehension in terms of its emotional value. Whitehead’s metaphysics is based in experience; it has both an empirical and a rational side. That said, if we emphasize the descriptive / revisionary division of metaphysics, Whitehead’s metaphysics can be characterized as being of the revisionary type, although he attempts to overcome these distinctions in his own form of speculative philosophy. Maassen agrees with James Bradley who has characterized Whitehead’s metaphysics as being both a transcendentalism and speculative realism. Maassen describes the basic components of Whitehead’s metaphysics that attach to its dynamic characterfirst of all, the ontological status of actual entities. He emphasizes Whitehead’s view that an actual entity never is, but is always in the process of becoming. He explains what a “feeling” is in Whitehead’s metaphysics, as the doctrine of “feeling” is a central doctrine that is at the root of Whitehead’s descriptions of the process of becoming of an actual entity. A feeling cannot be abstracted from the actual entity entertaining it, because the actual entity is the “subject” of the feeling. However, the term “subject” can be misleading, and it is for this reason that Whitehead introduces the term “superject.” Whitehead’s notion of “subject-superject” points to the purpose of the process originating the feeling. The author explains the significance of the concept of “subject-superject” in connection with some of Whitehead’s other important concepts, such as “creativity,” “novelty,” “many,” and “togetherness.” Near the end of the chapter, Maassen points out some of the implications that Whitehead’s process metaphysics has in relation to practical philosophy. In this regard, he points to Whitehead’s critique of Hobbes’ concept of the state, given that for Hobbes the laws of human behavior correspond to the laws of Newtonian physics. However,

xvi

Preface

Whitehead advocated for a new cosmological scheme, in which the dominant scientific materialism is replaced with a modified organic or holistic theory of reality. Maassen considers what follows for ethics from this organismic perspective. The focus of Chapter Five, “Freedom, Creativity, and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics” by Ella Csikós, is on the concept of freedom analyzed from the point of view of Whitehead’s metaphysics. Freedom is closely related to determinacy—these terms presupposing one another indirectly, and excluding each other directly. Ontologically, freedom is a characteristic of each and every actual entity. Csikós considers the following question: on what ground can the category of freedom be related to subvital entities? Her answer is that, according to Whitehead, the mediating concept here is decision. She argues that the becoming of each entity is externally underdetermined, because there is a tension in the external determination, which calls for a decision. The external underdetemination calls for an internal “overdetermination,” and this, in itself, is the freedom of becoming which is, in turn, representative of the field of decision. Freedom appears in the practice of self-causation, and it can take place even at subvital levels of organization given the affirmation of the whole being of the becoming entity. The author emphasizes that the notion that decision, as an overdetermining activity, adds a new element into the process of concrescence which cannot be deduced from the past, the given, or the external. Whitehead has established a link between freedom and creativity. However, Csikós thinks that freedom is a derivative concept from the more basic concept of creativity. The actual entity reproduces its own freedom in each act of self-realization, and, in that sense, freedom becomes endless through creativity. That said, there is a problem regarding the means by which Whitehead can differentiate between degrees of freedom that are qualitatively different within the family of free entities, especially between freedom in a moral context and freedom in the usual mode of existence. Whitehead himself does not provide a conceptual basis for the differentiation of degrees of freedom at the same level as a categorical means for describing the common generalities that have been elaborated. Csikós suggests the following solution: since the concept of freedom has been derived from creativity, change would be needed within this latter, original concept, in order to be able to differentiate between levels of freedom. There is a conceptual resource for interpreting the process as involving a creative advance in nature and history. In this wider, but weaker, sense of creativity, everything that becomes will be a novelty, because it realizes some possibilities for the first time. Creativity, in this primary, but weak,

Dynamic Being

xvii

sense will be identified with the realization of potentialities not previously achieved. She thinks that this interpretation should be complemented by a stronger notion of creativity, which exceeds the realization of potentialities. So, if we assert the qualitative difference between actualizing a new reality and creating a new potentiality, we may differentiate between various forms of freedom. In this way, the type of freedom that is characteristic of human beings is no longer of the same type that is attached to actual entities. Csikós answers the question of whether, through distinguishing between the various degrees of freedom, a kind of dualism appears in Whitehead’s metaphysics, by suggesting that some sort of dualism must be present in a metaphysical system that endeavors to give a comprehensive description of the universe. For her, the conjecture of a more specialized, more dynamic, and stronger, concept of freedom does not undermine Whitehead’s cosmological scheme. Chapter Six, “Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory” by MariaTeresa Teixeira, investigates the close connection between dynamic being and ontological memory. The author defends the thesis that ontological memory seems to be entangled with dynamic being in such a way that they are one and the same thing. Ontological memory is a correlate of dynamic being, for the dynamics of being both constitutes ontological memory and represents its origin. First, Maria-Teresa Teixeira traces ontological memory back to Plato’s philosophy, and considers its expression in Plato’s Symposium and Timaeus. Next, she points that Augustine’s memory is also ontological and that his analysis of memory is basically an approach to dynamic being. Precisely, some of Augustine’s works display that a dynamic ontological movement is also to be found in music, because the rhythm of music is not only its stable measurement, but also a dynamic development. Nowadays, memory is ontological in process philosophy as well, because it is constitutive of being—the ontological nature of memory consists in its dynamic character. Memory is neither a faculty of the mind nor is it a collection of archaeological layers. Rather, it manifests itself as a productive activity that preserves itself. Process thinkers have envisaged an active memory enabling a novel dynamics of being. Bergson’s “indestructible memory” and Whitehead’s “immortal past” illustrate this concept of a dynamic, ontological memory. The author then considers Bergson’s views of memory in more detail. She points out that contemporary neuroscience still cannot account for memory taken as the synthesis that makes up individuality, because memory persists and constitutes itself as time passes by. However, Bergson’s past is in a sense contemporaneous with the present due to the durational nature of

xviii

Preface

ontological memory. In general, process philosophy preserves the past as the present comes into existence. Dynamic being grows in time, but duration itself can be found nowhere. The durational character of being is patent in Bergson’s ontological memory. Temporality is revealed not only by the present that keeps appearing and developing, but also by the past that remains active and helps to constitute being. In respect to Whitehead’s views, Teixeira points out that the latter’s notion of the “immortal past” is ever present in every actual occasion that becomes. His notion of a “prehension” involves an act of seizure of the past, appropriation, and synthesis. Whitehead’s actual entities perish, but they do not vanish. They cease to exist subjectively, but persist in their objective immortality. In perishing, we become immortal and memory becomes constitutive of each and every being. This is the true ontological memory. Every actual entity already holds its future within itself, because time carries with it the category of incompleteness. Anticipation is also a constitutive element of an actual entity that can be attributed to memory. The author agrees with the thesis that Whitehead’s epochal theory of time also allows for a certain indeterminacy in respect to the past. She concludes with the observation that the very process of becoming is not a linear process; it is heterogeneous and ingenious. Its diversity unites in an indivisible, dynamic unison that reminds us of musical harmony. Music can be regarded as a metaphor for becoming and also for epochal time. Both Bergson and Whitehead have emphasized the importance of music in describing metaphysical reality. Chapter Seven, “The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology” by Piotr LeĞniak, deals with a particular aspect of process philosophy, namely, the perception of causality from a Whiteheadian point of view. Human perception has an important emotional dimension. The aim of the chapter is to apply the Whiteheadian ontological framework in order to explicate the nature of the perception of causality. According to the author, the Whiteheadian scheme allows us to determine the nature of the “emotional background” of perception without falling into the traps of subjectivism, representationalism, or substantialism. He first sketches the history of the problem of causality in the works of Hume and Kant, both of whom believe in “causal nihilism,” namely, that there is no perception of causality. In contrast, Whitehead accepts a mode of perception, which he calls “presentational immediacy.” Later in the twentieth century, Albert Michotte carried out a series of experiments that justified the claim that there is a kind of “causal impression” that is neither the result of repetition nor has its origin in intellectual judgment. Other contemporary philosophers speculate that we perceive the simple “dynamics” of reality

Dynamic Being

xix

in a direct manner. Michotte suggests that there is sensory source of our causal beliefs and he calls this sensory factor of cognition, “causal impression,” which makes the understanding of causal statements possible. According to Whitehead, causal impressions are primitive elements of sense perception that are used by the sensory system in order to build an environmentally adequate immediate presentation of flowing nature. The author considers, in some detail, Whitehead’s complex view of perception, which differs from the other contemporary theories of perception. Whitehead aims at a theory that explains perception by way of a single, coherent system, and strives to avoid the fallacies of conceptualism, sensationalism, and substantialism. He argues against the Humean interpretation and suggeststwenty years prior to Michottethat through simple psychological experimentation, we could ask subjects who blinked after a flash to explain what they had experienced. LeĞniak attempts in the chapter to make use of the observation that perception in the mode of presentational immediacy, which dominates our adult conscious life, would be experienced as disembodied and unreal if they were isolated from the background of causal feelings. He stresses that there is no ontological gap in process philosophy between simple causal feelings and the activity of the peripheral nervous system where these feelings have their origin. Feelings of causal efficacy are the most immediate forms of experience. By way of them, we get in touch with reality. LeĞniak concludes by suggesting that the fallacy of representationalism consists in the belief that symbolism requires some language-like semantics. Chapter Eight, “Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology and The Problem of the Indeterminacy of Interpretation” by Dimitri Ginev, deals with an interesting possibility concerning a promising dialogue between the schools of process thought and hermeneutic phenomenology in respect to the ontology of interpretation. The aim of the author is to demonstrate that adherents of hermeneutic phenomenology might profit significantly from different kinds of process studies. In order to achieve that aim he first tries to answer the question of whether the alleged redundance of contextual dependence in the ontological interpretation implies a deficit of epistemological normativity. Ginev considers the dilemma of whether we should accept epistemological skepticism as the ultimate philosophical position with regard to the nature of interpretation, or whether we ought to recast hermeneutics as a special field of (weakly normative, postempiricist) epistemology. He observes that supporters of the standard position are unable to transcend this dilemma and he argues that the background of practices in an interpretative process is specifiable as a hermeneutic fore-structure of generating knowledge claims and cognitive

xx

Preface

structures. The ontological approach to interpretation is capable of revealing some potential for dealing successfully with the aspects of normative indeterminacy. An ontological approach to interpretation that is grounded upon a theory of double hermeneutics allows one to hold the view of strong (ontological) holism, while avoiding skepticism about the epistemological specifiability of interpretative practices. The author argues further for the possibility of an epistemologically specifiable ontological hermeneutics. He proceeds in three steps. First, he examines the constitution of the existential analytic of meaning as a mediator between the methodological and the ontological theory of interpretation. Second, he elaborates on the concept of the hermeneutic fore-structure of science’s interpretative practices as a specification of the existential analytic’s nexus of understanding-interpretation. And third, he argues against the subordination of hermeneutics to epistemology. Finally, the author provides a sketch of a hermeneutic theory of scientific research. He argues that his version of hermeneutic ontology manages to overcome the indeterminacy of interpretation by using an approach to the contextualization of the understanding / interpretation nexus that bears significant similarities with tendencies in process studies. Chapter Nine, “Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity” by Yujian Zheng, is devoted to an aspect of dynamic being, namely to the distinctive forms of dynamic normativity. The author begins with discussion of a typical example that is provided in philosophical discourses in relation to representational content, in order to argue that determinate proper functions of any intentional property or trait only emerge, for any organism qua subject, when we move up the evolutionary ladder to arrive at the rational capacities for sophisticated inferences. The historical dimensions of teleo-semantic functions as well as their forwardlooking dimensions share the following important methodological feature: they both apply diachronic holism, namely, “retrospective interpretation,” to gradually emerged higher-level properties or evolved kinds. Next, the author defines “natural norms” as those norms that are unrepresented by the individual whose performance fulfills a function. He makes a distinction between “the first-order representations” and “the second-order representations,” emphasizing that theoretical explanation is a type of second-order representation. There is a contrast between a relatively pure epistemological relation (for explanations in the domain of physics) and an epistemological-cum-ontological relation (for explanations in the domain where teleology functions). One main aspect of the “ontological” part of this relation is a kind of evolutionary becoming of some rationally partial or incomplete form of being into some rationally full-blownor

Dynamic Being

xxi

normatively completeform. The author distinguishes between prescriptive normativity, interpretive normativity, and constitutive normativity, and provides his motivations for these distinctions, paying special attention to the justification for constitutive normativity. He points out that the validity of external reasons does not depend on any particular individual’s understanding or awareness of them. Hence, they are “objective” in the epistemological sense. The status of “external reasons,” even for the evolutionary ancestors of human beings, was something not only for them as outside observers, but also for themselves, as insiders, engaged or “internalized” by whatever means possible and at whatever possible level. Our role has to be both that of outsiders and insiders in the grand natural “game,” simultaneously. Constitutive normativity not only allows for degrees, but presupposes the gradual, upgrading character of evolutionary forces that underpins the formation of intentionality. The author proposes to employ John Searle’s formula for constitutive rules, as well as four modified versions of it, in order to illustrate the dynamics of constitutive normativity. He considers four evolutionary scenarios oriented toward a full-blown intentionality and which embody the dynamics of constitutive normativity. Chapter Ten, “Being as a Process of Harmonization: A Chinese View of Dynamic Being” by Chenyang Li Nanyang, explores another aspect of dynamic beingthat of harmonizationas it has been developed in the Book of Changes and he outlines the differences between the Eastern and Western philosophical conceptions of the notion of harmony. The author argues that the Confucian notion of harmony goes beyond the narrow understanding of harmony that is affirmed by contemporary Western thinkers. He considers, in brief, the key characteristics of Confucian harmony and he attempts to provide a sketch of the philosophy of harmony in Confucian philosophy. One of the main differences between the Confucian notion and the Ancient Greek notion of harmony is that, unlike the Pythagorean conception of harmony, Confucian harmony can only be defined in qualitative terms; it cannot be measured quantitatively or precisely. Furthermore, the Confucian notion of harmony is a metaphysical one, namely, it purports to describe the dynamic reality of the world. In this regard, the Confucian notion of reality is very different from the Platonic notion of reality and also from the Pythagorean notion of reality. While there are points of connection between the Confucian notion of harmony and the Whiteheadian notion of harmony, such a comparison is not among the tasks of the author. Chapter Eleven, “La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter” by François Beets, is devoted to the analysis of a concrete period in the

xxii

Preface

historical development of the idea of dynamism in philosophy, namely, to the notion of the autodynamism of matter as expressed by the eighteenth century French philosopher, Julien Offray de la Mettrie. La Mettrie is a well known representative of the apogee in mechanistic philosophy that was influential for a long period of time, until it was criticized by Whitehead and the other process philosophers in the twentieth century. However, it is important to know that La Mettrie posits the existence of an autodynamism in matter that explains the emergence of life and thought. According to his initial views, matter has three essential properties: space, motion, and feelings, where memory, imagination, and the passions are the product of a mechanical process. He supports the notion that the gap between animals and human beings in terms of their mentality is just a question of degree. The human soul is nothing but the principle of movement and the brain is its material part. For La Mettrie, thought itself is a property of matter. That said, in a later period of his life, La Mettrie’s writings become, to some extent, self-contradictory, because he sometimes supports an organic holism, but then returns again to the materialist scheme which deems that man is plant-like being. In one of his works, he criticizes his own work and claims that animals have souls and that their souls are just like ours, namely, distinct from matter. Finally, he insists, from a mechanistic materialist point of view, that there is an autoorganization of matter and that purely material nature succeeded in making a machine that thinks. That said, at the end of his life, he was skeptical about the possibility of building a machine that can talk and he defended a kind of spiritualism, coming to a firm condemnation of materialism. Beets thinks that La Mettrie’s shifts from materialism to organicism to spiritualism and back again constitute a provocative game, given that La Mettrie once said that the notion that nature and living organisms are machines “is the most beautiful joke in the world.” Chapter Twelve, “Descartes and the Problem of the Passions” by Carlos Garcia Mancilla, is devoted to a criticism of Descartes’ dualism of mind and body. Although this criticism stems from a perspective that seems greatly to be one that is in the vein of dynamic and processrelational philosophy, this is not mentioned explicitly in the text. The author focuses on the role of passions in the so-called “ontological distance” between subject and individual in Descartes’ philosophy. He analyzes the dichotomy between thought and the world, and he considers the origin of the division between subject and object in the works of Descartes. Mancilla calls the contradictions of thought in Descartes’ meditations as “symptoms” of something deeper, claiming that these symptoms have a symbolic character. Modern philosophers have labeled

Dynamic Being

xxiii

the passions as something obscure and largely out of the reach of the power of thought to understand. This obscurity that is ascribed to the passions by Descartes is the first symptom of what the author calls the “ontological distance.” Descartes’ philosophy is the first place in modern thought where one can begin to reveal the symptom and to reveal Descartes’ inability to understand the union between mind and body. The author analyzes the question of why the epistemological foundation is taken by Descartes as being equivalent to the ontological foundation. The idea of simplicity in Descartes comes from mathematics. For him, philosophical truth must be as clear as that of mathematics. However, this stance is in conflict with the fact that many philosophical ideas that are generated are deduced. The imagination is central to the possibility of coming up with hypotheses. It opens up a first abyss between the world and the subject. The imagination neither discovers what is true nor what is false. The criterion of clarity in arriving at the truth, which Descartes’ method demands, can only be achieved with simplicity. Reason, due to its finitude, cannot attend to numerous things at once without confusion. Due to the assumption that the perceptions are similar to the things, experience has the idea of truth as adequacy, but such an idea is incongruous, in that Descartes conflates the external world with the internal one. The notion of truth as adequacy falls as a victim of Descartes’ own method. The author criticizes Descartes for attempting to give a basis to knowledge before knowing. After all, how could it be possible to appreciate external things by attending to one’s own thoughts? Descartes pursues the truth as if he did not have a body and as if there was no real world or other things. Another defect of Descartes’ method is that, according to him, we attempt to be more a spectator than an actor in the world. Descartes’ doubt leads to a complete abandonment of life and action. Nothing within the method indicates what to do or how action should be directed. The Cartesian method separates thought from action in proposing the subject. Thus, there can neither be a subject of action nor pure practical reason. However, the ontological distance is not clear in Descartes’ reflections. Sometimes he uses the “I” as an individual, and sometimes he refers to the subject in a substantive manner. His method is only personal; it is not a method that everyone should follow. Next, Mancilla considers the problem of freedom in Descartes, given that Descartes is one of the few modern philosophers who affirm strongly the existence of freedom. Freedom in Descartes has four phases and ways of being attached to the subject or the individual. From freedom in an absolute sense to the determinism belonging to the principle of cause and effect, the problem of freedom is linked to the fundamental distinction

xxiv

Preface

between the mind and the body. Freedom, for Descartes, exhibits the symptom of ontological distance that has been proposed. Every feeling is internal to the subject and unrelated to external objects; feelings are the way in which the subject perceives. Feelings and sensations only appear in the union between mind and body; the intellect is completely passive to these qualities. Every feeling, sensation, pleasure, or pain has a specific referent in the body-machine. The basic property of extension, namely, movement, provides the possibility of explaining it. Pleasure and pain are not properly passions of the soul. As sensations, these feelings are passive because they are beyond the possibility of the will to change. As the body machine and pure thought are considered by Descartes to be separate from one another, the resulting third substance, namely, the union of mind and body—the individual—is not simple and cannot be deduced. For Descartes the only thing that is characteristic of this substance is the passions. With Descartes, the “I” of thought is different from the “I” who owns a body, simply because thought is not individual, and the body necessarily is. He considers the passions initially by way of the ontological distance, as if they were strange and not our own. The difference between feelings as mere sensations and passions becomes quite obscure in Descartes’ philosophy. A radical separation between life and philosophy appears: the existence of the passions leads us to know that there is a union between mind and body, while the method itself leads to the affirmation that this union cannot be understood. Life happens in this union where the individual appears, so the Cartesian philosophy affirms that it cannot understand life. Finally, the author considers the concepts of good and evil in Descartes’ philosophy, because they have important place in it. According to Descartes, morality is the highest science and it can be understood as the possibility of choosing between good and evil. The fundamental impulse here is passion. Descartes proposes that the passions make imprints on the soul in order to maintain its attention on certain things. To attend to something is to keep it inside the boundaries of consciousness and to have power over it. So, the passions are a tool for the power of consciousness. But there is a paradox. For Descartes, on the one hand, the good involves the control of the passions, but on the other hand, it involves the absolute governance by reason over one’s actions in life. There are two ways of understanding good and evil in Descartes’ philosophy depending on which point of view we take: either that of the compound body or that of the soul alone. In conclusion, the author tries to answer the question of why Descartes was unable to achieve a definitive morality, and he considers several possibilities as answers to that question.

Dynamic Being

xxv

Mancilla argues that every ethical idea that is expressed by Descartes in his treatises and letters can be assimilated to a provisional morality. This definitiveness cannot occur because of the itinerary of the method and due to the fact that the first achieved truths do not allow it. In fact, Descartes’ method does not require an ethics. Morality was a need of Descartes himself, as an individual, and not of pure thought. There is no room for a scientific morality, because in contrast to Descartes’ method, it is time to act and not to think, namely, to be an agent rather than a spectator of oneself. Chapter Thirteen, “Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis” by Michel Weber, occupies the position of first chapter in Part II of the book. It is devoted to an application of Whitehead’s process philosophy, namely, to the application of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivism in the field of psychiatry. In particular, it considers psychosis from the point of view of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivism. The author reminds the readers that Whitehead argues for a reformed subjectivism in order to anchor his ontology in direct experience without supporting classical anthropocentric claims. In the history of philosophy, the unreformed subjectivism has involved the acceptance of the substance-quality ontology with its assumption of vacuous actualities, which Whitehead finds unacceptable. He is convinced that pure experience and genesis are the keys to the postmodern cosmology. Accordingly, the acceptance of the subjectivist principle should lead philosophers to invent new categories, and not to continue to work with the old ones. The reformed subjectivist principle, namely, “that the whole universe consists of elements disclosed in the analysis of experiences of subjects,”2 in fact, stands for the unity or togetherness of the three principles: relativity, process, and the ontological principle. Weber then considers psychosis. He emphasizes that subjectivity from the Whiteheadian point of view involves concrescence, not consciousness, and he considers the question of what would happen if the experiential standpoint is psychotic. The question is addressed in respect to the particular, but fundamental, form of psychosis, namely, in respect to schizophrenia. Weber discusses the historical mental constructs of schizophrenia that have been instrumental since the mid-nineteenth century, the most important of which is the claim that there are two forms of self-consciousness—the awareness of oneself by oneself and the awareness of oneself as an object of someone else’s observation. These two forms grant two fundamental “schizo-schisms”: the one splitting the mind itself, dividing it between a true self and false self, and the other splitting the body and the mind, thereby creating the “unembodied self.”

xxvi

Preface

The schizophrenic subject is endowed with (or suffers from) a reformed (corrupted) atunement that is supposed to alleviate his or her lack of security but actually aggravates things altogether. This syntonic loss offers a direct entry into Whitehead’s ontology because of its proximity with the concept of unison of becoming. From a Whiteheadian perspective, subjectivitynot consciousnessis key. The tight ontological web that Whitehead depicts is not one of pure emotion but of pure experience. Subjective forms do indeed matter, but not as much as the vectorial character of experience itself. So, psychotherapy would gain in efficacy without increasing the risk of decompensation, if it decided to interact holistically with patients instead of systematically pushing the intellectualization of their emotions. Conversely, the contrast between mental and physical “poles” also needs to be reconsidered, as Whitehead sometimes speaks of concrescence as the “togetherness” of a “physical pole” and a “mental pole.” This conceptual move fits the descriptions of the schizophrenic defences. In the conclusion of the chapter, Weber considers the question of what the characteristics of a schizophrenigenic culture are. From a Whiteheadian perspective, the question can be formulated rather in the form: what sort of initial subjective aim fosters disharmony instead of unison? In other words, how can individuation and solidarity both prevented? In his answer, Weber points to the role of ideology of neoliberalism. While culture per se nurtures both individuation and solidarity and while old-fashioned capitalism imposes conformism and atomicity, schizophrenigenic culturethe world piloted by neo-liberal finance destroys the very possibility of a shared world with the help of double binds. Chapter Fourteen, “On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection: Process-Relational Ontology and Behavior in Evolutionary Biology” by Adam C. Scarfe, is devoted to the application of process-relational ontology to evolutionary biology and psychology. The chapter advances the concept of ethotype as the behavioral analogue of the terms “genotype” and “phenotype.” The author relies on various novel developments in evolutionary biology, such as contemporary investigations of the ideas of James Mark Baldwin and Conrad Hal Waddington, which offer perspectives that stand in sharp contrast to the modern neo-Darwinian interpretation of the notions of “evolution” and of “species.” Scarfe argues that in order to describe the evolutionary dynamism that is characteristic of organisms in an adequate way, the term “ethotype,” pointing to the overall behavioral character of organisms, ought to be construed in light of process-relational ontology rather than by way of static substance

Dynamic Being

xxvii

ontology. Scarfe provides several examples of the evolutionary importance of the behavior of organisms in the struggle for existence. He argues that the term ethotype is an important one for biological inquiry and he points out that it is far more accurate to consider the ethotypes of the organisms being studied as dynamic, plastic, relational, and/or in process, than to understand them statically. In this regard, Whitehead’s process-relational and “organismic” ontology provides ideal contextual and conceptual supports for such a view of the organism. The notion of an ethotype, construed in light of process-relational metaphysics and/or of other dynamic ontologies, would further contribute to the understanding that organisms are not merely passive objects upon which natural selection happens to act, but that they are also subjects and/or agents of selection. The author criticizes the mainstream gene-centered and mechanistic neo-Darwinian standpoint in biology that minimizes the role of behavior in biology. He first argues that in the mainstream of biology, behavior is not typically seen as a determinant of what constitutes a species or of how organisms are classified. Second, that there is a long track record for evolutionary theorists to conflate behavior and morphology, and/or to compartmentalize behavior as merely being one aspect of the (putatively genetically-determined) phenotype upon which natural selection happens to act. In fact, mentality and behavior are not merely to be seen as fixed aspects of a phenotype. Rather, they depend on the lived life of the organism. And third, the author criticizes the entrenched habit of focusing on the genotypes and the phenotypes of organisms as being the fundamental units of selection and change, which draws attention away from behavioral selection and change. He argues that in light of recent developments in evolutionary biology, for example, the resurgence of the theory of organic selection as well as epigenetics research, there are good reasons to include a more adequate focus on behavior, and/or behavioral selection and change in coming to a more comprehensive picture of evolution. That is why he traces some alternative routes of causality that evolution may take, pointing to the notion that behavior is, in many cases, an initiating cause of evolutionary processes. Scarfe explains that recent discoveries in epigenetics open the door to the notion that there are alternative routes of causality in evolutionary processes leading not only from genotype to phenotype and ethotype, but also from phenotype to genotype and ethotype, and from ethotype to the genotype and phenotype, all of course involving natural selection. In this regard, James Baldwin’s theory of organic selection, also known as “the Baldwin effect,” demonstrates that from the Baldwinian standpoint, it is clear that changes in an organism’s behavior can give rise to morphological or phenotypic

xxviii

Preface

variations. Scarfe suggests that a more comprehensive and accurate picture of evolution, beyond the neo-Darwinist mainstream, would take into account each of these routes of causality and would involve the notion that behavior is one of the main spokes of the spinning evolutionary wheel. In conclusion, the author touches upon some of the epistemological and ethical ramifications of a renewed emphasis on the role of behavior in evolutionary processes. He provides a brief sketch of the evolutionary ethic of “critical pan-selectionism” that he has developed in other publications. Chapter Fifteen, “A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time” by Dimiter Vakarelov, is an application of Whitehead’s theory of space and time to the modern field of mathematics that is named “dynamic mereotopology.” In other words, it is an attempt at providing a mathematical formalization of Whitehead’s theory of space and time, working with some of the new trends emerging in mathematics—specifically, dynamic mereotopology. Since the essay is addressed mainly to philosophers and to other non-mathematicians, the author presents the mathematical propositions without the proofs, so that he can focus on explaining the mathematical ideas to readers in a simplified manner. He first reminds the reader of Whitehead’s own program to develop a new, point-free, and relational theory of space and time. The essence of the Whiteheadian program is that the theory of time should not be separated from the theory of space, but rather these terms should be integrated. Corresponding with Whitehead’s attempts to overcome “the fallacy of simple location” in Science and the Modern World (1925), this integrated theory is “pointfree,” in the sense that in its mathematical formulationin opposition to the old Euclidean approachneither space-points nor time-moments should be taken as primitives. In contrast, they should be definable by the other primitives in the theory. Whitehead’s ideas in this regard are developed most completely in Part IV of Process and Reality, but Whitehead himself did not provide all of the details in a strictly mathematical manner. Two primitive notions belong to the foundation of Whitehead’s notion of spacetimethe notion of a region and a relation between regions called a connection (alternatively called a contact in the contemporary region-based theory of space). Whitehead is widely accepted as the founder of contemporary mereotopology (the subfield of the so-called point-free topology), which is an extension of mereology with contact relations and also comprises an extension of Boolean algebra to the so-called contact algebras. The author of the present chapter is one of first mathematicians to have introduced and investigated these contact algebras. Vakarelov observes that, unfortunately, while Whitehead set out a

Dynamic Being

xxix

program detailing how to build a mathematical theory of space, he did not describe an analogous program for his integrated theory of space and time. That is why the aim of the chapter is to present an initial step toward extending the region-based theory of space, considered as an integrated point-free theory of space and time. The contribution of the author is to introduce a dynamic contact algebra. This means that, according to Vakarelov, the so-called dynamic mereotopology is equivalent to dynamic contact algebras, which are, in turn, equivalent to the integrated point-free theory of space and time. The main results of the chapter consist in obtaining several possible abstract definitions of dynamic mereotopology in the form of dynamic contact algebras, and in providing a demonstration of how one can extract and reproduce the corresponding point-based spacetime structure from these abstract definitions. The author first gives a brief exposé on mereotopology considered statically. He presents some facts about mereology and mereotopology that are referred to in the formulation of the main results in this chapter. Both mereology and mereotopology are generally considered to be static, which indicates that these theories study things that are not changing. Vakarelov describes a “contact algebra” as a certain extension of the vocabulary of Boolean algebras with one binary relation called a “contact” and as satisfying some simple conditions. He presents two types of contact algebra construction: (1) discrete, relational construction and (2) nondiscrete, topological construction, which presents a Whiteheadian-type contact between regions. His main contribution here is a presentation of very simple definitions of the notion of a “point” (more simple than Whitehead’s own definition). Next, Vakarelov introduces a concrete dynamic model of space with explicit use of the notion of “moments of time.” That model represents regions as changing in time; that is why they are called “dynamic regions.” The author provides an abstract point-free characterization of standard dynamic contact algebras and accomplishes the tasks of finding suitable relations between dynamic regions, which are then to find their basis in the abstract definition, and to identify which relations contain enough information in order to extract from them the definitions of space points and time-moments. He finds a set of relations between dynamic regions, which yields enough rich time structure and has a “before-after” relation that satisfies some properties. The main result in the chapter is the provision of a representation theorem for dynamic contact algebras, which shows that, starting from a given dynamic contact algebra, one can define in it a standard dynamic contact algebra and an isomorphic embedding from the first to the second. This construction shows how one can define, in an abstract dynamic contact algebra, time-

xxx

Preface

moments with the corresponding time structure, and the coordinate contact algebras, which determine its topological space structure and the corresponding space-points. Finally, the author discusses some limitations and questions concerning the philosophical nature of this model of space. In conclusion, Vakarelov emphasizes that the chapter involves an attempt to present an integrated theory of space and time in the Whiteheadian vein, showing that the structure of space and time can be characterized in a point-free way by considering as primitives neither space points nor moments of time. The formal equivalent is the notion of a dynamic contact algebra with the primitive notion, dynamic regions, and three primitive spatio-temporal relations between dynamic regionsspace contact, time contact, and precedence. The chapter also contains an Appendix with preliminary information about logical notations, sets, topology, and Boolean algebras. Chapter Sixteen, “Identity, Ontology, and Flux: Process, Matter, and the Problem of Mass Nouns” by Henry Laycock, is devoted to an application of process thinking to semantics. Laycock argues that the basic forms of thought and ways of talking of stuff or matter are not compatible with references to this or that. The author begins by displaying the two different visions of the place of matter in ancient philosophythat of Aristotle, which involves the discrete substance or this-something, and that of Plato, which echoes the thought of Heraclitus with its accent on the ceaseless struggle among opposites. Laycock interprets Plato’s Timaeus dialogue as having been inspired by the process philosophy of Heraclitus. He stresses that Plato is right to say that there is something in our experience which is sufficiently elusive, and that, if approached in Aristotelian terms, it will be impossible to grasp. Laycock provides some examples of non-referential, existential claims, and he considers the question of what metaphysical category they should belong to. He observes that the ancient elements are kinds of stuff or matter, and that words for stuff or matter belong within the family of socalled mass nouns. The important questions here are: how are words for stuff or matter to be understood? And what is it for stuff or matter to exist? The author thinks that such words are not well understood and he argues that there is no place for words for stuff in a Fregean-style logic of quantification. Considered semantically as either singular or plural, the syntax of mass nouns would seem substantially anomalous. That said, when rightly understood, the syntax of these nouns does not appear to be anomalous. Mass nouns are opposed to count nouns, which means that however mass nouns are defined, these nouns fall within the class of nouns which are to be considered “non-count.” The author displays the orthogonal

Dynamic Being

xxxi

character of the relationship between the two types of determiners, and the corresponding functional differences between themquantifiers bearing upon the singular / non-singular contrast and referential determiners bearing upon the plural / non-plural contrast. A taxonomy is then called for in which these indirect characterizations give way to direct expressions of the categories themselves. Next, Laycock considers the case of subjects without objects. In this regard, he explains the metaphysically significant difference between stuff and things. The difference between talk of some stuff and talk of some things is that in the latter case, there is always the possibility of singular reference, while in the former, that prospect is ruled out. Lacking any objects, the basic subject can be nothing other than some stuff. Subjects must at any rate be countable; each subject must be countable as one, and subjects must be either one or many. But “much”the quantitative adjective for stuffis neither one nor many. “The much” cannot be understood as a plurality of “subjects.” Since an amount of stuff is bound to be collapsed into a unit if it is to be treated as an ontic subject in the first place, the conclusion that there simply are no ontic subjects within this domain seems unavoidable. Laycock thinks that what is called for is a deeper understanding of the matter-concept and in this context of the object-concept; this latter concept constitutes our one and only model for the matter-concept. He suggests that it is necessary to overcome the difficulty that arises from failing to transcend the level of semantics, and even from identifying categories and concepts with their semantical and referential embodiments. That is why he stresses that singularity is neither a feature of the matter-concept nor the object-concept, and he criticizes the notion that the object-concept is essentially the concept of an object or a single unit. Laycock pays attention to the fact that from the point of view of predication, the semantic category of process- and activity-predication is the true “home base” of nonsingularity, and this is so of both the matter-concept and the objectconcept. He then provides a logical analysis of the behavior and significance of the very simplest forms bare sentences can take and he concludes that the sole ontically salient fact consists in that there are things of the kind that are thus-and-so in a given context. The amount of stuff that there may be is no part of the ontology; what matters ontically is just that there is stuff of one kind or another. At the end of the chapter, Laycock considers the crucial difference between kinds of stuff and kinds of objects, when it comes to mixing. For that purpose, he gives an example with objects of the same kind and an example with stuff of the same kind, and he makes the inference that there is no reason to believe that anything that could be said to be some stuff or some matter of one sort or another

xxxii

Preface

should have a built-in tendency to persist or to perpetuate itself. Chapter Seventeen, “Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes in the Framework of the General Formal Ontology” by Heinrich Herre, is an investigation in the field of General Formal Ontology (GFO), a domain of study that has been developed over the last two decades. The present investigation involves an analysis of some temporal phenomena, such as persistence and change, and an integration of objects and processes. In this sense, it is an investigation also in dynamic ontology through the prism of formalizations of GFO. The chapter is devoted to the topic of identity over time and to problems arising from this phenomenon. The author claims that all previous solutions to the problem of the distinction between accidental and essential properties exhibit some degree of weakness, and he suggests a new solution, within GFO, by way of a deeper analysis of the notion of a “thing.” According to GFO, the phenomenon of identity of changing things arises from the integration of three different kinds of entities: “presentials,” “continuants,” and “processes.” Continuants are creations of the mind, and the author advances the thesis that these subjective creations have their basis in the phenomena of personal identity and the continuity of time. Herre surveys some basic approaches to time and temporal phenomena. Humans experience time through the manifold of temporal phenomena, which includes duration, persistence, happening, nonsimultaneity, order, past, present, future, and change. The so-called “phenomenal time” is abstracted from this manifold. The author holds that this phenomenal time and its associated temporal phenomena are minddependent. But he assumes also that material entities must possess mindindependent dispositions in order to generate these temporal phenomena. According to Herre, they unfold in the mind as a manifold of temporal phenomena. Next, the author considers the basics of GFO. These basics include a classification of individuals based on their relation to space and time (classification into continuants, presentials, and processes), and a classification of individuals related to degree of independence and complexity (classification with respect to their complexity and degree of existential independency). The author presents an ontology of functions of GFO. Functions exhibit important properties of entities that cannot be extracted from measurements; they are mental constructions. Herre uses the term “function” in the sense of a “conceptual structure” and gives a formal definition of a function in the framework of GFO. Properties, according to GFO, are categories (concepts), the instances of which are attributives.

Dynamic Being

xxxiii

The author defends a minimalist approach to properties and restricts his investigation to properties of material entities, notably, material continuants, presentials, and material processes. A classification of processual properties includes the properties of objects as a special case. Herre considers the classification of properties of processes with respect to two dimensions, the level of abstraction, and the temporal structure. He explains that GFO advances four ontological regions: the material region, the psychological region, the socio-systemic region, and the ontological region of ideal entities. This approach draws on the ideas of Hartmann and on some contemporary interpretations of them. Integrative realism is a theory that is concerned with the interrelation between the mind and the ontological regions of the world, and the role of the mind for establishing an ontology in general. Integrative realism outlines conditions concerning the relation between the mind and the other ontological regions. The author holds that subjective phenomena cannot be reduced to physical objects. Hence, the unfolding relation bridges two different ontological regions wherein the subjective region is governed by mind-internal laws that cannot be described by physical laws. Herre then discusses the integration of objects and processes. He considers the problem how presentials, continuants, and processes are related, and seeks to answer the question of why we need an integration of these entities. Processes are the most fundamental class of spatio-temporal individuals; continuants present the phenomenon of identity over time. Herre outlines the meaning of the integration axiom of GFO, namely, that for every continuant C there exists a process P, the boundaries of which coincide with the presentials, exhibited by C. He suggests a formalization of this axiom and explains that a process cannot be identified with the mereological sum of its process boundaries. Herre addresses also the question of which mental conditions and features enable the mind to create continuants, and he postulates that the creation of continuants is based on personal identity and the introspectively accessed continuity of time. Consciousness, as a state of the mind, can be located at time points (timeboundaries of the temporal extension of a process), although these instantaneous states are boundaries of a continuous stream of consciousness. In conclusion, the author points to some further developments pertaining to the outlined framework: first, a further elaboration of a top-level ontology of processes, including an ontology of process-properties; second, the finding of practical applications of the integration-axiom besides the already existing application for modeling stem cell processes; and third, further investigations of the problem of personal identity on the basis of ontological pluralism and integrative realism.

xxxiv

Preface

Chapter Eighteen, “Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic with Self-Referential Constant Specifications” by Rosen Lutskanov, is devoted to a still unresolved problem that affects the justification logic counterparts of certain modal logics. The author first introduces the formal framework of justification logic as being a relatively new development that has been elaborated for settling several issues pertaining to epistemic logic, such as logical omniscience, thereby opening up a new domain of research in epistemic logic, given that justification logic studies the ground of knowledge attributions. Next, he formulates the problem of selfreferential constant specifications and considers the famous “Moore’s paradox,” explaining its relation to the formulated problem, arguing that no system that derives from Moore’s paradox admits any non-selfreferential realizations. On the basis of this consideration, the author proposes a new solution of the problem how to deal with self-referential constant specifications. In conclusion, he argues that justification logic needs dynamic proof theory, which is adequate to the revision-theoretic semantics that is sketched in the chapter. And inasmuch as every logical system relies on some ontological presuppositions, the connection with some dynamic ontologies becomes obvious. Chapter Nineteen, “Automatic Ontology Acquisition From Text: How Far Can We Progress?” by Galia Angelova, presents the current state-ofprogress in the dynamic area of automatic knowledge extraction from free texts. This is a hot research area that delivers many useful applications that support knowledge engineering as well as the design and construction of domain ontologies, especially for use in computing sciences. Advanced information technologies aim at the semantic processing of data and information. Nowadays, the development of high-quality semantic resources, namely, declarative encoding of entities and relationships, is a major challenge and a bottleneck for semantic technologies. A natural response would be to focus research efforts on the development of scalable language technologies that are able to learn ontologies from natural language texts. The automatic learning of declarative semantic resources from text is a hot and dynamic research area, wherein successes in entity acquisition are incrementally extended by achievements in automatic identification of relations. The chapter presents some of the approaches that are used today for automatic ontology acquisition from text. The author focuses her consideration on software tools that organize the extracted language units into conceptual structures. There are several language technologies that enable automatic learning of entities and relationships from text units. However, there are still some problems to deal with. For example, it is difficult to identify, in an exact way, the

Dynamic Being

xxxv

concept types and their instances, as well as word meanings that denote types or relations. Also, there is no clear methodology for determining how to interpret the identified text units in terms of their conceptual elements when translating the language findings into conceptualizations. This essay attempts to explore these issues by presenting examples that employ publicly available tools for language analysis. The approaches are grouped into four main categories: acquisition of instances, concepts, hierarchies, and relations. Angelova first considers text units, which, according to ontology in computer science, have to be interpreted as names of concepts or instances, properties, relations, etc… and should be linked into a semantic network. Typically, the ontological vocabulary tends to follow the terminology in some natural language. In this way, implicitly interpreting natural language phrases as ontological elements, we import the vagueness and ambiguity of natural language into the conceptualizations. Then the acquisition of named entities and terms is discussed. The identification, extraction, and classification of named entities from text attracted special attention in the 1980s. The success of Named Entity Recognition (NER) is evaluated by way of the percentage of correctly recognized named entities. The author presents an example for automatic NER using the on-line demonstrator Stanford Named Entity Tagger. The automatic process of vocabulary collection is called “terminology / term extraction” and is often viewed as a subtask of Information Extraction. Automatic term extraction from texts has been another hot research area in computational linguistics in the last decade. The author includes two examples of term extraction, which are wellknown to computer ontologists and which are available in on-line interfaces. Next, she discusses the acquisition of concepts and taxonomies. Automatic learning of concepts and taxonomies (i.e., the is-a relation) from texts requires the conceptual interpretation of the linguistic knowledge about terms referring to specific concepts and their synonyms. Angelova considers some approaches in this regard and examines their positive and negative sides. She also points out that in the last decade, the efforts of automatic ontology learning have been inspired by the prospect of building the so-called “Semantic Web.” She concludes that it makes sense to combine different approaches to the automatic extraction of hypernym / hyponym relations. Finally, Angelova considers the acquisition of relations and she presents approaches to the extraction of non-hierarchical relations between concepts. In conclusion, she suggests that it would perhaps seem to the reader that the presented results are discouraging because of their low degree of accuracy. However, she prefers the optimistic vision and believes that there will soon be large open

xxxvi

Preface

archives of electronic text resources in a number of languages, and that the project of constructing ontologies will be much easier. * * * This volume does not claim to be the final word on the discussed topics. But the authors of the book hope it will improve our understanding of: (1) the formal aspects of dynamism, processes, and relations; (2) dynamic and process-relational ontology as areas of research investigation unto themselves; as well as (3) their impacts on other fields of research. The authors also expect that it will provide a “seed-bed” of novel possibilities for cooperative interdisciplinary work between scientists and ontologists, stimulating further investigations of the dynamic and processrelational aspects of being.

Notes 1. Johanna Seibt (ed.), et al. Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004). 2. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition. Ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 166.

References Seibt, Johanna (ed.), et al. Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978.



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors would like to thank the participants and organizers of the 2012 Sofia International Conference on Ontology (SICO), which fostered a creative exchange concerning the theme of “Dynamic Being.” It was out of this conference that the present volume emerged. The conference was made possible due to the financial support of the National Science Fund of Bulgaria for a project on “Dynamic Ontologies in Multi-Agent Informational and Control Systems.” Thanks are also due to Johanna Seibt, Roberto Poli, Michel Weber, and Helmut Maassen for their suggestions for improving the text of this volume. —Vesselin Petrov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and Adam C. Scarfe (University of Winnipeg,

PART I: DYNAMIC AND PROCESS-RELATIONAL ONTOLOGIES—THEORY

CHAPTER ONE ARISTOTLE’S “COMPLETENESS TEST” AS HEURISTICS FOR AN ACCOUNT OF DYNAMICITY JOHANNA SEIBT

Abstract If being were “dynamic,” would it be more amenable to a definition? In this paper, I present a number of preliminary considerations for an exploration of this question. Working from the methodological stance of analytical ontology, I assume that the first task that an ontology of dynamic being(s) must accomplish is to locate suitable linguistic data that can represent the conceptual content to be modeled by an ontological domain theory. I try to show that Aristotle’s so-called “completeness test” in Metaphysics IX, Chapter Six, and the discussion of this passage in Aristotle scholarship, offers some useful heuristic leads concerning a class of inferential data (aspectual inferences) that analytical ontologists have all but overlooked thus far. In addition, I suggest that this passage also can offer some ideas about how one might formulate, in mereological terms, one component of an implicit definition of dynamicity.

Keywords Process ontology; the definition of dynamicity; Aristotle’s notions of energeia and kinesis; occurrence types; Aktionsarten; verbal aspects, selfrealization; mereology.

1. Introduction It is a rare for a present-day analytical ontologist to study the topic of dynamic being, or “dynamicity.” Other modes of being, such as actuality,

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

3

possibility, and necessity, together with a focus on the ontological reduction of universals, have been dominating the discussion since the early decades of post-war analytical ontology. Even during the last three decades, when the spotlight finally turned toward the category of “events,” the problem of existence in time, and the ontology of emergence, the investigation of the nature of dynamic being remained outside of the purview of the mainstream debate. With the exception of work undertaken on verbal aspects, it seems fair to say that analytical ontology thus far has been strikingly disinterested in the exploration of dynamicity and the forms of dynamic being. How should one interpret this startling neglect? Is this another instance of the “Werdensvergessenheit” that Nietzsche castigated as the distinctive mindset of Western metaphysics?1 And if so, is it a purely sociological phenomenon, or a case of theoretical habituation that is reinforced and propagated by the review system for professional publications that gained credence in twentieth century analytical philosophy in general? Or is it rather, as Bergson would have us explain, the inevitable outcome of using the wrong investigative instruments, namely, theories that rely on conceptual cognition and codified meaning?2 In my view, the reasons for the neglect of the category of “processes” and the dynamic mode of being lie in a combination of sociological and conceptual factors. As I have argued elsewhere, analytical philosophy may have shed the “myth of the museum”3 and the “myth of the given,”4 but it still trades in the “myth of substance,” involving a set of about twenty traditional presuppositions concerning the features of basic categories or types of beings.5 While these presuppositions block the introduction of the conceptual tools that are needed for a theory of dynamicity and of dynamic entities, they are, as I have tried to show, by no means “laws of thought” or constitutive elements of conceptualization in general. Equally important, in my view, is the insight that the neglect of dynamic entities and the notion of dynamicity is not due to the methodological approach that has become characteristic of analytical ontology; in particular, the use of formal languages for the description of ontological domains, or the use of quantifier logic for the analysis of ontological commitments. While the presuppositions of the “myth of substance” have strongly influenced our informal interpretations and axiomatizations of formal tools, there are no principled obstacles standing against analytical process ontology in the sense of a formal theory of dynamicity and of dynamic entities.6 My aim in this chapter is to present some preliminary and heuristic considerations for a formal account of the notion of dynamicity. Process

4

Chapter One

philosophers of all stripes share the belief that being is a fundamentally dynamic affair, but the sense of that epithet is mostly left in the space of the metaphorical. Some process philosophers hold that the notion of dynamicity cannot be defined or even conceptualized. The considerations that underlie this position—I call it the “ineffability position”—surely must be taken into account by any attempt to situate the notions of “dynamicity,” “dynamic Being,” or “dynamic” (as a predicate for types of beings) within a theory. In the following essay, I will address the ineffability concerns obliquely, by exploring the first steps of a possible strategy for an implicit definition of dynamicity. Since the study of dynamicity and its forms is a new task in ontology, it is important to distinguish from the outset a number of different subtasks. These tasks—and other tasks one might want to add to the list— are multiply related, of course, but they are conceptually separable and much dialectical headway can be made, I think, if we consider them as modules of a larger investigation. First, and this is surely the most significant distinction, we need to keep ontological and metaphysical investigations apart. It is a striking, although little observed, fact that during the early phase of twentieth century analytical ontology that took place up until the 1960s, ontologists were adamant in their distinguishing of ontology and metaphysics, while nowadays the terms are used almost interchangeably.7 But the ontological project of devising a “domain theory,” namely, a rational reconstruction of the inferential commitments embedded in a natural or scientific language can, and should be, set apart from the metaphysical project of determining the status of such ontological domain theories. Bergson’s arguments that “durée” or becoming cannot be conceptualized illustrate the metaphysical perspective, which is driven by epistemological concerns about the significance of ontological domain descriptions. Are these descriptions of reality, and if so, in which sense—of reality in itself, reality for us, or “reality” in yet another sense that transcends these traditional oppositions? This is surely legitimate business in philosophy, and it has particular traction in respect to the notion of dynamicity, which lends itself particularly well to a deconstruction of the traditional set-up of the skeptical dimension. But it is possible to do category theory without raising the questions of the skeptical dimensions. While Carnap may have been wrong in dismissing the possibility of doing metaphysics, he was right, in my view, about the possibility of doing ontology without metaphysics. Here then is the first task for a theory of dynamicity: (1) A theory of dynamicity should position itself clearly with respect to two fundamental investigative perspectives that may be combined, but do

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

5

not need to be combined. That is to say, a theory of dynamicity should clarify whether it pursues an “ontology of dynamicity” or a “metaphysics of dynamicity,” or both. An ontology of dynamicity takes the investigative perspective of ontology and aims to reconstruct the inferential meanings of “dynamicity” and “dynamic” with the conceptual tools of an ontological “domain theory” (i.e., a structural description of a domain of truth-makers for a language). In contrast, a metaphysics of dynamicity either investigates the status of a given ontological domain theory for dynamic beings, or else discusses the role of dynamicity in a philosophical account of cognition. Let us call this first task for a theory of dynamicity the task of methodological positioning. To comply with it right away, let me state that my considerations in this paper will pertain exclusively to the ontology of dynamicity, in the sense of this term stated in (1) above. Turning to the ontology of dynamicity, then, we can again identify a number of basic tasks including the following three: (1) An ontological account of dynamicity must either suggest a direct definition of dynamicity in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or suggest an axiomatic definition, or discuss in which sense, if any, dynamicity can play a role in analytical ontology. This is the task that I call the question of the definability of dynamicity. (2) It must clarify whether we can make sense of dynamicity independently of temporal relationships. In other words, it must clarify whether it is possible to claim that there are dynamic entities outside of space and time, as Whitehead notoriously has claimed.8 This task I call the question of atemporal dynamicity. (3) It must clarify the modes of dynamicity that are present, which are basic and which are derived, and whether there is any one basic mode of dynamicity. This is the question of the primacy of directed dynamicity. The proximate target of the following considerations is task (3) above, namely, the clarification of the question of the primacy of directed dynamicity, but in the course of the discussion I shall also address task (2) and propose a definition of dynamicity.

6

Chapter One

2. Locating Inferential Constraints An ontological account of dynamicity, if undertaken in the general methodological paradigm of analytical ontology, aims to reconstruct conceptual content as manifested in (or constituted by) inferential relations. If we want to explore what we rationally could take ourselves to be committed to in speaking about our “world” (i.e., the world of common sense or the world of physics, etc…) then we need to begin by investigating the inferential commitments carried by relevant linguistic expressions. The structure of our world of experience—so runs the basic methodological thesis on which neo-Kantianism and pragmatism could meet in the 1930s—dovetails with the inferential roles of basic classificatory concepts and other linguistic means of encoding inferential knowledge that has been produced in interaction with the world. Since, for the analytical ontologist, language is the guide to the inferential data that drive the development of an ontological domain theory, it is important to focus on relevant linguistic expressions and elements, and to avoid any form of linguistic bias. For example, if one were to discuss the possibility of a domain of “dynamic” entities—as opposed to a “static” four-dimensional domain—in relation with John McTaggart’s proof9 for the impossibility of the A-series, one would immediately be on the wrong track, no matter whether one would be arguing either pro or contra dynamicity. For the link to McTaggart’s proof or even his terminology would create, first, a problematic tie between dynamicity and temporal flow or passage. Such a presuppositional link is to be avoided since temporal passage does not seem to be either a sufficient nor necessary condition for dynamicity—temporal passage may be only one special manifestation of dynamicity. Only if one could show (i) that change is the only type of dynamicity, (ii) that we must conceive of change in terms of states with contradictory features, and (iii) that temporal passage must be conceptualized in terms of states with contradictory temporal features, such implications could come into view.10 Second, if we were to begin a discussion of dynamicity with a reference to the A-series, we would, confusingly, give the impression that the issue of dynamic being turns on the question of how to interpret tensed verbal predications or the temporal adjectives “past,” “present,” and “future.” But even if one could be somehow convinced that atemporal dynamicity is not possible, or even that dynamicity always requires temporal passage, it would be bizarre to assume from the outset that tensed verbal predications or temporal adjectives “past, present, future” are the only or even the most relevant linguistic aspects to concentrate on.11

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

7

Such a line of approach to an analysis of the notion of dynamicity or of dynamic being would be a non-starter from the outset in my view. I am mentioning it here only to draw attention that to the fact that the recent debate in analytical ontology on existence in time has little to offer for an ontology of dynamicity, even where it nominally speaks of “static” entities, of “events,” or “becoming.” This debate centers either explicitly or implicitly around McTaggart’s contrast between a (four-dimensional) eternalist universe and the inconceivable universe with temporal passage, where the latter has been replaced with the conception of a “presentist” universe, and the interpretation of tensed verbal predications and the adjectives of tense still plays an important role in deciding between fourdimensionalism and presentism.12 Instead, or so I want to suggest here, an ontological account of dynamicity needs to sidestep contemporary uses of “dynamic” and “static” in the mainstream discussion of analytical ontology and take its bearings from other sources. One possible heuristic would be to turn to an analysis of scientific conceptions of dynamic phenomena and to try to identify relevant inferential constraints from the representational tools of science. Another route toward locating inferential data is to review discussions of dynamic being in the history of philosophy. This is the path I shall follow here, turning to a passage in Aristotle’s writings that contains central leads to a general method as well as specific inferential constraints. The passage I want to focus on is Aristotle’s so-called “completeness test” that is contained in Metaphysics IX, Chapter Six. In this chapter, Aristotle comments on his double distinction, on the one hand, between dynamis and energeia and, on the other hand, between kinesis and energeia. The chapter can be roughly divided into four thematic sections: (a) Aristotle begins by announcing that, after treating dynamis in the previous sections, he will now discuss energeia; (b) he warns the reader that there is merely an analogical unity among the senses of energeia; (c) then he clarifies in which sense the infinite is potential; and finally (d) he offers a paragraph distinguishing kinesis and energeia. He concludes the chapter claiming to have explained therein “what and how” [ti esti kai poion] energeia is. The relevant paragraph of section (d) runs as follows (cf. Metaphysics 1048:b18-b35): [1.] Since among actions [praxeis] that have a limit [peras], none is a completion [telos], but each is the sort of thing relating to the completion—as e.g., slimming is to slimness; the [bodily parts] themselves are in movement, though those things which the movement is for the sake of [whose presence constitutes slimness] do not yet belong [hyparchonta] to them—these things are not action, or at least

8

Chapter One not complete [teleia], just because it is not a completion. But that [sort of action] in which its completion is contained [enuparchei] is a [real] action.13 [2.] E.g., in the same moment [hama] one is seeing and has seen [= “knows” by sight], is understanding and has understood, [= possesses understanding], is thinking and has thought [= “knows” by insight]. But if you are learning, it’s not the case that in the same moment you have learned, nor if you are being cured, that in the same moment you have been cured. However, someone who is living well, at the same time has lived well, and someone who is prospering, has prospered.14 [3.] If that were not so, [the prospering, e.g.,] would have had to come to an end [pauestai] at some time, as is the case with slimming [= when the state of slimness, of one’s having completed an act of slimming has been achieved]. But in fact, it does not; you are living and have lived. [4.] Of these [actions], then, one group should be called movements [kineseis], and the other actualizations [energeias].15 [5.] For every movement is incomplete [ateles]—slimming, learning, walking [= walk-taking], house-building; these are movements and are incomplete. [6.] For one cannot in the same moment both be taking a walk and have taken it, nor be house-building and have housebuilt, not be coming-tobe and have come-to-be, nor be being moved [kineitai] and have been moved [kekinehtai]; they’re different, as [in general] are moving [kinei] and having moved [kekinehken]. But at the same moment the same thing has seen and is seeing, and is thinking, and has thought.16 [7.] This … then I call an actualization [energeian], the other … a movement. What is actually [energeiai], then, what it is and what sort of thing [poion], may be regarded as clear from these and like cases.

This passage is commonly read as containing an inferential criterion or “test” for distinguishing two types of occurrences. Indeed, if we go by the textual surfaces, Aristotle distinguishes in passage [1] occurrences that cannot be called actions because their telos, their end or completion does not belong to them, from occurrences that can be called actions because they contain their completion.17 For the sake of convenience, let us call occurrences which do not contain their completion “other-telic” and those which do “self-telic.” This difference in completedness is explicated by means of differences in the inferential role of sentences expressing “cases” of energeia and kinesis. Part [2] tells us that statements about kineseis abide by the pattern [8.] (subject, Greek verb in present tense) implies the falsity of (subject, Greek verb in the Perfect)18

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

9

while statements about energeia do not govern such implications—the present tense statement is compatible with the associated statement in the perfect. Most commentators read the expression “hama,” meaning “at the same time,” as an inference; so for statements about energeiai it holds: [9.] (subject, Greek verb in present tense) implies (subject, Greek verb in the Perfect).

Part [7] connects the inferential criterion for completion to the natural temporal boundedness of occurrences. Those occurrences for which implication [8] holds are bounded by their completion—it is part of what they are (since they have their completion not in themselves) that they come to an end some time. Part [5] restates the inferential difference of [8] and [9], with the interesting variation that in one case the implication in [9] takes the other direction—“the same thing has seen and is seeing.” More importantly, however, Aristotle reformulates the inferential difference between statements about kinesis and energeia, taking the role of the subject into account; that is, [8] and [9] are amended to: [10.] (subject1, Greek verb in present tense) implies the falsity of (subject2, Greek verb in the Perfect) [11.] (subject1, Greek verb in present tense) implies (subject1, Greek verb in the Perfect).

In relation to the background of these restatements of Aristotle’s text, let us now consider its possible heuristic significance for an ontology of dynamic being. To restate, the passage just set out traditionally has been read as providing a distinction between incomplete and complete occurrences. In order to appreciate the methodological clues contained in the passage we need to review for a moment the development of the traditional reading within the interplay between philosophy and linguistics. Following Aristotle’s observation about a systematic difference in the inferential role of certain Greek verbs in present tense, Gilbert Ryle (1949) distinguished between “verbs of activity or process” and “achievement verbs,”19 in order to contrast at the ontological level activities and results. Inspired by Ryle—but apparently independently of each other—Zeno Vendler (1957)20 and Anthony Kenny (1965)21 later produced extended classifications of “action verbs.” To illustrate, in Vendler’s fourfold distinction between “activity verbs, state verbs, accomplishment verbs, and achievement verbs,” activity verbs such as “run, walk, swim, push” fulfill the following four conditions:

10

Chapter One

(C1) They take the continuous form, i.e., “A is V-ing” is a well-formed sentence. (C2) Their denotations are unbounded, i.e., the form “x finished Ving” cannot be supplemented to yield a true sentence. (C3) [Distributivity condition] For every temporal interval [t], if “A Ved during [t]” is true then “A V-ed” during [t’] for every period [t’] that is part of [t]. (C4) [Homomerity condition] Any temporal part of the denotation d of V is of the “the same nature” as the whole of d. In contrast, “accomplishment verbs” such as “paint a picture, build a house, grow up, recover from illness, run-a-mile” fulfill (C1) but their denotations are bounded, they are not distributive and their denotations are not homomerous. Since Vendler’s classification of “action verbs” combines syntactic and semantic criteria—i.e., the conditions I called “distributivity” and “homomerity”—in ways that seemed to dovetail directly with the quoted passages [2] or [6] above, Aristotle scholars in turn applied Vendler’s analysis to interpret the distinction between energeia and kinesis in these sections of the Metaphysics. Just as Vendler sought to derive a division in “types of action” on the basis of a division of “action verbs,” Aristotle’s interpreters discussed whether the energeiai mentioned in paragraphs [1] through [6] should be understood as activities, achievements, or states.22 However, when Vendler’s and Kenny’s distinctions became the subject of more comprehensive investigations within linguistic verb semantics (in so-called “aspect theory,” “aspectology,” or theories of “Aktionsarten”), they soon appeared fundamentally flawed. Upon closer inspection, and taking a larger sample of languages into account, the differences in inferential roles that the two classifications aimed to identify and use for the purpose of ontological classification are, in fact, not carried by the lexical meaning of verbs. Rather, the processual information that linguists call “aspectual meaning” is carried by entire sentences or even small discourse section. Moreover, the aspectual systems of various languages are so different that it seemed hopeless to derive ontological classifications from just English or Greek.23 But despite their shortcomings, both classifications—and in particular Vendler’s analysis of Aristotle’s original observations—produced two important general insights for an ontology of dynamic being(s). First, when we try to locate relevant inferential data that can guide a classification of occurrence types, we do not restrict ourselves to a reflection on the material inferences that are encoded in the lexical

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

11

meaning of the general nouns of a language (e.g., “development,” “proceedings,” “production,” “oscillation,” “growth,” “expansion,” “transition,” etc…); nor do we need to limit ourselves to inferential constraints encoded in the tense of verbal predications. Another class of linguistic data for an ontological classification of occurrence types, and perhaps the most relevant one, seems to be provided by “aspectual inferences,” i.e., inferences based on the aspectual meaning of sentences. Aspectual meaning—often but not always encoded in the verb form, e.g., in the continuous form in English or in the English Perfect—expresses a perspective in relation to the form of dynamicity of an occurrence; for example, whether the occurrence is going on (“imperfective” or “progressive” aspect), or available as a result (“perfective” aspect), or has just begun (“ingressive”), or is about to be finished (“egressive”), or is a recurrent feature (“habitual”).24 As it stands, Aristotle’s grammatical test in [2] and [6] for the distinction between energeia and kinesis remains ambiguous; it can be taken to involve tense, or aspect, or tense and aspect, and it is due to Vendler and Kenny that the aspectual reading of the “completeness test” came into focus. While the emphasis on aspectual inferences is particularly pronounced in Kenny’s analysis, Vendler’s analysis can be credited with conveying most clearly the second important insight I wish to highlight here, namely, the insight that aspectual inferences dovetail with mereological properties. As the conditions of (C3) “distributivity” and (C4) “homomerity” above suggest, implications among sentences with different aspectual meaning can be used to derive mereological features in terms of which one can introduce different types of truthmakers (occurrence types) for the sentences in question. With these credentials in place, let us return to our review of the traditional reading of Aristotle’s distinction between energeia and kinesis as occurrence types. As the discussion of Vendler’s and Kenny’s classifications per se, as well as the application of the passage quoted above has shown, it is not possible to define different occurrence types just in terms of one aspectual implication as in Vendler’s (C1) or Aristotle’s [8, 10] and [9, 11], respectively. For example, the fact that the sentences “I am walking about” or “I am swimming” both allow for an aspectual inference in the sense of [9, 11] is not sufficient for the claim that they denote “activities” if the latter are taken to be characterized by homomerity alone—for as has been observed by a number of authors, what ontologists call a “state of affairs” (e.g., a exemplifies the [possibly complex] property F) would seem to fulfill the homomerity condition just as well. Moreover, it is questionable whether an occurrence denoted by a

12

Chapter One

sentence that warrants the aspectual inference in [9, 11] and fulfills what Vendler calls the “time schema” associated with this inference, here listed as the “distributivity condition” (C3), should at all be labeled an “activity”—some authors have argued that the notion of an activity does allow for some temporal granularity, i.e., for some short phases that do not satisfy the predicate in terms of which the activity is characterized.25 In reaction to these difficulties, one might: (a) develop alternative ways of making use of aspectual inferences for the definition of occurrence types; and (b) search for an alternative interpretation of Aristotle’s “completeness test” in Metaphysics IX, Chapter Six. I have explored (a) elsewhere,26 and so here I want to offer a suggestion following proposal (b).

3. Two Modes of Dynamicity As I want to argue now, drawing on the larger context of Aristotle’s writings, the passage I quoted in the previous section contains a definition not of occurrence types but of two modes of dynamicity. Consider the following four predicates: [12] Likepartedness or homomerity: An entity of kind K is likeparted iff some of its spatial or temporal parts are of kind K. [13] Strict likepartedness or strict homomerity: An entity of kind K is likeparted iff all of its spatial or temporal parts are of kind K. [14] Self-containment or automerity: An entity E is self-contained iff the spatiotemporal region in which all of E occurs has some spatial or temporal parts in which all of E occurs.27 [15] Strict self-containment or automerity: An entity E is self-contained iff the spatiotemporal region in which all of E occurs has only spatial or temporal parts in which all of E occurs.

As Aristotle says in section [2] of the quotation in the previous section, an action is complete if is completed “at the same time” (“hama”) at which it is going on. This can be read in three ways: “at the same time” (i) for some, or (ii) for any, or (iii) for all of the times at which it is going on. If we take the first reading, we can claim that energeiai are homomerous or automerous. If we take the second or the third reading, we can claim that energeiai are strictly homomerous or strictly automerous. Since Aristotle nowhere introduces a qualification of “the same moment” that would suggest a restriction from “any” to “some,” I take the second or third reading as the more plausible one. As far as I can see, all of the commentators on the passage agree on this point. Remarkably, however,

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

13

the difference between homomerity and automerity seems to have gone unnoticed. Or to put it more precisely, it seems to have gone unnoticed that Aristotle commits himself by the combination of [1] and [2] to the claim that energeiai are strictly automerous. For in [1] Aristotle explains that the telos (completion) of an action is that “for-the-sake-of-which” the action is undertaken. If we were to take the telos of an ongoing action D to be the result of D, taking the result or upshot of D to be different from D as ongoing, then no ongoing action could contain literally “its” completion. For an ongoing action to contain its completion we need to assume that the telos of D as ongoing is D as ongoing, and not the result of D. Consider the following contrast: [16] Intelicity (self-directedness or upshot completion): An action D is intelic iff D is done for the sake of D’s having been done. A nonagentive occurrence D is intelic iff the telos of D is D’s having occurred
[17] Autotelicity (strict self-directedness or occurrence completion): An action D is autotelic iff D, while going on, is done for the sake of the ongoingness of DҠҏA non-agentive occurrence D is autotelic iff if the telos of D, while going on, is the going-on of D


If we take Aristotle’s text literally we must adopt the view that an ongoing occurrence that contains its completion is autotelic in the sense specified, which means that it contains literally itself. In other word, then, we must read Aristotle as holding, or being committed to holding, that energeiai are strictly automerous in the sense stated above. Before we investigate the predicate automerity in greater detail, let us consider in which way the difference between autotelic and “other-telic” / allotelic occurrences (i.e, occurrences the telos of which is not reached while they are going on, i.e., see [1]) could steer us toward a new understanding of energeia and kinesis. In other places, such as in De Anima 417a2ff, and Physics 193b7, Aristotle employs the contrast between dynamis and energeia to characterize the difference between changes and activities. He presents these not merely as different occurrence types (e.g., actions vs. events) but as two fundamentally different genres of occurrences. Changes realize dynameis for becoming F—for example, the dynamis for becoming a human organism or a flute player. The realization of such a dynamis for becoming F, also called a “potency” or “first level potentiality,” brings about a dynameis for being F, also called a “capacity” or “second level potentiality.” The realization of a potency for becoming F is a transition that results in the capacity for being F; the latter are the telos of the transition but are not included in the

14

Chapter One

transition. As Aristotle emphasizes in Nicomachean Ethics 1174a25-14, occurrences of this genre, changes, are characterized by inherent and ubiquitous difference, with each part being “different in kind” from the other. In contrast, the realization of capacities (e.g., of the dynamis of being a human being or a flute player) are characterized by inherent sameness; they are “self-realization” structures since the telos of this genre of occurrence is the realization of the capacity itself.28 Since Aristotle calls the first genre of occurrences kineseis and the second energeiai one might, at first, form the impression that these passages confirm the traditional reading of kinesis and energeia as occurrence types. All that this larger context of the completeness test reveals, one might argue, is that Aristotle’s target is not a distinction between “species” of occurrences (i.e., “actions” versus “non-actions”) but a division at a much more fundamental level between different “genera” of occurrences. However, this adjustment of the traditional reading does not square well with the fact that Aristotle characterizes energeia as a form of kinesis, calling a capacity a [18] “principle of movement (kinesis) … in the thing itself qua itself” (Metaphysics 1049b9).

More importantly, he even defines kinesis in terms of energeia: [19] [T]he energeia of the buildable as the buildable is the house-building (Physics 201b6-14). [20] I call the energeia of the potential as such kinesis (Metaphysics K1065b16).

Passages [19] and [20] state that kinesis is a certain “way of the beingthere” of a potency, namely, the way in which the potency is there if its potentiality for generating a change or transition is no longer dormant but going on (and not yet actualized). The potency for becoming a house is in bricks, beams, and tiles, even if these never become a house; but for this “dormant” productive potency to become “manifest” it needs to attain a mode of being-there that realizes it as productive potency—the potency needs to “go on.” Kinesis, namely, the occurrence of the development or movement, is thus the going on of the potential qua potential. But then kinesis is not an occurrence type, not a development, but the mode of occurrence of such an occurrence type: coming about. Coming about is a distinctive mode of occurrence or mode of dynamicity that always strives beyond itself, a continuous tendency towards difference, until a definite endpoint is reached. In contrast, when a capacity, a dynamis for being-F, is

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

15

going on, the occurrence generated has another mode of dynamicity—it is the continuous expression of the capacity-for-being-F to express itself. Aristotle calls that mode of dynamicity energeia. If kinesis and energeia are modes of dynamicity, however, one might have some qualms about the role of energeia in quotations [19] and [20]. There, the term energeia is used to characterize a “way of being-there” (“going-on”) of a dynamis. However, if energeia were a mode of dynamicity, it should be the result of the “going on” of a dynamis (i.e., of a dynamis for being F). Some scholars thus have suggested that energeia is simply ambiguous and in certain contexts means “activity” (occurrence type) and in other contexts “actuality” (way of being-there of a dynamis),29 but I believe that when Aristotle reminds his readers at the beginning of Metaphysics IX, Chapter Six that the meaning of energeia can shift (1047a30), he does not intend to announce an ambiguity. We can work towards a more interesting resolution of the double-functionality of the term if we translate it into “logical grammar.” In [19] and [20] energeia appears both in the logical position of a function (or operator) on dynameis; in other contexts it appears in the role of the “value” (or outcome): [21] going-on (dynamis to become F) = coming about, kinesis. [22] going-on (dynamis to be F) = self-expression, energeia.

In order to achieve a uniform reading of energeia we might then try to understand “going on,” which I so far characterized as a “way of beingthere” of a dynamis, to amount structurally to the self-expression of a capacity for being F. In other words, applying the operator “selfexpression” to the dynamis to become F would express this dynamis as itself, the potential as the potential, as stated in [19] and [20]. Applying the operator “self-expression” to a dynamis to be F, or to a capacity for expressing F, would again express this dynamis as itself, namely, as the capacity of expressing-F, which means the continuous self-expression of that capacity, and the continuous expression of F in the course of it. Where does this interpretation leave us? We started this section in search of an interpretation of distinction between kinesis and energeia that would not associate it with a division in occurrence types and arrived at a reading in terms of a contrast of two modes of dynamicity—coming about and going-on-by-self-expression. However, in the course of arriving at this reading, we also discovered that energeia is also used in ways that seem to go beyond the label for a mode of dynamicity (see [19] and [20]). Can we equate “ongoingness” with “self-expression,” so as to achieve a unified reading of energeia in two roles, namely, as mode of dynamicity and as

16

Chapter One

mode of existence of a dynamis? Is energeia then simply the primary mode of dynamicity? Is it tantamount to being understood as a dynamic affair? Should we say then that in Aristotle’s ontology all that is, is goingon-by-self-expression, and that once a potency “is” in this way, we get something occurring in another mode of dynamicity that is a variation of the underlying basic form of dynamic being? Before we can explore these questions in depth, one might object at this point and suggest that we should investigate whether we can all think the mode of dynamicity of self-expression. In the Nicomachean Ethics (1174b10-13), Aristotle emphasizes that the mode of dynamicity of energeia is strictly without developmental phases: [23] From these considerations it is clear, too, that these thinkers are not right in saying there is a movement or a coming into being of pleasure. For these cannot be ascribed to all things, but only to those that are divisible and not wholes; there is no coming into being of seeing nor of a point nor of a unit, nor is any of these a movement or coming into being; therefore there is none of pleasure either; for it is a whole.

But to think of self-expression as an unstructured, non-developmental whole, seems quite impossible and so we have arrived at what one could call the “riddle of dynamicity.” It appears that we can somehow “fathom” two forms of “dynamicity.” First, there is the “stretched” developmental variety, as a “push from here to there,” as continuous becoming different—the mode of dynamicity of coming about (kinesis). Second, there is “dynamicity” in the form of going-on as self-propagation—the mode of dynamicity of “self-expression” (energeia). But this mode of dynamicity also appears to have wider scope than the other—it appears to articulate a notion of dynamicity or dynamic being in general. Anything in the mode of coming-about, any development “is” in a dynamic sense—i.e., is in sense of being as self-expression. And yet, while we somehow can “fathom” self-propagation, we can neither think nor represent selfexpression symbolically as an unstructured whole—we cannot think it without thinking a production or coming about that is somehow “collected” into a point. This creates a curious interdependence: the second mode of dynamicity, “going on” or “self-expression,” is the way in which the first mode of dynamicity is there—coming about is there by the going on of some dynamis to become-F. Conversely, it appears that we can only understand the mode of dynamicity of self-expression by contrasting it with coming about.

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

17

4. The Riddle of Dynamicity What should one do with the interdependence between the two modes of dynamicity that I called “coming about” and “going-on by expressingitself” above? There are four possible reactions, all of which are exemplified in the history of metaphysics. First, one might give up on the ontology of dynamic being, since it does not bring us any further with respect to the overall ontological project of defining being. Ongoingness is as indefinable as being, so there is little use in claiming with the process metaphysicians that being consists in ongoingness. Second, one might reject Aristotle’s ideaexpressed in [19] and [20]that the dynamic being of coming about somehow would need to be conceived as ongoingness. Dynamic being can be coming about and nothing else. When a house is being built, what there is at any moment during which that coming about occurs is itself a “temporally unextended” coming about. So, at any moment there is a coming about of coming about—any temporally extended coming about is the sequence of temporally punctiform coming abouts which do not happen over time. One could consider this to be Whitehead’s solution to the riddle of dynamicity; the basic entities of Whitehead process metaphysics, so-called “actual occasions,” all have the structure of kineseis, i.e., they are all becomings, which do not happen over time but constitute that which happens over time. Third, one might claim that the interdependence is not symmetric. To use a distinction made by Wilfrid Sellars, “self-expressing” depends on coming-about in the “order of understanding,” while “coming-about” depends on “self-expressing” in the “order of being.” In order to make descriptive sense of being as “going-on” or “self-expressing,” or alternatively, in order to render going on into a concept that is not only “clear” but also “distinct” in the rationalist’s classification, we need to resort to the contrast with coming about. But this does not detract from the fact that ongoingness is the way in which coming about is there. In Bergson’s pregnant articulation of this third reaction to the riddle of dynamicity, process metaphysical inquiry finds itself in a tragic situation. It aspires to conceptualize something that is outside of the very domain of conceptualization. What can be conceptualized in relation to a coming about is the pair of initial state and end state; the transition between these states. However, the ongoingness of coming about, entirely eludes any effort of descriptive conceptualization. Dynamicity or ongoingness is something we can only experience in “duration,” as a plenum without

18

Chapter One

separable components, and can only approach as the ever-fleeting, everevanescent object of an attempted conceptual reflection of that experience. Fourth, and this appears to be the most popular reaction among process metaphysicians, one might deny that self-expressing is descriptively dependent on coming-about, because the metaphor of self-directedness (self-production, etc…) is a definiens in its own right. A number of metaphysicians have played on the intimate connection between “dynamicity” and self-directedness and the curious self-validation that occurs when we think that connection. Fichte and Hegel went so far as to take the performative validation of the thought of self-production to be the metaphysical “core-relation” on which a whole system could be “grounded.” While Descartes provided the model of performative selfvalidation of thinking, Fichte and Hegel noticed that something metaphysically even more powerful is to be gained along these lines. The attempt to think self-production results not only in the performative validation of one specific type of process (thinking) but of a way of being there, of actual existence. The thinking of self-production (self-directness) as an item of “objective reality” not only brings about self-production as an item of “formal reality,” but, together with a view of knowledge as perfect “adequatio,” it also suggests itself as the situation in which the correlativity of thinking and being is fully exhibited.30 Instead of embracing any of these four reactions here, I want to suggest a fifth option, namely, a standard, implicit definition of ongoingness of “dynamicity.” By an implicit definition we can skirt the riddle of dynamicity that I just drew attention to, i.e., we can dodge the difficulties in having to conceive of dynamicity via negativa as an “other-directed movement rolled back onto itself.” The above rehearsed historical reactions to the riddle of dynamicity all proceed from the assumption that if dynamicity has no explicit definition then it must be undefinable, or even inconceivable. But once we admit of the idea that, within a suitable system, a condition can set sufficient constraints to ensure that dynamic entities are among its models, a new path opens up. I suggest that we take the feature of strict automerity as an inferential constraint that, in combination with additional restrictions within a formal system, all and only ongoing or “dynamic” entities fulfill. The general strategy of my proposal can be summarized into the following four claims: (i) dynamicity or dynamic being is ongoingness by expressing itself—to be is to go on; (ii) self-expression is reflected in a characteristic structure in the description of an entity; (iii) for example, if we describe an entity E in terms of a partition that specifies what is “part of being that entity” (i.e., we specify its spatial, function, material etc, parts within one partition

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

19

using a generic part relation), the fact that E is dynamic will be reflected in the partition in the form of certain distinctive patterns representing selfexpression; and (iv) self-expression is mereologically reflected in strict automerity, which generates self-similar patterns within a partition. Above I argued that autotelicity (self-expression) dovetails with strict automerity. Let us have a closer look at automerity then. I have been using the predicate without discussing whether this predicate is at all conceptually coherent. How can a whole, E, contain itself as a part? Indeed, if we interpret the expression “is part of” on the basis of the axiomatization of Classical Extensional Mereology (or, in fact, any axiomatization that operates with a transitive part relation), then the only way in which an entity could be automerous is by having no spatial and temporal parts at all. Since the classical part relation is transitive and irreflexive, no part of E can have E as part—by the transitivity of “is part of” we receive the statement that E is part of itself, which is in conflict with the irreflexivity of the part relation. However, we are by no means bound to the interpretation of “is part of” as axiomatized by Classical Extensional Mereology. There are at least two varieties of non-standard mereology both of which allow for “mereological loops”: one can either relinquish anti-symmetry,31 or, as I have suggested, one can give up on transitivity. Classical Extensional Mereology axiomatizes, in effect, the natural language expression “x is a spatial / temporal part of the spatial / temporal region occupied by y.” In contrast, “is part of” in the commonsensical usage is not a transitive relation. The switch from a transitive to a non-transitive part-relation betokens that “is part of” must be defined relative to partition levels. The parts of an entity D are D’s 1-parts, the parts of the parts of D are at D’s 2parts, and so on—in general, the nth iteration of the part-relation yields one of D’s n-parts. This implies a profound change in the expressive power of a mereological system; as I have argued, however, the shift to “Leveled Mereology” is, for many purposes in ontology, quite advantageous.32 One of these advantages is the fact that in a mereological system with a non-transitive part-relation there is a non-vacuous reading for strict automerity. In “Leveled Mereology” not only is parthood relativized to partition levels, also identity (i.e., co-referentiality) is defined—via the Proper Parts Principle—relative to a certain level of depth—briefly, D and E are identical just in case they have the same 1-through-n-parts, for a given n. Assume that n = 1, which means that two entities are identical just in case they share the same 1-parts. If E and J are the 1-parts of an entity D, and D and G are 1-parts of E, then D can be a 2-part of itself. In other words, provided a partition has self-similar structure relative to the level n

Chapterr One

20

for which tthe identity principle p has been fixed, such a parttition can represent ann entity E thatt contains itseelf or is (stricctly) automero ous in the sense that iff R is the spattial / temporal region that ccontains E as a whole, some (all) suubregions ri of o R contain E as a whole. F For example, in Figure 1 below, the entity D is identified viaa its 1-parts E and J; both h of these parts containn D, even thoough they do not n directly, bbut as part of a part. If we were to ssupplement thhe figure by asssuming that aalso G, k, H, an nd T have D as a part, iit would repreesent a strictly y automerous eentity.

Ƚ 

Ⱦ Ɂ

ɀ Ƀ

ɂ Ɉ

Ƚ

Ʉ Ʌ

Ƚ



Ⱦ



ɀ

Ⱦ

ɀ

Figure 1.

5. Concllusion In this paper, I havve presented reactions too Aristotle’s so-called “completeneess test,” as coontained in Metaphysics M IX X, Chapter Six x, in order

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

21

to serve heuristic purposes only. The question of whether the suggested interpretation of energeia as the “dominant” of two modes of dynamicity is at all tenable, can remain open. My main aim was to use Aristotle’s text as a foil for a discussion of the most basic concepts within an ontology of dynamic being, concepts like “coming about” and “going on,” that remain presupposed in more specific and more easily analyzable notions for occurrences and dynamic features in the science (e.g., production, motion, causation, reaction, feedback, self-maintenance, autopoiesis, etc…). I have tried to highlight that Aristotle’s text provides us with two very useful methodological points. First, it can direct analytical ontologists to a more careful investigation of aspectual inferences as the relevant linguistic data for an ontology of dynamic beings or occurrence types. I have argued here that the single aspectual inference that is used in the completeness test does not suffice for a distinction between occurrence types, which are to be correlated with more complex dynamic information. But it can be used to fix a contrast between two basic modes of dynamicity“coming about” and “going on.” The second important point that Aristotle has left us with is that mereology is a tool for a formal ontology of dynamic beings and modes of dynamicity. As I tried to illustrate in the final section of this paper above, within a non-standard mereology, we can formulate the selfreferential structures that seem to be the hallmark of any attempt of conceptually characterizing dynamicity.

Notes 1. Frederich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufman (New York: Random House, 1882 / 1974), 306. 2. Henri Bergson, “The Idea of Duration,” in Henri Bergson: Key Writings, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and John Ó Maoilearca (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002). 3. Willard Van Orman Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). 4. Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Harvard University Press, 1997). 5. See Johanna Seibt, Towards Process Ontology: A Critical Study of SubstanceOntological Premises. Doctoral Thesis at the University of Pittsburgh (Michigan: UMI Publications, 1990); “Individuen als Prozesse: Zur prozeß-ontologischen Revision des Substanzparadigmas,” Logos 2 (1995): 352-384; “Existence in Time: From Substance to Process” in Perspectives on Time (Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science), ed. Jan Faye, Uwe Scheffler, and Max Urchs, 143-182 (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer, 1997a); “The ‘Umbau’: From Constitution Theory to Constructionism,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 14 (1997b): 305-351; “Der Mythos der Substanz,” in Substanz—Neue Überlegungen zu einer klassischen

22

Chapter One

Kategorie des Seienden, ed. Käthe Trettin, 197-229 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2005); “Beyond Endurance and Perdurance: Recurrent Dynamics,” in Persistence, ed. Christian Kanzian, 121-153 (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2008); “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory,” Synthese 166 (2009): 479-512; “Particulars” in Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 1, ed. Roberto Poli, 23-57 (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2010). 6. For arguments in favor of a pluralist reading of the existential quantifier, see, for example, Jason Turner, “Logic and Ontological Pluralism,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 41.2 (2012): 419-448. For sketches of a process ontology that use a nonstandard mereology as a domain theory, see Seibt, Towards Process Ontology; “Der Mythos der Substanz”; “Beyond Endurance and Perdurance: Recurrent Dynamics”; “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory.” 7. I must omit here any discussion of this terminological shift, which, as far as I can see, emerges merely from sociological considerations. For a presentation of the methodological insights of the early analytical ontologists see Johanna Seibt, “Der Umbau des ‘Aufbau’: Carnap und die analytische Ontologie.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 44 (1996): 807-835; “Existence in Time: From Substance to Process”; “Constitution Theory and Metaphysical Neutrality: A Lesson for Ontology?” The Monist 83 (2000): 161-183; for a methodological position paper see Johanna Seibt, “Ontological Categories: the Explanation of Categorial Inference,” in Wahrheit—System—Struktur: Auseinandersetzungen mit Metaphysik, ed. Dirk Greiman, 272-297 (Frankfurt: Olms-Verlag, 2001). 8. This also has hardly been noticed so far, by Wilfrid Sellars in his “Time and the World Order.” In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell, 527-616 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962). 9. See John Ellis McTaggart’s proof in “The Unreality of Time,” in Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 17 (1908): 456-473. 10. Whether our notion of temporal passage presupposes (a) change; and (b) change in terms of temporal characteristics (“past, present, future”) is debatable, see e.g., chapter four of Tim Maudlin’s The Metaphysics Within Physics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 11. There are languages with more or less than three forms of verbal tense. There are languages that mark tense on nouns rather than on verbs, and there are languages without adjectives. Therefore, one might ask: why should English be our guide to ontology? 12. See Lynn Rudder-Baker, “Time and Identity,” in Time and Identity, ed. J. Campbell, 27-49. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010). 13. Jonathan Barnes in The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1656, translates “this is not action,” i.e., “kinesis is not action,” instead of Montgomery Furth’s “these are not action,” i.e., the kineseis of the bodily parts that constitute the process of slimming in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Books VII-X (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company), 1985. 14. Commenting on this translation with resultative perfection, Furth, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 134, notes that what is at issue here is not a matter of tense but “what

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

23

linguists call Aktionsart or Behandlungsart,” also called “aspect” in a “terminological variant.” 15. The addition “[occurrences]” replaces Furth’s addition “[actions],” which seems odd given that Aristotle just determined that kineseis are not actions. Barnes, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 1656, adds “processes.” 16. Note the variation in Barnes’ translation in The Complete Works of Aristotle: “it is a different thing that is being moved and that has been moved, and that is moving and that has moved; but it is the same thing that at the same time has seen and is seeing, is thinking and has thought.” 17. Telos is a relational noun: the “for-the-sake-of-which” or the “towards-which” of an occurrence. In the present context, this metaphorical characterization must suffice. 18. Following a linguistic convention language-specific grammatical forms are capitalized (“Perfect”) while general tense or aspect labels are lower-case (“present tense,” “perfect”). 19. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 149. 20. Zeno Vendler, “Verbs and Times,” Philosophical Review 66.2 (1957): 143160. 21. Anthony Kenny, Actions, Emotions, and Will (New York: Humanities Press, 1963). 22. See David Graham, “States and Performances: Aristotle’s Test,” Philosophical Quarterly 30.119 (1980): 117-130; Charles Taylor Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction and Aristotle’s Conception of Praxis,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (1984): 263-280; John Lloyd Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Distinction Between Energeia and Kinesis,” in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. Renford Bambrough (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 53-74; Louis Aryeh Kosman, “Substance, Being, and Energeia,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 121-149. 23. See Henk J. Verkuyl, Henk, On the Compositional Nature of the Aspect (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1972); Barry Taylor, “Tense and Continuity,” Linguistics & Philosophy 1.2 (July 1977): 199-220; Alexander Mourelatos, “Events, Processes, and States.” Linguistics and Philosophy 2 (1978): 415-434; Albert Rijksbaron, Aristotle, Verb Meaning and Functional Grammar: Towards a New Typology of States of Affairs (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1989). For a review of the relevant part of the linguistic debate on Aktionsarten and verbal aspect, see Chapter Two of Johanna Seibt, General ProcessesA Study in Ontological Theory Construction, Habilitationsschrift at the University of Konstanz, Germany, 2004b. 24. This is a simplified illustration; see Chapter Two of Seibt, General Processes A Study in Ontological Theory Construction for a review of various linguistic theories of aspectual meaning. Note, incidentally, that ontologists so far have been overlooking not only inferences based on so-called “verbal aspect,” but also the aspectual information based on “nominal aspects”; see chapter four of Seibt, General Processes; and “Ontological Scope and Linguistic Diversity.” Paper under submission, 201?.

24

Chapter One

25. For a discussion of such challenges to the distributivity of activity predicates see Johanna Seibt, “Free Process Theory: Towards a Typology of Processes,” Axiomathes 14 (2004a): 23-57; and Chapter Two of General ProcessesA Study in Ontological Theory Construction. 26. For example, I have suggested a classification of sentences about activities, accomplishments, states, and achievements in terms of small networks of aspectual inferences, see ibid. 27. The condition of automerity is fulfilled by any kind of repetitive occurrence, whether it be an “activity” or a sequence of Vendler “accomplishments” or “achievements.” 28. In the case of living organisms the exercise of the capacity for being F is not only self-realizing in the sense that this capacity for being F is realized as an exercisable capacity for being F, but here the capacity in question is (a) for beingan-organism-of-this-kind or (b) for being-this-organism-of-this-kind. In this way the self-directed is even stronger, it does not only pertain to the capacity qua capacity, but also to the “content” of the capacity. Aristotle calls self-directedness in the sense of (a) physis—the nature of an organism is to realize this nature; it is controversial whether the notion of physis can also be read as self-directedness in the sense of (b), as the self-realization of an individual instance of this nature. 29. See Chen, Chung-Hwan. “Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy of Aristotle.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17.1 (1956): 56-65. 30. The concept of self-production forces us to conceive of a unity which generates and cancels a relationship to itself, and this peculiar dynamic structure—vide Fichte’s notion of an “Ego” as “setting the Non-Ego” or Hegel’s ”identity of identity and non-identity”—can be used to undercut the traditional dichotomy between thinking and being, as well as ”subject” and ”object.” In Fichte’s and Hegel’s scheme, the thinking of self-production thus fulfills three functions: it generates (a) a case of self-production; (b) a definition for a dynamic account of being correlative to the structure of thinking; and (c) a model for the relationship between thinking and being: a unity that is both identity and difference, and that generates and cancels its own relatedness. Is there anything in this approach that could invite further exploration from the perspective of the analytical ontologist? Let us briefly look at (b). Hegel’s insists that normal predications are not suited to express “speculative truths” (definitions of dialectical relationships) but must be articulated by means of a “speculative sentence,” a special linguistic form. This can be understood as a precursor to the idea that not all definitions have to be explicit definitions. In essence, then, it is the proposal of grounding self-expression and other self-referential terms in what one might call “performative constitutions.” Such performative constitutions capitalize on the self-similarity of content and form, which—in first approximation—we might conceive of the selfsimilarity of performative constitutions on the model of the “triangle of triangles,” i.e., as the similarity of the nature of the items arranged and the mode of arrangement. Hegel’s focus is on connections between an item (e.g., the subject) and that which is other to it (e.g., the object) in various “modes” (e.g. epistemic modes) that he characterizes themselves in terms of such connections. For

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

25

example, if we let subscripts representing the “mode” of presentation, the following complex structure—which corresponds to Hegel’s characterization of self-consciousness in the Phenomology and his definition of “something” (“Etwas”) in the Science of Logic—has a mode of interrelatedness that mirrors the interrelatedness of its components and their respective “one-sided” modes of presentation: “((S œ a S) S œ a S œ a (S œ a S) a(S œ a S)) (S œ a S) œ a (S œ a S).” 31. Aaron J. Cotnoir, “Anti-Symmetry and Non-Extensional Mereology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 60.239 (2010): 396-405. 32. See Johanna Seibt, General Processes—A Study in Ontological Theory Construction. Habilitationsschrift at the University of Konstanz (Germany, 2004b); “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory,” Synthese 166 (2009): 479-512; “Non-transitive Parthood, Leveled Mereology, and the Representation of Emergent Parts of Processes,” forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien, 2015.

References Ackrill, John Lloyd. “Aristotle’s Distinction Between Energeia and Kinesis.” In New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, edited by Renford Bambrough, 53-74. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965. Barnes, Jonathan (ed.). The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Bergson, Henri. Henri Bergson: Key Writings, edited by Keith Ansell Pearson and John Ó Maoilearca. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002. Chen, Chung-Hwan. “Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy of Aristotle.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17.1 (1956): 56-65. Cotnoir, Aaron J. “Anti-Symmetry and Non-Extensional Mereology.” The Philosophical Quarterly 60.239 (2010): 396-405. Furth, Montgomery. Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Books VII-X. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985. Graham, David. “States and Performances: Aristotle’s Test.” Philosophical Quarterly 30.119 (1980): 117-130. Hagen, Charles Taylor. “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction and Aristotle’s Conception of Praxis.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (1984): 263-280. Kenny, Anthony. Actions, Emotions, and Will. New York: Humanities Press, 1963. Kosman, Louis Aryeh. “Substance, Being, and Energeia.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 121-149. Maudlin, Tim. The Metaphysics Within Physics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

26

Chapter One

McTaggart, John Ellis. “The Unreality of Time.” Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 17 (1908): 456-473. Mourelatos, Alexander. “Events, Processes, and States.” Linguistics and Philosophy 2 (1978): 415-434. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science, translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1882 / 1974. Turner, Jason. “Ontological Pluralism.” Journal of Philosophy 107.1 (2010): 5-37. Quine, Willard Van Orman. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” In From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Rijksbaron, Albert. Aristotle, Verb Meaning and Functional Grammar: Towards a New Typology of States of Affairs. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1989. Rudder-Baker, Lynn. “Time and Identity.” In Time and Identity, edited by J. Campbell, 27-49. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. Seibt, Johanna. Towards Process Ontology: A Critical Study of SubstanceOntological Premises. Doctoral Thesis at the University of Pittsburgh, Michigan: UMI Publications, 1990. —. “Individuen als Prozesse: Zur prozeß-ontologischen Revision des Substanzparadigmas,” Logos 2 (1995): 352-384. —. “Der Umbau des ‘Aufbau’: Carnap und die analytische Ontologie.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 44 (1996): 807-835. —. “Existence in Time: From Substance to Process.” In Perspectives on Time (Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science), edited by Jan Faye, Uwe Scheffler, and Max Urchs, 143-182. Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer, 1997a. —. “The ‘Umbau’: From Constitution Theory to Constructionism.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 14 (1997b): 305-351. —. “Constitution Theory and Metaphysical Neutrality: A Lesson for Ontology?” The Monist 83 (2000): 161-183. —. “Ontological Categories: the Explanation of Categorial Inference.” In Wahrheit—System—Struktur: Auseinandersetzungen mit Metaphysik, edited by Dirk Greiman, 272-297. Frankfurt: Olms-Verlag, 2001. —. “Free Process Theory: Towards a Typology of Processes.” Axiomathes 14 (2004a): 23-57. —. General ProcessesA Study in Ontological Theory Construction. Habilitationsschrift at the University of Konstanz, Germany, 2004b.

“Completeness Test” as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity

27

—. “Der Mythos der Substanz.” In Substanz—Neue Überlegungen zu einer klassischen Kategorie des Seienden, edited by Käthe Trettin, 197-229. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2005. —. “Beyond Endurance and Perdurance: Recurrent Dynamics.” In Persistence, edited by Christian Kanzian, 121-153. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2008. —. “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory.” Synthese 166 (2009): 479-512. —. “Particulars.” In Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 1, edited by Roberto Poli, 23-57. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2010. —. “Non-transitive Parthood, Leveled Mereology, and the Representation of Emergent Parts of Processes,” Grazer Philosophische Studien, 2015 (forthcoming). —. “Ontological Scope and Linguistic Diversity.” Paper under submission, 201?. Sellars, Wilfred. “Time and the World Order.” In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III, edited by H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell, 527-616. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962. —. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Harvard University Press, 1997). Taylor, Barry. “Tense and Continuity.” Linguistics and Philosophy 1.2 (July 1977): 199-220. Turner, Jason. “Logic and Ontological Pluralism,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 41.2 (2012): 419-448. Vendler, Zeno. “Verbs and Times.” Philosophical Review 66.2 (1957): 143-160. Verkuyl, Henk J. On the Compositional Nature of the Aspect. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1972.



CHAPTER TWO THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS AND PROCESS THEORIES ROBERTO POLI

Abstract Two main differences distinguish dynamical systems theory from process theory. First, while, on the one hand, process theories explicitly require causation as the link that keeps the states of the underlying temporal continuum together, on the other hand, the continuum of classic dynamical systems does not need any “glue” to keep its points together. Formally speaking, the rehabilitation of the theory of infinitesimals suggests a way to build a bridge between the two frameworks. Second, while dynamical systems theories see time only as order, process theories present a more nuanced understanding of time, including unidimensionality, order, the present moment, parallelism, and actuality.

Keywords Dynamical systems theory; process ontology; time; continuum; causation; point; boundary; reality; actuality.

1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to identify certain structural differences between dynamical systems theory and process theory. While there are many process theories—broadly classifiable into Whiteheadian and nonWhiteheadian versions, I will refrain from exploring their specificities. Process theories that dismiss the category of substance entirely, or confine substances to some minor role, are burdened by the problem of explaining

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

29

the continuity of process, namely, by the question of what keeps together the subsequent stages of a process. Whereas dynamical systems theory refers to a class of formal models, process theory is ontological (and eventually metaphysical). Dynamical systems theory does not necessarily have a process theory as its underlying ontological framework. One may claim that the difference between dynamical systems theory and process theory offers an exemplification of the distinction between a formal system and its models. If this were the case, however, there would be no need for a paper like the present one. Alternatively, dynamical systems theory may be seen as more general than process theory, in the same sense as the notion that abstract or ideal frameworks are more general than real ones, for example, by including states or events that are abstractly, but not really, possible. However, neither of these views digs deeply enough. In order to start to grasp the nature of the problem of how to distinguish between a dynamic from a process, one should consider the questions of what “keeps together” the points of the dynamical continuum, on the one hand, and what “keeps together” the states (eventually, the stages) of the processual continuum, on the other. In other words, one should address the problem of the nature of the continua that underlie systems theory and process theory respectively.1 The question makes apparently little sense from the point of view of dynamical systems theory. In fact, the issue of what the “glue” is, that holds the points of a formal continuum together, is rarely, if ever, raised. But, as will be shown, the issue of what keeps the points of a continuum together underlies the distinction between classic and intuitionistic (or quasi-intuitionistic) mathematics and transpires from the discussion of infinitesimals. With reference to process theory, the problem of the “glue,” that keeps the states of a process together, must be raised. Even those who see processes, and not states, as the primary ontological entities have the problem of explaining the partition of processes into states, and more generally, the connections among the ontological categories of “process,” “state,” “time,” and “causation.” This essay draws heavily from the inquiries conducted by Nicolai Hartmann in his Philosophy of Nature (1950).2 I shall limit my analysis to the above-mentioned categories only, since adding further categories, such as those of “particular,” “space,” or “structure,” will make things more complex. The paper is organized as follows. Section two introduces dynamical theories and section three distinguishes between the notions of “time” and “timing” as a preliminary step toward a principled distinction between dynamical systems theories and process theories. Section four discusses

30

Chapter Two

the problem of the unity of the continuum. Section five distinguishes between points and infinitesimals. Sections six and seven introduce the categories of “process” and of “causation.” Section eight is devoted to the category of time, identifying five distinct features of time. Section nine presents Brentano’s theory of continua and their boundaries. Section ten concludes the paper. Two appendices with supplementary material are added.

