A PROCESS ANALYSIS OF
QUALITY:
A.N. WHITEHEAD AND R.
PIRSIG ON EXISTENCE AND VALUE
Part Two
ACRONYM KEY
AI =
Adventures of Ideas
FR =
The Function of
Reason
MT =
Modes of Thought
PR = Process and Reality
RM = Religion in
the Making
SMW = Science and the Modern
World
SYM = Symbolism: Its Meaning and
Effect
ZMM =
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PART
TWO
CHAPTER V: A Process Analysis of Quality
Aspect A: Repetition
Aspect B: Novelty
Aspect C: Definition
Aspect D: Contrast
Aspect E: Limitation
Aspect F: Final Causation
Aspect G: World Orientedness
CHAPTER VI: The Art of Life
Aesthetics
Ethics
EPILOGUE: Constructive Postmodern
Philosophy
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER V
A Process Analysis of Quality
There is a very simple problem to face at
this point. If one wants to hold that reality is value, or
at least that value is a fundamental term in an analysis of
reality, then the meaning of ‘value’ or ‘quality’ must be
made very clear in order to avoid asserting empty
platitudes. Those who assert that ‘everything is valuable in
its own way,’ run the risk of arguing with an empty term,
perhaps betraying serious naiveté. Robert Pirsig wrestles openly with this
problem in ZMM:
Quality... you know what it is, yet you
don’t know what it is. But that’s self-contradictory. But
some things are [emphasis is mine unless stated
otherwise] better than others, that is, they
have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality
is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof!
There’s nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what
Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know
that it even exists. If no one knows what it is, then for
all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at all. But for all
practical purposes it really does exist. What else
are the grades based. Why else would people pay fortunes for
some things and throw others in the trash pile.’ Obviously
some things are better than others but what’s the
‘betterness’? … So round and round you go, spinning mental
wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What
the hell is Quality? What is it? (ZMM, 178)
This chapter is a first step towards an
answer to this question. By drawing together some of the
clearer statements made by Whitehead and Pirsig about
quality, I shall outline the value dynamics that have been
hinted at all along. I will make clear how, in what
functions and relations, reality valuates itself, or how
value manifests itself. By undertaking such a task of
analysis of the passages from the respective writers, I am
actually working towards a synthesis--a comprehensive
understanding of ‘value’/‘quality.’ Some pertinent elements
have already been discussed, such as the fundamental
association of ‘value’ and ‘process.’ Other matters brought
up in this chapter will merely be condensed forms of what
has been discussed all along, and little further comment
will be necessary. Paradoxically, in spite of the extensive
citing of passages involved in this analysis, by undertaking
this task I am actually moving away from the texts I have
been examining. Several passages will be presented, followed
by commentary on the pertinent aspect of ‘quality’ I think
is illuminated by the selection. The synthesis will be built
up in ‘aspects’, to use a Whiteheadian term.
Aspect A: Repetition
The Proto-Indo-European root of aretê
was the morpheme rt.
There, beside aretê, was a treasure room of other
derived ‘rt’ words: ‘arithmetic,’ ‘aristocrat,’ ‘art,’
‘rhetoric,’ ‘worth,’ ‘rite,’ ‘ritual,’ ‘wright,’ ‘right
(handed),’ and ‘right (correct).’ When the morpheme appeared
in ‘aristocrat’ and ‘arithmetic’ the reference was to
firstness. Rt meant first. When it appeared in
‘art’ and ‘wright’ it seemed to mean created and
of beauty. ‘Ritual’ suggested repetitive order.
And the word ‘right’ has two meanings: right-handed
and moral and esthetic correctness… Rt
referred to the ‘first, created, beautiful repetitive order
of moral and esthetic correctness.’ (Lila, 441)
One of Phaedrus’
old school texts, written by M Hiriyanna, contained a good
summary ‘Rta, which etymologically stands for
“course”, originally meant cosmic order, the
maintenance of which was the purpose of all the gods, and
later it also came to mean right so that the gods
were conceived as preserving the world not merely from
physical disorder but also from moral chaos The one idea is
implicit in the other and there is order in the universe
because its control is in righteous hands…’
The physical order
of the universe is also the moral order of the universe Rta
is both This was exactly what the Metaphysics of Quality was
claiming It was not a new idea It was the oldest idea known
to man. (Lila, 444)
Dharma,
like rta, means ‘what holds together.’ It is the
basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the
ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man
perfect satisfaction.
Dharma
is duty… Dharma is beyond all questions of what is
internal and what is external. Dharma is Quality itself, the
principle of ‘rightness’ which gives structure and purpose
to the evolution of life and to the evolving understanding
of the universe which life has created. (Lila, 446)
The root fact is
that ‘endurance’ is a device whereby an occasion is
peculiarly bound by a single line of physical ancestry,
while ‘life’ means novelty... The characteristic of life
is reaction adapted to the capture of intensity, under a
large variety of circumstances. But the reaction is dictated
by the present and not by the past. It is the clutch at
vivid immediacy. (PR, 104-105)
But values differ
in importance. Thus though each event is necessary for the
community of events, the weight of its contribution is
determined by something intrinsic in itself. . . Empirical
observation shows that it is the property which we may call
indifferently retention, endurance, or
reiteration. This property amounts to the recovery, on
the behalf of value amid the transitoriness of reality, of
the self- identity which is also enjoyed by the primary
eternal objects. (SMW, 104)
The urge towards preservation of that
which is valued is easily pointed out in human affairs. Much
of the current interest in the development of an
environmental ethic centres on this notion of preservation
of that which is in danger. On the aesthetic side of value
matters, a cursory survey of the history of art shows the
development and exploration of styles or ‘schools’ of art
which start as novel explorations, become rote, static ways
of approaching things and wither because of a lack of
change. Similarly, it has been my own experience that most
people, in a purely unreflective attitude towards art, enjoy
and actively seek repetition of their favorite songs, often
to an extent that involves deliberate exclusion of novelty
or freshness from the routine.
Whitehead has made this tendency into a
metaphysical principle. Those forms, or complex eternal
objects, which are valued are repeated by new actual
occasions. This is a large part of the role of the physical
prehensions in the process of concrescence. The result of
such reiteration of pattern in the actual world is endurance
of form, or order. Interestingly, Whitehead sees this as
derivative from the conceptual order of the eternal objects,
as envisaged in the primordial nature of god. Some sort of
intuitive sense of this order seems to constitute the
religious impulse for Whitehead.
For Pirsig, such repetition of actualized
form is not derived from a deficiently actual state, rather,
the primary quality dynamic is the development of patterns.
