Philosophers of Process 9780823296361

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Philosophers of Process

PHILOSOPHERS of PROCESS edited by DouGLAS BROWNING and WILLIAM T. MYERS

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS New York • 1998

Copyright© 1998 by Fordham University Press All rights reserved LC 98-25568 ISBN 0-8232-1878-3 (hardcover) ISBN 0-8232-1879-1 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philosophers of process I edited by Douglas Browning and William T. Myers. - 2nd ed. p. em. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8232-1878-3 (he.).- ISBN 0-8232-1879-1 (pbk.) 1. Process philosophy. 2. Philosophers, Modem-United States. 3. Philosphers, Modem-Europe. I. Browning, Douglas, 1929- . II. Myers, William T. BD372.P54 1998 146'.7-dc21 98-25568 CIP

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS Copyright Acknowledgments

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Preface to the Second Edition

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Preface to the First Edition

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CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE

1 4 15 30 47

The Architecture of Theories The Doctrine of Necessity Examined The Law of Mind Man's Glassy Essence

WILLIAM JAMES The Dilemma of Determinism The Stream and Consciousness The Problem of Novelty

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE "Reason" in Philosophy The Four Great Errors

SAMUEL ALEXANDER Natural Piety

HENRI BERGSON The Idea of Duration The Possible and the Real

JOHN DEWEY Qualitative Thought Time and Individuality Existence as Precarious and Stable Nature, Life and Body-Mind

51 54 79 99 103 107 112 121 123 137 140 175 187 192 211 227 251

CONTENTS

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ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Critique of Scientific Materialism Process Fact and Form Objects and Subjects The Grouping of Occasions GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

The Present as the Locus of Reality The Genesis of the Self and Social Control CHARLES HARTSHORNE

The Development of Process Philosophy (Introduction to the first edition) A World of Organisms Chance, Love and Incompatibility

269 274 289 297 323 338 347 349 371 387 391 408 428

COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission from the following sources for selections published herein:

The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce, volume VI, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Copyright © 1935 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press. "The Dilemma of Determinism" (1884), "The Stream of Consciousness" (1892), and "The Problem of Novelty" (1911) by William James. Published by Harvard University Press.

The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, volume 16, edited by Oscar Levy, translated by Anthony Ludovici (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964). Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster. Time and Free Will by Henri Bergson, translated by F. L. Pogson. Published by George Allen & Unwin, 1910. The Creative Mind by Henri Bergson, translated by Mabelle L. Andison. Copyright 1946 by the New Philosophical Library. The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, volume 1 (1981), volume 5 (1984), volume 14 (1988). Copyright© 1981, 1984, 1988 by the Board of Trustees, Southern lllinois University. Science and the Modem World by Alfred North Whitehead. Copyright 1925 by Macmillan Publishing Company and Cambridge University Press; copyright renewed© 1953 by Evelyn Whitehead. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster and Cambridge University Press.

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COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, by Alfred North Whitehead, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherbune. Copyright 1929 by Macmillan Publishing Company; copyright renewed © 1957 by Evelyn Whitehead. Copyright © 1978 by The Free Press. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster. Adventures of Ideas by Alfred North Whitehead. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company and Cambridge University Press; copyright renewed © 1961 by Evelyn Whitehead. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster and Cambridge University Press. "Objects and Subjects" by Alfred North Whitehead, Philosophical Review 41 (1932). Copyright 1932 by Cornell University. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

The Philosophy of the Present by George Herbert Mead. Copyright 1925 by The University of Chicago Press. Reality as a Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion by Charles Hartshorne. Copyright © 1953 by The Free Press; copyright renewed 1981 by Charles Hartshorne. Reprinted by permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster. The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics by Charles Hartshorne. Copyright 1962 by Open Court Publishing Company, a division of Carns Publishing.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The first edition of Philosophers of Process has been out of print for just over twenty years. During that time, process metaphysics has continued to grow in importance and in popularity. A second edition of this book seems especially timely right now, given the continued revival of interest in American Pragmatism and the process metaphysics which serves as its grounding. Indeed, the strength of this movement is shown by several factors: 1) There is the growth of interest in the works of both Peirce and Dewey. That this growth is significant is shown by the fact that their respective complete works have either been published (in the case of Dewey) or are in the process of being published (in the case of Peirce). In addition to this, two of the most successful Internet discussion groups focus on their works. 2) The Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy has a vigorously growing membership and influence. Each year, the group sees substantial growth. 3) The rise of neo-pragmatism, under the influence of Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, has contributed to this growth. The authors included in this book are either right in the middle of that tradition or are at least important influences on it. But this is only one side of the story. In addition to the rise of pragmatism, there is another group whose interest is more straightforwardly metaphysical, as opposed to the more varied interests of the pragmatists. The philosophical interests of this group tend to be the works of Whitehead, Hartshorne, and sometimes Bergson and James. The growing importance of this school is shown both by the activities of the Center for Process Studies, especially its publication of the journal Process Studies, and by another vigorous Internet discussion list focusing on process philosophy. Between these two groups, there are quite a number of philosophers who are interested in teaching process metaphysics on both the undergraduate and graduate level. Up until now, there has been no good single text to use in such a course. In order to teach a course on process metaphysics from primary sources, one either has to buy numerous