2. Dynamical Systems Theories The simplest way to understand a dynamic is to view it in light of kinematics, namely, the study of transitions from state A to state B. The general mathematical framework for modeling dynamic entities—that is, state-changing entities—can be represented as a manifold E = Q x T, where Q (for “quality”) and T (for “time) are two submanifolds of E (for “entity). At minimum, Q and T are two sets without any other structure. However, in order to obtain realistic models, it is necessary for Q and T to have some structure (topological, differential, or geometric). Consider T, for example. This set may be linearly or partially ordered, and if it is then to be measured, it will also have some metrics. Moreover, as the case may be, it will be continuous or discrete. The same applies to Q. More specifically, the structures of Q and T depend on the ontological category of E. Q is also called the configuration space, or the space of variations—or degrees of freedom—of E. Given a certain entity e  E, for every instant t  T, e will be in some position q  Q. The changes of entities of kind E are the trajectories mE: T ĺ Q. In general, a system depends not only on its configuration-space but also on its admissible kinematics. This means selecting from QT (the mappings of T to Q) the set K of admissible changes (movements). In this case, the characteristics of the elements of K depend on the characteristics of both Q and T. If Q and T are topological spaces, one would expect the elements of K to be continuous mappings from T to Q; if instead they are differentiable manifolds, the elements of K will be smooth of an appropriate order, etc…. Quantum systems require Hilbert spaces instead of (differentiable) manifolds and, for them, states do not determine any single path.

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

31

3. A First, Intuitive Difference Between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories Kinematic or state-transition systems and process theories understand time differently. As a graphical representation of the differences between dynamic systems and process theories, consider Figure 1 below.

  Figure 1.

According to the state-transition interpretation, the basic ontological items are states (as represented by the two black circles on the left above). Changes connect states; they mark the passage from state to state (dotted line) and are manifested by time. Process theories read the situation the other way around—processes are the basic ontological items (as represented by the thick black line on the right above). Sometimes they discern a pause in something that may appear to be their building blocks (as represented by the dotted circles). In other words, processes can eventually be decomposed into states. Some sort of “Gestalt Switch” takes place between the two frameworks. The one considers basic what the other considers to be derived, and vice versa. Changing perspectives, points may further imply a modification of the nature of the lower-order category, changing “states” into “stages.” The basic differences are that: (1) “states” are atemporal entities, while “stages” are temporal ones; and (2) while “states” may be taken as primary entities, “stages” are dependent entities. From the point of view of dynamic systems theory, time is the order of the subsequent states. From the perspective of process theories, the connecting arrow cannot be accounted for time-as-order. More is needed.

4. What Connects the Elements? That something is missing—at least from the point of view of process theories—becomes clear as soon as one raises the question of “what” keeps the stages of a process together. Before presenting my answer to this question, notice that from the point of view of dynamical systems theory, the answer as to what keeps the states of a dynamic together is “nothing” or “whatever the case may be.” The latter answer implies that whatever the

32

Chapter Two

“glue” may be that keeps the states together is irrelevant from the point of view of dynamic systems theory. The reason for this is straightforward. Since for dynamic systems theory, time is nothing but order, it can assume any of the forms that orders may have. Not surprisingly then, the time T of a dynamical system can be discrete, continuous, branching, etc…, as the case may be. Process theory has a different and remarkably more complex understanding of time. Order alone fails to grasp the ontological nature of the category of “time.” Understanding the differing importance of time for state-transition systems and process systems is of crucial importance if a thoroughly developed process theory is to be achieved. As stated earlier, for state-transition systems, time is a parameter. In the case of processes, time is instead a constitutive (ontological) dimension. To be clear, process theory does not deny that time is order; what it claims is that time is “more than” order. We shall see this “more than” in section seven of this paper below. Before that, however, a little more should be said on two different ways of understanding continuity.

5. Points and Infinitesimals Let us focus on continuous time, and on the structure of its continuum. Since the basic structure of time is different for state-transition systems and for process theories, the question arises as to whether these differences can be highlighted from the standpoint of mathematical idealization. Time, as an external parameter, has, at most, the structure of the set of the real numbers and is therefore composed of non-denumerable “atoms” ordered in the usual way. In contrast, the temporal continuum for processes seems to be composed of units that fuse or merge together. Apparently, its continuum consists of “elastic” units, or units endowed with some sort of limited “duration.” Not surprisingly, these units are close to Leibniz’s infinitesimals. In fact, Leibniz’s infinitesimal segments are precisely extensions that are not nil but nevertheless can be considered zero. Weierstrass’ well-known “rigorous” reformulation of the infinitesimals into the usual İ-į jargon provided a translation that, apparently, is able to prevent the mental cramp that is produced by Leibniz’s formulation. The matter would be settled definitively if the conceptual results of synthetic differential geometry (SDG) were not available now. The basic move of SDG is to change the concept of a “point” and to introduce the concept of “infinitesimal quantity.” According to SDG, an infinitesimal quantity can be taken as a straight micro-segment that is, as stated by John Bell,

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

33

just long enough to have a slope … but too short to bend. It is thus an entity possessing (location and) direction without magnitude, intermediate in nature between a point and a Euclidean straight line.3

Formally, an infinitesimal i is an entity that is different from zero and such that all its powers are zero, i.e. i  0 š in = 0 for all n > 1. As far as time is concerned, Bell notes that it “can be regarded as a plurality of smoothly overlapping timelets each of which may be held to represent a “now” (or “specious present”) and over which time is … still passing.”4 Let us label the world “smooth” as described by SDG. Among the conclusions arising from it, we should note the following: that (1) in a smooth world, any interval is indecomposable in the sense that it cannot be split in any way whatsoever into two disjoint non-empty parts5; and that (2) in a smooth world several distinct but possibly coincident proximity relations (algebraic, order-like and logical) can be distinguished.6 What is to be emphasized here is that the reformulation of infinitesimal calculus provided by SDG does not alter the results of the calculus. SDG clarifies the conceptual bases of calculus—and, in doing so, opens the way for new previously unforeseeable developments—but it does not modify the results of old-style calculations. One might recall that Copernican astronomy did not modify the results of Ptolemaic astronomy as well. The former only provided a better framework—one that is perhaps ontologically more solid—than did the latter. The price to be paid for passing from points to infinitesimals is the failure of the law of the excluded middle, something that was foreshadowed by Peirce, as he stated, if we are to accept the common idea of continuity … we must either say that a continuous line contains no points or … that the principle of excluded middle does not hold of these points. The principle of excluded middle applies only to an individual … but places being mere possibilities without actual existence are not individuals.7

According to Bell, the failure of the law of the excluded middle suggests that it was the unqualified acceptance of the correctness of this law, rather than any inherent logical flaw in the concept of infinitesimal itself, which for so long prevented that concept from achieving mathematical respectability.8

A further technical observation is relevant. It can be proven that the smooth continuum can be decomposed into two disjoint non-empty parts by removing a point from it. This is not true for the intuitionistic continuum, which may be split only if at least one segment is taken off.

34

Chapter Two

This means that the smooth continuum is somehow intermediate between the classical and the intuitionistic continuum.9 As interesting as they are, the results provided by SDG are formal and may or may not have direct ontological relevance. The idea, adopted by classical mathematics, of capturing the continuity of time as order is deficient in two ways. First, it captures only some of the constitutive moments of time (see section eight below), and second, it implicitly supports an acceptance of causation like Hume’s, according to which literally nothing keeps the states of a process together.

6. The Nature of Process The category of “process” is a real category, namely, it is a category of real being. Processes extend in time, which is another real category. Time is the general dimension of the many real processes unfolding in reality. The ontological framework that underlies this analysis is based on the categorial distinction between various spheres of being. The differences between the two secondary spheres of thought and knowledge are governed by the distinct groups of relations, with reference to the modal categories of necessity, actuality, possibility, and their negation. Preliminarily, the sphere of real being includes entities that are characterized by the categories of individuality and time, and they are connected by causal relations. Conversely, ideal entities are not individual, yet are atemporal. Moreover, they are not connected by causal relations.10 Past, present, and future are different temporal characterizations of real processes. This implies that past and future processes are both real. The difference between them is that past processes have been actual in some temporal present, while future processes have never enjoyed actuality. Presently unfolding processes are such that their past states or stages have already enjoyed actuality, while their future states or stages have never been actual, and the state or stage between them is presently enjoying actuality. Any present state or stage of a process continuously dissolves in time and is substituted by a subsequent state or stage. Since here the difference between states and stages vanishes, I shall, from now on, use only the term “state.” An ontologically correct understanding of process must include both the categorical understanding of the “glue” that connects states together and the successive dissolution of any given state into the next one. Whereas the former moment introduces the category of causation, the latter introduces the dimensions of the category of time beyond order.

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

35

Therefore, the analysis of the category of “process” requires coordinate analyses of the categories of “causation” and of “time.”

7. Causation According to Hartmann, within a process, causation is the category that explains why the series of the process’ states is not arbitrary. Causation explains why one state depends on another or is produced by it.11 In a world of processes, each effect is the result of a previous cause and becomes the cause of a subsequent effect. Categorially, causation is a species of the more general category of determination. What distinguishes causation from the other species of determination is that causation has the form of a temporal series. Furthermore, causation includes a productive moment. This is precisely the moment that distinguishes causation from temporality. Time itself is not productive; only causation can be. The character of series of causation implies that each effect is the cause of another effect and each cause the effect of a previous cause. Their ordered collection is a process. The production of new states is what keeps the process in movement, and this is the work of causation. Therefore, beyond being an ordered series of states, causation has, as its most characteristic moment, the production of new states. The temporal series, on the contrary, can be void. Causation is what produces the states that constitute a process unfolding in time. States pass into one another in such a way that each former state vanishes into a new state. What remains in the subsequent vanishing of one state after the other is the process itself. Causes vanish into effects, which, as causes of new effects, vanish as well. The continuous production of new effects is what makes the causal process creative.

8. On Time Time is both the dimension and the direction of what becomes. What exists does so in a temporal way. It lasts. Furthermore, what exists undergoes temporal decomposition into a series of moments-now. As such, temporality is also the disintegration of what lasts. Here, I shall discuss only the universal moments of time, leaving for other occasions the analysis of “regional” forms of time, such as psychological or social time.12 As has been well known since the time of Augustine, the categorial structure of time is difficult to ascertain. The main reason for this

36

Chapter Two

difficulty is that time is characterized by a variety of determining features.13 Here I shall briefly present the following five characterizing features of time: 1. Unidimensionality. This is what makes time simpler than space: time is not a system of dimensions. The multiplicity of what is extended in time is remarkably smaller than the multiplicity of what is extended in space. In particular, unilinear relations overlap with each other. 2. Order. This is the best-known feature of time. From the point of view of order, no state is privileged and all temporal states flow one after the other. The feature of order constrains unidimensionality. From the point of view of the latter, time can flow either way, namely, toward the future or toward the past. Order, however, constrains the possible direction of real time. It follows that all real processes, for all levels of reality, are irreversible. Time as order is only the continuity of time. The order proceeds uniformly over all events. It is perfectly constant. It has no differences of velocity, and no accelerations or decelerations. More precisely, one should say that time as order has no velocity. 3. Moment-now. The organization of the order or flow of time through the moment-now is possibly the most important feature of real time. If one looks at the order of occurrences from the outside—in an atemporal way, as it were—no privileged point results and all the states of time are equivalent. It is mandatory to avoid interpreting the moment-now as connected to the position of a subject. A perceiving subject is always in some moment of real time and is therefore characterized by real time. This is not to deny that psychological time has its specific structures, perhaps different from those of real time. One should add, however, that real time flows even when no subject contemplates or perceives temporal occurrences. The moment-now continuously renews itself. It happens only once, and immediately afterward, it disappears and never returns. Each momentnow is replaced by a subsequent moment-now. Every moment-now is a moment of reality, and this aspect does not depend on time as order. The latter, in fact, provides no resistance as to its atemporal interpretation. What distinguishes temporal from atemporal orders is precisely the presence of moments-now. The ontic prevalence of each now over every other temporal point is an “irreducible peculiarity of reality.”14

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

37

4. Parallelism. Parallelism means that all temporal processes run at the same velocity. No temporal process overtakes any other temporal process or falls behind it. Events are chained to their temporal positions. They march together with the entire flow of time. All the dimensions that traverse time—such as spatial or causal dimensions—are such that there can be movements in them. The only dimension without any internal movement is time. 5. Actuality. The moment-now and parallelism characterize actuality. Actuality is the feature of the present as it advances in the flow of time. As the constantly actual, the present is the window through which events continually enter. Actuality is a constantly new moment-now. It maintains itself in the flow of time; it is not fleeting. In this sense, the actual is an “eternal present.”15 The series of the fleeting moments of the now constitutes the constancy of actuality, or of the now-in-movement. What happens to an entity while it lasts? The lastingness of the entity is its continuance in its actuality. While it lasts, it proceeds together with the now-inmovement, it maintains itself in the flowing-now. The duration of a process means that the process proceeds together with the now; it maintains itself in the now-in-movement. This applies to all durations, be they things, living beings, psychological acts, or social phenomena. Their durations mean that they keep themselves in the now-in-movement. Duration does not imply, however, that all the states of a process are actual in any given point of time. If they were so, there would be no process at all. The customary way to understand the prevalence of the now over other temporal determinations is to assume that only the present is real, denying being to the past and the future. However, this is wrong. If the momentnow is everything that is, and if past and future are non-being, then past and future cannot exert any influence over the present because non-being cannot influence being. As Hartmann says, “a causal connection between something irreal and something real is a non-ens.”16 The only way out is to acknowledge that both past and future are. The difference among past, present, and future is therefore not a difference between being and nonbeing. What happened before the present moment-now is not unreal. It is as real as the moment-now. The only difference is that it is no longer actual. Similarly, what will happen after the actual moment-now is not unreal. It is as real as the present moment-now. The difference is that it is non-actual. The main difference between past and future is that what is now past has enjoyed its moments-now, while what is future still has to

38

Chapter Two

enjoy its moments-now. By denying being to the past and/or to the future, one severs the roots of the now.

9. Continua and Their Boundaries Brentano’s theory of the present as a boundary within a continuous process is relevant to our discussion.17 For Brentano, continua are things whose parts are united in nature: an ens reale may have parts which are united only in our thinking. And it may have parts which are united in nature. We are here concerned only with parts of the latter type. We find such parts in continua, wherein smaller and smaller parts can be distinguished ad indefinitum.18

Brentano’s theory of continua depends crucially on the correct answer to the following question: what is a part of a continuum? Many details aside, the crux of the matter is that points are definitely not parts of the continua to which they pertain. In this respect, Brentano is crystal-clear. He states, “no continuum can be built up by adding one individual point to another.”19 While continua do not depend on points, one may specify that in relation to classical points, points depend on their continua. A quote may suffice here: “no point can be anything detached from the continuum.”20 In the same fashion, “a point exists only in so far as it belongs to what is continuous.”21 The question is particularly important as far as temporal continua are concerned, since no point in time can exist separately, namely, in a detached way, from any earlier or later point. And instead of saying that there is a temporally nonextended point, it might be more accurate to say that a temporally extended thing exists with respect to a point.22

What, then, is a point? A point is something that depends on a surrounding whole. The point exists as a boundary, as a limit. How should one understand the interplay between what is actually present and the continuum to which it pertains? One further quotation will be of help here: “perhaps we can say that the concept of being in the proper sense coincides with the concept of that which is now or present”— that is, actuality according to Hartmann’s categories—“but everything that is now or present is a temporally extended thing which is now or present with respect to one moment after another.”23 It follows that what exists in the proper sense can be taken as what is actually present, as long as we do not forget that everything that is present also pertains to a temporally extended whole. The ontological difficulty of time lies entirely in the

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

39

double form of dependence of actuality from a previous stretch of its continuum, and of the continuum itself from the actuality of the moving present. Hartmann’s distinction between “being” and “actuality” clarifies the issue by distinguishing between the being of the extended thing or process and the actual existence of each of its boundaries when they enter successive moments-now.

10. Conclusion Returning to the question motivating this paper, apart from the distinction between dynamical systems theory as a formal framework and process theories as an ontological one, at least two other main differences distinguish dynamical systems theories from process theories. First, on the one hand, process theories explicitly require causation as the link that keeps together the states of the underlying temporal continuum. On the other hand, the continuum of classical dynamical systems does not need any “glue” to keep its points together. Formally speaking, the rehabilitation of the theory of infinitesimals suggests a way to build a bridge between the two frameworks. Second, dynamical systems theory sees time only as order, perhaps as unidimensional order. Limiting the analysis to order implies seeing time from “outside,” as it were. Process theories add that the structural feature of the moment-now adds a vision of time from “inside.” This is a major categorial enrichment of the understanding of time. While other features of time, such as parallelism and actuality, further clarify the ontological nature of time, the main distinguishing feature between dynamic systems theories and process theories is given by the moment-now. Brentano’s theory of continua and their boundaries paves the way toward a bridging of the two frameworks by distinguishing between points and boundaries. However, there are still some open questions that remain, namely, whether to add components formally corresponding to the moment-now to dynamic systems theory, and how to do so.

40

Chapter Two

Appendix A With reference to a previous version of this paper, Aloisius H. Louie suggested (in personal communication) the following generalization. For standard dynamical systems theory, as represented by the manifold E = Q x T (see section two above), it is canonical to go immediately into the trajectory mE = T ĺ Q. If one considers a “process” to be a submanifold in E defined by the implicit equation M(q,t) = 0, the trajectory mE = T ĺ Q is simply its explicit solution as q = mE(t). The technical details that the conditions M has to satisfy in order to guarantee the existence of mE are given by the so-called Implicit Function Theorem. However, there is no reason to give t the privileged position of an independent variable and make q dependent on it. For what if the “quality” q is the primary changing entity, and time t is a consequence of this change? This would explicitly solve M(q,t) = 0 as t = nE (q), in terms of the inverse mapping nE = Q ĺ T, which is an entirely legitimate formalization of the original process M. This means, in the example of Newtonian mechanics, that instead of having space change with time (whence its time-derivatives of velocity and acceleration), one can have the formulation that “space is what is changing,” and changing-space is what generates time. A completely consistent theory that is equivalent to the Newtonian one may likely be constructed based on this space-time reversal. Apart from formal aspects, the reversal suggested by Louie suggests a principled way to distinguish “pure” time as a linear order (plus further structural components, as has been argued in section eight above) from “real” temporalities, such as the “social,” “psychological,” “biological,” or even “physical” ones (eventually understood as families, as there may be different social temporalities, etc…). One can then advance the ontologically reasonable hypothesis that real temporalities depend from relevant families of qualities (physical qualities for physical temporality, etc…). One of the basic differences between pure time and real temporalities is that pure time can be entirely void, while temporalities are always linked to something else (physical, biological, etc. qualities), and, in this sense, they are always “filled in by” or “linked to” something else. Let us write TP to stand for “pure time” and TR for “real time.” Their relation is filtered by the space of qualities Q, that is TP ĺ Q ĺ TR. While pure time TP is continuous, homogeneous, and boundless, real time(s) TR can be discrete, non-homogeneous, and bounded. Interestingly, the difference between pure time and real time, namely “temporality,” was advanced by

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

41

Hartmann himself, precisely on the basis of the difference between the pure category of time and time as a cosmological (i.e., physical) category or psychological category.24

Appendix B With reference to a previous version of this paper, Ion Baianu suggested (in personal communication) that standard dynamical systems theory, as represented by the manifold E = Q x T, is far from being the generic case. In fact, the dynamics of a dynamic system are determined by the system’s underlying operational logic. Simple systems have a Boolean operational logic, and, unless the system is chaotic, such dynamics are strictly deterministic and determined by the initial conditions and initial state. Chaotic systems, in contrast, usually have an infinite number of continuous dynamics states but only a small finite number of attractors. The operational logic of chaotic systems is therefore likely to be richer than Boolean. While biosystems include chaos, their operational logic usually leads to many attractors and they are meta-stable. Initial and boundary conditions do not determine anymore the subsequent evolution of living systems. Moreover, they exhibit a hierarchical organization in which each level is both partially dependent on, and partially autonomous from, its underlying level and which usually constrains it as well. All of this implies that the operational logic of living systems is richer than the logic of chaotic systems. To wit, the relevant formalism should have a built-in hierarchical, multi-level, organizational structure, and the generated system’s dynamics should be of higher dimension as well as non-commutative. Here is the proposal. Instead of starting from the manifold E = Q x T, it is more convenient to begin with the system’s operational logic and to generate from it the system’s dynamic state space, usually in the form of a suitable topos, which is more general than a mere manifold. Furthermore, topoi for living systems will be more general than usual topoi, whose underlying logic is intuitionistic, commutative, and characterized by a single organizational level. These developments arise from adopting a different starting point. Instead of starting from an understanding of the category of “process” (as represented by the manifold E = Q x T), the proposal advances the notion that one start from the category of “structure” and generate from it the state space Q. Baianu’s proposal is indeed a remarkable step forward because it shows that the organization of a state space depends on, and is generated by, underlying structures. I share his viewpoint entirely. That said, the

42

Chapter Two

problem addressed by my paper was the nature (and structure) of time, rather than the nature (and structure) of qualities.

Notes 1. One may add “structures” to “continua.” See Appendix B. 2. Nicolai Hartmann Philosophie der Natur: Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1950). For a general introduction to Hartmann, see Roberto Poli, “Nicolai Hartmann,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2012, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nicolai-hartmann/. 3. John Bell, A Primer of Infinitesimal Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 10. 4. Bell, Infinitesimal Analysis, 10. 5. Bell, Infinitesimal Analysis, 93. 6. Bell, Infinitesimal Analysis, 93. 7. Charles Peirce, from a note written in 1903, as quoted by Bell in Infinitesimal Analysis, 6. 8. Bell, Infinitesimal Analysis, 15. 9. See John Bell, “The Continuum in Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis,” in Reuniting the Antipodes—Constructive and Nonstandard Views of the Continuum, ed. Peter Schuster, Ulrich Berger, and Horst Osswald (Dordrecht: Springer, 2002), 19-24. 10. See Nicolai Hartmann, Possibility and Actuality (Berlin: De Gruyter 2013). Also see Roberto Poli “Nicolai Hartmann,” and Introduction to Possibility and Actuality by Nicolai Hartmann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013). 11. Hartmann, Philosophie der Natur, 27a. 12. However, see Appendix A and Roberto Poli, “Levels of Reality and the Psychological Stratum,” Revue internationale de philosophie, 61.2 (2006): 163180, for some aspects of psychological time. 13. For a description of Hartmann’s original analysis, which distinguishes nine features of time that are organized into three different levels of depth, see Roberto Poli, “Ontology as Categorial Analysis,” in Classification and Ontology. Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge, ed. Aida Slavic and Edgardo Civallero (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2011): 145-157. 14. Hartmann, Philosophie der Natur, 11b. 15. Hartmann, Philosophie der Natur, 13g. 16. Hartmann, Philosophie der Natur, 12d. 17. Franz Brentano, The Theory of Categories (The Hague: Nijhoff 1987), 308. For a reconstruction of Brentano’s theory of categories see Roberto Poli, “Approaching Brentano’s Theory of Categories” in Phenomenology and Analysis: Essays in Central European Philosophy, ed. A. Chrudzimski and W. Huemer (Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2004b): 285-321. 18. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 115. 19. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 20. 20. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 20.

The Difference between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories

43

21. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 20. 22. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 20. 23. Brentano, Theory of Categories, 20. 24. See Poli, “Ontology as Categorial Analysis,” 145-157.

References Bell, John. A Primer of Infinitesimal Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. —. “The Continuum in Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis.” In Reuniting the Antipodes—Constructive and Nonstandard Views of the Continuum, edited by Peter Schuster, Ulrich Berger, and Horst Osswald, 19-24. Dordrecht: Springer, 2002. Brentano, Franz. The Theory of Categories. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1981. Hartmann, Nicolai. Philosophie der Natur: Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1950. —. Possibility and Actuality. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. Poli, Roberto. “Process Semantics.” In After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics, edited by Michel Weber, 267-288. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2004a. —. “Approaching Brentano’s Theory of Categories.” In Phenomenology and Analysis. Essays in Central European Philosophy, edited by A. Chrudzimski and W. Huemer, 285-321. Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2004b. —. “Levels of Reality and the Psychological Stratum.” Revue internationale de philosophie, 61.2 (2006): 163-180. —. “Ontology as Categorial Analysis.” In Classification and Ontology. Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge, edited by Aida Slavic and Edgardo Civallero, 145-157. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2011. —. “Nicolai Hartmann.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2012, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nicolai-hartmann/. —. Introduction to Possibility and Actuality by Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.



CHAPTER THREE DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROCESS ONTOLOGY1 VESSELIN PETROV

Abstract In the last few decades, the discipline of ontology has enjoyed an increasing amount of interest and there has been a corresponding rise in the number of ontological systems, in both the philosophical and scientific senses, that have appeared. The same is true, in particular, for process ontology and the other types of dynamic ontology. The aim of the paper is to investigate the dynamic aspects of the development of process ontology and to outline the basic tendencies or characteristics of this development. In it, I will first ask what are the main present tendencies in the development of process ontology? Responding to this question will involve an examination of the course of development of contemporary process ontology after Whitehead. The focus here is on three kinds of change in relation to process ontological theories: (1) theory revision by partial replacement and local changes in the existing category system; (2) radical revision of the process ontological theory by wholesale replacement of the existing category system; and (3) expansion of the theory by specialization. Second, I shall make some predictions about the possible logical steps that will be taken in the future course of development of process ontological systems. Both tasks are closely related with the development of process ontology, construed in both the philosophical and scientific senses.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

45

Keywords Process ontology; dynamic ontology; dynamic process ontology; types of process ontology theory revision; key characteristics of the further development of process ontology.

1. Introduction The aim of the present chapter is to throw light on the dynamic aspects of the development of process ontology and to outline some of the basic characteristics and tendencies of this development. Such an aim is metaontological in character, since it concerns the development of different process ontological systems. To make my aim clearer, some preliminary remarks will need to be made. First, we still do not yet have a truly developed “dynamics theory” in ontology. More than twelve years have passed since the 2002 “Processes: Analysis and Applications of Dynamic Categories” conference was held in Denmark, a gathering which was organized by Johanna Seibt and her colleagues, and which saw to the publication of one of the first important volumes devoted to the investigation of dynamic categories.2 Furthermore, there are still more questions than answers concerning the sense of the term “dynamics” and in theorizing about its ontological aspects. Generally speaking, dynamic entities in ontology are: processes, events, changes, developments, actions, motions, etc…. If one looks at the whole history of ontological investigations, we inevitably will agree with Johanna Seibt’s statement that perhaps most remarkable is the general neglect of dynamic entities among ontologists, with a few exceptions, notably Whitehead: dynamic entities are neither properly investigated nor employed as descriptive primitives. Throughout the history of ontological research, the world of human experience has been presented as an assembly of ‘static’ entities: substances, attributes, relations, facts, ideas—and more recently, tropes, temporally relativized property exemplifications, or four-dimensional expanses.3

If we approach the idea of dynamicity from the perspective of the history of philosophy, we shall see that the concept of dynamism has several meanings in philosophy, the most important among them being dynamism in an ontological sense. Various examples are found in Leibniz’ cosmological system, in the works of Spinoza, and more recently, in the writings of Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and others. Especially

46

Chapter Three

indicative is the attempt of early twentieth century American philosopher Andrew Paul Ushenko to develop a dynamic philosophy. According to him, the leading ideas toward a dynamic philosophy form no less than an attempt at a synthesis of two major ideologies which have shaped the course of philosophy. … The history of philosophy may be said to fall apart into two successive periods: the classical, inspired by static ideals, extends from the beginning of philosophy to the nineteenth century to be superseded by the romantic period which manifests a turn to the dynamic modes of being.4

In this respect, let us recall that the term “power” stems from the Ancient Greek term įȪȞĮȝȚȢ from which comes also the contemporary word “dynamics.” For Ushenko, “power plays the part of a substance but, unlike ‘substance’ of classical philosophy, power is an observable agency.”5 Recently, there have been some attempts to clarify the idea of dynamicity and dynamic systems. Johanna Seibt provides us with a notion of dynamicity that can be defined axiomatically, and preferably independently of time. According to her, there are seven ways to understand the notion of dynamicity. In other words, there are seven basic notions of dynamicity, which are “basic” in the sense that no one of them refers to other notions of dynamicity, time, or causality. These notions are as follows: (1) dynamicity = temporal extension; (2) dynamicity = transtemporal difference; (3) dynamicity = productivity; (4) dynamicity = creativity; (5) dynamicity = adaptivity; (6) dynamicity = telicity (directedness); (7) dynamicity = ongoingness. Every one of these meanings has its problems or insufficiencies, according to Seibt.6 Here, I will not provide a unique definition of the concept of dynamicity of my own. Rather, I will work with these existing notions in attempting to arrive at the aforementioned aim of this chapter. Second, up until now, very little work has been done on the principles of theory formation in ontology, namely, on the qualitative criteria for ontology as such and on the forms in which theory revision proceeds in ontology. Roberto Poli’s attempt to outline the differences between dynamical systems theories and process theories is useful to some extent for that purpose. According to him, the concept of dynamical systems theory is broader than the concept of process theories; process theories are only one special type of dynamical systems theory.7 His view stands in accordance with well-known scholar, Nicholas Rescher’s definition of a “process” as “a coordinated group of changes in the complexion of reality, an organized family of occurrences that are systematically linked to one another either causally or functionally.”8 As stated in his chapter in the present volume, Poli points out that

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

47

on the one hand, process theories explicitly require causation as the link that keeps the states of the underlying temporal continuum together [and] on the other hand, the continuum of classic dynamical systems does not need any “glue” to keep its points together.9

However, in order to understand the development of process ontology as a whole and to outline some of the basic characteristics of this development, one has to make a comparison between the different process ontological systems that have been composed up until now. Whitehead is a key figure in relation to the formation and development of the first systems of contemporary process ontology. Therefore, it would be important to try to answer the question of which path of theory revision process ontology took from Whitehead onward. Such a comparison will provide an opportunity to outline at least some of the characteristic features of the development of process ontological systems up to now, not as necessary or inevitable features, but as features of realized possibilities, namely, as logical features. In other words, the development of process ontology after Whitehead has its own logic and my first task will be to try to outline the key elements—the basic features—of that logic. This task mentioned above also leads to another and more interesting one. The question arises: on the basis of the outlined features, can we venture any predictions about what further developments are likely (or logically expected, maybe not necessarily expected) in the future? It can be surmised that reviewing the development of process ontology since Whitehead will help to provide some insight into the possible logic and key characteristics of future developments in process ontology, namely, of future process ontological systems. The structure of this essay is subordinate to these main tasks. In order to carry them out, in the first part of this chapter, it will be necessary to consider the development of some main process ontological systems (or process ontologies) after Whitehead, and to compare them, so as to outline some of their basic characteristics. Second, it will be imperative to speculate as to the eventual future development of process ontologies, stemming from the comparisons that are made in the first part.

2. The Development of Process Ontology after Whitehead Up to the Present Day Before outlining the development of process ontology after Whitehead, there are a few things to clarify. My focus here will be three kinds of change respecting the development of ontology: (1) theory revision by way of partial replacement of elements of an existing category system

48

Chapter Three

and/or local alterations to a categorical network; (2) radical ontology theory revision by way of wholesale replacement of the existing category system; and (3) the expansion of theory by way of specialization. Pertaining to (1) theory revision by way of partial replacement, above, if one has a look at more than two thousand years of the history of the development of ontology, one can observe that there were many attempts since the origination of Aristotle’s system of ten basic categories to augment the number of categories so as to provide a more all-embracing explanation of the world. As such, it is possible to formulate as a first dynamic feature of the development of ontologies (including recent dynamic ontologies), namely, (a) the tendency to increase the number of categories in ontological systems. Of course, it should be pointed out that another possible feature of development of ontology may involve (b) the tendency of decreasing the number of categories in ontological systems, so as to achieve clarity, yet at the same time, preserve comprehensiveness. The last feature directs us to a mechanism by which change is realized, namely, to (c) the substitution of a new category for some old one. What is important to note here is that if the substituted category in an ontological system is one of the more important ones in the “tree” of categories, its substitution leads to a general change in the ontology itself or even to its replacement with another ontology. As an example of the situation just described, one can point to the appearance of dynamic ontologies that replaced the previously developed static ontologies. I will not consider here the details of the opposition between dynamic ontologies and static ones, as it is not my aim in the present paper. But I will consider various replacements for the category of “substance.” There are many different interpretations of the category of “substance” and there have been many attempts “to develop a dynamic conception of being.”10 Some of them begin with the claim that “there is a dynamic ontological framework”11 implied by Aristotle’s own original notion of “substance.” To be sure, according to Mary-Louise Gill, “Aristotle’s conception of being is dynamic. He believes that a thing is most itself when engaged in its proper activities, governed by its nature.”12 This means that the full manifestation of what a thing is, is to be found in its activity. A generalization of this claim is to be found in Ian Thompson’s statement that if we were to start from a simple process world of events, and supplement this by some kind of causal analysis, we can be led to a concept of substance. … Our aim is to derive a concept of substance independently of classical physics, so we can bypass some unwanted meanings that have accumulated from material corpuscularism. In this way, we can perhaps

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

49

regain some of the insights of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Locke concerning substances.”13

I will not go into historical comparisons of the ontological views of Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke and other great figures in the history of philosophy here. For me, it is enough to build on the presupposition that the most successful attempts at developing a dynamic ontology have been made in the vein of process ontology. As we know well, the originator of contemporary process philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century was Whitehead.14 But, one must remark that due to the complexity of his ontological and/or metaphysical system, it is difficult to understand. By contrast, Nicholas’ Rescher’s version of process ontology, which is based on the aforementioned definition of a “process,” is much easier to understand.15 In the next paragraphs, I will refer to the Rescherian version of process philosophy, followed by a return to Whitehead’s version. The Rescherian version of process ontology emphasizes, first of all, the claim that “process is a principal category of ontological description” and that “processes—and force, energy, and power that they make manifest— are more fundamental, or at any rate not less fundamental than things for the purposes of ontological theory.”16 This points to the application of the feature of a substitution of a new category for an old one. Here, there is the substitution of “process” for the old category of “substance.” According to Rescher, there are weak and strong versions of process philosophy. The weak version posits the priority, but not the primacy, of “processes” over static “substances,” while the strong version holds to the primacy of the former over the latter. As pointed out by Anderson Weekes, Rescher understands priority by way of dependence: if the one term is dependent on the other, but not vice versa, the independent term is prior … [and he] understands primacy by way of reducibility: the one term not only depends on, but also reduces to the other, having no residual being on its own.17

In the weak forms of process ontology there is no substitution, but just the inclusion of the category of process into some substance-ontological system. In other words, we do not have a substitution of categories, but an increase in the number of categories in the ontological system. Rescher draws the same conclusion when he claims that, pertaining to a strong version, “in a dynamic world, things cannot do without processes. Since substantial things change, their nature must encompass some impetus to internal development.”18 On the contrary, Rescher states, pertaining to a weak version, “in a dynamic world, processes are more fundamental than things. Since substantial things emerge in and from the world’s course of

50

Chapter Three

changes, processes have priority over things.”19 However, Rescher’s further claim that “the process approach provides an effective framework for better understanding both the conduct and product of rational inquiry”20 does suggest a substitution of a new category of “process” for the old category of “substance.” It illustrates the revision of the ontological theory by supplementation and by partial replacement—the first form of theory revision in ontology. In contrast to Rescher’s process ontology, Whitehead’s own process ontology is a good example of the second form of theory revision in ontology, pertaining to (2) above—the revision by wholesale replacement, as in the example of Whitehead, who has a strong form of process ontology, replacing the category of “substance” by the category of “actual occasion.” Here, not only are categories replaced, but also some of the fundamental assumptions that drive category construction are altered. In order to illustrate the importance of the latter aspect of change, I shall make a brief comparison of Whitehead’s ontology and Justus Buchler’s ontology. Neither Whitehead nor Buchler are substance ontologists. However, Whitehead’s ontology is a strong process ontology, while Buchler’s ontology is not at all a process ontology—rather, it is a specific kind of naturalism. The difference between them is due not just to the replacement of the important category of “substance” with another one, but to the ontological principles that both philosophers support. Whitehead preserves some of the principles of classical substance ontology. In the classical substance ontology, the principle of atomicity is closely related to its other basic principles, for example, the principle of identity. Under the hypothesis of atomicity, it is assumed that individualities are what they are intrinsically and are essentially independent from any relations and contexts. As a result, it is held that substances preserve their identity, even through changes to some of their features, a notion that is generally called the principle of “substance identity.”21 Whitehead repudiates the principle of “substance identity,” but he does not reject the principle of atomicity. In similar fashion to Leibniz, Whitehead combines the doctrine of internal relations with the view that substances are atomic. To be sure, in Process and Reality, Whitehead states that atomism is “the ultimate metaphysical truth.”22 He not only accepts the principle of atomicity, but also attaches ontological priority to the atomic individualities.23 Justus Buchler, the twentieth century American naturalist, deviates more radically from the traditional substance ontology than Whitehead does. Buchler rejects the principle of atomicity, while Whitehead combines a version of this doctrine with the notion of internal relations.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

51

Whitehead supports the independence of an actual occasion both as atomistic and as a causa sui.24 In contrast to Whitehead, Buchler adopts the principles of parity and ordinality, and thereby rejects the principles of atomicity and of independence. Recall that what is central in Buchler’s ontology is not the category of substance, but rather of “natural complexes.” The principle of ontological parity, which is central for Buchler’s ontology, states that “all natural complexes are equally real and no type of complex is ontologically more ultimate or more fundamental than any other.”25 Any natural complex is a constellation or an “order” of complexes. As pointed out by one commentator, Beth Singer, an order is not a substance, but a natural complex. Its traits are not universals, but are also natural complexes which, in turn, are also orders of natural complexes. The inclusive order itself is located in at least one other order or complex of related complexes. This is Buchler’s principle of ordinality: every natural complex is both an order of subaltern complexes and subaltern to (located in) other orders. It is this principle which grounds Buchler’s principle of ontological parity.26

There are no isolated, non-reducible or entirely independent elements in Buchler’s ontological system.27 However, as was expressed above, Buchler is not a process philosopher, and although Whitehead is definitely not a substance ontologist, he is not as radical in his non-substantiality as one might initially think.28 Beyond Buchler’s ordinal naturalism and Whitehead’s event ontology, ontologies of tropes, ontologies of hunks, ontologies of stages, and ontologies based on states-of-affairs also run counter to traditional substance ontologies. These approaches reject some of the key assumptions of the substance paradigm, but preserve others. As such, they are perhaps revisionary ontologies only. Additionally, there is one axiom of the substance paradigm that post-Cartesian ontologies, including the Whiteheadian process ontology, have not rejected. This axiom is the supposition that all concrete individualities are separate entities.29 Only the version of process ontology that has been developed recently by Johanna Seibt exceeds this limitation and provides a radical ontology theory revision through a wholesale replacement of the previously existing category system. Seibt developed the basic ideas that underlie her non-Whiteheadian process ontology in 1990. Employing a rather straightforward method of construction, she first identifies about twenty foundational assumptions in contemporary debates in analytical ontology that, according to her, are longstanding presuppositions of the substance paradigm. The substance paradigm is the dominant research paradigm in ontology that analytical

52

Chapter Three

ontologists have taken over from the philosophical tradition, together with a stock of standard formulations of central ontological problems. Then Seibt criticizes these presuppositions and explores whether the result is a workable ontology. The result is a monocategoreal scheme that is based on entities that Seibt, in her later work, calls “general processes.” Of course, in Seibt’s early publications these entities were called “dynamic masses” and “free processes.” In any case, in her monocategoreal framework she investigates the type of dynamic composition, including weak and strong emergence, the type of dynamic flow or “shape,” and the dynamic context surrounding a process.30 General Process Theory (GPT) is a monocategoreal ontology in the sense that all processes are instances of the basic category of “general process,” but different types of general processes may be distinguished using a five-dimensional scheme of classification. For instance, one can differentiate between general processes in terms of their dynamic composition: whether the interaction between the component processes is linear or non-linear, what kind of dynamic flow or shape in phase space they display, and how they interact within their context. The distinctive feature of GPT is, however, the idea that general processes are individuals but not particulars. Although GPT is a process ontology, general processes have little in common with Whiteheadian “actual occasions.”31 In GPT, a central role is played by “subjectless activities.” Seibt writes, “general processes are concrete dynamics that are best understood on the model of subjectless activities.”32 Subjectless activities are dynamic but they are not changes. Constitutive ‘phases’ of their overall dynamicity (for example: the change of place of every single flake constituting the dynamicity of the snowing) contribute to the functionality of the activity but not as temporal stages or phases. In contrast to developments, activities have no internal temporal differentiation. …[The logical properties of subjectless activities like ‘it is snowing’ can illustrate] the main category features of general processes: they are independent, concrete, spatiotemporally extended, non-particular, non-countable, determinable, and dynamic entities. Each of the mentioned category features is well-known from the ontological debate, but their combination is new (in fact, it is outright inconceivable as long as one chooses to remain spellbound by the presuppositions of the substance paradigm).33

As Seibt has further pointed out, GPT is a scheme designed to show not only that ontology can do without particulars, but also that non-particular entities are all we need—once we give up on foundational particularism, ontological frameworks can operate one basic category only.34

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

53

Subjectless activities give a suitable model for every ontological category of non-separate concrete individualities, namely, for concrete things that are not individualized from the point of view of their position and/or do not happen necessarily in unique space positions in any particular moment of time. These subjectless activities are used as a model for a novel category called “general processes,” pointing to seven characteristics of the subjectless activities that the new thing shares with its model. These are as follows: (a) subjectless activities occur on their own footing and are not modifications of persons or things; (b) subjectless activities are temporarily extensive—they are not momentary activities; (c) however different they are from the objects and quite similarly to stuffs (water, wood, etc…), subjectless activities occur in space and time in both indefinite and definite places; (d) subjectless activities are similar to the stuffs in that they are not countable; (e) in similar fashion as stuffs and properties, subjectless activities are not necessarily defined in all of their qualitative and functional aspects—ontologically speaking, they are determinable; (f) subjectless activities are individualized from the perspective of their role in dynamical context, but not through their position in space and time; and (g) subjectless activities are dynamic, but they are not changes.35 These seven aspects of subjectless activities correspond to the main features of the new category of “general processes.” As defined in the formal framework of the theory of general processes, general processes are independent, individual, concrete, extended in space-time, non-separable, non-countable, determinable, as well as being dynamic entities, in the traditional senses of these predicates. General processes are “ontological correlates” or “truth-makers,” not only for claims pertaining to subjectless activities, but also for claims about objects, stuffs, events, properties, actions, relations, persons, etc…. In other words, every concrete individuality is a general process, because logical differences between various claims pertaining to the objects and stuffs, or activities and events, can be explained from the perspective of the ontological differences among varieties of general processes.36 In relation to (3) the expansion of theory by way of specialization, the words of Barry Smith are insightful: for some 2000 years after Aristotle himself, ontology developed hardly at all, to such a degree that it formed a central part of what was habitually referred to as philosophia perennis. With the scientific revolution, however, philosophical taxonomies began to reflect sometimes radical developments in our understanding of the universe, and generally accepted

54

Chapter Three classifications began to change. Different schools of philosophy have offered different approaches to the provision of such a classification.37

That said, since the 1990s, computer scientists, and not just philosophers, have been working to answer ontological questions. Computer scientists have been engaged in inquiry in relation to knowledge representation, and researchers of information technology, more generally, have been working on information retrieval. This new interest in philosophical classification systems outside of the discipline of philosophy has stimulated new developments in ontology. Researchers of information technology distinguish between more general classifications (“top level ontologies”) and more specific classifications that pertain to a particular domain of application of the IT-systems in question (“regional ontologies”). These developments in the ontological research bring a new situation to the table. Today, one can observe that: (a) ontology is a discipline in which not only philosophers, but also IT researchers, are working, yet (b) what IT researchers have concentrated on and produced thus far are not ontologies but classification systems. In other words, ontology as a research area in philosophy comprises: (i) ontological theories that answer very specific and demanding methodological requirements; and (ii) classification systems that abide by more relaxed requirements, for instance, wherein more than one primitive generative relation (“is-a” and “has-a”) may be employed and the number of basic categories does not need to be minimal. That is why contemporary ontologists usually agree that there is no new “top-level process ontology” yet. None of the toplevel ontologies that have been developed by IT researchers are based on processes alone or countenance processes that are sufficiently “primary” to deserve that predicate. In one of my previous writings where I examined the present situation in relation to ontological investigation, I said that “the top-level ontologies and process ontologies have been understood in the sense of ontology as technology. Here the question arises: what about ontology as philosophy? One might suggest that above the “top-level ontologies” there should be an ontology that is considered to be philosophical ontology. Moreover, this philosophical ontology should be a kind of process ontology in the philosophical sense of the word.38 On the basis of these considerations, one can speculate that a tendency pertaining to future development of ontology, and of process ontology in particular, will be the emergence of new general or top-level ontologies and process ontologies, as well as the emergence of new regional ontologies. This tendency is what I mean by the expression (3) “expansion by specialization” articulated above. This tendency may be strong or weak.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

55

In the strong form, a new ontological system replaces some old one, and in the weak form, a new ontological system can be employed in addition to some old ontological system, in order to provide us with a more adequate understanding of the world. The weak version is exemplified by Andrew Paul Ushenko’s statement that even if we should prefer a realist interpretation of physics, we must not overlook the current shift of scientific interest and attention, from relativity to the quantum theory, which, in its philosophical implications, is favorable to a dynamic conception of nature.39

According to Ushenko, Whitehead has shown the way toward a combination of the static conception of relativity physics and a dynamic process philosophy.40 One should expect that the strong version of expansion by specialization will be realized in some future process ontological investigations.

3. Possible Key Characteristics of Future Process Ontological Systems I shall now consider whether any predictions concerning the future development of process ontology can be accurately waged. Of course, such predictions should be based on the current tendencies in the development of process ontology and on the logical needs that may be present in order to answer current problems. The current state of development is leaning toward the creation of process ontologies that are more dynamic in character than Whitehead’s own process ontology. As Joseph Brenner observes, Whitehead previously defined his ‘philosophy of organism’ as an advance on subject-predicate and substance-quality forms of thought which in his view are not direct reflections of fact. His system preserves coherence via the discovery that the concrescence, which is equated with process, of any given actual entity involves the other actual entities among its components.41

In a previous essay, I mentioned that when one employs the down-top approach in the development of ontology as a philosophical method, one has to conclude that, as it relates to a truly dynamic ontology and method, the basic philosophical categories should be variable so that they can express the dynamic nature of reality.42 But the categories can be variable only if they are processes and not statically-understood substances. Therefore, one of the main potentialities for the future development of

56

Chapter Three

process ontology can be formulated as a claim that in a truly dynamic ontology, such as process ontology, the basic philosophical categories should themselves be variable, so that they can express the dynamic nature of reality. My task in the next paragraphs will be to explain in what sense the philosophical categories should be variable, namely, how to interpret the term “variable.” The American philosopher, Nicholas Rescher once pointed out that “anything that exists in this world exhibits an infinite descriptive depth. No account of it can come to the end of the line. Nature’s detail is inexhaustible.”43 This means that nature is not static; its “inexhaustibility” is due to nature’s dynamics and that is why a more adequate comprehension of it should be achieved via the advancement of dynamic ontologies. Another of Rescher’s key claims is that “nature is non-linear to an extent greater than we like to think,”44 a statement which again points favorably to the employment of a dynamic ontological framework as a basis for the philosophical comprehension of nature. Occasionally, philosophers ask about the future of ontology. Some philosophers today— usually representatives of the Hegelian schools in Eastern European countries—claim that Hegel’s ontology will be the dominant one in the future. Others, standing opposed to this view, claim that Hegel’s ontology is obsolete and that it will not be dominant in the future. However, I would like to suggest that there is another potential answer in the debate, stemming from the widely accepted notion that Hegel is a process philosopher in the broad sense of the term. About twenty-five years ago, the American philosopher, George Lucas Jr. argued that, in general, there is not only one school dedicated to the development of process metaphysics or ontology, but four. These are: evolutionary cosmologies, the German idealistic philosophy of nature that originated in the works of Schelling and Hegel, the Anglo-American realism, and finally, Whitehead’s metaphysics or ontology.45 While Hegel’s process ontology precedes Whitehead’s process ontology, in the proper and more narrow sense, the latter represents the beginning of process ontology. But what should the next logical steps in the development of process ontological systems be? In the last few years there have appeared some attempts to answer this question. For instance, according to Joseph Brenner, the value of a process view of reality can be enhanced by reference to a new, transconsistent logic of reality that is grounded in the physical properties of energy in its various forms. These properties justify a principle of dynamic antagonism or opposition that explicates the

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

57

phenomena of change at all levels of reality. It can be, accordingly, a preferred logic for understanding the dynamics of real processes.46

In a number of recent publications, Brenner has sought to explain his position more fully. He states, “I will construct a logic of reality as energy based on what I will show are its dialectical characteristics, that is, that it instantiates a number of fundamental dualities.”47 In Logic in Reality (2008), Brenner’s main thesis is that the logic of/in reality, LIR, and its associated new energy ontology, NEO, provides a doctrine of emergence that is both physicalist and dualist, but its dualism follows the category of dynamic opposition and the axiom of Conditional Contradiction, and confirms the physical and metaphysical reality of emergence.48

According to him, LIR … [is] an applied categorial ontology. … The categories of a New Energy Ontology (NEO) are established, including the essential categories of Dynamic Opposition, Process and T-state (emergent included middle) and Subject-Object.49

As articulated in the above quotations, Brenner speaks of dialectics and his approach is more or less dialectical, although he understands dialectics in a slightly different manner as compared with the classical Hegelian meaning of this term. Brenner states, reality itself has a logical form or structure. I thus claim that logic not only should but can be extended to reality, and gives proper metaphysical weight to, some of its characteristics that have tended to be neglected. These include the concepts of dialectics.50

Brenner explains his alternative understanding of his notion of dialectics as follows: because of the parallels to Hegel’s dialectics, logic and ontology that may suggest themselves to the reader, it is useful to show in some detail how LIR should be differentiated from Hegel’s system.51

More concretely, Brenner states, the T-state is the included middle or third term in that it is located in the model at an intermediate point in a complex configuration space. In contrast to the Hegelian triad, the three elements here coexist at the same moment of time. It should be re-emphasized that “A and non-A at the

58

Chapter Three same time” does not mean that both are fully actual. One element is more or less actual, and the other is, correspondingly, more or less potential.52

In contrast to the Hegelian standpoint, Brenner points out that there is no deductive necessity in Hegel for thesis generating anti-thesis, let alone any subsequent fusion. My view is that LIR can be considered as Hegel naturalized, since a physical basis in reality for Hegelian change has been defined.53

And he explains that Hegel postulated a primarily diachronic sequence of A, non-A, and A as thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, whereas in LOR [logic of reality] there is a synchronic and diachronic existence of A, non-A and the T-state as an included third term. Hegel did not address the question of what drives the change from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, that is, how any term cannot “stand on its own” but “goes over” into its opposite. Hegel thought that antinomic arguments could drive thinking from one ontological category to the next, but he did not show how this could take place in reality.54

Brenner provides an interesting suggestion for the further development of process ontology—one that involves, in some sense, a “variability” of categories. But his proposal requires further elaboration. Also, it can be criticized in that, with its emphasis on dialectics, it embraces a neoHegelian standpoint. Even though Brenner seeks to distinguish his own interpretation of the term “dialectics” from Hegel, his viewpoint resembles it too much. Moreover, Brenner’s position can be criticized for advancing dialectics in any sense of the term. My task here, however, is not to pursue further criticism of Brenner’s position, but to refer to it as evidence that the search for possible novel paths for the development of process ontology is beginning. Brenner’s position serves to support the claim that a future tendency in the development of process ontology will be to make its categories variable in some sense. Returning to the comparison of Hegel’s and Whitehead’s respective process ontologies, one must stress that the latter is a step beyond Hegel’s and that it is not explicitly dialectical in character. To be sure, Whitehead’s categories do not develop in a dialectical manner, and Whitehead replaces Hegel’s seeming emphasis on the category of substance55 with the concept of “events,” or more accurately, “actual occasions.” Furthermore, while Hegel’s method of development has its basis in contradiction and is characterized by a spiral that unfolds via three dialectical “moments”— thesis, antithesis, and synthesis—there is a different method of development that is expressed by Whitehead in his magnum opus, Process

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

59

and Reality. Specifically, Whitehead’s scheme does not have its basis in contradiction. Rather, he asserts that “the elucidation of meaning involved in the phrase ‘all things flow’ is one chief task of metaphysics,”56 and then continues, on the next page, to make a clear distinction between the metaphysics of “substance” and the metaphysics of “flux.”57 Whitehead further elaborates on “the real internal constitution of a particular existent” and provides a “description of the human understanding as a process of reflection upon data,” pointing to the “implicit notion” that “the two kinds of flux” are “lost in the evolutionary monism of Hegel and of his derivative schools.”58 Whitehead explains that there are two kinds of fluency, required for the description of the fluent world. One kind is the fluency inherent in the constitution of the particular existent. This kind I have called ‘concrescence’. The other kind is the fluency whereby the perishing of the process, on the completion of the particular existent, constitutes that existent as an original element in the constitutions of other particular existents elicited by repetitions of process. This kind I have called ‘transition’.59

As distinct from Hegel’s dialectical method, which is based in contradiction, the scheme of development that is present in Whitehead’s ontology involves the alternation of the processes of “concrescence” and of “transition.” In this way, as compared with Hegel’s dialectical scheme of spiral development, there is good reason to consider Whitehead’s scheme as being a novel stage in the description of the processive character of development. Whitehead’s ontology is arguably more adequate, since it corresponds better with contemporary science. Some process philosophers are inclined to evaluate Whitehead’s theory as a new and much more adequate (or we could say “post-modern”) dialectics in comparison with Hegel’s dialectics. However, in the strict sense of the word, Hegel’s dialectics are closely connected with the concept of ongoing contradiction, such that the term as it is typically employed nowadays is closely associated with the notion of contradiction. In principle, it is possible to enlarge that typical sense of the term to include not only the Hegelian triad—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—but also, for example, a non-triadic conception involving perhaps four steps rather than three. Obviously, in this case, the scheme would not be based on contradiction. On the contrary, schemes of development like Whitehead’s, which are based on the notions of “concrescence” and of “transition,” would exemplify the wider meaning of the term “dialectics.” However, it is clear that such wider understandings of the term would not be original. Therefore, employing the term “dialectics” would not provide us with something truly novel in terms of explanatory power. Moreover, it is

60

Chapter Three

perhaps both inadequate and undesirable to associate new directions of development of ontological theory with the term “dialectics.” My own expectation, as was said above in relation to the work of Joseph Brenner, is that, in the future, process ontology will adopt and elaborate on the idea of variable categories. Some philosophers would probably call such a non-Hegelian initiative “neo-dialectical,” but this would not be proper. Hegelians could consider such developments as a return to Hegel’s original ideas, these merely being represented in a new way via the notion of “process.” But what can definitely be hoped for now is that we shall arrive at an entirely new form of process ontology that is very different from Whitehead’s own version and that is distinct from other contemporary attempts to construct a non-Whiteheadian process ontology. What is important to stress here is that neither Whitehead’s process ontology nor any of the versions developed to date are built with an emphasis on Hegel’s dialectic. Furthermore, if they were built in a manner that is similar to Hegel’s scheme, most probably they would not be successful, since they would be viewed as an imitation of some of Hegel’s ideas. Perhaps the process ontology of the future will express, in a truly original way, ideas that remind us of the spirit of Hegel’s ontology, but which will not consist in an imitation of Hegel. From the standpoint of Hegel’s scheme of development, it could be said that Hegel’s ontology is one of the first forms of process ontology, of which Whitehead’s and other contemporary versions are logical extensions. But the latter are very different from Hegel’s ontology. One should expect that the process ontology of the future will be a qualitatively new form of process ontology that will represent the advantages of Hegel’s, Whitehead’s, as well as other contemporary forms of process ontology, “synthesizing” them together in an original way. Even if the Hegelian point of view is accepted, it cannot necessarily be expected that the process ontology of the future will simply constitute a return to Hegel, because then there would simply be no development at all. In other words, the process ontology of the future that has variable categories ought not to be dialectical in the strict sense of the word. It will be a dynamic, process ontology. That said, in order to avoid misunderstanding, one needs to be careful with the meaning of the term “dynamic,” since the concept of “dynamical systems” is broader than the notion of process ontology. Perhaps it is still too early to specify what meaning the word “dynamic” would take on in the process ontology of the future. There are two more potentialities that should be considered in terms of the direction that process ontology will take in its future development.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

61

They are both closely related to the contemporary interest in the creation of ontological systems, and especially of process ontologies, that may apply equally to philosophy and science. The first consists in an ongoing synthesis of regional ontologies into new ones, or into a new higher-level ontology, largely by ignoring the details of the lower-level ontologies. This feature is easily observed in the development of the distinctly scientific ontologies of today. Let us recall the point made previously in this essay of the double influence, on the one hand, of philosophical ontologies on scientific ontologies—the so-called top-down approach— and on the other hand, of scientific ontologies on the upper-level philosophical ontologies—the so-called down-top approach. There are many examples of regional scientific ontologies being synthesized together into a new regional scientific ontology, perhaps even a higherlevel one. Due to the down-top influence, it is to be expected that the same tendency will soon appear in the philosophical ontologies that are methodologically “higher” than the regional scientific ontologies. Given the argument that the philosophical ontologies that best fulfill the role of a methodological framework for the scientific ontologies will likely be process ontologies, this expectation will apply first and foremost to process ontologies.60 The hypothesis that the number of philosophical process ontologies will increase in the future will further justify this expectation. The effects of a second important tendency can also be felt today, namely, the emergence of complex interrelations, interconnections, and interactions among distinct philosophical process ontologies. Even now it is evident that philosophical process ontologies influence each other, whether or not it be several different older systems influencing a newer one, or one older one influencing a novel many. For example, Whitehead’s ontological system greatly influenced Rescher’s as well as many others that have appeared recently. The newer process ontological systems also have their explicit or implicit interrelations, interconnections, and interactions among themselves. The same tendency is obviously evident for a number of scientific ontologies. As such, again, due to the top-down and the down-top influences and interrelations among the methodologically “higher” philosophical process ontologies and the “lower” leveled scientific ontologies, the tendency of the emergence of complex interrelations, interconnections, and interactions will display itself more and more in the future. My expectation is that this tendency will display itself more in the new philosophical process ontological systems than in the scientific ontologies. At any rate, I believe to have now presented the main tendencies that will be displayed in, and that will

62

Chapter Three

characterize, the further development of process ontology as a whole and/or of process ontological systems in general. I do not believe that in the near future we will see additional tendencies, beyond those just outlined, in play.

4. Conclusion To summarize what has been outlined in the two parts of this essay, I have classified all of the types of ontological theory revision that have been present after Whitehead. Specifically, these are: (1) theory revision by partial replacement and local change in an existing category system or categorical network; (2) radical theory revision of process ontologies by wholesale replacement of the existing category system; and (3) the expansion of the ontological theory by way of specialization. The first type of theory revision listed above in relation to process ontology is realized by several mechanisms of theory revision which correspond to some main tendencies in terms of the changes made to category systems of process ontology. These mechanisms are: (a) the tendency to increase the number of categories in ontological systems; (b) the opposite tendency of decreasing the number of categories in ontological systems; and (c) the tendency of substituting a new category for an old one. I have considered a second, more radical, theory revision that is realized not merely by substitution of a new category for an old one, but by a total replacement of the existing category system with a new one. The third type of revision— the expansion of the ontological theory by way of specialization—has been in play in the development and appearance of scientific ontologies of the last few decades, and it manifests itself in the interrelation and interaction among philosophical and scientific ontologies, and especially in the interrelation between “top-level” ontologies and “regional” ontologies. This type of theory revision is linked not only to the present state of development of process ontological systems, but also with a tendency for their future development, namely, the emergence of new general “top-level” ontologies and of new “regional” ontologies. This last type of theory revision raises questions concerning the tendencies that will be in play in the future development of process ontological theory. One of the most important tendencies that one would expect to appear in the course of development of the process ontologies of the future is the tendency for the philosophical categories to become variable. There are several examples in the history of philosophy of ontological systems having variable categories, Hegel’s dialectical system being one of them. However, Hegel’s dialectics is a rather old form of process ontology, and

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

63

it is neither fully conducive to becoming an ontological framework that is able to provide a comprehensive description of the world nor even of some regions of the world. On the contrary, Whitehead’s ontology is not a dialectical ontology. Rather, it is representative of one of the first attempts to construct a dynamic ontological system, although its categories, while open to revision, are not variable. More recently, there have been efforts to build an ontological system that has, in some sense, variable categories— one key example being Joseph Brenner’s “transtemporal logic” in its function as an ontological system. But this effort is still insufficient and the task to do so has not yet been realized in a satisfactory way. It is clear that such attempts will continue until more successful results are attained. All in all, it is clear that the aim to develop a process ontology that has variable categories is not merely the product of imagination. Rather, it corresponds to the real present-day need to build a process ontology that is both contemporary in spirit and can offer a more adequate framework which can be of assistance to contemporary science as it makes new discoveries. While it is necessary to arrive at a process ontology that has variable categories, this should not be taken to mean that all process ontologies of the future will have them. Rather, it means that one should expect that at least one process ontology of the future, or several of them, will have them. This tendency is only a potential one, but it is a very real, and not abstract, possibility. What is clear is that the idea of building a process ontology that has variable categories will be realized at some point, and what is not clear is what concrete form will such a new process ontology have. It could be based in a new kind of “dialectics,” although I personally do not think this will be the case. Another possibility is that it will rather be a new kind of “dynamic” process ontology, and personally, I feel that this potentiality is one that will be realized. Other tendencies in the future development of process ontology which are not discussed all that much in the philosophical literature, but are still real and not abstract, involve, on the one hand, ongoing syntheses of regional ontologies into new ones or into a new higher-level ontology, and on the other hand, complex interrelations, interconnections, and interactions among distinct philosophical process ontologies. All of the tendencies that have been considered in this essay have been based on the present situation surrounding the development of process ontology. In this sense, they represent next logical steps in the course of development of process ontology. This means that not all process ontological systems of the future will see to the realization of these tendencies, but that inevitably there will be new process ontologies that will realize them and they will be the most successful and influential ones.

64

Chapter Three

The present day situation surrounding the development of process ontology does not provide us with any grounds for the formulation of other real tendencies. That is why I think there will be no other clear tendencies for the future development of process ontology in the near future besides those raised in the paper.

Notes 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the third Sofia International Conference on Ontology—2012 (SICO’12), Dynamic Being, which took place from June 21st to 24th, 2012, in Sofia, Bulgaria. I am especially indebted to Johanna Seibt for her useful comments and suggestions for improving the text of that first variant of the paper. 2. Johanna Seibt (ed.) et al., Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories (Dorchrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004). 3. Seibt, Process Theories, vii. 4. Andrew Paul Ushenko, Power and Events: An Essay on Dynamism in Philosophy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1946 / 1969), ix. 5. Ushenko, Power and Events, 27. 6. Johanna Seibt, unpublished manuscript. 7. See Roberto Poli’s essay, “The Difference Between Dynamical System and Process Theories” in the present volume (Chapter One). 8. Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press), 38. 9. Roberto Poli, “The Difference Between Dynamical System and Process Theories” in the present volume, 1. 10. Christopher P. Long, “Towards a Dynamic Conception of ousia: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy,” 1998, http://web.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciLong.htm. 11. Long, “Towards a Dynamic Conception of ousia.” 12. Mary-Louise Gill, Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 3. 13. Ian J. Thompson, “Process Theory and the Concept of Substance,” Generative Science (2003): http://www.generativescience.org/ph-papers/subst5c.html. 14. See Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978). 15. See Rescher, Process Metaphysics; Nicholas Rescher, Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000a); Inquiry Dynamics (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2000b); Nature and Understanding: The Metaphysics and Method of Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000c); Process Philosophical Deliberations (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2006). 16. Rescher, Process Metaphysics, 31.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

65

17. Anderson Weekes, “Process Philosophy: Via Idearum Or Via Negativa?” in After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics, edited by Michel Weber (Frankfurt-Lancaster: Ontos-Verlag, 2004), 225. 18. Rescher, Process Metaphysics, 28. 19. Rescher, Process Metaphysics, 28. 20. Rescher, Process Metaphysics, 173. 21. See Beth J. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” in Nature’s Perspectives: Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics, ed. Armen Marsoobian, Kathleen Wallace, and Robert S. Corrington (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 74. 22. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 35. 23. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” 76-77. 24. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” 88. 25. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” 82. 26. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” 83. 27. Singer, “Substitutes for Substances,” 86-87. 28. For a detailed explanation of Buchler’s position see Beth J. Singer, Ordinal Naturalism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Justus Buchler (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1983). 29. Johanna Seibt, “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory,” Synthese 166.3 (February 2009): 484. 30. Seibt, Process Theories, xi. 31. Johanna Seibt, “Particulars,” in Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Roberto Poli and Johanna Seibt (New York: Springer, 2010), 47. 32. Seibt, “Particulars,” 51. 33. Seibt, “Particulars,” 48. 34. Seibt, “Particulars,” 52-53. 35. Seibt, “Forms of Emergent Interaction,” 485-486. 36. Seibt, “Forms of Emergent Interaction,” 486. 37. Barry Smith and Christopher Welty, Ontology: Towards a New Synthesis, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Formal Ontology and Information Systems (Ogunquit, Maine, 2001), http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~weltyc/papers/fois-intro.pdf, 2. 38. Vesselin Petrov, “Process Ontology in the Context of Applied Philosophy,” in Ontological Landscapes. Recent Thought on Conceptual Interfaces Between Science and Philosophy, ed. Vesselin Petrov (Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag, 2011), 151. 39. Ushenko, Power and Events, 146-147. 40. Ushenko, Power and Events, 151. 41. Joseph Brenner, “Process in Reality: A Logical Offering,” Logic and Logical Philosophy 15 (2005), 185, italics in the original text. 42. Vesselin Petrov, “Dynamic Ontology as An Ontological Framework of Anticipatory Systems,” Foresight 12.3 (2010): 41. 43. Rescher, Nature and Understanding, 22-23. 44. Rescher, Nature and Understanding, 24. 45. George Lucas Jr., The Rehabilitation of Whitehead (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 165.

66

Chapter Three

46. Brenner, “Process in Reality,” 165. 47. Brenner, “Process in Reality,” 169. 48. Joseph Brenner, Logic in Reality (New York: Springer, 2008), 285. 49. Brenner, Logic in Reality, 81. 50. Brenner, Logic in Reality, 2, italics mine. 51. Brenner, Logic in Reality, 216. 52. Brenner, Logic in Reality, 106. 53. Brenner, Logic in Reality, 218-219, italics in the original text. 54. Brenner, “Process in Reality,” 176. 55. Although admittedly the category of substance is dialectically sublated— cancelled, yet “preserved” and “raised up”—in Hegel’s Logic via the notions of “causality” and “reciprocal action.” 56. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 208. 57. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 209. 58. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 210. 59. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 210. 60. Petrov, “Process Ontology in the Context of Applied Philosophy,” 151-152.

References Bickhard, Mark H. “Interactivism: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Synthese 166.3 (Februrary 2009): 449-451. Brenner, Joseph. “Process in Reality: A Logical Offering.” Logic and Logical Philosophy 15 (2005): 165-202. —. Logic in Reality. New York: Springer, 2008. Gill, Mary-Louise. Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. —. “Aristotle’s Distinction Between Change and Activity.” In Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories, edited by Johanna Seibt, 3-22. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. Long, Christopher P. “Towards a Dynamic Conception of Ousia: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy,” 1998, http://web.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciLong.htm. Lucas, George, Jr. The Rehabilitation of Whitehead. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Petrov, Vesselin. “Dynamic Ontology as An Ontological Framework of Anticipatory Systems.” Foresight 12.3, 2010, 38-49. —. “Process Ontology in the Context of Applied Philosophy.” In Ontological Landscapes: Recent Thought on Conceptual Interfaces Between Science and Philosophy, edited by Vesselin Petrov, 137-156. Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag, 2011. Rescher, Nicholas. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Dynamic Aspects of the Development of Process Ontology

67

—. Process Philosophy. A Survey of Basic Issues. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000a. —. Inquiry Dynamics. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2000b. —. Nature and Understanding: The Metaphysics and Method of Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000c. —. Process Philosophical Deliberations, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2006. Seibt, Johanna (ed.) et al. Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. —. “Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory.” Synthese 166.3 (February 2009): 479-512. —. “Particulars.” In Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Roberto Poli and Johanna Seibt, 23-56. New York: Springer, 2010. Singer, Beth J. Ordinal Naturalism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Justus Buchler. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1983. —. “Substitutes for Substances.” In Nature’s Perspectives: Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics, edited by Armen Marsoobian, Kathleen Wallace, and Robert S. Corrington, 73-92. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Smith, Barry, and Christopher Welty. Ontology: Towards a New Synthesis. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Formal Ontology and Information Systems, Ogunquit, Maine, 2001, http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~weltyc/papers/fois-intro.pdf. Thompson, Ian J. “Process Theory and the Concept of Substance,” Generative Science 2003, http://www.generativescience.org/phpapers/subst5c.html. Ushenko, Andrew Paul. Power and Events: An Essay on Dynamism in Philosophy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1946 / 1969. Weekes, Anderson. “Process Philosophy: Via Idearum Or Via Negativa?” In After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics, edited by Michel Weber, 223-266. Frankfurt-Lancaster: Ontos-Verlag, 2004. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978.



CHAPTER FOUR ASPECTS OF DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY IN WHITEHEAD’S PROCESS AND REALITY1 HELMUT MAASSEN

Abstract Whitehead’s philosophical method can be adequately described as empirical and speculative. An initial comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant reveals that Whitehead’s metaphysics can be characterized as a form of “transcendentalism” or “speculative realism.” In a concluding section of this paper, the relevance of metaphysics to practical philosophy will be explained.

Keywords Empirical and speculative method; ontological status of actual entities; Thomas Aquinas; Immanuel Kant; transcendentalism; speculative realism; feeling; practical philosophy.

1. Introduction In the history of philosophy, Whitehead’s metaphysics stands closest to Leibniz’s monadology. The notion of a single ontological unit, which allows one to explain all of reality, is common to both. I cannot focus on their differences here in this paper, but I would like to refer the reader to the excellent work by Gilles Deleuze, entitled The Fold. In any case, the ontological unit, upon which Whitehead’s metaphysics has its foundation, is called an “actual entity.” An actual entity is a center of activity—the subject, if you like—which prehends. Or, to put it differently, “actual entities involve each other by reason of their prehensions of each other.”2

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

69

2. The Ontological Principle and Metaphysics If one looks for the words “prehension” or “to prehend” in the Oxford English Dictionary, one’s search will be in vain, since these terms are inventions of Alfred North Whitehead. That said, the term, “prehendere” in Latin, means: 1. To lay hold of, seize, grasp, grab, snatch, take, catch; 2. To detain (someone in order to speak with him/her); accost, lay, or catch ahold of; 3. To take (by surprise), or catch (in the act); 4. To (of trees) take root; 5. To (poetic) reach, arrive at, attain; 6. To (poetic) take in, reach, or embrace (with the eye); 7. To (figuratively, rare, pertaining to the mind) seize, apprehend, comprehend, grasp.3

In describing the foundation of his metaphysical endeavor, in Process and Reality, Whitehead introduces the ontological principle as follows: “according to the ontological principle there is nothing which floats into the world from nowhere.”4 This principle of rationality corresponds to a causal principle. Whitehead writes that “this ontological principle means that actual entities are the only reasons, so that to search for a reason is to search for one or more actual entities.”5 The importance of the ontological principle becomes clearer in several other ways. It explains the implication for each process of prehension in terms of its emotional value. Each genetic process of an actual entity involves a value judgment. Whitehead states, the ontological principle asserts the relativity of decision; whereby every decision expresses the relation of the actual thing, for which a decision is made, to an actual thing by which that decision is made.6

Whitehead goes even further when he claims that the ontological principle declares that every decision is referred to one or more actual entities, because in separation from actual entities there is nothing, merely nonentity—‘The rest is silence’.7

It follows that, for Whitehead, metaphysics has to refer to the here and now, namely, to the actual and not to generalities, abstraction, or to something which is beyond the world. “Das Wahre ‘ereignet sich’ (Hölderlin, Mnemosyne); es wird ‘eräugt’ im Augenblick”—“what is true happens; it is seen in the moment.”8 This

70

Chapter Four

metaphysics of immanence is based in experience. The subject “grasps” the past and adds something new to it in becoming a new “it,” i.e., the new actual entity. Or, to put it differently, “the aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something—because it is always before one’s eyes).”9 As Günter Wohlfart, who is highly critical of any metaphysics, concedes, “no metaphysics. No transcendence—at most into the immanence. The ‘essence’ is not hidden behind the phenomena. The phenomena [themselves] are the ‘essence’.”10

3. Whitehead’s Method of Philosophy: Empirical and Speculative Whitehead’s definition of speculative philosophy reads as follows: Speculative Philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of ‘interpretation’ I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical scheme should be coherent, logical, and, in respect to its interpretation, applicable and adequate.11

It is necessary to remind oneself of this definition, because each treatment of that particular topic concerning Whitehead’s thought has to be bracketed by the requirements stated above. Therefore, each and every single thought is to be related to the whole framework of his metaphysics. Or, at least, it should be possible to do so. The metaphysical system that is described in Process and Reality has both an empirical and a rational side. Whitehead describes this in his famous analogy of an airplane: the true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.12

According to Peter Strawson, two types of metaphysics can be distinguished. Whereas “descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure.”13 Peter Simons classifies Whitehead’s metaphysics as being of the revisionary type.14 While

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

71

Simons’ assessment is correct because, on several occasions, Whitehead stresses the unavoidably insufficient and inadequate formulation of metaphysics, at the same time, he emphasizes that there is also an empirical, descriptive, basis to his metaphysics. One could conclude that Whitehead tries to overcome these distinctions in his own form of speculative philosophy. Coherence, for Whitehead, means that his own philosophical scheme is coherent, not only in itself, but also in relation to the history of philosophy. Hence, one can find a two-fold form of coherence in Whitehead’s approach to philosophy: systematic and historical.15 Whitehead goes even further in stating that any new metaphysical system has to be able to identify and to explain shortcomings, errors, misconceptions, and proper conceptions in past philosophical schemes, but, at the same time, it has to be “self-critical.” In other words, it needs to be aware of its own limitations, or, in Strawsonian terms, it must provide for the possibility of revision. Whitehead’s remarks on the history of philosophy provide context for understanding the coherence between his own system and the historical development of ideas. To be sure, Whitehead relates his own system to past philosophical endeavors, suggesting, for instance, that “the cosmology explained in these lectures has been framed in accordance with this reliance on the positive value of the philosophical tradition.”16 Similarly, this interpretation could provide a way of understanding Whitehead’s often quoted passage: “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”17 This is not a derogatory remark against the history of Western Philosophy. Quite the opposite, it is meant to stress the continuity in the history of Philosophy despite all of its differences.18

4. Actual Entity: Ontological Status and Its Genesis In his book, The Analysis of Matter (1927), Bertrand Russell states that it was Alfred North Whitehead who taught us to employ the concept of “event” and not that of “matter” anymore.19 In Process and Reality, Whitehead calls this the “ontological principle.” What Whitehead termed “event” in some of his early philosophical works, such as The Concept of Nature (1919), he later calls “actual entity” or “actual occasion.”20 Actual entities are analyzable in an indefinite number of ways. Whitehead writes that “the analysis of an actual entity into prehensions is in that mode of analysis which exhibits the most concrete elements in the nature of actual entities.”21 “Prehensions” are the processes by which

72

Chapter Four

actual entities are related to one another. Prehensions are real, individual, and particular. Any particular fact of togetherness of actual entities is called a “nexus.” Each actual entity is in a process of becoming, a process that, in general, starts with its mental pole and ends with its physical pole. “Concrescence” is Whitehead’s term to designate the process of becoming. The forms that are adopted by these processes of becoming are provided by the “eternal objects,” which are, in turn, provided by other actual entities as well as the foremost actual entity, namely, God. In this way, each actual entity is, to some extent, linked to the whole universe: past, present, and future. Similar to Plato’s philosophy, the eternal objects—the forms—are the potentials for each process of becoming. Whitehead summarizes these categories of existence in the following way: there are eight Categories of Existence: (i) Actual Entities (also termed Actual Occasions), or Final Realities, or Res Verae. (ii) Prehensions, or Concrete Facts of Relatedness. (iii) Nexus (plural of Nexnjs), or Public Matters of Fact. (iv) Subjective Forms, or Private Matters of Fact. (v) Eternal Objects, or Pure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Fact, or Forms of Definiteness. (vi) Propositions, or Matters of Fact in Potential Determination, or Impure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Matters of Fact, or Theories. (vii) Multiplicities, or Pure Disjunctions of Diverse Entities. (viii) Contrasts, or Modes of Synthesis of Entities in one Prehension, or Patterned Entities.22

This brief description of the process of becoming makes it easier to understand what Whitehead calls the “Category of the Ultimate.”23 The Category of the Ultimate shows what underlies all of these processes of becoming. “Creativity,” “the many,” and “the one,” are the notions pertaining to this category. Creativity is the principle of novelty. Each process is never just a repetition of what has been or what will be, but more or less something new. In the creative process, the many actual entities concresce into one and are increased by one. Whitehead remarks that the Category of the Ultimate replaces Aristotle’s category of “primary substance.” Thus, the production of novel togetherness is the ultimate notion embodied in the term “concrescence.” What is the ontological status of an actual entity? In a discussion following one of his lectures, Whitehead expressed the ontological status or size of an actual entity in a sarcastic way by spreading his thumb and forefinger and by asking: “what do you think, this much? Or a little smaller?” James Bradley has made it clear that actual entities are concepts. He writes that

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

73

Whitehead’s generic notion of actual entities must be taken as that and nothing else, that is, as a metaphysical description of the nature of real things, and not as involving any claim that actual entities are real things, or the real constituents of things. In Whitehead’s philosophy, real things must be described as actual entities, but this does not mean that things are really actual entities or that actual entities are real. The point of Whitehead’s cosmology—as for any cosmology—is that its generic concept [the concept of an actual entity] is the true descriptive model of the world, and is in that sense actual or real; Whitehead is not maintaining that the world is full of descriptive models. The view of actual entities as real existence [whether microscopic, macroscopic, or ‘hypothetical’], rather than as descriptions of the real, has vitiated the understanding of Whitehead from the outset.24

Bradley further states that Whitehead’s concern with finite self-actualization aligns him with theorists such as Bergson, Nietzsche, and the later Heidegger in rejecting any notion of the real as complete or completely realized—whether the complete reality is understood pluralistically as a matter of truths (Santayana, Frege), or facts (Ramsay, Mellor), or monistically as the one Real (Spinoza, Hegel, F. H. Bradley).25

Still, the event is not simply defined as spontaneous self-organization, “but seriously or genetically—as serious security occasions of self-actualization.”26 Bradley claims that the most adequate description of Whitehead’s metaphysics could be called transcendentalism and speculative realism. Whitehead’s standpoint is unlike Nietzsche’s and Bergson’s, but corresponds with that of the later Heidegger and with Deleuze in that “with their respective series of the finite, self-actualizing event, active existence is defined as a dynamic act without reference to any grounding principle of any kind.”27 To my knowledge, Bradley was the first to place Whitehead in the context of the long and varied history of transcendental analysis, to which Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant belong. He states that in the Thomist tradition, there are four basic transcendentals: the concept of ‘being’ (ens), ‘thing’ (res), ‘unity’ (unum), and ‘distinction’ or ‘difference’ (aliquid). They are called transcendentals because they transcend every genus. They are the transcendental predicates of being because they can be predicated of everything that is: i.e., everything that is, in some sense ‘is,’ is something, is a unity, and is distinct from another. You will notice that these predicates imply each other, or are convertible with each other.28

Chapter Four

74

Concerning the status of being, the Thomistic tradition claims that it is a virtual distinction, and not a distinction of the thing itself. A virtual distinction is one in the mind, but it still allows us to describe the object adequately. It is to be noted that the object would be called “subject” by Aquinas. For him, the esse or act of being is that which makes the transcendental predicates possible. Esse is, so to speak, an antecedent condition, not a consequent feature of things. In the Thomistic analysis, this means that finite esse is a matter of some limited, participated share in the infinite esse or pure act, which is God. It is finite or derived esse, which the concept of ens signifies.29

Kant takes up the medieval notion of transcendental analysis, but redefines it completely. Unlike medieval thinkers, Kant is not concerned with a theory of universals or the common properties of things, but rather with the conditions that make possible the cognition of universals and particulars, concepts and objects, namely, with the conditions that make such distinctions possible. He is not concerned with the transcendental predicates of things, but rather with the requirements of the cognition of things and their predicates. According to Bradley, it becomes clear that for Kant, “transcendental predicates are treated, not as consequent contents, but as antecedent conditions of possibility, understood as the conditions of the cognition of the empirical realm.”30 Looking at this outline of transcendental analysis, for Bradley, one can say that Whitehead “makes esse or the act of existence the subject of analysis.”31 Unlike in the medieval tradition, Whitehead’s categories are not consequent properties of being as ens, but are conditions of the actualization of being as ens. That is to say, Whitehead’s categories—like Kant’s—are not distinctions in things, as in the medieval philosophers’ dispute in terms of real or virtual distinction, etc…; rather, Whitehead’s categories are the conditions which make possible things and their distinct features.32

As Bradley suggests, perhaps … the best way to state the unusual character of Whitehead’s transcendental analysis is the way he himself does, when he says, in Process and Reality, that ‘Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic becomes a distorted fragment of what should have been his main topic’.33

In other words, what Kant treats as transcendental conditions in their own right, namely, matter and forms of intuition, and what he defines as

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

75

conditions of cognition, Whitehead regards as requiring analysis in terms of a complex structure of transcendental conditions, understood as conditions of the serially self-actualizing natures of all things. This is, in part, what he means when he calls his analysis a “critique of pure feeling.”34 Bradley summarizes Whitehead’s relation to Kant in the following way: it can thus be said that whereas medieval transcendentalism thinks being in terms of its representable features, and Kantian transcendentalism thinks being in terms of the conditions of its representation, Whitehead's transcendentalism thinks being in terms of its immanent, serial conditions of self-actualization.35

It is this new kind of transcendentalism which Russell dimly sensed, when he wrote, in relation to Process and Reality, that Whitehead “had always had a leaning toward Kant,”36 and it is by means of this that Whitehead would recover, in a new form, “the logical attitude of the epoch of … Aquinas.”37

5. Forms of Process—Feeling As mentioned earlier, the key section enabling an understanding of the internal process of becoming pertaining to actual entities is Part Three of Process and Reality—the “Theory of Prehensions.” The first four chapters of this part of the book deal explicitly with feelings and its fifth chapter is called “The Higher Phases of Experience.” The fifth chapter deals with the more complex feelings, which lead to consciousness. I will not go into the details of this section here, but I will provide an outline of Whitehead’s argument for his philosophy of organism. According to Whitehead, the philosophy of organism is a cell-theory of actuality. Each ultimate unit of fact is a cell-complex, not analysable into components with equivalent completeness of actuality. The cell can be considered genetically and morphologically. The genetic theory is considered in this part; the morphological theory is considered in Part IV, under the title of the ‘extensive analysis’ of an actual entity.”38

In providing this outline, I shall concentrate on Part Three of Process and Reality: the genetic analysis. Whitehead distinguishes between “positive” and “negative” prehensions. While actual entities are positively prehended, certain eternal objects

76

Chapter Four

(forms) can be excluded from the process of concrescence. Whitehead calls these exclusions “negative prehensions.” He states, each actual entity is ‘divisible’ in an indefinite number of ways, and each way of ‘division’ yields its definite quota of prehensions. A prehension reproduces in itself the general characteristics of an actual entity: it is referent to an external world, and in this sense will be said to have a ‘vector character’; it involves emotion, and purpose, and valuation, and causation. In fact, any characteristic of an actual entity is reproduced in a prehension.39

The end of the process of concrescence is called “satisfaction.” The atomic nature of an actual entity is “preserved” in this way. After it has reached satisfaction, it becomes a factor in the concrescence of other actual entities. Positive prehensions are called feelings. This will, of course, be important, when we later consider a possible ethical basis within Whitehead’s metaphysics. For Whitehead, a feeling—i.e., a positive prehension—is essentially a transition effecting a concrescence. Its complex constitution is analysable into five factors which express what that transition consists of, and effects. The five factors are: (i) the ‘subject’ which feels, (ii) the ‘initial data’ which are to be felt, (iii) the ‘elimination’ in virtue of negative prehensions, (iv) the ‘objective datum’ which is felt, (v) the ‘subjective form’ which is how that subject feels that objective datum.40

Whitehead uses an interesting image to explain what is happening here. He makes an analogy to a Barrier Reef, stating that “on one side there is wreckage, and beyond it habourage and safety.”41 How does the process of concrescence begin? It starts with what Whitehead calls an “initial aim,” pointing to the actual entity’s “mental pole.” The provider of this initial aim is God, who is the realm of forms, corresponding generally with the notion of the hypodoche, or Receptacle, in Plato’s Timaeus.42 After the initial aim, the self-creating process shapes the nature of the actual entity, so to speak, in a manner similar to Spinoza’s causa sui. Whitehead introduces an additional term in the analysis of feeling, that of the “subject-superject.” He states, in the analysis of a feeling, whatever presents itself as also ante rem is a datum, whatever presents itself as exclusively in re and post rem is ‘subject-superject’. This doctrine of ‘feeling’ is the central doctrine concerning the becoming of an actual entity. In a feeling the actual world, selectively appropriated, is the presupposed datum, not formless but with

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

77

its own realized form selectively germane, in other words ‘objectified’. The subjective form is the ingression of novel form peculiar to the new particular fact, and with its peculiar mode of fusion with the objective datum.43

The actual entity therefore never is (an object), but is in a process of becoming; it is the subject. It is an object only for those actual entities which prehend it in their own processes of becoming. The opportunity for self-determination lies in the free self-creating process of concrescence; the goal of this process leading the actual entity either “upward” or “downward.” This is where moral considerations occur. Whitehead writes, the point to be noticed is that the actual entity, in a state of process during which it is not fully definite, determines its own ultimate definiteness. This is the whole point of moral responsibility. Such responsibility is conditioned by the limits of the data, and by the categoreal conditions of concrescence.44

6. The One and the Many In one important passage of Part Three of Process and Reality, Whitehead writes, a feeling cannot be abstracted from the actual entity entertaining it. This actual entity is termed the ‘subject’ of the feeling. It is in virtue of its subject that the feeling is one thing. If we abstract the subject from the feeling we are left with many things. Thus a feeling is a particular in the same sense in which each actual entity is a particular. It is one aspect of its own subject.

The term ‘subject’ has been retained because in this sense it is familiar in philosophy. But it is misleading. The term ‘superject’ would be better. The subject-superject is the purpose of the process originating the feelings. The feelings are inseparable from the end at which they aim; and this end is the feeler. The feelings aim at the feeler, as their final cause. The feelings are what they are in order that their subject may be what it is. Then transcendentally, since the subject is what it is in virtue of its feelings, it is only by means of its feelings that the subject objectively conditions the creativity transcendent beyond itself. In our own relatively high grade of human existence, this doctrine of feelings and their subject is best illustrated by our notion of moral responsibility. The subject is responsible for being what it is in virtue of its feelings. It is also derivatively responsible for the consequences of its existence because they flow from its feelings.

78

Chapter Four

If the subject-predicate form of statement be taken to be metaphysically ultimate, it is then impossible to express this doctrine of feelings and their superject. It is better to say that the feelings aim at their subject, than to say that they are aimed at their subject. For the latter mode of expression removes the subject from the scope of the feeling and assigns it to an external agency. Thus the feeling would be wrongly abstracted from its own final cause. This final cause is an inherent element in the feeling, constituting the unity of that feeling. An actual entity feels as it does feel in order to be the actual entity which it is. In this way an actual entity satisfies Spinoza's notion of substance: it is causa sui. The creativity is not an external agency with its own ulterior purposes.45 It should be noted that the Categories of the Ultimate are explicitly not taken as an external agent. Although these categories can be found in every concrescence, and, in that sense, they are transcendent or universal, they are always bound and determined by the superject itself, and are not in any way acting on their own.46 That the many become one and are increased by one is a general description of the serial process of becoming or self-actualization. Whitehead writes that ‘Creativity’ is the principle of novelty. An actual occasion is a novel entity diverse from any entity in the ‘many’ which it unifies. Thus ‘creativity’ introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The ‘creative advance’ is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates. ‘Together’ is a generic term covering the various special ways in which various sorts of entities are ‘together’ in any one actual occasion.47

Creativity is instantiated by the actual entity and it is neither an agency by itself nor does it function through another agency outside of it. The only operating agency is the subject-superject. Each of these processes of concrescence has an emotional tone, which is clearly emphasized by Whitehead in his use of the term “feelings” to designate “prehensions.” Or, as Robert C. Neville, as quoted by Steve Odin, has described this process, “experience is distinguished by virtue of involving a synthesis of otherwise merely causal components.”48 According to Odin, Neville describes the process of creative synthesis in the following way: Neville’s process theory of imaginative experiential synthesis, following Whitehead’s complete reversal of the Kantian doctrine of synthesis (i.e., as objectivity-into-subjectivity instead of subjectivity-into-objectivity), argues that each act of imaginative synthesis constitutes experience in the form of an objective world present to a subject.49

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

79

Every synthesis carries over a value, not a form. This leads to a refutation, for example, of modern sense-data theory.

7. Metaphysics and Practical Philosophy Finally, I would like to point out some of the consequences that a process ontology will have on practical philosophy.50 The importance of claiming independent entities without any internal relationship to anything else can be demonstrated, for example, by Thomas Hobbes’ concept of the state. Whitehead writes that Newtonian physics, with its “thoroughgoing doctrine of simple location and external relations”51 is an example of scientific materialism, which is based on “the independent individuality of each bit of matter. Each stone is conceived as fully describable apart from any reference to any other portion of matter.”52 Space and matter are the fundamental notions in the Newtonian theory. Time is not an essential feature, but rather an accident of the material. One is able, therefore, to abstract from change and to conceive of nature at a “durationless instant.”53 Hobbes’ political theory regards human nature as being endowed with certain desires, such as to preserve its vital motion, to acquire power, and to avoid death. Organized society, conversely, is an artificial construct and a man-made machine. This signifies that for Hobbes, the laws of human behavior correspond to the laws of physics. In line with this materialism, all aspects of human life, including human emotions and mental activity, are explained in terms of the movement of matter. It is Prudential for an individual to enter into the social contract and thereby create the “mortal God.”54 As Hobbes states, this done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a Commonwealth, in Latin Civitas. This is the Generation of that great Leviathan, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that Mortal God, to which we owe under the Immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this Authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutually against their enemies abroad.55

Whitehead’s critique of these notions in Modes of Thought could not be more blunt. He writes, “the single fact in isolation is the primary myth required for finite thought, that is to say, for thought unable to embrace totality.”56And as Randall Morris states, since “human nature is a social product, society is no longer viewed as an artificial construct resulting

80

Chapter Four

from a hypothetical contract made between autonomous individuals, but as a wholly natural and necessary state of existence.”57 One could conclude that Whitehead advocates for a new cosmological scheme, in which the dominant scientific materialism is replaced with the modified organic or holistic theory of reality. Three fundamental tenets of Whiteheadian organicism—the reality of internal relations, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that the whole influences the parts—are all present in the theory of organic mechanism and there is no suggestion that they were ever abandoned by Whitehead. It is for this reason that Morris interprets Whitehead’s social thought to be in close proximity to the socalled New Liberals in Britain.58 What follows for morality from this organismic perspective? As Whitehead says, “the whole concept of absolute individuals with absolute rights, and with a contractual power of forming fully defined external relations, has broken down.”59 Morris writes, “the New Liberal position, however, is that individual rights are, like the individuals themselves, social products.”60 It subordinates rights to ethics, arguing that rights “owe their validity to the functions they perform in the harmonious development of society.”61 Morris further credits Douglas Sturm with “perceptively” noting that the principle of rights in Whitehead’s philosophy “closely resembles the organic philosophy of Hobhouse and Green.”62 For Whitehead, “the notion of the unquantified stability of particular laws of nature and of particular moral codes is a primary illusion which has vitiated much philosophy.”63 In his view, “moral codes are relevant to presuppositions respecting the systematic character of the relevant universe,”64 and “the details of these codes are limited to the social circumstances of the immediate environment.”65 As such, from the perspective of the organismic, process philosophy, “morality is always the aim at that union of harmony, intensity, and vividness which involves the perfection of importance for that occasion.”66 What is to be avoided is the exaggerated claim that there is only one behavior system belonging to the essential character of the universe, as the universal moral ideal. What is universal is the spirit which should permeate any behavior system in the circumstances of its adoption. Thus morality does not indicate what you are to do in mythological abstractions. It does concern the general idea which should be the justification for any particulate objective.67

Rather, for Whitehead, “morality consists in the control of process so as to maximize process. It is that aim at greatness of experience in the various dimensions belonging to it.”68 And, according to him, the slogan “the

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

81

Survival of the Fittest” does not correspond to the evolution of humankind. As he states, in the history of the world, the prize has not gone to those species which specialised in methods of violence, or even in defensive armour. In fact, nature began with producing animals encased in hard shells for defense against the ills of life. It also experimented in size. But smaller animals, without external armour, warm-blooded, sensitive, and alert, have cleared these monsters off the face of the earth.69

Notes 1. This paper is dedicated to the memory of my good friend, James Bradley (19492012). 2. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 20. 3. “Prehendo,” Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. Date retrieved: June 4th, 2012, 18:35. http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=prehendo&oldid=16631091. 4. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 244. 5. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 24. 6. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 43. 7. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 43. 8. Günter Wohlfart, Augenblicke: Poetische Meditationen eines Denknomaden (Tuchan, 2011), 42. 9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Blackwell: Oxford 1953), 129. 10. Wohlfart, Augenblicke, 212, my correction. 11. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 3. This ideal of speculative philosophy has its rational side and its empirical side. The rational side is expressed by the terms “coherent” and “logical.” The empirical side is expressed by the terms “applicable” and “adequate.” 12. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 8. 13. Peter Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen, 1959), 9. 14. Peter Simons, “Metaphysical Systematics,” Erkenntnis, 48 (1998), 383. 15. See especially Christoph Kann, Fußnoten zu Platon: Philosophiegeschichte bei A.H. Whitehead (Hamburg: Meiner, 2001). Also see, for example, Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1933 / 1967), 131, where he suggests that “any cosmology must be capable of interpreting this system and of expressing its limitations.” 16. Whitehead, Process and Reality, xiv. 17. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 39. 18. For a detailed analysis of this point, see Kann, Fußnoten zu Platon. 19. See Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter (London: Spokesman, 1927), 6, 9, 243-244, etc…

82

Chapter Four

20. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 29. 21. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 30. 22. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 22. 23. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 21. 24. James Bradley, “The Critique of Pure Feeling: Bradley, Whitehead, and the Anglo–Saxon Metaphysical Tradition,” Process Studies, 14.1 (1985), 264. 25. James Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism in Whitehead,” Process Studies, 14.1 (1985): 157. 26. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 158. 27. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 156. 28. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 159. 29. See St. Thomas Aquinas, In librum De causis expositio, ed. C. Pera, (Marietti, 1955): lect. 6, no. 175. 30. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 161. 31. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 161. 32. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 161. 33. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 161, citing from Whitehead, Process and Reality, 113. 34. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 113. 35. Bradley, “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism,” 163. 36. Bertrand Russell, Autobiography (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975), 129. 37. Alfred North Whitehead, “The Analysis of Meaning,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), 99. 38. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 219. 39. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 19. 40. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 221. 41. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 223. 42. See my article, Helmut Maassen, “Revelation, Myth, and Metaphysics: Three Traditional Concepts of God and Whitehead’s Dipolar God,” Process Studies, 23, (1994): 1-9. In addition to the two ontological principles of the sphere of ideas (model, form) and the copies, the Eternal Being and the Becoming, there is the third one, the Chora (ȤȫȡĮ), the Space: the Wherein, the receptacle ( ପȣʌȠįȠȤȒ) of everything, the nurse, so to speak, of all becoming (49a6ff; all three ontological key terms are later more specifically related: 50b5-e1; they are called Į ର ȡȤȒ in 28b-c). 43. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 233. 44. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 255. 45. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 221-222. 46. Whitehead writes, “‘Creativity’, ‘many’, ‘one’ are the ultimate notions involved in the meaning of the synonymous terms ‘thing’, ‘being’, ‘entity’. These three notions complete the Category of the Ultimate and are presupposed in all the more special categories” (Process and Reality, 21). 47. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 21. 48. Robert C. Neville, Reconstruction of Thinking (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 17, cited by Steve Odin in Process Metaphysics and Hua-

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

83

Yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration Versus Interpenetration (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982), 141. 49. Odin, Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism, 141. 50. In an essay entitled “Value and Perception: The Promising Resonance of Dynamical Systems Theory and Process Philosophy,” Nathaniel Barrett has shown what dynamical systems offer to process philosophy and vice versa. The paper will be published in 2015 in the Proceeding of the Second European Summer School for Process Philosophy that was held from August 5th-10th, 2012 in Mülheim / Ruhr, Germany. The forthcoming volume will be entitled, Through a New Prism: A. N. Whitehead’s Thought (European Studies in Process Thought Vol. 2), Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2015. 51. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 156. 52. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 155. 53. Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: The Free Press, 1938 / 1966), 152. 54. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (London, 1651), 112. 55. Hobbes, Leviathan, 112. For a detailed analysis of Hobbes’ concept of “body” see Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, ed. Sir William Molesworth (London, 1839), 102, especially where it says: “the definition, therefore, of body may be this, a body is that, which having no dependence upon our thought, is coincident or coextended with some part of space.” 56. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 9. 57. Randall Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 72. 58. Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology, 173ff. 59. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 63. 60. Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology, 86. 61. Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1911 / 1968), 199. 62. Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology, 86. 63. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 13. 64. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 13. 65. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 290. 66. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 14. 67. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 14. 68. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 13-14. 69. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967), 206.



84

Chapter Four

References Aquinas, Thomas. In librum De causis expositio, edited by C. Pera. Rome / Turin, 1955. Bradley, James. “The Critique of Pure Feeling: Bradley, Whitehead, and the Anglo–Saxon Metaphysical Tradition.” Process Studies, 14.1 (1985): 253-264. —. “Transcendentalism and Speculative Realism in Whitehead.” Process Studies 23.3 (1994): 155-191. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. London, 1651. —. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Edited by Sir William Molesworth. London, 1839. Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawny. Social Evolution and Political Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1911 / 1968. Kann, Christoph. Fußnoten zu Platon: Philosophiegeschichte bei A.H. Whitehead. Hamburg: Meiner, 2001. Maassen, Helmut. “Revelation, Myth, and Metaphysics: Three Traditional Concepts of God and Whitehead’s Dipolar God.” Process Studies, 23, (1994): 1-9. Morris, Randall. Process Philosophy and Political Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Neville, Robert C. Reconstruction of Thinking. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Odin, Steve. Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration Versus Interpenetration. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982. Russell, Bertrand. The Analysis of Matter. London: Spokesman, 1927. —. Autobiography. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975. Simons, Peter. “Metaphysical Systematics,” Erkenntnis, 48 (1998): 377393. Strawson, Peter. Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen, 1959. Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World. New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967. —. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology—Corrected Edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978. —. Adventures of Ideas. New York: The Free Press, 1933 / 1967. —. Modes of Thought. New York: The Free Press, 1938 / 1966.