If these patterns are felt to be successful, i.e., embody a
more complex value state than relevant previous patterns,
then they are repeated or preserved. Instead of being
derived from a potential order, Pirsig’s stasis is the
result of a fundamental urge from lack of differentiation
to differentiation. Order is the product of actuality.
The past is ordered because it is data that was once actual.
The direct experience of the past, e.g., memory, retains the
order already created.
Aspect B: Novelty
The Metaphysics of Quality translated
karma as ‘evolutionary garbage. Karma is the
pain, the suffering that results from clinging to the static
patterns of the world. The only exit is to detach yourself
from these static patterns, that is, to ‘kill’ them. (Lila,
463)
The good life is attained by the
enjoyment of contrasts within the scope of the method. In
its lowliest form, Reason provides the emphasis on the
conceptual clutch after some refreshing novelty… Fatigue is
the antithesis of Reason… Fatigue means the operation of
excluding the impulse towards novelty. (FR, 22-23)
Aesthetic destruction is a positive
component in subjective form, and is inconsistent with
perfection. The subjective experience of aesthetic
destruction will be termed a ‘discordant feeling.’ (AI,
256)
There are in fact higher and lower
perfections, and an imperfection aiming at a higher type
stands above lower perfections. The most material and the
most sensuous enjoyments are yet types of Beauty. Progress
is founded upon the experience of discordant feelings. The
social value of liberty lies in its production of discords.
There are perfections beyond perfections. All realization is
finite, and there is no perfection which is the infinitude
of all perfections. Perfections of diverse types are among
themselves discordant. Thus the contribution to Beauty which
can be supplied by Discord--in itself destructive and
evil--is the positive feeling of a quick shift of aim from
the tameness of outworn perfection to some other ideal with
its freshness still upon it. Thus the value of Discord is a
tribute to the merits of Imperfection. (AI, 257)
Evil is positive and destructive, what is
good is positive and creative.
This instability of evil does not
necessarily lead to progress. On the contrary, the evil in
itself leads to the world losing forms of attainment in
which that evil manifests itself. Either the species ceases
to exist, or it sinks back into a stage in which it ranks
below the possibility of that form of evil. (Religion in
the Making [RM], 96)
As hinted at in the previous section,
mere repetition is not an ideal value state. This condition
results in destruction of value rather than extended
enjoyment. Both Whitehead and Pirsig see ‘life’, in a very
broad sense of the term, as being the embodied impulse
towards novelty away from stale patterns of existence. Both
recognize that such movement towards novelty ushers in new
forms to repeat, and both assert that this is not an evil
state. It is the nature of value-actuality to proceed by
these ‘ratchet-like latchings.’
Ultimately, evil and good are to be
defined in vague, evolutionary terms. Evil is that which
hinders the achievement of deeper forms of
quality-existence. Thus, the evil state in itself is a form
of quality, but its social result is this destruction which
is more evil that good. A good form of existence, by
contrast, is not only deeply good in itself, but allows the
development of further equally good conditions and even
higher states.
The urge to novel value arrangements is
an empirically demonstrable fact of human existence, albeit
a difficult matter for value theorists to handle. This has
probably been the source of the tendency to dismiss value
matters as being ‘merely’ subjective. Take Pirsig’s example
of the song. At first exposure, it is wonderful--the value
experience is highly intense. But repeated listening
decreases the experience of value. Everything ‘objective’
about the song remains the same--the key, the length, the
instrumentation, the words.
And yet, the value experience has
undeniably changed. For both Pirsig and Whitehead, the
solution is noting the process or self-experiencing nature
of reality. The real situation that is
‘me-listening-to-this-song’ has changed in its fundamental
constitution. In Pirsigian terms, the original static
patterns softened in the face of a Dynamic lure, then formed
new static patterns of value. In Whiteheadian terms, one
nexus or society, the song, introduced novel content for
experience to the members of another society--myself. The
resultant experience was new forms of existence in one
sense, the society that is ‘me’ was changed. In another
sense, a new nexus was formed, consisting of myself and the
song, unified by the elements of data involved in
experiencing the song. But once experienced, all future
arrangements of the society ‘Andrew’ have this song, or this
experienced-nexus, as part of their relevant history.
Subsequent listenings introduce no new value content to this
society. In both explanations, it is the objective world
that has reconstituted itself in such a way so that this
song is no longer such a value charged experience.
Of course, it is also empirically
demonstrable that change is not univocally good. The
assumption of a conservative attitude towards value matters
is defensible because of a history of failures due to the
adoption of novelty over repetition or order. Ultimately,
such an attitude is self-defeating. Whitehead denies the
existence of any substantial stasis because of the
process nature of reality. Refusal to work with change is to
accept decay, not stasis. Pirsig sees the matter of
progress purely pragmatically. It is not reliably
identifiable until after the matter. Some clue can be
derived from analysis of the evident details, interpreted
within his inorganic-biological -social-intellectual
framework. But a truly Dynamic advance can be extremely hard
to identify.
Finally, it should be noted that the
introduction of novel content into an occasion, for
Whitehead, is the function of the conceptual prehensions.
The mental pole, somehow, is directly linked to the infinite
potentiality found in the primordial nature of god. This
allows the internal process of occasions of high complexity
to transcend the data of the physical prehensions. For
Pirsig, novelty is merely the general tendency the universe
has--there appears to be no evidence for a realm of definite
potentiality.
Aspect C: Definition
Quality is not a thing. It is an
event.
(ZMM, 233)
But ‘decision’ cannot be construed as a
casual adjunct of an actual entity. It constitutes the very
meaning of actuality. An actual entity arises from decisions
for it, and by its very existence provides decisions for
other actual entities which supersede it.
(PR, 43)
Satisfactions can be classed by reference
to ‘triviality,’ ‘vagueness,’ ‘narrowness,’ ‘width.’...
Triviality arises from lack of coordination in the factors
of the datum, so that no feeling arising from one factor is
reinforced by any feeling arising from another factor...
Harmony is [the] combination of width and narrowness...
‘vagueness’ is due to excess of identification… vagueness is
an essential condition for the narrowness which is one
condition for depth of relevance The right chaos, and the
right vagueness, are jointly required for any effective
harmony. (PR, 111-112)
Remembering the poetic rendering of our
concrete experience, we see at once that the element of
value, of being valuable, of having value, of being an end
in itself, of being something which is for its own sake,
must not be omitted in any account of an event as the most
concrete actual something. ‘Value’ is the word I use for the
intrinsic reality of an event. (SMW, 93)
Realisation therefore is in itself the
attainment of value. But there is no such thing as mere
value. Value is the outcome of limitation (SMW, 94)
The ‘perfection’ of subjective form means
the absence from it of component feelings which mutually
inhibit each other so that neither rises to the strength
proper to it. (AI, 256)
Value is inherent in actuality itself. To
be an actual entity is to have a self-interest. This
self-interest is a feeling of self-valuation, it is an
emotional tone. The value of other things, not one’s self,
is the derivative value of being elements contributing to
this ultimate self-interest. This self-interest is the
interest of what one’s existence, as in that epochal
occasion, comes to. It is the ultimate enjoyment of being
actual.