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primary sources or take the time and expense of making a very cumbersome course packet. Currently, the only general, basic book on process metaphysics available is Nicholas Rescher' s Process Metaphysics. While Professor Rescher's book is fine in and of itself, it contains no primary texts. This book is intended to fill this need. For this second edition, we have made a number of changes that we believe make this a more complete volume. From the first edition, one philosopher was deleted and two were added. C. Lloyd Morgan was deleted. The reason for his inclusion originally was for his work on the concept of emergence. We decided that John Dewey's discussion was better suited to the task, so Morgan was deleted and portions of Chapter Seven of Dewey's Experience and Nature were added. The two additions are Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Hartshorne. The Nietzsche section was added to reflect his critique of substance metaphysics and to reflect a growing acknowledgment in the field that Nietzsche was indeed an early process philosopher. The reasons for adding Hartshorne should be evident. He is an important process metaphysician in his own right. Indeed, his introduction to the first edition has been retained as the first chapter of his own section. That piece still stands as the best introduction to this book. The selections included from Peirce, James, Alexander, Bergson, and Mead remain the same. We believe that these selections still reflect the best offerings from each philosopher. For Dewey, in addition to the added selections from Experience and Nature, his fine 1930 essay "Qualitative Thought" has been added. The only other changes concern the Whitehead selections. Conspicuously absent from the first edition was any significant selection from Whitehead's main work Process and Reality. The addition of "Fact and Form" corrects that. As well, we have added some additional pages from Science and the Modem World in order to fill out Whitehead's critique of scientific materialism to a greater degree than the original. Finally, the short section called "A Metaphysical Description," which was from Religion in the Making, was deleted. The first edition included biographical sketches and bibliographies for each philosopher at the beginning of their respective chapters. For this edition, these bibliographies have been updated to reflect current scholarship. For brevity's sake, the bibliographies are narrowly selective; they are slanted in favor of works that focus on the process meta-

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physical views of the authors in question, and we have tried not to duplicate points of view among commentators. One final note on changes to the text. The order of placement has been changed to reflect a chronological order from date of birth. The order and the dates, then, go as follows: Peirce, 1839; James, 1842; Nietzsche, 1844; Alexander, 1859; Bergson, 1859; Dewey, 1859; Whitehead, 1861; Mead, 1863; and Hartshorne, 1898. One way of dividing these thinkers is into three groups of three. The first three are the pioneers. The second three, all born in 1859, the same year as the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, were the great consolidators. The final three, then, could be viewed as representing the culmination of the metaphysics. A number of folks have made very helpful suggestions for making this edition more complete. For their suggestions for either readings or bibliographical references, we want to thank Randall Auxier of Oklahoma City University; Larry Hickman, Director of the Dewey Center; Kathleen Higgins of the University of Texas at Austin; Gregory Pappas of Texas A&M University; and Charlene Haddock Seigfried of Purdue University. W.M.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Process philosophy is fundamentally a metaphysical position. Its basic doctrine is that the universe is essentially to be understood as creative, organic, and temporal. In this metaphysical soil a pragmatic epistemology and a teleological ethics seem to grow naturally, while a distinctive theology and philosophy of language may be easily nurtured. The spatial limitations of this volume of readings from the major figures of recent process philosophy dictate a very selective approach. Since process philosophy is at bottom metaphysics, it seemed wise to emphasize these doctrines. Hence, though many of the readings lead us into epistemology, ethics, theology, aesthetics, philosophy of language, etc., one criterion for their inclusion has been their relevance to the elaboration of the metaphysics of process. In his introductory essay, Professor Hartshorne makes clear that process philosophy constitutes a neoclassical tradition which has existed alongside the classical approach since the dawn of both Oriental and Occidental philosophy. In the Western world, a neoclassical theology remained, until recent times, in the shadow of such classical systems as those of Aristotle and Aquinas. Descartes presided at the opening of the modern era of philosophy by carrying the classical tradition forward. It will be worth a brief space to set out the essentials of Cartesian classicism and to show how it ordained the subsequent development of Western thought. As any undergraduate student of philosophy knows, Descartes held that there existed in the universe three sorts of substance: mind, matter, and God. Presupposed in this doctrine are the two classical principles of substance and causality, i.e., the principle that all appearances are attributes inhering in a substance and the principle that there can be no more in the effect than in the cause. Descartes ran into difficulty when he tried to account for the obvious interaction between mind and the external world of matter. The dualism of natural substances begets puzzles both on the metaphysical level (How can the body and the mind possibly affect each other?) and on the epistemological level (How can