Aspects of Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead’s Process and Reality

85

—. “Analysis of Meaning.” In Essays in Science and Philosophy, New York: Philosophical Library, 1948, 93-99. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Blackwell: Oxford, 1953. Wohlfart, Günter. Augenblicke: Poetische Meditationen eines Denknomaden. Tuchan, 2011, http://guenter-wohlfart.de/Docs/Augenblicke_Wohlfart.pdf



CHAPTER FIVE FREEDOM, CREATIVITY, AND POTENTIALITY IN WHITEHEAD’S METAPHYSICS ELLA CSIKÓS

Abstract The concept of freedom is analyzed in the paper from the point of view of the wider categorial frame of Whitehead's metaphysics. Freedom is exemplified by each actual entity as the capacity of selective response. The becoming of an entity is externally underdetermined, which calls for an internal overdetermination. In the process of becoming of the open being, entities have an objective potentiality. Thus, freedom is derived in process philosophy from creativity, through which it reproduces itself endlessly. In this chapter, a correction to the Whiteheadian concepts of freedom and creativity is suggested in order to differentiate between degrees and types of freedom at the level of ontology.

Keywords Freedom; potentiality; real creativity; imaginative spontaneity; open being.

The concept of freedom in Whitehead’s Process and Reality is applied to the actual entity and is meaningful only in relation to its determination. Freedom and determinacy presuppose one another indirectly, and exclude each other directly, at the same time. According to Whitehead’s ninth categorial obligation, “the concrescence of each individual actual entity is internally determined and is externally free.”1 The internal determination is the immediate determination of the entity by itself, which unfolds through its decisions. Both the manner and the form of self-determination is shaped by the subjective aim belonging to the entity, while

Freedom, Creativity and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

87

incorporating and processing data that are given for it. Freedom is the manner of actualizing and analyzing its own determination, unfolding immanent potentialities that do not exist but could exist. For Whitehead, free activity involves this actualizing process, including the exclusion of the alternatives, and involving the responsibility and acceptance of losses due to exclusion, at least in the case of conscious activity. Freedom as such is an abstraction, namely, a nominalization of the fact that actual entities are emerging in a manner that is internally determined and externally free. As a concept, freedom has a propositional character that is related to many possible logical subjects. Ontologically, it is a characteristic of each and every actual entity as their very mode of existence. As freedom is exemplified by each actual entity, the question arises: on what ground can the category of freedom be related to subhuman, or even to subvital entities, according to Whitehead’s metaphysics? Whitehead thinks that the concept that mediates between these levels is decision. The metaphoric expansion of the capacity, or even the necessity of decision to any entities, including dominantly physical ones, is made possible by applying it as a synonym for the capacity of selective response. The latter can be considered as the lowest common denominator, characteristic of every effective actual entity. The decision implies both determination and exclusion, not as a consequence, but it is identical with it: determination and exclusion is the decision itself, without hiding any further decisionmaking instances or subject as a precondition. Decisions make up a series of choices, which is, in fact, the process of concrescence itself, and which concludes with a “final decision,” namely the coming into being of the individual entity as subject-superject. The final decision is also a reaction to itself, “the reaction of the unity of the whole to its own internal determination.”2 The decisions do not consist of a homogeneous series: while the whole of conscrescence consists of an internally determined reaction to external influences, it is concluded by a certain feed-back. Thus the entity, having become unified, responds to its own becoming, and this reaction too will be integrated into its final experience, thereby completing it and expanding it to its limits, namely, its perishing. But how can it be justified to consider the capacity for selective response as free? Whitehead has a direct answer to this question, and besides, he provides an argument deriving from the whole of his system to legitimize the use of the concept of freedom. As for the first, his direct reasoning points out that the becoming of each entity is externally underdetermined, meaning that there is a deficiency and a tension in the external determination, which calls for a

88

Chapter Five

decision: there is nothing that would be solely externally determined. All the more so because the “external” without an internal determination would be undetermined externally, namely, it would be self-destructive. It will be articulated as a “universe of becoming,” as “external” only if related to a becoming entity, which makes itself gradually internal, creating its own external mirror at the same time. Determinateness always takes place along opposed vectors; it is of dual origin and dual consequence. But the totality of externals cannot fully determine the becoming entity, as the former is a dynamic, incomplete totality, lacking the very entity that has never been existing before, and the constellation of entities in which the new entity will come into being. The external underdetermination calls for an internal “overdetermination,” and this in itself is the freedom of becoming, the field of decision, which is always a self-selection. Freedom appears in the practice of self-causation, not in the neglecting of the given, but in its elaboration and expansion. The latter does not necessarily take place in away that is typical of human beings, by the active breaking of the process of receptive experience. It can take place even at subvital levels of organization, in the affirmation of the whole being of the becoming entity, in that sense in the self-reselection of the continuity of being. Therefore, for Whitehead, the concept of decision maintains its traditional subjective character insofar as it is always related to an experiencing subject. But decision can neither be considered subjective in the sense of arbitrariness—after all, it is the manifestation of internal determination—nor subjective in the narrow sense of interpreting the concept as simply attached to human beings or to living organisms. The criteria of being subjective depends on the points of view of the analysis just applied: every entity A, as an experiencing entity in the present, is a subject, while it is, as an influencing factor, an object to be prehended and it provides data from the aspect of entity B. That is to say, each actual entity is subjective in reality, and objective potentially, it is a subject for itself and an object for others, without any of the aspects having prominence. Decision, as an overdetermining activity, adds a new element into the process of concrescence which cannot be deduced from the past, the given, or the external. It brings about the re-integration of the experiencing subject, creating the unity of the internal constitution. But the freedom of selective reaction is not only due to external underdetermination. On the contrary, Whitehead established a link between freedom and creativity, which is a contributory factor of each entity, exemplified by them. In similar fashion to creativity, freedom does not emerge contingently, but rather necessarily, in each actual entity. Freedom connected to creativity

Freedom, Creativity and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

89

will be given a metaphysical foundation, integrated into the whole of the system. In my mind, freedom is a derivative concept, issuing from the more basic concept of creativity for Whitehead.3 How will creativity be manifested in freedom? First of all, freedom will become endless through creativity. In each act of self-realization the entity does not only act freely, but reproduces its own freedom. Just like in the case when the limits imposed on conditions do not exclude, but rather call for, completion forced by ontical deficiency, restricting function of realization of freedom too, always leaves alternatives and unrealized potentialities, for it is impossible to realize all alternatives at the same time. Freedom is not passed on or inherited. Being restricted by conditions that are internally related to necessity, the freedom of decisions almost forced out from every action. This sort of freedom, which will be revived through each self-creating activity, in Whitehead’s interpretation, is different from the infiniteness of freedom that is attributed to it by Spinoza. Infinite freedom for Spinoza is not a characteristic of actual entities. Rather it is the abstract act of freedom that is once occurring in the universe, primordial and creative. Freedom, according to Whitehead, is not only once possible, but it is an infinitely many times necessary characteristic of everything that is actual, and is potentially infinite in its permanent actualization, individualized to internal freedom. Therefore, I think that the category of obligation that was mentioned earlier can be interpreted according to Whitehead’s metaphysical views, paradoxically only if we add the opposite, thus combining freedom and determination— the actual entity is internally free and externally determined as well. In other words, the relation between freedom and external determinateness can be described only by statements of the same paradoxical structures as those of God and the World—which is not surprising, considering the inherent logic of the work. What are the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of the expansion of the concept of freedom as seen in Whitehead’s work? It certainly has one advantage in that it can be integrated into the metaphysical system without undermining its categorial homogeneity and the logically close-knit structure of categories comprising the pillars that support the system, which is an important methodological requirement of Whitehead. It describes a common characteristic belonging to all entities, contributing to their internal constitutions, and thus to the construction of the Universe, without which the description would neither be complete nor adequate, which is another salient feature of Whitehead’s requirements. At the same time, this solution has some disadvantages that have far-reaching consequences, which I think both can and should be corrected. This could

90

Chapter Five

be done without destroying the framework set by the principal ideas of the system. Precisely, the universal character of freedom raises the problem of how Whitehead can differentiate between degrees of freedom that are qualitatively different within the family of free entities, and especially between freedom in a moral context, coupled with conscious recognition and intentionality, and the freedom of the mode of existence of a rain drop falling on the window. One can, of course, say that Whitehead’s solution provides a categorial framework for laying the foundations for a more special, humane form of freedom on an ontological level, thus reaching beyond the moral problem of freedom and free will in the traditional philosophical interpretation. It seems that although Whitehead does not evade the question that is directed toward the specificity of human freedom that is posed by the tradition, but he does not allow for the question to be asked as a metaphysical issue in its own right. Hence, relevant differences between the degrees and the variety of freedom in the Universe will be blurred. The deficiency of the solution lies in the fact that Whitehead does not provide a conceptual basis for the differentiation of degrees of freedom at the same level as the categorial means for describing common generalities that have been elaborated. Obviously, the problem cannot be solved by ignoring the intention of modern philosophy to interpret freedom, and the importance of freedom-phenomena that are manifest in conscious beings as opposed to the phenomena which are manifest the physical and organic world. As such, we would regress to the level of a pre-Kantian and reductive-naturalistic approach. Attempts should be rather made to draw up the theoretical possibility of description of degrees and types of freedom from a re-ontologized point of view such as that held by Whitehead, without the intention of giving up the achievements of the subject-philosophy of modernity. I would suggest, in brief, the following in order to contribute to the solution: as the concept of freedom has been derived from creativity, change would be needed within this latter, original concept, in order to be able to differentiate between levels of freedom. I think that two rather different cases and phenomena pertaining to the creativity are not distinct within the creativity-concept that Whitehead advances, which may give rise to misunderstandings, lacks of understanding, or criticism. One of them is the interpretation of creativity that associates its meaning with uniqueness. Every entity in the process of becoming is creative, after all, its existence at this point in time and place, in this form, only occurs once in history. That is to say, its creativity is identical with individuality, taken or restricted to the sense of unicity, namely, with self-identity in Leibniz’

Freedom, Creativity and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

91

sense of it being impossible to reoccur. Creativity provided by unicity enables Whitehead to generalize the concept of creativity into an ontologically basic principle unifying his metaphysics. This provides the conceptual resource and guarantee for interpreting the process as a creative advance in nature and history. In this wider but weaker sense of creativity, everything that becomes will be a novelty, because it realizes some possibilities for the first time. Special attention is paid to realization; novelty, in the weaker sense, is becoming as value-in-itself, the value of existence as such, as opposed to non-existence. Creativity, in this primary, but weak, sense will be identified with the realization of potentialities not previously achieved. This “realizational” interpretation, I think, can and should be complemented by a stronger, more specific, notion of creativity, which exceeds the realization of potentialities. In this more emphatic sense, creativity means creating potentials, perhaps involving the establishment of radically new combinations of potentialities and revealing hidden possibilities for other entities in that moment. Here, the value of becoming does not mean only a value-in-itself and it is not a mere increase in terms of the quantity of experiences, but it is self-transcendence attached to a non-trivial novelty in the mode of existence; it elicits the open and nonpredetermined character of being, burdened with uncertainty and unpredictability. Creating new potentialities means increasing intensity and complexity, together with changing dimensions in the mode of imaginative spontaneity, breaking with the conformity of repetition and inheritance. The emerging degree of intensity is creation in a closer sense, exceeding the existing modes of existence by revealing and forming new potentialities, their relations or patterns, new weightings and proportions included. By a real act of creation, possibilities never anticipated before will be formulated mentally. And this “jumping over the heuristic chasm,” as Michael Polányi would say, is a risky adventure of the enjoyment of the enhancement of possibilities as well. If we assert the qualitative difference between actualizing a new reality and creating a new potentiality, we may differentiate between various forms of freedom that appear, which are brought to the same level by Whitehead. From this perspective, the type of freedom that is characteristic of human beings is no longer of the same type that is attached to actual entities. Rather, it is more adequate to the complexity of the human body and mind, and especially to the speculative reason. The approach suggested here requires an unorthodox use of the notion of eternal objects as well as of all related categories, since discovering is not equal to applying, and the arrangement of “eternal” objects can change by

92

Chapter Five

way of the activity of many of the agents in the cosmic drama.4 Every entity is actualizing freedom in the sense of abstract creativity and they are even reproducing freedom, but not every one of them is—only sometimes—creating freedom, restructuring the field, type, and degrees of freedom and/or revealing newly anticipated aims as well. The conception of the sort of freedom that may constitute human freedom—although not obviously and not in its entirety—can also lead to a more comprehensible approach to the intersubjective character of freedom. As the abstract concept of freedom asserts itself within the terrain of choosing the realization of potentialities in the individualization of the emerging subject, so its center lies within the subject, even though the potentiality is assembled from outside, and the realizing activity— providing data for prehension—may be objectified in other entities as well. However, the more specific and concrete concept of freedom, offering a new combination of potentialities having been non-existent before, bears fruit primarily at metaindividual levels, and this makes the freedom of an entity contribute more intensively to that of others, who may use the potentialities now open for them as well. The deepening, enhancing, and organizing impact of freedom manifests itself in the manifold unities of many individuals. Therefore, freedom in the sense of creating potentials can function as the organizing principle of new nexnjs consisting as nexnjs. Hence, I would not speak of internal and external freedom or determination like Whitehead, but would say that there is an abstract concept that is identical with creativity in the sense of unicity and of being attached to individuals. Additionally, there is a more specific and dynamic concept of innovative freedom linking entities to a complex organism, in their creative activities wherein they discover novel potentialities for themselves and for each other. This mode of description allows for both forms of freedom to occur in the human sphere. In other words, it is not normative for all human activities to be free and creative in the more specific sense. On the contrary, the majority of human activities may probably be described as being on the same level as all subhuman processes. And from the ontological point of view, it is mostly a reproductive affirmation of existence, thus exemplified by the simple reproduction of freedom. But even if, in comparison to the latter notion, real creation, involving free actions that multiply potentialities and change the worldview of many individuals are rare, it is nevertheless a requirement—in the Whiteheadian spirit—for them to be metaphysically legitimated, so that this specific phenomenon should assert itself in the reconstruction of the irreflexive ontological level of existence as well. One should therefore be able to

Freedom, Creativity and Potentiality in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

93

distinguish philosophically between activities such as an author copying the phone book by hand, thus realizing a potentiality that was not there before, and him preferring to write Tonio Kröger during the same period of time. The possibility of distinguishing between other layers of freedom should have, in my mind, its place in Whitehead’s ontological description, in virtue of the different conceptions of creativity elucidated here. That said, it may be that Whitehead’s categories do not differentiate as easily as in the manner outlined here, but it would not be forbidden to do so. Of course, the question arises of whether, through distinguishing between the various degrees of freedom, a kind of dualism appears in Whitehead’s metaphysics. I think that this may not just be happening, but should definitely occur. Some sort of dualism must be present in a metaphysical system that endeavors to give a comprehensive description of the universe being “unique and manifold at the same time.” The ontological contrast between uniqueness and multitude, like that of particularity and universality, is the basic form of this dualism, and it may be compared with the dualism of “a world without and with human beings,” which is obviously a contrast that is of secondary importance to Whitehead. Nevertheless, this dualism does not hinder, and what is more, it requires a kind of metaphysical description that is able to make a distinction between such qualitative differences, which is relevant not only in respect to “societies” on the subhuman level. The contrast between realizing and revealing and/or creating potentialities is a conceptual counterpart of a real duality, the polarity of which becomes only more evident if the special mode of asserting existence which is bound to human opening of possibility is unfolding. Although there is no ontological gap or abyss, there is an ontologically relevant difference between non-human and human phenomena of freedom. Metaphysical overhomogenization, namely, involving a complete avoidance of dualities cannot be the aim of process philosophy, and it is not either. A more complete description of real differences will bring us closer to understanding the dynamicallyexisting universe as involving both “uniqueness and multitude.” And, in my mind, the conjecture of a more specialized, more dynamic, and stronger concept of freedom does not undermine Whitehead’s cosmological scheme, but provides additional shades of meaning for its understanding.

94

Chapter Five

Notes 1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 46. 2. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 28. 3. For a discussion of the types of interpretation of creativity, see William J. Garland, “The Mystery of Creativity,” in The Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Vol 1., ed. Michel Weber and William Desmond (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2008): 265-278. 4. See Everett W. Hall, “Of What Use Are Whitehead’s Eternal Objects?” in Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on his Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963): 102-117.

References Garland, William J. “The Mystery of Creativity.” In The Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Vol. 1, edited by Michel Weber and William Desmond, 265-278. Frankfurt: Ontos-Verlag, 2008. Hall, Everett W. “Of What Use Are Whitehead’s Eternal Objects?” In Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on his Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline, 102-117. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978.



CHAPTER SIX DYNAMIC BEING AND ONTOLOGICAL MEMORY MARIA-TERESA TEIXEIRA

Abstract Dynamic being and ontological memory are closely entangled. Ontological memory can be traced back to Plato’s philosophy. The immemorial memory is found in the “recollection” of the Symposium, in forgetfulness after the soul’s journey in the Phaedrus, and in the chǀra of the Timaeus. In the Confessions, Augustine also considers memory ontologically. In De Musica, the dynamic ontological movement unifies both music and the courses of the soul. The Bergsonian memory is truly ontological. Memory is foundational of life itself; its relationship to the brain is only functional, for it enables the attention to life that is required for everyday living. The durational character of being reveals a dynamic and irrevocable ontological memory. Whitehead greatly emphasises the immortal past in the creative advance. Dynamic being emerges from a forever settled and irrevocable past, thus enhancing self-creativity. Music is a metaphor for an ontological memory that unravels in dynamics that depicts process.

Keywords Dynamic being; ontological memory; immemorial memory; music; durational character; process of becoming; anticipation.

Dynamic being requires ontological memory at its genesis. Ontological memory is a correlate of dynamic being, for the dynamics of being constitute ontological memory. In turn, ontological memory is constitutive

96

Chapter Six

of dynamic being because it is constant change and activity. Ontological memory seems to be entangled with dynamic being in such a way that they are one and the same thing. The dynamics of being are both the origin and the constitution of ontological memory. And the dynamics of ontological memory reveal themselves through participation in the dynamics of coming into being. Psychological memory draws on ontological memory and reflects its very manifestation. Ontological memory goes back to Platonic reminiscence and also to the status of being and non-being found in the Timaeus. Platonic reminiscence relates to forgetfulness, and also to recollection. In the Platonic tradition, forgetting is mainly ontological. In forgetting, one reencounters being and the way it constitutes itself. Forgetting is not extinct oblivion. It is rather a latent synthesis that can be re-enhanced through recollection. The process of learning is really a process of re-learning. It requires remembering and recognising, and of making the past present. For remembering is not merely external recollection. The past is already held within each one of us.1 Thus the past goes back to the immemorial and is made available through remembrance. The immemorial memory is in itself ontological; it is pure memory that becomes a sort of foundation for temporality. It remains in existence after the passing of the experienced event, and its very existence is required for the constitution of the present. In a way, the present is a reconstruction and a repetition of the past that has been forgotten. Remembering is a process of holding, in representational form, what already is held in an ontological memory, which is time immemorial. It is a recovery of previous knowledge, a sort of second learning. In the Symposium, Diotima is quoted by Socrates as saying, what is implied in the word ‘recollection’ but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind—unlike the divine, which is wholly and eternally the same?2

For Diotima, change and memory, present and past intermingle and reflect both the temporal and the atemporal. The new present produced afresh is founded on ontological memory. The journey of the soul in the Phaedrus emphasizes forgetting, which is absolutely necessary for its detachment. Knowledge that has been erased, so to say, returns from an immemorial past through recollection. This return discloses an irreducible ontological memory that preserves, in

Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory

97

some way, the individualization of the soul. But the soul is not aware of its recollecting; it takes recollection as a new learning. In the Timaeus, the complex notion of the chǀra points to the existence of a “receptacle” that gives form to all forms without ever having form. It is also a sort of immemorial memory that moulds everything and yet takes no mould for itself. All forms persist, although no location can be assigned to them. The chǀra receives all things but never assumes any of their forms, for its very nature is having no form. The chǀra is thus formless and invisible even though it is the source of all forms. As a kind of ontological memory, it synthesises and implants form in every creature that comes into being, although, in itself, it has no form or existence. The chǀra is neither being nor nonbeing; it is rather necessary for the being’s coming into existence, but has no actualization in itself. In fact, the chǀra is becoming, and enables nonbeing to turn into being. Augustine’s memory is also ontological. His analysis of memory and time in the Confessions is an approach to dynamic being. Memory is constitutive of being and retains even what the mind does not feel. Whatever memory contains is also contained in the mind. Such manifoldness reveals its ontological character.3 Augustine speaks of an “unmeasurable capacity of memory” that removes its content “to some inner place, which is yet no place.” 4 No place is assigned to memory; memory is rather a sort of dynamics generated within being. Augustine continues, “for those things are not transmitted into the memory, but their images only are with an admirable swiftness caught up, and stored as it were in wondrous cabinets, and thence wonderfully by the act of remembering, brought forth.”5 This dynamic ontological movement is also to be found in music, according to Augustine’s De Musica, where he states “Ars musicae: Musica est scientia bene modulandi … Ergo scientia modulandi scientia est bene movendi.”6 The rhythm of music is not only its stable measurement, but also a dynamic development with a sort of correlate in the motion of the soul. Rhythm unifies music and smoothes over its quantified elements. The motion of the soul is akin to time.7 Music thus discloses an analogy to time and to the motion of the soul; it brings to light the inauguration of being and its commitment to ontological memory. Augustine’s conception reflects music as it is described in the Timaeus: “harmony … has motions akin to the revolutions of our soul” and is “meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul.”8 Memory is ontological in process philosophy as well, because it is constitutive of being. Dynamic being is the outcome of this integrative

98

Chapter Six

ontological process that gives rise to every entity. The ontological nature of memory consists in its dynamic character; memory is involved with the being it engenders. Therefore, memory is neither a faculty of the mind nor is it a collection of archaeological layers. It rather manifests itself as a productive activity that preserves itself, as it adds something extra onto its vast wealth of recollections. Present memory is sheer activity that moulds the being to which it belongs. The incessant dynamics, which bring an entity into being are rooted in an ontological past that offers itself for the constitution of a new being. Memory is forever active. Process thinkers have envisaged an active memory enabling a novel dynamics of being. Their inspirational image of dynamic being involves musical experience. Bergson’s “indestructible memory” and Whitehead’s “immortal past” illustrate this concept of a dynamic, ontological memory. The activity of memory is all-important to its preservation, and also to the novelty that is introduced in the individuality coming into being. Bergson’s different levels of memory reflect its dynamic way of presenting itself to present action. The Bergsonian ontological memory, which is constitutive of being, anchors itself to psychological memory. Unlike its counterpart, namely, the memory of the body, it has no location in the brain because it is sheer duration. Bergson believes there is much more in consciousness than in the functioning of the brain. He says that if we were able to look inside the brain, we would learn something of what goes on in the mind, but still we would have very little knowledge of the mind; we might guess at what happened in the brain in a certain state of mind, but the reverse would be impossible. Thinking is not an array of states of mind. Rather, it is a continuous change that renders inward tendencies into action and gestures expressing spatially what goes on in the mind. The brain plays into the movement of whatever can be materialized in mental activity. Strictly speaking, it is not the organ of consciousness or thought; it is the “organ of attention to life.”9 Contemporary neuroscience corroborates that the relation of the mind to the brain is indeed immensely complex and subtle; the visualization of what goes on in the brain through brain scanning technology confirms that the brain is in continuous activity and that a slight modification of brain matter can affect the whole of the mind, as can be seen from the use of neurology medicines or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The brain reflects the insertion of the mind into things, and the way attention to life is processed. It actualizes what is needed to make memory available to everyday action, but it does not establish a one-to-one correspondence between mental and brain activity. In other words, the ontology of the brain mildly mirrors the ontology of memory. The durational character of mental phenomena is

Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory

99

badly accommodated by the static presentification of brain activity, which reduces it to pictorial representations. This procedure also involves spatialisation in the Bergsonian sense and barely accounts for past plasticity, even though each one of us is entitled to unique brain architecture. The plasticity of the brain draws on ontological memory. The brain changes constantly, and adapts, as the infant’s brain grows and receives new sensory data from the outside world, and as it reflects our experiences throughout our lifetime, or in the aftermath of injury. Brain plasticity renders the brain adaptable to environmental factors. This is patent when after brain injury or even brain lobotomy memory continues to be accessed. This adaptability of the brain reflects the dynamics of being and also an ontological, constitutive memory that remains untouched. Bergson rejects a correlation between modifications impressed in brain cells and emerging recollections. This would mean that a recollection of a visual object would require an endless number of impressions on the brain tissue, because only one image emerges, whereas the object presents itself in many different perspectives. Contemporary neuroscience still cannot account for memory taken as the synthesis that makes up individuality. This is because memory persists and constitutes itself as time passes by. But process philosophies preserve the past as the present comes into existence. Gilles Deleuze says that Bergson’s past is contemporaneous with the present. This integration and inseparability of past and present are due to the durational nature of ontological memory. It is this temporal character of memory that makes it both illusive and ontological. Dynamic being grows in time, but duration itself can be found nowhere. The past co-exists with the present that passes. As the present passes, the past persists as a whole. It does not go out of existence. On the contrary, it co-exists with the present that it once was and with every present, for it remains whole and entire. In this way, the past exists in itself as a kind of pure past that is contemporaneous with every present.10 In his essay on “False Recognition,” Bergson also speaks of memory being contemporaneous with the present. He states, “I hold that the formation of memory is never posterior to the formation of perception; it is contemporaneous with it.”11 Bergson explains the feeling of déjà vu as the memory of the present that insinuates itself into the perception of the present. But perception is always ahead of memory, so that perception is already partly in the future. As “memory rejoins perception, the present is cognized and recognized at the same time.”12 False Recognition is thus a “harmless form of inattention to life.”13Attention to life can be more or

100

Chapter Six

less extended. Memory has many different planes of consciousness. These different levels can be closer to action or nearer to dream. In action, our attention to life is at its peak, whereas in dream attention to life is slackened. The very process of recollecting is dynamic. Recollections do not come to mind by chance; they are not chosen for their appeal. Recollections emerge as different degrees of tension of memory responding to certain mental dispositions.14 While “memory (is) always present in its entirety to itself,”15 its effort of expansion can be reduced or increased, thus determining which remembrances are actualized. In this way, the past is kept alive and active, co-existing with the present. The durational character of being is patent in Bergson’s ontological memory. Temporality is revealed not only by the present that keeps appearing and developing, but also by the past that remains active and helps constitute being. Its illusiveness is present in every effort of recollection, which requires a certain predisposition in order to attain the actualization of a definite remembrance. This effort is dynamically involved in choosing which recollection is to be actualized and in which way it is to be brought to memory, so that the very act of remembering is also ontologically relevant. Whitehead’s immortal past is ever present in every actual occasion that becomes. It informs it, and enables its determination in the creative advance. Whitehead’s notion of a “prehension” involves an act of seizure of the past, appropriation, and synthesis. The ever-lasting objectified occasion is incorporated in a novel occasion. This is how dynamic being emerges from a settled and forever persistent past that enables creative self-determination in accordance with one’s very nature. The ontological past is truly constitutive of a new being capable of preserving its integrity and autonomy. Whitehead’s actual entities perish, but they do not vanish. They cease to exist subjectively, but persist in their objective immortality. Once actual entities come into existence, they are everlasting, for their existence cannot be erased from the universe. They remain as indelible constituents of an ever-becoming world. As such, they are forever objectified, so that they can be apprehended and incorporated in the ontological constitution of their successors. The process of coming into being is a creative one, even though it draws on the already constituted past. Whitehead greatly emphasizes the importance of perishing. He speaks of “a trinity of three notions: being, becoming and perishing,” and suggests that Plato raised this question with “the notion of that which is always becoming and never real.”16 As actual entities prehend one another, they incorporate the past and transform it into novelty; it is a new subjective entity that emerges in

Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory

101

accordance with its very aim; and then it again perishes to add onto the world something new and forever established. Whitehead writes that, “the notion of prehension of the past means that the past is an element which perishes and thereby remains an element in the state beyond, and thus is objectified.”17 Perishing is thus of the utmost importance. Only after objectification does memory become irrevocable and creative. In perishing, we become immortal, and memory becomes constitutive of each and every being. This is the true ontological memory. Ontological memory also reveals itself as value-experience. In the essay, “Immortality,” Whitehead writes, a whole sequence of actual occasions, each with its own present immediacy, is such that each occasion embodies in its own being the antecedent members of that sequence with an emphatic experience of the self-identity of the past in the immediacy of the present.”18

Immediate fact passes into permanency thus giving rise to novelty and creating value. Value is also incorporated in the structure of the world, so that the future is influenced in some sort of way.19 Because time carries with it the category of incompleteness, every actual entity already holds its future within itself, as it comes into existence. Anticipation is also a constitutive element in an actual entity that can be attributed to memory. Each actual entity “experiences a future which must be actual, although the completed actualities of that future are undetermined. In this sense, each actual occasion experiences its objective immortality.”20 Incompleteness reveals itself in the determination of a yet undetermined future that will be erected on the objective immortality of actual entities. The future is already contained in the present and founds itself on the past that is at the root of its value: “cut away the future, and the present collapses, emptied of its proper content. Immediate existence requires the insertion of the future in the crannies of the present.”21 The metaphysician, Nicolai Hartmann also speaks of anticipation in an ethical and ontological sense. He recognizes foresight at the very origin of our human condition. Past and present are irrevocable, for they already contain their own determinations. Only the future is open to action. Anticipation overcomes the past and the present and thus acquires an ethical facet that enables us to envisage and constitute our future.22 According to Yutaka Tanaka, Whitehead’s epochal theory of time also allows for a certain indeterminacy in respect to the past. This thesis can highlight the Whiteheadian notion of the undetermined future that is already included in the present. Tanaka’s thesis is based on Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment where the past route of a particle depends on

102

Chapter Six

the present choice made by the experimenter. One could say that what really happens is that the observer can choose which facet of the past is actualized.23 This is in accord with the Bergsonian theory of a dynamic, heterogeneous past that is whole and indivisible, whose actualization is determined by the necessities of action that directs itself towards the future; and also with the Whiteheadian indivisibility and irrevocability of actual entities, which enhance their individuality and include a yet undetermined future. The paradox can be resolved if one bears in mind that the very process of becoming is not a linear process. It is heterogeneous and ingenious. Its diversity unites in an indivisible, dynamic unison that reminds us of musical harmony. Music can be regarded as a metaphor for becoming and also for epochal time. Both Bergson and Whitehead have emphasized the importance of music in describing metaphysical reality. In Creative Mind, Bergson asks us to listen to a melody, allowing ourselves to be lulled by it: do we not have the clear perception of a movement which is not attached to a mobile, of a change without anything changing? This change is enough; it is the thing itself. And if it takes time, it is still indivisible; if the melody stopped sooner it would no longer be the same sonorous whole, it would be another, equally indivisible.24

Whitehead also emphasises the indivisibility of becoming and music, suggesting that, this system, forming the primordial element, is nothing at an instant. It requires its whole period in which to manifest itself. In an analogous way, a note of music is nothing at an instant, but it also requires its whole period in which to manifest itself.25

In his magnificent essay on Music and the Ineffable, Vladimir Jankélévitch summarizes this synthetic power of music. Music has no oneto-one correspondence with words. It does not translate sounds into phrases. It relates to memory because of its evocative capability to produce an overall effect (effet d’ensemble) and clear a general meaning as the musical process unravels. This is a totality that maintains indeterminacy and elicits the very essence of dynamism.26 Its continuity depicts the flow of any process of becoming. Music is the language of becoming and the language of memory. Music is even a form of silence that intermingles with it; it emerges from silence and goes back to it. As such, silence is antecedent to music and music merges into silence. Silence is commencement and cessation, memory and prophecy. Memory is allusive

Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory

103

and illusive, just like a melodious reminiscence that unravels into the future. And silence is like forgetfulness from which emerges recollection and also dynamic being. Silence is also a sort of non-being from which music emerges.27 Music silences words, and in so doing, emerges as a novel language that depicts becoming and unveils its ontological, diaphanous character.

Notes 1. In the Theaetetus dialogue, 198d, 427, Plato writes, “and thus, when a man has learned and known something long ago, he may resume and get hold of the knowledge which he has long possessed, but has not at hand in his mind.” 2. Plato, “Symposium,” in The Dialogues of Plato, Symposium, Phaedrus and Other Dialogues Vol. 2, trans. and ed. Benjamin Jowett (London: Sphere Books Limited, 1970), 208a, 427. 3. In The Confessions of Saint Augustine (Fairfield, IA: 1st World Library, 2006), 10.17.26, 179, Augustine states, “What nature am I? A life various and manifold and exceeding immense. Behold in the plains, and caves, and caverns of my memory, innumerable and innumerably full of innumerable kinds of things, either through images, as all bodies; or by actual presence, as the arts; or by certain notions or impressions, as the affections of the mind, which, even when the mind doth not feel, the memory retaineth, while yet whatsoever is in the memory is also in the mind—over all these do I run, I fly; I dive on this side and on that, as far as I can, and there is no end. So great is the force of memory, so great the force of life, even in the mortal life of man.” 4. Augustine, Confessions, 10.9.16, 173. He states, “Yet not these alone does the unmeasurable capacity of my memory retain. Here also is all, learnt of the liberal sciences and as yet unforgotten; removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place: nor are they the images thereof, but the things themselves.” 5. Augustine, Confessions, 174. 6. Augustine, De Musica, trans. John Edward Bresnahan (Catholic University of America, 1937, Book I, c. II, 2, Book I, c. III, 4). 7. In the Confessions (11.28.38), Augustine writes apropos his analysis of time: “I want to recite a song which I know. Before I start, my expectation is concentrated on the whole. As soon as I have begun, the part which I have taken from the future and committed to the past, takes root or place in my memory.” 8. Plato, “Timaeus,” trans. R. G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library VIII, Harvard University Press, 2005), 47d. 9. Henri Bergson, Mind-Energy, trans. H. Wildon Carr (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1975), 52-60; L’énergie spirituelle (Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1919 / 1999), 42-49 / 846-852. 10. Gilles Deleuze, Le bergsonisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), 53-55.

104

Chapter Six

11. Bergson, Mind-Energy, 157; L’énergie spirituelle, 130 / 912-913: “Nous prétendons que la formations du souvenir n’est jamais postérieur à celle de la perception; elle en est contemporaine.” 12. Bergson, Mind-Energy, 184; L’énergie spirituelle, 151 / 929, “le souvenir du présent pénétrerait donc dans la conscience s’il pouvait s’insinuer dans la perception du présent. Mais celle-ci est toujours en avance sur lui : grâce à l’élan qui l’anime, elle est moins dans le présent que dans l’avenir. Supposons que tout à coup l’élan s’arrête : le souvenir rejoint la perception, le présent est reconnu en même temps qu’il est connu.” 13. Bergson, Mind-Energy, 184; L’énergie spirituelle, 151 / 929. 14. Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W, Scott Palmer (London: Allen and Unwin, 1950), 220-225; Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire (Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1896 / 1997), 188-192 / 307-311. 15. Bergson, Matière et mémoire, 224 / 335-336. 16. Alfred North Whitehead, “Process and Reality,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), 89. 17. Whitehead, “Process and Reality,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy, 89. 18. Alfred North Whitehead, “Immortality,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), 65. 19. Whitehead, “Immortality,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy, 65. 20. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 215. 21. Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1933 / 1967), 191. 22. Nicolai Hartmann, Ethics, Vol. 2 (London: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 147151. 23. See Yutaka Tanaka, “The Individuality of a Quantum Event: Whitehead’s Epochal Theory of Time and Bohr’s Framework of Complementarity,” in Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience, edited by Timothy Eastman and Hank Keaton (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), 164-179. This experiment uses only one particle, a photon, which will follow one of two routes. If a half-silvered mirror is introduced at the crossing points, there will be a recombination of the two beams that will cause wave interference. The photon will then travel both routes, in some sort of way. In other words, the photon will travel by one route, or by both routes depending on the experimenter’s choice. The observer decides if the photon comes along one route, or along two routes by introducing the mirror only when it has almost completed its travel. According to Wheeler the past does not exist in all detail and delayed choices that affect the past can be made in the present. Professor Tanaka holds that “the definition of the past route or history of a particle depends on the present choice of an experimenter is the meaning of the “indeterminate past” (169). 24. Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2007), 123. In La pensée et le mouvant (Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1934 / 1998), 164, 1382-1383, Bergson writes “Écoutons une mélodie en nous laissant bercer par elle : n’avons-

Dynamic Being and Ontological Memory

105

nous pas la perception nette d’un mouvement qui n’est pas attaché à un mobile, d’un changement sans rien qui change ? Ce changement se suffit, il est la chose même. Et il a beau prendre du temps, il est indivisible : si la mélodie s’arrêtait plus tôt, ce ne serait plus la même masse sonore ; s’en serait une autre, également indivisible.” 25. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967), 35. 26. Vladimir Jankélévitch, La Musique et l’Ineffable (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 69-75. 27. Jankélévitch, La Musique et l’Ineffable, 118-190.

References Augustine. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Fairfield, IA: 1st World Library, 2006. —. Confessions, translated by E. B. Pusey, http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/Englishconfessions.html —. De Musica, translated by John Edward Bresnahan, 1937. —. Traité de la Musique, translated by M. M. Thénard et Citoleux, http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/saints/augustin/musique/index.htm Bergson, Henri. Matière et mémoire. Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1896 / 1997. —. L’énergie spirituelle. Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1919 / 1999. —. La pensée et le mouvant. Paris: Quadrige / PUF, 1934 / 1998. —. Matter and Memory, translated by Nancy Margaret Paul and W, Scott Palmer, London: Allen and Unwin, 1950. —. Mind-Energy, translated by H. Wildon Carr, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1975. —. The Creative Mind, translated by Mabelle L. Andison. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2007. Deleuze, Gilles. Le bergsonisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998. Hartmann, Nicolai. Ethics, Vol. 2. London: Transaction Publishers, 2009. Jankélévitch, Vladimir. La Musique et l’Ineffable. Paris: Seuil, 1983. Plato. “Symposium” and “Phaedrus.” In The Dialogues of Plato, Symposium, Phaedrus and Other Dialogues Vol. 2, translated and edited by Benjamin Jowett. London: Sphere Books Limited, 1970. —. The Dialogues of Plato, Timaeus and Other Dialogues, translated by Benjamin Jowett, London, Sphere Books Limited, 1970, Vol. 3, 314 pp.; —. Timaeus, translated by R. G. Bury, Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library VIII, Harvard University Press, 2005.

106

Chapter Six

—. “Theaetetus.” In Dialogues of Plato, Translated into English, translated and edited by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Tanaka, Yutaka. “The Individuality of a Quantum Event: Whitehead’s Epochal Theory of Time and Bohr’s Framework of Complementarity.” In Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience, edited by Timothy Eastman and Hank Keaton, 164-179. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World. New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967. —. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978. —. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas. New York: The Free Press, 1933 / 1967. —. “Immortality” and “Process and Reality.” In Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948, 60-74; 87-90.



CHAPTER SEVEN THE PERCEPTION OF CAUSALITY IN LIGHT OF PROCESS ONTOLOGY PIOTR LEĝNIAK

Abstract Human perception has an important emotional dimension. Besides having a “presentational” element that dominates the high cognitive activities of human beings, there are certain “densities of feelings,” which are inextricably intertwined with the presentational contents of our perceptual states. This does not mean that human perception is just instinctive, irrational, or intrinsically subjective. The Whiteheadian scheme allows us to determine the nature of the “emotional background” of perception without falling into the traps of subjectivism, representationalism, or substantialism. The feeling which I call “the sense of physicality” is just one of the elements of this emotional dimension in human perception, which serves here as an explanation of the famous “Michotte’s effect.”

Keywords Causal impression; causal nihilism; Michotte’s experiments; simple Humeanism; projected causal feelings; the sense of physicality.

1. Introduction The phenomenon of the perception of causality has been discussed widely in cognitive psychology since the publication of Michotte’s The Perception of Causality (1946 / 1963),1 but it is only in last two decades that attention to the issues presented in it have skyrocketed.2 One of the reasons for the growing interest is the fact that the investigation of causality has important consequences for philosophy of perception.

108

Chapter Seven

Michotte’s results may be interpreted as contradicting Hume’s principle that there is no perception of causality, and they prima facie favored Kant’s idea that there is a primitive a priori concept of causality. But Michotte’s work does not represent a particular philosophical position. Rather, it unpacks the traditional conception of experience that underpins both the empiricist and rationalist traditions. These positions appear to be undermined when the fact of the perception of causality is recognized and accepted. The general aim of this chapter is to apply the Whiteheadian ontological framework in order to explicate the nature of the phenomenon of the perception of causality (PC) and its role in theory of perception. First, I will sketch the history of the problem, then I shall present the psychological account of it, from Michotte’s original experiments to Peter White’s interpretation of it in terms of projected sensations of efficacy. The role of “causal feelings,” namely, perceptions in the mode of causal efficacy, as posited by Whitehead in Process and Reality, are analyzed with reference to the ontology3 that he presents in The Concept of Nature.4 Peter White’s5 interpretation of the perception of causality as involving “projected” causal feelings is employed here as an example of the working of a perceptual mechanism that I call “the sense of physical reality.”

2. Historical Context It was Hume who first so famously declared that there is no empirical evidence of causation. According to Hume, our “unavoidable instinct” makes us believe that a billiard ball makes another ball move, but in human experience, there is, in truth, no impression of causality. On the contrary, for Hume, the “causal instinct” is the result of the regular repetition of sequences of impressions, but, in his view, there is nothing that one could point to in impressions themselves that is representative of one thing causing and another. However, the notion that there is no impression of causality was not only a position that was held by the empiricists, but was also supported by Kant and his followers. This thesis was the result of a simplified version of the theory of perception that became a kind of philosophical truism which was labeled a “neolithic weapon of critical philosophy”6 by Whitehead. The main pillar of this idea is the claim that the most primitive form of experience is what we are clearly and distinctly aware of. In contrast to this perspective, Whitehead situates this mode of perception, which he calls “presentational immediacy,” in a later phase of the process of concrescence. “Presentational immediacy”

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

109

is preceded in the process of concrescence by the dimly experienced causal efficacy of the world. In the twentieth century, what is called “causal nihilism,” namely, the position that there is no perception of causality, was the recipient of criticism from both cognitive psychology and philosophy. Following from Jean Piaget’s experimental work on the concept of causality in children, Albert Michotte carried out a series of experiments that justified the claim that there is kind of “causal impression” that neither is the result of repetition nor has its origin in intellectual judgment. Michotte claimed that causal impression gave meaning to our concept of causation, and not the other way around. From the philosophical side, figures such as Curt Ducasse, Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Strawson, David Armstrong, all of whom are from different camps, suggested independently that we should abandon Hume’s causal nihilism. According to them, when we see a man lifting his suitcase or a knife cutting the bread, we perceive something more than just a sequence of “non-causal” events. They all speculate that we perceive the simple “dynamics” of reality in a direct manner. We see the events as already connected in such a way that it is impossible for us to reverse the sequence of events without losing their causal character. But what does it mean for two events to be causally connected? And how is it possible that causal factors enter into our experience?

3. Michotte’s Experiments As was mentioned above, much of the contemporary research on perceptual causality that is being carried out today is inspired by the work of Albert Michotte. His paradigmatic example is the impression of causality that is evoked by the following humorous scene. An object moves towards a stationary one, makes contact with it and stops. Then the stationary one starts to move without delay. But with respect to entraining, the situation looks the same except that A, after being “touched,” moves along with B. Michotte tried to discover the exact parameters of motion which evoked causal description in these cases. In several of his experiments, the moving objects were not ordinary heavy objects, but lights or shadows projected on a screen. All of those scenes were described by adults in causal terms, namely as being “moved,” “pushed,” etc… independently of the knowledge they had about the situations. The adults knew very well that shadows or lights cannot “push” anything. Michotte claimed that it is not our beliefs concerning what is happening that are responsible for causal descriptions. Rather, he conjectured that there is sensory source of our causal beliefs. He called this elementary

110

Chapter Seven

sensory factor of cognition, ”causal impression.” The “causal impression” makes the understanding of causal statements possible, but not the other way around. Causal concepts are not used to express causal impression verbally by imposing causal meaning on it. On the contrary, we understand primitive causal concepts because we associate them with primitive causal impressions. According to Whitehead, causal impressions are primitive elements of sense perception that are used by the sensory system in order to build an environmentally adequate immediate presentation of flowing nature. They should be treated as the most primitive, but also the most immediate, forms of perception where there is no conceptual representation.7 In the simple Humean interpretation of Michotte’s experiments, the causal impression is held to be a result of multiple repetitions of similar scenes. We instinctively connect causal events that regularly coincide in time and space. But, as will be shown in section five of this essay, the simple Humean interpretation is hardly applicable to the results of psychological research. Contemporary work in cognitive psychology may be divided into three main groups. The first type aims at finding the place of causal perception in cognitive architecture, as in the work of Brian Scholl or Peter White. The second is situated at the margins of developmental psychology, and is exhibited in the research, for example, of Alan Leslie or Anne Schlottman. This research concentrates generally on the process of development of this ability. The third kind looks for the neural correlates of causal perception, as exemplified by the work of Kevin Dunbar. In each of these groups, some arguments for the modularity of causal perception have surfaced. According to Brian Scholl, these phenomena seem to enjoy most of the traditional “symptoms” of modularity.8 They are domain specific, namely, they give rise to only a few qualitatively separate types of percepts. They are very fast, meaning that phenomenologically, these causal percepts occur in a nearly instantaneous way upon viewing the displays. They are also mandatory in the way that most visual illusions are, the causal nature of the resulting percepts being nearly irresistible. This reflects a type of encapsulation, meaning that despite the fact that observers know that the displays are not really causal, this knowledge does not appear to be taken into account by the mechanisms that construct the percepts. Conversely, higher-level external processes do not seem to have access to the “interlevels” of this processing, namely, we have causal percepts when viewing launching displays, for instance, without any ability to determine how they came about. In similar fashion to recognizing speech or

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

111

recognizing a face, recognizing physical causality in such situations seems, phenomenologically, to just “happen” in an automatic manner.

4. Whitehead’s View of Perception: General Assumptions Whitehead’s account of perception is complex, multifaceted, and very different when it is compared with other contemporary theories of perception. Therefore, it is useful to start my analysis by pointing at some of the major discrepancies between them. First, Whitehead aims at a theory that explains perception by way of a single, coherent system. Accordingly, contemporary theories that bifurcate perceived nature into physical and mental (phenomenological) spheres must be mistaken, because the gap between these two spheres is unbridgeable. The phenomenology of our qualitative experiences should not be situated in the mind as somehow beyond nature, and the quantitative features should not be objectified, as if they existed in a reality that is completely independent from any perceptual perspective. Second, we should avoid the fallacy of conceptualism. Our propositional attitudes and our conceptual capacities may influence our perceptions, but the role of conceptual structures should not be seen as “all-pervading.” There is a primitive structure of experience which we share with non-human animals, where the given is not yet conceptualized. According to Whitehead, Kant committed a fallacy when he claimed that objects of experience are the results of intellectual functioning.9 One of the versions of this fallacy is widely known in contemporary cognitive psychology as “representationalism,” according to which the cognition consists in “representing” the world in the mind, and even the most primitive forms of cognition are claimed to involve concept-like representations of the world. This doctrine received strong support from the theory of artificial intelligence. It often takes the form of so-called “encodism”—the idea that semantic relations are encoded in some mysterious way in the neuronal structure of the brain. Third, there is fallacy of sensationalism, namely, the idea that elementary sensations, subjectively entertained, are the most primitive datum in perception. For Whitehead, our most primitive sensations are already “vectors”—they are feelings of something. The bipolar structure of feelings is its metaphysically basic feature. A typical example of contemporary sensationalism is Quine’s philosophy of perception.10 Fourth, there is the fallacy of substantialism. This fallacy is the version of the subjectivist principle that is accepted by Whitehead in only one of its two meanings, and is rejected in the other. He accepts the idea that we

112

Chapter Seven

should start in our analysis of perception from “my perception of this stone as ‘grey’,” but he rejects the idea that perception consists in the “catching of a universal quality in the act of qualifying particular substance.”11 This fallacy goes together with the fallacy of sensationalism, taking the form of the theory that “redness of that rose” is an “elementary particle” of perception.

5. Whitehead on Perceptual Causality The chapter entitled “Symbolic Reference” (Part Two, Chapter Eight) of Process and Reality contains convincing arguments against the simple Humean interpretation12 of Michotte’s results. In it, Whitehead writes that “the concept of causation arose because mankind lives amid experiences in the mode of causal efficacy.”13 Here, Whitehead shows that the Humean interpretation of such situations as blinking after seeing a flash is logically inconsistent. According to Hume, we perceive the flash, then the blinking and the regular coincidence of the two makes us instinctively believe that there is causal link between them, but there is nothing like perception of that causal link. However, Whitehead points at three facts that render the Humean interpretation unacceptable. First, it is our immediate experience—we do feel these two events to be causally related, and if the Humean interpretation was true, then we would have to deny our immediate experiences, which would be unacceptable to empiricism. Whitehead suggests—twenty years prior to Michotte—that through simple psychological experimentation, we could ask subjects experiencing blinking after the flash to explain what they had experienced. Note that the experimental situation is here similar to that of Michotte’s in its causal content, but different in its non-illusionary character. Whitehead states that, of course, “the flash made me blink,” a response that was also typical for the subjects in Michotte’s experiments who employed causal terms to express their experiences. Second, if there were no perception of a causal link between the flash and the blinking, but only the perception of the sequence of two separate, and/or disconnected, events, we would be probably be unable to define which event was first. The events are practically simultaneous, and it seems unreasonable to assume that our strong conviction of the causal relation between the events is derived from the vague (if at all possible) experience of the temporal sequence between these two events. Third, and most importantly, from the Humean perspective, our scientific causal explanation of the perceptual event, namely, the fact of stimulating the retina by way of light and the reaction of nerves stimulating the muscles of eyelid, etc…, becomes completely

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

113

irrelevant. There is no rational way in the Humean scheme to bridge the world of our disconnected perceptions to the world of causally linked physical facts. This last fault of Hume’s account is typical for modern philosophy, which makes use of the narrow and simplified concept of experience. From the point of view of Whitehead’s theory of perception, “causal feelings” are the most “primitive” (construed both in the structural and genetic senses) ways in which human beings experience the world. A newborn child lives in the world of causal efficacy. It feels incoming influences acting on itself in a dim way, without any conscious apprehension of their meaning. The reactions of an infant, when viewed from an adult perspective, seem to be almost entirely automatic, namely, “causal.” But we conjecture that there must be some feeling and experience behind the observed behavioral mechanism, and this conjecture is not just an “adventure of speculative thought.” We know these causal feelings well from our own experience because they do not disappear in our adult life. Rather, they are only overshadowed and driven into the background by more sophisticated forms of experience. My point in this essay is to make use of the observation that “clear and distinct perceptions,” namely, perceptions in the mode of presentational immediacy that dominate our adult conscious life, would be experienced as disembodied and unreal if they were isolated from the background of causal feelings. The basic mistake that modern philosophy makes, as stated by Whitehead, consists in omitting the causal background of experience. The “embodiment movement” in philosophy that was advanced by figures such as Merleau-Ponty, the cognitive psychology of Varela, and the growing interest in ecological theories of perception such as that of Gibson, should be interpreted as the beginning of the inevitable retreat from that mistake.

6. Michotte’s Effect as a Projected Causal Feeling In the typical entraining scene that was described previously, we experience a kind of illusion. We perceive the process as being causal although we know that it is not. We know well that flat circles on the screen cannot make anything move, but we experience the scene as involving causality anyhow. This provides prima facie support to the Humean interpretation. The experienced events seem to evoke an instinctive belief which have nothing to do with real causation, but which is somehow connected with our earlier experiences. The questions arise, why do such “instinctive feelings” appear in our experience? What is their

114

Chapter Seven

biological function? If they are delusive in this case, what is the veridical like? Hume’s answer to the first question looks simple and convincing, but it is unacceptable. Events, which often precede others, are a possible cause of it. The causal knowledge of organisms is the result of conditioning; an animal learns to connect in mentality those events that coincide in time and space. This is, according to Humeans, our best way of arriving at knowledge about the “hidden” causal structure of the world. But this makes the accuracy of our basic sensorimotor knowledge about the physical world miraculous. If real causal influences from the world are hidden from us, then how is it possible that animals are doing so well in the environment? Long before a newborn animal has enough opportunity to be effectively conditioned to anything, it instinctively protects its body from falling or being hurt. This is possible because it is sensible to the world adjacent to its body by way of the use of its body.14 The Gibsonian idea of the “haptic system” is employed by Peter White in order to explain the origin of causal impressions in Michotte’s experiments. White suggests15 that these impressions have their source in haptically mediated experiences of force. When we observe launching-type scenes, our causal impressions are not “objective experiences,” but projections. Our visual, causal impressions occur by way of the generalization of our bodily haptic experiences to interactions between visually perceived objects We project our bodily feelings of force on visually perceived objects, and, in this way, according to White, “our actions on objects serve as a model for perception of forces.”16 White stresses that this model should not be treated as a model for the direct perception of the dynamics pertaining to the interactions between objects. He observes17 that the impression of force that is exerted by an object is inconsistent with the laws of motion, which we know from physics. We perceive only an active, moving object in launching-type scenes involving the exertion of force, and we do not attribute any force to inactive ones. It violates the third law of Newton’s dynamics, which states that the force exerted by B on A must be equal and opposite to the force exerted by A on B. Another reason that White provides for the indirect character of causal perception has its origin in a doctrine that, in my opinion, is mistaken and should be replaced by a more adequate conception that does not commit the fallacy of representationalism. White suggests that not only visual perceptions of causality, but also the haptic, bodily impressions, are perceptual representations. He states,

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

115

the mechanoreceptor system has the advantage that it is in direct physical contact with the objects of perception, which the visual system is not. But information picked up about forces through direct physical contact is still mediated by the peripheral nervous system and processed by the central nervous system, resulting in a constructed representation.18 Here we might ask: if bodily feelings are “constructed representations,” then what is the material for this construction? Causal feelings of the body seem to be a paradigmatic example of direct cognition. If White suggests that they are somehow constructed, he will have to face the following dilemma. Either he will have to look for some simple elements in our experience from which these representations are built, such as Hume’s ideas of simple “sensations,” or we are forced to imagine some mysterious neuronal mechanism that processes information from the peripheral nervous system and finally produces even more mysterious neuronal mental representations. This is a typical dilemma for a representationalist who bifurcates nature into a material part, which is causally active, and a psychic part involving subjective impressions which are causally inert. On this physicalist and naturalistic ground, the dilemma is unsolvable. We need a wholly different ontological scheme.

7. From White to Whitehead: The Process Philosophical Interpretation of Michotte’s Effect In process philosophy, there is no ontological gap between simple causal feelings and the activity of the peripheral nervous system where these feelings have their origin. According to Whitehead, “the transmission of emotional feeling with sensum” is what physics calls “transmission of a form of energy.”19 The elementary structure of causality and the elementary structure of feeling is the same. Simple causal feelings that we experience only in a dim and indistinct way are not representations of anything—they are an elementary given in our perception, and they are material for the synthesis of more distinct forms of perception. Feelings of causal efficacy are the most immediate forms of experience. By way of them, we “get in touch with reality.” And if we want to understand anything about the mechanisms of perception, then we should start from them. White rightly assumes that our bodily feelings of causal efficacy are more primitive forms of experience than our visual perceptions of moving objects. He seems to reject the empiricist myth that our feelings of causality must have their origin in repetitive experiences of like contingencies. But his adherence to the myth of representationalism does

116

Chapter Seven

not allow him to take another step toward the ontologically coherent account of Michotte-like phenomena. In his perspective, bodily feelings are mental representations that are similar in structure to the full-blown visual representations. White postulates that when we execute an action, we construct a mental model of the intended action or its consequences—a so-called “forward model.”20 This model allows him to explain the asymmetry, in our perception, of launching scenes in which we perceive only a moving, active object as exerting force, whereas the object moved is perceived as not exerting any force. The active behavior of objects is interpreted as action by means of a matching process—the kinematic properties of a moving object are matched to store representations of actions carried out by the observer him- or herself. The actor’s own actions are understood as involving the exertion of force. When we see objects acting, we draw on force representations that are associated with our own actions. The behavior of objects that are not self-propelled is interpreted as involving resistance, but not an exertion of force, because “it lacks the features that would lead to it being matched to the motor representation of an action.”21 Whitehead’s idea of the “projection” of sense data that are derived from bodily feelings seems prima facie similar to White’s mechanoreceptor hypothesis. But Whitehead uses the term “projection” in an entirely different sense. In his metaphysics, projection appears already on the level of nonliving, enduring objects such as electrons.22 It is not a psychological mechanism of consciousness, but a metaphysical concept that helps to explain the origin of space in the process of concrescence. Our spatiotemporal view of the world is built on the ground of causal efficacy, and “projection” is one of “mechanisms”23 that lead from causal feelings to our full-blown perceptions of the world. There are most often some grains of truth even in mistaken philosophical doctrines. Representationalism in contemporary philosophy has its true grain in the idea that there is symbolic reference between perceptions and their sources in the world, or between the mode of presentational immediacy and the mode of causal efficacy, in Whitehead’s terms. The fallacy of representationalism consists in the belief that symbolism requires some language-like semantics. The relation between causal feelings and the clear perceptions built upon them is not semantical but metaphysical; they are two phases of one concrescence. But it is valid in holding that our perception does not consist of direct presentations of material objects such as grey stones. The biological function of perception is to detect enduring objects in our environment that are connected to us by some possible causal link, and

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

117

from which we may benefit or lose out on as living organisms. Biologically effective perceptual mechanisms must be able to distinguish between veridical perceptions of enduring physical objects and delusive ones. According to ecological theories of perception, it is already on the level of simple sensum that we distinguish between veridical and illusory impressions. The entertainment of color sensum is not enough to perceive color as real—an object must produce certain characteristic changes in patterns of sensation. For example, for something to look red, it is not enough to enable certain responses, but also to induce certain expectancies about how the object will show up under a range of possible variations. However, the truth of these expectancies is not guaranteed by the appearance of the color. If those expectancies are false—that is, if they are prone to be disappointed—then the look the object has in this context is illusory; it is not really red, even though it looks red.24 The “sense of reality” is a basic feature of perception and it is definable in terms of the relation between causal feelings and presentational immediacy. It allows us to explain the nature of hallucination and to distinguish among different modes of awareness, such as wakefulness and dreaming. In The Concept of Nature, Whitehead distinguishes between perceptual and physical objects, defining physical objects as those perceptual objects that are not delusive in character. But he explains the difference between delusive and non-delusive perception in terms of active and non-active conditioning, a distinction that seems to not be all that precise.25 In Process and Reality, however, he suggests that that there are “grades of delusiveness” where hallucinations occupy the highest grade and the “non-delusive case of when we see a chair-image and there is a chair.”26 Obviously, it does not mean that sense qualities should be attributed either to the “real chair” as its attributes or to the internal constitution of chair-image. Rather, they acquire their “ingression from one of the originative phases of the percipient occasion.”27 What I call “sense of reality” is not a conceptual mechanism from a higher cognitive level, but it is the feeling connected with the fact that we experience the world with our body. As Whitehead states, “the present perception is strictly inherited from the antecedent bodily functioning.”28 It is the feature of imaginary objects by which we may entertain their presence without any eye strain or any similar bodily feelings, and it is causal feelings that allow us, so easily in normal circumstances, to distinguish between normal perceptions and dreamlike ones. The presentational content of perception—that which we clearly see—is associated with feelings that allow us to distinguish veridical perceptions from delusions already on the sensory level. We do not need intellectual

118

Chapter Seven

judgment to know that we are experiencing a delusion—we simply feel it thanks to our instinctive awareness of the correlation between perceived sense qualities and the causal feelings that are given through the mechanoreceptor system. Disjunctivists in the theory of perception are right to claim that delusions and veridical perceptions are not members of a common class of mental states, but they are wrong to suggest that we cannot tell if we are in a veridical perceptual state or not. Causal feelings, which we experience in undergoing Michotte’s experimental scenarios, are elements of our perceptual “sense of physical reality.” They are “signals” of a physical character of perceived objects. In Michotte’s cases, these signals are misleading, because the objects perceived are not hefty physical objects, the presence of which in natural environments is signaled by our “sense of physicality.” Launching scenarios evoke such feelings because such perceptual situations are purposefully constructed by an experimenter to imitate the behavior of physical objects. The evolutionary benefits from such cognitive abilities are obvious. Our perception should be directed towards physical objects, since only they are nutritious or dangerous. Objects that do not evoke signals of physicality are treated not necessarily as delusive, but rather as illusory or just composed of “lights and shadows.” And our perceptual system is redirected toward objects that may physically interact with our bodies. That is the way our bodily feelings are engaged in the process of perception—they are already in play in searching for biologically-useful objects in the environment.

8. Conclusion Human perception has an important emotional dimension. There is, besides the “presentational” element, which dominates our high cognitive activities, a certain “density of feelings” that is inextricably intertwined with the presentational contents of our perceptual states. This does not mean that our perception is just instinctive, irrational, or intrinsically subjective. The Whiteheadian scheme allows us to determine the nature of this emotional background of perception without falling into the traps of subjectivism, representationalism, or substantialism. The feeling which I call “the sense of physicality” is just one of the elements of this emotional dimension of perception, which serves here as an explanation of the famous Michotte’s effect.

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

119

Notes 1. The English version of Albert Michotte’s The Perception of Causality, trans. T. R. Miles and E. Miles (New York: Basic Books) was published in 1963, whereas the original French version: La Perception de la Causalité (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie) was published in 1946. Michotte started his experimental research on the perception of causality in 1939. 2. To be sure, see the Yale University reference guide on Causal Perception at: http://www.yale.edu/perception/Brian/refGuides/causality.html 3. By the notion of Whitehead’s “ontology,” I mean the theory of objects that is outlined in Concept of Nature (1920), and developed in later works. The wider term, “metaphysics,” refers to the whole theory of becoming. In other words, ontology deals with potentialities, while metaphysics embraces both potential and actual elements in perception. 4. I assume that there is continuity in Whitehead’s thinking pertaining to the theme of perception. In The Concept of Nature, Whitehead describes the “given of perception” in terms of extensive durations which allow him to extract the theory of perceived nature from the whole metaphysical framework. In Process and Reality, Whitehead develops the idea of “causal nexnjs” (plural) as representing the “given” in perception. As a result, his “theory of perception” becomes so allembracing that it may be identified with his metaphysics. 5. Peter A. White, “Perception of Forces Exerted by Objects in Collision Events,” Psychological Review 116.3 (2009): 580–601. 6. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 173. 7. In Whitehead’s view, the relation between causal efficacy and presentational immediacy is a paradigmatic example of symbolic reference, but this does not mean that this relation has a conceptual or semantic character. It is the other way around, namely, our conceptual capacities are possible because there is a primitive “pre-conceptual” symbolic relation in the lower levels of cognition. 8. Brian J. Scholl and Patrice D. Tremoulet, “Perceptual Causality and Animacy,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4.8 (2000): 299-309. 9. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 156. 10. See Willard Van Orman Quine, From Stimulus to Science (New York: Harvard University Press, 1998). 11. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 158-159. This particular idea of Whitehead is not that rare in contemporary philosophy of perception. It is the sense in which this principle is rejected for example, by Quine, who claims that the idea of an object of which we predicate qualities is the result of the late phase of evolution of language. According to Quine, the primitive forms of language and the primitive forms of knowledge are not of the subject-predicate form. See Quine’s From Stimulus to Science. 12. There is “sophisticated Humeanism,” that I am not referring to here, according to which it is possible to combine the general Humean account of causality, namely, the regularity view of causation, with the acceptance of possibility of

120

Chapter Seven

direct perception of causation. See Helen Beebee, “Seeing Causing,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103.1 (2003): 257-280. 13. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 175. 14. James Jerome Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966). 15. White, “Perception of Forces.” 16. White, “Perception of Forces,” 581. 17. White, “Impressions of Force in Visual Perception of Collision Events: A Test of the Causal Asymmetry Hypothesis,” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14 (2007): 647–652. 18. White, “Perception of Forces.” 19. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 315. 20. White, “Perception of Forces,” 582. 21. White, “Perception of Forces,” 583. 22. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 177. 23. In Process and Reality, 323, Whitehead states that the projectors—the straight lines, are “nexnjs whose geometrical relations are forms ingredient in a strainfeeling with this nexnjs as data. … The projection of sensa in presentational immediacy depends entirely upon the state of the brain.” 24. Susan Hurley and Alva Noë, “Can Hunter-Gatherers Hear Colour?” in Common Minds: Themes From the Philosophy of Philip Pettit, ed. Geoffrey Brennan, Robert Goodin, Frank Jackson, and Michael Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 25. In The Concept of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1920 / 1995), 152-153, Whitehead writes that the “active conditioning events are the events whose characters are particularly relevant for the event (which is the situation) to be the situation for that percipient event, namely the coat, the mirror, and the state of the room as to light and atmosphere. The passive conditioning events are the events of the rest of nature. In general the situation is an active conditioning event; namely the coat itself, when there is no mirror or other such contrivance to produce abnormal effects. But the example of the mirror shows us that the situation may be one of the passive conditioning events. We are then apt to say that our senses have been cheated, because we demand as a right that the situation should be an active condition in the ingression.” The problem arises when we want to give precise meaning to the term “abnormal” here. According to Austin, for example, the illusory perceptions with mirrors or with water refracting light are perfectly normal perceptual situations for us to be in, in contrast to delusive perceptions like hallucinations. Whitehead does not distinguish between delusive and illusory perceptions. 26. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 64. 27. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 122. 28. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 312.

The Perception of Causality in Light of Process Ontology

121

References Beebee, Helen, “Seeing Causing,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103.1 (2003): 257-280. Gibson, James Jerome. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. Hurley, Susan and Alva Noë. “Can Hunter-Gatherers Hear Colour?” In Common Minds: Themes From the Philosophy of Philip Pettit, edited by Geoffrey Brennan, Robert Goodin, Frank Jackson, and Michael Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Michotte Albert. La Perception de la Causalité. Louvain: Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1946. —. The Perception of Causality. Translated by T. R. Miles and E. Miles. New York: Basic Books 1963. Quine, Willard Van Orman. From Stimulus to Science. New York: Harvard University Press, 1998. Scholl, Brian J. and Patrice D. Tremoulet. “Perceptual Causality and Animacy.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4.8 (2000): 299-309. White, Peter A. “Impressions of Force in Visual Perception of Collision Events: A Test of the Causal Asymmetry Hypothesis.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14 (2007): 647–652. —. “Perception of Forces Exerted by Objects in Collision Events.” Psychological Review 116.3 (2009): 580–601. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978. —. The Concept of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1920 / 1995.



CHAPTER EIGHT PROCESSUALIZING HERMENEUTIC ONTOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF THE INDETERMINACY OF INTERPRETATION DIMITRI GINEV

Abstract This paper evaluates a version of hermeneutic ontology that promises to invalidate the argument that ontologizing hermeneutics implies necessarily a normative-epistemological deficit of interpretation theory. It is stressed that this version manages to overcome the indeterminacy of interpretation by using an approach to the contextualization of the understanding / interpretation nexus that bears significant similarities with tendencies in process studies. A new concept of proto-normativity is developed that helps one to define the balance between interpretation and objectification within the research process.

Keywords Strong holism; hermeneutic fore-structure; ontico-ontological difference; readable technologies; double hermeneutics; constitution of meaning.

1. Introduction Regardless of the terminology in which it is formulated and expressed, the idea of “fore-structuring” occupies several themes within the processphilosophizing architectonics. A classical locus in this regard is Chapter Five of Part Four of Process and Reality which is entitled “Measurement.” In it, Whitehead’s concerns turn to the ways in which measurement and the “interpretative statements of direct experience” participate in the constitution of the “societies of enduring objects like electrons, protons,

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

123

and molecules.”1 One important stipulation he introduces is that measurement depends on the practices by means of which the straightness gets established, and not the experience of the straightness upon the measurement. Furthermore, there is always a “final dependence” of the measuring instruments upon the primary experience, which involves “ultimate intuitions of congruence between earlier and later states of the instruments employed.”2 Whitehead defines measurement as a comparison of infinitesimals, or as an approximation to infinitesimals. In a line of reasoning that is closely related to a hermeneutic discourse, Whitehead makes the case that the multidimensionality of the situated perception, which makes possible the “mode of presentational immediacy,” is what fore-structures the entities that are objectified in scientific inquiry. This perception is, by its very nature, a trans-subjective process that is irreducible to the “private psychology of the particular observer.” Thus, the fore-structuring of scientific objectification is to be ascribed to this process and not to particular cognitive abilities. In the chapter on “Measurement,” Whitehead alludes to the normative power of the interpretative fore-structuring. The trans-subjective experience, or the experience Whitehead attributes to the reality of our “special cosmic epoch,” namely, the “widest society of actual entities” involved in our ongoing practices regulates normatively the individual intellectual comprehension of the physical universe. Whitehead’s elaborations on the concept of measurement reveal a clear tendency toward the interpretative fore-structuring of scientific research. This tendency gets retained in more recent approaches to process philosophy.3 In this chapter, I will address the issue of the normative potential that is generated by the practical experience on a pre-epistemological level. Thus formulated, the issue belongs, without doubt, to the thematic repertoire of hermeneutic phenomenology. Yet a debate from the 1990s shows that certain arguments running counter to the ontological turn taken by hermeneutics (in particular those which refer to the indeterminacy of interpretation) are still intact. To be sure, in trying to refute such arguments the adherents of hermeneutic phenomenology might profit significantly from different kinds of process studies. At the same time, the specification of the ontological difference as a distinction between the intrinsic time of the processes and the horizonal “temporalizing of temporality” (as this distinction gets elaborated in hermeneutic phenomenology) can be of central importance for the champions of process studies in their efforts to avoid a hypostatization of time / temporality and, by implication, a rehabilitation of the “metaphysics of presence.” This claim offers the possibility of a promising dialogue

124

Chapter Eight

between two schools of thought. However, the present paper is not devoted to the avenues of a productive exchange between hermeneutic phenomenology and process studies. Its aim is confined solely to a reading of the ontology of interpretation from a process-oriented perspective.

2. Does the Alleged Redundance of Context Dependence in the Ontological Interpretation Imply a Deficit of Epistemological Normativity? There is a standard position against ontologizing interpretation, namely, against the construal of interpretation in terms of an existential phenomenon that is ascribed to the modes of being-in-the-world. According to its principal argument, the ontologization of hermeneutics is doomed to an irrecoverable skepticism. Making interpretation a dimension of Heidegger’s “thrown project,” and ascribing to interpretative knowledge a “derivative status” in accordance with the scenario of the derivability of “apophantic as” from “hermeneutic as,” precludes the possibility of treating interpretation as an autonomous cognitive procedure that is subordinated to epistemological norms and criteria for validity and objectivity. By admitting the priority of “ontological interpretation” over “epistemic interpretation”—so the argument from the standard position goes—one fails to defeat the skepticism about the validity and objectivity of particular interpretations and to cope with the conflict of competing interpretations. In other words, there is a lack of rules in the ontological approach for singling out the best interpretation, or at least the more appropriate one. The standard position is guided by a methodological imperative that is advocated by several prominent analytical philosophers. This imperative holds that if a set of constraints fails to yield a unique interpretation, then one ought to search for further—as yet unarticulated— constraints on interpretation. For several reasons, the ontological approach to interpretation cannot meet this methodological imperative. Therefore, it is ineffective and unreliable. By implication, the ontological approach is accused of having no resources to settle disputes between competing interpretative research programs, namely, programs based on alternative methodologies of interpretation in disciplines like cultural anthropology, literary criticism, micro-history, religious studies, or art history. It suffers from an incurable normative deficit. In stressing the total context-dependence of interpretation that is embedded in the modes of being-in-the-world, the supporters of the ontological approach fail to handle the problem of the indeterminacy of interpretation. The standard position charges that the

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

125

kind of skepticism that is brought into play by the ontological-holisticcontextual approach to interpretation can be only eliminated by supplying or combining the latter with, or at least restricting it by way of, a rationalcomparative approach to interpretation that is capable of determining it epistemologically. An external normative reflection on the contextdependent interpretation should overcome its normative deficit, thereby justifying epistemologically the interpretation’s outcome. The ontological approach to interpretation has no potentiality to generate such a reflection. The view that the ontological reformulation of interpretation avoids any epistemological specification in terms of validity, empirical adequacy, truthfulness, and objectivity is most cogently exemplified by the work of James Bohman.4 On his account, this reformulation opens the door to suspicions about the methodological value of interpretation. It implies a “strong holism” (as an anti-normative counterpart of the ontological approach) concerning the contextual indeterminacy of interpretation that forecloses the application of norms and criteria. The transcendental argument for this holism involves four premises. According to the first two of them, interpretation is predicated on a part-whole circularity (the ineliminability of the hermeneutic circle), and it occurs only against the background of an unspecifiable interrelatedness of practices. For Bohman, as a typical exponent of the standard position, these premises are obligatory for each kind of interpretation. Circular and perspectival aspects are not extraneous features but transcendental conditions for having interpretative practices. However, strong holism is based on two further premises that are unacceptable. They stipulate the insurmountable limits of interpretation’s epistemic characterization, and the impossibility of distinguishing between true and false interpretations. The only methodological recommendation that strong holism might provide is that one should follow the rationality of practical wisdom (phronesis) in the process of interpretation. In order to “save” interpretative holism from skepticism and to subject interpretation’s contextual indeterminacy to normative-epistemological rationality, Bohman suggests a modified transcendental argument. The premises of the inevitability of hermeneutic circularity and the unspecifiability of the background interrelatedness of practices are preserved, while the other two premises get replaced by the assumptions that: the background poses only an enabling condition that by no means limits the epistemic characterization of interpretation; and the latter consists of knowledge claims that can be tested by intersubjectively accepted norms and criteria. The enabling condition is not to be confused

126

Chapter Eight

with a “limiting condition” that makes it impossible to decide and choose normatively between interpretations on the basis of evidence. The revisited transcendental argument leads to what Bohman calls “weak holism,” which is a doctrine that is in harmony with the standard position.5 What is meant by this expression is a generalized view about the epistemological nature of interpretation that is in line with post-empiricist philosophy of science. Weak holism is a view about interpretation’s contextual indeterminacy and circularity that allows one to treat the outcomes of interpretations as knowledge (claims and beliefs) based on evidence. Treating interpretations in such a manner is a precondition for forging an epistemological framework of appraising interpretative knowledge. To establish a non-skeptical conclusion about the holistcircular-contextual nature of interpretation amounts to subordinating hermeneutics to the normativity of getting empirically warranted knowledge. In Bohman’s eyes, a universalizing of hermeneutics beyond the scope of post-empiricist epistemology, and its normative rationality, would imply universal philosophical skepticism. In sum, what Bohman suggests can be formulated in terms of the following dilemma: one can either accept epistemological skepticism as the ultimate philosophical position with regard to the nature of interpretation or recast hermeneutics as a special field of (weakly normative, post-empiricist) epistemology. For those who believe in universalizing hermeneutics as an ongoing program, but who repudiate any form of epistemological skepticism, there is the obligation to get rid of this depressing dilemma. In order to take some initial steps in that direction let me call attention to the fact that, in Bohman’s formulation of the transcendental argument for strong holism, the premise of background’s unspecifiability is wrong. To stress again, Bohman retains this premise also in his formulation of the transcendental argument for weak holism. According to him, the background of practices and beliefs is an amorphous milieu. Interpretation is simply immersed in this milieu. Moreover, it is doomed to be normatively blind with regard to what should be counted as its pertinent background. From a hermeneutic point of view, however, the background is inseparable from the horizon of interpretation. The background that continually depends on the projection of the horizon is the ongoing fore-structuring of interpretation. It is this projection in the interpretative process that makes the background possible. The way in which the horizon of possibilities becomes appropriated in this process delineates and specifies the background constantly. Yet, the latter, in its turn, constantly provokes—through its variability—the projection of new possibilities. Thus, background of practices and projected horizon of

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

127

possibilities are involved in an ongoing mutual reinforcement that progressively rules out the background’s unspecifiability. In failing to address the issue of how the projection of horizon and delineation of background are united in a relation of co-specification in the process of interpretation, the supporters of the standard position are unable to transcend Bohman’s dilemma. It is this relation that brings into being an important aspect of what I will call a “hermeneutic fore-structure” of the constitution of meaning. More specifically, I will argue that the background of practices in an interpretative process is specifiable as a hermeneutic fore-structure of generating knowledge claims and cognitive structures. Evaluating this notion helps one to come to grips with issues of how norms of epistemic truthfulness, objectivity, and validity are engendered in this process, and accordingly, of how the very process gets specified epistemologically. One further claim that I will advance is that the ontological approach to interpretation is capable of revealing, in the contextualized interpretative practices, a potentiality to deal successfully with the aspects of normative indeterminacy. My contention is that an ontological approach to interpretation that is grounded upon a theory of double hermeneutics allows one to hold strong (ontological) holism, while avoiding skepticism about the epistemological specifiability of interpretative practices.6 Like many others, Bohman spells out, in quite a definite manner, the standard position against the ontological recasting of interpretation. His argumentative framework is provided by theories that emphasize science’s normative rationality. Yet this is not the standard position’s original critical framework. In fact, the standard position is rooted, in the first place, in a quite tendentious reading of the history of modern hermeneutics. It is a reading that rejects the “post-Diltheyan turn” of interpretation theory. The main merit of Dilthey’s methodological hermeneutics—a program that he developed parallel to, and to a certain extent in a competition with, his version of “descriptive psychology”— was its way of constituting “individual wholes” as the human sciences’ objects of inquiry.7 The individual wholes are neither “singulars” (particular cultural-historical facts) nor are they reducible to merely empirical data (and data-models).8 The methodology of their constitution is neither that of teleological reconstruction nor that of structuralfunctional explanatory models. The constitution of individual wholes proceeds by means of the interplay between the self-understanding of the historical agents who are under study and the interpretative grasping of this self-understanding’s objectifications. Presumably, the agents’ self-

128

Chapter Eight

understanding becomes expressed in all cultural manifestations of the lifeform under study.9 The interplay is built upon the model of the part-whole hermeneutic circle. Consequently, an individual whole—for instance, an artistic style, an epoch’s “cultural spirit,” or a historical type of moral consciousness— that is constituted by this interplay gets never closed in itself and finalized in accordance with epistemological criteria for the research process’ finality. Whether the hermeneutic circularity can be kept under a methodological (and normative) control remains an open question in Dilthey’s work. However, the very idea of a circulative relationship between the particular manifestations of the life-forms’ self-understanding and the interpretative constitution of meaningful wholes provoked a profound change in respect to the traditional theory of interpretation that was oriented toward methodical and logical problematics. To be sure, there was a strong tendency to ontologize interpretation involved in this idea. This tendency got established in Dilthey’s school despite the fact that he vehemently opposed an ontological reformulation of Lebensphilosophie. This was the advent of philosophical hermeneutics. The post-Diltheyan turn consists in the development of several versions of philosophical hermeneutics as a result of the differing approaches to the way in which Dilthey designed the interplay constituting meaningful wholes. Philosophers like Georg Misch, Martin Heidegger, Hans Lipps, Helmuth Plessner, and Josef König, who in the 1920s undertook this turn in the aftermath of a (re)publication of Dilthey’s basic works, have been accused, by those who defend the standard position, of not being preoccupied with the traditional hermeneutic problematic concerning the meaning of texts and discourses. In respect to this accusation, the aforementioned philosophers were not interested in the original function of hermeneutics as the art of interpretation of an author’s intentions, whose discursive and textual embodiment produces meaning. Thus, they ignored the philological aspects of hermeneutics, transforming hermeneutics either into a theory of “the expressivity of life-forms” (Misch and König), or an existential analytic (Heidegger), or a phenomenological theory of the human finitude and situatedness (Lipps), or a prelude to philosophical anthropology as a theory of “eccentric positionality” (Plessner). By detaching hermeneutics from empirical science, they divorced it from the epistemological profile of scientific rationality. According to those who were critical of this detachment, the authors of the post-Diltheyan turn concentrated in their historical reflections exclusively on the theological side of traditional hermeneutics, for instance, anti-Enlightenment exegetical conceptions related to the interpretative dimensions of God’s

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

129

immanent transcendence. In so doing, they neglected completely those traditional conceptions that were preoccupied with the analytical (methodical and formal-logical) aspects of disclosing the authors’ textually embodied intentions. As a corollary to this criticism, the contemporary historians of modern hermeneutics who subscribe to the change in paradigm that was provoked by Dilthey’s anti-naturalist philosophy of the human sciences, and his program for a “critique of historical reason,” go on to justify the progressive divergence of philosophical hermeneutics from rationally reproducible procedures of interpretation.10 The critique of the postDiltheyan turn, however, aims not merely at a new historiography of interpretation theory. Its basic goal is rather to “de-legitimize” the philosophical projects that developed along the lines of this turn. To put it into quasi-Heideggerian parlance, the critique aims at destroying the tradition(s) underlying these projects in order to get the chance of reasking the authentic questions of interpretation theory.11 In accomplishing this task, the critics believe that they will regain the status of hermeneutics as an auxiliary discipline of normative epistemology. Accordingly, Continental philosophical hermeneutics will prove to be an extravagant deviation from the “rational development” of interpretation theory. The critics are inclined to conceive of the development of the traditional (preDiltheyan) hermeneutics as a series of consecutive conceptions that are more or less predecessors of Quine’s “radical translation,” Davidson’s “radical interpretation,” and all versions of the “principle of charity” discussed and advocated in analytical philosophy. Hence, their “delegitimizing” historiography of modern hermeneutica generalis—the traditional art of interpretation after the extension of the exegetical principle of sola scriptura as a general theory of texts’ meaning—serves, at the same time, the task of legitimizing the authenticity of the way in which the problematic of interpretation is discussed in analytic philosophy. On this occasion, I will not touch upon the “historiographic battle” for hermeneutics. To be sure, the contemporary versions of the principle of charity have much in common with the pre-Kantian views about the aequitas hermeneutica. Yet the post-Diltheyan turn was also “prepared” by several developments in the traditional hermeneutics. More specifically, it was prepared by those conceptions that had not succumbed to the paradigm of interpreting the author’s intentionality incorporated in texts and discourses.12 Some cases in point are the conceptions which emphasized the irreducibility of the “hermeneutic truth” to empirical or logical truth. The message of these developments and conceptions is that hermeneutics is something more than a sub-discipline of normative or

130

Chapter Eight

naturalized epistemology. However, the irreducibility of “ontological hermeneutics” to an epistemological enterprise does not imply (pace Heidegger and many others) an anti-epistemological position. By spelling out the concept of a “characteristic hermeneutic situation,” as a further specification of the notion of hermeneutic fore-structure,13 in the rest of this chapter, I will argue for the possibility of an epistemologically specifiable ontological hermeneutics. Strangely enough, all post-Diltheyan versions of philosophical hermeneutics draw heavily on the distinction between the natural and the human sciences, stressing the interpretative-dialogical nature of the latter and the objectivistmonological specificity of the former. This is strange because the claim of the universality of hermeneutics requires demonstrating the interpretativeconstitutive dimension of natural-scientific inquiry as well. If one fails to address this dimension properly, one would be committed to a universal hermeneutics that is not combating scientism as a wrong ideological identification of science’s profile, but science itself. In short, this would be a hermeneutic that is struggling not for anti-scientism, but for anti-science. More recent versions of philosophical hermeneutics (like that of Charles Taylor) acknowledge the interpretative character of practices like experimentation, calibration of instruments, construction of theory’s datamodels, construction of theory’s mathematical formalism, and so on. They do not deny science’s interpretative dimension. Nonetheless, they insist on the doubly hermeneutic organization of human-scientific research as an irremovable distinctive feature. On their view, the interpretative character of natural-scientific practices does not imply the need for a double hermeneutics. Although I am not striving to undo the philosophically significant distinction between the natural and the human sciences, I believe that the phenomena involved in the double hermeneutics cannot provide the necessary criterion for carrying out this distinction effectively. Albeit operating in a quite different manner as compared with the human sciences, the double hermeneutics is to be established by a theory of natural-scientific practices too. This theory will occupy a central place in the remainder. In what follows, it will be necessary to proceed in three steps. First, I will examine the constitution of the existential analytic of meaning as a mediator between the methodological and the ontological theory of interpretation. Second, it will be imperative to elaborate on the concept of the hermeneutic fore-structure of science’s interpretative practices as a specification of the existential analytic’s nexus of understandinginterpretation. Third, I shall argue against the subordination of hermeneutics

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

131

to epistemology by working out the concept of the characteristic hermeneutic situation.

3. Providing a Rationale for the Ontological Approach to Interpretation The double hermeneutics qua a methodology of the interpretative sciences might be developed independently of the ontological approach. This is illustrated, in particular, in the work of Mary Hesse and Anthony Giddens. The reverse, however, is not valid: the ontological theory of interpretation involves necessarily a double hermeneutics. To demonstrate the original motivation for introducing double hermeneutics, let me take up the discussion of Dilthey’s interplay of a life-form’s self-understanding and the interpretative constitution of the life-form’s meaningful whole as an object of inquiry. Following the claims of ungroundability, unfathomability, and inscrutability of “life’s dynamics,” Dilthey elaborates on this interplay in order to prevent a superimposition of extraneous interpretative schemes upon the life-forms as individual wholes. The double hermeneutics allows one an intrinsic interpretation of the lifeform’s meaningful self-articulation. Yet the double hermeneutics does not imply a lack of epistemic distance in this intrinsic interpretation. Dilthey tried to address the distance issue by introducing the distinction between the “reflexive awareness” (Innewerden) of the life-forms and the “reflective interpretation” within human-scientific experience. The way of devising such an interpretation implies, at the same time, a transition to a kind of transcendental reflection specifying the constitution of individual wholes as research objects. It is this reflection that reveals conditions for the possibility of a life-form’s expressivity within (what Dilthey calls) the life-form’s “productive nexus” (Wirkungszusammenhang). The interpretative research’s orientation proves to be both hermeneutic, namely, predicated on the circularity of the constitution of an individual whole, and transcendental. By serving a transcendental function, the hermeneutic circle of the interpretative constitution of objects of inquiry brings about an epistemic distance. The same overlapping of hermeneutic and transcendental circularity will take place in the existential analytic as well.14 Dilthey was successful in emphasizing the need of double hermeneutics in the interpretative sciences. Yet his philosophy of these sciences does not suffice in approaching, more closely, the double hermeneutics’ ontological and methodological aspects. In his late essay, “Abstractions From the Life of Our Wills,” Dilthey tries to work out some

132

Chapter Eight

of these aspects in the perspective of an extension of traditional logic as the “logic of life” (the logic of the life-forms’ formation). This extension was accomplished by Georg Misch, whose “hermeneutic logic of discursivity (Diskursivität)” managed to integrate the methodology of the doubly hermeneutic constitution of human-scientific objects of inquiry into a general theory of life’s discursive expressivity.15 In what follows, however, I will restrain from dealing further with the Diltheyan tradition. Instead, I will concentrate my attention on the road to double hermeneutics by re-reading the existential analytic’s understanding-interpretation nexus and the ontic-ontological difference. Leaning on the existential analytic, one realizes that the double hermeneutics is not simply an “interpretation of interpretation,” but rather a process of unfolding, on two levels, the interpretative self-understanding of the agents under study as they constitute their form of life (and their life-worlds). On each level one is dealing with specific interpretative circularity, and the task of the double hermeneutics, as a methodology, is to figure out the integral hermeneutic circularity of the research process. My principal disagreement with the standard position, as discussed in the previous section, can be expressed by the following claim: by devising the integral circle of the interpretative constitution of meaning, one will be able to specify epistemological constraints on the ontic level’s interpretation. This task requires me to address, in the first place, the issue of the constitution of meaning in hermeneutic phenomenology. Notoriously, in Being and Time interpretation as an existentiale is assigned to the meaning of being. Yet the access to that (“fundamentalontological”) meaning is through the analysis of the interpretative constitution of meaning and the articulation of the world. The analysis takes into account the dual status of meaning with respect to the ontological difference. On the ontic level, all entities that can be thematized are laden with meaning. Even purely natural objects are not an exception since the practice of scientific thematization makes them meaningful and culturally contextualized. By contrast, the meaning of being (i.e. the ontological meaning of the existentiales) is never given to the “positive experience” of scientific thematization. The ontological meaning is a pure “nothingness” for this experience. The constitution of meaning in cultural existence is a process that mediates between the ontological and the ontic meaning. This is why an analysis of the constitution of meaning makes possible the transition from the ontic (empirical) to the ontological (transcendental) level. The constitution involves, at once, the modes of empirical manifestation of meaning and the a priori conditions for a meaningful articulation of the world. The

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

133

analysis presupposes that interpretation has an “ontic universality” in all practices within-the-world, since the constitution of meaning and the articulation of cultural worlds take place inevitably in these practices. Thus, interpretation is, at once, an ontological moment that characterizes the meaning of being, and a universal ontic (i.e., empirically accessible) event. The empirical accessibility to the ontic universality is to be attained, in particular, by what is called a “theory of practices,” after Bourdieu. In the existential analytic, the expression, “concernful dealings” stands for the concept of practices. Speaking in Heidegger’s terms, “care,” which unites the ontologically existentiality, facticity, and being-fallen of Dasein’s being-in-the-world is organized as an interrelatedness of concernful dealings. Care is not a special attitude toward the self, but the phenomenological totality of being-in-the-world, whereas existence absorbed in the interrelatedness of the dealings with things that are readyto-hand is defined as “concern.” Both the existential totality of care and the concern for what is ready-to-hand are essentially interpretative. Yet the former is distinguished by ontological universality, while the latter is rendered distinct by the ontic universality of interpretation. Every concrete attitude of interpretative concern, specified by cultural patterns, is grounded in care. In other words, the modes of interpretative concern are ontic possibilities of being-as-care. The things that are ready-to-hand within the interrelatedness of practices “have been interpreted in the horizon of the they.”16 Heidegger makes the case that the everyday-routine interpretation of “the they” constrains the possible options of (inauthentic) interpretative-deliberative choice within-the-world. One chooses possibilities projected by the routine practices of “the they” and “the average everydayness of concern.” The interpretative concern within-theworld becomes blind to alternative possibilities. In the interpretative sciences, the application of double hermeneutics proceeds from the ontic investigation of meaningful cultural diversities— think of a cultural-anthropological investigation based on “thick description,” for instance—to disclose structures of meaning constitution within the cultural worlds. A case in point is the changing structures of identity on the basis of the narrative construction of an ethnic or a confessional community. These structures involve configurations of historical self-understanding, cultural memory, intersubjective states-ofmind, symbolic expressivity, and techniques of narration. From a Heideggerian point of view, disclosing such structures is by no means an ontological study. Yet in this hermeneutic investigation, one employs transcendental arguments in interpreting the factual outcome of the ontic investigation. In so doing, one ascribes to the disclosed structures

134

Chapter Eight

existential-ontological moments. Thus, the human-scientific double hermeneutics creates a definitive methodical order of moving from ontic issues to an ontologically relevant problematic. In the existential analytic, the ontico-ontological order becomes reversed as regards this methodological order. The interpretative articulation of the world, namely, the ontological status of interpretation, proves not to be an explanation of interpretation’s empirical universality by means of transcendental arguments, but rather the fore-structure of its ontic universality. The same conclusions are to be held with regard to understanding that is distinguished by an ontic and an ontological status. To be sure, the existential-analytic construal of this term runs against the commonsensical conception of it. Leaning on linguistic intuition, the primary connotation of the term “understanding” is related to the contextualized mental activity. For one understands something by having recourse to the context in which this something is placed, or by grasping intentions incorporated in speech acts or actions. There is, however, even in the commonsensical meaning of understanding a hidden connotation that differs significantly from the meaning of a cognitive event. This connotation, which lays bare the intuitive base of the existential-phenomenological construal of meaning, becomes clear when one says that one understands oneself by way of the possibilities that one can appropriate in one’s mode of being-inthe-world. Applied to an interpretative research process, this means, in particular, that a scientific community understands itself as being projected upon possibilities of articulation pertaining to what is disclosed by the community’s practices as a domain of research.17 Ontologically, understanding is self-projective being toward a potentiality-for-being. In scrutinizing understanding as an existentiale, Heidegger manages to show the priority of the potentiality-for-being over being as actual presence. This ontological conclusion presupposes that an analogous priority takes place also on ontic level. The cultural (meaningful) existence of human beings is primordially projected upon horizons of possibilities that get gradually actualized. The actualization does not imply a detachment from the potentiality-for-being since the actualized remains always already within open horizons. By implication, each actual state of existence is always beyond itself. By the same token, those who understand themselves with respect to the possibilities that they can appropriate have a cultural existence that is always ahead-of-itself. Ontically, understanding is that characteristic of cultural existence which refers to the capability of practices to project their interrelatedness horizons of possibilities, thereby making cultural existence itself a practical projection upon possibilities.

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

135

In section thirty-two of Being and Time, Heidegger introduces the concepts of the “fore-structure of understanding” and the “as-structure of interpretation.” These terms refer to the principal ontological features of meaning. A particular task of the existential analytic is to reveal the nexus between the two concepts. On a narrower definition, understanding is the horizon whose projection discloses entities in their possibility. More specifically, an entity within-the-world is projected upon the totality of its possible involvements in the world. Thus considered, entities have meaning within the projected horizon of understanding (the world), which is in a state of ongoing interpretative articulation. The latter consists of a constant appropriation and actualization of projected possibilities. Roughly speaking, this is the paradigm of the constitutional analysis of meaningful entities that is suggested in Being and Time. It postulates that the interpretative articulation of understanding through the appropriation of possibilities is the very constitution of meaning. Within this constitution— or so Heidegger’s argument goes—the existential-ontological nexus of the fore-structure of understanding and the as-structure of interpretation gets circumscribed in terms of the triad of fore-having, fore-sight, and foreconception in relation to “something that becomes meaningful as something.” I call this circulative nexus the hermeneutic fore-structure of the constitution of meaning. In their fore-structuring, entities within-theworld may exist both as objects thematically present-at-hand and as instrumental equipments in their readiness-to-hand. Moreover, one and the same entity may exist in both ways, depending on its contextual involvements. This is exemplified most of all by the entities involved in scientific research. Pertaining to Heidegger’s ontological construal of the nexus under discussion, in interpretation, understanding as a horizon of possibilities appropriates that which is projected by it. Understanding and interpretation are the two sides of one existential phenomenon. The projected horizon of possibilities is the world that always already transcends what gets articulated within it. Understanding is the projected horizon, while the interrelatedness of practices within-the-world reveals itself as an ongoing appropriation of possibilities. The appropriation has a character of interpretation since it takes on the form of hermeneutic circularity—the projection of the meaningful whole and the articulation of contextual meanings mutually presuppose each other. A theory of practices that draws on the existential-analytic paradigm of meaning constitution should be predicated on the claim that the contextual arrangement of actions enacted by a particular practice is neither determined by norms external to practice nor created by an already

136

Chapter Eight

existing order of the milieu in which the arrangement occurs. It is the hermeneutic circularity of the horizon of understanding and the interpretative articulation that creates a dynamic order projected upon possibilities. Nothing gets hypostatized in this hermeneutic circularity. By ruling out any causal or normative determination in the constitution of meaning, the persistence of the projection-articulation hermeneutic circularity avoids essentialism in a radical manner. The normativity of practice is to be derived from the triad of fore-sight, fore-having, and foreconception in relation to the meaningful entities constituted within practice’s arranged actions. In other words, practice’s normativity is generated by, and embedded in, the hermeneutic circularity of meaning constitution. This proto-normativity contextualizes the constitution of meaningful objects, including objects of inquiry in scientific research.18 Proto-normativity is constantly produced by the hermeneutic forestructuring of interpretation. Now the question arises as to what the consequences of making proto-normativity explicit would be for the process of interpretation.

4. A Sketch of a Hermeneutic Theory of Scientific Research Let me summarize the main considerations of the preceding section of this essay. The ontological theory of interpretation, as inspired by Heidegger’s existential analytic, assumes that interpretation is a dimension of all practices within-the-world. The agents are interpreting themselves as well as the particular contexts and situations of their activities and practices. The ontic level of the universality of interpretation takes into consideration the fact that human beings are doomed to be interpretative creatures.19 The ontic level addresses first and foremost the continuous construction of identity of a life-form’s participants. Those who are involved in the historical re-production of a life-form are constructing their identity by appropriating possibilities that are contextually projected. Studies on this level take on the form of interpretative inquiries into the changing regimes of interpretative communities’ self-understanding with reference to possibilities that are projected as contextually changing horizons. The construction of identity is a never-ending process since the horizon of possibilities remains always open. In interpreting themselves within their situatedness in the world, human beings are disclosing the interpretative nature of their being-in-the-world. In reaching this conclusion, one is approaching the ontological level of interpretation. On this level, interpretation is to be attributed to meaning, with reference to facticity, existentiality, and being-fallen. The two levels

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

137

are intertwined. The relationship between the levels is one of forestructuring. The double hermeneutics involves a transcendental reflection that has to establish the conditions of having an interpretative articulation of a certain kind. The circularity of understanding and interpretation that constitutes meaning takes place in scientific research as well. My contention is that by evaluating the hermeneutic fore-structuring of scientific research, one can apply the transcendental reflection involved in the double hermeneutics to the specification of epistemological conditions of, and constraints on, scientific research as an interpretative process. A hermeneutic theory of scientific research should portray the process of research in terms of changing configurations of interrelated practices.20 Each particular configuration defines a situation in the development of this process. The situation’s outcome is the articulation of the domain of research in a certain way, for instance, in creating new empirical models of domain’s central theory. The articulation brings into being a range of meaningful entities that exist within the situation’s contextualized spaces of representation. A phase diagram, a statistical ensemble of experimental results, a network of quantifiable data achieved by calibrated instruments, an algebraic model of measurements, a particular solution of a system of differential equations, or a semantic model of a theory’s formalism are some examples of such spaces. To make use of Nelson Goodman’s celebrated distinction, in each of these cases one has in mind “representation as” and not “representation of.”21 In representing meaningful entities, one constantly reads them within the horizon that is projected by the situation’s configuration of practices. Thus, the entities’ actual presence in the situation is contextually relative, being subjected to their projection upon possibilities, namely, to their potentiality-for-being. The concept of the “hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research” emerges as a result of the efforts to specify the circular nexus of understanding and interpretation with regard to the constitution of scientific objects and the articulation of domains of research. Following from the preceding portrayal, the manifolds of activities in scientific research become organized as interpretative practices by means of their capacity to serve the function of what Patrick Heelan calls “readable technologies.”22 Scientific research is a process of reading within particular spaces of representation. In this process, one reads instruments, theoretical concepts, experimental results, measurements, partial differential equations, diagrams, etc…. Interpretative practices of scientific research should be distinguished by a potentiality to constitute, through readable technologies, the relevant objects of inquiry within the milieu of the situation’s meaningful entities. By contextualizing the research process

138

Chapter Eight

within a configuration of practices, one calls into existence entities that retain their status as being at one’s instrumental disposal within normal science’s laboratory everydayness, and nevertheless become, under certain conditions, isolable from the context as “thematically given objects” whose identification depends totally on epistemological norms and criteria. In other words, these objects are at once ready-to-hand in their manipulability and present-at-hand in their objectifying identification by means of epistemic procedures. This dual status corresponds to the dyadic character inherent in each configuration of scientific practices that manages both to provide a leeway of possible involvements of what is ready-to-hand in its own context and to disentangle what is constituted from the context, thereby representing the disentangled things as relatively stable objects amenable to a characterization by mathematically idealized predicates. In the natural sciences, each scientific practice is at once a device of reading something ready-to-hand and a means for objectifying something as an experimental outcome, a formalized object characterized by the possible values of parameters expressible by measurement scales, an idealized replica of a phenomenal system, a data-model, a physical system’s behavior that consists in changing states over time, and so on. Thus, the employment of readable technologies within spaces of scientific representation correlates necessarily with the objectification of something that is characterized by a stable semantic—for instance, the empirical content of a theoretical concept, or the possible models of a theory’s mathematical formalism. More generally, the interpretative process in reading is always complemented by a process of semantic codification of what gets read. Yet the entities and structures that are objectified and semantically codified remain within horizons of possible further reading. Their semantic content is always predicated on a contextual underdetermination that is to be related to Quine’s criteria of the existence of science’s objects. The objectified entities are distinguished by verifiable predicates in a manner that allows their identification through procedures subjected to epistemological norms. In this regard, interpretative fore-structuring means anticipating—seeing, having, and grasping in advance—the ascertainment of a formalizable and verifiable predicate of an entity which is “always already” within the configuration of practices that gives rise to the predication. In addressing the hermeneutic fore-structuring with regard to the predicates assigned to the epistemologically identifiable objects, one is preoccupied with the contextual reading and/or representing that delineates those phenomena which are to be included in the predicate’s

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

139

extension. Scientific practices manage to read something-as-something, thereby retaining its status of something ready-to-hand, while the reading process singles out verifiable predicates. Here, the “as” has the character of a “hermeneutic as.” It is the modes of employing readable technologies that work against increasing the contextual underdetermination without destroying the primacy of the “hermeneutic as” of interpretation. On this account, the way in which the semantic codification of what is actualized in a configuration of scientific practices complements the interpretative openness of reading proves to be a derivation from a more general complementarity within the reading process of scientific research, namely, between the contextualizing interpretation and the objectifying predication that makes present. By means of this complementarity the reading process of scientific research succeeds in reducing, not only the contextual underdetermination, but also most of all its epistemological indeterminacy. The modes of employing readable technologies in scientific research bring into play a participant’s reflexivity about the forehaving, fore-sight, and fore-conception of their reading within contextualized spaces of representation. In engaging in such reflexivity, they constantly make explicit the proto-normativity embedded in the hermeneutic fore-structure. This proto-normativity comes to the surface as explicit epistemological norms and criteria, whereby one is able to set up constraints on the indeterminacy of interpretation. It is the complementarity between contextualizing interpretation and objectifying predication that specifies the hermeneutic fore-structuring as a characteristic hermeneutic situation. Making proto-normativity explicit helps one to define the balance between interpretation and objectification within the research process’ reading. This balance transcends the particular situations or configurations of practices of scientific research. Inevitably, the hermeneutic fore-structure is situationally circumscribed. It is palpable through the fore-having, fore-seeing, and fore-grasping of the research objects which become constituted by actualizing possibilities projected by the situation’s configuration of practices. The triad of fore-having, foresight, and fore-conception is “inscribed” in the readable technologies and in the spaces of representation put forward by the configuration. The particular hermeneutic fore-structure gets changed when the configuration of practices is modified, and the research process is accordingly recontextualized. The new regime of contextual reading is projected upon new possibilities. Yet, in contrast to the particular interpretative forestructures of reading, the hermeneutic fore-structuring of a research process is potentially ceaseless. The reading that takes place in a research process is characterized by constitutive hermeneutic features which persist

140

Chapter Eight

in particular situations, contexts, and changing configurations. A characteristic hermeneutic situation encompasses these features, and refers to the research process en bloc. It characterizes the continuous hermeneutic fore-structuring of this process. Let me alter this perspective slightly. Thanks to the complementarity between contextualizing interpretation and objectifying predication, the contextually operative “hermeneutic as” in the research process forestructures the constitution of the objectification by means of which something acquires the status of an epistemologically identifiable object. Thus considered, the objects exist in accordance with the epistemological norms and criteria pertaining to their identification. Quine’s celebrated dictum that “to exist means to be a value of quantifiable variable” provides the standard criterion for identifying and authenticating the existence of objects within a theoretical framework. On another Quinean formulation, closer to the doctrine of ontological commitment, scientists use variables ranging over mathematical entities and are committed to their existence. Such criteria give answers to the question of how to identify the existence of mathematical, theoretical, experimental, and other objects within the discursive framework, by means of which the respective objectification has been put into play. Granted that the objectifying predication is, at the same time, a decontextualization of entities that have been read in contextualized spaces of representation, a characteristic hermeneutic situation is defined by a balance between contextualization and de-contextualization as well. Idealization, formalization, and deductive-nomological explanation are typical practices of de-contextualization. Yet these practices are always contextualized by being involved in configurations with other practices. De-contextualization in scientific research is indispensably contextualized, and fore-structured. By implication, the epistemological norms and criteria that are tied to de-contextualizing practices can only constrain the interpretative contextualization by being at the same time interpretatively fore-structured. In sum, elaborating on the concept of the characteristic hermeneutic situation promises a philosophical universalizing of hermeneutics that leaves enough room for a non-representationalist epistemology.