But the actuality is the enjoyment, and
this enjoyment is the experiencing of value. (RM,
100)
Depth of value 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. (RM, 152)
These passages present some of the themes
that have been recurring throughout Of special interest are
those passages in which Whitehead uses ‘value’ as a
fundamental term, usually to describe the internal process
of an occasion working towards a satisfaction.
The emphasis on the ‘decision’ or
‘satisfaction’, in these passages is very important Once
decided, the internal process of an occasion is spent and
the finished form, or superjected character, is all that
remains. Both Pirsig and Whitehead recognize that not all
‘decisions’ are equal. There are two aspects of the
satisfaction to be taken into account here: the internal
‘depth’ of the satisfaction and the social value. In the
preceding section, the social nature was discussed. For
internal quality in the Whiteheadian scheme, it is required
that the occasion pull as wide as possible a diversity of
aspects together into one harmonized feeling. Other
alternatives for an occasion faced with a multitude of
possibilities include banishing the majority into
irrelevance through negative prehensions, or ignoring the
details through the activity Whitehead describes with his
category of transmutation. When experiencing the occasions
that make up a nexus, an occasion can ‘transmute’ the
multiple data into one datum of feeling that, supposedly, is
an expression of the unifying principle of that nexus.
However, such an activity runs the risk of dismissing
important differences from the source data into irrelevance.
Such an activity of transmutation is a second-order
application of negative prehensions and the result is the
same--a reduction in the variety of data to be unified. The
resultant satisfaction can be classed according to the data
it does unify. A high complexity, or high value, occasion
actualizes many diverse eternal objects--’width’ of
data--and does so in a manner that allows each element to
contribute a significant measure of ‘information’ or
‘potency’ to the satisfaction-- ‘harmony.’ That is, the data
are admitted in their full effectiveness and not as trivial
elements in the decision.
In general for Pirsig, there is no
significant division between internal and external
complexity or value. Objects are macroscopic shapes of the
generic value-process, classification according to static
levels and Dynamic readiness is the most concrete analysis
he provides. And yet, for an individual existing through
time, there is a significant aspect in which internal
constitution does contribute to the overall value status. A
person can be flexible, open to Dynamic softening of static
value patterns, or a person can be rigid, opposed to change.
The individual in the more dynamic position is in a position
of higher value. This dynamis, however, means
primarily intellectual development, if not the development
of a new static form (e.g. a state such as Samuel
Alexander’s ‘deity’). This kind of internal determination of
value applies to humans in particular because of our
participation in intellectual patterns--the highest static
level of evolution by Pirsig’s reckoning.
In spite of this difference about the
relevance of internal/external differences to value matters,
one highly significant matter is agreed upon: it is the
‘final’ shape--the satisfaction or the identifiable
patterns--that largely constitutes some entity’s quality.
Moreover, this ‘shape’ is necessarily a
‘limitation’, for both Whitehead and Pirsig. Whitehead’s
statement that ‘all value is the outcome of limitation’ is
typical. The internal process of an occasion works towards a
decision. Any analysis of the aspects of such a
process--subjective form, physical and conceptual
prehensions--deals with the value-charged activity that
results in the final value shape--the satisfaction. In
Pirsig’s scheme, enduring objects are defined primarily
through the static levels of quality evolution they
exemplify. Internal Dynamic readiness is defined largely by
the state the world as a whole has reached. Once, before the
development of intellectual static patterns of quality, a
social or intellectual advance would have been highly
Dynamic, and hence of more value than such an
exemplification would be at present.
Aspect D: Contrast
Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can
survive without the other. (Lila, 146)
But Dynamic Quality is not structured and
yet it is not chaotic. It is value that cannot be contained
by static patterns. (Lila, 171)
Thus ‘contrast’--as the opposite of
incompatibility--depends on a certain simplicity of
circumstance; but the higher contrasts depend on the
assemblage of a multiplicity of lower contrasts, this
assemblage again exhibiting higher types of simplicity. (PR,
95)
‘Contrast’ is probably best understood by
drawing an analogy to a television picture’s contrast:
differences contribute to and result in a unified, pleasing
whole.
The experience of wider and deeper
contrasts is integral to the whole process Pirsig describes
of Dynamic Quality being shaped into static patterns. The
higher patterns require the lower ones in order to come into
existence and yet are different from them. Whitehead
describes the higher contrasts as requiring lesser ones.
Process-reality evolves--occasions do not start from
‘absolute zero’ at every moment. Instead, they depend upon
past forms of experience to put them in a position for new,
higher levels of evolving process.
Aspect E: Limitation
There’s a principle in physics that if a
thing can’t be distinguished from anything else it doesn’t
exist. To this the Metaphysics of Quality adds a second
principle: if a thing has no value it isn’t distinguished
from anything else. Then, putting the two together, a
thing that has no value does not exist. (Lila,
121)
The fundamental basis of this description
is that our experience is a value experience, expressing a
vague sense of maintenance or discard; and that this
value-experience differentiates itself in the sense of many
existences with value-experience; and that this sense of the
multiplicity of value-experiences again differentiates it
into the totality of value-experience, and the many other
value-experiences, and the egoistic value-experience. This
is the feeling of the ego, the others, the totality. This is
the vague, basic presentation of the differentiation of
existence, in its enjoyment of discard and maintenance. (MT,150-151)
There is no such thing as bare value.
There is always a specific value, which is the created unit
of feeling arising out of the specific mode of concretion of
the diverse elements. These different specific
value-feelings are comparable amid their differences; and
the ground for this comparability is what is here termed
‘value.’
This comparability grades the various
occasions in respect to the intensiveness of value. The zero
of intensiveness means the collapse of actuality. All
intensive quantity is merely the contribution of some one
element in the synthesis to this one intensiveness of value.