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we have knowledge of the external world?). The metaphysicians who inherited these problems and set about to solve them fall into two broad classes: those who, retaining Descartes' two natural substances and one supernatural substance, attempted to work out some explanation of the appearance of interaction, and those who, retaining only one of the substances, attempted to solve the problems of interaction by dispensing with the other parties involved. It was this last monistic group which came nearest success. Hobbes and the French philosophes championed matter, Berkeley and Leibniz championed mind, and Spinoza decided for God. The rise and fall of these monistic systems take up the greater part of the metaphysical enterprise for three centuries. Hume, of course, and empiricists after him, criticized the knowledge claims of all of these metaphysicians, but he offered no alternative theory of reality. Kant tried to defend the traditional view against Hume's arguments by reinstating its concepts of substance and causality at the level of constructive mind while at the same time denying the possibility of a constructive metaphysics of the foundational reality. It was in the last half of the nineteenth century that increasing dis satisfaction with the adequacy and consistency of this entire tradition served to bring about a radical shift of thought. Philosophers of profound metaphysical temperament such as Henri Bergson, Charles Sanders Peirce, and William James began to question not only the knowledge claims (as had Hume) but the explanatory value of the basic presuppositions of the Cartesian tradition, principles which were assumed by Descartes himself as self-evident and which indeed were assumed by philosophers throughout the classical tradition as a whole, namely, the principles of substance and causality. In the place of these principles the new philosophers suggested principles of process and creativity. Eventually, the attack upon Cartesianism was supplanted by construction; by the close of the 1920s the details of a new and comprehensive process philosophy had been worked out. This neoclassical renaissance may be easily dated from the 1880s to the present. The greatest figures of the movement are represented by selections in this volume. The ideational and historical unity of this movement, together with the fact that it represents the most thoroughly elaborated Western philosophy of process, justifies the exclusion from this volume of the several Western neoclassicists who lived and wrote in previous times, and of the Buddhists, who have developed their own distinctive and important tradition.

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I would like to interject a personal note. My editing of this book is a mark of my profound respect for the type of philosophy it represents and for the particular philosophers included herein. Process philosophy, particularly as it is found in Whitehead, is the culmination in coherence, scope, and relevance of man's attempts at a systematic understanding of the universe. For all that, I cannot count myself a process philosopher. This fact is a partial explanation of why I invited Professor Hartshorne, as the major living philosopher of process, to contribute the introduction to this volume. It is obvious that if he had not graciously consented to the writing of an essay especially for this project, it would have been necessary to include among the selections something from his previously published material. I have no one to thank for the idea of this volume but myself. Nonetheless, it is clear to me that I would not have conceived the idea at all had I not been infected with an enthusiasm for Whitehead's philosophy some years ago by my friend and colleague Mahlon Barnes. Many helpful suggestions for the choice of selections and the biographical notes came from Professor Hartshorne and Professor David L. Miller, both of the University of Texas. I am greatly indebted to them for their help. D. B.

CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE Charles Sanders Peirce was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 10, 1839, the son of the renowned astronomer and distinguished Harvard Professor of Mathematics Benjamin Peirce. After receiving an M.A. and Sc.B. at Harvard in 1862 and 1863, respectively, he appeared destined for an academic career, but except for two brief one-year lectureships at Harvard in philosophy (1864-1865 and 1869-1870) and a longer tenure as Lecturer in Logic at the first American graduate school at Johns Hopkins (1879-1884, during which time John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen took courses from him), he spent the bulk of his career in association with the United States Coast and Geodesic Survey (off and on from 1859 to 1891).11 appears that Peirce was unsuited for the sort of harnessing of his energies required for a sustained academic career. It is said that after his abrupt dismissal from Johns Hopkins for reasons never made public, he lived in virtual seclusion in Milford, Pennsylvania, financially supported to a large extent by the charity of his friend William James. He died in 1914. His first wife had deserted him in 1876. His second wife, a Frenchwoman, outlived him. He left no children. Peirce was not only a philosopher of first rank, he was a logician and scientist of international repute. It is worth remarking that his Photometric Researches (1878), which was well received abroad, was the only full-length book he ever published. Peirce's career offers a sharp contrast to that of Bergson. While the latter gained sudden fame which evaporated during his lifetime, the former, whose reputation has increased steadily since his death, lived and died philosophically unknown. Bergson fitted well into academic life; Peirce could not. But the contrast is even more striking in terms of writing and publication. Bergson was a systematic philosopher; he felt most comfortable expanding his insights into books. Peirce dreamed of the day when he would work the various pieces of his philosophy into a grand system, but his many attempts to begin such a project ended in frustration. However, he wrote many short pieces, a large number of which were

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published in journals, and he left among his effects when he died most of his abandoned attempts at synopsis and system. Fortunately, almost all of these pieces, published and unpublished, which are of philosophical interest have been brought together in an eight-volume edition of his Collected Papers. It has just been pointed out that Peirce's published writings are numerous but short. However, on three separate occasions he published a series of articles in a single journal in an attempt to develop a set of common themes. In the following selective bibliography only the articles in each of these series are listed. MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS BY PEIRCE 1868

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 2. 1. "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man," pp. 1