Notes 1. See Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York and London: The Free Press 1929 / 1978), 325329. The expressions in quotation marks are Whitehead’s. 2. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 333.

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

141

3. See, for instance, Christoph Wassermann, Struktur und Ereignis (Geneva: Faculte de Theologie 1991); Richard L. Brougham, “Ontological Hermeneutics: An Overlooked Bergsonian Perspective,” Process Studies 22 (1993): 37-41; Daniel A. Dombrowski, “Hartshorne on Heidegger,” Process Studies 25 (1996): 19-33; Eric Dickson, “Cassirer, Whitehead, and Bergson: Explaining the Development of the Symbol,” Process Studies 32 (2003): 79-93; Lewis S. Ford, “Temporal and Non-Temporal Becoming,” Process Studies 38 (2009): 5-42. 4. In particular, see James Bohman, New Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991), 102-144. 5. On the way in which the distinction between strong and weak holism is introduced and justified see, James Bohman, “Holism without Skepticism: Contextualism and the Limits of Interpretation,” in The Interpretive Turn, ed. David R. Hiley, et al. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992): 129154. 6. See in this regard also Dimitri Ginev, “Rhetoric and Double Hermeneutics in the Human Sciences,” Human Studies 21(1998): 259-271; and Dimitri Ginev, “Doppelte Hermeneutik und Konstitutionstheorie,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 55 (2007): 679-688. 7. On the interrelations between hermeneutics and descriptive psychology in Dilthey’s work see Rudolf Makkreel, Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Sciences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); Frithjof Rodi, Das strukturierte Ganze: Studien zum Werk von Wilhelm Dilthey (Velbrück: Weilerswist, 2003). 8. In relation to this claim, see for instance, Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, Band VII: Der Aufbau der geschictlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, ed. Bernhard Groethuysen (Leipzig und Berlin, 1927), 212. 9. According to a core doctrine of Dilthey’s program that is contained in his seminal work The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences, ed. Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), the human sciences are called into existence in order to elaborate on strategies for cognizing the historical world by interpreting the discursive and symbolic embodiments of the lived experience of historical agents. In the production and expression of these embodiments, the interpretative reflexivity plays an irreplaceable role. The paramount concept of “Wirkungszusammenhang” (productive nexus) conveys main aspects of the unavoidable situatedness of lived experience. Reflexivity is the interpretative production of cultural embodiments (in Dilthey’s terms, “die Lebensäußerungen,” the life’s expressivity) within the productive nexus. Thus, the human sciences achieve an interpretative cognizing of life’s reflexive expressivity. This is the most succinct formula of the human sciences’ double hermeneutics. 10. Notoriously, this kind of historiography of hermeneutics was launched by Dilthey himself. The point of departure is his celebrated essay, “The Rise of Hermeneutics” of 1900. See Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, Band V: Die geistige Welt—Einleiting in die Philosophie des Lebens. Erste Hälfte: Abhandlungen zur Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften, ed. Georg Misch (Leipzig und Berlin, 1924), 317-338.

142

Chapter Eight

11. In this regard, see Axel Bühler (ed.), Unzeitgemässe Hermeneutik. Verstehen und Interpretation im Denken der Aufklärung (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1994); Lutz Danneberg, “Philosophische und methodische Hermeneutik,” Philosophia Naturalis 32 (1995): 249-269; Oliver Scholz, “Zur systematischen Bedeutung der Aufklärungshermeneutiken,” Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 21 (1996): 156-162; Oliver Scholz “Die Vorstruktur des Verstehens: Ein Beitrag zur Klärung des Verhältnisses zwischen traditioneller Hermeneutik und philosophischer Hermeneutik,” in Die Geschichte der Hermeneutik und die Methodik der textinterpretierenden Disziplinen, ed. Jörg Schönert and Friedrich Vollhardt (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005): 443-462; Denis Thouard, “Wie Flacius zum ersten Hermeneutiker der Moderne wurde: Dilthey, Twesten, Schleiermacher und die Historiographie der Hermeneutik,” in Die Geschichte der Hermeneutik und die Methodik der textinterpretierenden Disziplinen, edited by Jörg Schönert and Friedrich Vollhardt (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005): 265-280. 12. On the reconstruction of the history of modern hermeneutics as preparing the rise of philosophical hermeneutics, see, for instance, Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Harald Schnur, Schleiermachers Hermeneutik und ihre Vorgeschichte (Stuttgart und Weimar: Metzler, 1994). 13. On the notion of hermeneutic fore-structure see Dimitri Ginev, “On the Hermeneutic Fore-Structure of Scientific Research,” Continental Philosophy Review 32 (1999): 143-168. 14. In an existential analytic, however, the overlapping in question proceeds in a twofold manner: on ontic as well as on ontological level. In his criticism on Dilthey in the mid-1920s, Heidegger stresses the impossibility of defending the need for transcendental reflection, while holding the “ontological in-difference of life.” See, in this regard, Martin Heidegger, “Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit und der gegenwärtige Kampf um eine historische Weltanschauung 10 Vorträge (Gehalten in Kassel vom 16. IV. – 21. IV. 1925),” in Dilthey-Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften, Band 8, 1992-1993, 143180, especially 158. 15. See Dimitri Ginev, Das hermeneutische Projekt Georg Mischs (Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2011a). 16. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (San Francisco: Harper, 1962), 239. 17. Significant changes in the projected horizon of possibilities entail a new selfunderstanding of a scientific community as an interpretative community. Thus, for instance, by the mid-1960s, scientists in the fields of classical enzymology and protein structure were looking for establishing a reliable mechanism of how enzymes change shape upon interaction with their substrates. This was a new research situation in both fields—a situation that opened many novel research possibilities. The massive experimental confirmation (through atomic resolution structures of protein) of the assumption about enzymes changing shape during the metabolic reactions provoked an essentially new understanding on the part of researchers in the fields of enzymology and protein structure. (The assumption that

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

143

enzymes change shape in their interaction with their substrates is known as the “induced-fit hypothesis” in biochemistry). 18. On the notion of “proto-normativity” as related to the hermeneutic forestructure of scientific research, see Dimitri Ginev, The Context of Constitution. Beyond the Edge of Justification (Dordrecht and Boston: Springer, 2006), 161-194. 19. The claim that the agents’ self-reflective stance conditions the active appropriation of possibilities as an ongoing construction of identity takes a central place in all versions of ethnomethodology as well. In Garfinkel’s celebrated view, because the agents are constantly interpreting their situatedness in the world that they are articulating, they are not “cultural dopes.” This view, however, involves the wrong assumption, namely, that the life-forms internal (vernacular) interpretative methods and practices can be only subjected to a pure description. Just because the interpretative being-in-the-world characterizes the life-forms’ modes of being as a potentiality-for-being, a pure description of agents’ interpretative self-understanding (i.e. a description that presupposes a pure presence of methods and practices as something that is present-at-hand) is to be rejected from a hermeneutic point of view. 20. On a detailed discussion of this theory, see Dimitri Ginev, The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2011b). 21. On the notion of science’s spaces of representation see, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 22. See Patrick Heelan, “Natural Science as Hermeneutic of Instrumentation,” Philosophy of Science 50 (1983): 181-204.

References Bohman, James. New Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991. —. “Holism without Skepticism: Contextualism and the Limits of Interpretation.” In The Interpretive Turn, edited by David R. Hiley, et al., 129-154. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992. Brougham, Richard L. “Ontological Hermeneutics: An Overlooked Bergsonian Perspective.” Process Studies 22 (1993): 37-41. Bühler, Axel (ed.), Unzeitgemässe Hermeneutik: Verstehen und Interpretation im Denken der Aufklärung. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1994. Danneberg, Lutz. “Philosophische und methodische Hermeneutik.” Philosophia Naturalis 32 (1995): 249-269. Dickson, Eric. “Cassirer, Whitehead, and Bergson: Explaining the Development of the Symbol.” Process Studies 32 (2003): 79-93. Dilthey, Wilhelm. Gesammelte Schriften, Band V: Die geistige Welt. Einleiting in die Philosophie des Lebens. Erste Hälfte: Abhandlungen

144

Chapter Eight

zur Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften, edited by Georg Misch, Leipzig und Berlin, 1924. —. Gesammelte Schriften—Band VII: Der Aufbau der geschictlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, edited by Bernhard Groethuysen. Leipzig and Berlin, 1927. —. The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences, edited by Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Dombrowski, Daniel A. “Hartshorne on Heidegger.” Process Studies 25 (1996): 19-33. Ford, Lewis S. “Temporal and Non-Temporal Becoming.” Process Studies 38 (2009): 5-42. Ginev, Dimitri. “Rhetoric and Double Hermeneutics in the Human Sciences.” Human Studies 21 (1998), 259-271. —. “On the Hermeneutic Fore-Structure of Scientific Research.” Continental Philosophy Review 32 (1999): 143-168. —. The Context of Constitution: Beyond the Edge of Justification. Dordrecht and Boston: Springer, 2006, 161-194. —. “Doppelte Hermeneutik und Konstitutionstheorie.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 55 (2007): 679-688. —. Das hermeneutische Projekt Georg Mischs. Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2011a. —. The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2011b). Grondin, Jean. Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Heelan, Patrick. “Natural Science as Hermeneutic of Instrumentation.” Philosophy of Science 50 (1983): 181-204. Heidegger, Martin, “Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit und der gegenwärtige Kampf um eine historische Weltanschauung 10 Vorträge Gehalten in Kassel vom 16. IV. – 21. IV. 1925),” in Dilthey-Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften, Band 8, 1992-1993, 143-180. —. Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco: Harper, 1962. Makkreel, Rudolf. Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Processualizing Hermeneutic Ontology

145

Rodi, Frithjof. Das strukturierte Ganze: Studien zum Werk von Wilhelm Dilthey. Velbrück: Weilerswist, 2003. Schnur, Harald. Schleiermachers Hermeneutik und ihre Vorgeschichte. Stuttgart und Weimar: Metzler, 1994. Scholz, Oliver “Zur systematischen Bedeutung der Aufklärungshermeneutiken.” Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 21 (1996), 156-162. —. “Die Vorstruktur des Verstehens. Ein Beitrag zur Klärung des Verhältnisses zwischen traditioneller Hermeneutik und philosophischer Hermeneutik.” In Die Geschichte der Hermeneutik und die Methodik der textinterpretierenden Disziplinen, edited by Jörg Schönert and Friedrich Vollhardt, 443-462. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005. Thouard, Denis. “Wie Flacius zum ersten Hermeneutiker der Moderne wurde. Dilthey, Twesten, Schleiermacher und die Historiographie der Hermeneutik.” In Die Geschichte der Hermeneutik und die Methodik der textinterpretierenden Disziplinen, edited by Jörg Schönert and Friedrich Vollhardt, 265-280. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005. Wassermann, Christoph. Struktur und Ereignis. Geneva: Faculté de Theologie, 1991. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978.



CHAPTER NINE EMERGED CONTENT AND DYNAMIC NORMATIVITY YUJIAN ZHENG

Abstract My objective in this essay is to explore and to articulate certain distinctive forms of dynamic normativity at a level deeper than that of our ordinary usage of the terms, “norm” or “rule” in the prescriptive sense of “ought.” Forms of normativity, namely, interpretive and constitutive forms, are not only bound by evolution, but ultimately, via the same dynamic process, they give rise to our prescriptive-normative practices. As a theoretical backdrop for motivating my proposal, I start with an elaboration of the diachronic holism that is embedded in teleo-semantic functions. Then, I discuss the gap between content talk and physical talk, and finally, I shift my focus toward the notion of a natural norm. In justifying my new conception of normativity, I lay out a broad criterion of normativity based on external reasons. Further considerations of the status of external reasons and their relation to internal reasons, or to interpretation, lead me to an articulation of the dynamics of constitutive normativity, embodied in four evolutionary scenarios that are oriented toward full-blown intentionality.

Keywords Normativity; evolution; content; natural norm; external reason.

1. Setting the Stage: A Revisitation of the Frog Case Let me start with a seemingly worn-out example that is provided in philosophical discourses on representational content. I believe that there

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

147

are some unexplored significant aspects or dimensions of this example, which could serve as a good introduction to the theme I would like to explore in this essay. Consider the snapping-reflex of a frog. It is normally made in response to a fly nearby. But it can also be induced by other small black things— for instance, a bee-bee gun pellet—moving across the frog’s field of vision. From the point of view of a human observer, only a fly, as opposed to those other inedible things, should be the proper object of the frog’s snapping behavior, or the representational content of its corresponding perceptual state.

1.1. Misrepresentation and the Disjunction Problem Two related questions immediately follow. First, can we say that the frog’s perceptual state misrepresents the pellet as a fly? A typical answer seems to be “No.” The underlying assumption here is that without the possibility of misrepresentation, we cannot ascribe genuine representational content to the perceiving organism. Second, if one insists that some kind of broad-sense representation must be involved in the frog’s perception that is associated with its snap, then we may ask, what does the frog’s percept represent when it snaps: flies, or bee-bee gun pellets, or flies-orpellets, or small black objects? This is the so-called disjunction problem.

1.2. The Approach of Teleo-Semantics and Its Critics Informational, or causal co-variance, semantics obviously faces the disjunction problem. This is quite a standard or well-accepted judgment that I will not discuss here. But even Fodor’s well-developed approach to this problem in terms of asymmetric causal dependence1 encounters counter-examples.2 Teleo-semantics, mainly Millikan’s version,3 seems to offer some solution by introducing the notion of “proper function.” As compared with the ordinary notion of function, which aims at explaining certain present effects of some property of a system in terms of their benefit to the system, or its purpose of some kind, teleo-semantic “proper function” seeks to explain why the system, or its precursors, came to have that property, namely, what and how the property was selected for in systems of that type. In this sense, proper functions are essentially historical. Fodor, however, argues that teleo-semantics remains fatally infected with a form of the disjunction problem.4 He does so in the following way. In the actual environments in which the frog’s perceptual system has evolved, something is a fly if and only if it is a small black object, or a fly-

148

Chapter Nine

or-pellet, etc…. So, one may say that the evolutionary history itself does not favor any of the ways, corresponding to each of the equivalents on either side of the above biconditional, one tells the story. Fodor’s case could be strengthened by providing more in the way of scientific evidence concerning the internal mechanisms of the frog’s perceptual system5 as well as by simple experiments that demonstrate its indiscriminate response to any small black objects flying by. To provide further support for this case, let us imagine the following hypothetical two-stage evolutionary route. The earlier environments in the evolution of the frog’s snapping-reflex, with its perceptual subsystem, were the same as those in the actual evolutionary history, namely, flies were the only small black moving things in them. However, at one point, they suddenly change into ones in which bees were the only small black moving things instead, regardless of the cause. Fortunately, the frog’s snaps continued to function well and smoothly, without undergoing any change to its reflex system. Now, assuming the teleo-semantic reliance on the actual route of evolution for fixing the frog’s representational content, should we not say that its content is flies-or-bees, or a temporal mixture of flies and bees? The point of this hypothetical scenario is that if the ascription of teleo-semantic (proper functional) content must be sensitive to actual evolutionary history of the organism’s local environments, it would not exclude the possibility of queer disjunction or the combination of miscellaneous things. A better alternative for teleo-semantics, in this backtracking respect, seems to be that one should stick only to the logic of the etiological or causal-historical account for the present property, perhaps with the help of counterfactual reasoning, as suggested by Fodor,6 rather than sticking to the actual contingent route of evolution. On this alternative, the proper answer to the challenging question in my hypothetical scenario above seems to be ambient food for the frog, which has the targeted explanatory power that the small black object lacks. In short, these challenges to the historical dimension of teleo-semantic function / content do not suffice to show its total failure as an explanatory strategy, but only show its insufficiency or incompleteness as a full account of intentional content for animals as well as for humans.

1.3. A Downstream-Consumer Dimension of Proper Function The historical / evolutionary orientation is only one of two types of explanatory device of which Millikan’s teleo-semantics avails itself. The other type involves the notion that when it comes to determining the

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

149

content of a proper function, it is the consumers, as opposed to the producers, of the characteristic effects associated with the function, that are primary or more fundamental to teleo-semantics.7 In respect to the frog case, the consumer system has for its percept its snap-triggering or actioncontrol system. It uses that percept in the course of its natural wellfunctioning, that is, in its natural habitat, which leads to the catching of flies. To make a general point in this dimension clear, let me introduce a thought experiment called “the frog prince.” The frog prince has the outlook as well as all relevant aspects of the perceptual, motor-control, and digestion systems of the frog except that he has the mind of a prince and can think or reason like a human. Now, suppose he finds himself in an environment in which besides flies, which of course are his favorite food, there are a variety of edible, as well as inedible, small black things moving around. The consumer system of the frog prince’s visual percepts now includes the sophisticated reasoning system which, once fed with a fly-like percept, is disposed to produce some distinctive pattern of inference. These further effects can be used to resolve the indeterminacy of content that is associated with the percept or its proper function. For example, it may infer from a flylike perceptual input, given other circumstantial conditions, conceptual contents like LIVING THING, HAS WINGS, TASTY, or NUTRITIOUS, which semantically—in contrast to empirically—helps to eliminate problematic disjunctive possibilities such as a bee-bee gun pellet flying by.

1.4. The Moral of the “Frog Prince” Thought Experiment The moral of “the frog prince” for our real world is this: determinate proper functions, and thus determinate contents, of any intentional property or trait only emerge, for any organism qua subject, when we move up the evolutionary ladder or phylogenetic scale, to arrive at the rational capacities for sophisticated inferences, regardless of whether the pattern of inferences is entirely intra-cranium, or inter-subjective, involving complex forms of social communication at the same species level, or even cross-species interpretive, namely, via indirect, scientifictheoretical explanation.

1.5. A Further Implication The backward-looking, or historical, dimension of teleo-semantic functions as well as their forward-looking, or downstream-consumer,

150

Chapter Nine

dimension share an important methodological feature—they both apply diachronic holism, or what I call “retrospective interpretation,” to gradually emerged higher-level properties or evolved kinds. Intentional content, in a broad sense, is such an evolved property or kind. Indeterminacy of content, before reaching a certain stage of evolution, should be expected, rather than for us to get alarmed about, in this context.

2. Why Normativity? Let me use, as a new orientation, one central point in Tyler Burge’s recent (2010) account of individual (animal and human alike) perception as the most primitive form of objective representation. According to Burge, veridicality is the a priori constitutive condition for any putative perceptual state or attributive to be, or count as, representational of something external, say, an attribute of an environmental object. For instance, some internal state of the frog can be justifiably ascribed an individuated content with a particular veridicality condition relating to a fly nearby, or its particular properties of movement, in the light of our interpretive or scientific-explanatory power. Despite the admirable merits of Burge’s drawing on relevant scientific results in his account, the key issue here, I submit, is about normativity (perhaps of a special kind, which I will specify shortly), rather than about viability of scientific answers to questions like “what is the represented object of the visual system of an individual?” For Burge, norms are adequate levels / standards of performance that fulfill a function. Here, “adequate” is a normative term, and “function” is a teleological term. Thus different norms associated with the same representational function may determine different contents. That is to say, content, even at the most primitive level of perceptual representation, cannot be an independent natural entity like a physical body.

3. A Gap between Perceptual Content and Physical Entity Consider someone claiming that there is no fundamental difference between physical properties and representational properties, as both share the same theoretical status qua hypothesized empirical entities based on the best scientific explanation in respective domains. Moreover, the person might add, although terms like correctness or veridicality are normative terms, that they are used by theoreticians at a meta-level above the phenomenal level where the explanandum, namely, perception, takes place. This means that the perceiving individual need have no idea or concept

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

151

about norms or normative kinds which apply to his or her case. That is to say, the person might continue, in a manner that is perfectly parallel to the physical domain where any physical properties can have nothing to do with concepts or propositions, despite the fact that correct descriptions about them, in terms of concepts and propositions, necessarily apply to them. A deep blind spot, I believe, in the above analogy lies in not seeing that a physical object, and not a representational content, has a precise location and a fixed boundary whose internal nature is determinate at any time. What happens when we correctly attribute a perceptual content to an individual organism? The veridical content thus attributed must involve something beyond the boundary of its vehicle or carrier, namely, the organic body of the individual, in order for the perceptual state to refer to anything outside itself, or for its perceptual attributives to correspond to any external attributes. Content talk, unlike physical talk, cannot be limited to the causal realizing base (i.e., to the sub-individual machinery) for the individuation of the content. Neither can the content be solely determined by the external attributes in the environment, because it is also sensitive to various kinds and levels of proprioceptive influence.

4. Natural Norms Let us define “natural norms” as those norms that are unrepresented by the individual whose performance fulfills a function. Let us also grant that a unique role of normative elements is to make content non-physical or transcendent of physical locality.

4.1. Normative Bearing of Natural Norms Now, consider again a frog in perception of a fly. Here, one may ask: what is actually going on in the perceptual system of the frog in terms of its involving of natural norms relative to its internal functions of relevant kinds? Should we not say that because these are natural norms, whatever normative elements must turn otiose for the frog itself? In other words, despite some indispensable normative significance in our eyes, is it not the case that the happenings inside the frog are nothing but complex physical activities which have no normative bearing on the frog itself?



152

Chapter Nine

4.2. Natural Norms and Different Orders of Representations Some philosophers would argue that any normativity can be only or ultimately grounded in (community of) self-conscious rational beings who have equipped themselves with adequate means to represent normative kinds and relations.8 Let us use “the first-order representations” to name those primitive perceptions that only involve natural norms that are associated with some basic type of representational function. And let us employ “the second-order representations” to refer to those types of selfconscious or propositional representations of the first-order representations themselves, including those explicit general preconditions of perceptions. Now the anchoring point of Burge’s complaints against the (secondfamily) Individual Representationalism can be paraphrased as this: the second-order representations are not necessary for having the first-order representations. With this first- and second-order distinction in mind, I would like to emphasize that theoretical—or, in fact, any—explanation is a type of second-order representation. And it presupposes a certain normative framework or certain normative capacities whose emergence in evolution has a lot to do with those already well-functioning natural norms associated with the first-order animal representations. The potential significance of taking the above fact seriously might be seen in the contrast between the explanatory relation that physical entities bear with their corresponding theories of physics on the one hand, and the explanatory relation that those natural norms bear with their corresponding theories of biology, psychology, or linguistics on the other. Very roughly and tentatively, the contrast is that between a relatively pure epistemological relation (for explanations in the domain of physics) and an epistemological-cum-ontological relation (for more interpretive kind of explanations in the domain where teleology), functions or norms are indispensable or essential. One aspect of the “ontological” part of the latter relation is a kind of evolutionary becoming of some rationally partial or incomplete form of beings (i.e., those only capable of the first-order representations) into some rationally full-blown or normatively complete form of beings (i.e., those also capable of the second-order representations).

4.3. Natural Norms and the Constitutive-Interpretive Link Another, perhaps more interesting, aspect of the above epistemological-cum-ontological relation lies in the non-accidental link between some kind of evolution-bound normative constitutions and the

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

153

interpretability of earlier, more primitive forms of living from later, more mature ones.

4.4. Natural Norms and the Continuity Thesis Another way of expressing a similar point is this: the content of a firstorder representation is formulatable (and only formulatable) in terms within the same normative framework as that in which the second-order representation, or the theoretical explainer’s higher-order conceptualization about content individuation and other holistic relations, takes place. In other words, an explainer’s own perceptual content can be coherent or continuous with his conceptual reflective contents in the same Sellarsian space of reasons. By contrast, however, when a physicist applies an empirical principle to describing or explaining the constitution of a physical entity, the descriptive content of the principle cannot be attributed to the physical stuff itself, or in any way regarded as continuous with the latter in any logical space.

4.5. Natural Norms and the (In)dependence Thesis Although explananda in both physics and biology / psychology share the property of being non-conscious of the contents of the respective formation principles that apply to them (i.e., neither having such contents for themselves), the physical, but not the perceptual, has full independent existence in terms of having a self-sufficient nature, regardless of whether any correct or complete understanding of such nature from some normative framework is available or upcoming. That said, any representational content, perceptual or otherwise, as opposed to whatever its physical underpinnings are, has no such ultimate independence or autonomy outside such normative semantic framework. Or so is arguable from a certain theoretical standpoint taken seriously by some influential philosophers today,9 which I do not have space to discuss in detail here. Elsewhere, I have given some analysis of the merits, as well as the possible limits, of certain representative views from some of these philosophers.10

5. My Proposal: General Claims There are three basic notions of normativity: (1) the prescriptive normativity (denoted as “normativityP”); (2) the interpretive one (“normativityI”); and (3) the constitutive one (“normativityC”). Interpretive

154

Chapter Nine

normativity is evident primarily in how to specify semantic content of biological function, for example, the heart’s function is pumping blood rather than making rhythmic noises. Biological functions are individuated by our interpretations in terms of animal / organic objectives—ultimately their survival values—and these objectives only make rational sense to us, because we are beings able to understand teleological relations. Constitutive normativity answers the question as to how the intentional / normative perspective itself is born. That is to say, constitutive normativity reveals some distinctive sense of the constitutive operations or mechanisms underlying the emergence of such perspective in evolution.

6. Motivations for the Distinctions 6.1. Motivation for Introducing “NormativityI” When we compare biological functions, like fogs snapping at flies, with the objects of the physical sciences, like energy and mass, the fundamental difference is precisely the applicability of teleological concepts to the former rather than the latter. Objectives like flying for birds’ wings, or pumping blood for hearts, can make ultimate sense only relative to a standpoint or perspective that recognizes the notion of aim or purpose. The ontological status of any functional / teleological content, as the object of our interpretation, is dependent on our intentional functions, in the sense that this content would not have existed had we not evolved into intentional / rational beings. Here, I am quickly dismissing any possible appeal to a God’s eye view for securing the objectivity of such content. The distinctiveness of normativity in this context is now captured by this special sense of rational legislation, or retrospective projection, pertaining to the evolutionary order, of functional content, which is real, or real enough, for us.

6.2. Motivation for Introducing NormativityC Here the central question is where the intentional perspective itself came from. NormativityI apparently presupposes two things: one is the intentional perspective or the conceptual framework already available for interpreting functions; the other is something like an underlying evolutionary story for bridging earlier implicit animal functions and later explicit human practice of some kind which would presumably give rise to the intentional perspective. A particular reason for the second presupposition above is the explanatory desideratum concerning the non-

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

155

accidental fit or the “rational harmony,” if you will, between the observable data of animal behavior and the successful human understanding of them with normativityI. The distinctiveness, namely, the “C” part, of normativityC lies in its emphasis on viable formative or generative mechanisms underlying possible processes for the emergence of intentionality. Thus, it is more of a causal sense of dynamic constitution than of the a priori sense of conceptual constitution. Nevertheless, the possibility or capacity of a priori, conceptual constitutions should be regarded as the upshot or endproduct, along with the intentional perspective, of the gradual, upgrading processes characterized by normativityC. To spell out the “normativity” part of normativityC would amount to a justification for normativityC, which is a major theme in the rest of this chapter.

7. Justifying These New Conceptions of Normativity If we do not limit ourselves to connections with normativityP for legitimizing any possible use of the term “normative,” just take a look at these alleged normativity-related concepts: intentional, purposive, guiding, directing, ruling, violating, sanction, constrain, discipline, etc…. A common feature of these concepts seems to lie in difference-making behavior with a certain direction or goal. The best or broadest category for explaining intelligible behavior seems to be “reason,” as opposed to “cause,” which is the category for explaining physical change.

7.1. Internal Versus External Reasons Other than self-conscious or psychologically explicit reasons—let us call them “internal reasons”—we often appeal to reasons embedded in, or provided by, the very environment where the subject of behavior happens to find herself—call them “external reasons”—regardless of how much the subject is, or is able to become, aware of, or capable of formulating, them. The focus of external reasons is on the objective side of whatever normative force they possess, due to certain features or facts of the environment of the subject. In other words, our explanatory interest is not about any actual or potential internal mechanisms that may eventually lead to the subject’s fulfilling or internalizing those reasons or facts. Fitness or the Darwinian rationale is one major, and perhaps the most important, type of external reason in nature for all individuals.

156

Chapter Nine

7.2. A Broad Criterion of Normativity A human or animal subject of behavior is able to make a nonaccidental difference due to taking or matching the relevant reasons, especially those external reasons that are embedded in his or her outside environment.

7.3. Epistemic Objectivity and Ontological Subjectivity The validity of external reasons, no matter whether they are established social norms or biological “proper functions,” does not depend on any particular individual’s understanding or awareness of them at the time of her action or cognition. Hence, they are “objective” in the epistemological sense. This is compatible with the fact that their ontological status qua reasons, as opposed to nomic causes, depends on a certain legislative act of intentionality at the level of human discursive practice. Therefore, proper functions are “(inter-)subjective” in the ontological sense. If a reductive naturalist proposes to ground the criterion of normativity on something that involves reason-relations, he surely, on pain of circularity, cannot appeal to any intrinsically or purportedly normative notion for elucidating reason-relations in purely naturalistic terms. As such, some theorists claim that we irreducibly require a normative mode of speech.11 My proposal trumps a certain “backward” naming / binding connection between full-blown rationality at the later stage of evolution and quasi- or proto-rationality at its earlier stages. Here, I am using the term “backward” in the sense that whatever reasons underlying the connection can only be seen from a retrospective vantage point.

8. Internalizable External Reasons I would also like to emphasize that the status of “external reasons” for pre-human creatures was always already something not merely for us as outside observer, but also, at least to some degree, for themselves, as insiders, participants, or players of natural games. to take, engage, or “internalize,” by whatever means possible, and at whatever possible level. A nicety about leaving them “external” is that we do not have to first specify how they actually become connected to full-blown internal reasons before we can understand, and predict, many interesting behaviors of their users or “consumers.” This helps to explain why Dennett’s “intentional stance”12 works very well even for relatively lower animals.

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

157

8.1. Successive Players of the Grand Open-Ended Game In contrast, precisely because of the participatory aspect that makes them (potentially) internalizable reasons for the creatures themselves, our role in the grand natural “game” can no longer be confined to that of mere outside observer. Our role simultaneously has to be that of insiders or successive players of the same game that ultimately makes reasons real, in the sense of giving rise to our human full-blown normative practices.

8.2. Back to the Issue of Justifying NormativityC Now, given our broad criterion of normativity above, a fruitful way to characterize the distinctive normative relevance of normativityC is to reveal the degree of success of C-normative things in engaging preexisting external reasons, namely, the enormous fitness-enhancing roles or effects of the establishment of intentional perspective via some evolutionary-constitutive process. NormativityC not only allows for degrees, but presupposes the gradual, upgrading character of evolutionary forces that underpins the formation of intentionality. What follows is a sketch of some of the important phases of the C-normative process.

9. Dynamics of NormativityC I propose to use John Searle’s formula13 for constitutive rules and its four modified versions to illustrate the dynamics of normativityC. The original formula, “doing X counts as Y in circumstances C” applies to the creation and sustention of social institutions like money or a football game. My initial wonder is if this can apply to certain patterns of animal behavior. for example, a certain tail wiggle (doing X) of some fish counts as attracting its mates (Y) under some normal conditions (I), such as there being potential mates around. But it does not really apply if there is no subject who can do the counting, or for whom what is counted as (Y) makes sense. That is why I need to introduce subjects in the modified versions of the formula.

9.1. Four Scenarios of NormativityC Scenario A: “S counts doing X as Y in circumstances C,” where S is an animal subject who can use and classify natural objects / tools, such as stones of different shapes, to achieve certain iterated goals (Y).

158

Chapter Nine

Scenario B: “reciprocally, S1 counts S2’s doing X as something corresponding to S1’s own inner experience of a sort (Y) that normally accompanies S1’s own doing X in circumstances C,” where animal subjects S1 and S2 can recognize each other as of the same kind, in some behavioristic sense. A notable difference between scenarios A and B is the introduction, in scenario B, of what I would call a “principle of analogy,” to be equally and reciprocally applied to S1 and S2. Scenario C: “S1 counts a certain use of an artificial sign (doing X) as referring to or representing an object or a set of objects (doing Y) in the presence of S2 and some other contextual conditions I,” where “doing Y” contains the semantic term “referring” or “representing” which is central to any grounding account for the birth of linguistic meaning. Scenario D: “reciprocally, S1 counts S2’s linguistic behavior / speech act (doing X) as something that would make S2 turn out to be largely rational (Y) in circumstances C,” where Y or the interpretee’s being largely rational is a holistic judgment governed by something like the Davidsonian principle of charity.14

9.2. Forward-Looking Progression and Backward-Looking Precursors These four scenarios, on the one hand, exhibit progression in the evolutionary order, in the sense that a later scenario must succeed on earlier ones, even though the existence of an earlier scenario may not causally necessitate any later ones, and, on the other hand, delineate an order of understanding in which relations in a later scenario would shed light on the meaning or significance of those in an earlier one. For instance, S1 and S2 in scenario B are actually mutual standpoints that serve as precursors for interpretivist mutual standpoints in the ultimate scenario D where the principle of charity properly applies. This “forward-looking” (from B to D) or “backward-looking” (from D to B) connection between counterpart positions gives us (i.e., the habitual interpretive residents of D) the possibility of putting ourselves into the shoes of subjects in B, namely, a way of witnessing the unconscious effect of the principle of analogy.

9.3. Pre-Linguistic Rational Analogs or Proto-Reasoning Even before public language was formed or well in place, among proto-rational or transitional beings, treating or counting each other as alike in the pre-linguistic terms, as captured by the principle of analogy, had already been an operative force in shaping any cognate capacities

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

159

which ultimately figured in the exercise of the principle of charity. In this way, I hope that we would demystify the a priori or transcendental status of the charity principle by showing not only its compatibility, but also its causal connection, with the C-normative process involving, inter alia, at some point of evolutionary history, a certain unavoidable disposition to treat others alike in one’s own light. By the same token, the so-called implicit-explicit gap is thereby reduced if not fully crossed.

Notes 1. Jerry Fodor, Psychosemantics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987); A Theory of Content and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). 2. See, for example, George Botterill and Peter Carruthers, The Philosophy of Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 165-166; Mark H. Bickhard, “Process and Emergence: Normative Function and Representation,” Axiomathes 14 (2004), 148-49. 3. See Ruth Garrett Millikan, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984); “Thoughts Without Laws: Cognitive Science With Content,” Philosophical Review 95 (1986): 47-80; “Biosemantics,” Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 281-297. 4. Fodor, A Theory of Content, chapter 3. 5. See, for example Tyler Burge, “Disjunctivism and Perceptual Psychology,” Philosophical Topics 33.1 (Spring 2005): 1-78; “Disjunctivism Again,” Philosophical Explorations 14 (2011): 43-80. 6. Fodor, A Theory of Content. 7. Millikan, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. 8. See, for example, Robert B. Brandom, Making it Explicit (New York: Harvard University Press, 1994). 9. For example, Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989); Brandom, Making it Explicit; John McDowell, Mind and World (New York: Harvard University Press, 1994). 10. See Yujian Zheng, “A Davidsonian Approach to Normativity and the Limits of Cross-cultural Interpretation,” in Constructive Engagement: Davidson and Chinese Philosophy, ed. Bo Mou. (Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006); “Memes, Mind, and Normativity,” in Culture, Nature, Memes: Dynamic Cognitive Theories, ed. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008); “Re-Enchantment of Nature: McDowell and Merleau-Ponty on Perception,” in Phenomenology 2010, Vol. 1: Selected Essays from Asia and the Pacific, ed. Chung-Chi Yu (Bucharest, Romania: Zeta Books, 2010). 11. For example, Brandom’s “normativity all the way down” in Making it Explicit. 12. Dennett, The Intentional Stance. 13. John Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969); The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).

160

Chapter Nine

14. Donald Davidson, “Radical Interpretation,” Dialectica 27 (1973): 314-28.

References Bickhard, Mark H. “Process and Emergence: Normative Function and Representation.” Axiomathes 14 (2004): 148-49. Botterill, George, and Peter Carruthers. The Philosophy of Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Brandom, Robert B. Making it Explicit. New York: Harvard University Press, 1994. Burge, Tyler. “Disjunctivism and Perceptual Psychology.” Philosophical Topics 33.1 (Spring 2005): 1-78. —. Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2010. —. “Disjunctivism Again.” Philosophical Explorations 14 (2011): 43-80. Davidson, Donald. “Radical Interpretation.” Dialectica 27 (1973): 314-28. —. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Dennett, Daniel. The Intentional Stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. Fodor, Jerry. Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. —. A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. McDowell, John. Mind and World. New York: Harvard University Press, 1994. Millikan, Ruth Garrett. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. —. “Thoughts Without Laws: Cognitive Science With Content.” Philosophical Review 95 (1986): 47-80. —. “Biosemantics.” Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 281-297. Searle, John. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969. —. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Zheng, Yujian. “A Davidsonian Approach to Normativity and the Limits of Cross-cultural Interpretation.” In Constructive Engagement: Davidson and Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou. Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. —. “Memes, Mind, and Normativity.” In Culture, Nature, Memes: Dynamic Cognitive Theories, edited by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008.

Emerged Content and Dynamic Normativity

161

—. “Re-Enchantment of Nature: McDowell and Merleau-Ponty on Perception.” In Phenomenology 2010, Vol. 1: Selected Essays from Asia and the Pacific, edited by Chung-Chi Yu. Bucharest, Romania: Zeta Books, 2010.



CHAPTER TEN BEING AS A PROCESS OF HARMONIZATION: A CHINESE VIEW OF DYNAMIC BEING CHENYANG LI NANYANG

Abstract This chapter outlines some of the differences between the Eastern (Confucian) and Western (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle) philosophical conceptions of the notion of harmony.

Keywords Harmony; dynamic being; Book of Changes; Confucianism; creativity; coordination; generation.

1. Introduction In this paper, I explore a Chinese view of dynamic being as harmonization as has been developed in the Book of Changes and other texts. The English word “harmony” is usually understood as involving accord, agreement, and concord. As such, the pursuit of harmony in a diverse world is often regarded as naïve at best, and harmful at worst. Such an understanding of harmony, however, is not the only one. Contrary to the views of Pythagoras and Plato, for Heraclitus in the West, harmony cannot be achieved without contraries. The Confucian notion of harmony, I shall argue, goes beyond the narrow understanding of harmony that is advanced by contemporary Western thinkers.1 In a nutshell, Confucian harmony has the following key characteristics: (1) Harmony presupposes two or more coexisting component parties, and these parties must be not only different from, but also in some

Being as Process of Harmonization: A Chinese View of Dynamic Being 163

way contrary to, one another. Creative tension is a necessary element of harmony. (2) Involved parties coordinate. A harmonious relationship implies that the parties involved mutually complement and support one other. There is reciprocal benefit, though harmony cannot be reduced to such benefit. (3) The requirement of harmony places a constraint on each party in interaction while providing a context for each to have optimal space to flourish. Coordination requires reciprocal adjustment. (4) Harmony is achieved and maintained not as final states, but as stages in a continuing process. Parties within a harmony are engaged in an ongoing course of renewing and regenerating relationships. (5) The principles underlying harmonious society, such as justice and equity, are subject to continuous renewal through the process of harmonization and reharmonization. Harmony is the source of generation. Through harmonization, life is generated, sustained, and renewed. In this sense, harmony is the source of creativity. (6) Harmony is a metaphysical as well as an ethical notion. It describes both how the world at large operates and how human beings ought to act. Harmony is the Confucian Way. In the following paragraphs, I will further elaborate on these characteristics and attempt to provide a sketch of the philosophy of harmony in Confucian philosophy. First, harmony is composite and relational. It is a kind of relationship between various constituents of reality. Confucian harmony is multidimensional. There are many facets of harmony. Each party “brings its own,” so to speak. The Shaogong chapter twenty of the Confucian classic, Chunqiuzuozhan2 contains a record of a detailed and insightful discussion of harmony (he) by a scholar-minister, Yan Ying (᫷Ꮎ, ?-500 BCE). He states, he is like making soup. One needs water, fire, vinegar, sauce, salt, and plum in order to cook fish and meat. One needs to cook them with firewood. The cook needs to mingle (he) ingredients together in order to balance the taste. He needs to compensate for deficiencies and to reduce excessiveness. In eating [such balanced food] the good person (junzi)3 achieves a balanced mind.4

The cook needs different things in order to make a delicious soup; she needs ingredients that taste and smell very different. One important aspect

164

Chapter Ten

of fine cooking is to be able to balance one excessive flavor with another. The process also requires contrasting or opposite elements such as water and fire. Water and fire are usually seen as diametrically opposed to each other, yet neither is indispensable alone for cooking. Harmony here is a process rather than a state; it is harmonization. For Yan Ying, such a process does not merely involve mingling different flavors or tastes together. It includes the balancing of opposing elements in arriving at an organic whole. Second, coordination among various component parts is key to harmony. Coordination, with reciprocal adjustment, entails cooperation, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Harmony is achieved through the process of harmonization. Harmonization implies differences, reciprocal adjustment, and coordination. Yan Ying explicates harmony in terms of making music. He says, sounds are like flavors. Different elements complete each other: one breath, two styles, three types, four instruments, five sounds, six measures, seven notes, eight winds, and nine songs. Different sounds complement each other: the pure and the impure, the big and the small, the short and the long, the fast and the slow, the sorrowful and the joyful, the strong and the tender, the late and the quick, the high and the low, the in and the out, and the inclusive and the non- inclusive. The good person listens to this kind of music in order to balance his mind.5

Good music requires a variety of sounds in various modes. Good musicians are capable of mingling together various sounds, some in sharp contrast, to make a coherent and harmonious piece. For Yan Ying, different sounds can mutually complete and mutually compensate one another (xiang cheng xiang ji)6 and good musicians are able to mix them together in a mutually completing and mutually compensating way. Coordination is essential to harmony. Third, coordination implies mutual adjustment, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. As in making music, a note becomes a part of a musical piece by forming relationships with other notes. Otherwise, it cannot be integral to the piece. Harmony is not foundational; it is not built on any one-dimensional concept or value. It is not generated through a fixed formula. Unlike the Pythagorean conception of harmony, Confucian harmony can only be defined in qualitative terms; it cannot be measured quantitatively or precisely. In this sense, there is no Archimedean point for harmony. Harmony implies the element of agreement, but it cannot be reduced to agreement. Fourth, harmony is not static. Harmony cannot simply be retained by holding to the status quo, since then the state-of-affairs in question would become stale and lifeless. There is no such a thing as absolute harmony,

Being as Process of Harmonization: A Chinese View of Dynamic Being 165

because harmonious states always change and evolve. They always fluctuate. Whatever level of harmony has been achieved, it can always be enhanced and expanded. It always transcends itself through self-creation and recreation. Not only is there always room for progress and improvement, but the continuation of harmony itself demands new energy and initiatives. For these reasons, harmony is, by its very nature, delicate. In recreating itself, harmony runs the risk of overstretching itself and becoming chaotic. In the meantime, harmony is also the optimal state of affairs for all parties involved and an effective way to create and preserve values in the world. Fifth, as a creative process, harmony is the source of generation. It engenders the myriad things in the world. The Book of Changes describes the universe as a process of “sheng sheng ⏕⏕” or a process of creative creativity. Such a process is one of harmonization. In the Zhengyu Chapter of the Guoyu, the ancient philosopher, Shi Bo, elaborates on harmony, by stating that harmony is indeed generative of things. Sameness, on the other hand, does not advance growth. Smoothing one thing with another is called harmony. For this reason things come together and flourish. If one uses the same thing to complement the same thing, it is a dead end and will become wasted.6

This is so because a single sound is nothing to hear, a single color does not make a pattern, a single taste does not satisfy the stomach, and a single item does not harmonize.7 According to Shi Bo, harmony was the philosophy of ancient sage-kings, and it enabled their societies to prosper. As he states, the early kings mixed Earth with Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire, and produced varieties of things. They balanced one’s taste with the five flavors, strengthened the four limbs in order to guard the body, harmonized the six measures of sounds to improve the hearing, made the seven parts of the body upright to maintain the heart / mind, balanced the eight body parts to complete the whole person, established the nine social rules to set up pure virtues, and put together the ten offices to regulate the multitude. Therefore, there came into existence thousands of categories and tens of thousands of methods used in calculating millions of things and evaluating myriads of properties. They maintained constant incomes and managed countless items. Therefore, the kings had land of nine provinces and had incomes to raise the multitude. They taught people adequate lessons and harmonized them as one family. Thus, it was harmony at the highest level.8

166

Chapter Ten

According to this philosophy, different elements need to form a relationship in which they mutually complete and mutually compensate one another, and in which “one element smoothes another” (yi ta ping ta).9 When such conditions obtain, the myriad things become engendered and energized. When a plant harmonizes with its environment, it grows. When a person harmonizes with her family, her co-workers, and her friends, she flourishes. Sixth, and finally, the Confucian notion of harmony is a metaphysical notion. It purports to describe the dynamic reality of the world. In this understanding, reality is not a pre-established given in any sense of the word. It is a dynamic generating and re-generating process; it is harmonization and re-harmonization. In this regard, the Confucian notion of reality is very different from the Platonic notion of reality as constituted by the Forms. It is also different from the Pythagorean notion of reality. In contrast with the Confucian notion of reality as harmonization, the Pythagorean notion of harmony is more structured and fixed. In Pythagoras, order and harmony are established in numbers. Aristotle describes Pythagoras and his followers as follows: the Pythagoreans … were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this study, but also having been brought up in it they thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of these principles numbers are by nature the first, and in numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into being—more than in fire and earth and water … since, again, they saw that the modifications and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in numbers. Since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modeled on numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale (harmonia) and a number.10

The earliest use of the term harmonia by the Pythagoreans has to do with the tuning of musical instruments,11 and it is realized in a musical scale. It has more to do with the relation of proportion between elements than harmony in the sense in which we use it today. However, they expanded this notion to the entire world and interpreted the world as being harmonious. Pythagoras has been credited with being the first to apply the name kosmos to the world, in recognition of the rational order that is embedded in it, since kosmos meant order.12 And he was also the first to come up with the notion of the harmony of the spheres. In this way, harmonia became harmony in the general sense of the word. For the Pythagoreans, numbers are the ultimate principle of everything; even God is not the first cause in the cosmos. Rather, numbers and harmony are first in relation to God.13 Numbers are taken to be the “wisest” of things in the world. They are a harmonious

Being as Process of Harmonization: A Chinese View of Dynamic Being 167

unification of the opposites because they alternatively change their qualities between even and odd.14 Real harmony exists in numerical ratios, which can be found in music. Numbers are, of course, fixed and eternal. Confucians tend to see individuals as being composite internally and interrelational externally. There are no pre-established principles in the world without the process of harmonization. The Chu Silk Manuscript (㯩 オ㦇•䟁乖), which some scholars have referred to as the Chinese “Genesis” (Chuangshu Pian ┄₥乖),15 describes the initial state of the universe in terms of “mengmeng momo, wangzhang bibi” (⮱⮱⬷⬷, ℰ䵯㇋ㆢ㇋ㆢ). Mengmeng implies “cloudiness” ( 㦗在㦗在), whereas momo indicates “darkness.” Wangzhang means “without patterns.” Together the two expressions describe an undifferentiated state of chaos. Zongyi Rao 毡⸦檳 interpreted this as suggesting that, at the beginning stage of the universe, things have not taken their forms.16 It is through a dynamic activity of harmonization, usually aided with the forces of yin and yang, that the world takes shape. However, the process does not stop there. The world continues to evolve and things are maintained, renewed, and recycled. In this way, the Confucian understanding of reality is fundamentally dynamic in nature.

Notes 1. In distinguishing the Confucian notion of “harmony” from the common notion in the West, Roger Ames, in Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011) has rendered it as “flourishing harmony.” However, the Chinese word for harmony “he ࿴” is not subject to negative modifications; there is no such thing as an “un-flourishing he” in Chinese. I will render it as “harmony.” 2. It should be noted that the exact dates and authorships of many early Chinese texts, including those referred to in this essay, are undetermined. 3. Here, “junzf” should have a meaning broader than just the morally cultivated person. It may refer to the gentry in ancient society. 4. ✛Ⱁ剈䎘᧨㻃䋺摒搱焌㬔ⅴ䎈淩匘᧨㐩⃚ⅴ堹᧨⸿⮺✛⃚᧨燙⃚ⅴ✂᧨䉮 ␅ₜ♙᧨ⅴ㾸␅拝. ⚪⷟歮⃚᧨ⅴ㄂␅㉒ (TTC: 2093). “燙” (“q”) here means “ ┠” (“ji”), namely mixing or mingling. The Ding Fa “⸩ᇬ㽤” Chapter of the Han Fei Zi (橢₝ t ⷟) says “medicine is about integrating medicines 㹘劔᧨燙图⃮” (TTM: 1177). In traditional Chinese medicine, doctors prescribe medicine by providing a formula to mix various kinds of herb medicines together. 5. 匁ℵⰑ✂᧨₏㺲᧨ℛ浣᧨ₘ櫭᧨⥪䓸᧨℣匁᧨⏼㈚᧨ₒ檂᧨⏺欷᧨⃬㷛᧨ ⅴ䦇㒟⃮.䂔䉐⮶ ⺞䩼栆䡍㈟,❏㲑⓪㩣,持抮浧ₚ᧨⒉⏴⛷䠞᧨ⅴ䦇䉮⃮.⚪⷟ 匌⃚᧨ⅴ㄂␅㉒ (TTC: 2093-2094). 6. Kehong Lai ౗ ྍ ᘯ . ᅧ ㄒ ┤ ゎ (The Guoyu Interpreted) (Shanghai: Fudan

168

Chapter Ten

University Press ₙ䀆:⮜㡵⮶?⒉员⦮,2000), 746. 7. Lai ౗ྍᘯ. ᅧㄒ┤ゎ(The Guoyu Interpreted), 747. 8. Lai ౗ྍᘯ. ᅧㄒ┤ゎ(The Guoyu Interpreted), 746-747. 9. ௨௚ᖹ௚. This is a characterization of he by Shi Bo in Zhengyu Chapter of the Guo Yu (ᅧㄒ•㒯ㄒ). See Lai ౗ྍᘯ. ᅧㄒ┤ゎ (The Guoyu Interpreted), 746. 10. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 985b in Richard McKeon (ed.), Introduction to Aristotle (New York: The Modern Library, 1947), 255. 11. See John Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968), 35. 12. William Keith Chambers Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 110, 208. 13. Leon Robin, Greek Thought and the Origin of the Scientific Spirit (New York: Russell & Russell, 1928, 69). 14. Robin, Greek Thought and the Origin of the Scientific Spirit, 56. 15. Dong, Chuping ⴷᴆᖹ. “୰ᅧୖྂ๰ୡ⚄ヰ㖋ἀ” (“Exploring the Chinese Early Ancient Genesis Myths”), China Social Sciences 5 (2002): 151-163. 16. Rao, Zongyi 㤨᐀㢇 and Zeng Tongxian ᭯᠇㏻ (eds.), 㯩 オ 㦇 (Chu Silk Manuscript.) (Hong Kong: Zhongua Shuju ୰⳹᭩ᒁ, 1985), 11.

References Ames, Roger. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011. Burnet, John. Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968. Dong, Chuping ⴷ ᴆ ᖹ . “୰ ᅧ ୖ ྂ ๰ ୡ ⚄ ヰ 㖋 ἀ ” (“Exploring the Chinese Early Ancient Genesis Myths”). China Social Sciences 5 (2002): 151-163. Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Lai, Kehong ౗ྍᘯ. ᅧㄒ┤ゎ (The Guoyu Interpreted). Shanghai: Fudan University Press ₙ䀆:⮜㡵⮶?⒉员⦮, 2000. Li, Chenyang. “The Confucian Ideal of Harmony.” Philosophy East and West 56.4 (2006): 583-603. McKeon, Richard (ed.), Introduction to Aristotle. New York: The Modern Library, 1947. Rao, Zongyi 㤨᐀㢇 and Zeng Tongxian ᭯᠇㏻ (eds.), 㯩 オ 㦇 (Chu Silk Manuscript.) Hong Kong: Zhongua Shuju ୰⳹᭩ᒁ, 1985. Robin, Leon. Greek Thought and the Origin of the Scientific Spirit. New York: Russell & Russell, 1928.



CHAPTER ELEVEN LA METTRIE AND THE AUTODYNAMISM OF MATTER1 FRANÇOIS BEETS

Be quiet, my mind, be less serious; and consider that a good joke is the touchstone of the acutest reason.2 —Julien Offray de la Mettrie

Abstract In his fourth book, Julien Offray de la Mettrie posits the existence of an autodynamism in matter that explains the emergence of life and thought. However, on the contrary, in his fifth book, he claims that mind is a distinct principle from matter, and even if there are souls everywhere in the universe, thought cannot be explained by matter. Then, in his sixth book, La Mettrie goes back to his first claim, namely, that nature makes, without thinking, a thinking machine. This chapter asks what is to be concluded from such shifts in his work.

Keywords Autodynamism; feeling; man as a machine; matter; materialism; mechanism; mind; motion; speech.

1. Perpendicularly Crawling Machines Some eight years ago, I had hardly read anything of Julien Offray de la Mettrie’s books, except for his well-known work, Man a Machine, in the paperback edition. Man a machine is a fascinating manifesto for materialism. It was after a three-day conference on Whitehead that I

170

Chapter Eleven

discovered the two volumes of his philosophical works in a bookshop. At the time, I was so tired of Whitehead’s obscure notions of concrescence, prehensions, feelings, and the like, that I needed a change. I thought that reading La Mettrie would provide me with a good break from Whitehead’s rejection of materialism in Process and Reality. So I bought the two volumes and undertook to read them on my trip home. La Mettrie’s philosophical works were published in 1751, just before his death. His works are comprised by a “preliminary discourse” and a collection of six “memoirs to serve as a contribution to the natural history of man.” These are reproduced and edited by Francine Markovits in the first volume of his work. The second volume reproduces some other interesting works by La Mettrie that shed light on the evolution of his thought. Julien Offray de la Mettrie lived from February 29th, 1709 to November th 11 , 1751. He was born in Saint-Malo. He studied medicine and graduated as a physician in 1733. La Mettrie then went to Leiden where he studied with Herman Boerhaave, whose iatromechanism3 had a great influence on his own philosophical doctrines.4 He published his first philosophical book, L’Histoire naturelle de l’âme in 1745. This book was condemned for its emphasis on materialism and was burned. In 1747, La Mettrie published his famous Homme machine, which was disapproved of even by free thinkers. He wrote several other books including L’Homme-plante (1748), Le système d’Epicure (1750), and the Discours sur le bonheur (1750). He died in 1751 after publishing his Philosophical Works. La Mettrie was deeply influenced by Galileo’s and Boyle’s consideration that the mechanical scheme is useful to explain the world. And, in his Man a Machine, La Mettrie radicalized to man Descartes’ claim in the fifth part of the Discours de la méthode that animals are to be considered machines that have been made by God.5 According to La Mettrie, men are nothing other than perpendicularly crawling machines.6 La Mettrie was also influenced by the technological developments of his time, and above all by Vaucanson’s Homo artifex. From 1730 to 1750, Vaucanson built automatons such as a flute player, a tambourine man, and a duck moving its wings, eating corns, expulsing its feces, etc…, and he intended to make an automaton that was capable of speech. La Mettrie states that if Vaucanson took more pain to make his flute player than to make his duck, it would take him even more pain to make a speaker, a machine whose realization has to be considered as possible.7

La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter

171

La Mettrie published his works anonymously from 1745 to 1751, so that the question of authenticity is sometimes an open one, but not for the Philosophical Works, which he collected and published in 1751. As stated above, these writings are comprised of six “memoirs to serve as a contribution to the natural history of man.” The first memoir is the wellknown, Man a Machine; the second is Le Traité de l’âme, which is constituted by the greatest part of La Mettrie’s first philosophical works L’Histoire naturelle de l’âme, that was first published in 1745. It was condemned, and was effectively burned in 1746, but was published again in 1747. The conclusions of L’Histoire naturelle de l’âme become the “Preliminary Discourse,” while the notes form the contents of the third memoir, namely, the Abrégé des systèmes.

2. Feelings It is worth pointing out that, in the Traité de l’âme, La Mettrie considered that matter had three essential properties: space of course, but also motion, which explains the appearance of the third property, feelings.8 Memory, imagination, and passions are nothing than the product of a mechanical process,9 and the material origin of feelings is to be found in the use of signs and language which La Mettrie ascribes, in a completely non-Cartesian way, both to men and animals.10 The cogito itself is grounded on feeling,11 and since the whole world can be explained by the autodynamism of matter, the existence of God is a useless hypothesis, God is not even a Rational Being.12 A key point pertains to the language of animals. Descartes claimed in the fifth part of the Discours de la méthode, just after articulating the hypothesis that animals are nothing but machines, that speech is the proof that men are not bodily machines and that men are endowed with a soul. As for La Mettrie, animals do have ideas and signs for these ideas. The gap between men and animals is just a question of degree.13

3. A Machine That Makes Itself Its Springs It is interesting to notice that the mechanistic model which was rejected in the Traité de l’âme is systematically used in Man a Machine, first published in 1748. In 1751, this book became the first memoir contained in the Oeuvres philosophiques. In this book, La Mettrie extends Descartes’ association of animal and machine to the human body. He states that “the human body is a machine which makes itself its springs”14 and he argues

172

Chapter Eleven

that the human soul is nothing but the principle of movement and the brain is its material part. He writes, man is nothing but an animal or a set of springs which built each other, so that you cannot tell from which point of the human circle nature has started. If these springs differ it is because of their place or their strength, never because of their nature. As a consequence the soul is nothing but a principle of movement or a sensible material part of the brain and we can consider it as the main spring of the machine.15

As a result, thought itself is a property of matter. As he claims, “I believe that thought is compatible with organized matter, and that it is one of its properties.”16 In this mechanical scheme, man is, just like the other animals, a machine, and Descartes’ criterion of speech is of no use in arguing for a difference between man and animal. An ape, La Mettrie argues, may well have the capacity to learn speaking.17

4. The Organic Scheme In the Traité de l’âme, La Mettrie claimed that matter spontaneously produces thought with the help of the faculty it as to feel. In L’Homme machine he argued that man, just as all of the other animals, is just a selforganizing mechanism, and that thought is therefore of a material origin. However, in his fourth memoir, L’Homme-plante, which was originally published in 1748, La Mettrie gives up the mechanist scheme for an organic scheme—once again in order to prove the materialist point of view—man is a plant-like being. In order to clarify his stance, he points to all the supposed analogies between man’s anatomy and the world of plants, especially to the metaphor that woman is the most beautiful plant of our species. Accordingly, when she is wise, she is a flower, but she will not be easy to pick. On the contrary, men are spermatic animals, and their stamen is the penis. Sperm is the male’s pollen; men are monoandria and women are monogynia since they have only one vagina. Accordingly, for La Mettrie, men and women belong to the class of Dieciae.18

5. The Universe Is Full of Souls As previously stated, La Mettrie has articulated different versions of materialism that are ever increasingly strong. However, the fifth memoir, Les animaux plus que machines, which was published anonymously in 1750, breaks with the previous ones. In the very first lines, just after mentioning Descartes’ claim concerning animal machines, he denounces

La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter

173

the author of L’Homme machine whose fault is to have extended Descartes’ claim to men in order to debase humanity.19 He now claims that since animals do have internal and external senses, they have all of the mental faculties: perception, memory, imagination, judgment and reasoning.20 Consequently, animals have souls and their souls are just like ours, namely, their souls are entirely distinct from matter.21 According to La Mettrie, here, the final proof of the existence of the animal soul is speech—which is precisely the criterion that Descartes employed in order to try to prove that animals are nothing but mindless machines. It is not necessary to speak in order to feel or to think, and in this way, anybody who expresses his feelings is in a way speaking.22 Finally, the difference between human language and animal language is just—once again—a question of degree. The superiority of human language is not even established, since the usual silence of animals may be better than the verbiage of philosophers.23 Furthermore, he points to the question of voice recognition, which seems, to him, impossible for a machine.24 In words that are very close to those of Descartes in the Méditations métaphysiques, La Mettrie rejects the importance that he has, up to now, devoted to matter. For him, the fixed point is mind, and matter is nothing but a usurper.25 So he urges us to confess to spiritualism.26 This might seem to be a reversal of Descartes point of view, but Descartes thought that that there are animals so imperfect that it is impossible to claim that they might have a soul. Descartes’ examples are oysters and sponges.27 For La Mettrie, the universe is full of souls, and even the oysters that stick to the rocks devote their life to the contemplation of the universe.28 Nevertheless, he definitely disapproves of the claim expounded in L’Homme machine as well as every other thesis that leads to materialism,29 and he solemnly condemns everything that may us think of Epicurus’ system.30

6. Nature Makes, Without Thinking, a Thinking Machine The sixth memoir is, as might be expected, Le système d’Epicure, i.e., Epicurus’ System. It is, in fact, a revised version of the Réflexions philosophiques sur l’origine des animaux, first published in 1750. La Mettrie insists, from a materialist point of view, that given some of the laws of nature there is an auto-organization of matter. Given these physical laws, it is impossible for the sea not to flood the land, and in the same way these laws have created eyes that see and ears that hear, and, in the end, a brain capable of thought.31 Echoing Locke, who claims in his Essay that it is possible for God—who is both omnipotent and omniscient—to give to

174

Chapter Eleven

matter the faculty of thought, La Mettrie claimed that the purely material nature succeeded in making a machine that thinks, without having eyes that see, and without thinking.32 The origin of thought is nothing but the fact that we see, we hear, we speak and there is no absurdity in supposing that a clever being has a blind cause.33

7. Man Is More Than a Machine The selection of texts collected by La Mettrie for his Philosophical Works, published in 1751, consists of a “preliminary discourse” and six “memoirs.” They appear in the first volume that is edited by Francine Markovits, but the second volume is worth considering for the materialism / spiritualism debate. This is particularly the case for L’Homme plus que machine, which was published anonymously in 1750, but authenticated by the Epître à Mlle A.C.P. In L’Homme plus que machine, La Mettrie first opposes the monism of materialists by way of the dualism of immaterialists.34 Then he claims to prove, employing the same empirical ground that he used in L’Homme machine, that the human soul is an immaterial substance that is separated from the body.35 Furthermore, he says, in opposition to Locke, that it is impossible for God to give the faculty of thought to matter,36 since thought is incompatible with the attributes of the substance we call matter.37 Let me make the central point here. After having supported a complete materialism in the Traité de l’âme, a mechanistic materialism in L’Homme machine, an organicist materialism in L’Homme-plante, and then—against his own previous claims—a spiritualism in Les Animaux plus que machines, followed by a return in Le système d’Epicure to a materialism where there is a dynamic auto-organization of matter that explains the appearance of life and thought, La Mettrie comes here to a firm condemnation of materialism.

8. One Can Talk Without a Tongue But Not Without a Soul The movement by La Mettrie from an extreme materialism to an opposing immaterialism may be compared to his attitude toward Vaucanson’s works. The flute player and the projected speaking automaton were his favorite examples in L’Homme machine. But, at the end of his life, for instance, in the Epître à mon esprit, La Mettrie is very skeptical about the possibility of building a machine that can talk. One can talk without a tongue, but not without a soul. So that in order to build a machine that can talk and think you have to undertake the impossible task

La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter

175

of making a soul.38 But it may be that La Mettrie’s successive shift from materialism to spiritualism rests on a provocative game. That is what the epigraph quotation seems to mean: “be quiet, my mind, be less serious; and consider that a good joke is the touchstone of the acutest reason,”39 as well as the following assertion that we read in the Epître à Mlle A.C.P.: “machine is the most beautiful joke in the world.”40

Notes 1. This paper has been written with the help of the WBI (Wallonie-Bruxelles International). 2. “Adieu, mon esprit, soyez s’il se peut moins grave; et croyez que la bonne plaisanterie est la pierre de touche de la plus fine raison.” Julien Offray de la Mettrie, “Epître à mon esprit,” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. II, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1987), 234. 3. This medical doctrine, which was developed in Italy and later defended by Boerhaave (1666–1738), involved the claim that all vital processes can be explained by physical and mechanical principles. 4. La Mettrie’s first works are free translations of Boerhaave into French. 5. René Descartes, “Discours sur la Méthode,” in Oeuvres et Lettres, ed. A. Bridoux (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 164. I do not know whether La Mettrie knew Descartes’ letter to the Marquesse of Newcastle of November 23rd, 1646, but he uses the same simile of the clock. His point is rather like that of Descartes in the Traité de l’homme, where the idea of man being a pure machine is considered without ever being rejected. We find the same claim in the “Entretien avec Burman,” in Oeuvres et Lettres, ed. A. Bridoux (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 1380. 6. In “L’Homme machine,” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 111, La Mettrie writes, “il est vrai que ce célèbre Philosophe s’est beaucoup trompé, et personne n’en disconvient. Mais enfin il a connu la Nature Animale; il a le premier parfaitement démontré que les Animaus étoient de pures Machines. Or après une telle découverte de cette importance, et qui suppose autant de sagacité, le moien sans ingratitude, de ne pas faire grace à toutes ses erreurs! Elles sont à mes yeux toutes réparées par ce grand aveu. Car enfin, quoiqu’il chante sur la distinction des deux substances; il est visible que ce n’est qu’un tour d’adresse, une ruse de stile, pour faire avaler aux Théologiens un poison caché à l’ombre d’une Analogie qui frappe tout le Monde et qu’eux seuls ne voient pas. Car c’est elle, c’est cette forte Analogie, qui force tous les Savants et les vrais juges d’avouër que ces êtres fiers et vains, plus distingués par leur orgueil, que par leur nom d’Hommes, quelque envie qu’ils aient de s’élever, ne sont au fond que des Animaux, et des Machines perpendiculairement rampantes.” 7. In “L’homme machine,” 109, La Mettrie states, “s’il a fallu plus d’art à Vaucanson pour faire son Fluteur, que pour son Canard, il eût dû en emploier encore davantage pour faire un Parleur ; Machine qui ne peut plus être regardée comme impossible, surtout entre les mains d’un nouveau Prométhée.

176

Chapter Eleven

8. In the “Traité de l’âme,” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vo1. 1, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 139, La Mettrie writes, “nous avons parlé de deux attributs essentiels de la matière, desquels dépendent la plupart de ses propriétés, sçavoir l’étendue et la force motrice. Nous n’avons plus maintenant qu’à prouver un troisième attribut; je veux dire la faculté de sentir, que les Philosophes de tous les siècles ont reconnuë dans cette même substance. Je dis tous les Philosophes, quoique je n’ignore pas tous les efforts qu’ont vainement faits les Cartésiens pour l’en dépouiller. Mais pour écarter des difficultés insurmontables, ils se sont jettés dans un labyrinthe dont ils ont cru sortir par cette absurde système, « que les bêtes sont de pures machines Une opinion si risible n’a jamais eu d’accès chez les Philosophes que comme un badinage d’esprit. C’est pourquoi nous ne nous arrêtons pas à la refuter ».” 9. In the “Traité de l’âme,” 183, La Mettrie states, “la mémoire, l’imagination et les passions ; facultés de l’Ame qui dépendent visiblement d’une simple disposition du sensorium, laquelle n’est qu’un pur arrangement mécanique des parties qui forment la moëlle du cerveau.” 10. In the “Traité de l’âme,” 139-140, La Mettrie writes, “l’expérience ne nous prouve pas moins la faculté de sentir dans les bêtes, que dans les hommes: hors moi qui suis fort assuré que je sens, je n’ai d’autre preuve du sentiment des autres hommes que par les signes qu’ils m’en donnent. Le langage de convention, je veux dire, la parole, n’est pas le signe qui l’exprime le mieux: il y en a un autre commun aux hommes et aux animaux, qui le manifeste avec plus de certitude; je parle du langage affectif, tel que les plaintes, les cris, les caresses, la fuite, les soupirs, le chant, et en un mot toutes les expressions de la douleur, de la tristesse, de l’aversion, de la crainte, de l’audace, de la soumission, de la colère, du plaisir, de la joie, de la tendresse, etc. Un langage aussi énergique a bien plus de force pour nous en convaincre, que tous les Sophismes de Descartes pour nous persuader.” 11. In the “Traité de l’âme,” 191, La Mettrie states, “la preuve de cela, c’est que l’Ame ne se connoit point, et qu’elle est privée d’elle-même, lorsqu’elle est privée de sensation.” 12. In the “Traité de l’âme,” 137, La Mettrie writes, “si donc on suppose un autre Agent, je demande quel il est, et qu’on me donne des preuves de son existence; mais puisqu’on n’en a pas la moindre idée, ce n’est même pas un Etre de raison.” 13. In the “Traité de l’âme,” 188-189, La Mettrie writes, “voilà des idées et des signes qu’on ne peut refuser aux bêtes, sans choquer le sens commun. Ces signes sont perpétuels, intelligibles à tout animal du même genre, et même d’une espèce différente, puisqu’ils le sont aux hommes mêmes. Je sçai aussi certainement, dit Lamy, qu’un Perroquet a de la connaissance, somme je sçai qu’un étranger en a, les mêmes marques qui sont pour l’un, sont pour l’autre: il faut avoir moins de bon sens que les animaux, pour leur refuser des connoissances. Qu’on ne nous objecte pas que les signes du discernement des bêtes sont arbitraires, et n’ont rien de commun avec leurs sensations: car tous les mots dont nous nous servons le sont aussi, et cependant ils agissent sur nos idées, ils les dirigent, ils les changent. Les lettres qui ont été inventées plus tard que les mots, étant rassemblées, forment les mots, de sorte qu’il nous est égal de lire des caractères; ou d’entendre les mots qui en sont faits, parce que l’usage nous y a fait

La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter

177

attacher les mêmes idées, antérieures aux un et aux autres. Lettres, mots, idées, tout est donc arbitraire dans l’homme, comme dans l’animal: mais il est évident, lorsqu’on jette les yeux sur la masse du cerveau de l’homme, que ce viscère peut contenir une multitude prodigieuse d’idées, et par conséquent exige pour rendre ces idées, plus de signes que les animaux. C’est en cela précisément que consiste toute la supériorité de l’homme.” 14. In “L’Homme machine,” 69, La Mettrie states, “le corps humain est une Machine qui monte elle-même ses propres ressorts.” 15. In “L’Homme machine,” 105, La Mettrie writes, “l’Homme n’est qu’un Animal, ou un Assemblage de ressorts, qui tous se montent les uns par les autres, sans qu’on puisse dire par quel point du cercle humain la Nature a commencé ? Si ces ressorts diffèrent entr’eux, ce n’est donc que par leur Siège, et par quelque degré de force, et jamais par leur Nature; et par conséquent l’Ame n’est qu’un principe de mouvement, ou une Partie matérielle sensible du Cerveau, qu’on peut sans craindre l’erreur, regarder comme un ressort principal de toute la Machine, qui a une influence visible sur tous les autres, et même paroit avoir été fait le premier; en sorte que tous les autres n’en seroient qu’une emanation.” 16. In “L’Homme machine,” 112, La Mettrie states, “je crois la pensée si peu incompatible avec la matière organisée, qu’elle semble en être une propriété.” 17. In “L’Homme machine,” 76-77, La Mettrie writes, “le Singe voit et entend; il comprend ce qu’il entend et ce qu’il voit. Il conçoit si parfaitement les Signes qu’on lui fait, qu’à tout autre jeu, ou tout autre exercice, je ne doute point qu’il ne l’emportât sur les disciples de Amman. Pourquoi donc l’éducation des Singes seroit-elle impossible? Pourquoi ne pourroit-il enfin, à force de soins, imiter, à l’exemple des sourds, les mouvements nécessaires pour prononcer? Je n’ose décider si les organes de la parole du Singe ne peuvent, quoiqu’on fasse, rien articuler; mais cette impossibilité absolüe me surprendroit, à cause de la grande Analogie su Singe et de l’Homme, et qu’il n’est point d’Animal connu jusqu’à présent, dont le dedans et le dehors lui ressemblent d’une manière si frappante.” 18. In “L’Homme-plante,” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 288, La Metrie states, “j’ai décrit Botaniquement la plus belle Plante de notre Espèce, je veux dire la femme: Si elle est sage, quoique métamorphosée en fleur, elle n’en sera pas plus facile à cueillir. Pour nous autres Hommes, sur lesquels un coup d’œil suffit, Fils de Priape, Animaux Spermatiques, notre Etamine est comme roulée en Tube Cylindrique, c’est la Verge; et le Sperme est notre Poudre fécondante. Semblables à ces Plantes, qui n’ont qu’un Mâle, nous sommes des Monoandria: les Femmes sont des Monogynia, parce qu’elles n’ont qu’un Vagin. Enfin le Genre Humain, dont le Mâle est séparé de la Fémelle, augmentera la Classe des Dieciae.” 19. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 309, La Mettrie writes, “portant la témérité au plus haut point, pour appliquer à l’homme sans nul détour ce qui avoit été dit des Animaux, pour le dégrader, l’abaisser à ce qu’il y a de plus vil, et confondre ainsi le Maître et le Roi avec ses sujets.”

178

Chapter Eleven

20. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 309, La Mettrie states, “ils sont doüés comme nous de toutes les facultés spirituelles qui en dépendent, je veux dire de la Perception, de la Mémoire, de l’Imagination, du Jugement, du Raisonnement.” 21. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 310, La Mettrie writes, “ils ont une Ame produite par les mêmes combinaisons que la nôtre; et cependant, comme on le verra dans la suite, tout à fait distincte de la Matière. ” This statement needs to be compared to what Descartes wrote in his “Lettre au Marquis de Newcastle (23 novembre 1646),” in Œuvres et Lettres, ed. A. Bridoux (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 1257: “a quoi je n’ai rien à répondre, sinon que, si elles pensaient ainsi que nous, elles auraient une âme immortelle aussi bien que nous; ce qui n’est pas vraisemblable, à cause qu’il n’y a point de raison pour le croire de quelques animaux, sans le croire de tous, et qu’il y en a plusieurs trop imparfaits pour pouvoir croire cela d’eux, comme le sont les huîtres, les éponges, etc…. Mais je crains de vous importuner par ces discours, et tout le désir que j’ai est de vous témoigner que je suis, etc.” 22. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 311, La Mettrie states, “quoi! faut il donc parler, pour paroître sentir et réfléchir? Parle assés, qui montre du sentiment. Première preuve de l’Ame des Animaux.” 23. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 343, La Mettrie writes, “ce qu’il y a seulement de sûr, c’est que si le langage des Animaux est sans Idées, plus heureux en cela, non que les sots, mais que bien des gens d’Esprit, leur conduite ne lui ressemble pas.” 24. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 316, La Mettrie states, “que tous nos savants Machinistes nous disent, par quelle Mécanique ce que je ne sai quel ressort sentant qu’on met dans la substance, qui elle-même le compose, se souvient d’une voix qu’on a entendue qu’une seule fois, et il y a vingt ans!” 25. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 323, La Mettrie writes, “plus de dispute; j’ai trouvé le point fixe, d’où je vais partir pour dépouïller des Organes injustement élevés sur les débris du Principe qui les anime, et détroner pour jamais le Tyran usurpateur de l’Empire de l’Am; c’est la matière, à laquelle il est tems de faire succéder l’Esprit.” 26. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 336, La Mettrie states, “Rendez-vous donc au Spiritualisme, à la vüe de l’absurdité du Système contraire.” 27. Descartes, “Lettre au Marquis de Newcastle (23 novembre 1646),” 1257. 28. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 346, La Mettrie writes, “Tout est donc plein d’Ames dans l’Univers. Il n’y a pas jusqu’aux huitres qui ne soient attachées aux Rochers pour mieux passer leur vie … à la contemplation des plus importantes vérités.” 29. La Mettrie, “Les animaux plus que machines,” 322. 30. In “Les animaux plus que machines,” 321, La Mettrie writes, “cela ne crie-t-il pas vengeance, de rappeller aussi hardiment le Système d’Epicure dans un tems aussi éclairé par la Religion que le nôtre; système, qui dans celui de Cicéron, brillant Philosophe, étoit déjà fort décrié, et tourné en ridicule.” 31. In “Le système d’Epicure” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 361, La Mettrie states, “comme, posées certaines loix Physiques, il n’étoit pas possible que la mer n’eût son flux et son reflux, de

La Mettrie and the Autodynamism of Matter

179

même certaines loix du mouvement ayant existé, elles ont formé des yeux qui ont vû, des oreilles qui ont entendu, des nerfs qui ont senti, une langue tantôt capable et tantôt incapable de parler, suivant son organisation; enfin elles ont fabriqué le Viscère de la Pensée.” 32. In “Le système d’Epicure,” 361, La Mettrie writes, “sans voir, des yeux qui voient, elle a fait sans penser, une machine qui pense.” 33. In “Le système d’Epicure,” 362, La Mettrie states, “faculté de penser n’ayant pas une autre source, que celle de voir, d’entendre, de parler, de se reproduire, je ne vois pas quelle absurdité il y auroit à faire venir un Etre intelligent d’une Cause aveugle.” 34. In “L’Homme plus que machine,” 143, La Mettrie writes, “on a donné le nom de matérialistes à ceux qui n’admettent qu’une seule substance dans l’homme, et d’immatérialistes à ceux qui avoient recours à une seconde, qu’on nomme ame. De là tous les systèmes des philosophes sur l’ame humaine se réduisent à deux: au matérialisme, sous lequel on comprend tous ceux qui nient que l’homme soit un composé de deux substances distinctes, dont l’une est matérielle, l’autre immatérielle; et à l’immatérialisme, qui comprend tous ceux qui l’affirment.” 35. In “L’Homme plus que machine,” 145, La Mettrie states, “pour que le système de l’immatérialité de l’ame humaine soit solidement établi, nous allons démontrer premièrement, que ce qui dans l’homme a la faculté de penser, ne peut être matériel: ensuite nous ferons voir que les expériences physiques (sous lesquelles je comprends toutes celles qu’on fait sur la substance matérielle, soit anatomiques, chymiques, etc...) ne prouvent pas le contraire; d’où il résultera avec toute l’évidence, dont ce sujet est susceptible, que l’ame humaine est une substance immatérielle, distincte du corps.” 36. In “L’Homme plus que machine,” 145, La Mettrie states, “Je nie que Dieu ne puisse donner la faculté de penser à la matière.” 37. In “L’Homme plus que machine,” 148, La Mettrie states, “non-seulement je ne puis concevoir comment la matière puisse penser, mais … l’idée de penser est incompatible avec les attributs, que nous remarquons dans la substance que nous nommons matière.” 38. In “Epître à mon esprit,” in Oeuvres philosophiques Vol. II, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1987), 232, La Mettrie writes, “Vous seriez même tenté de croire qu’on pourroit faire une machine parlât; ce que l’art a fait, vous fait concevoir tout ce qu’il pourroit faire. Mon ami, vous êtes dans l’erreur: on peut bien parler sans langue, mais non sans ame. Pour faire une machine capable de parler et de penser, il faudroit donc être à l’affût d’une ame; lorsqu’en je ne sais quel temps, et je ne sais comment, elle vient se nicher incognito dans nos veines.” 39. La Mettrie, “Epître à mon esprit,” 234. 40. In “Epître à Mlle A.C.P.” in Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. II, ed. Francine Markovits (Paris: Fayard, 1987), 217, La Mettrie writes, “Bon, Machine, c’est la plus belle plaisanterie du monde.”

180

Chapter Eleven

References Descartes, René. “Discours sur la Méthode.” In Oeuvres et Lettres, edited by A. Bridoux. Paris: Gallimard, 1952. —. “Lettre au Marquis de Newcastle (23 novembre 1646).” In Oeuvres et Lettres, edited by A. Bridoux. Paris: Gallimard, 1952 —. “Entretien avec Burman.” In Oeuvres et Lettres, edited by A. Bridoux. Paris: Gallimard, 1952. La Mettrie, Julien Offray de. “Traité de l’âme.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vo1. 1, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1984. —. “L’Homme machine.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1984. —. “L’Homme-plante.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1984. —. “Les animaux plus que machines.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1984. —. “Le système d’Epicure.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. 1, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1984. —. “L’Homme plus que machine.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. II, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1987. —. “Epître à Mlle A.C.P.” In Oeuvres philosophiques, Vol. II, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1987. —. “Epître à mon esprit.” In Oeuvres philosophiques Vol. II, edited by Francine Markovits. Paris: Fayard, 1987.



CHAPTER TWELVE DESCARTES AND THE PROBLEM OF THE PASSIONS CARLOS D. GARCIA MANCILLA

“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. “I feel, therefore I am” is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that is alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, and steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings.1 —Milan Kundera, Immortality

Abstract In the Discourse on Method and the Meditations, Descartes uses the first person in two distinct senses that cannot be assimilated one to the other, pointing to the “ontological distance.” This phrase is used to indicate the difference between the subject and the individual; a difference that separates the self, and with it, life from science. This distance is catalyzed by the inexplicable existence of passions, which are the content of individuality and of life. The scientific method, as postulated by Descartes, however, cannot understand passions, as long as they appear in the union between mind and body. It is this lack of ability to understand passions that points to why he could not come up with a definitive morality.

Keywords Passions; ontological distance; mind; body; soul; liberty; absolute; individual; subject; good; evil; animal spirits; method; the self.

182

Chapter Twelve

1. The Method between Fables: The Distance is a Symptom There is a deep abyss that is held to exist between thought and the world, namely, between thought and life. But it is a fissure that is forged by thought itself, as a presupposition of its own activity. In this essay, I will analyze the dichotomy of thought and the world. Philosophers have spent a lot of effort in trying to overcome this division, while at the same time still accepting it, by speaking of the “relation between subject and object”—the premise being that this expression already considers them to be separate. Here, I will consider the origin of the division between subject and object in the work of Descartes. While the problem of the relation between the subject and the object is a very important issue for modern philosophers, what underlies discourse concerning the relation between the subject and the individual is like a secret—not the kind of secret that modern philosophers seek to conceal— but one that has escaped his considerations. What kind of enigma is this? Some of the more important critics of modernity have either named ideology or sub-consciousness as the “face behind the mask.” What is analyzed here is the discourse that reveals itself in the contradictions of thought, which are not hidden behind what is said as the “unsaid,” but are present in it, and, as a result, may have gone unobserved or have been missed. I call this enigma, and these contradictions “symptoms” of something deeper, since they “fall with” (syn-piptein) or appear together with what is thought. They are a consequence of what is achieved by thought itself, but which point to something that, even when present, is ignored or omitted—in the same way that we ignore gravity or air while we walk or breathe. These symptoms have a symbolic character, yet they are of the same type as that which is described by the medical notion of the term. A “symptom” indicates something else than what is immediate or evident, which should be deciphered, but, in contrast to the symbol, is naturally attached to it. The fact that the symptom denotes a kind of disorder is important. Without attributing to it the moral connotation of badness or illness, this affliction follows thought as if it were a rock inside a shoe. There is a suffering in thought due to its separation from life. The usage of the terms “symptom” and pathein2 anticipates the discovery of a contrast. The passion, the pathos, has been pointed to by modern philosophers as something indeterminate, obscure, and out of the reach of the power of thought. Is passion itself really obscure? Descartes himself considers it as that which is most proximate and intimate to us. The obscurity that is ascribed by Descartes to passions is the first

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

183

symptom of the separation, of what I call the ontological distance. When thought distances itself from life and sees itself as the spectator of a big drama, namely, when “life is a dream” and the world is considered as an enormous theatre,3 the distance opens. And thought, without knowing or willing it, bears it and suffers. This is the passion of modernity. But, are there passions in thought? Is the a-patheia what forges the separation? Descartes’ philosophy, traditionally considered to be the origin of modernity, bears this symptom. I will not justify or question if he deserves this title, or if modernity is something that starts before or after him. Descartes’ philosophy is just a place where one can begin to reveal the symptom with a certain degree of clarity, specifically, his postulation of a duality between the self and the “I,”4 and his inability to understand the union between mind and body.

2. The Origin of the Fables In Discourse on the Method (1637), Descartes writes that his “intention is to raise the building of my ideas and beliefs on a foundation that is exclusively mine.”5 This phrase reveals a contradiction. Is it the method that will forge the entire edifice of science something that is private and individual? To which “I” is Descartes referring? In a subtle and even secret way, this contradiction reveals the deep trench that is created by the scientific method that he seeks to advance. Where modern thought is concerned, it is usual to postulate a division between the subject and the object. The traditional interpretation of Descartes’ texts makes them paradigmatic of this division. But the difference between subject and object does not indicate a pure separation; subject and object are, at most, complementary terms.6 Since its beginnings, philosophy has taken always the path of simplicity. The simple is the most intelligible, and, quite mysteriously, it is that which really is. But why is simplicity to be viewed (almost) as a synonym of effectiveness, namely, of a high degree of being? The question of why the epistemological foundation is taken by Descartes as being equivalent to the ontological foundation is something that will be analyzed in this chapter. The idea of simplicity in Descartes comes from the mathematics. Simplicity is not a trivial consideration for Descartes, since he viewed mathematics as a very attractive science due to its precision. For Descartes, philosophical truth must be as clear as that of mathematics, and clarity cannot be found in the contradiction of diverse opinions. According to him, simplicity corresponds with what is clear and distinct, and because of this, it should convince as soon as is proposed.

184

Chapter Twelve

Disagreement does not necessarily indicate their falsehood, but it generates suspicion. In Descartes’ view, philosophy has the obligation of being or becoming the highest science that will be the foundation for all the other sciences. Even his philosophy is deeply influenced by the Scholastics, and he commits treason against the tradition by denying it as one of the very conditions of his method. The maxim of thinking for oneself, that is characteristic of the Enlightenment, is not just an imperative in Descartes’ thought; rather it establishes an important hiatus in the development of the scientific method and in the content of his philosophy. The multiplicity of perspectives and opinions blunt the work of thought. Solitude is necessary for the perfection or, at least, for the arrival at philosophical truth. In the Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1628), Descartes claims that philosophy is not just the science that establishes the rules that all of the other sciences must follow, but it is also independent and free. The truth concerning these rules or principles cannot be deduced. Rather, truth dwells in the absence of its own evidence and is separated from any relation that could complicate its simplicity. The long deductions that philosophers make about confusing, complex, and abstract matters are a cause for a new beginning for philosophy, one in which philosophy proceeds in a manner that is purified from prejudgments, sophistical heritages, the will to be famous, or the desire to be admired. But, breaking with the tradition, for Descartes, involves tearing off the veil that blinds the eyes to the clarity of pure reason. In articulating the principles of the scientific method, Descartes does not deny the tradition, but he works to develop a new perspective from within it. The fact that foundational thought should be excised from any other thought is due to the requirements of the idea of truth that rules Descartes’ philosophy. At least in the first steps of the method, that which is clear and distinct should be simple, which is precisely why it is clear and distinct. Connections and relations darken the sight of thought since it is difficult for reason to attend to more than one thing at the same time without a failure of memory or attention. Reason suffers from radical finitude and impotency, as its sight can only extend to that which has a simple nature. For Descartes, truth and simplicity go hand-in-hand, and hence, the work of philosophy should begin in solitude. In this way, what is true has the highest degree of clarity and is undeniably certain; it is doubtless. However, this perspective conflicts with the philosophical tradition due to the fact that many philosophical ideas that are generated are deduced; the steps of the deductive chain are normally confusing and the conclusions they generally achieve are normally shadowy. For Descartes, the one and

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

185

only and fundamental certainty, cogito ergo sum, is neither the product of deduction nor of induction. It is true by itself because it has the simplest content that thought can have, and according to him, every rational being would accept the truth of this proposition without the provision of a long argument in order to demonstrate it. The chain of arguments that Descartes provides in order to arrive at the cogito cannot be ascribed to the region of the deductive thought. The radical doubt he employs is not knowledge, but the consciousness of complete ignorance. In contrast with truth or error, doubt does not have any support. But one can argue that as soon as error is known as a mistake, it is considered to be as philosophically important as the truth. The knowledge that something is false indicates which path is not appropriate, and it brings the truth nearer. To be sure, to know that something is mistaken presupposes a partial knowledge of the truth that could distinguish it from the false. Nevertheless, doubt does not lead to truth. The true and the false are confused in doubt. And no path in it is better than the other. As such, every possible truth, or mistake, is flattened by radical doubt. In respect to radical doubt, every possible image, idea, or experience is reduced to the same unclear status as doubt neither illuminates nor darkens. It is epistemologically empty. Truth has no degrees and identifies with what is. When something is doubtful, it could be just nothing. Thus, the thinker should consider it as if it was actually nothing. The imagination, which is ambiguous in terms of its relation with experience, is central to the possibility of coming up with hypotheses. It opens the first abyss between the world and the subject before the solid Cartesian subject is built over the wreckage of the world. Right in the most radical quest for the truth that has ever taken place in the history of philosophy, a starting point that did not presuppose anything as true was needed. The imagination neither discovers what is true nor what is false; it adds to any proposition circumstances that could render it false without knowing if it is actually false. This faculty can invent entire nations that have never seen the sunlight and it can also destroy the world. The imagination, in short, makes possible the first fable, the fable of the lonely subject. Moreover, with respect to the hypothesis of the subject, it collapses the very foundations of the “I” of the individual, the world of experience and action, and leaves only the purity and simplicity of the “I think” in its wake. But, why is it that under any circumstance in which a proposition that we are entertaining is possibly false, the Cartesian philosophy considers it as such? We are not certain in every circumstance, and if there existed a continuum of truth, namely, if truth had degrees, then this imaginary

186

Chapter Twelve

circumstance would be less true than the everyday experience that this hypothesis tries to dethrone. But the truth is a unity and not a continuum, and every unclear or indistinct thing is considered as doubtful. In this world of untruth, everything could fit and be allowed: the world, mathematics, the malin génie, and the non-existence of all of them. Normally, experience corrects its own mistakes. We know that we are dreaming because there is continuity in life and not in dreams. We know of our mistakes because perception corrects them of itself. We can also be mistaken in our entire life by certain perceptions, but these can be amended. Of course, this is not a problem with experience and perception. According to Descartes, it is not prudent to trust something that has fooled us previously. The appropriate and prudent path to deal with experience as we inquire into the truth is to propose the conditions in which it could be false, in order to simplify the problem. The criterion of clarity in arriving at the truth, which Descartes’ method demands, can only be achieved with simplicity. Reason, due to its finitude, cannot attend to numerous things at once without confusion.7 Even it is just a part of the method, doubt leads thought not to know, but to unknow; to get free from prejudgments, being the greatest of them the idea that there is a similarity or equality between things and our perceptions of them.8 In the famous argument of the dream in Descartes’ Meditations (1641), the distinct characteristics belonging to dream and reality may be absent and the experience as a whole becomes doubtful. But this argument is more complicated. Due to the assumption that the perceptions are similar to the things, experience has the idea of truth as adaequatium as its foundation. In this hypothesis, experience cannot rectify itself by distinguishing between both states, because it is con-fused in relation to the dream. In it, the truth as adequacy is incongruous because the external world is the internal. The argument underlying Descartes’ dreaming dethrones experience, because it attacks the idea of truth as adequacy; it reduces the world to a possibility that exists inside of the subject where propositions are not different from the things. The truth as adaequatium is one of the first victims of Descartes’ method. In that lonely state, adequacy is almost absurd; but it can also be said that it has been “upgraded” to an idealistic form of adequacy. The only possibility that can be adequate to the intellect in an absolute manner is where one takes oneself as the object. The imagination begins the fable of the subject. It is useless to know what I am, and it can only make me know what this “I” is not. With the image of the possibility of the malin genie, both faculties—the imagination and the sensibility—are hence emptied; as related with the external world they remain in silence without

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

187

it. But, in the quest for the truth, it is necessary to break with the imagination. It is said that modernity emerges from this rapture of the subject, namely, from the need to give a basis to knowledge before knowing. Really, how could it be possible to appreciate external things by attending to one’s own thoughts? In Descartes’ philosophy, this rapture is a supposition, a fable: I will pursue the truth as if I did not have a body, and/or as if there was no real world or other things. At the beginning of the Meditations,9 Descartes writes that he will provide us with a fable with the aim to build a foundation for the sciences and for practical life. He does not take the reality of the world away absolutely, but just as a means to apprehend it with more certainty. The first fable that is created by the method, according to this interpretation, is the abstraction of the individual. What he considers doubtful are his experiences, history, ideas, and passions. It is the empirical “I” of the individual, Descartes himself, which is the origin of the separation that the method posits. Between the “I” of the individual and the “I” of the subject appears a decisive separation—what I call the ontological distance. Of course, the pure “I” is nobody as an individual; it is the thought that, nevertheless, has to be an “I” from where its certainty is obtained. Even though the cogito is simple, the proposition cogito ergo sum is immediately true as soon as it is thought by the “I” of the subject. I am something as soon as I think. Thought is the foundation of my existence. There is a synthesis of thought and being alone. This is immensely obscure. Something indeterminate and undefined cannot be more elusive to be thought. The judgment distinguishes and separates. But what should be distinguished if there is nothing else that is known with certainty? Thought is its own content, as it thinks itself as existing. In this container, which exists only as containing something, it de-limits and distinguishes by way of thinking in itself. The “I” folds into itself; it is what limits the need for limits, or thinks just because it thinks in something, namely, in itself. In Descartes’ method, we “try to be more a spectator than an actor in all the comedies of the world.”10 Life and action are obscured by the process of the method, and disappear from consciousness. Even this consciousness is a lonely point of thought and existence as it is assaulted by needs and by life. The fable of the pure subject in its purity and loneliness creates another fable inside itself: the “provisional morality.” In both the Discourse on Method and the Meditations, Descartes affirms that one of his aims is to gain knowledge that could lead to

188

Chapter Twelve

appropriate action. But the finitude of reason which, at the beginning at least, can only know something if it is simple, seems insufficient. Human action is probably the most complicated and complex phenomenon that reason could attempt to analyze. The confusion is such that “we could find as many reformers as there are heads.”11 The initial aim of the method— which is doubly the foundation of science and of the principles for life— finds a discontinuity within its aims. But it is a discontinuity that will be increased as the method advances in knowledge. Doubt leads to a complete abandonment of life and action. Nothing within the method indicates what to do or how action should be directed. From the solitude of the subject, deducing a completely certain direction for life is an immensely complicated proposition. But “the chosen hideout in which to live while our own house is being rebuilt is borrowed from a trustful friend.12 Habits, usefulness, laws, and any other practical concerns are taken from outside, including from the nation where we were born or the town wherein the individual and his wandering reason dwells. It is like the subject is acting as an individual in a play. It is a play because the certainty that the method has about practical life is its complete uncertainty. The maxims of the provisional morality are also clearly uncertain. It is nothing but a supposition, a fable, because “it is time to think, not to act.”13 These maxims are taken as if they were dictated by reason and as if they were certain and good. Reason is common to everyone. Here, Descartes does not point to every individual, but to the unity of the subject. With this ontological and epistemological center, there is no difference between the thought of one, or of the multiplicity of, human beings; that is the reason why it is not individual. The individuality is the outcome of the diversity of experiences in life and their confusing relations: the personal history, the crossroads in actions, desires, and passions, and every other accident that could be aggregated to the formation of the individual. If there was only the subject, and no individuality, then there would not be any opinion or any misleading beliefs, only the pure certainty of the Cartesian subject. The individuality is the cause of the complexity of actions. Hence, the Cartesian method separates the thought from the action by proposing the subject. Thus, there can neither be, in Descartes, a subject of the action nor pure practical reason. The reason for this excision is the unapprehendable relativity of life where individuality reigns. In order to fully approach life, thought should break from its own fable and its own defeated return to individuality. With the certainty of the Cartesian method, the world is reduced to extension. From this knowledge, it is absurd to look toward obtaining any direction for life. The “provisional morality” tries to repair

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

189

this situation. But in order to do this, it has to act as though life were a play, and it creates a distance from the individual; it has to act as if it was an individual. Even though his initial intention was to govern life with certain knowledge of the good, Descartes cannot explain or apprehend life and action. His method leads him to the science and technique, and to the governance of nature instead. The provisional morality, in contrast with the hard truth of the cogito, proposes that its only certainty is a probability. Someone who is lost in the woods exemplifies Descartes notion that it is better to take any direction than to stay in the same place.14 In this way, he has the possibility of getting to where he wants to be, or, at worst, he will get somewhere, which is better than being lost in the middle of nothing. Furthermore, if he can get “somewhere,” then he can then ask for directions to amend his road. Descartes complains about the so-called “wise men” who try to find the truth more by fortuity than by clear and distinct knowledge. But he reasons in the same manner in the spheres of life and action. The result is comfortable action. As a spectator of his own battles, the subject-individual accommodates him- or herself in the theatre chair, and takes the most moderate opinions as if they were certain.15 However, as it is not certain that these opinions are the best, and lead to right action, change is necessary. The number of potential paths that wandering thoughts can take is countless. Even if one does not know what the correct path is, he can always turn back if one road seems to be inappropriate. Descartes writes, “I think it could be a great fault against good sense if I accept something as good even after I ceased to consider it in that way.”16 The provisional morality should accept variation; its principles are provisional within provisionality. Inside the fixed point of acting as the usage demands, there is no fixed point. The maxim of following whatever action leads most probably to a desired result is completely formal and empty, and the results are uncertain and variable. But it is the only request of the laconic practical reason: even if the maxims are only probable we may follow and consider them no more as doubtful. As they refer to the practice, we should consider them as true and certain as if it was a determination of the reason.17

The subject of modernity, the idealistic subject, has as one of its specific characteristics its strong separation from individuality. This distance, the ontological distance, is built through a fable concocted by Descartes. Nevertheless, this distinction is not clear in his reflections. Sometimes he uses the “I” as an individual, and refers to himself, and sometimes in a substantial manner, referring to the subject. He considers

190

Chapter Twelve

that his method is only personal and that he chose it in order to lead his own reason; it is not a method that everyone should follow. How can it be personal or individual considering the intuition and the truth that it gains? How can it be the foundation of philosophy and science if it is not universal? The fables that Descartes concocts are obscure, yet at the same time, sustain one another. The individual, who cannot quit the quest for truth, proposes the fable of pure thought, leading to solipsism. The subject, who cannot abandon life and action, provides himself with a world, as well as hypothetical and uncertain actions that, from the ontological distance, return him to the individual as a fable. The old prejudices refuse to be taken as false, even if the doubt takes them as errors, so it could perhaps be more rational to accept them than to refuse them. Descartes himself “would not know how to agree with that distrust.”18 The fables: the subject and the individual, are like two lovers who obscure and illuminate each other without achieving unity and pure light. The proposition cogito ergo sum is held to be the clearest of all knowledge, and for this reason, it is an intuition for the pure subject that is nevertheless ambiguous from the point of view of the individual. It cannot be understood without the process of doubt, the imagination, and freedom, which involve the process of separation. This truth “cannot be understood by the majority; it demands a spirit free from prejudgments and who can easily separate from the relation with the senses.”19 It is a truth that, as he claims, needs a metaphysical temperament. In contrast, in the Discourse on Method, he considers this same knowledge to be immediately reachable and apprehensible by any rational being. The difference is the separation from the individual. The conditions in which Descartes reaches his fundamental ideas are not trivial under this point of view: an isolated cottage far from any moral distraction, in the absence of others, and with objects too familiar to wake up desire or surprise, or any other passion. Being more or less far from prejudgments and desires, from life, and from the presence of the world, doubt speaks louder. Solitude and disindividualization are the central points of the difference and of the ontological distance. “Freedom”—the meaning of which is multiple in Descartes—can be considered here. Doubt and imagination make the thought free from prejudgments and from the possibility of error. The freedom of the subject is thus negative. This has made some interpreters compare the Cartesian idea of freedom with that of Stoicism. Autarchy, in short, proposes the disapprehension of everything that is not in our power. In this way, the impossibility of modifying things causes no sorrow. The maxim of “self-

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

191

sufficiency” is the foundation of the Stoic’s ethics. The similarities between Stoic ethics and the Cartesian perspective are evident. Nevertheless, the most radical case of autarchy is perhaps present in Cynicism, and it is very different from the Cartesian subject. This subject is free from the world and from itself; it is free because it carries nothing but its extreme simplicity. Considering the “I” as subject, thought is the only thing really in my power.20 In the center of subjectivity dwells the unity of freedom, will, and thought. To know that “I am” is almost an absurd quest. I am doubtlessly something. But, what am I? The Cartesian answer is not only “thought.” More precisely, the thought that thinks about itself finds a diversity that can be also reduced to thought. It is free because it depends just on itself and demands nothing but itself. The thought of the subject is free, and the freedom is within the thought. It can be considered that these reflections about freedom are an ethical investigation that is parallel to the epistemological one. But the negative freedom shows that it is not a matter of a moral action or choice. That is senseless from the perspective of the pure subject. The same thing occurs with feelings and passions. Knowing, and the will to know, are not distinguished here, because the object and the person who wants the object are not different either. The will to know the truth is the same as the will to know myself, which is the same as just thinking. In the very first steps of Descartes’ method, there exists a complete assimilation of whatever occurs to the thought of the subject. Sensations, ideas, propositions, feelings, and desires are all considered to be forms of thinking. As articulated above, the fable of the subject seeks its way back to life and the world. This return, adorned by the provisional morality, is, according to Descartes, possible with God, and only He can make it possible. In this way, modern philosophy provides a first answer to the question concerning the separation between, and the ontological distancing of, the subject from the object and from the individual. Descartes provides a solution to his own problematic abyss by way of the idea of God. As is well known, it is only with His existence and perfection that all the other deductions become possible. All the later inquiries of Descartes, from the natures of light, and of comets, to the passions, and medicine, are only possible after the deduction of the Divine Being. Descartes’ philosophy has been criticized constantly for its erroneous invocation of the existence of God as its foundation.