Various occasions are thus comparable in
respect to their relative depths of actuality. Occasions
differ in importance of actuality. (RM, 103)
Each occasion,
in its character of being a finished creature, is a value of
some definite specific sort. (RM, 109)
The essence of depth of actuality—that is
of vivid experience--is definiteness. Now to be definite
means that all the elements of a complex whole contribute to
some one effect, to the exclusion of others. (RM,
113)
Everything that in any sense exists has
two sides, namely, its individual self and its signification
in the universe. (MT 151)
Before discussing ‘limitation’, the
passage from Lila needs attention. At face value,
this passage runs the risk of merely being nonsense. How can
the ‘things’ in the second principle have no value if having
no value equals non-existence? Apart from the clumsiness of
the presentation, I think this passage does serve a purpose.
It has already been noted that Pirsig is aiming for
conceptual replacement with his scheme of a Metaphysics of
Quality (v. treatment of ‘substance’,
Chapter II)
This little passage is an example of this
shift of conceptions taking place. In essence, he is saying
that if one takes the common-sense understanding of
distinguishing objects and then tries to analyze the value
dynamic in this conception, one will realize that quality is
central to the activity in a moment of perception. Then,
returning to the principle from physics, one can formulate a
new principle with Pirsig’s terminology. Instead of being
dismissed as nonsense, this passage should be interpreted in
light of Pirsig’s claim that his metaphysics satisfies
demands of empirical evidence.
The relationship of limitation and value
has already arisen, this section expands on that
relationship. There are several implications to be noted,
the first being that value is the result of limitation. The
second point is that quality always has a
character--briefly, there is no generalized ‘good’ but,
rather, specific ‘goods’. Not only is limitation a function
necessary to the actualization of value, but the resultant
value-shape is an individual of some sort. The process of
value-evolution produces things of individual character. Any
differentiation of one from another is a result of the value
process of the world at large This is an extension of a
common sense attitude to the world. Although I am
describable in general terms, there is also something that
can only be classed as individual in character. This
individual character is my value context--what I hold as
important, what I have made to be important, and those
attitudes and actions that inflict value judgments on the
world. Or, in a more specialized example, within the world
of popular music, plagiarism is ‘frowned upon.’ Not only is
outright copying punished, but excessive similarity of
composition detracts from the value experience for a
‘knowing’ listener. If a song has the same rhythm, melody,
and chord changes as another song, then the later song has
few characteristics to differentiate it from the earlier
composition. If the words are also the same, then there are
no formal differences--only accidental ones, such as the
individual characters of the musicians executing the
performance. As a casual reviewer of popular music, if I
think a song is too similar to an earlier piece, then my
enjoyment is lessened, and in my review I actually condemn
the piece.
In Whiteheadian terms, an occasion
unifies data into ‘one’ satisfaction. Not only is this
satisfaction particular and unified, but it is
individualized, in the sense of being different from all
other such drops of process in the universe. An occasion
springs from a specific past--its ‘actual world’--and posits
its own future. This temporal breadth of an occasion of
experience is integral to the development of individual
character.
The process of the experience of
self-valuation produces ‘selves’, in the sense of
autonomous, free individuals. Robert Pirsig’s description of
objects, including people, as consisting in collections of
different sorts of patterns also involves individualization.
Each particular pattern or collection of patterns is in a
position to experience the rest of the universe from a
perspective of an individual character, and the way such a
collection responds to the Dynamic lure can be absolutely
novel.
Whitehead points out that the fundamental
‘sense’ one has, the primary division one makes of the
world, is a value division of self, others, and the world at
large. I interpret this as one of Pirsig’s metaphysical
principles--Quality evolves, resolving itself into patterns.
Common sense will corroborate this. Value experience
necessarily involves limitation--differentiating one thing
from another, favoring one and rejecting the second. In one
sense, the point of making value judgments is to
individualize the world further--to define the characters of
objects, ideas, people from without.
This aspect of ‘value’ also illuminates
an ambiguity in the term ‘quality’. Pirsig notes this
ambiguity but does not make much of it, and Whitehead seems
to utilize it without comment in MT. It is an old
philosophical approach to describe things in terms of
primary and secondary (and even tertiary) qualities. These
qualities ‘define’ the object in terms of sensa, or
measurements, etc. In this expanded, synthetic sense of
‘value’, quality-reality differentiates itself using
‘qualities’ Qualities, or differentia, are the result of
value in process, and they express the individualization
central to the evolving process.
Aspect F: Final Causation
The statement that values are vague and
therefore shouldn’t be used for primary classification is
not true. There’s nothing vague about a value judgment. When
a voter goes to a polling booth he’s making a value
judgment. What’s vague about that? Isn’t an election a
cultural activity? What’s so vague about the New York stock
exchanges? Aren’t values what they’re dealing in?
How about the U.S. Treasury? Who in this
world is more specific than the Internal Revenue Service?
Values are not the least vague when you’re dealing with them
in terms of actual experience. It only when you bring back
statements about them and try to integrate them into the
overall jargon of anthropology that they become vague. (Lila,
78)
Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is
what the Sophists were teaching. Not ethical
relativism. Not pristine ‘virtue’. But arête.
Excellence. Dharma! ...those first teachers of the
Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium
they had chosen was rhetoric. (ZMM, 371)
At the base of our existence is the sense
of ‘worth’. Now ‘worth’ essentially presupposes that which
is ‘worthy’. Here the notion of worth is not to be construed
in a purely eulogistic sense. It is the sense of existence
for its own sake, of existence which is its own
justification, of existence with its own character. (MT,
149)
An entity is actual, when it has
significance for itself. By this is meant that an actual
entity functions in respect to its own determination. Thus
an actual entity combines self- identity with
self-diversity. (PR, 25)
The Category of Subjective Intensity.
The subjective aim, whereby there is origination of
conceptual feeling, is at intensity of feeling in the
immediate subject, and in the relevant future... The
greater part of morality hinges on the determination of
relevance in the future. (PR, 27)
The focus is beginning to shift from
generic value to human activity--the traditional area of
examination for value matters. Both philosophers express
unhappiness with previous attempts to handle human activity
scientifically--the problem seems to have been lack of an
adequate metaphysic, and it is exactly that aspect of the
endeavour to describe the world that Whitehead and Pirsig
have taken on. Humans are ‘just’ part of the scheme for both
Pirsig and Whitehead. We exemplify some aspects of
value-process particularly well, but not all. And, of
course, some aspects of this process are of particularly
high interest to us-- the traditional domains of ethics and
aesthetics. Thus, everything said about the value activity
of occasions and about evolving patterns of quality applies,
with qualifications, to humans.
Much of what has been discussed involves
the proposing of an end to achieve--a teleological
interpretation of reality. This is all part of the
re-interpretation of nature to accommodate a wider range of
data. Final-causation seems to be an important part of human
activity and if this metaphysic is to unite human value
contexts with the rest of the world, then such activity must
be explicable in terms applicable to all reality.
In brief, Whitehead makes the internal
process of an occasion teleological. Moreover, such
‘microscopic process does take into account its effects on
the immediate and relevant future beyond the bounds of the
individual occasion. There is a whole world to be reckoned
with. Pirsig’s scheme is all future oriented--introducing
differentiation into the world as a response to the Dynamic
lure of Quality in process. The important element to be
worked out yet is the relationship between internal
self-causing/self-valuation and value in the world at large.
The key to this problem, as with many
problems in the hands of Whitehead and Pirsig, is the
eliminating of many of the bifurcations of the past. Both
philosophers insist that there is no sharp division between
one’s self and the entire world. The problem with early
attempts (v. Paul Schilpp’s ‘Whitehead’s Moral Philosophy’
in The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, 1961) to
characterize Whitehead’s metaphysic as involving an ethic of
private or self-interest is the narrow, and inappropriate,
interpretation of ‘self’. Pirsig’s treatment of quality
started with an attempt to transcend traditional
subject-object divisions, and the resultant description of
the world places the human at the front edge of the creative
process responsible for the existence of the world. Our
experiences, seemingly personal, take place within an
expanded value context. Subjects carry the process, reacting
to objects and a feeling of potentiality.
As both Pirsig and Whitehead point out,
they are re-interpreting old ideas from a modern
perspective. The idea of unification of self-valuation with
activity in the world at large is aretê, the ancient Greek
concept of excellence of character dictating one’s activity,
and, conversely, this activity conditioning such
‘individualized’ quality. It is exactly this dynamic that
will be examined in the final chapter.
Aspect G: World-Orientedness
I like the word “gumption”... The Greeks
called it enthousiasmos, the root of “enthusiasm,” which
means literally “filled with theos,” or God, or Quality. (ZMM,
296)
But the sense of importance is not
exclusively referent to the experiencing self. It is exactly
this vague sense which differentiates itself into the
disclosure of the whole, the many, and the self. It is the
importance of the others which melts into the importance of
the self. Actuality is the self- enjoyment of importance But
this self-enjoyment has the character of the self-enjoyment
of others melting into the enjoyment of one self. (MT,
160-161)
The purpose of God is the attainment of
value in the temporal world. (RM 100)
He noted that although normally you
associate Quality with objects, feelings of Quality
sometimes occur without any objects at all. This is what led
him at first to think that maybe Quality is all subjective.
But subjective pleasure wasn’t what he meant by Quality
either. Quality decreases subjectivity Quality takes
you out of yourself, makes you aware of the world around
you. Quality is opposed to subjectivity. (ZMM,
233)
I disagree with them about cycle
maintenance, but not because I am out of sympathy with their
feelings about technology. I just think that their flight
from and hatred of technology is self-defeating. The Buddha,
the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of
a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as
he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a
flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha-- which
is to demean oneself. (ZMM, 18)
I interpret Whitehead’s god, which he
claims to be linked to the attainment of value, as being
primarily a source of potentiality, a primitive urge
upwards--to live, to live well, to live better, as he states
in The Function of Reason--and an irrational
principle of concretion. Whitehead’s god is not a personal
god. According to this scheme, acting full of ‘gumption’ or
‘zest’ (Whitehead’s term) in the world is to participate in
the god character much more than any inward directed prayer
or worship to a personal god will accomplish. Such
activities lack the world-directedness for real value
accomplishment and transcendence of self. The analysis of
ethics and aesthetics that follows will focus on concrete
activity, with no exhortation to turn away from the world
towards some hyper-real realm of value.
CHAPTER VI
The Art of Life
In a subject-object metaphysics morals
and art are worlds apart, morals being concerned with the
subject quality and art with object quality. But in the
Metaphysics of Quality that division doesn’t exist. They’re
the same. They both become much more intelligible when
references to what is subjective and what is objective are
completely thrown away and references to what is static and
what is Dynamic are taken up instead. (Lila, 141)
The metaphysical doctrine, here
expounded, finds the foundations of the world in the
aesthetic experience, rather than--as with Kant--in the
cognitive and conceptive experience. All order is therefore
aesthetic order, and the moral order is merely certain
aspects of aesthetic order. The actual world is the outcome
of the aesthetic order, and the aesthetic order is derived
from the immanence of God (RM, 104-105).
After all these pages, have we now
reached a crossroads? In the first of these opening
passages, Pirsig seems to be suggesting that the traditional
division between ethics and aesthetics is a mistake. In
fact, in his discussion of the matters, he focuses much more
on morals, as if he thinks he has made aesthetics disappear.
Whitehead seems to be suggesting the opposite, that moral
issues are reducible to aesthetics. As they stand, these
suggestions are irreconcilable.
Ultimately, this thesis is an attempt at
a synthesis of the respective studies of existence and value
made by Whitehead and Pirsig. The resultant synthetic value
theory will be useful for interpreting and guiding human
activity. By emphasizing ‘human activity’, I am taking one
step back from the typical division between aesthetics and
ethics. In fact, by studying the metaphysical systems of
these two writers, I have been taking one step further back
than ‘this, away from the division between human activity
and reality ‘writ large.’ My current examination of human
activity is not an isolated starting point, but a position I
have built my way towards from more fundamental categories.
Thus, this analysis of human behavior will initially stress
what is common to aesthetic and moral matters. Differences
will follow as is deemed appropriate.
At its briefest, this synthetic theory of
value can be described by pointing out its most fundamental
Whiteheadian aspect and its most fundamental Pirsigian
aspect. From Whitehead, I wish to stress the matter of
universal relatedness, from Pirsig, the analysis of the
macroscopic world in terms of value in process, with
emphasis on the independence of the differing levels of
static value. There are secondary points concerning the
dynamic particulars to be attributed to each author also I
wish to preserve Whitehead’s emphasis on the achievement of
an immediate, aesthetic value by each actual entity. From
Pirsig, the concentration on a human as a locus of value
activity, analogous to Whitehead’s societies of occasions,
but with more emphasis on the unified activity of the whole.
I see the following as being the position
of a human in the world I have arisen from a specific
context of value experiences and judgments and I add to this
value context. This world can be understood as consisting in
and as having consisted in value dynamics. My feelings of
aversion and adversion are real--they contribute to the
general value functioning of the world. And yet, each
judgment, each action, word and thought arises from this
given value context. As an individual I am unique, yet I do
not exist in a vacuum. A history presses in on me which is,
in itself, permeated with value. The future, however,
promises new intensities and patterns of quality. My
position is in the present--the extended moment of reckoning
stasis with dynamis. Thus, when I turn
attention to some issue, action, or object as valuable, be
it positively or negatively, it is a real state of affairs
with which I am dealing. Actuality is produced in this
present moment--the essence of existence is value permeated
activity. My addition to the world issues in a situation
novel in but not strictly novel in kind. But this interest
of mine is new--to my limited perspective, there is novelty
of kind--and the value context is changed my focus is the
world’s interest in one matter, and then the historic
context is increased by one form of value. This new
development now stands to be reckoned with--value presses in
on the new present.