192

Chapter Twelve

3. The Fourfold Freedom Descartes is one of the few modern philosophers who affirm strongly the existence of freedom. The famous difficulty of this affirmation is the impossibility of a being that could be its own foundation, namely, owing its existence to nothing else. As will be described, the notion of freedom that Descartes advances is embedded in the same game of fables that has been mentioned above. Nothing seems to be separate from the complicated relations belonging to what is. Nothing appears to be unrelated to anything else and completely spontaneous—with the possibility of extracting something from nothing—in order to be considered as really free; nothing but God, and also, the Cartesian subject. Freedom, in Descartes’ philosophy, seems to have four phases and ways of being attached to the subject or the individual. They appear progressively in his reflections. From freedom in an absolute sense to the determinism belonging to the principle of cause and effect, the problem of freedom is linked to the fundamental distinction between the mind and the body. According to Schopenhauer, freedom and the relationship between subject and object are the fundamental problems of modernity. Thus the consideration of both philosophers will introduce us to the heart of modernity and of idealism. The simplicity of the cogito, as Jaspers appreciates,21 is not clear by itself. When we try to go beyond thought before it is attached to the predicate of existence, thought is left in an abyss. Thought involves synthesis and it is not just a gallery of ideas. It requires an efficient cause of the synthesis of thought and being. Thought is positive and pro-poses one idea in relation to another. Even when two ideas are necessarily connected, this relation has to be thought as such. This spontaneity of proposing is due to the freedom of thought. Descartes considers many characteristics or manners of thinking such as imagining, feeling, and desiring. Jaspers is certainly correct on a number of fronts to call this a psychological phenomenology and not an ontology.22 But there is something really fundamental for thought that makes it free: its activity and spontaneity. These are more fundamental because the cogito would be nothing without the spontaneity of the synthesis, and it can exist without images or passions.23 According to the Cartesian method, the first form of freedom is the simple activity of synthesis. It would be difficult to attribute something like the will or desire to this simple activity; as said, there is no difference between thought and the desire or spontaneity of the synthesis. Descartes says, “I conceive something as the subject of the action in my

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

193

spirit which adds something else to the idea I have of a thing.”24 The freedom is thus inseparable from thought without eroding the simplicity. Thought is free for activity, but also since it is deemed to be absolute, in the sense of being absolved and independent, it needs nothing but itself to be what it is, according to Descartes. Descartes, it is true, needs God. But the certainty of the Divine Being consolidates the method and with it, experience, science itself, and perhaps, action. God was never necessary for the existence of the subject; only perhaps in order to maintain its being,25 which is a condition that is secondary to the fact that it already existed. The absolute freedom belonging to the Cartesian subject is completely amoral. How could morality be possible in such a radical loneliness? The will cannot appear without something else. And the first thing whose existence Descartes assures us of standing alongside the “I” is God. But God cannot be an object of desire. Nevertheless, Descartes writes, “the spirit a wanderer who is pleased in mistaking us and who cannot stay inside the boundaries of the truth.”26 The spontaneity, namely, the absolute freedom, seeks and wants. It is a will willing to will. Without anything but itself, it wants to escape from its lonely cage. The solitude is suicidal, as Dostoyevsky said, and the subject of the action looks, precisely, for the action that is inhibited, due of the emptiness of the world. If this was not true, why would reason try to abandon the extremely certain region of the pure subject where the truth is no longer a problem? Why would Descartes admit that, in this region, he “cannot secure his feet on the bottom and neither swim to grab something else?”27 Freedom thus appears now as will. Descartes was forced to admit freedom as impulse and activity; a freedom that later could not be controlled. The will of thought desires a world. In Descartes’ method the certainty of God appears, and with Him, the world reappears.28 The third type of freedom is the negative freedom: the thought that decides to free itself from what is not in its power. What is this power that seems similar to the Stoic tradition? The contexts of both perspectives are distant enough to affirm that Descartes’ ethics are of a Stoic orientation. I have been trying to prove that the possibility of moral knowledge is really problematic in Descartes’ philosophy. The power that is searched for by the Stoics is a complete dominance over individuality in order to limit the desires that are not possible to fulfill. For Descartes, knowledge is power, and more precisely, it is the central point of consciousness. It is in the power of the subject to think of the clear and distinct in a spontaneous manner. Thought can only attend to one relation or synthesis at a time. This is due to the fallibility of memory, and still more because of the

194

Chapter Twelve

unconsciousness of it. Memory evokes something thought in the past; by doing this, it puts what was conscious in the present moment away, and leaves it mingled with, and indistinct from, all of its other contents. After all, what is really in the power of thought is still what is simple. Only this can be in the consciousness that is certain of its truth. Thus thought chooses only what is in its power, the certainty of the existence of the three substances, and it folds itself again into itself. It cannot be God because reason is limited, and it is not extended due to its own essence. So consciousness of the extension is impossible. Any other possibility of sensible things besides their extension is not just potentially false, it is also unconscious and cannot be empowered by thought. Forced by the will and by wandering reason, thought tries to invade other lands and to break its own limits. Now it turns back, and freely folds itself again into itself. Only through Descartes’ method can the sight of thought dare to look further. But this method is characterized by the ontological distance, and this sight will always remain far. Freedom in Descartes exhibits thus the symptom of distance that has been proposed. In the Meditations, Descartes considers freedom to be the origin of all of our mistakes. According to him, it is the most perfect of all of our faculties since it is the widest. It comprehends every possible alternative and the power of choice; is almost divine. But freedom always overflows itself. Its immeasurable vastness leads to decisions that are beyond the range of reason. Because of it, the spirit is a wanderer and its choices are, for the most part, occasions that are the outcome of ignorance. The Cartesian method is thus a series of imperatives that one should follow in order to avoid mistakes. What has to be ruled is not the ruler, namely, thought, but that which is within the ruler creating disorder. The “I” of the subject is also an individual “I” that has a body and which opens a world that pure thought does not understand, but that freedom wills. The fourth form of freedom is the one that is lived: it is the freedom within the actions and involves the notion that the individual is the main character. It is also the freedom that the method looks forward to adapt to the truth and to pure thought. This aim toward a definitive morality is unreachable for thought due to the separating nature of the method. The problem of freedom is even greater when the ontological distance is considered. And as was said earlier, the clearest symptom of this separation is the fundamental distinction between the mind and the body.

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

195

4. The Fundamental Distinction and the Passions of the Soul The body provides freedom in terms of the possibility of desiring the world of objects: “it is sure that we desire a thing by the same means that experience it.”29 But chiefly, the body is the origin of passions. In this consideration of Descartes’ system, the “I” is no longer considered alone, and it loses its absoluteness. The freedom that formerly was identical with the desire for truth is separated from the will in this perspective, and is ruled by it, in the individual who governs the determinism. The senses, said Descartes, present objects whose perception we cannot avoid, and cannot produce anything, if these objects are not present. Initially considered, the body is passionate in the sense that it has the pathos of the world and is passive to it. The soul also becomes passive and passionate. In one of his letters to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, Descartes declares that there are three characteristics belonging to primitive things: extension, thought, and the binding of both.30 As for “primitive things,” we should understand that, beyond them, nothing can be understood, and that, in contrast, they provide the possibility of understanding everything else. Descartes considered thinking substances and extension similarly in his works about physics. The primitiveness of these notions is due to our intuition of them. They are innate and they cannot be deduced. Nevertheless, the simplicity of these two ideas, which makes them absolutely clear for knowledge, is ruined when considering their union. Why is the union of mind and body taken as a primitive notion?31 As Hamelin said, this notion seems to be just in name only.32 Thought, essentially unextended, becomes intimately related with spatiality and matter. The author of the Discourse leaves it to God’s mysterious will, which goes beyond the human understanding, as the reason for this union. The difficulties and consequences that Descartes’ treatment of union between mind and body produce have been discussed widely. The philosopher of clear and distinct ideas admits as true the completely obscure union between thought and matter. As Mattéi considers it,33 it is the distinct idea of confusion. And in this confusion appears the real human individual. In the union, the soul, and not just the body, is affected by external objects. Descartes calls it a feeling when something is felt by the body and becomes an idea in the soul. Normally, these ideas are very confusing because they present to thought qualities that attach to the objects and always produce mistakes. For Descartes, it is not the case that we sometimes perceive color or other qualities erroneously and that sometimes we are right. They always produce mistakes because Descartes

196

Chapter Twelve

maintains his methodic doubt along with ideas which are neither extended nor an attribute of extension. This means that he considers to be false what is not as clear and distinct as extension is in the external world. Thus every feeling is internal to the subject and unrelated to external objects. They are the way in which the subject perceives. The primary prejudice of philosophy and thought, according to Descartes, is to assign to the things themselves what we perceive of them. Feelings and sensations only appear in the union between mind and body. The intellect is completely passive to these qualities. It can only act or have certain power in what is known clearly and distinctively in the properties of space and time. Also, pleasure and pain are considered to be feelings. This assimilation of pain and pleasure to sensation is due to their common characteristic of depending on the subject rather than on being a property of the object. It is obvious that nothing like pain or pleasure is really present in the object felt. But, in contrast to the sensitivity that nothing true can give, the feelings of pleasure and pain are more complicated. “Is there something more intimate than pain?” asks Descartes, who answers tacitly with a negative statement. What happens is that the pain is clear without being distinct; it is confused with the thing that produces it, and we attach to this object the characteristic of being harmful. Considering this, Descartes tries to provide an elucidation not of the union itself, but of its aims and ends. We cannot understand God’s reasons in order to explain the union or the ends of the world’s structure in general. We only know that there is a union and that pleasure and pain are an outcome of this union. Concerning the other objects, Descartes affirms that we know that they are extended and movable, and that this movement follows certain rules that God has dictated to us. Every object moves following this determination. The bodies of animals can be thus considered machines. The body of the human individual—the union of thought and matter—also has this characteristic in Descartes’ system. What affects the body is presented to the soul as the confusing ideas of pain or pleasure. There is no actual pain in the body; in the body, there are only mechanical reactions that are set by nature. According to Descartes, the fact that some people still feel pain in body parts that they have lost, or that we can feel pain or pleasure even in our dreams, demonstrates that these feelings can be separated from the body. They are presented to consciousness as pain or pleasure in order to keep the body safe.34 This is the only reason that Descartes gives to explain the relation between mind and body, a sort of pre-established harmony that is imposed by God. But the separation of these feelings from the body is just partial. In pure thought, the possibility of feelings and passions is not present. The

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

197

body opens up this possibility. They are feelings and passions of the soul, because they are different from what occurs to the body, but they are only possible in the union of both. Thus every feeling, sensation, pleasure, or pain has a specific referent in the body-machine. The basic property of extension, namely, movement, provides the possibility of explaining its nature. Animal spirits involve “very subtle matter” that is transported through the nerves of the body and is the means by which the machinery of the human body communicates with other objects. Through them, every body part has movement required by a specific situation. For example, if a certain object whose idea is present in the memory has formerly caused damage, the spirits in the brain flow to the movable parts of the body in order to escape it. In this process, the judgment and the freedom—a soul—are not required. Extension is the world characterized by mechanical determinism. But there appears to be an intimate relation between the mind and the body. In contrast with what Pavesi said, namely, that the mind is attached in a certain way to all bodies,35 Descartes admits that the soul “is not in the body like a captain in a ship.”36 Damage to the ship is not felt by the crew; the captain will only contemplate it, and at most, he would order that it be repaired. This is a useful image because, as in the case of the sailor, we do not feel whatever happens to other bodies, but only what happens to our own body. Its need for food and water is represented as hunger and thirst for the soul; its benefit or harm are pleasure or pain, and sadness or joy are felt by the soul. It is a body that “I call mine in its own right.” What does it mean that one body among others could have such “rights”? Something is owed to this body; there is an imperative to follow with this body and not with others. What happens to this body is perceived clearly and directly— even though not distinctly—by the soul. We owe to this body care. In this way, Descartes upholds the ancient tradition of the care of oneself, epiméleia s’autó. The first possibility of a definitive morality in Descartes’ thought appears with the study and practice of the medical sciences, and the Treatise on Man executes this attempt. But pleasure and pain are not properly passions of the soul. The difference is subtle but important. The mechanisms behind pleasure and pain can occur without the intervention of the soul. As sensations, these feelings are passive because they are beyond the possibility of the will to change. What Descartes calls properly “the passions of the soul” only take place in the union, and the will can have a certain power over them. Passions are specifically characteristic of human beings, just as Fisher said: “in the union appears the man.”37

198

Chapter Twelve

The Passions of the Soul (1649) includes Descartes’ anthropological research in which the body machine and pure thought are not considered apart one from the other. The resulting (confused) third substance, that is posited by Descartes, namely, the union of mind and body, the individual, is not simple and cannot be deduced. For Descartes, there is only one thing that is characteristic of this substance—the passions. Joy or sadness cannot exist without the natural, harmonic, and mysterious union between mind and body. The principle of individuation—principium individuationis—in Descartes’ philosophy is thus the passions of the soul. It could be said that the problem of the external world, which has been given much attention since Descartes, is not problematic due to the world, but rather because the body is considered as an intermediary and has an undetermined union with the soul. Descartes exerts great effort in explaining this union, and as is well-known, he only points to the place of the mystery. And it is in fact, a place, an extension, where the matter becomes so subtle that it can become similar to the lack of extension. This idea stands radically against Descartes’ physics; he considers it openly as an enigma. This mystery has a name and a place: the pineal gland. The importance of this gland is not the fact that it is considered as a body part. If this was the case, it could be analyzed like any physical object through the scientific method. It is important because it is Descartes’ answer to the problem of the division of the “I” in modernity. Descartes considers that, in contrast to any other sensitive body part, this gland is not double, and it is located in the center of the brain. Thus, he thinks, the double perception finds a joining point. In this way, we can, for example, see only one object even we have two eyes.38 But it is evident that this answer only delays the problem of the discontinuity between thought and matter. The union is the answer. It is the entrance to the highest science: the science of morality and of the good life. But the method also insists upon evidence and clarity in thought. With the pineal gland, Descartes has to contradict many of the principles he articulated in his physics and metaphysics. Divisibility ad infinitum is an essential characteristic of extension. There is never a part so subtle than cannot be divided again. And the extension can only be understood and explained through something analogous, like matter, movement, or force. Even this gland seems just like an empty name, but it is important in another sense. The body is a marked object because it is of oneself. This means that there is a reciprocity and union between thought and body, the latter being composed of an indefinite number of objects. But thought and/or reason are only one. At the beginning of the Discourse on Method, Descartes states that “there is nothing distributed better than good sense.” The “I” of

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

199

thought is obviously different from the “I” who owns a body, simply because thought is not individual, and the body necessarily is. The principles of science demand that thought and reason should not multiply. Besides, the cogito is and should be a universal “I.” The pineal gland represents the enigmatic step from the “I” of thought to the “I” of passion. In Passions of the Soul, Descartes considers the passions initially by way of the ontological distance, as if they were strange and not our own. This is suspicious because, from the beginning of the work, he assures the reader that passions are “so proximate and internal that it would be impossible that they were different from what is felt.”39 Not even through the argument of the dream can their effectiveness be questioned. This treatise meanders from pure intelligence to pure extension without really bringing them together. Suddenly, Descartes’ ethical proposals are explained by physicality. Love and hate become movements of certain organs due to the flux of the animal spirits that gather in the brain, thereby causing the sensations in the soul. For Descartes, the passions are “certain perceptions or emotions of the soul that are caused, maintained, and fortified by a particular movement of the spirits.”40 The impossibility of the soul to have more than one thought at the same time has important implications in the life of the individual. God has given us the necessary faculties in order to correct our mistakes— this is a basic principle of Cartesian philosophy—and the passions are one of these capacities. Passions have a usefulness inside of the natural order. Like any feeling, they lead the soul to things that may be useful.41 They predispose the soul to will to acquire the things that the body needs, and to keep one’s attention on what is important for it. But in contrast with any other feeling, morality appears in the passions. Pleasure and pain are connected in the union with joy, sadness, love, or hate. The difference between feelings as mere sensations and passions, which is radically important for ethics, becomes quite obscure in Descartes’ philosophy. Everyone would agree that sadness is different from the pain that is felt on the body. But the difference is, like the aforementioned union between mind and body, something “known whether or not it is understood.”42 Analyzing this, a radical separation between life and philosophy appears.43 The existence of the passions leads us to know clearly and distinctly that there is a union between mind and body, even though it is not known how this union occurs. The method itself leads to the affirmation that this union cannot be understood. But life happens in this union where the individual appears. Hence, the Cartesian philosophy affirms that it cannot understand life. The separation of the “I” marks that it is impossible to achieve a

200

Chapter Twelve

scientific morality. That said, the power of thought provides us with the ability to use and dominate nature through science.

5. The Science of Good and Evil Good and evil are very important in Descartes’ philosophy. Their treatment is necessary at the culmination of his system, but they remain problematic. Descartes holds that the highest science, morality, is an inexact science. Morality is the highest science, because it the last one reached, and hence, it is the most important of them. Morality as a science requires all of the other sciences. According to Descartes, the roots of the tree of knowledge include metaphysics, and morality stands on top. Morality can be understood as the possibility—stemming from the freedom of the will—of choosing between good and evil. Here, passion is the fundamental impulse. But morality escapes from science because the passions are resistant to being understood and thus dominated. And good and evil are ideas that should be defined with clarity and distinctness. As Descartes claims, it is indispensable to have “firm and clear propositions concerning good and evil that the soul should follow to act in life.”44 Wisdom is a word that, for Descartes, involves the clear and distinct knowledge of good and evil, is presented as a science that determines proper action in life. Truth is its most important instrument; if this truth is known via the scientific method, then the result would be so clear and distinct that it would necessary convince the will to follow it. Without truth, the ideas of good and evil will always be provisional. As such, the provisional morality, as an anticipation of moral science, is just a simulacrum of the truth (vraisemblable). This provisional morality is also unconvincing, and there is no reason for the will to follow it. Descartes himself tried to solve this difficulty by referring to the possibility of altering the maxims of this provisional morality whenever they seem not to be adequate. But it is exactly this indetermination that keeps his ethics in a provisional state; what can be more confusing and shadowy than such indeterminacy? Descartes proposes that the passions make imprints, of various strengths, on the soul in order to maintain its attention on certain things so that the person concentrates on acquiring what the body needs. To attend to something is to keep it inside the boundaries of consciousness, and, as stated above, to have power over it. The passions are a tool for the power of consciousness. But there is a paradox. The passions are too obscure to be clear and limited by the power of consciousness. Good and evil appear alongside the passions because attention to the objects overflows reason.

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

201

The will, namely, the wandering reason, finds in the individuality what it formerly searched for: a multiplicity of wills. The attention of the consciousness disseminates in many objects, one at a time, in the maelstrom of desire. The passions lead the conscience to what increases them. In this way, consciousness loses its power under its servant, the passions, because one’s attention is now dominated by the passions. Thus, for Descartes, the good is, on the one hand, the control of the passions and, on the other hand, the absolute governance by reason over one’s actions in life. The highest good, the moral good, should not be confused with the well-being of the body. Care of oneself is not enough because we are compound beings.45 That said, in Descartes’ philosophy, there are two ways of understanding good and evil depending on which point of view we take: either that of the compound body or of the soul alone.46 Descartes writes that “it is clear that happiness cannot stop being good and sorrow bad from the point of view of the soul.”47 In relation to the soul, there are convenient and inconvenient passions, and that is their axiological measure when their morality, under the point of view of the soul alone, is considered. In this first possibility pertaining to morality, reason and the will should control the tide of one’s passions, not merely by means of precise judgments and clear knowledge, but by evading desire. The passions are not produced by the desired object, but by the movement of the spirits attached by habit to that object. Descartes himself admits that the will cannot directly control the passions48 because neither reason nor the will have the possibility of interfering in the mechanism that produces them. Is there a real power on the body if most of the functions of this complex machine are outside of the bounds of consciousness and the will? If the soul had to control the beating of the heart or one’s breathing, its simple nature would be able to execute nothing else. The only thing that can be done by thought and by the will to maintain control is to avoid attending to the object that indirectly produces the somatic movement. Descartes states, “there is a very tight union between our soul and our body, so once we have attached a body movement to a thought, they do not appear the one without the other.”49 In this way, the soul can incite representations that may produce or attenuate certain passions. This procedure, carried out repeatedly, may destroy the artificial tie between an inconvenient passion and an object by the force of a new habit. But this battle will always be lost, because the passions themselves are the ones that incite and strengthen the attention of consciousness to certain ideas and objects. Hence, this first possibility pertaining to what is good, understood as the control of the passions, is nothing but a simulacrum.

202

Chapter Twelve

Also, the freedom of the will—vanishes; it appears not as a real liberty, but as a liberation of passion. Because this notion of the good does not emerge from a clear knowledge of the good, but from an imprecise knowledge of evil, Descartes considers that, in life, it is more convenient to hate than to love.50 In relation to what happens with the doubt that gives birth to Descartes’ method, it is more proper to take what is doubtful as being false. We are not sure if the passions lead us toward the good, so it is better to hate, or to disdain, what they incline us toward. I will now briefly analyze the second possibility concerning the good that is expressed by Descartes. Virtue and wisdom involve, as has been said earlier, good actions that emerge from knowledge. Descartes considers that there is no greater good than rationality (the good sense) and freedom. He calls this good “generosity” and it will be named here as “voluntary love.” Passions can only lead us to action through desire.51 In fact, as Fisher considers, almost every passion can be considered a form of desire.52 But from this perspective, passions should not be distracted nor deflected, but set apart. By doing this, the body, and its union with the soul, are taken as though they are morally evil. Descartes, of course, never considered it so radically. That said, the freedom of thought and of the will can only be achieved in estrangement and in the ontological distance: to will only what is in our power to attain. As mentioned at the beginning of the Discourse on the Method, only pure thought has this characteristic. This means that thought should take every action as if there was no union with the body and as if the passions were not a problem. In this distant ontological perspective on morality, love is the center; not a felt love, the love as passion, but as a tendency to perfection, to free thought. Once the true good is known—the freedom of thought—there is nothing that can be estimated as requiring greater fervor and cannot be wished for too much.53 The good becomes desire free from passion, where thought, again, retracts inside its own lonely limits in order to be happy and virtuous. Only the voluntary love—that wants without passionate desire—is representative of the good and is the cause of the good, because it is the wise approach to others who love their own freedom and their own thought. Here, goodness involves taking others as another myself and as a free cause. This goodness is undisturbed by the determination that rules in the world of extension; free in the prison of the distant “I.” Far away, at this ontological distance, it rejoices in the absolute freedom of thought. But by disdaining the world of determinism, the fourth form of freedom—the freedom of action or the real freedom—also vanishes. Its disappearance brings with it a new problem for philosophy: the “I” is free, while it is, at the same time, isolated and distant as it is a thing in its self, and it is determined by causes

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

203

that are taken as the “I” of individuality. In voluntary love, nothing will convince the will and thought to escape from their solitude through the body, the world, the error, and the evil.

6. Conclusions Why was Descartes unable to achieve a definitive morality? In attempting to answer this question, interpreters offer several possibilities, the extremes of which are probably represented by Hamelin and Pavesi. For the former, the definitive morality is the provisional one.54 As for the latter, Descartes’ morality is provisional because of the provisional characteristic of mankind.55 It is possible to assume that the definitive morality is the provisional one. As I have been trying to explain, every ethical idea that is expressed by Descartes in his treatises and letters that were written after the Discourse, in one way or another, can be assimilated to a provisional morality. But it is not what Descartes thinks about morality that is most important for this interpretation, but rather the fact that it is provisional. Without engaging in an unnecessary debate with other interpreters, I would like to add that this definitiveness cannot occur because of the itinerary of the method and due to the fact that the first achieved truths do not allow it. There is nothing as complex and multiple than action in human life. And the simplicity of the soul and its finitude cannot apprehend more than one relation at any one time. But action in life is urgent and thought needs time.56 Descartes himself admits the need for an infinite science to solve the problem of good and evil. Thus, there cannot be clearness and distinctness in life. But we can also assume that the rupture of the ontological distance toward which the method leads renders an interpretation of the world that is something merely useful, and stems from thought considered as a detached spectator of life. The only thing that pure thought can truly know is what occurs in the prison of the “I.” Therefore, Descartes’ method leads toward anthropocentrism, and as if this was not enough, to anthropomorphism. In fact, Descartes’ method does not require an ethics. Moral thought is simply not in its essential itinerary. It would have stopped in the mystery of the union between mind and body, and I would have interpreted extension just as extension, and not as the world of passions. Morality was a need of Descartes himself, as an individual, and not of pure thought. Hence, it is perhaps for this reason that most of Descartes’ ideas on ethics are in his letters and not in his treatises. However, in truth, there is no room for a scientific morality—a science of life—because, in contrast to

204

Chapter Twelve

Descartes’ method, it is time to act and not to think, to be an agent rather than a spectator of oneself. According to Descartes’ method, God gave us our rational faculties in order to be able know that the external world exists and to prevent mistakes in relation to our experience. Do we have a similar faculty to know good and evil in a clear and distinct manner? Is this faculty also our capacity to reason? But we have seen that reason is unable to do this. According to Descartes, God dictated the physical laws and gave the first impulse to matter. On this view, the physical world moves by inertia and mechanically. Did He similarly imprint humankind with the passions and abandon the world, as well as all of the individuals in it, from the very beginning? This abandonment could have possibly created a scission of mankind—a double “I” which, whether from pure thought or from the passions, makes up a fable. Neither of these fables is real, and neither of them can undo the fact that life, action, and the world underlie both of them.

Notes 1. Milan Kundera, Immortality (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 2010). 2. The word “suffering” in English is not precise here in terms of the meaning I wish to convey. In Spanish, the meaning of the word “padecer” keeps the sense of “passion.” The German word, “Leiden” may be more precise. I will use the Greek term “pathos” as the root of all such meanings. 3. Life is a Dream and The Great Theatre of the World are both works of the Spanish writer, Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681), who lived in the middle of the modern era. 4. In English, the words “self” or “oneself” are used normally when the “I” becomes universal. But for idealism, the word “I” has a special importance. Hence, I will use this word instead of the others in order to refer to the consciousness and the idealistic conception of thought. 5. René Descartes, “Discours de la méthode,” in Oeuvres I, ed. F. G. Levrault (Paris: Victor Cousin), 193. 6. An analysis of the relation between these two terms is one of the aims of this work. 7. It can be seen that this is a condition demanded by the finitude of reason and not by the truth or the thing itself. 8. René Descartes, “Meditationes de prima philosophia,” in Oeuvres I, ed. F. G. Levrault (Paris: Victor Cousin), 293. 9. Descartes, “Meditationes,” 240. 10. Descartes, “Discours,” 160. 11. Descartes, “Discours,” 182. 12. Descartes, “Discours,” 166. 13. Descartes, “Meditationes,” 247.

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

205

14. Descartes, “Discours,” 238. 15. Descartes, “Discours,” 150. 16. Descartes, “Discours,” 153. 17. Descartes, “Discours,” 152. 18. Descartes, “Meditationes,” 250. 19. Descartes, “Meditationes,” 227. 20. Descartes, “Discours,” 143. 21. Karl Jaspers, Descartes y la Filosofía (Buenos Aires: Leviatán, 1958), 16. 22. Jaspers, Descartes y la Filosofía, 17. 23. In “Principes de la Philosophie,” Oeuvres III, ed. F. G. Levrault (Paris: Victor Cousin), 104, Descartes writes that “imagination, feeling, and will depend so strongly from a thinking thing that we can hardly conceive them without it. In contrast, we can conceive of extension without figure or the thinking thing without imagination or sensation.” 24. Descartes, “Principes,” 274. 25. Descartes, “Principes,” 301. 26. Descartes, “Principes,” 262. 27. Descartes, “Principes,” 253. 28. The immense deductive jump that is present here in this paper is due to the fact that this argument is common knowledge, and because explaining it is not necessary for what follows. 29. René Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” in Oeuvres IV, ed. F. G. Levrault (Paris: Victor Cousin), 61. 30. René Descartes, “Lettres,” in Oeuvres IX, ed. F. G. Levrault (Paris: Victor Cousin), 125. 31. Intuition is normally a very problematic idea in philosophy. Nevertheless, Descartes takes it quite simply as the limit beyond which nothing further can be thought. 32. Octave Hamelin, Le système de Descartes (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1921), 154. 33. Jean-François Mattéi, “L’Âme, l’homme et le temps chez Platon et Descartes.” In Le problème de l´âme et du dualisme, ed. Jean-Louis Viellard-Baron (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 37. 34. Descartes, “Principes,” 104-129. 35. Pablo E. Pavesi, El amor voluntario: Pasión y virtud en Descartes (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, 2004), 321. 36. Descartes, “Meditationes,” 343. 37. Kuno Fischer, Descartes and His School (London: T. Fisher, 1887), 248-251. 38. Descartes, Tratado del Hombre, 143. 39. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 67. 40. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 67. 41. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 78. 42. Mattéi, “L’Âme, l’homme et le temps chez Platon et Descartes,” 52. 43. Ferdinand Alquié, La découverte métaphysique de l´homme chez Descartes (Paris: Puf, 2011), 263. 44. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme,” 87. 45. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 158.

206

Chapter Twelve

46. The absolute good, the one that will establish a definitive morality, requires a complete knowledge of the individuality, of the compound and the multiplicity. Is an “endless science” that is from the beginning forbids the finite reason. 47. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 169. 48. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,”82. 49. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,”130. 50. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 158. 51. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 162. 52. Fischer, Descartes and His School, 260. 53. Descartes, “Les passions de l’âme,” 159. 54. Hamelin, Le système de Descartes, 179-180. 55. Pavesi, El amor voluntario: Pasión y virtud en Descartes, 10. 56. We can question this statement. Why is the action urgent? Maybe because there is something at stake, the individual, which is the point where thought and matter come together. As a substance, it is important in itself.

References Alquié, Ferdinand. La découverte métaphysique de l´homme chez Descartes. Paris: Puf, 2011. Benitez, Laura. De la filantropia a las pasiones: ensayos sobre la filosofia cartesiana. México, UNAM-FFyL, 1994. Cottingham, John G. Descartes. México: UNAM-FFyL, 1995. Descartes, René. “Discours de la mèthode,” “Meditationes de prima philosophia,” “Principes de la Philosophie,” “Regulae ad directionem ingenii,” “Les passions de l’âme,” “Lettres,” in Oeuvres I-XI, edited by F. G. Levrault, Paris: Victor Cousin, 1824. —. Tratado del Hombre. Garin, Eugenio. Descartes. Barcelona: Critica, 1989. Gibson, Alexander Boyce. The Philosophy of Descartes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1987. Gouhier, Henri. La pensée metaphysique de Descartes. Paris: Vrin, 1978. Gueroult, Martial. Descartes, selon l’ordre des raisons. Paris: Aubier, 1955. Fischer, Kuno. Descartes and His School. London: T. Fisher, 1887. Hamelin, Octave. Le système de Descartes. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1921. Husserl, Edmund. Meditaciones Cartesianas. México: UNAM-IIF, 2003. Jaspers, Karl. Descartes y la Filosofía. Buenos Aires: Leviatán, 1958. Kundera, Milan. Immortality. London, UK: Faber & Faber, 2010. Lapoujade, Maria Noel. Los Sistemas de Bacon y Descartes. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad de Puebla, 2002. Marion, Jean-Luc. Sur l´ontologie gris de Descartes. Paris: Vrin, 1981.

Descartes and the Problem of the Passions

207

—. On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Mattéi, Jean-François. “L’Âme, l’homme et le temps chez Platon et Descartes.” In Le Problème de l´Âme et du Dualism, edited by JeanLouis Viellard-Baron. Paris: Vrin, 1991. Pavesi, Pablo E. El amor voluntario: Pasión y virtud en Descartes. Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, 2004. Popkin, Richard H. The History of Scepticism From Erasmus to Descartes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Renault, Laurence. Descartes ou la félicité voluntaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001. Valéry, Paul. El pensamiento vivo de Descartes. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1966. Williams, Bernard. Descartes y el Proyecto de la Investigación Pura. México: UNAM-IIF, 2004.



PART II: DYNAMIC AND PROCESS-RELATIONAL ONTOLOGIES—PRACTICE



CHAPTER THIRTEEN REFORMED SUBJECTIVISM AND PSYCHOSIS MICHEL WEBER

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”1 —Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Abstract The present study aims at tackling the ontological question of the Ultimate from the perspective of an interpretation of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivism that comes to terms with psychosis. The conundrum is the following: understanding the process subjectivism that Whitehead is arguing for constitutes a royal path to grasping his overall intuition; what happens if we seek to apply it to psychosis?

Keywords Moods (Stimmung); history of psychiatry; clinical psychology; speculative philosophy; ontology; metaphysics.

1. Introduction In most of the secondary literature, the core of Whitehead’s ontology is rightly introduced with the help of the Category of the Ultimate in Process and Reality. In my volumes on Pancreativism,2 I have argued that the “creative advance of nature” constitutes a “pre-systematic” concept of sorts (but not in the sense of William A Christian), while the unity, or togetherness, of three of the major principles that are present in Process and Reality—the ontological principle, the principle of process, and the

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

211

principle of relativity3—embodies a post-systematic refinement of the Ultimate that announces other sets of coherent categories, such as the dyads of concrescence / transition and subject / superject. We have thus a heuristic, abstractive hierarchy matching the requirements of the progressive ontological systematization of lived—and living—experience. This hierarchy embodies an unending series of concepts that is susceptible to being reformed by experience and “Gedankenexperiment” alike. When one points to the notions of the creative advance, the Category of the Ultimate, the triarchy (or tetrarchy), and the dyad of concrescence / transition, we are dealing with some of the most obvious and important speculative stages that are articulated in Process and Reality, each of them securing a coherent (taken in the technical sense that Whitehead is fostering in the text) set or layer of concepts.4 The present essay aims at answering the question of the Ultimate from the perspective of an interpretation of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivism that comes to terms with psychosis. Understanding the process subjectivism that Whitehead is advancing constitutes a royal path to grasping his overall intuition. But one must ask: what happens when we seek to apply it to psychosis?

2. The Reformed Subjectivist Principle Whitehead argues for a reformed subjectivism in order to anchor his ontology firmly in direct, im-mediate, experience without supporting classical anthropocentric claims. His entire project consists thus in abstracting concepts from his unavoidably anthropomorphic experience, carefully disposing of its unnecessary (or non-scientific, if you like) anthropocentrism. There is no absolute standpoint on the chaosmos, only specific, finite, local, “occupied regions.” Granted, if there is a “divine” experience of the chaosmos, this experience is more comprehensive than the experience of “mundane” actualities, but there is no philosophical way to start from an experience that one does not enjoy directly. Here also pseudo evidences inferred from vicarious existence should be discarded. The only standpoint the philosopher has consists of his or her own experience—all of it. This principle is sound enough, but all philosophically-inclined minds know that long ago there was a bifurcation (Greek or otherwise) between two main schools of thought: philosopherscientists arguing that the (endless) business of thinking deals with innate general ideas that are weaved by calculus, and those being adamant that thought associates acquired particular ideas.5

212

Chapter Thirteen

Now, if one has a close look at the presuppositions of these two conceptual phalanxes, one cannot but promptly notice that they do share a similar double concern with the identification of atomic, primitive elements, and the implementation of some necessary laws of assembling. Furthermore, their unreformed subjectivism involves the acceptance of the substance-quality ontology involving the assumption of vacuous actualities, which Whitehead finds unacceptable.6 Here lies the significance of James’s radical empiricism: the business of thinking is not akin to the assemblage of atomic elements. Rather, it participates in the genesis—or chaosmotic emergence—of patterns of order. The world as we know it is made of objects springing out of (subjective) experiences that are intrinsically vague, confused, and non-dual. Accordingly, pure experience and genesis are the keys to post-modern cosmology. Whitehead’s complex and sometimes confusing argument can be analysed in two complementary strands. Its pars destruens is to be found in Part II, Chapter VII of Process and Reality, entitled “The Subjectivist Principle.”7 This chapter that discusses the proximity and difference existing between the “Philosophy of Organism,” on the one hand, and the subjectivism of Descartes, Hume and Kant, on the other hand. Whitehead assumes that the acceptance of the subjectivist principle must lead us to forge new compatible categories, and to not continue to work with the old Greek ones that have been sealed by Aristotle.8 According to Whitehead, the difficulties of all schools of modern philosophy lie in the fact that, having accepted the subjectivist principle, they continue to use philosophical categories derived from another point of view. These categories are not wrong, but they deal with abstractions unsuitable for metaphysical use.9

Descartes’ revolution10 was thus only the half of the necessary Kehre, “like Columbus who never visited America, Descartes missed the full sweep of his own discovery.”11 If we take seriously the notion that all we directly experience is our conscious experience with its contents, then we have no basis for describing exterior things (solipsism), unless those contents include other actual entities (for the sake of the “causal efficacy”, they are not mere “universals”). Its pars construens works out the consequences of James’s radical empiricism. The reader who goes through all the occurrences of the reformed subjectivist principle in Process and Reality is confronted by two sets of claims. On the one hand, the subjectivism that is at stake implies that the whole universe consists of the experiences of subjects and that these subjects constitute specific standpoints (or loci in the extensive

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

213

continuum). In the case of high-grade actualities, that standpoint expresses itself as the “withness of the body.” On the other hand, the reformed subjectivism appears to be an alternative statement of each of the principles of the triarchy—starting with the principle of relativity. Whitehead states, the reformed subjectivist principle is an alternative statement of the principle of relativity. … The [reformed] subjectivist principle is that the whole universe consists of elements disclosed in the analysis of experiences of subjects. Process is the becoming of experience. … Apart from the experiences of subjects, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, bare nothingness.12

Since the principle of relativity does not make sense independently of the principle of process, and since both presuppose the ontological principle, it is fair to argue that the reformed subjectivist principle stands for the unity or togetherness of the three. To summarize what is at stake in a nutshell, the ontological principle requires that if there is no actual entity involved, then there is no reason for a given state of affairs.13 Concreteness is not a vain word for Whitehead. But actual entities should not be conceived as the substances they used to be—they concresce and perish; they come into existence and then sediment into being (they do not vanish into nothingness). There is, so to speak, an exitus from the past extensive continuum and a reditus into the past, as it is increased by that one conscrescence. Two complementary principles spell out this double dialectic: the principle of relativity, according to which “it belongs to the nature of a ‘being’ that it is a potential for every ‘becoming’,”14 and the principle of process, according to which “how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; … its ‘being’ is constituted by its ‘becoming’.”15 Becoming springs from beings and eventually topples into being.

3. Psychosis Whitehead’s reformed subjectivist principle in Process and Reality claims that what we learn from our personal—embodied—experiences can be, and actually should be, carefully generalized to all experiences. Our subjectivity—not our consciousness—is the cipher of all subjectivities, starting with the subjectivity of our fellow human beings, of course, but not stopping there. This idea is far from being new (Aristotle, for one, held it explicitly in his biological speculations), but it is rejuvenated by the new monistic organicism in Process and Reality. Since the philosopher’s high

214

Chapter Thirteen

grade experience, namely, “conscious experience,” is only one natural mode of the cosmic process, and granted it is a very complex and specific mode, she is allowed to generalize some features of that mode and thereby to recover the totality obscured by the selection—to root his or her experiences in the transient cosmic tissue, and to envision the fact that, in James’ oracular words, “there are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.”16 In sum, subjectivity is concrescence—not consciousness. According to the heuristic principle introduced supra, the triarchy involves many lessons, indeed—but what if the experiential standpoint happens to be psychotic? Or if we claim that some “sane” generalization is applicable to the experience of a psychotic? Let us address this issue from the perspective of the fundamental form of psychosis that is schizophrenia.17 Schizophrenia entails a dramatic loss of contact with reality: hallucinations, delusions and delirium—together with blunted affects, aboulia (apathy), hostility, and social withdrawal, etc…—lead to a derealisation of the world and a depersonalization of the subject. In order to know what to expect in relation to psychotics, we need to know better the mental constructs that are instrumental since the mid-nineteenth century. The pathology was first described (it was neither discovered nor invented or identified) in 1883 by Emil Kraepelin, who called it dementia praecox. Following the Kochian Zeitgeist, he interpreted it as an early somatic pathology, just like dementia per se, an old age syndrome.18 Being an endogenous cognitive impairment, its development is deemed inevitable and even physiological therapy is out of the question. Only some forms of containment policy make sense. This picture was promptly questioned within the field of psychiatry by Philippe Chaslin, who introduced the notion of dissonance (“discordance”) in 1892, and by Ernst Kretschmer, who focused on temperamental differences (“Gefühlslebens,” “Temperamente”) in 1914,19 and without the field provided by Georg Simmel’s concept of Stimmung and Max Ferdinand Scheler’s Sympathiegefühle.20 These cross-influences, together with the emergence of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalyses, crystallized in the work of Eugen Bleuler, who basically put Kraepelin’s vision upsidedown in 1911 and 1916.21 First, he coined the term schizophrenia in order to underline that the pathology described by Kraepelin amounts to an exogenous, reactive, i.e., defensive, conversion. Second, he exploited the most important concept of Syntonie. If, in other words, we are not confronted by a fateful decay, but to a contingent strategy, then psychotherapy becomes possible.

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

215

Etymologically, Syntonie evokes both affect or common and convergent mood (“einheitliche Stimmung”) and activity or harmonious tone (“einheitliche Spannung”).22 The concept, precisely because of its hybridity, has been very successful in Ludwig Binswanger’s and Medard Boss’ Daseinsanalyse that speaks of orientated or thymic space.23 Alternatively, one could speak of atmospheric mood or tone in pointing at the overlapping of emotional states and environmental affects. The idea is simple. In the very same way that a melancholic will experience his surroundings as dark and depressing, a maniac will experience the same atmosphere as welcoming or even uplifting; conversely, a Tuscan landscape chiseled by a sunset will not have the same psychological effect on a given subject as the eerie visit of some industrial fallow lands. The Syntonie expresses the psycho-topic value of events and thus the continuity, contiguity and overlapping between the worlds (“Umwelten”), animated or not.24 It can be linked with important cultural domains such as the interference patterns that were being revisited at the time and with the main clinical concepts that were about to be introduced by institutional psychotherapy. A suggestive representation of this psycho-tropism can be found in Edvard Munch’s (1863–1944) paintings, such as the well-known “Skrik” (1893) and “Angst” (1894).25 The correlation of the subject’s anxiety and his environment is indeed made plain by the painter, who leaves it up to the spectator to decide if an intrapsychic conflict affects the way the surroundings are perceived or if the general ambience is lived as persecuting. As early as 1927, Eugène Minkowski renewed the concept of Syntonie with the help of Bergson’s intuitions.26 His thesis is simple: there is no psychiatric condition when the subject enjoys a living emotional contact (“contact affectif”) with his environment. However, there is one when this contact is corrupted (“désaccordage”) and when the subject is unable to be in tune with everyday life. Adopting Bergson’s contrast between instinct and intelligence, Minkowski aptly insists on the establishment of an emotional or tonal barrier between the schizophrenic and her environment and on the preservation of the schizophrenic’s intellectual faculties. This is an observation that is quite important, especially in light of the interest most schizophrenics have for atonality in music: as Stockhausen himself implies, there is nothing much to feel in his works, but everything to intellectualize. Finally, let us underline that the correlation of Bleuler’s two conceptual moves is confirmed: when an event (typically a trauma) pushes the subject to adopt a protective stance, it compromises the adjustment, the tuning-in, of the subject and her environment. Minkowski

216

Chapter Thirteen

is very clear on this. On the contrary, being untuned is precisely what can be experienced as protective. Ronald David Laing has made this last point crucially explicit. He also shows that the price to pay for this defensive strategy is greater than its expected gains. In the now famous Divided Self (1960),27 Laing fosters a synthesis between existentialism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis. Laing knew Harry Stack Sullivan very well and was supervised by Douglas Woods Winnicott. Psychosis is seen both as a Batesonian communicational deficit—a breakdown—and as an intrapsychic Jungian journey—a breakthrough. Laing understands psychosis as the transition to a more authentic existence, which basically means a better atonement. The key to this dialectic lies with his interpretation of anxiety from the perspective of the concept of ontological security that he explicitly borrows from Tillich28 and implicitly from Bowlby and Ainsworth. 29 Somebody who is in security in the world feels fully alive, which means, on the one hand, that her autonomy is fully granted and, on the other, that she actively takes part in the community’s life.30 Independence and interdependence are complementary; social identity and dignity are as important as social intercourse. Fluidity is the law. A contrario, living in ontological insecurity amounts to feeling constantly threatened by mundane events and nefarious thoughts or drives.31 Laing distinguishes between three basic forms of anxiety: engulfment, implosion, and petrification or depersonalization,32 each giving rise to a schizophrenic strategy of survival: in order not to be phagocytised or objectified by “fellow” human beings, the subject offers them a martyr-façade and retreats behind the imagined walls of her inner fortress.33 Obiter scriptum, let us notice that these three egoïc moves (engulfment, implosion, petrification) are anxiogenic (anxiety-provoking) only because they spring out of a certain atmosphere or social frame: if they were implemented by the subject herself in order, for instance, to support a spiritual agenda, they would be experienced as liberating instead.34 As a result, Laing, inspired, for example, by Sartre 35 Bateson,36 and Winnicott,37 argues for two forms of self-consciousness: the awareness of oneself by oneself and the awareness of oneself as an object of someone else’s observation.38 The secure subject is twice integrated, both within and without herself. These two forms grant two fundamental schizo-cuts: the one that splits the mind itself, dividing it between a true self and false self, and the one that splits the body and the mind, creating the “unembodied self.”39 An unsecure or anxious subject can thus exploit two set of complementary strategies: first, the self-consciousness can withdraw

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

217

in the inner self, doomed to remain out of reach; second, the inner self / false self system can itself be severed from the external world. Accordingly, perceptions are truncated and actions become inadequate. Being free amounts to remain inaccessible, invisible, untouchable, unheard. Full opacity is aimed at, namely, complete discordance.40

4. Schizoprocesses and Reformed Subjectivism Now that we understand a bit better what it means for an individual, as the saying goes, to dig his own grave, what happens in ontological discussions if we bring these core clinical issues into the picture? From a Whiteheadian perspective, our subjectivity—not our consciousness—is the cipher of all subjectivities—not of all possible forms of consciousness— and, by hypothesis, these all share the same pattern that is disclosed in the fouring of the four principles. To use more specific categories, subjectivity or concrescence is nothing without objectivity and superjectivity or transition. We obtain a clear ontological standpoint that overlaps the more restrained phenomenological one: the prehensive dialectic encompasses all forms of intentionality. We have also seen that the schizophrenic subject is endowed with (suffers from) a reformed (corrupted) atunement that is supposed to alleviate her lack of security but actually aggravates things altogether. This syntonic loss offers a direct entry into Whitehead’s ontology because of its prima facie proximity with the concept of unison of becoming. Two preliminary issues are nevertheless worth pondering. Primo, to claim that subjectivity is concrescence or togetherness, and not consciousness, amounts to a distancing of subjectivity from intellect as well as from feelings and emotions. The intellectualization of experience is a very late genetic product that is totally absent from most concrescences, including most human experiences. Hence, feelings and emotions are often sketched as the core of the process worldview. To be sure, think especially of the concept of the withness of the body that Whitehead insists upon. It is probably inspired by his Trinity colleague and friend Henry Head (1861–1940), and it fits in very well the psychological and psychotherapeutical agendas that are always eager to focus on (un)conscious and (un)expressed emotions. The philosopher, however, would be wise to relativize this claim. The tight ontological web that Whitehead depicts is not one of pure emotion but of pure experience. Subjective forms do indeed matter, but not as much as the vectorial character of experience itself. Furthermore, psychotherapy, whatever its brand, would gain in efficacy without increasing the risk of an always possible decompensation, if it decided to interact holistically with patients

218

Chapter Thirteen

instead of systematically pushing the intellectualizations of their emotions. On the one hand, intellectualization does not cure anything ever. On the other hand, since lived emotions are fleeting, it is of no use to try to enforce their occurrences—or to prevent them.41 Secundo, the contrast between mental and physical “poles” also needs to be reconsidered. It is only ex post that genetic and coordinate analyses can be applied to actual entities.42 Causal efficacy is the driving force behind all subjective manifestations while the initial subjective aim is the luring archetype of sorts. Hence, Whitehead sometimes speaks of concrescence as the “togetherness” of a “physical pole” and a “mental pole.” This conceptual move, probably made for shameless theological reasons,43 eerily fits the descriptions of the schizophrenic defences, thereby underlining that we possibly have here a new bifurcation in the making. In that regard, is it not striking that the windowless state of the Prime Mover or of the reine Gedanke, is reminiscent of the deepest autistic behaviour? Why (on Earth) should the divine thought and its object be the same, namely, the thinking be everlastingly one with the object of its thought (notice the singular)? Taking care of an autist precisely amounts to be confronted—and sometimes very violently— with an unmoved mover totally captured in “the thinking of thinking” loop (or ritournello—not to mention the various other stereotypes).44 It is furthermore worth remembering, on the one hand, that Aristotle activates in the theological field Plato’s mundane definition of the soul: “every soul is immortal, because anything that is ever-moving is immortal, whereas anything which causes motion elsewhere and is moved from elsewhere stops living when it stops moving.”45 On the other hand, Aristotle’s psychological ternary mapping (the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul), just like its direct Platonic ancestor (the eros, the thymos and the logos), precisely sought to avoid any psychological bifurcation with the idea of three—not two—psychological forces: appetitive (desire), emotive (spiritedness), and rational (mind or nous). The fact that the very same conceptual move was made with the Nicene Creed (Father, Son and Spirit) seems to equally escape most benevolent minds these days. Tertio, the unison of becoming deserves a closer look. The unison of (immediate) becoming or “concrescent unison” is defined in Process and Reality by the mutual contemporaneity of concrescing actualities. It manifests itself as a cross-section of the universe, namely, a duration experienced in presentational immediacy.46 The crux of the matter lies in the definition of the notions of simultaneous concrescence and mutual contemporaneity: it is the causal independence of the concrescing

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

219

actualities, their constitutional privacies, that defines contemporaneity, not a synchronisation effected with the help of luminous signals and frames of reference.47 In brief, only “physical” or “measured” time is frame dependent and thus ruled by relativity. The unison does not belong to simultaneity and measured time, but to a melody of durations that requires a harmonising principle.48 Actualities or subjects evolve solitude to solitude and yet they do participate in a common world. The synchronisation, being the diachronic fruit of the irruption of the initial aim, is, so to speak, secondary. The first thing to highlight again is the constitutive privacy of subjectivity, its fundamental opacity to itself and to others. A subject without privacy would be a concrescence without mental pole—without creativity and deprived of any degree of freedom. The bursting of the dikes of experience depicted in Munch’s paintings is deeply suggestive of how much anxiety is linked to the environment when it is either oppressive, because it is experienced as invasive, or depressive because it is felt evanescent. It amounts to the removal of the doors of perception— not their cleansing as Blake, Huxley, and many others have advocated. But equally important is the fact that these subjectivities spring from a common world and weave a common world. Past subjects have “become” objects, and, as such, they provide key boundaries to new subjective manifestations. In other words, the unison of becoming is indeed a unison of independent subjectivities, but it stands against an objective, interdependent, background that is fully stable yet constantly shifting on the “occasion” of the toppling into objectivity of satisfied actualities.49 In Whitehead’s ontology, this is made possible by the action of an “outstanding” string of events that he chooses to call “God” because it obviously shares some of the features God has been endowed with by classical (Abrahamic) theism.50 This ontological framework can be clinically applied in different ways. By hypothesis, psychosis does not undermine the deep ontological structure of our chaosmos. All subjective occurrences necessarily satisfy the fouring of the four principles sketched supra. The synergy that exists—thanks to an “invisible hand”—between independence and interdependance, namely, between concrescence and transition, privacy and publicity, liberty and determinism, epochality and continuity, can be seen at work in families, communities (qua Gemeinschaft), and societies (qua Gesellschaft) thanks to the culture locally at work. Here lies probably the decisive key. The metaphor Smith uses in Wealth of Nations (1776) in order to push its nefarious political agenda has no economical value, but it captures very well the way in which culture works. The reason is

220

Chapter Thirteen

commonsensical: whereas it would only be by chance that a purely egoistic behavior happens to enforce the common good (that has been redefined for the circumstance), seeking the common good allows one, by the same token, to attain to the individual good. To repeat, culture is defined best as the narrative, the provider of initial aims, that allows both the individuation of subjects and their solidarity, thereby creating a given community. In traditional communities, there is a continuum between the values that pilot the individual, the family, the tribe, etc…. The overlapping is as good as it gets and the individual is thus usually well integrated within the community, while humans are themselves fully part of a living cosmos. Here dwell the gnostic shamans. Westerners, on the contrary, can be endowed with as many sub-cultures as they have personal circles of involvement. They take part in modes of togetherness that are sometimes so different that they foster conflicts: family, community, union, nation, religion, organizational culture can each pretend to impose the most embracing values to the other subcultures and each usually presupposes that humans should be, as it were, the masters and possessors of nature (à la Descartes). Knowledge is out of the question; only dogma and blind faith are now acceptable. The concept of unison lato sensu could thus be activated at two main levels: between the subcultures (where appropriate) and between each individual and his environment. The former is however understood better from the perspective of the (absence of) overlapping of specific values, norms, practices, knowledges, institutions, and especially of their common transmissibility and becoming. Culture should not be equated with tradition. The latter refers to the dissonance Bleuler and Minkowski have sketched. Trapped in the wrong cultural atmosphere, the subject cannot individuate herself and is severed from her community. Western philosophy’s concern (to say nothing about other traditions) for the interaction between culture, common sense, and sanity is far from being new—it goes back to Thales—but it took a significant shift with the emergence of technoscience and of capitalism. Thoreau’s Walden (1854) is usually hailed as the forerunner of a new form of ecosophy that will peak a century later with the works of Anders, Gregg, Ellul, Illich, Schumacher, Gorz, and their kin. But Artaud’s Van Gogh le suicidé de la société (1947) deserves a central place in a field that was about to be ploughed by Foucault, Laing, Goffman, Szasz, and Guattari. Be that as it may, a subsidiary question deserves to be posed in conclusion: what are the characteristics of a schizophrenigenic culture? The question sprang in the sixties with Bateson and Bettelheim who argued for a refrigerator mother who was responsible for the retreat into

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

221

madness of their child.51 The issue has nowadays shifted from the mother to the social tissue itself—starting with the family of course, but not ending there. From a Whiteheadian perspective, it can be formulated rather straightforwardly: what sort of initial subjective aim fosters disharmony instead of unison? In other words, how can individuation and solidarity be both prevented? How can citizens (independent yet interdependent living organisms) become denizens (solitary clones, undeads, or unpersons)? How does one break up all forms of solidarity and attack people’s own mental health? Huxley, Orwell, Foucault, Basaglia, Guattari, Deleuze, Bourdieu, and more recently Dufour, for example, have underlined that the breakdown of the psyche of the “civilized” West is directly correlated to the ideology that basically replaced Christianity: capitalism or, as it has been rebranded, “neoliberalism.”52 For decades, scholars focused mainly on the obvious necessity for the ruling class to atomize communities in order to control them; before long, conformity was also denounced as a major political tool but the final word was yet to come. We now realize that propaganda is not enough. The very relationship between individuals and what they deem to call “reality” has to be bankrupted. To boil it down: while culture per se (in the sense of “paideia” or “Bildung”) nurtures both individuation and solidarity and while old-fashioned capitalism imposes conformism and atomicity, schizophrenigenic culture—the world piloted by neoliberal finance—destroys the very possibility of a shared world with the help of double binds. Denizens are forced to believe what they know does not— and cannot—exist. They are lured into what is called in Newspeak “doublethink”: doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satises himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with suƥcient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the rmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink.53

222

Chapter Thirteen T

So here we stand, soome of us bo orderline unp ersons ruled by acute psychotics. And one mayy ask: what are a the odds oof a new worrld order? Well-inform med common--sense would not bet a ppenny on the peaceful future of ouur planet, but Whiteheadian W s are dutiful ooptimists for whom w the future, howeever likely, is not yet writteen.

Appen ndix Figure 1. Th he real self acccording to Laing: L

 Figure 2. Th he false self according a to Laing: L 



Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

223

Notes 1. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004), Chapter VI, 77. 2. Michel Weber, Whitehead’s Pancreativism: The Basics (Frankfurt / Paris: Ontos Verlag, 2006); and Michel Weber, Whitehead’s Pancreativism: Jamesian Applications (Frankfurt / Paris: Ontos Verlag, 2011). 3. These three categories could be extended to four if the reformed subjectivist principle is taken into account. 4. In order to study this abstractive hierarchy, it would be actually advisable to differentiate proto-idea, ideas, concepts, and categories. 5. According to Hannah Arendt in The Life of the Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978), 88, the business of thinking is like Penelope’s web: “it undoes every morning what it has finished the night before.” 6. See Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978), 157-158. 7. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 157-167. 8. In fact, the twelve Aristotelian categories were deduced from an analysis of the Greek language. Interestingly enough, Kant took that for granted and used them in his own set of categories. 9. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 167. Here, he is talking about the subjectivist dimension he approves of. 10. Note that the subjectivist point of view has already been used in a similar way, but with a completely different background, by Aquinas, when he was looking for foundations for his finalist doctrine. Saint Thomas takes humanity as the starting point, because he is the best known part of nature (known from inside). His generalization is (of course) not a naïve one. He distinguishes precisely the human conscious act (following a deliberatio) and the sine intellectu behaviour of animals (animated by an inclinatio naturalis). A medium point is then occupied by the well-known example of the cithara player. Let us note that Leibniz’s also employs this principle. 11. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 159. 12. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 166-167. 13. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 19. 14. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 22. 15. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 23. 16. William James, The Will to Believe, And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 220. 17. Whereas the current trend in psychiatry is to operate with a seemingly neverending conceptual quantitative easing (more than 500 disorders for the fifth edition of the DSM?), philosophers cherish simplicity. From that perspective, it makes sense to distinguish, within the category of “psychosis,” schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and paranoia.

224

Chapter Thirteen

18. Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), Compendium der Psychiatrie (Leipzig, A. Abel, 1883). Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) published his Mémoire sur la fermentation lactique in 1857 and Robert Koch (1843–1910) isolated the Bacillus anthracis in 1877, the Tuberculosis bacillus in 1882 and later developed the “Koch’s postulates.” 19. Philippe Chaslin (1857–1923), “La confusion mentale primitive,” Annales Medico-Psychologiques 16 (1892): 225-273; Ernst Kretschmer (1888–1964), Der sensitive Beziehungswahn. Ein Beitrag zur Paranoiafrage und zur psychiatrischen Charakterlehre (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1918). 20. Georg Simmel (1858–1918), “Philosophie der Landschaft,” Die Güldenkammer. Eine bremische Monatsschrift (Heft II, 1913): 635-644; Max Ferdinand Scheler (1874–1928), Zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Sympathiegefühle und von Liebe und Haß (Halle, Max Niemeyer, 1913). Simmel and Scheler are of course the heirs of German romanticism—mainly of Schelling and Gœthe, but also of Schopenhauer. 21. Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939), Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien (Leipzig und Wien: F. Deuticke, 1911); Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie (Berlin: J. Springer, 1916). 22. Bleuler, Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, 1916. 23. “Thymic” means driven by a Stimmung, i.e., mutatis mutandis, a Sympathiegefühle; cf. Ludwig Binswanger, “Das Raumproblem in der Psychopathologie,” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 145 (1933): 598-647. 24. Alessandro Dozio coins the term in L’Homme-Dieu contre l’Ame du Monde?: Essai d’analyse culturelle de l’habitation occidentale de la Terre (Paris: Éditions Universitaires Européennes, 2010). Heidegger speaks of a disposition (“Befindlichkeit”) and Whitehead of a “unison of becoming” and of “subjective form.” 25. The comparison makes especially sense since the late Munch himself underlined the proximity existing between his paintings and Kierkegaard’s writings. See Arne Eggum, Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies, trans. Ragnar Christophersen (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1984), 72. The Zeitgeist was of course oppressive: it was the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Sissi will be murdered in 1898) and of the first scientism (Maxwell publishes his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873). 26. Eugène Minkowski (1885–1972), La schizophrénie: Psychopathologie des schizoïdes et des schizophrènes (Paris, Éditions Payot, 1997). He was especially influenced by Bergson’s L'Évolution créatrice (1907). 27. Ronald David Laing (1927–1989), The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (London, Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1960). Laing’s title is inspired by James’s Varieties of Religious Experience de William James (1902) chapter VIII. 28. Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952). 29. John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss. I. Attachment; II. Separation: Anxiety & Anger; III. Loss: Sadness and Depression (New York: Tavistock Institute of

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

225

Human Relations, 1969, 1973, 1980); see also Mary D. Salter Ainsworth and John Bowlby, Child Care and the Growth of Love (London: Penguin Books, 1965). 30. “The individual … may experience his being as real, alive, whole; as differentiated from the rest of the world in ordinary circumstances so clearly that his identity and autonomy are never in question; as a continuum in time; as having an inner consistency, substantiality, genuineness, and worth; as spatially coextensive with the body; and, usually, as having begun in or around birth and liable to extinction with death. He thus have a firm core of ontological security” (Laing, Divided Self, 41–42) 31. Alice Miller has also made plain the link existing between insecurity and psychosis (cf. Das Drama des begabten Kindes und die Suche nach dem wahren Selbst (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983). 32. Laing, Divided Self, 43–49. 33. One recognizes Marcus Aurelius’s stoic leitmotiv (cf. Pierre Hadot, for example, in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, ed. with intro. Arnold E. Davidson; trans. Michael Chase (New York: Blackwell, 1995), and reprised, mutatis mutandis, by Bruno Bettelheim in The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self (New York: The Free Press, 1967). 34. As stated in Taisen Deshimaru, L’anneau de la voie: Paroles d’un maître Zen, texts assembled and edited by Evelyn De Smedt and Dominique Dussaussoy (Paris: Éditions Cesare Rancilio, 1983), 84: “Le Zen de Dogen ne consiste pas à obtenir le satori. Entre moi et Bouddha, entre Dieu et moi il n’y a plus de point de jonction, ni de séparation. Bouddha entre en moi, l’ego entre dans le Bouddha. Tout le cosmos entre en moi. L’ego entre dans tout le cosmos. Le subjectif et l‘objectif s’interpénètrent. C’est l’état de samadhi. L’attachement à l’ego prend fin.” 35. Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique (Paris: NRF Éditions Gallimard, 1943); Critique de la raison dialectique (Paris: Gallimard, 1960). An isomorphism can be drawn between Laing’s and Sartre’s respective categories: the embodied self and the “pour soi,” the inner self and the “en soi,” the false self and the “pour autrui.” 36. Gregory Bateson, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, and John H. Weakland, “Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,” Behavioral Science 1.4 (1956): 251-264, reprised in Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (San Francisco: Chandler, 1972). 37. Donald Woods Winnicott, “Ego Distortions in Terms of True and False Self,” in The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (London: Hogarth Press, 1965): 140-152. 38. As Laing, Divided Self, 106 (see also 113 and 127), writes, “these two forms of awareness of the self [self-consciousness], as an object in one's own eyes [awareness of oneself by oneself] and as an object in the other's eyes [awareness of oneself as an object of someone else’s observation], are closely related to each other. In the schizoid individual both are enhanced and both assume a somewhat compulsive nature. The schizoid individual is frequently tormented by the

226

Chapter Thirteen

compulsive nature of his awareness of his own processes, and also by the equally compulsive nature of his sense of his body as an object in the world of others. The heightened sense of being always seen, or at any rate of being always potentially seeable, may be principally referable to the body, but the preoccupation with being seeable may be condensed with the idea of the mental self being penetrable, and vulnerable, as when the individual feels that one can look right through him into his ‘mind’ or ‘soul’. Such ‘plate-glass’ feelings are usually spoken about in terms of metaphor or simile, but in psychotic conditions the gaze or scrutiny of the other can be experienced as an actual penetration into the core of the ‘inner’ self.” 39. See the Appendix. This struggle of the true self and the false self has been anticipated by Gœthe (Faust, 1808 and 1832), who was, with Thoreau (Walden, 1854), one of the first critics of technoscience. See, for example, Faust, l. 1110-25. Life and science are a bit like life and psychosis. 40. See Laing, Divided Self, 113 (which is obviously a Sartrian argument). 41. A first exploration of these questions can be found in my “Foreword” and “The Art of Epochal Change,” in Searching for New Contrasts: Whiteheadian Contributions to Contemporary Challenges in Neurophysiology, Psychology, Psychotherapy and the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Franz Riffert and Michel Weber (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), 7-12 and 252-281. 42. According to Nicholas Rescher, in G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology: An Edition for Students (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), §1, “the monad which we shall discuss here is nothing other than a simple substance that enters into composites. Simple means without parts. (See Theodicy, sec. 10.).” 43. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 36, for one of these compliments that should have been refused to “god.” 44. In the Metaphysics, trans. W. D. Ross, Book Lambda, §9, Aristotle writes, “but evidently knowledge and perception and opinion and understanding have always something else as their object, and themselves only by the way. Further, if thinking and being thought of are different, in respect of which does goodness belong to thought? For to he an act of thinking and to he an object of thought are not the same thing. We answer that in some cases the knowledge is the object. In the productive sciences it is the substance or essence of the object, matter omitted, and in the theoretical sciences the definition or the act of thinking is the object. Since, then, thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things that have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the thinking will be one with the object of its thought.” 45. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 245c. 46. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 124-125, and 320. Also see my Whitehead’s Pancreativism: The Basics, 181. 47. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 61 and 123. 48. This being the main path towards God that process thought provides: when the decisions taken in the sepulchre of the concrescence are respectful of the social tissue, it is because the initial aim has suggested the best compossibility—and because what is best for shoring up a society is best for one of its actualities. According to Whitehead in Religion and the Making (New York: Fordham

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

227

University Press, 1926 / 1996), 152, depth of value, namely, experience of high emotional intensity, “is only possible if the antecedent facts conspire in unison. Thus a measure of harmony in the ground is requisite for the perpetuation of depth into the future. But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.” 49. The use of the expression “toppling into objectivity” is preferable to “becoming objective” because becoming, satisfaction and being are carefully distinguished in Process and Reality. But euphony sometimes dictates otherwise. 50. In my Pancreativism volumes, I have proposed a more sophisticated analysis seeking to rebalance this claim by taking into account the stabilizing effect of the extensive continuum itself. 51. Bateson, et al., “Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,” 251-264; Bruno Bettelheim, The Empty Fortress. 52. See, for example, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Capitalisme et schizophrénie I: L'Anti-Œdipe (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1973); Dany-Robert Dufour, Folie et démocratie: Essai sur la forme unaire, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1996. 53. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, introduction by Thomas Pynchon (London: Penguin Books, 1949 / 2003), 244.

References Ainsworth, Mary D. Salter, and John Bowlby. Child Care and the Growth of Love. London, Penguin Books, 1965. Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978. Aristotle. Metaphysics, translated by W. D. Ross. Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, preface by Mark Engel. San Francisco: Chandler, 1972. Bateson, Gregory, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, John H. Weakland. “Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,” Behavioral Science, Vol. 1.4 (1956): 251-264. Bergson, Henri. L'Évolution créatrice, edited by Arnauld François. Paris: Vrin, 1907 / 2010. Bettelheim, Bruno. The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self. New York: The Free Press, 1967. Binswanger, Ludwig, “Das Raumproblem in der Psychopathologie.” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 145 (1933): 598-647. Bleuler, Eugen, Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien. Leipzig und Wien: F. Deuticke, 1911. —. Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie. Berlin: J. Springer, 1916.

228

Chapter Thirteen

Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss. I. Attachment; II. Separation: Anxiety & Anger; III. Loss: Sadness and Depression. New York: Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 1969, 1973, 1980. Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 1865 / 2004. Chaslin, Philippe. “La confusion mentale primitive.” Annales MedicoPsychologiques 16 (1892): 225-273. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Capitalisme et schizophrénie I: L'AntiŒdipe. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1973. Deshimaru, Taisen, L’anneau de la voie: Paroles d’un maître Zen, texts assembled and edited by Evelyn De Smedt and Dominique Dussaussoy. Paris: Éditions Cesare Rancilio, 1983. Dozio, Allesandro. L’Homme-Dieu contre l’Ame du Monde?: Essai d’analyse culturelle de l’habitation occidentale de la Terre. Paris: Éditions Universitaires Européennes, 2010. Dufour, Dany-Robert. Folie et démocratie: Essai sur la forme unaire. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1996. Eggum, Arne. Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies, translated by Ragnar Christophersen. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1984. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust, 1832. Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited with an introduction by Arnold E. Davidson; translated by Michael Chase. New York: Blackwell, 1995. James, William. The Will to Believe, And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, edited by Frederick H. Burkhardt; introduction by Edward H. Madden, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. Kraepelin, Emil. Compendium der Psychiatrie. Leipzig: A. Abel, 1883. Kretschmer, Ernst. Der sensitive Beziehungswahn: Ein Beitrag zur Paranoiafrage und zur psychiatrischen Charakterlehre. Berlin: Julius Springer, 1918. Laing, Ronald David. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. London, Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1960. Miller, Alice. Das Drama des begabten Kindes und die Suche nach dem wahren Selbst. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983. Minkowski, Eugène. La schizophrénie: Psychopathologie des schizoïdes et des schizophrènes. Paris, Éditions Payot, 1997. Orwell, George, Nineteen Eighty-Four, introduction by Thomas Pynchon. London: Penguin Books, 1949 / 2003). Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Reformed Subjectivism and Psychosis

229

Rescher, Nicholas. G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology: An Edition for Students. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. Riffert, Franz and Michel Weber (eds.), et al. Searching for New Contrasts: Whiteheadian Contributions to Contemporary Challenges in Neurophysiology, Psychology, Psychotherapy and the Philosophy of Mind. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003. Sartre, Jean-Paul. L'Être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique. Paris: NRF Éditions Gallimard, 1943. —. Critique de la raison dialectique. Paris: Gallimard, 1960. Scheler, Max Ferdinand, Zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Sympathiegefühle und von Liebe und Haß. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913. Simmel, Georg, “Philosophie der Landschaft,” Die Güldenkammer: Eine bremische Monatsschrift. Heft II (1913): 635-644. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, 1854. Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952. Weber, Michel Whitehead’s Pancreativism: The Basics, foreword by Nicholas Rescher, Frankfurt / Paris: Ontos Verlag, 2006. —. Whitehead’s Pancreativism: Jamesian Applications. Frankfurt / Paris: Ontos Verlag, 2011. Whitehead, Alfred North. Religion in the Making. New York: Fordham University Press, 1926 / 1996. —. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978. Winnicott, Donald Woods. “Ego Distortions in Terms of True and False Self.” In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, 140152. London: Hogarth Press, 1965.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN ON ETHOTYPE, EPIGENETICS, AND ORGANIC SELECTION: PROCESS-RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ADAM C. SCARFE

Abstract The mechanistic neo-Darwinian perspective that emerged out of the Modern Synthesis in biology has largely downplayed both the role of behavior in evolutionary processes and the notion that organisms can be selective agents therein. However, with reference to James Mark Baldwin’s theory of organic selection, Conrad Hal Waddington’s “epigenetics,” and some of the other “New Frontiers” in biology that claim that the behavior of organisms can play an initiating role in evolutionary processes, this chapter advances the concept of “ethotype,” namely, the behavioral analogue of the terms “genotype” and “phenotype,” as an indispensable tool in biological research. And, I argue that in order to describe the evolutionary dynamism of organisms in an adequate way, the term “ethotype” ought to be construed in light of Whiteheadian processrelational ontology and/or of other dynamic ontologies that are alluded to in this volume, rather than by way of static substance ontology and/or of biological kinds essentialism. Last, I explore some of the ramifications of the employment of the notion of ethotype in biology for evolutionary epistemology and ethics.

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

231

Keywords Ethotype; behavior; mentality; biological kinds essentialism; antiessentialism; epigenetics; the theory of organic selection; the “Baldwin Effect”; process-relational ontology.

1. Introduction: Emphasizing the Role of Behavior in Evolutionary Biology In recent years, various developments in evolutionary biology have, to some extent, pointed to a departure from the core paradigm that is represented by the Modern Synthesis of Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian and population genetics, which saw to the purging of Lamarckian, Vitalistic, orthogenetic, and saltational theories from mainstream biology. For example, the discovery on the part of Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-1975) that environmental and behavioral factors can alter the expression of genes in ways that are inheritable is, today, forcing biologists to reconsider the relationship between the genotypes of organisms and their phenotypic growth, differentiation, and development.1 It should be noted that Waddington was an enthusiast of Whitehead’s writings and was guided in his genetic assimilation experiments by process-relational philosophical notions such as “prehension” and “concrescence.”2 Evolutionary theorists have increasingly been warming to the notion that genes can be “followers in evolution”3 and that “behavioral change often precedes and directs morphological change.”4 And there has been a small resurgence of interest in James Mark Baldwin’s (1861-1934) theory of organic selection,5 alternatively known as “the Baldwin effect.”6 Basically, this theory points to the notion that organisms have a degree of agency in evolutionary processes in that they develop, valuate, select, and modify their “structures of activity”7 in the process of adapting themselves to, and/or altering their environment creatively. According to Baldwin, such behavioral selections on the part of organisms may instigate genetic and morphological changes, thereby channeling out the evolutionary trajectory of their variety or species.8 In light of these developments as well as others pertaining to the “New Frontiers”9 of biology (for example, Systems Theory, Emergence Theory, Biosemiotics, Niche Construction, etc…), and standing in contrast to modern neo-Darwinian genocentric as well as phenocentric understandings of the notions of “evolution” and of “species,” this chapter emphasizes the need for a heightened focus on the role of behavior in evolutionary biology. Specifically, I take issue with the widespread habit

232

Chapter Fourteen

of thinking of the meaning of “evolution” as involving the mere procession of genetic and/or morphological change over time, to the elimination of behavioral change. And I question both genocentric and phenocentric understandings of the meaning of the notion of a “species,” in which an adequate reference to behavior is neglected. In so doing, I argue that (1) the term “ethotype,” advanced as the distinct “behavioral analogue” of the terms “genotype” and “phenotype,” is an indispensable notion that ought to be given its due in biological thinking and research; and (2) the term “ethotype” ought to be interpreted from the perspective of Whiteheadian process-relational ontology, and/or other dynamic ontologies, in order to adequately represent the real dynamic character of organisms as “agents” of evolutionary change. Near the end of the chapter, I elucidate some of the philosophical ramifications of this novel emphasis on behavior in biology for evolutionary epistemology and ethics.

2. Of Ethograms, Ethotypes, and Process-Relational Ontology There is a literal kaleidoscope of behaviors by which the diverse organisms of the natural world adapt themselves to, integrate themselves in, and creatively modify, the environments in which they live. Organisms inherit, learn, devise, develop, valuate, and alter their various behavioral habits, in ways that may or may not assist them to appropriate resources from, and adapt to, their environments, and/or to defend and reproduce themselves. For example, octopi, traditionally considered as one of the least intelligent of all creatures, have been observed both using coconut shells as a protective shelter10 and learning by way of imitating of their peers.11 Some bottlenose dolphins attach marine sponges to their snouts, using them protectively while probing the sea floor for prey, so as to protect themselves from the venomous spines of stonefish, and they teach this behavior to their young.12 Various crow and finch species use twigs and sticks as tools, even fashioning them into hooks in order to poke and pry grubs and other insects out of trees and cracks.13 Killer whales have been observed learning cooperative hunting strategies by social transfer.14 And meerkats actively teach their young how to hunt, disable, and dismember scorpions, so that they are not stung or harmed by their prey.15 These are but a handful of examples of exhibitions of mentality and of behavioral creativity in the organic world. It has long been the task of ethologists to observe the behavior of organisms in an attempt to provide detailed ethograms or catalogues of data regarding both the stereotypical and novel activities that organisms

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

233

engage in.16 Ethograms provide an overall picture of an organism’s activities, including an interpretation of its basic habits and survival strategies, including social behaviors. A wider term, ethotype, which stands for “the behavior, including physiological processes, of the organism”17 has scarcely been employed in biological research. Here, I would like to make the case for the advancement of this important key term for use in biological inquiry. By the notion of an organism’s “ethotype,” I designate a comprehension of an organism’s overall behavioral character, based upon a description of the collection of common and enduring patterns of behavior that are manifested over the course of its life, including their contrast with any non-stereotypic or idiosyncratic and changing structures of activity as well as their comparison with those of other organisms. The concept of an ethotype is here meant as the behavioral analogue to the notions of “genotype” and “phenotype,” which are widely employed in biology. To get a sense for the logical relationship between an ethogram and an organism’s ethotype, ethograms would be a chief source of information in arriving at an organism’s ethotype, which helps to differentiate it from the behavioral characters of other organisms. By comparing and contrasting the data produced by various ethograms, and by employing population statistics, researchers would be able to arrive at a comprehension of the ethotype of the organism in question. In so doing, especially given the recent advances made in the “New Frontiers” of biology mentioned above, it will be far more accurate to consider the ethotypes of the organisms being studied as dynamic, plastic, relational, and/or in process than to understand them from the perspective of a statically essentialist, mechanistic, and/or substance-ontological view of the Cartesian variety, as has typically been done in the neo-Darwinist mainstream of biology. Alfred North Whitehead’s process-relational and “organismic” ontology, and other dynamic ontologies, could provide ideal contextual and conceptual supports for such a view of the behavioral character of the organism, namely, its ethotype. On the one hand, in respect to behavior, it would overcome the “biological kind essentialism”18 that is found in traditional Linnaean taxonomy, which holds to the notion that natural kinds must possess fixed “definitional essences that define them in terms of necessary and sufficient, unchanging, ahistorical properties.”19 On the other hand, Whitehead’s process-relational ontology is of a “constructive” variety.20 While departing from traditional essentialism, it would advance process-relational notions of “biological kinds,” “ethotype,” “behavior,” “mentality” (i.e., not necessarily involving consciousness), and “species,” therby ensuring the preservation of the possibility of scientific inquiry and

234

Chapter Fourteen

classification. At the same time, the process-relational perspective would stand in contrast to radical “biological kind anti-essentialism” that aims simply to destroy genetic determinism without remainder and/or which would reduce species to individuals and/or would over-emphasize difference in a manner that renders biological research untenable. Additionally, the process-relational interpretation of conceptions of “biological kinds,” “ethotype,” “behavior,” “mentality,” and “species” that is here being advanced would be consistent with the notions that the genetic, physiological, morphological, hormonal, epigenetic, and behavioral characters of organisms are complex and subject to transformative change rather than being static. This developmental complexity and plasticity remains understandable under the rubric of the process-relational metaphysic or of a dynamic ontology, whereas they may not be under the alternatives mentioned above. The behavioral character of an organism is dependent on the organism’s own decisions, but also on its various relations with other organisms and with the natural environment. The notion of an ethotype, construed in light of process-relational metaphysics and/or of other dynamic ontologies, would further contribute to the understanding that organisms are “loci of valuative-selective activity,”21 namely, that organisms are not merely passive objects upon which natural selection happens to act, but that they are also subjects of, and/or agents of, selection. For as Baldwin’s theory of organic selection as well as Waddingtonian epigenetics show, the behavioral selections and activities of organisms can not only initiate morphological change in respect to members of their own variety, but can also impact on the evolutionary destinies of other organisms. In this respect, organisms are appendages of natural selection, their behavior and activities being orthoplasic influences that can direct the evolutionary trajectories of their own, as well as other, species.

3. The Minimization of the Role of Behavior in Mainstream Biology It would seem to be a common sense idea that in order to arrive at a comprehensive picture of the nature of any species of organism, as distinct from other species, one would want to study the behavior of its members. However, while the architects of the Modern Synthesis in biology paid homage to the fundamental importance of “the role of behavior and change of function in the origin of evolutionary novelties,”22 the mainstream gene-centered and mechanistic neo-Darwinian standpoint in biology that was originated through it can be said to have largely tended to

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

235

minimize the role of behavior in relation to classifying organisms. It would seem that behavior has largely been forgotten as a key factor unto itself in evolutionary processes. In this section, I provide a few examples of this unfortunate de-emphasis. First, in the mainstream of biology, behavior is not typically seen as determinant of what constitutes a species or of how organisms are classified. It is generally assumed, as part of the rules of scientific taxonomy that a species is to be ontologically delimited in relation to genetic and morphological commonalities and differences among organisms, rather than in terms of commonalities and differences in respect to their various patterns of behavior. A species is generally considered to be a group of organisms that resemble one another in terms of their distinct phenotypic characteristics, their common genetic make-up, their common morphology, reproductive isolation, their capacity to interbreed, and/or on “gene flow.”23 To be sure, the eminent geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1935 / 1937) defined a species as a stage of the evolutionary process at which the one actually or potentially interbreeding array of forms becomes segregated in two or more separate arrays which are physiologically incapable of interbreeding.24

Interestingly, he further expressed that this definition differs from those hitherto proposed in that it lays emphasis on the dynamic nature of the species concept. Species is a stage in a process, not a static unit.25

Dobzhansky then proceeds to analyze the contrast between “the static and the dynamic conceptions of the species” and states that the concepts of taxonomy are derived from reality by a process of abstraction, which leaves out of consideration the dynamism which is one of the most essential, if not the most essential, attribute of life … the taxonomic categories in general, and species in particular, are not static but dynamic units.26

Quite rightly, Ernst Mayr (1980) later described this definition of a species as being “Whiteheadian.”27 For Mayr, Dobzhansky deliberately rejected the term ‘biological species’ because it ‘conveys a wrong impression, as though there may exist a fundamental difference between morphological and biological criteria of species separation’. [But] he did not realize that the so-called morphological criteria were nearly always the manifestation of an essentialist (typological) species concept.28

236

Chapter Fourteen

Mayr goes on to assert that a species involves populations or communities of organisms that are reproductively isolated. For him, speciation is not a phenomenon of genes or genotypes, but of populations: a new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation…29

So, it is clear that the architects of the Modern Synthesis were perhaps well on their way toward a Whiteheadian process-relational and/or dynamic conception of a species that is similar to the one I am advancing in this chapter. At the very least, both Dobzhansky’s and Mayr’s comments point to the notion that metaphysical and ontological concerns underpin biological research, in a similar vein as Whitehead’s assertion that “no science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes.”30 However, what is still missing in Dobzhansky’s and Mayr’s statements is a reference to the fundamental role that behavior plays in evolutionary processes, in speciation, as well as in the definition of the whole notion of a species. While biologists and ethologists do refer, both consciously and unconsciously, to the stereotypical behaviors of organisms in classifying them, all too rarely are such references considered central to such determinations. Typically, what is of concern to biologists in charting the evolution of a species, is genetic and morphological selection and change over time, namely, changes in terms of the organism’s genotype and phenotype, behavior merely being subordinated to an aspect of its phenotype, alongside other aspects: e.g., hormonal, physiological, or morphological. Second, there is a long track record for evolutionary theorists to conflate behavior and morphology, and/or to compartmentalize behavior as merely being one aspect of the (putatively genetically-determined) phenotype upon which natural selection happens to act. For instance, in explaining the way that evolutionary change ordinarily occurs, Herbert Spencer, in Principles of Psychology (1890) provides the following example: if, in an individual man, a complex combination of psychical changes, as those through which a savage hits a bird with an arrow, become, by constant repetition, so organized as to be performed almost without thought of the various processes of adjustment gone through and if skill of this kind is so far transmissible, that particular races of men become characterized by particular aptitudes, which are nothing else than incipiently organized psychical connections; then, in virtue of the same

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

237

law it must follow, that if there are certain relations which are experienced by all organisms whatever relations which are experienced every instant of their waking lives, relations which consist of extremely simple elements, relations which are absolutely constant, absolutely universal there will be gradually established in the organism, answering relations that are absolutely constant, absolutely universal.31

Similarly, in Philosophy After Darwin, Michael Ruse uses the following illustration to give his readers a sense for what evolution entails: why does the honey bee make cells of exact hexagonal shape and with so fine a wall between one cell and the next? Because this is the most efficient use of wax and hence those bees who are good designers are going to be more successful than those who waste or overuse the wax.32

In these examples, which are meant to serve to explain ordinary instances of natural selection, and to provide a basic idea of what evolution entails, a behavior is referenced as the key factor that determines an organism’s survival advantage, although the authors do not distinguish between the behavior and the morphological features possessed by organisms that provide them with fitness advantages. They merely subsume behavior under the rubric of the organism’s (putatively genetically-determined) phenotype. While an organism’s phenotype is a chief determinant of its behavior, since an organism’s common patterns of activity are dependent upon, and are, to some extent, delimited by its morphology, behavior is not simply reducible to an aspect of the phenotype, and it would be inadequate to assume that it is fully determined by genetics. A creature’s sharp claws, the strength of its muscles, its pointy beak, the shape of its trunk, the length of its wings do, to some extent, determine what type of environment the organism is suited for, as well as what structures of activity the organism can engage in, in procuring what it needs to survive. But a more adequate emphasis must be placed on behavior. For instance, a flying fish requires its specialized pectoral and tail fins in order to engage the habit of leaping out of the water and have the momentum to glide in its attempt to escape from predators. But one may ask whether the development of such morphological traits preceded the leaping / “flying” behavior, or whether the leaping / “flying” behavior came first, natural selection preserving those whose morphologies were best suited to perform it, since it was requisite for survival. Most probably, there was some degree of “causal fluctuation” or “vibration” between the behavior and the phenotype, as the organism evolved cumulatively over time. One should also be critical of the assumptions that there is simply one, and only one, use for their

238

Chapter Fourteen

morphological features, that organisms know a priori what behaviors their morphological features are destined to perform, or that organism’s are not creative agents and cannot learn new ways to use them. Furthermore, organisms, especially when adapting to new environmental conditions, may develop new movements and may change their behavioral habits in ways for which their morphologies not as well suited, at least initially. One might speculate about the case of the ancestors of marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristasus), which, being used to the jungle habitat of South America, found themselves in a new environment—the barren, volcanic islands of the Galapagos, presumably having arrived via driftwood. Prior to engaging in their novel behavior of entering into the water to exploit undersea sources of nourishment that allowed them to survive, they would presumably have been without the specialized blunt snout, nasal glands, body temperature regulation system, large claws, or flat muscular tail that today accentuates their performance of this behavioral strategy.33 Therefore, it is important not to simply conflate behavior with morphology, as is commonly done, and/or to treat mentality and behavior as merely an aspect of its phenotype, in order to be accurate about the route of causality that may be behind evolutionary changes. Mentality and behavior are not fixed aspects of a (putatively geneticallydetermined) phenotype. Rather, they depend on the lived life of the organism, new behaviors often arising spontaneously in their interactions with the environment. Third, in relation to the conventional meaning of evolution which stems from the paradigm that emerged out of the Modern Synthesis, there seems to be an entrenched habit of focusing on the genotypes and the phenotypes of organisms as being the fundamental units of selection and change, which obscures attention to behavioral selection and change. The main thesis of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (1976) is that the primary unit of selection is the gene, whereas the phenotype is basically a subordinate replication vehicle for, and extension of, the gene, which is determined by the latter.34 Dawkins’ view was met with criticism from Stephen Jay Gould, who, in The Panda’s Thumb (1990), defended the traditional Darwinian view that the phenotype is the fundamental unit of selection.35 For Gould, the physical organism, and not the gene, is what interacts with the environment, and thus, fitness is to be conceived of in terms of the capacity of the phenotype to survive in it. Regardless of the outcome of the debate over what the fundamental unit of selection is, the “nothing-but” implications of both of these theories may be said to deny the complexity of evolutionary processes, and may be considered examples of the predominance of genocentric and phenocentric pictures of

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

239

“evolution.” These understandings exclude and/or downplay other important factors, such as mentality and behavior, taken on their own terms, in relation to the very meaning of evolution. The tendency to omit or to minimize behavioral selection and change over time from the very meaning of the notion of evolution is perhaps accentuated by the sheer complexity that is involved in the scientific study of behavior. There are many problems that come with the study of the behavior of organisms. For example, (1) the study of behavior and of mentality is only partly empirical and hence it cannot be an exact science; (2) it takes lengthy periods of observation to provide an comprehensive account of an organism’s stereotypical habits and structures of activity; (3) some behaviors are only rarely exhibited, some are spontaneous, and some are not repeated; (4) the presence of the observer or the observing tool in the organism’s environment may impact upon the observation; (5) it is very difficult to catch the organism developing a new movement or engaging in a novel behavior, during observation; (6) an organism’s behavior is always in flux; (7) behaviors may be dependent on the organism’s particular degree of mentality, its past experience, its age, its fitness level, the stage of its phenotypic development, and they may be environment-specific; (8) what holds as a common or enduring pattern of behavior for one organism may not reflect the structures of activity of a variety or species of organisms; (9) anthropocentrism and other interpretive abstractions may arise through the interpretation of the behavior and mentality of organisms; (10) behavior is not directly exhibited in fossils or the fossil record and must be extrapolated given the morphological features inherent in the fossil (and again behavior is not reducible to morphology); and (11) the tendency to wrongly assume that an emphasis on the notion of ethotype requires one to “buy into” traditional “biological kinds essentialism.” In light of the non-exhaustive list above, one may speculate that behavior and mentality are not emphasized appropriately by contemporary biology in providing a picture of the overall evolutionary story, precisely because the scientific study of them is far more complex and problematic than the study of genetic and morphological change over time. But just because a phenomenon is complex and not entirely accessible to direct empirical study should not mean that it should be de-emphasized or excluded from scientific consideration. Moreover, one is not simply entitled to assume a mechanistic metaphysic of the reductionist sort in framing the natures of living organisms simply due to the complexity involved in studying behavior and mentality. In Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead described that an organism’s behavior is

240

Chapter Fourteen

part of a “‘neglected’ side” in evolutionary biology,36 which downplays organismic creativity and dynamism. However, in light of recent developments in evolutionary biology, there are good reasons to include a more adequate focus on behavior, and/or behavioral selection and change in coming to a more comprehensive picture of evolution, regardless of the problems I have identified that pertain to its study. While it is commonplace to think of evolution in terms of the genotype directing the unfolding of an organism’s phenotypic growth, differentiation, and development, as well as determining its morphological traits and its behavioral habits, in what follows, I trace some alternative routes of causality, pointing to the notion that behavior is, in many cases, an initiating cause of evolutionary processes.

4. Alternative Routes of Evolutionary Causality Involving Behavior: Epigenetics and the Theory of Organic Selection Epigenetics, pointing to a “layer” of biological connections that stand “over” or “above” the gene, is a term that was coined in 1942 by Conrad Hal Waddington, whose genetic assimilation experiments pointed to the notion that an acquired character can be converted via natural selection into an inherited one, and that the morphological evolution of a species can be canalized along a developmental pathway or “creode”37 in response to an environmental stimulus. For Waddington, the term, “epigenetics” described the interaction of genes and the environment which directs the unfolding of an organism’s phenotypic growth, development, and differentiation. Contemporary studies in the field of epigenetics challenge the traditional neo-Darwinist assumption that nothing that an organism does or experiences in its environment during its lifetime impacts causally upon inheritance. From the neo-Darwinist perspective, following August Weismann,38 the genome is separated off from, and unaffected by, the environment. However, recent discoveries in epigenetics show that various behavioral, phenotypic, and environmental factors can be triggers or stimuli that affect the expression of genes and/or influence DNA activity. Marcus Pembrey, a clinical geneticist and a pioneer in the field of epigenetics, suggests that environmental factors and the behavior of parents can have transgenerational effects, namely they “can change the biological inheritance of their children and grandchildren,”39 especially shaping their future health and their propensity to contract various diseases. How organisms behave and the environmental conditions that they experience in their lives can affect which genes are expressed or de-

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

241

amplified, potentially influencing their own biological development as well as that of their offspring. In human beings, lifestyle choices, environmental factors, and changes in behavior, like over-eating, famine, stress, prenatal nutrition, smoking, drinking, drug-use, emotional and sexual abuse, or exposure to chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, biological agents, radiation, air and water pollution, and toxins in the environment, etc… can alter (biochemically) the epigenome that interpenetrates the genome and/or can make an imprint on the genetic material in sperm and eggs. Such alterations and imprints may be heritable and can lead, for example, to a predisposition toward, and/or a heightened susceptibility in one’s children, grandchildren, and in subsequent generations to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Autism, Alzheimer’s, and schizophrenia, and for developing anxiety disorders.40 Scientists are also studying the epigenetic aspects of in vitro fertilization, cloning, stem cell treatments, and the genetic modification of organisms. From the perspective of mainstream biology, the discovery of epigenetic factors in evolution is generally not taken to require a return to Lamarckism. It is not widely believed that the genetic code or the DNA sequence are themselves modified by behavioral, experiential, and/or environmental factors, only their expression, although admittedly some avant-garde researchers are placing such assumptions into question.41 According to them, it may eventually be found that exposure to some of these environmental conditions over long periods of time affects not only gene expression, but also the genetic sequence.42 Furthermore, epigenetic “triggers” are complexly dependent upon the particular stage of biological development the organism is at. In any event, based on the findings of his epigenetic studies, Pembrey concludes that “you can’t, in life, in ordinary development and living, separate out the gene from the environmental effect” and that we are “all guardians of our genome,”43 referring to a concern about the ethical significance of behavior and environmental health in securing the long-term well-being of ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and of our species. In sum, recent discoveries in epigenetics open the door to the notion that there are alternative routes of causality in evolutionary processes leading not only from genotype to phenotype and ethotype, but also from phenotype to genotype and ethotype, from ethotype to genotype and phenotype, and from reciprocal interactions among these spheres involving environment, all of course involving natural selection. A theory that is currently undergoing a small resurgence, largely due to the attention paid to it by figures like Daniel Dennett (1995), Bruce Weber and David Depew (2003), Henry Plotkin (2004), Eva Jablonka and Marion

242

Chapter Fourteen

Lamb (2005),44 and others, is James Mark Baldwin’s theory of organic selection, otherwise known as “the Baldwin effect.”45 This theory also points to alternative routes of evolutionary causality involving behavior. Specifically, Baldwin’s theory is an attempt to explain how an organism’s behavior can play a role in directing the course of morphological evolution in a species. In Development and Evolution (1902), Baldwin argues that organisms are selective agents in evolutionary processes and that natural selection operates “on the basis of what [organisms] do, rather than [merely] of what they are”46 in terms of their genetic and morphological make-ups. For him, organisms engage in exploratory activities by which they may arrive at, valuate, and select, novel behaviors, for example, new killing movements and hunting strategies that are not merely genetically innate or hard-wired. Although the price of engaging in exploratory activities may be costly to the organism in terms of its survival, they are important especially when a change in environmental circumstances requires a change in terms of behavioral habits, such as when an organism enters into a new environment and needs to exploit a new food source if it is to survive. Organisms may develop, acquire, valuate, and select new behavioral “Good Tricks”47 by which they procure what they need from their environment in order to survive. They may do so through processes of trial and error, repetition of overproduced movements, reflex action, chance, or by way of learning and/or the imitation of the movements of other members of their species. According to Baldwin, since any advantage, even the most minute, is magnified in the struggle for existence, if a particular behavior or movement becomes requisite for survival, then individuals having morphological variations which serve to amplify the ability to perform the new behavior successfully, or to perfect it, will be selected for whereas the others will be eliminated. And in subsequent generations of a species, natural selection will ensure that the morphological characteristics of the species will evolve in a manner that is directed or channeled by the novel behavior or strategy. In other words, the behavioral “Good Tricks” give rise to correlated morphological variations in the same direction. The example of the marine iguana mentioned above (in section three of the present chapter) can potentially be construed as an instance of the Baldwin effect. Another possible example is the vampire finch, an organism which once engaged in an activity that was beneficial to Nazca boobies, namely, eating the ectoparasites that infested the boobies’ bodies. It is hypothesized that at some point, one finch accidentally punctured the skin of the booby and got a first taste of blood, thereby obtaining a new nutritious and stable food source. In so doing, it gained a “Good Trick”

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

243

and this behavior was subsequently imitated throughout the variety. It is now believed that the activity of consuming booby blood has become instinctual for vampire finches and that, in comparison with other finch varieties, morphological characteristics related to beak size, length, sharpness, and shape which serve to amplify their capacities to puncture skin and drink blood, developed after the initial behavioral change. The boobies still grudgingly accept the behavior of the vampire finches, seemingly unaware of the harm done.48 A further example of the Baldwin effect is highlighted in a recent study entitled “Rapid Temporal Reversal in Predator-Driven Natural Selection,”49 involving an experiment that was carried out by Jonathan Losos et al. (2006) on ground dwelling Brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei) in the Bahamas. Changes in the morphologies of the Brown anole lizards were observed over several generations after the controlled introduction of curly-tail lizards, a predator, into their environment. Initially, Brown anole lizards with longer legs were selected for because they had a faster running speed to get away from the curly-tails. However, later, the Brown anole lizards adopted a new behavioral strategy of hiding on high twigs where the bulky curly-tails could not give chase. Shortly thereafter, those Brown anole lizards with shorter legs, which better enabled them to climb and reach their sanctuary, were selected for. Hence, as these examples point out, from the Baldwinian standpoint, it is clear that changes in an organism’s behavior can help to channel out the evolutionary trajectory of its species. In order to further concretize how behavior can be a causal factor in directing phenotypic change, and how it may do so in relation to human beings, in a 2001 article entitled “Out of the Pan, Into The Fire: How Our Ancestors’ Evolution Depended on What They Ate,”50 and in a book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009),51 evolutionary anthropologist Richard Wrangham speculates that the behavior of cooking, and especially the habitual consuming of cooked meat, was “the transformative moment that gave rise to the genus Homo.”52 Specifically, his thesis is that the behavior of cooking assisted in the transition from the habilines to Homo erectus some 1.88 million years ago. He speculates that “one of the great transitions in the history of life, stemmed from the control of fire and the advent of cooked meals,”53 especially cooked meats, with all of their evolutionary benefits and advantages. For instance, cooking food prevents immediate spoilage, destroys toxins and bacteria, gelatinizes starches, and denatures protein, thereby making it easier to digest food and taking less energy to do so. Cooking also increased the range of high-quality foods that could be eaten. Wrangham suggests that

244

Chapter Fourteen cooking increased the value of our food. It changed our bodies, our brains, our use of time, and our social lives. It made us into consumers of external energy and thereby created an organism with a new relationship to nature, dependent on fuel.54

The novel behavioral habit of cooking improved the quality of the diets of human ancestors, and over time, it directed anatomical changes. It caused a reduction in the size of the teeth, jaw, and guts of our ancestors, and it increased female body mass. The increase of energy that it afforded helped to increase brain size, thereby enabling a greater level of intelligence. Also, by changing the chemistry of our food, our digestive system was changed. Wrangham further argues that the habit of cooking helped to shape social relations among men and women as well as the division of labor between them. In summarizing his overall thesis and his account of how the behavioral “Good Trick” of cooking was discovered and how it spurred on anatomical changes, Wrangham writes, once they kept fire alive at night, a group of habilines in a particular place occasionally dropped food morsels by accident, ate them after they had been heated, and learned that they tasted better. Repeating their habit, this group would have swiftly evolved into the first Homo erectus. The newly delicious cooked diet lead to their evolving smaller guts, bigger brains, bigger bodies, and reduced body hair; more running; more hunting; longer lives; calmer temperaments; and a new emphasis on bonding between females and males. The softness of their cooked plant foods selected for smaller teeth, the protection of fire provided at night enabled them to sleep on the ground and lose their climbing ability, and females likely began cooking for males, whose time was increasingly free to search for more meat and honey. While other habilines elsewhere in Africa continued for several hundred thousand years to eat their food raw, one lucky group became Homo erectus—and humanity began.55

It must be noted that Wrangham’s thesis appears to be an advancement of the typical “just so” stories that depend largely on abductive reasonings that may be logical, but are without objective anthropological validation, and which have typically been bantered about in biology since Darwin.56 As such, it would be wise to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism in relation to it. However, Wrangham’s thesis does offer an important example of how behavior may direct morphological change. That said, it is not the typical instance that Baldwin had in mind in describing his theory of organic selection. We must recall that Baldwin emphasized cases in which the development and selection of a novel Good Trick or a behavioral modification, if it was requisite for a species survival or presented significant evolutionary advantages, would help to channel out

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

245

the direction of morphological evolution in subsequent generations. Wrangham’s thesis demonstrates this aspect of Baldwin’s theory, but not the latter’s view that morphological changes would develop (via natural selection), serving to accentuate, amplify, or perfect the particular behavior in question. In the example of cooking, the phenotypic changes that were selected for occurred as a result of reliance on a key behavioral modification, but they cannot be said to have served to accentuate the “Good Trick” or the innovation of cooking, unless, for example, one considers the larger brains to have helped, in turn, to perfect the function of cooking and thus increasingly bring men and women together. Regardless of whether there was any Baldwinian feedback loop in which organisms with morphological features helping to perfect the performance of the novel behavior were selected for over subsequent generations, it is certain that bigger brains and higher intelligence would have spurred the development and selection of many other behaviors that would have provided survival advantages, such as language and strategic and technical-rational thinking, which enable human beings to set nature up in advance in order to procure resources from it. In this way, if Wrangham is correct, one might arrive at the conclusion that the advent and adoption of cooking as a behavioral habit spurred on a domino effect of countless other behavioral “Good Tricks,” which enabled subsequent generations of pre-humans to acquire many other survival advantages. Wrangham’s thesis perhaps also shows that the role of behavior in evolutionary processes is not to be considered merely as a factor that is subordinate to morphological change over time, something that is assumed even by Baldwin. Furthermore, from this perspective, the theory of organic selection can be treated as but one of several ways in which to consider behavior as an important factor in evolutionary processes. The examples above serve to demonstrate that there are alternative routes of causality beyond mere “random genetic mutation,” that involve behavior playing an instigating causal role. A more comprehensive and accurate picture of evolution, beyond the neo-Darwinist mainstream, would take into account each of these routes of causality and would involve the notion that behavior is one of the main spokes of the spinning evolutionary wheel. Not only that, but in this more integrated and dynamic account of evolution, an organism’s ethotype is not simply taken as a subordinate factor in relation to the meaning of evolution, wherein evolution is still merely associated with genetic and phenotypic selection and change over time. Rather, from this more comprehensive account, ethotypic selection and change over time ought to be considered part and parcel of the very meaning of evolution, in and of itself. In other words,

246

Chapter Fourteen

whenever an organism develops, valuates, and selects a novel “Good Trick,” and/or makes alterations to its enduring patterns of behavior, evolution can be said to have occurred, regardless of any specific genetic or morphological effects. On this basis, a re-evaluation of the assumed centrality of genotype and/or phenotype in the classification of organisms, and an emphasis on behavior, is perhaps a chief requirement if the longawaited and more holistic “extended synthesis”57 is to be arrived at in biology.

5. Some Epistemological and Ethical Ramifications of a Renewed Emphasis on the Role of Behavior in Evolutionary Processes The potential ramifications of emphasizing the causal role of behavior and the notion of “ethotype” in explaining evolutionary processes extend into the philosophical domains of evolutionary epistemology and ethics. In relation to evolutionary epistemology, an emphasis on the behavioral habits and the structures of activity that are engaged in by the organisms in question raises several issues. First, in relation to the rules of scientific taxonomy, the ontological nature of the classification of species, problems of induction accruing from such classification, problems of essentialism, and those pertaining the classification of hybrid species. It is my contention that some of these problems can be alleviated by way of employing Whitehead’s process-relational ontology as well as other dynamic ontologies as overall frameworks with which to construe the notions of “genotype,” “phenotype,” and “ethotype.” Of note here is Whitehead’s treatment of the problem of the one and the many via the notion of “concrescence,” his attention to the abstractions pertaining to operations of transmutation wherein categories are attributed to groups of objects and differences among them are conceptually eliminated, and his constructive overcoming of both essentialism and anti-essentialism. Second, a focus on the behavioral habits and the structures of activity that are adopted by organisms necessitates a treatment of epistemological problems dealing with the origin of the instinctual behavior of organisms. In this vein, in Evolution and the Modification of Behavior, evolutionary neo-Kantian, Konrad Lorenz argues that simply dividing “innate” from “learned” behaviors is a “fallacy.”58 For him, genetically innate, instinctive, fixed, or species-stereotypic, or more accurately, a priori behaviors may require a specific type of event, experience, stimulus, or an appropriate environmental condition or situation which triggers a release of information encoded in the organism’s genes, prompting the organism

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

247

into performing it. Although one ought to object to his use of mechanistic language, Lorenz calls these conditions “releasing mechanisms,”59 and his position commits him to the notion that behaviors deemed “innate” may be triggered at specific stages in the organism’s development. In this way, Lorenz sidesteps the one-sided views that stereotypical or habitual behaviors in a species are either “programmed” genetically and/or hardwired in the organism, or are simply the product of experience, learning, self-training, and/or creative exploration on the part of the organism. Third, an emphasis on behavior would also spur on further inquiries into the nature of Baldwinian organic selection and the role of the behavioral agency of the organism in charting the direction of evolutionary processes. Many mainstream biologists today consider the organism’s survival and the successful replication of its genes to be representative of the only legitimate life-purpose that can be discussed. According to Dennett in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) evolution is an algorithmic process rather than a purposive one in that there is no end that evolutionary processes aim at or attain, and there is no conscious selecting agent behind them.60 However, a more substantive inclusion of the role of behavior might legitimate the study of phenomena that are akin to teleology and/or teleonomy as well as further inquiries into the explanatory concepts of efficient and final causation as they pertain to biological research. This is the case since an organism’s behaviors, for example, sitting on haunches, or building a nest, infer purposes, as in detecting predators in the distance, or in providing a habitat for young offspring, regardless if the ultimate purpose of these actions is survival. A focus on behavior will also emphasize the role of the much “neglected process in evolution” that Odling-Smee et al. (2003) and others call “niche construction.”61 Niche construction involves the notion that through goal-directed structures of activity, organisms can be agents in evolutionary processes, actively modifying their environment and passing such modifications down to their offspring. By placing emphasis on the role of both the organism’s common, enduring, and changing patterns of behavior in evolutionary processes, the field of evolutionary ethics stands to become revolutionized. It would seem that traditional approaches to evolutionary ethics, namely, those of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Rée,62 Moore, as well as Dawkins, Dennett, and Krebs,63 more recently, get bogged down in reducing the ethical to being a function of survivability. More specifically, such approaches to evolutionary ethics tend to focus on the survival advantages that are conferred from social solidarity and the function of “group” or “community selection.” While providing valuable insights into the

248

Chapter Fourteen

relationship between morality and evolution, the perennial focus on the issue of group or community selection (that was initiated by Darwin in the Descent of Man)64 does not penetrate to the heart of what is at stake in the discipline of evolutionary ethics. For as Friedrich Nietzsche asserts, ethics is not reducible to doing whatever maximizes survivability and/or the prospect for reproductive success, and that to think so is tantamount not only to psychological egoism, but nihilism.65 Furthermore, one might agree with situational deontological ethicist, Sir W. D. Ross, who, in Foundations of Ethics, once judged that traditional theories of evolutionary ethics reduce morality down to those activities that are “conducive to life,” but that they implicitly conflate the notions of pleasure and life, resulting typically in “universalistic Hedonism.”66 In contrast to these traditional approaches to evolutionary ethics, one might note that the etymology of the word ethotype, which has been advanced in this paper, stems from the Greek root èthos (ȒșȠȢ), which means “character.” As we all know, the word “ethics” is derived from the very same etymological root.67 In this light, I am convinced that a novel, more comprehensive theory of evolutionary ethics that is grounded (in part) in the notions that: (1) behavior and environmental conditions can be epigenetic triggers that can alter the expression of genes; and (2) the potential consequences of organisms influencing their own biological development, as well as that of their offspring, penetrates more adequately to what is at stake in the discussion of evolution and morality. Such a novel evolutionary ethic will also draw heavily on Baldwin’s theory of organic selection and the insight that behavior is a causal factor that contributes to the direction of genotypic and phenotypic change, both in one’s own species as well as possibly in others. From the perspective of an evolutionary ethic that is founded on Baldwin’s theory of organic selection, all organisms may be seen as selective agents not only presiding over their own lives, but as a compositional part of the nature, they are themselves agents of natural selection, which is, of course, the efficient cause of evolutionary change. In other words, the Baldwinian vantage point sheds light on the moral ramifications pertaining to the fact that most every organism participates, by way of its behavioral selections and selective activities, in the process by which the total environment preserves or eliminates other organisms, and by which their evolutionaries destinies are charted. With the realization that most every organism is an appendage of natural selection, critical scrutiny ought to be placed on humanity’s behavioral valuations and selections as well as on its selective activities. In other writings, I have called this novel evolutionary ethic, non-reductionistic, critical pan-selectionism,68 which has the aim of

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

249

developing what Waddington calls “biological wisdom,”69 a concept that can also be said to include Arne Naess’ “ecological wisdom” (ecosophia).70 Today, humanity’s emphasis on instrumental reason and on technological thinking, by which it, as Whitehead says in The Function of Reason (1929), “directs its attack on the environment”71 and exerts a massive causal impact on the natural environment, has contributed to its super-dominance as a selective power in relation to all other life-forms on the planet. As Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb point out in Evolution in Four Dimensions, without doubt, humans are the major selective agents on our planet, and have carried out the most dramatic reconstruction [usually destruction] of environments. Today, in addition to changing plants and animals by artificial selection, humans (whether consciously or unconsciously) can alter the genetic, epigenetic, and behavioral state of organisms by direct genetic, physiological, and behavioral manipulation.72

From the perspective of critical pan-selectionism, various selective behaviors, for example, conservation involving the selective preservation and elimination of populations of organisms, the use of systemic pesticides, the genetic manipulation of organisms, or the enactment of eugenics policies, which assist human beings to carry out purposes deemed to be “biologically useful,” yet which impact heavily upon the natural world and on the organisms that are a part of it and that help to compose it, become the subject-matter of critical moral deliberation. Such behaviors may be scrutinized critically in terms of a multiperspectival approach to moral deliberation, involving the various established moral theories interpreted in the light of a holistic view of evolutionary processes. Last, it should be evident that the novel evolutionary ethic that coincides with the emphasis on behavior that has been advanced in this chapter, will be intimately aligned with moral concerns surrounding ecological sustainability, the effects of the development and use of technology on the biosphere, and the concern to secure the health and well-being of future generations of human and non-human organisms. Going forward, it will be most biologically- and ecologically wise to leave open the widest range and diversity of possibilities for Nature to work on. That said, in that organisms, including human beings, cannot somehow “opt out” of their status as “loci of valuative-selective activity,” the evolutionary ethic of non-reductionistic critical pan-selectionism sides neither with anthropocentric humanism or transhumanism of figures such as Julian Huxley73 nor with the biocentric anti-humanism of radical environmentalism, which may each be characterized by a “desire to be

250

Chapter Fourteen

God”74 and/or a “desire to be Nature,”75 respectively. Rather, critical panselectionism, embracing biological- and ecological wisdom, occupies the middle path beyond these extreme positions, members of the human species being finite, compositional parst, among many, of the complex, interdependent whole that is Nature, yet utilizing their cognitive and rational capacities creatively in adapting themselves to, and integrating themselves in, the environment.76 At any rate, this chapter has pointed to the notion that behavior can be, and often is, a causal instigator of evolutionary change, and that, in abstraction from morphological and/or genetic transformation over time, the concept of evolution should be thought of as involving behavioral change, of itself, over time. In so doing, it has sought to advance the scarcely employed concept of ethotype, taken as the behavioral analogue to the widely used terms, “genotype” and “phenotype,” and interpreted along the lines of Whiteheadian process-relational ontology and/or other dynamic ontologies, as an indispensable tool for biological research. As part of the more inclusive explanatory framework, namely, the “extended synthesis”77 that is today emerging in biology, the recognition of the importance of the notion of “ethotype” provides a more adequate and accurate emphasis on the evolutionary dynamism of organisms in general. Finally, stemming from this renewed emphasis on behavior in biology, it has provided a brief sketch of the evolutionary ethic of critical panselectionism that I have developed in other writings.78

Notes 1. See Adam Scarfe, “Epigenetics, Soft Inheritance, Mechanistic Metaphysics, and Bioethics,” in Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, ed. Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013): 369-405. 2. Conrad Hal Waddington, Evolution of an Evolutionist (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975), 5, 10. 3. Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 157. 4. West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity, 24. 5. For example, see John Broughton and D. John Freeman-Moir (eds.), The Cognitive Developmental Psychology of James Mark Baldwin (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1982); Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Geoffrey E. Hinton, and Steven J. Nowlan, “How Learning Can Guide Evolution,” Complex Systems 1 (1987): 447-454; Henry Plotkin, Evolutionary Thought in Psychology: A Brief History (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); William T. Wcislo, “Behavioral Environments and

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

251

Evolutionary Change,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20 (1989): 137-169; Gilbert Gottlieb, Individual Development and Evolution: The Genesis of Novel Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1991); Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); Bruce Weber and David Depew, Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution; Ian Barbour, “Evolution and Process Thought,” Theology and Science 2.3 (July 2005): 161-178; Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic in the History of Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005); Patrick Bateson, “The Adaptability Driver: Links Between Behavior and Evolution,” Biological Theory 1.4 (2006): 342-345; Erika Crispo, “The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Revisiting Two Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change Mediated by Phenotypic Plasticity,” Evolution 61, no. 11 (2007): 24692479; John Cobb Jr., Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmann’s Publishing Company, 2008); Adam Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity: The ‘Novel’ Factor in Evolution,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 5.2 (2009): 40-107; Alexander V. Badyaev, “Evolutionary Significance of Phenotypic Accommodation in Novel Environments: An Empirical Test of the Baldwin Effect,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences 364 (2009): 1125-1141; Patrick Bateson and Peter Gluckman, Plasticity, Robustness, Development, and Evolution. (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Adam Scarfe, “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics,” in Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, ed. Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013): 259-284. 6. George Gaylord Simpson, “The Baldwin Effect,” Evolution 7, no. 2 (June 1953): 110. 7. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967), 187. 8. See James Mark Baldwin, “A New Factor in Evolution,” American Naturalist 30 (1896): 441-457, 536-554; James Mark Baldwin, Development and Evolution Including Psychophysical Evolution, Evolution by Orthoplasy, and the Theory of Genetic Modes (New York: Elibron Classics / Adamant Media Corporation, 1902 / 2005); Adam Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity.” 9. See Adam Scarfe “On a ‘Life-Blind Spot’ in Neo-Darwinism’s Mechanistic Metaphysical Lens,” in Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, ed. Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 27. 10. Julian K. Finn, Tom Tregenza, and Mark D. Norman, “Defensive Tool Use in a Coconut-Carrying Octopus,” Current Biology 19.23 (15 December 2009): R10691070. 11. Graziano Fiorito and Pietro Scotto, “Observational Learning in Octopus

252

Chapter Fourteen

Vulgaris,” Science 256.5056 (24 April 1992), 545; also see Binyamin Hochner, Tal Shomrat, and Graziano Fiorito, “The Octopus: A Model for a Comparative Analysis of the Evolution of Learning and Memory Mechanisms,” The Biological Bulletin 210.3 (2006), 308. 12. Michael Krützen, Janet Mann, Michael R. Heithaus, Richard C. Connor, Lars Bejder, and William B. Sherwin, “Cultural Transmission of Tool Use in Bottlenose Dolphins,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102.25 (2005), 8939. 13. S. Tebbich, M. Taborsky, B. Fessl, and D. Blomqvist. “Do Woodpecker Finches Acquire Tool-Use by Social Learning?” Proceedings of the Royal Society for the Biological Sciences 268.1482 (November 7, 2001), 2189, as referenced by Patrick Bateson, “The Evolution of Evolutionary Theory,” European Review 18.3 (2010), 292. 14. Christophe Guinet and Jérome Bouvier, “Development of Intentional Stranding Hunting Techniques in Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Calves at Crozet Archipelago,” Canadian Journal of Zoology, 73.1 (1995): 27; also see Luke Rendell and Hal Whitehead, “Culture in Whales and Dolphins,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2001): 312. 15. Alex Thornton and Katherine McAuliffe, “Teaching in Wild Meekats,” Science 313 (2006), 227. 16. For example, see Konrad Lorenz, Evolution and Modification of Behavior, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965, 90-91; see also Nikolaas Tinbergen, “On Aims and Methods of Ethology,” Zeitscrift für Tierpsychologie 20 (1963): 410-433. 17. Robert E. Ricklefs, “Structures and Transformation of Life-Histories,” Functional Ecology 5 (1991), 174. 18. Robert A. Wilson, Matthew J. Barker, and Ingo Brigandt, “When Traditional Essentialism Fails,” Philosophical Topics 35.1-2 (Spring-Fall 2007), 190. 19. Richard Boyd, “Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa,” in Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Robert A. Wilson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 141-187, as quoted by Wilson, “When Traditional Essentialism Fails,” 189. In further defining “biological kinds essentialism,” Wilson, Barker, and Brigandt quote Marc Ereshefsky, “Species,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. N. Zalta (Summer 2007 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2007/entries/species, as follows: “kind essentialism has a number of tenets. One tenet is that all and only the members of a kind have a common essence. A second tenet is that the essence of a kind is responsible for the traits typically associated with the members of that kind. … Third, knowing a kind’s essence helps us explain and predict those properties typically associated with a kind.” Extending the ideas of Richard Boyd (1988), in the article, Wilson, Barker, and Brigandt provide a strong critique of “biological kind essentialism,” and argue that a species should be considered “homeostatic property clusters,” adopting a “softened” form of essentialism as an alternative to traditional essentialism that allows for “natural flexibility and explanatory integrity” (190). Admittedly, Boyd’s “homeostatic property clusters” imply that “at least some natural kinds are individuated by property clusters that are afforded

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

253

imperfect yet homeostatic integrity by underlying causal mechanisms” (190). While these are very constructive and insightful arguments, more might be done here (1) to identify the meaning of a “cluster” and the problems of induction that are associated with it (i.e., how many does it take to make a cluster?); (2) to adequately represent the dynamic character of living organisms and of their evolution; (3) to emphasize behavior in terms of the meaning of a “species”; (4) to de-emphasize the mechanistic underpinning of the notion of “homeostatic property clusters”; and (5) to explore what Whiteheadian process-relational ontology and other dynamic ontologies can bring to the table in answering the question of the meaning of the notion of a “species.” That said in relation to (2) and (5) above, to their credit, Wilson, Barker, and Brigandt examine how “biological kinds are typically individuated by several causally entwined features that stand in reciprocal dynamic relations” (192). Although referenced by Wilson, Barker, and Brigandt, both in the article and elsewhere, work by John Dupré, for example, see Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), and especially the latter’s more recent writings, might serve to help to further hone their conclusions. 20. David Ray Griffin, “Introduction to SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought,” in George Allan, Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), xiii. 21. Adam C. Scarfe, “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics,” in Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, ed. Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 264-265; 276-277. As referenced in the preceding volume, the notion that organisms are “loci of valuative-selective activity” is inspired by Bruce Morito’s concept of “loci of valuative activity,” advanced in Thinking Ecologically: Environmental Thought, Values, and Policy (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2002), 143. 22. Ernst Mayr, “Prologue: Some Thoughts on the History of the Evolutionary Synthesis” in The Evolutionary Synthesis, edited by Ernst Mayr and William Provine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980 / 1998), 40. 23. For example, see Matthew Barker and Robert A. Wilson, “Cohesion, Gene Flow, and the Nature of Species,” Journal of Philosophy 107.2 (2010): 59-77. 24. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), 312 quoting from his article, “A Critique of the Species Concept in Biology” Philosophy of Science 2.3 (July 1935), 354. 25. Dobzhansky, “Critique of the Species Concept,” 353. 26. Dobzhansky, “Critique of the Species Concept,” 353. 27. Mayr, “Prologue,” 33. 28. Mayr, “Prologue,” 33. 29. Mayr, “Prologue,” 35. 30. Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1967), 154. 31. Herbert Spencer, “The Principles of Psychology,” excerpt in Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Michael Ruse (Princeton, NJ:

254

Chapter Fourteen

Princeton University Press, 2009), 30. 32. Ruse, Philosophy After Darwin, 5. 33. See Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity,” 68; “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics,” 262-263. 34. As Richard Dawkins states in The Selfish Gene (30th Anniversary Edition) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976 / 2006), xxi, phenotypes are merely “survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” 35. Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990). 36. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 187. 37. See Waddington, Evolution of an Evolutionist, 10, 221-223. 38. See August Weismann, The Germ-Plasm: A Theory of Heredity, trans. W. Newton Parker and Harriet Rönnfeldt (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893), 183. 39. Howard Wolinsky, “Paths to Acceptance,” Science & Society 9.5 (2008), 417. 40. See Mark A. Rothstein, Yu Cai, and Gary E. Marchant, “The Ghost in Our Genes: Legal and Ethical Implications of Epigenetics,” Health Matrix 19, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 1-62. 41. See Scarfe, “Epigenetics, Soft Inheritance, Mechanistic Metaphysics, and Bioethics,” especially 379. 42. See Snait B. Gissis and Eva Jablonka (eds.), Transformations of Lamarckism: From Subtle Fluids to Molecular Biology (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011). 43. NOVA. “Ghost in Your Genes,” PBS, Airdate: October 16, 2007, transcript: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3413_genes.html. 44. See endnote 5 above. 45. Simpson, “The Baldwin Effect,” 110; 112. 46. Baldwin, Development and Evolution, 117. 47. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 77. 48. See Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity,” 67. 49. Jonathan Losos, Thomas W. Schoener, R. Brian Langerhans, and David A. Spiller, “Rapid Temporal Reversal in Predator-Driven Natural Selection,” Science 314.5802 (November 2006), 1111. 50. Richard Wrangham, “Out of the Pan, Into the Fire: How Our Ancestors’ Evolution Dependent on What They Ate,” in Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution, ed. Frans B. M. de Waal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001): 119-144. 51. Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (New York: Basic Books, 2009). 52. Wrangham, Catching Fire, 2. 53. Wrangham, Catching Fire, 2. 54. Wrangham, Catching Fire, 2. 55. Wrangham, Catching Fire, 193-194. 56. According to David Graber, in Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn, NY:

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

255

Melville House Publishing), 37-47, these sorts of “just so” stories are also to be found in economics, including in Aristotle’s Politics and Nichomachean Ethics, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, as well as most economics textbooks, especially in their respective elucidations of the “double coincidence of wants problem.” Graber argues that they may be logical, but lack objective, anthropological validation. It should be noted here that Darwin would have been impacted by Smith’s speculations and his method. 57. Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Müller (eds.), Evolution: The Extended Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 3-4. 58. Lorenz, Evolution and Modification of Behavior, 7. 59. Lorenz, Evolution and Modification of Behavior, 48. 60. See Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 48. 61. F. John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman, Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution—Monographs in Population Biology 37 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 1. 62. See Paul Rée, The Origin of the Moral Sensations, ed. Robin Small (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003); Robin Small, Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 63. See the contemporary work of evolutionary psychologist, Dennis L. Krebs, in The Origins of Morality: An Evolutionary Account (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 64. In relation of the evolutionary processes of group, social, and/or community selection, see Darwin, The Descent of Man. Introduction by H. J. Birx. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1874 / 1998, from Part I, Chapters IV: “Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals” to V: “On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilized Times,” 100151. 65. See Scarfe, “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics,” 268-271; also see the Preface Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” as well as his analysis of the assumed relation between morality, credit, and debt, as contained in Nietzsche: Basic Writings, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 2000): 437599. In relation to this point, Sam Harris notes in The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: Free Press, 2010), 13, “as the psychologist Steven Pinker has observed, if conforming to the dictates of evolution were the foundation of subjective well-being, most men would discover no higher calling in life than to make daily contributions to their local sperm bank. After all, from the perspective of a man’s genes, there could be nothing more fulfilling than spawning thousands of children without incurring any associated costs or responsibilities.” 66. Sir W. D. Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939 / 2005), 59. 67. As David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber point out in “Evolution, Ethics, and the Complexity Revolution,” in Evolution and Human Values, ed. Robert Wesson and Patricia A. Williams (Amsterdam, Rodopi Press, 1995), 73, “for Aristotle

256

Chapter Fourteen

ethos refers to the character traits that allow an animal of a certain kind to live its unique way of life (bios) in the niche appropriate to it. Ethics is ethology.” 68. See Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity,” 88-102; “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection,” 266-268. 69. Conrad Hal Waddington, The Ethical Animal (New York: Atheneum, 1960), 23; 30. 70. See the “Interview With Arne Naess” in Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (Layton, UT: Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1985), 74-77. 71. Alfred North Whitehead, The Function of Reason (Boston: Beacon Press, 1929 / 1969), 8. 72. Jablonka and Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions, 241, my addition of “(whether consciously or unconsciously).” 73. See Julian Huxley, Evolutionary Humanism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1964 / 1992), especially Huxley’s grandiose claims pertaining to human exceptionalism, which is supposedly due to the human capacity of “psychosocial selection.” For Huxley, “man’s duty and destiny is to be the spearhead and creative agent of the overall evolutionary process on this planet” (246); “to be responsible for the whole future of the evolutionary process on this planet. His duty is to try to understand it and the mechanisms of its working, and at the same time direct and steer it in the right direction and along the best possible course” (121). In the essay, “Transhumanism” in New Bottles For New Wine (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957), Huxley uses the following analogy to make his claims: Dz‹t is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution—appointed without being asked if he wanted it, and without proper warning and preparation. What is more, he can’t refuse the job. Whether he wants to or not, whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution on this earth. That is his inescapable destiny, and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned” (13, my emphasis). 74. See Adam Scarfe, “Overcoming Anthropocentric Humanism and Biocentric Anti-Humanism: Contours of the Constructive Post-Modern Environmental Epistemology,” Process Studies Supplements 12 (2008): 1-58, http://ctr4process.org/publications/ProcessStudies/PSS/. 75. See Scarfe, “Overcoming Anthropocentric Humanism and Biocentric AntiHumanism,” especially the quotation from Kenny Ausubel, founder of the Bioneer movement, from his interview in The Eleventh Hour documentary (Warner Bros., 2007): “there is a fundamental illusion in the world that somehow people are separate from Nature when the reality is that we are a part of Nature, in fact, we are Nature.” 76. See Scarfe, “Overcoming Anthropocentric Humanism and Biocentric AntiHumanism.” 77. Pigliucci and Müller (eds.), Evolution: The Extended Synthesis, 3-4. 78. See Scarfe, “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity”; “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

257

Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics.”

References Badyaev, Alexander V. “Evolutionary Significance of Phenotypic Accommodation in Novel Environments: An Empirical Test of the Baldwin Effect.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences 364 (2009): 1125-1141. Baldwin, James Mark. Development and Evolution, Including Psychophysical Evolution, Evolution by Orthoplasy, and the Theory of Genetic Modes. New York: The Macmillan Company / Elibron Classics, 1902 / 2005. Barbour, Ian. “Evolution and Process Thought.” Theology and Science 2.3 (July 2005): 161-178. Barker, Matthew and Robert A. Wilson. “Cohesion, Gene Flow, and the Nature of Species.” Journal of Philosophy 107.2 (2010): 59-77. Bateson, Patrick. “The Adaptability Driver: Links Between Behavior and Evolution.” Biological Theory 1.4 (2006): 342-345. —. “The Evolution of Evolutionary Theory.” European Review 17.3 (2010): 287-296. Bateson, Patrick and Peter Gluckman. Plasticity, Robustness, Development, and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Boyd, Richard. “Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, edited by Robert A. Wilson, 141-187. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Broughton, John and D. John Freeman-Moir (eds.), The Cognitive Developmental Psychology of James Mark Baldwin. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1982. Cobb, John, ed. Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2008. Crispo, Erika. “The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Revisiting Two Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change Mediated by Phenotype Plasticity.” Evolution 61.11 (2007): 2469-2479. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. New York: Penguin Books, 1859 / 1968. —. The Descent of Man. Introduction by H. J. Birx. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1874 / 1998. —. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Introduction by Brian Regal. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1872 / 2006. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene (30th Anniversary Edition). New

258

Chapter Fourteen

York: Oxford University Press, 1976 / 2006. Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1991. —. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Devall, Bill and George Sessions. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Layton, UT: Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1985. Dobzshansky, Theodosius. “A Critique of the Species Concept in Biology.” Philosophy of Science 2.3 (July 1935): 344-355. —. Genetics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937. Dupré, John. Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Finn, Julian K., Tom Tregenza, and Mark D. Norman. “Defensive Tool Use in a Coconut-Carrying Octopus.” Current Biology 19.23 (15 December 2009): R1069-1070. Fiorito, Graziano and Pietro Scotto. “Observational Learning in Octopus Vulgaris,” Science 256.5056 (24 April 1992): 545-547. Gissis, Snait B. and Eva Jablonka (eds.). Transformations of Lamarckism: From Subtle Fluids to Molecular Biology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011. Gottlieb, Gilbert. Individual Development and Evolution: The Genesis of Novel Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Gould, Stephen Jay. The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990. Graber, David. Debt: The First 5000 Years. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing. Griffin, David Ray. “Introduction to SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought.” In George Allan, Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon, xi-xv. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Guinet, Christophe and Jérome Bouvier. “Development of Intentional Stranding Hunting Techniques in Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Calves at Crozet Archipelago.” Canadian Journal of Zoology, 73.1 (1995): 27-33. Harris, Sam. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York: The Free Press, 2010. Hinton, Geoffrey E. and Steven J. Nowlan. “How Learning Can Guide Evolution.” Complex Systems 1 (1987): 447-454. Hochner, Binyamin, Tal Shomrat, and Graziano Fiorito. “The Octopus: A Model for a Comparative Analysis of the Evolution of Learning and

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

259

Memory Mechanisms.” The Biological Bulletin 210.3 (2006): 308-317. Huxley, Julian. “Transhumanism.” In New Bottles For New Wine, 13-17. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957. —. Evolutionary Humanism. Introduction by H. James Birx. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1964 / 1992. Jablonka, Eva and Marion Lamb. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic in the History of Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Krebs, Dennis L. The Origins of Morality: An Evolutionary Account. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Krützen, Michael, Janet Mann, Michael R. Heithaus, Richard C. Connor, Lars Bejder, and William B. Sherwin. “Cultural Transmission of Tool Use in Bottlenose Dolphins.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102.25 (2005), 8939-8943. Lorenz, Konrad. Evolution and Modification of Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Losos, Jonathan, Thomas W. Schoener, R. Brian Langerhans, and David A. Spiller. “Rapid Temporal Reversal in Predator-Driven Natural Selection.” Science 314, no. 5802 (November 2006): 1111. Mayr, Ernst, “Prologue: Some Thoughts on the History of the Evolutionary Synthesis.” In The Evolutionary Synthesis, edited by Ernst Mayr and William Provine, 1-48. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980 / 1998. Morito, Bruce. Thinking Ecologically: Environmental Thought, Values, and Policy. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2002. Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On the Genealogy of Morality” in Nietzsche: Basic Writings, translated by Walter Kaufmann, 437-599. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. NOVA. “The Ghost in Your Genes,” PBS, Airdate: October 16, 2007, transcript: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3413_genes.html. Odling-Smee, F. John, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman. Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution—Monographs in Population Biology 37. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pigliucci, Massimo and Gerd B. Müller (eds.). Evolution: The Extended Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. Plotkin, Henry. Evolutionary Thought in Psychology: A Brief History. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Rée, Paul. The Origin of the Moral Sensations, edited by Robin Small. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

260

Chapter Fourteen

Rendell, Luke and Hal Whitehead. “Culture in Whales and Dolphins.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2001): 309-382. Richards, Robert J. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Ricklefs, Robert E. “Structures and Transformation of Life-Histories.” Functional Ecology 5, 1991, 174-183. Ross, Sir. W. D. Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939 / 2005. Rothstein, Mark A., Yu Cai, and Gary E. Marchant. “The Ghost in Our Genes: Legal and Ethical Implications of Epigenetics.” Health Matrix 19, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 1-62. Ruse, Michael (ed.). Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Scarfe, Adam C. “James Mark Baldwin With Alfred North Whitehead on Organic Selectivity: The ‘Novel’ Factor in Evolution.” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 5.2 (2009): 40107. —. “On a ‘Life-Blind Spot’ in Neo-Darwinism’s Mechanistic Metaphysical Lens.” In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, edited by Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe, 25-64. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. —. “On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary Ethics.” In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, edited by Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe, 259-284. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. —. “Epigenetics, Soft Inheritance, Mechanistic Metaphysics, and Bioethics.” In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology, edited by Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe, 369-405. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. —. “Overcoming Anthropocentric Humanism and Biocentric AntiHumanism: Contours of the Constructive Post-Modern Environmental Epistemology,” Process Studies Supplements 12 (2008): 1-58, http://ctr4process.org/publications/ProcessStudies/PSS/. Simpson, George Gaylord. “The Baldwin Effect.” Evolution 7.2 (June 1953): 10-17. Small, Robin. Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Tebbich, S., M. Taborsky, B. Fessl, and D. Blomqvist. “Do Woodpecker Finches Acquire Tool-Use by Social Learning?” Proceedings of the Royal Society for the Biological Sciences 268.1482 (November 7,

On Ethotype, Epigenetics, and Organic Selection

261

2001): 2189-2193. Thornton, Alex and Katherine McAuliffe. “Teaching in Wild Meekats.” Science 313 (2006), 227-229. Tinbergen, Nikolaas. “On Aims and Methods of Ethology.” Zeitscrift für Tierpsychologie 20 (1963): 410-433. Waddington, Conrad Hal. Evolution of an Evolutionist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975. —. The Ethical Animal. New York: Atheneum, 1960. Wcislo, William T. “Behavioral Environments and Evolutionary Change.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20 (1989): 137-169. Weber, Bruce H., and David J. Depew, “Evolution, Ethics, and the Complexity Revolution.” In Evolution and Human Values, edited by Robert Wesson and Patricia A. Williams, 49-77. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1995. —. eds. Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Weismann, August. The Germ-Plasm: A Theory of Heredity. Translated by W. Newton Parker and Harriet Rönnfeldt. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893. West-Eberhard, Mary Jane, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World. New York: The Free Press, 1925 / 1967. —. The Function of Reason. Boston: Beacon Press, 1929 / 1969. —. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978. —. Adventures of Ideas. New York: The Free Press, 1967. Wilson, Robert A., Matthew J. Barker, and Ingo Brigandt. “When Traditional Essentialism Fails.” Philosophical Topics 35.1-2 (SpringFall 2007): 189-215. Wolinsky, Howard. “Paths to Acceptance.” Science & Society 9.5 (2008): 416-418. Wrangham, Richard. “Out of the Pan, Into the Fire: How Our Ancestors’ Evolution Dependent on What They Ate.” In Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution, edited by Frans B. M. de Waal, 119-144. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. —. Richard Wrangham. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books, 2009.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN A WHITEHEADIAN-TYPE THEORY OF SPACE AND TIME1 DIMITER VAKARELOV

Abstract In this chapter, I present a point-free theory of space and time of the Whiteheadian type. Here, “point-free” means that neither space-points nor time-moments are assumed as primitives. The algebraic formulation of the theory, called dynamic contact algebra (DCA), is a Boolean algebra whose elements symbolize dynamic regions changing in time. It has three spatiotemporal relations between dynamic regions: space contact, time contact, and preceding. We prove a representation theorem for DCA-s of topological type, reflecting the dynamic nature of regions, which is a reason to call DCA-s, dynamic mereotopology.

Keywords Whitehead, dynamic mereotopology, point-free theory of space and time.

1. Introduction In this chapter, I survey some of the recent results obtained by the present author in “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology” (2008)2 and “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions” (2010)3 concerning a mathematical theory of space and time of the Whiteheadian type. Since this essay is addressed mainly to non-mathematicians, I include some preliminary information about logical notations, sets, topology, and Boolean algebras in an Appendix. In order to make this paper more easy to follow, I present the mathematical statements without proofs and focus mainly on intuitive

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

263

explanations. However, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the present paper, we invite the advanced readers to also see the proofs included in my previous works listed above.

1.1. Whitehead’s Program for the Building of a New, Point-Free, Relational Theory of Space and Time Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) is well-known as a co-author, along with Bertrand Russell, of the famous book Principia Mathematica (1910-1913). Russell and Whitehead intended to have a special part of the volume dedicated to the foundation of geometry, but due to some disagreements between them this part was not written. Later on, Whitehead formulated his own program for a new theory of space and time. The best articulation of this program is contained in the following quote from his book, The Organization of Thought (1917): our space concepts are concepts of relations between material things in space. Thus there is no such entity as a self-subsistent point. A point is merely the name for some peculiarity of the relations between matter which is, in common language, said to be in space.

It follows from relativity theory that a point should be definable in terms of the relations between material things. So far as I am aware, this outcome of the theory has escaped the notice of mathematicians, who have invariably assumed the point as being the ultimate starting ground of their reasoning. Similar explanations apply to time. Before the theories of space and time have been carried to a satisfactory conclusion on the relational basis, a long and careful scrutiny of the definitions of points of space and instants of time will have to be undertaken, and many ways of effecting these definitions will have to be tried and compared. This is an unwritten chapter of mathematics.4 The above quotation presents an approach to the theory of space, which, in some sense, stands in opposition to the old Euclidean approach. It is a well-known fact that in the axiomatization of Euclidean geometry, the notion of a point is one of the basic undefinable primitive notions. The objection of Whitehead, which is explained in many other places in his writings, is that the notion of a point, as well as the other primitives—line and plane, should not be placed on the axiomatic foundation of the theory of space, because they are too abstract and have no separate existence in reality. Instead, they have to be definable by means of more realistic, primitive notions, which correspond to material things and the relations between them. And, as Whitehead says further in the quote, “similar

264

Chapter Fifteen

explanations apply to time.” This means that the time points—the instants (or moments) of time, which also do not have separate existence in reality, should be definable by means of certain temporal relations between material things. These considerations motivated Whitehead to call his approach “relational.” It is to be noted that Whitehead, influenced by the relativity theory, claims that the theory of time should not be separated from the theory of space, and they both have to constitute an integrated theory of space and time that is built on a relational base. This integrated theory can also be characterized as “point-free,” in a sense that in its mathematical formulation neither space-points nor time-moments should be taken as primitives. Rather, they should be definable by the other primitives in the theory. Attempts to present such a theory was made in Whitehead’s An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919)5 and The Concept of Nature (1920).6 One of the main technical novelties that is evident in these books is the method of extensive abstraction, which is used in the definitions of space points and time moments. Some criticism of Whitehead’s solutions in these works was presented by Theodore de Laguna,7 who proposed a similar approach to the theory of space in which points, lines, and surfaces are definable notions. I will not take into account the discussion between Whitehead and de Laguna on this issue here, mainly because later on, Whitehead improved his approach in a radical way and he presented an absolutely new theory of space in his famous book Process and Reality (1929 / 1978),8 which will be discussed in more detail in the next section of this essay.

1.2. Whitehead and the Region-Based Theory of Space Most probably taking into account de Laguna’s criticism presented in “The Nature of Space” (1922),9 in Process and Reality, Whitehead developed a radically new idea of how to build a theory of space in which neither space points nor straight lines and plains are taken as undefinable primitive notions. The idea is described in Part IV of Process and Reality: “The Theory of Extension” and the mathematical details are presented in Chapter II: “Extensive Connection”10 and Chapter III: “Flat Loci.”11 The exposition is almost mathematical in nature and consists of a series of enumerated definitions and assumptions without any attempt to “reduce these enumerated characteristics to a logical minimum from which the remainder can be deduced by strict deduction.”12 These two chapters of Process and Reality have to be considered as an extended program containing all the details that are needed in order to develop, in a strictly

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

265

mathematical manner, Whitehead's new theory of space. Two primitive notions belong to the foundation of Whitehead’s—the notion of a region and a two-place relation between regions called connection. Intuitively, regions have to be considered as geometrical analogs of physical bodies. If we take into account our Euclidean intuition about geometry, it has its basis in the notion of a point (an intuition we owe to our education), regions are certain “stable” sets of points having “internal points” (“interior parts”) and a “boundary.” Two regions are connected if they share a common point. It is to be noted that Whitehead adopted the connection relation from de Laguna to whom he gave special credit.13 By means of the connection relation, in Chapter II, Whitehead defines several other relations between regions: a “part-of” relation (one region to be a part of another), an “overlapping” relation (when a third region is a part of two given regions), an “external connection” (when the two regions are connected but are not overlapping), a “tangential inclusion” (when one of the regions is a part of the other and there are regions externally connected to both). Chapter II ends with the definition of a point14 and some special sets of points associated with a given region: the “volume of a region” (all points associated with a given region), and the “surface of a region” which corresponds to the “boundary of the region” (all points from the volume of a given region which are situated in the volumes of all regions externally connected with the given region). Chapter III contains all preliminary, formal definitions and assumptions needed in defining a “straight line”15 and “plane.”16 In fact, the material in Chapters II and III reconstructs a fragment of Euclidean geometry on a different basis pertaining to his primitive notions, and in a way that does not depend on the notion of measurement. Whitehead’s treatment of measurement is postponed until Chapter V. It is to be noted that Whitehead’s program of rebuilding Euclidean geometry on the basis of the notion of region has been realized in many different ways by other authors. The approach is now known as the region-based theory of space (RBTS). For instance, Tarski (1927 / 1956)17 proposed a point-free axiomatization of Euclidean geometry that is based on the primitive notion of “ball” (as a special type of region), defining points as special sets of “concentric balls” (concentricity is a definable notion in Tarski’s theory). Some survey papers on RBTS are: Bennett et al. (2007),18 Pratt-Hartmann (2007),19 Vakarelov (2007),20 and also see Aiello et al. (2007).21 It is important to mention that RBTS flourished and in a sense has been reinvented in computer science and Artificial Intelligence due to his simple way to represent qualitative spatial information. One of the papers which influenced a deep research in this

266

Chapter Fifteen

direction is Randell et al. (1992),22 and see also the survey papers in a similar direction by Cohn et al. (2001, 2008).23 I end this section with one terminological convention: in the contemporary region-based theory of space, the term “connection relation” is called a “contact,” because “connection” has been already used in the related topological theories with another meaning.

1.3. Mereology, Mereotopology, and Contact Algebras It is to be noted that the “part-of” and “overlap” are typical relations in mereology, a philosophical discipline that studies “parts and wholes.”24 One of the best known and difficult mereological systems is that of Stanislaw LeĞniewski,25 a Polish mathematician, philosopher, and logician. The notion that mereology can be identified in some sense with the well-known and more clear notion of Boolean algebra owes to Alfred Tarski, who was one of the most well-known logicians in the twentieth century.26 The main theorem in the theory of Boolean algebras says that every Boolean algebra can be represented as a certain algebra of sets. If we consider sets from a point-based definition of regions, then the standard mereological relations “part-of” and “overlap” coincide correspondingly with the set-inclusion and non-empty intersection. Sets are, however, very poor regions—we cannot distinguish in them internal parts from the boundary. Therefore, non-overlapping regions are disjoint, and, consequently, they are not in the external contact. This fact shows that the notion of a “contact relation” cannot be defined in Boolean algebras, and, consequently, in mereology. As such, an extension of mereology with contact relation is essential, and such extensions are called sometimes mereotopologies. Extensions of the definition of Boolean algebra, involving an additional relation of contact satisfying some reasonable axioms, are called contact algebras. The first one to introduce a kind of contact algebra is Stell (2000)27 under the name of Boolean connection algebra. The simplest notion of contact algebra (just named contact algebra), was introduced by Dimov and Vakarelov (2006).28 In some sense, mereotopology can also be considered as another version of the contemporary form of the region-based theory of space.29 Having this terminology in mind, one may suggest the following approximate equations: REGION-BASED THEORY OF SPACE = MEREOTOPOLOGY = MEREOLOGY + TOPOLOGY = CONTACT ALGEBRAS. The name of topology is used here as a part of the word “mereotopology,”

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

267

because the best (point-based) definition of the notion of a region in which one can distinguish boundary points can be given in topology. The term “contact algebra” in the above equation have to be considered not as a concrete definition (as this will be considered in this paper), but as an integral name of algebraic systems incorporating the relation “contact” or some contact-like relations. For instance, Düntsch and Vakarelov (2007)30 studies contact algebras based on distributive lattices, and Nenchev (2011)31 introduced a notion of mereotopological system that has a purely relational foundation. One of the first who used systematically the term mereotopology was probably Smith (1996).32 Mereotopology can be considered also as a subfield of the so-called point-free topology,33 and Whitehead can be considered as the founder of this field.

1.4. Whitehead’s Theory of Time As was mentioned previously, influenced by the relativity theory, Whitehead always considers the theory of time as an inseparable part of the theory of space and such an integrated theory has to be extracted from existing things in reality, including some of their spatio-temporal relations. This integrated theory should be point-free in a double sense: in that neither space points nor time points (moments of time, instants of time) should be considered as primitive undefinable notions and in that they should be definable by the other primitives of the theory. Unfortunately, unlike his program detailing how to build a mathematical theory of space in Process and Reality, Whitehead did not describe an analogous program for his integrated theory of space and time. Let us mention also that Whitehead’s view concerning time evolves to some extent over the years. While in his books, The Organisation of Thought (1917), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919), and The Concept of Nature (1920), he uses more standard terminology about time compatible with its common use (“instants of time,” “moments,” “time order,” etc…), in Science and The Modern World (1925)34 and Process and Reality (1929), he started to call his theory “The Epochal Theory of Time” (ETT). Probably the reason for this name is that Whitehead’s notion of epoch is one of the theory’s central notions. He introduces and analyzes many notions related to ETT in a purely informal way by means of his unusual philosophical terminology, which makes the formalization of ETT quite difficult. Hence, any such attempt will be only an approximate and partial formalization of Whitehead’s ideas, and any claim that it corresponds exactly with what Whitehead had in mind will always be disputable.

268

Chapter Fifteen

1.5. The Aim of this Paper The aim of this paper is to present an initial step concerning extensions of RBTS considered as integrated point-free theories of space and time. I do not claim that this is an exact formalization of Whitehead’s theory for reasons discussed above, and I will follow mainly Whitehead’s initial program as has been cited at the beginning of this Introduction. I use in my formalization some spatio-temporal relations that were introduced by Whitehead, like simultaneity and contemporaneity, but I also use relations not mentioned in Whitehead’s books. The paper will be based on the already obtained results in Vakarelov (2008, 2010).35 Since RBTS is considered in this paper as a static theory of space, it can be developed on the base of the notion of contact algebra. I introduce a dynamic version of this notion, called dynamic contact algebra. Then the equation: MEREOTOPOLOGY = CONTACT ALGEBRAS = RBTS can be extended into the following one: DYNAMIC MEREOTOPOLOGY = DYNAMIC CONTACT ALGEBRAS = INTEGRATED POINT FREE THEORY OF SPACE AND TIME. My plan is the following. First, it will be necessary to give a brief exposé on mereotopology (in terms of the theory of contact algebras) considered as static mereotopology. The main result here will be the demonstration of how to define the notion of point. Let it be noted that the original Whiteheadian definition is quite complicated, but following some methods known from the contemporary algebra and topology, I am able to present very simple definitions of the notion of point.36 The next step is to introduce a concrete dynamic model of space with explicit use of moments of time. My motivation in starting with point-based model is that we have good intuitions regarding space-points and time-points. This model represents regions changing in time, and that is why we call them dynamic regions. The main problem here is to find suitable relations between dynamic regions which are then to find their basis in the abstract definition, and to identify which relations contain enough information in order to extract from them the definitions of space points and time moments. There are many possibilities for carrying out this task. For instance, in Vakarelov (2008),37 I chose two relations between dynamic regions called stable contact and unstable contact on the basis of which we were able to reconstruct both space points and time moments.

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

269

Intuitively stable contact means “always in a contact,” while unstable contact means “sometimes in a contact.” Since these two relations do not depend on any precedence relation between moments of time, the obtained structure of time was very poor—I have only arrived at the pure set of time moments. In Vakarelov (2010),38 I was able to find another set of relations between dynamic regions, which, when put on the basis of the abstract definition, yields a more rich time structure with a before-after relation that satisfies some natural properties. In this paper, I will present this second result in more detail. Intuitively, the proposed point-based dynamic model of space appears as follows. Suppose one is observing some area of changing regions. Then for each moment of time tT from some set T of time moments one makes a “snapshot” Bt, which is considered to be a contact algebra describing the static situation at the moment t. Then the dynamic model of space is built by the obtained series of contact algebras < Bt >tT. The dynamic regions are represented here as series of the “snapshots” of the changing regions corresponding to each moment of time tT. The contact algebras Bt are called coordinate contact algebras corresponding to the time coordinate t. Each Bt contains the snapshots of the changing regions at the moment t. Space points of this structure are built from the space points of the coordinate algebras, and the time structure corresponds to the model consists of the structure of the set T of moments of time. Some limitations and questions concerning the philosophical nature of this dynamic “snapshot” model of space will be formulated and discussed in the concluding section of this paper. One of the main results of the paper consists in obtaining several possible abstract definitions of dynamic mereotopology in the form of dynamic contact algebras and a demonstration of how one can extract and reproduce from these abstract definitions the corresponding point-based space-time structure.

1.6. Related works Some other works quite similar to our approach are Düntsch and Winter (2008, 2009).40 They offer a point-free approach with respect to space points, but not with respect to time points, in the sense that the set of time points is explicitly given in the axiomatization. A point-free version of dynamic mereology, based only on some natural stable and unstable mereological relations arrived at in Nenchev (2011).41

270

Chapter Fifteen

1.7. Acknowledgements The paper is sponsored by the contract with the Sofia University Science Fund and the Bulgarian National Science Fund, project name: “Theories of Space and Time: Algebraic, Topological, and Logical approaches. Thanks are due to my colleagues Philippe Balbiani and Tino Tinchev for their fruitful comments and discussion on an earlier version of this paper. I am indebted very much to Vesselin Petrov, a Bulgarian philosopher and mathematician, who introduced me to Whitehead’s philosophy. I am thankful to all participants at the Sofia 2012 conference on “Dynamic Being” taking part in the discussion of this paper.

2. Mereology and Mereotopology In this section, I present some facts about mereology and mereotopology that will be used in the formulation of the main results in this paper. Both mereology and mereotopology are considered here as static mereology and static mereotopology, which indicates that these theories study things that are not changing.

2.1. Mereology There are different versions of mereology—see, for instance, the work of Simons (1987)41 and Varzi (2011).42 It is convenient for our purposes to follow Tarski’s result that (LeĞniewski’s) mereology can be identified with, namely, the axiomatic theory of complete Boolean algebra without the zero element.43 If we are not interested in infinite operations we may consider the standard definition of Boolean algebra, as being a substitute of mereology, without the assumption of deleting the zero element. Formally Boolean algebra is a system B = (B,” , 0, 1, +, ., * ) (see the Appendix). The zero element 0 in the definition of Boolean algebra is an analog of the empty set. Some mereologists do not consider the zero element, because it does not indicate any existing object. But, as we will see later, in dynamic mereotopology, zero may indicate a non-existing object. So, in terms of Boolean algebra, the equation a  0 can be considered as the definition of the predicate “a exists.” This definition naturally follows when we consider changing objects, because the history of a given changing object may have periods when it exists and periods when it does not exist. Thus, a defined predicate of existence is quite convenient to describe such a situation. We consider the following mereological meaning of the primitive

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

271

notions of Boolean algebra. The set of elements in the Boolean algebra can be considered as the set of regions arising from a concrete domain. Hence, I do not consider, for instance, the set of all possible regions. Boolean ordering relation ” is considered as the formal analog of the “part-of” relation. The zero element 0 is considered as the non-existing region. The unit element 1 is considered as the region which can be identified with the “whole space,” in which the given regions are located. That is why they are parts of 1. Boolean operations “+ ”; “.”; and “*” are considered as operations of constructing new regions from given ones. For simplicity, and to have only first-order logical language, we will not consider infinite Boolean operations. Therefore, all relations between regions, definable by the primitives of the Boolean algebra, can be considered as mereological relations. Here are the definitions of some typical mereological relations: x part-of - a ” b - the Boolean ordering. x Overlap - aOb ldef (c  0)(c ” a and c ” b), equivalent to a.b  0. x Underlap - aUb ldef (c  1)(a ” c and b ” c), equivalent to a + b  1. There are variations of these relations, for instance: x partial overlap - aOb and a ԥ b and b ԥ a, x strict part-of - a ” b and b ԥ a.

2.2. Mereology as a Point-Free Theory of Space Having in mind the representation theorem for Boolean algebras (see the Appendix) the regions in a given Boolean algebra can be identified with some subsets of a given set X, the elements of which can be considered as points. Mereological modeling of space and its regions is, however, very rough, because in terms of mereology, we cannot distinguish boundary points of a given region. Nevertheless, the representation theory of Boolean algebras presents a way of defining points by means of regions. As for points in the definition of Boolean algebra, I will sometimes call them abstract points. These are identified with certain sets of elements of the Boolean algebra, called ultrafilters. In the abstract definition of Boolean algebra, the elements of the algebra are considered to be regions that are characterized by the “part-of” relation, the Boolean operations and the constants 0 and 1. The problem is to find

Chapter Fifteen

272

an appropriate definition of the notion of a point in such a way as to characterize regions as sets of points and the “part-of” relation as setinclusion. The notion of ultrafilter proves to be a suitable substitution of the notion of point. The route taken in respect to the definition of ultrafilter is the following. Suppose X is a given set whose elements are considered as points, and let x be a given point. Let Po(x) be the set of all subsets of X containing the point x, i.e. Po(x) = {aŽX : xa}. We will consider the set Po(x) as the ideal point corresponding to the real point x. The set Po(x) is a set of subsets of X which contains all of the needed information about the point x. Specifically, for a given subset a of X and xX, the only thing which we have to know about x and a is if x belongs to a or not. The following answers this question: xa iff aPo(x). Therefore, Po(x) contains all needed information about the point x, and, moreover, the set Po(x) is a set of subsets of X. This set possesses the following obvious characteristic properties: (1) (2) (3) (4)

XPo(x) and‡ Po(x); If a  Po(x) and aŽb then bPo(x); If a, bPo(x) then a ˆ bPo(x); If a ‰ bPo(x) then aPo(x) or bPo(x).

These four conditions can be translated into the language of abstract Boolean algebras substituting X with 1, ‡ with 0, inclusion Ž by ”, and operations U and ˆ with “+” and “.”. The obtained formulation is the definition of the notion of an ultrafilter, namely: Definition 2.2.: Let B be a given Boolean algebra. A set U of elements of B is called an ultrafilter if it satisfies the following conditions: (1) 1U and 0U; (2) If aU and a”b then bU; (3) If a, bU then a.bU; (4) If a+ bU then aU or bU. Let UF(B) denote the set of all ultrafilters of B. In Boolean algebras ultrafilters are sometimes called prime filters or maximal filters. Sets in the form Po(x) in point-set Boolean algebras are called point ultrafilters. Now, considering ultrafilters as abstract points, we can define the set of all points “situated within a given region a” (in Whitehead’s terminology): this is the set h(a) = {U  UF(B) : aU}. In the theory of

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

273

Boolean algebras, h is the required isomorphism that represents B as a Boolean algebra of sets. The main part in the proof of the representation theorem for Boolean algebras (see the Appendix) is the proof that h is indeed an isomorphic embedding. The main problem in this proof is the problem of the existence of ultrafilters. Precisely, it is much more easy to construct sets of regions in a Boolean algebra which satisfy the conditions (1), (2), and (3) from the definition of ultrafilter. Such sets are called proper filters. In point-set Boolean algebras examples of proper filters are sets of the form Po(x) containing not all sets possessing the point x, but enough such sets in order to satisfy the conditions (1), (2), and (3). In such a case, condition (4) is not always fulfilled because it is possible such a Po(x) to contain the region a ‰ b but neither of the regions a and b. Such sets do not contain the full information about the point x and can be considered as approximations of the needed information. In the abstract Boolean algebras, the existence of ultrafilters follows from the remarkable theorem of Boolean algebras that is called ultrafilters theorem, which states that each proper filter can be extended into an ultrafilter. The construction of the needed ultrafilter can be done (in generally by an infinite) approximation process, extending the initial proper filter, step by step, by adding to it new and new regions. The success of this procedure is guaranteed by the axiom of choice. We invite readers who are experienced in abstract mathematics to see the detailed proof of the representation theorem of Boolean algebras that follows in some available textbooks on Boolean algebras, because this theorem is the first one stating that abstract Boolean algebras are considered to be point-free systems of regions, and are equivalent to their point-based definitions. I have presented the intuitive ideas behind the technicalities in this representation theory of Boolean algebras, because similar intuitions will be used later on in the definition of abstract points in mereotopology.

2.3. Mereotopology As was indicated in the Introduction, I consider mereotopology to be an extension of mereology with the relation of contact. Since I identified mereology with the notion of Boolean algebra, we will call contact algebra a certain extension of the vocabulary of Boolean algebras with one binary relation called contact and satisfying some simple and obvious conditions. The simplest definition of contact algebra, which we will use in this paper, was introduced in Dimov and Vakarelov (2006).44

274

Chapter Fifteen

Definition 2.3.: In defining the notion of contact algebra, consider the algebraic system (B, C) = (B, 0, 1, ”, +᧨ . , *᧨ C) such that B = (B, 0, 1, ”, +᧨ . , * ) is a non-degenerate Boolean algebra (i.e. 01), C is a binary relation in B. C is called a contact relation if the following axioms are satisfied: (Co1) If aCb then a  0 and b  0; (Co2) If aCb and a j  I : a j  A j , j  I } ; •

•

Relations. A subset R of the Cartesian product A2 = A u A is called a binary relation in A. Instead of (a, b)  R we very often write aRb. Binary relations can be classified by their abstract properties, for instance, Reflexivity: for all xA , xRx; symmetry: for all x, yA, if xRy then

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

295

yRx; transitivity: for all x, y, zA, if xRy and yRz then xRz. The notion of n-ary relation is defined in a similar way and instead of (x1, … , x n )  R we write R(x1, … , x n ) . 6.2.3. Functions We will use the notion of function (called also mapping, operation) f defined in a set A with values in the set B as in the ordinary mathematics as a rule which associates for each xA its value y in B indicating this as y = f(x). f is called a one-one mapping from A into B provided f(x) = f(y) implies x = y; and f is called a mapping from A onto B if for every yB, there exists a xA such that f(x) = y. It is possible in the above definitions that B = A. In a similar way one may consider n-argument functions.

6.3. Topology 6.3.1. Definition of Topological Space By a topological space we mean any pair (X, W), where X is any set of elements called points and W is a family of subsets of X called open sets, satisfying the following axioms: (1) (2) (3)

The empty set and the set X are open sets; Intersection of two open sets is an open set; Union of any family of open sets is an open set.

The elements of X are called points. A subset of X is called a closed set if it is a complement of an open set. Closed sets satisfy the following conditions: (C1) The empty set and the set X is a closed set; (C2) The union of two closed sets is a closed set; (C3) The intersection of any family of closed sets is a closed set. The definition of a topological space can be equivalently formulated in terms of closed sets taking as axioms (C1), (C2), and (C3). Trivial example of a topological space X is if we consider all subsets of X to be open (then they will be also closed). Such a topology is called discrete topology of X.

Chapter Fifteen

296

6.3.2. Interior and Closure One can define in X two operations acting on subsets of X: Int(a)— interior of a and Cl(a) —the closure of a. The definitions are the following: Int(a) = ‰{b : b Ž a and b is an open set}, i.e. Int(a) is the union of all open sets included in a. Cl(a) = ˆ{ b : b Ž a and b is a closed set }, i.e. Cl(a) is the intersection of all closed sets containing a. By means of these two operations we may define the boundary points of a set a, B ( a ) = Cl( a ) ˆ Cl(X \ a). The following formula motivates the name of Cl: Cl( a ) = a ‰ B(a) - the closure of a is the union of a with its boundary B ( a ) , and Int(a) — a\B ( a ) — the interior of a is just the points of a which are not in the boundary B ( a ) . Here are some examples: Let be a ball in Euclidean geometry with a center O and radius R . Then B (a ) is just the set of all points of a at a distance R from the center O , so B ( a ) is just the surface points of a. The interior of a , Int(a) is the set of all points at a distance less than R from the center O. By means of the operations Cl and Int we can define special sets which can be treated as geometric bodies of the space X (or regions), which in topology are called regular closed sets. Namely a subset a Ž X is regular closed set if a = Cl(Int(a)). The motivation to consider regular closed sets as geometric bodies is because this equation is satisfied by all known geometric bodies in Euclidean geometry. 6.3.3. Base of Topology A family B of open sets is an open base of X if every open set can be represented as a union of some sets from B. Analogously, a family B of closed sets is a closed base of X if every closed set can be represented as an intersection of some sets from B. X is called a semiregular space if it has a closed base of regular closed sets. 6.3.4. Separation Axioms, Compactness, and Connectedness Different kinds of topological spaces can be obtained if we consider some additional conditions added to the axioms of a topological space:

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

297

x T0-spaces: X is a T0-space if it satisfies the following separability axiom, called T0-axiom: for any two different points x and y, there exists an open set containing just one of them. x T1-spaces: X is a T1-space if it satisfies the so called T1-axiom: for any two different points x and y there exists an open set containing x but not y. x T2-spaces: X is a T2-space (or Hausdorff space) if it satisfies the T2axiom: for any two different points x and y there are two open sets a and b such that xa, y b and a ˆ b = ‡. x Compactness: X is a compact space if any intersection of closed sets that is empty contains a finite subfamily which intersection is again empty. x Connectedness: X is a connected space if it cannot be represented as a sum of two disjoint nonempty open sets. Topological spaces can be considered as very general theories of space, studying only those properties of space, definable in the topological language, i.e., the so-called topological properties. One of the origins of the abstract topology was to find sufficiently general conditions on the base of which one can study the notion of continuity.

6.4. Boolean Algebras 6.4.1. Definition of Boolean Algebra By a Boolean algebra is meant any system B = {B, 0, 1, d, +, . , *), where B is a set, 0 and 1 are two special elements of B called respectively zero and unit, d is binary relation in B called Boolean ordering, and +, . , are binary operations in B called respectively sum and product (notations a+b, a.b), and * is a unary operation in B called complementation (notation a*), satisfying the following axioms for all a, b, cB: (d1) a d a, (d2) If a d b and b d c then a d c, (d3) If a d b and b d a then a = b (d is a partial order in B), (0) 0 d a (0 is the smallest element of B), (1) a d 1 (1 is the biggest element of B); (.1) a.b d a, (.2) a.b d b, (.3) If c d a and c d b then c d a.b; (+1) a d a+b, (+ 2) b d a+ b, (+ 3) If a d c and b d c then a+b d c; (D.) a.(b+ c) = a.b+ a.c, (D+ ) a+ (b.c) = (a+b ) . ( a + c) (two distributivity laws) (*1) a.a* = 0, (*2) a+a* = 1;

298

Chapter Fifteen

B is called a degenerate Boolean algebra if 0 = 1. Any subset of B containing 0,1 and closed under the operations is called a Boolean subalgebra of B. Let B1 and B2 be two Boolean algebras. A mapping h from B1 into B2 is called a homomorphism if it preserves the Boolean ordering, 0, 1 and the operations. Namely: h(0) = 0, h(1) = 1, h(a+b) = h(a) +h(b), h(a.b) = h(a).h(b) and if a d b then h ( a ) d h(b). The mapping h is called an isomorphic embedding if it is a homomorphism and satisfies the implication: if h (a ) d h (b ) then a d b . If h is an isomorphic embedding and h(B1) = B 2 then h is an isomorphism from B 1 over B 2. If h is an isomorphic embedding of B 1 into B 2 then h ( B 1 ) is a Boolean subalgebra of B 2 and h is an isomorphism from B 1 into h ( B 2 ) . 6.4.2. Boolean Algebra of Sets The main example of Boolean algebra is the algebras of subsets of a given universe. It is constructed in the following way. Let X be a fixed universe and let B(X) be the set of all subsets of X. We will consider B(X) as an algebra of the type of Boolean algebra by means of the following definitions: 0 =def ‡, the empty set, 1 =def X, a d b iff a Ž b (a is a subset of b), a+ b =def a ‰ b (the union of a and b), a.b =def a ˆ b (the intersection of a and b), a* =def Ca. Then, it can be proved that all axioms of Boolean algebra are satisfied which says that B(X) is a Boolean algebra, called the Boolean algebra of all subsets of X. If we take not all subset but a collection of subsets of X, containing ‡, X and closed under the Boolean operations, then we again obtain a Boolean algebra, called a Boolean algebra of sets. For instance the set {‡, X} is a Boolean algebra. If X is a non-empty set then B(X) is a non-degenerate Boolean algebra. Note that in the Boolean algebra B(X) of all subsets of a given set X one can consider arbitrary sums and arbitrary unions of elements. There are abstract versions of infinite sums and intersections and in this case Boolean algebras are called complete. The main theorem for Boolean algebras is: The Representation Theorem for Boolean algebras—Every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to a certain Boolean algebra of sets. The proof of this theorem uses applications of the Axiom of choice.

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

299

6.4.3. Boolean Algebra of Regular Closed Sets Let X be a topological space. The set RC(X) of all regular closed sets is a Boolean algebra, called the Boolean algebra of all regular closed sets, if the basic operations are defined as follows: 0 =def ‡, 1 =def X, a d b iff a Ž b, a+b =def a ‰ b, a.b =def Cl(Int(a ˆ b)), a* =def C l ( X \ a). If we take not all closed regular sets, but only a family which is closed under the defined operations, then this is a subalgebra of R C (X ), which also is called a Boolean algebra of regular closed sets. Note that in this algebra a +b is the set-union of a and b , while a . b is different from the set-intersection of a and b and a * is different from set-complement of a . 6.4.4. Congruence Relations in Boolean Algebras Let { be an equivalence relation in Boolean algebra, i.e. , { is a reflexive symmetric and transitive relation on B. The relation is called a congruence relation in B if it preserves the Boolean operation in the following sense: if a1 { a2 and b1 { b2 then a1+b1 { a2+b2 and a1.b1 { a2.b2. The set |a| =def {bB : a { b} is called an equivalence class determined by the congruence relation {. The set of all equivalence classes forms a Boolean algebra with operations defined as follows: 1 = |1|, 0 = |0|, |a|+|b| = |a+b|, |a|.|b| = |a.b|, |a|* = |a*| and |a| d |b| iff a d b. The obtained Boolean algebra is called a factor algebra defined by the congruence relation {.

Notes 1. The paper is sponsored by a contract with the Bulgarian National Science Fund, under the project name: “Theories of Space and Time: algebraic, topological and logical approaches.” Thanks are due to my colleagues Philippe Balbiani and Tinko Tinchev for their fruitful comments and discussion on an earlier version of this paper. I am indebted very much to Dr. Vesselin Petrov, a Bulgarian philosopher and mathematician, who introduced me to Whitehead’s philosophy. I am thankful to all participants of the Sofia 2012 conference on ”Dynamic Being,” taking a part in the discussion of this paper. 2. Dimiter Vakarelov, “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology,” Logic and Logical Philosophy 17 (2008): 167-187. 3. Dimiter Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations,” Fundamenta Informaticae 100.1-4 (2010): 159-180. 4. Alfred North Whitehead, The Organization of Thought (London, William and Norgate, 1917), 195, (emphasis mine):

300

Chapter Fifteen

5. Alfred North Whitehead, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1919 / 1955). 6. Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1920 / 1995). 7. See Theodore de Laguna, “The Nature of Space—I.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 393-407; “The Nature of Space—II.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 421-440; and “Point, Line and Surface as Sets of Solids.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 449-461. 8. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978) 9. Laguna, “The Nature of Space—I.” 10. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 294-301. 11. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 302-309. 12. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 294. 13. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 287. 14. Definition 16. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 299. 15. Definition 6. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 306. 16. Definition 8. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 306. 17. Alfred Tarski, “Foundations of the Geometry of Solids,” in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, ed. J. H. Woodger, 24-29 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956). This is a translation of the summary of the address given by Tarski to the First Polish Mathematical Congress, Lwów, 1927. 18. Brandon Bennett and Ivo Düntsch, “Axioms, Algebras and Topology,” in Handbook of Spatial Logics, ed. Marco Aiello, Ian Pratt-Hartmann, and Johan van Benthem, 99-160 (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007). 19. Ian Pratt-Hartmann, “First-Order Region-Based Theories of Space,” in Handbook of Spatial Logics, ed. Marco Aiello, Ian Pratt-Hartmann, and Johan van Benthem, 13-97 (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007). 20. Dimiter Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Space: Algebras of Regions, Representation Theory and Logics,” in Mathematical Problems from Applied Logic II: New Logics for the XXIst Century, ed. Dov Gabbay, Sergei Goncharov, and Michael Zakharyaschev, 267-348 (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2007). 21. Marco Aiello, Ian Pratt-Hartmann, and Johan van Benthem (eds.), Handbook of Spatial Logics (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007). 22. David A. Randell, Zhan Cui, and Anthony Cohn, “A Spatial Logic Based on Regions and Connection,” in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, ed. B. Nebel, W. Swartout, and C. Rich, 165-176 (Los Allos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1992). 23. Anthony G. Cohn and Shyamanta M. Hazarika, “Qualitative Spatial Representation and Reasoning: An Overview,” Fundamenta Informaticae 46 (2001): 1-29; and Anthony G. Cohn and Jochen Renz, “Qualitative Spatial Representation and Reasoning,” in Handbook of Knowledge Representation, ed. Frank van Hermelen, Vladimir Lifschitz, and Bruce Porter, 551-596 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008).

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

301

24. See Peter Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). 25. See Stanislaw LeĞniewski, Lesniewski’s Systems: Ontology and Mereology, ed. J. T. J. Srzednicki, V. F. Rickey, and J. Czelakowski (Nijhoff International Philosophy Series 13, 1984). 26. See Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology. 27. John G. Stell, “Boolean Connection Algebras: A New Approach to the Region Connection Calculus,” Artificial Intelligence 122 (2000): 111-136. 28. Georgi Dimov and Dimiter Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II,” Fundamenta Informaticae 74.2-3 (2006): 209-249, 251-282. 29. See Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Space: Algebras of Regions, Representation Theory and Logics.” 30. Ivo Düntsch and Dimiter Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Discrete Spaces: A Proximity Approach,” in Proceedings of Fourth International Conference Journées de l’Informatique Messine, ed. M. Nadif, A. Napoli, E. SanJuan, and A. Sigayret, 123-129 (Metz, France, 2003). Journal version in: Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence 49.1-4 (2007): 5-14. 31. Vladislav Nenchev, “Logics for Stable and Unstable Mereological Relations,” Central European Journal of Mathematics 9.6 (2011): 1354-1379. 32. Barry Smith, “Mereotopology: A Theory of Parts and Boundaries,” Data and Knowledge Engineering 20 (1996): 207-304. 33. Peter T. Johnstone, Stone Spaces (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 34. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1925 / 1967. 35. Namely, Vakarelov, “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology”; and Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations,” 36. For additional information, see Georgi Dimov and Dimiter Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II,” Fundamenta Informaticae 74.2-3 (2006): 209-249, 251-282. 37. Vakarelov, “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology.” 38. Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations.” 39. Ivo Düntsch and Michael Winter, “Moving Spaces,” in Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME 2008), ed. S. Demri and C. S. Jensen, 59-63 (IEEE Computer Society, 2008); and “Timed Contact Algebras,” Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME 2009), 133-138 (IEEE Computer Society, 2009). 40. Nenchev, “Logics for Stable and Unstable Mereological Relations.” 41. See Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology. 42. Achille Varzi, ”Mereology,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/mereology/.

302

Chapter Fifteen

43. See Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology. 44. Dimov and Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II.” 45. See Whitehead, Process and Reality, 294-296. 46. Stell, “Boolean Connection Algebras: A New Approach to the Region Connection Calculus.” 47. Antony Galton, “The Mereotopology of Discrete Spaces,” in Spatial Information Theory: Proceedings of the International Conference (COSIT 1999), ed. C. Freksa and D. M. Mark. Journal version in Lecture notes in Computer Science, 1661 (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1999), 251-266. Also see Düntsch and Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Discrete Spaces: A Proximity Approach.” 48. See Düntsch and Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Discrete Spaces: A Proximity Approach.” 49. See Düntsch and Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Discrete Spaces: A Proximity Approach.” 50. See Dimov and Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II”; and/or Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Space: Algebras of Regions, Representation Theory and Logics.” 51. See Dimov and Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II.” 52. Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations.” 53. Dimov and Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II”; and/or Vakarelov, “Region-Based Theory of Space: Algebras of Regions, Representation Theory and Logics.” 54. See Ivo Düntsch and Michael Winter, “A Representation Theorem for Boolean Contact Algebras,” Theoretical Computer Science (B) 347 (2005): 498-512. 55. See Dimov and Vakarelov, “Contact Algebras and Region-Based Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II.” 56. See Johnstone, Stone Spaces. 57. Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations.” 58. See Vakarelov, “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology,” Logic and Logical Philosophy 17 (2008): 167-187. 59. See Dimiter Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology II: Axiomatizing Some Whiteheadian Type Space-Time Logics,” in Advances in Modal Logic, Vol. 9, ed. S. Ghilardi and L. Moss., College Publications, 2012. 60. Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology II: Axiomatizing Some Whiteheadian Type Space-Time Logics.” 61. Vakarelov, “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations.” 62. See Part IV of Whitehead’s Process and Reality. 63. See Robert Goldblatt, “Diodorean Modality in Minkowski Space-Time,” Studia Logica 39 (1980): 219-236. 64. Whitehead, The Organization of Thought, 195.

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

303

References Aiello, Marco, Ian Pratt-Hartmann, and Johan van Benthem (eds.). Handbook of Spatial Logics, Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007. Balbiani, Philippe, Tinko Tinchev, and Dimiter Vakarelov. “Modal Logics for the Region-based Theory of Space.” Fundamenta Informaticae 81.1-3 (2007): 29-82. Special Issue: Topics in Logic, Philosophy and Foundation of Mathematics and Computer Science in Recognition of Professor Andrzej Grzegorczyk. Bennett, Brandon and Ivo Düntsch, “Axioms, Algebras and Topology.” In Handbook of Spatial Logics, edited by Marco Aiello, Ian PrattHartmann, and Johan van Benthem, 99-160. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007. Cohn, Anthony G. and Shyamanta M. Hazarika. “Qualitative Spatial Representation and Reasoning: An Overview.” Fundamenta Informaticae 46 (2001): 1-29. Cohn, Anthony G. and Jochen Renz. “Qualitative Spatial Representation and Reasoning.” In Handbook of Knowledge Representation, edited by Frank van Hermelen, Vladimir Lifschitz, and Bruce Porter, 551-596. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008. Laguna, Theodore de. “The Nature of Space—I.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 393-407. —. “The Nature of Space—II.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 421440. —. “Point, Line and Surface as Sets of Solids.” The Journal of Philosophy 19 (1922): 449-461. Dimov, Georgi, and Dimiter Vakarelov. “Contact Algebras and RegionBased Theory of Space: A Proximity Approach—I and II.” Fundamenta Informaticae 74.2-3 (2006): 209-249, 251-282. Düntsch, Ivo and Dimiter Vakarelov. “Region-Based Theory of Discrete Spaces: A Proximity Approach.” In Proceedings of Fourth International Conference Journées de l’Informatique Messine, edited by M. Nadif, A. Napoli, E. SanJuan, and A. Sigayret, 123-129. Metz, France, 2003. Journal version in: Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence 49.1-4 (2007): 5-14. Düntsch, Ivo and Michael Winter. “A Representation Theorem for Boolean Contact Algebras.” Theoretical Computer Science (B) 347 (2005): 498-512.

304

Chapter Fifteen

—. “Moving Spaces.” In Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME 2008), edited by S. Demri and C. S. Jensen, 59-63. IEEE Computer Society, 2008. —. “Timed Contact Algebras.” Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME 2009), 133-138. IEEE Computer Society, 2009. Galton, Antony. “The Mereotopology of Discrete Spaces.” In Spatial Information Theory: Proceedings of the International Conference (COSIT 1999), edited by C. Freksa and D. M. Mark. Journal version in Lecture notes in Computer Science, 1661, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1999, 251-266. Goldblatt, Robert. “Diodorean Modality in Minkowski Space-Time.” Studia Logica 39 (1980): 219-236. Johnstone, Peter T. Stone Spaces. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Kuratowski, Kazimierz, Topology, Vol. 1. New York and London: Academic Press, 1966. LeĞniewski, Stanislaw. Lesniewski’s Systems: Ontology and Mereology, edited by J. T. J. Srzednicki, V. F. Rickey, and J. Czelakowski. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series 13 (1984). Nenchev, Vladislav. “Logics for Stable and Unstable Mereological Relations.” Central European Journal of Mathematics 9.6 (2011): 1354-1379. Pratt-Hartmann, Ian. “First-Order Region-Based Theories of Space.” In Handbook of Spatial Logics, edited by Marco Aiello, Ian PrattHartmann, and Johan van Benthem, 13-97. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007. Randell, David A., Zhan Cui, and Anthony Cohn. “A Spatial Logic Based on Regions and Connection.” In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, edited by B. Nebel, W. Swartout, and C. Rich, 165-176. Los Allos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1992. Sikorski, Roman. Boolean Algebras. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1964. Simons, Peter. Parts: A Study in Ontology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Smith, Barry. “Mereotopology: A Theory of Parts and Boundaries.” In Data and Knowledge Engineering 20 (1996): 207-304. Stell, John G. “Boolean Connection Algebras: A New Approach to the Region Connection Calculus.” Artificial Intelligence 122 (2000): 111136.

A Whiteheadian-Type Theory of Space and Time

305

Tarski, Alfred. “Foundations of the Geometry of Solids.” In Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, edited by J. H. Woodger, 24-29. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. This is a translation of the summary of the address given by Tarski to the First Polish Mathematical Congress, Lwów, 1927. Vakarelov, Dimiter. “Region-Based Theory of Space: Algebras of Regions, Representation Theory and Logics.” In Mathematical Problems from Applied Logic II: New Logics for the XXIst Century, edited by Dov Gabbay, Sergei Goncharov, and Michael Zakharyaschev, 267-348. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2007. —. “A Modal Approach to Dynamic Ontology: Modal Mereotopology.” Logic and Logical Philosophy 17 (2008): 167-187. —. “Dynamic Mereotopology: A Point-Free Theory of Changing Regions, I: Stable and Unstable Mereotopological Relations.” Fundamenta Informaticae 100.1-4 (2010): 159-180. —. “Dynamic Mereotopology II: Axiomatizing Some Whiteheadian Type Space-Time Logics.” In Advances in Modal Logic, Vol. 9, edited by S. Ghilardi and L. Moss., College Publications, 2012. Varzi, Achille, ”Mereology.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/mereology/. Whitehead, Alfred North. The Organization of Thought. London: William and Norgate, 1917. —. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1919 / 1955. —. The Concept of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1920 / 1995. —. Science and the Modern World. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1925 / 1967. —. Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1929 / 1978.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN IDENTITY, ONTOLOGY, AND FLUX: PROCESS, MATTER, AND THE PROBLEM OF MASS NOUNS HENRY LAYCOCK

Abstract Inspired by the process philosophy of Heraclitus, the Timaeus dialogue presents a deeply suggestive vision of the ancient “elements,” as the basic kinds of stuff or matter. Lacking individuating form, these “boundless” materials lack the stable self-identity of Aristotle’s bounded substances. Since each of them never appears the same, which of them can one confidently assert without shame to be this? It is safest on every occasion not to call fire “this” but “what is such,” nor water “this” but always “what is such,” nor anything else “this” as though it had some permanence, among the things we point to using the expression “that” or “this,” and to think that we indicate something. For the thing slips away and waits neither for the charge of being “this” or “that” nor for any term which indicts it as being permanent. Plato, I will urge, is right: the basic forms of thought and talk of stuff or matter are not compatible with references to this or that.

Keywords Identity; flux; matter; process; mass noun; count noun; concept; lexical aspect; Plato; Aristotle; Frege; Quine.

1. Introduction: Ancient Visions of the Place of Matter Two radically different visions of the place of matter confront us in the ancient world. On the one hand, there is the Aristotelian vision of a

Identity, Ontology and Flux

307

dynamic but well-ordered cosmos, in which matter is subordinated by the principle of form. At the center of this vision is the discrete substance or this-something—whereby matter, in itself, without the form of discrete individuals, nonetheless exists as a constituent of individuals, a kind of secondary or dependent being (and somehow secondary, in particular, to form). In the Platonic cosmology, by contrast, there is a vision echoing the thought of Heraclitus.1 Here, the cosmos is a kind of ceaseless struggle between opposites—formless and chaotic matter on the one hand, and an ordered realm of independent abstract principles or forms on the other— out of which arise a multitude of “ersatz” substances.

1.1. Aristotle Aristotle’s fundamental principles are those of determinate self-identity and essential predication: there is the semantic singularity of his “thissomething” and the notion of defining “form.” Both are embodied in his concept of an individual substance—Aristotle’s basic subjects are explicitly conceived as “pointables.” Remarkably, perhaps, the basic cosmic principle is isomorphic with a symbolic human act. Aristotle’s cosmos is a world of discrete subjects—a world in which anything whatsoever can figure as a subject, but the fundamental grounding is in discrete concrete objects and their forms, a class in which the category of substances is at the core. Among subject-predicate sentences, concrete singular reference has logical and ontic primacy; and arguably, much of our conventional logical and ontic wisdom owes its bare schematic form to Aristotle’s vision.2 The basic principles of fixed identity and stable continuity are not threatened by pervasive change, but, on the contrary, they are presupposed by it. So-called “accidental” change presupposes continuity of individual substances; so-called “substantial” change presupposes continuity of the underlying stuff or matter. The latter represents the coming-to-be or ceasing-to-be of a self-identical substance; the former represents the continued self-identity of such a substance. For Aristotle, change or motion is essential to the concepts of individual substance and material persistence—but there is no change that does not somehow presuppose these concepts. In a famous, if obscure, passage in his Metaphysics, Aristotle writes, by “material” I mean that which is in itself not a particular thing or a quantity or anything else by which things are defined. For there is something of which each of these is predicated and whose being is different from that of any of the predicates. Everything else is predicated

308

Chapter Sixteen of primary being; whereas primary being must be predicated of being-amaterial. … It follows from these considerations that primary being is material. But this is incompatible with what we have said about primary being as “a something”—something in particular.3

1.2. Plato Inspired by the process philosophy and flux of Heraclitus, Plato’s Timaeus dialogue presents a compressed yet deeply suggestive vision of the status of the ancient “elements,” the basic varieties of matter. Lacking individuating form, these “boundless” materials lack the stability of any self-identical and bounded substance. Plato writes, so, since each of these (earth, air, water, fire) never appears the same, which of them can one confidently assert without shame to be this— whatever it is—and not something else? It is not possible. But by far the safest way to speak of them is as follows: what we see always coming to be different at different times, for instance, fire, it is safest on each occasion not to call fire “this” but “what is such,” nor water “this” but always “what is such,” nor anything else “this” as though it had some permanence, among the things we point to using the expression “that” or “this,” and think we indicate something; for it slips away and does not await the charge of being “this” or “that” or any expression which indicts it of being permanent. No, it is safest not to call each of them “this” or “that,” but to call them thus: “what is such, always moved around and like,” for example, to call fire “what is altogether such,” and so with anything else that comes to be.4

The elements defy or undermine the doctrines of persistence and identity. In appearing to deny even the concrete identifiability and persistence of the elements, Plato seems to affirm the possibility of qualitative, general thought in the absence of concrete individuation. In rhetorically demanding which of the elements one can “confidently assert without shame to be this,” it is as if Plato is speaking to the author of the Categories (or maybe, to his students). Plato’s statements here are directed specifically to the fluid, transformational nature of the forms or varieties of stuff; he does not address the status of Aristotle’s discrete substances or things. Nevertheless, what Plato appears to be saying that there is something in our experience, something which is sufficiently elusive that if approached in Aristotelian terms, it will be difficult, indeed impossible, to grasp. And Plato, I believe, is right: the fundamental concrete forms of talk of stuff or matter are incompatible with references to this or that; or so, at any rate, I mean to argue in this work.

Identity, Ontology and Flux

309

2. Semantics and the Ancient Elements 2.1. The Logic of Material Processes I begin with some examples of non-referential, existential claims concerning matter. The most visible and omnipresent of the ancient elements is water; and in our current state of climate change, it is not surprising that the corresponding noun is often present in the reportage. These sentences are all of SVO form and involve bare noun phrases as their syntactic subjects. Many of them figured as the captions of media images representing the immediate impact of Hurricane Sandy in the New York area in October of 2012. For this reason, the verbs are not, as ideally they should be, in the present continuous: Water pushed up by Hurricane Sandy splashes into the window of a building near the shore. Smoke is billowing from the chimneys. Seawater floods the Ground Zero construction site. Oil is pouring over the barrier. Water rushes into the Carey Tunnel, previously the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Blood gushed from his wounds. Rising water rushes into an underground parking garage in the financial district. Mud was oozing through cracks in the wall.

And, Melt water was rushing down the hill and flooding the lawns.

What is it, that is splashing, billowing, flooding, pouring, rushing and so on? To what metaphysical category does it belong? And is it in fact plausible, contra Plato, to suppose that it either is, or is reducible to, something we can “confidently assert without shame to be this”? It hardly seems so. Nothing specific—nothing that is determinate or particular— seems to be introduced by these syntactic subjects. And this, I mean to argue, is, in fact, the case. Now the ancient elements are kinds of stuff or matter—substances in the everyday sense of the word—and words for stuff or matter belong within the family of so-called mass nouns. But how are words for stuff or matter to be understood? And what is it for stuff or matter to exist? As they bear upon the nature of material processes, these two questions—they are really aspects of a single question—constitute the focus of this work.

310

Chapter Sixteen

Words for stuff or matter, and the sentences containing them, are not, I think, well understood; it would be good to be able to understand them.5 To the first question, conventional wisdom has it that these nouns are singular, in the semantic sense. And to the second question, the convention has it that existence is instantiation in a familiar sense: for matter to exist is just for matter-concepts to have instances. Furthermore, there is one very simple and apparently compelling reason to accept this general view—exactly contrary to the Timaeus doctrine, apparent references to matter are commonplace, and take the form of “this stuff” and “that stuff.” We speak of this coffee, the coffee in my cup; of that gold, the gold in your ring, and so on. What are we referring to, if not to objects of a special kind? While count nouns denote (among other things) Aristotle’s substances, concrete mass nouns, it is said, apply to “parcels” or “quantities” of stuff.6 As with Aristotle’s substances, so here too, to be is just to be the value of an individual variable; here too, there is “no entity without identity,” and Aristotle’s vision seems to be upheld. Here, however, I shall urge that there is no place for words for stuff in a Fregean-style logic of quantification. In broad outline, there are two reasons for this claim. The semantics of Fregean-style logic, as represented in the standard first-order predicate calculus, is that of semantics of singular terms, singular variables and distributive predication. Hence, even essentially plural sentences require a special extension of the calculus; but the sentences above, I will suggest, are neither singular nor plural. Furthermore, in this logic, sentences are of one or the other of just two semantic types: they are either directly referential, like “Fa,” or they are quantified in the manner of “(Ex)(Fx).” These sentences, however, are neither quantified nor referential. To understand them, we must turn first to the semantics of the nouns concerned. These nouns are often called mass nouns—an appellation which however, as Frank Joosten has observed, is unfortunate.7 Now it is commonly observed that “mass nouns lack a plural form,” or “do not pluralize,” and this is surely more or less correct. More or less, for it is often understood to mean that these nouns cannot but be singular— invariably singular, in the semantic sense. In many cases, plainly, nouns will have occurrences of singular and also plural forms; but since mass nouns are syntactically incapable of being pluralized, it is concluded that they must be always and only singular. But here, there is a key implied assumption—one that is never, to my knowledge, made explicit or defended. It is assumed that nouns or their occurrences quite generally are bound to be semantically either singular or plural. This implicit premise begs a crucial question; and while it is quite true

Identity, Ontology and Flux

311

that in concrete, non-generic contexts, grammar rules out plural talk, for example, of “sugars” and of “golds,” it is no less true—and no less obviously so—that concrete singular constructions, of the form “a sugar” and “a gold,” are also counted out. Indeed, from the standpoint of the quantifiers they accept, mass nouns are largely on a par with plural nouns. Along with “all oxen,” “some oxen,” “more oxen,” and “most oxen,” such constructions as “all water,” “some water,” “more water,” and “most water” are well formed—whereas the singular constructions “each water,” “every water,” and “a single water” are ruled out. On the contrary, of course, “this water” and “that water” seem just fine. Considered as semantically either singular or plural, the syntax of mass nouns would seem substantially anomalous. However, it is precisely from within the count noun paradigm, that mass nouns seem anomalous.8 When rightly understood, the syntax of these nouns does not appear anomalous, and the agenda should not involve massaging facts to fit a pre-existing theory.

2.2. Singularity and Non-Singularity; Plurality and Non-Plurality Mass nouns are, of course, opposed to count nouns or CNs.9 And the very opposition of these groups implies that however mass nouns are defined, these nouns fall within the class of nouns which are noncount, or NCNs. These two wide-ranging groups then constitute mutually exclusive, semantically more or less exhaustive categories of nouns.10 Furthermore, CNs are themselves semantically either singular or plural: these two subcategories exhaust the general category of CNs. It seems to follow, then, that qua non-count, the category of NCNs is neither singular nor plural, and given this, the basic shape of the relationships of these two groups is very simple, and is represented in the following tableau: Table 1 1. SINGULAR (“one”) 3. PLURAL (“at least one”) 4. NON-PLURAL (“not at least one”)

“Object”

2. NON-SINGULAR (“not one’) “Objects” “Stuff”

312

Chapter Sixteen

Table 1 reflects the mutually exclusive nature of the categories of NCNs and CNs, and it is evident that there is not just a single contrast between these categories, but rather two. As indicated earlier, however, to think primarily in terms of contrast on this basis would be a serious mistake. The table also shows that some semantic commonalities are no less fundamental than the differences: NCNs share with plural CNs the semantic feature of nonsingularity; and share with singular CNs the feature of non-plural. Insofar as their common non-singularity is concerned, the kinship of NCNs and plural CNs is nicely mirrored in Quine’s semantic cumulative reference principle, which works equally for both: adding water to water results only in more water; just so, adding apples to apples results only in more apples. We have also seen the nonsingularity of NCNs to be reflected in their quantifiers. In the nature of the case, non-count sentences never involve essentially singular quantifiers (“each,” “every,” etc…); but those non-singular quantifiers that are not essentially plural are thereby shared by NCNs and CNs alike. Unlike many, “all,” “some,” and “most,” and in most of its occurrences, “any,” are shared. But insofar as referential determiners are concerned, the question must be addressed of why mass reference should not count as singular in a semantic sense: “this water” looks exactly like “this dog.” What is the Heraclitean to say to this? Beyond the superficial syntactic similarity, there is of course a physical and also metaphysical difference: to speak in this identifying manner of the water, we have it trapped inside a mug—or even better, a sealed bottle. We must confine it, and somehow negate its “natural freedom.” We need do nothing to the dog to speak of it as “this.” Returning on this note to grammar, Geoffrey Leech remarks that syntax “is much less rich in dimensions of contrast than is semantics,”11 and the point is illustrated here in the syntactic isomorphism. Semantically there are three categories here—singular, plural, and non-count—but the syntax of demonstratives has only two. To understand the taxonomy of demonstratives, then, we need a bifold contrast only of the plural and nonplural—a class encompassing the singular along with the non-count. Since “water” is itself non-plural—but not thereby semantically singular—the water in a glass can only be referred to as “this water.” Quantificational differences are sharply marked in English, but English syntax makes no distinction, in typical referential contexts, between the singular and the non-plural—potentially thereby inviting a conflation of the two. These observations are summed up below:

Identity, Ontology and Flux

313

Table 2 NONSINGULAR SINGULAR

PLURAL NON-PLURAL quantitydeterminers (quantifiers, indefinite articles)

apples Apple water a, an, each, some, all, any, every, any most, more many / much

referencedeterminers (definite articles) and verbs these / are this / is XXX

Table 2 systematically displays the orthogonal character of the relationship between the two types of determiners, and the corresponding functional differences between them— quantifiers bearing upon the singular / non-singular contrast, referential determiners (including demonstratives) bearing upon the plural / non-plural contrast.12 However, both the first and second tables have a substantial limitation. They offer a semantical taxonomy for occurrences of noun-types, CNs and NCNs alike—but defined only by reference to the semantics of CNs. Even CNs themselves, as a unified semantic category, apart from their semantically distinct occurrences as singular or plural—are nowhere to be seen. The sole semantical properties that figure here are those of their occurrences. In this sense, the tables do not even reflect the inner unity of the object category—presenting it as two semantically distinct occurrence types, related to one another much as either is, in its own way, to NCNs. In fact, neither in the case of CNs nor in that of NCNs, is the relevant semantic category itself identified as such, in its own right; and it is vital to an understanding of these categories, that they be clearly distinguished from their diverse semantical occurrences. But perhaps the most fundamental and ironic lesson to be learned from these diverse occurrences is that it is not the contrasts, but the commonalities between the categories, that are key to grasping the semantics of NCNs and the nature of the underlying matter concept. A taxonomy is then called for in which these indirect characterizations give way to direct expressions of the categories themselves. There is, in fact, no unique way of doing this—there are two asymmetrical ways of representing them, each of which is incomplete. One or the other aspect of the singular / plural contrast disappears in the process and the determiners are divided between the two. Quantity-determiners including quantifiers are carried by the singular / non-singular (sns) contrast, reference-

Chapter Sixteen

314

determiners by the plural / non-plural (pnp) contrast (which orthodoxy mistakes for a singular / plural contrast). The tables hence reflect two aspects of the matter concept, akin to the two faces or embodiments of the object concept—but, of course, they do not show syntactically in the character of the term itself.

2.3. Semantic Tableaux for the Categories Themselves Table 3/sns 1. Singular (“one”) 3. Non-count 4. Count

“Object”

2. Non-singular (“not one”) “Stuff” “Objects”

Table 3/pnp 1. Plural (“at least one”) 3. Non-count 4. Count

“Objects”

2. Non-plural (“not at least one”) “Stuff” “Object”

Yet even if equivalent, the two representations are not strictly symmetrical. As Table 2 records, the scope of the plural / non-plural contrast is limited to definite referential determiners, while that of the singular / non-singular contrast covers both matching quantifiers and indefinite articles.