Furthermore, my position is primarily a
matter of self interest. But, as has been discussed at
various times through this thesis, such interest is not to
be understood as being necessarily at odds with the rest of
the world. From a static view-point, I am a particular
version of the process that has taken place and is to be
held accountable for the rest of the world also there is
universal interconnectedness. From a more dynamic
perspective, I am one way in which the world is value
actualized and value charged.
Finally, the standard that exists as a
perpetual challenge to me in the world is this: the more
I can positively charge this world with value, then the
better the world is, and the more developed my character is.
The qualifications introduced in the previous chapter
apply here. Most significantly, there is the matter of
limitation. Firstly, each human individual is obviously
limited in ability and in possibilities of interest. To try
to do everything is, in all probability, to accomplish very
little. The depth and intensity of quality that can be
achieved within narrow bounds is easily overlooked, the
adage, “whatever you do, do it well,” stands as sound advice
from the point of view of this synthetic value theory.
Moreover, while it may seem that, from the perspective of an
individual person, to have one all-consuming passion is
probably to limit oneself excessively and even risk
accomplishing more evil than good, the view from the
standpoint of the world, universally interrelated and
temporally extended, is different. Individuals embracing
diverse interests will produce a more varied history than
will well-meaning yet unremarkably similar people. The value
lies in the details, quality produces individuality, and
individuality produces quality. Homogeneity lacks
Whitehead’s zest.
Finally, the positions suggested by the
passages presented at the beginning of this chapter are
reconcilable. The world can be seen as primarily an
aesthetic order because each actual entity enjoys its
measure of value. The realization of such particular quality
is the goal of the value-process that characterizes the
world at large. Yet this urge towards new realization that
is better than what has passed is a moral urge the
fundamental dynamic of reality is, “to live, to live well,
to live better.” (FR 18)
Value-reality exhorts each individual
detail to conduct itself in such a way as to achieve greater
goodness. The moral and aesthetic orders are inextricably
inter woven.
With this brief description of the
individual within the world, it is time to examine the
specific domains of aesthetics and ethics.
Aesthetics
In this section I wish merely to indicate
the dynamics that I see to be the germ of a theory of
aesthetics within this synthetic value theory. To the
achievement of this end, I intend to discuss both the
aesthetic experience and aesthetic creation. This division
is not to be taken to be a rigid one I see the acts of
experience and creation of works of art as slightly
specialized versions of the value activity that constitutes
every aspect of the position of the human in the world.
Examples of this wider sense of ‘aesthetic’ will be
introduced during the course of this discussion. Both
aesthetic creation and aesthetic gratification permeate all
aspects of life, to a degree, also, there is aesthetic
experience within acts of aesthetic creation, and at least
an urge towards creation at the heart of such experiences.
In A Whiteheadian Aesthetic,
Donald Sherburne argues that art objects have the same
ontological status as propositions, and I largely agree with
him. A Whiteheadian proposition, as discussed earlier, has a
‘mixed’ ontological status, and it functions as a lure to
feeling. In the experience of a propositional feeling, an
occasion prehends a particular state of affairs in relation
to an eternal object. In other words, a proposition
functions as a bridge between actuality and potentiality.
The feeling of a proposition directs the process of
becoming--there is an investigation of the relation between
the nexus and the predicated potentiality. The affirmation
or negation--the judgment--on the part of the experiencer
brings about a new state of affairs for the experiencer.
That is, the degree to which the proposition has ingression
into a unity of feeling is an influence on the future of the
experiencer, whereas the proposition remains as it was--a
lure for other occasions. In more concrete aesthetic terms a
work of art stands as a lure to experience for those
interested. The experience of a work of art is an activity,
and not a passive reception of some sort of information.
There is some sort of creative, interactive performance on
the part of the experiencer. The aesthetic experience is, in
a way, the creation of a Whiteheadian society for a brief
period of time. Once the intense aesthetic experience is
finished, the work of art stands as it was but the
experiencer leaves changed. The actual world from which the
experiencer draws for new becoming has new relevant data if
the aesthetic experience was significant. Such a process is
permeated with value the initial lure is a feeling of value,
the process of experience is a novel actualization of value
patterns, and future experiences of value will have to
reckon with this value data once it passes into history.
Although Robert Pirsig never discusses
propositions, and has little to say about art, I think this
view is consistent with his system. He sees the world as
being value charged to such a high degree that there are
fulfilling experiences to be had doing all sorts of things,
and the experience of art work fades in special importance
under such a scheme. But I am choosing merely to widen the
sense of ‘aesthetic’ to include the activities Pirsig
discusses. For example, in ZMM he spends considerable
time discussing the maintenance of a motorcycle. Indeed, the
very title of the book suggests that he sees such activity
as an art! In this activity, the objective is to produce a
situation, involving both the motorcycle and the maintainer,
that is of high quality. At stake is an arrangement of the
entire world. For instance, in the encountering of a serious
problem, the maintainer can draw on the whole world and
his/her own imagination for a solution. Ultimately, the
quality of the situation is to be evaluated by reference to
the maintainer’s ‘state of mind’--a feeling of satisfaction
or peace of mind is the mark of a high quality situation,
and feelings of unrest denote lower quality arrangements of
the world.
This last point is important. Firstly, to
deny that in any activity that is value charged there is
special relevance to the experiencer is to slight the human
experience of value. Donald Sherburne explicitly sees his
Whiteheadian aesthetic as a theory of art for life’s sake,
as opposed to being for art’s sake.
Secondly, Pirsig’s motorcycle example
expands the temporal framework involved in this discussion.
I have been speaking of the aesthetic experience in the
singular as if it is something that happens then passes, and
that is it. A more adequate description draws out this
moment. Firstly, as has been noted, the data reside in the
actual world of the experiencer permanently. Secondly,
particularly good works of art are not exhausted in one
encounter. There can be subsequent experiences which differ
from previous ones in the kind of actualization that occurs.
For example, the experiencer learns something specifically
different from what had ingression before. Or there might be
cumulative increase in depth of experience of virtually the
same material. The amount of time over which a work of art
captivates is, by this scheme, one indicator of the
aesthetic value of the work. Thirdly, the experiencing of
specific works of art takes place within the context of what
both Pirsig and Whitehead designate as an art--the leading
of a human life. It has already been pointed out that Pirsig
considers motorcycle maintenance to be an art. In one of the
most frequently quoted passages from ZMM he states
that the real cycle a person works on is him/herself.
Whitehead, in FR, claims that reason’s function is to
promote the art of life, which has already been cited as,
“to live, to live well, and to live better”. The experience
of particular art works influences this ongoing artistic
endeavour and as the human changes, so does the relevance of
the standing propositions they can become more or less
interesting and consequently more or less luring.
The content of the aesthetic experience
has yet to be addressed. Since the form of the experience is
two-sided, consisting of the experiencer and the object, it
is appropriate that there be two aspects to the
value-content of the experience. These aspects are specific
information or data to be considered by the experiencer and
a feeling of heightened importance of the current moment or
epoch of the observer. In one sense there is novel content
added to the actual world of the aesthetic participant, and
in another sense there is emphasis on the current situation.
The matter of novel content is easily
illustrated through reference to literature. A novel is
particularly suited to the aesthetic enactment of ideas.
Particular examples are plentiful. John Fowles’ The
French Lieutenant’s Woman is a creative treatment of
existentialism, writing, and evolution. Doris Lessing’s
The Golden Notebook is about feminism, Marxism, Jungian
psychology, writing, and families. In a way, these
conceptual aspects are sub-propositions that can be taken up
once the reader is lured in by the over-arching proposition
that is the story. Obviously, any significant art work is
not exhausted by such sub-lures. If this were all there is
to art, then any first year philosophy, sociology, or
psychology text would be a work of art, when in fact they
obviously are not. Still, these sub-propositions do function
as lures to the interested reader, and as such lead to new
arrangements of value experience.
The other aspect is probably the more
important to the understanding of the aesthetic experience.
There is an immediate deepening of the experience of the
value of the present. People are caught up in good art; they
do not absorb such items or events passively or
automatically, like air or sunlight. Instead, art captivates
by, metaphorically speaking, adding a third dimension to
typical experience. Besides the experiencer and the
experienced world, art serves to illuminate this world and
our place in it in a manner that emphasizes value depth.
Oddly, this seems to happen by making the familiar foreign.
For example, Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
is about fairly ordinary people over a very short period of
time--an evening. A good performance of this play, however,
can sensitize an observer to the drama or value-depth of any
situation.
Williams’ play emphasizes typical
tensions and character traits in such a way as to bowl the
viewer over with the sheer quality or importance of every
aspect. Yet it is merely a dramatic rendering of situations
familiar to many--the same qualities exist to be recognized
in our own lives. It is one function of art to develop this
sensitivity to our own situations, even through the
seemingly paradoxical method of portraying foreign
situations.
Music has a special reference to the life
of the observer. Sherburne, in his analysis of art as
proposition, perhaps overstresses the need for a logical
subject of the proposition in his description of music by
giving that function to the listener. I think he is largely
correct, but I think he risks misrepresentation of the
conceptual element in the experience of music by describing
the subject as being “you understood.” Certainly, music
serves to deepen the immediate present, enveloping the
listener as a piece unfolds. But the working of the
proposition is not a conceptual matter--the listener does
not have to understand him/herself to be the subject
at issue. The reference happens in the experience. With this
in mind, the novel content introduced through the strictly
musical experience must be about the listener or about the
music itself.
Pirsig’s macro-analysis of the world
serves to remind us that we participate with the various
art-forms in different ways. For example, he asserts that
the medium of film is necessarily a social pattern of value,
while his novel is primarily made up of intellectual
patterns. (Lila, 303) An activity such as dancing he
would probably describe as being biological, and maybe
social. As humans, we participate in all of these levels of
static quality, so these sorts of responses to works of art
are legitimate. There is a measure of value to be enjoyed
dancing to music and to deny this would be to slight a
rather common human activity. The fact remains that the
highest static level in Pirsig’s scheme is the intellectual
level, the highest quality aesthetic experiences will have a
measure of intellectuality about them. At its broadest, this
means that the experiencer thinks about the experience. At
one level, there is self-analysis as to enjoyment or
satisfaction with the experience, and at a different level
there is consideration of the components of the
aesthetic-proposition--characters, plot, or the enactment of
the sub-propositions already discussed. I imagine that the
aesthetic experience involved in mathematical work consists
largely in this intellectual sort. Also, this is the role of
the critic in the aesthetic experience--deepening the static
intellectual response.
Of course, there is still something
missing here. If intellectual activity constituted the most
significant aesthetic experience, then perhaps mathematics
or philosophy would be the peak of the art world. Going to
school would be the ultimate treat for an aesthete. Clearly,
this is not the case. There is still Pirsig’s Dynamic
Quality to be considered. By definition, the Dynamic
experience is a vertical evolutionary development, as
opposed to a horizontal one. That is, instead of an
intellectual experience that develops one’s static
intellectuality, there is a type of experience that stems
from, yet throws into question, the intellectuality that is
so human. Since this sort of experience is not definable in
static terms, its nature cannot be adequately described
before it happens. Still, I suspect that it is this element
that really makes good art works stand up through time
Dynamic Quality functions as a lure, just like Whitehead
propositions. Once we engage with an art object as fully
intellectual beings with an openness to Dynamic development,
the quality of the resultant experiences is to be evaluated
merely by assessing how successfully the object holds our
interest. Some items are exhausted in moments, and some have
captivated people for centuries.
The problem with much popular music is an
inability to evoke a Dynamic response, settling for
intellectual or social static responses at best. Much of rap
and punk music depends upon a virtually uncritical
acceptance of certain views of the world to create any
interest at all in the listener. Such songs run like
lectures or sermons about race relations, drug use, or
whatever other problem is a hot topic at the time of
recording. Certainly these songs provide a medium for
dissemination of information, ideas, and opinions, but the
lack of imagination in both the words and the music can be
stunning. The result is music without the Dynamic component
to elicit repeated aesthetic interest. To be fair, the
situation with many songs is a limited measure of
‘creativity’ tempering the diatribe there is an aesthetic
point to the music. But in the vast majority of cases, the
sub-propositions are actually the main point, while the
over-arching Dynamic aesthetic proposition is given short
shrift, to the detriment to the experience.
There is an interesting phenomenon tied
to the performance of some types of music--punk in
particular. The audience members, largely male youths
between the ages of 13-25, engage in ‘slam-dancing’ or ‘moshing’--dancing
that involves purposeful violent contact amongst the
crowd-members. Frankly, the description makes the activity
sound completely pointless and destructive, and I suppose it
is to a large degree. But to witness the phenomenon, with
this and other aesthetic theories in mind, evidences a goal.