2.4. Subjects without Objects Now it so happens that the central core of these proposals is endorsed by the logician, Tom McKay.13 McKay observes that while NCNs are indeed on a par with plural nouns in respect of their non-singularity, plural discourse has natural semantic units that are the same as those of singular discourse, but stuff discourse has no natural semantic units, and reference and predication seem to proceed on a different model than that of an individual and a property. In the case of words like “water,” McKay urges that we should not expect a successful reduction to singular reference and singular predication, something that the application of traditional firstorder logic would require ... when we say that water surrounds our island

Identity, Ontology and Flux

315

... our discourse is not singular discourse (about an individual) and is not plural discourse (about some individuals); we have no single individual or any identified individuals that we refer to when we use “water.”14

We have, in short, no individuals when using “water”—and to this extent, McKay and I are in complete agreement on semantics. But where exactly do we go from here? How then should we positively think of “what there is”? McKay has a very simple answer to the question, which itself is wholly conventional. The question concerns what the subject of the fundamental NCN predication is, i.e., of what satisfies ‘x is water’, especially if we understand quantifier phrases on anything like a standard model ... We must either understand what values x can take, or provide some other analysis of quantifier phrases.15

This is taken by McKay to be the ontically crucial question: of what concrete subject- expressions do we fundamentally predicate “is water”? The answer to the question appears to be clear enough—we predicate “is water” of this stuff or that stuff—this water or that water, to state the obvious. And the indefinite non-singular descriptions that correspond to such definite references are expressions of the form some stuff, for example, some water. Just this is McKay’s answer: we must, he says, be “talking about some stuff.” Although the orthodoxy treats some stuff as semantically singular, McKay departs from orthodoxy on this point. We are, he says, talking about some stuff, not a thing or some things, and in that way, mass reference and predication are ontologically more significant than plural reference and predication. We seem to be in new territory ontologically, not just grammatically.16

Here then, in McKay’s view, is the central and metaphysically significant difference between stuff and things. It is by no means an unreasonable view. The difference between talk of some stuff and talk of some things is precisely that in the latter case, there is always the possibility of singular reference, while in the former, that prospect is ruled out. Nevertheless, we are left with the proposal and “some stuff,” or equally, “this stuff”—is what represents the basic subject for non-count nouns. How, then, could this possibly be false? The assumption here—that there has to be some kind of basic subject for a non-count predication—seems prima facie reasonable. And lacking any range of distinct countables or objects, this basic subject can, it seems, be nothing other than some stuff. Furthermore, given that some stuff— whatever is an amount of stuff—is not itself a single object, entity or thing,

316

Chapter Sixteen

then, as McKay bluntly puts it, if “we are not to reduce mass talk to thing talk by introducing a realm of entities, it seems that we must somehow provide for talk about non-entities.”17 There may be some stuff here and some stuff there, but there are not, at least on that account, two units or two instances of stuff.18 However, if the question of what satisfies “x is water” is the question of just what satisfying value of x is determined by the predication of “water” or “is water,” then the answer has to be that there is nothing that can satisfy this open sentence. Whatever we refer to is, indeed, some water; but this is not determined by “water” or “is water” in itself. We may concede for the purposes of argument that whatever is some water must be some determinate amount of water, but this involves an extra factor, over and above the concept of the stuff itself. “Water” as such does not determine what is to count as the same water; again, that depends on the amount of water that some water is. In the nature of the case, references to water must involve some notion of determinate amount or quantity; but the merest thought that there is water here involves no such notion of determinate amount. As Peter Hacker has in effect observed, references to water must involve some kind of limitation on the application of the concept—a limitation which is not a feature of the concept in itself, but is introduced precisely by the dual facts of reference and whatever adventitious limitations in the context make the possibility of reference a reality.19 McKay speaks of “understanding what values x can take,” for open sentences like “x is water.” But yet variables are no mere placeholders for linguistic substituends: as something taking values in the first place, variables are inseparable from the general ontic category to which those values necessarily belong—the basic category of objects, individuals, or things. Precisely this is the core idea of Quine’s maxim, “to be is to be the value of a variable.”20 In consequence, however, McKay’s account is highly problematic. It is appropriate to recall Russell’s groundbreaking contrast of grammatical and ontic subjects. With a non-singular but essentially plural predication, the question “what is the subject of such a predication?” is readily answered in grammatical terms by pointing to the plural noun phrase. But if the question is asked about the content of this reference, the answer is that there simply is not one. Grammatical subjects apart, an ontic subject cannot fail to be a single unit—whereas in plural predication, there are several subjects, not just one; and in a non-count predication, there are neither several subjects nor just one. To speak in the plural of “non-entities” is to speak of a plurality or multiplicity, and so of a plurality or multiplicity of units—in other words,

Identity, Ontology and Flux

317

again, of entities—and therefore is intrinsically paradoxical. Subjects must at any rate be countable; each subject must be countable as one, and subjects must be either one or many. But “much”—the quantitative adjective for stuff—is neither one nor many. Against McKay’s proposal, to say that there can be no ranges of non-entities is just an outright truism. There is absurdity in the notion of a domain of non-units, “each” of which is just some stuff. If there is something, of which there can be several distinct occurrences, then these “somethings” cannot fail to count as distinct entities. “The much” can therefore not be understood as a plurality of “subjects.” If we agree that there can, as a matter of logic, be no such thing as the object of a non-count reference, no such single object as “the much,” then by that same token, there can be no such thing as the subject of a non-count predication, no such single subject as “the much.” If there can be no such things as instances, then there can be no such subjects as the designata of “some stuff.” Again, in understanding predications with the form of “x is water,” McKay puts the question of “what values x can take.” But if, as he himself urges, “we are talking about some stuff, not a thing or some things,”21 then we can hardly continue to speak of distinct values of variables at all. The semantics of “value,” as with those of “entity” or “subject,” are themselves the semantics of a count noun. There can be no notion of a value which is not that of a single countable or unit, a single object, entity or thing—a point strongly emphasized by Quine throughout his work. The concept of a value just is the concept of a single individual or thing, of whatever putative category or kind; and “values,” truistically, is plural, as “a value” is semantically singular. But yet “some stuff,” as McKay himself affirms, is semantically neither singular nor plural. Where predication involves an NCN, there just cannot be a question of what values x can take. If, then we seem to be in new territory ontologically—and here, McKay and I agree— then this is not, I think, the shape of the terrain; we need a clearer and coherent understanding of just what its novel features are. Rather than asking ontically question-begging questions such as what satisfies “x is water”? in which x is taken to be a variable carrying ontological commitment, and so demands no mere substituend, but an individual value—we need to pose the neutral question, of what the logical form or forms of non-count assertions of existence might be; and whether an assertion of existence must always have a “subject” in this sense. A formal system based on the idea of quantification answers this question in the affirmative. But it is not obvious that this answer is correct—and given that NCNs are neither singular nor plural, the answer cannot be correct. Since an amount of stuff is bound to be collapsed into a unit, if it is to be

318

Chapter Sixteen

treated as an ontic subject in the first place, the conclusion seems unavoidable that there simply are no ontic subjects within this domain. Although it seems to me that McKay is right, in asserting that we are “in new territory ontologically,” we shall need to look elsewhere for an answer to the question of material existence. Plainly, what is called for is a deeper understanding of the matter-concept. But what I think is chiefly called for in this context is a deeper understanding of the object-concept; this latter concept constitutes our one and only model for the matterconcept. Furthermore, the fundamental difficulty we confront arises, I suggest, from failing to transcend the level of semantics, and even from identifying categories and concepts with their semantical and especially their referential embodiments. To take that route is just to guarantee that processes in general cannot be understood.

3. Statements, Words, and Underlying Concepts 3.1. Underlying Categories and Concepts Speaking of “the mass / count” contrast is potentially misleading; and looking at it chiefly as a contrast, as I have urged, is just a plain mistake. Singular occurrences of CNs are non-plural, and the plural occurrences are non-singular; hence, all occurrences of CNs share a crucial feature with NCNs. However, the mistake runs deeper, and the tables all reflect it. The contrasts in the tables are semantic, and there are at least three such contrasts. But there are not three concepts to be contrasted: there are only two—the matter concept and the object concept. Concepts, unlike word forms, elude direct inspection; I speak of them as having semantical embodiments or modes of embodiment (MEMs) in various word- and sentence-forms, or as being expressed in the use of such sentences. Concepts cannot be expressed other than in their modes of embodiment—they can be expressed only in the use of words, but in philosophy it is the concepts that are the central objects of inquiry. One and the same concept can be expressed in different forms of words; in different languages and within one and the same language. So although “happy,” the adjective, and “happiness,” the noun, have distinct semantic functions, they do not express different concepts. The point is equally applicable to “object,” “unit,” “entity,” and so forth; whether we speak of objects or an object, of units or a unit, one and the same underlying concept is expressed. Singular and plural are semantically distinct, but the corresponding concept, that of things or objects, can be neither singular nor plural (neither “one” nor “many,” so to say), although it is expressed

Identity, Ontology and Flux

319

semantically in either singular or plural form. And since the category as such is neither singular nor plural, it may be dubbed numerically neutral. The object concept is, of course, the concept of a single unit; and insofar as objects do, in fact, exist, there cannot fail to be at least a single one. It might then seem that the concept cannot be numerically neutral. The objection begs the question; while objecthood and unity are not distinct, the fact is that exactly as an object is a unit, so objects, equally, are units; and units may be either one or many. So here too, one and the same concept appears in both singular and non-singular semantic form. That NCNs are neither singular nor plural—the matter concept involves neither one nor many is, of course, a truism of sorts. However, this is no less true, so I have urged, of the object concept in itself. The concepts of both stuff and things are equally at home in that same corner box of the original tableau; they simply coincide. The result might seem, initially, surprising, but the point, it must be stressed, is one about a concept—that which underlies the semantics of both singular and plural. Just so, in the case of NCNs, the matter concept underlies the language of both non-singularity and non-plurality. The object concept differs from the matter concept, having as it does two faces—looking to both singular and plural boxes from its home base in what is, for it, the neutral corner box. In contrast, and in the very nature of the case, the matter concept cannot express itself outside the corner box. The following tableau depicts some major features of the situation, including concept-designations and the referential applications of the noun forms. Table 4: Boxed Concept Script and Referential Embodiments 1. SINGULAR (“one”) 3. PLURAL (“many”) 4. NON-PLURAL (“not many”)

an object this object

2. NON-SINGULAR (“not one”) these objects some stuff

ž Objects Stuff

  this stuff

3.2. Aspect, Quantification and Existence In sum, singularity is not a feature of the matter-concept or the object concept; and the notion that the object-concept is essentially the concept of an object or a single unit (and is thus intrinsically referential) is perhaps

320

Chapter Sixteen

the deepest error in the whole debate. If that were, per impossibile, the case, then instead of being deeply kindred concepts, the concepts could have nothing whatsoever in common (perhaps as some believe, in fact, to be the case). Frege’s question, of “what we are here calling an object,” fatally reduces the underlying concept to its semantically singular (and therefore referential) embodiment.22 Now the semantical phenomenon of reference arises at the level of the use or application of a concept, and fundamentally, its application to something in particular; it is no feature of a general term or concept in itself. Likewise, the notion of a predicate involves or indirectly implicates the notion of a subject. But now concepts are applied in different ways; and only sometimes are they used in a directly referential context. As everyone knows, a major advance of Fregean logic consists in its rejection of the subject / predicate sentential form as universal; the rejection of that earlier view is a central feature of the modern idea of quantification. On the new and more powerful model of language, sentences are divided into just two broad categories. On the one hand, there are singular, fullyfledged (or directly) referential sentences, sentences which do exemplify the subject / predicate, object / concept model, and on the other hand, there are quantified sentences, which do not, but are constructed on the basis of the former group. On the one hand, there are singular sentences whose simplest form is just “Fa,” and on the other hand, there is “(3x)(Fx).” Many sentences which are syntactically of NP / VP or SVO form lack subjects in the fully referential sense, as Russell’s Theory of Descriptions vividly attests—bona fide logical or ontic subjects are only found among the fully referential subjects. In the Frege / Russell framework, less than fully referential subjects—such NPs as “a dog,” “some dogs,” and “the present king of France”—are understood in terms of existential quantification. In an existentially quantified utterance, a variable may take a directly referential term as a substituend; hence the form of such an utterance could be described as indirectly referential.23 The fact is, however, that quantified assertions of existence are just one sub-class within the general class of such assertions. There is another class of concrete, non-generic sentences, over and above the “standard” pair. In pre-theoretical terms at least, the class is as familiar and commonplace as any—it is that class of general, existentially committed, non-singular sentences, both count and non-count, the distinctive feature of which is that they incorporate bare nouns. Some such sentences are syntactically of traditional subject / predicate, NP / VP form, as with “Blood covered his face,” whereas others are explicitly existential, thus “There was blood all over his face.” In particular, there is a sub-class of such bare sentences

Identity, Ontology and Flux

321

involving verbs or predicates of collective or aggregate activity—such verbs as “flood,” “pour,” “stream,” “flow,” “drip,” “ooze,” and so on. I shall take, as an example of the CN class, (1) Ants are pouring out of cracks in the walls, and as a parallel case involving an NCN; (2) Water is pouring out of cracks in the dam. I shall take as the central goal of this part of the present essay the arrival at an understanding of the family of non-count sentences that includes (2). So I shall have to ask what it means, to say that water is pouring out of cracks in a dam. Now the interest of sentences (1) and (2) concerns not only their grammatical subjects, but also their forms of predication—the dimension of lexical aspect, as against tense—and in particular, the ontically distinctive category of open-ended processpredicates or verbs. Lexical aspect is often described as a feature of the way in which verbs are “internally structured” in relation to time; I want to explore this internal structure in the case of “pour.” Lexical aspect is a semantic property of verbs or verb phrases that can impact significantly on the semantics of quantification, or absence. Its relevance to the count / noncount dichotomy—but especially to the singular / non-singular dichotomy—is indicated by the fact that aspectual properties concern the presence or absence of an end, limit, or boundary in the structure of a class of verbs—and more importantly, for the present the purpose is its absence. From the standpoint of non-singular sentences, the absence of such limits is more basic than their presence. The aspectual category of process or activity involves just those forms of change that are open-ended and continuous—without built-in boundaries or end-points. Process-predicates are then tailor-made for NPs, nouns or their occurrences, which also have no built-in boundaries, and it is no accident that bare non-singular nouns are the only class of nouns that fill this bill. Indeed, the parallels between the mass noun / count noun contrast and the aspectual contrast of process and event are now widely recognized. However, the key nominal contrast is not so much that of mass nouns and count nouns, as that of singular and non-singular nouns. It follows, so I will urge, that from the point of view of predication, the semantic category of process- and activity-predication is the true “home base” of non-singularity, and so of both the matterconcept and the object-concept. Now, many types of process-sentence either require, or are at least compatible with, non-singular (collective, “aggregate,” or “bulk”) VPs.

322

Chapter Sixteen

There are two things to understand here: what the sentences are about, in the broadest possible sense—to what the grammatical subjects correspond, in what their semantical significance consists—and what is being said of them, or predicated. The verbs, verb-phrases, and predicates of these sentences express processes; and lexical aspects such as that of process are sometimes studied separately from the grammatical subjects with which they are associated. By the same token, the study of grammatical subjects or NPs—even those most intimately related to processes and the corresponding predicates—sometimes ignores the features of these distinctive forms of predication to which they are subject. In reality, however, neither of these questions—of what the sentences are about, or of what is being attributed to their subject-matters—can be adequately answered independently of the other. It is essential to understanding the nature of what NCNs denote to understand the nature of such predications; and vice-versa. And it will be helpful always to keep in mind the Russellian distinction between grammatical and logical subjects. But before approaching this phenomenon in greater depth, it is best to look at the behaviour and significance of the very simplest forms bare sentences can take.

3.3. Bare Sentences and Others Now, my central goal is to understand non-count sentences like: (3) Water is pouring out of cracks in the dam. In order to understand such statements, it will help to understand the homologous form of count sentence, as exemplified by: (1) Ants are pouring out of cracks in the walls. In turn, however, an understanding of (1) itself is most easily achieved on the basis of a prior account of less complex forms of bare sentence; and to this end, I will take the sentence: “Dogs are barking.” And finally, a simple bare sentence such as this is itself best approach in the context of some cognate non-bare sentences. In order to accomplish this purpose, then, I propose to compare and contrast the three NL sentences: (a) A dog is barking; (b) Some dogs are barking; (c) Dogs are barking.

Identity, Ontology and Flux

323

There are then four steps towards the goal of explicating (2), and the first step—that of understanding simple bare sentences involving CNs, in relation to cognate non-bare sentences—calls for a relevant account of the cognate non-bare sentences themselves. And to fully understand these sentences, it will not do to look only to their truth-conditions—that is, in effect, their formal counterparts in the predicate calculus. Those counterparts capture one crucial dimension of their meanings—all three sentences above entail quantified sentences —but this is not the only such dimension.24 In particular, there are significant semantic differences between the powers of “a dog,” “at least one dog,” and “dogs”— differences which must be understood in non truth-conditional semantic terms. There is a precise sense in which (a) and (b) may be said to be indefinitely referential and quantitatively determinate; and in that sense, I suggest, (c) is neither indefinitely referential—although it counts as quantified, or indirectly referential—nor quantitatively determinate. In this respect, there is a difference between (c), on the one hand, and (1) and (2) on the other: (c) is, while (1) and (2) are not, quantified or indirectly referential. But as compared with natural language indefinitely referential sentences, singular or otherwise, which are quantitatively determinate, all bare sentences are quantitatively indeterminate—and this is a feature that they share with the use of the existential quantifier. The contrast of bare sentences, which are not indefinitely referential, with those sentences which are non-bare but indefinite, is vividly displayed in discourse-anaphoric contexts: it is a contrast in the role played by the concept of identity. Consider the implications, if (a) is coupled with or followed by: (a) It has been barking all night; and if (b) and (c) are coupled with (b) They have been barking all night. In the case of (a) and (b), the implication in both cases is that the very same dogs have been barking all night; but in the case of (c), all that is implied is that dogs have been barking all night. And the truth-conditions of this require only that during any suitably brief interval of the night, at least one dog was barking.25 In other words, the anaphor in (a) and (b) is identity-involving, and this is the intended sense in which these sentences, unlike (c), are indefinitely referential. For just this reason, (a) in particular is semantically distinct from its truth-conditional equivalent in the predicate calculus. The truth-conditions of (a) are indeed given by its quantified equivalent, the indirectly referential:

Chapter Sixteen

324

(a') At least one dog is barking or (Ex)(Dx & Bx). But the semantics of the singular natural language indefinite article “a” or “an” go beyond this, and carry an identity-involving, numerically determinate force which their quantified equivalent does not, the latter being instead numerically neutral; it supplies no information whatsoever regarding numbers. In contrast, and in terms of its semantic content, (c) is exactly on a par with (a'), so that truth-conditionally, (a) and (c) are equivalent. The difference is that (c) is, and (a) is not, a purely existential sentence, lacking in numerical determinacy or implications of identity. From the standpoint of truth-conditions alone, (a), (c), and (a') in particular are all equivalent. None is quantified in the sense of delimiting or specifying quantity or number; none is quantized, as it is sometimes put. If, as with (c), there are said to be barking dogs, then there must of course be at least one (or in other words, one or more) for there to be any at all. But like (a'), the statement itself supplies no information whatsoever regarding numbers; it is numerically neutral. Notice here that (b) is distinct from (c) in both of these respects. That is, to say that some objects are thus-and-so is to say that a certain determinate number of objects are thus-and-so; to say that objects are thusand-so is not (it is, again, numerically neutral). The truth-conditions of (b) are given by (b') At least two dogs are barking. In other words, (b) is equivalent to “A number of dogs were barking all night,” and the idea of a number of objects is essentially the idea of determinate multiplicity; one thing alone is not enough to count.26 Contrary to this view, it has been claimed that the truth-conditions of sentences like (c) and not distinct from those of (b). Eytan Zweig, for example, opines that like non-bare plural sentences, bare plural sentences require at least two objects for their truth, even though—as he somewhat obscurely remarks—“the plural noun itself does not assert more than one.”27 Much of course depends upon the nature of the predicate; but the plural form of (c) notwithstanding, it is not rendered false if there is just one object satisfying the description. The statement, “there are snipers in this area,” for instance, would not be regarded as false, if there were a lone sniper in the area. It is possible that one who utters the sentence believes that there are or might be a number of snipers in the area; but this has no impact on the truth of what they say. The sense that bare plural sentences

Identity, Ontology and Flux

325

in general require at least two objects for their truth is not simply a consequence of their plurality, but seems largely the result of pragmatic rather than semantic factors. We may now sum up these observations. In the first place, unlike its non-bare counterparts, the bare sentence: (e') “Dogs have been barking all night” is numerically indeterminate and is not indefinitely referential. There is a straightforward sense in which it has a temporal predicate of which nothing needs be true: there need be no dog which has been barking all night. And in this sense, although it has—or better, perhaps, can be reduced to—an indirectly referential truth-conditional equivalent, the sentence has a grammatical subject which corresponds to no logical subject. As it stands, qua plural, it lacks a directly or indirectly referential subject; it has no non-grammatical subject(s). It is only by changing the structure of the grammatical predicate that it is reducible to an indirectly referential or quantified singular sentence, involving quantification over dogs and times, precisely because the predicate is distributive. The fact remains however that the semantically plural structure is no idle feature of the bare sentence form—were “barking” replaced by “gathering,” or “milling about,” there could be no such reduction. And secondly, sentences with the form of (c), (e) and (e') are identitycompatible: while they are not identity-involving, it is evident that their truth does not require a non-identity through time. I conclude this part by briefly recapitulating the main semantic contrasts between the three types of existentially committed sentences which I have represented by (a), (b) and (c). In (a), there is determinate talk of an individual object; in (b), determinate talk of a number of objects. Neither MEM is numerically neutral; both are identity-involving. Syntax notwithstanding, (c) is numerically neutral, and also non-referential; here, there is “undifferentiated” or numerically indeterminate talk of objects. (c) is a semantically distinctive MEM which is not, as such, identityinvolving. It is an existentially committed neutral way of speaking of objects of a kind; whereas in indicating the involvement of a number of individuals, and laying a semantic basis for plural identity-statements, the presence of the indefinite non-singular determiner “some” constitutes the introduction of an element which is adventitious from the standpoint of the kind or ontic category itself. The information that there are a certain number of things of a certain kind that are thus-and-so is taxonomically and ontically irrelevant. The sole categorially or ontically salient fact consists simply in the information that there are things of the kind that are thus-and-so, in a given context, and there is, of course, a parallel contrast for the case of NCNs. The

Chapter Sixteen

326

amount of stuff that there may be, of whatever kind or kinds, is no part of the ontology; what matters categorially or ontically is just that there is stuff of one or another kind. This is a more basic form of thought than those involving “some,” identity, or reference, and which introduce amounts. The corresponding overall taxonomy is shown in following table: Table 5: Overall Taxonomy GENERIC existentially ‘instantiation’ embodiment significant = of concepts OCCURRENCE NonExistential / non-neutral / Referential TYPES: existential ontic / quantized / definite Category neutral indefinite Concept / unquantized Kind CN “objects” “some “these “Objects” objects” objects” “an object” “this object” NCN “Stuff” “stuff” “some stuff” “this stuff”

3.4 Bare Sentences and Aspect Now, I earlier noted that bare sentences having the form of: (c) “Dogs are barking,” while not identity-involving, are nonetheless identitycompatible. In this respect, they must be contrasted with our initial problem sentence (1). Consider then the upshot, if (1) is coupled with or followed by: (1a) They (the ants) have been pouring into the room for the past thirty minutes. It is of course true that the anaphor in the case of (1a) does not carry an implication of concrete identity—what is implied is only that objects of the same kind have been pouring into the room. But in contrast with the barking dogs, it is incoherent to suppose that the same ants have been pouring into the room for the past thirty minutes: (1) is flatly identity-hostile, and the numerically determinate (1') *Some ants are pouring from cracks in the walls is not wellformed.

Identity, Ontology and Flux

327

We must consider exactly why this is the case. Now an important feature of the predicate in (1) is that it involves at least three dimensions— two dimensions in spatial terms, and one in durative temporal terms. If ants can be said to be pouring from cracks in the walls, then at any particular moment, numerous ants must be emerging from cracks in the walls. It is of course not enough that numerous ants should be emerging from cracks in the walls. This does not yet constitute pouring, since what is happening at a particular moment must continue through time if it is to count as pouring. In other words, for ants to count as pouring from cracks in the walls, it must be the case that numerous ants are constantly (or continuously) emerging from cracks in the walls.28 In effect, talk of ants pouring from cracks is talk of ants emerging from cracks, but extended into a third dimension, the continuous present, “emerging at every moment.” So there are two types of things going on here; there are multiple events (or “achievements”) of emerging, and there is an unbounded process of continuing to emerge. We conceive the process as a continuation in time of what is spatially a two-dimensional set of events, the atelic temporal rolling process of the telic two-dimensional event of emerging. It will be true that at any particular moment, a determinate number of ants are emerging from the cracks, but this does not carry over to the process itself. Identity cannot be a feature of the process, simply because the ants emerging at different times are not the same ants; the process requires continuous change of subjects and no identity. And even though the verb or predication of emerging is itself distributive, the very fact that the emerging is here an element in the pouring process, which is collective, enforces multiplicity “backwards” upon the event of emerging itself. Here, then, there is spatio-temporal continuity of the process, ruling out or excluding the possibility of concrete identity, or ontological determinacy, of the subject. In the nature of the case, there is nothing in the process which is susceptible to reference or identification. And all this reflects the aspectual mode in which the predicate of (1) is “internally structured in relation to time.” At the same time, there is no question but that the truth of such sentences as (1) supervenes in some way on truths concerning individuals and their relationships. Any such processes described in count noun sentences cannot fail to be ontically supervenient upon the behaviour of individual objects of one sort or another. So far at least as count nouns are concerned, the issues here addressed are, from the standpoint of their “subjects” (but not of their “predicates”), semantic and not ontological.29 Now it goes without saying that many features of the situation described by (1) do not obtain in the context of (2). Since mass nouns are

328

Chapter Sixteen

non-singular, and in many cases also “pure” or non-atomic, there is no semantic prospect for the introduction here of units which would be able to play the role of single ants. There is no great difficulty in conceiving what is involved in the flowing, pouring, streaming or flooding, of ants. The process as such, it is true, has no determinate ontic subject. That is a distinctive feature of the kinds of process-predicates that are applied to non-singular subjects. But in our case, there is something that is plainly continuous through the pouring, and that is individual ants. “Pouring” cannot of course be predicated of ants individually, but “emerging from the cracks” can. And we have a reasonably clear analysis of the concept pouring as applied to ants, in terms of the emergence of individual ants from the cracks, whereby at any particular point in time (and allowing for a limited degree of vagueness in what period is covered by an event of emerging from the cracks) a certain determinate number of ants will indeed be emerging from the cracks. And the fact that this is a coherent and intelligible idea depends on the fact that ants have a finite size in three dimensions. But then there is, of course, a major disanalogy between the pouring of objects and of fluid stuff: the truth-conditions of (2) do not require that at any particular point in time, some water is some determinate amount of water—is emerging from the cracks. As ants emerge from the cracks, crossing a imaginary two-dimensional surface at their openings, each ant must take some time to cross the line, from head to tail, and for this reason, it is possible to assign a number of emerging ants to any particular time of emergence. But in the case of water, at any particular moment in time, there is merely the imaginary two-dimensional surface or “cut” through the water, as it flows out into the valley. No “three-dimensional slice” of water is crossing that imaginary line as it emerges from the cracks, as a number of ants must be doing to be implicated in the pouring process. A certain amount of water will, of course, have poured from the cracks in the dam at the end of any specified period of time, but while it is possible to quantify the rate of flow for any given unit of time, no amount is small enough to be emerging at any particular point in time. It would seem that the reality at any particular moment of emergence is unable to give grounding to the process of pouring itself, precisely on account of the difference between the continuity of water as compared with the discreteness of the ants. There is nothing to identify, nothing to which an identity can be assigned, to underpin or ground the constant flow or change.30 And without identity, there can be no bona fide subject for the predication—no definitely, indefinitely, or indirectly referential term. No more than what is pouring into the village, what is emerging from the

Identity, Ontology and Flux

329

cracks is, it seems, just water stuff, that is, of the water-kind—and here the indeterminate bare noun resists an explication. The only kind of subject in such contexts is syntactic. The predication of pouring, in the case of ants, is itself without a corresponding identity- involving subject; the process is continuous, the ants are not. Nevertheless, with bare sentences involving count nouns, it is a truism that there is an underlying level of identity; there is a semantic basis for a conception of ontic supervenience. But with non-count nouns, that level of identity has gone; there is no built-in notion of identity at any deeper level, no constituent units on the basis of which the process might be further understood. Sentences with the form of (2), I suggest, constitute the bottom line as pure embodiments of the matter-concept—ones in which the concept appears, unmarked and lacking the non-ontological element of identity or quantity, and so the possibility of reference. Distinctness and identity or quantity and reference—the difference between this amount of stuff and that—are, like number in the case of objects, adventitious principles, external to the category of stuff itself. The amount of water in a glass is irrelevant and incidental to the nature of the kind of stuff itself, no less so than the number of ants in a room is irrelevant to the nature of ant-kind itself. And this fact, I shall now suggest, is reflected in a crucial difference between kinds of stuff and kinds of objects, when it comes to mixing.

4. Mixture: Two Experiments I propose to contrast two kinds of mixture: object-mixtures, or mixtures of things, and stuff-mixtures, mixtures of stuff: these are cases in which the issue of quantity or number is, in every case, involved. Now if the question of separating out or re-identifying the ingredients is at issue, then where stuff or things of distinct types are mixed, the challenge might be relatively modest. Clearly, where things of distinct types are mixed— nuts with raisins, say—the challenge of tracking and re-identifying individual objects in the resulting mixture need not be addressed. If we wish to separate the raisins from the nuts, it is enough to separate the objects of one kind from the objects of the other kind. However, if objects of the same kind are mixed—say the peanuts from one bag with the peanuts from another—then of course we must track every individual object from at least one of the bagfuls being mixed. Somewhat similarly, where different kinds of matter are involved, the possibility cannot in general be ruled out that the stuff of each distinct kind may be separated out or recovered from the mixture by some process. A mixture of salt and

330

Chapter Sixteen

water, or of oil and vinegar in a vinaigrette, would seem be of just such a kind. But when aggregates of stuff of the same kind are mixed, and the stuff in question is fluid, just that possibility will not exist. This sort of situation is especially interesting; however situations of each kind are considered in what follows, and for the purposes of both contrast and comparison, I shall take the object-mixtures as the model.

4.1. Experiment One: Objects of the Same Kind Begin with a jug full of peanuts, and two bags labeled P and R. Pour the peanuts from the jug into the two bags. Each bag then contains peanuts; each bag contains some peanuts, or a number of peanuts. Now, add the contents of these two bags into a bowl and stir well. The nuts from the two bags are then well mixed: close to each nut from one bag is at least one nut from the other bag. The nuts that were in P can, of course, be recovered. But there is also a good sense in which those nuts are not capable in principle of either being recovered, or identified and distinguished, once they are in the bowl. There was no need to track each of the individual nuts and raisins in a mixture of nuts and raisins, in order to separate the contents into distinct bags of nuts and raisins again, there is no such solution to the challenge here. Since the objects are all of the same kind, we must rely only on the distinctness and re-identifiability of each and every individual nut. There are these nuts here, in P, and those nuts there, in R; but while these nuts are currently collectively distinct from those, they are not intrinsically distinct from those—other than individually. We then have no option but to rely on the tracking of each of the individual nuts from one bag, through the process of mixing. A principle of distinctness is a built-in, essential or intrinsic feature of each and every individual concrete object, but a merely accidental or extrinsic feature of several objects collectively. An individual object cannot lose its individual distinctness without ceasing to be; but a number of objects can lose their collective distinctness without ceasing to be. The collective distinctness of a number of objects is a function of their constituting a discrete aggregate or collection.

4.2. Experiment Two: Stuff of the Same Kind Take a jug full of pure water, and two glasses labeled S and T. Pour a small amount of the water into each glass. Each glass now contains water; each glass contains some water or an amount of water.31 Then take glass S, and pour the water from it into T. Glass T now contains the water from

Identity, Ontology and Flux

331

both glasses. Stir well. Now, if there is any reason to suppose that the water from each glass persists in T in any more robust sense than this—namely, that it was poured into it—those reasons are not obvious. In both experiments, we can distinguish between the contents of two separate regions of space—the nuts here and the nuts there, the water here and the water there. And in neither case does the mixing or mingling involve the mixing or mingling of distinct kinds. Collectively, in experiment one, the nuts here are distinct from the nuts there; and analogously for experiment two, the water here is distinct from the water there. Just so long as they remain in P, the nuts in P are distinct from the nuts in R not merely individually, but also collectively. But there is no intrinsic collective contrast or distinction between the nuts which happen to be in the one place and the nuts which happen to be in the other place. That is why they can be mixed or mingled. The only ultimately relevant distinction in this case is that between individual nuts. But experiment two involves a semantically non-atomic, nonparticulate word for stuff.32 Here, ex hypothesi, there are no such semantically determined individual units to rely on. In aggregate, the water in T is, of course, distinct from the water in S—there are two spatially distinct masses here, two distinct bodies of water, their boundaries being constituted by the glasses. But there is nothing corresponding to the intrinsically distinct “atoms” or individual nuts, and once these distinct masses merge, their externally imposed distinctness disappears, and there is no longer any basis for distinctness whatsoever. The water in each of the glasses is distinguished by its boundaries, which are those of the distinct glasses—and which thereby constitute the water in each glass, as such, as distinct. In the absence of any a priori atomism in respect to the meaning of these nouns, there is no basis for a belief in some other intrinsic principle of distinctness and identity. The concepts here at issue are consistent with—that is, they permit—the possibility of total fusion. There is nothing in these concepts to preclude the possibility of such a fusion. Insofar as the water from glass S was added to glass T, there is plainly some sense in which the water from each glass can be said to be now in glass T. But this justifies no belief in the continued or potentially distinct existence of the water from either S or T. There is no basis for a belief that the water that was in either glass must, a priori, be capable of being recovered (or could even re-appear by some very lucky accident if the water is again poured into distinct glasses). The “identity” in question is adventitious or external as against intrinsic. The thought that the water which was in S is now in T is a possible thought, only because of what had

332

Chapter Sixteen

happened in the past; it need correspond to no actual distinction in the contents of glass T. Locke insists that a principle of physical distinctness or exclusiveness is a feature of the concept of a body or material substance. But in the case of a number of bodies collectively, or of an amount of stuff in aggregate, the distinctness is an accidental or adventitious feature; the possibility of mixing or mingling is inherent in these cases. In other words, the identity of the water now in T with the water previously in T and S is not a function of the persistence of the water previously in T and the water previously in S . That identity is not a function of the persistence of any “sub-amounts” of water. It is a necessary condition of the identity of the water now in T with the water previously in T and S that the amount of water now in T is identical with the sum of the amounts of water previously in each of T and S. But the amount of water in T, like the number of people in this room, is a kind of abstract magnitude, and not a concrete “portion,” “quantity,” or “mass.” A principle for the conservation of the amount of water involved in a fusion is not a principle for the conservation or persistence of some concrete stuff itself. Fundamentally then, qua stuff of the very same kind, water (along with other kinds of stuff) is indeed undifferentiated: there may be water here and water there; but while it may be warm here and cold there, dirty here and clean there, it has no intrinsically differentiating features. In short, the difference between the water here and the water could be absolutely nothing over and above the difference between here and there—the difference between two places where water can be found. Given a stipulation that the context of the experiment is that of a closed system, whereby nothing leaves or enters the domain of the experiment, it is reasonable to believe that the amount of water before and after mixing is the same. Ceteris paribus, the volume (or any other measure) of water in glasses S and T before the merger cannot fail to be the same as that in glass T past the merger; but that is a very different matter. Appropriately qualified, this would certainly appear to be a kind of a priori truth. Aside from the semantically atomic class of NCNs, it seems that there can be no more to our conception of concrete quantitative identity, as applied to stuff of any particular kind, than that of spatio-temporal distinctness—where in the nature of the case, this distinctness needs to be externally imposed or generated, and is not intrinsic to the stuff. When addressing mixture in the context of a single kind of stuff, the idea that what happens at some particular time to be a concrete, isolated amount of matter must continue to exist no matter what, seems to be an illusion.

Identity, Ontology and Flux

333

There is no reason to believe that anything which could be said to be some stuff or some matter of one sort or another should have a built-in tendency to persist or perpetuate itself.

Notes 1. I call these visions “Aristotelian” and “Platonic.” They are sometimes attributed to or associated with these authors, as ways of making sense of what they say. Such an understanding of Aristotle is nicely defended by Vere Chappell in “Matter,” Journal of Philosophy 70.19 (1973): 679-696. It is in such a spirit that I proceed. But there is much that is obscure, especially in Aristotle, and whether the visions can be reliably attributed to these authors is a scholarly question that I do not address here. 2. William Charlton argues in Aristotle’s Physics: Books I and II (New York: Clarendon Press, 1936), 70-73 that Aristotle conceives the matter-form relationship primarily that of constituent to thing constituted, and not as a relationship of a featureless “prime matter” to the elements, ancient or modern. 3. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1029a. 4. Plato, Timaeus, 49c7-50a4. 5. Concepts of this sort are elusive; perhaps the most systematic attempts to grasp them have been made by European linguists, invoking the mathematics of nonatomic Boolean algebras and more specifically, join semi-lattice structures. These attempts seem akin to the theories of planetary epicycles formulated by Ptolemy in the second century of the Common Era. 6. Other contrived terms in use include “portions,” “bits,” and “masses.” However “instance” would be the most neutral and general term to make the point. 7. The terminology is unfortunate, in part, because there is little agreement about the extension of the corresponding class. See Frank Joosten’s excellent study in “Accounts of the Mass / Count Distinction: A Critical Survey,” Linguisticae Investigationes 26.1: 159-173; and “Proceedings of the 19th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics,” ed. Anne Dahl, Kristine Bentzen, and Peter Svenonius, Nordlyd 31.1 (2003): 216-229. Notice that the fact of demonstrative reference, or of something very like it, is sufficient to exclude, within some broad semantic class of kindred nouns, those nouns such as “poverty” and “mercy” which cannot be understood as words for stuff. 8. In Metaphysics: The Logical Approach (New York, Oxford University Press, 1989), 36-37, Jose Benardete contrasts what he calls the mass noun ontologies of the early pre-Socratics with the view of the subsequent “count nouns ontologists who came to dominate the field forever after.” 9. The abbreviated argument which follows is derivative from others. See Henry Laycock. Words Without Objects: Semantics, Ontology, and Logic for NonSingularity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

334

Chapter Sixteen

10. Some nouns are plausibly classified as neither as count nor as non-count, such as “scissors,” “pyjamas” and “trousers”—nouns that require numeral classifiers to be involved in counting. 11. Geoffrey Leech, Semantics: The Study of Meaning (New York: Penguin, 1965). 12. There is a question as to how the plural is defined. “Plural” here is used in a linguistic or semantic sense, as against “multiplicity” or “many” as involving existential matters. Existentially, it is a truism that many things are merely manyones. Adding a passenger to a car containing only a driver doubles the number of people in the car; add one to the first one and you get two. The semantic contrast between singular and plural is an altogether different sort of contrast from the concrete existential contrast. Unlike the plural, multiplicity or many call for more than one; these are not to be conflated. Such sentences as “No dogs barked,” “There are no dogs here,” “She did not hear any dogs,” etc..., involve plural NPs (and these would be false if even a single dog barked, was present or was heard). 13. Tom MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38.2 (2008): 301-323. 14. MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” 15. MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” 16. MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” 17. MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” 18. If the stuff here and the stuff there occupy distinct regions then it seems that there will also be two discrete masses of stuff—objects which are not identical with the stuff of which they are composed. 19. See Peter Hacker, “Substance: The Constitution of Reality,” in Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4, ed. P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 239-61; “Substance: Things and Stuffs,” Aristotelian Society (supplementary volume) 78 (2004): 51-63. 20. Willard Van Orman Quine, From a Logical Point of View (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Quine is only being consistent, when he speaks of “the universe of admissible objects, or values of variables of quantification” (emphasis mine). 21. MacKay, “Critical Notice” of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” 22. That Fregean logic is envisaged by its founder as a concept-script, and not a mere reflection of natural-language constructions, is generally recognised. However, it is ironic in the extreme that its cardinal mistake is to identify the object-concept with its linguistically singular embodiment—in effect, to identify the concept with the notion of the one, or to see it principally embodied in talk of this one or that one. The error is obscured, but not eliminated, in the “neutralisation” or replacement of this talk through the use of the existential quantifier (so-called), whereby talk of this one or some one is replaced by talk of at least one. This only works, of course, if we are already in the game, and many sentences remain impossible to represent; they lie beyond the boundaries of this notation.

Identity, Ontology and Flux

335

See Frege, Gottlob, “Function and Concept,” in Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 2nd Edition, ed. and trans. by P. Geach and M. Black (Oxford: Blackwell, 1891 / 1960). 23. The feature of indirect referentiality is an aspect of truth-conditions; it is equivalent to the phenomenon of bound variables or quantification. The feature of indefinite referentiality, however, is a semantic feature of natural-language sentences which goes beyond their truth-conditions. The difference is explicated in the sequel. 24. Although quantification is a feature of (c), it is not a feature of of bare existential sentences in general. A distinction will have to be made, among sentences which are not indefinitely referential, between those which are quantified or indirectly referential, and those which are not. As I argue in the sequel, it is the specific nature of the predication which determines whether or not such a sentence is quantified. 25. Notice that since barking is an (essentially extended) activity, as against a state, times must be understood as intervals in which activity occurs, not as dimensionless moments or temporal “points.” By the same token, truth-values must be assigned to sentences relative to intervals. In fact, it is far from obvious that such things as dimensionless points exist; their mathematical function in my view is as ideal obiects—purely heuristic devices or abstractions within formal models. On this issue, see especially Prat and Bree’s “The Expressive Power of the English Temporal Preposition System,” University of Manchester Technical Report Series (1993). 26. The claim that I have written some books, or a number of books, may be misleading although not false, if I have written only two; but the claim is outright false, and not merely misleading, if I have written only one. As Peter Strawson notes in Introduction to Logical Theory (New York: Routledge, 1952 / 2011), 178, it is a distinctive feature of “some” that it “carries an implication of plurality.” 27. See Eytan Zweig, “Number-Neutral Bare Plurals and the Multiplicity Implicature,” Linguistics and Philosophy 32 (2009): 353-407. 28. On the contrary, for flooding to occur, it seems to be sufficient that given sufficient numbers, there should be a sudden burst of ants emerging from the cracks. 29. For the predicates, on the contrary, the aspectual distinction between activity and semelfactive is indeed ontological—between continuous and punctuated processes. 30. As Heraclitus, Fragments, 56 (12), states, “upon those who step into the same rivers, different and ever different waters flow.” 31. Again, the amount of water ending in T (a mere abstract amount of water) is the sum of the amounts which were in S and T. 32. See Laycock, Words Without Objects, 1.6. But very roughly, the contrast is that between words like “wine” and “water,” and words like “furniture” and “footwear.”

336

Chapter Sixteen

References Aristotle, Metaphysics. Benardete, Jose, Metaphysics: The Logical Approach. New York, Oxford University Press, 1989. Chappell, Vere. “Matter.” Journal of Philosophy 70.19 (1973): 679-696. Charlton, William. Aristotle’s Physics: Books I and II. New York: Clarendon Press, 1936. Frege, Gottlob. “Function and Concept.” In Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 2nd Edition, edited and translated by P. Geach and M. Black, Oxford: Blackwell, 1891 / 1960. Hacker, Peter. “Substance: The Constitution of Reality.” In Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4, edited by P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein, 239-261. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1979. —. “Substance: Things and Stuffs,” Aristotelian Society (supplementary volume) 78 (2004): 51-63. Heraclitus, Fragments. Joosten, Frank. “Accounts of the Mass / Count Distinction: A Critical Survey.” Linguisticae Investigationes 26.1: 159-173; and “Proceedings of the 19th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics,” edited by Anne Dahl, Kristine Bentzen, and Peter Svenonius, Nordlyd 31.1 (2003): 216-229. Laycock, Henry. Words Without Objects: Semantics, Ontology, and Logic for Non-Singularity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Leech, Geoffrey. Semantics: The Study of Meaning. New York: Penguin, 1965. MacKay, Tom, “Critical Notice of Henry Laycock’s Words Without Objects.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38.2 (2008): 301-323. Plato, Timaeus. Prat, Ian, and David Bree. “The Expressive Power of the English Temporal Preposition System,” University of Manchester Technical Report Series (1993). Quine, Willard Van Orman. From a Logical Point of View. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Strawson, Peter. Introduction to Logical Theory. New York: Routledge, 1952 / 2011. Zweig, Eytan. “Number-Neutral Bare Plurals and the Multiplicity Implicature.” Linguistics and Philosophy 32 (2009): 353-407.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN PERSISTENCE, CHANGE, AND THE INTEGRATION OF OBJECTS AND PROCESSES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE GENERAL FORMAL ONTOLOGY1 HEINRICH HERRE

Abstract In this chapter, I discuss various problems that are associated with temporal phenomena. These problems include persistence and change, the integration of objects and processes, and truth-makers for temporal propositions. I propose an approach in which persistence is interpreted as a phenomenon that emanates from the activity of the mind. Additionally, postulating that persistence, finally, rests on personal identity. The General Formal Ontology (GFO) is a top-level ontology that is being developed at the University of Leipzig. Top-level ontologies can be roughly divided into 3D ontologies, and 4D ontologies. GFO is the only top-level ontology that is used in applications; it is a 4D ontology admitting additionally 3D objects. Objects and processes are integrated in a natural way.

Keywords Temporal phenomena; persistence; change; General Formal Ontology (GFO), identity over time.

1. Introduction This essay is devoted to the topic of identity over time and to problems arising from this phenomenon. If a thing really changes then it cannot be

338

Chapter Seventeen

identical both before and after the change. From this condition, it follows by contraposition, that no thing has undergone any change. On the contrary, we usually assume the existence of changing things, being identical over time. There are various approaches to solving this puzzle. Aristotle, for example, distinguished between accidental and essential properties of a thing. Then, the change of an accidental property preserves the thing’s identity, whereas the change of an essential property leads to a new thing. This solution to the puzzle depends on a clear distinction between accidental and essential properties. However, this distinction is controversial, and various solutions have been developed that do not require this distinction. But it turns out that all of these solutions exhibit some degree of weakness. A solution to this problem is approached within GFO by way of a deeper analysis of the notion of a “thing.” GFO defends the thesis that the phenomenon of identity of changing things arises from the integration of three different, pair-wise, disjoint kinds of entities. In GFO, these entities are called “presentials,” “continuants,” and “processes.” Processes cannot change as a whole, although they can possess changes; a change involving a process is a kind of discontinuity of this process. Continuants persist through time, preserving their identity, and may change through time. Since continuants remain identical over time, the changes to them are realized by another kind of entities, called presentials. Continuants are creations of the mind, and possess, according to GFO, not the same level of objectivity as processes and presentials. I advance the thesis that these subjective creations rest, finally, on the phenomenon of personal identity and the continuity of time; hence, the open problems of identity over time for arbitrary entities, are finally reduced to the problem of personal identity. The present paper continues the research of Baumann, Loebe, and Herre (2012)2 and is focused on the problem of persistence and the temporal incidence problem. In section two of this essay, I outline the problem and survey the basic approaches to time and temporal phenomena. Section three is devoted to elaborating on the basics of GFO, and section four presents an ontology of functions, whereas section five provides an overview of properties of processes. In section six, the principles of integrative realism, as adopted and developed by GFO, are outlined. In section seven, the basic integration axiom of GFO is presented and discussed; I defend the thesis that identity over time rests, finally, on personal identity, from which the creation of persisting, changing entities, called continuants, issues. In section eight, the conclusion and some further problems are discussed in brief.

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

339

2. Time and Temporal Phenomena Humans experience time through phenomena including duration, persistence, happening, non-simultaneity, order, past, present and future, and change. From this manifold of temporal phenomena, pure time, which is called “phenomenal time,” is abstracted.3 I hold that this phenomenal time, as well as its associated temporal phenomena, are mind-dependent. However, I assume that material entities possess mind-independent dispositions to generate these temporal phenomena. I call these dispositions, “temporality” and claim that they unfold in the mind as a manifold of temporal phenomena. This distinction between the temporality of material entities and the temporal phenomena corresponds to the distinction between temporality and time as considered by Nicolai Hartmann.4 A satisfactory ontology of time and its formal representation should treat the various temporal phenomena in a uniform und consistent manner. In the research of Baumann, Loebe, and Herre (2012),5 four basic topics are suggested, and a complete axiomatization of phenomenal time, in the spirit of Brentano’s approach, was presented. In the present paper, we focus more precisely on the following three topics. (1) Persistence and change; (2) Integration of objects and processes; (3) Truth-makers for propositions. Topic (1) above lacks a comprehensive and generally accepted theory. There are several approaches to cope with these phenomena. One approach relates to an endurance / perdurance distinction. This terminology was introduced by Mark Johnston, and described by David Lewis in The Plurality of Worlds.6 David Lewis classifies entities into “endurants” and “perdurants.”7 An entity perdures if it persists by having different temporal parts, or stages, at different times, whereas an entity endures if it persists by being wholly present at any time of its existence. Persistence by endurance is paradoxical and leads to inconsistencies.8 The stage-approach exhibits serious weaknesses.9 Both approaches are criticized by various arguments, while further alternatives, for example, those advanced by Haslanger (2003),10 reveal shortcomings, as well. Consequently, the development of a satisfactory and widely acceptable theory of persistence remains an open problem. GFO proposes an approach and claims that the persistence of spatio-temporal individuals is a creation of the mind and is as mysterious as personal identity.

340

Chapter Seventeen

Concerning topic (2) above, one must distinguish between 3D and 4D ontologies. In general, an ontology, admitting objects and processes, faces the problem of how these entities are related. A 3D ontology admits objects as the fundamental category of spatio-temporal entities. Objects are considered to be persisting entities that may change. Processes are introduced as a separate category, and the problem arises as to how processes are related to objects. Usually, a process in 3D ontologies is understood as an entity that depends on an object, and the relation, connecting both is a kind of inherence relation. This approach has serious drawbacks, in particular in the field of physics.11 In 4D ontologies, processes are the fundamental category of spatio-temporal entities, and there are no objects in the sense of 3D ontologies. Objects in a 4D ontology are particular processes. Hence, there is no integration problem. However, pure 4D ontologies do not adequately treat ordinary objects that are actually not processes. Therefore, they are conceptually incomplete. GFO offers another solution to problem (2). Since GFO is basically a 4D ontology, objects must be introduced and explained. Objects in GFO are not processes, although they are naturally related to processes; and this relation is expressed by the integration axiom. Topic (3) concerns the problem of what kind of entity makes propositions true, and how this truth-relation can be made explicit. I restrict this problem to truth-makers, being spatio-temporal, material entities. Then, for propositions M, I must specify a relation |= and introduce entities TM, such that for e in TM: e |= M. Since in GFO processes are the most fundamental category, we may assume that e is grounded on a process. A process exhibits several levels of description, which can be understood as properties of processes. Hence, the condition e |= M holds, if e is a property of a process. Hence e serves a truth-maker for M. Since M is closely tied to a process, M itself can be considered as property of e.

3. The Basics of GFO In GFO, the entities of the world, being different from sets, are classified into categories and individuals. Categories can be instantiated, whereas individuals are not instantiable. GFO allows for categories of higher order—there are categories whose instances are themselves categories, for example, the category, “species.” Spatio-temporal individuals are classified along two axes. The first one explicates the individuals’ relation to time and space, and the second one describes the individuals’ degree of existential independence.

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

341

3.1. Classification of Individuals Based on Their Relation to Space and Time Spatio-temporal individuals are classified into continuants, presentials, and processes. Continuants persist through time, and have a lifetime; they correspond to ordinary objects, as cars, balls, trees, etc…. The lifetime of a continuant is presented by a time interval of non-zero duration; such time intervals are called “chronoids” in GFO.12 Continuants are individuals that may change, for example, an individual cat C crossing the street. Then, at every time point t of crossing, C exhibits a snapshot C(t); these snapshots differ with respect to their properties. Further, the cat C may lose parts of itself during crossing, though, remaining the same entity. The entities C(t) are individuals of their own, called presentials; they are wholly present at a particular time-point, being a time-boundary. Presentials cannot change, because any change needs an extended time interval or two coinciding time-boundaries. Processes are temporally extended entities that happen in time, for example, a run; they can never be wholly present at a time-point. Processes have temporal parts, being themselves processes. If a process P is temporally restricted to a time-point, then it yields a presential M, which is called a process boundary of P. Hence, presentials have two different origins; they may be snapshots of continuants or process boundaries. There is a duality between processes and presentials, the latter are wholly present at a time-point, whereas this is never true for processes. The corresponding classes / sets of individuals, denoted by the predicates Cont(x), Pres(x), and Proc(x), are assumed to be pair-wise disjoint. Processes present the most important kind of entity, whereas presentials and continuants are derived from them. There are several basic relations which canonically connect processes, presentials, and continuants, as will be outlined below.

3.2. Classification of Individuals Related to Degree of Independence and Complexity Spatio-temporal individuals, according to the second axis, are classified with respect to their complexity and their degree of existential independency. Attributives depend on bearers, which can be objects (continuants, presentials) and processes, whereas processes are always parts of situations. Situations are parts of reality that can be comprehended as coherent wholes.13 An example of a situation is a football match with temporal extension and spatial location, which includes various entities

Chapter Seventeen

342

such that a coherent whole is established. Situations are classified into temporally extended situations, sometimes called “situoids,” and “presentic situations,” being present at time-point. A presentic situation is a snapshot of a football match. Situations are considered as being individuals, the specification of which needs universals (in particular, relational universals), associated with them. We assume that contexts can be regarded as situations. There is a variety of types of “attributives,” among them, qualities, roles, functions, dispositions, and structural features. Categories the instances of which are attributives are called “properties” throughout this paper. According to the different types of attributives (relational roles, qualities, structural features, individual functions, dispositions, factual, etc...) we distinguish “quality properties” (or intrinsic properties) and “role properties” (extrinsic properties), and the role properties are classified into “relational role properties” (or “relational properties”), and “social role properties” (social properties), etc…. The dependency relations between the entities of different types are displayed in Figure 1.

  

 ”‘…‡••



 ‹–—ƒ–‹‘

––”‹„—–‹˜‡

„Œ‡…– ȋ”‡•‡–‹ƒŽǡ ‘–‹—ƒ–Ȍ

Figure 1.

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

343

4. Functions The work of analyzing the different types of attributives is in progress. Any of these types establishes an ontology of its own. In this section, I summarize the ontology of “functions” of GFO. Functions exhibit important properties of entities that cannot be extracted from measurements; they are mental constructions. A function, in GFO, possesses a psychological entity as a component. This entity is an idea or a thought which is directed to a goal in the future. Psychological entities belong to the psychological stratum,14 being one of the four fundamental ontological regions adopted by GFO. This goal of a function can be understood as a set of situations to be achieved, and this set is described by a category. These goals are imagined in the future (they are, in a sense, anticipated entities); hence, to achieve them, one must start with the existing present situations. These situations, which I am starting from, are called “requirements.” On a more abstract level, a function in OF relates initial situations, called requirements, to situations to be achieved, called “goals.” A functional item is a set of necessary conditions that an entity must satisfy in order to be able to achieve the goal within a realization. The term function in OF exhibits various meanings that are made explicit as follows. A function f can be an intentional entity, called “intentional function,” specified by the predicate IntF(f); a function f can be understood as a conceptual structure, called “conceptual function,” and specified by ConcF(f); a function f can be an “individual function,” specified by IndF(f); finally, a function f can be understood as a “universal function,” specified by the predicate UnivF(f). There are relations between these different interpretations of a function which can be expressed by logical formulae. Throughout the remainder of this chapter, I will use the term function in the sense of a “conceptual structure,” the term “universal function” as a concept, and the term “individual function” denotes an individual. In the framework of GFO, an individual functions is an attributive, a universal function is a concept, whereas a conceptual structure is a system composed of concepts and sets. Here is the definition of a function: a function f is a conceptual structure CStr(f) of the following form: CStr(f)=(Label(f), Req(f ), Goal(f ), FItem(f)), where:

344

Chapter Seventeen

x Label(f) denotes a set of labels of function f, which are natural language expressions, informally describing “to do something.” x Req(f) denotes a concept, called “requirements,” the instances of which are parts of material reality, which must be present if the function f is to be realized. x Goal(f) denotes a concept the instances of which are parts of material reality being intended by some agent as a result of successful realizations of the function f. x FItem(f), called functional item of f, is a system of necessary properties which a bearer of f must satisfy to execute a realization of f. A function specifies what is to be done, whereas the realization of functions exhibits another aspect—it refers to a specification of how a goal of the function comes to reality. A realization of a function is an individual spatio-temporal entity that is based on a binary relation, linking a function with an entity to be brought about. Intuitively, we call an “actual realization” the function f an entity that results in an achievement of an individual goal of f in the circumstances satisfying an individual requirement of f, hence, an actual realization connects an individual requirement of a function f with an individual goal of it. The binary relation Rlact(x,y) has the meaning x, which is an actual realization for the function y. A category x is called an actual universal realization of a function y, denoted by UnRlact (x,y), if every instance of x is a realization of y, and furthermore, the instances of x cover the requirements of the function. Often a realization is a complex entity that has a number of entities participating in it. In certain situations, some of these entities can be identified as those that execute the function realization. The execution of entity y by entity x, denoted by the binary relation Exe(x,y), is understood as a causal influence that x has on y.15 For instance, to the process p of blood movement, which is a realization of function f: to pump blood, contribute the heart h, the blood, and the veins. However, the role that the heart h has in the process p is different from the roles of veins and blood, namely, it is the heart which actually pumps blood and, thus, it can be said that the heart h executes the realization p of the function f. The inter-relations between the mentioned entities are expressed by the fact Exe(h,p), saying that the heart h executes the process of blood movement p. An individual x, executing a realization of a function f, is called an actual realizer of function f and is expressed by a relation RAct(x,f).

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

345

5. Properties and Truth-Makers Properties, according to section three above, are categories (concepts), the instances of which are attributives. I defend a minimalist approach to properties and restrict my investigation to properties of material entities, notably, material continuants, presentials, and material processes. A truthmaker for a proposition M is a part P of reality that satisfies M (satisfying M, denoted by P | = M, called “P makes M true.” The explication of the relation sat(X,Y) must clarify what kind entities X,Y are, and how the relation sat(X,Y) can be clearly described. We advocate that X has the form (P, S, f), where P is a process, and S is a situation, associated to P, and f is a part of S. Since propositions can have a very complex nature, we restrict our investigation to the simplest propositions, called, throughout this paper, elementary propositions. Elementary propositions correspond to single facts.

5.1. Properties of Processes Since objects depend on processes, a classification of processual properties includes the properties of objects as a special case. We classify properties of processes with respect to two dimensions, the level of abstraction, and the temporal structure. The levels of abstraction are grounded on various types of mental procedures, called intentional acts. The most basic, intentional act is a direct perception of a visual situation: a part of the world is comprehended as coherent whole. An analytic intentional act of the mind distinguishes objects, properties, and facts within the situation. Finally, by a meta-reflective intentional act propositions a formed, the content of which is related to the entities created by the analytic intentional act. Let us consider an example. A person sees a scene as a whole, say, a situation of a football match. The analytic intentional act of this person results in distinguishing individual players, the ball and the goal. Furthermore, the person sees a player shooting the ball to the goal. From this he may create the following fact F: “the player’s shooting the ball to the goal,” and by a meta-reflective intentional act he may create the following proposition P: “the player is shooting the ball to the goal.” The fact F, as a part of reality, is neither true nor false, whereas the proposition P has a truth-value, and the fact F makes the proposition P true. Furthermore, the fact F is not the same as the underlying process; any fact is grounded on a process, and, in a sense, we may say that this fact is an attributive (a property) of the underlying process.

Chapter Seventeen

346

Phenomenal properties can be directly perceived or measured; they exhibit a sublevel of the analytic level. Examples are the size, weight, or velocity of an object, or its color or form. Facts are constructed by using relations and relators, which are creations of the mind; the same holds for functions. They cannot be directly perceived or measured, for example, the function of hammering, being ascribed to stone. Finally, the propositional level is created by meta-reflective intentional acts, yielding propositions and background knowledge. We may call this level the knowledge level. Obviously, the knowledge level adds information to the processual information, which cannot be directly extracted from the process. This kind of knowledge can be understood as an interpretation of the process. Any of these levels exhibit a two-sided dependence. On the one hand, they depend on the real process, being independent from the subject, and on the other hand, it depends on the mind. There is an active interrelation between the objective process and the mind, and this interrelation is explicated on the basis of the integrated realism and ontological pluralism, being a basic assumption of GFO.

(meta-reflective) ”‘’‘•‹–‹‘ƒŽ ”‘…‡••

  (analytic)  ƒ…–—ƒŽȀˆ—…–‹‘ƒŽ

‹†

 Š‡‘‡ƒŽ Figure 2.

Another dimension for the classification of process properties is the temporal structure associated with the considered property. A property of a process P is presentic if it holds at a process boundary of P. The presentic phenomenal properties are distinguished into isolated and non-isolated properties. For example, the color red of a moving ball B, participating in the process P, and considered at a time point, is an isolated property of P, whereas the velocity of B at a time-point is non-isolated, because the determination of the velocity needs a temporally extended interval. A phenomenal property of a process P is global if it cannot be presented at a

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

347

time point, for example, an electro-cardiogram, viewed as a property of the process of heart activity. Similar distinctions can be made for factual / functional properties and for propositional properties of a process. If a process P is the realisation of a function F, then we say that F is a functional property of P; and this property is global, and hence, non-presentic. The functional structure of a process can be rather complex, because a process can have temporal parts, realising various different functions.

5.2. Truth-Makers The basic idea is that a propositions M is satisfied by an entity (P, S, f), where P is a process, being the foundation of a situation S, and f is a part of S. In the simplest case f is a single fact, hence, (P, S, f) |= M. S can be considered as a complex property of P, created by the mind. Typically, f is a property of a process, for example a fact. Obviously, the whole situation S (if temporally extended) is based on the process. We explain this by an example: “John’s drinking of a beer” is a part (denotes a part) of reality associated to a process, whereas “John is drinking a beer” is a proposition that can be true or false, namely, it has a truth-value. The same holds for facts. Propositional properties can be classified similarly. A process P has the propositional property M if P satisfies M in the sense that P is a truth-maker for M. A proposition refers to the level of factual / functional properties of a process, hence, the relation of a propositional property to the phenomenal level is indirect. Though, usually it is possible to acquire data of the phenomenal level (say measurements) associated to a factual, or function or propositional property.

6. Integrative Realism of GFO and Ontological Pluralism GFO advances four ontological regions, the material region (including the domains of natural sciences as physics, chemistry, and biology), the psychological region, the socio-systemic region, and the ontological region of ideal entities. This approach draws, among others, on ideas of Hartmann (1965)16 and Poli (2001).17 The region of ideal entities includes Platonic ideas, in particular, the mathematical entities, but additionally creations of the mind, among them idealizations in science, model-constructions, and theories. These four regions are interrelated; the psychological and the socio-systemic region is founded on the material region. The mind is an entity that has relations to any of these regions; it might be considered as the basis for the region’s integration and unification. The psychological and the socio-systemic region are mutually interrelated and active in both

348

Chapter Seventeen

directions. There is a relation between mathematical entities and the physical world that is not yet understood, as emphasized by Wigner (1960).18 Integrative realism is a theory that is concerned with the interrelation between the mind and the ontological regions of the world, and the role of the mind for establishing an ontology in general. The mind can access the various ontological regions only by subjective constructions, notably by concepts. Integrative realism states conditions about the relation between the mind and the other ontological regions, in particular, the material region. Several phenomena are related to the material region, including matter, occupation of space, change, and movement. Integrative realism postulates the existence of objective dispositions, being inherent in the independent material things, and which need necessarily a mind to be unfolded and to come to reality. The color red, for example, is a subjective phenomenon that is associated to a physical entity e. This entity e has an objective disposition that is unfolded in a mind, so to become the subjective phenomenon of red. We hold that subjective phenomena cannot be reduced to physical objects. Hence, the unfolding relation bridges two completely different ontological regions, and the subjective region is governed by mind-internal laws which cannot be described by physical laws. A similar approach is expounded by Mausfeld (2002, 2013).19

7. Integration of Objects and Processes 7.1. The Axiom of Object-Process-Integration In this section, I consider the problem how presentials, continuants, and processes are related, and why we need an integration of these entities. Should ordinary objects be considered as perduring, enduring, or as stages of processes? We hold that we need all three of these entities in order to achieve a complete picture and understanding of the world. Let us consider the following sentence: “Today, on May, 2013 at 5 pm, John meets Paul with whom he was thirty years ago on January 1983, at time 8 pm, involved in accident.” The terms “Paul” and “John” denote spatiotemporal individuals, and if they are related to the mentioned time-points, then we consider them as presentials. John and Paul are the same persons on May 2013 and February 1983, hence, there must be continuants, denoted by the terms “John” and “Paul,” which exhibit the presentic John and Paul at the respective time-points. Presentic entities have no temporal extension. Hence, a presentic John or Paul cannot do anything, since any action needs a temporal interval. Furthermore, the presentic Johns and

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

349

Pauls, exhibited by the corresponding continuants, must be causally connected such they cannot be “replaced” by other presentials. I postulate that there are processes, denoted by “John” and “Paul,” which are assumed for action in time and for establishing causal connectedness between the corresponding presentic individuals. It follows that the terms “John” and “Paul” denote different types of individuals that are needed to achieve a complete interpretation and understanding of these terms. Processes are the most fundamental class of spatio-temporal individuals, and John, understood as a process P, contains the presentic Johns by restricting the process P to time points of the process’ temporal extension. The restriction of a process P to a time-point t is called the process boundary of P at t. According to GFO, a process is not the mereological sum of its boundaries. We postulate that every material presential is a part of a process boundary, and, hence, that presentials have no independent existence, they always depend on a process. Continuants present the phenomenon of identity over time, and the question arises as to where the continuants come from. The problem of identity over time was examined by philosophers in Ancient times, but it was taken up especially in the European philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One idea is to think of the persistence of bodies, particularly those in motion, as a succession of new entities, or recreations at different places. Leibniz advances this idea in a letter to Princess Sophie, where he states, the duration of things or the multitude of momentary states is the collection of an infinity of strokes of God, of which each one at each instant of time is a creation or reproduction of everything, without a continuous passage, narrowly speaking, from one state to the next.20

According to GFO, continuants are creations of the mind, which are constructed out of presentials. This approach seems to be compatible with Leibniz’s idea; the strokes correspond to the presentials, and the continuous passage between the momentary states is an illusion, based on the introspectively accessed continuous flow of time. However, in contrast to Leibniz’s approach, a continuant in GFO is additionally underpinned by a process. Any process has a temporal extension, being a connected time-interval, called a “chronoid.”21 Given a process P and a temporal part of its temporal extension, then the restriction of P to this subinterval, denoted by P’, is called temporal part of P. The restriction of P to time-point of the temporal extension is called process boundary at that time-point. Obviously, every process boundary is a presential, namely, an entity being

350

Chapter Seventeen

wholly present at this time-point. According to GFO, these continuants are cognitive creations, built up from presentials (“snapshots”) by our cognitive apparatus in a similar way as seeing a movie in which continuants are created (out of the movie’s snapshots). The integration axiom of GFO states that for every continuant C there exists a process P, the boundaries of which coincide with the presentials, exhibited by C.22 A formalization of this axiom needs a number of relations: exhib(C, t, M) (the continuant exhibits the presential M at time point t), and procbd(P, t, N), with the meaning that N is the process boundary of the process P at the time-point t.

7.2. Axiom of Object-Process Integration For every material continuant C there exists a process Proc( C) such that the process boundaries of Proc(C) coincide with the presentials, exhibited by C, formally, ӁC (MatCont(C) ĺ ӃP (Proc(P) ն (exhib(C,t,M) l procbd(C,t,M)).

lft( C) = tempext(P) ն Ӂt M

In comparison to other top-level ontologies,23 GFO is the only ontology, used in practical applications, for which the processes are the most fundamental category of spatio-temporal individuals, whereas objects and their snapshots (presentials) depend on processes. This integration principle allows for powerful applications; it distinguishes GFO from other process ontologies. The approach of perdurantism by Lewis (1986)24 does not allow for continuants, i.e., concrete individuals having a life time and persisting through time by enduring, and exhibiting at any time point an entity, being wholly present at that time point. Another process ontology is presented by Sider (2003).25 The stages in Sider’s approach correspond to the process boundaries in GFO, although process stages are different from process boundaries. In the stage theory, a process is the mereological sum of its stages, which is not true in GFO. A process cannot be identified with the set (or mereological sum) of its process boundaries.

7.3. Continuants and Personal Identity In this section, I address the question of which mental conditions and features enable the mind to create continuants. I postulate that the creation of continuants is based on personal identity and the introspectively accessed continuity of time. Personal identity states that an individual

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

351

mind, a self, exhibited by consciousness, is identical at different times. But what does the expression “different times” means? A time may have a duration, hence it may represent a time interval. We assume that these “times” are time-points, more precise, time-boundaries of the temporal extension of a process. Consciousness as a state of the mind can be located at time points, although these instantaneous states are boundaries of a continuous stream of consciousness.26 An individual mind, a person, feels to be identical at different timepoints, and this feature is adapted to a series of perceived snapshots, being presentials. As a result, the mind creates a continuant, being an individual that is perceived as identical over time. We hold that the construction of continuants in the case of a movie has the same nature. There are various approaches to explain personal identity. One attempt is the following memory argument for personal identity which turns out to be circular: “A being the same person as B” in terms of A remembering what happened to B. However, any plausible analysis of “A remembering what happened to B” will mention, in this analysis, A being the same person as B. There another approach that the enduring self is a fiction, or a figment of the imagination. We have no reason to think “I” in terms of a single unified self that owns a variety of experiences or states; we have only access to the succession of the states themselves. The enduring self is then a fiction, or a figment of the imagination. But where does this imagination comes from? Does this imagination assume already personal identity? The nature of conscious experience has been the largest obstacle to physicalism, behaviorism, and functionalism in the philosophy of mind. We conclude this section with somewhat speculative remarks. The phenomenon of personal identity may emanate from a sub-conscious level of the self. In Buddhism, there is the notion of Ɩtman: the self or soul, conceived of as lying behind the empirical self, and in Hindu thought an eternal unity behind the self is postulated, identified with Brahman. Another understanding of personal identity can be related to the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Personal identity is grounded on the subconscious will. There are individual wills, which are reflected and mirrored in the conscious component of the self and constitute the person’s core. That said, these individual wills are related to some eternal unifying will of the world. In the spirit of Schopenhauer’s philosophy we may postulate that the integration of the individual will, the conscious self, and the eternal universal will creates personal identity. According to Schopenhauer,

352

Chapter Seventeen Die Identität des Subjekts des Wollens mit dem erkennenden Subjekt, vermöge welcher das Wort ‘Ich’ beide einschließt und bezeichnet, ist der Weltkknoten und daher unerklärlich. ... Eine wirkliche Identität des Erkennenden mit dem als wollend Erkannten, also des Subjekts mit dem Objekt, ist unmittelbar gegeben. Wer aber das Unerklärliche dieser Identität sich recht vergegenwärtigt, wird sie mit mir das Wunder schlechthin nennen.27

8. Conclusion and Further Research In the present essay, I have expounded and discussed an approach to persistence through time, and to the temporal incidence problem. Changing entities, being identical over time, are exemplified by continuants, and I state the hypothesis that such entities are creations of the mind. I hold that these creations are based on two phenomena: the personal identity, and the continuity of time, accessed by the subject’s introspection. Hence, an ultimate understanding of identity over time is reduced to the problem of personal identity, and to the temporal structure of phenomenal time. The framework, presented in this paper, can be further developed in several directions. First of all, there is a need to further elaborate a toplevel ontology of processes. This includes an ontology of processproperties. Furthermore, the integration-axiom exhibits a stable basis for practical applications; it was already applied to model stem cell processes. Concerning personal identity, there is extensive research on this topic in the philosophy of mind. Ontological pluralism and integrative realism may be useful in the investigation of this question.

Notes 1. I thank Frank Loebe for reading the paper and for his substantial corrections and remarks, which contributed to the improvement of the quality of the paper. 2. Ringo Baumann, Frank Loebe, and Heinrich Herre, “Ontology of Time,” in GFO Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS), Graz, Austria, 2012. 3. See Baumann, Loebe, and Herre, “Ontology of Time.” 4. See Nicolai Hartmann, Der Aufbau der realen Welt (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965). 5. See Baumann, Loebe, and Herre, “Ontology of Time.” 6. David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Blackwell, Oxford, 1986). 7. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds. 8. See Stephen Barker and Phil Dowe, “Endurance is Paradoxical,” Analysis 65.1 (2005): 69–74.

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

353

9. See Tobias Hansson Wahlberg, “Can I Be An Instantaneous Stage and Yet Persist Through Time?” Metaphysica 9.2 (2008): 235–239. 10. Sally Haslanger, “Persistence Through Time,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, 315–354 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003). 11. See Johannes Röhl, “Ontological Categories for Fields and Waves,” LNI, 2013, 1781-1874; and Philip Lord and Robert Stevens, “Adding a Little Reality to Building Ontologies for Biology,” PLoS One, 2010, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012258. 12. See Baumann, Loebe, and Herre, “Ontology of Time.” 13. See Jon Barwise and John Perry, Situations and Attitudes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983). 14. See Roberto Poli, “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality,” Axiomathes 12 (2001): 261-283. 15. Both the notions of achievement and execution are strongly related to the notion of causality and itself are important and are non trivial problems which however are out of the scope of the current paper and thus taken here as primitive. 16. Hartmann, Der Aufbau der realen Welt. 17. Poli, “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality.” 18. Eugene P. Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13, (1960): 1-14. 19. See Rainer Mausfeld, “The Physicalistic Trap in Perception Theory,” in Perception and the Physical World, ed. Dieter Hayer and Rainer Mausfeld (Chichester: Wiley, 2002); and Rainer Mausfeld, “The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality,” in Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance, ed. Liliana Albertazzi (Chichester: Wiley, 2013). 20. This citation is from Simon Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, under the entry “endurance / perdurance.” 21. Baumann, Loebe, and Herre, “Ontology of Time.” 22. See Heinrich Herre, Barbara Heller, Patryk Burek, Robert Hoehndorf, Frank Loebe, and Hannes Michalek, General Formal Ontology (GFO)—A Foundational Ontology Integrating Objects and Processes [Version 1.0.1] (University of Leipzig Technical Report, IMISE, Onto-Med, 2007); Heinrich Herre, “GFO: A Foundational Ontology for Conceptual Modeling,” in Theory and Applications of Ontology, Vol. 2, ed. Roberto Poli, and L. Obrst (Berlin: Springer, July 2010); and Heinrich Herre and Frank Loebe, “A Meta-Ontological Architecture for Foundational Ontologies” in On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems, ed. R. Meersman and Z. Tari (CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE: Proceedings of the OTM Confederated International Conferences); and Part II in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3761 (2005): 1398-1415 (CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 – November 4, 2005). 23. See, for example, Andrew D. Spear, Ontology for the Twenty First Century: An Introduction with Recommendations (IFOMIS, Saarbrücken, Germany, December 2006); and Claudio Masolo, Stefano Borgo, Aldo Gangemi, Nicola Guarino, and

354

Chapter Seventeen

Alessandro Oltramari. Wonder-Web Deliverable D18: Ontology Library (final). Technical Report, Laboratory for Applied Ontology (ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy, December 31st, 2003). 24. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds. 25. Theodore Sider, Four Dimensionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003). 26. An literary example of the phenomenon of stream-of-consciousness is mirrored and expressed by Molly Bloom’s saying over at the end / the conclusion of J. Joyce’s novel “Ulysses.” 27. Arthur Schopenhauer, “Über den Satz vom Grunde, §42. Subjekt des Wollens,” in Übe die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes von Grunde (Suhrkamp).

References Barker, Stephen and Phil Dowe. “Endurance is Paradoxical” Analysis 65.1 (2005): 69–74. Baumann, Ringo, Frank Loebe, and Heinrich Herre. “Ontology of Time.” In GFO Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS), Graz, Austria, 2012. Blackburn, Simon. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Barwise, Jon and John Perry. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983. Hartmann, Nicolai. Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965. Haslanger, Sally. “Persistence Through Time.” In The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, 315– 354. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003. Herre, Heinrich. “GFO: A Foundational Ontology for Conceptual Modeling,” in Theory and Applications of Ontology, Vol. 2, ed. Roberto Poli, and L. Obrst (Berlin: Springer, July 2010). Herre, Heinrich and Frank Loebe, “A Meta-Ontological Architecture for Foundational Ontologies” in On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems, ed. R. Meersman and Z. Tari. CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE: Proceedings of the OTM Confederated International Conferences; and Part II in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3761 (2005): 1398-1415 (CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 – November 4, 2005). Herre, Heinrich, Barbara Heller, Patryk Burek, Robert Hoehndorf, Frank Loebe, and Hannes Michalek. General Formal Ontology (GFO)—A Foundational Ontology Integrating Objects and Processes [Version 1.0.1]. University of Leipzig, Technical Report, IMISE, Onto-Med, 2007.

Persistence, Change, and the Integration of Objects and Processes

355

Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. Lord, Philip and Robert Stevens. “Adding a Little Reality to Building Ontologies for Biology,” in PLoS One, 2010, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.po ne.0012258. Masolo, Claudio, Stefano Borgo, Aldo Gangemi, Nicola Guarino, and Alessandro Oltramari. Wonder-Web Deliverable D18: Ontology Library (final). Technical Report, Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy, December 31st, 2003. Mausfeld, Rainer. “The Physicalistic Trap in Perception Theory.” In Perception and the Physical World, edited by Dieter Hayer and Rainer Mausfeld. Chichester: Wiley, 2002. —. “The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality.” In Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance, edited by Liliana Albertazzi. Chichester: Wiley, 2013. Poli, Roberto, “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality.” Axiomathes 12 (2001): 261-283. Röhl, Johannes, “Ontological Categories for Fields and Waves,” LNI, 2013, 1781-1874, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.po ne.0012258 Schopenhauer, Arthur, “Über den Satz vom Grunde, §42. Subjekt des Wollens.” In Übe die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes von Grunde. Suhrkamp. Sider, Theodore. Four Dimensionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Spear, Andrew D. Ontology for the Twenty First Century: An Introduction with Recommendations. IFOMIS, Saarbrücken, Germany, December 2006. Wahlberg, Tobias Hansson, “Can I Be An Instantaneous Stage and Yet Persist Through Time?” Metaphysica 9.2 (2008): 235–239. Wigner, Eugene P. “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13, (1960): 1-14.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN REVISION-THEORETIC SEMANTICS FOR JUSTIFICATION LOGIC WITH SELFREFERENTIAL CONSTANT SPECIFICATIONS ROSEN LUTSKANOV

Abstract This chapter deals with a major, yet still unresolved, problem, that affects the justification logic counterparts of certain modal logics, especially those which allow the derivation of Moore’s paradox. It is organized as follows. First, it introduces the formal framework of justification logic and briefly discusses the motivation for its elaboration. Second, the paper formulates the problem posed by the so-called “self-referential constant specifications.” Third, it deals with Moore’s paradox as it relates to the problem. Fourth, I sketch the main tenets of a revision-theoretic semantics, and propose a new solution of the problem of self-referential justifications. Fifth, I conclude by summing up the overall argument and providing some suggestions for future work.

Keywords Justification logic; Moore’s paradox; Revision theory; self-reference.

1. The Formal Framework of Justification Logic and the Motivation Behind It Justification logic is a relatively new logical framework that derives its ancestry from a well-known member of the still growing family of modal provability logics—Sergei Artemov’s “logic of proofs” (LP). It was conceived of as a formal counterpart of the study of epistemic justification

Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic

357

that settles some of the vexing problems of mainstream epistemic logic (e.g., logical omniscience).1 Its peculiarity stems from the fact that while traditional epistemic logic deals with implicit modalities like “Kp” (interpreted as “it is known that p”), justification logic incorporates explicit knowledge claims of the form “I:p” (interpreted as “I provides a justification to believe that p”) within its purview. In other words, justification logic does not study knowledge itself, but the ground of knowledge (self) attributions. Thus, it opens up a completely new dimension of research in epistemic logic, since if knowledge is not a primary notion, and is to be analyzed in some way or another, the quest for such analysis inevitably should tackle the issue of justification. As proved by the so-called Gettier cases, this seems to be a highly nontrivial task that future research will have to carry out. The language of justification logic L is two-sorted, and comprises: (1) a set of propositional constants and variables: “p”, “q”, …; (2) a set of evidential constants and variables: “I”, “\”, …; (3) a set of propositional operators: “™” (negation), “š” (conjunction), “›” (disjunction), “o” (implication), etc.; (4) a set of evidential operators: “˜” (application), “+” (sum), “!” (proof-checker); (5) a binding operator “:” which produces formulas of the form “I:p” where “I” is an evidential formula (built from evidential constants, variables and operators) and “p” is a propositional formula (built from propositional constants, variables and operators). The intuitive meaning of “I:p” is that I provides justification for p, namely, that if an epistemic agent S is provided with the piece of evidence, that is expressed by means of I, then S is in a position to know that the state of affairs or situation, expressed by means of p, occurs. The axiom system for the so-called basic justification logic (J0) comprises two groups of axioms: (I) the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus (PC); (II) the proper axioms of justification logic: (1) I:(PoQ) o (\:Po(I˜p):Q); (2) I:P o (I+\):P; (3) I:P o !I:(I:P). It is supposed that they characterize the connectives from group (4) above, and their intuitive motivation is discussed below: (a) axiom (1) is called “application axiom.” Obviously, it is a kind of epistemic closure principle that says that if we are provided with a justification for PoQ, I, then any evidence for P, \, applied to I provides a justification for Q; (b) axiom (2) is called “monotonicity axiom.” It captures a particular undefeasibility condition—it says that if we are provided with a justification for P, I, then if we add to it further evidence, \, then the compound evidence, I+\, still can be used as a justification for P; (c) axiom (3) is called “introspectivity postulate.” It expresses a well-known iteration condition—it says that if we are in a position to

358

Chapter Eighteen

know p on the basis of I, then we are also in a position to know this very fact. The proof-checker axiom is directly connected with the issue of constant specifications to which I shall now turn my attention.

2. The Problem of Self-Referential Constant Specifications As we saw earlier, given a justified proposition p, namely, I:p, the axiom (II.3) provides us with an array of formulas of the form I:p, !I:(I:p), !!I:(!I:(I:p)), etc…. What if p is axiomatic? The epistemic function of axioms is to solve the epistemic regress problem. This means that in order to treat an axiom as being justified, one needs no additional evidence; equivalently, any piece of evidence should be treated as justifying the axioms that we decided to treat as established before posing the question of justification in the first place. The so-called constant specifications capture this very fact: given the language of basic epistemic logic L, a constant specification for L is a set of formulas In:(In-1:( … (I1:A))), where A is an axiom and {I1, I2, … , In} is a set of evidential formulas. In order to treat as theorems all constant specifications, we need to add to the axioms of J0 a new rule of inference, called axiom internalization rule (or R4). It postulates that given a set {I1, I2, …, In}, we are in a position to infer the constant specification In:(In-1:( … (I1:A))). In this way, we get a strengthening of the basic justification logic J0 known under the name logic of justifications (J). The issue of self-referentiality arises from the fact that any set of evidential terms can be treated as justifying an axiom. What about the set {I, I}? If we apply the rule R4 to it and an axiom A, we shall get a constant specification of the form I:(I:A) which says that I justifies the claim that I justifies A. Obviously, I claims something about itself and therefore it is self-referential. This property is captured in the following definition: A constant specification is called directly self-referential if and only if it contains a formula of the form I:P(I), where P(I) is a formula, containing at least one occurrence of I. (Obviously, this is not the only possible form of self-referentiality. Indeed, a constant specification should be called indirectly self-referential if it contains a set of formulas of the form I2:P1(I1), … , In:Pn-1(In-1), I1:Pn(In). Indirectly self-referential formulas would not concern us here but the method for dealing with direct self-referentiality to be introduced below is applicable to them). In order to see why self-referential constant specifications are important, we shall need to introduce a new concept that is commonly applied in the study of modal logics. Obviously, if we replace any formula

Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic

359

of the form “I:P” with “P”, we shall obtain a translation, i.e. a mapping J Ÿ MJ between the language of justification logic and the language of an implicit modal logic MJ which is associated with it under this mapping. Given such mapping, we shall call J a realization of MJ. An interesting theorem, proved by Brezhnev and Kuznets (2006),2 states that any realization of the modal systems T, KD4 and S4 (a fortiori, any system comprising them) is directly self-referential (Kuznets 2010).3 In order to be able to show this, they made use of the fact that ™™(PoP) is a theorem of the above mentioned systems and this formula is not realizable if self-referential constant specifications are excluded. This poses a major problem, since it is not at all obvious how such specifications are to be evaluated in view of their clearly detectable circularity.

3. Moore’s Paradox It is precisely here where Moore’s paradox enters the general picture: T, KD4, and S4 are normal modal logics (Hughes and Cresswell 1996).4 This means that they all include Kripke’s axiom (PoQ)o(PoQ) and the rule of necessitation which says that if P is a theorem then P is also a theorem. Now we may argue as follows. Obviously, ™(PoP) is logically equivalent to (Pš™P). In particular, this means that ™(PoP)o (Pš™P) is a theorem of any system of classical propositional logic, whose language is augmented with the “box” operator (). Therefore, by the necessitation rule we get [™(PoP)o(Pš™P)]. But, applying modus ponens to this formula and the corresponding instance of Kripke’s axiom schema, we get that ™(PoP) implies (Pš™P). By contraposition, from this we obtain that ™(Pš™P) implies ™™(Po P). For reasons to become clear shortly, for any system in which the formula ™(Pš™P) is derivable is claimed that it derives Moore’s paradox (the explicit version of this is ™I:(Pš™(I˜\):P)). Thus we may claim that any system that derives Moore’s paradox derives ™™(PoP) and any system that derives ™™(PoP) admits no non-self-referential realizations. By transitivity of implication it follows that no system that derives Moore’s paradox admits no non-self-referential realizations. So, even though no apparent self-referentiality is present in Moore’s paradox, the logic of justifications shows that it is somehow related to selfreferential phenomena. “How?” and “why?” are natural questions to be considered here, but first, we have to take a closer look at Moore’s paradox and its intuitive meaning.

360

Chapter Eighteen

Suppose someone (let us call him M) comes to you and tells you the following: (A) “it is going to rain but I do not know that.” There is something utterly fishy in assertions like that—it is pointless for M to assert (A), although what is asserted can in fact be true and is meaningfully assertable by anyone else (Green and Williams 2007).5 In a nutshell, this is what Moore’s paradox is about. Let us see more closely where the problem lies (in fact, the following is a derivation of the paradox in the system T, whose characteristic axiom is pop—a claim, which if “” is replaced with “K” is called “factivity”; it is a definitional property of knowledge that may be expressed by means of the claim that if something is known then it is true). We know that M has asserted (A). When someone asserts something, he presents himself as being in a suitable position to know it, as able to ground his assertion by some piece of evidence that justifies its content. In other words, if someone asserts a proposition p, he makes himself accountable for its truth, accepts the burden to establish the truth of p in case it is questioned. Let it be granted then, that M knows that “it is going to rain but I do not know that.” Since knowledge is distributive with respect to conjunction, it follows that (1) M knows that it is going to rain (KMp) and (2) M knows that M does not know that it is going to rain (KM™KMp). But, knowledge is factive, which means that KM™KMp implies ™KMp. Comparing this with (1), we obtain an outright contradiction which shows that it is not possible for M to know that the content of (A) is true, and, therefore, it is not possible for M to assert (A) since the very fact that M asserts (A) undermines the precondition for the possibility of the assertion of (A). However, the proposition which captures the content of (A) may be true (since there is no contradiction involved in the assumption that someone is not omniscient with respect to the future climatic conditions) and may be asserted by anyone else (since if we reiterate the reasoning above with respect to N, we shall get KNp and ™KMp which is not contradictory if N and M are different persons). Thus far, we have considered a particular version of Moore’s paradox—the so-called “omissive version” which is concerned with propositions of the form (OM) (Pš™P). There is another version of the paradox, which is called “commissive” and relates to propositions of the form (COM) (Pš™P). If one replaces “” with “KM” and supposes, as above, that M knows (COM), we shall get another contradiction. First, suppose for reductio that KM(pšKM™p). By distributivity, this transforms into KMpšKMKM™p. Now, the second conjunct (KMKM™p) reduces (by the factivity of “K”) to KM™p which (by the consistency of “K”) gives ™KMp. This is obviously inconsistent with the first conjunct (KMp). It should be

Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic

361

noted that in any normal modal system (as in T, KD4, and S4), both versions of the paradox are derivable if and only if the formula (R) (Po™P)o™P is derivable (the proof is straightforward but rather tedious and shall be omitted here). Therefore, we may conclude that any system that derives (R) has no non-self-referential realizations. What is the meaning of (R)? Let us call the proposition P selfundermining (for S) if and only if, if S is entitled to believe that P, then S is entitled to believe that not-P. In other words, a proposition is selfundermining for S when S has a justification for P if and only if S has a justification for not-P. Then the explicit modal rendering of (R) says that if S has evidence, justifying the claim that P is self-undermining, then S should have no evidence, justifying the claim that P is true. Still further, this means that (R) is not easily reconcilable with the axiom of monotonicity: intuitively, (R) claims that S can have some ground to believe that P is true but if S is presented with further evidence which shows that P is self-undermining, then the ground to believe that P is true loses its former strength.

4. Revision-Theoretic Semantics and a Novel Solution Up to this point, I have established that the explicit realizations of systems deriving (R) should be viewed as both self-referential and nonmonotonic. There is a powerful framework for dealing with systems like this: Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap’s revision theory (RT) (Gupta and Belnap 1993).6 Here I shall provide a very sketchy version of the logic of justifications admitting self-referential constant specifications, using RT as a conceptual background. Obviously, given a formula F = I:P(I) we stumble over a seemingly insurmountable difficulty: in order to evaluate the left (evidential) side of F, we have to evaluate the right (propositional) side of F and vice versa. On the other hand, if we are presented with a hypothesis concerning the semantic values of I and P(I) (and their constituents) one can calculate a new estimation of the semantic values of I and P(I). Given this new estimation, we can get another one, etc…. In order to see how this works, consider for example the selfreferential formula (F) I:(pš™(I:p)). Since the formula on the right has “š” as its main connective, (F) in effect claims that I justifies a conjunction. Since, a piece of evidence justifies a conjunction if and only if it justifies both conjuncts, (F) is equivalent to (I:p)š(I:™(I:p)). Keeping this in mind, we shall construct a model of it, M, comprising three parts: propositional, evidential, and justificational. M shall represent the set of

362

Chapter Eighteen

propositions accepted at some stage of the reasoning procedure concerning (F). Let us assume for example, that we have the bootstrap assumptions M՝™p, M՝I and M՝I:(pš™(I:p)). Given what was said above, one may conclude that for Mc = G(M) (where Mc represents the stage in the argument concerning (F) that follows M), we shall have Mc՝I:p and Mc՝I:™(I:p). Furthermore, we shall have also Mc՝™p, Mc՝I and Mc՝I:(pš™(I:p)), since still nothing has changed regarding them (this may be called conservativity: we stick to our initial assumptions until we are presented with a sufficient reason to discharge them). But, since in Mc we have both I (Mc՝I) and the claim that I justifies p (Mc՝I:p), then it seems natural to accept p itself. But, this is plainly impossible, since we have already accepted ™p. (here the strategy is to view acceptance of formulas with lower complexity as more stable than acceptance of formulas with higher complexity). Therefore, the only option left is to revise the higher-order assumption that as a matter of fact I justifies p. Thus, one gets a model Ms = G(Mc) such that Msc՝™p, Msc՝I, Msc՝I:™(I:p), Msc՝I:(pš™(I:p)) (just as before) and the newly acquired Msc՝™(I:p). Given the structure of the justification of conjunctive propositions and the fact that we accept that it is not the case that I justifies p, it is possible to introduce another model Mss = G(Msc), such that Mss՝™p, Mss՝I, Mss՝™(I:p), Mss՝I:™(I:p), Mss՝™ (I:(pš™(I:p))). Here, the revision sequence ends (it reaches its point of alignment), since the information available, thus far, necessitates no further revisions. Moreover, it is obvious that the set of bootstrap assumptions was not stable, since we started with an assumption which was overthrown in the course of the argument (namely, that I justifies pš™(I:p)). Given that, my proposal for dealing with self-referential constant specifications is as follows: for a formula (F) I:P(I), treat (F) as true if and only if there is no revision sequence (namely, no bootstrap set of assumptions) which reaches a point of alignment where we have at the same time I, ™P(I) and I:P(I).

5. Conclusion What has been presented above is an unarticulated set of ideas concerning the question: “what are we to do with self-referential constant specifications?” As we have seen, this question is important, due to the fact that a large family of modal systems cannot be interpreted in the framework of justification logic if such constant specifications are

Revision-Theoretic Semantics for Justification Logic

363

excluded. Furthermore, the analysis of these systems motivates the reshaping of the idea of justification logic, as captured by the basic logical system J0. In particular, the monotonicity axiom seems untenable in view of the assumptions needed to establish the essential self-referentiality of the realizations of these modal systems. The moral of the whole story is that justification logic needs dynamic proof theory, adequate to the revision-theoretic semantics sketched above. What this proof theory should look like is a question to be answered on another occasion.

Notes 1. Sergei Artimov, “The Logic of Justification,” Review of Symbolic Logic 1.4 (2008): 477-513. 2. Vladimir Brezhnev and Roman Kuznets, “Making Knowledge Explicit: How Hard It Is,” Theoretical Computer Science 357.1-3 (2006): 23-24. 3. Roman Kuznets, “Self-Referential Justifications in Epistemic Logic,” Theory of Computational Systems 46 (2010): 636-661. 4. George Edward Hughes and M. J. Cresswell, A New Introduction to Modal Logic (London: Routledge, 1996). 5. Mitchell S. Green and John N. Williams, “Introduction,” in Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person, ed. Mitchell S. Green and John N. Williams, 3-36 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 6. Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap, The Revision Theory of Truth (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1993).

References Artemov, Sergei. “The Logic of Justification.” Review of Symbolic Logic 1.4 (2008): 477-513. Brezhnev, Vladimir and Roman Kuznets. “Making Knowledge Explicit: How Hard It Is.” Theoretical Computer Science 357.1-3 (2006): 23-24. Green, Mitchell S. and John N. Williams. “Introduction.” In Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person, edited by Mitchell S. Green and John N. Williams, 3-36. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Gupta, Anil and Nuel Belnap. The Revision Theory of Truth. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1993. Hughes, George Edward and M. J. Cresswell. A New Introduction to Modal Logic. London: Routledge, 1996. Kuznets, Roman. “Self-Referential Justifications in Epistemic Logic.” Theory of Computational Systems 46 (2010): 636-661.



CHAPTER NINETEEN AUTOMATIC ONTOLOGY ACQUISITION FROM TEXT: HOW FAR CAN WE PROGRESS? GALIA ANGELOVA

Abstract This chapter presents the current progress in the dynamic area of automatic knowledge extraction from free texts. The existing technologies for text analysis address several types of linguistic units that are interpreted as conceptual items: named entities interpreted as individuals, terms interpreted as concepts, attributes, hyponyms enabling construction of conceptual taxonomy, non-hierarchical relations, and facts and rules. Despite the methodological shortcomings, for example, the difficulties in understanding coherent discourse, and the high investments needed for improvement of text analysis, for instance, the incremental development of expensive linguistic recourses, automatic ontology acquisition is a hot research area that delivers many useful applications which support knowledge engineers in the design and construction of domain ontologies.

Keywords Automatic ontology learning; knowledge technologies; automatic text analysis.

discovery;

language

1. Introduction Advanced information technologies aim at the semantic processing of data and information. Computer scientists have always viewed semantic systems as a more sophisticated type of software. These systems use a great diversity of semantic resources of declarative, explicitly defined

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

365

knowledge. And they try to analyze text and speech, to understand the meaning of images, to make associations and to link them to previously known facts, and to discover new knowledge, etc…. Equipped with semantic systems, computers could behave as human beings. One finds in the literature on such topics statements concerning the importance of semantic processing for humans, for example: “semantic processing is a defining feature of human behavior, central not only to language, but also to human capacity to access acquired knowledge in reasoning, planning and problem solving.”1 The same statement is valid in computer science if the term “human” is replaced by “semantic system.” Nowadays, the development of high-quality semantic resources, namely, declarative encodings of entities and relationships, is a major challenge and bottleneck for the semantic technologies. No matter whether one terms these resources as knowledge bases or ontologies, their scalability is a central concern when building practical applications. Given that much knowledge is described in textbooks, encyclopedias, thesauri, and other text sources, a natural idea would be to focus research efforts on the development of scalable language technologies that are able to learn ontologies from natural language texts. However, automatic text analysis is a technology that has its own limitations and challenges; it also needs great semantic resources as well as techniques for contextual interpretation in order to resolve lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic ambiguities with a high degree of accuracy. Discourse processing and identification of co-references is another challenge. As such, the automatic learning of declarative semantic resources from text is a hot, dynamic research area, where successes in entity acquisition are incrementally extended by achievements in automatic identification of relations. That said, much remains to be done to ensure their proper interpretation. Automatic discovery of facts and rules is another challenge that is rarely tackled at present. This article presents some of the approaches that are used today for automatic ontology acquisition from text. There are several language technologies that enable automatic learning of entities and relationships from text units. They work with a relatively high degree of accuracy but deliver some percentage of erroneously extracted entities. In this way, it is difficult to identify in an exact way the concept types, and their instances, as well as the word meanings that denote types or relations. The extracted elements need human editing and final checks for linking them into an application-oriented semantic network. The validation of the text-based conceptual models against the application domain is also carried out by human beings. Finally, there is no clear methodology for how to interpret

366

Chapter Nineteen

the identified text units into conceptual elements when translating the language findings into conceptualizations. This is due to the lack of consensus in the semantic technology community on the target result that is expected from automatic ontology learning. This article attempts to explore these issues by presenting examples that employ publicly available tools for language analysis.

2. Text Units versus Conceptual Entities In computational linguistics, text analysis is successful when all text units and their features (morphological, phrasal, syntactic-semantic roles, etc.) are properly recognized. However, the acquisition of conceptual structures from text is more focused on task-specific attributes: according to the popular definition of ontology in computer science, namely, “formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualization,”2 the identified text units has to be interpreted as names of concepts or instances, properties, relations etc… and should be linked into a semantic network (see Figure 1 below). Words occurring in texts do not bear equally important semantic information. There are non-meaningful words like prepositions, which connect the text phrases into correct grammatical structures but are not assumed to refer to entities. Actually, the terms are viewed as the most important text units that denote ontological elements, since they are linguistic realizations of domain-specific concepts, and their automatic extraction is the basic step in automatic knowledge discovery. Terms are often realized as complex noun phrases so the extracting language technology should be able to identify phrases and paraphrases. Figure 1 also suggests that the text analysis modules are language specific, for example, they need to perform morphological analysis, for instance, recognition of plural forms, as well as phrasal analysis. Usually, the extracted entities are labeled with names that resemble the original text units. Typically, the ontological vocabulary tends to follow the terminology in some natural language. In this way, implicitly employing natural language phrases as ontological elements, we import the vagueness and ambiguity of natural language into the conceptualizations.3 Here, we shall discuss mostly software prototypes which analyze English texts and extract conceptual elements labeled by English phrases. The most widely used language technologies for identification of entities, phrases, and syntactic-semantic roles work within one sentence. Practically, this means that the knowledge chunks, communicated in several adjacent sentences, are identified as split conceptual structures.

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

367

 Figure 1. Extraction of the proposition “noun refer_to existent entity” after text analysis, using background knowledge (that “noun is word” and “existent_entity is entity”). 

Figure 2. Extraction of two propositions from two adjacent sentences without recognition of the explicit link between the discourse entities “ontology” and “structural framework.”

The example shown in Figure 2 illustrates the inconveniences of such a fragmentation. The identification of identical discourse referents within a paragraph of coherently adjacent sentences is a really challenging task in automatic text analysis.

368

Chapter Nineteen

3. Acquisition of Named Entities and Terms The identification, extraction, and classification of named entities from texts have attracted special attention in the 1980s, in the emerging area of Information Extraction and Message Understanding.4 All named entities— proper names, names of organisations, companies, locations, dates—can be considered as instances of respective concept types. Named Entity Recognition (NER) is usually approached by grammar-based text analysis. Often, the extracted text units are mapped to very large lexicons of names that are created in advance. The collection of such multilingual lexicons is an important text analysis activity per se. NER success is evaluated via the percentage of correctly recognized named entities that is a measure for the grammar coverage as well as an indirect hint for the number of available lexical resources of names. Advanced NER systems recognize named entities in unknown texts with more than 90% accuracy. NER might look simple for human beings, but actually it is a nontrivial task. There are different definitions of named entities and various approaches in relation to how to tackle the abbreviations and paraphrases of name parts. Here, we present an example for automatic NER using the on-line demonstrator Stanford Named Entity Tagger.5 This tool marks up seven types of entities: Location, Time, Person, Organisation, Money, Percent, and Date with the respective tags. Table 1 shows the tagger performance on two paragraphs selected from the Wikipedia page about Ontology.6 The identified entities are marked up with the conventional html-patterns ….. 