The result of the continuous bumping is overload of the
sense of touch; the individual is enveloped in a barrage of
information from all parts of the body. Typically, the music
accompanying the activity is literally ear-splitting in
volume--overload of the sense of hearing and the use of
indulgent lighting effects such as intense strobe lights
overwhelms the sense of sight. The result is the
short-circuiting of biology to imitate a Dynamic aesthetic
experience. I say ‘imitate’ because, firstly, the basis of
the experience, the level of static patterns that
constitutes the foundation of the experience, is biological,
not intellectual, Secondly, no novel content, no
sub-propositions, are taken up for consideration. In other
words, neither aspect of the aesthetic experience, as I have
been describing it, is fulfilled.
This idea of a Dynamic experience being
created in the participation in a work of art is not a new
concept. Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Judgment
described part of aesthetic experience as that of the
‘sublime’: “We call sublime what is absolutely
large” (103) and “Sublime is what even to be able to
think proves that the mind has a power surpassing any
standard of sense” (105) [Kant’s emphasis]. Kant
discusses his ‘sublime’ mainly in connection with the
aesthetic contemplation of nature, but I think the concept
works here as well. Kant further divides the experience, or
mental agitation, of the sublime into mathematical and
dynamical components. In other words, the experience of
being overwhelmed has an external static aspect and an
internal Dynamic aspect. This kind of aesthetic experience
both overwhelms the participant and fills the participant
with aesthetic power so to speak. My punk slam-dancers are
trying to find a quick substitute for this experience. I
suppose drug use could accomplish the same effect. Also, I
suppose frenzied religious ceremonies are attempts to evoke
the same kind of static dissolving. Under the scheme here
proposed, I think the immediate deepening of the experience
of present quality is analogous to- the Kantian sublime.
There is an awareness of present surrounding quality
emphasized through the beholding of an art object.
I suspect, although I am not willing to
assert the point, that aesthetic creation is largely the
response to a Dynamic lure. The reason I present this as a
hypothesis rather than an outright claim is that it would be
rather easy to discredit. There are plenty of people who
work as artists every day; surely their work becomes less
Dynamically captivating and more merely workmanlike as their
careers progress. The degree of static, cool-headed craft
that must go into many poems, paintings, etc., surely
weakens the stereotypical image of the artist consumed by
aesthetic passion and working under the influence of some
mystical muse. With all this in mind, I am going to propose
that my description contains an important degree of truth.
Within even the most controlled act of artistic creation, I
suspect that there is a process of Dynamic lure, then static
latching, then renewed luring and consequent responding
until some sort of plateau is reached. There are important
points to be noticed here. In the account of aesthetic
experience, the active role of the participant was stressed.
Here, the creator is seen as enjoying aesthetic experience
in the process. Furthermore, it might be the case that the
completion of a work of art is often a provisional end;
assuming that the description of steps of lure and response
is somewhat accurate, artists sometimes end by stopping
themselves. The ‘job’ of the art object is to function as a
lure and the way the artist has been responding up to this
point has been to alter the work. This is hardly a radical
suggestion. In a related matter, it seems entirely likely to
me that people who are given to creating things are spurred
to new creation by the aesthetic experiencing of other art
objects. Writers, painters, musicians, etc., all influence
each other. Stretching this state of affairs to include an
artist’s relationship to his/her own creations is hardly to
strain the bounds of credibility.
This description of artistic creation
does not differ much from the working description Whitehead
and Pirsig have provided to account for the physical world
and all human activity--there is a value-charged lure to
becoming to which every aspect of the universe answers. In
Whitehead, the quality-process that is the world is
aesthetic creativity: each actual entity, within the
microscopic analysis, ends up enjoying its own proposed
value nature. There is immediate satisfaction. This is also
largely the case with Pirsig’s macro-analysis, but there is
a difference. I think it is correct to describe the general
activity of the world as enjoying its own nature, but I
think humans actually forget this. We become distracted, and
although we have a tendency to do things to intensify our
immediate experiences, we are very often oblivious to the
quality-nature of much of our world. Human aesthetic
creativity is, in large part, a reminder of the microprocess
Whitehead describes. It is activity directed towards the
intensifying of immediate value. In principle, all human
activities can be enjoyed or found repellent in
themselves--digging graves, selling shoes, teaching
philosophy, watching other people die. Aesthetic
sensitivity, I suspect, enables us both to enjoy and to
recognize the full extent of the positive and negative value
in various situations.
There is one more point to be noted
before turning the discussion to ethics: I am left with the
feeling that much of this analysis of aesthetic creation,
and especially of aesthetic experience, is framed in terms
of unsatisfactory generality. The problem is that value
creates individuality, and individuality enhances quality in
return. This means that, whatever can be said about
aesthetic experience in general, the highest quality
aesthetic experiences should have an extremely high measure
of particularity about them. The experiences will be
individual. This is due both to the propositional content
brought to the experience by the aesthetic object and to the
actual world from which the observer arises to the aesthetic
lure. This singularity of experience, I suspect, leads to
differences of opinion on the quality of various art
objects, and some may even dismiss aesthetics on the grounds
of being merely subjective and hence of little importance
(if not of little reality). This thesis, however, is largely
an attempt to debunk this notion as a mistake that slights
the depth of individual human value contexts.
Ethics
The discussion of aesthetic experience
focused on one person’s context of experience. Consequently,
this discussion of ethics will deal with the relationships
between people’s various contexts and of these contexts to
the world as a whole. It will examine the age-old problem of
balancing maximum individual enjoyment of value while
allowing others to enjoy similar individual value contexts.
Rights and responsibilities will also be addressed.
Particular ethical problems will be addressed briefly.
In her book, Toward A Whiteheadian
Ethics, Lynne Belaief seems to suggest that a
Whiteheadian ethic would be very similar to a Kierkegaardian
ethic; the individual struggles with ideals of love and
goodness, and, failing to realize them, turns to god as a
power able to realize ultimate goodness in the forms of love
and order. In other words, active religious resignation is
the result of pursuing the ethical urge to its end. This
sort of view is here rejected for two reasons: 1) In
response to Belaief, in strictly Whiteheadian terms, god is
construed not as a personal god but as a source of
potentiality or appetition and as a principle of concretion.
This is not the kind of god to whom religious worship is
typically addressed. Moreover, Whitehead’s later atheistic
(in a narrow sense) position is evident in Lucien Price’s
book, The Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead:
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