While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant record of the word itself is the New Latin form ontologia, which appeared in 1606, in the work Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) and in 1613 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolf Göckel (Goclenius); see classical compounds for this type of word formation. The current on-line edition of the OED (Draft Revision September 2008) gives as first occurrence in English a work by Gideon Harvey (1636/71702): Archelogia philosophica nova; or, New principles of Philosophy. Containing

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

369

Philosophy in general, Metaphysicks or Ontology, Dynamilogy or a Discourse of Power, Religio Philosophi or Natural Theology, Physicks or Natural philosophy London , Thomson , 1663 . Table 1. Automatic identification of persons, dates, organisations, and locations in unknown text.

Domain modelling starts by collecting of domain-relevant terms, since they are the “surface language manifestation” of domain concepts. The automatic process of vocabulary collection is called terminology / term extraction, or glossary extraction, and is often viewed as a subtask of Information Extraction. Typically, the automatic term extraction integrates linguistic pre-processors (morphological analyzers, part of speech tagging, phrase chunking) and extracts candidates, namely, syntactically plausible terminological noun phrases like: x compound noun phrases—e.g. domain ontology; x adjective noun phrases—e.g. analytic philosophy; and x prepositional noun phrases—e.g. meaning of being. The terminological entries are then filtered from the candidate list using statistical and machine learning methods. Once filtered, because of their low ambiguity and high specificity, these terms are particularly useful for conceptualizing domain knowledge, for supporting the creation of domain taxonomies and ontologies, for measuring semantic similarity among texts, machine translation, etc…. The multilingual term extraction identifies translation equivalences, which are further useful for second language learning and so on. Automatic term extraction from texts has been a hot research area in computational linguistics in the last decade. In general, the tools extract stable collocations (usually noun phrases) from corpora of technical texts and assign each unit a score in order to measure its importance as a domain term. Some extractors tackle the multilingual case, since large parallel corpora are publicly available too. Successful approaches rely on rules or training data (i.e., preliminary developed training corpora) and apply well-defined evaluation methods. It is agreed that automatic terminology processing should not be limited to extracting terms and terminology constructions only, but has to include also extraction of term

Chapter Nineteen

370

descriptions, attributes, synonyms, friend terms, and relations among terms.7 Mining the semantic features usually needs predefined knowledge patterns which are manually extracted from i.e., glossaries. I include here two examples of term extraction using the on-line interfaces of Term Finder8 and TerMine.9 Both extractors support public sites in Internet for tests and evaluation. The same Wikipedia entry (“Ontology”) is given to the two extractors: 12986 characters (or 2412 words). The document is too short to explicate the full potential of this statistically-based technology; moreover, there are only few repeating words in such an encyclopedic text.

 ʋ 1 2 3

Extracted term ontology ontological elementary ontic plurality

Score 66% 59% 54%

4

pense donc

53%

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

materialist atomism parmenides characterize atoms nouns epistemological certainty eleatic monism ontological pluralism platonist ontological doctrines metaphysics pense donc je suis metaphysics book theta archelogia philosophica nova ontological characterization non-physical entity atomistic theory

53% 52% 51% 51% 51% 51% 51%

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

materialist atomism proposed

Note

Fragment of the phrase in position ʋ 14

Verb phrase

51% 51% 51% 51% 51% 50% 50% 50% 50%

Context: The materialist Atomism proposed by Leucippus

Table 2. Top 20 candidate terms, extracted by Term Finder, with their scores

Nevertheless, the benefits are clearly seen. Table 2 (above) presents the results of extraction by Term Finder and some comments about the suggested terminological units. I note that some phrases should not be

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

371

interpreted as terms but the assigned score of certainty is relatively low (for example, for the term in position 20, only 50%). Table 3 (below) contains some complex terms extracted by TerMine and their contexts. I note that named entities are extracted again as they are recognised as phrasal units. 

Noun Phrases Extracted as Candidate Terms 1. common approach 2. extant subjects 3. categorical schemes 4. artificial intelligence 5. ontological categories

Context of Occurrence

One common approach is to divide the extant subjects and predicates into groups called categories. Of course, such lists of categories differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorical schemes that ontology relates to such fields as library science and artificial intelligence. Such an understanding of ontological categories, however, is merely taxonomic, classificatory.

6. subject / object split 7. modern philosophy

Is the subject/object split of modern philosophy inevitable?

8. extant record 9. New Latin form ontologia 10. Ogdoas Scholastica 11. Jacob Lorhard 12. Lexicon philosophicum 13. Rudolf Gockel 14. classical compounds

While the etymology is Greek , the oldest extant record of the word itself is the New Latin form ontologia, which appeared in 1606, in the work Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) and in 1613 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolf Gockel (Goclenius); see classical compounds for this type of word formation .

Table 3. Stable collocation, extracted by TerMine: names, adjective phrases, and noun-noun compounds.

4. Acquisition of Concepts and Taxonomies Automatic learning of concepts and taxonomies (i.e., the is-a relation) from texts requires conceptual interpretation of the linguistic knowledge about terms referring to specific concepts and their synonyms. Most often, hyponymy is interpreted as a hierarchical is-a relation. One of the first experiments for automatic discovery of hyponyms in unrestricted, domainindependent English texts is presented in Hearst (1992).10 Several handmade lexico-syntactic patterns, which signal the hypernym / hyponym

372

Chapter Nineteen

pairs, help to discover hyponyms by simple text mining. One of them is the pattern: 'NP0 such as NP1, NP2, … and/or NPn', where NPi are noun phrases. Another pattern is: 'NP1 is a kind of NP2', and so on. As pointed out by Hearst (1992),11 the discovered pairs are probably not organized according to the canonical ontological is-a relation, but the fact that they are found in a text implies that the relation between their meanings is closed to the is-a relation. This approach was extended in Snow et al. (2004),12 which presents an automated method of finding possible constructions that could signal a hypernym / hyponym pair. The algorithms find automatically numerous samples of noun-noun pairs in a parsed corpus. Then, applying machine learning techniques, the authors train a statistical classifier to select pairs of words that have a high probability of being hypernym / hyponym pairs in WordNet13 given the constructions which link the terms in the corpus. In this way, given training data of texts containing known hypernym pairs, the method presented in Snow et al. (2004)14 automatically extracts useful dependency paths in the sentence trees and applies them to new corpora to identify novel hypernym / hyponym pairs. Such novel patterns are, for example. 'NP1, a NP2', 'NP1 called NP2', and so on. The evaluation presented in Snow et al. (2004)15 shows that the automatic methods are competitive to the hand-crafted lexico-syntactic patterns for the identification of hypernym / hyponym pairs in text corpora. Hence, it becomes possible to generate automatically statistically-grounded hypernym taxonomies directly from large corpora. Clustering is the classical approach for grouping terms with similar meanings that might denote concepts. The assumption is that the semantically-similar words and terms should have similar syntactic behavior; therefore, this similarity should be seen more clearly after the raw text is submitted to a procedure for automatic syntactic analysis (parsing). Since good parsers are relatively rare, the acquisition starts very often from the results of simple analyzers that recognise the main sentence constituents only. The articles by Reinberger et al. (2004)16 present a typical knowledge engineering approach to building a taxonomy of terms. Initially the tool extracts automatically binary relations [Main Verb Nominal String], where the Nominal String is a sequence of adjectives and

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

373

nouns. Then the nominal strings are clustered according to the co-occuring verbs. A sample cluster from a hepatitis corpus is: {liver transplantation, transplantation, orthotopic liver transplantation }. Thus, the clusters of terms with similar syntactic behavior are candidates for domain concepts. After the mining of verb-object pairs, pattern matching methods help to acquire triples [Nominal string - Preposition Nominal string]. The result contains phrases like: blood_vessel_growth on ribonucleolytic_activity, amino_acid_residue in polymerase, primer from amino_acid_sequence. These triples are organised in classes of prepositional structures and are compared to the clusters obtained after mining the verb-object pairs. In case of similarity, clusters are augmented to form the following extracts: [Nominal String

Preposition

Augmented Cluster].

The obtained “correct” structures look as follows: [dose, injection, vaccination] of [hepatitis B vaccine, HBV vaccine, vaccine] [use] of [face mask, mask, glove, protective eyewear] [vaccination,vaccine] against [disease,virus, virus type]. This approach for extraction of terms and their organisation into concepts looks promising, as it requires no preliminary text analysis and it relies on relatively simple language processing tools that are implemented for many natural languages. However, it is not very successful. It was evaluated against UMLS17 by comparison of the extracted nominal strings to the UMLS labels. The recall (i.e., the percentage of correctly recognised nominal strings against all relevant nominal strings) and the precision (i.e., the percentage of correctly recognised nominal strings against all recognised nominal strings) were computed according to the quantity of UMLS pairs found in the clusters. The reported results are less than 33% recall and less than 17% precision, for clustering of 100-500 words.18 Adding prepositional information to the clusters increases the recall but the precision remains very low. The authors consider the

Chapter Nineteen

374

approach useful as a first step for ontology initiation, but only for a limited number of words. Human intervention is needed for further refinement. Another system called ASIUM, which learns concepts using clustering of verbs subcategorisation frames,19 works for French on the result of the parser SYLEX. ASIUM learns concepts from parsed text, so the input consists of fully analysed sentences with elaborated markers concerning the instantiated verbs subcategorisation frames. ASIUM learns verb frames like: . For example, from the input ASIUM creates two frames, one per verb:  which can be generalised as and . The resulting clusters are validated and refined by a human expert. The system was originally applied for a cooking recipe corpus in French. As reported in Faure et al. (1998),20 these texts have limited vocabulary with restricted polysemia, and the verbs are mostly concrete and action verbs. The automatic syntactic analysis is a pre-processing procedure, to better explicate the semantic relationships in the domain, and to support domain knowledge extraction.

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

375

In the last decade, the efforts of automatic ontology learning have been inspired by the trends to build the so-called “Semantic Web.” As Buitelaar et al. (2005)21 points out, knowledge acquisition from, and for, Web content requires a move away from small and homogeneous text collections and tackling the massive data heterogeneity of the World Wide Web instead. A more engineering approach to taxonomy learning by information retrieval is presented in Cimiano et al. (2004).22 It builds taxonomic links by solving a classification tasks for every concept pair. Let us consider two terms, say conference and event. They could be either unrelated or taxonomically related in three different ways: is-a (conference,event), is-a (event,conference), siblings (conference,event). Therefore, intuitively, the decision is to gather as many different sources of evidence as possible and to choose the relation with maximal evidence according to all of them. This approach combines information from: (i) linguistic patterns explicating is-a relations matched to a text corpus23; (ii) linguistic patterns explicating is-a relations matched to the Web; (iii) WordNet24 and its hyponyms; and (iv) the lexicalised is-a relation. Table 4 (below) contains some results for the is-a relation and the related probabilities. The assessment shows that combining diverse and heterogeneous information gives better results than classification according to a single source. The approach is evaluated against a handcrafted ontology for the touristic domain, using several evaluation strategies, and its accuracy exceeds 20%. The conclusion is that it makes sense to combine different approaches for automatic extraction of hypernym / hyponym relations, including extraction from raw corpora. conference is-a event 0.44 meeting 0.11 activity 0.11 A. Extraction from corpus

conference is-a service 0.27 meeting 0.11 activity 0.11 B. Extraction from Internet

Table 4. Evidence for taxonomic relations, extracted from different sources.25

376

Chapter Nineteen

5. Acquisition of Relations Here, I present approaches to the extraction of non-hierarchical relations between concepts. In computational linguistics, the relations identified in the text usually hold between two phrases of the same sentence. The existing relations might be explicit, i.e., there could be a preliminary given list of words that signal the relation, for instance, the relation part_of can be expressed by the verb have (The car has wields). Often, finding relations means acquiring selection restrictions for verb arguments; this is demonstrated by the ASIUM system,26 which explicates the relations between subjects and the respective verb subcategorization frames. In other cases, however, the relations can be implicit and more difficult to discover. Here, I briefly consider several kinds of relations that might be learnt from text with relatively high accuracy. Relations are discovered after defining their meaning, which implies the development of a (preliminary standardized) list of relation names and corresponding semantics.27 There is little agreement on lists of useful or suitable relations, but, in general, only binary relations between noun phrases are extracted (or binary relations between verbs and respective sub-categorization phrases as in ASIUM).28 Within the sentence context, extracted relations can be viewed as relations between instances; outside the context, these relations are interpreted as holding between concept types. The article by Hendrickx, et al. (2009) enumerates nine relations with sufficiently broad coverage to be of general and practical interest and adds a tenth one for all other cases: x Cause-Effect: an event or object leads to an effect. Example: Smoking causes cancer. x Instrument-Agency: an agent uses an instrument. Example: laser printer. x Product-Producer: a producer causes a product to exist. Example: The farmer grows apples. x Content-Container: an object is physically stored in a delineated area of space, the container. Example: Earth is located in the Milky Way. x Entity-Origin: an entity is coming or is derived from an origin (e.g., position or material). Example: letters from foreign countries x Entity-Destination: an entity is moving towards a destination. Example: The boy went to bed.

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

377

x Component-Whole: an object is a component of a larger whole. Example: My apartment has a large kitchen. x Member-Collection: a member forms a nonfunctional part of a collection. Example: There are any trees in the forest. x Communication-Topic: an act of communication, whether written or spoken, is about a topic. Example: the lecture was about semantics. x Other: stands for any relation which is not one of the nine explicitly annotated relations. I note that all above listed relations hold between common nouns mentioned together within one sentence. In this way, the technology of relation discovery also has limitations in delivering an adequate picture of the relations that are described in texts.

6. Discussion and Conclusion In this paper, I have discussed some typical approaches in answering the question of how to employ language technologies in order to acquire knowledge from texts. I focused my considerations on software tools that organise the extracted language units into conceptual structures. The approaches are grouped into four main categories: acquisition of instances, concepts, hierarchies, and relations. The extracted conceptual structures are often domain-dependent (because they are based on the input corpus) and need further refinement and formalization. Despite the variety of the particular applications and the lack of standards, there are some established strategies in terms of how to apply language technologies in knowledge acquisition. For instance, it is common to extract phrasal descriptions after shallow text analysis. The assumption is that verbs pose more or less strong selectional restrictions on their arguments, and this linguistic phenomenon reflects semantic and even conceptual relationships. The better the syntactic analyzer is, the more sentence phrases it extracts sentence phrases, the more sophisticated it is, and the more accurate it is in the final result. However, the relatively low recall in terms of these tasks constitutes evidence that many concepts are not communicated via compact phrasal descriptions, and therefore, they are difficult to grasp by automatic text processing. Together with the main language technologies in use—lexical and morphological analysers, POS taggers, tools for recognition of named entities, syntactic analysers (parsers), extractors of collocations, semantic interpreters of word senses—I outlined the main classification technology

378

Chapter Nineteen

that is applied for building a taxonomy—the unsupervised clustering. Mostly, the is-a relation has been considered for decades. The resulting ontological structures are not perfect, but they are to be viewed as drafts that need further justification by human experts. The concepts in the taxonomies mirror the words (strings) occurring in the source texts and the human expert may choose to delete some of them. If a word has several meanings and the input corpora are really large, then mining by patterns or counting the verb-object collocations will hopefully reveal all senses as shown in Table 4. It is still unclear how to evaluate the usefulness and the correctness of a particular ontology acquired for application in certain domain. Extracting non-hierarchical relations is a hot and open field of research at present. However, one should remember that word senses are not ontological concepts, although there are many similarities between lexicons and ontologies.30 An ontology is a set of categories including the relationships among them, while a lexicon depends on the word senses in particular natural language. In the same way, the text semantics, extracted in formal propositions, is not a conceptual model of the information encoded in the text. Moreover, gathering facts from the Internet, we have no method to evaluate whether the extracted knowledge is relevant to the real world. For instance, the NER module might collect named entities from science fiction sites. Hence, even the results of the successful NER task, which are extracted with more than 90% linguistic accuracy, need conceptual verification before asserting them into a formal conceptual model. From this perspective, extracting knowledge from dedicated domain sites, for example, job portals, is a more promising approach for automatic ontology construction. Given the complexity of the task, automatic extraction of logical propositions is rare, as is well-known. As was shown in Figure 2, extraction of one fact from two sentences is not trivial, especially using the methods applied today, as the current parsers work over single sentences only. Another ontological construct that is not tackled automatically is the description of the classification perspective, since it is rarely encoded as a compact statement in free texts. One may argue that the results presented above are discouraging because of their low accuracy. However, the author prefers the optimistic vision. All the prototypes are at their initial implementation stage, and the cited papers report work in progress. Moreover, the quality of the language technology tools is growing incrementally and this contributes to the increasing quality of the very large linguistic resources. In addition, there are many publicly available tools, such as POS-taggers and parsers for English, and open resources

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

379

like WordNet. The interest in the multilingual resources and tools is growing too and much bilingual terminology is already extracted automatically. This facilitates the work of research groups in smaller countries who deal with languages other than English. The author believes that soon there will be large open archives of electronic text resources in a number of languages, and that many publicly available tools for language processing (in similar fashion as the paper archives which were collected also incrementally). There is already a large European infrastructure CLARIN,31 which aims to deliver public language technologies and related linguistic resources to users from the Humanities. All of these developments motivate further research attempts in automatic ontology acquisition. It seems unlikely that the quality of the automatically extracted ontologies will be satisfactory enough, but at least drafting ontologies will be much easier. The author also believes that methods for ontology assessment against domain corpora will be developed in the near future.

Notes 1. Jeffrey R. Binder, Rutvik Desai, Willam W. Graves, and Lisa L. Conant, “Where is the Semantic System? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies,” Cerebral Cortex Journal 19.12 (December 2009): 2767-2796. 2. See Thomas R. Gruber, “A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications,” Knowledge Acquisition 5.2 (June 1993): 199–220. 3. See Yorick Wilks, “Ontotherapy, or How to Stop Worrying About What There Is” in Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing V. Selected papers from RANLP-07, ed. Nicolas Nicolov, Galia Angelova, and Ruslan Mitkov, 1-20. “Current Issues in Linguistic Theory” Series, Vol. 309 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009). 4. See L. Hirschman, “The Evolution of Evaluation: Lessons from the Message Understanding Conferences,” Computer Speech and Language 12.4 (1998): 281305. 5. Seehttp://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/ner/process, last visited April 2013. 6. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology, last visited April 2013. 7. See Didier Bourigault, Christian Jacquemin, and Marie-Claude L’Homme (eds.), Recent Advances in Computational Terminology (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2001). 8. Term Finder, developed by the Translated Labs (T-Labs): http://labs.translated.net/terminology-extraction/, last visited April 2013. 9. TerMine, developed by the National Centre for Text Mining, University of Manchester, UK: http://www.nactem.ac.uk/software/termine/cgi-bin/termine_cvalue.cgi, last visited April 2013.

380

Chapter Nineteen

10. Marti A. Hearst, “Automatic Acquisition of Hyponyms from Large Text Corpora,” in Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING) (1992): 539-545. 11. Hearst, “Automatic Acquisition of Hyponyms from Large Text Corpora.” 12. Rion Snow, Daniel Jurafsky, and Andrew Y. Ng, “Learning Syntactic Patterns for Automatic Hypernym Discovery,” Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 17 (2004): 1297-1304. 13. WordNet home page: http://wordnet.princeton.edu. 14. Snow, et al., “Learning Syntactic Patterns for Automatic Hypernym Discovery.” 15. Snow, et al., “Learning Syntactic Patterns for Automatic Hypernym Discovery.” 16. Marie-Laure Reinberger, Peter Spyns, A. Johannes Pretorius, and Walter Daelemans. “Automatic Initiation of an Ontology,” in Proceedings of the Conference on Ontologies, Databases, and Applications of Semantics, CoopIS/DOA/OBDASE 2004R, ed. Robert Meersman and Zahir Tari, 600-617 (Springer, LNCS 3290, 2004); and Marie-Laure Reinberger and Peter Spyns, “Discovering Knowledge in Texts for the Learning of DOGMA-inspired Ontologies,” in Proceedings of the ECAI-2004 Workshop on Ontology Learning and Population: Towards Evaluation of Text-based Methods in the Semantic Web and Knowledge Discovery Life Cycle (August 2004), 19-24. 17.The Unified Medical Language System: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/ 18. See Reinberger et al., “Discovering Knowledge in Texts for the Learning of DOGMA-inspired Ontologies.” 19. See David Faure and Claire Nédellec, “ASIUM: Learning Subcategorization Frames and Restrictions of Selection,” in Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Machine Learning (ECML 98)—Workshop on Text Mining, ed. Y. Kodratoff (Chemnitz, Germany, April 1998). 20. Faure, et al., “ASIUM: Learning Subcategorization Frames and Restrictions of Selection.” 21. Paul Buitelaar, Philipp Cimiano, and Bernardo Magnini, “Ontology Learning from Text: An Overview,” in Ontology Learning from Text: Methods, Evaluation and Applications—Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications Series Vol. 123, ed. Paul Buitelaar, Philipp Cimiano, and Bernardo Magnini (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005). 22. Philipp Cimiano, Aleksander Pivk, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, and Steffen Staab, “Learning Taxonomic Relations from Heterogeneous Evidence,” in Proceedings from the ECAI-2004 Workshop on Ontology Learning and Population (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004). 23. Hearst, “Automatic Acquisition of Hyponyms from Large Text Corpora.” 24. WordNet home page, http://wordnet.princeton.edu. 25. See Cimiano, et al., “Learning Taxonomic Relations from Heterogeneous Evidence.” 26. See Faure, et al., “ASIUM: Learning Subcategorization Frames and Restrictions of Selection.”

Automatic Ontology Acquisition from Text

381

27. See Iris Hendrickx, Su Nam Kim, Zornitsa Kozareva, Preslav Nakov, Diarmuid Ó Séaghdha, Sebastian Padó, Marco Pennacchiotti, Lorenza Romano, and Stan Szpakowicz, “SemEval-2010 Task 8: Multi-Way Classification of Semantic Relations Between Pairs of Nominals,” in Proceedings of the NAACL HLT Workshop on Semantic Evaluations: Recent Achievements and Future Directions (Boulder, Colorado, 2009): 94–99. 28. See Faure, et al., “ASIUM: Learning Subcategorization Frames and Restrictions of Selection.” 29. See Hendrickx, et al., “SemEval-2010 Task 8: Multi-Way Classification of Semantic Relations Between Pairs of Nominals.” 30. See Graeme Hirst, “Ontology and the Lexicon,” in Handbook on Ontologies, ed. Sebastian Staab and Rudi Studer, 209-229 (Berlin: Springer, 2004). 31. Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN), http://www.clarin.eu/

References Binder, Jeffrey R., Rutvik Desai, Willam W. Graves and Lisa L. Conant. “Where is the Semantic System? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies.” Cerebral Cortex Journal 19.12 (December 2009): 2767-2796. Bourigault, Didier, Christian Jacquemin and Marie-Claude L’Homme (eds.). Recent Advances in Computational Terminology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2001. Buitelaar, Paul, Philipp Cimiano, and Bernardo Magnini. “Ontology Learning from Text: An Overview.” In Ontology Learning from Text: Methods, Evaluation and Applications—Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications Series Vol. 123, edited by Paul Buitelaar, Philipp Cimiano, and Bernardo Magnini. IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2005. Cimiano Philipp, Aleksander Pivk, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, and Steffen Staab. “Learning Taxonomic Relations from Heterogeneous Evidence.” In Proceedings from the ECAI-2004 Workshop on Ontology Learning and Population. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004. Faure, David and Claire Nédellec. “ASIUM: Learning Subcategorization Frames and Restrictions of Selection.” In Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Machine Learning (ECML 98)—Workshop on Text Mining, edited by Y. Kodratoff. Chemnitz, Germany, April 1998. Gruber, Thomas R. “A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications.” Knowledge Acquisition 5.2 (June 1993): 199–220. Hearst, Marti A. “Automatic Acquisition of Hyponyms from Large Text Corpora.” In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING) (1992): 539-545.

382

Chapter Nineteen

Hendrickx, Iris, Su Nam Kim, Zornitsa Kozareva, Preslav Nakov, Diarmuid Ó Séaghdha, Sebastian Padó, Marco Pennacchiotti, Lorenza Romano, and Stan Szpakowicz. “SemEval-2010 Task 8: Multi-Way Classification of Semantic Relations Between Pairs of Nominals.” In Proceedings of the NAACL HLT Workshop on Semantic Evaluations: Recent Achievements and Future Directions, Boulder, Colorado, (2009): 94–99. Hirschman, L. “The Evolution of Evaluation: Lessons from the Message Understanding Conferences.” Computer Speech and Language 12.4 (1998): 281-305. Hirst, Graeme. “Ontology and the Lexicon.” In Handbook on Ontologies, edited by Sebastian Staab and Rudi Studer, 209-229. Berlin: Springer, 2004. Reinberger, Marie-Laure and Peter Spyns. “Discovering Knowledge in Texts for the Learning of DOGMA-inspired Ontologies.” In Proceedings of the ECAI-2004 Workshop on Ontology Learning and Population: Towards Evaluation of Text-based Methods in the Semantic Web and Knowledge Discovery Life Cycle, August 2004, 1924. Reinberger, Marie-Laure, Peter Spyns, A. Johannes Pretorius, and Walter Daelemans. “Automatic Initiation of an Ontology.” In Proceedings of the Conference on Ontologies, Databases, and Applications of Semantics, CoopIS/DOA/OBDASE 2004R, edited by Robert Meersman and Zahir Tari, 600-617. Springer, LNCS 3290, 2004. Snow, Rion, Daniel Jurafsky, and Andrew Y. Ng. “Learning Syntactic Patterns for Automatic Hypernym Discovery.” Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 17 (2004): 1297-1304. Wilks, Yorick. “Ontotherapy, or How to Stop Worrying About What There Is.” In Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing V. Selected papers from RANLP-07, edited by Nicolas Nicolov, Galia Angelova, and Ruslan Mitkov, 1-20. “Current Issues in Linguistic Theory” Series, Vol. 309, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009.



CONTRIBUTORS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)

Galia Angelova is Professor in Computer Science and Head of the Linguistic Modeling Department of the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia, Bulgaria). Her fields of research are: natural language processing, automatic analysis of clinical narratives, semantic systems, big data, applied ontologies, and knowledge representation. She is the author or coauthor of more than 150 scientific papers in English. Professor Angelova is the co-editor of eleven Proceedings from major international conferences, including “Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing” (RANLP) events and the 2002 “International Conference on Conceptual Structures” (ICCS). Four Proceedings are published by John Benjamins, Amsterdam, in the series Current Issues in Linguistic Theory and in the Springer Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence. Professor Angelova was the principal investigator or coordinator of more than fifteen projects funded by international organizations, including the European Commission and the Volkswagen Foundation (Germany). She teaches regularly at Sofia University and supervises PhD students in Computer Science. Professor Angelova is a Reviewer for the European Commission and a Member of the Expert Commission in Computer Science of the Bulgarian National Science Fund. François Beets is Professor at the University of Liège, Belgium. His fields of research interests are logic, epistemology, and medieval philosophy. He is co-editor of the books Alfred North Whitehead: De l’algèbre universelle à la théologie naturelle (Ontos Verlag, 2004); Logique et ontologie: Perspectives diachronique et synchronique (Université de Liège, 2005); and Alfred North Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World (Ontos Verlag, 2006). Ella Csikós is Associate Professor in the Department of History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. Her main fields of research are: German Idealism and Process Philosophy. Her book Living Thinking, The Classics of Process

384

Contributors

Philosophy: Hegel and Whitehead, L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2008 (in Hungarian) and her papers (in Hungarian, German and English) analyze the connection of the two subjects. Dimitri Ginev is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski,” Sofia, Bulgaria, and founder of the journal, “Studia Culturologica.” He has written several papers on deep ecology, the theory of hegemony, the end of politics and the return of the political, as well as hermeneutic philosophy of science. He is author of the book Die Mehrdimensionalität der geisteswissenschaftlichen Erfahrung. Heinrich Herre is head of the research group, “Ontologies in Medicine in Life Sciences” at the Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE) and professor emeritus of the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Leipzig. His research interests cover topics in formal logic, applied ontology, and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of the group, “Ontologies in Biomedicine and Life Sciences” of the German Society for Computer Science, and a board member of several journals and series (Applied Ontology, Axiomathes, Categories: de Gruyter). He published more than 100 scientific papers and a book on the Foundation of Logic Programming. Professor Herre teaches Applied Ontology at the University of Leipzig. Details are available at: http://www.onto-med.de. Henry Laycock (BA Oxon) is a Life Member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge UK, an honorary member of the Laboratory of Analytical Metaphysics and Formal Ontology at the University of AixMarseille, Aix-en-Provence, and an Editor of the online research service Philpapers at http://philpapers.org/. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards for the journals Analysis and Metaphysics, Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, and the Review of Contemporary Philosophy. His chief research interests are in ontology, semantics, and philosophical logic. He has published Words Without Objects (Clarendon Press of Oxford University), and many articles with leading international periodicals. He was recently Visiting Professor at the University of Padua, where he gave a series of seminars on plural reference and mass nouns. Details can be found at: http://philpapers.org/profile/2901 and also at: http://queensu.academia.edu/henrylaycock. Laycock teaches courses in metaphysics, semantics and the philosophy of language at Queen’s University, Ontario Canada.

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology

385

Piotr LeĞniak is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Philosophy of Opole University, Poland. His fields of interest are epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. He wrote a book in Polish entitled, Dimensions of Objectivity (to be published in 2015) and over twenty articles. In English, he published an article “Causality Naturalised?” in Beyond Description. Naturalism and Normativity, College Publications, 2010. Chenyang Li is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he also founded and directs the Philosophy program. He has previously served as Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Central Washington University, USA, where he received the University Distinguished Research Professor Award, Outstanding Department Chair Award, and the Key to Success Award (for Student Service). His main research interests are Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. He has published ten books, including The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony (Routledge, 2013); The Tao Encounters the West: Explorations in Comparative Philosophy (SUNY Press, 1999); The Sage and the Second Sex (ed. Open Court, 2000); The East Asian Challenge for Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective (co-edited with Daniel Bell, Cambridge University Press, 2013); Moral Cultivation and Confucian Character: Engaging Joel J. Kupperman (co-edited with Peimin Ni, SUNY Press, 2014), Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems (co-edited with Franklin Perkins, Cambridge University Press, 2015), and over 100 journal articles and book chapters in such venues as Philosophy East and West; Journal of Chinese Philosophy; Asian Philosophy; Review of Metaphysics; Journal of Value Inquiry; Hypathia; International Philosophical Quarterly; Philosophia; and Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy. He was an ACE fellow (2008-2009) and the first president of the Association of Chinese Philosophers in Northern America (1995-1997). He is currently Vice President of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy and serves on the editorial/academic boards of 23 publications and scholarly organizations. Rosen Lutskanov is Associate Professor in the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He has had several short-term specializations in Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic, and participated in conferences in Belgium, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. His first book was The Incompleteness Theorem: Contexts of Interpretation (in Bulgarian),

386

Contributors

published by East-West Publishers, Sofia, 2009. His second book was The Faces of Proteus: Introduction to Conceptual Mathematics (East-West Publishers, Sofia, 2013). Currently, he is vice-president of the Bulgarian Centre for Process Studies and a member of the Editorial Board of the Balkan Journal of Philosophy (Sofia, Bulgaria). Professor Lutskanov’s fields of competence incude: mathematical and philosophical logic, history and philosophy of logic and mathematics, as well as ontology and epistemology of formal sciences. Helmut Maassen teaches Philosophy at Heinrich Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany, and is the editor of the book series European Studies in Process Thought (ESPT). His fields of research are: process philosophy, process theology, ontology, ethics and intercultural philosophy. He has spent research sabbaticals at Boston University (1990) and Jawarhalal Nehru University, Delhi/India (2000). He taught at Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California, USA in 2007. He has published several books on Alfred North Whitehead: Gott, das Gute und das Böse in der Philosophie A. N. Whiteheads (Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag, 1988) Prozeß, Gefühl und Raum-Zeit. Materialien zu Whiteheads “Prozeß und Realität,” vol. 1, M. Hampe and H. Maaßen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991); Die Gifford Lectures und ihre Deutung. Materialien zu Whiteheads “Prozeß und Realität,” vol. 2, M. Hampe and H. Maaßen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991) and Charles S. Peirce: Charles Sanders Peirce, Religionsphilosophische Schriften, übersetzt unter Mitarbeit von Helmut Maaßen, eingeleitet, kommentiert und herausgegeben von H. Deuser (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1995) and numerous scholarly articles, especially on Leibniz, Spinoza, and Whitehead. He is also the International Book Review Coordinator for Germany of Process Studies. He is President of the German Whitehead Society (since 2009), the President of the European Society for Process Thought (since 2012); and the current Executive Director of the International Process Network (IPN). Carlos D. Garcia Mancilla did doctoral studies in philosophy in the National University of Mexico as well as at the Free University of Berlin. He has published several articles and collaborated in the publication of several books, focusing on the problems of art, the passions, and the self in modern and contemporary thought. Garcia teaches Ethics and Aesthetics, centering on their emotive background. Some of his articles can be accessed at: http://www.reflexionesmarginales.com.

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology

387

Vesselin Petrov is Professor and Head of the Department of “Models, Methodologies, and Heuristics” of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia, Bulgaria). His fields of research are: process philosophy, ontology, applied ontology, epistemology and philosophy of science. He is the author of three books in Bulgarian: First Steps Towards the Mystery of the Continuum (1999), Process Philosophy: Its History and Actuality (2010, second edition 2013), and Process Philosophical Reading of the Dilemma of ContinuityDiscreteness (2012, second edition 2013) and of more than 100 papers in Bulgarian, English, and Russian. Professor Petrov is editor of eighteen books in Bulgarian and English, among them Being and Knowledge in Postmetaphysical Context (Wien: Institut für Axiologische Forschungen (IAF), 2008), and Ontological Landscapes: Recent Thought on Conceptual Interfaces Between Science and Philosophy (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2011). He is President of the Bulgarian Center for Process Studies; Executive Director-Elect of the Board of the International Process Network and member of the European Society for Process Thought. He is also the Editor-in-chief of the Balkan Journal of Philosophy, a peerreviewed international periodical. Roberto Poli holds a PhD from the Utrecht University. He has been awarded the first UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems (http//:www. projectanticipation.org). Poli is editor-in-chief of Axiomathes (Springer) and an editor of Categories (de Gruyter). His research interests are primarily focused on the theory of anticipation. Poli has published four books, edited or co-edited more than twenty books or special issues of journals and has published more than 150 scientific papers: http://www4. unitn.it/Ugcvp/en/Web/CercaAutore. Poli teaches Social Foresight, Applied Ethics, and Philosophy of Science at the department of Sociology of the University of Trento. Adam C. Scarfe is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. His areas of research are applied ethics, philosophy of education, Continental philosophy, and philosophy of biology. From 2011-2013, Dr. Scarfe was the Executive Director of the International Process Network, an organization dedicated to advancing process philosophy globally. He has published over twenty-five articles and book chapters, and is the editor and co-author of two previous volumes: Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology (Lexington Books / Rowman and Littlefield, 2013) with Brian Henning (Gonzaga University), and The Adventure of Education: Process Philosophers on

388

Contributors

Learning, Teaching, and Research (Rodopi Press, 2009). Dr. Scarfe is the Philosophy and International Book Review editor for Process Studies journal. Johanna Seibt is an Associate Professor at the Department for Philosophy and the History of Ideas at Aarhus University, Denmark. She received her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh (1990), and a second doctorate (Dr. phil. habil.) at the University of Konstanz, in Germany. For ten years, she taught at the Philosophy Department of the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in analytical process ontology and contemporary metaphysics, and has research interests in comparative category theory, philosophy of dialogue, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of social robotics. She has published over a dozen monographs and editions, and more than 80 research articles and book chapters in international journals and anthologies. She is author of the entry on “Process Philosophy” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and is the coeditor of the book series, Process Thought and Metaphysical Research. Currently, she is directing a larger research project on the philosophy of social robotics, and is the main coordinator of a research network on Transdisciplinary Studies in Social Robotics. Maria-Teresa Teixeira holds a PhD in contemporary philosophy from Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. She is a researcher at Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa. She is the author of two books: Ser, Devir e Perecer A criatividade na filosofia de Whitehead (Being, Becoming, and Perishing Creativity in Whitehead’s Philosophy) and Consciência e Acção Bergson e as neurociências (Consciousness and Action Bergson and neuroscience). She has translated Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality into Portuguese. She has also published many papers in international journals. Her overlapping interests include metaphysics and process thought and focus mainly on the philosophies of Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Nicolai Hartmann, Sri Aurobindo, Vladimir Jankélévitch, and Eriugena. Dimiter Vakarelov is Professor emeritus in the Department of mathematical logic and applications in the Faculty of mathematics and informatics, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Sofia, Bulgaria). His main scientific fields of research are: Non-classical logic (Modal logic, Intuitionistic logic, Logics of negation, Sahlqvist theory), applied logic (Dynamic logic, Modal logics for information systems, Arrow logic, Logics of space), Region-based theories of space and time (Mereology,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology

389

Mereotopology, Dynamic mereotopology), and Philosophy (Philosophy of mathematics, Whitehead’s philosophy, Applications of formal methods in philosophy). He is on the Editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics and of Studia Logica. He was a visiting professor at several universities and a member of the Program Committee of various conferences including the biannual conference on “Advances in Modal Logic.” Vakarelov is a member of the Polish Logical Society and the Bulgarian Whitehead Society. Michel Weber is the Director of the Centre for Philosophical Practice Chromatiques Whiteheadiennes (Brussels, Belgium). The Centre specializes in three complementary axes (research, publication, and counseling), each reecting in its own order the guiding principles of the philosophical act (creativity, efcacy, and vision). His current research program mainly deals with political philosophy and the philosophy of psychiatry. Dr. Weber is the author of seven monographs (e.g. Whitehead's Pancreativism: The Basics, Ontos Verlag, 2006) and the (co-)editor of twenty-six books (e.g. with Will Desmond, Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Ontos Verlag, 2008). He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Balkan Journal of Philosophy (Bulgaria) and Studia Whiteheadiana (Poland). Yujian Zheng is Associate Professor in philosophy in Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His main research interests overlap: Normativity, Dynamic Rationality, Evolutionary Theory, Action Theory, and Naturalistic Theories of Content or Intentionality. He is the author of about thirty papers in English and Chinese, including “Akrasia, Picoeconomics, and a Rational Reconstruction of Judgment Formation in Dynamic Choice,” Philosophical Studies, 2001; “Memes, Mind, and Normativity,” Culture, Nature, Memes: Dynamic Cognitive Theories, ed. T. BotzBornstein (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008); “Unconscious Intentionality and the Status of Normativity in Searle’s Philosophy—with Comparative Reference to Traditional Chinese Thought,” Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, ed. B. Mou (Brill Academic Publishers, 2008); “Perceptual Content, Norm and Ontological Explanation,” ୡ⏺ဴ学 (World Philosophy), 2013. He has served as a member of the editorial board for Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy since its inception, also being its Editor of Chinese-bookreview from 2001-2005.



INDEX Abrahamic theism, 219 Absolute, 181 action verbs, 9-10, 374 actuality, xii, 2, 15, 28, 34, 37-39, 75, 101, 211, 213, 218-219, 226; vacuous, xxv, 211 actual entity (Whitehead), xv-xviii, 55, 68-73, 75-78, 86-89, 91, 100-102, 123, 212-213, 218; occasion, xviii, 17, 50-52, 58, 71-72, 78, 100-101; ontological status, xv, 68, 71-72 adjacency, 275-277, 279, 286; relations, 275, 279; spaces, 275277, 286 adventitious principle, 329 adventure, 91, 113 agency, 46, 78, 231, 247, 376 Aiello, Marco, 265, 300 algebra, xxviii-xxx, 262, 266-268, 271-278, 284, 286, 288, 298299; algebraic model, 137; algebraic relations, 33; algebraic systems, 267, 285; Boolean, xxviii-xxx, 262, 266, 270-277, 281, 284, 289, 297-299, 333; contact, xxviii-xxx, 262, 266269, 273-279, 281-291; coordinate contact, xxx, 269, 285-286, 288-289, 291; dynamic, xxviii-xxx, 262, 268269, 284-288, 290-291; factor contact, 288-289; precontact, 274, 276-277, 285; standard dynamic contact, xxix, 281-286, 289-290; sub-, 285, 298-299 analytic philosophy, 3, 124, 129, 369, analyzers, 369, 372, 377; syntactic, 377

Anders, Günther, 220 angst, 215 animals, xxii, 81, 111, 114, 148, 150, 154-158, 170-173, 176177, 197, 199, 223, 249, 256 animal spirits, 197, 199 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 109 anticipation, xviii, 95, 101, 200 anxiety, 215-216, 219, 241 appropriation, xviii, 100, 135, 143 Aquinas, Thomas, 49, 68, 73-75, 223 Archimedean point, 164 Aristotle, ix-xi, xxx, 2, 7-17, 20-21, 23-24, 48-49, 53, 72, 162, 166, 212-213, 218, 226, 255-256, 306-308, 310, 333, 338 Armstrong, David, 109 Artaud, Antonin, 220 Artemov, Sergei, 356 ASIUM, 374, 376 aspectology, 10 aspectual inferences, xi, 2, 11-12, 21, 24 aspectual meaning, 10-11, 23 Ɩtman, 351 atomicity, xxvi, 50-51, 221; principle of, 50-51 attributives, xxxiii, 151, 341-345 Augustine, xvii, 35, 95, 97, 103 autarchy, 190-191 autism, 241 automatic ontology learning, xxxv, 364, 366, 375 automatic text analysis / processing, 364-365, 367, 377 automerity, xi, 12-13, 18-19, 24 autopoiesis, 21 axiom, xxxiii, 51, 57, 266, 273-276, 278-280, 283-284, 287-291,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 294-298, 338, 340, 348, 350, 352, 357-361; application, 357; integration, xxxiii, 338, 340, 350, 352; monotonicity, 357, 363 axiomatization, 3, 19, 263, 265, 269, 339 Baianu, Ion, 41 Baldwin, James Mark, xxvi-xxvii, 230-231, 234, 242-245, 247-248 Baldwin Effect (see also Theory of Organic Selection), xxvii, 231, 242-243 Basaglia, Franco, 221 Bateson, Gregory, 216, 220 Bateson, Patrick, 251-252 Baumann, Ringo, 338-339, 352 becoming, x, xii, xv-xvi, xviii, xx, xxvi, 4, 7, 13-14, 16-17, 63, 70, 72, 75-78, 82, 86-88, 90-91, 95, 97, 100, 102-103, 119, 152, 165, 184, 213, 217-220, 224, 227, 292 behavior, xvi, xxvi-xxviii, xxxi, 7980, 113, 116, 118, 138, 147, 155-158, 220, 230-250, 253, 365, 372-373; frog’s snapping, 147 Being and Time, 132, 135 being-in-the-world, 124, 133, 136, 143 Bell, John, 32-33 Belnap, Nuel, 361 Bennett, Brandon, 265 Bergson, Henri, xvii-xviii, 3-4, 17, 45, 73, 95, 98-100, 102, 104, 215, 224 Bettelheim, Bruno, 220, 225 Binswanger, Ludwig, 215 biochemistry, 143 biological wisdom (Waddington), 249 biology, viii-ix, xxvi-xxvii, 152153, 230-235, 239-241, 244, 246, 250, 347; functions, 154

391

biosemiotics, 231 biosystems, 41 Blake, William, 219 Bleuler, Eugen, 214-215, 220 Bo, Shi, 165 body, xxii-xxiv, xxvi, 83, 91, 98, 114-115, 117, 150-151, 165, 171, 174, 181, 183, 187, 192, 194-203, 213, 216-217, 225226, 238, 244, 332 Boerhaave, Herman, 170, 175 Bohman, James, 125-127, 141 Book of Changes, xxi, 162, 165 Boolean operational logic, 41 Boss, Medard, 215 boundary, xiii-xiv, xxiii, 28, 30, 3839, 41, 151, 193, 200, 219, 265267, 271, 279, 296, 321, 331, 334, 341, 346, 349-351 boundlessness, 306, 308 Bourdieu, Pierre, 133, 221 Boyle, Robert, 170 Bradley, Francis Herbert, 73 Bradley, James, xv, 72-75, 81 Brahman, 351 brain, xxii, 95, 98-99, 111, 120, 172-173, 197-199, 244-245 Brenner, Joseph, xiv, 55-58, 60, 63 Brentano, Franz, xii, 30, 38-39, 42, 339 Brezhnev, Vladimir, 359 Buchler, Justus, xiv, 50-51, 65 Buddhism, 351 Buitelaar, Paul, 375 Burge, Tyler, 150, 152, 159 capitalism, xxvi, 220-221 care, 133, 197, 201, 218 Carnap, Rudolf, 4 Carroll, Lewis, 210 categories, category, viii, xii-xvi, xviii, xxx-xxxi, xxxiii, xxxv, 34, 28-32, 34-35, 38, 41-42, 4445, 47-58, 62-63, 66, 72, 74, 78, 82, 87, 89, 91, 93, 101, 155, 165, 210-212, 217, 223, 225,

392 235, 246, 287, 307, 311-314, 318, 320, 325-326, 329, 340, 342-345, 350, 371, 377-378; system, xiii, 44, 47-48, 51, 62; network, xiii, 48, 62; decreasing the number of, xiii, 48, 62; increasing the number of, xiii, 49, 62; variable, 55-56, 58, 60, 62-63 Category of the Ultimate (Whitehead), see Ultimate, the causal connection, 37, 159 causal efficacy, xix, 108-109, 112113, 115-116, 119, 212, 218 causal feelings, xix, 107-108, 113, 115-118; projected, 107-108, 113 causal impression, xviii-xix, 107, 109-110, 114 causal instinct, 108 causal nihilism, xviii, 107, 109 causation, causality, ix, xii-xiii, xvi, xviii, xxvii-xxviii, 21, 28-30, 34-35, 39, 46-47, 66, 76, 88, 107-109, 111-115, 119-120, 238, 240-242, 245, 247, 353 certainty, 185, 187-189, 193-194, 370-371 change, xiii, xvi, xxiv, xxvii, xxxii, 6, 13-14, 19, 22, 30-32, 40, 4450, 52-54, 57-58, 62, 79, 90-92, 96, 98-99, 102, 105, 117, 128129, 142, 148, 155, 170, 189, 231-232, 234, 236, 238-246, 248, 250, 280, 307, 309, 321, 327-328, 337-341, 348; local, 44, 62 chaotic systems, 41 character, viii, xiii-xv, xvii-xviii, xxi, xxiii, xxvi, xxxi, 35, 45, 55, 58-59, 70, 74, 76, 80, 87-88, 9092, 95, 97-100, 103, 109, 112, 114, 117-120, 130, 135, 138139, 157, 182, 194, 217, 232234, 236, 240, 248, 253, 256,

Index 313-314, 370; behavioral, xxvi, 233-234 charity, 129, 158-159; Davidsonian principle of, 129, 158-159 Chaslin, Philippe, 214, 224 Chǀra (see also hypodoche, Receptacle, Timaeus), 82, 95, 97 Christianity, 221 Chronoid, 341, 349 Chunqiuzuozhan, 163 Chu Silk Manuscript, 167 Cimiano, Philipp, 375 clans, 277-279, 285 closed system, 332 cogito, 171, 185, 187, 189-190, 192, 199; ergo sum, 185, 187, 190 coherence, 55, 71 Cohn, Anthony G., 266 color sensum, 117 Columbus, Christopher, 212 communities, 133-134, 136, 142, 152, 216, 219-221, 236, 366 community selection, see group / community / social selection (Darwin) completeness test, ix-x, 2, 7, 11-12, 14, 20-21 computer science, viii-ix, xxxv, 265, 365-366; computer scientists, 54, 364 concrescence (Whitehead), xvi, xxvxxvi, 55, 59, 72, 76-78, 86-88, 108-109, 116, 170, 211, 214, 217-219, 226, 231, 246 Confucianism, 162 concept, viii-ix, xi-xii, xv-xvii, xx, xxiv, xxvi, xxxi, xxxiii, xxxv, 6, 17, 21, 24, 32-33, 38, 45-46, 48, 57-60, 71-74, 79-80, 83, 86-93, 98, 108-113, 116, 122-123, 130131, 133, 135, 137-138, 140141, 151, 154-155, 164, 210211, 214-217, 220, 223, 230, 233, 235, 247, 249-250, 253, 263, 306-307, 310, 313-314, 316-321, 323, 326, 328-329,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 331-334, 343-345, 348, 358, 364-366, 368-369, 371-378 connectedness, 275, 296-297, 349; axiom, 275; of space, 275 connection, xii, xv, xvii, xxi, xxviii, xxxiv, 18, 24, 29, 37, 155-156, 158-159, 184, 236, 240, 264266 consciousness, xxiv-xxvi, xxxiii, 25, 75, 98, 100, 116, 128, 182, 185, 187, 193-194, 196, 200-201, 204, 213-214, 216-217, 225, 233, 351, 354 contact, xxviii-xxx, 109, 115, 214215, 262, 266-269, 273-279. 281-286, 289; algebra, xxviii, xxix, 262, 266-269, 273-279, 281-283, 285-286, 288-289; coordinate contact algebras, xxx, 269, 285-286, 288-291; dynamic contact algebra, xxixxxx, 262, 268-269, 284-288, 290-291; factor contact algebra, 288-289; standard dynamic contact algebra, xxix, 281-285, 289-290; external, 266, 274275; non-tangential, 274; space, xxx, 262, 282, 284, 291; stable, 268-269, 282, 291; tangential inclusion, 265, 274; time, 262, 282-284, 291; unstable, 268269, 282, 291 contemporaneity, 218-219, 268, 282, 291 continuants, xxxii-xxxiii, 338, 341, 345, 348-352 continuity, xii, xxxii-xxxiii, 29, 3234, 36, 71, 88, 102, 119, 153, 186, 215, 219, 297, 307, 327328, 238, 350, 352; thesis, 153 continuum, xii-xiii, 28-34, 38-39, 47, 185-186, 213, 220, 225, 227; dynamical, 29; intuitionistic, 3334; smooth, 33-34 cooking, 164, 243-245, 374 coordination, 162-164

393

cosmology, xxv, 71,73, 81, 212, 307 count noun, xxx, 306, 310-311, 315, 317, 321, 327, 329, 333 creativity, ix, xv-xvii, 46, 72, 77-78, 82, 86, 88-94, 95, 162-163, 165, 219, 232, 240; real, 86 creode (Waddington, see also developmental pathway), 240 culture, xxvi, 219-221 Darwin, Charles, 244, 247-248, 255 Darwinism, 155, 231, 238; see neoDarwinism Dasein (Heidegger), 133 Davidson, Donald, 129, 158-159 Dawkins, Richard, 238, 247, 254 decision, xvi, 69, 86-89, 194, 226, 234, 375 declarative semantic resources, xxxiv, 365 déja vu, 99 Deleuze, Gilles, 68, 73, 99, 221, 227 Dennett, Daniel, 156, 159, 241, 247 Descartes, René, xxii-xxv, 18, 170173, 175-176, 178, 181-205, 212, 220; method, xxiii, xxv, 184, 186-187, 191, 193-194, 202-204 determination, xvi, 35, 37, 72, 77, 86-89, 92, 100-101, 136, 189, 196, 202, 236, 346 determinism, xxiii, 192, 195, 197, 202, 219, 234 development, viii-x, xiii-xv, xvii, xxii, xxvi-xxvii, xxxiii-xxxiv, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16, 33, 41, 44-45, 4749, 52-56, 58-64, 71, 80, 97, 110, 128-129, 137, 170, 184, 214, 231, 237, 239-241, 244245, 247-249, 292, 339, 364365, 376, 379 developmental pathway (see creode), 240 dialectics, 57-60, 62-63 difference, xi-xii, xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxxi, 8-10, 13-14, 24, 28-29, 31-

394 32, 34, 36-37, 39-41, 46, 50, 53, 68, 71, 73, 90-91, 93, 117, 122123, 132, 142, 150, 154-156, 158, 162, 164, 172-173, 181, 183, 188, 190, 192, 197, 199, 212, 214, 234-235, 246, 312313, 315, 323-324, 328-329, 332, 335; ontico-ontological, 122; transtemporal, 46 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 127-131, 141-142 Dimov, Georgi, 266, 273, 279 Dioxyribonucleic acid (DNA), 240; sequence, 241 discourse, xx, 10, 123, 128-129, 146, 170-171, 174, 182, 314315, 323, 364-365, 367, 369; processing, 365 discursive expressivity, 132 disjunction problem, 147 dissonance, 214, 220 distributivity, 10-12, 24, 297, 360; condition, 10-12; laws, 297 Divine Being, 191, 193 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 193 doublethink, 221 dualism, xvii, xxii, 57, 93, 174 Ducasse, Curt, 109 Dufour, Daniel, 221 Dunbar, Kevin, 110 Düntsch, Ivo, 267, 269 duration, xviii, xxxii, 17, 32, 37, 9899, 119, 218-219, 339, 341, 349, 351; character, xviii, 95, 98, 100 dynamic being, ix-xi, xvii-xviii, xxxxi, 2-7, 9-10, 16-18, 21, 95100, 103, 162, 270, 299 dynamic entities, ix, 3, 5-6, 18, 30, 45, 52-53 dynamical systems, ix, xi-xiii, 2832, 39-41, 46-47, 60, 83 dynamicity, viii-xi, xiii-xv, 2-7, 1118, 21, 45-46, 52; modes of, xxi, 5, 12, 14-17, 21; riddle of, xi, 16-18; theory of, ix, 3-5 dynamis, x-xi, 7, 13-16

Index dynamism, ix, xxii, xxvi, xxxvi, 45, 102, 230, 235, 240, 250; auto-, xxi-xxii, 169, 171 ecological wisdom (Naess), 249-250 ecology, 225, 251-252, 256 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), 98 Elizabeth of Bohemia, 195 Ellul, Jacques, 220 embodiment movement, 113 emergence, xiv, xxii, 3, 52, 54, 57, 61-62, 152, 154-155, 169, 212, 214, 220, 231, 328 emotion, xxvi, 76, 79, 199, 217-218; -al background, xviii, 107, 118 empiricism, 112, 212; method, 68, 70 encapsulation, 110 encoding, xxxiv, 6, 365 energeia, x-xi, 2, 7-16, 21 Enlightenment, 128, 184 entity, x-xii, xvi, xxxii-xxxv, 7, 12, 17-20, 29-31, 33-34, 37, 40, 45, 51-52, 72, 78-79, 82, 86-92, 98, 100, 123, 132, 135-138, 140, 150, 152-153, 263, 310, 315318, 338-345, 347-350, 352, 364-368, 370-371, 376-378; see actual entity (Whitehead); conceptual, 366; dynamic, ix, 3, 5-6, 18, 30, 45, 52-53; psychological, 343 entraining, 109, 113 epigenetics, xxvi-xxvii, 230-231, 234, 240-241 epistemology, xix-xx, 126, 129-131, 140, 230, 232, 246; evolutionary, 230, 232, 246; non-representationalist, 140; post-empiricist, xix, 126 epochality, 219 essence, xxviii, 24, 70, 102, 194, 226, 233, 252 essentialism, 136, 230-231, 233234, 239, 246, 252; anti-, 231,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 234, 246; biological kind, 230231, 233-234, 239, 252 ethics, xvi, xxv, 80, 191, 193, 199200, 203, 230, 232, 246-248, 256; evolutionary, 247-248 ethogram, 232-233 ethotype, xxvi-xxvii, 230-234, 239, 241, 245-246, 248, 250 Euclidean geometry, 263, 265, 296 event, x, xii, 3, 7, 13, 29, 36-37, 45, 48, 51, 53, 58, 71, 73, 96, 109110, 112-114, 120, 133-134, 215-216, 219, 241, 246, 321, 327-328, 375-376; see actual entity / occasion (Whitehead); ontology, 51; category of, 3 evil, xxiv, 181, 200-204 evolution, xxvi-xxviii, 41, 81, 119, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 156, 170, 231-232, 236-242, 245248, 250, 253, 255-256 evolutionary monism, 59 existence, x, xvi, xviii, xxii-xxiv, xxvii, 3, 7, 16, 18, 33, 39-40, 58, 72-74, 77, 80, 87, 90-93, 9697, 99-101, 132-134, 138, 140141, 153, 158, 165, 169, 171, 173, 176, 181, 186-187, 191194, 199, 211, 213, 216, 221, 242, 263-264, 270, 273, 310, 317-320, 331, 338-339, 348349; in time, x, 3, 7 existential analytic, xx, 128, 130136, 142 existentialism, 216 existential quantifier, 22, 293, 323, 334 expansion (of system), xiii-xiv, 11, 44, 48, 53-55, 62, 87-89, 100 experience, xv, xix, xxiii, xxv-xxvi, xxx, xxxii, 6, 17-18, 45, 70, 78, 80, 87-88, 91, 98-99, 101, 108109, 111-115, 117-118, 122123, 131-132, 141, 158, 176, 179, 185-188, 193, 204, 211215, 217, 219, 227, 239, 246-

395

247, 308, 351; trans-subjective, 123 extension, xxiv, xxviii-xxix, xxxiii, 32, 46, 60, 129, 132, 139, 188, 194-199, 202-203, 205, 238, 266, 268, 273, 310, 333, 341, 348-349, 351; axiom of extensionality, 274, 279; temporal, xxxiii, 46, 341, 348349, 351 family, families, xvi, xxx, 40, 46, 90, 152, 165-166, 219-221, 279, 293-296, 299, 309, 321, 356, 362 features (in the development of process ontology), 47 feedback, 21, 245 feeling, xv, xix, xxii, xxiv, 68, 7578, 99, 107-108, 111, 113-118, 120, 169-171, 173, 181, 191192, 195-197, 199, 205, 216217, 221, 226 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 18, 24 filters, 272; maximal, 272; Prime, 272; proper, 273; Ultra-, 271273, 276-279, 285-289 flat loci (Whitehead), 264 flux, xxx, 59, 178, 199, 239, 306, 308 Fodor, Jerry, 147-148 fore-structure, xx, 122-123, 127, 130, 134-135, 137, 139-140, 142; of understanding, 135; hermeneutic, xx, 122, 127, 130, 135, 137, 139, 142 form, x-xii, xiv-xv, xvii, xix-xxi, xxv-xxvi, xxix-xxxi, 3-4, 6, 1011, 14, 16, 19, 22-24, 32, 35, 39, 41, 46, 49-50, 55-57, 60, 62-63, 68, 71-72, 74-79, 82, 86, 90-93, 96-97, 99, 102, 108, 110-113, 115, 119-120, 126, 128, 131132, 135-136, 143, 146-147, 149-150, 152-153, 166-167, 186, 191-192, 194, 202, 214,

396 216-217, 220-221, 224-225, 235, 249, 252, 266, 269, 272273, 280, 306-311, 315, 317322, 324-326, 329, 333, 343, 345-346, 357-360, 366, 368, 371 Foucault, Michel, 220-221 four-dimensionalism, 7 framework, xii, xviii, xxxii-xxxiv, 28-31, 33-34, 39, 48, 50, 52-53, 56, 61, 63, 70, 90, 108, 119, 126-127, 140, 152-154, 219, 246, 250, 320, 337, 343, 352, 356, 361-362, 367; epistemological, 126; ontological, xii, xviii, 34, 48, 52, 56, 63, 108, 219 freedom, ix, xvi-xvii, xxiii-xxiv, 30, 86-93, 190-195, 200, 202, 219, 312; degrees and types of, 30, 90-93, 193, 219; innovative, 92 Frege, Gottlob, xxx, 73, 306, 310, 320, 334-335 Freud, Sigmund, 214 function, ix, xi, xx, xxxii, 15, 18, 24, 40, 63, 80, 89, 114, 116, 128, 131, 137, 146-152, 154, 156, 201, 234, 245, 247-248, 280, 290, 295, 318, 330, 332, 335, 338, 342-344, 346-347, 358; individual, 342-343; intentional, 154, 343; universal, 343 future, vii, xiii-xiv, xviii, xxxii, 6, 22, 34, 36-38, 44, 47, 54-56, 58, 60-64, 72, 99, 101-103, 222, 227, 240, 249, 256, 292, 339, 343, 356-356, 360, 379 Galapagos, 238 Galileo, 170 General processes, 23-24, 52-53 General Process Theory (GPT), 22, 25, 52 generation, 79, 162-163, 165, 241243, 245, 249

Index genes, 231, 236, 240-241, 247-248, 254-255 genotype, xxvi-xxvii, 230-233, 236, 238, 240-241, 246, 250 Gestalt Switch, 31 Gibson, James Jerome, 113 Giddens, Anthony, 131 Gill, Mary-Louise, 48 God, 72, 74, 76, 79, 89, 128, 154, 166-167, 170-171, 173-174, 191-196, 199, 204, 219, 226, 250, 349; and the World, 89 Goffman, Erving, 220 good, xxiv, 181, 189, 200-204, 206, 220 Goodman, Nelson, 137 Good Trick (Dennett), 242-246 Gorz, André, 220 Gould, Stephen Jay, 238 Green, Thomas Hill, 80 Gregg, Alan, 220 group / community / social selection (Darwin), 248, 255 Guattari, Félix, 220-221, 227 Guoyu, 165 Gupta, Anil, 361 habit, xxvii, 188, 201, 231-233, 237-240, 242, 244-246; behavioral, 232, 238, 240, 242, 244-246 Hacker, Peter, 316, 334 hallucination, 117, 120, 240 Hamelin, Octave, 195, 203 haptic system, 114 harmony, xviii, xxi, 80, 97, 102, 126, 155, 162-167, 196, 227 Hartmann, Nicolai, xii, xxxiii, 29, 35, 37-39, 41-42, 101, 265, 339, 347 Haslanger, Sally, 339, 353 hate, 199, 202 Head, Henry, 217 hedonism, 248 Heelan, Patrick, 137

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 18, 24-25, 56-60, 62, 66, 73 Heidegger, Martin, 73, 124, 128130, 133-136, 142, 224 Heraclitus, xxx, 162, 306-308, 335 hermeneutics, xix-xx, 122-124, 126134, 137, 140-142 Herre, Heinrich, xxxii-xxxiii, 338339 Hesse, Mary, 131 heuristics, ix, 2-3, 7, 9, 21, 91, 211, 214, 335 Hilbert Space, 30 Hinduism, 351 Hobbes, Thomas, xv, 79, 83 Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawny, 80 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 69 holism, xx, xxii, 122, 125-127, 141, 146, 150 homomerity, 10-13; condition, 1011 homomorphism, 285, 298 horizon of possibilities, 126, 135136, 142 humankind, 81, 204 Hume, David, xviii-xix, 34, 108110, 112-115, 119, 212 Hurricane Sandy, 309 Huxley, Julian, 247, 250, 256 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 219, 221 hypernym taxonomies, 372 hypodoche (see also Chǀra, Receptacle, Timaeus), 76 I, xxiii-xxiv, 183, 185-187, 189, 191, 193-195, 198-199, 202204, 351 identity, xxx, xxxii-xxxiii, 19-20, 24, 50, 90, 101, 133, 136, 143, 216, 225, 306-308, 310, 323329, 331-332, 337-339, 349352; personal xxxii-xxxiii, 337339, 350-352; principle of, 20, 50 Illich, Ivan, 220

397

imagination, xxii-xxiii, 63, 171, 173, 176, 178, 185-187, 190, 205, 351; spontaneity of, 86, 91 Implicit Function Theorem, 40 impression, xviii-xix, 6, 14, 99, 103, 107-110, 114-115, 117, 235 independence, xxxii, 51, 153, 216, 218-219, 340-341; thesis, 153 individual, individuality, xvii, xxxxv, xxxii-xxxiii, 24, 33-34, 38, 50-53, 72, 79-80, 86-87, 90, 92, 98-99, 102, 123, 127, 129, 131, 150-152, 155-156, 167, 181183, 185, 187-196, 198-199, 201, 203-204, 206, 217, 220221, 225-226, 234, 236, 242, 307, 310, 314-317, 325, 327331, 339-345, 348-351, 364; Meta-, 92; principle of, 198; spatio-temporal, xxxii-xxxiii, 339-341, 344, 348-350 ineffability position, 4 infinitesimals, 28-30, 32-33, 39, 123 information extraction, xxxv, 368369 initial data (Whitehead), 76 intensity, 80, 91, 227 intentionality, xxi, 90, 129, 146, 155-157, 217 interpretation, x-xi, xvii, xix-xx, xxvi, xxxiii, xxxv, 3, 7, 12, 15, 19, 21, 31, 36, 48, 55, 58, 70-71, 89-91, 94, 108, 110, 112-113, 115, 122-137, 139-141, 146, 150, 154, 183, 187, 203, 210211, 216, 233-234, 239, 275, 343, 346, 349, 365, 371; asstructure of, 135 intersubjectivity, 92, 125, 133 introspectivity postulate, 357 isomorphism, 225, 273, 285, 298, 312 Jablonka, Eva, 242, 249 James, William, 212, 214 Jankélévitch, Vladimir, 102

398 jargon, 32; İ-į j., 32 Jaspers, Karl, 192 Johnston, Mark, 339 Johnston, Pete, 301 Joosten, Frank, 310, 333 Jung, Carl, 214, 216 justification logic, xxxiv, 256-359, 362-363 Kann, Christoph, 81 Kant, Immanuel, xviii, 68, 73-75, 78, 90, 108, 111, 129, 212, 223, 246; see neo-Kantianism Kenny, Anthony, x, 9-11 kinematics, 30 kinesis, x, 2, 7-11, 13-16, 22 knowledge discovery, 364, 366 König, Josef, 128 Kraepelin, Emil, 214 Kretschmer, Ernst, 214 Kripke’s axiom, 359 Kröger, Tonio, 93 Kundera, Milan, 181 Kuznets, Roman, 359 Laguna, Theodore de, 264-265 Laing, Ronald David, 216, 220, 222, 224-225 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de, 231 Lamarckism, 241 Lamb, Marion, 242, 249 La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, xxixxii, 169-179 language, ix, xix, xxxiv-xxxvi, 3-6, 10-11, 19, 22-23, 102-103, 116, 119, 158, 171, 173, 223, 245, 247, 263, 271-272, 284, 291, 297, 318-320, 323-324, 334335, 344, 357-359, 364-366, 369, 373, 377-379; formal, ix, 3; topological, 297 law of the excluded middle, 33 Lebensphilosophie, 128 Leech, Geoffrey, 312 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 32, 45, 50, 68, 90, 223, 349

Index Leslie, Alan, 110 LeĞniewski, Stanislaw, 266, 270, 301 Lewis, David, 339, 350 lexical aspect, 306, 321-322 liberalism, neo-, xxvi, 221 liberty, 181, 202, 219 life, xix, xxii-xxiv, xxvii, 79, 81, 95, 98-100, 103, 113, 128, 131-132, 136, 141-143, 163, 169, 173174, 181-183, 186-191, 198204, 215-216, 226, 233, 235, 238, 241, 243, 247-249, 255256, 291, 350 linguistics, xxxv, 9, 152, 333, 366, 369, 376 Lipps, Hans, 128 living systems, 41 loci of valuative-selective activity, 234, 249, 253 Locke, John, 49, 173-174, 332 Loebe, Frank, 338-339, 352 logic of / in reality (LIR), 57-58 Lorenz, Konrad, 246-247 Louie, Aloisius H., 40 love, 199, 202-203 Lucas Jr., George, 56 machine, xxii, xxiv, 79, 169-179, 196-198, 201, 254, 369, 372 mapping, 30, 40, 218, 290, 295, 298, 359 Markovits, Francine, 170, 174 mass noun, xxx, 306, 309-311, 321, 327, 333 mathematics, viii-ix, xxiii, xxviii, 29, 34, 166, 183, 186, 263, 273, 288, 292-295, 333 materialism, xvi, xxii, 79-80, 169170, 172-175, 179 Mattéi, Jean-François, 148 matter, xxi-xxii, xxvi, xxx-xxxii, 6, 71, 74, 79, 98, 169, 171-174, 184, 195-198, 204, 206, 226, 249, 263, 306-310, 313-314,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 318-319, 321-322, 329, 332334, 348 Mausfeld, Rainer, 348 Mayr, Ernst, 235-236 McKay, Tom, 314-318 McTaggart, John, x, 6-7, 22 meaning, viii-ix, xx, xxxiii, xxxv, 3, 5, 9-11, 15, 23, 45-46, 48, 57, 59-60, 82, 87, 90, 93, 102, 104, 109-111, 113, 120, 122, 127130, 132-137, 158, 167, 190, 204, 232, 238-239, 245-246, 253, 266, 270, 285, 291, 294, 323, 331, 343-344, 350, 357, 359, 361, 365, 369, 372, 376, 378 mechanism, 48, 62, 80, 108, 110, 113, 115-117, 142, 148, 154155, 169, 172, 197, 201, 247, 253, 256, 292; generative, 155 Mellor, Hugh, 73 memory, ix, xvii-xviii, xxii, 95-103, 133, 173, 184, 193-194, 197, 351; immemorial, 95-97; ontological, ix, xvii-xviii, 95101 mental dispositions, 100 mentality, xxii, xxvii, 114, 231-234, 238-239 mental pole, xxvi, 72, 76, 218-219 mereology, xi, xxviii-xxix, 2, 19, 21, 266, 269-271, 273, 281; classical extensional, xi, 19; dynamic, 269; leveled, xi, 19; non-standard, xi, 19, 21-22; properties, 11 mereotopology, xxviii-xxix, 262, 266-270, 273, 280, 292; relations, 276, 282-283; dynamic, xxviii-xxix, 262, 268270, 280, 292; static, 268, 270 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 113 message understanding, 368 metaphysics, ix, xi, xv-xvii, xxvii, 3-5, 17, 56, 59, 68-71, 73, 76, 79, 86-87, 91, 93, 116, 119, 123,

399

198, 200, 210, 234, 236, 370; of presence, 123; descriptive, 70 revisionary, 70; Western, 3 method, x, xxiii-xxv, 7, 51, 55, 5859, 68, 70, 81, 143, 165, 181184, 186-194, 198-200, 202204, 255, 264, 268, 285, 358, 369, 372-373, 378-379 methodological approach, 3 methodological positioning, 5 methodology, xxxv, 127, 131-132, 365; ethnomethodology, 143 Michotte, Albert, xviii-xix, 107-110, 112-116, 118-119 Millikan, Ruth Garrett, 147-148 mind, xvii, xxii-xxvi, xxxii-xxxiii, 69, 74, 89, 91, 93, 97-98, 100, 103, 111, 133, 137, 149, 152, 163-165, 169, 173, 175, 181, 183, 192, 194-199, 203, 211, 216, 218, 221, 226, 337-339, 345-352 Misch, Georg, 128, 132 misrepresentation, 147 modeling, xxxiii, 30, 271 Modern Synthesis, 230-231, 234, 236, 238 moment-now, xii-xiii, 36-37, 39 monadology, 68 mood, 210, 215 Moore, G. E., 247 Moore’s paradox, xxxiv, 356, 359360 morality, xxiv-xxv, 80, 181, 187189, 191, 193-194, 197-203, 206, 248, 255; code, 80; provisional, xxv, 187-189, 191, 200, 203 morphology, xxvii, 235-239; theory, 75 Morris, Randall, 79-80 motion, xxii, 21, 45, 79, 97, 109, 114, 169, 171, 218, 307, 349 multidimensionality, 123 Munch, Edvard, 215, 219, 224

400 music, xvii-xviii, 95, 97, 102-103, 164, 167, 215 myth of the given, 3 myth of the museum, 3 Naess, Arne, 249 Named Entity Recognition (NER), xxxv, 368-369 natural complex, 51 natural selection, xxvii, 231, 234, 236-237, 240-243, 245, 248 Nenchev, Vladislav, 267, 269 neo-Darwinism, xxvi-xxviii, 230231, 233-234, 240, 245 neo-Kantianism, 6, 246 neuroscience, xvii, 98-99 Neville, Robert C., 78 New Frontiers in biology, 230 Newspeak, 221 Newton, Isaac, 114 Newtonian physics, xvi, 79 Newton’s dynamics, 114 Nicene Creed, 218 niche construction, 231, 247 Nietzsche, Fredrich, 3, 73, 248 nominal string, 372-373 normativity, ix, xix-xxi, 122, 124, 126, 136, 139, 143, 146, 150, 152-157, 159 novelty, xv-xvi, 72, 78, 91, 98, 100101 object, xxii, xxiv-xxv, xxvii, xxxixxxiii, 18, 24, 53, 57, 72, 74-75, 77, 88, 91, 99, 109, 111, 114119, 122, 127, 131-132, 135140, 147-148, 150-151, 154, 157-158, 176, 182-183, 186, 190-193, 195-198, 200-201, 212, 216, 218-219, 225-226, 234, 246-247, 270, 280, 287, 307, 311, 313-321, 324-330, 334, 337, 339-342, 345-346, 348, 350, 371, 373-374, 376378; -process integration, 348, 350; non-existing, 270

Index objective datum, 76-77 objective immortality, xviii, 100101 occurrence types, x-xi, 2, 10-15, 21, 313, 326 Odin, Steve, 78, 82 ongoingness, xi, 13, 15, 17-18, 46 Ontological Domain Theory, 2, 5-6 ontological principle, xv, xxv, 50, 69, 71, 82, 210, 213 ontological reduction, 3 ontology, viii-xi, xiii-xv, xviii-xx, xxv-xxvii, xxx-xxxvi, 2-7, 9-10, 16-17, 19, 21-22, 28, 44-64, 68, 79, 86, 98, 107-108, 119, 122, 124, 192, 210-212, 217, 219, 230-234, 246, 250, 253, 262, 306, 326, 333, 337-340, 343, 348, 350, 352, 364-371, 374375, 378-379; commitments, 3; distance, xxii-xxiv, 181, 183, 187, 189-190, 194, 199, 202203; domains, ix, 3; gap, xix, 93, 115; of emergence, 3; of functions, xxxii, 338; of hunks, 51; of stages, 51; of states-ofaffairs, 51; of tropes, 51; fundamental ontological unit, xv; analytical, ix-x, 2-7, 51; applied categorial, 57; dynamic, viii, xiv-xv, xvii, xxvii, xxxii, xxxiv, 44-45, 48-49, 55-56, 68, 230, 232-234, 246, 250, 253; General Formal Ontology (GFO), xxxii-xxxiii, 337-341, 343, 346-347, 349-350; monocategoreal, 52; New Energy Ontology (NEO), 57; regional, xiv, 54, 61-63; toplevel, xiv, xxxiii, 54, 62, 337, 350; upper-level, 61 open being, 86 order, xii-xiii, xx, xxxii, 17, 28, 3034, 36, 39-40, 51, 134, 136, 152-154, 158, 166, 199, 212,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 222, 267, 271, 280, 282, 293, 297, 310, 314, 339-340, 362 ordinality, 51; naturalism, 51; principle of, 51 organic selection, xxvi-xxvii, 230231, 234, 240, 242, 244-245, 247-248 orthogenesis, 231 orthoplasy, 234 Orwell, George, 221 pair-wise, 338, 341 pancreativism, 210, 226-227 pan-selectionism, 249 parallelism, xii, 28, 37, 39 parity, 51 particulars, 52, 74 passion, xxii-xxiv, 171, 176, 181183, 187-188, 190-192, 195-204 past, xii, xvi-xviii, xxxii, 6, 22, 34, 36-38, 70-72, 88, 95-96, 98-104, 194, 213, 219, 239, 292, 326, 332, 339 Pavesi, Pablo, 197, 203 Peirce, Charles, 33, 42 Pembrey, Marcus, 240-241 perception, xviii-xix, xxiii, 99, 102, 104-105, 107-120, 123, 147, 150-152, 173, 178, 186, 195, 198-199, 217, 219, 226, 345 perdurants, 339 perishing, xviii, 59, 87, 100-101 persistence, xxxii, 136, 307-308, 332, 337-339, 349, 352 phenomenology, ix, xix, 111, 123124, 132, 192, 216 phenotype, xxvi-xxvii, 230, 232233, 236-238, 241, 246, 250, 254 philosophy, viii-x, xv, xvii-xix, xxixxv, xxx, 3-4, 7, 9, 45-46, 49, 54-56, 61-62, 68, 70-73, 75, 77, 79-81, 83, 86, 90, 93, 95, 97, 107-109, 111, 113, 115-116, 119, 123, 126, 129, 131, 163, 165-166, 183-185, 187, 190-

401

193, 196, 198-202, 205, 210, 212, 220, 270, 299, 306, 308, 318, 349, 351-352, 368-369, 371; of organism (Whitehead), 55, 75, 212; analytic, 3, 129, 369; critical, 108; history of, x, xxv, 7, 45-46, 49, 62, 68, 71, 185; modern, 90, 113, 191, 212, 371; practical, xv, 68, 79 physicality, 107, 118, 199 physical pole, xxvi, 72, 218 Piaget, Jean, 109 pineal gland, 198-199 plants, 172, 249 Plato, xvii, xxx, 71-72, 76, 95, 100, 103, 162, 218, 306, 308-309 Platonic ideas, 347 Plessner, Helmuth, 128 Plotkin, Henry, 242 pluralism, xxxiv, 346-347, 352, 370 point, xii, xxi, xxviii-xxx, xxxiii, 12, 16, 21, 28-33, 36-39, 41, 47, 57, 61, 63, 73, 77, 90, 104, 141, 148, 150, 153, 159, 164, 171178, 185, 187, 206, 223, 242, 248, 262-269, 271-273, 275280, 282-283, 285, 290-292, 295-297, 312, 318, 321, 328, 333, 335, 341-342, 346, 348351, 362; filters, 272, 276-277, 279, 284; abstract, xxix, 271273, 277-279, 283 pointables, 307 point free theory of space and time, xxix, 262, 268 Poli, Roberto, xi-xiii, xxxvii, 46, 347 Polányi, Michael, 91 polysemia, 374 possibility, xix-xx, xxii-xxiv, xxvi, xxxi, 3-4, 6, 34, 63, 71, 74, 90, 93, 119, 123-124, 130-131, 135, 147-148, 155, 158, 174, 185186, 189-190, 192-197, 200202, 221, 233, 308, 315-317, 327, 329-332, 360

402 postmodernism, xxv, 59, 212 potentiality, ix, xvi-xvii, 13-14, 63, 86, 91-93, 125, 127, 134, 137, 143 power, xxiii-xxiv, 19, 33, 46, 49, 59, 79-80, 102, 123, 148, 150, 182, 190-191, 193-194, 196-197, 200-202, 221, 249, 323, 369 practical reason, xxiii, 188-189 pragmatism, 6 Pratt-Hartmann, Ian, 265 preceding, 262 precision, 183, 221, 373 predication, xxxi, 6-7, 11, 24, 138140, 307, 310, 314-317, 321322, 327-329, 335 prehension (Whitehead), xv, xviii, 68-69, 71-72, 75-76, 78, 92, 100-101, 170, 231; positive, 76; negative, 75-76 present, viii, x, xii-xv, xviii, xxxii, 2, 6, 9, 22-23, 28-29, 33-34, 3739, 44, 47, 54, 62-64, 72, 88, 96, 98-102, 104, 117, 135, 138-139, 143, 147, 177, 194-197, 291292, 309, 320, 327, 334, 339, 343, 365, 378; eternal, 37; specious, 33 presentational immediacy (Whitehead), xviii-xix, 108, 113, 116-117, 119-120, 123, 218 presentials, xxxii-xxxiii, 338, 341, 345, 348-351 presentic situations, 342 presentism, x, 7 privacy, 219 process, viii-ix, xi-xx, xxii, xxvxxviii, xxx-xxxiii, xxxv-xxxvi, 2-4, 9, 17-18, 22-23, 28-32, 3441, 44-64, 68-69, 71-72, 75-80, 83, 86-88, 90-93, 95-100, 102, 108-110, 113, 115-116, 118, 122-128, 132, 134, 136-140, 146, 155, 157, 159, 162-167, 171, 175, 187, 190, 197, 210-

Index 211, 213-214, 217, 221, 226, 230-236, 238, 240-242, 245250, 253, 255-256, 273, 292, 306, 308-309, 313, 318, 321322, 327-330, 335, 337-342, 344-352, 369; ontology, viii-ix, xiii-xv, xviii, 2-3, 22, 28, 44-45, 47, 49-52, 54-56, 58, 60-64, 79, 107, 350; ontological systems, 44-45, 47, 55-56, 61-63; ontological systems after Whitehead, xiii, 44, 47, 62; ontology theory revision, 45; relational ontology, viii-ix, xiv, xxvi-xxvii, xxxvi, 230-233, 246, 250, 253; philosophy, xvii-xix, xxv, xxx, 49, 55, 80, 83, 86, 93, 97, 115, 123, 306, 308; dynamic process ontology, xiv, 45, 60, 63; non-Whiteheadian process ontology, xiii-xiv, 51, 60; Whiteheadian process ontology, 51; analytic process ontology, ix, 3; creative, 72, 165 principle of, 210, 213 Process and Reality (Whitehead), xv, xxviii, 50, 68-71, 74-75, 77, 86, 108, 112, 117, 119-120, 122, 170, 210-213, 218, 223, 226227, 264, 267, 274 production, 11, 16, 18, 21, 24, 35, 72, 92, 136, 141 productivity, 46; nexus, 131, 141 proof-checker, 357-358 proper function, xx, 147-149, 156 Proper Parts Principle, 19 properties, xx, xxii, xxix, xxxiixxxiii, xxxv, 11, 52-53, 56, 74, 116, 150-151, 165, 171-172, 196, 233, 252, 269, 272, 280, 283-284, 287-288, 294, 297, 313, 321, 338, 340-347, 352, 366; of processes, xxxiii, 338, 340, 345; topological, 297 psychiatry, ix, xxv, 210, 214, 223

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology psychology, viii, xxvi, 107, 109111, 113, 123, 127, 141, 152153, 210; clinical, 210 psychosis, xxv, 210-214, 216, 219, 223, 225-226 Pythagoras, 162, 166 quantifier logic, 3 question of atemporal dynamicity, ix-x, 5 question of the definability of dynamicity, ix-x, 5 question of the primacy of directed dynamicity, 5 Quine, Willard Van Orman, 111, 119, 129, 138, 140, 306, 312, 316-317, 334 Ramsay, Frank, 73 Randell, David A., 266 Rao, Zonghyi, 167 reaction, x-xi, 12, 17-18, 20-21, 8788, 112-113, 142, 196 realism, xv, xxxiii-xxxiv, 56, 68, 73, 338, 346-348, 352; empirical, 74; integrative, xxxiv, 338, 346348, 352 reality, xiv, xvi-xix, xxi, 4, 18, 28, 34, 36, 46, 55-58, 68, 73, 80, 88, 91, 96, 102, 108-109, 111, 115, 117-118, 123, 163, 166-167, 186-187, 214, 221, 227, 235, 256, 263-264, 267, 316, 322, 328, 341, 344-345, 347-348 recall, 373, 377 Receptacle (see also Chǀra, hypodoche, Timaeus), 76, 82, 97 recognition, xxxv, 90, 99, 166, 173, 250, 366-368, 377; false, 99 recollection, 95-100, 103 reduction, reductionism, 3, 239, 244, 249, 314, 325 Rée, Paul, 247 region, xxviii-xxx, xxxiii, 12, 19-20, 63, 185, 193, 211, 262, 264-269, 271-275, 277-279, 281-282,

403

284-285, 289, 291-292, 296, 331, 334, 343, 347-348; -based theory of space, xxviii-xxix, 264-266; dynamic, xxix-xxx, 262, 268-269, 281-282, 284, 289, 291-292 referentiality, 19, 335, 358-359, 363 reflexive awareness, 131 Reinberger, Marie-Laure, 372 relation, x-xii, xiv-xv, xx, xxviiixxx, xxxii-xxxvi, 6, 9, 11, 1719, 33-34, 36, 38-40, 44-45, 47, 50, 53-54, 60, 62, 69, 71, 75, 79-80, 86, 89, 91, 98, 111-112, 116-117, 119-120, 127, 135136, 141, 146, 152-154, 156, 158, 166-167, 182, 184-186, 188, 190, 192-193, 196-197, 201-204, 214, 234-235, 237239, 243-246, 249, 253, 255, 262-269, 271-289, 291-292, 294-295, 297, 299, 321, 323, 327, 340-348, 350, 364-366, 368, 370-372, 375-378; binary, xxix, 273-274, 280, 285, 294, 297, 344, 372, 376; contact, xxviii-xxix, 266, 274-277, 283285, 289; “part-of”, 265,271272, 281; precontact, 274, 283286 relativity theory, 263-264, 267, 292 replacement, xiii, 44, 47-48, 50-51, 62, 334; partial, xiii, 44, 47-48, 50, 62; wholesale, xiii, 44, 48, 50-51, 62 representation, xx, xxix, 31, 54, 75, 99, 110-111, 114-116, 137-140, 143, 150, 152-153, 201, 215, 262, 271, 273, 275-280, 282, 285-286, 290-291, 298, 314, 339; -alism, xviii-xix, 107, 111, 114-116, 118, 152; theorem for contact and precontact algebras, 277; topological representation theorem for contact algebras,

404 279; constructed, 115; perceptual, 114, 150 requirements, 54, 70, 74, 89, 92, 163, 184, 211, 246, 343-344 Rescher, Nicolas, xiii, 46, 49-50, 56, 61, 226 revision theory, 356, 361 Ruse, Michael, 237 Russell, Bertrand, 71, 75, 263, 316, 320 Russell’s Theory of Descriptions, 320 Ryle, Gilbert, x, 9 saltational theory, 231 Santayana, George, 73 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 216, 225 Scheler, Max Ferdinand, 214, 224 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 56, 224 schizophrenia, xxv-xxvi, 214, 223, 241 schizoprocesses, 217 Schlottman, Anne, 110 Scholl, Brian, 110 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 192, 224, 351 Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich, 220 science, viii-ix, xvii, xx, xxiv, xxxiv, xxxv, 7, 21-22, 59, 61, 63, 98-99, 103, 126-131, 133, 138, 141, 143, 154, 181, 183184, 187-190, 193, 197-201, 203, 206, 220, 226, 236, 239, 255, 265, 347, 357, 365-366, 371, 378, 383-388 scientific method, xx, xxv, 61, 130132, 134, 142-143, 181, 183184, 198, 200, 203 scientism, 130, 224 Seibt, Johanna, ix-xi, xiii, xxxvii, 2, 21-25, 45-46, 51-52, 64, 388 selection, selectivity, xxvii, 76-77, 86-88, 230, 234, 248-249, 251, 253-254, 256-257, 260; agents, xxvii, 230, 242, 248-249; see

Index loci of selective-valuative activity; response, 86-87 self, xxv, xxvi, 133, 149, 155, 171, 181, 183-184, 186-187, 189191, 197-198, 201-202, 204, 216-217, 220, 222, 225-226, 254, 351, 357, 386; unembodied, xxvi, 216 self-actualization, 73, 75, 78 self-articulation, 131 self-causation, xvi self-consciousness, 25, 152, 155, 216 self-containment, 12 self-creation, 76-77, 95, 165; see autopoiesis self-destruction, 88 self-determination, 86, 100 self-directedness, 13, 18, 24 self-expression, x-xi, 15-19 self-identity, 90, 306-308 self-maintenance, 21, 37 self-organization, 172 self-production, 18, 24 self-projection, 134 self-propagation, x, 16 self-propelling, 116 self-realization, xvi, 2, 14, 24, 89 self-reference, xxxiv, 21, 24, 356, 358-359, 361-363; constant specifications, xxxiv, 356, 358359, 361-362 self-reflection, 143 self-selection, 88 self-similarity, 19, 24 self-subsistence, 263 self-sufficiency, 153 self-telic, 8 self-training, 247 self-transcendence, 91 self-understanding, 127-128, 131133, 136, 142-143 Sellars, Wilfrid, 17, 22, 153 semantic processing, xxxiv, 364365, 374

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology semantics, ix, xix-xx, xxx-xxxi, xxxiv-xxxv, 10, 111, 116, 119, 137-139, 146-149, 153-154, 158-159, 293, 307, 309-315, 317-325, 327-329, 331-335, 356, 361, 363-366, 368-370, 372, 374-378, 381, 383-384; revision-theoretic, xxxiv, 356, 361, 363; teleo-, xx, 146-149 semantic systems, 364-365, 381, 383 semantic web, xxxv, 375 sets, xxx, 30, 211, 262, 265-266, 271-273, 276-278, 280, 282, 285-286, 288, 293-300, 340341, 343 Shaogong, 163 Sider, Theodore, 350 silence, 69, 102-103, 173, 186 Simmel, Georg, 214, 224 Simons, Peter, 70-71, 270, 301-302 simultaneity, xxxvii, 112, 218-219, 268, 282, 291, 339 Singer, Beth, 51, 65 situations, 78, 109, 111-112, 118, 120, 130-131, 136-137, 139140, 142, 197, 247-248, 269270, 279-280, 292, 319, 327, 330, 341-345, 347, 353, 357; see presentic situations skepticism, xix-xx, xxii, 4, 124-127, 141, 174, 244 Smith, Adam, 219, 255 Smith, Barry, 53, 267 Snow, Rion, 372, social selection, see group / community / social selection (Darwin) societies, 79-80, 93, 122-123, 163, 165, 167, 219, 387 solidarity, xxvi, 220-221, 248 soul, xxii, xxiv, 95-97, 169, 171175, 181, 195-203, 218, 226, 351 space, xxii, xxviii-xxx, xxxii-xxxiii, 5, 12, 29-30, 36, 40-41, 52-53,

405

57, 79, 82-83, 110, 114, 116, 137-140, 143, 153, 163, 171, 196, 215, 262-271, 273, 275292, 295-302, 327, 331-332, 339-341, 344, 348-350, 353, 376, 388; contact, 262, 266-269, 373, 275-279, 281-291, 301302; point-free theory of, xxviiixxx, 262, 264-265, 267-269, 271, 273, 283, 291-292, 301; static theory of, xxix, 268-269; topological, xxx, 30, 266, 270, 275, 277, 279, 282, 290-291, 295-297, 299 specialization, viii, xiii-xiv, xvii, 44, 48, 54-55, 62, 81, 93, 237, 385 species, xxvi-xxvii, 14, 35, 81, 172, 231-236, 239-250, 252-253, 340 speculative method, 24, 68, 70 speculative philosophy, xv, 70-71, 81, 91, 113, 210, 211 speculative realism, xv, 68, 73 speech, 110, 134, 156, 169-173, 365, 369, 379 Spencer, Herbert, 236, 247 sperm, 172, 177, 241, 255 Spinoza, Benedict de, 45, 73, 76, 78, 89, 386 spiritualism, 10, 134-135 stage, 29, 31, 34, 51-52, 59, 148, 150, 156, 163, 167, 211, 235, 239, 241, 247, 339, 348, 350, 353, 362, 378 state, xii-xv, xxxiii-xxxiv, 6, 8, 1011, 17, 23-24, 28-32, 34-37, 39, 41, 47, 56, 58, 62, 77, 79-80, 98, 101, 107, 118, 120, 123, 133135, 138, 147, 150-151, 163165, 167, 186, 200, 215, 218, 249, 279, 309, 335, 351, 357 statement, 9, 19, 45, 48, 55-56, 78, 89, 110, 114, 122, 178, 183, 196, 206, 213, 236, 262, 285, 308, 318, 322, 324-325, 349, 365, 378 Stell, John G., 266, 275,

406 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 215 Stoicism, 190-191, 193, 225 Strawson, Peter, 70-71, 109, 335, structure, xviii, xi, xiii, xx, xxixxxx, xxxii-xxxiii, 5-6, 14-19, 21, 24-25, 28-30, 32, 35-36, 39, 40-42, 57, 70, 75, 89, 92, 101, 111, 114-116, 122-123, 126127, 130, 133-140, 142-143, 166, 196, 219, 231, 233, 237, 239, 246, 247, 269, 280-292; of activity, 231, 233, 237, 239, 246-247, 321, 325, 327, 333, 342-347, 352, 362, 366-367, 373, 377-379, 383; conceptual, xxxii, xxxiv, 21, 111, 233, 343, 366, 377, 383; fore-, 122-123, 126-127, 130, 134-140, 142143; time, 269, 280-292, 352 Sturm, Douglas, 80 subject, xv, xix-xx, xxii-xxvii, xxxi, 8-10, 24, 36, 55, 57, 68, 70, 74, 76-78, 87-88, 90, 92, 112, 119, 123, 125, 133, 149, 155-158, 181-183, 185-194, 196, 211216, 219-220, 234, 307, 309, 314-318, 320-322, 325, 327329, 346, 352, 371, 374; ontic, xxxi, 316-318, 320, 328 subjective form (Whitehead), 72, 76-77, 224 subjectivism, xviii, xxv, 107, 111, 118, 210-213, 217, 223; reformed (Whitehead), xxv, 210-213, 217, 223 subjectless activities, 52-53 subject-predicate, 55, 78, 119, 307, subject-superject (Whitehead), xv, 76-78, 87, 211 substance, xxiv-xxv, xxvii, xxx, 3, 21-22, 28, 45-46, 48-52, 55, 5859, 65-66, 72, 78, 112, 174-176, 178-179, 194-195, 198, 206, 212-213, 226, 230, 233, 306310, 332, 334; ontology, xxv, xxvii, xxx, 3, 21-22, 28, 45-46,

Index 48-52, 58-59, 66, 212, 230, 233, 306-307; static, xxvii, 45-46, 48-49, 55, 230, 233 substantialism, xviii-xix, 107, 111, 118 Sullivan, Harry Stack, 216 survival, 81, 154, 216, 233, 237, 242, 245, 247, 254; of the fittest, 81 SYLEX, 374 symbolic reference (Whitehead), 112, 116, 119 symbolism, xix, xxiii, 16, 133, 182, 262, 307 synergy, 219 synthesis, xiv-xviii, 46, 58-61, 72, 78-79, 96-97, 99, 100, 115, 143, 187, 192-193, 216, 230-231, 234, 236, 238, 246, extended, 246-250; see Hegel, G. W. F.; see Modern Synthesis Syntonie, 214-215 systems theory, ix, xi-xiii, 28-32, 39-41, 45-48, 60, 62, 83, 231, Szasz, Thomas, 220 Tanaka, Yutaka, 101, 104 Tarski, Alfred, 265-266, 270, 300, taxonomy, xxxi, 233, 235, 246, 312313, 326, 364, 372, 375 378; Linnaean, 233 Taylor, Charles, 130 technology, 30, 54, 122, 137-139, 170, 249, 364-366, 370, 377379, 383; language, 364, 366, 377-379; readable, 122, 137-139 teleology, xx, 127, 150, 152, 154, 247 teleonomy, 247 telicity, 8, 13, 46, 327; a-, 327; auto-, 13, 19; in-, 13; other-, 8 temporality, x, xii-xiii, xviii, xxx, xxxii-xxxiii, 5-7, 9-10, 12, 17, 19-20, 22, 28, 31-32, 34, 40, 4547, 52, 63, 96, 99, 100, 112, 116, 123, 148, 243, 254, 262,

Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology 264, 267-268, 274, 280, 282, 291, 325, 327, 332, 335, 337342, 344-352 ; passage, 6-7, 22; phenomena, 337-339 term extraction, xxxv, 364, 366, 368-370, 373, 375; automatic, xxxv, 364, 366, 369 Term Finder, 370, 379 TerMine, 370-371, 379 text units, xxxiv, 365-366, 368, 370371, 377 Thales, 220 things, xxiii-xxiv, xxvi, xxix, xxxi, xxxii, 7, 16, 29, 37, 38, 47, 4950, 53, 59, 70, 73-75, 77, 96-98, 103, 133, 138, 143, 147-149, 154, 157, 163, 165-167, 186187, 190, 194-196, 199-200, 212, 217, 226, 263-264, 267, 270, 306-308, 310, 315-319, 322, 325, 327, 329, 335 Thompson, Ian, 48, Thoreau, Henry David, 220, 226 Timaeus, xvii, xxx, 95-97, 306, 308, 310 time, x, xii-xiii, xviii, xxviii, xxixxxxiii, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 17, 28-42, 46, 53, 57-58, 79, 89-93, 96-97, 99, 101-103, 110, 114, 123, 132, 135, 138, 151, 156, 196, 203, 219, 225, 232, 236-237, 239, 241, 244-246, 250, 262-270, 272, 275, 280-292, 308, 321, 325, 327-328, 332, 335, 338342, 346, 348-352, 368, 388; as order, 28, 31-34, 39; axiom, xxxiii, 284, 288, 290; contact, xxviii-xxx, 282, 284, 291; lines, 281, 292; ordering, 280-281, 287-288; canonical time structure, 287-288, 290-291; epochal theory of, xviii, 101102, 104, 267 topology, 262, 266-270, 276-278, 285, 295-297 Transcendental Aesthetic (Kant), 74

407

transcendentalism, xv, 68, 73, 75 transcendental predicates, 73-74, 125, 131 transition, 11, 13-14, 17, 30-32, 59, 76, 131-132, 158, 211, 216-217, 219, 243 truth conditions, 186, 190, 204, 323325, 328, 335, 340, truth makers, 5, 11, 53, 337, 339340, 345, 347 Ultimate, the, 210-211; Category of (Whitehead), 72, 82, 211 ultrafilters, 271-273, 276-279, 285289 UMLS, 373, unidimensionality, xii, 28, 36 unison, xviii, xxvi, 102, 217-221, 224, 227 universals, 3, 51, 74, 212, 342 Ushenko, Andrew Paul, xiv, 46, 55 Vakarelov, Dimiter, xxviii-xxx, 262, 265-269, 273, 279, 282, 284, 286, 291, 388-389 valuative-selective activity, see loci of value, xv, 15, 56, 69, 71, 76, 79, 83, 91, 101, 125, 138, 140, 154, 164-165, 215, 219-220, 227, 231-232, 234, 242, 244, 248249, 253, 255-256, 295, 310, 315-317, 334-335, 345, 347, 361 Varela, Francisco, 113 Varzi, Achille, 270, Vaucanson, Jacques de, 170, 175 Vendler, Zeno, x, 9-12, 24 verbal aspects, 2-3, 23 vitalism, 231 Waddington, Conrad Hal, xxvi, 231, 234, 240, 249, wangzhang, 167 Weber, Bruce, 241, 255, Weekes, Anderson, 49

408 Weierstrass, Karl, 32 Weismann, August, 240, Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment, 101 Whitehead, Alfred North, xi, xiii, xvi-xix, xxi-xxii, xxv-xxx, 5, 17, 28, 44-45, 47, 49-52, 55-56, 58-63, 68-80, 86-93, 95, 98, 100-102, 107-108, 110-113, 115-120, 122-123, 169-170, 210-213, 217-219, 221-224, 226, 230-236, 240, 246, 249250, 253, 262-265, 267-275, 282, 291-292 Wigner, Eugene P., 348 will, xxiv, 70, 79, 90, 131, 183, 191195, 197, 199-203, 351 Winnicott, Douglas Woods, 216 Winter, Michael, 269, Wohlfart, Günter, 70, WordNet, 372, 375, 379-380

Index words, xxx, 69, 102-103, 204, 214, 309-310, 314, 318, 333, 335, 366, 370, 372, 373-374, 376, 378, world, xxi-xxiii, xxvi, xxvii, xxxiii, 6, 33, 35, 45, 48-49, 55-56, 59, 63, 69-70, 73, 76, 78, 81, 89-90, 92-93, 99, 100-101, 109, 111, 113-114, 116-117, 124, 132136, 141, 143, 149, 162-163, 165-167, 170-172, 175, 182183, 185-188, 190-191, 193198, 202-204, 212, 214-217, 219, 221-222, 225-226, 232, 249, 256, 306-307, 340, 345, 348, 351, 378; Wide Web, 375 Yin, Yan, 163-164 Zweig, Eytan, 324, 335-336